Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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much for your support. Final Hour of the Week Not
really true because I hang out with pret Winnable for
the hangover for the first segment of his show, but
I am approaching the final hour of the week. News
Talk eleven, ten ninety nine three WBT. So you know
about Act Blue, right, the guys that paint themselves in
blue and then they don't talk and they do all
sorts of crazy theatrical performances on stage. Oh I'm kidding.
Act Blue is the online fundraising organization. If you ever
make a donation to a Democrat candidate or campaign, chances
or even a lot of the uh the nonprofits or
political action committees and such that are in the Democrat
Party orbit, chances are it has gone through Act Blue.
The Republicans. I think there is called win red so
and I believe they modeled theirs on Act Blue, and
it allows for the pooling of all of the money. So,
for example, if I'm a local candidate, I'm running for
state house or something, and I'm trying to fundraise, Act
blue will provide all of those fundraising you know, back
end support services for me. Right, They'll do the spam
emails that you keep getting in the text messages, right,
They'll do all of that stuff. And if I get
suckered into clicking the link, it'll take me to Act
blue where I make my you know, five or ten
dollars donation. Now I'm on their mailing list for all
of eternity, and that mailing list gets sold around to
all the different campaigns and stuff. And when I make
the donation, Act blue will take that money and they
will pass along some of it, they keep some And
this has been a point of contention in the past
over like how much money Act blue is siphoning off
of your donation keeping for themselves. But then they also
will redirect that money into other types of campaigns. So
part of the problem with Act blue has been that well,
a couple problems. Number one is that they have well
a little bit of an issue, shall we say, screening
out foreign donations, which are illegal. If you are a
foreign person or company or something, you're not allowed to
fund politicians campaigns in America. Okay, And Barack Obama got
into trouble doing this as well when he had his
fundraising websites set up too, But that's different, by the way.
It's different because then after he won, he cleared himself
of any wrongdoing, so it all worked out. So Acts
Blues little issues going on with that stuff. We've covered
this in the past. We also covered how people who
made a donation to Act Blue or to a campaign
in the past, maybe it was you know, ten bucks,
twenty bucks here or there, but when you pull the
reports and you find they've donated, I think the guy
there was a guy up in like the Winston Salem
area or maybe Greensboro actually, and he was listed as
donating like twenty six thousand dollars or something to the
Kamala Harris campaign, and when asked about whether he had
actually made those donations, he said, no, he hadn't. He
can't afford to do that. He's like maybe I donated
like one hundred dollars, but that was it. And there
are numerous examples of this, not just here in North Carolina,
all over the country of people that have made large
donations that say they never made them. Now they're not.
They haven't been robbed, right, they haven't had any of
their money taken and given to to these campaigns or anything.
That's not the that's not the allegation. The allegation is
that they're being u used as essentially straw purchasers or donors.
Straw donors. In other words, if you want to donate
twenty dollars, I want to donate a million, but I
have limits on how much I can donate, or I'm
not an American citizen so I'm not allowed to donate,
so they will take my donation and distribute it to you.
And this has occurred. They've got evidence of this all
over the country, multiple races and stuff. What prompted the
Congress to start looking into Act Blue and their practices,
which also then prompted Act Blue to lock down some
security measures which they had been warned about but refused
to lock down, but then eventually lock them down. After
Congress started looking into them. Well, we got some more
problems over at Act Blue Blue. According to the New
York Times headline faces internal chaos. Dare I call it disarray?
Act Blue, the online fundraising organization that powers Democratic candidates,
has plunged into turmoil, with at least seven senior officials
resigning late last month and a remaining lawyer suggesting that
he has faced internal retaliation. The departures from Act Blue,
which helps raise money for Democrats running for office at
all levels of government, come as the group is under
investigation by congressional Republicans. They have advanced legislation that some
Democrats warn could be used to debilitate what is the
party's leading fundraising operation. The exodus has set off deep
concerns about Act Blue's future. Last week, two unions representing
the group's workers sent a blistering letter to Act blues
board of directors that listed the seven officials who had left.
The letter described, quote an alarming pattern of departures that
was eroding our confidence in the stability of the organization.
What prompted so many longtime Act Blue officials to leave
don't know? It is not clear, according to the New
York Times, because none of the former officials agreed to
be interviewed on the record. A spokeswoman for Act Blue
named Megan Hughes said, quote, like many organizations, as we
undergo some transition heading into this new election cycle, we
are focused on ensuring we have a strong team in place. See.
Here's the thing, though, they did not have a problem
raising money, right, especially after they got rid of Joe, right,
that was used, right, the fundraising, threat of it drying
up was used in order to push Joe Biden out
in the Democrat coup. But when Harris came in, you
remember all of the stories, right within the first week,
we heard all these stories about how, you know, the
fundraising was going gangbusters now that Joe was out. We
made the right decision, you know, by not allowing our
voters to pick our nominee for democracy purposes, We made
the right call. Look at all the money that's coming in. Right,
So it doesn't seem like the fundraising was the problem
for Democrats last cycle, and in fact, after they lost
so badly, what did they say? They said it was, well,
they always say this. It was that we couldn't get
our message out right, which is not what Act Blue
was supposed to do their fundraising platform, right, the messaging
side that's up to that's up to the party and
the campaigns and stuff. So I'm not sure why a
new election cycle would prompt so many people to be
leaving Act Blue, as if it's you know, some sort
of a normal cycle of events. You're putting in a
strong team. Are you saying the last team wasn't strong,
because again, you guys said fundraising was really strong. That's
what Act blue does, So why you are all these
people leaving? Senior staff departures began on February twenty first.
That day, Act Blues Customer Service Director and Partnerships Director,
who had both worked at the group for more than
a decade. Both of them left on the same day.
That's unusual, right, that would be unusual, these two top
people leaving on the same day. The next week, several
other senior officials left, including the Associate General Counsel's, a
litlawyer who was the highest ranking legal officer at Act Blue.
Also leaving the Assistant research director, a human resources official,
and the chief revenue officer, as well as an engineer
who had spent sixteen years building and maintaining the electronic
pipes through which the group's donations flow. So like an
it guy sounds like like when I heard engineer, I thought,
why are you having an engineer? Is he drawing up
plans or no? Say he maintained the network stuff. Why
are they all leaving? Do they know something? Is something
about to happen? To act Blue the Democrat's biggest fundraising platform.
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a message here on Twitter. It's a pete tweet from Dinah,
who says if Act Blue had safeguards in place to
ensure illegal money pass throughs were not happening, then the
organization would not be in disarray. Maybe so that might
be part of the reason. So as all of the
people started leaving February twenty, first two people quit. These
are like high ranking people. Then a week later a
bunch of other people quit as they left. The last
remaining lawyer in the Act blew General Counsel's office, a
guy by the name of Zane Ahmad wrote in an
internal message board called slack right the internal messaging system.
You know these slack chats that people talk in. On
February twenty sixth, he wrote in a Slack message that
his acts to email and other internal platforms had been
cut off, and that other messages he had posted in
slack had been deleted. What was I think something dies
in darkness? Is that the Democrat Party dies in darkness?
Never mind, mister Amd is now on leave from Act Blue.
A mod wrote, please be advised, we have anti retaliation
and whistleblower policies for a reason. That's what he wrote.
And apparently either that one was that was deleted he
had his access cut off. So it sounds like Zay Ahmad,
one of the lawyers in Act Blue was a whistleblower
or defending a whistle blower or something. Right, something's going on.
A bunch of people are quitting over something that nobody
wants to talk about. And one lawyer who said, hey,
we have anti retaliation policies and whistleblower policies for a reason,
and then they put them on a leave of absence.
They kicked him out and don't have a reason for it,
the union's letter that it's sent to the or they
sent to I guess there's multiple unions. They sent to
the Board of directors at Act Blue called a mod's
assertions on the slack platform quote unsettling and disturbing and
part of a growing pattern of volatility and toxicity stemming
from current leadership. The unions asked the board to hire
an outside council to take investigatory actions to quote better
understand the current state of the organization and devaluate if
our CEO is doing her job in an appropriate, competent
and responsible manner. The chief Executive, Regina Wallace Jones, did
not respond to requests for comment. If Act Blue were
to become severely diminished, according to this New York Times article,
democrats running for office at all levels of government could
face setbacks in their efforts to raise money. Candidates for
office ranging from school boards and city councils to the
presidency rely on this platform for their online fundraising. While
Republicans have spent years trying to catch up, and while
there are some alternative platforms, none have the scale or
the reach of Act Blue. Democrats for years have credited
Act Blue with giving them the edge over Republicans by
creating a universal and trusted platform for donating, which makes
sense because it's centralization and the Left is all about
centralizing this stuff. Act Blue, is based in Massachusetts, says
it has raised more than sixteen billion dollars for Democrat
candidates and causes since it was founded in two thousand
and four. In recent weeks, congressional Republicans have demanded answers
from Act Blue about its security and fraud prevention measures,
as well as how the group prevents certain foreign donors
from illegally contributing to candidates. This is what I went
over to start the hour. These issues have been going
on for a while. The similar thing happened I mentioned
also with Barack Obama, who built like he built the infrastructure.
Really it really was amazing. I remember talking about he
hired a bunch of these tech experts I forget from
which companies, like founders of various tech companies, and they
came in and built him this you know, internet digital
machine to hit people with the fundraising appeals five dollars here,
ten dollars like now, we just take it for granted
that were spammed all the time asking for five bucks.
But before Obama came along that that was not normal.
And he used this new machine to tear down the
Clinton machine that was the you know, the ruler of
the roost in the Democrat Party. That's what made it
so surprising that he built this whole thing, took over
the party, right, but they did not enact basic controls.
It was literally a toggle switch, like you click the checkbox,
you know, to say don't allow foreign donations, and they
didn't click it. And even when they were told, hey,
you should click that thing because you're otherwise you could
be taking in all these foreign donations, and they were like, yeah, no,
that's all right. And then when they were investigated for
it by the FEC and then he wins and then
the fec' is like no problem because he won. Oh
and by the way, he did that at the same
time as not taking the federal financing right after promising
he would, and John McCain promised he would, and then
John McCain did, and then Barack Obama said, no, you
know what, I'm going to break that promise and that
allowed him to raise like a billion dollars and McCain
had to run with like two hundred million. Yeah, all right.
If you're listening to this show, you know I try
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don't know. Ten minutes or so, we're gonna have a
special guest to end the program. It's gonna be a
new tradition. I'm starting. You'll find out. News Talk eleven,
ten ninety nine, three WBT axios reporting that House Democrat
leadership is privately confronting members that disrupted President Trump's speech
to Congress. It's it's not they're not getting yelled at right,
this is a safe space. But it has been described
as a come to Jesus meeting. I know, I don't know.
Jeff Jackson would not have he would not have been there.
He's not in Congress anymore. Many progressives defied the House
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffrey's request to avoid making themselves the story. Now,
if that's what he told them, he said, don't make
yourselves the story. If that's what he actually told them, yeah,
they they absolutely failed. Okay, they failed in that endeavor.
Jeffries wrote a Dear Colleague letter before the speech urging
a quote strong, determined and dignified democratic presence in the chamber.
Trump's speech was instead rocked by constant heckling. Democrats held
up signs and other props, and then you know al
Green Democrat from Texas got ejected in meetings and discussions
with leadership this week. Democrats who heckled, walked out in protest,
or were otherwise disruptive were given a talking to. Leadership
is very unhappy with those who went beyond traditional protest
tactics like outfit coordination and refusal to clap. So those
were the traditional protest tactics. We don't, I mean that's
always been the case, Like they're not going to clap
for stuff they don't like, right obviously, And then they
did that, remember when they all wore white and some
of them wore white last time this pastime, some of
the more pink and then some of the more black.
So they like they like segregated themselves, which is very
on brand for Democrats. Roughly a dozen Democrat disruptors were
called into the Come to Jesus meeting on Thursday morning,
according to a senior Democrat who talked to Axios on
condition of anonymity. A source familiar with the matter, don't
know what that means, stressed that these lawmakers are not
getting yelled at. Quote, it's a consultative process. We understand
the pressure they are under. What pressure, Oh, from the
act activist crowd, from the base, from the people from
the theater kid base that wants to see some demonstrative protests, right,
rather than just don't go, they want you to make
a show out of it. So this person said, they're
not being talked to like their children. We are helping
them understand. Well, you're kind of talking to them like
children right now in this comment, Like we're helping them
understand why their strategy is a bad idea. See, it's
not it's not you. It's just what you're doing. See,
your strategy is a bad idea. Yes, as evidence by
the mountains of coverage that you received that was not good.
The party is in a rut, according to Axios, stumbling
on finding the most effective counter attack to Trump's full
boar assault on the federal bureaucracy. That struggle played out
on primetime television on Tuesday night. This sets up a
potential clash between party traditionalists and it's more combative anti
Trump wing. Did you know this is this is like, uh,
this is like Hamas is in the military wing of
Hamas or whatever, Like oh no, no, no, no, that's not
the same organization or anything. Not the same people. It's
totally separate. Right, The anti Trump wing is different than
the quote traditionalist wing or something. I'm not buying that
they're all anti Trump, every single one of them in
the Democrat Party. Come on, that's just silly. But you
know me, I am all about solutions, and so I
have an idea. I have an idea because the Democrats are,
as it says, in a rut, right stumbling to find
the most effective counter attack. And part of this is
due the fact that they really don't have a leader,
not you Chuck Schumer right now now, who is going
to come forward? I have an idea, and this person
is in need of some sort of an on ramp
again because they have fallen out of favor. And so
it's it to me, this looks like a win win,
and I'm gonna go over this with my next guest.
Alrighty News Talk eleven ten ninety nine to three WBT
seven oh four five seven zero eleven ten. Email is
Pete at the Pete calendershow dot com. I would like
to welcome to the show the special guest for pregaming
with Brett winter Bowl.
Speaker 2: Hello, Brett, Hello, it's good to be with you. Pete.
Speaker 1: I just realized that, not just realized. Actually, it's probably
last week when I first floated this idea to you,
that that I have been on your show because you
graciously invited me to work longer and stick around for
the hangover segment on Fridays. Yes, sir, and I will
still do that today. I do it every Friday with
you on your show. But I was never exposing my
audience to you. And so I said, how can I
get Brett on? I mean, not too much, because I
didn't want you to dominate my show, because you're colonizing
everyone's shows. This as a stated mission.
Speaker 3: You've figured you figured, yes, you've you've picked up what
I've dropped.
Speaker 1: Right, So I figured, well, if I do the hangover, yes,
I feel like we should pregame. Yeah, and so we're
calling this pregaming with Brett for now.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I like that.
Speaker 2: It's a good slogan.
Speaker 1: I like it. Okay, so before before I brought you in, yes, sir,
and by the way, Brett is on three to was
it like midnight or something you're doing now? Okay? Three seven,
and you should listen. You can get the BBT app
listen live or download the podcast on any of your
podcasting platforms. But so Democrats are in a bit of
a rut, as the Axios report talked about. And they
had this meeting where they were like, hey, all you
people that disrupted the president's speech. Bad strategy. They didn't
want to. They were not yelling at them, but it
was a come to Jesus meeting or something. So it
seems like they need a leader and not Chuck Schumer,
right right. I think I heard you talk about that
a couple of days ago, like, Chuck is not it? No,
So I have an idea. Okay, it's my solution. I'm
going to run this past you like this. Does he
need some work? Okay, he's fallen on some tough times.
Oh gosh, Hunter Biden. Wow, because he says he is
now millions of dollars in debt. He and for some
reason that he cannot figure out, nobody is buying his
art anymore. Yeah. I don't look he should lead the
Democrat Party.
Speaker 3: I mean trying to be diplomatic and and decorum here.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know he did put all of himself into
that art and some Yeah, so you would think no.
Speaker 1: No, these are the paintings, not the digital art.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the paintings.
Speaker 3: He he utilized every bit of Hunter Okay, in those.
Speaker 1: I heard it, I heard it compared to hotel lobby art.
Speaker 2: That's that's what It's not bad. I mean I could
see that. But he now he's in California.
Speaker 3: He lives in California now, which means he can get
elected in any.
Speaker 2: Place of his choice.
Speaker 1: He's pardoned of course, right, so.
Speaker 3: He's got nothing, nothing but but blue skies, right, and
so I would say he would be phenomenal to replace
Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 2: Mm, Nancy Pelosi. I'm look, what better way to make it.
Speaker 1: Up to Joe Biden for real? Really? Right? And I
mean she blew him up, right, put Hunter in, helped
push him out San Francisco.
Speaker 2: You can't get in trouble in San Francisco too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't think. So it's a good district
for him to represent, sure, Yeah, shares a lot with
a lot of the behaviors of the constituents there.
Speaker 2: Has experienced a lot of them, right, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So also also I think it might increase the
value of the paintings. Yes, right, he could, Yes, he
wins Congress, and then now all of a sudden, his
paintings are going to be worth a lot more money
for some reason that we can't we don't know. We
don't know that. We don't know why somebody would just
now want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on
hotel art.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's an insult to the hotel art.
Speaker 1: I do too.
Speaker 2: I feel like the hotel art was done in a nice.
Speaker 1: It's catching strays. That's my bed. I'm sorry catching catching
strays there, I wasn't. Yeah, no, it's no offense intended
to the hotel artistry industry, so he said, though in
some court filings, get this in the this timeline's very
suspicious to me. But in the two to three years
prior to December twenty twenty three, yes, sir, so two
to three years before the end of twenty three. Okay,
all right, so you got the time frame down hazy,
but yes, okay, he says. I sold twenty seven pieces
of what art of art Brett yep at an average
price of fifty four thousand dollars plus per per that's
the average fifty four K per piece, twenty seven pieces.
Speaker 2: Twenty seven pieces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but since then, since December of twenty three, he
has only been able to sell one piece of art.
Who would for thirty six thousand dollars? Okay, that's not bad.
Speaker 2: No, I was thirty six k. I mean that's gonna
get you, right.
Speaker 1: They also point out in this filing, which by the way,
he's filing this in a lawsuit that he filed and
now he wants dropped. He wants to drop that's raw
because the guy was, yes, was besmirching him right well
published well publishing the laptop contents. So he sued the
guy and now he wants to stop suing in because
he doesn't have any money anymore. So wow, no, Hunter
doesn't have any money.
Speaker 3: I'm saying so like if we did something wrong, and
if I just say I don't have any money?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I remember the episode of Seinfeld where you're gonna have
to be his butler?
Speaker 2: Remember you have to be their butler.
Speaker 1: That's like every Brady Bunch contest too. Yes, it was,
it was, so, he says. Also his memoir, yeah, from
twenty twenty one called Beautiful Things.
Speaker 2: Does he remember what the memoir was?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the passages that got highlighted in the
uh in the trial, Yeah, right, when they used it
against him to prosecute him for the buying a gun
while you're hooked on drugs. He remembers that part I think,
I mean because it was in the legal briefs. But
beautiful things that the sales for this memoir also have declined, wow,
really going from thirty two hundred copies sold over a
six month period that would be mid twenty twenty three,
and then it dropped to just eleven hundred copies in
the next six months. And so he doesn't really understand
why the interest in his work has evaporated. It's it's
a difference.
Speaker 3: But it's a different world now, right, It's a different
world now.
Speaker 1: So like after nine to eleven everything changed.
Speaker 3: Technically, yes, okay, I mean specifically yes, correct about that. Look,
painting is so passe at this stage of the game.
There's all only one medium that he two mediums that
he could that he could probably profit very well. OnlyFans
absolutely Number one, number two MSNBC.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah.
Speaker 3: They could give him a show, yeah, and he could
do interviews and he could like kind of clean up
a little bit, make some money. They got money. I mean,
why not put him I mean, why not put him
on there? Would you not just watch it for the
curiosity factor?
Speaker 1: I think he would do very well initially. Yes, I
mean he's a lawyer, right, he's a gas energy expert,
very much speaks Romanian, right. I think lots of contacts
in Iran.
Speaker 3: He could go remote in a lot of places, right, Iran, right, China, China, Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when's the last time he went over there?
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's maybe why Zelenski's so cranky. That's
true too, that's the last time. Hasn't had any parties
at that hotel? Yea Thompson man.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: So I I think if the Democrats play their cards
right here, I think they could actually get Hunter into
an office. Yes, it solves Hunter's problems of you know,
now not being able to you know, trade on the
family name. Now he will be the family name, so
he'll be able to profit off of that, and then
his family can also continue profiting.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And the Democrats get a leader.
Speaker 3: He could get they could get a leader, and and look,
he could become an honorary.
Speaker 1: Kennedy Savage Savage all right, that's Brett Wernable. We're calling
it pregaming with Brett Winnerable, Pregaming with Winterble the pre game. Okay,
Winnable's coming up next stick around. I'll see him Monday.
Don't break anything long gone all right, that'll do it
for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I
could not do the show without your support and the
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don't break anything while I'm gone.