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 thepeteclendershow 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. Let me do this. We have been following
one of the state laws that was passed about moving
control of the North Carolina Board of Elections out from
underneath the GOVNA and over underneath the State Auditor's office. Okay,
and there's a history here. I'm going to go through
the history of it and how we got to where
we are. But of course, after the law passed the legislature,
Governor Josh Stein vetoed it, and the legislature overrode the veto.
They sued and now it's in court. Okay, So that's
where it is. And simply it just takes the control
over the Board of Elections system from the governor, moves
it to the state auditor. Okay. So we had a
ruling that came down from a three judge panel in
Waite County that blocked the law. They blocked it. They
split in their decision two to one. Without court action,
the state Auditor, Dave Bullock, would have had the authority
to make new appointments to the state Board of Elections
on May first. According to the Carolina Journal report on
the matter, Stein would have lost his power to appoint
members to the election's board. Stein is a Democrat. Bullock,
the state Auditor, and the legislature the legislative leaders are Republicans.
The panel of the three judges granted Stein's motion Governor
Josh Stein's motion for summary judgment that means he wins
the case without the need for a trial. The ruling
arrived nine days after the judges heard arguments in the case,
and of course it only leaves like a week to
appeal before the May one deadline. Judges Edwin Wilson and
Lorie Hamilton supported the decision. Judge Andrew Womble dissented. Wilson
is a Democrat, Hamilton and Womble are Republicans, so Lourie Hamilton,
a Republican, voted with Wilson to keep it under the
governor's office. The panel first concludes that the State Board
and the county boards exercise primarily executive functions. The opinion
goes on to state that because the State Board and
county boards exercise executive functions, the question becomes whether the
governor has sufficient control over these entities. Again, the previous
ruling in Cooper v. Berger or Cooper I. As it's called,
that controls our Supreme Court has held that Article three,
section five, sub section four of the North Carolina Constitution
requires the governor to have enough control over commissions or
boards that are primarily administrative or executive in character to
perform his or her constitutional duty. The extent of the
governor's control depends on his ability to appoint members, supervise
their activities, and remove them from office. Senate Bill three
eighty two, which is the law that was passed, interferes
with the governor's conscostitutional duties. All appointment powers for the
State Board have been removed from the governor and given
to the State Auditor, and the governor has no power
to fill vacancies or remove members of the State Board,
whether for lack of attendance or for cause. Likewise, with
respect to the county boards as well, he loses that
appointment power and the power to remove the Constitution does
not permit the auditor to be solely responsible for execution
of the state's election laws. Constitutional text, history, and precedent
confirm as much, they said. They went on to say
that because the duty to faithfully execute the laws has
been exclusively assigned to the governor, Senate Bill three eighty
two cannot reassign that duty to the auditor without violating
the constitution. So, in other words, the majority is citing
the governor's supreme executive power. And they said, Council of
State members aid them governor in executing the laws, but
the governor alone wields the state's executive authority and bears
the ultimate duty of faithful execution. Okay, So that's why
the two judges, Democrat and Republican, ruled in favor of
keeping the governor in charge of the Board of Elections. Now,
some background, and this is provided by the Carolina Partnership
for Reform, and they say, by way of background, one
political party has control over administering elections and counting votes
one political party. What party controls is determined by what
party wins the governor's race for reasons that should be obvious.
Putting control of the election in the hands of one
political party is not a very good idea. That's how
it works right now. And by the way, just as
an aside, if you are wondering why the left is
fighting so hard against the mass deportations, it's because it
will determine the outcome of elections. And I'm not talking
about illegal aliens voting. I'm talking about counting people in
the census. Right. The more people that you move into areas,
they count in the census, and that then apportions members
of Congress to that state for that area. So if
you have a state that has a million, well, let
me do it this way. If you have a state
that has eight hundred thousand illegal aliens, and so let's
say you have eight hundred thousand illegal aliens in Los Angeles.
Let's just say that. Okay, that's about the size of
a congressional district. Because the way you draw the districts
is you take the total population, you divide it by
four hundred and thirty five members of the House, and
that gives you a population for each district size. Every
state like, well, what about states that don't have eight
hundred thousand people, Well, they get a minimum of one seat,
and then you apportion all the rest of the seats
based on the eight hundred thousand figure. So if you
have eight hundred thousand illegal aliens in Los Angeles, Los
Angeles would get a congressional seat. And if they can't
vote in the federal race because they were legal aliens,
why that's even better, right, because you got the seat,
but you don't have to have to actually represent them
because they can't vote for you or against you. Right,
And what the analysis from the last census showed, because
remember Donald Trump when he was president for the twenty
twenty census, which then got upended because of COVID, Remember
that they tried to do a citizenship They tried to
not count citizen or non citizens, right, They only wanted
a count of the citizens, not the illegal aliens, And
they got sued over that in all event, and they
had to count them, so they end up counting all
these seats. Had they not done that, had they only
counted citizens, Republicans would have a twenty seven seat majority.
It's estimated a twenty seven seat majority in the US House.
That's why Democrats can't they can't let this go. They
have to fight this. They have to fight the deportation
regime because if they lose, they won't ever control the House.
They need those people to be counted in the next census.
Already losing seats, California lost a seat, New York State
lost a seat. North Carolina picked one up. I forget
who else. Florida I think picked one up. Texas has
been picking up states or seats in the House. That's
the fight. That's why when you when you're trying to
figure out why is there all this pushback, why are
they defending some Ms thirteen gang member? They're trying to
slow it all down because they need the people in
these districts, in these states to keep the census count
high for them. It's about that control of the House,
all right. So spring is here a time of renewal
and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special
days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that
are going to last a lifetime. But let me ask you,
are all of those treasured moments from days gone by?
Are they hidden away on old VCR tapes, eight millimeter films,
photos slides. Are they preserved because over time, these precious
memories can fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday.
At Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most.
Their expert team digitizes your cherished family moments and transfers
them onto a USB drive, freezing them in time so
they can be enjoyed for generations to come. I urge
you do not wait until it's too late this spring,
celebrate your past. Visit Creative Video today and let them
preserve your legacy with the love and care that it deserves.
Creative Video Preserving Family Memories since nineteen ninety seven, located
in mint Hill, just off four eighty five, mail orders
are accepted to get all the details that create a
video dot com. Alrighty, so the background here from the
Carolina Partnership for Reform again. One political party controls our
election system, and that party is whatever party the governor is.
For reasons that are obvious, they say, putting control in
the hands of one political party is not a great idea,
but that's how it works now. For nearly a decade,
the state legislature has been trying to make it so
that no political party has full control of the elections machinery.
They have offered all sorts of ways to accomplish this.
I have covered them literally for a decade. The Republican
Legislature has offered I have lost count how many different
mechanisms with different boards made up of different appointments and
sizes and whatever. They have tried, probably half a dozen,
maybe like they did. I think they ran a constitutional amendment,
They passed laws, then they get sued. They have been
trying to wrest this control from one political party, but
at every turn the governor sued and or vetoed so
his party would keep power. The governor argued in court
that elections administration is an inherently executive branch manner matter.
And in the meantime, the State Board of Elections has
been a partisan disaster. Four executive directors, who are apparently
chosen by the governor's campaign team. Four have resigned, including
for overt partisan behavior. The board was the subject of
national media scrutiny for appearing to keep the Green Party
off the ballot so as to protect Democrat candidates from
vote siphoning. You'll recall the Green Party sued believe this
was twenty twenty two. They sued and they won in
twenty twenty when the board secretly settled a lawsuit that
was brought by Democrats' allies, and the secret settlement changed
voting laws in the middle of the election, which is
a violation of the Percel rule, which is that you
don't change election laws if you're the court, you're hearing
a case or whatever, you don't. Courts are very hesitant
to change any rules before an election, let alone while
it is going on. Yet, with the secret settlement, the
collusive agreement, that this deal that was cut between Democrats
at the State Board of Elections and their political allies
that had sued to try to get these the relaxation
of voting rules during the pandemic that Democrats had tried
to get done. The Democrats in the Board of Elections,
the executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, she had been trying
to get this stuff done. The legislature was like, no,
we're going to do these other things. And she's like, oh,
we're going to do this. No, you're not doing this.
And then they had sued and then they enter into
an agreement. Even though the legislature was party to the lawsuit.
They did not tell the legislative defendants about the collusive agreement.
They settled it on the side. Why would they do
that because they knew that the legislature would not agree
to it. It's scandalous behavior. So finally last year the
legislature said, enough is enough. We are done trying to
find a middle ground. Here. We are passing a law
and giving elections administration to a different executive branch official,
the State Auditor. You could have had an equal split,
mister Governor, but you wouldn't take it, and the governor sued,
of course, and now that brings us to the decision
from these three judges in Wake County. There are three
parts of the constitution that inform the outcome of this case.
According to the Partnership for Reform, all of the parts
are contained in Article three of our state Constitution. First part,
the Governor shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Next,
the General Assembly shall prescribe the function, powers, and duties
of the administrative departments and agencies of the State, and
may alter them from time to time. And finally, the
third part that the State Auditor or any of the
Council of State positions. Their duties shall be prescribed by law.
So se PR says, these three passages sometimes come into conflict,
and they apparently do in this case. On the one hand,
the governor is supposed to faithfully execute the laws that
the General Assembly passes, and on the other hand, the
Constitution calls for other independently elected executive branch officials and
charges the General Assembly with deciding on their duties. Right,
So the General Assembly is supposed to say, hey, auditor,
this is what you're supposed to do. We passed a law,
it's signed by the governor or veto, we overwrote it.
Whatever we did this law, you have to do this.
That's the role of the legislative branch. The General Assembly
argument here is that it is fully within its constitutional
authority to decide which administrative department or agency should be
in charge of elections administration. Right, this comes up every
now and again, particularly when they're having a devil of
a time counting all of the ballots before Christmas, you know,
and it's like the Secretary of State is not in
charge of the elections. Elaine Marshall keeps, you know, I
always has to put out some statement because she gets
inundated with media requests because you know they're failing to
count the ballots quickly enough and they're making a bunch
of mistakes or whatever, and Elaine Marshall always has to
come out and put out a statement saying, I'm not
in charge of the election system. The governor is Board
of Elections Governor. It's not my purview because in most
other states, the Secretary of State is in charge, but
not here so does the legislature have the authority to
move these responsibilities to a different executive office that is
part of the Council of State. The Council of State
ten seats all elected statewide, and the Auditor is one
of those seats. Governor is one lieutenant governor, Attorney General,
Secretary of State, Agriculture Commissioner. These are the Council of
State seats, and the legislature says we can do this
because it's our job in the Constitution to prescribe the
duties of these offices. The governor argues that only he
can be in charge of elections administration because the constitution
says he must take care that laws are faithfully executed.
According to the Carolina Partnership for reform did not meaningfully
wrestle with the other sections of the constitution that they
just outlined there. And by the court's logic, the governor
and only the governor can decide how to execute the
state's laws. That position would render every other Council of
State member subservient to the governor's ultimate decisions. Though, for example,
the law requires the state auditor to do audits, which
is kind of a giveaway because of his name and
everything or the title, But that is to determine if
state state agencies are operating efficiently. How can it be
then that the state auditor can execute that law on
his own. But it's somehow unconstitutional for him to execute
another law, one that tells him to administer elections. Why
would he have to Why would he have to do
that law for the audits. The duty to execute the
election's law is no different than the duty to execute
the audit law. The legislature assigned both to the state auditor.
Either there's a Council of State whose duties are prescribed
by the legislature or there isn't. And here's the problem
with this ruling. They don't address this issue, this conflict. Now,
I don't know if they're going to appeal it. I
suspect they will. I don't know if they're going to
have time to beat the May one deadline. I suspect
they won't, But we shall see. Here's a great idea.
How about making an escape to a really special and
secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive
up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection.
Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want
to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends
together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has
the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with
your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled
within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga
National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the
heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville
and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all
the local attractions, with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs,
Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch.
Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a
great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville
has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and
they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two
eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out
all there is to offer at Cabins Ofashville dot com
and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Moving on, did
you know that under North Carolina law, lottery winners here
in this state have to reveal their identities unless they
win under six hundred dollars. That's the cutoff. So if
you just win five ninety nine, you know, then you
don't have to You don't have to go public with
your name because frankly, nobody cares, right, I mean nobody cares.
They go, wow, you won five hundred dollars on the lottery.
You're like, they're not putting it. They're not putting you
in the newspaper for that, they're not putting you on
TV commercials for that, right, But anything above six hundred dollars, well,
now you're basically famous. You make six hundred two dollars.
You win that on a lottery ticket. Now, everybody wants
to know who you are. See, it's very logical actually
when you think about it. But also unless you win
less than six hundred or more than fifty million, okay,
so there's this window. If you win more than fifty million,
then you can be anonymous. If you win forty nine million,
everybody knows you won forty nine million. You went over
fifty million, now you can be anonymous. Okay, but I'm
not sure you're aware of this. But when people win
lots of money through a lottery, sometimes bad things happen
to them. It's actually pretty common. They get targeted. And
there is this interesting dynamic that occurs because like if
I if I am a self made millionaire or a
billionaire to quote Bernie, if I make the money myself,
people come to me and ask me for my money
and I say no, you know, they hit you up
for charitable donations or family members are like, I don't
want to work, give me some money, you know whatever,
And I can say no because I worked for it,
I earn this money. I'm a self made millionaire. Right. However,
if I won the money, well, now I don't have
that excuse because I just found it. Basically, Like, what
am I supposed to say to that, Like they're asking
me to just make it rain on them long loss
cousin that I've never met, and I'm supposed to just
give them a million dollars or okay, one hundred thousand
dollars or something. Oh, come on, it's not like you
earned it. You just want it. Why do you It's
not that it wasn't even really yours, you know, come on,
share the wealth. It'll be like I'm winning the lottery too. Whatever.
It becomes difficult to say no. And a lot of
people who win large sums of money in the lotteries,
they they don't make good fiscal decisions. Okay, they're not
good at financial management, and they get taken in by
scam artists. They make bad investments because now they all
owe this money and like, oh, we should invest in
a restaurant together or something. Oh we should invest in this, Oh,
buy a bunch of this whatever. They also get harassed,
they get stalked. In some cases this is true, they've
been kidnapped, held for ransom, and even murdered. So there
is a bit of a downside to winning the lottery
when you have to give your name out. And now
with the rise of social media and the ability for
people to target you when they know your name, the
State Senate and the State House are now looking at
two different bills to try to limit this. The Senate
has a bill, Senate Bill four h two that what
started off that it started off mandating anonymity for anybody
who want a million dollars and above. So if you
want a million or more, you're mandated anonymous. However, Senator
Ralph Hyes, the bill sponsor, he raised that to five million,
and he said the change was at the North Carolina
Lottery Commission's request. The Lottery Commission requested this because they
often use personalized stories of winners to advertise real life wins. Yeah,
that's the problem, guys. This I don't understand this argument.
This makes no sense, Like, hey, I don't want to
be named because people are targeting me for harassment. Heyes
comes along and says, okay, we'll go ahead and say
anything above a million dollars. I say, thank you very much.
That will help protect me if I win. And the
Lottery Commission comes in, who WHOA WHOA whoa we advertise
with this, we need Pete to advertise. Make it five million, Okay,
I'll make it five million, right. The whole point is
to keep you from using me to advertise the fact
that I won over a million dollars. What are you doing?
High said he was inspired to sponsor the bill originally
after he had a conversation with a five million dollars
scratch off winner. The winner told heys they had been
harassed by salespeople showing up at their door with investment opportunities. Well,
if you won five million dollars, I would recommend a
very stout home security system, maybe with some mounted turrets.
The North Carolina State House Bill, on the other hand,
that that's the Senate bill. The House bill mandates that
any lottery winner of any amount has the option to
remain anonymous. I like that one. I like that one
because if I were to win fifty thousand dollars, I
don't want, you know, people finding out about that. I
don't need my wife knowing I won that kind of money.
That's not In twenty twenty four, four players won five
million dollars or more. Seventy five players won a million
or more. According to WRAL. All of them had to
go public with that information. They had to include their
full names, city of residents, and the game and date
that they played and how much they won. And then
I think they were handed a can of spray paint
and they had to paint a huge target right on
their chest and back. Anonymity is a hot button issue
across the US. As the Internet makes it easier to find,
scam and harass people, winners are clamoring for anonymity. The
Virginia Legislature voted unanimously in March to lower the states
anonymity allowance from ten million down to one million. Here's
the problem. If you make it all anonymous, how do
you know that real people actually won? Right? It could
be like Running Man? Remember that movie, the documentary running Man,
where people would quote win the contest, then you never
saw them again. M h. I still think it should
be voluntary. If you don't want to go public, you
don't go public. I think that's a fair compromise. 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. Do you know who
Marcus Lamonas is? Marcus Lamonis. He is the CEO of
Camping World aka the profit pro fit. He did a
show on CNBC Christy and I used to watch it
all the time he would go in and help small
businesses build them up and such. He's done several in
our region. And he then at some point he became
the CEO of Camping World. And one of the things
that he does at Camping World is he hoists a
massive American flag and like all of his Camping World locations,
and he even did it at one of the barbecue
joints that he helped to rescue I think down in
South Carolina. And now he's in trouble. The CEO of
Camping World claims that he was forced to close down
one of his North Carolina stores. This is out in Greenville,
North Carolina, as he defied local politicians over the massive
American flags flying over the locations. Marcus Lamonis made the
shocking revelation that one of the national RV dealerships in
Greenville was shuttered April eighteenth. He says he was forced
to shut down operations at the smaller of the two
locations after the city council sued him and his company
for violating city ordinance with the larger than life flags.
Larger than life, I mean, they're just big flags. They're
not larger than life, and they've been nailing him with
fines constantly. He said, we think the ordinance is wrong.
I think it's all so wrong that council members have
been working very actively to disparage my business Greenville. City
of Greenville notes that the flag is almost the size
of a basketball court. Oh no, a basketball court. Oh no,
that's too big. Yeah, not a tennis court, a basketball court.
It's thirty two hundred square feet. That's that's like almost
twice the size of my house. But you got to
be able to see it from the interstate. The poll
that flies from is one hundred thirty feet tall, almost
double the current allowance. Quote. This has never been about
removing an American flag or the type of flag. It
is about bringing the flag into compliance with city code.
According to the Greenville Communications manager, brock Letchworth, again with
these Deckenzian names. Anyway, we look forward to finding a
resolution that will result in the continued display of the flag,
but in a way that does not violate local laws. So,
in other words, we want you to have a smaller flag.
But lamonas fifty one year old CEO, says the city
ordinances violate the state law. He did not specify what
law that is. And when I went looking through the
general statute codes, all I could find were law is
about HOA restricting American flags. I couldn't find anything about
city ordinances. Now, along with Greenville, North Carolina, Camping World
is facing another lawsuit from the city of Ceverville, Tennessee,
located thirty miles outside of Knoxville. They argue the flag
in its city is so big, also the same size
as this, as all of them. Really, they say it's
a distraction to drivers. Quote let us be clear, the
city of Ceverville is not and never will be again patriotism.
Excessively tall structures can create visual distractions for motorists, pose
potential safety hazards, and impact the scenic views that are
a vital part of what makes Severville a destination for
residents and visitors alike. So he's got two fights now,
He took to the Twitter machine formerly known as x.
He says, Dear any Town, USA, I have received countless calls, emails, texts,
and mail regarding my refusal to take down the flag.
These flags that I put up are not just at
Camping World. They have gone up at one small business
in South Carolina, Schuler's Barbecue, and in the town of Grafton, Illinois.
These flags represent something personal to me. I came to
this country from an orphanage in Beirut Lebanon, at the
age of nine months old. I grew up in a
middle class home where work ethic was everything, maybe the
only thing. Our family was in the Chevrolet business and
had the largest flag in Miami. As a child, I
used to tell everybody that one day I would have
a business of my own and that my flag would
be even bigger, like any child would. I have put
up two hundred and twenty flags across this country, totaling
seven hundred four thousand square feet. My secret goal has
always been to get to one million square feet. I
thought it was a more impressive way to be a
quote millionaire. Over the years on my journey, I have
experienced life to the fullest. I've made my share of mistakes,
experienced the highs of building something with great people around me,
the lows of helping people and then being sued, married
for true love, lied to because of pure greed, criticized
for being too whatever the flavor of the day is,
and seeing things people dream of. I may not be
the American dream, but I I want to be and
I know I have it in me. The flag is
my love letter to a country that gave me a
chance when I didn't have one. It gave me a
free market to make money. It gave me freedom to
be me, and gave me courage to try anything. While
I receive the criticism saying that I don't respect laws
because I have money, because I'm too self centered, too greedy,
attention seeking publicity hound, bad advertiser. The list goes on, Well,
I do have pride, and I have been blessed with success.
I do have conviction, and I have my freedom. And
then he says the flag is not coming down, no
matter the consequences. I am an only child. My parents
are both past I have no children. I have my faith,
my businesses, my wife, and my principles. Unfortunately, I will
see you too in court. And then he tags the
city of Greenville. Well, in the city of Severville, Tennessee.
This is not the first time this kind of thing
has happened. Do you remember. I believe it was like
twenty nineteen Gander RV. It was local and they had
a huge flag right they were being told to take
it down. Got in a big fight. See, here's the thing.
The city may have some ordinance that says you can't
fly an American flag that's this bigger, bigger whatever, or
you can't have any kind of a flagpole that's this
toll or a structure that's this toll whatever. You could
have that on the books. And it seems like that
this flagpole in both of these locations may be very
well violating the laws of these towns. But here's the thing.
Americans don't care about your law. They care about that flag.
Choose wisely in this fight. Greenville, North Carolina City Council
and Ceverville, Tennessee City Council. 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
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 thepetecallanershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.