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.
Speaker 2: And if you want exclusive.
Speaker 1: Content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my
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subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. What else has occurred with the court, so
we have We got a federal appeals court that has
allowed President Donald Trump to be president.
Speaker 2: So that's fantastic. That was good news too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's allowed to maintain control of the California National
Guard troops. In response to THELA protests, A federal appeals
court has indefinitely blocked an effort by California Governor Gavin Newsome.
Why do people not call him gavernor Newsom. I'm going
to start calling him gavernor Newsom California gaverner. Anyway, he
wanted to reclaim control of the National Guard troops, and.
Speaker 2: I guess that's just tyranny. It's not for our democracy.
Speaker 1: A three judge panel of San Francisco based Ninth Circus
Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Trump appeared to have
acted within his authority when he took control of four
thousand California National Guard troops under a law that has
never been invoked without the consent of a state governor.
That's I don't think that's true Politico. That's like a
week or so ago when he did it. We talked
about the times when it has been done, notably to
you know, force Democrats to give up their indentured servants
and such. Anyway, despite a debate over the level of
violence accompanying the protest, the judges concluded that the law
gives Trump enormous latitude to determine that the protests and
the related violence were interfering with the execution of federal law.
Which is like literally what the law says that he
can take control of the National Guard in order to
effectuate the enforcement and execution of federal law. And what
were the protests and the violence doing. They were obstructing
the execution of federal law.
Speaker 2: That's the point.
Speaker 1: They were attacking ice agents, they were blocking their pathways
in such their roads, and so they were obstructing those efforts,
and so they said, you know what, We're going to
send the Guard into let the Ice and Border Patrol
continue their ops.
Speaker 2: How did you.
Speaker 1: By the way, the three judge panel two pointed by
Trump and one of the judges appointed by President Joe Biden,
but it was unanimous. The judges said, there are limits
to the president's ability to call up the Guard, but
there was enough evidence of civil unrest and danger to
federal officials to justify Trump's actions. Yeah, clearly, it's all
on video. The ruling indefinitely sets aside a decision by
the lower court US District Judge Charles Bryer, who is
the son of the former US Supreme Court Justice Steven Bryer.
If I recall correctly, Charles Bryer last week issued a
temporary restraining order against Trump's deployment of the Guard. Now
Brier is scheduled to hold another hearing in the case
today to consider Gaviner Newsom's request for a longer term
block of both the Guard deployment and Trump's subsequent deployment
of seven hundred marines. So we'll see how that works
out for him. By the way, Gavin Or put out
a statement.
Speaker 2: On Twitter.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is not sorry. Donald Trump is not a king,
not above the law. Tonight, the court rightly rejected Trump's
claim that he can do whatever he wants with the
National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court.
We will not let this authoritarian use of military soldiers
against citizens go unchecked. Okay, to be fair, the National
Guard is not doing anything against the citizens. Unless people
start attacking law enforcement or the Guard, they would be responding, okay,
number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, why is Gavin sounding like he won this thing? Well,
there was one part. There was one part of the ruling,
and that what he is using here to claim victory,
which he did not right because they rejected his argument.
So here's the part to do here. It is from Politico.
Despite ultimately ruling for Trump, all three judges flatly rejected
the administration's claimed that the courts had no role in
reviewing his call up of the military to Los Angeles.
That was one of their arguments. They made several arguments.
One of the arguments was that the courts don't have
any authority to be intervening in this. He's you know,
operating under his Article two powers, and so the Article
three branch has no role in adjudicating any of this,
and the judges said, yes, we do, because they say, like,
if his you know, call up of the guard had
been quote obviously absurd or made in bad faith something right,
then the courts would clearly have.
Speaker 2: A role in assessing that.
Speaker 1: But he does, like, he has a right to do
what he has done. Newsom could ask a larger eleven
judge panel of the Appeals Court to take up the
issue or seek emergency relief from the US Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Does he do this? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to make any prediction on this, but
I mean, the violence has largely subsided in Los Angeles now.
Newsom and his attorneys had argued that Trump's involvement of
the National Guard was likely to fuel more anger from
protesters and inflame an already tense situation on the streets
of La Sorry, like, do not send the guard here.
People are burning and rioting and looting stuff. We just
have to let them express themselves and it will eventually
burn out or the whole city will burn down. Like
either way, it'll be over at that point, Okay, So
you just got to let these things play out.
Speaker 2: We got it under control.
Speaker 1: The problem was they did not have it under control,
particularly when it came to defending ICE agents and Border
Patrol agents and other officers who were working with ICE
on these deportation operations. Right In one case which actually
triggered the call up of the Guard was that the
ICE folks got surrounded, I think in one of the
facilities and they could not get out, They could not
get get the rioters to disperse. They call the LAPD
and it takes some more than two hours to get
down there, and they're only like a mile away, So like,
why would it take that long to do that? Why
would you not be rolling immediately? The appeals court judges said,
those concerns of you know, the it could fuel more anger,
it could fuel more protesting, it could lead to more violence.
And the judges were like, yeah, that's we don't know
that to be true. You don't know that to be true.
They said, California's concerns about escalation and interference with local
law enforcement are too speculative. In other words, you're just
making stuff up, guy, What are you doing. We do
not know whether future protests will grow due to the
deployment of the National Guard, and we do not know
what emergencies may occur in California while the Guard is deployed,
because they were arguing, what if we need the guard
for something else? Well, you know, you don't send them
in for forest fires.
Speaker 2: So like.
Speaker 1: The protests and altercations have now you know, dissipated, they
have diminished. The mayor set a curfew up, but only
after the guard was there. So the curfew was put
in now and they actually lifted it on Tuesday. The
Ninth Circuit also concluded that a technical aspect of the
law you heard this argument too at the time, a
requirement that Trump issue his order to call up the
guard through quote unquote through the gaverner. They say that
was not violated. The order was delivered to newsome subordinate,
and even if it were a violation, it would not
justify the lower courts ruling to rescind the order all together. So, surprise, surprise,
a lawyer with a wardrobe change and a leftist ideology
just got bigfooted. 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 probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 1: 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,
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then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports
ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Alrighty,
So another cord ruling here, this one in uh North Carolina.
This story from The Carolina Journal. North Carolina's second highest
court could decide whether state regulators made the wrong choice
when they allowed one healthcare provider to maintain a monopoly
on MRI machines up in the northeastern area of North Carolina.
So there's a three judge Court of Appeals panel heard
oral arguments this week in a case that pits Virginia
based Chesapeake Diagnostic Imaging Centers against Centaura Advanced Imaging Solutions
and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Okay,
so you got this Virginia company and you got Centaura
and the DHS on opposite sides. DHS picked Centaura over
Chesapeake to get what's called a certificate of need or
CON or CON as I like to call them. Complete
distortion of the market. This, this system needs to be
ripped out from its roots in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: It is awful. The CON system is awful.
Speaker 1: So the government literally picks winners and losers, and in
this case they picked Centaura as the winner and the
loser is Chesapeake. Okay, so Centaura gets this certificate of need,
gets the CON.
Speaker 2: This is back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: For a new MRI machine, a machine one, a single machine,
GOVCO says, I bequeathed to you the ability to buy
and offer for medical use a single MRI for Pasquatank,
Perkemons not Pokemons, Perquimans, Kuratuck, and Camden Counties. All four
of these counties shall have a single MRI and you
shall be the purveyor of it.
Speaker 2: CENTAA.
Speaker 1: Now Centaura already operated two existing MRI machines, So now
Cintaura gets a third. So okay, So they got three
machines for one, two, three, four counties. So at some
point in the future we may even see Centaura get
a fourth machine. So you would have one MRI machine
per county. Man, you guys would be just living high
on the hog there. So Cintaura already had two machines.
But CHESAPEAE Chesapeake was hoping to enter the region and
to do something that I like to call compete. They
wanted to offer some level of competition. And I remember
somewhere along the line in my education, I think I
remember hearing something about competition driving down costs or something
like that, right, being better for the consumer. Trying to
remember it'll come to me. But see, here's the problem
is that Chesapeake didn't get the con. Well, they got CON,
but they didn't get the CON. They didn't get the
CON the certificate of need from the state, so they're
not allowed to enter the northeastern North Carolina market. You
can't set up an MRI machine here. We don't want
to know what's going on inside people, and if we do,
we want these guys to do it, not you. So
Chesapeake's lawyers argued that Health Regulator's decision favoring Centaura was
a mistake, an agency error, and that error caused substantial
prejudice against Chesapeake. Chesapeake has to prove an agency error
and substantial prejudice if they want to reverse a con
decision in court. You see the problem here, like you
have this system, this certificate of needs system, and then
there's this this scaffolding that is constructed all around the
system for how do you object to it, how do
you overturn it?
Speaker 2: How do you get an appeal?
Speaker 1: All these rules that are necessary rather than you know,
just let Chesapeake come into the market and set up
some MRI machines and if they don't do a good job,
if people don't use their service, they'll go out of business.
And then you know what happens to the MRI machines,
somebody else will buy them, right because Chessapeake will be
looking to unload inventory and then maybe Centaurs like, oh,
we can get a really good deal on that MRI
machine that they're not going to use anymore, and so
they'll buy it at a discount, and then you would
end up with the same amount of machines. Right, But no,
you're not allowed to do that. In North Carolina. We
got dovec in charge. And who doesn't want government making
your decisions on access to care? I mean besides Democrats.
Noah huff Stettler is one of the lawyers for Chesapeake
and argued against Centaura. Centaura said that during the statee
con process that its new machine would increase competition. Centaura
said that the one Centaura is the company that already
has the two machines, and they are asking for the
third machine. And in the in the asking process, they
say giving us a third machine will increase competition. And
huff Stetler says that's pretty rich, pointing to centaur success
in convincing state regulators five years in a row to
remove a new MRI scanner from its plans. So Centaura had, apparently,
I guess, wanted to put a new MRI machine in
for five straight years, or said they did, and then
kept taking it out of the plan. But when Chesapeake
comes in now, Centaura is like, oh, no, we're going
to do it now. Well, yeah, we have to have
this one now. Now is the time. I know, we've
been pulling it out of the plan for the last
five years. And that obviously sent the market signal, which
is a foreign concept apparently even to the Republican legislature
that still won't get rid of the con probably because
of the lobbying dollars from the medical industry, But that
would send a market signal. Right when Centaura is not
doing another machine repeatedly in order to constrain supply to
drive up, and Chesapeake says, hey, you know what, we.
Speaker 2: Can come in there.
Speaker 1: Let's try to get in there and we could do
another machine and we can compete. No, no, no, Now,
Centaur is like, we're going to add another machine. When
Chesapeake successfully advocated to keep the new MRI machine in
the state's twenty twenty two health Plan Facilities plan, that's
when Centaura flipped one hundred and eighty degrees. He says,
not only is it needed, but we need it here.
So this is the government centrally planning access to medical
devices and care Centaura countered in the appeals court argument
that Chesapeake has no legal basis to overturn a valid
decision from gov CO. Alexander Gormley said both applications were
found to be conforming, and then they applied a number
of comparative factors and Centaura won by a three to
two vote. What tipped the scales is they won on
geographic accessibility. They proposed to put their MRI in Kurtuk
County where none exists. Where's Chesapeake proposed to put theirs
right on top of the existing MRI. So I think
the agency exercised a lot of wisdom and common sense.
So they're like, we're going to put ours in some
other county. So geographically that's what swung us or swung
them to give it to us, right, but where's the population?
State Deputy Special Deputy Attorney General Derek Hunter also urged
the appeals court to reject it, saying the con law
is not designed to level the playing field between healthcare providers.
Its purpose is to ensure that all North Carolinians, and
particularly those in rural areas, are able to access necessary,
cost effective healthcare.
Speaker 2: The con law.
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Speaker 2: I do have some emails here. Let's take a look here.
Speaker 1: Dennis says, I think a more appropriate name for California's
governor is governor nuisance, Gavener nuisance. We can combine them.
It doesn't have to be either or Gavener nuisance. I'll
probably forget that, but that's good. This is from Scott,
the government we deserve. Subject line call me crazy, You're crazy, Scott.
But does it feel like government is nothing more than
the four ls? Legal maneuvering, litigation, lobbying, and lying.
Speaker 2: Maybe I missed one.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like legal maneuvering and litigation might be kind
of the same thing. We could just go like litigation, lobbying, lying,
and lying, or maybe.
Speaker 2: Just three l's.
Speaker 1: Well, here's w a US Agency for International Development contracting
officer so USAID, right are our favorite organization? A contracting
officer for USAID and three company leaders all pleaded guilty
to a bribery scheme that was connected to over five
hundred and fifty million dollars in taxpayer money. According to
the DOJ, the scheme spanned a decade and was tied
to at least fourteen USAID contracts that cost taxpayers over
five hundred and fifty million dollars. Fifty seven year old
Roderick Watson of Woodstock, Maryland, admitted to bribery of a
government official while working as a contracting officer. The scheme
began in twenty thirteen. He received bribes from Darryl Britt
of Mayaca City, Florida to use his influence to use
Watson's influence to award contracts to britain It's small business,
which was enrolled in a federal business development program that
was supposed to grow disadvantaged businesses. After Britt's business graduated
from the program, it swapped places with another firm. That
firm was owned by Walter Barnes of Potomac, Maryland. Barnes's
firm was once a subcontractor to BRIT's firm on one
of the very contracts that were secured through the USAID
guy Watson's influence and then he became a prime contractor
with USAID under the program for four years while Britt's
firm served as a subcontractor to Barnes's firm. Watson received
bribe's worth about a million dollars, including cash, laptops, thousands
of dollars, and tickets to a suite at an NBA game,
a country club, wedding down, payments on two residential mortgages,
cell phones, as well as jobs for relatives. These bribes
were in exchange for awarding the contracts by quote manipulating
the procurement process at USAID. Barnes and Britt paid Watson
the bribes through another guy named Paul Young at a Columbia, Maryland.
Paul Young is the president of another firm that was
a subcontractor to both Barnes and Britt. Watson faces up
to fifteen years behind bars. Barnes, Britt, and Young each
looking at five years. Both Barnes's company and BRIT's company
admitted to involvement in the bribery scheme and they agreed
to cooperate with the DOJ. But wait, it gets worse. Yes,
there's a very lengthy write up by Luke Rosiak at
The Daily Wire. President Joe Biden's USAID awarded an eight
hundred million dollar contract to a business operating out of
Virginia out of a Virginia home, even after it formally
ruled that its key manager lacked honesty and integrity, a
reference to the fact that, according to a May twelfth
guilty plea, he had secured USAID contracts through bribery for
a decade. The contract was for addressing quote issues affecting
the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to
the US.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was what Kamala Harris was supposed to get at,
which she never actually did address. The Department of Justice
announced that Walter Barnes and Roderick Watson pleaded guilty to
a bribery scheme in which Barnes and two other companies
conspired to pay Watson a million dollars in exchange. That's
the bribe in exchange for contracts totaling nearly half a
billion dollars. What has not been reported, though, is the
Biden administration continued to steer contracts to them even after
it knew of the massive corruption. Yeah, there was another contract,
the migration contract, even larger than the five hundred and
forty four million dollars in the indictment. There are other
contracts that are still active. The eight hundred million dollar
contract went to a joint venture between Barnes's company and
some other guy in Falls Church, Virginia named Richard Crespin,
the amazing one who runs it out of his house.
They got eight hundred million dollars. It's through this collaborate
up and said they would address the root causes by
addressing climate change. They had, well, look, if you're gonna
ask for a grant from GOVC, you got to know
how to ask, right, And if Biden's in charge throwing
the climate stuff and throwing the irregular migration and to
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Speaker 4: Brett, how are you. I'm great, I'm I'm thrilled. It's
good to be with you.
Speaker 1: It's good that you're here. So have you heard well?
First off, do you have any phobias that induce like
debilitating anxiety.
Speaker 4: I used to have a phobia of.
Speaker 2: Bats, bataphobia, I've heard metaphobia.
Speaker 4: And I but I just I lost it somewhere along
the way.
Speaker 2: Was it around COVID time?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: No, no, it was well before that. It was well
before that.
Speaker 1: There may be a connect okay, but I was gonna say,
because there could have been a connection.
Speaker 2: I lost it.
Speaker 1: It could have been like big Bat. That's trying to
make people more comfortable with that, right, The COVID was
a delivery.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I don't like that. Okay.
Speaker 1: So apparently there is a an employee of the bank
Truest Bank out in Nash County. They have a phobia
of doll like dolls.
Speaker 2: Like stuffed dolls, like Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. I don't
know about the Russian nesting dolls.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: I like those, but they're not really dolls. There's like eggs.
Speaker 4: I was, Yeah, that makes sense, go ahead, Yeah, so continue.
Speaker 1: This person is now suing the Charlotte based bank over
discrimination and retaliation claims because she says the situation was
exacerbated by Chucky.
Speaker 4: Oh, Chucky, sure a doll, very familiar with that.
Speaker 1: They say that due to her disabilities, she experienced discrimination
and retaliation, which include major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, autoimmune disorder,
post traumatic stress disorder. Come on, yeah, yeah, and that
the PTSD. That's a new diagnosis after the incident with Chucky.
Speaker 4: What did Chucky do?
Speaker 1: In June of twenty twenty four. During her last week
of her initial training, her manager put a chucky doll
in her chair. Wow, that worsened her medical conditions. Her
manager knew about our fear of dolls, and then he
put it there and then laughed, he said, just to
see her reaction to the chucky doll. She was treated
by her medical provider that same day and put on
eight weeks of medical leave to treat her disabilities.
Speaker 4: To be de chucked, to.
Speaker 1: Be unchucked, unchucked, I think so that's how long it takes.
Speaker 2: Eight weeks.
Speaker 1: She had an accommodation to leave work at three pm
three times a week for treatment of I feel like
we've jumped the shark on something.
Speaker 2: No, no, do you think I have?
Speaker 1: I feel like you get to like your working banker's
hours already, yes, and now three days a week you
get to leave at three pm.
Speaker 4: Okay. I don't know if I want to talk about
this or not. I'm going to just do it.
Speaker 2: Just do it.
Speaker 5: When I was in San Diego, I had a boardop
who was across the glass from me, and I went
down the hall and there was a clown mask that
somebody had left on a desk. Oh and I walked
into during a commercial break. I walked into my studio
adjacent to where he was.
Speaker 4: He saw me.
Speaker 5: I had the clown mask on, and he lost his marbles.
Speaker 2: That's people are terrified of clowns. Some people are, but.
Speaker 5: It was obviously me with a mask. It was like
a well oversized mask.
Speaker 4: It was all.
Speaker 2: Did he get eight weeks of medical leave?
Speaker 4: He did not. He did not.
Speaker 5: In fact, to tie it all together, at the end
of the shift, he had to stay later, like fifteen
minutes because the next board op wasn't there, and he
grabbed the mask and he threw it down the hall.
That's rating and I had no reason to know that
he was upset about that.
Speaker 1: Right, that's radio. You get that kind of PTSD and
you got to work longer.
Speaker 2: 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
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thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything.
While I'm gone,