Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
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to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so
much for your support. Last hour we started talking about
this story that Channel thirty six WCNCTV broke yesterday. I
think it was newly obtained public records show the City
of Charlotte paid police Chief Johnny Jennings more than seventy
seven thousand dollars in moving expenses after he was named
to be the police chief in twenty twenty. He moved
thirty miles from Union County into the City of Charlotte.
He's required to live inside the city limits as the
police chief. The Reality Caation of Relocation policy rather for
the City of Charlotte allows up to sixty thousand in
relocation costs for anybody in a position of a deputy
department director and above, so sixty k and twenty four
of that goes towards expenses, thirty six goes towards helping
with the costs linked to selling an employee's primary home.
And so anything above the sixty k would need city
council approval and to be eligible, generally, they quote must
be relocating from a distance greater than fifty miles, and
he was not. He was within the fifty miles. So
last hour we got a call from Earl who was
running through a bunch of expenses that he says Corporate
America usually pays. He says, it's very easy. He said,
it was very easy to accrue seventy seven thousand dollars
in moving expenses, because in my limited experience with relocation
expenses being covered, I got nowhere near that if my
memory serves, Like when I went up to Ashville, I
think I got fifteen hundred dollars. That was it, because
it was assumed that I would have a I would
find a place, rent a place, and that's on me, right.
But I don't know what the going rate for relocations are.
But according to the WCNC story, sixty k is the
is what the city program is generally giving out, which
is still kind of high, it seems. So let me
just read some of these messages and I'm going to
move on from this topic, but I wanted to kind
of for people listening on the podcast. Now you're caught up,
but I highly recommend you go back and listen to
the first hour. Russ says a friend took an executive
position with an energy company that required a move from
San Antonio to Anchorage. He didn't get anywhere close host
to seventy seven thousand for that move. This is from
at Patriot girl who says, well, no wonder they keep
jacking up our property tax has got to keep their
little scam going. How many other times has this happened?
As a taxpayer? I am furious. GHC says, Oh my gosh,
Caller Earl is definitely drinking the kool aid. His mindset
is exactly what is wrong with this world. Good grief,
And perhaps I'm missing something, But when the city of Charlotte,
But when did the City of Charlotte fall into corporation rules?
It's a fair point. This isn't corporate America. This is
a municipal government and Chief Jennings was working for CMPD.
I don't know what kind of house he had in
Union County. I don't know if he built a house,
was in the process of building a house. I don't know.
All I have is this information from the story. It's
all a distraction, says, how can I become the city
moving coordinator? I would be happy to charge the city
seventy seven thousand dollars and then move the person myself
for around twenty k's. That's a good business opportunity, John
says caller Earl trying to justify Chief Johnny Jennings seventy
seven thousand. He forgets that Johnny was already working in Charlotte.
He knows or should know, where he wanted to live.
There's no reason for short term housing. If his kids
were in school, they could have stayed because again it
was just in Union County. They didn't have to move
across the country immediately. All these expenses that Earl is
trying to justify may make sense for a CEO of
a company moving across country, But this is a government
employee moving thirty miles down the road. And Dennis says,
Jennings not only moved, but he paid to have his
whole house moved with him. There you go, Pete A right,
I would explain it just just pick up the whole
house and just drive it down the road. And maybe
that's what happened. So we'll see where. We'll see where
that story leads, all right. Yesterday we were going over
this maniac, the story about the maniac up in Minnesota
that assassinated the former speaker of the state House and
her husband and their dog, and attempted to assassinate another
member of the legislature and his wife. Those two survived.
He made his first court appearance yesterday. And now, as
I said yesterday, and I think I heard Winterable say
this as well on his show, that the Feds are
now pressing charges. And the difference there is that there
is a federal death penalty and Minnesota does not have one.
The man charged with killing one Minnesota lawmaker and wounding
another meticulously planned the shootings and intended to inflict more
carnage against those on his hit list, driving to the
homes of two other legislators on the night of the attacks,
according to a federal prosecutor, but one of those state
lawmakers was on vacation, and the suspect left the other
house after police arrived early Saturday, according to Acting US
Attorney Joseph Thompson. Investigators say the Maniac appeared to spend
months preparing for the shootings, the latest in a string
of political attacks across the US. This is the Associated
Press report. His list of potential targets contained dozens of names,
including officials in at least three other states. In Minnesota,
the Maniac carried out surveillance missions, took notes on the
homes and people he targeted, and disguised himself as a
police officer just before the shootings. I I don't believe
that nobody knew. I don't think you can do this
kind of a long term operation without anybody knowing. You know,
it just seems a little far fetched. You're you're you're
running surveillance missions, You're keeping notes, you're taking notes, You're
you're accumulating all of this these files and paperwork and stuff.
Meanwhile you're you're purchasing all these firearms and stuff, and
like what of the like the whole friend and roommate situation.
That guy, there's something going on there. I'm I I
can't figure it out. So maybe we'll get more information
on this stuff. But it just it just seems weird. Okay,
that thing seems weird. And the guy is out there
doing like a uh press gaggle. He's talking to reporters
on his front lawn and I don't I don't know
the guy's name, and I don't even care, but like
the I mean, I don't care to publicize his name.
But he's out there talking to the press and he
starts he said something like he called him Jim Biden,
and what was the other name he used, Jim something.
He said Jim Biden, and then he gave the name
Jim something orund like, I don't know Jim Walls. Yeah,
there you go. He called the governor Jim Walls. That's weird.
So we are to believe that he's become radicalized by MAGA,
But you don't know Joe Biden's name. He got radicalized
by info Wars. That's the other one that they're citing.
He was radicalized by MAGA and info Wars. Federal prosecutors
charged this fifty seven year old shooter with murder and stalking,
which could result in a death penalty if convicted. He
already faces state charges including murder and attempted murder at
a federal court hearing monday in Saint Paul, the Maniac
said he could not afford an attorney, but because he
spent all of his money on all of the weapons,
and apparently he bought a car off a guy at
a bus stop, like what oh, and an e bike
from one guy. One guy's got a buick and an
e bike and he's hanging out at a bus stop
and you bought them from him. It's weird. A federal
public defender was appointed to represent him, and he was
being held without bail pending a court appearance next week.
As for the quote manifesto, there isn't a manifesto, not
that anybody has found. There was the hit list, not
a manifesto. Authorities have not found any writings that would
clearly identify what motivated him, although the targets were all
Democrat elected officials, so it seems like that might have
something to do with it. All Right, if you're listening
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more transparent. Associated Press story on the maniac in Minnesota
that assassinated two people, tried to kill even more, wounded
two others. I'm not giving his name because I don't
I don't elevate shooters and homicidal maniacs. I don't give
them the thing that they want, which is the recognition.
So there's some pieces of the story that are weird
to me. I already outlined a couple of them. It's
too soon to speculate on the actual motive. But even
when we hear what this guy's rationalizations or justifications are there,
I always say this when you know, with all of
these shootings, is that rational, logical, decent people always ask
the why because we cannot understand why somebody would do
something like this, and you are often dealing with a
deranged mind, and so their excuses, their manifestos, whatever, they
don't make sense because they are deranged. I say it
in every one of these cases. I mean to think
about what you have to what kind of frame of
mind you have to have to walk up to somebody's home,
ring the bell and just murder them, and then getting
your car, drive to another house and attempt to do
the same thing, and then drive in a car to
another house and attempt to do it again Like that
is not what a rational, decent, sane person does. Right,
So we're trying to understand this, but we never truly
can because this is evil. This is derangement. Okay, So
all of the politicians that were named on this guy's
hit list were Democrats, including more than forty five state
and federal officials in Minnesota, also Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
So there were a bunch of these lawmakers all over
these four states. The maniac sent a text to a
family group chat after the shootings, So I guess at
this point he's on the run and he's texting in
the group chat with his family and he says, quote,
dad went to war last night. I don't want to
say more because I don't want to implicate anybody. His
wife got another text that then said, words are not
gonna explain how sorry I am for this situation. There
you go. See, this is just this is just a
situation that fell to him. He has no agency, right,
sorry for the situation. No, no, no, you're sorry for
putting your family in harm's way because they could be
shot and killed by law enforcement trying to talk to them.
Right if they think that there's a threat there with
your family members, if they're all in on it or something.
He says, there's going to be some people coming to
the house armed and trigger happy, and I don't want
you guys around. Police later found his wife in a
car with her children. Officers found two handguns, about ten
grand in cash, and passports for the wife and her children,
so they were looking to flee. Now, the law enforcement
agents did talk to her and they took them into custody,
I think for a little while. They interviewed them, and
then they released them. So it does not appear that
law enforcement believes that they had any knowledge ahead of
time that this was coming. They just happened to be
ready to roll with ten grand in cash and their passports.
Just hours after the shootings, the maniac bought an electronic bike,
an e bike, and a Buick Sedan from somebody he
met at a bus stop in Minneapolis. How what you
just go to catch a bus because I guess you've
abandoned your fake police cruiser. That's the other thing too.
Did nobody realize that he had equipped that vehicle with
the police lights on it? That's odd, right, you're telling me,
no acquaintance, his roommate, friend, his wife and kids. Nobody
thought that was odd. Why is hey? Why is dad
assembling an arsenal and rigging up his suv to make
it look like a police cruiser and then he ends
up at a bus stop in Minneapolis talking to some
random person who happens to be in the market to
sell a buick Sedan and an e bike. What are
the odds? Police found the sedan abandoned on a highway
Sunday morning. In that car, officers found a cowboy hat
that the Maniac had been seen wearing in surveillance footage,
as well as a letter written to the FBI. And
the letter said it was written by doctor Maniac, except
he misspelled his own last name. That's kind of weird.
Why would you have misspelled your own name? And are
you a doctor? No? I think he paid one of
these diploma mills or something to get his to get
some certificate. But whatever, But it's weird that he would
use a last name, he would sign a last name
and misspell it. But again, we're dealing with a deranged mind.
So who knows in his mind if he did it
on per who knows? Maybe I don't know, That's what
I'm saying. I don't know. This is a weird piece
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writings recovered from the fake police vehicle up in Minnesota
included the names of lawmakers and community leaders, along with
abortion rights advocates and information about health care facility abortion clinics. Okay,
that's healthcare facilities. They're abortion clinics. This is according to
two law enforcement officials who spoke to the Associated Press
on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to
discuss details of an ongoing investigation. Friends and former colleagues
interviewed by the Associated Press described the maniac as a
devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to
campaign rallies for President Donald Trump. He also is a
former political appointee who served on the same state Workforce
Development Board as one of the victims that he shot,
though it's not clear if they actually knew each other. Now,
what the Associated Press leaves out in that last sentence
is that he was a former political appointee. That is true,
but he was appointed by Governor Tim Walls. Now that
doesn't mean that Tim Walls knew the guy. Right. The
governor makes appointments to all sorts of things, and maybe
there weren't a lot of people interested in serving on
this Workforce Development board, and he submitted an application, and
somebody in some office said, Okay, yeah, we need to
put you know, some Republicans on there, some Democrats on there, whatever,
and they put him on there. Like I'm not I
don't assign any blame to Tim Walls for the actions
of this maniac. I don't hold people accountable for things
they did not do. David Strom, I think this is who. Yeah,
David Strom over at hotair dot com. He says, my
own impression is that the maniac is a man with
big dreams and small accomplishments. He has portrayed himself as
a mover and a shaker, and he has wheedled his
way onto government commissions appointments by Democratic governors Mark Dayton
and Tim Walls. But it's pretty clear that he's all
hat and no cattle. His family business is called Praetorian
Security Services. At this point, it looks like it never
had any customers, but that's unconfirmed too. He bragged about
having executive level positions in the food industry, but not
so long ago. He was just a manager at a
seven to eleven and until February he was working at
a funeral home removing bodies. He was also the CEO
of an NGO non government organization, but it's unclear what
exactly that means. He was, we are told, helping the
Democratic Republic of Congo with agricultural issues, but there's almost
no paper trail outside of his claims. There is video
of the Maniac in the Congo, but that was part
of him preaching to a crowd about Christianity. Say so,
not really sure like what the work he was doing
there was it agricultural related? His resume, in other words,
reads to me like he is a loser, a man
whose aspirations far outstripped his abilities. He wanted to change
the world and found that the world wasn't that interested
in his ideas for changing it. He seemed to have
bounced around quite a bit, always looking to strike it
big and rubbing up against some important people, but never
hitting it big himself. Now, to be clear and Strong
points this out, this could all be a misreading of
these snippets of information. There's so little hard information that
it's difficult to kind of make an assessment at this
early stage. Inevitably the picture will solidify over the next
days and weeks. I just saw also that a mayoral
candidate for New York City just went and got himself
arrested at an Ice immigration court. So this is now
arrest theater. I think I've seen it called busted theater.
This is what Democrats are now reduced to doing, is
showing up and trying to obstruct federal law enforcement from
enforce the law. This is part of the permission structure
for violence. And the left doesn't see it like that.
I understand that they don't. This is resistance, any resistance
against the Orange Man, just this war and that sob Johnson,
you know. But this is all part and parcel of
the same permission structure. Jesus Mesa had a piece at
newsweek dot Com a couple of days ago. This would
have been before the Minnesota attacks. He says, while right
wing extremism is regularly dissected and denounced in mainstream media,
conservatives have long complained that political violence from the left
regularly receives less scrutiny or is reframed entirely to dismiss
the perpetrator's progressive views. This perceived imbalance has fueled a
growing belief, often discussed on conservative sub breddits or right
leaning substacks and on Twitter formerly known as x that
left wing violence is minimized or rationalized, while right wing
violence is amplified and condemned. The Network Contagion Research Institute
the NCRII this is a nonpartisan organization that studies the
spread of hate, manipulation, and extremism across digital platforms. The
NCRI has raised these very concerns. Based out of Rutgers University,
the group uses machine learning and data analytics to identify
emerging threats and ideological patterns online. Max Hoorder of the
NCRI said quote, we are witnessing the alarming rise of
what the NCRI calls an assassination culture. Violence targeting figures
like Donald Trump or Elon Musk has gone beyond normalization.
It's being sanctified as re existence by parts of the
political left. And here's the thing. Crazy people, deranged people,
right when when you create the permission structure, it's not
contained just to the left. It spreads beyond any political
ideology because they are deranged. The people who are carrying
these things out are deranged and so when they see that,
oh well this is acceptable. Oh I'm seeing this these
surveys that democrats are fine with, you know, taking out
various political leaders. That was what the polling showed, which
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Network Contagion Research Institute the NCRII based out of Rutgers University,
says we're witnessing the alarming rise of what we call
assassination culture. It's being sanctified as resistance, mainly by parts
of the political left. The NCRI rose to prominence in
recent years due to its prescient early warnings about far
right radicalization, including the growth of the QAnon conspiracy theory
and the risk of political violence, leading up to the
certification of the election. On January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Joel Finkelstein, co founder of the NCRI, recalled in an
interview with Newsweek, quote they weren't an accident. They didn't
come out of nowhere. They were inevitable. Now the group
is raising similar concerns, this time about rhetoric emerging from
the opposite end of the political spectrum. These aren't fringe
beliefs anymore. They're creeping into the mainstream of activist discourse.
A recent survey conducted by the NCRI found that nearly
one third of respondents expressed some level of justification for
acts of lethal political violence, with significantly higher support among
those identifying as left of center. Fifty six percent of
those respondents said murdering Donald Trump would be at least
somewhat justified. Fifty percent said the same about Elon Musk.
That's a problem. The poll also found forty percent of
all respondents believed it was at least somewhat acceptable to
destroy a Tesla dealership because you don't like Elon. Support
rose to nearly sixty percent of those who identified as
left of center. Think about that, sixty percent left of
center people say it's okay to destroy a car dealership
because you don't like somebody's politics. You don't like Elon Musk.
They have a different idea of how to make the
country stronger and become fiscally sound. How dare you? The
poll also found, oh sorry, I already did that. Part.
Ncri's analysis, based on troves of social media data, reveals
how fringe internet culture has helped build what the group
calls permission structures for violence. These are social environments online
or offline where violent acts are no longer condemned, but
tacitly accepted, if not outright and encouraged. I just mentioned
it the mayor now or the mayoral candidate New York
City getting arrested for trying to guy locked arms with
an illegal alien that they were trying to take into
custody at an immigration court. And so this mayoral candidate
shows up there, locks arms with him and then resists
the arrest. He got arrested. Also, right, you got Padilla
storming a news conference. He had Congresswoman mac Ivor right,
assaulting Ice officials at the detention facility. Right. The rise
of these protests and the violence that we are seeing,
it's all part of the same permission structure. And again,
the issue never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.
It's to tear down the infrastructure of the Western civilization project.
Finkelstein said, It's not about who pulls the trigger. It's
about who stays silent, who reposts a meme, who says
nothing when someone jokes about killing a billionaire. That's how
the corridor to violence gets built. One example, obviously, the
shooter of the United Healthcare CEO. He says they were
acting within a worldview that told them these killings would
be celebrated and online they were. Left wing extremism is
often overlooked, said Jacob Goule, the director of policy and
Research at the Institute for a Strategic Dialogue. He says
it's overlooked in part because the worst state abuses and
non state violence associated with proponents of communist and socialist
ideologies happened several decades ago. Some actors on the broader
far left continue to carry out or support acts of
political violence and terrorism right, so it's sort of like
an echo from the past. Peter turch In, a University
of Connecticut professor leading theorists of structural demographic cycles, said,
quote right wing violence is emphasized by mainstream media because
it's perceived as an existential threat to the ruling regime,
whereas left wing violence is often seen as less threatening,
sometimes even as a counterweight to the right. See there's
a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I had to murder somebody.
According to Turchin, this perception gap is no accident. Quote.
Narratives around political violence are shaped not just by the
acts themselves, but by the stories that elites and counter
elites build around them. Both he and one of the
founders of the NCRI, mister Horter, agreed that instances of
political violence, wherever they come I'm from, perpetuate a cycle
which each side accuses the other of hypocrisy while excusing
the bad actors on their own extremes. I think that
is exactly right. It is exactly right, which is why
when you hear the details coming out of Minnesota, right
and you're like, oh, if he's going to be on
the right, that's one of my guys. Do not excuse
that behavior. That is the path to civilizational destruction. All right.
That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
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