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 dpeaklendershow 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. So at the end of the last hour
there I started on a bit of a tirade about
Sheriff Gary not my fault, McFadden, yet another example of
him not cooperating fully with ICE, playing little cutesy games,
little clever, too clever by half. You know, another illegal
alien that was sought to be detained by ICE, he
released back out because the letter of the law does
it require me to you know, whole him. He posted
bail and ICE already knew, and so you know they
want to if they want to cooperate, you know, they
they could call me. And then he goes on to
say that, you know, deporting illegal aliens is not a
solution to the problem, Like and there's the problem, right,
there's his ideology trumping public safety. He says, it makes
our community less safe, which is absurd. Right, If you've
got a violent offender behind bars and you let him
back out into the community, that does not make the
community more safe. Maybe Tom Holman will turn his gaze
towards Charlotte. I got a couple of messages here and
this is from app patriot girl. If Charlotte voters had
any sense, I'm gonna stop you right there. No, if
Charlotte voters had any sense, they would realize how dangerous
it is to leave a psychopath in Charle to the
sheriff's office. Unfortunately, Mecklinberg County is hopeless in this regard.
We can only hope that Tom Holman arrests him. Yeah, maybe,
like I welcome, I welcome Tom Holman and Department of
Homeland Security to turn its eyes to Mecklenburg County. Gary says,
if Mecklenburg and North Carolina Democrats are covering for McFadden,
what else are they currently hiding or covering for, or
are willing to do. That's the question that people need
to start asking Democrats. They sure don't care about the
safety of Charlotte and North Carolina citizens. Well, see, Gary,
there's the first problem is that you're assuming that people
will start asking Democrats questions. And that's part of the
big D shield. By holding that by being a Democrat,
you get this shield and it protects you from questions
from the me like that, right, like this should be
another and look to be fair, this story has been
covered in the local media, but what it lacks is
the constant what they call pack journalism, where you know,
a scandal breaks of some kind and then the pack
of reporters proceed to you know, nip at the heels
of not just the target of the scandal or the
person involved in the scandal, but then also the defend
and disavow game D and D, where you run around
and you start asking questions of all of these other people, like,
for example, the district attorney, like for example, the chief judge,
the superior court judge. Right, you start asking these questions
of state lawmakers, Hey, what's going on with this guy?
Is there anything you can do here with Like what
do you think about this fellow Democrat state lawmaker? And
you start getting these people to defend or disavow and
get them on the record. But we don't get that.
We get the isolated story, and then it goes away.
And then after a month or two, Gary McFadden shows
his butt at some other event or something goes off
on some tirade, a bunch of more people quit accuse
him of maladministration, which is a reason to remove him
from office. But it has to be done a certain way,
and Democrats can do that, but they refuse to do it.
Nobody seems interested and maybe he doesn't seem interested in
asking these questions of like every other person that can
affect that kind of a change. Oh well, we're just
gonna have to wait till the next election, is what
they're saying, even though I welcome, like the Charlotte Observer
editorial board finally came around and said, yeah, he's not
fit for the office. I concur but they they offered
no remedy. They didn't go and ask anybody who has
the authority and power to actually investigate and get him
removed for maladministration. They're not doing that, and nobody's asking
them why there's no pressure being brought to bear. In
a related story up in New York, there is a
case that was heard or arguments were heard in a
case that would or would not allow non citizens to
vote in New York City elections. Now they always want
to point out that, no, no, it's not for presidential races.
This is not for congressional races, right, this is just
for or statewide races. It's just for the city elections.
New York is what's called a home rule state, so
the local cities have a lot more power to write
their own laws, basically to govern themselves without a lot
of intervention or approval from the state. North Carolina is
not a home rule state, although Republicans wished it was
when they were in the minority in the legislature, and
now that they control the legislature now Democrats wish it
is a home rule state, but it's not. It's sometimes
referred to as a Dylan's rule state or a Mother
may I state where if you want to do anything,
you got to go to the state legislature. The state
government is the seminal authority, all right, if that is
where all authority the state. The state can disband a
city if it chooses. They can literally take your charter
and throw it away and say you are no longer
an incorporated city. You are no longer a town or
whatever they can do that the state has all of
the power. So what is the City of New York doing?
And why does this matter to North Carolinians? I will explain.
Eight hundred thousand non citizens in New York City could
be voting in the next city election. The court is
considering a law that would allow them to register to
vote ahead of the city's elections. A top New York
court is set to hear arguments or did hear arguments
this week after an appellate court struck down Democrats' efforts
to permit non citizens to vote last year. Like, why
is this so important of an issue for Democrats? Why
do you think they're pushing so hard to get eight
hundred thousand non citizens to vote in their city elections?
I think maybe some people may think that their electoral
prospects are improved if the initiative by Democrats' success is successful.
Around eight hundred thousand non citizens living in the city
will be allowed to vote in city level elections, including
the upcoming mayoral election. Ooh, do you think that might
have something to do with it? Do you think there
might be some urgency now that Mayor Adams Eric Adams
has gotten his DOJ charges dropped in exchange for cooperating
with the federal government on immigration enforcement, which, by the way,
that whole thing stinks. That whole deal stinks to me.
Advocates of the legislation that would let non citizens cast
votes are arguing that these residents are being unfairly taxed,
which I kind of feel like is a lie, because
if they're non citizens, they're not paying taxes out of
citizen They probably don't even you have no you have
no Social Security number? Right, you're not filing taxes. Why
is this important? Well? North Carolinians were presented with this
very issue recently. Do you remember. If not, I shall
refresh your memory. All right, I hope you had a
happy holiday season, But tell me if something like this
happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around,
maybe y'all are in the living room, You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing,
and then somebody says, hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes?
Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room
gets all quiet. All eyes are on Dad, who says, oh,
you know, well, I've been meaning too, but I just
having gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless
memories sit in a box for another year. All right.
Create a Video has been helping families in the Charlotte
area preserve their history since nineteen ninety seven. Simply bring
in your old camquarter to apes and Creative Video will
transfer them to a USB flash drive for just fourteen
ninety five per tape. You have a big collection, They've
got a discount for you. And next year, instead of
talking about those memories, imagine gathering the family to watch
them together. Talk about a memorable gift. So do what
I did. Trust the experts at Creative Video, conveniently located
in mint Hill right off I four eighty five and
online at create avideo dot com. So, the New York Court,
the highest court in New York, if I remember correctly
from my New York Civics education growing up on Long Island,
is the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court is not
actually like the Supreme Court, if I remember correctly, it's
it's been a while, so I just remember it being
a weird like inversion. So anyway, but the top court
in the state heard these oral arguments about whether or
not the City of New York can grant voting rights
to non citizens in city elections. Okay, Now, if this
issue sounds familiar, it's because in North Carolina in November,
we the voters were asked whether we would like to
amend our state constitution to forbid non citizen voting in
North Carolina at any level, and if you may recall,
we said yes, we would very much like to ban that.
And so we approved and the constitution was amended, and
so now non citizens do not get to vote. Now
do you remember what the arguments were from the Democrats
who were opposed to this measure. It was they already
can't vote based on federal law. That was their argument.
This is unnecessary, We don't need to put this in
our constitution because federal law already prohibits non citizen voting.
And that is true. Federal law does do that, but
it doesn't apply to local races. And so the Republicans
in charge of the legislature made it very clear that
the reason they are doing this and they're asking voters
to enshrine it in the state constitution, is to prevent
cities run by Democrats like Charlotte, Raleigh, Ashville, Durham, Chapel Hill,
to prevent cities from doing something stupid like New York
City has done. So this was this was heading them
off at the pass, if you will. This was a
preemptive act because all it takes is the legislature to
flip to be Democrat controlled, and you would see local
jurisdictions move in this direction. This has already been occurring
across the country. There are other cities that have done it,
other states that have done this, and so North Carolina
Republican said, we don't want this to occur. And so
rather than just rely on the current law as it
is and the current language in the state constitution, We're
going to make it very clear to future Democrats that no,
you cannot do this, and the people do not want it.
And so we make it a constitutional provision, and you
do that, so it is much harder to unwind. You
make it that much harder to overturn. You're going to
have to then repeal a constitutional amendment in the same
way that we just passed it. You're going to have
to go back to the voters and ask them. Now,
maybe at some point in the future, a majority of
North Carolina voters are like, yes, we would love for
non citizens to vote in our elections. What could go wrong?
They're just as invested in our society as citizens are, right, Yeah,
there are. Look, there's a reason why I don't make
the arguments of the left. It's because I find them
to be lacking in logic, right So, and that's why
I have empathy for people who attempt to make those
arguments to me in debate. I do. I have empathy
because like man, that must really stink trying to make
these arguments. I wouldn't be able to do it, and
obviously they they don't fare much better when they try.
That's the reason. This is the reason why. So we'll
see what North Carol, or we'll see what New York
City and the State of New York decides to do
there with allowing non citizens to vote. But you know,
we should be encouraged. We can take comfort in the
fact that we the people decided no, and we have
enshrined it in the constitution. So we should not be
seeing this kind of dumbassary in our state anytime soon.
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.
Got a message here on Twitter at Pete Callner from
RUSS who says, regarding Sheriff Gary, not my fault, McFadden.
You know when it comes to immigration, Well, that's not
specifically in the law. But when it comes to firearms
permits and renewals, well I have to run it through
every conceivable database to make sure where everything is covered. Right,
So there he takes an expansive view. It's exactly right, Russ.
On the concealed carry permits, he takes this expansive view,
but on the immigration issue, very very narrow. Right. We
all know what his game is, sociopathy. I'm not a
clinical psychiatrist, I'm I hold no degree. I am simply observing.
So the other day, the Associated Press, by the way,
had a story with this catastrophizing headline, Trump and Musk's
dismantling of government. They're dismantling government. Did you know that?
That's what they were doing. They're dismantling government. It's shaking
the foundations of US democracy. So this was before, by
the way, this story predates the constitutional crisis narrative and
the talking point that went out on that that everybody
is now obviously regurgitating. So this was them trying to
shoehorn the democracy argument. This is a piece by Lisa Mascaero. Mascao.
Congress is proving little match for Doge as wary lawmakers
watch it march through the bureaucracy. Instead, a rush of
lawsuits is demanding interventions to stop the Republican president's team
from unilaterally gutting government, and protests are erupting outside government
agencies and clogging the congressional phone lines, which that that
would be as planned by the ministerial class and their
shock troops. Right, but they are ineffective. Right. People are
not moved by bureaucrats marching on government buildings. We're not, like, seriously,
we don't care. I think you got have I think
overestimated the value of government bureaucracies. I know they're super
important to you. It's where your base is. I get it.
But outside of your base, most people like, we're like,
now they're going into the IRS. Did you see that
dough just now moving into the IRS to look at
their stuff? And the IRS is like, you can't possibly
audit us? Oh oh really? Oh sorry, standard disclaimer. I
love the IRS and everybody that works there. They do
fantastic work and are underappreciated by every American. Now that
being said, I do find it a bit difficult to
believe that there would be a problem auditing an organization,
particularly when that organization specializes in auditing. Right, what have
you got to worry about? Do you have seven years
of all of your receipts for us to look at?
Elon Musk is rapidly consolidating control over large swaths of
the federal government. He's not. Elon Musk is not controlling
the federal government. Okay, they are like, this is the
This is the recon folks. In case you are unaware,
this is how you you would go about making the
larger cuts and doing them permanently through congressional acts. You
have to first scout out to see where the problems are.
That's how they got turned onto USAID in the first place.
They were the ones that squawked the loudest and refused
to cooperate. Right, pushed a whole bunch of money out
the door. By the way, have you heard this one? Also?
Fifty nine million dollars. Fifty nine million dollars went from
FEMA to the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City for
migrant housing. I covered at a little bit of this yesterday.
The chief financial officer for FEMA has been fired. She
moved that money after her boss, Donald Trump said don't
do it, And she did it. She sent the money
up there in violation of the directive as articulated in
the executive order. She sent it up there anyway, FEMA money.
And maybe the people of North Carolina, me being one
of them, maybe people with roots, family members, or who
live in western North Carolina may have a bit of
a sensitivity to this in seeing the way FEMA and
the previous administration didn't seem to care too much about
the devastation of Hurricane Helene there. And so when you
hear the story that we're paying fifty nine million dollars
to a hotel to put up illegal immigrants, Meanwhile, you
can't get out of a tent, you can't get FEMA
assistance after your house was wiped off the side of
a mountain in a one thousand year flood. Yeah, people
are a little they're a little salty about all of this. Oh,
and the death toll for Hurricane Helene was just revised
upward by one. There was an elderly woman who froze
to death after the storms, remember when it got really
really cold. So now she's part of the death toll.
It's outrageous. A woman died because of the in part
the storm obviously, but in part due to the failure
to respond in an adequate and timely way. This is
not new for FEMA either, And so when you see that,
you know about that story, You know about all the
other stories about the lack of response by FEMA or
the inadequate response by FEMA, and then you hear that
fifty nine million went to migrant housing. Yeah, people are
a little upset. So Elon Musk with Donald Trump's approval, Well,
that seems important right him being the president in charge
of the executive branch for which you work, Like you
work for the executive branch, you are in that administration
sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases, and dismantling
a leading source of humanitarian assistance. There's the poster child, right,
the mott in the Matin Bailey fallacy right. Who could
be against humanitarian assistants? I don't know, do I have to?
By the way, pep far that's for the AIDS funding
in Africa that George W. Bush initiated, successful program. That
funding was reinstated like almost immediately. But USAID they had
this hearing yesterday and they outlined where this money is
going and the list is obnoxious, absolutely obnoxious. So rather
than telling me, oh, it's for humanitarian assistance, I don't know,
how about eleven point seventy five million to measure the
effectiveness of DEI promotion efforts in Nepal or seven hundred
fifty thousand on Princeton University DEI survey in the Middle East.
Eight hundred and fifty nine grand on hiring a DEI
specialist at USAID eight hundred and fifty nine thousand dollars
to hire somebody a DEI specialist, twenty three thousand on
hosting DEI recruitment seminars in San Martin, Ikitos and Lima, Peru.
Half a million on emergency DEI support. It's like, oh
my gosh, we have a DEI emergency. We need some
money for this. Here's half a million. See. So is
that all humanitarian assistants or maybe the agency has become
a wee bit corrupted. 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 Ashville 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 her text eight two eight, three, six,
seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is
to offer at Cabins of Ashville dot com and make
memories that'll last a lifetime. The Associated Press in this
story about how Trump and Musk are dismantling government, it's
shaking the foundations of US democrase. They have a quote
from Chuck Schuma. Whatever DOJE is doing, it is certainly
not what democracy looks like. That's not a good Chuck
Schumer impression. I recognize, Okay. He goes on to say
in a post on Elon Musk's Twitter, he says, an
the unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of
the federal government. And I agree, Chuck, I agree, except
the shadow government is USAID and the NGOs that our
government bureaucracies have been funding. See the Mass Institute. They said,
the establishment's problem with Elon Musk is not that he's
willing to upend norms and test or break rules. I
mean they have shown an enthusiastic willingness to do so themselves. No,
the establishment's problem with Elon Musk is that he is
threatening their power. He's threatening their power. Abigail Schreier, author,
She says, if your party overwhelmingly comprises the federal bureaucracy,
then you hold on to the levers of power even
through electoral loss. This has been the story of the
Democrats for my entire life. It's also the best explanation
for the democrats current desperation and hysteria. And that is
exactly right. This is just the Democrat machine at a
national level. That's all it is. If you look through
North Carolina's history, the Democrat machine that controlled our state,
it still operates. It just doesn't have the power it
used to have, but it does still operate. And that
kind of machine has been operating at the national level.
Instead of you know, patronage and spoils system jobs that
they could just give to their political allies, they fund
them through non government organizations. And I saw somebody make
a point the other day that if your a nonprofit,
if your organization cannot survive without government grants, then I
don't think you're actually a non government organization. Right, You're
not really a non government organization. You're doing something the
government wishes to do but doesn't do themselves for whatever reason. Right,
Usually they are constrained by law or pr or optics.
They don't want to be seen doing this stuff, so
they'll just throw a bunch of money at a bunch
of NGOs and then let the NGOs advance the Democrat
agenda not just in America, but overseas as well, and
in foreign countries that don't particularly want that kind of stuff.
This piece at the Associated Press by Lisa Muscaro. She
goes on to say Musk responded on his platform hysterical
reactions like this is how you know that Doge is
doing work that really matters. Now. Congress has been here before,
tested during Trump's first term by his willingness to break
the norms and skirt the outer banks of legality, most
notably when he steamrolled Congress and poached federal military housing
and construction funds to build parts of his promised wall
along the US Mexico border. But Trump's second term partnership
with Musk, who spends some two hundred million on Trump's
White House bid and employs the tech world ethos of
moving fast and breaking things, he is escalating the confrontation
on a stated quest to save money by rooting out waste,
fraud and abuse. Those monsters. They are making moves to
upend American institutions. Again. The assumption is that there is
no waste, fraud, and abuse and corruption inside of these institutions.
They seek to decimate the civil service and leave a
reformed or hollowed out federal government in its place. There
is actually a term for this, it's called limited government.
Limited government. And I don't know if you guys on
the left have just been like purposefully ignoring what half
of the country thinks about the size and scope of government.
But limited government is sort of a cornerstone to to
conservatism libertarianism. There are a lot of people that don't
want gov. Co Doing all of the stuff that it does.
Right like this is this should not come as a
shock unless, of course, you've been living in an echo chamber,
which a lot of people on the left do. People
on the right do as well, but they are never
reinforced by the idea that all of these legacy media
outlets are telling them the truth. Right there's there's no
you know, seal of authority that is bestowed by you know,
the New York Times and the Associated Press here and
the major news outlets, the traditional legacy outlets, right like
that gives this sort of appearance of credentials like this
is the official right position to have. And then by
ignoring what half the country thinks about the size and
scope of government, Now you may be very well surprised
to learn that when we said we want limited government,
we want to reduce the size of the government. You
may not have known that, or maybe you thought we
were kidding or something, but we weren't. I wasn't. Most
people I know that are for limited government are not
kidding about that. Now, Congress should do this, but Congress won't.
And all of this is based on an assumption that
all of the spending is legitimate, all of it. Why otherwise,
why would you be upset if they're trying to find waste, fraud,
and abuse Because you control the levers of power and
this is it. This is where that power is seated.
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 thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much
for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.