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
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. So the NASCAR world, but also North Carolina
in general. Is morning after yesterday's crash of a private
jet at the Statesville Regional Airport. We covered this live
as it was occurring yesterday on the show. It was
very early on identified as a business jet that was
owned by NASCAR driver Greg Biffle. GB Aviation Lease Sing
I believe, is the name of the company. What appears
according to like flight tracker apps that are out there,
I think flight aware is one. It appears that the
plane was taking off and then may have attempted to
turn back. It crashed and nobody survived. Seven people died
on that plane. Biffle was one. His wife, Christina Grossu
was also on the plane. She perished as did two
of their children, Emma and Ryder. Emma Elizabeth she was
born in twenty eleven. Emma was the daughter of Greg
Biffle and his first wife, Nicole Lunders. Which I think,
you know a lot of people may not, you know,
have thought about this, but it like there's a mom
that lost her her young daughter in this crash yesterday,
and our hearts are broken for her and our prayers
for comfort go out to her as well as the
entire Biffel family, the Lunders family. Obviously rider Jack Biffle,
he was just five, He just turned five years old.
Also killed in the crash. Dennis Dutton was a pilot.
I'm assuming that he was flying the plane, I assume,
but I don't know that to be the case, but
I assume he was flying. Not only was he killed,
but also his son Jack, so Dennis the father. He
was an international, a three point thirty captain at Delta,
and a retired US Air Force Reserves pilot officer. Jack
Dutton recently became an instrument rated private pilot ASEL. According
to his LinkedIn profile, he was a flight student at Auburn.
He graduated from Huff High in Cornelius, near Davidson, and
then the seventh victim, Craig Wadsworth, who was a beloved
member of the NASCAR community. According to a statement from NASCAR,
uh he drove the motor coach of NASCAR reporter and
former driver Kenny Wallace. So this is a pretty common
gig for drivers like this, not for the race car drivers,
but you know, to go from place to place, they're
you know, they're they're bringing their vehicles and they've got
motor homes, and so they're they're traveling, you know, in
a large you know, maybe a convoy of vehicles or whatever,
and so they hire drivers to drive their motor i'ms
actually know somebody in my neighborhood who does this, and uh,
you know, so they just they drive these different teams
around and so and so it's, as you might imagine,
it's a kind of a small world, small industry. Everybody
kind of knows each other. And this guy was apparently,
you know, just a great guy to work with and
to be around. And so again, as I said yesterday,
if you are of the praying sort, please say a
prayer for all of these families that lost their loved
ones in this you know, horrific plane crash. It's just
awful and made, you know, compounded by the fact that
it's a week before Christmas, and so it's as I
was talking about it this morning with a when I
was on a radio show up in Raleigh in Greensboro,
and you know, it's a it's it's a good reminder to,
you know, cherish the moments that we have now with
the people that we love, because this life is fleeting.
You know, you never know, this could be the last
Christmas that you are with your family, so you know,
be grateful for that. And I will tell you that, like,
this is something that I've been trying to focus on
myself for a while now, which is to to recognize
the things as they are happening and be grateful for
the things as they are happening. To have that gratitude.
And I will tell you that I feel like I'm
a happier person because I'm identifying these things, right, I
recognize that I have gratitude for this and I and
I consciously think of it, and becomes easier the more
you do it, the more you kind of train yourself
to say, you know, it's not and it's it's not
this thing like, oh well, at least blah blah blah.
You know, it's not like you're trying to always see
the bright side of everything. Lord knows, if you listen
to this show, you know that I don't always see
the bright side of everything, but I do try to
to reckon nice things that I'm grateful for, like being here,
being on the radio, being healthy, right, having healthy family members.
These are things that I am grateful for. I'm grateful
for you. The fact that anybody is willing to turn
on a radio station and listen to me. I don't
know why, so I'm supremely grateful for that. I'm grateful
for the people that have allowed me to do this
because I enjoy doing it. I love doing it, and
I'm grateful for for you being there and listening to
the show. I'm grateful for my co workers, and I'm
grateful for the advertisers that's that that support the station.
They keep us employed as well. So I think if you,
if you try to to fill your heart and mind
with the things that you are grateful for, I think
you're going to be happier. And I'm just speaking from
my own experience. I feel happier now than I used
to in the past. And I really do think that
finding the things to be grateful for, I think that
that acts as an antidote for a lot of the
stuff going on that's driving a lot of our animosity
in the public discourse, right because a lot of that
stuff is rooted in envy. I feel like, and it's
hard to be envious when you're grateful for the stuff
that you have, for the people you know and have
in your life. You know, like, when you're identifying the
things that you're grateful for, you become happier and you
become more satisfied than constantly looking outward and saying, oh,
look at that person, they got this stuff, and that
envy kind of just it's corrosive, you know, and it
just eats away at you. Also, our our prayers are
with the Hunt family. Former governor of North Carolina Jim Hunt.
This is the write up on his passing. He was
eighty eight. He passed away in WRAL reported that Jim Hunt,
who redefined the office of governor in North Carolina, championed
public education and helped focus the state's economy on high
tech industries. Former Governor Jim Hunt was the only four
term governor in North Carolina history. He helped push through
amendments to the state constitution that allowed governors to serve
consecutive terms because when he first got elected, there was
only you could only do one term four years. So
we changed that and so that allowed him to run
for reelection and then after that he ran for US Senate,
lost to Jesse Helms. Then he comes back runs for
governor again as another two terms, so he's a four
term governor. Nobody has done it since. He also pushed
for the adoption of a constitutional amendment to give the
governor's veto power, but not for redistricting maps. They didn't
give him that one. He never did use the veto himself.
But he was also a big champion of education and
making North Carolina a tech hub as well. We'll get
into more of Jim Hunt's legacy in a bit and
get to some other details here about Greg Biffle in
a moment.
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dot com. Mary says, yes, pe cherish, cherish the time
that you have with your family. I know sometimes some
of your family members can make it difficult. I know
that Don and Kelly, thank you. We're grateful for you.
I'm grateful for you as well. You and Kelly and
Shannon says, cherish every moment we are so blessed. Enjoy
your vacation and Merry Christmas to you and yours. Thank you, Shannon,
appreciate it. I am off next week. I'll be back
the week after, so that's December twenty ninth through New Year.
We are off on New Year's Day, but like I'm
gonna be working that week, so I may very well
be just like cutting up a podcast or something and
pushing it out, so be on the lookout for that.
I did get a message here from Jim regarding Greg Biffel.
The number of NASCAR aviation related deaths is significant. I
was at the Martinsville race when Ricky Hendrick crashed and
root don't leave out Curtis Turner, an iconic driver. He
died in nineteen seventy and a plane crash on the
way to the Charlotte five hundred mile race. I'm old
enough to remember the kerfuffle with he and his business
partners over CMS Charlotte Motorspeedway in the sixties. I was
living in South Charlotte then as a bully, and my
father would take me to CMS for qualifying. Why is
Turner significant? Turner conceptualized, secured financing for, and built Charlotte
Motor Speedway in nineteen sixty before being forced out by
his business partners. That's interesting, I did not know that. Yeah,
And somebody else was asking when I was chatting with
Casey O. Day this morning on his program, and we
talked a little bit about this, like why are there
so many of these famous people that die in these
types of you know, horrific plane crashes or helicopter crashes.
And I think the answer is that they have the
means to fly in them more often, and so those
are generally going to be the people that are probably
more well known, you know. Regarding the passing of former
Governor Jim Hunt eighty eight years old, wrl's story. Following
in the footsteps of progressive Democrats like former Governors KERR.
Scott and Terry Sandford, Hunt pushed an agenda heavy on
improving education, cleaning up government, and expanding the state's economy.
As his first act in office, he ordered high level
appointees to sign a code of ethics that required disclosure
of financial interests. He also purged Republicans from the upper
ranks of state agencies, clearing the way to appoint supporters
who could carry out his proposals. So what wil is
talking about there is what has been referred to as
the Christmas Massacre. He fired a bunch of Republicans out
of state government so he could put his own people
in charge if you want. By the way, if you
want to learn about North Carolina's politics, there's a book
by Rob Christensen. And Rob used to be a columnist
at the Raleigh News and Observer. Some people refer to
him as Rob real who Christensen because despite the fact
that he was, you know, a super connected columnist at
the News and Observer in Raleigh, he somehow never could
figure out how John Edwards or whether he was, you know,
cheating on his wife having the affair and then had
the daughter with his mistress, Reel Hunter at the time
while he was running for president and vice president.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It was only after Edwards lost all of those races
that then it came out. I think the National Inquirer
broke the story, which was pretty embarrassing for all of
the North Carolina political press corps that never could suss
this out, despite the fact that Reel Hunter was at
all of these campaign events and stuff. So anyway, but
the book that he wrote is called The Paradox of
tarheel politics and Rob's politics leaned to the left, and
you can see some of that in the book, but
it is a it is a very thorough historical rundown
of the politicians and the machines that ran North Carolina
for the better part of two hundred years. And in
chapter seven it's called Jim Hunt and the Democratic Revival.
The Democrats survived by becoming ideological centrists and artful coalition builders.
This was because Republican Governor Jim Martin had won and
he was a Republican, and so you saw other southern
states that started that started to go for Republicans, and
so Democrats shifted to win the backing of African Americans,
teachers groups, and party liberals. The Democratic candidates pushed education
improvements and supported black initiatives. To hold the support of
moderates of both parties, the Democrats allied themselves with business
and they pushed economic development and stressed law and order
issues such as support for the death penalty. This has
prompted people to wonder if Jim Hunt were to run
for office today, what would he run as? And I
don't find like I understand it's an interesting thought experiment,
but he was of a different time, and so I
have no idea. Nobody could know he would be a
different He would be a product of a different environment, right.
And when he came up, the political power was in
the Democrat Party, and he built a machine that was
very effective in keeping Democrats in power. So yeah, I
mean parties adopt and discard various planks from their platform
over decades and such, So I don't know what he
would be now, but he was a lifelong Democrat. They
largely avoided devisive cultural issues and attempted to put distance
between themselves and the national Party. And maybe there is
some advice there that the current Democrat Party could use.
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So more on former uh Yeah. Former Governor Jim Hunt
passed away. He was eighty eight years old. After he
had secured the constitutional amendment allowing a second term, he
ran again, becoming the first two term governor. He won
that in a landslide against State Senator I Beverly Lake Junior.
After focusing on the electronics industry during his first term
because he got the micro Electronics Center of North Carolina
now known as MCNC in Research Triangle Park, which then
acted as a catalyst for area universities and such private
private investment and the like. Then in his second term,
he turned his attention to growing the life sciences industry.
After that term was up, then he uh ran for
US Senate to challenge US Senator Jesse Helms, who was
seeking a third term in Congress. He did not win
that race. He thought he could because he had won
so you know, resoundingly in his runs for governor. This
is why even today when people don't understand, how is
it that we have two Republican senators and a Democrat
governor like well, this has been the pattern in North
Carolina for decades, like fifty years. So then he runs
again for governor. His third term focused on education reforms.
He defeated Lieutenant Governor Jim Gardner. The public private partnership
sends state funds to local nonprofits. This was part of
his Smart Start initiative, still in use today. It sent
state funds to local nonprofits to support pre K classes, childcare,
access to healthcare, and parenting initiatives. Again this WRIL story.
Although audits revealed financial mismanagement at some of those organizations,
no Hunt said community ownership of the program was important
to its overall success. So this model of taking taxpayer
funds and pushing them into essentially NGOs, non government organizations, right,
this model has been around for quite a while. With
support from House Republicans and Senate Democrats, he finally got
through the goobernatorial veto. Hunt also took on crime and
environmental issues in his third term. Lawmakers increased penalties on
serious crimes and created alternative schools for troubled youth and
other prevention programs during a special legislative session, and the
state placed a moratorium on new hog farms and began
annual inspections of existing ones after a big hog waste
lagoon spill. When it came time to run for a
fourth term, his focus returned to education, and he easily
defeated State Representative Robin Hayes, who went on to run
for Congress. Right and then Hunt. He was governed when
Hurricane Floyd hit, and that's actually when I started working
in the WBT newsroom. Hurricane Floyd flooded literally half the
state down east, catastrophic flood. My sister and her fiance,
they lost everything. They lost their their cars, their apartment,
her job because it got flooded out at a hotel
in Wilmington, and that forced them they moved back up
north and they've been up there ever since. And then
he left office in two thousand and one. So Governor
Jim Hunt passed away age eighty eight, and again our
prayers to him and his family. One of the things,
real quick before I'm going to take a break here
because we always bring in Britt Winnable for the pregaming
segment for the final one of the year. Actually, real quick.
Earlier I was talking about gratitude, so let me express
more gratitude to every body that helped with the Alzheimer's
Association Walk to End Alzheimer's. We raised three point three
million dollars in our state, predominantly from Charlotte eight hundred
and fifty seven thousand, Gaston, Cleveland and Lincoln one oh two,
Rohanne Caberis ninety two thousand, and Iredell and Lake Norman
seventy thousand, dollars, so half of the state total came
from our area. And as one who has been doing
this for a while and I've been begging for money
for this for the cause and walking with listeners and supporters,
thank you very very much. By the way, donations can
be received until the end of the year, so if
you want to make a donation, go to alz dot org.
Thanks again. 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 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 and what we always do Friday final segment
of the program is we Chat with Brett Winterble. You
can listen to his show on the podcasts at WBT
dot com, but also three to six every single day
live here on WBT bread winnable. Little segment we call pregaming.
How are you start?
Speaker 3: I'm well, how are you?
Speaker 1: Hang on a second? I'm well, hang on a second. Oh,
there we go. What Oh he doesn't know his numb
he's still learning. Nick is still learning.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's all right, all right, no problem.
Speaker 1: So you were just telling me before we started you
got whammed. Yeah, like two or three days ago.
Speaker 3: Two three days ago.
Speaker 1: Tell me how it happened.
Speaker 3: I was walking into a store.
Speaker 2: Actually actually actually look, Luke came back and so he
wanted to get a haircut.
Speaker 1: Luca is your son?
Speaker 3: My son and I we sat.
Speaker 2: I sat down lovingly as a father, of course, and
then the song started.
Speaker 1: That's a brutal and.
Speaker 3: So he got He got hammered too.
Speaker 1: He was collateral damagem.
Speaker 3: Wham damage dammit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So but you know what I feel like, we're free.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the I will say. Because I got
whammed over the weekend last weekend or so. Yeah, I
did self report as you require, that's correct, and I
self reported. I heard the song. Christy had a playlist
going and I was in my office doing something. I
walked into the kitchen and wham, there it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually started singing it to myself and then I went,
oh what am I doing?
Speaker 1: Does that count? What if I sing this song to myself,
does that count as getting whammed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to set up a whole new set
of rules for now.
Speaker 1: I think you need some you need some guideline.
Speaker 2: And we're gonna we're gonna have, we're gonna have, we're
gonna have treats.
Speaker 1: Yeah with it as well. Okay, yeah, well, I mean
it's like it's like the rule of law. You got
to write it down, you got it, you gotta write right. Yeah,
So speaking of the laws. What do you think about this?
From the UK Independent. A lawyer and her golden retriever
are suing the i r S. They want to get
pets classified as legal dependents so they get the tax benefits.
Speaker 3: K nine tax benefits. Is that is that a no like.
Speaker 1: The like dependent like credit tax credits like earned income
tax credit, child tax credit.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: You get the tax credits if you have dependence.
Speaker 3: Now it's a four legged creature.
Speaker 1: M okay, okay, hang on. Here's their argument. No good.
They say that the the eight year old Golden Retriever
named Finnegan, has no independent income, resides exclusively with her,
and has annual expenses exceeding five thousand dollars, which are
all the requirements for a legal human dependent under IRS rules.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, try to take that to the to the court.
Speaker 1: They did they they have?
Speaker 3: Did they prevail?
Speaker 1: Well? So the magistrate Judge J. M.
Speaker 3: Wis oh, and it's got two names like that.
Speaker 1: That's James Wix. It's James M. Wicks is overseeing the case.
He has granted a motion to pause the discovery process
because the i r S is going to file emotion
to dismiss the case. Wow. So they are it is
going it's going to get a hearing of some kind. Yep.
This actually this prompted a question in my mind, go
ahead rather than a dependent Are you the owner here
Mary Reynolds? Is she actually guilty of false imprisonment? I
could I could go for that, right, or kidnapping or
something right, because like kid napping or dog napping dog
guess whatever, the equivalent of the kidnapping is unless it's
a goat, that it would be kid would be kidnapped. Right, Absolutely,
that's a perfect sure because like think about it, like
you have the thing restrained.
Speaker 2: On a leash, right, you don't want it to get
hit by like a train or a car or or
an illegal.
Speaker 1: So you're doing it for their own good, right. But
if I were to do that with another human being,
people would say that's not allowed.
Speaker 2: San Francisco, a lot of people go around there with the.
Speaker 1: Well just in the one castro disc the whole setup,
so okay, but they have no ability to roam free.
They can't just run out and look if you let
them go, if you let them out, and like, they
can survive on their own. Dogs have survived on their own.
Cats do survive on there, and like, these animals are
able to survive on their own. So by you capturing
this animal, keeping it in your home, yes, and then
putting it on a restraint in order to let it
go out and do its business, and then taking it
back inside its captivity. Like if we're going to treat
these things as like, if you're going to make an
argument that it's at an equal level as a child,
then could it not also be at an equal level
for the kidnapping purpose?
Speaker 3: Is there a way where you could consent? Can the
dog consent? Can there be a I think so that's
a good point.
Speaker 1: I think so now that I'm thinking about it, because
I have seen quite a few videos of dogs that
rush back into their former captor's arms right when they've
been separated, the dog got lost, and then they reunite
them and the dog seems happy.
Speaker 3: True, you know what it is, Stockholm syndrome. Who's a
good boy, who's a good boy?
Speaker 1: Treats treats food tight? But I mean, yeah, so.
Speaker 3: I think that's this is very fascinating.
Speaker 2: I'm rethinking my my objection.
Speaker 1: Your initial objection, right, I know, this is what I'm saying, Like,
because well, it's going to depend on what the code says. Yes,
right now, I don't know how you file with a
social Security number, right am I gonna have to get
a social Security number from my cat?
Speaker 3: You exist? Right?
Speaker 2: So you don't need a social Security number because they
don't pay tax already exist.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if I get the birth certificate basically from the
vet or the breeder whatever, like, they'll have a song.
That's that's elite, right Yeah, well sure, you know. I
mean what about a munt, Well, I would get it
from the pound. They would give me like a doctor
birth certificate.
Speaker 3: What are they charged by the pound?
Speaker 1: Like what people selling cats and dogs outside the pound? Yeah,
I don't know. I've never bought one of those outside
the pound. That would be by the pound.
Speaker 3: It's well done.
Speaker 1: Wordplay, buddy, wordplay all about.
Speaker 3: It, indeed, bred Wenna.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you sir, it's my pleasure 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.