Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the
subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. Closer to home, the Charlotte City Council. The
new council got sworn in last night. We got some
new members, Joy Mayo, who I feel the need to
support just because of my you know, years long defense
of Mayo as the superior condiment. She's over in District three.
Then there is JD. Masuerrarias from Charlotte's District five, over
on the east side. He's the one I covered this
a couple of I believe I did this on the
show a couple of weeks ago, that the timeline is
not lining up. He's give well, okay, So he is
now the secondly second openly gay person, okay, And like
I don't care about that. It's like the least interesting
thing about a person to me, I don't want to
know who you're sleeping with. I don't I don't care
about what you do in your bedroom and all that.
The other one's uh Lawana Slack Mayfield, So she already
has the you know, historical person elected. She's already got that,
uh title. But I guess he's the first openly gay
Hispanic for and former illegal alien, which is the timeline
that I'm actually talking about, is the illegal alien thing.
He was brought here by his parents. Don't know if
they got naturalized or not, but he says he got citizenship.
He says, though, that he married his best friend when
they were eighteen years old, right out of high school,
a female, and then as they were married, he came
to realize that he's gay, and she came to realize
she's a lesbian, and he has confessed. So he's given
these sort of well, so that was one story he
gave in a record, and he did this at an
event I think it was like a candidate forum or something.
He tells his story, his truth, and he tells that story.
But there was another event where they were praising somebody
in the LGBTQ plus two IA community, and he was
giving praise to this person because this person was the
first one who affirmed him as gay when his family
was not happy with him coming out as gay when
he was fifteen years old. So there's a bit of
a timeline problem there, right. Did you know you were
gay when you came out at fifteen or did you
know you were gay when you after you got married?
Like which was it? And then you would also have
to take into account with that timeline when he got citizenship,
when did he become naturalized? As I understand it, he
has claimed that this occurred in twenty twenty one. Was
that because you were married to a US citizen who
then realized she was a lesbian, just as you realized
you were gay, which you had realized three years prior,
or five years prior, or whatever it was when you
were fifteen. See what I mean? There might be a
case for immigration fraud. Now. I have asked him on
the Twitter machine if he could clarify the timeline for me,
and he has so far ignored my entreaties. Maybe I'll
go down to a city council meeting. No, because you're
not allowed. The rules say you're not allowed to address
a specific council member. And then there's Kimberly Owens. She's
from District six in Charlotte, so that's the district that
tark Bookari held that Democrats last time they redrew the maps,
did their best to try to make it as difficult
as possible for a Republican to hold onto that seat,
and they were successful. It took an extra election cycle
or two, but they did finally swing that seat. So
now there is only a single Republican representative on the
Charlotte City Council. Now let me quickly divert here to
the very end of the piece here at the Charlotte Observer,
written by Nick Sullivan, who quotes Owens in her speech
last night after being sworn in. She said, quote to
District six Republicans, you have not lost your voice. I
offer you a seat at the table for real collaboration.
Simply put, as I said on the trail, I want
to bore you, to bore you with acts of governmental competence. Boom.
Well we'll see, right, we'll see. We'll see how many
Republicans she nominates to various city boards and commissions and such,
because that's how Republicans get to actually participate in their
government when you don't have any actual elected representation. When
you have one at Driggs from District seven, you got
one Republican on the council, you can't win any votes.
You can't really advance any kind of measures unless you
get a whole bunch of Democrats on board. So good
luck with that. So the only real quote collaboration that
Republicans in District six are going to be able to
muster is if they get appointed to a board or commission.
Will that happen? We'll see, you know, will she actually
walk the walk? The new members took their oath of
office yesterday, and then they always vote on the mayor
pro tem position. The mayor pro tem position is basically ceremonial. Okay,
you're there, You're you're there in case the mayor gets sick. Okay,
Like if Mayor viy Lyles cannot attend to ribbon cutting,
you know, or maybe she has left her overly ridiculous
sized scissors at home for the ribbon cutting and she
has to you know, she can't go. She's got to
go back and get them or something. You're like, you
have to have a backup, ridiculously oversized pair of scissors
in your trunk at all times so you can cut
that ribbon. Ok So that's basically it. And if the
mayor can't be at a city council meeting to run
the meeting, then you run the meeting. Okay. So that's
what the mayor pro tem position has historically been. It's
very weak, but it is seen. It has been seen
as sort of a launching pad to run for mayor,
although honestly that hasn't really happened. It really hasn't. A
lot of people become mayor pro tem and then nothing.
But the key here is that council Member dimple Mra
is not the mayor pro tem. That's really the key here, Okay.
Dimple Jmera has been the voteainer in now I think
three or four straight elections. She has won more votes
in the at large races than any other Democrat. She's
a Democrat, and she has won. She's come out as
the top votainer every single time, and they never make
her mayor pro tem. And that's what they always used
to do if you were the mayor prote or, if
you were the votainer in the at large races. That
means you got more votes than any of the other
four at large members that won. That would indicate the
will of the public is for you to be in
a leadership position because most of the people voted for you,
you had more the votes than anybody else. You're the votainer,
not the vote getter. We don't use that word here
except to disparage it. Okay, And yes, I did hear
somebody did mention it on the morning show today. So
it's day two. I got two mentions of votainer. I'm
on a streak now. Yesterday was Tom Tillis and I
believe today it was Bo Thompson. So that being said,
Dippile Jhemira has constantly repeatedly been denied the mayor pro
tem post. They do not want her to be mayor
pro tem and as far as I can tell, and
the reports that I have heard, is that her colleagues
don't like her. We don't like her, and so we're
not going to make her mayor ProTem. No historic first here,
she's the first Indian American to win the city council
races and such, she would be the first Indian American
as mayor pro tem. But that historical first apparently not
a big deal for Democrats. They're going to keep denying
dimple that position. 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 could check it out
at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Put the
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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
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ground news as they make the media landscape more transparent.
Charlotte Observer reporting that the Charlotte City Council elected or
swore in their new members last night, and then they
elected their mayor pro tem. Again, this is a ceremonial position,
and historically it was always whoever got the most votes
among the at large contenders, whoever the voteainer was, they
became air. Now. I do remember years ago, twenty years ago,
the first time that they broke with that norm, and
it was when Democrats finally won control of the city
Council from Republicans. The top voteiner was I believe Pat Mumford,
a Republican. So Pat Mumford finished first among the four
at large city council members and Democrats controlled the majority
of council, and so they broke with the norm and
they did not make him mayor pro tem. I believe
they made Pat Cannon the mayor pro tem. Pat Cannon
who would later go on to run for mayor and
win and then be ousted from office on federal bribery
charges and conviction. So that's the kind of judgment that
we're dealing with. So they so they have broken with
this norm before, and then it seemed like it kind
of went back to the norm after Democrats had won control,
sort of permanently after that, and then they would put
you know, whoever was the votainer in I believe. But
then all of this fell apart probably about now, what's
six years ago, when dimple Ajmira won number one slot
the votainer in the at large race. And they don't
her colleagues or fellow Democrats don't like her very much
for whatever reason, I don't know. They don't tell me
these things. I do not hang out at the cocktail
parties with the with the local Democrat elected officials. They
just don't. It's not that I wouldn't it. They don't
ever invite me for some reason. So they have blocked
her repeatedly from being mayor pro tem and last night
was no different. She got nominated. She was nominated by
I think it was Arias who nominated her. M Yes
Masuera Arias he made a motion to elect Asmira as
mayor pro tem. She then seconded the motion, which then
failed seven to four. She won support from Joy Mayo
and Renee Perkins Johnson. Johnson is like I viewed Renee
Johnson as sort of whoever is voting with her on
an issue means that like, this seems to be like
a voting block that's not under the control of viol
isles the mayor. That's what this seems like to me.
Whenever I see Renee Johnson with you know, three four
other council members, it's like, Okay, this is the block
that's voting against the mayor. But the mayor has now
a seven to four block of voters obviously secured for
for herself. She doesn't vote on these things, but she
has gotten you know, seven of the eleven members apparently
that are in line with her, So she's controlling the council.
As Mira pointed out that she was the highest votainer
in both the primary and the general, but her fellow
Democrats still stuck a tour. Who did they pick? They
picked James Smudgie Mitchell, who has been on council for
thirteen terms, not all consecutive. He did take a break
when there was that whole conflict of interest thing when
he was working for a company that had contracts with
the city, and so he stepped down off the council
and all that He also, as the Observer, did the
big report a while ago about who is not showing
up to the meetings and he had like the worst
attendance record. So but he was battling. He was battling
bladder cancer, which now is in remission, he says, So
I'm happy to hear that. And James Smudge has always
been nice to me. You know, I have never had
any personal problems with with James Mitchell. His uncle Norman Mitchell,
never had any problems with them. I disagree with them
on politics, but they were always nice to me and
vice versa. But he's now the mayor pro tem, so
why pick a district representative or an at large representative?
So Lawana Mayfield, she was a district rep. She's has
been now an at large rep. And she says that
she wanted somebody who's at large who represents the whole city.
That's why she did it. And but they've had district
reps as mayor pro ten before. So whatever Malcolm Graham, though,
he says at large or district, it doesn't matter. What
matters is the ability to lead. Listen to this quote.
This community is dying, starving, begging for leadership from the
city council. So Mitchell will be the one to do that.
Smudgie shall lead us. He will ensure that council's voices
are strong in city decisions and don't get drowned out
by the mayor's office or city manager. Now, what did
I just tell you about the voting blocks. Yeah, again,
maybe I'm wrong on this, and like the blocks are
gonna are gonna shift around and stuff's gonna, you know,
resort itself. I don't know, but when I see Renee
Johnson throwing her vote to dimple Edgemera, that it seems
like that's the that's the block that that Viyliles is
trying to suppress. So I'm not really sure if Smudgie
is going to be the voice that's going to prevent
the council's voice from being drowned out by the mayor's
office or the city manager. And by the way, there's
only really one way for your voice as counsel to
be drowned out by the manager, and that's if you
let him. He works for you, Okay, he works at
your pleasure.
Speaker 2: You know.
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I want to welcome to the studio John Hancock, the
legendary WBT host here for what like half a century
almost or something.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I love what you've done with the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks the same, doesn't.
Speaker 3: It looks it looks look the same place I spent
I think twenty two thousand hours.
Speaker 2: I figured out one time.
Speaker 1: Why would you even do that math?
Speaker 3: Well, I was retiring, so I was trying to figure
out whether Grady had spent more time in here than
I have. And as the answer is no, I'm probably
second place.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well that's surprising.
Speaker 2: But Bo's coming up fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, one's gonna catch him.
Speaker 2: So and you'll be You'll get to that point too. Well.
Speaker 1: I the first decade I was here, I was a reporter,
so I wasn't really in the building for most of
my shifts. But I've got from what nineteen ninety nine
through two thousand and eleven and then twenty one through now,
so fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Someday they will raise this building and I want to
see it for two reasons. One, I've watched them string
wire through here for you know, three decades, so it's
going to be like trying to, you know, take spaghetti
apart when But two, I know I'll just sit up
there on the side of the hill and cry because
it's got so much history to it, and this building
and people that have been in this building, and you
know Sinatra and Hope and Mickey Rooney.
Speaker 2: I knocked Mickey Rooney down one time. Nice. So it's anyway,
I've always.
Speaker 3: Been glad by my career ended here rather than moved
to some add aseptic building.
Speaker 1: Well, I think of the resale value on the copper
from the wires.
Speaker 3: I've always thought about putting townhouses down. Knock all those
trees down with us. You'd have a downtown view and
building like townhouses that are a two million apiece.
Speaker 2: Do you'd sell them?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And no grocery store within a mile. So yeah, that's
all of the benefits of living over here. I looked
over here when I first came back to town. I
looked over here, and I was like, I can't afford
any place near the studio, which is crazy because ten
years ago.
Speaker 2: They'd have given it to you. Absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all right, Well, the reason why we got
you in here today is to not just reminisce about
WBT in the building, but also about the bike drive.
This is now the thirty second annual Hancocks Bikes for Kids.
We also want to give a shout out to Garage
do our Doctor presenting this as well as Kids First
of the Carolinas. And so every year you ask people
to bring a new unwrapped bike, maybe a helmet. That's
always a plus. Bring a bike helmet for the kids.
And then what Kids First then distributes these bicycles throughout
the community.
Speaker 3: We've got some organizations we've been given them two for
years and they've come to.
Speaker 2: Count on us.
Speaker 3: And I've been retired now off the air for six years.
So that's my big fear is that out of sight,
out of mind. I know there's a substantial amount of
people that listen to WP that don't know John Hancock
from John Quincy Adams. But we get these bikes and
I'm just telling you right now, this is Christmas for
some kids. And we've done We've asked a question whether
or not bikes are still pertinent or not, and the
answer is yes, absolutely, your first bike is still a
big deal. The other question I answer every year is well,
why won't you take a used bike? And that's a meism.
I don't want to give a kid a used bike.
These kids that we deal with have never had anything new.
The clothes they wear, everything they have has been handed down.
I want them to have something with the tags still
on it. But we think we've impacted probably forty maybe
a few more forty thousand kids individual kids over the years,
and I'm pretty proud of that. But gosh, I need
your help. And I say this every year, but obviously
since I'm not on the air every day pounding this,
I really hope you'll make it a point to come
by and drive through what I call the tear Drop
out there on the fifth of December, that's a Friday night.
We'll be out there from five to nine o'clock and
drop a bike off.
Speaker 1: That's our driveway, the tear Drop. It's just a circular drive.
It's a circular drives super easy. You just roll in,
we say hello, you can meet everybody, we take the bikes,
and then you just pull out.
Speaker 2: You don't even have to get out of your car
if you don't want.
Speaker 3: So that's in fact in some cases if we're trying
to get things moving and we have our busy times
and we have our week times. But I think we
got about eight hundred bikes last year. That was down
a little than it was the year before, down from
it was the year before. So I realized that as
the years go by, the impact of what I'm trying
to do here, what we're trying to do here maybe
a little bit harder to relate to. But we really
are Christmas for an awful lot of kids. And next
time you're in a big box store or something along
those lines, go get us a bike. Twenty inches are
the most popular, but we still need big bikes for
kids and trikes. Some of the trikes I see come
through are so cute I can't stand it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we've got organizations.
Speaker 3: We've got neighborhoods that get together now and they all
bring bikes and put them together and then they load
them in. I think there was one neighborhood that brought
us like forty six bikes last year. And and we've
got the one guys that have been helping us for
years and years and years, and they bring us hundreds
of bikes and a deal with Walmart that they've made.
So those are our those are our mainstays. But we
still are dependent on.
Speaker 2: You, the individual one bike that we.
Speaker 3: Pull the backs, put the bike out of your back
seat or the the back of your truck or and
plus it's a chance for me to see some of
you all that I don't get to see anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, and that is true like every year, because I'm
out there with you every year, and like every the
people that keep coming up to you every single year,
and that's the time that they get to see you
and talk with you and you know, tell you what
you meant in their lives when you were on air,
and that this is part of their holiday tradition. And
how many people I've heard it, I know you have.
How many people say this is the beginning of Christmas
season like that the bikes drive marks.
Speaker 3: Then we hear we hear that a lot, so it
is about the kids. But obviously it's all about me.
Speaker 1: Right right as always that's now I mean it. But
it is really nice because it's it's uh, it's a tradition,
and I think a lot of people don't have traditions,
especially nowadays, it feels like and traditions change. Like That's
the other thing Christy and I are dealing with. Where
we would travel around to wherever the nieces and nephews
were for Christmas because we don't have kids, and so
we would just travel because we could do that, and
we would go to their places. But now all their
kids are getting older, going off to college and stuff,
and so traditions are changing and that's tough. And so
this is a tradition that you can keep doing. We're
not going to stop doing it.
Speaker 3: I should find out WBT has stayed with us, and uh,
I'm forever grateful for that because we've been through a
few ownership changes and when Urban one came in a
few years ago, I didn't know what to expect then.
And Channel three yep has latched on to us for
the last few years, which is why we can use
this property because they technically own it. But my thanks
to Michelle and everybody, Jamie Bulls and all the crew
over at Channel three for being loyal to us as well.
Speaker 1: And Jamie actually unloads bikes. He's not just a pretty
face on TV. Jamie Bow will actually get in there
and be like hauling bikes off of trucks.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, he.
Speaker 3: Gosh, he he worked harder at anybody else I think
in the last few years.
Speaker 2: He's he's a good guy. Let me tell you.
Speaker 3: On air, I like him. You can see he puts
a lot of work in but off air he's every
bit what you think he is.
Speaker 1: The thirty second annual WBT Hancocks Bikes for Kids, benefiting
Kids first of the Carolinas, presented by Garage Door Doctor Again.
It's on Friday, December fifth, from five until nine pm.
All the details are at WBT dot com. Bring a new, unwrapped,
assembled bike, drop it off, say hi and we are
all your health and we appreciate all the work that
you've done on this over the years.
Speaker 3: JOm hey, and I appreciate your time on your show too,
so thank you very much in advance. If you bring
us a bike, thank you very much. I'll see you
on that Friday, December fifth.
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So Tomorrow is Wednesday, and that means at some point
I guess between like eight till nine a m. A
bunch of the elderly leftists are going to be out
along Park Road near Quail Hollow in South Charlotte during
the height of morning rush hour, calling on people to
honk their horns honk for Democracy, honk for establishing Justice United,
We stand Heart America. These are the signs that they
are holding. Now, it's kind of tough to disagree. I
guess they're not blatantly partisan in nature. According to the
very lengthy story about these organized gatherings on the sidewalks
over at the Charlotte Observer, they're all elderly people, Okay.
One of the organizers is seventy eight year old Jene Rittok,
who's calling these weekly non partisan, patriotic marches, right. But
on the other side of the posters there's like really
partisan anti Trump language, which they didn't want the reporter
to see. They're like, oh, sorry, no, no, no, this
is nonpartisan, don't you see. The idea for the marches
grew out of a grassroots community initiative co founded by
Ritetok early this year, calling it the Citizen Project, aimed
generally at contributing to the public good who could be
against that right, and then it started to crystallize in
June when the members headed into the city to join
protesters at the No King's Rally in first Ward Park.
Then inspired by the Democracy Versus Dictators movement and having
determined that the best antidote to anxiety is action. They
took their opposition to President Trump and his policies to
the sidewalks along Park Road, just beyond the confines of Southminster,
which is very convenient because that's where they live in
the retirement home. This is what they're doing. They have
a six pay or five page right up in the
paper for it. After just a few weeks, however, they
decided to pivot away from partisanship, at least in the
most obvious regard. The anti Trump messages were scrubbed from
their signs. Actually, they just turned the signs over, right,
So what does this tell me? It tells me they're lying, right,
They're lying. They are anti Trump. That's what's animating this.
But they're giving you a sign that says, iHeart America.
Honk if you love democracy, Honk if you love America.
And then when people drive by and they honk, they're like, look,
everybody supports our hatred of Trump. In fact, when a
reporter spies an anti Trump message on the back of
the Protect Medical Care sign that's hanging all the way
from Rittok's neck down to her shins. During one of
the marches in early October, she clutches the board closer
to her body says, no, I don't want you to
see it, because we don't do that now. We don't
want to fight each other. We're for anybody that cares
about the Constitution, which really is something you know, to
finally hear Democrats talking about the love of the Constitution.
Is there anything Trump can't do? To be fair, The
reporter says, the veil is fairly thin, and that veil
can be lifted at least a little, depending on current events.
On the Wednesday, after the Border Patrol launched its immigration
blitz in Charlotte, Right Talk and her cohorts drew up
a handful of new signs alluding to the ice operation,
with slogans like make America kind again and I like
my ice crushed. It's very it's very subtle. She goes
on to say, sorry, there's a Southminster resident, Ken Hungate
who comes out semi regularly, and he says, you know,
we feel like the other side they kind of hide
you the flag and we're saying, no, you can't have it.
We believe in the flag as well. Again, is there
anything Trump can't do? 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.