Chad Adams Fills In For Pete Kaliner 01-02-25 Hour 1

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 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 thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] And shortly ago, you heard Nick Craig. He was sitting in for Vince Coakley. And Nick was playing the audio of what the FBI had to say. And they said that everything they know at this point is that it acted alone. They scoured places. There's bombs. There's devices that have been found.

[00:00:48] Is there a connection between what happened in Vegas and what happened in New Orleans other than the truck being the same rental company? Or at least that's the last I'd seen. We don't know.

[00:00:58] The other fascinating thing, former military radicalized individual that did this. So many different aspects. There's just things we don't know. And so many things happen in real time. So if you're on the news, what you see is kind of this 30-minute loop of no matter if it's CNN, MSNBC or Fox or whatever. In the 30-minute loop, you're kind of seeing the same thing.

[00:01:23] You're seeing if the FBI doesn't update, they play that. And then they'll play that until another update happens. Meanwhile, they'll have subject matter experts on a variety of fronts that will come in and say, give their opinion.

[00:01:34] If I was doing it, here's what they should be saying, or here's what they shouldn't be saying, or here's what I would do in that position.

[00:01:40] And so you saw this play out. You've got several New Orleans officials that have said, hey, we would delay the Sugar Bowl one more day. You got the Sugar Bowl that's supposed to happen in New Orleans. It was supposed to be yesterday. They knocked it off until today. There are other people that are concerned about the safety.

[00:01:56] The governor deployed 100 additional agents to secure the Sugar Bowl folks there. So we don't know. There's more that we don't know than we do. And otherwise, there's a lot of speculation.

[00:02:11] One of the most difficult aspects of this to me is watching the lack of trust in the FBI. And think about that for a minute. I'm not trying to overly politicize this.

[00:02:25] But I'm saying we know that the FBI at the highest levels did have several DEI woke like policies in place. They did spend an extraordinary amount of time at the highest levels with the Donald Trump stuff.

[00:02:40] They did withhold information from the media about the Hunter Biden laptop story. They did spend time, effort, resources in social media and engaged in that over the past four years.

[00:02:51] So the unfortunate reality, the FBI is a massive agency. Does that mean everybody wasn't doing their jobs? No, it doesn't mean that at all.

[00:02:59] It does mean in the eyes of the American public that the agency itself at the highest levels spent time doing things that undermine trust in the department.

[00:03:12] So when the department says, oh, we've been vigilant, we've been on top of the terrorist activities, you have to say to yourself, well, it wasn't that long ago that Joe Biden came out and told the nation that the number one threat to America was white supremacist groups.

[00:03:26] Which we know in light of the shooting, we know in light of other shootings, we know that's fundamentally not true.

[00:03:33] But he told us, the president of the United States told us this. There's no evidence that this certainly wasn't a white supremacist activity.

[00:03:40] There's no evidence that what happened in Vegas was a white supremacist activity at all. In fact, it was ISIS.

[00:03:46] So the threats, and meanwhile, the border being completely porous and unsecured has allowed, we don't know the level of threats that have come across the border.

[00:03:58] We don't know the people that are part of sleeper cells or trying to radicalize individuals that are trying to create threats to the country.

[00:04:07] And several Democrats have said, you know what, there's no evidence that migrants have made things worse, that illegal immigration has made things worse.

[00:04:14] But here's the thought on that, and I'm getting away from the New Orleans thing, we'll come back to it, is that there are plenty of bad people in society right now, in what is here legally, that stretches agencies, that stretches law enforcement departments, sheriffs, police, all up and down.

[00:04:33] There's plenty here. So the fact that more dangerous individuals are imported is adding to that, which stretches the ability to deal with bad people even further out.

[00:04:48] More costly, more time consuming, less able to keep track of all the threats, because now you've added into the mix many more potential threats.

[00:04:59] So is the fact that an agency was stretched, is that why they missed this guy? How many people like that have they missed?

[00:05:06] This didn't happen in a vacuum. There were several signs. We know that the custody of the kids was at play.

[00:05:12] We know that there were people close to him that were saying, hey, there's a problem here.

[00:05:16] What we don't know is, was he radicalized in a systemic way? Was he radicalized to ISIS, former 13 years in the U.S. military army?

[00:05:25] Was he radicalized with some kind of intent? In other words, were there individuals that were radicalizing him in subtle Machiavellian ways?

[00:05:38] Were there ways that they were twisting him? Or did he have mental issues and got twisted up on his own?

[00:05:43] We don't know. There's a lot more that we don't know than we do.

[00:05:46] The same thing with the situation in Vegas. The interesting thing about the Vegas bombing was that that Cybertruck, the way it was built, and Elon Musk was on top of that immediately saying, hey, we're going to look into this.

[00:06:00] And through the telemetry and all the interesting information they had, they knew about that truck.

[00:06:05] They knew it was a bomb. They knew it wasn't the battery.

[00:06:07] They knew very quickly that it was not a mechanical failure with this truck.

[00:06:10] They knew a lot of data on the truck that they were able to retrieve quickly.

[00:06:14] Also, because of the construction of that truck, if you look at the bombing, the individual in it blown, you know, destroyed.

[00:06:21] If you're going to destroy, it should be that one.

[00:06:24] But if you look at where that was parked in front of the building, there were no windows blown out.

[00:06:29] The doors of the Trump resort were not damaged.

[00:06:33] I mean, obviously, the sprinklers went off and the flames went straight up, so there's roof damage there.

[00:06:37] But had that truck just been a fall-apart vehicle, a lot more people could have been hurt or killed.

[00:06:45] We don't know the power of – we don't know.

[00:06:47] There's a lot about that situation we don't know.

[00:06:49] The one in New Orleans, you hear the police chief.

[00:06:51] She's almost 70, very politically connected in her former California stint and up in Chicago where she was connected to Democrats there and now in New Orleans.

[00:07:01] I'm not trying to say this is a Democrat thing.

[00:07:03] The point is she had political connections in that realm, and there were some – you wonder when you saw her.

[00:07:11] Many people had a reaction like, that's the police chief.

[00:07:13] We know that the blockades – he drove around the blockades onto the sidewalk.

[00:07:17] We know that also there are barricades in the streets that either didn't work or did.

[00:07:20] It doesn't – it's a horror.

[00:07:22] People that want to inflict harm will inflict – will find a way.

[00:07:28] So that's why the intelligence and security is so critical.

[00:07:34] See something, say something.

[00:07:35] If you look – there's actually a video.

[00:07:37] There's a very odd video circulating that is that truck.

[00:07:41] And if you know the layout of Canal Street and Bourbon Street, you kind of know this.

[00:07:45] So there was a video of this truck coming down the street, kind of in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

[00:07:51] And you can see it coming down the street.

[00:07:53] I don't know if you've seen the video.

[00:07:54] And then you can see that it makes a right onto Bourbon Street.

[00:07:58] So it's coming up, I guess, up from the river, makes a right on Bourbon, which is where all the partiers were.

[00:08:02] And you see it just accelerate right into that turn.

[00:08:05] So it's moving at 2.0 miles an hour.

[00:08:09] And it makes a right-hand turn.

[00:08:10] And zoom, you see it just take off.

[00:08:13] I think both of these I read – and I could be wrong.

[00:08:15] I read somewhere they were EV vehicles.

[00:08:17] We know the Tesla is, but not sure about the Ford, but that's kind of what it said.

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[00:09:23] Now, Christopher Rye, not to be confused with Christopher Wray, is the gentleman who, assistant, I guess he's assistant director of the FBI.

[00:09:31] He came out and spoke.

[00:09:31] We've got that queued up.

[00:09:32] So we'll queue that.

[00:09:33] And this is the FBI deputy assistant director about the New Orleans attacks.

[00:09:37] Let's play that clip.

[00:09:38] That's about a minute 36.

[00:09:39] Go ahead and play that.

[00:09:42] Bye.

[00:09:42] First and foremost, let me be very clear about this point.

[00:09:46] This was an act of terrorism.

[00:09:48] It was premeditated and an evil act.

[00:09:54] This was obviously a critical incident, and with that, lots of information and tips come pouring in from law enforcement, first responders, and the public.

[00:10:03] We have been aggressively running down these tips and information.

[00:10:07] As you all know, that takes time, and we will continue to do so until every lead has been followed through on.

[00:10:14] This investigation is only a little more than 24 hours years old.

[00:10:20] So I ask you to keep in mind that as I go through some of the specifics later.

[00:10:26] But at this point, currently, and this is another position, another fact I want to be clear on.

[00:10:32] We do not assess at this point that anyone else involved in this attack is involved in this attack except for Shamsa Din Jabbar, the subject you've already been briefed on.

[00:10:47] A little bit about what the FBI is doing.

[00:10:49] So we are surging people and assets to the area from across the region and across the nation.

[00:10:55] Special agents in multiple field offices.

[00:10:58] We can cut that one off now.

[00:11:00] But that was the briefing that occurred just in the last half hour or so about what they know.

[00:11:06] Now, the interesting thing, if you listen, and I think the words are intentional.

[00:11:09] He's reading them.

[00:11:10] They've been written.

[00:11:11] It's for your two to jest.

[00:11:14] That Shamsa Din Jabbar acted alone.

[00:11:18] But he also added in there, so we believe he acted alone.

[00:11:22] Meanwhile, he also said agents are being deployed to the area and across the nation.

[00:11:27] I guess they're wanting to make sure that what he said holds up.

[00:11:31] Now, on the flip side, as we know about, we don't know the connection, if there is one, to what happened at Trump Tower.

[00:11:37] It is odd that two trucks blew up not far apart from a timeline standpoint.

[00:11:44] We know that one was radicalized.

[00:11:46] We suspect the other probably was.

[00:11:48] Almost synonymous with this, this morning, there's a protest in New York, downtown New York.

[00:11:56] Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters gathered in Times Square yesterday, waving Palestinian flags and calling for intifada revolution on the same day a terrorist carried out a deadly car attack in French quarters in New Orleans.

[00:12:08] The protest organized by the Palestinian youth movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the People's Forum was led in a chant of, there is only one solution into Fada revolution.

[00:12:20] We're sending you back to Europe, you white.

[00:12:24] Yeah, whatever.

[00:12:25] I can't expletive.

[00:12:27] One female demonstrator wearing a keffia shouted at counter-protesters.

[00:12:32] Go back to Europe.

[00:12:33] Go back to Europe.

[00:12:34] Now, interestingly, Europe's been overrun and becoming almost an extension.

[00:12:39] There is a strong, strong eradication of Western civilization taking place in Europe.

[00:12:46] So a lot of this type of mentality is incompatible with a free society.

[00:12:53] It is.

[00:12:55] It's the Wahhabist.

[00:12:56] It's the extremist in this intifada group.

[00:13:00] So as Iran loses prestige, as there's been pushback against every one of its proxies in the region around Israel, whether it be Hamas, whether it be whatever group it is from the Houthis, from Hezbollah, from all of those, and even the Syrian stuff.

[00:13:18] I don't know what's going to happen.

[00:13:19] Who's going to take over Syria?

[00:13:20] But it doesn't look friendly.

[00:13:23] And Iran's getting ready to get economically cut off, even as John Kerry and Joe Biden and the Democrats were very friendly to Iran as they were funding.

[00:13:30] So we were funding Iran or freed up a lot of their assets so they could use that money and those resources to attack Israel and us.

[00:13:39] We also, the fact that the Europeans are funding the Russians through oil purchases to help fund the Ukraine while giving money to the Ukrainians, it's a weird reality.

[00:13:50] I think that's going to change in about, I don't know, 19 days.

[00:13:54] Or the second, so 18 days.

[00:13:55] So when you look at that, and as we saw after October 7th and we saw heading into the spring of this year, it was a highly coordinated student activism on the campuses that undermined these universities' credibility in the eyes of the American public.

[00:14:16] The fact that those protests went on so, they went so far.

[00:14:19] Could you imagine almost any other group on the right having such, it would not be tolerated.

[00:14:25] There is a tolerance for the anger on the left that's, I don't know why.

[00:14:34] Other than, you don't, I don't want to say, hey, the left hates America.

[00:14:36] I don't want to say Democrats hate America.

[00:14:38] A lot of them love this country.

[00:14:39] The issue is that at the highest levels, there is not a desire to stop this.

[00:14:44] That's where we should be speaking with one voice.

[00:14:46] The left and right should be putting down these protests, calling for violence.

[00:14:52] Intifada?

[00:14:53] You're calling for an intifada revolution.

[00:14:55] That's a means it's okay to kill people who disagree with you.

[00:14:58] That's not what we should be up to, not what we should be doing, not what we should be about.

[00:15:03] And here we had a bomb.

[00:15:04] I mean, right on the heels of this terrorist attack in New Orleans.

[00:15:07] And by the way, a lot of people are suggesting with the explosive device in the truck in New Orleans, that had he made it to a certain point, he would have detonated that and the carnage would have been much more widespread.

[00:15:18] I think he ran into kind of a lift and some kind of elevation device that was in the way.

[00:15:24] But just unbelievably shocking that strange.

[00:15:33] And I've read this, and I just had someone I do trust confirm it.

[00:15:36] Both of those individuals were stationed at what is now known as Fort Liberty at one time.

[00:15:40] Don't know if they were stationed together.

[00:15:41] Now, Fort Bragg then.

[00:15:42] I think it'll probably be Fort Bragg again before the next four years is up.

[00:15:46] Both rented EV vehicles from the same app that we saw.

[00:15:51] Both attacks within hours of each other.

[00:15:55] So it's something at that level.

[00:15:58] Coincidence has to be looked at.

[00:16:03] I mean, other than the fact that it's New Year's Day.

[00:16:05] I mean, that's a time.

[00:16:07] People like these kind of specific times.

[00:16:09] 9-11 wasn't.

[00:16:11] And I heard someone say in the midst of all this, and some experts said, hey, one of the problems with this is the further you get away from the last terrorist attack, massive terrorist attack, the closer you are to the next one.

[00:16:24] And the more we become complacent.

[00:16:26] And they phrased it very differently, and I don't remember the gentleman's name.

[00:16:29] They said the further you are from 9-11, and this is kind of interesting because it's a play on words.

[00:16:34] The further you are away from 9-11, the closer you are to 9-10.

[00:16:37] And what he's really trying to say, the closer you are to the next terrorist attack.

[00:16:40] And it's an easy way to say things.

[00:16:42] And so while we're arguing about DEI and wokeism and transgender in the military, the people who want to kill us, the people that want to undo our country, the people that want – the organizations that want to destroy our nation, they are not distracted by that.

[00:16:59] And that's where the complacent political left that wants to pick fights over things that are not nearly as critical distracts us, that serves only as a distraction away from what we really need to be focusing on.

[00:17:16] Because all they're doing is they are being complacent and creating complacency because while we're paying attention to that, especially in the military, you want to follow – you want to push this stuff, go fine, have protests, whatever.

[00:17:29] But when you're trying to indoctrinate the military, you're trying to indoctrinate the FBI when you're trying to undermine, that's dangerous.

[00:17:38] And I'm not saying that it led to this, but it certainly didn't help.

[00:17:42] There's no way you can argue that doing these things helped, that all of those other policies did not contribute in some way.

[00:17:50] So that being said, we'll talk – I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about this.

[00:17:53] Also, in the news today, Josh Stein taking office from someone who was, I guess, the attorney general for 16 years, was in the general assembly for 14 years.

[00:18:02] Roy Cooper, 30 there, then eight years – 38 years.

[00:18:05] And most people can't name anything he really did.

[00:18:09] Josh Stein taking over from Cooper.

[00:18:11] Expected to hold – to have an executive order.

[00:18:13] The conventional wisdom on the executive order that Josh Stein would be – and he's going to do it from Western North Carolina.

[00:18:19] So that's where most people think, hey, there's going to be some executive order about helping the folks in Western North Carolina.

[00:18:24] If that happens, we'll bring that to you as well.

[00:18:26] You're on WBT.

[00:18:28] All right.

[00:18:28] Hey, real quick.

[00:18:29] If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day, send me an email at Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com and ask me about advertising.

[00:18:40] It's super affordable.

[00:18:41] It's baked into this podcast forever.

[00:18:43] And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck.

[00:18:48] Send me a message, Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com, and I can show you how it works, run the numbers with you.

[00:18:54] Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:18:58] 2025 off to a roaring start.

[00:19:00] All sorts of things happening.

[00:19:02] A sugar bowl delayed.

[00:19:03] Two terrorist attacks, it looks like.

[00:19:04] Crazy people protesting in New York.

[00:19:06] Biden leaving.

[00:19:07] Doing some strange stuff on the way out the door, by the way.

[00:19:10] Biden – this is the weird one.

[00:19:12] I pulled it up so many people have reposted it.

[00:19:16] So they posted a video.

[00:19:18] I don't know who's responsible for posting at the Biden White House.

[00:19:22] Because certainly he's not in charge of what he's doing.

[00:19:25] I think he needs to be told everything to do.

[00:19:28] Here, do this.

[00:19:29] Here, do this.

[00:19:30] Even his press conference on the bombing was rather odd.

[00:19:33] But they posted a video from the pandemic encouraging lockdowns and masking.

[00:19:40] It was uploaded in January of 21.

[00:19:42] As soon as Biden took office, it was re-uploaded today.

[00:19:46] As he should be, like, preparing to exit.

[00:19:49] Why did they share the video again?

[00:19:51] Why'd they redo this?

[00:19:54] It's odd.

[00:19:55] You know, you had the terrorist attacks.

[00:19:57] By the way, did you notice the drones have disappeared?

[00:20:01] Did you notice that story was, like, huge?

[00:20:03] And, I mean, it was everything from foreign adversaries to people with lots of drones out there in the northeast to could it be UFOs?

[00:20:11] Plains.

[00:20:12] You people are mistaking drones for planes or planes for drones.

[00:20:15] Just news, news, news, news.

[00:20:17] Every – it was just, like, inundated with drones.

[00:20:19] And then, all of a sudden, gone.

[00:20:23] But you know what everyone knows now?

[00:20:25] They know the red light and green light.

[00:20:27] I'm not talking about squid games.

[00:20:29] I'm talking about when they see a plane coming toward them or going away.

[00:20:31] If you ever take your FAA exam, you've got to know red light, green light.

[00:20:34] Not the squid games.

[00:20:35] But they all say squid games 2 came out, so people were watching that as well.

[00:20:38] But that's – the drone story just kind of evaporated.

[00:20:43] Just disappeared.

[00:20:44] No resolution.

[00:20:45] By the way, no resolution.

[00:20:46] Can you imagine a big story, a national news story?

[00:20:51] You're not going to believe this.

[00:20:52] And then it just disappears, and there's no resolution.

[00:20:56] We never found out.

[00:20:57] We never – we just heard, well, it's probably just a bunch of drones that people had.

[00:21:02] And, by the way, before Christmas, you would expect it maybe after Christmas, you know, a thousand new drones are out there, and people are flying them all over the place.

[00:21:08] You would expect that.

[00:21:09] But not right after Christmas all the drones disappear.

[00:21:13] It's almost like a bunch of parents said, oh, I got these really cool drones.

[00:21:15] I want to start flying my six-foot drone before I give it to my kid.

[00:21:19] Hundreds of drones appear over the Northeast.

[00:21:21] Military bases everywhere.

[00:21:22] They are just everywhere.

[00:21:26] Jacob, welcome to the show today.

[00:21:27] How the heck are you?

[00:21:29] Hey there.

[00:21:30] Hey.

[00:21:30] Yeah, those drones are just falling from the sky, aren't they?

[00:21:34] You know.

[00:21:34] Yeah, just some people.

[00:21:35] They got fireworks shows.

[00:21:36] You know, instead of paying $10,000 for a fireworks show, you get a little less money and get some drones, and then they fall and get kids in the face.

[00:21:45] But that's not why –

[00:21:46] By the way, I want to take your call, but those drones, if you look up some of those, especially – there's one or two in the U.S. you can find.

[00:21:53] But the drone displays that people are putting on with, you know, 10,000 drones in the air doing these animated – those are – it's through-the-looking-glass kind of stuff.

[00:22:04] It's really remarkable.

[00:22:05] But anyway, go ahead.

[00:22:06] Yeah, yeah, I've seen it on TV.

[00:22:08] I just think it's too – it's in its embryo stages, obviously.

[00:22:12] They've got some things to clean up.

[00:22:15] So let's get back to New Orleans.

[00:22:18] I'm a 17-year veteran of security, six-year security manager at Bank of America Stadium, Spectrum Center, worked with some government, some entities, including nuclear security.

[00:22:31] So, you know, barriers are a huge, huge thing.

[00:22:36] It's the first deterrence to a controlled space, right?

[00:22:42] Right.

[00:22:42] So let me just say that I wouldn't want this police chief working on my staff.

[00:22:50] And, you know, if you had even put three or four police cars in a row, the guy couldn't have got through.

[00:23:00] There is one police car.

[00:23:01] He went around it, and he was off to the races, as we know.

[00:23:06] So why weren't there at least – you know what a Jersey barrier is, right?

[00:23:11] Yeah.

[00:23:12] Okay.

[00:23:13] They could have brought those in.

[00:23:14] Those are portable.

[00:23:15] They're easy to move.

[00:23:16] Could have put them up, yep.

[00:23:17] As a matter of fact, you move them with a piece of equipment similar to the one that he ran into at the end of the way there.

[00:23:25] Or you could have put dump trucks or anything else.

[00:23:29] And my other point is, you know, government – the wheels of progress with the government move slowly.

[00:23:36] This stuff should have been done weeks ago.

[00:23:39] Whatever repairs they're doing on the bollard system, that should have been finished weeks ago.

[00:23:45] Okay.

[00:23:45] I'm glad you knew that.

[00:23:46] It shows your expertise.

[00:23:48] This is the thing.

[00:23:49] They're replacing them ahead of Super Bowl, the next Super Bowl in New Orleans.

[00:23:54] So they're saying, oh, we're going to fix them for that.

[00:23:56] You had the Sugar Bowl coming up.

[00:23:57] You had a high target area.

[00:24:00] You knew there were some alerts out there.

[00:24:02] And you're right.

[00:24:03] They announced that they were being replaced.

[00:24:06] So you basically said, hey, we're not going to have any protection on this street to wouldn't be bad guys.

[00:24:12] And you thought they could have put in – there were a number of things they could have done.

[00:24:15] So I don't understand it.

[00:24:17] And I think it's Monday morning quarterbacking a little bit, but this looked bad.

[00:24:21] There's no way that this looks bad.

[00:24:23] And having worked up at Charlotte and Lakenberg Government Center, I know how that works.

[00:24:28] And there's someone above the police chief who made those decisions and didn't get that work done on time.

[00:24:37] It's not really – I would blame the police chief for not getting a temporary barrier in there.

[00:24:43] But I would blame someone else for not having the responsibility to have that construction work done weeks ago leading up to these three huge events.

[00:24:55] Great observation.

[00:24:56] And did you know the police chief hit two pedestrians back in August while on duty?

[00:25:01] She hit two – I'm not trying to – that sounds like I'm laughing.

[00:25:04] But, you know, like you said, is that who you want in charge?

[00:25:07] She hit two pedestrians while on duty.

[00:25:09] So – but thank you for the call.

[00:25:11] Very astute observation.

[00:25:12] And it's yet reason number 580 why I love talk radio.

[00:25:15] Thank you.

[00:25:16] Thank you so much for the call, Jacob.

[00:25:17] Okay?

[00:25:19] Joanne, welcome to the show.

[00:25:20] And how are you this beautiful day after New Year's, I guess?

[00:25:24] Good.

[00:25:25] I'm fine driving the car.

[00:25:29] Regarding drones is what I called about.

[00:25:32] But from what your previous caller was talking about, I thought they had, like, cement things that they could raise up from the ground, and they just didn't do it.

[00:25:40] They're called bollards, B-O-L-A-R-D-S.

[00:25:44] And you can – they're stainless steel removable posts that are locked behind each crosswalk.

[00:25:49] They're supposed to be attached, and they weren't.

[00:25:52] They're being repaired, renovated.

[00:25:54] I don't know.

[00:25:55] But they said they're going to replace them all.

[00:25:57] So in the midst of replacing them, they left that street completely vulnerable and didn't do anything else.

[00:26:02] So he drove around it onto the sidewalk.

[00:26:03] But, yes, what you said, they hadn't done it.

[00:26:06] It was completely exposed.

[00:26:09] Now, was it because of incompetence, or was it part of the plan?

[00:26:13] They claim it was part of the plan.

[00:26:15] They announced to the public that they were replacing them ahead of the Super Bowl.

[00:26:19] No, no, no.

[00:26:20] I mean a conspiracy plan.

[00:26:21] I meant a bigger plan, like let's hurt somebody.

[00:26:25] But the drones, according to an informant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Corporation, they're putting chemicals in that to make people more compliant, shall we say.

[00:26:39] Well, look, I love – if you've listened to me at all here on Calendar Show or any of the other places that I've sub-hosted here on this wonderful station, I love conspiracies.

[00:26:48] I don't buy into them as much, and that one, that's a big stretch.

[00:26:52] You're talking about compliance.

[00:26:53] They're putting compliance drugs in these things.

[00:26:56] But why just that area?

[00:26:58] Why wouldn't you do it – why wouldn't you be more insidious?

[00:27:00] Because there would be a thousand different ways to be more insidious about making people compliant, whether it be water systems or any – and crop dusting.

[00:27:08] Oh, I know.

[00:27:09] I know.

[00:27:10] When you're dealing with mosquitoes, you know.

[00:27:12] So why – and those drones, like I said, a lot of them were aircraft.

[00:27:16] A lot of them were small drones.

[00:27:17] But there were some big ones mixed in, too.

[00:27:18] But we just never heard the rest of the story.

[00:27:20] Right.

[00:27:22] I know.

[00:27:22] Well, what he was saying was it was a test run to see if it worked.

[00:27:26] Ah, so – and that fits – see, that's the beautiful thing about a conspiracy theory is when things fit, it drives – and the Bill and Melinda Gates stuff, that's just – that's been ongoing for a long time from vaccines to climate change to, you know, the global population control.

[00:27:42] They've had a bunch.

[00:27:43] Even the Epstein stuff.

[00:27:44] I mean, Gates is, you know, being on two or more conspiracies, he's been tied into the Epstein stuff as well.

[00:27:51] Would you agree?

[00:27:52] Yeah, I know.

[00:27:53] Yeah.

[00:27:53] But I appreciate the call, man.

[00:27:54] Yeah, I do.

[00:27:55] Thank you.

[00:27:56] Okay, thank you.

[00:27:57] Chat, I'm sitting in for Pete Calliner.

[00:27:58] Absolute pleasure and honor to be here.

[00:28:00] And, you know, I looked for the latest New Jersey, new Northeast drone story.

[00:28:05] There hasn't been one in, like, two weeks.

[00:28:07] It was, like, one a week ago, but it was nothing to do with that.

[00:28:10] There was one that crashed down in Florida.

[00:28:11] But it just, like, it wasn't sexy, wasn't timely, wasn't topical, wasn't fun.

[00:28:16] Not newsworthy, I guess.

[00:28:17] The news media has the attention span of a gnat sometimes.

[00:28:20] You swat it away and it goes on to something else.

[00:28:22] With us right now, though, Dallas Woodhouse, a friend for the past, I'd say, 20 years, 20 years plus.

[00:28:29] I guess I've known Dallas that long.

[00:28:31] It's hard to believe.

[00:28:32] He's the state director of American Majority.

[00:28:33] He's served in many capacities in Raleigh and also a fellow Wolfpack fan.

[00:28:38] So we can equally be ashamed of the way our team acted at the end and equally chagrined that we're not better at all the sports than we are,

[00:28:45] being the largest university just about in the state.

[00:28:47] Dallas, welcome to the show.

[00:28:48] How are you today?

[00:28:49] All right, Chad.

[00:28:50] Happy New Year.

[00:28:51] Happy New Year to you.

[00:28:52] Now, one thing I can say with certainty is that you have, one of several people I would say,

[00:28:58] have a unique and more knowledgeable series of observations about Josh Stein than almost anyone in the state.

[00:29:06] You've worked around him.

[00:29:07] You've worked around, you know, that whole world in Raleigh.

[00:29:11] Josh Stein been laying in wait to become the next governor.

[00:29:14] He, they, they, they, they have a very successful story that I think they held until the election to make it so he could walk into the governor's mansion.

[00:29:21] He's now the governor.

[00:29:22] I think he's holding a news conference here in about 30 minutes.

[00:29:26] It'll probably be something about Western North Carolina.

[00:29:28] What are your observations on Josh Stein?

[00:29:30] And what should we expect in your opinion?

[00:29:32] Well, I think the easy thing to sort of look at is, you know, that, you know, he is a cutoff of Roy Cooper cloth.

[00:29:47] You know, both were attorney generals.

[00:29:50] Both were state senators.

[00:29:53] Both share the mega Democrat campaign consultant Morgan Jackson, who's extraordinarily talented.

[00:30:02] I agree.

[00:30:03] And, and, and, and, you know, and, and of course, um, Stein faces a similar political situation to, um, that Roy Cooper, you know, focused or faced most of the time in, and he will face.

[00:30:21] I mean, it's, you know, it's hard for me to imagine there being a scenario, although not impossible towards the end of the decade where Democrats by, you know, some extreme small margin take over the legislature.

[00:30:34] But they are at such a demographic and geographic disadvantage.

[00:30:38] I think, you know, you're likely to see a Republican legislature probably with pretty healthy margins, not always super majority.

[00:30:45] Um, and so, you know, the question of Stein will be, um, you know, Roy Cooper was enormously successful politically.

[00:30:56] He never lost an election when I guess today's Thursday.

[00:31:00] So yesterday was Wednesday, January 1st.

[00:31:02] When Roy Cooper woke up yesterday morning, it was the first time in 37 consecutive years he had not been in an elected office.

[00:31:12] Um, you know, so, you know, the question is, you know, but his time as governor is fairly unmemorable, right?

[00:31:21] I mean, he, you know, he wrote in with backlash about HB2, a political situation that quite frankly, North Carolina was a little bit of ahead of the argument.

[00:31:32] That would have been probably very different had that argument taken place at another point in time after we got into fights over women.

[00:31:40] Absolutely. Especially now. I mean, now it would be laughable.

[00:31:43] Yeah, and then, but that's fine. And, and, you know, he did defeat an incumbent governor, something that there's not been that many opportunities to do since you didn't allow the governor to run for reelection until the 1980s.

[00:31:54] But, and, and, and Roy Cooper was enormously politically successful.

[00:31:59] Like running against the legislature is a tried and true thing that governors do, even when the legislature was controlled by, um, the same party as it was by the Democrat for most of the 21st century, um, 20th century.

[00:32:13] So, um, you know, and we'll see all the same things out of Josh.

[00:32:19] The interesting thing will be, does he want to get a little more done than Cooper?

[00:32:23] I mean, Cooper really finished with virtually no legislative accomplishments.

[00:32:29] I mean, yes.

[00:32:30] He had one.

[00:32:30] I would say Dallas, I would push back a little bit.

[00:32:33] And what I love about my relationship with you is you and I have had amazing disagreements over the past two decades and have been friends through it all.

[00:32:40] And I'll give you a lot of kudos because you, you've had disagreements with a number of people, but you always have a degree of respect for those who disagree with you.

[00:32:51] And you and I have had some great ones in the years.

[00:32:53] And I think that I'll predict that Josh, Don, I agree with you on the Josh Stein thing that I think he's going and you tell me if I'm wrong, he's going to probably be much more nuanced than Cooper.

[00:33:04] I don't think he dislikes Republicans as much.

[00:33:06] I think Morgan Jackson is very bright.

[00:33:08] I agree with you as his consultant.

[00:33:10] And I think he's going to post a few more victories working with the Republicans.

[00:33:14] But Cooper, the one thing I would say he did accomplish was Medicaid expansion, where for some reason, the Republicans went along with him on that.

[00:33:20] Well, I mean, actually, it's not just for some reason.

[00:33:23] It's not for some mysterious some reason.

[00:33:25] Why did they go along with him?

[00:33:27] And you can disagree with that.

[00:33:28] But you can disagree with it.

[00:33:30] The Republicans, I remind you, elected Donald Trump in 2016, and they elected Republicans to run both chambers of Congress.

[00:33:41] And the Republicans, mostly at the foot of the deceased John McCain, but Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare in Congress

[00:33:50] and to do something about health care.

[00:33:54] And when they refused to do that, they left the state in a terrible situation where basically the government's insurance – the insurance market can collapse.

[00:34:07] And I'm a little more sympathetic on the expansion of Medicaid than some of my conservative friends are because – and I don't like it.

[00:34:14] But I can understand why they felt like they had to do it because, you know, our employers can't get anybody insured, and they can't get anybody to go to work otherwise.

[00:34:22] And so –

[00:34:23] You left one part out, though.

[00:34:24] This is inevitably what happens when the federal government threw all this money towards Medicaid expansion, and the Republicans refused to repeal Obamacare when they had the people in Congress to do so.

[00:34:37] But –

[00:34:37] And they put – wait, wait, Dallas.

[00:34:39] They also – wait, wait, wait.

[00:34:41] Prior to the Medicaid expansion, they pushed for managed care, which ended up being somewhat disastrous as predicted fiscally.

[00:34:48] Well, I mean –

[00:34:48] It just – it didn't work.

[00:34:50] I mean, managed care didn't work.

[00:34:51] The Republicans – hold on a second now.

[00:34:53] The Republicans got a whole – I mean, Medicaid was blowing the budgets up on a routine basis in Raleigh before Republicans took over.

[00:35:01] Republicans greatly improved the Medicaid situation.

[00:35:04] But, okay, so he got Medicaid expansion, right?

[00:35:07] I mean –

[00:35:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:08] I would say that – the only thing I said, Dallas, was that was it.

[00:35:11] Dallas, I just said that was the one he got.

[00:35:13] Other than that, I don't know of any.

[00:35:15] I mean, you know, and by the way, there's – you know, expanding Medicaid, whatever you want to say about North Carolina, there's nothing unique about it, right?

[00:35:26] I mean, 49 – you know, 47 other states have it.

[00:35:30] You know, I mean, they point to his management of the COVID issue, which you and I are going to disagree with how he managed on it.

[00:35:37] But, I mean, my point is they don't exactly write about you in the history books because you oppose the other political party.

[00:35:44] That's pretty much sort of par for the course.

[00:35:47] So there are a number of things that are not that political.

[00:35:50] You know, I mean, the governor has the ability to reorganize state government, which needs to happen from time to time.

[00:35:58] You know, the Democrats – excuse me – the Republicans in the legislature, I believe, were willing to probably give Roy Cooper a lot of stuff.

[00:36:08] Give him some programs he liked, funds him.

[00:36:10] Well, he – look, Cooper hated the Republicans.

[00:36:13] That had a lot to do with it.

[00:36:14] Let me ask you, looking forward, what do you think the legislature –

[00:36:19] I agree.

[00:36:20] I agree.

[00:36:20] I think Cooper's hatred of Republicans was made manifest every day.

[00:36:23] So looking at Stein, who doesn't have the kind of animus that Cooper did – Cooper's a different political beast than Stein, in my opinion.

[00:36:32] What do you see as the big accomplishment that these guys could work together on?

[00:36:37] Well, I hope that they – I hope that they have the ability to sit down.

[00:36:44] We have a new Republican state auditor who I think is very smart and very – let's work with auditing science and efficiencies in government.

[00:36:56] You know, I would like to see Josh, our governor, sort of work with the Republican legislature on education to the point where, you know, we can go, all right, well, we like the voucher program and we believe in that.

[00:37:10] You want to do this.

[00:37:11] You know, let's figure a way to do both.

[00:37:13] And let's work hand in glove as opposed to – because we're not going to give up what we believe.

[00:37:18] You're not going to give up what you believe.

[00:37:19] So how can we work together on that?

[00:37:23] Transportation, you know, is sort of a major thing.

[00:37:27] I mean, I've got to take something else.

[00:37:29] Somebody's going to have to bite off a piece of tough steak and chew on it, and that's dealing with our university.

[00:37:37] Enrollment is down.

[00:37:39] You know, whether they are providing the kind of education in some places that needs to prepare the workforce.

[00:37:45] Well, I'll tell you what, Dallas, I'll tell you what.

[00:37:46] Can you stay through the break?

[00:37:47] I need to go to a break here.

[00:37:48] All right, that'll do it for this episode.

[00:37:51] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:37:52] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

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[00:38:00] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendarshow.com.

[00:38:05] Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.