Chad Adams Fills In For Pete Kaliner 01-02-25 Hour 2

[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 your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] With us right now, I've held him through the break because he hit on a topic that's near and dear to me. And that has to do with the UNC system. We were talking about Josh Dine, the now governor. Roy Cooper out of office for the first time in 37 years. I thought it was a little longer than that, but I think 37 is right. And he is the state director of American Majorities. It was very active, been very active politically for the past three decades or so. We share the chagrin of being state fans. We do. And we've known each other for many, many years. Dallas, welcome. Thank you for staying through the break.

[00:00:58] And when we went to the break, you had alluded to something about the UNC system schools and what's going on there that Josh Dine, the legislature may find some common ground because, and I'll add to this, we know that enrollment numbers are down across the board. We know that they haven't recovered since COVID. We know that you can get a lot of college credit at the community colleges. So there's a lot of things that were created that made it easier for students to get an education through a four-year university without having to go to the university.

[00:01:26] Well, and I think of, you know, kind of, broadly, I was thinking about this. You know, it is true that, you know, excuse me, Roy Cooper was first elected to the state house. You know, I mean, he's been in office 37 years.

[00:01:43] He was first elected. Well, it would have been in 1986. So he served in the state house the last two years that Ronald Reagan was president.

[00:01:59] You know, you know, went on the state house, served in the state Senate, attorney general. And if you look at that 37 years, even now, two thirds of his time, which all became at the beginning of his career, Democrats controlled everything.

[00:02:17] Right. I mean, it was only in the 2000s, which was 24 years ago, when Cherie Berry as labor commissioner broke through and finally found two governors up to that point.

[00:02:32] You know, and it took another 16 years before Republicans captured a majority on the council of state.

[00:02:39] I just always had this sense that one of the problems that Roy Cooper had is that when Republicans took over the legislature in 2010 and, you know, they had a, you know, one term governor of McCrory.

[00:02:52] You know, he was attorney general during that time that his attitude was that Republicans don't belong, that the natural state of things was that Democrats were supposed to run North Carolina in perpetuity.

[00:03:05] And he never. And the irony is that's on the heels of Mark Bass Knight and Jim Black, you know, Jim Black, who went to jail and a horrific period of time, even where Mike Easley, you know, gets gets drummed out in a way.

[00:03:17] So, yeah, he even though there was levels of corruption, Frank Balance, the congressman, his son, Frank Balance Jr., all these Democrats either went to jail, got fined or in disrepute and yet still thinks Republicans shouldn't be in office.

[00:03:31] Like them are hated.

[00:03:34] Much, much longer than other states in the South that, you know, you know, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, you know, the Mississippi, all that, you know, is all totally Republican.

[00:03:49] But my point is, is that, you know, Josh Stein was first elected in 2007 or 2009.

[00:03:55] So he has come up when Republicans have been in charge of a lot more in Raleigh and are going to continue to be.

[00:04:04] I mean, we have this very bizarre system, you know, that we don't have co-equal branches of government.

[00:04:09] I have to tell people all the time that that's schoolhouse rock that you watched about co-equal branches.

[00:04:14] That's the federal system.

[00:04:16] The policymaking and the people that run state government are in the legislature.

[00:04:20] The Constitution, although eventually adopted by the people, was written by the legislature.

[00:04:26] The governor in North Carolina was so irrelevant at the turn of the 17 and the 1700s and 1800s that the term of governor was one year.

[00:04:35] And they just flipped it back and forth between east and west.

[00:04:38] Now, the governor has grown stronger over the years, but it is still one of the weakest governors in America.

[00:04:44] And the legislature is the strongest.

[00:04:47] So if you want to accomplish things that actually make a long-term lasting impact and go beyond politics, you have to work with the Republican legislature.

[00:04:58] You have no choice.

[00:04:59] Well, it's a good deal for patronage.

[00:05:02] Wait, wait, wait.

[00:05:03] Dallas?

[00:05:03] Dallas.

[00:05:04] Woo!

[00:05:05] Park.

[00:05:05] Park.

[00:05:06] Now, it didn't mean to be brewed there, but I was just trying to get a question in because we're trying to get to education, the college stuff.

[00:05:12] And also, it's a great way to give people patronage jobs, though.

[00:05:15] There's a lot of patronage jobs from the governor's office, too.

[00:05:19] Well, sure, but that's always been the case.

[00:05:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:05:22] I wouldn't disagree.

[00:05:23] I'm just saying that's—

[00:05:23] And the governor has an important role, but it's just when it comes to the power dynamic, the policymaking and sort of the direction of the state is largely set by the legislature, especially if they are of opposite sides.

[00:05:38] I mean, I think Josh Stein can accomplish a lot more than Roy Cooper did, who will largely be forgotten in the history books.

[00:05:47] I mean, Pat McCrory has been gone for a long time, served one term, but has policy accomplishments.

[00:05:55] Now, granted, he had a Republican legislature to work with, but it came to tax cuts.

[00:05:59] It came to school choice.

[00:06:00] It came to reforming the unemployment system, to workers' compensation.

[00:06:05] I mean, stuff that North Carolina is still operating on and will be for decades.

[00:06:09] You know, Cooper, not only did he not end up with any of that, he didn't even really try in a lot of ways because it was politically good just to beat up on the Republican legislature.

[00:06:19] He was reelected by easy numbers.

[00:06:22] He paved the way for Josh Stein to come in in fairly easy fashion.

[00:06:28] But again, Stein has a choice.

[00:06:31] He can oppose the Republicans, and he should when he believes it's of critical importance, when it's the most important thing, and it is a dividing line between the parties.

[00:06:44] What do you think happens, Dallas, on the UNC?

[00:06:48] Let me just say there's one final lesson Josh Stein should learn, which Roy Cooper never did.

[00:06:53] And that is, for the most part, you can delay what the Republican legislature wants, but eventually they get it.

[00:07:00] I mean, if you look back on the line.

[00:07:01] But what happens, what do you think?

[00:07:02] You had ended the last hour on UNC.

[00:07:05] What do you think happens there with the erosion of students?

[00:07:08] I don't know.

[00:07:09] And there's some really smart people that are on the UNC board.

[00:07:13] I just think we've got to find a way to make – the universities can thrive again if they start putting a product out that educates people, gets the wokeness out of the university, that gets quality, classical, liberal-based education back in the classroom, and provides a product that people want to buy.

[00:07:38] That's a good way to say it.

[00:07:39] I would agree with that.

[00:07:40] I mean I think that that's what they've got to get back to.

[00:07:42] There's so many different things that happened through COVID and since and the way people look at this and the wokeism and the DEI stuff.

[00:07:48] I mean it was iconic to see Chapel Hill students.

[00:07:50] You and I were both amazed when they got up and put the American flag back up on the campus.

[00:07:54] We were like, hey, wait, that's beautiful.

[00:07:56] We never would have expected that.

[00:07:58] But Dallas –

[00:07:59] Well, I mean, unfortunately.

[00:07:59] But really we should be in a situation where that's not even news or not even surprising.

[00:08:05] True.

[00:08:05] You know, I mean –

[00:08:06] The other thing that's long-term is the university's got to probably look at some consolidations.

[00:08:12] I mean it's very politically difficult, and I don't know that you'll ever get over the politics.

[00:08:18] But I mean would it make more sense to consolidate UNC Asheville and –

[00:08:25] Western Carolina.

[00:08:26] But you've made three.

[00:08:27] They've made three of them.

[00:08:29] They took three of them and made them basically free.

[00:08:32] They had an opportunity to get rid of Elizabeth City and do something with Pembroke and Western North Carolina.

[00:08:36] But there's not many people want to go there, and they made it $500 like a year, and those universities are just still not doing well.

[00:08:43] So you're right.

[00:08:44] I hope they have the temerity to do that.

[00:08:45] But Dallas, thanks for being a part of the broadcast, man.

[00:08:48] Dallas Woodhouse.

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[00:09:51] Now, I do want to comment on one thing that Dallas said.

[00:09:54] And though I love having disagreements with Dallas, always have.

[00:09:59] And of particular import, though, was his observation about our new governor, Josh Stein.

[00:10:03] The difference between Josh Stein and Cooper, and this is worth repeating, is that Cooper came through a time when Democrats – it was – that Republicans were an afterthought.

[00:10:15] So Cooper comes into office in the 80s.

[00:10:18] Republicans are irrelevant.

[00:10:19] Most counties don't even have an organized Republican Party.

[00:10:21] They've had a governor in Jim Martin, but that's about it.

[00:10:26] Holzhouser in the early 70s during the Nixon time, and then Martin, but that's about it until you get to Governor McCrory.

[00:10:34] Democrats dominated from Jim Hunt through, you know, Bev Perdue and Mike Easley and all of them, and then this one.

[00:10:44] And so Democrats just owned the state.

[00:10:47] They did what they wanted to, which is why the level of corruption became so intense when you had people like Jim Black that, you know, this pay-for-play politics stuff goes to jail.

[00:10:55] Mark Bassnight, most people now remember, you know, Mark Bassnight building a four-lane highway right to his restaurant on the Outer Banks.

[00:11:02] It's just hard to believe that kind of stuff happened.

[00:11:04] And it happened with the kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge of the News & Observer, Charlotte Observer, WRAL, Capital Broadcast.

[00:11:10] They all kind of like, oh, this is normal.

[00:11:13] But that's where Cooper came in from eastern North Carolina, from Governor Jim Hunt world, not too far, Hunt from Wilson, and Cooper from Nash County, Rocky Mount area, right next door, barbecue country.

[00:11:27] And these, you know, so his never believed that Republicans should be having a seat at the table, not believing that Republicans should be relevant in state politics.

[00:11:39] That was his world.

[00:11:41] I mean, so when he came in, the biggest shock to Cooper had to be, they didn't have the House or the Senate.

[00:11:48] The entire time he's in office, he's largely irrelevant.

[00:11:51] He came from the legislature.

[00:11:53] He knew the power of the legislature.

[00:11:54] And he had been made largely irrelevant because the citizens of North Carolina put Republicans in place.

[00:11:59] By the way, under maps, gerrymandered by Cooper and his colleagues.

[00:12:03] There's the irony there.

[00:12:05] So Josh Stein comes to power as the attorney general.

[00:12:08] Later on, he gets into the General Assembly as Republicans are taking over the state.

[00:12:12] So his view of Republicans is very different.

[00:12:16] I mean, some of his time was spent while in the majority.

[00:12:18] Then he becomes attorney general eight years ago.

[00:12:22] And moving on, he basically was hired by Cooper into the attorney general office.

[00:12:28] They aligned the dominoes so he could take over.

[00:12:30] Morgan Jackson, Dallas referred to Morgan Jackson, by the way.

[00:12:33] And I had done a number of TV appearances with Jackson on Spectrum Cable with Tim Boyum.

[00:12:39] And really a stellar, stellar individual.

[00:12:41] Morgan Jackson, also a UNCW alum, like myself, undergraduate side of things.

[00:12:46] But Jackson is a very pragmatic guy who knows how to read the tea leaves, how to strategically.

[00:12:54] And if you ever watched, I don't know, the Good Wife TV show, you can get it on Prime now.

[00:12:59] I think it's more popular now than it was on TV.

[00:13:01] The character of Eli Gold could have easily been modeled after Morgan Jackson.

[00:13:11] Easily.

[00:13:11] Eli Gold could easily have been modeled after Morgan Jackson.

[00:13:14] It's kind of interesting.

[00:13:16] So just worth knowing there.

[00:13:18] So he's very pragmatic.

[00:13:19] He's extremely strategic.

[00:13:20] And he doesn't hate the Republicans the way Cooper did.

[00:13:23] And so I do think that Josh Stein will find a different path than Roy Cooper did.

[00:13:29] Just my observation worth knowing, you may have a different opinion of that.

[00:13:32] 704-570-1110 if you do.

[00:13:34] Or you want to comment on what happened in New Orleans.

[00:13:36] I just thought it was worth mentioning that those two things had happened.

[00:13:40] Now, excuse me for, pardon me for the hesitation there for a second, but a deer had walked by outside.

[00:13:46] So I was just kind of completely distracted by that.

[00:13:48] It was out of the blue in the middle of the day.

[00:13:49] Not a sick one either.

[00:13:50] It was a really healthy one that I think was a, I think it was ordering.

[00:13:54] It was ordering on DoorDash.

[00:13:55] I think it's getting some food from DoorDash.

[00:13:57] It's a deer become very advanced these days.

[00:14:00] By the way, Josh Stein should be holding a press conference about right now.

[00:14:03] It should have started probably about 10 minutes ago.

[00:14:04] Most people believe his first executive order will be something to do with Hurricane Helene relief.

[00:14:10] I think Roy Cooper has taken on the chin with a lot of criticism, especially from the right, about his actions toward what happened in Western North Carolina.

[00:14:16] I think Josh Stein will strike a different chord.

[00:14:19] There's still a lot of need for help.

[00:14:20] You heard that here at WBT, raising money, trying to help the folks in Western North Carolina.

[00:14:24] It is a third world country in many parts.

[00:14:27] And it's weird if you travel through that area.

[00:14:29] Because what you will find, you'll go through one area and, you know, one side of the mountain, it looks just remarkable.

[00:14:38] I appreciate the staff.

[00:14:39] Thanks for the commentary.

[00:14:40] On one side of the mountain, you'll look up and it looks normal.

[00:14:44] It looks like it would have in any January heading to the mountains.

[00:14:47] And yet you take a turn and the other side, because of where the water fell and how it just rolls down the hill, it's just completely destroyed.

[00:14:55] And so it is this hit and miss, beautiful third – it's beautiful.

[00:15:00] And then a third world country, roads, bridges, just destroyed.

[00:15:05] So it is still difficult to get around parts of Western North Carolina.

[00:15:09] I still predict the resiliency will amaze folks at when it does come back and how strong it comes back and how many people are still going to want to go.

[00:15:18] Whether it's a Biltmore or the ski resorts, you know, sugar, getting up to Grandfather Mountain, getting to all areas of the mountains, I think that tourism will come roaring back and still be a remarkable place to go.

[00:15:29] All right.

[00:15:30] Hey, real quick.

[00:15:30] 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.

[00:15:41] It's super affordable.

[00:15:43] It's baked into this podcast forever.

[00:15:44] And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck.

[00:15:50] 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.

[00:15:56] Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:15:59] And as always, looking forward to Pete Calendar being back at the helm.

[00:16:02] Does a stellar job.

[00:16:03] WBT, the talk station in North Carolina, the best that has persisted, the best that has overcome obstacles, the best of having a diverse audience in spite of being conservative talk radio.

[00:16:17] And tolerating like I could I can absolutely say I'm not a big fan of people saying that the government was supposed to be secular.

[00:16:25] We saw that you heard that advertisement.

[00:16:27] I completely disagree with them.

[00:16:28] It was if you look at it, the people who created this country.

[00:16:32] It wasn't it wasn't secular.

[00:16:34] It was not at all.

[00:16:35] And in fact, they were more worried about organized religion taking over.

[00:16:38] But it was extremely inspired by a creator.

[00:16:42] And, you know, in God, we trust and you are you endowed by your creator with certain inalienable rights.

[00:16:47] This is a big part of the creation of this country.

[00:16:49] So people trying to reshape that they're just wrong.

[00:16:53] And that's the I think it's OK for folks to start pointing out when folks are are just wrong.

[00:17:00] You know, even economically speaking, we've seen where people like Paul Krugman and a lot of these leftists, they've just been wrong.

[00:17:07] We know that's when they created the poverty center at UNC.

[00:17:10] We don't need to spend millions of dollars studying, you know, what causes poverty.

[00:17:16] We know what causes poverty.

[00:17:18] There's two or three big things like, you know, not getting pregnant before you get out of college and get a job.

[00:17:23] Not, you know, not doing drugs.

[00:17:26] Now, there's certain things, you know, if you don't do these things, your odds on being successful in life are dramatically better.

[00:17:32] What we ought to be teaching, we ought to have a UNC wealth center.

[00:17:37] In other words, looking at ways that people create wealth for themselves in a variety in a thousand different ways.

[00:17:42] It's not hard.

[00:17:43] I mean, it's challenging, but not unachievable.

[00:17:47] Being being poverty stricken, we know the things.

[00:17:49] There's two or three just, you know, that are that are basic.

[00:17:53] So, anyway, I had a listener during the break, or actually while I was on the air, I just didn't see it until the break, that asked me about Jeff Jackson.

[00:18:02] He's from the 14th Congressional District in and around our viewing area here, the southern part of the tier of Mecklenburg County, extending kind of east and west from that center line.

[00:18:11] And he's now the new attorney general.

[00:18:13] And he's been, he's got like 2 million followers on TikTok.

[00:18:17] He has done a, he's fairly young.

[00:18:19] He is a veteran.

[00:18:21] He is someone who has been very engaging.

[00:18:24] He ran for the position.

[00:18:27] He ran against, or Dan, they ran against each other.

[00:18:29] Dan Bisham also in Congress.

[00:18:31] And he ran, he's, there's so many different ways to say this.

[00:18:37] Jeff Jackson, very engaging, not known for sweeping political rhetoric.

[00:18:42] And his voting record, in spite of assertions to the contrary, and it's going to sound like I'm being very friendly, but my job is to kind of be truthful, excuse me, to always be truthful, especially with you.

[00:18:55] Jackson is, on the political spectrum, if you were to look at all members of Congress, and several people have done this, he's considered a purple Democrat.

[00:19:03] He is considered a center moderate Democrat.

[00:19:07] In fact, there are only about, let's see, three, four, about seven, eight members of Congress that are Democrats that are further to the right than he is.

[00:19:18] The rest of them are way to the left compared to him.

[00:19:21] He's much more aligned.

[00:19:22] In fact, there are at least two Republicans that are kind of aligned to the left of Jeff Jackson.

[00:19:28] He's going to be the next attorney general where he has sworn things, what he's said he will do.

[00:19:34] He is, like I said, the new, and I can't think of an attorney general we've really had in North Carolina that's a Republican right offhand.

[00:19:39] I'd have to look it up, but I don't think there's been one in my lifetime, maybe one back in the 1800s, I think.

[00:19:44] But he said he wants to go after, he wants to go after public corruption.

[00:19:49] Now, that's interesting because when he came to office, he was on the heels of some of the largest political scandals in our state's history.

[00:19:59] Well, at least in the modern times where you had people like Jim Black, and I mentioned it.

[00:20:03] I don't mean to belabor this, but the corruption was very well known in the General Assembly when Mark Bass Knight and Tony Rand ran the Senate and Jim Black ran the House.

[00:20:12] And there were high levels of corruption there.

[00:20:14] Frank Balance, who was a judge, and his son, a congressman, Frank Balance Jr., I think they went to jail.

[00:20:20] All of these Democrats were, you know, absolutely power had corrupted them at the highest level.

[00:20:28] Even Mike Easley with the cannons gate stuff, you know, he kind of left and went away and wasn't even allowed to practice law after that.

[00:20:34] His son, by the way, is now a U.S. attorney prosecuting folks, and now he's on a big hunt.

[00:20:40] I don't know if it's a witch hunt or not, but certainly he's looking at some goings on in the General Assembly.

[00:20:45] But Jackson is trying to carve out a niche as a fighter of public corruption.

[00:20:51] Do I believe that he is trying to set himself up?

[00:20:55] I think that the term aspiring governor is not an accident.

[00:21:00] We saw this with Roy Cooper aspiring to be.

[00:21:03] We saw this with Mike.

[00:21:05] Mike Easley was the AG who becomes governor.

[00:21:07] We see this with Josh Stein, who's the AG aspiring governor becomes governor.

[00:21:11] We've now seen it with Josh Stein, the aspiring governor.

[00:21:14] Attorney General becomes governor.

[00:21:15] And Jeff Jackson is young enough.

[00:21:17] He's going to have the resume.

[00:21:20] And as long as he doesn't have a significant fall, he's going to be in eight years should Josh Stein remain.

[00:21:25] It's very difficult to unseat a governor.

[00:21:27] And I don't, you know, four years is a political millennia as far as elections go.

[00:21:34] The Democrats are doing in the state of North Carolina a remarkable job of carving themselves into office.

[00:21:43] They've got relatively young people.

[00:21:45] They've got gaining good experience, building resumes.

[00:21:49] And the Republicans are kind of back up against a wall on this because Tim Moore leaves.

[00:21:54] Tim Moore had created a path in the legislature that I think made him unviable statewide.

[00:21:59] I mean, there were a lot of people and some of the stuff he got involved in made him look less than stellar, still does.

[00:22:06] Some of those court documents are just unbelievable about him.

[00:22:08] And, yeah, I don't see Phil Berger running for governor.

[00:22:11] He's probably the most powerful politician in the state running the Senate.

[00:22:16] And as Dallas Woodhouse said earlier, we are a legislative state.

[00:22:19] The legislature is all powerful.

[00:22:21] But on the executive side of things, lieutenant governor is a Democrat.

[00:22:25] The governor is a Democrat.

[00:22:27] The attorney general is a Democrat.

[00:22:28] They've set themselves up.

[00:22:31] They've set themselves up to have a good reign.

[00:22:34] And they've got a lot of folks.

[00:22:36] Now, nationally, I think the Republicans are doing a much better job of this.

[00:22:38] The gerontology side of things, the aging orthopedic side of Congress is definitely Democrat heavy on the age thing.

[00:22:45] A lot of people in the national stage look good and appealing and charismatic for Republicans after Donald Trump.

[00:22:50] But in North Carolina, there is a – unless somebody starts rising to the occasion with respect to charisma and name ID, the Democrats have got a lock on a lot of the executive branch for a long time.

[00:23:03] Now, Dennis, you've been on hold.

[00:23:05] If you're still there, I hope you are.

[00:23:06] Thank you for calling in today.

[00:23:07] How the heck are you?

[00:23:08] And welcome to the show.

[00:23:10] Thank you very much.

[00:23:12] I was going to give you a prime example of what people – when people don't do what they said they would do.

[00:23:19] I was a county commissioner in Union County, which is right to the south of y'all.

[00:23:24] We have what we consider to be one of the best sheriff's departments in North Carolina, Sheriff Eddie Cathy.

[00:23:33] And when I went into office, we could only take 10 – you know, one of his advertisements was he cleared the rape case backlog.

[00:23:46] When I went in, we could only take 10 things for the crime lab in Raleigh to solve per month.

[00:23:55] And you pay $600 each for this.

[00:23:59] And we solved the problem there, and we fixed it.

[00:24:07] Our sheriff came to us with a plan.

[00:24:09] We have our own crime lab in our sheriff's department now.

[00:24:13] We have nationally certified crime analysis working on it.

[00:24:18] And, you know, it pays a big dividend because it clears our court calendar quicker.

[00:24:24] But my whole point there, Roy Cooper was attorney general before Josh Stein, and they just – they only hurried up when it benefited them.

[00:24:35] And then we also ran into a problem.

[00:24:38] We used to take all our bodies for autopsy to Charlotte.

[00:24:44] Well, Charlotte was so overworked, we got bumped, and we was having to take them to Raleigh.

[00:24:49] And it involved a deputy having to carry it up there because you have to be real careful about chain of custody.

[00:24:56] So, Union County is also, through the sheriff's department, now doing autopsies too.

[00:25:02] I mean, Raleigh just basically weaned us off of everything that they could do for us.

[00:25:07] And if Josh Stein – you know, he's the leading law enforcement officer in North Carolina.

[00:25:14] He has as much power on crime when he was attorney general than the governor does.

[00:25:21] And he sure didn't do it when he could, so I don't see why he thinks he's going to –

[00:25:27] No, I'm not trying to cut you off.

[00:25:29] I was trying to respond a little bit.

[00:25:31] And that has – you're right.

[00:25:33] I think Roy Cooper, who was attorney general for a much longer period of time and had that rape log problem when he was there, acted like he did something about it.

[00:25:42] He didn't.

[00:25:43] He really didn't.

[00:25:43] He becomes governor.

[00:25:45] The media doesn't pay any attention to anything that he did as attorney general.

[00:25:49] He just ascends to the throne on the heels of HB2, this bill that if it were trying to be passed today would be very popular.

[00:25:57] But back then it was controversial and horrific, and the woke crowds in North Carolina went ballistic.

[00:26:02] And that's – Roy Cooper played it beautifully to become governor while no one was paying attention to what he actually accomplished.

[00:26:09] So then Josh Stein becomes the AG, gets the rape backlog, claims he cleared it, which had a lot to do with legislative things that changed.

[00:26:16] But you're right.

[00:26:17] Did Josh Stein really alleviate a lot or did a lot of law enforcement agencies, especially sheriff's departments across the state, who have had to assume a lot more power in the past hundred years – I mean, they were supposed to serve papers and run the courts when they were originally designed, but they've become huge law enforcement agencies across the state.

[00:26:35] They had to be creative in dealing with, like you said, big city autopsy problem, backups.

[00:26:41] Greensboro had some of that.

[00:26:42] Raleigh's had that.

[00:26:43] And then deal with the attorney general's office and find workarounds to get stuff done.

[00:26:48] And so now we have Jeff Jackson, and we'll see.

[00:26:51] But the media ignores the accomplishments of the attorney general's office and just – I don't want to say they sweep it under the rug.

[00:26:58] I don't think they fully understand what goes on there.

[00:27:01] Well, that's why I wanted to call in.

[00:27:03] The sheriff in Union County, he had a problem, and he fixed it.

[00:27:08] You know, he got his own crime lab, and it takes a lot of effort on the sheriff's part.

[00:27:16] Now, I want to tell you something that's amazing.

[00:27:18] We actually got some equipment donated to us from Airedale County, brand-new equipment.

[00:27:25] And they're a Republican-controlled board up there, but they've got a Democratic attorney general.

[00:27:33] I mean –

[00:27:33] DA.

[00:27:34] District attorney.

[00:27:36] Right.

[00:27:36] And the district attorney told the sheriff's department she wouldn't accept anything that came out of his crime lab.

[00:27:42] So, the sheriff – I mean, that's how sick it is that the average – we got over $200,000 worth of equipment from Airedale County.

[00:27:55] Now, I'm sure our sheriff will be mindful of that when he starts doing crime kits for Airedale County.

[00:28:05] In other words, they gave us something.

[00:28:07] We owe them something back, you know.

[00:28:10] Right.

[00:28:11] But for the district attorney to say, you can do all the crime labs you want to, I won't accept your findings in Airedale County court.

[00:28:21] Well, Dennis, I appreciate you calling and sharing that because you're right.

[00:28:25] A lot of this stuff, it doesn't get covered.

[00:28:27] People aren't aware of it happening.

[00:28:29] That was an interesting note about cooperation between Airedale and Union that I was unaware of with respect to moving resources.

[00:28:35] That's highly unusual for a county's taxpayers to say, I'm okay with you moving resources to another county without some kind of blowup down.

[00:28:43] And there are parts of the world down east where Republicans, you know, waste a lot of money on helicopters and all sorts of fancy toys and hovercrafts and everything else without a lot of accountability.

[00:28:52] There is rarely a great deal of accountability at the local courthouse.

[00:28:57] And that's sad, but that's also because we have so many places where media doesn't – there are dark media holes throughout North Carolina where there's just nobody that has the resources to cover what's going on at the local courthouse.

[00:29:11] But, Dennis, you just reached a huge audience, and I appreciate you calling in.

[00:29:14] Hey, one more thing.

[00:29:16] I don't –

[00:29:16] Yes, sir.

[00:29:17] Just like Cabarrus County, we have great cooperation with them.

[00:29:22] Stanley County, Lincoln County, and Gaston County, they all, you know, anything that needs to be done when we need some area counties to push for, they're right there for us, and we've been right there for them.

[00:29:41] So –

[00:29:41] You just made a donut.

[00:29:43] You just went all the way around Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and the name of the counties there geographically.

[00:29:47] So I appreciate that.

[00:29:50] So, Dennis, thank you for the phone call.

[00:29:52] Thanks for sharing your thoughts there.

[00:29:54] And it is a sad reality.

[00:29:57] I can remember back in the 90s or late 90s, maybe even early 2000s, you could go to the General Assembly, and there was a room.

[00:30:05] There was kind of these two odd-shaped rooms that were – they almost looked like hallways, but they weren't.

[00:30:09] They were an office in a way.

[00:30:11] It was long, kind of skinny.

[00:30:13] And that's where all of the local newspapers across the state and some radio stations – they had – it was the media center.

[00:30:20] So all of them had their Raleigh correspondent, their Raleigh government-related reporter that could go there and use that office.

[00:30:27] And as things went forward, a lot of legacy media at the local level was dying.

[00:30:33] Newspapers were finding it hard to compete, hard to stay in business.

[00:30:37] And so you would go and you would see fewer and fewer.

[00:30:39] And by 2008, 9, 10, 11, somewhere in there, there was hardly any reporters in that press pool because local newspapers didn't have the ability to send somebody to Raleigh to cover what's going on.

[00:30:51] Even Charlotte and Raleigh, you would think these have huge news opportunities.

[00:30:57] But from a print standpoint, the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News Observer are the same.

[00:31:01] They're one in the same paper, owned by the same people, and run with a skeleton crew relative to what they used to have from a prominence in media standpoint.

[00:31:08] So there's very little that gets covered.

[00:31:11] And democracy – when they say democracy dies in darkness, you see a lot of that happening in North Carolina.

[00:31:19] And unfortunately, so many counties just do not have an accountability to the public about what they're doing.

[00:31:25] And I'm talking about Republican and Democrat counties.

[00:31:27] It's not just one.

[00:31:28] All right.

[00:31:28] That'll do it for this episode.

[00:31:30] Thank you so much for listening.

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[00:31:45] Again, thank you so much for listening.

[00:31:46] And don't break anything while I'm gone.