Democrats: Be better than us, Republicans! (03-25-2025--Hour3)

[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] So let me sum up the game that is being played right now about the signal group chat scandal, quote unquote. Democrats, as you heard at the end of the last hour with the call from Alex, Democrats are demanding that Republicans be better than Democrats and the standards that Democrats set.

[00:00:58] That's what they're saying. Be better than us and the standards we set. Because you guys complained about Hillary Clinton's emails. And you guys said she should be prosecuted, classified material was compromised, all of this, all of those charges, all of those accusations, right? All the investigations. And you guys made all of this big deal about it. So therefore, you need to do the same thing with your guy.

[00:01:28] Right. But you guys said it wasn't a big deal. You guys let her off the hook. You guys blamed the FBI for her loss because they dared to look at the transgressions. Which I have said from the very beginning, the smoking gun is the existence of the server. That was the smoking gun. And everybody pretended like it wasn't.

[00:01:55] And when you sit back and you watch the way that unfolded. And you're not a Democrat. You start to wonder, why should I even play by the old set of rules? And that's how you got Donald Trump. It is. You may not want to hear it. But that's the truth. Let me read a couple of emails here.

[00:02:23] This is from Tony, who says, security breach, subject line. It's a peep mail. He says, they should have just said we made a mistake and we'll fix it. Don't defend it. Can't believe you're defending this with what about the Democrats? Integrity still matters to me, regardless of what the new standard is. No, Tony, that's fine. I don't actually believe I've defended them using the Signal chat.

[00:02:52] Because I don't know what all was said in the Signal chat. I did say last hour that they probably should not have been using that app. But the reason why, I will point out, the reason why they were using the app is apparently like everybody in Washington uses Signal. They are all communicating with each other in this encrypted service.

[00:03:20] But that the use of this platform became more prevalent, according to the Associated Press. The use of Signal became more prevalent during the final year of the Biden administration. Do you know why? Because federal law enforcement officials warned that China and Iran were hacking the White House, as well as officials in the first Trump administration.

[00:03:48] So the first Trump administration was being hacked by China and Iran. And last year, then, the use of Signal became more prevalent because that news, that information was divulged. That's why they're using it. They don't trust our own government security apparatus.

[00:04:18] And why should they, by the way? Seriously. Again, I'm not advocating that the people on the group chat did nothing wrong. I have not said that. I don't know what they did. However, I can understand why they would not trust the American intelligence community, considering the track record that the intel community has with regards to the Trump administration. Pretty clear.

[00:04:47] That record is very clear. Also, when Donald Trump has phone calls with foreign leaders, they somehow end up being used against him for an impeachment trial. So that's the kind of bunker mentality that the people in the Trump world have. I understand that. I believe I also said last hour that they should have been engaged in this.

[00:05:13] If they were discussing classified information, they should have been doing it in SCIF. They did not. That's a problem. Same sort of problem that Hillary Clinton had. But again, y'all set a standard that it didn't matter. But now you want the other side to adhere to a standard that you yourselves do not adhere to. And so what are you saying? That you guys have higher standards than us, so you should live by them.

[00:05:42] You guys said that you thought she did something wrong. So, you know, you should maintain that position. And we'll maintain the position that it's all fine when we do it. So that you're asking, you're demanding actually, unilateral disarmament in the fight. And whatever you think about Trump world, they are not going to do that. They're just not. Again, I tried to warn people.

[00:06:12] I tried to warn you Democrats that this was the path you were embarking on and you didn't care. It's the same thing as the filibuster. Exact same thing. It's the same thing as packing the U.S. Supreme Court, which, by the way, if you noticed, nobody seems to care about anymore on the left.

[00:06:31] They were demanding that the Supreme Court be expanded so they could stick a bunch of new justices on the bench so they could then rule in perpetuity and get what they want through the court system. They demanded that we blow up the filibuster. So they no longer have to listen to the 40 Republican senators, 41 Republican senators.

[00:06:55] And then they, you know, this way they can get through whatever they want to get through as soon as they got a 51 seat majority in the U.S. Senate. You don't hear about that anymore. See, your standards, guys, you're the norm destroyers. You guys are. Let me jump over and chat with Stan. Hello, Stan. Welcome to the show. Hi, Pete. How are you doing? Good. What's going on? I'm well. Awesome.

[00:07:20] What I want to talk with you about is basically the laws that they write. And this is what I've thought for years about laws that they write. The laws sound good like campaign finance reform. Okay, we don't want money in politics, so we'll do campaign finance reform. The only problem is it was never intended to be enforced both ways. So with most of the regulations that we accepted, what they write sounds good.

[00:07:45] But because they control the media, what gets reported and what gets out there, and because they have enough judges they can go drug shopping with, basically what they've done is they've run the other side down for years. And now that we've got somebody in the White House that's fighting for us, they're actually seeing what we've seen for a long time. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, that's the problem with writing any kind of law is you can never predict every circumstance.

[00:08:13] And lawyers and special interests who help to write the laws, or in some cases do write the laws, they carve out the loopholes for themselves. Right, so they know how to take advantage of this stuff. So that's a problem with any law at every level. So then what happens is that the lawmaking body basically loses some of itself because at some point we no longer lend that any credibility.

[00:08:43] So we just don't follow the law. That's the place you don't want to go down. You don't want to go down that road. Right, which is what the whole system is based on is the rule of law being applied equally. Correct. And if people have no expectation of that, then yeah, then people cease to follow the law. And you do not want to live at a society where that happens. No, no, I talk about it often. Yeah, Stan, I appreciate the call, sir. Thank you, Pete. Take care now. Yeah, man, you too. Let me see here. This is from Bob who says,

[00:09:15] Come on, Pete. You know it's different when Democrats do it. That's right. And Joseph says, The Biden administration approved signal for use by government officials. I want to know who has Jeffrey Goldberg in their contacts, though, because they would be out. And I mean of everything. Cardboard box and friendly escort out the door. Yeah, I want to know who has Jeffrey Goldberg in their contacts.

[00:09:45] That's that's a concern for me. And yes, Jeff says, have we finally found something upon which Democrats can pounce and seize? I believe so. I believe we are witnessing pouncing and seizing. I do declare. All right. So spring is here, a time of renewal and celebrations. You got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime.

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[00:11:05] This is a post from Chris Stigal from the Salem News Channel. He said, two things can be true. Michael Waltz, the national security advisor, and his team screwed up. Also, Jeffrey Goldberg is a snake who mischaracterizes and gaslights to score political points.

[00:11:30] So, release every word of the messages and let us read it for ourselves. Like, I feel like that's what should occur. And if you can't do that, then that's going to indicate that there was classified stuff being discussed in there. And then address that somehow or just say, oh, you know what? We fat fingered it, invited the guy, didn't mean to. We found out what happened. We're moving on. Sorry. And that's it.

[00:12:00] And let Democrats and media, you know, continue to blow a gasket, I guess. Jim, welcome to the program. Hello, Jim. Good. Hi. How are you this morning? Hey, I'm good. I'm sorry. Yeah, what's up? Yeah, I've been kind of listening to this stuff I heard last night and been watching on TV off and on. I was in the military. I was in public affairs. And I worked around a lot of generals and high-level people, traveled on your planes, went places with them.

[00:12:27] These high-level people, you know, a lot of times they get on a conference call or something. Somebody's already got it arranged. And all they do is say, general, pick up the phone, so-and-so, and so-and-so's on it. They don't do all that stuff themselves. No, of course not. Sometimes I didn't. Yeah, I've done interviews with people like that. And, yeah, you talk to their person first. And right before you go live, they hand the phone over to the guy that you're going to be interviewing.

[00:12:51] They don't sit on – the officials don't sit on hold during the newscast waiting to do the live shot. Yeah. Whoever, I don't know. Who knows? The JG thing, I've heard several things about that. They may have thought it was somebody else that they were supposed to send it to. But, you know, when Pete Hesher picks up the phone or whatever, what he's going to do – and I use Signal myself. And one reason I've used it for years is because of what I learned when I was in the military.

[00:13:20] It's a good source to use. And I don't use – I mean, I use local stuff, you know, but I don't – that I use for more private things. What really bothers me is a person who's worked with media, local, high people all over the place in my 20-something years in the military was that guy, Goldberg, should have not done what he did.

[00:13:46] He should have called the Pentagon and said, you guys are sending me some information. I don't know if it's good or bad. He should have – back during World War II, Korea or even Vietnam, that crap would have never happened. And it just shows how the media has changed so much. It does – He's a traitor by doing what he did. So it does raise a question that I've – yeah, it raises a question that I've seen in being discussed in media circles is, you know,

[00:14:15] one view that you just articulated is that when you realize you are in this group and you shouldn't be in the group, then you should leave the group. Because if it is real, you don't have – you don't have clearance to be in that group. It's obviously a mistake. Or it's a scam. And so you should get out of the group because you don't want to get scammed. So the fact that he stayed in the group even though he claims that he didn't think it was real, why would you stay in that group?

[00:14:44] Can't you just get out of the group? Can't you just leave? Of course you can. So, yeah, like – and I don't know what I would have done if I had been invited into the group, but I probably would have said, am I supposed to be in this? That's probably what I would have said. Because, like, I had a rule that I would not break laws in order to get stories. That was one of my rules. Yeah. And he was an eavesdropper. I mean, what can I say? Yeah. He should have – yeah, he should have hung up.

[00:15:13] You should have called the Pentagon and said, somehow I got on this. Instead, he turned it around. And that's so – you know, I'm an old baby boomer, so maybe this is really un-American to me. But it really burned me up. And probably more because I've been level with three or four-star generals and traveled with them. And, you know, I know the routines and stuff and high-level people like that or around them.

[00:15:39] And it just bothers me that that guy didn't – he made things really worse. He could have called the Pentagon and said, somehow I got on this. Yeah. You need to let him know. Now, if he was a Democrat, he probably would have done that. Oh, he might have. It bothers me. Yeah. He might have or sat on the information or just thought that I was supposed to be in there because I get invited to all of these group chats. Yeah, that's it. Jim, I appreciate the call, sir, and thank you for your service. We appreciate it.

[00:16:09] Sure. All right. Take care. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean that – I've seen people argue over the last 24 hours in media circles, oh, you would have done the same thing that Jeffrey Goldberg did. You would have sat in there and you would have eavesdropped in and gotten this information too.

[00:16:32] Okay, well, if you are a journalist or a reporter and you are making that assertion, you're making that argument that any reporter, if they got invited in, that they would stay and that's what I would do too. Right? Then, like you're already sort of undermining any kind of moral authority there because you're not supposed to have access to that information either.

[00:17:02] The fact that you were invited in, like you could have left and then it wouldn't have been a story. Right? But you stayed and you made it a story. You made yourself the story and that's also one of the things they teach you in journalism school is you're not supposed to be the story. But Jeffrey Goldberg stayed and he claims he only stayed because he thought it was all a scam, which why would you stay if it's a scam? That doesn't add up to me either.

[00:17:30] And by the way, I have gone into virtual meetings and stuff, organizers, union and activist organizers and stuff, and I always go in with my real name. And if you want to kick me out, you go right ahead and kick me out. I have never been kicked out though. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain. And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:18:49] And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Our pal Kurt Schlichter, retired U.S. Army colonel, columnist over at townhall.com as well. He says the signal chat story is a gut check for alleged cons, conservatives.

[00:19:18] He says nothing significant was revealed. Worst case, it was a mistake that will never happen again. More likely, a proven liar has now lied about at least some of it. That being Jeffrey Goldberg. And yet, so many people are delighted to have the opportunity to freak out about something that the Trump administration did. It's bizarre. By the way, hang on. Let me jump over and read this message that I got from Russ. It's about that very thing.

[00:19:45] And Russ points out how it's kind of weird that callers, Alex, Tom, Tony, Mike, et al., those types of callers come out of the woodwork on bad news days for Trump, Republicans, conservatives, etc., but are totally absent on any good news days or bad news days. It's almost like they're all seminar callers or paid opposition callers.

[00:20:13] It's funny, Russ, that you mention that because I literally said the same thing during one of the breaks. You only hear from them on days like this. Otherwise, because all they are is the resistance. All they are is in attack mode. That's all they know. It's very difficult, you know, to make positive cases in support of a thing. It's much easier to attack.

[00:20:42] And so that's what that's what they do. And Richard wants to know a big question for me is why did somebody have that reporter's contact info in their Rolodex? Yeah, I agree. I said the same thing. I would like to know, like, who set that up and why is Jeffrey Goldberg in your contacts list? Back to Kurt Schlichter's post.

[00:21:02] He says, it is bizarre how so many people who are, you know, delighting to have the opportunity to freak out about something Trump or his administration did. It's bizarre how they play along with leftist narratives. The answer to your enemies is to give them nothing. Nothing. You're not being principled. You're not demonstrating integrity. You're showing weakness.

[00:21:31] Never, ever give them the head of one of your allies. Understand that your enemies never get anything except pain and mockery. There's no such thing as even-handedness. Either win or lose. I choose winning. This is where we are. I've been warning about this. Nobody wants to believe me. This is where we are, though.

[00:22:03] Along the lines of people being outraged at things being discussed in private, did you see this story over at the Charlotte Observer? I mean, first you'd have to have a subscription. But, yeah. So, apparently, the Charlotte City Council is doing something that I have a bit of experience with, by the way. Not me personally, but I watched it happen up in Asheville.

[00:22:31] Where they would do these same kinds of small meetings. They called them, they call like one-on-ones or three-on-ones or three, no, not three ways. Like two-on-ones or something like that. Essentially, it was the county manager. Her name was Wanda Green. And she would meet in these small groups of the county commissioners. I believe there were seven of them.

[00:23:01] And so, she would meet with, yeah, I think they call them three-on-ones. So, she would have like three commissioners come in and she would talk to them about stuff on the agenda, about whatever business had to be discussed. Then they would leave. And then another group of three would come in. She would talk with them. And then she would have a side conversation with the chairman. And you think, well, why would you do that? That's so inefficient.

[00:23:29] You've got now three meetings instead of just one. Ah, see, if you have a meeting where a majority of the board is present, now you have to follow the open meetings laws. And so, they didn't want to do that. Now, it turns out Wanda Green had a bit of an ulterior motive in doing this.

[00:23:46] Because she would lie to different groups and pit them against each other in an effort to distract their attention away from the fact that she was embezzling millions of dollars from the county. She went to federal prison and then COVID let her out. But, yeah, like, that's why you do that. Is so you can control the information flow.

[00:24:14] And our Charlotte City Council has been doing the same thing. I'm not alleging any kind of illegal activity or anything. I'm not saying there's any embezzlement. I'm just saying these little meetings are occurring. And council members may think that they are getting a benefit in having these one-on-ones and not having to adhere to open meetings law and all that. But you don't know how you may be getting manipulated.

[00:24:43] Also, you don't know what other questions other council members are asking. It's like a press conference versus a one-on-one interview. If I sit down for a one-on-one interview with somebody, I may not think of all the questions. In fact, I guarantee I'm not going to think of all the questions because I'm only one person with only one and a half brains. It's a long story.

[00:25:04] But if you've got a news conference and you've got 20 reporters there, you're going to get lots of questions that people hadn't thought of. And if I ask a question and I'm satisfied with the answer, another reporter might not be satisfied with that answer. Ask a follow-up and get more information. So this is what's been going on at the Charlotte City Council level.

[00:25:48] The law says that any gathering of a majority of members of a public body, in person or virtual, must be announced to the public and open to the public. If they are conducting public business. The city says that its small group meetings are conducted, quote, in accordance with applicable law. Well, yeah, but if you keep it under half of the body, then there isn't an applicable law. You don't have to have it open.

[00:26:20] Notably, the law authorizes council to interact informally and socially without the construct of the open meetings law. Exempting such gatherings and events from the notice, public access and minutes requirements of official meetings of public bodies, according to the city. In a statement to the Charlotte Observer. But some still question the legality of the small groups.

[00:26:46] Case law on the subject is limited, but it can be a tactic for officials to evade transparency. According to Mike Tadic, who specializes in media law. Well, that's exactly what it does. It's sort of like Hillary Clinton's email server. That's the reason why you have the server. So you can wipe it, like with a cloth, and then nobody can ever retrieve any of the classified material that you were sending through your server.

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[00:27:43] I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news.com. Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:28:12] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. A couple of messages I have gotten over the course of the show today suggesting that the signal gate was some sort of a trap. I don't buy that. I don't believe that it was a trap to catch Goldberg or something like that. I've seen no evidence to support that theory. I'm not saying it.

[00:28:41] I know that to not be true. I'm just saying there's no evidence to support that. All right. Let me go over and talk with Joy. Hello, Joy. Welcome to the show. Hey. How are you today? Hey.

[00:29:07] How are you today? Hey. Hi. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, hey. Hey. Hey.

[00:29:31] about it. It's not a joking matter at all. And that's what I fault the administration for. If things happen, but we need to be responsible for it, own up to it, and certainly don't make jokes about it. Okay. Joy, I appreciate the call. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Take care.

[00:29:54] Joy's reference there is, I think it was Babylon Bee, the satire website, parody website. I think it was, I think it was a Babylon Bee headline that they said, you know, they leaked the battle plans to the Atlantic knowing that nobody would see them or something. And, and then I don't know who, somebody shared it or liked it or something on Twitter, probably Elon Musk. I don't

[00:30:20] even know if Trump does anything on Twitter anymore. He prefers his own, you know, social media platform, truth social. Um, so yeah, so he retweeted that or whatever. So joy doesn't like the fact that they're making light of it. Look, as I said, all the, what's the old axiom? It's not the crime. It's the coverup, right? And the way that it's being handled is probably going to give more fuel

[00:30:46] to the fire for people that are looking for more fuel. That's all they want is more fuel, more fuel. This is now got all their attention. All their focus is because they're going to try to leverage it to stymie anything else that Trump tries to do with regard to the DOD and the intelligence agencies, everything else. We are in a game right now of running out the clock. That is

[00:31:12] what Democrats and media, but I repeat myself are attempting to do at the courts, right? With hundreds of lawsuits filed. The point is not to prevent that's gravy. The point is to stall, right? That's the purpose. It's to delay as much as possible until you can get close enough to the next election. So he won't be able to then resume what he wants to do. That's what's going on here. I've got a whole

[00:31:40] topic on this and I was thinking I would do it today, but I ran out of time. So we'll do it tomorrow. Um, but that's what this latest quote scandal, the signal gate stuff. That's what this is designed to do. They're going to have, you know, demand hearings and everything else, but Democrats do not control Congress. And so it's going to be very difficult for them to actually try, uh, to, to get something

[00:32:04] like that done because Republicans are, they're going to take whatever excuse, whatever explanation comes out of the intelligence agencies. And as with Democrats, by the way, they both do it. And, and I'm sorry, but I like, I don't have a lot of tolerance for lefties that, um, that ignored

[00:32:27] all of the transgression. For example, if you were on, if you're on the left and you ever used the words, uh, cheap fake in relation to Joe Biden's, uh, cognitive decline, I don't care what you have to say about this. It doesn't matter to me because your booze mean nothing because I have seen what

[00:32:53] you cheer for. All right. Yeah. Why not close it out? You got about, uh, we got a 45 seconds, Tony. How are you, sir? Good to hear from you today. Yeah. How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm good. Hey, look, looks like the JV squad is playing on this one. Hey, you know what? Heck, when you got a womanizing alcoholic as a defense secretary and then a womanizer and fraud

[00:33:21] as the president, you can't expect much more. So, I mean, it is what it is. All right. Okay. So you shouldn't expect it either then? You shouldn't expect more either then? Believe me, I don't. Okay. So why do you care? So, all right. So why do you care enough to, why do you care enough to call? What's the purpose of your call? What do you mean? What's the purpose of it? What's the purpose of your call? If you will, if you don't expect anything bad, the comment, I'll tell you the purpose of my call is to comment on the dumb founders of the, of the administration that's

[00:33:51] running the country now. That's all. And you know, and the thing about it is you guys always want to go back to what Biden was doing. Biden's not president anymore. He hasn't been president in almost 90 days. Are you serious? I had no idea. Oh my gosh. Joe Biden's not president anymore. Thank you very much, Tony. I appreciate the enlightenment on that. Oh man. I had no idea Joe Biden wasn't president any longer. I mean, I feel like I cover, uh, follow this stuff pretty closely, but that one just plum evaded me. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you

[00:34:21] 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 the Pete calendar show.com again. Thank you so much for listening and, uh, don't break anything while I'm gone.