Democrats defy democracy (12-02-2025--Hour3)

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