Dirty books and painted rocks (12-15-2025--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 dpeteclendershow 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. As we do every Monday at two o'clock, we chat with Ap Dylan. She is a reporter at the North State Journal n sjonline dot com, and you can subscribe to her newsletter called More to the Story. Hello, Ap, how are you? Hey, Pete? I'm good. How are you doing? I am doing all right. It's a lot of stuff to get through today, a lot of a lot of news, yeah, and a lot of i mean just terrible stories from over the weekend. Oh god, yeah. Yeah. But let's look at some of the stuff that you've been working on. First. I want to start because it kind of dovetails into what we were talking about last hour with Rob Reiner and the you know, some of the comments that like, well, the comment that Donald Trump put out, but some others have said, I mean, it's just there's nothing near what we saw in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination. And I suspect that if somebody were to paint a spirit rock at rjerie Kel High School here in Charlotte in memory of Rob and Michelle Reiner, I suspect nobody would have much of a problem with that, like like they did when a student named GS. That's how they're being identified in the lawsuit against arderie Kel when she painted a message in memory of Charlie Kirk, which now this is going through litigation. The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a lawsuit on the student's behalf. And so you document sort of the where this or how the story came to be and and you got stuff here from the from the complaint. So for people who aren't aware, what is the So what's the nature of the complaint filed by this student and the the A d. Uh, well, there's a there's multiple parts to this. There. Their first assertion is that the student's free speech, there's First Amendment rights were violated, and they point to two different things there. First that she got permission to write on a spare rock, and it's supposed to stay there for you know, twenty four hours or whatever before it gets paid over by any other message, as we've seen in other incidents like at UNC Wilmington. But then they decided no, wait, she didn't get permission, and they launched an investigation into her and you know, called the police. They questioned her without her parents at school. Uh. They they had her try to write a statement of you know, about what she what she did there, trying to get her to admit some kind of culpability. It was very bizarre. Yeah, they said she was she vandal like. They were accusing her of vandalism. Yeah, they were. They're accusing her of vandalism even though she had gotten permission to do it, and she has the documentation from that. But that was that was only one part of it. The other part of it was that they went and they changed the guidelines for writing on the spear rock afterwards to no political messages, even though what she wrote wasn't political. It had his name on it and referenced a position of the Bible John eleven twenty five. It says live like Kirk on one side with the with the Bible passage, and then the other was an American flag. So if that's gotcha upset, then there's a problem. But it did get someone upset. It got the CMS school board member Melissa easily upset. Well, to be fair, I think a lot of things upset her. Yes, well, you know when when he died, When Kirk died, she she put this post on her personal Facebook page that said, it's disappointing partis that I'm said and that this was yet another political issue that caused death. But do not expect me to feel sorry, pity or mournful for the man that has gone around saying I am my spouse or abominations, which. He never called them abominations. Yeah, he never called trans people abominations. Yeah, I mean a school board members, you know how to spell the word pity, And she didn't. So that too, Yes, that too, that too. Yeah, so that was the fun part of it. Her husband is apparently transgent. So indeed she thinks that that Kirk's opposition to calling men women and women men, you know, because they identify that way, was you know, it was offensive, so right. And so right. So they and that was something I was not aware that they had pulled this girl out of class on two different occasions, forced her to write out a statement summarizing her rock painting efforts, forced her to then edit that statement to include details they believed to be important. And they did this without first advising her of her constitution rights in any criminal proceeding, including the right to remain silent and the right to have legal counsel. Yeah, and this goes to the Supreme Court rulings on the pledge of allegiance in class which is why kids don't have to do it is because they recognize that simply being in that classroom it is coercive by nature. They have ruled that in the past, and so obviously when you're in the school house and they're like, hey, come down to the principal's office, now you got to write this thing, it is coercive in nature. And the student is not being represented by a lawyer and has never advised that, Hey, anything you write down in this thing that we are now going to tell you to edit in the way we want this could be used against you for a criminal investigation into her. And then what they They close the investigation and then they're like pretending like they never investigated her at all. Yeah, basically a lot I don't look behind the curtain. Yeah, well that's what a lot of suits looking behind the curtain. And they've got eight different claims in there of violated rights everything from the First Amendment to the Fourth Amendment, at the fifth Amendment and the fourteenth. Yeah, so just for good Yeah, I mean, the complaint is it's not huge, but it's fairly lengthy and it really lays it all out. It's even got you know, screenshots from when that rock was allowed to be used for Black Lives Matter with students actually posing in front of it holding up the power fist right now. So, I mean, but somehow this Bible passage and it says live like Kirk with an American flag? That was right? That was the bridge too far? Right, that's the bridge too far. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So that's over at More to the story. I encourage people to go to the substack there and subscribe to it. And then you've got this piece at the North State Journal about the. The was it. I'm trying to find the what was the committee that heard this or held this. It was the House Oversight Committee. They called in the superintendent and the chairman of the Board of Education for Chepehill, Carborough Schools for you know, a year ago in January, there was you know, I reported on this when it happened at the time and I was surprised it didn't get more traction then. But that chair Cher Griffin, George Griffin, he basically made comments saying, we're you know, the Parents' Bill of Rights, We're not going to do it that way, and we're we're not going to follow certain parts of that law. And the AVOCA parts that he's talking about are telling parents about pronoun or name changes. And the other one was the ban on sexual topics like gender identity in k th four. Right and U what? And I guess because the state representative, the co chair of the committee, Brendon Jones, And these are the audio and video clips that went viral where he's reading the tie of the books. I'm guessing these are books that were still in the curriculum or in the libraries in the Chapel Hillcarborough School district. Yeah, they were in within elementary school grade reach. Of these titles, one was called Santa's Hug. Yeah, it's about a gay Santa. One black, one white, two guys of course, and it isn't rude to be nude, which had all walks of life naked in the book. Drawing, yeah, drawing those Yes. This is my lady part, these are my toes. Yeah, that was another one that it was found in elementary school. So yeah, he kind of had a little bit of a fit with these books. And after he would read the titles and say word about it, he literally chucked the books over his shoulder and called him filter garbage. Yeah, this trash, and he would shuck it over into a trash ban. Yeah. I've never seen something like that and a hearing before, but I'm watching it, you know, I'm grabbing my popcorn. Yeah, and so the so there. The accusation is that the school district took out some of the core provisions of the Parents' Bill of Rights and just simply like thumb in the eye to the state legislature, we're not going to enforce these portions of the law. Yeah, they wouldn't put it in their policies, but they put something in their guidelines, which basically means it didn't have to be followed. If it's policy, it has to be followed. If it's a guideline. It's like, oh, well, you can maybe either do this or maybe not. And throughout the entire hearing, multiple members tried to get Griffin to acknowledge that he was skirting the law number one, to which he kept saying, no, we've complied with the law, even though all the evidence, the votes, the documents, the recorded meetings, everything says to the opposite right. And at one point in his opening statements, Jones called his actions a coordinated middle finger to this legislature and to every parent in your district. That's fair, yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. Yeah, So that hearing was pretty crazy. So did he perjure himself, either Griffin or the superintendent. Well, the superintendent is a guy named Ronnie Trice. He was the Wake County School's Office of Equity Affairs director for several years and was involved in doing all the critical race theory training for teachers in the district. When I started reporting on that training and where it was coming from and who was doing it a month later, he was pressed about whether or not it was in the schools, to which he lied and said it wasn't and that his office had nothing to do with it. Even though I had all the invoices and receipts. So he left and went back to Chapel Hill, Carboro Schools, which is where he originally came from, and he moved up to the rank to superintendent last year, I believe, or earlier this year is when he was installed. So he really didn't say much and they didn't really press him much on it. But they did press Griffin on it because he was the one in the meeting they have on video saying that he's going to ignore these things. He thinks the board would ignore these things, and they couldn't get him pinned down to say whether he did or not. And Jones accused him of perjuring himself because he showed him not only the video but an email from the following month talking about how to you know, write their policy and their guidelines to get around it right, And he held it up, so were you lying then or are you lying now? Right? And you know, he said, we comply with the law. He just gave his you know, it was almost like I take the fifth kind of thing. Yeah, oh we're aligned, Yeah, we're aligned with the law. We're aligned with the law and its Yeah, but you're not following it, You're yeah, that's a very well. Jones basically said, you were under oath, you swore to tell the truth today and you lied, is what he said directly to him. So, I mean, I don't think this is over with. Right after the meeting or the day after the meeting, they issued a letter to Griffin telling him that he needs to clarify in writing some of the answers to questions he was asked her in the hearing, as well as provide materials and everything on a rolling basis going forward on the fifteenth of every month. So they're not letting this one go, nor should they. All right, we'll leave it there, ap Dylan. You can read her work at North State Journal nsjonline dot com. That's where this story is, as well as her newsletter more to the story. No show next week, and I believe you're also gone the following week as well. Yep, I'm off so good. Then we'll talk again in twenty twenty six. Absolutely, you have a great new year into all your listeners out there. Thanks for listening, and have a happy new year. And Marry Christmas, Yes you too, Merry Christmas. AP appreciate you, Thank you all. Right, take care, 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 can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. 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 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. I came across an article in the Atlantic, but I can't read it because it's paywalled. But it I got, like, I got three paragraphs out of it before it locked me out. And it's by Rose Horrowitch and the headline is American kids can't do math anymore. See so, while school districts like Chapel Hillcarborough are making sure that the little kids get to see all the NUDI pictures in the books in their libraries, they're not getting taught how to do math. Apparently so. For the past several years, according to The Atlantic, America has been using its young people as lab rats in a sweeping, if not exactly thought out, education experiment. Schools across the country have been lowering standards and removing penalties for failure, and the results are coming into focus. Five years ago, about thirty incoming freshmen at UC San Diego arrived with math skills that were below the high school level. Thirty freshmen out of the entire freshman class. Now, according to a report from u SEE San Diego faculty and administrators, that number is nine hundred, more than nine hundred of the incoming freshmen, and most of those nine hundred don't meet middle school math standards, many students struggle with fractions and simple algebra. Last year, the university, which admits fewer than thirty percent of undergraduate applicants, launched a remedial math course that focuses entirely on concepts that are taught in elementary and middle school. That's what you're paying for. Imagine you're sending your kid to college, forking over tens of thousands of dollars and they don't even know fractions. According to this report, more than sixty percent of students who took the previous version of the course could not divide a fraction by two. One of the cours's tutors noted that students faced more issues with quote logical thinking than with math facts per se, they didn't know how to begin solving word problems. The university's problems are extreme, but not unique. Over the past five years, all of the other University of California campuses, including UC Berkeley and UCLA, have seen the number of first years or freshmen. But you can't say freshmen because it says man in there, and we don't even know what a man is, so we can't say that, so they call him first years. So stupid. Yeah, so they've all seen the number of first years freshmen unprepared for pre calculus, and they've seen these numbers double or triple. George Mason University in Virginia had to revamp its remedial math summer program because they kids were arriving unable to do algebra. As the sub headline on the article calls it a recipe for idiocracy, I've long argued we are in the prequel to idiocracy. You know, stories are powerful. 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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. So here's an idea. You know me, I'm all about solutions, right, So maybe in order to get the kids to understand basic math concepts, maybe we can use like, uh, automobile theft as a way to like, Okay, so you're here. You know, you got a car and you're gonna but you're only gonna take off the doors. Like what fraction do you use? Like how do you arrive at that? Like, maybe you use something that the kids have some experience with, you know, in order to improve the mathing. The reason I say that is that we got a lot of kids that are stealing cars. I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but it's apparently a thing. I mean, we had our own rights of passage, you know, when I was growing up, it did not involve stealing cars. Like if you stole a car like that was grand theft auto before there was even a video game. We had the kid fifteen years old, remember he had like one hundred and fifty car thefts in like a month or something. It was ridiculous. The other day there was this story a sixteen year old juvenile with a history of over two hundred seventy five charges. Sixteen years old, two hundred seventy five charges. I have long argued we need a two hundred seventy strike law. You know, at some point like enough is enough, you know, maybe we do have a two seventy five Maybe that's it. Because he is being held without bond, I assume probably because of Arena's law. Sixteen years old, two hundred and seventy five charges, arrested and charged as an adult after a series of crimes across North and South Carolina. He's being held without bond. After getting into more trouble, the juvenile, who was previously extradited to South Carolina and placed on probation there, was involved in a vehicle pursuit with Morrisville Police Department in October after breaking into multiple vehicles. Despite facing fifteen charges, including possession of stolen firearms. He was released to his and I'm going to use air quotes on this one. He was released to their guardian. He was released to his guardian. Right, don't know who that is. Don't think they're doing a great job. In November, so that was October November, he committed car theft, armed carjacking, and just for good measure, shot into a dwelling associated with a known gang member. A search of his residence uncovered multiple firearms, including a glock twenty seven to forty caliber with a drum magazine and autoseer conversion device, along with other weapons. The juvenile was charged with several serious offenses, including robbery with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery, possession of stolen goods, discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling, felony, conspiracy injury to personal property, possession of a weapon of mass destruction, and possession of a handgun by a minor. Investigations have revealed this is according to WSOCTV. Investigations have revealed that the juvenile is a person of interest in nearly eighty recent car break ins across multiple jurisdictions eighty eight zero so one kid crime wave and then there's this story updated today. I believe they took this guy into custody. No, sorry, Oh, there is an update no bond. That was the update from today. I believe he's got no bond. This is I'm looking for his name in the article here? Where is it? Inman? Is his last name? And I've seen it spelled two different ways. I think his I think his name is Lorenza, but I also am seeing it. Maybe it's an auto correct issue or something being reported as Lorenzo, but I think it is actually Lorenza Thomas Inman, Jr. He was arrested in the murder of what I'm suspected it was his ex girlfriend. The search for a missing Charlotte mother came to a tragic end Thursday after police discovered her body inside a car in North Charlotte. Now I have a source that I cannot name, but the source told me that police and family had already searched this area. So the car was the car and the body was put there after the original search. Because this woman went missing. On Friday, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police announced they arrested the man suspected of killing Frasier Matisse Baker. They found him two hours away from the scene of the crime or the scene where the car was found. CMPD said officers were called around nine thirty five am on Thursday to the twenty three hundred block of Sanders Avenue, near a church just off Baby's Ford Road. This is according to Queen City News. Inside a parked vehicle, officers found an unresponsive woman who was later confirmed to be Baker, the Charlotte mother who had been missing for a week. Cmpd's Homicide and Missing Persons detectives identified thirty eight year old Lorenzo Thomas or Lorenzo Thomas Inman Junior as a suspect and got warrants for his arrest, and then the Violent Criminal Apprehension Team located and arrested him in Robinson County in the town of Maxton. He was brought back to Charlotte was taken into custody, charged with murder, assault on a female, misdemeanor, crime of domestic violence. Baker disappeared on December fourth, after she was last seen at a gas station on LaSalle Street. And You'll never guess, but Inman has a significant criminal record. Here's a great idea, how about making an escape to a really special and secluded get away in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two, eight, three, six, seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. All right, So this is according to Queen City News. Lorenza Inman arrested in the murder of his girlfriend or ex girlfriend. I'm not sure her body was found. Late last week he was picked up. He's being held without bond now, as he should. He has a significant criminal history. He was convicted of two other crimes. In October. He was He had a suspended sentence and was ordered to twenty four months probation for intimidating a witness and habitual misdemeanor assault. That was back in twenty twenty one one. Also in twenty one he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon. That was from a twenty seventeen case. So he got tried and convicted four years after. In two thousand and seven, he was first convicted for assault on a female. So he has a bit of a pattern here. I think I'm able to suss that out. I'm able to detect this. But apparently our court officials are our lawyers with the wardrobe changes on the bench. Apparently they are unable to detect any kind of a pattern with this guy who just keeps beating up women. All of these were Mecklenburg County, according to Queen City News WBTV. The man accused of killing a missing Charlotte mother earlier this week. This is from Thursday. He was on supervised pro at the time of her murder. Not a lot of supervision, I'm guessing there. His criminal history dates back nearly two decades. A jury convicted him in twenty nineteen for attempted murder. Here is the press release that the DA's office under Spencer Merriweather published. And they do this, They put out press releases when trials conclude, so like this had. This press release actually had two different cases that it covered. One was the trial of It was a mistrial. It ended in a mistrial of Carlos Manzanares, who has tried for attempted first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, two counts of assault with the deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting series injury, and first degree burglary. It was a two week trial and got a hung jury, so a miss trial, but most of the press releases about Lorenza Inman tried for attempted first degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon. At the close of the state's evidence, Judge Caldwell dismissed the charge of attempted robbery. The jury then found him guilty of attempted first degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and the firearm conviction. He was sentenced to one hundred and fifty seven to two hundred and ten months in prison. Right, So like that's a lengthy prison sentence, right, that's like twelve years or so, And that story is thus. In April twenty seventeen, broad daylight Enman followed the victim to a shopping center on West Sugar Creek Road in Charlotte. Once there, in men confronted the victim and shot him in the chest at close range. As the victim fell to the ground, in men stood over him and fired several more rounds at the victim. Detectives with the Charlotte Mecklumburg Police Department took the victim's statement from his hospital bed, and he identified Inman as his attacker. The assault was also captured by nearby surveillance cameras, so you've got the victim iding the guy, and you've got video. He did get convicted, he got sentenced to one hundred and fifty seven months minimum, but he was out. He only served, as we heard in the newscast there Queen City News reports he only served two years. What the hell are we doing here? People? The assault was captured on the cameras. When officers arrested in Mean the next day, he was still wearing the same distinctive outfit that he was wearing at the time of the attack. Inman contacted the victim shortly before trial and pressured the victim to recant. That's the witness tampering that he got charged with and a suspended sentence. It's just again, this is a choice. We don't have to live like this. You know, we can actually lock these people who are unable to participate in a civil society. We can actually put them away and get them out of the gen pop here. 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 thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.