Election fraud, fundraising, Roy Cooper's slaves, and an Iran War update | Hour 3

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 thepeakclendershow 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 on the first, sorry third hour of the Mondays, we chat with Ap Dylan. She is a reporter for the North State Journal. You can read her work at nsjonline dot com, and she also publishes a substack newsletter you can subscribe to. It's called More to the Story. Helloap, how are you? I am doing well, so glad to see you're finally back at work right after you took the week Well, I mean, I gave you last week off because. I was off exactly. Yeah. I had some family stuff that I was doing that weekend too, so it just kind of worked out the same time. There you go. That's perfect. Okay. So, things I did not know about Roy Cooper before this election cycle where he's running for US Senate number one. I did not know he was previously married that story came out a little while ago, and also not aware that apparently his family owned a bunch of slaves, a whole bunch of them. Yeah. I falled that over at the Blue Ridge Times, and I talked to him about it. I said, you know, this was sort of, you know, a quick hit that you did on your website, but it's kind of I'd never seen this report anywhere else. I put it for my subtack. So what you're seeing there is a complete reproduction of that article with the link directly to the original, so folks can go look at that. But yeah, he had a number of relatives, you know, going back over one hundred years. You know that's owned slaves according to census reports. We're talking dozens of slaves. Actually, Yeah, and it's it's no small thing considering, you know, some of the other things that he had done. We're moving monuments after the George Floyd riots, you know, that sort of thing where you know and crty as racial justice haess, where none of us ever was dug into before, even when you know a yearbook photo showing you know, someone in blackfacer KKK Robe showed up in the same yearbook that he was in. He wasn't involved in that, and that was that was easily debunked. But even when that popped up, no one thought to go look for this kind of information. And apparently the Bluish Times stuck it up. Yeah, so it's interesting how remember during those oh so heady days of the fiery but mostly peaceful riots in twenty twenty, I was I was proms a racial reckoning, right, That's what we kept hearing that this is you know that we have to have the conversation a racial reckoning and all of this, and you know, people's backgrounds were being dug into right as you mentioned, like statues were being torn down all over the place. And it's just kind of sort of interesting that nobody ever thought to go back and look into what this is. The great grandfather, the third great grandfather, the fourth great grandfather of Roy Cooper that they owned a court, I mean right up to the Civil War. He had twenty two slaves. Real. He highlights his family property out in Nash County in one of his ads. I grew up on this farm. Yeah, a lot of slaves were apparently on that farm at one point. So I'm curious, Well, I wonder what Roy Cooper's views are on reparations because there would be a direct tie to his family, unlike you know, other people's families who came long after slavery was eradicated and abolished, right like people and you know, people who are from the Union States that fought to abolish slavery. I know, I know, the Civil War, War, Northern Aggression, all of that stuff set aside, But like you have families of you know, of soldiers who died in the war and what they're going to be on the hook for reparations. But I'm curious, like, what would Roy Cooper have to say about this idea of reparations, particularly given this background. Did not know this about Roy Cooper? Well, well, if I ever get an invite to one of his precedents, I'll tell you. But so far as this campaign staff has refused to put me on their media distribution list. Shocking. Oh, you know, I know, shocking. So are you going to make a big stink about it like the other reporter? H No, I've said my piece on the matter, you know, I mean, nobody seemed to care when we were black balls for you know, hundred days during COVID from asking a question during his press briefing, nobody in the media seem other you know, North Carolinia to seem the care or come to our aid at that point, you know. But but now it's a big outrage when when a campaign doesn't want certain people in the room. We are talking about Michael Wattley, the Republican candidates campaign that has not extended media credentials or invitations to was it NC news Line, which I mean they're hooked up with that, was it the State's News program or whatever that thing is. Called the State Newsroom. Yeah, they've gotten money from with and Arabella Advisor. There were bankrolls with black dark. Money, Yeah, with dark money, left wing dark money groups that yeah, bankrolled these like fake news publications basically that are all from the left. I mean that's not to say that you know, you can like just because you're a lefty doesn't mean you can't do good journalism. I'm not saying that. But you know, if if they're getting press credentials, then shouldn't you I saw Carolina journal like they don't get press credentials to go on the h in the Legislative building. They denied those. Yeah so, but so now I'm supposed to groups. Can less leading groups that are bankrolled by you know, un known funding sources can get those credentials. But Carolina Journal, who is on the right can't. Right, Yeah, that, but you know, yes day passes. Whenever we go down there. We haven't bothered to get credentials because the last time we tried it was a circus. So we said, this is not worth it, and we'll just get them when we want to. And I've also been given access by Dustin Hall of office, Speaker office, the office of the Speaker, Duston Hall. His office basically told you that anything that happens in the press room, you don't need credentials beyond the ones that you were wearing to get in there, so don't worry about it. Yeah, And the credentialing is done by reporters, right, these news organizations like the Capital Press Corps or whatever they call themselves. Yeah, they elected president it every year and that person decides who gets credentials for the press for going on the House floor, of the Senate floor and that that sort of thing. For a special event access. We're not a paper that goes down on the floor very often. Every once in a while we send our photographer down and he gets a day pass to do that. You know, I don't see what the issue is, but yeah, they determined who gets the credentials and who doesn't. So it's been sort of an upsided thing there. We're a right leading conservative outlet. It's you know, funded not I'm necessarily on receipts or anything like that, versus a left lean that's not funded on receipts. Yeah, so I just I found it funny. Right before I went on vacation, I saw this tempest in a teapot, if you will. But this one reporter who he works for the Assembly now right, he does a sub stack or something, and he's all upset because the Wattley campaign. He was the one that asked Wattley to name the players on the hockey team, because oh yeah, yeah, I. Really remember that because I was standing right next to and I watched him step all over to all the other reporters who had questions, and then he proceeded to chase him around the event room and then tells him out into the dining area of the establishment. We're trying to pound him down on that, and after those antics that, I know, the wily campaign was definitely soured on him. Yes, so no, you don't get Yeah, sorry, you don't get to it's a campaign. You don't get an invitation to every event. That's that. Yeah, if you make an annoyance of yourself, then you don't get the invitation. Now, if he wins and you want to go cover him up in the US Senate, different building, different job, different that's a different story. Well then he's a public figure exactly. Campaigning campaigns can tell U whoever they want to go, you know, go pound stand. Which is why you know, I, despite not getting media press access to the Cooper campaign stuff, I still cover what I can how I can. If he's done you know, public videos or speeches or that kind of stuff where I can pull from that, that's great. But I can't get any of his events. And I would imagine if I showed up there and said, you know, i'm a member of the press, let me in, they would probably look at me now and tell me no. And that's their right to do so. As a campaign. All right, let's say you have your is this the quick hits No, the old North State update that you do number twenty eight. So you ran through a bunch of stuff here. First off, we've got Trump's big election fraud speech that he gave on Thursday. I have to admit I did not watch this speech when it was occurring. I know it was going on, but I did not have time to watch it. But there was an interesting response from the State Board of Elections executive Director Sam Hayes about information that was sent to what the state of North Carolina is election board. Well, in the White House has a website dedicated to the topics that were covered by Trump and his speech, and I have that link in the story Sophie, who can go look. But each one of those topics has a sub link within it that has either files or documents, zip files and things that you can download. Go up. But each one of those top has a sub link within it that has either files or documents, zip files and things that you can download to see the actual documentation of what he was talking about. And one of them had in the very first couple pages, had states that protect federal elections, and it talked about different states who have been proactive in using save database user information in order to clean up their voter rolls and proactive SAVE user states. Included in that list was North Carolina, who had the SAVE database that identified over thirty four six hundred deceased voters, but also almost sixteen hundred non citizen voters. And the SAVE data has been acknowledged by the state Board of Elections, but this particular set of information that came out. He says that they're looking at the information of the sixteen hundred potential non US citizens and they're looking through the day debases very carefully to find out if they're actually still there, if they've been removed, and they're they're moving forward. With that, and if they voted. I assume, right, I mean that's right. Yeah, Yeah, they're they're taking it pretty seriously, and they say that they'll update it. Says the process is more data comes available. So I thought that that was kind of a significant little nugget that was hidden in there. Yeah, all right, back on Cooper, he got himself a uh an award from No Labels, which ironically had mc quary was one of the No Labels guys. Yeah, and now Cooper gets like a problem solver seal from this organization. I guess it's the first ever award called the Problem Solver Award or something. Yeah, says he's governed through quote divided government, delivered partis bipartisan results, and consistently put people ahead of party. Okay, well that's yeah, that's not true. Yeah he was. He completely fought the legislature all eight years that he was in there, So I don't necessarily consider that bipartisan. They did some horse trading gave him medicaid near the end, there's medicaid expansion, and so that they got some of the things that they wanted, which is fine, And I guess if you want to call that bipartisan, go for it. But you know, doing anyone who knows anything about some of these groups needs to do their homework on no Labels. It was founded by the wife of Hillary Clinton's top strategist, and a better name for that group I cite in the article would be hiding labels. Right, Well, I mean no labels mean right, because they don't want to put any label on it. So this way you can't tell like who they are, what they are, and what they were about. Yeah, right, so right, so no label, but they're they're yeah, but they're going to they're going to be endorsing Roy Cooper of course. Now, yeah, from want I understand he's also Cooper's also been of co campaigning with Senator Van Holland you know the guy who stood Abrego Garcia, the guy who was accused of traffic human trafficking, was part of a gang they wanted to deport, and he went and visited him down there, and yeah, it's that whole mass. Yeah, so he's apparently been doing some co campaigning and sharing funds with him, and I'm just seeing the initial reports on it right now, so I'm looking into writing about that at some point, but yeah, there's there's a lot of commingling the funds. Meanwhile, the House Democrats are very angry with Bernie Sanders for getting involved in UH in particular one North Carolina race with the Valerie Fishy by backing Nita Alam and they're they're really really trying to get Bernie Sanders to just shut up and sit down because his associations with the Democratic Socialists and some of the platforms and you know, platn are of course he backed. But he's still finding the Bernie Sanders is toxic for a lot of his candidates, and you know, and when you've got someone like Don Davis, an NCO one who's probably gonna probably gonna get beaten by laurd buck Out after redistricting and everything. Uh, It's it's tenuous. And I'm seeing this across the board. It's not just here in North Carolina. Folks are really looking at these progressive back Democrats and finding that they're there. Some of them are outright communists, some are outright socialists, and they have they hold some very very far left youth. Oh yeah, you know. I mean you've got Bill Maher, the eternal progressive backing Way thing. I'm done. Yeah, no, I talked about it in the first hour. Yeah, I mean, Jamie Metzel, James Carville. Yeah, it's like, uh, but this is the thing, Like, they're not going to get Bernie to to shut up. This is his moment. He's waited his entire life, you know this like this, he's going to shoot a shot. I think he's not gonna He's going to keep doing what he's doing and get as many people elected from the DSA as he can before he exits. So anyway, we'll have to leave it there, ap, Thank you very much, as always, we appreciate it. We'll talk with you next week. Absolutely, thanks you all right, Sea. That's ap Dylan all right. 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I'm going to get into the Iran war update after the bottom of the hour news, but pretty big announcement made by the governments of Iraq, Syria and the United States. And there is an intent between Iraq and Syria to go into business together to rehabilitate and reconstruct the Iraq Syria crude oil pipeline as a priority infrastructure project of bilateral and regional strategic significance. According to a press release from the State Department, both countries recognize the strategic objective of restoring a critical energy corridor linking Iraqi oil production to Mediterranean export markets and beyond. The United States welcomes the engagement of a US led international consortium to execute the technical and financial aspects of the project. Upon rehabilitation, this groundbreaking project will have an initial transport capacity of two million barrels per day of crude oil. Interesting. So, the government also announced that Iraq signed forty eight deals with US companies worth over sixty billion dollars, including the pipeline project that'll bypass the Strait of Hormas. So I'm saying it now, huh, that's interesting. So we're working with a RAQ. Like we're we're on good terms with a Raq. Huh h No. I I didn't think that that was possible. I mean, I've been told by the Black Pillars that all of that was for nothing. So this is weird. But it's almost as if countries in the neighborhood over there are all looking to extricate themselves from being reliant on the Strait of Hormas. That's what it seems like. And if you've been listening to this show, I actually said that like a couple months ago. So here's another example. About fifteen minutes ago, reports of sirens air raid sirens were reported in Jordan. Sorry, about half an hour ago. Also, about half an hour ago, explosions reported over Islat in southern Israel due to local reports say two missiles were fired from Tabreeze, Iran, and I thought I saw, yes, Jordanian air defenses have been engaging an incoming Iranian attack on Akaba, so they're just continuing to fling rockets and drones at all of the neighboring countries. Meanwhile, Sentcom began conducting a new wave of strikes against Iran for the ninth consecutive night last night. Sentcom said the strikes will continue degrading Iranian military capabilities that have been used to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormas. Sentcom assets targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran's ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the strait. Iran International reported that Sunday's strikes on Iran were carried out after Iran killed American military personnel in Jordan and Iraq again the ninth consecutive day of attacks. The latest casualty a US service member killed on Saturday in North than erect during the controlled debtonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian attack drone. I do have thing on a second here. The Department of War announced the death of two active duty soldiers who were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. First Lieutenant Tyler James Fien, twenty five, of Iwa Beach, Hawaii, killed in action on July eighteenth, and Private Isabella Gonzales, nineteen of Carrollton, Texas was killed in action on July seventeenth during an enemy attack at Mowaffach Saiti Air Base in Jordan. First Lieutenant Fienn was assigned to the second Battalion, fifty fifth Air Defense Artillery Regiment, thirty second Army Air Missile Defense Command at of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Private Gonzales was assigned to the first Battalion, fifty seventh Air Defense Artillery Regimen, fifty second Air Defense Artillery Brigade, tenth Army Air Missile Defense Command out of ends Back, Germany. So that's the press release identifying the. Two of the fatalities. And I saw that there is this, well, the New York Times, I guess, did a story saying that the Department of War is hiding all of the injury numbers. It's one of the things like, look, I am skeptical, you know, and you know, I'm a trust but verify kind of a person. But I mean some of this stuff, it's like that there seems to be a not small population in America that just automatically assumes that the US government is lying to us about every single thing. And so New York Times does this story. There's a response from Sean Parnell, who is the Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs, chief Pentagon spokesman and senior advisor, who says the Department of War rejects these baseless and malicious accusations of hiding injury numbers as outright lies from partisan hacks at the New York Times who are desperate to smear America's military and its leadership. Claims of concealment are fabrications meant to further distress the American people in the wake of three service members killed in action. Disgusting behavior even for The New York Times. In fact, US military casualty information is publicly available and regularly updated online on the Defense Casualty Analysis for everyone, including the media to review. Injuries in the military encompass everything from minor sprained ankles during routine training to incidents entirely unrelated to combat operations. Cherry picking raw numbers without context paints a deliberately misleading and incomplete picture. Our troops execute the President's directives with excellence, supported by superior training, equipment, and medical care that prioritizes safety. This is the most transparent Department of War in history. We challenged the so called journalists who wrote these lies, one of whom was recently subpoenaed regarding an alleged violation of federal criminal law to stop the smears against the finest war fighting force on Earth. And the headline here from the Times was that the Pentagon withheld dozens of US military injuries in Iran War Sentcom is not required to release information about injured troops, especially when they quickly returned to duty. So it sounds like what Parnell is saying is like, well, yeah, if somebody trained sprained their ankle, like, but we post all of this stuff online. So it seems. Like does the Near Times not know about the database or are they not? Is the Secretary of War the Department of War not updating the database? Just seems I don't know. That just seems weird. Meanwhile, the IRGC said that it destroyed twenty hangars housing US forces at the Muafak Salti Air Base in Jordan. They claim to have killed dozens of US service members and they explicitly thanked the people of Jordan for sincere cooperation and accurate information that enabled the strikes. So obviously trying to drive a wedge between Jordan and America. Recognize the op. Message from Timotao who says, regarding a report anonymous source leaking information about our munitions stockpile. Whoever it was at the Pentagon that leaked how many munitions we have left needs to be taken out and shot for treason. What is wrong with these people who don't grasp that they are damaging this country if we lose this conflict. Those people need to know that none of them are going to escape the consequences of that loss just because they hate the Orange Man. The RGC isn't going to give them a prize for resisting. Michelle is excited that she gets to hear me pronounce Iranian names. Yes, flawless pronunciation, I would point out. And Dean says, maybe Trump is teaching your Rack and Syria the benefits of separating church. I don't even know what that means. Uncle Sudds says, your vacations need to be need to be cleared through me first. Well, you're not the only one, apparently, Uncle Sudds. There's a whole bunch of people that are demanding that I get approval from them before going on vacation too, So I I mean thanks. I guess all right. So we've got Kuwait and Bahrain who have also reported attacks from Iran, but they were intercepted by air defenses. Jordan reported three missile attacks within the last hour from Iran. And then this the Hoodies. Remember these guys, the Hoodies, not the Blowfish, no relation. Uh. They announced that they are introducing a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia. It means they will start firing on ships heading to or from Saudi Arabian ports as they passed through the Bab al Manbab Strait. It means that any Saudi ships which manage to get out of the Strait of Hormas might have to make the journey around Africa to get to Europe instead of using the Suez Canal. That would increase the journey from fourteen days to just over a month, unless, of course, Saudi Arabia goes back to war with the Hoodies like that. They farewell could do that. And then there is this. The Wall Street Journal reports that Cutter and other unspecified mediators, so probably Pakistan, are working to push the US and to run into a new ceasefire. Jim Garretty and National Review points out that under the old Seas Fire, we regularly witnessed the Iranian regime failing to you know, cease fire, which is really central to the whole concept of a cease fire. One would think Iran declared the Strait of Hormas was closed, then declared it would unilaterally impose. Tolls. It fired on and hit container ships and oile tankers, which violated the terms of the memorandum of misunderstanding. And that's not even counting the assassination plot. In other words, the Iranian regime demonstrated clearly and frequently that any agreement signed with them is worthless because they will break their agreement. So why would the US go back to the negotiating table. I would submit to manipulate the markets, the oil markets. This has been going on for quite a while now, right since the beginning. Trump comes out and says stuff. The market's like, oh okay, thank goodness, and then stuff flares up again. They're like, oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, and the price of oil goes up. I think it was like ninety dollars a barrel, and so I was like, okay, okay, we'll have a ceasfire chat, Okay, we can talk about this, and then the markets will be like, oh okay. James Thorne, chief marketing strategist at Wellington Altis. He's an economist PhD guy, and he wrote a piece called Trump's Pipeline Wars, how Iran's gambit exposed China. He said, war is the continuation of politics by other means and Trump has moved that logic from the battlefield to the barrel. The Pipeline wars are his answer to Iran's closure of hormas a counter offensive that punishes Tehran, exposes China, and pulls Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela toward the American orbit as emerging allies. Iran's gambit was revolutionary. Bravado slam shut the straight choke off a third of seaborne oil and dare America to blink iraqs et exports, which is like ninety plus percent dependent on hormones. So Iraqs exports collapsed and Bagdad discovered that it was less of an energy state than a client of a narrow waterway patrolled by a hostile regime and an American carrier group. The strait has been wargamed for decades. Trump tried diplomacy. Now the world is watching what hard power looks like when the simulations go live. Epic fury broke Iron's ability to escalate. The strategic move is what follows. You build around Iran, Pipelines around Iran. 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 dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.