Expanding parental rights in NC (04-14-2025--Hour3)
The Pete Kaliner ShowApril 14, 202500:35:1732.35 MB

Expanding parental rights in NC (04-14-2025--Hour3)

This episode is presented by Create A Video – A bill in the North Carolina legislature aims to expand parental rights into offensive and inappropriate books offered to kids in K-12 schools. AP Dillon is a reporter for the North State Journal. Read her reporting at NSJonline.com. She publishes a Substack.com newsletter called More To The Story. She joined me to discuss.

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[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. Uh, I'm just really tired.

[00:00:31] But it's Monday, it's 2 o'clock, and that means we talked to AP Dillon. Hello, AP. How are you? I'm great, Pete. How are you? I am great as well. AP Dillon, by the way, is a reporter for the North State Journal, NSJOnline.com, and she also publishes her Substack newsletter. It's called More to the Story. So I'm going to actually pull one from each for purposes of our discussion today. Let's talk about parental rights.

[00:00:55] Um, we did, North Carolina did pass a parent's bill of rights, did we not? I kind of feel like we did that. Yeah. Yes, we did. Okay, so this is what, in addition to, this is more rights for parents? Well, this one, it delves a little bit more into the curriculum and challenges over books and materials. There's been a lot of protests in the last three or four years about books that have obscene content or pornographic content in them.

[00:01:24] Um, some of them were readily available in K-5 schools. Um, and I've seen some of the images, and they're not something that news media can actually put on their website, but yet they can be found in K-12 libraries. Right, that to me has always been, like, that's a good rule of thumb.

[00:01:42] You know, like, if you want to show the book at the public meeting, at the school board public meeting, and you're not allowed to show the images on screen during the school board meeting, that should be the line. Then you probably shouldn't be showing that to, you know, fifth graders. Yeah, this legislation kind of centers on that.

[00:02:03] It has a section in it that would prohibit instruction on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality in grades K-6, because human sexuality and health classes don't start until seventh grade. Um, and it would have, uh, require parental consent on an annual basis for those topics in grades, uh, seven through 12. Um, it also has a specific requirement for human growth and development education for grades four and five.

[00:02:29] Um, to make it age appropriate and content taught within single-sex groups with parental consent. That's already sort of happening, but this just reinforces that. Um, there's a lot of stuff in there that's interesting. They replaced local board of education with governing body. What that does, it's significant because it makes the scope of these book review panels or committees that are established by a school board would fall under that now. So it wouldn't just be the district.

[00:02:57] It would be these small governing bodies that get appointed to review these books. Is that up to the school districts, do you know? Do the boards of ed decide whether they want to appoint those types of bodies? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. In fact, Wake County Schools, the biggest district in the state, has a little committee that they've got set up for that.

[00:03:16] Um, and they put in place a really problematic policy where if you challenge a book, any particular book, and the challenge fails, no one can challenge that title again for two years. So that's something that I think the parents in Wake County have been looking at and saying, you know, this isn't fair. Anyone should be able to challenge a book at any time. Um, so they, they're looking at that as, as restrictive to their, to their rights as parents.

[00:03:44] Um, and this bill also does a little thing that I think is interesting. A lot of school districts, when they have, um, a program or something that they want to, they want the kids to be involved in, normally, uh, parents have to write in and opt out for these things. Right. Um, so, you know, and if they don't react or they don't, they don't send in an opt out, their kid is automatically swept up in the program or whatever it is they're doing at the school.

[00:04:12] Um, this would sort of replace that method and students wouldn't be able to participate without prior written consent from the parent or legal guardian. So it goes from an opt out to an opt in. Um, I think that's important. Yeah. There've been some interesting things that if, I'm usually pretty up on my kids' education and what's going on in their schools and I see the newsletters that come home. But sometimes buried in them, you'll find something, you know, that you, you don't want your kid to participate in.

[00:04:38] And unless you saw the fine writing and you opted out in a timely manner, you're not going to, your kid's going to get swept up in it. I haven't had that problem with my kids because I've kept on top of it. But I know a lot of parents that found out, you know, months later that their kid took X class and they really didn't want them to do that. Um, so, you know, this opt in, opt out thing has been a sticky wicket for a while now. Yeah, no, I mean, especially for this kind of, uh, these kinds of topics, uh, and material. Right.

[00:05:07] Like it seems like the safer route is to do an opt in to not make it the default setting. Um, and this way people don't want their kid going in and, and, you know, learning that they can have 70 genders, then they're not automatically enrolled in that. Uh, and I failed to mention this is house bill 595. Yes. And it has one more thing in there. That's interesting too. They, they're upping the legal definitions, expanding the definitions about disseminating materials harmful to minors.

[00:05:36] Um, so that's going to change how these, these graphic sexual depictions and, uh, pervasive language books are going to be, uh, handled in. In the classroom or handled by a district. Um, the language added would make it offense to allow a minor to review or peruse material that is harmful to minors. And basically that's an extension of, um, you know, um, broad statutes that cover obscenity or, or public, you know, public obscenity laws.

[00:06:07] So, um, it'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. It's been something that's been pushed by parents for a while. And where parents in Wake County even went to the extremes of going to the Wake County Sheriff and find criminal complaints over the books that they found because they were deemed obscene. And they met the level of obscenity for state statute that they, you know, you couldn't display this on the street or in, or in media. So why was this available in the schools? I'm sure the sheriff got right on that. Oh yeah. He basically, he poofooed them. Yeah.

[00:06:36] So this is a response basically to, I think you called it roadblocks that parents have encountered in trying to get, um, certain books removed. Um, and there's also an element that affects the public libraries, not just in the schools, right? But these are county public libraries as well, where parents are going to be able to access their kids' library records. Oh yeah. Well, yeah. This bill actually only really targets the schools.

[00:07:04] Um, and the parents would have access to their child's library record, what they've taken out, what they've viewed, what they've looked at. And, um, I do believe that they were considering a provision or they might have instituted it in the latest version of the bill where, um, they would create like sort of a curated section. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:33] It's kind of like the, uh, that back room behind the curtain at the old, uh, blockbuster stores. Right. Exactly. I mean, some of these books, I've seen them, they're, they're pretty graphic. There's one called genderqueer. And I mean, it's got full on sexual encounters with images. It's a graphic novel. Yeah. It's like a comic book, quote unquote, but it's, yeah, it's a graphic, graphic novel. It's, it's cartoon drawings of kids having sex. It's like, I don't understand how that's not, uh, how that's not illegal.

[00:08:02] Um, but you know, if, uh, I guess if the left wants it, they want what they want. Um, and actually you mentioned genderqueer in a piece. So that's, by the way, I was going off of the North state journal, uh, article that you've got there. It's at NSJ online.com. You can get all the details then, uh, that, uh, AP breaks down on house bill 595. And then there's your sub stack newsletter, the, uh, more to the story notes, uh, talking about what an executive order.

[00:08:27] I had not heard this from Donald Trump, um, that is targeting this same sort of thing. And in fact, you mentioned genderqueer in this post as well. Yes. That's, that's the book that seems to be the target at the most because it really is graphic. Yeah. Um, but yeah, uh, president Trump issued an executive order. Um, and this was earlier this month, I believe. Um, and in that he's, it's, he talks about a section reducing the scope of federal bureaucracy.

[00:08:57] And underneath there, he talks about, um, cutting services and functions associated with certain, um, organizations within government. And one of them is the Institute of Museum and Library Services. And why that's important to the pornography book topic that we're talking about here is that, um, the Museum of Library Services funds the American Library Association, the ALA.

[00:09:21] And the ALA is really the party responsible for these indecent and pornographic books not only being allowed in schools, but protected in the K-12 schools. Um, they've given them protected status. And, um, there's, there's been a slew of bills that have come along in nearly every state where the ALA, along with the ACLU and, uh, others have, uh, filed lawsuits trying to make sure that these books stay in libraries.

[00:09:49] Um, the, uh, the ALA was also one of the leaders of the charge. Every year they have their, uh, banned book list. And, uh, number one on that list for the last three years, I believe, has been genderqueer. Um, and these aren't, obviously, these aren't banned books. You know, no one's banning books. They just don't want them viewable in a K-12 public library. You can go buy it. You can go elsewhere and get it. But we just don't think they're appropriate for K-12 kids. Yeah, it's just curation. That's all it is. It is.

[00:10:17] Yeah, I mean, they cure, you curate the books just like you curate them in the bookstores, right? You separate them. Here are the cookbooks and here are the self-help books. You do this all the time and you can't stock every single book ever written in every library. So, obviously, decisions get made about what books should be on the shelves. This is no different. Yeah, they're not banning the books just because they chose different books. Yeah, the ALA has been very activist-related. Oh, yeah. They've gone full-on comedy. They gave that a book of the year award. Yeah.

[00:10:47] So, I mean, you can tell what's going on there. But, you know, the libraries need to be a site of socialist organizing was the big theme last in 2023. Yep. For the ALA with their former president or executive officer there. She was only there for four or five months before she got punted out after a lot of her social media stuff came out, talking about the wonderful things that socialism and communism can do and how we need to infuse that into our libraries.

[00:11:14] Yeah, I would cover a couple of those stories when I was covering them. It's like it's so crazy. People think it's not true. But it is. Like it's captured. The organization was captured by literal communists and people who advanced Marxism and then used their positions and these institutions that had built – because that's what communism does.

[00:11:38] So that Marxism does it, it hollows out the institutions and then walks around in, you know, the skin suit of the deceased institution and then demand that you pay respect to it based on the institution's credibility that it had built up before you hollowed it out. Right, exactly. And a lot of these school boards use the ALA as their reasoning for keeping these books on the shelves. Right. They say, oh, well, look, the ALA says it's a great book. It's, you know, got five stars, you know.

[00:12:05] But meanwhile, you know, the parents are like holding the stuff up in the middle of the board meetings, yelling at them, saying, you know, is this something you'd want your child to be reading? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You can read more about that if you subscribe. And you can do that for free. Get our newsletter sent to you as well, apdyllan.substack.com. It's called More to the Story and Reader Work at North State Journal. AP, always good to chat with you. I appreciate it. Great. Thanks, Pete. All right. Take care. All right.

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[00:13:30] Mail orders are accepted too. Get all the details at createavideo.com. Got a message here from Kevin. During the break, I heard a news bit of President Trump. He said Ukraine should not have started the war with Russia unless they know they have enough missiles to win. Sorry, I know this is off topic. It's unacceptable, Kevin. But could you help us understand how Ukraine? I cannot.

[00:13:59] I cannot help you understand how it was that Ukraine started the war. All this time, I thought Russia was the aggressor. Or President Trump may know something we don't. That's possible. But no. Yeah, Russia invaded Ukraine. So I kind of feel like that's the beginning of the war. Right? When one foreign country runs their tanks and stuff into another country. Like that's my understanding of how wars start.

[00:14:30] All right. So while North Carolina is looking to strengthen parental rights, you could go the other direction. And Colorado is showing us that way for us. The, yeah, Colorado. This is according to Jonathan Turley at his website, jonathanturley.org.

[00:14:51] That Colorado is poised to pass a law that would threaten the custody rights of parents who deadname their kids. Do you know what deadnaming is? It's when you add the word dead after your kid's name. So I would be Pete Dead. I'm just kidding. That's not what it means. Deadnaming is when you call your child the name you gave him or her.

[00:15:21] After that child says, I don't identify as that gender any longer. I want to be called something else. Now, I don't know, by the way, if this sort of course of action is available to you. If, for example, you just don't like your name. Like you're not gender confused or anything like that. You're not asking to be transed. But you just don't like your name.

[00:15:46] And you want a cool name instead of the dumb name that mom and dad gave me. Right? So can you just be like, I no longer identify as Pete. I am now, I don't know, Max Power. Yeah. I like, that's a strong sounding name. Max Power. Right? Right? That's my name now.

[00:16:10] And so if my mom and dad were to call me Pete, then I could maybe accuse them of deadnaming me. Right? Because I know I'm not identifying as Pete anymore. I don't know if that option's available. I'm not sure if you have to go through like the therapy and the hormones and maybe some surgeries or something in order to get the deadname option to punish your parents with. But, oh, it's not just deadnaming either. It's also misgendering.

[00:16:40] So if you mess up on a pronoun, that's your ass. Your kid. Sorry. That's your kid. They're going to take your kid. Your own kid. See, this is where this always leads. I used to joke with a school board member about how to make sure that all kids have the exact same opportunity to get a great education.

[00:17:05] Because they were always trying to figure out the best way to normalize that and close any gaps and everything else. And I said, well, there is a way. If you just take all of the kids and put them in like an orphanage, and then everybody has that exact same background, that upbringing. And then everybody is equal. And then we can't do that. Well, why not? Isn't it for the kids? I thought my logic was unassailable. All right.

[00:17:34] 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.ground.news.com.

[00:18:02] 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.

[00:18:31] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. So Colorado, looking to go full crazy and pass a law that says if a parent does not adopt a child's new pronouns or their new name,

[00:18:51] they could be found to have exercised coercive control, which is what schools exercise really all the time, if you think about it. But coercive control. And that means they would lose custody in a divorce proceeding to a parent who's more enlightened.

[00:19:15] I'm sure this won't be abused at all by parents that are going through a divorce and hate each other and are using their kids to hurt the other, or kids who are struggling with their parents getting divorced.

[00:19:33] And so in an attempt to gain attention, gain the love of a parent or something, or try to, you know, in their own way of thinking, like, they're going to fix this or whatever. And so they're going to now pursue this. Like, this is coercive control. Isn't that parenting, actually?

[00:19:58] Isn't that, like, look, I don't have kids, but my assessment from afar is that basically everything you do as a parent is coercive control. I mean, especially at the younger ages. I mean, you're just picking them up. Right? You just pick them up. They just move them around. I mean, that's like kidnapping, basically. Right? You prevent them from leaving certain spaces, like their playpen or whatever. Kidnapping. That seems like coercive control.

[00:20:28] Now, I'm no lawyer. And I'm no Colorado GovCo lawmaker, but it does kind of seem like this is the parent's lane. You know, like they have a lot of rights to exert the coercive control over their kids. Tell them when to go to bed, when to wake up, when to eat, what to eat. Right? They tell them all sorts of stuff. Get off your phone. My goodness. I'm just kidding. Few parents do that anymore.

[00:20:55] But under the new proposal, making deadnaming and misgendering children a factor in child custody disputes, so if you refer to your child's biological gender or given name or pronoun, would now be considered harmful and abusive, inviting a court to take your child away from you as a, quote, coercive parent. Again, this is a piece by Jonathan Turley.

[00:21:23] A constitutional law expert. He says parents may believe that a young child should proceed slowly and not make such changes as they consider the implications of those decisions. If you are one of those parents that may be thinking at some point, you know what? I think I would pump the brakes a little on, you know,

[00:21:47] this pathway towards the irreversible hormone treatments and stuff and the surgeries and all that. Like, I would want to slow that down and make sure the kid really understands. Maybe after, you know, their brain has fully developed. If you think you might be that parent, you need to get the hell out of Colorado. Representative Lorena Garcia said, quote,

[00:22:15] This bill is the bare minimum of what we can do as a state. Well, that's terrifying. Holy cow. That's this is the bare minimum. Taking kids from their parents because they mispronoun their kid. Okay. This is the bare minimum, she says. And the fact that we have to legislate for people to not bully and misgender and dead name people because of whatever insecurities they may have is sad to me. Wow. There's a lot of projection packed in that statement.

[00:22:46] Holy cow. We have to legislate for people to not bully. These are parents. These are parents with their own kids. These are not your kids. I frequently try to remind people who are in careers, in professions that deal with kids. And they I understand why you do it. Like, oh, my kids like teachers do this all the time. They'll say like, oh, my kids in my class. Right. And they'll say my kids.

[00:23:15] But they're not your kids. They're not yours. And I understand that when you work around kids, like you, you look at them as if they're part of your family. You're protective of them. I get all of that. But they're not your kids. After the school year, you don't deal with them anymore. Right. Like they move on to another grade. They're somebody else's kids. Now, parents don't get to do that. Well, the good ones don't. I guess some bad ones probably do. So, number one.

[00:23:43] Number two, regarding this idea that we have to legislate for people to not bully. Again, I do live in the real world here. And I feel like I need to say this. But parents can do that, too. Parents can bully their kids. I don't like it. But, again, I kind of thought that was part of the deal. Like, I never got sideways with my dad because, like, I figured he would probably just, like, just pound me into the dirt.

[00:24:11] You know, like that's a really good motivation. So, yeah. I mean, that's, I don't know. I'm not saying they should. I'm not saying parents should bully their kids. However, what the kid may think is bullying might not actually be bullying. And what you, lawmaker, might think is bullying in this sort of fantastical idea of the, you know, this broken family. Probably some Trump voters, right, as the parents.

[00:24:41] Right? So, you've got this idea, this image of a family conjured up in your mind. And you're going to go in and protect that bullied child. Protect that child from being misgendered. And then to attribute the motivation based on whatever insecurities they may have. Yeah, that might not actually be based on insecurities that they may have.

[00:25:03] It might actually be that they don't want their 14-year-old, you know, to permanently disable their reproductive functions and never be able to have any kind of sexual gratification for the rest of their life. That might be also a pretty good explanation for why they would oppose going down that path. She says, why can't we just respect each other? As she proposes a bill to take your kids.

[00:25:30] Who's not doing the respecting here, Representative Garcia? She says, why can't we just understand that someone else's identity has nothing to do with me or you? Ugh, it's just gross. This woman is gross. The bill passed the committee on a straight party vote with Republicans in opposition. I believe, this is Jonathan Turley. I believe the Democrats are not just ignoring parental rights, but political realities.

[00:25:58] They will find that this is not a partisan issue. It is a primal issue. For parents, Democrat politicians like Garcia fail to understand that it has a lot to do with them. They are the parents of these kids. If Democrats do not understand that, they are likely soon to find that out at the election. 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?

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[00:27:21] 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. Hey, remember that spalloon? Remember that thing? The spalloon? The spy balloon? Good times. Oh, good times. Well, we got some details about the whole spalloon gate.

[00:27:47] Biden administration's State Department officials held private talks with Beijing counterparts about the Chinese spy balloon that invaded U.S. airspace in 2023. It's been that long.

[00:28:05] And the Biden officials discussed the implications that the publicity about the spy balloon would have on the relationship between us and the Tricoms. This is according to a story at foxnews.com reported by Diana Stancy based on information from the new administration.

[00:28:29] U.S. officials identified the spy balloon infiltrating U.S. airspace on January 28th, 2023. The Air Force shot down this balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4th. So from the 28th, 29th, 30, 31, 1, 2, 3, 4, so what? Eight days.

[00:28:57] Eight miraculous days. The spalloon drifted across our country, creating wonderment and anger. And what all went down in those eight days? Because we didn't all become aware of it on January 28th. But the Biden folks did. They became aware of it on January 28th, apparently. And they discussed with Beijing on February 1st.

[00:29:26] So three days after the balloon infiltrates. And then Biden officials hold the talks with the Beijing officials about the balloon. And they discussed the impact that disclosing the balloon to the public could have on the relationship with China. This is according to internal State Department documents.

[00:29:48] The internal State Department readout of the talks between Blinken and a top Chinese diplomat say that the readout is like a transcript, basically, of what occurred, right? It says Blinken stated that if the presence of the balloon were revealed publicly, it could have, quote,

[00:30:10] profound implications for our relationship with China, particularly amid efforts to stabilize the bilateral relationship with the communists. I said the communists. They said with Beijing. End of story. So what is he doing? Blinken's sitting there telling China, like, we are aware this is here. We know this is bad.

[00:30:35] And if this becomes public, like, if people realize, holy smokes, look at the size of that freaking balloon drifting across our country, right? Which is exactly what happened, right? That's going to put a crimp in our relationship. So it's probably best that you, like, get rid of that thing, I guess, right? The readout said that the incident could also have complicated Blinken's travel plans to China,

[00:31:01] which were scheduled for February of 2023, if it didn't get quickly resolved somehow. Blinken did end up postponing that trip. He went in June 2023. A former Biden administration official told Fox News Digital that the State Department summoned senior Chinese diplomat Zhu Haquan on February 1st

[00:31:26] so that the U.S. could notify China to remove its balloon and issue a warning that the U.S. could take action to eliminate the balloon. So think about that. They tell China, take your balloon and get it out of here. And in another world, in a parallel universe, let's think China says, oh, our bad. Haha. Wow. So awkward and embarrassing.

[00:31:55] It's just a weather balloon, you know. And then they get rid of it. They steer it away or something or, I don't know, maybe they, like, subcontract out somebody to shoot it down or whatever. They get rid of it. And so we never know. So we are never told that China has been sending spy balloons over our country. Guys, I kind of get the feeling like China's getting ready for something. Do you? I kind of feel like that.

[00:32:25] Another senior State Department official also held private talks on February 1st with Chinese counterparts. A readout from that second discussion says that the official claimed the longer it took to mitigate the issue would only increase the likelihood that news of this balloon would become public. And that would pose greater challenges managing the situation. Right. They wanted China to take this thing, get this thing out of here. You're going to get caught.

[00:32:55] People are going to see. Rather than coming out and being like, hey, America, China's got some balloon over us. Like, instead of alerting, you know, the people who may be in danger from this balloon, because I don't know what's in that balloon. Ultimately, the Pentagon issued a statement on February 2nd, claiming that the U.S. government had detected a high altitude surveillance balloon.

[00:33:24] While then White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden received a briefing on the balloon on January 31st, she did not provide details regarding why his administration did not issue a statement on the matter until two days later. So after the meetup with the Chinese people about, hey, get your balloon out of our sky. And they're like, this is going to be a bad PR thing.

[00:33:53] The next day that the Pentagon issues a statement. Right. But that happened because some like local reporter in Montana. Montana. When, eh, look at that balloon up there. That's pretty weird. And did a story on it. And that's how we all learned about this balloon drifting its way across the continent.

[00:34:18] At the time, the Pentagon said that while the balloon was not a military or physical threat, its presence in U.S. airspace did violate U.S. sovereignty. The Pentagon also shut down China's initial claims that the balloon was a weather balloon blown off course. And it called that false. It was a Tricom surveillance balloon. And there were at least three other incidents of the same kind during the Trump first administration. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, though.

[00:34:48] 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 thepetecalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.