Gavinor loses; the CON abomination (06-20-2025--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 dpeakclendershow 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. What else has occurred with the court, so we have We got a federal appeals court that has allowed President Donald Trump to be president. So that's fantastic. That was good news too. Yeah, he's allowed to maintain control of the California National Guard troops. In response to THELA protests, A federal appeals court has indefinitely blocked an effort by California Governor Gavin Newsome. Why do people not call him gavernor Newsom. I'm going to start calling him gavernor Newsom California gaverner. Anyway, he wanted to reclaim control of the National Guard troops, and. I guess that's just tyranny. It's not for our democracy. A three judge panel of San Francisco based Ninth Circus Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Trump appeared to have acted within his authority when he took control of four thousand California National Guard troops under a law that has never been invoked without the consent of a state governor. That's I don't think that's true Politico. That's like a week or so ago when he did it. We talked about the times when it has been done, notably to you know, force Democrats to give up their indentured servants and such. Anyway, despite a debate over the level of violence accompanying the protest, the judges concluded that the law gives Trump enormous latitude to determine that the protests and the related violence were interfering with the execution of federal law. Which is like literally what the law says that he can take control of the National Guard in order to effectuate the enforcement and execution of federal law. And what were the protests and the violence doing. They were obstructing the execution of federal law. That's the point. They were attacking ice agents, they were blocking their pathways in such their roads, and so they were obstructing those efforts, and so they said, you know what, We're going to send the Guard into let the Ice and Border Patrol continue their ops. How did you. By the way, the three judge panel two pointed by Trump and one of the judges appointed by President Joe Biden, but it was unanimous. The judges said, there are limits to the president's ability to call up the Guard, but there was enough evidence of civil unrest and danger to federal officials to justify Trump's actions. Yeah, clearly, it's all on video. The ruling indefinitely sets aside a decision by the lower court US District Judge Charles Bryer, who is the son of the former US Supreme Court Justice Steven Bryer. If I recall correctly, Charles Bryer last week issued a temporary restraining order against Trump's deployment of the Guard. Now Brier is scheduled to hold another hearing in the case today to consider Gaviner Newsom's request for a longer term block of both the Guard deployment and Trump's subsequent deployment of seven hundred marines. So we'll see how that works out for him. By the way, Gavin Or put out a statement. On Twitter. Donald Trump is not sorry. Donald Trump is not a king, not above the law. Tonight, the court rightly rejected Trump's claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court. We will not let this authoritarian use of military soldiers against citizens go unchecked. Okay, to be fair, the National Guard is not doing anything against the citizens. Unless people start attacking law enforcement or the Guard, they would be responding, okay, number one. Number two, why is Gavin sounding like he won this thing? Well, there was one part. There was one part of the ruling, and that what he is using here to claim victory, which he did not right because they rejected his argument. So here's the part to do here. It is from Politico. Despite ultimately ruling for Trump, all three judges flatly rejected the administration's claimed that the courts had no role in reviewing his call up of the military to Los Angeles. That was one of their arguments. They made several arguments. One of the arguments was that the courts don't have any authority to be intervening in this. He's you know, operating under his Article two powers, and so the Article three branch has no role in adjudicating any of this, and the judges said, yes, we do, because they say, like, if his you know, call up of the guard had been quote obviously absurd or made in bad faith something right, then the courts would clearly have. A role in assessing that. But he does, like, he has a right to do what he has done. Newsom could ask a larger eleven judge panel of the Appeals Court to take up the issue or seek emergency relief from the US Supreme Court. Does he do this? I don't know. I'm not going to make any prediction on this, but I mean, the violence has largely subsided in Los Angeles now. Newsom and his attorneys had argued that Trump's involvement of the National Guard was likely to fuel more anger from protesters and inflame an already tense situation on the streets of La Sorry, like, do not send the guard here. People are burning and rioting and looting stuff. We just have to let them express themselves and it will eventually burn out or the whole city will burn down. Like either way, it'll be over at that point, Okay, So you just got to let these things play out. We got it under control. The problem was they did not have it under control, particularly when it came to defending ICE agents and Border Patrol agents and other officers who were working with ICE on these deportation operations. Right In one case which actually triggered the call up of the Guard was that the ICE folks got surrounded, I think in one of the facilities and they could not get out, They could not get get the rioters to disperse. They call the LAPD and it takes some more than two hours to get down there, and they're only like a mile away, So like, why would it take that long to do that? Why would you not be rolling immediately? The appeals court judges said, those concerns of you know, the it could fuel more anger, it could fuel more protesting, it could lead to more violence. And the judges were like, yeah, that's we don't know that to be true. You don't know that to be true. They said, California's concerns about escalation and interference with local law enforcement are too speculative. In other words, you're just making stuff up, guy, What are you doing. We do not know whether future protests will grow due to the deployment of the National Guard, and we do not know what emergencies may occur in California while the Guard is deployed, because they were arguing, what if we need the guard for something else? Well, you know, you don't send them in for forest fires. So like. The protests and altercations have now you know, dissipated, they have diminished. The mayor set a curfew up, but only after the guard was there. So the curfew was put in now and they actually lifted it on Tuesday. The Ninth Circuit also concluded that a technical aspect of the law you heard this argument too at the time, a requirement that Trump issue his order to call up the guard through quote unquote through the gaverner. They say that was not violated. The order was delivered to newsome subordinate, and even if it were a violation, it would not justify the lower courts ruling to rescind the order all together. So, surprise, surprise, a lawyer with a wardrobe change and a leftist ideology just got bigfooted. 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 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. Alrighty, So another cord ruling here, this one in uh North Carolina. This story from The Carolina Journal. North Carolina's second highest court could decide whether state regulators made the wrong choice when they allowed one healthcare provider to maintain a monopoly on MRI machines up in the northeastern area of North Carolina. So there's a three judge Court of Appeals panel heard oral arguments this week in a case that pits Virginia based Chesapeake Diagnostic Imaging Centers against Centaura Advanced Imaging Solutions and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Okay, so you got this Virginia company and you got Centaura and the DHS on opposite sides. DHS picked Centaura over Chesapeake to get what's called a certificate of need or CON or CON as I like to call them. Complete distortion of the market. This, this system needs to be ripped out from its roots in North Carolina. It is awful. The CON system is awful. So the government literally picks winners and losers, and in this case they picked Centaura as the winner and the loser is Chesapeake. Okay, so Centaura gets this certificate of need, gets the CON. This is back in twenty twenty two. For a new MRI machine, a machine one, a single machine, GOVCO says, I bequeathed to you the ability to buy and offer for medical use a single MRI for Pasquatank, Perkemons not Pokemons, Perquimans, Kuratuck, and Camden Counties. All four of these counties shall have a single MRI and you shall be the purveyor of it. CENTAA. Now Centaura already operated two existing MRI machines, So now Cintaura gets a third. So okay, So they got three machines for one, two, three, four counties. So at some point in the future we may even see Centaura get a fourth machine. So you would have one MRI machine per county. Man, you guys would be just living high on the hog there. So Cintaura already had two machines. But CHESAPEAE Chesapeake was hoping to enter the region and to do something that I like to call compete. They wanted to offer some level of competition. And I remember somewhere along the line in my education, I think I remember hearing something about competition driving down costs or something like that, right, being better for the consumer. Trying to remember it'll come to me. But see, here's the problem is that Chesapeake didn't get the con. Well, they got CON, but they didn't get the CON. They didn't get the CON the certificate of need from the state, so they're not allowed to enter the northeastern North Carolina market. You can't set up an MRI machine here. We don't want to know what's going on inside people, and if we do, we want these guys to do it, not you. So Chesapeake's lawyers argued that Health Regulator's decision favoring Centaura was a mistake, an agency error, and that error caused substantial prejudice against Chesapeake. Chesapeake has to prove an agency error and substantial prejudice if they want to reverse a con decision in court. You see the problem here, like you have this system, this certificate of needs system, and then there's this this scaffolding that is constructed all around the system for how do you object to it, how do you overturn it? How do you get an appeal? All these rules that are necessary rather than you know, just let Chesapeake come into the market and set up some MRI machines and if they don't do a good job, if people don't use their service, they'll go out of business. And then you know what happens to the MRI machines, somebody else will buy them, right because Chessapeake will be looking to unload inventory and then maybe Centaurs like, oh, we can get a really good deal on that MRI machine that they're not going to use anymore, and so they'll buy it at a discount, and then you would end up with the same amount of machines. Right, But no, you're not allowed to do that. In North Carolina. We got dovec in charge. And who doesn't want government making your decisions on access to care? I mean besides Democrats. Noah huff Stettler is one of the lawyers for Chesapeake and argued against Centaura. Centaura said that during the statee con process that its new machine would increase competition. Centaura said that the one Centaura is the company that already has the two machines, and they are asking for the third machine. And in the in the asking process, they say giving us a third machine will increase competition. And huff Stetler says that's pretty rich, pointing to centaur success in convincing state regulators five years in a row to remove a new MRI scanner from its plans. So Centaura had, apparently, I guess, wanted to put a new MRI machine in for five straight years, or said they did, and then kept taking it out of the plan. But when Chesapeake comes in now, Centaura is like, oh, no, we're going to do it now. Well, yeah, we have to have this one now. Now is the time. I know, we've been pulling it out of the plan for the last five years. And that obviously sent the market signal, which is a foreign concept apparently even to the Republican legislature that still won't get rid of the con probably because of the lobbying dollars from the medical industry, But that would send a market signal. Right when Centaura is not doing another machine repeatedly in order to constrain supply to drive up, and Chesapeake says, hey, you know what, we. Can come in there. Let's try to get in there and we could do another machine and we can compete. No, no, no, Now, Centaur is like, we're going to add another machine. When Chesapeake successfully advocated to keep the new MRI machine in the state's twenty twenty two health Plan Facilities plan, that's when Centaura flipped one hundred and eighty degrees. He says, not only is it needed, but we need it here. So this is the government centrally planning access to medical devices and care Centaura countered in the appeals court argument that Chesapeake has no legal basis to overturn a valid decision from gov CO. Alexander Gormley said both applications were found to be conforming, and then they applied a number of comparative factors and Centaura won by a three to two vote. What tipped the scales is they won on geographic accessibility. They proposed to put their MRI in Kurtuk County where none exists. Where's Chesapeake proposed to put theirs right on top of the existing MRI. So I think the agency exercised a lot of wisdom and common sense. So they're like, we're going to put ours in some other county. So geographically that's what swung us or swung them to give it to us, right, but where's the population? State Deputy Special Deputy Attorney General Derek Hunter also urged the appeals court to reject it, saying the con law is not designed to level the playing field between healthcare providers. Its purpose is to ensure that all North Carolinians, and particularly those in rural areas, are able to access necessary, cost effective healthcare. The con law. It's just an abomination here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe on a plan, a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. 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Dennis says, I think a more appropriate name for California's governor is governor nuisance, Gavener nuisance. We can combine them. It doesn't have to be either or Gavener nuisance. I'll probably forget that, but that's good. This is from Scott, the government we deserve. Subject line call me crazy, You're crazy, Scott. But does it feel like government is nothing more than the four ls? Legal maneuvering, litigation, lobbying, and lying. Maybe I missed one. I don't know. I feel like legal maneuvering and litigation might be kind of the same thing. We could just go like litigation, lobbying, lying, and lying, or maybe. Just three l's. Well, here's w a US Agency for International Development contracting officer so USAID, right are our favorite organization? A contracting officer for USAID and three company leaders all pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme that was connected to over five hundred and fifty million dollars in taxpayer money. According to the DOJ, the scheme spanned a decade and was tied to at least fourteen USAID contracts that cost taxpayers over five hundred and fifty million dollars. Fifty seven year old Roderick Watson of Woodstock, Maryland, admitted to bribery of a government official while working as a contracting officer. The scheme began in twenty thirteen. He received bribes from Darryl Britt of Mayaca City, Florida to use his influence to use Watson's influence to award contracts to britain It's small business, which was enrolled in a federal business development program that was supposed to grow disadvantaged businesses. After Britt's business graduated from the program, it swapped places with another firm. That firm was owned by Walter Barnes of Potomac, Maryland. Barnes's firm was once a subcontractor to BRIT's firm on one of the very contracts that were secured through the USAID guy Watson's influence and then he became a prime contractor with USAID under the program for four years while Britt's firm served as a subcontractor to Barnes's firm. Watson received bribe's worth about a million dollars, including cash, laptops, thousands of dollars, and tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club, wedding down, payments on two residential mortgages, cell phones, as well as jobs for relatives. These bribes were in exchange for awarding the contracts by quote manipulating the procurement process at USAID. Barnes and Britt paid Watson the bribes through another guy named Paul Young at a Columbia, Maryland. Paul Young is the president of another firm that was a subcontractor to both Barnes and Britt. Watson faces up to fifteen years behind bars. Barnes, Britt, and Young each looking at five years. Both Barnes's company and BRIT's company admitted to involvement in the bribery scheme and they agreed to cooperate with the DOJ. But wait, it gets worse. Yes, there's a very lengthy write up by Luke Rosiak at The Daily Wire. President Joe Biden's USAID awarded an eight hundred million dollar contract to a business operating out of Virginia out of a Virginia home, even after it formally ruled that its key manager lacked honesty and integrity, a reference to the fact that, according to a May twelfth guilty plea, he had secured USAID contracts through bribery for a decade. The contract was for addressing quote issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the US. Do you remember that. Yeah, that was what Kamala Harris was supposed to get at, which she never actually did address. The Department of Justice announced that Walter Barnes and Roderick Watson pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme in which Barnes and two other companies conspired to pay Watson a million dollars in exchange. That's the bribe in exchange for contracts totaling nearly half a billion dollars. What has not been reported, though, is the Biden administration continued to steer contracts to them even after it knew of the massive corruption. Yeah, there was another contract, the migration contract, even larger than the five hundred and forty four million dollars in the indictment. There are other contracts that are still active. The eight hundred million dollar contract went to a joint venture between Barnes's company and some other guy in Falls Church, Virginia named Richard Crespin, the amazing one who runs it out of his house. They got eight hundred million dollars. It's through this collaborate up and said they would address the root causes by addressing climate change. They had, well, look, if you're gonna ask for a grant from GOVC, you got to know how to ask, right, And if Biden's in charge throwing the climate stuff and throwing the irregular migration and to combat also misinformation. Because of course, all right, so spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. But let me ask you, are all of those treasured moments from days gone by? Are they hidden away on old VCR tapes, eight millimeter films, photos, slides? Are they preserved? Because over time, these precious memories can fade and deteriorate losing the magic of yesterday. At Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most. Their expert team digitizes your cherished family moments and transfers them onto a USB drive, freezing them in time so they can be enjoyed for generations to come. I urge you do not wait until it's too late this spring, celebrate your past. Visit Creative Video today and let them preserve your legacy with the love and care that it deserves. Creative Video Preserving Family Memories since nineteen ninety seven. Located in mint Hill, just off four eighty five. Mail orders are accepted to get all the details that create a video dot com. Brett, how are you. I'm great, I'm I'm thrilled. It's good to be with you. It's good that you're here. So have you heard well? First off, do you have any phobias that induce like debilitating anxiety. I used to have a phobia of. Bats, bataphobia, I've heard metaphobia. And I but I just I lost it somewhere along the way. Was it around COVID time? No? No, no, it was well before that. It was well before that. There may be a connect okay, but I was gonna say, because there could have been a connection. I lost it. It could have been like big Bat. That's trying to make people more comfortable with that, right, The COVID was a delivery. No, yeah, I don't like that. Okay. So apparently there is a an employee of the bank Truest Bank out in Nash County. They have a phobia of doll like dolls. Like stuffed dolls, like Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. I don't know about the Russian nesting dolls. Oh. I like those, but they're not really dolls. There's like eggs. I was, Yeah, that makes sense, go ahead, Yeah, so continue. This person is now suing the Charlotte based bank over discrimination and retaliation claims because she says the situation was exacerbated by Chucky. Oh, Chucky, sure a doll, very familiar with that. They say that due to her disabilities, she experienced discrimination and retaliation, which include major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, autoimmune disorder, post traumatic stress disorder. Come on, yeah, yeah, and that the PTSD. That's a new diagnosis after the incident with Chucky. What did Chucky do? In June of twenty twenty four. During her last week of her initial training, her manager put a chucky doll in her chair. Wow, that worsened her medical conditions. Her manager knew about our fear of dolls, and then he put it there and then laughed, he said, just to see her reaction to the chucky doll. She was treated by her medical provider that same day and put on eight weeks of medical leave to treat her disabilities. To be de chucked, to. Be unchucked, unchucked, I think so that's how long it takes. Eight weeks. She had an accommodation to leave work at three pm three times a week for treatment of I feel like we've jumped the shark on something. No, no, do you think I have? I feel like you get to like your working banker's hours already, yes, and now three days a week you get to leave at three pm. Okay. I don't know if I want to talk about this or not. I'm going to just do it. Just do it. When I was in San Diego, I had a boardop who was across the glass from me, and I went down the hall and there was a clown mask that somebody had left on a desk. Oh and I walked into during a commercial break. I walked into my studio adjacent to where he was. He saw me. I had the clown mask on, and he lost his marbles. That's people are terrified of clowns. Some people are, but. It was obviously me with a mask. It was like a well oversized mask. It was all. Did he get eight weeks of medical leave? He did not. He did not. In fact, to tie it all together, at the end of the shift, he had to stay later, like fifteen minutes because the next board op wasn't there, and he grabbed the mask and he threw it down the hall. That's rating and I had no reason to know that he was upset about that. Right, that's radio. You get that kind of PTSD and you got to work longer. 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,