In NC, Democrats preach unity and cooperation... for now | Hour 1

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 the Pete calendar show.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. The North Carolina house of representatives, uh, will be controlled by Democrats at the beginning of the next legislative session. We still have about a month and a half left or so before that happens, before they all get sworn in and take over session. I think they do the swearing in like early December, I want to say, but then the session begins in 2027. So Republicans have time to try to do stuff on the way out the door over the next month or so. Don't know if they will. I've heard reports that they may try. We'll see. But right now, what you're getting is a lot of talk about unity. This is what is expected after Trump. you know, any kind of change in power, you'll hear the party coming in and they say, oh, you know, we want to work together with the other party. And let me just tell you, that's all crap, okay? They don't care if the other party is going to sign on. Now, would they prefer that? Sure. Sure. In the House, Democrats will control virtually a veto proof majority. Not that it matters because they've got a Democrat governor. So the Democrat governor is not going to veto anything that comes out of the House. If it has the House's, you know, priorities and it passes with overwhelming Democrat support, they don't have to worry about a veto. And Josh Stein, the governor, does not have to worry about vetoing anything now. The hang up is going to be over in the Senate. where the Republicans are clinging to a one-seat majority. It is 26 to 24 seats, okay? So if they were to lose the one seat they are clinging to, and I'll have more details on that in a moment, if they lose that seat, then it becomes a tie, 25-25, which means that the would be for the Democrats because the lieutenant governor is Rachel Hunt, daughter of former Governor Jim Hunt. See, again, this is why I was talking about on election night machine politics, like the machine doesn't, the machine hasn't died. It hasn't gone away. Okay, it just operates differently. It moves around the state, whatever. But the Democrat machine has been in existence for over a century. You don't kill something like that. Over the course of 10 years, it takes a long time to dismantle it, particularly when North Carolina, you know, was a patronage state. It was a spoil system state. And people don't appreciate that. I don't think they don't recognize like how lasting and durable that sort of thing is. You didn't get a job in North Carolina government. If you were a Republican, you just didn't get a job. So you had to then become a Democrat. and you had to vote Democrat and you had to donate to the Democrat politicians. They'd, they'd come around the office and all that. No, no, no, Pete. They professionalized the civil service. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm right. Okay. Yeah. Technically on paper. Sure. However, um, those, uh, those bonds, they don't break easily and the habits don't die easily. And the machine finds other ways via nonprofits, right? Um, that get government contracts and all of that. So that's the entrenched machine in North Carolina. Republicans have been in charge for 15 years of the legislature and they have made a lot of progress to be sure because North Carolina happens to have a strong legislative authority, right? Where the governor's pretty weak, the cities and counties pretty weak, the legislature is the seminal authority. All right, so over in the Senate, you're going to have, you have this one seat. It's Danny Britt, the incumbent. He represents Hoke, Robison, and Scotland counties. And he's hanging on to a 268 vote lead. Okay. 268 votes. When you look at the provisional ballots that are still out there, not out there, they're in, they're at the board of elections, but These are ballots that were cast provisionally because you showed up and you weren't in the right precinct. You had just moved into the district or something. Your voting record wasn't correct or it wasn't on the books there or whatever. Something was wrong, right? There was something wrong with the ballot, with you trying to vote. So they let you, they always let you cast the ballot. It's a provisional ballot, but then it has to be cured, right? So for example, if you show up without a voter ID, you cast a provisional ballot, then you got to come back within 10 days and show your ID to prove that it's you. And now your ballot is cured and it can be counted. Okay. So you've got a whole bunch of ballots. There are about, well, 828 provisional ballots. He leads by 268. And so now everybody is running all of the math. all the permutations, right, to try to figure out, is he going to keep his seat? Now, you're not going to get a prediction out of me here. I'm just going to give you some of the data points, okay? This is from Brendan Higgins. He is with the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation. He takes a look at 2024 and the provisional ballots that were cast in that election and breaks them out. 61% of them were rejected, okay? So, uh, like what, 39% were actually counted. And when you break those out, Britt got 64% of those provisional ballots that counted. So like a two to one margin. Now, don't know if that's going to apply this time around, considering what we saw, right? Down ballot, vote retention statewide is about 85%. and about 83% in 2022 during that midterm. So if you assume somewhere between, you know, half and two thirds get rejected, and then you have 85% retention down ballot, what Higgins is expecting is that there'd be about just under 300 votes to fight over. Okay. And that means that the Democrat in the race named Ham, she would need um, to break about, they would, she would need those ballots to break 96% for her. She would need to get virtually every single one of those remaining ballots. Again, this is based on the historical trends. And so that does not seem very likely. Um, and, uh, some other numbers, uh, to look at that if, uh, you got, uh, 700 provisional ballots, roughly. They break two to one for the Democrat candidate. That would net, if you count 700 provisionals, that would net 168 votes. She would still trail by about 100. OK, so like it is it is difficult to ascertain how this breaks because we just don't know. We're going to have to wait and see. But it seems like right now it's going to be a challenge to for the Democrat to get over that hump, to make up those roughly 300 votes that she's behind by. Now, it could happen. And if it does happen, Democrats secure the trifecta. They would have then the House, the Senate, and the governor's mansion. And just keep that in mind for all the talk that you're going to hear as I go over this, for all the talk about listening to voters and What are they saying? What's the message? How should we be leading based on what they're saying? And we need to work with everybody. We need to unify and all of this. All of that's out the window. Okay, first off, I don't believe it to begin with. I don't believe this is something that that they are saying, like the governor did a press conference. I've got audio clips from that. We'll hear where he's saying, oh, we need to, you know, work across the aisle, work with everybody for the betterment of all the people and all of this, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what you have to say. You should say that. Sure. But I'm under no illusion. I've been watching this stuff for too long. That's not, you know, coming together means it means you give up what you believe and go along with what we're doing. That's what that means. Now, they're going to have to make compromises, to be sure, and they will say, look, we were able to work together. Working together means you have to sacrifice something. How much? Well, that's up for negotiation. And if you don't have any leverage in the negotiation, then you sacrifice everything. You're not going to get anything you want. That's how that works. Right? It's just a matter of degree, not distinction here. The holidays will be here before you know it. And so now is the time to create precious and priceless family heirlooms that will last for generations. Take your old photos, slides, films, and tapes to create a video in Mint Hill. There, they'll turn those memories into the story of your lives, memories from past family events captured forever to pass down to future generations. Creative Video's skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy-to-use USB drives or DVDs that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now. They will create a keepsake video that you can share and copy and keep forever. I can see it now. You're gathered around the holiday table with your loved ones, watching all these memories and people of your lives. You're sharing laughs, maybe some tears, telling stories that make your family uniquely yours. Beat the holiday rush and get your memories in now. Go to createavideo.com or visit them in Mint Hill just off I-485. Your photos and videos 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 create a video.com. Uh, John over on the text line says regarding the Democrat machine, uh, taking a detour of the usual white male lawyer, attorney general pipeline to governor. That is the pipeline. Uh, Jeff Jackson is going to challenge Ted Budd for us Senate. If he doesn't make it, uh, watch Roy Cooper resign in 2029 and they appoint Jeff Jackson, a.k.a. Baby Jesus. Meanwhile, they are grooming Rachel Hunt to be governor in 2032. Yeah, so that would be the detour from the attorney general to governor, white male lawyer pipeline that the Democrats have been utilizing for like a century. With, well, with the exception of Bev Perdue, right? But yeah, that's the machine in action. Um, I thought there was something else. Hang on a second that I needed to, oh yes, Chris on the text line. Uh, Chris, I don't know. It looks like at least someone is listening to the show. Uh, I'm not sure. I, I don't know what that is in reference to. Um, but, uh, in yesterday's text that I'm just seeing now, um, you, you're asking about the, uh, the compact, uh, that's going to do an end run around the, um, electoral college. Yep, I've done the math on that. I will get to all of that later in the program. They're looking to destroy one of the last vestiges of federalism in their pursuit of power. All right, so this from WRAL. North Carolina Democrats say voters gave lawmakers clear marching orders when they gave Democrats control of the state's House of Representatives for the first time in 15 years. Make life more affordable. Yes, those were the marching orders to the Democrats. Because if it's one thing we know about Democrats and their preferred policies, it makes everything cost more. I mean, less. Sorry, less. It makes everything cost less. Right. That's what we know about Democrat policies. So that's what they're going to do, everybody, good and hard. Unofficial election results Tuesday night showed Republicans poised to keep control of the state Senate, but we'll see. And the state House under solid Democrat control for the first time since 08, giving them newfound influence over state spending and other policies. Right. But they're going to need Senate approval. Right. House Minority Leader Robert Reeves. He is the heir apparent. I heard Governor Josh Stein referring to him as the Speaker of the House elect or something like that. He's already referring to him. He's like sending out, you know, the signal here. Robert Reeves is the guy. Don't you people in the House get any ideas like Robert Reeves is the guy? OK, he's a Democrat from Chatham County. He said the results show North Carolinians want state lawmakers to reduce the cost of living. This is their mandate. Democrats have a mandate to bring down all of the prices, okay? He says, I believe that over the last 10 years, and really 15 years, that what you've seen is kind of a prioritizing of helping folks at the top of the economic ladder and kind of forgetting about everybody else. This is what I mean. Everything these people say, color me skeptical here, Number one, that you're going to be able actually to reduce the price of anything, because that's not what you guys do with your policies. You drive the cost of everything up because you just spend, spend, spend. See a penny, spend a penny. Or as a texter pointed out the other day, see a penny, spend a nickel. Like, this is your economic philosophy. You talk about investments, but what you're actually talking about is more government spending, and that increases the costs of everything, basically. So I don't believe you. OK, I don't believe you that you're going to bring the cost down. Also, this is your common mantra that nobody in the Republican Party over the last 15 years, not a single policy has done anything at all to help anybody except the richie richies. And that is false as well. That is not true. And the way you know this is not true is because. The governor in his press conference, on the one hand, says the very same thing that Reeves is saying. And on the other hand, turns around and touts how we are this great state for new business and growth. OK, new businesses do not show up someplace where people cannot afford to live. OK, they're not going to locate there. They're not going to be bringing a new company in if the education system is in shambles. They're not going to be bringing new businesses in, right, if all of the people there can't afford to eat, okay, if the people are being ignored, right? This idea that people in every income bracket have not benefited from the tax reforms that the Republicans did over the last decade and a half is absurd. Everybody now has double the standard deduction, right? Most of the people below like 50K a year, they're not even paying state income taxes. This is the case at the federal level as well, right? People in the lower middle class, people in the poor categories, right, the lower quintiles, they don't pay any taxes at all, okay? So this idea that there is this group of people out there that aren't paying their fair share or that somehow other people are being ignored and they're not getting enough stuff or they can't afford to live and all of this. And by the way, the pressure that is brought to bear on people not being able to afford things, and if I just take your argument at face value, without looking at any of your expenses, right, not looking at your $ 1, 600 iPhone, not looking at your, you know, $ 600 a month car payments for a brand new Camaro or something, like if I'm not, if I don't even look at any of your expenses, the pressure being brought to bear from inflation is largely due to government spending. The very things that these Democrats say we need to be funding in order to help people are the very things that make stuff unaffordable. This is why this is all a scam. It's all a scam. We saw it up in Virginia. They ran on this exact same platform since Mom Donnie gave them the blueprint, affordability, affordability. And what do they do? They go in and they jack up taxes. They jack up the price of doing business. They make things less affordable. They wanted to tax gasoline. Remember that? They wanted to tax gas in Virginia for like the yard crews, for landscapers. This is who they are. It's just tax, tax, tax, tax, pay off constituents to secure the votes. That's the money laundering operation. Rush Limbaugh talked about this for decades. OK, that's the way this works. And that's what they're promising. And my favorite part of the quote from Robert Reeves, he says, so my thing is trying to figure out how we can do things to make life more affordable for everybody else. Trying to figure it out, which actually confirms what I've just been saying. They don't know how to do this because it's not part of their toolkit. Never has been. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real. It's in your name. And 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to Calendarmetals.com. That's Calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. Let me jump back over to the text line. Kevin says, given the Democrats gains in the legislature, which is more in danger, the opportunity scholarship or the rainy day fund? Um, yes. Um, in fact, governor Stein was asked about this. He's a big opponent of the school vouchers, um, down in Texas, the governor, um, she's going to be ripping all of those, uh, school vouchers away. That's what they're going to be moving to do down in Texas. So if you were sending your kid to a private school using school vouchers, got your kid out of a failing public school, sorry, they're going to take back that money. They're going to fund that failing public school, which is still going to fail. And now your kid will have to go to it. That's the Democrats' plan. That'll be harder to get at in North Carolina. Again, if the Senate is held by the Republicans by, you know, 280 votes or whatever it was in Danny Britt's race there. They're going to have to figure out a way. Now, can you get a Republican senator to break ranks? Like that's what the same thing that the Republicans have done to Democrats in order to peel one vote away to get legislation moved, right? The Democrats are going to do the same thing. They will do the exact same thing To the Republican members, they'll try to cut a deal with one member, two members in order to peel Republicans away in order to enact certain pieces of legislation. I don't think, though, that the scholarships, the school vouchers is fertile ground for that. Rating the Rainy Day Fund, easier to do. It doesn't really have a constituency, you know, that's much easier to do. So actually, probably the the Rainy Day Fund. would be an easier thing for them to go after because the Democrats did not fund that reserve. They didn't do it all the time that they were in office. And then anytime we got a hurricane, they always had to borrow money. They had to, you know, raid other funds and stuff and raise taxes. That's how they governed. And they see all of that pot of money sitting there and they're like, let's use it. Their last budget proposal, The last budget proposal from, well, I think every one of them, actually, from Governor Roy Cooper, always raided the Rainy Day Fund, always wanted to hit the reserves, the emergency reserves. Kevin says, for those Republicans and independent dogs who stayed home or voted for Democrats and have kids in private school, you have caught the car. Yep, the dogs sometimes catch the car and they get to taste what the bumper tastes like. Um, I get to find out, um, if it's all a scam, then why not? The well-armed militia seems like a good, yeah, that's just stupid. Um, Chris, the troll, why don't you do a positive show every now and then there is no way you can be a happy person covering politics day and, and day out has got to be exhausting. I, uh, I'm a giver, Chris, I am a giver. Um, But I appreciate the shut-uppery tactic. It's always perfectly identifiable from the left. When the left doesn't like what you're saying, rather than address the argument, their well-reasoned reply is shut up. So to answer your question, no, I'm not going to shut up. And the election results came in less than 48 hours ago. There was literally a news conference 24 hours ago that the governor held. So no, like I tend to talk about news and current events. And I also weave in philosophy, tie them to the larger issues and all of that. Whether it's exhausting or not doesn't matter. See, because I do this and I've always done this, whether I was a reporter or a radio host, I have done this. I've said this many times because I believe in the constitutional necessity of an informed citizenry. Okay. Okay. People have to know what's going on. How else can you participate in self-governance? So that's what I do. I help people be informed so they can participate in this experiment of self-governance. I try to, you know, listen beyond the slogans like make stuff cost less. Vote for me. I'm going to make stuff cost less. I try to give people deeper understanding. Now, some people don't want that. They're called Democrats. And that's why Chris wants me to shut up. So, no, not going to happen. You can try to text that to somebody else. And by the way, I do positive topics. You know me. I've been trying to give people the antidote for black billing for quite a while because I've recognized the op that that is. It's a it's a palace coup against Trump, basically. from the alt-right, or the horseshoe-right, or the woke-right, the Groypers, the Tucker-Katarlsons, all of those folks, okay? That's what's been going on in order to get J.D. Vance installed as the leader of the MAGA-slash-Republican movement. And blackpilling is a key part of that demoralization. And I've argued against demoralization. I've given people reasons to be positive. right? Hope, gratitude. These are things that people should have, um, in their lives. You should do a daily gratitude. Oh, see, look at that. I'm already doing positive things. Oh my gosh. See, Chris doesn't hear anything positive. When I talk about positive things, when I went through the list of achievements that Donald Trump has, uh, has made as a president, uh, that that's not positive to Chris. I'm sure that would count as a negative because he opposes everything that Trump has done. Um, So surely the lefty. Welcome to the blue wave. This was beyond the wave. Surely they're calling it the well, I'm calling it the Blue Nami. When the big, beautiful, big hit in twenty twenty seven, that will not be the Democrats economy. That will be Trump's. Remember that. OK, so so wouldn't then this be Joe Biden's economy? That the Republicans just got punished for, or is that different? Because the inflation that people are complaining about, that was due to the government spending of Joe Biden. Now, Trump layered on more, to be sure. But the 9% annual inflation, that was 2022, right? So the inflation takes a long time to work through an economy. Dems will be 2028 on. Republicans couldn't even raise the minimum wage. Goodbye 1920 politicians. Young folks voted you out. Please stay out. See, there's another one. The lefties are all about, they're all about you not participating in the conversation, in voting, in the economy, right? They just want you to go away. This is why when we saw the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Right. What did so many on the left do? They celebrated because that's the natural endpoint of this kind of mentality that you just heard from Shirley and from Chris on the texts. This is what they advocate. Shut up. Just shut up. Go away. Stop thinking what you think. Stop believing what you believe. This is why we have a state lawmaker now who literally posted a photo from Auschwitz saying this is where MAGA belongs. And she won. She won. She's now a state lawmaker. This is the modern left. See, I'm under no illusion who y'all are. You can't gaslight me on this. Back to this. I'll get to some more text in a moment. One last point here from the WRAL story by Andy Specht. Polls conducted before the election show that voters were frustrated with elevated inflation and that they largely blame economic conditions such as elevated inflation on policies implemented by Trump and supported by Republicans in Congress, such as tariffs and the war in Iran for increased grocery and gas prices. Note what is missing. This is why I do what I do. An informed citizenry. What causes inflation? Because an increase in the gas prices, that's not inflation, right? You want to say it was the gas prices? Well, that came from what? That came from the Iran war. And why? Because there was a prediction that supply would be constrained. By the way, have you seen the price of oil has dropped like almost $ 10 a barrel? I wonder what happened. Right after the election, price of oil comes down. Amazing. Anyway, that's not inflation. Price of groceries. What was that from? I went over this yesterday. Egg prices when they were up and all Democrats were talking about was the price of eggs. What was that from? Was that inflation? Or was that the bird flu that wiped out all these flocks? Price of beef. Same thing. It was like a parasite or something, a virus that killed a bunch of herds out in and they restricted supply. Now, tariffs, I get it. That's not inflation, though. Right. So. when the reporter, Andy Specht, says that people are blaming economic conditions like elevated inflation on these policies, and he cites two things or three things here, tariffs, war in Iran, increased prices for grocery and gas, Well, that's not inflation. As a journalist, as a reporter, you should inform the citizens reading your piece as to what causes the inflation. And do you want to know? I'm going to give you the inside scoop here about what causes inflation. You ready? Government spending. Particularly when we don't have the money. when we borrow more than we take in, because we're spending it at such an exorbitant clip, then that's what causes the inflation. The Federal Reserve System, monetary policy, these are the things that cause inflation. If you're just talking about the high prices of things, well, now you're getting into very specific factors depending on the product or service or industry that you are examining. And it's different. You get different factors for all these different products, services, and industries. So when you say you're going to make things cost less, as Roy Cooper campaigned on, what exactly are you talking about and how are you going to do that? Luckily for Roy... Nobody asked him because who needs to know how a single senator in a 100-member body is going to do such a thing that he is promising, right? We don't need to know that. Patrick says, the way government makes things more affordable is by giving themselves raises. Yeah, that's true. It's funny because it's true. That's favorite Russ says, tax and spend, yes, but they also can't, talking about Democrats, yes, taxing and spending, but they also can't not regulate everything they see. You mentioned the other day how much of a home price is due to government regulations, right? Their regulatory cost is somewhere between $ 100, 000, $ 130, 000 per home. That's what you pay. When you buy a house, about $ 100, 000 to $ 130, 000 of that is just to comply with government regulation, okay? Same thing in the auto industry, right? There were all these regulatory costs that that are built into the price tag. Those hidden costs are in everything, Ross says. Also, they are already making stuff cost less. Have you seen how much more affordable stocks have become? Ron says it's tempting to pile on to Trump for his plethora of unattractive personal traits, his unwise cabinet picks, and a number of policy miscalculations like tariffs, Iran war, uh, in his second term, but he did win twice. And that spared us from total liberal lunacy for eight of 12 years, significantly slowed it down at a minimum. I don't believe that any other Republican candidate would have won may never again. So it's like the reverse of Harry reads, well, he didn't win. Did he against Mitt Romney agree or disagree? He won, didn't he? Um, And Brad says, I think our electorate is organically dumb. All three of the amendments passed, and yet every Democrat opposed them. Makes no sense. I tend to believe, regarding that, that that was a byproduct of a lot of particularly young men who flipped. This is a demographic that Donald Trump won, as well as Hispanic voters, young male Hispanic voters, young male black voters. They flipped back to the Democrats because they felt betrayed by what Donald Trump had done or hadn't done and the Republicans had not done. Right. And their views are still the same when it comes to these ideas. But I've also talked about voter I.D. Like you look at voter I.D. across the country everywhere was on the ballot. It won 60, 70 percent of the vote. Right. Democrats in leadership, they use this to animate their activist base. That's what they use it for because their voters generally are supportive of this. Unless, well, Governor Josh Stein thinks that everybody just got tricked. That's what he said in the press conference. Eric says, and we're going to get to that audio in the next hour. Eric says, ripping away school vouchers may really kill the long-term prospects for Democrats and the youth vote. 100,000 kids forced to leave a school they like for a worse public school will give them an early education on what Democrats are like. I will get to this. This is a long text. John says for Chris the Troll on the text line, Harry Truman once said, I didn't give them hell. I just told them the truth, and they thought that was hell. That's right. Graham says, let's see how many times Roy Cooper can say he's going to lower our cost at the pumps and at the grocery store and the insurance companies, utility companies. I bet we'll never hear that sentence come out of his mouth again. Yeah. And that's why Democrats, they have the opportunity here to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory themselves. 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 ThePeteCalenderShow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.