Local Dem crashes out over canceled drag brunch | 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 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. We chat with AP Dillon this time every week, or we try to. AP, how are you? I'm good, Pete. How are you? I am doing well, doing well. So you have turned your eyes towards a state representative from Mecklenburg County named Julia Greenfield, I see. Yeah, she's a freshman. She's a freshman, and she's on the social media, and she's not very happy, apparently. You write at your Substack newsletter, more to the story. Statehouse Democrat upset over drag brunch cancellation. So, okay, so I guess what this started... when libs of tick tock, uh, the account, I think identified this event that was scheduled for, I guess what this weekend, um, in Cornelius at 11 lakes brewing company, they were going to do a drag brunch for a cause. It would benefit the Carolina migrant network. Yeah. There's so many ways to go here. Um, all right. So, so what, I guess this is what she's referring to in her, in her rant, uh, about bigotry or something? Uh, yeah, she, she did a video, followed up, uh, her post with a video that basically said that folks who were organizing it and involved in it had, uh, including this Carolina migrant network had received death threats or, you know, insults and, you know, a lot of, a lot of pushback with folks, you know, calling these drag queen things, um, you know, perverted and, you know, inappropriate and, um, The cause that they were raising money for, for this Carolina migrant network, was basically so they could provide legal services to illegal immigrants who were facing deportation. Right. That's their mission. Yeah. That's their mission. And so they were raising money for them. And they're a 501c3, which is curious to me since they were involved in the No Kings protests alongside Indivisible and the Party for Socialism and Liberation in Charlottesville. But also. Well, that wasn't political. Come on now, AP. No, the No Kings rallies, those were as apolitical events as you could organize. You're right. The effigies of Trump and the guillotines, it wasn't anything political. No politics whatsoever. At all. So, yeah, but, you know, I was curious about that. So I'm like, so, you know, does this outfit really need money? So I went and took a look at its IRS filings, and its 2024 filings showed that it had pulled in over $ 1. 305 million. Oh. So they're getting. They must be doing a lot of drag brunches. Yeah. I thought that was interesting. The year before that, it was over $ 768, 000 that they had received. And one of their. Consistent supporters has been the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, which is one of the groups that's been most prolific in funding progressive and left-leaning organizations in North Carolina. You know, from 2020 to 2024, they gave them over $ 659, 000. And, you know, at the bottom of this Carolina Migrant Network's website, they have a whole bunch of names of groups that are apparently affiliated with them, including Z. Smith Reynolds, but also NCI-OLTAF. which is the North Carolina interest on lawyers, trust accounts. They give out grants for organizations who provide legal services to folks who can't afford them. And, um, they had their funding, uh, frozen. Right. By the general assembly, right? Yeah. Um, because they had been, uh, an audit had found that they were giving money that was not being followed up on to make sure it was going to the appropriate causes. And, um, auditor Boliak in a statement about the audit said that, uh, the grants were clearly going to organizations with quote, with clearly political partisan agenda. And that was, that was interesting. And so, uh, 2025, they froze those funds. And this is the money that this is like the money that when lawyers hold money in trust and it generates interest or something and they're. Not, yeah, it does. They don't actually, you know, touch the money. It just stays in trust and gains interest. And then they give out these grants. Right. Um, and one of their organizations, uh, the, one of the largest organizations that gets there the most money is the legal aid of North Carolina. Right. Uh, there's also Pisgah legal services and the left-leaning North Carolina justice center. Oh, of course. Of course. The parent organization of blueprint empty known for their cripple slam of this rate memo. Yeah. I mean, like it's, it's just, it's the usual suspects. There were, it's all the same groups. I mean, you've also the, um, In your piece here, you talk about the Carolina Migrant Network. It's also gotten funding from the George Soros Tides Foundation, Southern Vision Alliance Foundation for the Carolinas right here in Charlotte, Hispanic Federation, Inc., Neophyllanthropy, and Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. So, like, is that my retirement, people? The Fidelity... bank or the fidelity uh retirement services. It's the same fidelity um they have a bunch of charitable organizations like that that one in particular um has been noted to fund less leaning and progressive yeah um opportunities i guess you could call. Them um so the event so the event got canceled yep right and uh she went on to i guess was this facebook yeah facebook And she, and I may read this later on because it is worth it, but she goes on there and she's like, that you put, that all these people that are attacking this, it got canceled because a bigoted, misinformation-driven campaign put a small business, performers, vendors, and everyday attendees in danger. So, like, this is the, like, we're in danger. It's like, okay, I'm not sure, like, if people were threatening. Yeah, multiple times she calls this a family-friendly local event. Yeah. You know what? I got a question about these drag brunch things, you know, that are family friendly. Like, how come they never do them at retirement centers? Yeah, they're never at any other events besides, you know, for children. Right. So that's, I always, I was curious about, I wasn't sure what raised drag queens to the level of performing for children. I mean, I never understood the connection. Oh, come now. Sure you do. Right? The whole point is to normalize it, is to get the kids thinking about people like, you know, in drag and to make that a normal thing. So then you get more people that, you know, come to the shows. Yeah. It's just marketing. You got to get, you got to get the new fans young, you know, you got to get them while they're young. She compared them to family friendly Broadway shows. Yeah. And Disney. There was nothing sexual about them. I'm sorry, but I've seen them myself. Yeah. A man dressed as a woman gyrating with half of their body showing out of their costume in front of... That's sexual. Sorry. But it is. Right. And it's a... For a lot of them, it's kink and it's fetish and whatever. So, yeah. Like... Yeah. It's an adult thing. Right. Stop making. I have no problem with it as a thing. You know? It's adult. Right. And she's like, oh, it's no different than a Disney parade. Um. We've been different. I don't see, you know, Ariel from, you know, the Little Mermaid scamping around in a thong. You know, it doesn't happen. All right, so there's that. And you can read more to the story, AP's sub stack. You also had this little tidbit that I found kind of hilarious. Roy Cooper, as he's running around the state, I was talking about this last hour, running around the state complaining about the high cost of things, including electricity, even though it was like him joining up with the Paris Accords that actually... has spiked our prices for electricity. And now we've got something about the data centers. Roy's got some, does he have some thoughts on data centers? Well, he's apparently pivoted in his campaign to being down with data centers following in the footsteps of many pieces of propaganda, to be honest, that I've seen out there. Oh, yeah. Data centers. I mean, the large hyperscaler facilities, sure, they've got their problems. There's a lot of noise. There's been problems with water supply and that sort of thing, but the kind of data centers that are looking at North Carolina here aren't those giant massive complexes. They're smaller facilities. And we have like 200 of them already in the state, and they weren't a problem until now. So that's an issue. But apparently, now that these talking about these things, it's become a hot topic. He's trying to ride the wave on that, it looks like to me. But in the latest batch of emails that I'd gotten from the records request I did a year and a half ago, which I'm finally getting material out of, there was an email from May 2018 where he talks to... These people are from Google. He's talking to Google about, you know, it's great that you hosted me and my team in the Mountain View. and for updating us on your progress. And he says, your local data centers and ambitious renewable energy plants make us proud. Ah! So he was for them before he was against them. Yeah, I just found that interesting. So, you know, they were... they were dunking on Michael Watley, his opponent for attending an event that had to do with data centers. He's obviously looking into the issue. And so they were dunking on him for that. And then I saw that in my email that this one existed. So I put that one out there on X. Yes. Good Lord. Okay, so that's hilarious. And then, oh, and I do want to ask you, before we let you go, because we've talked about this issue before, this nihilistic, violent extremist 764 cult. These are people that prey on kids online. They get them to— they sextort them, right? They get them to send them pictures, and then they extort them. They get them to— do bodily harm to themselves and stuff. And so we finally got a sentence for one of the guys that I guess he was like one of the leaders of this group? Actually, no. This individual, they don't mention it in the press release, and I looked through the documentation. 764 isn't mentioned anywhere in there, but it says that he was part of a sextortion scheme, which was very similar to that of 764, and I wouldn't doubt that down the road a connection emerges. But this individual preyed on at least one 16-year-old here in North Carolina who, from the filing, committed suicide as a result of that extortion scheme. And this guy's from Nigeria. So this came through the Western District of North Carolina. And it was also put out on X by FBI Director Kash Patel. Oh, so I was looking at the Kyle Williams spits or spit seat. Oh, that one. Yeah. He is a seven 64. Oh yes. Yeah. Sorry. That was an older one. I thought you meant the most recent one that came up. Yeah, no, this one got, he got 77 years. This guy's bit, um, it was the longest ever for an NDE. Um, and yeah, he is part of seven 64 and his, uh, he, he had some really gross things that went on there. Um, He used things like Snapchat and Discord and other apps to get young children under the age of 13, 14 to do certain things. He also did animal torture videos, too. Animal torture videos, what they call animal crush videos. Technically. Um, he also was charged with, uh, at least one count of possession of child pornography videos with intent to view, uh, three counts of production of child pornography, which was based on the victims that he had. One was as young as 12. Um, and, uh, three counts of the, the animal crush. So he got the max 77 years in federal prison. Um, so good. Uh, so, uh, one nihilistic, violent extremist off the streets. Yeah, he's got a weird background, too. The story is up on my Morton Story sub stack, and I put some backstory in there. There was a whole thing with his stepfather being deceased after an altercation with him, as well as his mother, apparently overdosing, and he filmed that and put it out online. I do have the video there, and discretion is advised when you watch that. So you can see the stories that we've covered here and more to the story. You can also catch a work at the North State Journal, nsjonline.com. A.P. Dillon, thanks for your time as always. We appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you, Pete. All right. Take care. All right. For over a year now, you've heard me talking about Create-A-Video, great local company in Mint Hill that has helped more than 2 million families preserve their memories by turning old photos. VHS tapes, film reels, and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now, Creative Video is helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. 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And I don't know how this came across her radar or what, but she says, Eleven Lakes Brewing, a business in North Carolina, is hosting an all-ages drag queen show to raise money for illegal aliens. Yes, this is real. They want to groom your children while donating money to fund foreign criminal invaders. Would be a shame if they went viral. And then it went viral. And then apparently people began contacting, I guess, the brewery where this was set to occur, Eleven Lakes Brewing in Cornelius. And I guess they were going to have as a guest speaker, I think she says she was, yeah, she says, I was supposed to be one of the speakers. This is Julia Greenfield, and she is a state representative, a newly elected Democrat, in the general assembly from Mecklenburg County. And she is also a member of the progressive caucus because of course she is. And she says, I was supposed to be one of the speakers at drag brunch for a cause. And I want to be clear about what happened here. This event wasn't canceled because it lacked support. It sold out three days before it even happened. It was canceled because a bigoted misinformation driven campaign, one that falsely linked a family friendly local event to child exploitation and smeared LGBTQ plus people as predators and immigrants as foreign criminal invaders put a small business, performers, vendors, and everyday attendees in danger. What that campaign left out, this event, hosted at Eleven Lakes Brewery, was raising money for the Carolina Migrant Network, an organization doing real good work supporting immigrant families in our state. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that they said that part to raise money for illegal aliens. I think that's what they were getting at when Libs of TikTok posted that. I think that part right there covers that. Anyway, she then says there was a food truck, a coffee truck, tea truck, local vendors, and live drag performances. Not some scandalous late night show. It was a family-friendly drag brunch. The kind of colorful, over-the-top performance you'd see in a Broadway musical or a Disney parade. Costumes, music, dancing. Entertainment, not exploitation. That's who and what they were attacking. Again, like, why are you guys always focusing on the kids? It almost makes me wonder if there's a reason why you're focusing on these drag shows to be put on in front of children. Because again, as I said to AP, I've never heard of like a drag queen story hour at the old age home. Why don't they do like, why aren't these things happening to other targeted audiences? You know, I'm just asking questions. John says, I think this drag queen thing in Cornelius was part of a four stop tour. Oh, I didn't realize they were, it was a tour that changes everything. And it does not. But yeah, they canceled the event. And Julia Greenfield, state representative, took to the Facebook with a lengthy post decrying the people that protested this event that said, like, you shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be raising this kind of money for this organization. You shouldn't be doing this kind of an event, whatever. I don't know. I mean, I can imagine that they got a lot of hate directed at them. Sure. But that's kind of the point of the transgressive behavior. You know, it's like you're transgressing these things in order to normalize the But you know that when you do that, you get reaction because people see it and they are opposed to you doing this at a family-friendly event that you're calling it. She says, that's not concerned parents peacefully protesting. That's a coordinated pressure campaign built on lies and hateful stereotypes. So, okay, wait a minute. But isn't that what you guys do? Like, you guys have been targeting the right for all sorts of stuff for decades. I mean, hello, Rush Limbaugh, right? Like, you targeted all of his advertisers. You didn't like what he was saying, and so you tried to prevent him from saying it. Like, this is what you guys, and I have been saying for a very long time, the left is not going to like it when everybody starts playing by their rules. And this is what it looks like now. Everybody cancels everybody else just to be safe. Then she says, you know, the booking company, whatever, did nothing wrong. The brewery did nothing wrong. People bought tickets to support their local queer community and a good cause did nothing wrong. I stand with all of you and I refuse to let this kind of bullying and bigotry define what our communities are allowed to support and celebrate. Yeah, imagine like painting a spirit rock in honor of Charlie Kirk. How about, yeah, like that. So Paul on the text line here, he says, oh, no, sorry, Jack is next. Jack says, what about drag racing? Oh, that's a good idea. Paul says, this is Paul, why is this station so infatuated with With the drag slash trans movement. Oh my goodness. Stop force feeding us this stuff. Wait. Okay. The people will tell you that drag is not the same as trans. So that's first off. They're separate things. Right? Also, I think you've misdiagnosed when you say infatuated with The drag slash trans movement, it's not an infatuation. It is recognizing something as it's happening. That's what it is. It's like, so we shouldn't notice the transgressive behavior? So we shouldn't talk about like the stuff that's going on in the world and the movements that are rising in power or influence. We shouldn't discuss any of this. We shouldn't discuss anything that's like, Oh, they're doing these things in front of your kids. And you may like go to a brewery this weekend and Oh, look at that. There's a drag show going on, right? Like that's the, we should not talk about this. Should not talk about a state lawmaker who then goes onto the Facebook and posts a video of herself and, is, you know, righteously indignant, and then she follows up with, kids, books, glitter, that's it. That's the whole scandal. So I guess there was like a story time as well? Gonna go on there too? Again, like, what is the purpose of a drag queen story hour? For kids. Why would you do that? It is to transgress. That's the purpose. So, let's see here. I can't speak for any other host except myself, but Beth's favorite Russ says, Pete, the representative called it a smear, but is it really a smear if a large portion of the performers and beneficiaries are preying upon children or violent criminal immigrants? Steve says, Disney is for kids and kids love Disney. They want to go there. I have never heard of any kids begging their parents to go to drag shows. This is, I'm reminded of the old saying, you know, it's like a turtle on a fence post. Have you ever heard this? It's like, you know that somebody else put it there, right? There are things that you can automatically deduce when you see a turtle sitting on top of a fence post, that he didn't get there on his own, right? And that's the same thing going on with this. It's like the kids, like the kids aren't like, hey, you know what I just learned about? Drag queens. I want to go to a drag queen story hour. I would like to be read a book by a man in a wig and a dress and makeup. That's what I really would like to do today. They don't just come up with that idea all on their own, right? That idea is given to them by somebody else. Somebody else brings them to the drag queen story hour. So. It's not an infatuation. How many kids are taking, or how many people are taking their kids to a brewery, asks Cal. Have you been to a brewery? Quite a few. Quite a few. Yeah, it's a whole scene. Like they bring in, they bring the kids and a lot of breweries come. do this sort of like catering to kids. They'll have like big areas and the kids are all running around out in the yard areas and stuff. So yeah, I mean, it's a thing. It's not a bar. It's a brewery. So it's like, it's a bar with a front lawn kind of thing. That's the idea, I guess. No, yeah. A lot of kids are at breweries. I did mention... Well, so let me continue with the infatuation because there is a related story. Remember the Zizians? It's been a while. It's been a while since we've got any Zizian update, but I have one now thanks to Andy Ngo over at thepostmillennial.com. So the Zizians were this nihilistic transgender vegan death cult. Remember? They're linked to like eight murders around the country. And their leader is a guy by the name of Jack Lasota. But he goes by Ziz. That's the name he adopted for himself. He made up Ziz. That's his name. And so all of his cult followers, they're called Zizians. And they drive around in box trucks. And they are vegan. And they kill people. And so a bunch of them are in prison in Maryland. But Maryland just... indefinitely suspended their trials. And I think I may know why, but I'm not sure. But I think I have a guess. Now, I do have somebody on the line who may be able to help elucidate what occurred. This is Terry from the Eleven Lakes Brewery in Cornelius, the site of the canceled drag brunch. Hello, Terry. Welcome to the show. Hi, Pete. How are you? I am all right. So what Okay, so this is what happened. First of all, it wasn't a fundraiser for immigrants. It was for migrant workers. So that's number one. Number two, there was no story hour booked with children ever. We were the host of the event. We provided the venue. What happened was, as the week went on, People were calling the taproom. People were sending messages via our website. As a matter of fact, I just got an email. Actually, that wasn't an email. That was a Facebook post said, if I break into your brewery, will you let me stay there overnight? Yesterday, we received another message that said, that's a really nice brewery. might go on fire pretty quick, huh? We got multiple phone calls at the brewery, threatening phone calls, especially when my bartenders were on the phone with them to the point where we stopped answering the phone, and that's why we decided to cancel. I was in fear of the. Safety of my staff, so we thought it best to just cancel it and just not have it occur. They threatened to protest outside on the sidewalk in front of the brewery. And once I canceled it, nobody showed up yesterday. So did you report the threats to the police? Yes. Yes, we were in contact with the police. We were in contact with the local fire department. The head of Beer Money Entertainment has been in contact with the FBI. I wasn't aware of it, but this gentleman who started this whole movement, I'll refrain from saying. His name, he. Has a history of doing this sort of thing. And we just happened to be the target of his hatred. So regarding the event, because Representative Greenfield said kids, books, glitter, that's it, that's the whole scandal. No. If you look at the post on the Facebook page, Pete, first. Of all, I'm a longtime listener. We love your show. Well, thank you. Let me say that first. if you look at the flyer that Beer Money Entertainment posted, it didn't say anything about books or story time or anything like that. It was supposed to be an age-inclusive event. Sometimes parents like to bring their kids to these things. Sometimes they don't. And they, I guess, wanted everyone to know that Everyone was welcome. How much do you know about the Carolina Migrant Network? I don't know anything about the Carolina Migrant Network. We were just the venue, Pete. We just provided the venue. We didn't have anything to do with the Carolina Migrant Network. I've had a relationship with the people at BME for quite some time. We've done some outside events with them. So when they asked me for help on this, I said, sure, I'll help. We do a lot of fundraisers here at Eleven Lakes Brewing Company. We always have. We've been in business for almost 10 years now, and we've been pretty active in the community as far as fundraising goes, and I try to never say no to anybody. I try to be inclusive of all the charities. So that was our part of it, but we took the brunt of the threats. Right. Yeah, and that's unacceptable, and I say that no matter— the politics of anybody involved. I got to leave it there. Terry, thank you for calling and for sharing that. We appreciate it. Yeah, of course. My pleasure. Have a good day. All right. You too. Take care. That's one of the owners of the, of the, the 11 lakes brewery in Cornelius. We'll have to leave it there folks. 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 at You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalinershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.