My appearance on "The SitRep with John Jackson"

All right, So this is a little unique. I've been invited to participate in a Twitter spaces discussion tonight Sunday evening at seven o'clock, and I'll go ahead and show you what that looks like here. So it's about a minute or so before the start. I'm assuming I'm going to get an invite of some kind, but it will be with this fellow here, John Jackson. I was invited by friend at Patriot Girl to participate. This is called the sit rep with John Jackson. Like I said, it's been a long time since. I did one of these. Spaces, probably over a year, so. Not really sure. Oh he's one hundred and thirty nine thousand followers, holy caw. Yeah, So we'll see how it goes. They wanted to talk about DSA, maybe a little bit about Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray. They're running for US senate here, So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I don't make too big of a fool of myself in front of a very large audience. We'll see, but I'm recording it here so in case I do, it will be preserved for posterity. Do I get an invite? Pete's here all right. Well, let's see, we got him, we get him hooked up with a microphone, send him a invite to speak. I'd like to welcome my friend Pete Calendar this evening as our special guest. He is the host of the Pete Calendar Show on our our local talk radio station, WBT, and he has the twelve to three slot, which of course was the great Rush Limbaugh's time slide. But he he has just done an absolutely incredible job with it, and we are just I'm just so excited to have him here tonight. Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Hope everybody can hear me. Yep, gotcha, she did so, Pete, why don't you start by giving your giving us a little bit of your background information. I was born a son of a poor sharecropper. No I was not. I h yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't remember the exact line from the jerk, but yeah, no, I don't know. Just yeah. I've been doing the noon to three slot here for about five years. Before that, I was up in Ashville, worked up there for eight years in the drive time slot afternoons. Before that, I was also at WBT. I started off as a reporter back around two thousand, became a host nine to midnight, and then we got bought and sold by a bunch of different companies. They fired a bunch of people, as they do in radio pretty frequently, and that's that's usually how it goes for me. It's your ratings are great, but you're just a number, so you're out. And then when that happened up in Ashville with the iHeartRadio station up there before Hurricane Helene hit, so I was already gone when the hurricane came through, but I decided I was just going to start my own podcast, and I did. And then after Rush passed away, the station in Charlotte said, hey, you know what, we want that to be a local host and would you like to. Apply for it? And I said sure, but you can't have my podcast and they said okay, And so I'm back doing the show live noon to three. And then that live show becomes the podcast every. Day I have growing up in Charlotte myself and you know, being you know, starting at five years old watching WBTV. Oh yeah, I mean that's how old that that whole enterprise there is. And Charlotte and WBT Radio has been around at least that long. I mean, it's an institution. There, one hundred and I think we're now at one hundred and three years. I luckily I came back the year they celebrated the or a year or two later is when they celebrated the one hundredth birthday for WBT and TV. Obviously radio is older than TV, so then the BTV station there, I think they're about twenty years behind us or something like that, so they're getting ready to celebrate a big milestone as well. But yeah, these were like the the Granddaddy's in the market and w is one of the old fifty thousand watt blowtorches on the eleven ten AM dial that would you know, you could hear Canada to Cuba. They literally piped in WBT down to Cuba in order to mess with the Commies during the Cuban missile crisis. Well, I think App's got some questions for you, sir. One of the things that makes Peat's show so special is that he handles both the local issues and the national issues so well. And on Friday he did a really great segment called who Pays for Utopia? We've all heard about the DSA, these crazy candidates and all the things that they want to do. And Adam Michelle of the Cato Institute did a really fascinating piece on exactly who is going to pay for Utopia and pay for all these things that that the DSA candidates want to do. So why don't you tell us a little about that peace. Yeah, so I cannot claim credit for doing all of the research. Obviously, it came out of Cato, and they've got a range of the price tag, which is really like when you whenever you hear the DSA pitch right, it's always a euphemism. We're about dignity and humanity and affordability, and you know, free grocery stores or something. It's always dressed up, you know, in ways that make people want the thing because it's going to be free, and who's going to pay. It's the richie rich over there. It's not going to be me. And so when you add up this stuff, which they did at Cato, they ran the calculations on what exactly their proposals would cost, and the price tag comes in on the low end at seventy one trillion dollars and on the high end two hundred and twelve trillion dollars. And then you start looking at Okay, well we're over a decade. I should say this is over a decade. Those would be the cost so annually anywhere from seven to what twenty one trillion dollars a year. And if you know anything about our budget or I should say about our spending, because we really don't. We don't use a budget. That's that's just that's archaic. But if you know anything about the budget, that's way more than we actually generate in revenue. It's bigger than our GDP. So how would you go about getting this money? So if you were to take all of the money from all of the richest people and take all of the corporate profits, you still would not be able to pay for their programs, their proposals, right, So then who pays for that? If you take every corporate profit and assume that all the corporations stay in business, right, because if you take all their profits, why would they keep doing what they're doing if they're not making any additional revenue or any profits. So you take all their profits, you take all the rich people's money, and then you don't have enough. So who do you have to hit the middle class? Right? And they never want to talk about this, So you would end up with much like I mean, but even worse than over in Europe. You would have you know, basically forty five to fifty percent of people paying exorbitant taxes to pay for all of these programs to benefit basically the poorest of the poor and the lower middle class and below. And that's basically what they're promising. And what's ironic is that the people that make these promises these are the you know, upper middle class or upper class. These are children of the haves that have been barred access into you know, that elite strata. They've got massive college debts, they're over educated, but they're downwardly mobile, and so they they pretend that they're doing this for the working class. In the ironies, and when. You look at the exit polling in all of these DSA races, the working people don't vote for these people. They don't vote for the DSA candidates. Uh. It's the revolution is being led by the haves versus the have mores. It's like they're they're fighting against their parents. They're trying to soap their parents. When they say let's soap the rich. It's really it's like banging your head against the wall because this same conversation, these same numbers, these same details about who would pay all of that. We had this same conversation during Barack Hussein in Obama's term. Yeah, but the thing is this really just drives me in saying, is these this same socialism communism call it what you will. You know, socialism is nothing but communism without the AK forty seven has been tried all over the world for at least the last one hundred years that we know of, and it fails miserably every single time it's tried. But yeah, for some reason, we as the United States are not able to and we as the Republican Party out here, the Conservatives of the United States are are somehow losing the battle to convince people of this, to show people, look, this is not charts and grafts and its theoretical. This stuff fails every single time. Is a fact. Well, I get so if you don't understand the outcome, reassess the assumption. Right, The assumption is that we want this to work. Right, and so when you see the failure, like you said, and I agree, but maybe our idea of failure is their idea of success. And oh for sure, right, and so that is and so that is what you're seeing, right. Their idea of success is the destruction of capitalism, free markets, Western civilization. This is your red green alliance, your Marxists and your Islamists, Palin, you know, teaming up together in order to destroy their common enemy, which is the free market Western civilization. Because there's no other reason why these two groups would ally on anything. They don't agree with each other on anything except their one enemy. And so that's why you have this alliance. And it's been an alliance for quite a long time, so you know, they the and I don't like I've I've gone so many years. I've gone around and around with people who try to argue with me about socialism versus communism, and what's the difference. It's not democratic socialism. And I am now done with that argument. Like, I do not differentiate any of these various splinter ideas underneath the Marxist heading. It's all the same to me. I don't care. Right to your point, it is like it's just a degree without a distinction, So it doesn't matter to me. I'm arguing against the ideology which I believe is absolutely toxic. It's evil, it's based and born out of envy and greed, and it pits people against each other because they cannot the ideology cannot deal with the fundamental flaw, which is it denies. Human nature right. Human nature is to look out for yourself and your family first, and that's the thing it cannot get around. People act in their own self interest. They will never subordinate themselves to you know, the bureaucratic class making decisions for everybody. And that's why it always fails, except in creating misery, starvation, genocide, mass death right, these are the things that it does well. And so at this point, given all of the history, given all of the track record that we that we know, the only reason people would promote it is because that is in fact what they wish to see. Yeah, you make the point that that is the goal, and true enough, it is the goal of the folks at the top, the people who are actually trying to put this into play, they know that's the entire goal, is to overthrow the entire system. But see, all of their voters don't know that, all of their idiot twenty sothter voters that think that this is really the system that will fix it all. And that's where we're losing this art And it's not an argument, it's just a fact. Like I said, we're losing on the facts and it mystifies me. Yeah, it's it is super frustrating, but also it's a result of having turned over and surrendered. And the right did this itself. Like I don't blame the left for its long march through the institutions. You know, the right allowed that to occur. Even in Republican controlled states. We still allow the left to right curricula, right, we still allow them to train all the teachers to control the higher quote unquote higher education right the colleges, the university. So we allow that. To continue to occur, and we allow states that are Republican controlled to not pass laws. We don't hold Republicans accountable for not passing laws to make the state unwelcoming to the left. That's what you need to do, right, if you don't want lefties moving into your state, you can pass laws that will repel them and may even make some of them move away. They don't want to continue living, you know, under this fascist Republican government or whatever they say. So there are things to be done. And I think a lot of the and well this is also I'm a bit I push back a lot on black pilling doomerism. I don't like it. And I think there are a lot of people that have told themselves these comfortable lies that oh, you know it all is lost anyway, or I'm gonna move someplace else and just leave this and who cares. But when you keep doing that, if people on the right keep surrendering, then what do you expect? What do we expect except this? And this is what happens when you've turned over, you know what? Now for generations to these institutions to educate the next generation, and all they're taught is, you know the founders, they were slaveholders and Christopher Columbus, he was a genocider. And it's like you teach this myth that America is inherently evil and it's not worth preserving. And that's demoralization, right, the Soviet operation to demoralize the population in America because they couldn't beat us militarily, so they do it through propaganda. When I was reviewing that Cato Institute Peace Today, I thought of something that they did not take into account. Now, the only way any of this stuff is happening is if the Democrats get back into power in twenty twenty eight. But if they do, then the borders are once again going to be wide open. So just imagine how much more this stuff would cost with open borders. Sure they've shown yeah, they've shown us what they'll do. We're going to come back. Yeah, oh yeah, there and there. I've seen stories, you know, with interviews of people you know, south of the border, and they're just waiting. They're just hanging out, waiting until after twenty twenty eight. You know, if a Democrat wins the White House and if they still control uh you know, one or both houses after two election cycles, they're going to come back. Because there wasn't any kind of i mean, despite you know aocs oh woke one was crazy, you know, the closest thing you'll get to an admission. But we've not seen anything where the Democratic establishment has said anything like, oh yeah, that was messed up. We shouldn't have done that. You know, it got a little out of control. Okay, fine, Like there's nothing like that. There's no maya kulpa, there's there's no reckoning for that. All we get are you know, the the DSA and the Antifa moon bats out in the streets protesting ice trying to prevent people from being deported, even if they have multiple criminal charges and convictions against them. It's insanity. So yeah, this is what is on the ballot. It's on the ballot this year, and it's going to be on the ballot again in two more years. And if they get control, we know what they will do. Because the DSA they're driving the car now right, and the quote unquote establishment they have been paying lip service to the things the DSA believes, they and the old school Democrats who have been mouthing these words, saying this stuff and teaching the next generation that this is the you know, the moral position and the right position, and the kids believed it. And now they're looking at mommy and daddy who haven't enacted the things that the DSA wants enacted. Because those are the moral and good things. Why haven't you done it? That's why they hate the Democrat establishment and why they're taking them over. And while that's occurring in the Democratic Party, you've got inside the DSA the takeover by the communists away from the Democratic Socialists. Again, this is why I don't care anymore about the splintering and the inner workings of it, because they always eat their own too. Inside communism, they're always eating each other and themselves and stuff, right, So they're always splitting off because I have a slightly different interpretation of what marks meant here. Or is it you know, class warfare, or is it economic warfare, is it racial warfare? Whatever? The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. That's all they care about. And so when the Commis took over inside the DSA a few years ago, a lot of the old school DSA members left this, like the Herring and Wing. Michael Harrington, one of the founders of the DSA, like all of his acolytes, they're all they're all bailing on this. They're they're like, oh no, no, these these guys are commis. Like you've got what was it, the the the Red Star Caucus inside the DSA, that's the communist caucus, and uh, they're they're ascended. They're in charge. So like, I don't I don't care to make a distinction between DSA, socialism, Marxism, communism, whatever. It's all the same to me, and that's what's taken over the ds A. The DSA has the energy and they're negotiating with establishment basically on how the Democrat Party surrenders to the DSA. So that is what what the DSA is proposing is what the Democrat Party will be looking to deliver on. And we're already seeing signs of it with Pete Booty Jig or as I call him, Booty Gig the what Kamala Harris uh and I saw somebody else over the weekend. They also came out, you. Know, abolished the abolished the college, packed the Supreme Court, right, all of these things that the DSA has in its platform. The Democrat Party is saying too, and has been saying for a while. Pete, I would be so proud if in the future, if on your radio show there in Charlotte, you would refer to him with my nickname, which is Pete Booty Fudge. Oh my god, that would be awesome if you could share that with the Charlotte audience. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure at CC well, no, what they might allow that, Yeah, they might allow that. We've said on the radio out here Montana. Okay, okay, we're good. Yeah, I'm writing it down. No promises though. Is there any trademark copyright restrictions on this name? Am I going to get in? Am I going to know? If you use my nickname on the air in Charlotte? That would be We'll do it. I will do it. What you got there. Is well, I wanted, Hi, Pete, I wanted to just discussed some things that are going on in North Carolina. I'm not an expert on North Carolina politics, so I'm going to lean on your advice and your suggestions because if we're talking about the DSA, I think North Carolina is a very interesting, little little test case for what's happened because I know, you know, I'm I'm remembering, like I'm going to say, back in twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, I think that was probably like the establishment phase for the DSA, Like the whole Sanders Trump era membership just exploded and it was kind of created, and they started building like these chapters in North Carolina, and then between i'd say twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four, you get this consolidation phase where these organizations are becoming really established. They're establishing local like political operations. But it wasn't until late twenty twenty four, and now through twenty twenty six they enter a completely different level of rapid growth. So you know, while these North Carolina chapters are geographically expanding and becoming more electorally relevant, you know, the DSA really I think exploded in twenty twenty four. But if we're looking like at North Carolina, because I was thinking about this, there's really like three regions where the DSA has their home bases. Now they've got this thing called the Piedmont Tread, They've got the Charlotte Metro DSA area, and then they've got the Triangle DSA. So they've divided the state into three sections. In those three sections, you've got like one thousand members based minimum in each section. So you're talking about just right now three thousand dedicated Communist foot soldiers in North Carolina, and their movement is just growing and growing and growing. So where is the because I don't live in North Carolina, where is the counter operations for this in North Carolina? So I think your timeline is accurate. I remember seeing these little chapters popping up, and then every now and again you would see a local candidate, and I mean like very local, like you know, town council or something like that, and they oftentimes run in races that are nonpartisan, right, so they don't have to declare whether they're a Democrat or Republican. They're just nobody has their parties listed on the ballots and such. And then you. Get, you know, this sort of turbo charge in the wake of AOC and the squad. Right then of course you got Mamdani comes on the scene, and that's got that's basically been rocket fuel for the DSA. And now you're seeing it. And we started seeing a couple of years ago DSA people running in the Democrat primaries. And I think a lot of us thought that surely the Democrat Party would not allow the DSA to take over in a primary, right, Like, surely there are not that many people in the Democrat primaries. Well, here's the thing when you mentioned the numbers there, you don't need a whole lot of people to beat a primary opponent, especially in a small race, right. And this is one of the things that Republicans have not been great at doing, which is, you know, turning out in the non presidential year elections, participating in the primaries. We have a you know, there's I mean, I know I anger Trump voters when I say this, but a lot of people vote for Trump and then they don't show up again. That's all they do. They're there to vote for Trump and that's it. They'll vote for the other people on the ballot when they go vote. The problem is you're not voting in the in the off years, you know, in our state legislative races and such. And that's particularly a problem when you've got DSA that's not being knocked back by the Democrats themselves. And in a lot of these seats, you know, at the state legislative level, I don't say Jerry maner there, they're redistricted to the point where whoever wins the primary is going to win that seat. So when the Democrat Party is not strong enough to fight back, and I would argue the Democrat Party does not have any kind of natural immunity against this strain of politics, this ideology, because their whole the Democrat Party is about now moral relativism, and so they like they cannot tell you what a woman is, they cannot tell you what right or wrong is, you know, to each their own. Who am I to judge so they have no natural immunity to this. And so incomes DSA and they're like, we're going to actually deliver on these things that you guys said you were for, and you're not fighting hard enough for these things. And in a low turnout primary in the Democrat districts, DSA is winning and that's what's happening all over the country. And the Democrats they don't know how to fight back. So they're going to clear those primaries. And if it's a district that's a heavy you know, Democrat district, Republicans are not going to really be able to compete there. How do you compete? Though? In the messaging on it, I think a lot of us over the years, and I'm a gen xer and so, like, you know, communism versus free markets was always an economic argument. But I think the way that you actually can get people who are playing foot see with this ideology to think in different terms is it's got to be more of a morality argument, right. I think that's that's the way too, especially young people. I think that's the way. They're not going to care about GDP. They're not going to care about standard of living, right, they complain about affordability. But a lot of this stuff is driven by just envy and their belief that things aren't as good because they came up, they were raised in a household two twenty five hundred square feet, a washer, a dry or a refrigerator that gives you ice and water, a dishwasher rate, all of these things. These just standard things at most people have that I didn't have as a kid growing up. Nobody older than me had this stuff as a kid growing up. And so when they get out into the quote unquote real world, they feel like they are living in poverty and they can't make ends meet, and so like, you can't make an economic argument that's going to convince them that they're you know, their experience and what they are basing it off, their comparative experience from childhood to now. You're not going to be able to convince them. That they're wrong about that because it's their quote unquote lived experience. I hate the term, but that's what that's what they will cite. So you got to make it something else, Right, It's got to be another way to fight back against this, uh, this ideology, and I think it. Is a morality argument. It is moral. It is good. It is right that you control yourself and that I don't tell you how to live your life. And if you're going to grow the size of government, that means you're going to make more people live under you know, whoever's in church or your laws, and you're not going to like it if Donald Trump is the guy making your laws. Do you want Trump telling you how to live your life? Of course they don't, Right, do you want Donald Trump expanding the Supreme Court and then packing it with all of his people? Right? Well, why don't we run that bill right now? Oh? You don't want to run the bill right now? Why don't you want to run the bill right now? Oh? Because you want to be the ones to put somebody in power. See, the limited government argument is a moral argument, and it's a personal freedom argument. And I think if that's sort of the approach that we take with these kids, And I mean, it's not their fault, and I'm not one to pass blame but or to you know, not assign it where it's due. But they were taught by Gen X and boomers, right, this is what they were taught. And so is it any wonder that this is what they're espousing when they come out of these institutions. This is what they were told. The message to the people out there who and I'm not talking about the people at the top or the dead enders, the people at the top one the place overthrown that the dead enders just you know, they just want to watch the world burn. But the people there in the middle, you know, the vast majority of them that actually think this would solve anything. And it all boils down to just taking rich people, taking everybody else's shit that's got it better than you, and giving it to them. Right. See, I've lived in these countries, I've lived overseas in South America. When these people, the same people that spout this crap come in, and I can tell you from personal experience, they take people, they do that for sure, but it never gets to you. Ever. They and all of their buddies and all of their oligark friends keep it okay. And then they take every single industry they grab a hold of and drive it right into the mountain. Look no further than Venezuela pre Chavez, that place was the that was the richest country in South America, and in a space of ten twelve years after he took over they had, they had driven the entire economy right into the mountain. And now today you've got people that they're eating the eat you know, like Trump says, they're eating the cats or eating the dugs. People down there eat out of dumpsters, they eat the zoo animals. The inflation is run away. Incredible, awful. That's what happens every single time. A good a good explanatory on this. Also is what happened during quote decolonialization in Africa for example, Right, you had countries that were and this is you know, it replicated throughout all of these countries when they were when the colonizing you know forces Britain, France, whatever, when they left and the this is this gets into your third world ism. Frands for known. From Algeria like this whole third world is philosophy. Well you you you see the way like they have this pathway forward and which do they choose? Right, And they were. Like, oh, well, colonizers, they're from the West, and the West is free market, so therefore we're going to go Marxist. And what has happened nothing like economically right, these nations they have not prospered yet. They sit on massive Uh you know, wealth in the form of natural resources and people and their people. Like it's one of the best things about the free market is that it unleashes the full potential of human capital, right, Like, that's it. Like people now are free to pick and choose what they want to do with their lives, spend their time, pursue things that are interesting to them, create inventions that other people want. Like that. That's the whole beauty of the of the market. It's freedom. The free market is freedom. And when these countries chose different paths, they did not experience that kind of success. And like you said, you also have examples of countries that were successful and then went the other direction, and when they did, everything collapsed. Right. So the problem is that you're trying to talk to people who have been told that everything is terrible. The country is inherently flawed. If not, you know, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and sexist and everything else. So everything is inherently bad. And my concern now is I'm hearing this crap from the right as well, that there is this underlying kernel of like everything is terrible, we have to destroy everything and replace it with fill in the blank. I'm not really sure so fill in the blank and will replace it with something and it'll be better this time. Like there isn't a better. They're like human history has shown there is not a better. This is not perfect what we've got, but it is better than literally everything else that's been tried. So I would submit that we keep doing the thing that the founders set up. Try to get back to that. Now. I don't know how you convince multiple generations who have literally not been taught about what the founders set up. Why they set it up that way? Right, I mean, this wasn't something that they just kind of made up out. Of whole cloth. They went back to Greece and Rome and you know, Moses time, like they drew on the experiences in governing models going back millennia, And do you think you can build something better than these guys, because like those guys, they were way better at this stuff than anybody I'm aware of today, right, they had way way better understanding of the different governing models and structures. And once again, like we're still rehashing this, I would submit evil idea if you were to create some sort of a governing system that is there that is evil, I'm not sure you would construct something better than and by better I mean more evil than Marxism. I don't know what you would do differently. The thing we run into too. It seems like this is probably we're probably at fifteen years of this. It's still all started during Obama, where Obama exposed the just deep down weakness and cowardice of big GOP. And what they've been running on their platform, at least in my mind for the last fifteen years, is we don't suck as bad as the Democrats, you know, true enough. I mean, we're froming Louise in the car heading toward the cliff, but we're only going fifteen miles an hour, So vote for us. You know, we don't actually have our foot right down on the pedal. Yeah, Andy, boy, that's really hard to get people motivated behind. Sure, So I believe that the parties are in a realignment, that this realignment has been occurring since about Obama, with the rise of the Tea Party. And yes, they were kind of killed in the cradle by Mitch McConnell and company, But like that view that philosophy has not died, right that those people and I was one of them, Like I still believe these things. So is it reflected in the as you called it, big gop, the quote unquote establishment. No, but the same thing that the Republicans started going through during Obama, the Democrats are going through now with the DSA under and under Donald Trump. Right, they're making everything about Donald Trump, but he's gonna be gone in two years, right, So what then? Right? So right now they're having that same sort of fight because again the parties are realigning. You've got these shifting infrastructure where you know, what's your party stand for, what are the things that it's that it's going to focus on. And yeah, the Republican talked a lot about, you know, fiscal discipline and all of this. There isn't a party anymore that's about fiscal discipline. However, i'd point out that latest report from you know, Social Security and Medicare that that's gone broke in twenty thirty two. So this election cycle, we're putting in US Senate candidates that are going to be in the Senate when this train wreck first arrives, right in twenty thirty two, when when we're paying out more than taking in, so and then two years later, I think it is medicare same thing. So the next two election cycles, these are the people that are going to be in there making these decisions on how to fix or attempt to fix these problems. I don't like you. You're not going to be able to avoid it much longer. So who do we want in there? Do you want somebody like in North Carolina it's Roy Cooper. Do I think that that guy is going to be anything other than a rubber stamp for whatever the Democrat leadership tells him to vote for. I do not. He will go along with that party no matter what they say. And I've got a forty year track record of his to point two to say he will go along with what the Democrat Party national wants to do. And it's not going to be to you know, reign in the fiscal madness. Right, So the parties are realigning. Democrats are going farther left. The Republicans have dropped some of the things that they used to talk about. You know, Trump did that himself where he's like, we're not touching any of the entitlements, right, So who's out there saying we have to address the entitlements. Who's going to be the adult in the room. And that's it really is amazing that conservatives ever win anything. I mean, like the conservative position is to come and tell you no, you can't have that, right, and like that's and meanwhile your opponent is like, oh, you can have that and so much more. I'll give you all of this stuff, and the conservatives like, no, you can't have that, and they're like, oh, you're the bad guy. Right, well, come on, Like who's going to have an easier time appealing to as Rush would call them, low in from voters. Right, they're not paying attention to the fiscal policy, and they're not paying attention to politics for most of the year. They start paying attention about sixty days before an election and then hmmm, this person gives me good vibes, you know, and then they'll vote for that person. So that's what we're up against. And it's difficult, but that's the thing, Like this is the great debate. It doesn't ever end. And while I recommend people, you know, stop to sharpen the acts so you can cut more wood, you know, taking a break is good. However, you know, checking out is not one of the options available. I mean, think about like the people who died for this project called America, and like, you can't be bothered to go vote, like in an off year election primary because it's too hard. It's too hard to find out who's running for mayor or who's running for your district attorney, who's going to turn loose? Repeat, repeat, repeat offenders back out onto the streets. You're too lazy to go vote against a that refuses to cooperate with Ice, Like, I have no tolerance for that. That's just that's just surrender and it's just excuse making in my view, like people and I've asked people, they call in the radio show and they're, you know, doomering, and they're like, oh, nothing matters, is what's the point. I'm like, well, what have you done? Like, have you volunteered for a candidate, have you worked a phone bank? Have you done anything like that? And and and every time they say no, they haven't, Like well, then why are you complaining like you haven't done anything? Well, I've been out working and all this. Yeah, a lot of people are out working. You know who's working hard to all those leftists and they're trying to they're trying to take all of this stuff away and change all of that as Obama called it, fundamental transformation, right. Uh, the first red diaper baby U COMMI kid that we had as president, and like, this is his project, this is the these are the fruits of his labor all those years ago. This is what it looks like, which gothern. Is I couldn't agree more about the Obama angle. You know, I have to kind of circle back to the whole DSA, the rise of the DSA in North Carolina, because even if you just look at some of the other organizations, like there's just another dangerous one that is equally as nefarious as the DSA, and that's the PSL, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. And again, their rise is just expanding. I mean they are going from strength to strength every single week because I monitor all of their channels, I listen to all of their conversations, I watch all of their webinars, and specifically in North Carolina they are spreading and mainly among the college campuses. So we have all of these once you know, idyllic, beautiful campuses in North Carolina and now they're just flooded with radical Islam, with Communism, with Marxism, and the professors are just getting worse and worse and worse. So you know, I agree with what you're saying. And the messaging from the GOP is almost non exist. I don't think that Americans can really appreciate how hard these students are working to get these communists into office. It is a seven day a week job, right, them care less about their studies. They are being recruited by these communists organizations to do their bidding. And I wondered if you could speak to the change in what you've seen in the campuses as you lived in North Carolina, how they've morphed into this beast that is just out of control. Yeah. Well, I think this weekend I saw the DSA was doing some organizing event. I want to say, maybe NC State or something. They posted pictures. I mean, they're not hiding any of this, and it absolutely and for that I appreciate it. I also appreciate the fact that you're monitoring the PSL like those people. I mean, and there there are the I mean, I think if you were to draw then diagram, which as I understand and Kamala Harris loves the then diagram, So if you were to draw one of these for you know, PSL and the DSA. It would be a circle, just one single circle. Right, They're not They're not any different people. And the PSL started showing up, you know, you know what their big thing is now they're coming down to They were at our Charlotte City Council meeting a few weeks ago protesting the data centers, like the data centers, Like all of a sudden, I see all these people where and I knew who the PSL was because the the was it the nevill Roy Singham and the People's Forum and that funding conduit coming out of that, you know, Shanghai Office, the tech mogul Singham and funding all of these groups and PSLs one of them. And when I saw them in the crowd, and I knew because I had read some of the research and some of these reports that some media outlets have been doing. Of course no legacy outlet will touch it, but tracking the money and the data center issue is that just one other front in this multi front war that they are waging to demoralize and divide Americans. And the data centers are like this flashpoint and they've like they caught lightning in a bottle with this because like I get conservative callers to the show and emailers and texters and they're like, oh, I don't know about these data centers, Like what don't you know about them? Like we have, We've got dozens of them already, but now all of a sudden they're a terrible thing. Like if you just became aware of data centers and you're automatically against them, like you fell for the op okay, because China would very much like for us not to build any. More data centers. Okay, Now I'm not talking about the flock cameras or anything else that Like people are worried about how it's going to be used in the AI issue that is all separate. The issue is the construction of data centers, which is that is critical national infrastructure. In my mind, that's how I look at it, right, if like, if you're not going to build utilities, right, that's the if you were to be like, hey, we shouldn't build any more nuclear Like this is the same campaign they ran against nuclear running against data centers. And PSL shows up and they're out there with their red shirts and they got their posters. There's like, you know a couple dozen of them in the crowd, that is not organic, right, that is coordinated and to your point, and as you were saying, like, yeah, this is their full time job, and that is what we are up against, no doubt about it. And that's why, like I am sympathetic to people who are like, well, I work, you know, got to get the kids to you know, to band and. To football practice, and like you have busy lives. I get it. I understand that. But these people are working around the clock against you. So is the answer to just go about your day and hope that the alligator eats you last, because you're still gonna get eaten. I mean, look at the inside the Democrat Party, that's what's happening to them. They're negotiating the terms of their surrender. You know, here, just nibble on my toes a little bit. Oh no, no, you got you took up to the knee. Like this is the like, this is what they're having to deal with. And once they're done with the Democrat Party, they will then take that infrastructure, the donor infrastructure, and they will weaponize it against the rest of the country. That's what's coming. And so I mean I'm not one to say, hey, go vote for a moderate Democrat because mainly because I can't find any moderates anymore. But like if you actually find somebody in a Democrat. I live in a blue city. My districts are all Democrat controlled, so I usually vote for the person who is the least commie. That's who I look for if I'm going to vote in a Democrat. Priming that on the data centers. I've got a friend of mine here in Montana who's an advisor to some of these places, and he's given me an airfol about this, and he's a staunch conservative. And then I follow zero Hedge. If you know who zero edge is here on acts and what zero Hedge is a conservative and all he does he's a big economics guy, and all all zero Hedge does is point out constantly one big fatal flaw in this whole data center thing is we don't have the power. I mean, it's it's that's why you saw a Governor Abbott of Texas. I mean just hit the brakes on this thing, like you know, went into a skid. He hit the brakes so hard on this the other day. Because they don't have they don't have the water, and they don't have the power. We just don't have it. And we we've all seen this. I think COVID did us in, and you know, and and the Forever Wars of twenty years now, you've got a major confidence problem with people like me out here. And I hear when I hear the government telling me, and I mean any government, because really the government itself doesn't change that much. You know, DC just keeps on rolling, no matter who's in that White House, and they're gonna out here and tell me that, oh no, it won't it won't affect the water, it won't affect your utility rates. And until they when they get him finally built and it triples your freaking utility rate, then then it then it's like animal house. Oh hey, you know up, you trusted us, you know. And all right, so but the data doesn't show that right now, the data shows that the where you build the data centers, the utility rates have dropped because it spreads the load. Right, So, like, like, I agree, And there are a lot of problems around this issue when it comes to zoning regulations, right people complaining about it one of these things going in right next door to them. Absolutely, that's a local zoning issue. That's on the local people to be like, no, we're not gonna, you know, create a and treat it like an industrial use. Right, You're not going to put some you know, massive manufacturing facility right next to a neighborhood. You shouldn't do that, right, So yeah, move them outside. Some of these rural towns are being literally saved by the data center tax revenue that's being generated in Texas. I completely agree with the revocation of the subsidies. We should not. But then again, like I'm against all subsidies for all of these businesses. I don't care if it's a data center or anybody like. They should not be getting any of the subsidies. They should not be getting reduced energy rates or anything like that. You pay your full freight, right. But also on the electricity generation, zero hedges is exactly right. You got to create more energy. We have to be making more energy. And for me, that's nuclear like because again the left sabotage nuclear production. We haven't built a new nuclear plant and flant. In fact, up in New York they're complaining the most about oh we are utility rates. Well, you shut down Indian Point, like nobody made you do that. Except yourselves because you bought into this leftist idea against nuclear. We need more power generation and that will then free up more grid space in the future, but right now, and that is a that is a concern in the future, like ten years probably down the road. Yeah, and depending on where you are, you know what the max load is on a particular grid, Yes, that's going to be a problem. So you need to do the due diligence to make sure you're not going to draw out more than the grid is producing. But then also build more nuclear and on the on the water stuff you can also put in place at a state level. At a local level, you only have closed loop cooling systems. That's it, right. You take in whatever water you take in, which is less than you like. You look at the national comparisons. You've got water usage on golf courses far more than on data centers, right, But nobody's screaming to close all the golf courses, right, So you know, a comparison of the of the amount of energy use far less than like an aluminum smelter water use, that sort of stuff. Right. These comparatives are instructive to say, Okay, what is the what is the scale of the problem, right, and there are different fixes for different areas of concern, but the blanket no more ratory or no data centers or against Charlotte, they just did a moratorium because the Left was like, moratorium. Well, if it's a moratorium to come up with better regulate, better regulatory framework. Then that's okay. I guess you know, people don't know what we're dealing with. No hyper scale, big facilities, that kind of thing. But if it's a moratorium to shut it all down, well now I'm opposed because I mean, data centers can be very small, they don't and a small one will not use or have the impact that a hyper scale one will. Right. The hyper scale is what everybody thinks of, you know, the massive you know for football field sized facilities. But most of the data centers, and they've been around for like forty years, most of them are not that large and they don't use that kind of water and power. It's the hyper scale one. So I'm totally fine with with setting up the regulatory regime necessary to address some of these concerns, But a straight up no to all data centers, I'm out because like to me, like then you're just once again surrendering the field to the commis. Well, you know, like you were saying, Bill more nuclear and yeah, we've been saying that as as conservatives for forty fifty years. And I think that's something we can just go ahead and admit is never going to happen, because no, I mean, let's go ahead and face it, because if if they if they can't stop it through their own votes in the States or or in Washington, then they will stop it with their lawyers and their judges. It's it's just never going to happen, and we just need to go ahead and wrap our heads around. And for Christ's sake, these people are blowing up dams, They are blowing up and tearing down the cleanest power there is ever in the history of the world, water power. I mean, these people are never going to allow more nuclear plans to be built because also that's another way of eventual destruction. What did Joe Biden spend four years doing attacking energy? You know, along with food and you know and every other thing you can think to attack. But that's that's that's one of their the pillars in their stool that they want to kick out from under us is energy. But look at the Okay, so I think a good comparative to the data center is also the fracking industry. Right. Fracking came along, and we saw the exact same thing. Right, we saw the left mobilizing against fracking, and they were not entirely successful. And thank god they were not, because fracking has now kept us where we are in the energy production game globally. Right, we're now able to create and draw out all of these resources. So and on the nuclear front, we are building some and we're not building the massive scale ones, although there are some proposals that are in the pipeline and now, and there are efforts to try to like cut away some of the regulatory burdens to get these things built at a faster pace. You got the small modular reactors, right, the SMRs, You've got some of these data centers. Like, if you want to require that the data center create its own power, I'm fine with that. Like if you want to do a hyper skill and they'll do it natural gas, but then you're gonna get pushed back on natural gas, But be like, this is the way you do it. If you want to have a hyperscale, then you've got to do natural gas production, make your own energy that I think that's fair, and then whatever's left left over you can send back into the grid. That's that's one way to do it. Small modular reactors all over the place there and these things are going live now, these small nuclear reactors. It just it makes the most amount of sense. And you cannot be an environmentalist without being pro nuclear. It's like, to me, it's insane. And that's the argument to take. It's the cleanest burning. You know, fuel of all of them. So why if you're so concerned about air quality, uh and greenhouse gases and climate change and all of that, why would you be opposed to nuclear? It just it baffles me. Just the same the same reason that they're they're they're blowing up down. No, that's fair. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. What great I think. You know, App and I growing up in North Carolina like we did, but probably similar age to you. You know, I grew up there was a small, sleepy, little southern town, you know, like three hundred thousand people. Uh, just the best place in the world to raise your kids and you know, have a family and have a business and all of that. And then you know, we turn around here and you first start hearing about this, you know, probably five years ago. It makes its way into the the national consciousness that Charlotte, you know, this, this sleepy little southern town is now a dysfunctional, crime ridden hole that you know, very similar to it could easily be as far as far as crime and corruption. No, no different than Chicago or LA or New York. And how you know from your seat, how did that happen? Democrats? Yeah, I mean that's it, that is what happened. I mean we when I first started, I started off as a reporter. I covered city hall, county commission, school board, some state government stuff. So I sat through almost a decade of every city council meeting, every county commission meeting, every school board. Media. When I first started, city council was split pretty evenly. Republicans held majorities for like half of the first decade that I was there. They would go back and forth and whatnot, but you had Republicans that were on these bodies. And the old joke in Charlotte was that there were three parties in town, the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Chamber. And the Chamber was the strongest right because the business of Charlotte has always been business. It always was a trading town. That's why it existed. Right. So the Democrats then began as the city started growing, because the chamber wanted to grow, and everybody was all on board with that. We wanted to be and this was also a running joke, we wanted to be a world class city, right that. They said. They would say it all the time. They wanted to just be known as Charlotte, not Charlotte, North Carolina or mistaken for Charlotte, South Carolina, which doesn't exist. But people would think we're Charleston or Charlotte West Virginia or Charlotte Virginia. Like nobody knew where Charlotte was. So this was a big campaign, and they built the international airport and they started, you know, wooing businesses. They became a banking center, and they wanted to grow. Well, as that happens, you start attracting people from other places, and as more and more people pile into Charlotte, the Democrats become stronger and similar pattern all over the place, and then of course you're raising taxes. It's becoming more congested. A lot of the conservatives are like, we don't like this anymore, so we're going to move out. And so what happened was, and I did this, gosh, probably twenty years ago. I took all of the data from the surrounding counties and from Charlotte, and you could see I charted it out. You could see, like the counties around us which used to be Democrat controlled, they all flipped Republican, and the Meclimber County Charlotte area went bluer and bluer Democrat. And the chamber again kept feeding the alligator in the hopes it would eat it last. And what happened was the boards, the city Council's board of commissioners. When the Republicans started getting muscled off of those, off of those bodies, well, now you didn't have anybody to push back. Now, our city Council has eleven seats, and one of them is a Republican because it's a district that was basically it's the only Republican neighborhood really in the entire city. And there are no Republicans on County commission there are no Republicans on the school board, and so there is no constraint. There's nobody on the bodies to make these arguments against the Democrats in the meetings, or to tell the PSL people when they come down there to argue against data centers. There's nobody there really to make these arguments against them, and so everything gets handled in party, right. So you've got. Democrats attending meetings with each other, going to each other's homes for dinner, hobnobbing with each other, and the Republicans are completely cut out of all of that. This is why one party rule is so bad. And Democrats have done this to the city. And you know, once again, if you are constantly trying to cater to the base, because that's what's going to get you elected. This is why the DSA has taken over the party is because inside those primaries, the DSA votes and they will vote for the most leftist person that they can vote for. And if you're the Democrat and you see this happening, you're gonna have to cater to what they want. And if you want to stay in yourself, you're gonna have to cater to what they want. We just had a couple of lawmakers, black Democrats who were primaried by the left because they crossed the far left in their party, and these were state legislative seats, and one of them from Charlotte, Carla Cunningham, State Representative. They primaried her because she voted to override the governor's veto Democrat governor's veto of a bill that requires sheriffs to cooperate with ICE. She's a black female Democrat, and a primaried her because they did not want the sheriff to alert ICE that there's a criminal alien that has just been arrested for something else and is in the jail. And she got primaried, and that message goes out, and so Democrat lawmakers now say, Okay, well, I've got to move even further to the left. And that's how you end up constantly marching towards the left inside the party, and these cities they just start circling the drain, and then Republicans keep moving moving out and keep moving out, and it just gets worse and worse. I saw that. I just got told because yeah, I still have people that live there, live in and around that area, and my one nephew lives right there. And the home that my parents for it was their first home that they ever bought in Charlotte. That you're talking about circa I don't know, like mid sixties when they bought it, and it's just in an okay neighborhood. I think it was okay. Then it's still okay. Now. They bought this little cracker box, you know, twelve hundred square foot for thirteen thousand dollars. My nephew, that house still sits there. My nephew saw that home listed for six hundred thousand dollars. I believe it. I had house. I had a house on the My first house I bought was two thousand and five. I bought it for like eighty grand and I had to fix it up a lot, same thing. It was nineteen fifties built, you know. It was three bedroom, one bath, about nine hundred and sixty square feet, very very small, right, And I sold it a couple of years later after I'd done a bunch of work on it, and I sold it for like one twenty or something. So I made a little bit of a profit on it. And then it's changed hands twice and it's now it's now surrounded by these like little mansions that people have torn down everything else around it. And I think I saw it selling for about four hundred thousand, so that is not surprising. Oh my god. Well, well sir, we've taken up enough of your time. We really appreciate your hour here and you can definitely see why you're a very popular radio host there. You know your stuff, and you know how to say it, and you know how to say it convincingly with great facts to back you up. Hey, app, did you have anything else for Pete? Now, I just just thank you so much, Pete. No, thanks for the invitation. Yeah, to having you so much, and and tell everybody where they can catch your podcast. So I try to send everybody to the petepod dot com and you can, uh, you can get the podcast. You can subscribe right there, and it's totally free. You get three episodes every day. Each episode is one hour. Uh. There's also a Patreon page. There's a link up there at the peapod dot com as well. And so all of that is is you know mine, that's all that's sort of my small business, the radio, the radio show. Uh yes, that's what creates the content. But like I work for somebody else for the studio, right, So the peatpod dot com is where you want to find me. Also on Twitter at Pete calendar outstanding. Sorry, app is gonna app is gonna keep us advised here. If you use the name Booty Fudge, She's gonna keep us advised. I may slip it in as a bit of uh. I may attribute it as a text aligned joke, so this way I don't get any on me. Thank you again, sir. We really appreciate it, and you're welcome back anytime. Thanks for the hospitality. I enjoyed it, y'all all right, guys, but no, I enjoyed it, so thank you very much for the invitation at Patriot Girl is her name on Twitter and private Joker and Niz as well. Thanks so much, and thank you for watching if you want. If you watched it, I appreciate it, and you know we'll catch up to you guys, either on the radio or in the Patreon. Go to the peedepod dot com if you haven't already in subscribe if you don't. Mind, that would be awesome. Thanks, y'all appreciate it. Don't break anything while I'm gone,