NC looks to "MEVGA" and social media limits for kids | Hour 3

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is herd 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 vpetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. As we do every Monday at two o'clock, we chat with ap Dylon. She is a reporter for the North State Journal. You can read her work at nsjonline dot com, and you can also subscribe to her newsletter over on substack. It's called more to the Story, Ap. How are you today? I'm good, Pete. How are you? I am doing all right? I'm doing all right. So let's talk about mevga mevga as I understand it, because that's a make everify grade again. Me e vga mevga. Right, yeah, that would be an acronym you could use. I mean, because it could be mega as well. If we drop the V mega, it. Could be I think mega maybe rolls off the hungue a little easier. Yeah, but I like Megga because it really stands out. It's distinct, you know. So what is this is a bill? Yeah, that is a bill they want to law makers of the general family put through a bill. It's a new PCs to a bill actually, which is a preferred comitte substitute. That's where they rip out the guts of one bill and they put in another one. Can I just let me just stop you on that real quick, because the technical term you are correct is a PCs proposed committee substitute. Media likes to call this what do they call it? Gut and replace? Right, yeah, gut and replace. So I would just because you're up there, you're rubbing elbows with all of these media people up there, and so I would request don't use that term. Let's call it gutt and stuff. Gut and stuff. It's just a technical way where they can take a bill that already made it through crossover or that is already eligible, and then they can replace language in it to use it for a different purpose. Because sometimes things crop up after that deadline that need to be handled in a short session. That's what they have to do. Let me pause you there, for people who aren't aware, we have a deadline where all of the House bills have to go to the Senate and all the Senate bills have to go over to the House. They call that crossover, that deadline. And so when all those bills cross over, if something comes up that has to be or wants to be addressed, then they will gutt and stuff. They'll take the language from some bill that made crossover but maybe doesn't have a chance of passing or they don't really think is a priority, and then they will stuff it with something else that was actually Remember the motorcycle safety bill that had the inspections of abortion clinics that got stuffed in there. Yeah, that was a long time, I know, and I'm not going to call it what the left call did because I have tooth. You know, yes, well, this bill the new language for it. They want to take the federally verify system back from twenty five employees or more down to five from five are sorry, back to twenty five. So they had paired it down to where they wanted any business that had five people or more working on it to have to be required to use you Verify. So they've gone back off to twenty five. With that, it limits checks to random only businesses where they could you know, be you know, a random selection. You know, they were not going to target people. They're just basically gonna, you know, draw name out of that. Okay, we're going to go take a look at what you're doing. And they put other safeguards in place. Most of these wouldn't take effect, including the funding, until July one, that's if it were passed before then. But right now it's moving a little bit slowly through both chambers. Yeah, I mean they got eight days here. So yeah, they would also have to It would also require private employer, State of Injucys counties, minicipellities, any other local government to use you verify, and the employers would have to retain verification records for the length of the person who was employed there plus one year. So that's it's you know, it is what it is. So what's you so? All right? So I think the concern that I would imagine people might have here is that, right, you're going from businesses that employee twenty five people and you're lowering that or sorry, you're going from businesses that have five or more employees that would have to use everify that now you're increasing that number to twenty five employees. That's the coust. It's originally twenty five in one of the bills that they tried to pass like a last I believe the last session it got stuck in committee. I think it already had twenty five in there, and then they had a PCs with that one. It took it down to five, and now they're going back to twenty five. Have you heard there's been some back and forth. Because business is a parent, we really pushed back on that. Okay, that's what I was going to ask, like, what is the justification for not using e verify here that, oh, we need to be able to hire illegal aliens if we only employ fifteen people or ten people or something. Yeah. For the smaller businesses, it's much easier to figure out whether or not they're complying or not. For the larger businesses of twenty five or more, that's when it gets a little bit difficult. Like you had that raid in Kings Mountain last year that the guy who was running that business up there, I want to fit it with some kind of equipment supply or you know, yeah, figures and buses and that customer, I think it was. It dealt with that, but don't absolutely quote me on that. They had a large number of employees there and there were at least a dozen illegal aliens among them, and the owner there said, well, they showed me real paperwork, and I didn't know any better. So there is a safe Harbor provision, a good faith safe harbor provision bill for employers who properly enroll any Verify and follow procedures procedures that are part of you Verify, but they don't know that they're accepting fake documents because some of these are pretty good, or they're stolen IDs, or you know, it's it's not exactly easy for the employer to also tell if these things are completely fraudulent. But I do think that a lot of these, a lot of employers are probably taking this a heck of a lot more seriously, given that some of these illegal aliens that have been caught at businesses are using a real person's Social Security number. Right, It's a serious business here. Yeah, So that's part of the problem, all right, More enforcement things and other checks that go along with that. That is House built twelve fourteen, the MEVGA bill as I'm calling it. And then there is another bill, this is House Bill three oh one that is aimed at protecting children sixteen and under from addictive social media And uh so what this This cleared the North Carolina Senate last week. Yes, unanimously, Wow, forty eight to nothing. Yep. So I just want to be clear. So the Democrats on this, they they voted to block kids from getting onto the social media, the addictive scrolling and all of that, but they're they're okay with the kids like like chopping off their body parts. Well, apparently that's interesting. Yeah, that's a weird standard. But of you know, cognitive dissonance there. But yes, this bill is kind of interesting because it defines addictive platforms the head, the endless scrolling, unblockable push alerts, auto play videos, live streaming, reaction counters like everyone of them has when like a like or dislike thing on it, or like an emoji thing that you can use to react to a video, and it's got to push that content. Specifically, at least ten percent of daily US users under the age of sixteen, because they're spending an average of two or more hours a day doing these activities, which is probably really not good for their mental health and if an acted, if this was passing signed, it wouldn't take effect until January one of next year, but it would prohibit kids under the age of fourteen and under from actually creating accounts on these sites, and any of these sites. To find that they have one, have to shut it down within thirty days after a thirty day appeer appeal window, and then personally delete all personal data of that individual. So for fourteen fifteen year olds, accounts would have to require an active parent or guardians consent, and without it, the platform would terminate the account after giving notice, and the parents can also request the letion of all the data within ten business days. So this is pretty this is a pretty common thing that's happening now across the state. Right. State legislatures are doing various forms of this kind of legislation. The majority of states have something either enacted or in progress right now. So this is not new. And I mean there have been talks in Congress about this, right cracking down on social platforms. I mean, they had Zuckerberg in there for our hearing last year. And I mean it's not like these platforms are targeting kids, right, Yeah. They absolutely are yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, the advertising the way that some of these platforms are laid out are meant for maximum shareability, maximum shock value and impact and sending things viral and a lot of the content. I have a TikTok account, but only because for reporting purposes. I don't go on it very often. But when I did look at it after this bill came out again, I couldn't believe the amount of absolute garbage that was on it. But that's what China wants us to see. A that's what they wanted us to see. It was absolutely there's some really if you know where to look, there's some absolutely vile content. Oh yeah on that platform. And that one is the one that's used by the kids the most, so that's an issue. Instagram reels isn't much better, although they have certain controls in place in recent months that seemed to be cracking down on certain types of videos, blocking certain videos, that kind of thing. There's also in your piece here at North State Journal there's an AI component to this bill as well as it pertains to K twelve education. Well, this is something that a lot of discs are already working on. Last year I did an interview with Superintendent Taylor of Wake County Schools about their AI platform and policies and things that they're putting into place, and they've been taking it low and slow, trying to figure out exactly what the best usage was, what the best you know, platforms to use for what they were going to block, but they weren't going to block. So there was some interesting conversations there. But and at the national level, we've also seen this kind of thing. The Department of Education has also been talking about this in a couple of different places that I've seen, But statewide, this bill would ask the Department of Public Construction to create an AI model for a model policy for all districts at least by December thirty first, that could be made available to the districts by mid January of next year. And it would require things like student and staff AI literacy, so it's not just the kids, it's the staff too. It will require them to cover non consensual intimate imagery, you know, like revenge porn kind of things, and you know what you should and shouldn't do online nothing, internets forever, data security, academic integrity, and each district would have to take the model that DPI puts out and sort of create their own version or adopt that version by June thirtieth of next year. Of twenty seven. So this would go into a nine school year. Yeah, probably just. For the AI revolution. Yes, okay, all right, well you will leave it there. You can read AP's work at North State Journal NSG online dot com and subscribe to her newsletter more to the story over on substack. Ap, thanks for your time, keep up the good work. Appreciate it absolutely, Thank you, Pete. 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 two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels, and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now creative videos helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. Introducing group travel videos perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destination weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams, I mean, really any gathering of people that you care about that's traveling together. 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You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Mike says, good afternoon, Pete. I hosted a Christian TikTok cross linked to Instagram and x accounts of all the same name. I tried to control the algorithms by searching and watching only wholesome content, and you would be amazed at the filth that would still end up in my feed when I scrolled. I am glad they're cracking down, because I wouldn't want my kids on those platforms the way they are now. I ended up deleting all socials except Facebook. And the only reason I keep that is because I have traveled so much and my network is so spread out. It's the best way to keep up with my family and friends. Or I would delete that too. Yeah, so this is interesting. I had seen on the on the scrolling and the algorithming and such. So they measure the algorithms, these programs, these apps, they measure impressions and engagement by how long you stop on a video. So even if you are scrolling past something, right, it still registers as an impression, even though you scroll past it, it still notes that, oh you saw it, that's an impression. And if you scroll past it, or if you're scrolling and you know, when you scroll on the phone and you like zoom it up, you like scroll and it moves and then you move your thumb down to grab the screen again. And scroll it up again. If it stops on. A video that starts auto playing, it's now counting that as impressions too, So not only do you so like, even if it's something you don't want to see and you immediately swipe it up again, it's still registers that you paused for some moment, and if you pause and watch it, you're like, what is this? And you spend two seconds, three seconds, it's now sending data back to its brain or whatever, and it's saying, oh, they watch this for two seconds, and then it starts putting more of that kind of content into your feed. So like, you can only do so much. This is why, like on Twitter or x. I always recommend people create lists you cannot use. Like on Twitter they've got and I'm sure they've got similar setups on these other apps where it's like they do a for you on Twitter, which is like we've aggregated these things for you based on you know, who you read and retweet and whatever. I never look at that. I never look at that feed. Then there's another feed called following, so anybody that I'm following, their stuff shows up. However, the algorithm also inserts stuff into that feed. No, never look at that either. Sorry. I have lists, so you can create lists in Twitter. I don't know if you can do this on other platforms, but I know you can do it on Twitter. You can create a list and then you put different accounts that you prefer to follow, and you just pack them into that one list. In fact, you can go. Over to my Twitter, pull up my profile, look at my lists, and you can follow my lists. So I have one that's called Influence. I think there's like two hundred people that are in two hundred accounts that are in that list. I've got another one for the Iran war, and then I have like a couple that are private for like friends and family and that sort of thing. So like that's and. That's how I kind of sanitize my social media experience. Your mileage may vary on the text line. John says to Pete, what is this Twitter you keep talking about? I am unaware of such a program. I have searched the interweb many times and nothing shows. I don't believe you. In fact, if you type in Twitter dot com, the site pulls up. Maybe you knew it as its former name. X. This from the Washington Freebeacon, which is a National Treasure piece by Andrew Kerr. Former North Carolina govnor Roy Cooper quietly hosted a controversial emam with deep ties to Humas and he did it at the North Carolina Governor's mansion back in twenty eighteen. This was for a dinner where the emam led a Muslim prayer and then Cooper mingle with fellow Muslim leaders and posed for pictures. Cooper and his wife both attended. Cooper is already under pressure for what critics say is a milk toast response to a series of post October seventh resolutions by the North Carolina Democrat Party which demonized Israel and trafficked in anti Semitic tropes. Remember that we covered that at the time. They touch on it in the piece too here. But this is about the twenty eighteen gathering at the Executive Mansion in downtown Raleigh and it was held to Mark if Tar. That was that. Movie with Warren Beatty, remember, came out like the eighties or something. It was a terrible movie. It's sort of like the gold standard for terrible movies, although at that would it be the gold standard for terrible movies? What's the lowest maybe it's like the Iron Medal. For a bad move. Anyway, no, if Tar marks the end of the Ramadan fast. At the time, Cooper's team issued no press release, much like when he had to flee the Governor's mansion during the Black Lives Matter fiery but mostly peaceful riots. Right, they didn't tell anybody that he fled the Governor's mansion after praising and encouraging the protests, and then they surrounded the Governor's mansion were throwing stuff at the law enforcement agents, and so they had to evacuate the Governor's mansion. And then the next day he came back and marched in solidarity with the very same people that he fled from the night before. Yeah. Yeah, we only found that out in the last what two months, thanks to reporting by ap Dillan over at North State Journal. So now we're finding out that in twenty eighteen. This makes me wonder, like, how many other events were held, how many other shall we say, problematic people had been at the Governor's mansion for various events and such. Because Roy Cooper is making a very big deal out of Michael Wattley when he was the chairman of the Republican party that Michael Wattley had put in place some guy from eastern North Carolina who had a record right he had been he had been convicted of I think it was like indecent liberties with a child or something. And the guy then got like he was on the offender registry and then he got off the registry and has never reoffended. And then he became. Involved in Republican politics down there, and he does like some barbecue or something, and so he would invite candidates to come to this big barbecue, and so people would you know, these candidates would show up, and whatever the local party apparatus was, you know, they elevated this guy. His name is, last name is West. And so then he gets named to a position in the state party and Wattley as chairman, did the naming because and I would imagine, like, yeah, you get all of these recommendations from your local districts, the local parties and all of this. So that's what Cooper has been hammering. And now they're using it against Sarah Stevens because she's running for the State Supreme Court against Anita Earls. And so then now they're trying to tie her there because she went to one of these fundraisers at the guy's property, and you know, they stick a mic in her face and she's like, like, I think her campaign said something like like I don't vet every attendee of a political fundraiser like I there was, you know, hundreds of people there. You get invited to these things, there are hundreds of people. You show up, you know, you press the flesh and you leave. Anyway, For a guy and a campaign that wants to make a very big deal out of associations, seems like this might be a problem, much like the problem that Cooper has with Chad Severance Turner, who is the guy from Charlotte who was like the local LGBTQ plus two I a whatever activist who was the head of the like the the LGBT Chamber or whatever it was called. And that guy's got a record for molesting boys at a summer camp or something, and he had his picture taken with Roy Cooper. Cooper attended these gala events. I don't think they were called galas that, but maybe maybe they were. I don't know, But like, I'm not sure you want to go down this path. Well, he's a Democrat, he can actually go down that path. He can make all of these, you know, birds of a feather type of attacks, and the media will regurgitate those. They will never regurgitate any of the attacks when it's Cooper. But the Washington Free Beacon got a hold of some photos from the event. Cooper's team issued no press release about the dinner. It published no guest list for the event, which The Free Beacon has learned was attended by more than thirty five local Muslim leaders, including one doctor, Mohammed Abu Taleb, a prominent email with close affiliations to several Hamas aligned organizations, which to Democrat voters, this will probably be a plus. This is a pro right, Oh gosh, you're pro Hamas. You're our guy, Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray kattamloose Cooper. At the time, Abu Teleb served as Imam of the Islamic Association of Raleigh and led that organization as it cut checks to a subsidiary of a group with alleged connections to terrorist entities, including Hamas. Today, Abu Teleb is a frequent speaker at events hosted by the Muslim American Society, which federal prosecutors say is an overt arm of the Hamas aligned Muslim brotherhood and works at an Islamic think tank alongside another imam who encouraged students to take out a pro Israel professor in twenty twenty four in a fiery but mostly peaceful way. I'm sure. I got a message from John regarding this guy that they're trying to smear Michael Wattley with Harvey west is his name. He was elected as a district chairman. Michael Wattley only appointed him to serve on a committee. He did not appoint him to a position, right that. Yeah, So, like I don't follow all of the inner workings of the political parties different structures and committees and all of that stuff. You know, It's just I never have. But that's yeah, So thank you for that, John, Like that's so, this is the guy that they're trying to say that, you know, Michael Wattley is a pedophile protector. I mean, that's basically what they're doing. Everything is pedophile. Everything is pedophile for the Democrats nowadays. Yeah, when it's their pedophile that's different. Sam Westrop, who is the director of the Middle East Forums, is Lomist Watch project. He says Mohammed Abu Taleb is a long standing contributor to the Muslim American Society, a HAMAS aligned organization deemed by federal prosecutors to be an overt arm of a violent foreign extremist movement. And this is the guy that was in the Governor's mansion at the invitation of Roy Cooper. The only acknowledgment that then Governor Cooper made of the event came about two weeks after the event in a vague post on Twitter formerly known as x where he celebrated the quote first ever if tart dinner at the executive mansion, So he wanted the credit. Look at me, look at me. I care. I'm you know, multicultural, I care more than everybody else. I'm inclusive and all of that, but he gave no other details. His wife, Kristen Cooper, no, she wasn't out there flipping off children at this event, although she did at an anti lockdown protest Kristin Cooper. She posted pictures of the dinner on Facebook, but none of those pictures showed Abu Teleb. However, another attendee, North Carolina State Senator Mujaba Mohammed from Mecklenburg, I believe. Mohammad posted a photo of the full Muslim delegation posing with Cooper on the staircase in the governor's mansion right there. It's a it's a usual spot, and you got a lot of people because you can have him stand on the stairs, you know, and you can get everybody in the shot. And so he's there, and Abu Teleb is standing directly behind Cooper. Also in attendance was Durham County North Carolina Commissioner Nidah Alam, a far left extremist who has trafficked in classic anti anti Semitic. Tropes like from the River to the Sea. She calls it the United States of Israel, accused Israel of genocide as referred to anti Semitic activist Linda Sarsor, who's just terrible. She Alam called Sarsor her mentor. Now when she was gearing up for an ultimately unsuccessful house campaign, Alam apologized for some of her remarks, not all of them, but some of them. I'm sorry if you were offended. Kind of a thing now about the North Carolina Democrat Party. This would have been in June of twenty twenty five, so a year ago. The Democrats had a bunch of anti Israel resolutions that were submitted that called for an arms embargo on Israel, accused Israel of genocide and apartheid, called Israel's response to the October seventh attacks quote unjustifiable, referred to Palestinian terrorists detained by Israel as hostages equivalent to the Jewish hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. When we covered this at the time, there was a big rift, probably not healed inside the Democrat Party. Somebody, you know, some people wanted to create a like a Jewish caucus and they got blocked. So, like the the. Democrat Party has a very acute problem. They have been taken over inside their party by Democratic Socialists of America and Islamists right, people who support the Red Green Alliance because oppress or oppressed narrative right, they view everything this is I say it all the time. This is why the Democrat Party does not have any kind of natural immunity to this stuff. Is because they view everything through this moral relativism. And if you cast one party in any kind of confrontation as the oppressed and the other party as the oppress or they will always go with the oppressed. And so if you can make your case that I'm oppressed for some reason, race, gender, national origin, religion, whatever, it may be, right, and they already have they have, you know, a series of characteristics that are already in the oppressor category. Okay, so if you could just pick from the oppressor category, Oh yay, I'm oppressed by that group. Boom, you are now part of the intersectionality. Right. The left is big on intersectionality. What does that mean, Well, it means you may be oppressed for one reason. I may be oppressed for some other reason, but we have intersectionality. We intersect in our oppression. So we're the same because we're being oppressed by the same institutions, the same system, the same people, the same race, the same sex, whatever. And so they're just getting dragged further and further and further away. From truth. And that's that's why they're I mean, that's that's why they're espousing all of these things that like these like old school democrats, these quote unquote moderates, as Roy Cooper tries to paint himself as. I'm very curious to see how he handles the foreign policy types of questions and the Jewish question, right, Cooper's team initially told CNN quote, he generally does not opine on party resolutions. At the time, that's what he said, but later he came out in measured opposition to the resolutions following widespread criticism. He never condemned the resolutions. He is from the generation of Democrats who largely supported Israel, and like many Democrats of his age, he's been increasingly out of step with the younger, more radical elements of his party, and events like the if Tar Dinner reveal his efforts to build bridges to the anti Israel forces rapidly gaining power in the state party and whose support he will need to win a statewide election in this Republican leaning state. Regarding Abu Taleb. Do Oh, he was you know, he was the imam at the Islamic Association of Raleigh, a prominent North Carolina Muslim congregation that in twenty twelve was the religious home for several members of a homegrown terrorist ring that plotted to attack the marine base in Quantico, Virginia. Also, he collaborates with the Muslim American Society, again that they have been found to be an overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Back in a two thousand and eight court filing. So there is that. And oh, first campaign did not return a request for comment. Shock it all right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.