New congressional maps in NC and bad actors in Appalachia (10-21-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Local Nightmare is over. Our phone lines are repaired, which is good because we could talk with Andrew Dunn. Andrew Dunn is a contributing columnist over at the Charlotte Observer. He is also the purveyor of long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com. Andrew, how are you today, sir? I'm doing well. Present. Here is a good word. I like that one. I might have to use that more. I feel like it has fallen out of fashion for some reason. I don't know why, just as words tend to do, and I would like to bring it back. So uh yeah, if you can adopt it, that would be fantastic. Oh. Also, while I'm while I have you and we're talking about adopting words, votainer. Have I already made my elevator pitch to you about the word votainer. I don't know if you have. So would you agree that the term top vote getter is awkward and clunky and just uh, just like audio pollution. Yeah, I could agree with that and try to use plurality in a sentence as just a recipe for disaster. Right. So I developed this word when I was up in Asheville, And by develop I mean I took the idea from a caller and they suggested votainer. So you would be the top votainer, as in you attained the most votes the votainer. You could also do it in an a large setting where you could say the top threeiners. See, so it's versatile. So I've been trying to wage this campaign. It's been about a decade. It hasn't really caught on, but any help would be appreciated. So I'll see what I can do. I think if you just start using it and not explaining. It, that's right. Yeah, I should do that, all right, So let's talk a little bit about We could start with the with the maps the North Carolina legislature back in session, they came back in yesterday they started the debate on the redraw of the congressional districts. Well basically just two really so, and I think they passed it out of the Senate this morning, and I think the House is now taking it up. This thing's on a fast track, and I was kind of surprised. I saw your peace at long Leaf Politics where you said that it's it's not a bad map, and you said Democrats might secretly prefer this new map, So explain yourself. Yeah, I mean, this thing's on a super fast track. And it's worth pointing out that once the General Assembly passes it, which I think will happen today, it immediately goes into effect. There's no the governor has no ability to sign or veto this. You know, there'll be legal challenges, of course, but probably by the end of today these maps will be official. You know, the reason why I said Democrats might secretly prefer this is it takes you know, we're talking about two districts. District one, which is northeastern North Carolina that's Don Davis's district, and District three, which is kind of central coastal North Carolina where Greg Murphy, doctor Murphy represents you know, Murphy's district was one hundred percent safe. I mean that was a seventy thirty district, and Don Davis's district was more of a toss up. I would probably say it's like a deep or an R plus two R plus one where Republicans did have a little bit of an advantage, but obviously a Democrat Don Davis was able to win it several times in a row. Now basically you've got two districts that are let's call it R plus five R plus six, where you know, before Democrats had absolutely no chance in District three, now they've got a chance. I mean, if everything breaks right, good candidate, national environment, blue wave type election, you could conceivably have both of those districts go blue. Right, And that's you mentioned the candidates. I always point this out to people. Candidates matter. If you have, you know, bad candidates, it doesn't like sometimes it doesn't matter how gerrymandered a district is or how it's drawn, you could end up losing that race. And also if the yeah, if the environment is such that there's some blue wave crashing ashore, these races become winnable. And it's it's an argument or a point I should say that the Democrats never and the media but I repeat myself, but they never. It's like they never take into account these wave elections where safe seats are what we thought were safe seats get flipped and over time, you know, the demographics of these districts change. That's why they redraw them every ten years. So there's there are opportunities for Democrats to win, and it's like they they don't want to have to recalibrate any of their messaging in order to become more electable. It seems, yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think a lot of the you know a lot of the people who are saying that that this is wrong are mostly focused on the process, and you know, to their to their credit, there is some point to that. I mean, this is kind of unprecedented for North Carolina to go in and redraw congressional lines, you know, basically just on a whim, rather than as the result of a court case. And you know, I wrote a column last week, we talked about it. I wasn't convinced that this was the best thing to do, but after seeing the map, you know this, you know, this really isn't that bad of a map. It's in some ways you could argue with a better map than what we had before. I'm less concerned about the long term prospects of it. I saw you mixing it up with a Twitter account that has blocked me, Carolina Forward. Uh, who they're They're they're out there saying that this is like a racial gerrymander. They're they're like, oh, they can't win with the with with fair maps and such. And I thought you were being very helpful in like citing one of the previous maps or the last time Democrats drew the congressional districts and their maps were really weird looking. Uh, and the subject of a lot of court cases and such. So, uh, is this is this. A new tact for you? Are you gonna be mixing it up on on Twitter? You know, when I have time, I've got a lot going on, but I do try to educate the public, uh when when they need it. You know. The problem I have with arguments like that from Carolina Ford is I find them intellectually dishonest. Yes, you know, the maps that they cite as good maps look absolutely hideous, but it engineers an outcome that they prefer that gives Democrats the best chance of victory. And really that argument is not any different from what Republicans might say to defend that their maps. I mean, it's all about engineering outcomes. You just disagree with the outcome, you know. I would have more respect for people who disagree with the maps saying that you know, these these districts don't represent actual communities, that they're pulling in people from all sorts of different areas. But I haven't heard that a single time. No. No, In fact, they're making the argument that it's that it's racist, which the Republicans have because of all of the lawsuits they've gotten. Now you know court direction from the Supreme Court on this stuff that I don't use race, but you have to use a little bit of race something, and so like this is the standards are all over the place. But the point here is that they're like, look, we just used the political data registration and voting patterns and stuff. We didn't look at race. And the problem that the Democrats have is that ninety plus percent of African Americans vote Democrats. So if you're using political data, it's going to look like you're using racial data. And that's precisely the argument sam Alito made in one of the Routo cases at the Supreme Court. So they keep making these arguments, and to your point, it's just not good faith. It's not an intellectually honest argument. I don't think, all right, let's say, all right, let's get to the crime issue here before I let you go, because you've got a peace Also at long leave politics, you're calling for some sort of what General Assembly hearings on crime and this what I call the catch and release court system here in Charlotte. But I'm you know, this is not just in Michlimberg County. This is all across the. State, right, exactly right. And we've talked about this issue quite a bit in previous weeks. There's the debate over whether you know crime is going up or going down, or you know, whether it matters if the CMPD data shows that crime is going down when you know homicides in Uptown are up two hundred percent. But in this piece, I really drilled down on a new issue that's kind of come to light for me, and that's that there's all of these examples coming out of people who have been arrested time and time and time again. You know, there was a fifteen year old who's CMPD set has been arrested one hundred and eleven times in two years, which is just insane to me. I don't even know how that happens. But there were some other cases. There was a lady who got arrested after threatening people at the Family Dollar, including pointing her gun at police officers, and she was out on fifteen hundred dollars bond almost immediately. I mean, that is just unreal to me. And the reason why I'm calling for General Assembly hearings on this is because I feel like the problems are so widespread that we need to hit everybody in a room, you know, get the DA to come testify, get magistrates to come testify, get judges to come testify, and let's get everything out in the open. Let's figure out how do we put a stop to this, because you know, Arena's law was a great step forward, but it's clearly not doing enough and we need to really figure out how we can solve this. So yesterday on the show, I tracked or trace this to the MacArthur Foundation. They've spent more than three almost three and a half million dollars in Mecklenberg County as part of their Safety and Justice Challenge. They've given grants going back to before the summer of fiery but mostly peaceful rioting in twenty twenty, and they do implicit bias training. They and their whole goal is to reduce incarceration, and they're giving grants out and then they're doing trainings, and they've done it in Mecklenburg, they've done it all across the state of North Carolina, so there's a good place to start. I did see Trisha Cotham on Twitter said that's she says, we're on it, so like we'll see what comes of that. But then there's also I saw a guy responding about what was it, the the Justice Reinvestment Act from twenty eleven when BEV Produce signed this thing into office or into law, and it was designed to reduce jail populations as well and to make some of these misdemeanor counts, you know, cashless bail essentially. So this, like these. Quote reforms have been going on for a long time and I don't like to say it, but like I'm thinking these judges and magistrates have too much discretion, just too much. Oh, absolutely and good find on teasing all that out. I mean, in my mind, the best way to cut down on jail populations is for folks to commit fewer crimes. Get out of town. That's nuts, all right, Andrew down. You can read his stuff over at longleafpol dot com Longleaf Politics. He is also a contributing columnist at The Charlotte Observer, but we never hold that against him. Andrew, Thanks for your time, buddy, good to talk with you. Thank you, all right, Take care. He is one of my votainers if you were to ever run. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check Dot Ground, dot News slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Alrighty, So this is from WRAL on the redistricting vote. North Carolina Republicans voting today to finalize a new congressional map that aims to protect the GOP's slim majority in the US House of Representatives, a move expected to happen amid a backdrop of protests led by Democrats and Dante jerrymandering advocates. They always get the nicest descriptions, you know, people on the left always get the nicest, most charitable descriptors. It's like, you know, when you say, see somebody and they're getting interviewed on the you know, the evening news, and it says something like, you know, pete callaner and then underneath my name it's like resident, you know, or or neighbor or something like that, and uh, you know, this is anti jerry mandering advocates. Is that really who was there? I mean, yes, Democrats were there, But are they actually just anti jerry mandering advocates or are they anti Republican jerry mandering advocates. That seems like it's a little bit more honest, right, because the people showing up now to complain about the Republican maps did not care and do not care. They don't go to any other state and complain about the Democrat jerry manders, which are plentiful they abound. Right. We've talked about the Maryland being one New York state getting smacked around by their own Democrat Supreme Court because they jerrymandered so badly in violation of their own state constitution. They got smacked down. Illinois, California, the hect the entire northeast, all of those New England states up there. There are zero Republicans in Congress from any of those states, any of them. Yet Republicans make up forty percent of the voting population up there. See, so you're not an anti gerrymandering advocate. You're an anti republican jerrymandering advocate. And when you ask Democrats, well, you know, why don't you go ahead and lead the way, show us the way to do this correctly. That makes it quote fair, Show us how to draw the fair maps in states that you control. And what do they say, Well, that would be unilateral disarmament. Okay, then so here we are. See I'm a realist. I understand things as they are. So these are the rules we're playing by. Here's a great idea. 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Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins of Ashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Okay, you know me, I do not. I don't make fun of people's appearance. Most people can't help it, you know, like you're just you're born the way you're born, you have the genetics, you look the way you look. I mean there are some things you can do, obviously, but I don't like. I don't take the I don't take the ad hominem route on, you know, making fun of people's appearances, like when people were calling John Kerry horse face. I never did that. I mean, I'm aware of well I'm not, and I didn't say that in order to call in that. I'm just saying, like people, that's a you know, people would make fun of the way people look, and I don't. I don't do that. This guy from Atlanta, Benjamin Michael Campbell, he apparently is short, and I'm not going to make fun of him for being short, okay, because again, he had no. He had no influence on that. He got the short geness, and who among us right hasn't erroneously purchased a pair of short genes, particularly about five years ago when that was all that was on the racks. So it's not his fault, Okay, I get it. Now. He is an accountant, and I will make fun of him for that. That's I'm just kidding. I'm not going to make fun of him for that either, when there's so much more I could make fun of him for, for example, his actions. So this is from WLOS Television, which is the ABC affiliate out in Asheville, and a couple of days ago they got this guy, Benjamin Michael Campbell from Atlanta, all five foot six of them. They got him, which isn't even really that short. It's okay. Anyway, they got him extradited back to North Carolina based on a charge from September. So what happened. He is accused of tearing down a pro Trump banner at a rafting business along the side of the road, like they had like they had security camera footage also, so it's all on tape, okay, So there isn't any doubt that's to what occurred, because he's driving down the road he was on. Yeah, he was in Nantahalo Gorge about seventy five miles west of Ashville, September sixth, driving down the road and he's he's going down and he passes this. It's called the paddle In Rafting Company. And as is the case a lot of these paddle companies, they've got you know, rafting and kayaks for rent and all that kind of stuff, and they've got school buses or you know buses to transport people because they'll drop you at the top of the river and then they drive down and. Pick you up, right, So they've got these big busses. So they've got The video shows a couple of these buses and they're parked along the side of the road. There's a big like a billboard. Kind of a thing there, and they had a Trump banner tacked to the billboard sign okay, And so he sees this. He slams on his brakes. He gets out of the car and walks over to rip down the banner, which he had some trouble with because it was it was like above six feet and so he couldn't see it to kind of like jump up a little bit. It was kind of it was kind of adorable. But anyway, he gets the bottom of it. He's able to. Pinch the box. I'm the banner, and he starts tugging on the thing and tugging, tugging his name, rips it down. Well. The owner of the paddle in rafting company, a fellow by the name of Mark Thomas, says he saw the jeep slam on its brakes and then back up near his property. He saw the driver get out, walk across the road and tear down the banner. The banner actually belonged to Mark Thomas's eighty seven year old mom, who's a huge trumper loves Donald Trump. Deputies were dispatched for the reports of shots fired. Why well, Thomas said that when he saw on the CCTV cameras, he saw the guy going over to the banner, he picked up his rifle and he walked to his front porch, and he squeezed off two rounds into the air as warning shots. Now, I know what they're gonna say, you city dwell in folks here like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that. But yeah, move out to the county. Okay, you're out in the county. You're gonna hear this sort of thing pretty regularly, particularly if you go as far west as this was Swain County. This is very rural. People shoot guns all the time on their property, target practice and hunting and all sorts of stuff and warning shots. He squeezed off a couple of warning shots, saying get off my property. In response, Benjamin Michael Campbell of Atlanta gets back into his jeep and opens the sun roof, pulls out his own side arm, and begins shooting wildly at the premises towards Mark Thomas. I have questions, how was this guy. Able to get his tiny little hands attached to his tiny arms up and out of the sun roof. That's like, I mean just from a like, is he on a booster scene of some kind? Like how did that happen? But you can clearly see it in the video. And that's actually what prompted the police to be able to track the guy down because Mark Thomas posted the video to YouTube and that's when the swayin County Sheriff's office was like, oh, there's video of this. They went down to Cobb County, Georgia, took him into custody, and he was extradited back to Swain County. He was being held on a seventy thousand dollars bond, but according to the New York Post, he has now been released on that bond. This guy. What's his name here, Campbell. By the way, people are attacking his wife on social media. They're attacking her saying that she's some sort of of a giant and that's not fair. He's just short, okay. And again I'm not making fun of him being you know, vertically challenged. I'm just it's not it's not it's not cool, Okay, you should not be you know, yelling at his wife, calling her Amazonian or whatever it is, like the you know, huge like tall woman or something like. She's not She's not like really really tall. He's just short. And that's the picture that they got his wedding photo. I guess they took it off of like Facebook or something, or maybe it may not have been his wedding photo. I think they were at some formal event. He was in like a tucks and she was in a nice like evening gown. And she does look much taller anyway, So done, just leave her alone people. Okay, she was not involved in this as far as I can tell. So he yeah, so he We don't know why he was in Asheville. And the New York Post headline here minutive accountant stands on tiptoes to tear down Trump sign, shoot up owner's house, and they lead the story with he's got a short fuse. Okay, so you can tell how this article progressed from there. Again, I am not making fun of the man's stature, Okay, his actions are what is mockable here That you cannot drive through western North Carolina and see a Trump sign and you have so little self control that you can't just continue driving like inertia does all the work for you. In that scenario, you don't have to do anything. You just ignore it, just drive past. I somehow or another, have been able to drive past many, many, many political yard signs of politicians I don't care for. Throughout my entire life, I. Have never once thought that I'm going to stop my car, jump out and rip down the signs. That's nuts. That's nuts. And for an accountant, you are a You are a pox upon the profession because accountants should be disciplined. How do you not have any self control here? Dude? Let's see here. It's not clear why he was in North Carolina. Mark Thomas says, I found one bullet hole in my refrigerator which is on my porch, which that does track surveillance footage shows dirt flying in the air where other bullets struck his front yard. He said, But we're not the kind of people that are going to be intimidated. We'll have our signs back up if we want them, as you should, Mark, you and your eighty seven year old mom. That's it, man, stay in Atlanta. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past. While transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com from the Twitter machine. Here's a peak tweet from Gary. This guy from Atlanta seems pretty ignorant of where he is. I would not advise messing around on people's private property in western North Carolina, especially outside of Asheville. I mean they make movies about this sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, look, the guy, the homeowner of the business owner was I thought he was quite nice in merely firing the warning shots. The fact that you got two warning shots, because he had a rifle, he could have stopped that from happening at any moment he chose to. You know, but really is I'm thinking about it now, and like that really is something like the Trump supporter guy has the rifle could draw down on the vandalizer or the vandal. I guess, okay, fine, the vandal he could draw down on that guy. He's on his private property. You're trespassing. He could have shot up his car or something. He did not. He gave warning shots. And what did the vandal do? What did the lefty CPA do? He got in his car and then just starts firing wildly and indiscriminately at the house. It really does speak to a mindset. And see here Russ says, easy on the short comments. It's not like you or I are towering giants. Now, okay, well, whoa, whoa. I was not making fun of his height. I was pointing out that other outlets. For some reason, are making a big deal about him not being very tall. I would not do that. I did not do that. I was pointing out that I wasn't doing it. Also, Russ says, it's pretty clear the guy was standing on the seat to shoot out the roof, at the sunroof. That's that was my only question. It was simply like it was a it was a physiological one, you know. That was the question I had. It was it was science based. Okay, it's the scientific method, that's that's that's why you ask the questions. Okay. Shannon says, don't make fun of us accountants. We're way more fun than you think. I okay, I wasn't making fun of account but oh do you want to hear how can you tell an extroverted accountant they look at your shoes when they talk to you. Boom, I kid, I kid. My dad was an accountend. He was he was gregarious. So it's just a joke. Pr from Joco says, I believe that's Johnson County. Uh says I have used the word votainer a few times in conversation with a current North Carolina Senator Andrew Dunn. Is right, you just say it and keep chugging along without any explanation. The confused look on their face subsides with time the show. Yeah, I'm gonna start doing that. I'm just gonna start dropping the word votainer. I posted signs in the studio here. I posted a sign up here. Hang on a second, I'm gonna put my glasses on. I posted it up a while ago. It says, new rule, the word votainer is banned. Oh sorry, no, hang on, the word vote getter is banned. It is a terrible word that should die. Instead use the word votainer. Thank you for your attention to this matter. That's what I posted that in the in the studio here. So I'll be counting on all of you to hold every host to the new rule. I mean, they had no say in any of this. I just hung the sign up one day. Nobody's taking it down yet, so I think that makes it law. Okay. Speaking of firing, former Wake Forest University trainer Bridget Sullivan is suing North Carolina Congressman Pat Harrigan h abri g a n You see. They're suing him for libel over an ex post Twitter post in which Harrigan claimed that she had been fired over her Instagram post on the assassination of Charlie Kirk when she said he had it coming. That post was seen and it was brought to the attention of wake Forest, where she worked. Harrigan said that he had contacted wake Forest regarding the post, which he said crossed the line of decency, saying no university should tolerate an employee glorifying political violence. Anything less than firing her is an endorsement of it. Then a couple days later, he gave an update, saying I'm happy to report that after I contacted wake Forest, Bridget has been fired for celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination. At some point after Sullivan's post was noticed by the public, she sent her Instagram account to private. Her complaint says that actually wake Forest did not turn criminate her. She and the officials with the school discussed her safety before she and the school quote mutually agreed that it would be best to part ways. Uh, yeah, you got fired. That's I know, if you're working in higher ed in academia, I know that you've probably never had this kind of an experience before. But allow this person who has worked in radio for quite a while allow me to explain real quickly. When you mutually agree to part ways, that's the employer not having to pay the unemployment insurance rate increase on you. Okay, So I don't know. If they gave you some money to go away or whatever, but yes, mutually agree because like if you because if they don't want to lose you and you're like, screw it, I'm out of here, like they can't stop you. But if you want to stay and they don't want to keep you, then that means you're fired. So if you're both agree, then yes, you resigned, but you also got fired because it's both. That's my ted talk. 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 vpetekaalnarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.