Nick Craig In For Pete Kaliner (08-25-2025--Hour3)

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 of the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendarshow 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. Well'd like to welcome our first guest to the airwaves this morning, ap Dyllon from the North State Journal. She also has her own Substackapdilon dot substack dot com, joins us on the Peak Calendar Show. Ap, thanks for joining us. You've got an interesting article over on your substack this morning. The headline there new memo for Democrats outlines words to avoid. Tell us a little bit about that. What's going on there? Hey, Pe, we gotcha? Yep, I'm doing great texts for the time. Bo, tell us a little bit about this headline. What's going on here? Okay? Well, over the last six months or so, there's been a couple think tank outlets that have disseminated analysis memos of why they lost the twenty twenty four election, why their why voters are not registering as Democrats, they're registering more as Republicans. And one of them, one of those outlets, is called third Way. Politico described them as a centrist democratic think tank, and they laid out a couple of memos like this earlier this year. Well, they're back with a new memo that that's called It's settled with it something I've said, and it's a memo to all who wish to stop Donald Trump and MAGA. So it goes on to talk about language, specifically telling Democrats not to use certain words that they've been using for years, which have arguably said their their losses. Basically, it's telling them not to use things that are extreme, divisive, elitists or abuse, I'm sorry you stort, I can't even speak today, or that OPTU skates anything that might be you know, considered to be woke. But would I say if I could talk today? So, you know, it goes on to talk about different topics, different areas. One example was therapy speak, which third Way explains that these are words that say I'm more empathetic than you and you're callous and are hurting other people's feelings, and it colluds things like triggering microaggressions, safe spaces, holding spaces, body shaming, that kind of thing, and it tells them to be aware of proliferating in these terms in elite circles. It has a closed off connotation and conversations and can make it uncomfortable for many people to engage in hard topics. So it goes on from there. I mean, it's got things like, you know, racial constructs, explaining way crime, gender orientation correctness, you know, the whole dead naming and cis gender language that's in there, and it's basically telling Democrats you should be avoiding these things in order to sound like you're more mainstream. You know, AP I hear you, I read I reader your story over on your sub stack, and I think there's a lot of truth to what's being said there. I'm not sure if you caught this clip. This is from just a couple of hours ago, earlier this morning in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Democrats are meeting for their summer meeting. The RNC had theirs last week. I like to play for you the opening of this meeting and we'll see if it lines up with some of this analysis from these think tanks. Good morning, DNC members, friends and relatives. Let's talk about the land for a second. The DNC acknowledges and honors the Dakota Yata, the Dakota people who are the original stewards of the lands and waters of Minneapolis. The Dakota cared for the lands, lakes and the Wakatanka, the Great River the Mississippi for thousands of years before colonization. This land was not cleaned or traded. It's a part of a history of broken treaties and promises, and in many ways we still live in a system built to suppress indigenous people's cultural and spiritual history. Well there you go, ap, So, I guess maybe the Democrat National Committee not necessarily getting some of these talking points as they are talking about the indigenous land in Minneapolis, Minnesota being stolen. What do you make of that? That's actually par for the course. In the North Carolina Democratic Parties set of resolutions that they adopted at their meeting earlier this year had a land acknowledgment and as well. So, I guess these things are sort of they've become a little bit of a butt of a joke, you know, of things that you can expect. The Third Way article basically closes out by saying that you know it's to someone up says, you can think about all these things, but just don't say them out loud or you'll scare the normies away. Well, I mean, I think there's some truth to that. Ap I've been talking about this in my podcast over the last couple of months, and I've described it as kind of an internal turf war that's going on in the Democrat Party. You've got some presumably from some of these think tanks that are writing these reports saying, hey, guys, this stuff is not very popular with the electorate. We've got to not be talking about this stuff publicly. Then on the other side of it, you've got this very activist wing of the Democrat Party that seemingly is oblivious to the fact that this is killing them in elections. Yeah, no, it is. And it's also killing them in registrations, as in New York Times laid out in an article just late last week over the weekend, you know, Democrats voter their share a voter registration is declined dramatically between you know, just where it was a couple of years ago, in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, into twenty twenty five. It's but on a downward directory actally since in twenty nineteen, with a few plateaus in there. But the Republicans have had the opposite. They had a bump in twenty twenty, they dropped in twenty twenty one, and they've steadily made climbs ever since, hitting a high in twenty twenty four. So it's and it's the same thing here going on in North Carolina. You know, we're a battleground state and it's looking like, you know, by early maybe spring of twenty twenty six, that the Republican Party will overtake Democrats as the largest party in the state. You know, unaffiliateds of course would be the largest share in the state aside from the parties. That's typical. But that registration trend has continued for months and months and months now, and there's been no answer from the Democratic Party over that. So, you know, they they seem to be dropping f bombs and in all kinds of language all over the place, and it's not really helping them to look like they're actually doing something for the American people. We're joined this afternoon by ap Dyllan. She's a reporter over at the North State Journal. He also has a substack called more to the Story at ap Dylan dot substack dot com. Ap Do you think some of this has to do with the fact that Republicans, at least as of right now have a face of the movement in Donald Trump versus the Democrats where things are a little bit scattered right now. We know Gavin Newsom of course is making his political power play out in California, but then you've got Bernie Sanders and AOC flying private jets all over the country talking about stopping the oligarchy. Do you think it's maybe because there's no strong leader really pulling the party together that some of these issues are taking place. Well, I think that's definitely part of the problem. I think that it really came to a head when the Democratic Party put Kamala Harrison should They installed her basically as the candidate, and they raised, you know, all the primary voters who put Joe Biden up there. That was just sort of where it came to a head. But I think it had been coming to that direction for a while, where more and more people were seeing the Demomocrats is stepping further and further to the left while they were still staying right where they were and being attacked for it, so they started shifting a little bit more to the right. Then. I think that Donald Trump is his second term here. He just doesn't care. He doesn't care what anyone thinks. He's going in there and he's doing his agenda the way he wants to do it, and whether you like it or hate it, that's some pretty bold leadership going on there, and it's emboldened people to say, you know what, I'm not going to take up that's garbage anymore. I'm not going to be called a big anymore. I'm not going to let you cancel me anymore. And that's you know, we had years and years and years of that heading into the twenty twenty four election. I think people that was a good reason why people were fed up. They weren't hearing what they needed for their everyday needs from the Democrats. They were hearing what the Republicans saw happening and would do about it. And in this last eight months, Donald Trump is he's gone crazy. He's absolutely ramped up every single promise that he's made and he's doing, he's making good on them, and that's created these protests, you know, the fifty to fifty one protests and that sort of thing where they're literally protesting good things that are happening, you know, you know, reducing crime, securing the border, you know, trying to get our business partners and our trade partners internationally to come to the table and to give us a fair shake on trade deals. I mean, he's doing all these things, and you know, it's resulted in protests from the left. And I think the average American is looking at that saying, wait, what, you cannot like the guy, but if he's doing good things, then you know, you can't necessarily protest that. Hey, pee, let me ask you this as we round out the conversation this afternoon. One of the big problems that I see the Democrat Party facing is the loud, vocal minority that exists on the far left side of the political aisle. These are the ultra activists that are conducting these protests, that are leading these marches so on and so forth. They are trying to grab control of the party, while more moderate Democrats are waking up to the fact and realizing that these ideas are so wolf fully unpopular that they can't win elections. How do you see that shaking out over the next sixteen, eighteen twenty four months. Well, I think it's going to be interesting because typically heading into the midterms, it's the party in power that tends to get whimmied when it comes to congressional and Senate seats on the national level. But if things continue on the path that they're on right now, the only concern that I think Republicans really have going into it is bringing down the cost of groceries and things because teriff delays are going to hit. Everyone knew that that was going to happen. They knew there was going to be a spike in prices, but you know, the energy prices are going down, which is going to help ameliorate some of that. I think that heading into it, you know, Republicans have a lot of good things to talk about, and Democrats have what to talk about that they tried to break into an ice office, or that they were backing a guy who is you know, you know, he's accused of you know, trafficking human beings across the country from being deported back to a different country. I mean they're I don't really see a whole lot of leadership, especially you know, they're trying to rally around or nif Cavin Newsom is trying to get people to rally around him. But if you look at what he's done in California, businesses have fled, you know. I mean it was one of the states that had the highest amount of businesses that left the state, the highest amount of millionaires that left the state. And you know, his downtown area is full of homeless people. You know, they're trying to stop ice from you know, taking criminal legal aliens off the streets. It's just it's chaos in California. So I think heading into twenty twenty four or not sorry, twenty twenty six, into those midterms, we're going to see whether or not all the things that Donald Trump and the Republicans have done, they've kept their promises, whether or not that's going to have any sort of credibility with the voters going into it. I mean, if if the average voter feels like they're on a better course so their life feels better, they're going to tend to stay in the Republican lane because the Democrats have given them no reason to shift. Lanes some great analysis this afternoon, AP, How can folks keep up to date with your publications? You can visit us at nsjonline dot com. That's where I write for a North State Journal, and my substack is AP Dylon dot substack dot com and you can follow me on x at AP Dylan with an underscore. Right at the end. Thanks for the time, AP, Very much appreciated. Appreciate you joining us this after. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. 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She's over at the North State Journal, her Substackapdilan dot substack dot com and a new piece she's got out over there talking about some of these memos from Democrat tank groups, especially telling democrats to stop using a variety of words that they continue to push in the face of the American voting populace. And when I read through this, when you read through this, you would of course look at this and say, well, of course these things are not popular with the vast majority of the American people. But it's amazing that even with these memos coming out, even with these groups on the left, these are not right wing groups telling Democrats not to say things. These are democratic groups advising the Democrat Party to stay away from terms. They're just uninterested in doing it. And it does, i think, lay out the struggle and the power struggle that is ongoing right now within the Democrat Party. You've got those on the radical left that believe that their ideals are perfect and that anything that they say or do is the greatest thing ever, It's the greatest thing on God's green Earth, and everybody else is just totally dead wrong. They're the ones that are in the right. Their ideas are perfect. Then you've got the more moderate group of Democrats that understand that those people's ideas are crazy and that if those ideas are attached to every Democrat candidate across the board, from President to Congress, down to your local city council, your county commission, your governor races across the country that it spells a recipe for a disaster, because these things are completely it's nothing more than a complete and total fairy tale that these people are living in where they believe that walking around the country and talking about a birthing a person makes any sense at all. That saying that somebody is pregnant. Who can't say that, because then you're assuming that you're talking about a woman. Can't We can't, No, we can't do that. So we need to call it and call the situation somebody that is a birthing person. These are the kinds of terms that they believe will win them favor with the majority of the American populace claiming that a woman is not the only person that can get pregnant. That's why we need to use the term birthing person as an alternative. Is something that is politically successful, politically expedient for those on the left. Talked about eighty twenty issues a little while ago. This is another example. And when you look at all of these terms, these are eighty twenty issues that the Democrats and the left are absolutely unequivocally on the wrong side of. And it's funny because you've watched Donald Trump take a lot of these eighty twenty issues and hit them with a hammer over the last couple of months. Right. One of the greatest examples men and women's sports, something that the left pushed and yelled and screamed about so much. They were in such support of allowing dudes, biological men to compete in women's sports. Trump's in the Oval office, like less than two weeks signs an executive order protecting girls and young females and their ability to compete in a safe sporting environment with individuals of their own sex, and the left completely loses the argument. I mean literally, with the stroke of a pen. It's done. It's pretty remarkable to watch, and it's going to be very interesting as we head into the midterms to see if they can keep this up and really what kind of effects it will have for the elections coming up here in the next year. 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. Here in North Carolina, the North Carolina Supreme Court rolled on a variety of cases on Friday, some of them set to have some major impacts across the state of North Carolina. Earlier this morning, on the Carolina Journal News Hour, I had the opportunity to catch up with Mitch Kokei. He's over at the John Locke Foundation to talk about a major case involving a bar owners and restaurant owners that have been brought forth litigation against the state of North Carolina over the fact that their bars and restaurants were shut down during the COVID nineteen pandemic. They got a major win from the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday. Here was part of my conversation with Mitch on The Carolina Journal News Hour. Yes, and actually, one of the interesting things about this is that they really get back to the starting line of where their case started. You remember, Nick, and the listening audience will remember that in twenty twenty, as COVID was really striking the state, most businesses shut down, and the government forced most businesses to shut down. But as time went on, businesses were allowed to reopen. Restaurants and bars were forced to shut down. Restaurants reopened more quickly. Some bars were allowed to reopen while others could not, and a lot of bars, even when they could reopen, had restrictions on them. And so after the initial heat of the COVID shutdowns and as time went on, two different groups of bars sued the governor at that time, Governor Roy Cooper, saying that the shutdowns violated their constitutional rights. Now, these cases have worked their way all the way to the State Supreme Court, and last October the Supreme Court heard arguments in both of the cases, and then on Friday, the court issued its ruling in both cases, two separate decisions written by two different justices, but basically the same result, saying that in both cases the bar owners do have a right to move forward with their constitutional claims against the government under the provision of the State Constitution called fruits of their own or fruits of your own labor, basically our state Constitution guaranteeing us the right to the enjoyment of the fruits of our own labor, meaning basically that the government shouldn't stop you from doing your job unless there's a really compelling reason. Now, in coming to this decision, there are some interesting twists. It was five to two, so the Republicans were in favor of this on the State Supreme Court, while the two Democrats were not. They dissented. In one case, it was the majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Paul Newby. In the other case, the opinion was written by Justice Phil Berger Junior, and then the two Democrats traded off on who was going to dissent Anita Earl's descendant in one case, Alison Riggs and the other, and then they joined each other's descents. But basically, the idea is that the government cannot basically brush off a lawsuit when there is a constitutional claim on violation of violating the fruits of your own labor clause of the state Constitution. This doesn't mean the bars are going to end up winning, doesn't mean the bars are going to end up collecting any money from state government, but it basically means they do have the right to go in front of a trial judge and try to make the case that their rights were violated and that they should collect money. So this is far from over, but it is a big win for the bar owners in the sense that the state government couldn't come along and just say, no, we did this to help public health and safety. You have no case and your case should be dismissed. Mitch, it's kind of hard to go back and remember what was going on during twenty twenty. It was a long time ago and there were a lot of moving pieces. The field goal posts constantly shifting back and forth on everything. But one of the major things I remember when this lawsuit was getting kicked off and from some of the individuals that are part of these lawsuits, And as you mentioned in the open restaurants were able to reopen pretty quickly, albeit with limited to capacity, maybe some outdoor dining, not as many people inside, with some restrictions. But as the months and days went on through COVID nineteen and through twenty twenty, a lot of bars were essentially shuttered, almost permanently, some of them no longer in business because they continued to have to pay their ABC license and all of the other costs associated with operating their business. The restaurant next door was open, but because the bar did serve food, they were almost permanently closed. That's right. One of the arguments that was made in both of these cases is disparate treatment. That some bars were allowed to reopen if they were in a restaurant or if they were in some sort of country club setting, but that private bars had to remain closed, and even when they were allowed to reopen, the restrictions were such that they couldn't actually make a living. One of the Supreme court opinions made reference to the fact that the trial court record showed that restrictions on bars lasted for four hundred days or so, so well over a year, well beyond the point that most people were getting back to work, and deciding that COVID nineteen, while still a concern, was certainly not something that should stop them from doing their jobs and stopped them from doing things out in the public. So that is going to be one of the arguments as this goes forward in a trial court level, assuming that it does, assuming that there isn't some sort of settlement, that the bar owners will argue, look, we were treated differently and in a way that violated our rights. If every business had had to face the same sort of restriction, or if every business that served alcohol had faced the same sort of restriction, there would probably be a weaker case for the bar owners. But they argued that what was done to them was different than what was done to other businesses that basically faced the same sort of situation and same sort of s circumstances, And that's going to be one of the parts of the argument, I think from a constitutional perspective, The biggest piece of this is that the State Supreme Court is really putting a lot of weight behind this provision in the state constitution that says that you have a constitutional right in North Carolina to the enjoyment of the fruits of your own labor, and if the government is going to restrict that right, it really needs to have a great justification for doing so. It can't just say we think this is a good idea and it's reasonable, and so you can't sue. You really have to have a legitimate, compelling reason to violate someone's economic rights. That was Mitch Kokai. He joined me earlier this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can hear weekday mornings of five to six right here on Newstock eleven ten and ninety nine to three WBT. One of just a few of the many major decisions from the United from the North Carolina rather Supreme Court coming out on a Friday as a bar and restaurant owners sued a former governor, Roy Cooper and the State of North Carolina over the unconstitutional closure of their business. Even though COVID many many years in the rearview mirror, it is interesting to watch us some of these legal cases play out still to this day, and we'll keep an eye on that over on the Carolina Journal website. That's Carolina Journal dot com. All right, you hear me talk a lot about incentives, right, Well, let's talk about incentive trips, the kind that companies offer employees to fire them up and reward their teams. If you own a business or you work somewhere that offers these incentive trips, first off, good for you. 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Nick Craig in four Pete this afternoon seven four five seven zero eleven ten, as we're talking about some statewide news, a big decision, actually many big decisions out from the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday. We're just talking about the multiple bar owner and advocacy groups for a bar and restaurant owners that have been suing the state of North Carolina going on four years over the fact that the state they believe unconstitutionally shut down their business that is now allowed to move forward according to an order from the North Carolina Supreme Court, another one of their major rulings, and it's an interesting case. It's specifically dealing with a fired State Department of Transportation worker, and while that story is really only interesting to the worker himself, the big thing that came out of this case was that government agencies no longer have the ability to be the sole interpreters of state law, and it specifically instructs courts not to use what is traditionally called deference when dealing with state laws or state regulations. So it's not immediately clear how exactly this is set to play out. But it does parallel a situation that unfolded at the United States Supreme Court back a couple of years ago. You may have heard of the Loper Bright case, also some discussion around the Chevron doctrine that the Chevron deference rather up at the United States Supreme Court level. That is something that had been on the books for about fifty years, and while it involved the Chevron Oil Company at the time, the gist of it was that a federal entity or a federal agency received deference in a courtroom when arguing or debating laws, rules, or regulations, making it almost impossible for an outside party, whether that be a company or a private individual, suing the government. It made it almost impossible to secure a victory because the court was giving deference to the state, the federal entity, the federal agency that had the ability to interpret what the rules really meant. And so with this case in North Carolina on Friday, I think this is going to have a magnetuve It's going to have a huge impact on the state and it could be something that as we watch in the months and years going forward, could play a massive impact. According to Justice Richard Dietz, who wrote for the Court's majority opinion, he says, quote, at its heart, this case presents a rather stateforward question of statutory interpretation. Before we get there, however, we first must address who decides that question. He continued by saying, several decades ago, parroting federal law, the Court of Appeals held a tent of statutory construction that a reviewing court should defer to the agency's interpretation of a statute in its administration so long as the agency's interpretation is reasonable and based on a permissible construction of the statue. Boiling that down, it means that, well, if you are suing, for example, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, and there is statute that is at question, the courts are going to defer to de Q as the subject matter expert on the statue the law that is on the books, and that made it, of course, incredibly complicated and tough for a third party group. And again a company or an individual to sue the State of North Carolina, sue an entity in the state of North Carolina, because of course the agency here, for example, we're talking about NCDEQ, the Department of Environmental Quality, they are going to interpret the laws they are going to interpret statue that is beneficial to them, and in years past the court has given them deference to do so. It's been a big time issue up at the federal level, and it's been an issue here in North Carolina as well. For example, with the Chevron deference in that case being overturned by the United States Supreme Court about two years ago. That has put a serious roadblock in place for federal entities like EPA to make overburdensome and ridiculous regulations that you essentially couldn't challenge in court. And so the lower Bright decision up at the federal level was a major change something that had been on the books for fifty years. And now we're seeing that that similar thing is unfolding here in North Carolina, with Justice Richard Deets talking about saying directly in his piece quote, we never approved this interpretation of a rule, and it directly conflicts with our own precedent requiring courts to review questions of all laws. And so this is specifically dealing with, again the case of a fire Dot employee. But the greater impacts, the greater implications, are likely to be felt throughout every piece of North Carolina government going forward from laws passed by the North Carolina General Assembly to potentially rules and regulations passed by entities like NCDQ, DHHS. That the list goes on and on with all of these state entities that could now no longer have what I'll call the upper hand in the legal system as these cases continue to roll out. I'll have more details on that tomorrow morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can catch five to six am right here on WBT. It's been a pleasure to sit in for the Great Pete Calendar this afternoon News Talk eleven three WBTT. 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 thepeteclendarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.