Operation Seizey Pounce activated! This not a drill! (08-06-2025--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 and 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 thepeteclendershow 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. So, in case you did not get the memo, Operation cz Pounds has been activated. Everybody, Operation cz pounce in effect. Okay, we are we are to be pouncing and we are to be seizing. But Pete, upon which item are we to pounds and seize? Well, there are a lot, I know, but in this case it is over the Democrat Representative Delia Ramirez from Illinois. Believe she's out of Chicago. Here's the headline from newsweek dot com, which activated the alert Mega calls for Democratic rep to be deported over Guatemala comments. Right, So this is the journalism in rule number two, which is when the scandal concerns a Republican, then the story is the scandal. When the scandal involves a Democrat, then the story is the Republican reaction to the scandal. Hence the pouncing. Republicans are pouncing on comments made by a Democrat. Say, it's not the comments that are the scandal, it's the Republican reaction to the comments. That's the framing of the story. That is always the framing of these stories. They're not running around sticking microphone in the face of Democrats asking them to defend and disavow d or d defender, disavow. They do that with Republicans. If some you know, backbencher in Idaho says something stupid, then they run around. Media runs around and asks every single Republican at every level, municipal, county, state, national, all of them, what do you think about this comment that was made by this backbencher in Idaho? Do you agree? Do you defend his comments? Do you disavow his comments? They don't do that with Democrats. The story is always the reaction. So what did Democratic Congresswoman Delia Ramirez say that activated journalism in rule number two and then by default operation cz pounds? What happened? What did she do? What did she say? Well, she said in another country, she went to Mexico for a summit of a bunch of progressive Central and South American and Caribbean leaders, and she went. She went overseas. Basically, she went to a foreign nation. And she told these people, as a representative in the House, she told them, quote, I am a proud Guatemalan before I am an American. That's problematic, though. I don't want to go to pouncy here. I don't want to seize two hard. But that's kind of problematic considering that you were elected to represent Americans and as part of that job, you actually took an oath to do that. So this is problematic. Again not trying to go too hard on the season and the pouncing. The controversy surrounding Ramirez's comments cuts to the heart of ongoing tensions in the US over immigration and questions of national identity, which have been intensified by the Trump administration's America First agenda. So, according to this piece by Aliyah Shoaib at Newsweek, it's Trump's fault. See, it's all Trump's fault when running for president. If he had just advocated that he not put American interests first, then she never would have said this. It's just this war and now this will be Johnson. That's why I whipped up on you, Jennay. This is absolutely ridiculous. Okay, this is This is not Donald Trump's fault. This is not America First's fault. This is not Maga's fault. You said this thing because either your Spanish is terrible, or you said this thing because you think this is true. Or you said this thing because you wanted them to think you believed it and you wanted the applause. You did it for the clicks, right. Maybe you thought this this comment would not get picked up by any media outlets because you are some backbencher in the House. It's possible. Ramirez made the comment about being a proud Guatemalan while speaking in Spanish at a summit in Mexico City over the weekend. A clip of her speaking went viral on social media, sparking backlash from Republicans and conservative commentators, some of whom called for her to be deported or removed from Congress. Here's Representative Andy Ogles, who has very good eyesight. From what I understand, he is out a Tennessee and he wrote on Twitter, quote natural deport and kick her off of Homeland Security Committee. We know where her allegiances lie, right, Yeah, you're a member of the Homeland Security Committee, so you should probably, I don't know, place the interests of the American homeland above the interests of the country, which, by the way, she was not even born in. Her parents were, but she was not. Okay, she's an American citizen. She was born here to immigrants from Guatemala. I don't know if they were legal or illegal. Newsweek doesn't tell us this. So I don't think you can denaturalize and deport, but kick her off a Homeland Security committee, Yeah, I think I think you could do that for her comments, unless, of course, she says, I'm sorry, you know, Spanish isn't my first language, and I messed up on my on my translation, on my Spanish or something. She could say that. I mean, she didn't say that, but she could have said that. The Department of Homeland Security weighed in on Twitter responding to the video, quoting former President Teddy Roosevelt about Americans needing allegiance to the United States and calling for the condemnation of any other loyalties. Ramirez has represented Illinois and Congress since twenty twenty three. She's the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, and she has responded to the criticism, writing on Twitter, quote, honoring my Guatemalan ancestry only strengthens my commitment to America. Honoring my Guatemalan ancestry only strengthens my commitment to America. I don't even know what that means. I don't like, I try to understand the arguments, you know, from both sides, all sides and these types of dispute, but I don't know what that means. Honoring your ancestry strengthens your commitment to America, your ancestry from a different country. But that's the thing. You didn't simply say, I honor my ancestry. You said I'm proud I am a proud Guatemalan before I'm an American, which has built into the sentence structure. They're a prioritization. No, yes, it does. I have our entire statement, and I actually have an analysis from gen Garlos Sopo from National Review, which is very helpful because he recognizes, as he says that a lot of my no oblo pals he calls us, they know oblo Espanol, and so he calls them by no oblo pals because they don't speak Spanish, and so whenever something like this happens because she was speaking in Spanish, the people who don't speak Spanish that are as friends or as colleagues, they go to him and they're like, what does this say? What is she actually saying? Because this was the first line of defense was that no, no, no, you don't understand what she's saying. That's a mistranslation. She's just saying this other thing. And he's like, no, she's not, that's not accurate. 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 could 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. This from the text line, Pete, I enjoy the show. According to Rachel compost Duffy on Jesse last night on Fox, Congresswoman Ramirez's parents were illegals, they were dreamers. Interesting. I think that's from Todd. Lance says, if she's just saying she's proud of being Guatemalan, that's not an issue. I completely agree. But saying you are loyal to Guatemala before the United States, that is an issue. That is an fixed violation at the very least. And Scott says, just like Agador Spartacus in the documentary The Bird Cage, we are just afraid of her guatemalaness wata aleness. Okay, I haven't seen the bird cage in Forever. What she said is translated as I'm a proud Guatemalan before I'm an American. That's what's got her in hot water. And she could have come out and just said, sorry, my Spanish isn't so great. I was raised in America. I'm an American, but I have Guatemalan roots. My parents are Guatemalans, and so we spoke Spanish around the house and all of that, and so maybe I just missed. I messed up on the translation, and all of this would have been done. It wouldn't even have made a news cycle. But here's what she put out. Quote. Let's call it what it is, today's attacks. Sorry, weak attempt to silence my dissent and invalidate my patriotic criticism of the nativist, white supremacist authoritarians in government. It is the definition of hypocrisy that members of Congress, who betray their oath each day they enabled Trump are attacking me for celebrating my gwad Amalan American roots. No one questions when my white colleagues identify as Irish American, Italian American, or Ukrainian American to honor their ancestry. See, but that's not what you did. And if what's her name, Sparts, who's the Ukrainian woman, she's a Republican, Victoria I think is her first name, Victoria Sparts. And if she came out and said that I'm a proud Ukrainian before I'm an American. If she had said that, yeah, then we would have full blown coverage. Well maybe not because it's Ukraine and the media likes Ukraine. But I don't know, like we may get people would we probably would have media running around asking people, Hey, do you defend or disavow this comment from Sparts. She hasn't said that. She says she's an American, she's a proud American. But again, you know, she's playing the victim tendency for interpersonal victimhood. This is the disorder, the psychological disorder. You vie yourself as the oppressed, as the victim intal circumstances, and then you see everything through this prism. So of course it's not your fault that you said something like this. No, no, it's those racists that are saying it about you because they're racists. Also, I'm not aware of anybody in the Congress that identifies themselves as an Irish American, an Italian American, a Ukrainian American. Republicans don't do the hyphenated thing, Okay, they don't. She goes on to say, I've consistently expressed pride in my heritage and history, a pride also often reflected in the origin stories of my colleagues. Only those who believe America should not include the children of immigrants or be diverse would attack me and Americans like me for honoring my roots. Again, that's not why people are attacking you. It's not because you have these ancestral roots. It's not for your heritage. It's for the comments that you said, specifically that you said you're a proud Guatemalan before you're an American. Honoring my Guatemalan ancestry only strengthens my commitment to America, which I don't understand what that means. That is the truth I carry with me always, and it is a truth that many Americans carry with them. We are the living and breathing realization of the idea of America a place where a multicultural, multi racial democracy can prosper. I am the daughter of immigrants and the daughter of America. I am both Chippina and American. I am from both Guatemala and Chicago, Illinois. Anyone who denies our claim on this country simply because we dare to honor our diverse heritage and immigrant roots only exposes how fragile and small minded their own idea of America really is. Signed Congressman Delia Ramirez. Note what's not in there a denial that there's some sort of a mistranslation going on, because it's not. There's not a mistranslation Gincarlo Sopo, he says at the National Review. As tends to happen anytime a Latino issue breaks the internet. My phone's been lighting up like a Sabado jigante prize wheel with translation requests since last night. This time the drama comes courtesy of Illinois Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, who took the stage at a far left conference in Mexico City last weekend and proudly declared yosoi Guatemalteca comucho orgurio primero quesoy Americana. He says, I get the confusion from my Noablo pals. Her Spanish was mangled. The proper phrasing for such verbal excrement would have been antees de sera Americana, but the meaning was crystal clear. I'm proudly Guatemalan before being American. The problem here is that Ramirez is not actually Guatemalan. She was born in Chicago. That's what I mean. Like you and you swore an oath to this country, not Guatemala. But it is kind of on brand for a progressive, you know, left wing kind of summit that she attended down in Mexico City. It does track, 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 generation. 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. One last point on this uh. The latest outrage this from Delia Ramirez. She's a congresswoman from Chicago who said she's proudly Guatemalan before being American at a summit down in Mexico among Central and South American nations. From Giancarlo Sopo at National Review, he said, some of her defenders now claim the reverse of what she said, that she's American first, but she's just proud of her roots. The problem is that that's not what she said. A sentence like that would have been structured differently. Still, if it's what she meant, then she could just say Spanish is my second language. I actually my first language is LATINX. But instead she claimed no one would have cared if she had said what she that she was a proud European, right, which is obviously absurd. Now, Sopo goes on to say that she should not be stripped of her American citizenship, but she has forfeited her Guatemalan ness, not because her Spanish is lousy. She lost it because Guatemalans are cool people, and this congresswoman might be a lot of things, but cool is most certainly not one of them. That's oh, so there you go. That's Gane Carlos Sopo at National Review. I don't know if she's a member of the squad. I don't know. But members of the squad also attended. I think I have a list here now, that's fine, but I know I saw Ilan Omar was there, as was Rashida Talib, noted members of the Central and South American heritage. But yeah, so, I don't know if there were any other members of the squad there, And I don't know if this woman Ramirez is a member of the squad, but I did see this story about another member of the squad who is now and I think people should not I was going to say sleep on her, but I know how that sounds as I was about to say it, so I don't mean it like that. IM just like you, people need to be aware. Alexandria gazu Quartz AOC. I think people, particularly on the right, they look at her as like quote, just a bartender, and they just dismiss her as silly, as not very smart, go back to bartending and all of that. And I think that's a mistake. I do. I think like young attractive female socialist, you know, buddies up to Bernie Bros. Buddies up to the Islamo fascist adjacent demographic that Democrats are obviously hoarding. I think that that she could be a formidable opponent to whoever she runs against, whether Democrat like Chuck Schumer in the in the US Senate seat in New York, or if she runs for president. And there's more and more talk of her becoming more interested in becoming president. So that's I mean, you know, don't sleep on her. Oh, I know how that sounds like, just don't ignore the possibility that she could actually be a good candidate for president for the Democrats and could win. I don't. I don't know if she would. I'm not making a prediction. I'm just saying be on the lookout. Zabolo for AOC, A b O l O for EOC, okay, but there's something a little weird that the Washington Free Beacon picked up on the Washington Free Beacon and a National Treasure story written by Andrew Kerr, something has been missing from her. If you guessed the ring, you are correct. It's a ring. A ring has been missing. Hasn't been pictured with her wedding engagement ring since November of twenty twenty three, according to an extensive Washington Freebeacon review of pictures from Getty, which is a you know, photo clearing house kind of operation, as well as associated press images, also her social media posts, also her public appearances. It's been absent for seventeen months. It's gone unnoticed in the press. I mean, well, to be fair, they could not. They did not notice Joe Biden's cognitive decline, So can they really be counted on to notice a missing ring from her finger? But it raises a bunch of questions, and it's not just like the page six gossipy kinds of questions all right, now, So she's been engaged to her low profile fee s, a web developer named Riley Roberts, who proposed to her during a vacation to Puerto Rico in April of twenty twenty two. No news of their nuptials has emerged in the three years since, so they've been engaged for quite a long time. A Kasio Cortes confirmed that Roberts proposed to her with a zero emission ring, which is good because you do not want rings to be constantly, you know, emitting things, especially odors, because that could be kind of awkward. She said it was made from recycled gold. She later reported this gift because she's a member of Congress you have to report gifts, and so she reported it to be worth a little over three thousand dollars and it was a constant presence on her ring finger on her left hand during the first year and several months of the engagement. She flaunted it to her followers on Instagram Live. She sported it on her overseas junket to Latin America. She wore to televised committee hearings. The ring can be seen in almost every photo taken of the lawmaker in public with a clear shot of her left hand between May of twenty twenty two through November of twenty twenty three, and then starting around December twenty three, it just disappeared. And here's why it's important. The legal status of her relationship with Roberts carries significant financial end ethical ramifications for the potential twenty twenty eight presidential candidate. By virtue of remaining unmarried to AOC, Roberts gets to keep privacy privileges that are not afforded to the legally married spouses of other lawmakers. He's been exempt from publicly disclosing his assets, stock trades, places of employment. He doesn't have to say any of this on his annual financial disclosure forms. It's a level of secrecy that her married colleagues do not enjoy. Think Nancy Pelosi's husband, Kendra Arnold, the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust it's a watchdog group, said that AOC and Riley Roberts, I guess he would go by r R AOC and RR. What do we call it? Like a ROB? Like don't you put the two names together? Is not how you do this like with the two names, so al Rob, Alex Rob a rob. Anyway, they are benefiting from a loophole in congressional financial disclosure rules that provide different treatment from members long term partners versus spouses. So the fact that the ring is no longer on her finger for this amount of time may indicate that her relationship has turned sour, but it doesn't appear that way from their actions. They were filmed walking out of a Brooklyn movie theater together back in March of twenty four, looked like a date. She wasn't wearing her ring, Though public records also indicate the couple still live together. They're both registered to vote out of the same apartment in Queens, New York. Adding to the mystery is that AOC referred to Roberts as her spouse, and she did so in four different House Ethics Committee filings related to her overseas travel in twenty twenty three. The committee defines a lawmaker's spouse as quote someone to whom you're legally married. But AOC's office insisted to the Washington Free Beacon in response to those documents that she was quote not legally married. So why are you claiming him as your spouse? Or is this one of those democrats socialists of America. Things? Remember from yesterday where we played the clips and they were like, we have to destroy the family unit, tear down the family unit. It's part of the caarcerl state and all of that. Maybe that's the deal. Maybe so like she doesn't want to get married because she does want to be part of the carceral state, because that's a plank in the DSA platform. Maybe I don't know, I'm just spitballing here. People, 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, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. 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One message here from Russ regarding AOC's missing ring per his wife Sharon, if you're engaged for more than two years and your man isn't deployed, you're not getting married. You know. Well, Christy and I were engaged for a while, mainly because neither one of us wanted to plan the wedding, which I was kind of surprised by. I thought she would really want to plan the wedding, but we realized, yeah, we really don't. We don't really want to do this. It seems like a lot of work. We eventually came around and we did it, but obviously don't remember how long our engagement was, though I want to say it was like three years. But she never took the ring off. So I don't know if that's a hard and fast rule, but it's probably a good rule of thumb or finger in this case, although the thumb is not a finger, it's a digit as I understand it. Anyway, Beyonce is now in a new ad campaign for Leviy's, which is kind of smart. If you're any other Genes company and you just saw what happened, you probably would benefit from putting, you know, an attractive woman in some denim and try to ride this wave, you know, try to get some residual effect off of the ed campaign. The singer appears with really blonde, curly hair. Her hair is more blonde than Sidney Sweeney's, which makes her a Nazi as I understand it. She's in new photos, new new there's a w on there. New photos released by the Jeans brand comes amid the Sweeney Gate, an American Eagles ad campaign criticized by leftists claiming it was racist. Now Meghan Kelly looked at the ED and said, this is the opposite of the Sydney Sweeney ad. Quite clearly. There is nothing natural about Beyonce. Everything from her image, to her fame, to her success to her look below is bought and paid for. It screams artificial, fake, enhanced and trying too hard. Now, she did have a lot of rhinestones on her denim, but I don't know. I just see it as again, it's just a marketing deal. So Megan Kelly, that's her commentary about it. Jon Favreau, fashionista, a former Obama guy, now one of the Pods Save America Bros. Podbros as they're called. I'd bet most normal people think both ads are just companies trying to sell products by featuring a famous, beautiful women. But there are also people like Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly says, typical leftist dishonesty, acting like conservatives started this fight, and how petty we are to be commenting on a woman in a Jean's ed. Now, what God is here? Again? You know what God is here? Favro says, well, what got us here was a few random posters claim the sweeneyad is Nazi propaganda, and then the White House and then the President weighed in. Name a Democratic politician who complained about the ad by the way, Charles C. W. Cook I actually covered this the other day where he said there's a pattern here. The ad is released, a handful of people on the internet complain, and then the media swoops into action. Some people talk about it online, the press writes about it as if it's a real story. That means the opinion outlets are able to get involved, which meant that the press was able to write about it some more, which meant that other people were guaranteed to talk about it online, and before too long we had one of those perplexing news cycles that starts with a single mind numbing complaint from the most ridiculous people in the country and end with daily updates on whether any of these figures who are passively involved in the circus have yet responded to the allegations. And that's what we have here. The bad guy in all of this is the media. Oh and by the way, American Eaglestock up twenty percent. 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.