Pete lives! Plus, ICE says it was cooking the books under Biden (03-19-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 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 thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] All right. So I do feel like every time that I am off on a vacation day or a PTO, I do feel like I have conditioned everybody to believe that I am sick because I don't take really, like, that's why I took these days is because I have so many vacation days from last year that I did not take that really the only time I ever take time off is if I am sick.

[00:00:56] So I feel like it's my fault that everybody thinks I'm sick now whenever I do take a day off. I was getting messages all day on, you know, direct my text messaging and on my emails and social media. I'm not sick.

[00:01:12] I went up on Monday. I drove up to UNC Chapel Hill and I was invited to speak to the college Republicans. And so I did. And I was like, well, you know what? I could, you know, I could work the day and then immediately jump in the car, drive up there and do the appearance and then head on back.

[00:01:38] Um, but that's like almost six hours of driving. And I thought, you know what? I'll just take the, I have these days from 2024 that I rolled over into this year. So I have to take them or I'm going to lose them. So I'll just take the whole day off. And then I thought, and then I'll take the second day. I'll take Tuesday off. Cause again, I have all these vacation days. I need to take them.

[00:01:59] So I'll take the day after because you know what with all of the driving and such. And then yesterday I just basically ran errands and did a bunch of stuff around the house. So, um, thank you to, uh, Nick Craig for filling in. I do appreciate that. And for, um, AP Dylan and Andrew Dunn for doing the, the regularly scheduled live hits, uh, that we do on Mondays and Tuesdays with both of them. Um, and so I appreciate that today.

[00:02:27] Today we're going to talk to Stacy Matthews in the third hour. She is a writer over at redstate.com and she is a OG blogger under the name sister told you. So we'll talk with her, um, later on in the program.

[00:02:45] It was a good appearance. Um, they did not organize like massive Hamas hole a protests in, in my honor or anything like that. Uh, nobody even knew who I was, which is how I like it. Um, so it was great. Um, the, the students were great. Good questions. Um, you know, we, I think we were scheduled for an hour. We went longer. Um, and we talked about all sorts of issues, you know, national, international, but also obviously, you know, Republican party.

[00:03:12] And the first thing I always tell any Republican group when I go and speak to them is full disclosure, I am not a Republican nor have I been in like two decades. Okay. I have not been a registered Republican. I was a registered Republican a long time ago. Um, then I became a libertarian registered libertarian. And then the libertarian party in North Carolina lost its, uh, designation as an officially recognized party.

[00:03:41] And so when that happened, uh, I w I became unaffiliated. The board of elections may be unaffiliated. So I just stayed that way. And I live in Charlotte. I live in Democrat districts. And so I might as well stay unaffiliated so I can vote in whichever primary I choose. So there you go. Um, but it was, it was good. It was good. We talked about, um, you know, political realignments, which I've talked about on this show many times over the years.

[00:04:08] We are in a, another political realignment. And this stuff happens. As I told the, uh, the kids in the, uh, in the college Republican group, this happens. And depending on who you talk to and who you're reading, there is a belief that either this is sort of the sixth or the seventh realignment of the American political parties.

[00:04:32] It doesn't really matter to me, like to keep the number count at this point, but that the parties are always changing, right? They're always morphing based on current events, population, um, and the electoral prospects. So right now you're seeing this realignment and I can't figure out any other explanation for it, except Democrats do not want to win anymore.

[00:05:00] I think that's where, where I think I would not be surprised if the Democrat party, uh, just completely fractures apart and you end up with more people in sort of a, a center and, uh, center left and or center right coalition forming as another type of party. Or they come in and, or they shift the Republican party because it's happening. The realignment is happening in both parties. I don't know how it shakes out.

[00:05:30] I cannot predict the future on that kind of stuff, but I, I recognize it when it's happening. I think everybody does. Donald Trump has done more to shake up the realignment. I think then anybody in my lifetime that I remember. Um, it's why you ended up with people that are quote neocons, right? That, uh, like how about this? You end up in a, uh, at a point where the Democrat nominee for president is touting the support of the Cheney's.

[00:06:01] And for anybody who was alive and paying attention 20 years ago, that would seem to be an impossibility. These, the Cheney family, they were war criminals to the Democrats along with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. I mean, the people who are going in and disrupting the congressional and Senate hearings and stuff, these are code pink people and code pink.

[00:06:30] Like they, their claim to fame was, uh, protesting George W. Bush and the Iraq war. So, and now, yeah, now you've got the left making common cause with, with the Cheney's, right? That right there or, uh, RFK Jr. As a member of a Republican cabinet, Tulsi Gabbard, same thing, right? How do we end, how did we end up in this position? This realignment is occurring.

[00:07:00] Now, there is something else and I got a message from, uh, uh, from a listener about this, about, um, the fourth turning. Have you all ever heard of this? I talked about it also with the kids at the, um, at the, uh, at the college Republicans up at Chapel Hill.

[00:07:17] So, and which by the way, had I known that they had just gotten back from spring break and that all the fraternities have their St. Patrick's Day parties, like I was up against some pretty severe counter-programming, you know? But, um, there's a thing called the fourth turning. And, uh, I forget who it was that sent me a message that, uh, the other day saying that they, was it Jason? Let me see.

[00:07:48] Yeah, it was Jason. Um, it's another data point that we are in a fourth turning generational wave. It's amazing to watch how the politics of this play out. So, so the fourth turning, and I'm not going to go in depth on this because I'm going to get into the lawfare stuff first, but I think I'm going to, uh, do more on the fourth turning, uh, hypothesis, uh, or theory tomorrow.

[00:08:14] But in short, it is that American history, indeed, much of world history can be explained by four 20 to 22 year periods back to back to back. Think seasons. It's equated to seasons. You have your, um, you start with spring, summer, fall, and then winter.

[00:08:35] And each of these generations, all of the kids that are, you know, grow up and the people that grow up and are alive during each of these two decade turnings are shaped by events, but also shape events. But it's a cyclical pattern and it always goes in the same way. And the fourth turning or winter is where we are right now. And that's the crisis phase. And it comes from external or internal and throughout American history, American history.

[00:09:02] The fourth turning, the crisis is always, uh, there as a hallmark war. And three out of the four were external wars, uh, right. The revolution. Then you have 80 years later, you get your civil war. Then you get world war, uh, two. And now we're 80 years away from that. So will it be internal or will it be external?

[00:09:31] Nobody knows, but the guys who came up with this theory, how and Strauss, uh, they wrote a book about this in the nineties. And they made five predictions for the five predictions came true. And the last one is about right now, the crisis, it being some sort of a war. So that's where, that's, that's what the fourth turning and the four turnings, these four seasons, whatever, or what do they call them? The simulacrum or something.

[00:09:58] Um, because the theory is based on ancient's understanding of this same sort of pattern. Which, if you're a believer, like, doesn't that kind of make a bit of sense that much like we have these, these seasons in our own personal lives, we have these seasons in nature. Why wouldn't we have these seasons at a, you know, a larger scale? Everything, it's the green shoots economic stuff.

[00:10:26] It's the, you know, their season to be born, a season to die. It's like you have all, it's just the natural life cycle of everything. So we talked a little about that as well, but again, I'm not going in depth on this today. I don't have any of my notes in front of me about it. That's just off the top of my head. And I am not an expert on the fourth turning stuff.

[00:10:44] Um, but that's the, I, part of that turning occurs during the third and fourth, or sorry, part of the realignment, I should say, is in the third and fourth turnings. The third is called the unraveling. That's Gen X. The unraveling. And then the crisis is the fourth turning. All right, so spring is here. A time of renewal and celebrations. You got graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and the special days for mom and dad.

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[00:12:04] Get all the details at createavideo.com. And here is Travis. Welcome to the program, Travis. Mr. P, glad to hear you're still alive. I am. You and me both. I've been hearing, I was listening to you at the start of the program talk about how parties change over time. It's not really clear where the Democrats are going. Right now, I think I see three pathways that they can take. One, and each one has different leadership in it.

[00:12:34] One is this lady who's a brand new person running for state house down in Texas. She got some airtime over the weekend because she got into an online sprat with Michael Flynn. Tara McGee is her name. And basically, her approach is all this wokeism stuff that Republicans attack Democrats for never happened. It's all just made up by right-wing extremists. That's one pathway. Just say, clean slate, all that was fake. Move forward.

[00:13:03] Another is John Fetterman. I guess you could call it like, yeah. Lie. So it's just lie, right? Okay. I got you. Okay. Lying. Okay. Yeah. But if realism is your thing, then you probably didn't think that Biden was the sharpest president anyway. Yeah. Fetterman offers this kind of middle America approach. That's, yes, we did embrace all that crazy stuff, but it really didn't make sense. Right? Maybe Seth Moulton is in that camp.

[00:13:30] So sort of a disavowal approach. Yeah. But really, you know, acknowledging that it happened, but it wasn't really productive. Right. So we need to move on from that and we need to refocus on like working class middle Americans. Yeah. Like what Democrats used to be like. Like the Clinton party or something. And the third is AOC, which is like, I don't know where you, what that is. Is that insane? Can you with what Biden did? No, it's the insane track.

[00:14:00] The insane track. Yeah. So, you know, as an aside, you know, she said that she's going to, she's going to do town halls and red districts to kind of get a feel of what they think. I have been to town halls and red districts. You know who shows up most of the time? Indivisible activists. So she's going to come away from these red, these red districts going, man, conservatives love left wing policy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think, no, I think you've, I think you've outlined a pretty plausible scenario.

[00:14:30] These three options, the, it didn't happen. The, it did happen, but it was, it was bad and we shouldn't keep doing it. Or the, it did happen and we're going to double down and keep on doing more of it. Right. That's. Yeah. Those are the three tracks. It seems like, I don't know who this person is, Sarah McGee, but I'll have to look into her. Um, I think the problem with the, uh, the Fetterman track is that I don't know. This gets to, uh, a line that Dennis Prager has used.

[00:14:58] And I cited all the time, which is that conservatives vote their principles and leftists vote their principles, but liberals do not vote their principles. Liberals will vote for the leftists. And I think that's the problem inside the Democrat party right now. And it's why you're seeing this fracturing occur because the liberals cannot stand up to the leftists. Cause that would mean they have to admit that they're actually a little bit closer to the conservatives than they want to acknowledge. And who even is that person who can carry the torch for the liberals and the democratic

[00:15:28] party? Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question too. Travis, I appreciate the call buddy. Great analysis. I like it. The, it didn't happen. It did happen, but we should change it. Or the, let's do more of it. Those are the options. 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.

[00:15:58] 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.ground.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.

[00:16:28] See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% 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. Immigration and customs enforcement arrests since President Donald Trump took office are already outpacing arrests made in all of 2024.

[00:16:58] No, really? Who could have seen that coming aside from like what the majority of voters in the last election? The agency ICE reported these numbers today while saying the Biden administration had been or sorry, last week they've reported these numbers Tuesday or Wednesday last week. So they say the Biden administration had been cooking the books regarding the numbers. Cooking the books on ICE arrests.

[00:17:30] Quote, we have uncovered that the previous administration was cooking the books on ICE data, said the acting ICE director Todd Lyons. Quote, they were purposely misleading the American people by categorizing individuals processed and released into the interior of the United States as ICE arrests. So you got so you understand what they were doing.

[00:17:57] You got two different categories, basically people who are. Processed and then released. And then another category of ICE arrests. And they were counting the ones who were processed and released as arrests. But they're not the same thing.

[00:18:21] Senior officials said that the majority of the overall 113,000 plus arrests made in fiscal year 2024 were, quote, pass through arrests. Meaning that ICE did not take an enforcement action against those foreign nationals.

[00:18:40] And they instead just passed through ICE before being released into the interior, into America, and were told to report to an ICE office. They stressed that none of the arrests made by ICE under the Trump administration have been these kinds of pass-through arrests.

[00:19:00] This is really important to understand what was occurring so we have a better understanding of what is occurring right now. With regard to, for example, and these violent criminals that were deported. And now you've got leftist lawyers with a wardrobe change saying,

[00:19:24] turn the planes around and bring these violent criminal cartel members back to America. Okay? You have to understand, this was a choice. This was a policy. This was intentional. The Biden administration intentionally imported violent criminals from all over the world,

[00:19:49] allowing everybody to pass through, you know, go through the CBP app, claim asylum, get into America, just overwhelm the system, bring in hundreds of thousands, millions and millions of people over four years. And now the same people are claiming that removing them is unconstitutional. That's why we are where we are.

[00:20:19] And always keep in mind on any of these types of issues. We're going to go deep into this lawfare stuff in the next hour. Always keep in mind, as James Lindsay from New Discourses always says, and I do as well because I totally am a shameless thief when it comes to the great lines like this. The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

[00:20:48] Is it a coincidence in your mind? Do you think it is a coincidence that the Hamas-Hole guy at Columbia, right, that got picked up and has now become a poster child for free speech somehow, what's his name? Khalil? Khalil? Is it any wonder that this guy ends up hooked up with,

[00:21:15] was it CUAD, Columbia University, anti-whatever, divestment and apartheid divestment, right? CUAD. Is it any wonder why that organization, as one of its founding principles, is the destruction of Western civilization? Do you think that's a coincidence? Why would leftists be aligned with that? Because the issue isn't the issue. The issue isn't Palestine.

[00:21:44] The issue isn't Israel. The issue is the revolution. And that's what that means. When they say that our goal is the destruction of Western civilization, that's what they're talking about. That's the revolution. That's the revolution when it comes to these types of leftist organizations' support for unchecked illegal immigration. The issue isn't the issue. It's not illegal immigration.

[00:22:13] It's the revolution. And you foment discord. You destabilize from within in order to overthrow the patriarchal, systemically racist, misogynist, sexist, all of the ists and isms, right? You have to tear it down. And you've got an entire generation that was raised on that kind of pep.

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[00:24:05] and make memories that'll last a lifetime. So according to Fox News, a report by Adam Shaw, senior officials at ICE say they were cooking the books under the Biden administration. In fiscal year 2024, ICE enforcement removal operations made 33,000 plus at-large arrests.

[00:24:30] For comparison, ICE made just under 33,000 arrests since Trump was inaugurated. January 20th through March 10th. 33,000 arrests all of last year. 33,000 arrests in three months. Meaning they're going to surpass the total number of arrests sometime this week.

[00:25:00] Of those arrests, I believe this is for this year so far, the three months, more than 14,000 were convicted criminals and almost 10,000 have pending criminal charges. The administration says the efforts are already having an effect with not only a sharp increase in arrests, but also a significant drop in encounters at the southern border. Donald Trump said this best. He said it turns out, right, that when, you know, the Democrats said,

[00:25:28] he made this comment during his, don't call it the State of the Union address, where it's just a joint, is a speech to the joint session of Congress. But it has, it's like, it's the State of the Union, basically. And he said that the Democrats had claimed they could not do all of this stuff, all of this enforcement. They could not make us safer. They could not secure the border unless we had some new legislation. And it turns out all we needed was a new president. He is exactly right.

[00:25:58] And we said this at the time. We, we may, when they were like, oh, Donald Trump killed the bill. You don't need another bill. All of the laws exist for you to do what Trump is currently doing and what the Border Patrol and ICE are currently doing. This was intentional. Because the issue is the revolution. Over at hotair.com.

[00:26:25] Ed Morrissey points out how Democrats seem very determined to land on the most radical position possible on a great many things. And the immigration issue is just one. Now, he chalks this up to Trump derangement syndrome, TDS, right? Where he says at the end, there's only one explanation

[00:26:54] for the full speed rush to extremism. Trump derangement syndrome. Whatever Trump says or does, Democrats rush to oppose it even when it makes sense and reflects the overwhelming consensus of the electorate. Even when it's common sense, Democrats will oppose it based on their only guiding principle, which is hating Trump. It's why their entire party is now enraged that Chuck Schumer failed to stop a bill that largely kept the last Biden budget levels

[00:27:24] in place simply because Trump supported it too. Now, I would simply say on this, I understand what Ed Morrissey is writing, and I largely agree, but the hatred of Donald Trump, yes, there are a lot of people that are falling into that and they view everything through the prism of Trump. And if Trump is for it, then they're for it. And if he's against it, they're against it. And the inverse is true too, right?

[00:27:53] Trump derangement is on both ends of the spectrum. If you cannot arrive at your own belief on something, your own opinion on something, without first knowing where Donald Trump stands on it, then you are suffering from TDS as well because it deranges. It warps. Because Donald Trump may say something today and you're like, I agree with him, and then he may flip on it the next day and you're like, I now disagree with myself and I agree with him again, you know?

[00:28:23] So the same is true on the left where they see everything that he does and if he's for it, then they have to be against it. And it puts them in this ridiculous position of opposing the deportation of violent criminal gang members. This is something their own party doesn't agree with these leaders on. But I think that this is just the hate Trump, Trump derangement syndrome.

[00:28:49] I don't think it explains the underlying strategy, which is, as I said, the revolution. And Trump is standing in the way of that. Right? Trump represents sort of this boomer-era idea that, yeah, America is great, but there was too much government control on stuff and so more of an individualism kind of a spirit,

[00:29:18] the freedom to build and do stuff and make great things and such. And he's of an older generation, probably closer to the beginning of the boomers, late, silent generation, whatever. So the idea here is that we are products of, this goes to the fourth turning stuff, where you've got people who are of their generation, they're shaped by the events of their generation,

[00:29:46] and that's what he is hearkening back to. That's what makes him an attractive figure. And that's why younger people are receptive to the message because you've got another group that's now coming up and there are younger people that are looking at this and saying, I want to unify around something, and this could be it. This could be the thing. And you've got another party out there, the Democrats, that are telling you that, you know, your country is crap. And that's not a unifying message. Well, I guess for the Marxists.

[00:30:15] 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 thepetecalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.