The latest manifestation of assassination culture (06-17-2025--Hour2)

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 dpetclendershow 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. Last hour we started talking about this story that Channel thirty six WCNCTV broke yesterday. I think it was newly obtained public records show the City of Charlotte paid police Chief Johnny Jennings more than seventy seven thousand dollars in moving expenses after he was named to be the police chief in twenty twenty. He moved thirty miles from Union County into the City of Charlotte. He's required to live inside the city limits as the police chief. The Reality Caation of Relocation policy rather for the City of Charlotte allows up to sixty thousand in relocation costs for anybody in a position of a deputy department director and above, so sixty k and twenty four of that goes towards expenses, thirty six goes towards helping with the costs linked to selling an employee's primary home. And so anything above the sixty k would need city council approval and to be eligible, generally, they quote must be relocating from a distance greater than fifty miles, and he was not. He was within the fifty miles. So last hour we got a call from Earl who was running through a bunch of expenses that he says Corporate America usually pays. He says, it's very easy. He said, it was very easy to accrue seventy seven thousand dollars in moving expenses, because in my limited experience with relocation expenses being covered, I got nowhere near that if my memory serves, Like when I went up to Ashville, I think I got fifteen hundred dollars. That was it, because it was assumed that I would have a I would find a place, rent a place, and that's on me, right. But I don't know what the going rate for relocations are. But according to the WCNC story, sixty k is the is what the city program is generally giving out, which is still kind of high, it seems. So let me just read some of these messages and I'm going to move on from this topic, but I wanted to kind of for people listening on the podcast. Now you're caught up, but I highly recommend you go back and listen to the first hour. Russ says a friend took an executive position with an energy company that required a move from San Antonio to Anchorage. He didn't get anywhere close host to seventy seven thousand for that move. This is from at Patriot girl who says, well, no wonder they keep jacking up our property tax has got to keep their little scam going. How many other times has this happened? As a taxpayer? I am furious. GHC says, Oh my gosh, Caller Earl is definitely drinking the kool aid. His mindset is exactly what is wrong with this world. Good grief, And perhaps I'm missing something, But when the city of Charlotte, But when did the City of Charlotte fall into corporation rules? It's a fair point. This isn't corporate America. This is a municipal government and Chief Jennings was working for CMPD. I don't know what kind of house he had in Union County. I don't know if he built a house, was in the process of building a house. I don't know. All I have is this information from the story. It's all a distraction, says, how can I become the city moving coordinator? I would be happy to charge the city seventy seven thousand dollars and then move the person myself for around twenty k's. That's a good business opportunity, John says caller Earl trying to justify Chief Johnny Jennings seventy seven thousand. He forgets that Johnny was already working in Charlotte. He knows or should know, where he wanted to live. There's no reason for short term housing. If his kids were in school, they could have stayed because again it was just in Union County. They didn't have to move across the country immediately. All these expenses that Earl is trying to justify may make sense for a CEO of a company moving across country, But this is a government employee moving thirty miles down the road. And Dennis says, Jennings not only moved, but he paid to have his whole house moved with him. There you go, Pete A right, I would explain it just just pick up the whole house and just drive it down the road. And maybe that's what happened. So we'll see where. We'll see where that story leads, all right. Yesterday we were going over this maniac, the story about the maniac up in Minnesota that assassinated the former speaker of the state House and her husband and their dog, and attempted to assassinate another member of the legislature and his wife. Those two survived. He made his first court appearance yesterday. And now, as I said yesterday, and I think I heard Winterable say this as well on his show, that the Feds are now pressing charges. And the difference there is that there is a federal death penalty and Minnesota does not have one. The man charged with killing one Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another meticulously planned the shootings and intended to inflict more carnage against those on his hit list, driving to the homes of two other legislators on the night of the attacks, according to a federal prosecutor, but one of those state lawmakers was on vacation, and the suspect left the other house after police arrived early Saturday, according to Acting US Attorney Joseph Thompson. Investigators say the Maniac appeared to spend months preparing for the shootings, the latest in a string of political attacks across the US. This is the Associated Press report. His list of potential targets contained dozens of names, including officials in at least three other states. In Minnesota, the Maniac carried out surveillance missions, took notes on the homes and people he targeted, and disguised himself as a police officer just before the shootings. I I don't believe that nobody knew. I don't think you can do this kind of a long term operation without anybody knowing. You know, it just seems a little far fetched. You're you're you're running surveillance missions, You're keeping notes, you're taking notes, You're you're accumulating all of this these files and paperwork and stuff. Meanwhile you're you're purchasing all these firearms and stuff, and like what of the like the whole friend and roommate situation. That guy, there's something going on there. I'm I I can't figure it out. So maybe we'll get more information on this stuff. But it just it just seems weird. Okay, that thing seems weird. And the guy is out there doing like a uh press gaggle. He's talking to reporters on his front lawn and I don't I don't know the guy's name, and I don't even care, but like the I mean, I don't care to publicize his name. But he's out there talking to the press and he starts he said something like he called him Jim Biden, and what was the other name he used, Jim something. He said Jim Biden, and then he gave the name Jim something orund like, I don't know Jim Walls. Yeah, there you go. He called the governor Jim Walls. That's weird. So we are to believe that he's become radicalized by MAGA, But you don't know Joe Biden's name. He got radicalized by info Wars. That's the other one that they're citing. He was radicalized by MAGA and info Wars. Federal prosecutors charged this fifty seven year old shooter with murder and stalking, which could result in a death penalty if convicted. He already faces state charges including murder and attempted murder at a federal court hearing monday in Saint Paul, the Maniac said he could not afford an attorney, but because he spent all of his money on all of the weapons, and apparently he bought a car off a guy at a bus stop, like what oh, and an e bike from one guy. One guy's got a buick and an e bike and he's hanging out at a bus stop and you bought them from him. It's weird. A federal public defender was appointed to represent him, and he was being held without bail pending a court appearance next week. As for the quote manifesto, there isn't a manifesto, not that anybody has found. There was the hit list, not a manifesto. Authorities have not found any writings that would clearly identify what motivated him, although the targets were all Democrat elected officials, so it seems like that might have something to do with it. 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. Associated Press story on the maniac in Minnesota that assassinated two people, tried to kill even more, wounded two others. I'm not giving his name because I don't I don't elevate shooters and homicidal maniacs. I don't give them the thing that they want, which is the recognition. So there's some pieces of the story that are weird to me. I already outlined a couple of them. It's too soon to speculate on the actual motive. But even when we hear what this guy's rationalizations or justifications are there, I always say this when you know, with all of these shootings, is that rational, logical, decent people always ask the why because we cannot understand why somebody would do something like this, and you are often dealing with a deranged mind, and so their excuses, their manifestos, whatever, they don't make sense because they are deranged. I say it in every one of these cases. I mean to think about what you have to what kind of frame of mind you have to have to walk up to somebody's home, ring the bell and just murder them, and then getting your car, drive to another house and attempt to do the same thing, and then drive in a car to another house and attempt to do it again Like that is not what a rational, decent, sane person does. Right, So we're trying to understand this, but we never truly can because this is evil. This is derangement. Okay, So all of the politicians that were named on this guy's hit list were Democrats, including more than forty five state and federal officials in Minnesota, also Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. So there were a bunch of these lawmakers all over these four states. The maniac sent a text to a family group chat after the shootings, So I guess at this point he's on the run and he's texting in the group chat with his family and he says, quote, dad went to war last night. I don't want to say more because I don't want to implicate anybody. His wife got another text that then said, words are not gonna explain how sorry I am for this situation. There you go. See, this is just this is just a situation that fell to him. He has no agency, right, sorry for the situation. No, no, no, you're sorry for putting your family in harm's way because they could be shot and killed by law enforcement trying to talk to them. Right if they think that there's a threat there with your family members, if they're all in on it or something. He says, there's going to be some people coming to the house armed and trigger happy, and I don't want you guys around. Police later found his wife in a car with her children. Officers found two handguns, about ten grand in cash, and passports for the wife and her children, so they were looking to flee. Now, the law enforcement agents did talk to her and they took them into custody, I think for a little while. They interviewed them, and then they released them. So it does not appear that law enforcement believes that they had any knowledge ahead of time that this was coming. They just happened to be ready to roll with ten grand in cash and their passports. Just hours after the shootings, the maniac bought an electronic bike, an e bike, and a Buick Sedan from somebody he met at a bus stop in Minneapolis. How what you just go to catch a bus because I guess you've abandoned your fake police cruiser. That's the other thing too. Did nobody realize that he had equipped that vehicle with the police lights on it? That's odd, right, you're telling me, no acquaintance, his roommate, friend, his wife and kids. Nobody thought that was odd. Why is hey? Why is dad assembling an arsenal and rigging up his suv to make it look like a police cruiser and then he ends up at a bus stop in Minneapolis talking to some random person who happens to be in the market to sell a buick Sedan and an e bike. What are the odds? Police found the sedan abandoned on a highway Sunday morning. In that car, officers found a cowboy hat that the Maniac had been seen wearing in surveillance footage, as well as a letter written to the FBI. And the letter said it was written by doctor Maniac, except he misspelled his own last name. That's kind of weird. Why would you have misspelled your own name? And are you a doctor? No? I think he paid one of these diploma mills or something to get his to get some certificate. But whatever, But it's weird that he would use a last name, he would sign a last name and misspell it. But again, we're dealing with a deranged mind. So who knows in his mind if he did it on per who knows? Maybe I don't know, That's what I'm saying. I don't know. This is a weird piece of information. There's another one stick around. 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. Cabins of Asheville 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 Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills, outdoor tables and your own private covered porch. 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 Aashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. The Associated Press reports writings recovered from the fake police vehicle up in Minnesota included the names of lawmakers and community leaders, along with abortion rights advocates and information about health care facility abortion clinics. Okay, that's healthcare facilities. They're abortion clinics. This is according to two law enforcement officials who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to discuss details of an ongoing investigation. Friends and former colleagues interviewed by the Associated Press described the maniac as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump. He also is a former political appointee who served on the same state Workforce Development Board as one of the victims that he shot, though it's not clear if they actually knew each other. Now, what the Associated Press leaves out in that last sentence is that he was a former political appointee. That is true, but he was appointed by Governor Tim Walls. Now that doesn't mean that Tim Walls knew the guy. Right. The governor makes appointments to all sorts of things, and maybe there weren't a lot of people interested in serving on this Workforce Development board, and he submitted an application, and somebody in some office said, Okay, yeah, we need to put you know, some Republicans on there, some Democrats on there, whatever, and they put him on there. Like I'm not I don't assign any blame to Tim Walls for the actions of this maniac. I don't hold people accountable for things they did not do. David Strom, I think this is who. Yeah, David Strom over at hotair dot com. He says, my own impression is that the maniac is a man with big dreams and small accomplishments. He has portrayed himself as a mover and a shaker, and he has wheedled his way onto government commissions appointments by Democratic governors Mark Dayton and Tim Walls. But it's pretty clear that he's all hat and no cattle. His family business is called Praetorian Security Services. At this point, it looks like it never had any customers, but that's unconfirmed too. He bragged about having executive level positions in the food industry, but not so long ago. He was just a manager at a seven to eleven and until February he was working at a funeral home removing bodies. He was also the CEO of an NGO non government organization, but it's unclear what exactly that means. He was, we are told, helping the Democratic Republic of Congo with agricultural issues, but there's almost no paper trail outside of his claims. There is video of the Maniac in the Congo, but that was part of him preaching to a crowd about Christianity. Say so, not really sure like what the work he was doing there was it agricultural related? His resume, in other words, reads to me like he is a loser, a man whose aspirations far outstripped his abilities. He wanted to change the world and found that the world wasn't that interested in his ideas for changing it. He seemed to have bounced around quite a bit, always looking to strike it big and rubbing up against some important people, but never hitting it big himself. Now, to be clear and Strong points this out, this could all be a misreading of these snippets of information. There's so little hard information that it's difficult to kind of make an assessment at this early stage. Inevitably the picture will solidify over the next days and weeks. I just saw also that a mayoral candidate for New York City just went and got himself arrested at an Ice immigration court. So this is now arrest theater. I think I've seen it called busted theater. This is what Democrats are now reduced to doing, is showing up and trying to obstruct federal law enforcement from enforce the law. This is part of the permission structure for violence. And the left doesn't see it like that. I understand that they don't. This is resistance, any resistance against the Orange Man, just this war and that sob Johnson, you know. But this is all part and parcel of the same permission structure. Jesus Mesa had a piece at newsweek dot Com a couple of days ago. This would have been before the Minnesota attacks. He says, while right wing extremism is regularly dissected and denounced in mainstream media, conservatives have long complained that political violence from the left regularly receives less scrutiny or is reframed entirely to dismiss the perpetrator's progressive views. This perceived imbalance has fueled a growing belief, often discussed on conservative sub breddits or right leaning substacks and on Twitter formerly known as x that left wing violence is minimized or rationalized, while right wing violence is amplified and condemned. The Network Contagion Research Institute the NCRII this is a nonpartisan organization that studies the spread of hate, manipulation, and extremism across digital platforms. The NCRI has raised these very concerns. Based out of Rutgers University, the group uses machine learning and data analytics to identify emerging threats and ideological patterns online. Max Hoorder of the NCRI said quote, we are witnessing the alarming rise of what the NCRI calls an assassination culture. Violence targeting figures like Donald Trump or Elon Musk has gone beyond normalization. It's being sanctified as re existence by parts of the political left. And here's the thing. Crazy people, deranged people, right when when you create the permission structure, it's not contained just to the left. It spreads beyond any political ideology because they are deranged. The people who are carrying these things out are deranged and so when they see that, oh well this is acceptable. Oh I'm seeing this these surveys that democrats are fine with, you know, taking out various political leaders. That was what the polling showed, which is nuts. You create the culture, all right. So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. But let me ask you, are all of those treasured moments from days gone by? Are they hidden away on old VCR tapes, eight millimeter films, photos slides? Are they preserved? Because over time, these precious memories can fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday. At Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most. Their expert team digitizes your cherished family moments and transfers them onto a USB drive, freezing them in time so they can be enjoyed for generations to come. I urge you do not wait until it's too late this spring. Celebrate your past. Visit Creative Video today and let them preserve your legacy with the love and care that it deserves creative video preserving family memories since nineteen ninety seven. Located in mint Hill, just off four eighty five, mail orders are accepted to get all the details that create a video dot com. The Network Contagion Research Institute the NCRII based out of Rutgers University, says we're witnessing the alarming rise of what we call assassination culture. It's being sanctified as resistance, mainly by parts of the political left. The NCRI rose to prominence in recent years due to its prescient early warnings about far right radicalization, including the growth of the QAnon conspiracy theory and the risk of political violence, leading up to the certification of the election. On January sixth, twenty twenty one, Joel Finkelstein, co founder of the NCRI, recalled in an interview with Newsweek, quote they weren't an accident. They didn't come out of nowhere. They were inevitable. Now the group is raising similar concerns, this time about rhetoric emerging from the opposite end of the political spectrum. These aren't fringe beliefs anymore. They're creeping into the mainstream of activist discourse. A recent survey conducted by the NCRI found that nearly one third of respondents expressed some level of justification for acts of lethal political violence, with significantly higher support among those identifying as left of center. Fifty six percent of those respondents said murdering Donald Trump would be at least somewhat justified. Fifty percent said the same about Elon Musk. That's a problem. The poll also found forty percent of all respondents believed it was at least somewhat acceptable to destroy a Tesla dealership because you don't like Elon. Support rose to nearly sixty percent of those who identified as left of center. Think about that, sixty percent left of center people say it's okay to destroy a car dealership because you don't like somebody's politics. You don't like Elon Musk. They have a different idea of how to make the country stronger and become fiscally sound. How dare you? The poll also found, oh sorry, I already did that. Part. Ncri's analysis, based on troves of social media data, reveals how fringe internet culture has helped build what the group calls permission structures for violence. These are social environments online or offline where violent acts are no longer condemned, but tacitly accepted, if not outright and encouraged. I just mentioned it the mayor now or the mayoral candidate New York City getting arrested for trying to guy locked arms with an illegal alien that they were trying to take into custody at an immigration court. And so this mayoral candidate shows up there, locks arms with him and then resists the arrest. He got arrested. Also, right, you got Padilla storming a news conference. He had Congresswoman mac Ivor right, assaulting Ice officials at the detention facility. Right. The rise of these protests and the violence that we are seeing, it's all part of the same permission structure. And again, the issue never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. It's to tear down the infrastructure of the Western civilization project. Finkelstein said, It's not about who pulls the trigger. It's about who stays silent, who reposts a meme, who says nothing when someone jokes about killing a billionaire. That's how the corridor to violence gets built. One example, obviously, the shooter of the United Healthcare CEO. He says they were acting within a worldview that told them these killings would be celebrated and online they were. Left wing extremism is often overlooked, said Jacob Goule, the director of policy and Research at the Institute for a Strategic Dialogue. He says it's overlooked in part because the worst state abuses and non state violence associated with proponents of communist and socialist ideologies happened several decades ago. Some actors on the broader far left continue to carry out or support acts of political violence and terrorism right, so it's sort of like an echo from the past. Peter turch In, a University of Connecticut professor leading theorists of structural demographic cycles, said, quote right wing violence is emphasized by mainstream media because it's perceived as an existential threat to the ruling regime, whereas left wing violence is often seen as less threatening, sometimes even as a counterweight to the right. See there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I had to murder somebody. According to Turchin, this perception gap is no accident. Quote. Narratives around political violence are shaped not just by the acts themselves, but by the stories that elites and counter elites build around them. Both he and one of the founders of the NCRI, mister Horter, agreed that instances of political violence, wherever they come I'm from, perpetuate a cycle which each side accuses the other of hypocrisy while excusing the bad actors on their own extremes. I think that is exactly right. It is exactly right, which is why when you hear the details coming out of Minnesota, right and you're like, oh, if he's going to be on the right, that's one of my guys. Do not excuse that behavior. That is the path to civilizational destruction. 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 dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.