Vulgar Batch video & my Squawks review | Hour 3

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is her 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, I Daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpekclendershow dot 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. Two o'clock on Monday, and that means it's time to chat with Ap Dylan. You can read her newsletter on her substack. It's called More to the Story and you can also catch her at the North State Journal, where she is a reporter. That website is nsjonline dot com. Helloap, how are you good? Pete? How are you doing? I am doing all right, a little a little scarred from watching a vulgar batch video over the weekend or Friday. Yeah, yeah, maybe I think it was Friday because. The drog middle of the week last week. But I didn't gain traction until someone pointed out to me. So I started asking questions and then suddenly North Carolina Media woke up and was like oh there's a video. Yeah, now, so, uh, let's paint the picture first. Let's identify the two people that appeared in this video. It is Sydney Batch. She is a Democrat state senator from Wake County, your stomping grounds up there. She is also yes, she's the Senate Minority leader, so the top senator for Democrats as the minority party. She was joined by House Representative. Is it Vernetta or Vernita Alston? I think it's Vernetta Alston, Democrat from Durham, and they put out this video and they're sitting at a table in I can't really tell if it's like a. Conference room or like a dining room. It's got like a fake fireplace going in the background or something, but it's like a conference room. Look, so, I. Think it's one of their offices at the General Assembly. Some of the offices in one of the buildings have those cinder block walls. M I think it was probably there or in a conference room in one of those buildings. So it was definitely on legislative property. All right. So normally, you know a couple of state lawmakers putting out a video talking to the camera about how their policies are so awesome. That's usually not going to make news, but this one made some news because they attempted to be comedians and rip off a sketch, a Key and Peel sketch where somebody does like the straight part, they like deliver the. Straight stuff whatever. They're just like telling you, like basic facts or something, and then there's somebody. In this case, it was Sydney Batch, the minority leader, who acted as what the anger interpreter for the straight man position Vernetta Allston was playing. And a couple of expletives were used, and by a couple, I mean like lots of them. I did not find it to be funny though, which I think was the point. Isn't a isn't a comedy sketch supposed to be funny? Well? Yes, and Batch made statements after the fact, of course, not to me, after I asked first. She made statements to other outlets that it was supposed to be satire. But a lot of folks didn't really take that as satire. They didn't know who Key and Peel was to begin with. I recognized it, but I didn't I didn't think it was a particularly good interpretation. Batch went on several tirades about f bomb Republicans, calling them a holes and using another word for cat. And she also attacked the Opportunity Scholarship program, which serves over one hundreds and thousand students statewise, the majority of them being low income, is being, you know, an f bomb waste of our money to quote teach rich kids history. Oh and then she did like the scare quotes too around history, like they're being taught white supremacist history or something. Yeah, that was sort of the implication that there was something not right with it, right, you know, But this is just kids getting to kids and families getting to choose the school of their choice, the private school of their choice. And yeah, that money does come from the state, but it doesn't come from the education budget. It's got its own little bucket of money. So it's it's not taking money from education that she likes to love she likes to claim in that video, I believe, but yeah, she used a number of bucks flotives there. And House Leader Reeves has not made any comments about altins in the in the video, even though House Majority Leader Brendan Jones from Columbus he issued a letter to him asking him to asking him to discipline, often for using videos that used profanity towards other members that was unbecoming of conduct un becoming, but also for a misuse of resources by filming in the General Assembly. I felt that was inappropriate. I haven't seen where Reeves has responded yet. I reached out to his office and there's been radio silence from them. So I'm not sure what's happening at this point. And we'll see what happening in Leader batch. She doesn't have anyone to talk to, you know, no one over her or maybe Senate Leader Phil Berger. And he basically said he wasn't going to watch it, and it was quote nice that she had something to do, right, so he kind of made fun of it. Well, I think the problem here is that this is the woman who wants to be the leader of the Senate. Right, if the Democrats were to win back control of the State Senate, she would she would be the one to be in charge of the State Senate. She'd be the Senate President pro tem, right, And so this is a like to me, this is a problem if this is the way you are referring to your Republican colleagues, cursing them out, calling them all these names and then saying, oh, it's just satire. But we also know that this is part of a pretty lengthy campaign at this point by Democrats to just infuse cursing into like all of their stump speeches and their fundraising emails and stuff, because it shows that they're fighting. You know, they're ooh, I'm so angry, I'm using F bombs and such and like this. To me, this is conduct unbecoming, and if I'm a Republican in the chambers, I'm thinking, well, this woman obviously hates all of us. How would we ever be able to work with them? That's a good point. And you know, I had a couple of people who saw the clip that I posted and reached out to me who were not on her, that are on her side of the aisle, that were Democrats and actually said that they were kind of embarrassed by it and that it felt like a lowest common denominator move. So I think I think maybe, you know, they thought it was funny and edgy, but honestly, it makes them look very unprofessional and disorganized and yeah, frustrated. You know that that's you know, they're they've been the minority party for over a decade now, and there's a reason for that. So you know, I think they just underscored that with this video. I don't know that this was a good move. And I mean, it's it kind of follows, you're right, does follow a pattern. The North Carolina Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton. She likes to drop a bombs on a frequent basis, and in particular when it comes to Republicans actually you know, calling them names, and so you know, there's a theme there and I don't know that that kind of that's that people have an appetite, but people are really sick of the divide and making it worse. I don't know that that's that's going to win any hurts in minds. All right, let's shift gears. Speaking of winning hearts and minds, Our governor has decided not to participate in the Great American State Fair that's being put on up in Washington, d C. As part it's about it. It's less than two weeks away, and his administration has opted not to participate. And I mentioned this last week I think it was on Friday, and people have just gone nuts over this. But how dare he rightly? So it's the two hundred and fifth anniversary, and you're you're pulling out of the big fair which has already started. They were clearly signed up to do it to begin with, and now they're pulling out. And I so I emailed the Governor's office last week and late on Friday they had sorted their email to the Department of Cultural, Natural and Cultural Resources, which is handling the America to histy stuff for North Carolina, and the count's person over there told me that it was cost that they were pulling out because it was costing too much. It was costing and as they made it one hundred thousand dollars to participate in the five or six week you know, a series of events that were going to there happening actually taking place already and would culminate at the end of July. And you know, they said the budget issues and they didn't have the money to do it and the personnel to send and that da da da. So I wrote back and asked them, you know, well, the semi quiet centennial, you know committee, the Legislative Committee, probably could have found the money for you. Did you not reach out to them? Right? And I have not heard back as of yet. This afternoon on that question. I've also reached out to the Great American the organizers, yeah, the state, Yeah, yeah, the Freedom to fifty who are organizing the fair, and I'm waiting to hear back from them. I wanted to know, a did they sign up and did they commit to this? And you know, did they give you a heads up that they were pulling out? And I think there's only six or seven other states that they're pulling out, and there three or four of them are already pulling out. But they're not pulling out for money reasons. They're pulling out because they think that it's Trump has made this too much about him, and they're they're upset by that. So you know they're going to cut off their nose despite their faith. Yeah, these were all states and all the states that have pulled out are Democrat governors. Yeah. And you're talking about a booth that's like a six y ten booth, right, This is not like it's just something where you like put up a couple of you know, Chotchke's, you know, a couple of flags or whatever, and you just have a presence there. And I find it very hard to believe that the state legislature not find one hundred thousand dollars to send representatives, particularly when this is literally what you guys in the tourism industry are supposed to be doing. You're supposed to I reached out to the chairs of the committee and I'm waiting to hear back from them as well, because I've said, you know, this is news broke and the saying that it's money. Did they come to you? Did they not come to you? We're your aware of this because I've been watching those committee meetings for over a year and a half now, right, and this was never mentioned. Well. And I do have a letter from Ted Alexander who sent it to the governor, a letter to the governor asking him to humbly and respectfully reconsider your decision and allow North Carolina to participate fully in the Great American State Fair. We'll see. I don't believe that the governor will. But that being said, like, I don't know why the state could not organize and get some people together to go up and volunteer and pay their way to some degree, but I feel like we should have some representation up there. But being you know, one of. The original thirteen colonies for crying out loud. You know, yeah, it's it seems like a kind of a weak excuse, and that's sort of what I've asked the committee co chairs, Miss Senator Alexander and Represented Blackfellow, the two chair in that committee. I sort of sent that in the email today. I said, you know, this doesn't seem like it fracks because I'm sure your committee would have made sure that this was something that happened. So I'm waiting to see if they've responded to me yet. I haven't checked my email in about an hour, so they could have responded to me by then, but I had not seen that letter yet. Yeah, that would be interesting to get my hands on the I'll make. Sure that I will forward it over to you. I've got a copy of it. I'll forward that. Great. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, as long as you name me, leave me as an anonymous source. All right, absolutely, all right? AP. Dylan Reader work at North State Journal NSJ online dot com and subscribe to her newsletter. It's called More to the Story on substack. Thanks AP, Thanks pep, all right, take care. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, 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 creativideo dot com. All right, So. Just to Pisaki back here, circling back on the Sydney Batch vulgar video. This was an Instagram reel loaded with insults and barely bleeped out f bombs, which is why I didn't even bother. I was like, I'm not even going to try to get the audio from this thing. The foul language that Batch uses or only partially bleeped out in some instances, and at one point Batch calls Republicans a bunch of little bleeping bleeps who can't. Pass a budget. Batch also said the Opportunity Scholarship program is for quote rich kids, so that rich kids can be taught history with our bleeping tax dollars. Again, you are a tax consumer. If you are an. Elected official in North Carolina, you are likely taking in more money from the tax payer till than you are putting into it. So you are not a taxpayer. You are a tax consumer. Yes, the Opportunity Scholarship Program gives grants for over one hundred thousand kids. The program has mainly served low income kids who get the largest awards, and they are first awarded on a priority basis. The problem here is that this vulgar video was shot inside the General Assembly in one of their offices, either Sydney Batches or Representative Vernetta Austin's not sure and as I said with ap Dillon, like the play here to me is pretty obvious, right. It's that there is some catharsis that the left has in cursing out their political opponents, and they use it to fundraise because their base demands that they behave this way. The problem is is that if you are trying to have broader appeal, you're not going to get that if you're calling essentially half of the state a bunch of cusswords. Okay, she says this was satire. Apparently some people don't understand satire. No, satire was the original key and peel sketch that you guys mimiced what you're doing. It's not even satire because satire is supposed to be funny and it wasn't funny. So as a rule, there's a free tip. As a rule for elected officials, don't try to be comedians. Unless you're actually a comedian who becomes a politician, then you're free to do so. But generally not a good idea. You're not really that funny. I know people laugh at your jokes on the speech circuit and such, but that's because they think you have power. But if you're trying your hand at comedy, particularly without a laugh track, it doesn't done well. From the text line, Amy says, Hi Pete, Hello. David, guy who works in Congressman Tim Moore's office posted the following regarding the National or the Great American State Fair that the governor has pulled us out of quote hoping to bring attention to the fact that North Carolinians do not need permission to participate in the National State Fair due to the lack of interest by our governor. There is a five one C three made up of North Carolinians that we'll be sponsoring a booth on the National Mall. In fact, the booth has grown so much it will not fit in the building space provided and has to be out in the grassy area. That is amazing. That's amazing. I kind of feel like I kind of feel like we did this. So like. People got so mad when they found this out last week that now the booth has grown ten times the size it what I don't know if it's ten times, but it's now so large it doesn't fit in the little six hundred square foot space. Now it's so big, like it's gonna be like this massive tribute to North Carolina. It's going to like take up the whole mall. That would be awesome. It's not gonna take up the whole mall, but it's gonna be bigger than those other booths, you know. It's gonna be bigger than the booth from New York, hilariously. So there's a five oh one C three And if you would like to help sponsor it, there is an address here you can send a check or whatever. He says, you can contact me for more information. We won't be left out of this great event and chance to showcase our great state due to petty politics. Okay, so I don't know. I'm not going to give out the address because I don't know. I cannot verify this yet, and I don't want to send people, you know, sending checks or whatever to some organization. But I would say, if you are interested in lending your talent or treasure to this effort, to contact Congressman Tim Moore's office. And I guess you can ask for somebody named David Guy. So just say, hey, I'm looking for the guy David Guy boom, and that's how that happens, and then maybe you get more information there. All right. So this weekend I attended a theatrical perform moments in Charlotte, and the name of this theatrical performance is called Charlotte Squawks. It is a. Production that is put on by our rival over at the NPR station. And I've attended one or two of these, I forget, in the past, and they've been doing it now for like twenty I think this was the twenty first annual production. And in the past I can say that I enjoyed them. I enjoyed the productions. They obviously look obviously it is affiliated with the NPR station, so obviously there is going to be a particular, shall we say, political bent to the content. But I know that going in. Okay, I understand that going in, and I'm curious to see how they hand various topics and that sort of thing. And in the past they had poked fun and mocked various scandals surrounding Democrats as well as Republicans. This time was a bit different. About a decade ago, I remember they would take shots at all sorts of local and state and national politicians. They cover other generic topics as well. They talked about gas prices being so high. They did a little because and then the whole thing is a musical so all of the different skits are all musicals. Okay, so different skits and they run through let's h one, two, three, four, that's about twenty skits, and it's multimedia. They got big TV screens up at the top and they're flashing all of these different social media memes and stuff, and I enjoy some of those. They had one that I thought was pretty cute called Charlotte GPT and so they would ask questions like, hey, uh, you know, when's the best time to drive to Balentine and Charlotte GPT responds two thousand and seven, which cute joke, right, got it? So they take local issues they and some larger ones, like they did one one night on TikTok and it talked about like how you know, our brains are rotting from watching the TikTok videos and stuff like that. They had one called six digit Code where you know, people couldn't remember their passwords and what's the digit code and you know, the six digit code for verification all of that stuff. So some of that stuff was you know, but was was pretty good. And I will say that the performances were very good production wise, the singing, the choreography, the creativity right the performances themselves, I could judge separately from the and because you know, I'm not a broken brained child, and as somebody who is right of center, I understand that if I'm going to really any kind of theatrical performance, I'm going to get a bunch of left wing crap injected into the content. So I know that going in. But again from my experience about a decade ago, the last time I went to one of these shows, I remember that they were taking shots at Democrats as well as Republicans. And you would think, given the current state of affairs in Charlotte Mecklenberg, being controlled by all Democrats as we are, there would be ample opportunity, ample targets for them to have some fun with, and you would be mistaken. They could not somehow figure out a way to poke fun at really anybody. The closest they came was to Sheriff Gary not my fault McFadden, who appeared in one of their video skits, and his presence was there to minimize the mockery that he endured because he did not know which branch of government he works for. They basically used his presence to handwave away that issue because the Charlotte GPT they made one for like public officials and they asked what branch of So he asks the GPT, what branch of government am I in? And GPT says it doesn't matter, and he said, that's right. So I offer this review to you so you can save your money. In case you were thinking maybe you're gonna go watch the latest season of Charlotte Squawks, I can save you the time. Not funny, like there was a couple of lines that made me chuckle a little bit, but not very funny. And it's kind of like, well, it was basically if Jimmy Kimmel was a two hour local musical, Okay, like that's what you got, and all of the songs are parody songs, so they're like they're real songs, but they rewrote the lyrics and they did not take shots at Democrats. They in fact, they fawned all over the new police chief like girl boss kind of musical performance, like she's awesome, she's like, you know, one of the one of the team, and she's gonna bring down the crime and all like just like this puffing up of the new police chief, nothing about her husband getting the big payout, you know, as the with the lawsuit against the city and all of that and how that got settled just days before they hired her and all of that. Nothing about that vy Liles. I mean, it was like darn near hay geography of vy Lyles. They redid a song you know in syncs, bye bye bye, but this was bye bye bye, get it, And it was like, she's like, save the city. She's such an awesome mayor. No problems during her tenure at all. There was no mention of the arena Zarutska. There was no mental I mean, like the stories that actually made national international news, they didn't cover that because you know, Democrats. They basically had a song that was the equivalent of shout your abortion, which, man, the crowd. Went wild for that one, woo oh my gosh. And before the show when all the house lights are up, and then during the intermission when the house lights are up, and then after the show when the house lights were up. I made a point to survey the audience, to kind of look around and see the kinds of people that attended, and it is the NPR audience. They skewed much older, very white. I counted two black people in the entire audience, which was not hard to do. It was at the Booth theater, so seating, I mean, there's not a large theater, and they did not sell all of the seats, so it was pretty easy to kind of scan through the audience. One of the non white attendees was actually a former school board member and county commissioner, doctor Wilhelmy de Rembert. I saw her. So this is the. NPR audience, and so of course the virtue signaling was just turned up to max. Right. They had one song, one presentation about how awful and stupid men are. They're like your husbands are. Women love that. The crowd loved that one too. For some reason. I don't know why Democrats have such a hard time attracting men to their campaigns, but anyway, so they did that. They had a virtual deification of Manolo. He was the baker remember from like the East Side, who closed down his shop in order to shield his illegal alien workers from deportation, remember during Operation Charlotte's Web. So they had like this whole deification of him, and of course it was just chock full of anti Trump stuff. So they did one parody of bad day. You know you had a bad day, dad, whatever that song, and they put in Christie Nome. And so if you're going to put Christy Nome in there about how she got fired and her husband, with the pictures of the inflated boobs and all of that, you would think there would be some room in there for somebody like I don't know, Platner, Like maybe Graham Platner makes the cut. No, not mockable with the Nazi tattoo, no material there to work with, I guess right. Or how about Eric Swalwell, No, he didn't make the cut either, no material there. They did do a whole parody song though, riffing on the Goldfinger theme from the James Bond movie, except they called it gold Bleeper with a word that starts with F. So that was the kind of performances you got at the Charlotte Squawks. Oh and also they kind of sort of hoped for lightning to strike the UFC event at the White House and presumably kill a bunch of people, but instead, actually they just got a lightning strike at the Washington Monument and a rainbow and then n all of the weather. Passed them by. So sorry Squawks. Post out on that. 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 be my patron at my Patreon page or go to dpecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.