Show Rewind 04-30-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Jesus right.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, see America and Jery for regus fination. God, yes,
it's wrong. This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David
and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM

(00:26):
and five sixty AM w VOC.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Morning to you, Welcome to a Wednesday. It is the
thirtieth and final day of the month of April. Sixteen
minutes halfter six o'clock. Good to have you along, Gary David,
that's me, Christopher Thompson, that's me. Morning to you, sir.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
House.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Thanks, so far, so good.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah, so no complaints, no complaints yet, had no detours,
no delays on the way in this morning, minimal construction
out on the malfunction in junction. So so it's a
good start of the day, even though I did wake
up about ten minutes. Yeah, I hit the snooze button
this morning.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Well, thirty seventy eight had a good bit of construction.
As it continues, it's been one lane on each side
for a little while.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, it's stay all three seventy eight like the plague.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Well, that's probably a wise move, but I think they
probably put all that away before rush hour, I would hope, so.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
I would hope. So yet I would hope because there was.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
One lane in both directions from twenty to town and back.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
How much money we spending on road stuff these days
around there? Back? My goodness, it's everywhere. All right, friends,
we have a lot happening today. Let's jump right in
with both feet that run down the big stories, the
hot topics. Well, a reprieve at least for now, any
efforts to remove Curtis Loftus from his position as state

(01:45):
elected state treasurer, we'll have to wait if it happens
at all. Just now. Let's see five working days left
in the session, is that right anymore? Three days next week? Yes?
Before signing died over at the State House. Uh the Uh, well,
they haven't to put it on any committees' agendas for

(02:08):
the rest of the of this term.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
So they didn't want to expend any political cat They
didn't see it was worth expending any political capital to
tackle at this time around. If they wanted to, they
could have.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
They could have. Yeah, they did, they did know.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Loft is releasing a statement saying he was grateful for
the House leadership decision today to choose the people's business
over political theater. Now will they take it up in
January or not? You know, I'm kind of downted, I
really am. I Well, at this point in time, you
get that close to a primary, just let the people
decide whether or not Loft should return for another term

(02:45):
or somebody else should to take over that role. So
I'm sure Larry Grums was not happy to hear about
all that, but there it is, and with just five
days left, we'll take a gander a little bit later
on this morning about well the race to the finished
line and what's left to get finalized. This is year
one of a two year session, so when it doesn't

(03:06):
get done here, it could be picked up where it
was left off in January. You want to start all
over again. At least there's that, But there are some
big ticket items that are yet to be accomplished, so
we'll take a look at some of those. Sled releasing
a report and saying that it was in fact that
eighteen year old Bennettsville man who was shot and killed
by Myrtle Beach police officer over the weekend, that that

(03:29):
man was in fact the one who was firing into
a crowd. JERRYUS Davis shooting into a crowd on the
Ocean Boulevard about midnight Saturday night. Yes, he was the
one who was killed by police and that officer involved shooting. Okay,
it was on again, it was off again, and now

(03:50):
it's on. Limestone University has announced, in fact, they will
close board meeting last night. There was some glimmer of
hope about a week ago when they thought they might
have a well, a deep pocketed donor that might help out,
and they said they did get some money. Mat I've
had more than two million dollars in donations after they

(04:12):
announced they were closing down.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Wait wait, wait, wait, so what happens to that money?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Now they say they will give that money back? Okay,
so good for them for that. Yeah, all right. I
don't guess there's anything that was, you know, against the
law over this, but I just find it curious as
I STV ran a story about the new Hermo town
Hall and that the six million dollar project at least

(04:38):
part of the money comes from federal COVID nineteen relief funds. Now,
I on't anybody's trying to say that this was, you know,
not supposed to be doing that, but we believe that
what man, it was a really murky what those funds
were to be used for. I don't know how you
make the case that, well, we're going to take some
COVID nineteen relief funds and used to build a new

(04:59):
two out haul.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
And communities just banked those I mean, how far how
many years are we past COVID now five? Yeah, And
there were towns and cities and Irmo's not the only
one that just banked those funds. And with the deadline
coming up, they said, now's the time.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, spend it or or lose it. I guess, so, okay,
well we'll go ahead and spend it. Funny I was
mentioning just the other day that Anne and I took
the dog down to the river Walk the other day
to walk on the West Columbia side, not even realizing
because we had been there in a while, that it
was still basically totally shut down, just a small section
of it's open because of Hurricane Helene. Now the state

(05:39):
paper running an article yesterday that it may be a
while spend more than half a year since Helene did
a lot of damage on that West Columbia side of
that river walk, because it's right down at the river level.
It was on the Columbia side, it's elevated, but still
waiting on the female process to the play out, that is,
and to pay out I suppose to some degree, and

(06:01):
it may be another even if they get that could
take another four or five, maybe six months before that
riverwalk on the West Columbia side has opened again. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Interesting to see how the two cities, Casey and West
Columbia did things a little differently. West Columbia waiting and
making sure FEMA is fully on board. Casey decided, Okay,
we'll go ahead and fix it, pay for it ourselves,
and then apply for reimbursement, which is a gamble.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yes it is. It is meantime up the river. Groundbreaking
at the Saluta Shoals riverwalk. So we have plenty of
riverwalks going on around here.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
They're all going to be connected someday.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
One of these days they will be sobering news here.
City of Columbia ranks amongst the deadliest cities for pedestrians,
twelfth most dangerous metro area in the country. Yeah, yikes.
The VP will be in the state today. JD. Vans
will be visiting the new Core Steel plant over in
Berkeley County. Trump with a rally in Michigan yesterday marking

(06:56):
his one hundred days, and it was typical Trump Brown
style and a lot of again, a lot of talk
about the past administration. I don't know why that even
matters now, but he did spend a lot of time
talking about Joe Biden. Interesting to note again that Gretchen Wimer,
the Michigan governor, was there at that rally, got called

(07:18):
up on stage. Yeah, Democrats wanted, hey, gretch what's up girl?
This after she was in the White House just a
couple of weeks ago. Well, one reason why is that
Trump making the announcement that an Air Force base there
in her state is going to be saved from going away.
They're off putting some new jets there. So run down

(07:39):
on the first one hundred days. We'll probably get to that. Meantime.
The Democrats doing what they seem to do best these days.
Chuck Schumer kicking off an all night on the Senate floor, Yes,
another all nighter from the Democrats to mark the one
hundred days. From Schumer calling Trump a mob boss, and
in an interview he couldn't even Schumer could not even
admit that Trump has secured the border. The numbers say

(08:01):
that he has, but Schumer can't fest up to that
for offious reasons. Meantime, the whole Doze effort, well, Elon
Musk is no longer working on efforts for Dose from
the White House. We've been told. Of course, he's getting
ready to really slow down his involvement in all this.

(08:21):
He needs to take care of that Tesla business of his,
but he will be at least somewhat involved, they say. Meantime,
while Doze has made a big impact, still, government spending
is spending, and it's spending is up. Yeah, And the
Wisconsin Supreme Court, at least for now, has relieved Judge

(08:42):
Hannah Dugan of her official duties. This is the judge
that was arrested by the FBI last week for obstruction
of justice. Call it what it is, obstruction of justice
for escorting a wanted individual by ice, a guy who
had been involved in assault and battery, trying to shield
him from the federal law. So at least for now

(09:05):
her duties are not needed. That and Mark coming up
on this. It is the midweek Wednesday edition of Columbia's
Morning News, and it is great to have you with us.
The Hottest Talk The reason I'm calling happens here.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
I believe that we're all in laved here working for
the government.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
One O three point five FM and five sixty am
w VOC. This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David
and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM
and five sixty am w VOC.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Good to have you with us for Wednesday, April thirtieth.
It is now six point forty one as the morning
is moving on by already. Let's get up and get
rolling here, shall we? One hundred days in office, marked
yesterday by the President at a rally in Michigan. At
first one hundred days, and we'll talk more about that
coming up here a little bit later on immigration, tariffs, doze.

(10:02):
So I guess the big three in the first one
hundred days, a lot happened on the doze front because
something again unprecedent in this country. Not the first time,
by the way, that the President has talked about, you know,
trimming the excess, and there's plenty of it, but the
first time a president's actually gone about trying to do it,

(10:23):
and of course enlistening the help of Elon Musk, the
world's richest man, to make it happen. Well, Musk again
has been talked about for a little while, is starting
to transition away from that, no longer working on his efforts,
you know, from the White House itself, but he'll again
stay on in some capacity. They say, so, how is

(10:50):
Doge Well, I mean what what what? What has it
been able to accomplish to this point? Well, initially must
talk about cutting. Oh gosh, what was the number? It was?
It was, it was a huge number.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Is that website still up that I don't know showed
the moving numbers.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I haven't looked recently.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
All right, Yeah, I'm looking right now. Estimated savings one
sixty one and sixty billion billion, Yes, which amounts to
nine hundred and ninety three dollars and some odd change
per taxpayer. Oh really, well, party time and then they've
got it broken down by department.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
But the initial promise was that Doze would would result
in two trillion dollars worth of savings. It's a long
way from one hundred and sixty billion to two trillion.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Especially when they're talking about putting some of that one
hundred sixty billion back. I mean Trump, yes, tr Trump
said yesterday, Yeah, that you know, Doze was great, but
there are things that we're going to reinstate.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, and a lot of the savings have come from, uh, well,
you know, getting rid of what gosh, some of the
neighborhood of about a quarter of a million workers who
have already or expected to leave their federal jobs. Of
those one hundred and twelve thousand federal workers who opted
into that deferred resignation program, remember the first part of

(12:12):
the year. I mean when Trump came in, he said, hey,
i'll pay it in September. If you go away, I'll
pay it in September, And about half of the people
who have left or expectedly their jobs took advantage of that.
Now eleven federal agencies have either been curtailed immensely or

(12:33):
shut down outright. Dose has terminated more than eighty five
hundred contracts and ten thousand grants, you know, the big
things we hear about. Of course, you know foreign eight
and you know, volunteer programs and such. Education spending have
gotten most of the attention. But again, the promise was

(12:58):
two trillion dollars in savings. And as mister Thompsons just
updated us right now straight from a Doe's website, it's
one hundred and sixty billion so far. But here's the problem.
It hasn't resulted in any kind of meaningful decline in
total government spending this year so far. Whose fault is that, well,

(13:20):
that's that's that's both parties in DC and Congress. Congress, Yes, Congress.
The pen Wharton Budget Model, which tracks weekly Treasury data,
these are not fabricated numbers. It's straight straight from the Treasury,
finds that, in fact, we mentioned this the other day,

(13:42):
the government has actually been spending more compared to this
time last year. Yeah, more, not less. More since Trump
took over. Now one hundred and one days ago, total
spending is up six point three percent, or about one

(14:03):
hundred and fifty six billion dollars. WHA, wait a minute,
how much did we just say with Doe Did they
tell us one hundred and sixty billion h Government spending
to this point is one hundred and fifty six billion
dollars higher than it was in the first four months
of last year under Joe Biden.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Kind of reminds you a little bit of South Carolina's government.
You know, at the end of the year they look
over and they say, oh, we took in more than
we thought we would, Well, let's spend that too.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah. So basically any dose savings have been wiped out
by increased spending in DC.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
And that's why for all the efficiency that we're talking about.
When it comes to government, you've got to have the
folks who control the purse strings. They've got to be
along for the ride, and apparently they're not. Apparently they're not.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
They have their own ideas.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
I mean, this should be, this should be immediately cutting
deficit spending and cutting the budget.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
We can't even begin to get anywhere close to cutting
deficit spending in this country. And then until or unless
we ever get to that point, we've got to be
not just getting deficit spending down to zero if we
if we were to accomplish that, well fine, but guess
what our national debt would still be? What thirty three
dollars will? It would have been a start, It would

(15:29):
have been a start. So I don't know. Again, now
with with with musk no kind of slowly exiting the
process here, I gotta tell you this may be it.
Do we get any more than that, we get any
more than one hundred and sixty billion dollars in dose cuts?
Is that going to be it the final number, and

(15:51):
if so, well, what was the point. Well, I guess
the point was it saved us another one hundred and
fifty six billion in deficit spending, I suppose, But I
guess what, Yeah, if we don't cut anymore, the problem
is is, you know, Congress is going to keep spending more. Wow,

(16:12):
not exactly what we were hoping for. I don't think, huh.
But the problem is again is that you know, most
Americans pay no attention to this at all. Right, as
long as the you know, the government entitlement benefits keep coming,
as long as you know, the government keeps operating, we

(16:32):
don't care. The sad fact is you don't have to go.
It's not like you'd have to go back a hundred
years or so to find a time when we could
actually balance a budget around here and not be deficit
spending in our debt. Not It wasn't that long ago,
just a couple of decades ago, we had this under control.

(16:59):
It's no longer under roll obviously, So I guess bottom
line is at this point, for the first four months
of this year, it's pretty much a wash between what
we've saved and what we spent. The difference of four
billion dollars that's been at.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM and five sixty am WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
The number of illegal border crossers released into the United
States is down. Listen to this place ninety nine point
nine nine nine percent.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Good morning. It is sixteen now after seven o'clock. It
is Wednesday, April the thirtieth. The President at a rally
and Warren Michigan yesterday marking is one hundredth day in office.
And you might have wondered, Doug, Wow, Michigan not a
exactly the land of the GOP, but a place where,

(18:06):
you know, apparently Michiganders are pretty happy with Trump right now.
Certainly auto workers are happy with Trump right now for
bringing jobs back to Motor City, and.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
He made some concessions on those tariffs which made them
even happier.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
That that executive voter was signed. We mentioned yesterday that
it would be that's reducing some of those tariffs to
reduce the sticker shock for us as consumers and for
automakers with these imported parts and such, even for cars
that are built here in this country. So one hundred

(18:44):
days he saved an air force base. Gretchen Whitmer was
very happy about that. And yeah, boy, the meeting in
the left are wondering what's up with Gretchen these days.
That's two appearances with Trump in as many weeks. She
was on that stage yesterday. Wow.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, you have to wonder if this is all part
of a plot by Trump to weaken her a little
bit within her own party.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Well, it'll certainly do that, there's no doubt about that.
But she's she seems to be happy to be there whatever,
for whatever the reason. Well, Trump spent a lot of
time talking about just that. Now, now we know that
Donald Trump is prone to hyperbole, okay, but the numbers
that he talked about that this is not hyperbole. Friends.

(19:35):
The average monthly number of border encounters during the Biden
years was about this is this number. It is hard
to imagine one hundred and sixty thousand or so daily
average is peaked at about fifteen thousand. Imagine it stopped

(19:56):
for every day. Daily encounters at the border averaged well
the peak at least fifteen thousand a day.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
Overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, you add it all up the total number of
border encounters in Joe Biden's four years somewhere in the
ballpark of eleven million. Eleven million. We got lots of
states that don't have that many people living there being.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
One of them, and imagine how overwhelmed the border patrol
felts mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
I mean that's one reason why we've seen morale under
Tom Orang go up so much, because A, they're seeing
an investment from the government in their efforts. B. It's
becoming a lot easier to do their job.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yes, and they can now do their job as opposed
to before we had, you know, border patrol agents having
to basically act as Nanni's and work on processing and
housing these immigrants as opposed to keeping them from coming
over in the first place. You know, just just trying to,

(21:07):
you know, stick your finger in the in the dike
and keep it from overflowing. It's all you could do.
So go from you know, a daily average peaking at
fifteen thousand encounters. In contrast that with well last month
fewer than seventy two hundred total total in an entire month.

(21:32):
We were getting twice that and more on a daily
basis under Joe Biden. The lowest number of daily encounters
occurred in February. It was two hundred and twenty a day,
from fifteen thousand a day to two hundred and twenty
a day. So yeah, this has been a Trump side

(21:53):
of the numbers. White House fact sheet that came out
daily encounters down thirty three percent, migrant crossings down ninety
nine point ninety nine percent over the first one hundred
days of this administration, which again Trump talked a lot
about that yesterday, and rightfully so because according to at

(22:15):
least the polling data, which he disputes. But this is
the sole bright spot early on in the first one
hundred days is the way he's handled immigration in the
border crisis. Again, which makes it that much more curious
about why the Democrats are choosing to use that as

(22:37):
a talking point a way to try to attack Trump,
whether it's Abrego Garcia, whether it's this judge in Wisconsin
now who by the way, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court
has at least temporarily removed her from her official capacity
as a judge in Wisconsin. More than what was it,
what was this guy's he was there for? It was

(22:58):
a sult and battery right. The well, well, we'll talk
about a little bit later on. But yeah, this guy
was punching people and all sorts of not a nice guy.
And this judge that tries to escort him out the
or did asking Hi about the back door of the
jury room door to keep him from being detained by ice. Wow,
again Democrats are choosing to use somehow that is an

(23:20):
anti Trump thing, that a judge who was breaking the
lawn obstructing justice is somehow Now this is this is
a bad on Trump. You can say that all you want,
but I don't think you're going to find a whole
lot of American citizens that are going to agree with
you on that one. Not at all. By the way,
the Abregio Garcia thing, yeah, we know, of course to

(23:41):
start off with Chris van Holland, the Maryland Democrat senator
went down there to see the Maryland man, and then
we had four House Democrats follow him up. Turns out
those four while in San Salvador to advocate for the
release again of an alleged MS thirteen gang banger in

(24:06):
Brego Garcia, or were they just there on a quick vacation.
They stayed at the Hilton San Salvador, a luxury property
with scenic views of the capital city's landscapes and outdoor terrace,
Margarita's culinary treats.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
I hope they were comfortable. Did they get a massage
while they were there?

Speaker 3 (24:28):
They may have. I don't know that for a fact,
but a pretty swanky place. A Google rates that hotel
as a five star property, and well, I know you
feel good today that you actually footed the bill for
that for them. Yeah, this is the hill that the

(24:55):
Democrats are choosing to fight on. It's crazy, I know.
So while Trump is in Michigan celebrating one hundred days,
back in DC, the Democrats did what they seemingly can
only do these It's about all they can do these days.
That's just talk incessantly. Schumann kicking off a Democrat all
night or okay, on the floor of the Senate, referring

(25:20):
to Trump as being a mob boss earlier in the day,
though Chucky, in an interview, refused to admit that Trump
has been successful when it comes to the border out
there's no way to refute that. Well, Schumer uses this line,

(25:42):
I don't trust Trump's numbers. Okay, Well, what about the
border patrol numbers.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
M M.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Yeah, Well then I guess he's everything is filtered through Trump,
he says, basically, I guess, so you can't trust those numbers.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
He has access to government numbers, he can find.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Out for Yeah, but you don't want to no, obviously,
Chuck Schumer, he has no choice now. I mean he's
already in. He's already in on sinking sand anyway, with
his party, he can't possibly do anything to agree with
anything Trump was doing. But sorry, Chuck is working, bro,
it's working.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Talking about He's gotta keep talking the good job, the
stuff that matters. I think I've been listening to y'all
in the eighteen year plus round one old three point
five FM at five sixty am w VOC. This is
Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on
one on three point five FM and five sixty am

(26:39):
w VOC.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Seven forty two. Now, good morning, good to have you along.
We appreciate you joining us since the final day April.
When did that happen?

Speaker 4 (26:47):
This month flew by? And it's short enough as it is,
but it flew by.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Yeah, I guess we're just getting over home. Well anyway,
deal with it. Walk Update time, friends, one of our
favorite segments of the week. Now, sometimes we do it
more than once. Sometimes we do it three or four times.
To figure what's going on, Let's start here at the
announcement this week from the US Department of Education's Office

(27:14):
for Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. U Penn
has been found in violation of Title nine for letting
men compete on its women's sports teams. This order came
down on Monday. U Penn has ten days to take action,

(27:36):
otherwise it could lead to a loss of federal funding.
And I'm sure there's already been a lawsuit filed. Remember
this is you know, you Penn. This is where William
otherwise known these days as Leah Thomas competed. And as
I recall, William Thomas wasn't really that good of a

(28:00):
collegiate swimmer, middle of the pack at best of even that.
But he was a medalist among the women, but a
medalist when it came to competing against the women, Right, yeah, yeah,
Thomas was a kind of middle of the pack. Matter
of fact. Let's see here, we got some numbers here
we can put to this. Let's see, for example, the

(28:22):
two hundred meter freestyle for men, Thomas ranked number five
hundred and fifty four. Yeah, five point fifty four. But
he left his game right, said he was a woman,
started swimming against the ladies and went on to crush
records set by females. He wasn't the only one there there.

(28:54):
There were others at you pen and of course at
other programs as we know so, but you being singled
out here by the administration ten days to change things out,
IBM making an announcement a massive investment in the United States.

(29:16):
H wow, Okay, it's terrific things working here. This just
days after it was revealed that they would be committing
to political neutrality. And amongst this, well, at least they
were told, and this was an IBM shareholder proposal, that

(29:41):
well they're looking at their whole DEI thing here the
Heritage Foundation telling IBM they should be recruiting employees without
regard to race, general religious beliefs, political altiliation, blah blah
blah blah blah, be biased freeing their activities, and at
least the company said that when it came to media
buying and content policies, they would be audience centric, aiming

(30:03):
to reach all consumers authentically. Okay. Well that's a start,
I guess at least IBM committing to a to neutrality
when it comes to their viewpoint. Okay. And you know,
as summertime approaches, you know it's this summertime you see
a lot of these festivals and parades and such. And

(30:24):
we've been hearing a lot about this now for some time,
about these Pride parades. Now suddenly they can't find sponsors.
The latest MasterCard not renewing their corporate sponsorship for the
New York City Pride March. They have been supporting a

(30:44):
nonprofit group known as Heritage or Pride, which organizes the
march and other events for about a decade. They were
a top level platinum sponsor and preferred payment partner for
the past several years. No longer. They're not the only
ones though, PepsiCo, Nissan, City Bank, Price, Waterhouse Coopers have

(31:07):
all opted out as being sponsors of this parade. And
you know, just this one, okay, I mean, they basically
lost all their corporate sponsorship. It sounds like.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
Probably as I mean, it has less than nothing to
do with Trump. It's all about business.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Absolutely, I mean, the bottom line, some of these decisions
were made before Trump was was was was was re elected.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
If they thought it was good for business, they'd be
right back at their sponsoring it again.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Sure, but it turns out it's just not good for business.
You know, there's a thing in advertising, the scattershot approach.
You know, if you wanted to, for example, I don't know,
you know, sell you know, some item that was the
the item that you know, all the eighteen year olds

(31:55):
wanted to buy, then you wouldn' advertise that on a
station like this one. True, if you were trying to
sell you know, something for for you know, financial security
and such, you probably wouldn't be buying a you know,
a station that a bunch of eighteen to twenty four
year olds listened to, right right, You just you could

(32:16):
do that if you wanted to, and you might hit
a few. But this is kind of what these this
has been, you know, these these folks who have been
just really it's curious, you know why why so many
ads will we'll try to gear towards that market, which
is just again a maybe a bigger subset of the

(32:37):
total population than it used to be, but still it's
a subset of the population. And you're spending incredible amounts
of money, throwing all this out there for everybody to
see and advertise to when it only really has any
sort of meaning or impact on a smaller sub section.
It's it's it's not smart business. It's not smart. Yeah,

(33:00):
it's the bottom The bottom line has shown now bottom line.
They tried it. Okay, they've done it, and it did it.
There was the ROI was dismal. By the way, as
your woke update over, I've got one edition. Okay, yeah, yeah,
this has become almost comical. Pete Hesitt, Pete Yes, the

(33:21):
Defense Secretary says he's going to end the women Peace
and Security program at the Defense Department, calling it woke
social justice Biden initiative. Here's the problem. That initiative was
passed along. In fact, it passed the House, sponsored by
Christy Nome, then a House representative. It was pushed on

(33:42):
the Senate side by Marco Rubio, and it was signed
by Donald Trump. Yeah, he might want to study his
history before he starts deciding what stays and what goes
at the Pentagon. You know, the whole Hexact thing. I mean,
I even agree at the outset on that. You know,

(34:02):
that's fine, but you got to you gotta keep tabs
on him. He's never done this job before, and this
at this at this level, I mean, you're gonna have to,
you know, he's gonna have to be enswable to somebody.
Apparently he's been acting like he's not you just freelancing that.
He freelanced that one, apparently.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Apparently, so wow, okay, wouldn't have taken long to figure
out that. Yeah, he's his fellow cabinet Secretary's pushed that
along and it was signed by his president and your
boss signed it.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM and five sixty am w VOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
Sixteen after a born, tell you good to have you long.
It's Wednesday, April thirtieth, final day of the year, and
the time is winding down in this session of the
State House. Just five working days are left counting today.
That's it. So what about the what about the Curtis
Loftiest problem? Looks like the state Treasurer gets a reprieve

(35:03):
at least for this year, and I don't know, maybe
maybe permanently. Well, time will tell, But any chance that
the State House removes Curtis Loftis from his duly elected
position by the citizenry of South Carolina looks like it's
not going to happen in this session. Matter of fact,

(35:25):
a confirmation from the House Speaker's office yesterday that there's
simply no time left to address the question because they've
only got five more days to work and they have
a whole lot of things they got to do. So
after the thirty three eight vone in the Senate to

(35:46):
remove Loftis from office, the House is not going to
take it up in this session. Not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
And I don't think Larry Grooms helped the cause by
essentially telling the House, we've done all the work just
to get in there and vote.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Like you know you should. Yeah, just listen to us
and take the vote. Do what we did. You don't
need to look at it yourself. I mean, we're smart
than you. Anyway.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Well, look at you look at the timing. If if
voters were ringing the phones of these House legislators saying
get Loftus out of office, they'd be doing it. They'd
find a way. Oh yeah, So apparently the phones have
not been ringing. Apparently not. And next year is an
election year.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Yes, And by the way, we don't have to wait
until November to know who the next treasure is going
to be, right, we just have to wait until June.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
Well, I mean voters, William Merrick will have made their
feelings known by then, I mean to the legislators. Not
at the at the ballot box yet, but by the
time the next session finishes up, I mean, legislators will
have all the information they need. If they feel like
it's a priority with their voters that they need to
get it done before the legislative session ends, they will.

(36:53):
If not, we may we may not hear about it again.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Well, and you know what, let's for For example, Okay,
in the Senate, you just had to get thirty three
members to vote to boot loft Us out of office. Well,
you got to get a lot more members in the
House to agree to that. And you're right, mister Thompson.
If the phones aren't ringing and the voters aren't hopping mad,
and basically they don't seem to be, this is a

(37:16):
big nothing burger as far as the voting public seems
to be concerned, by and large, so are you going
to risk as a House member with a primary coming
up in June? Are you going to risk take it
on something like this that it just might to your

(37:38):
constituents seem like unwarranted and just pure politics. Here, your
five months removed come January, five months removed from a
primary election. Are you gonna can enough members of the
state of the House of Representatives be convinced the loft

(38:02):
should be removed from office with well with the primary
staying in the face if if the phones aren't ran, now, yeah,
if constituents started calling and raising a ruckus, well that's
a different story. But I'm just not convinced that's the case.
So with the five days left, it's not going to happen.

(38:23):
And I'm more and more thinking that I don't know,
I don't know the House even takes this up come
come next session or not. That's that's what I was saying.
And with all the times that we repeat, you know,
it's the economy stupid. This is not affecting your pocketbook
or mine. So I'm not sure that a lot of

(38:45):
voters are going to raise a ruckus over Curtis Loftus,
even if this comes up again next session. Of the
same voters who have sent him back time and time
and time again and again. The only thing at this
point that the Senate leadership, but Larry Grooms and the
seven Goldfinch manning the charge here. The only thing they've
accomplished to this point is to get Lofts to say,

(39:08):
guess what, I Am going to run again. Never mind
what I said, I am going to run again. The
treasure issuing and statement yesterday saying he was grateful for
the leadership decision in the House, to his words, choose
the people's business over political theater. Let me be clear here,

(39:28):
roight right. So there's no missing money, no mysterious bank account,
absolutely no evidence of fraud, and every dollar is properly
accounted for, he says. Furthermore, the two independent auditors that
review this issue confirmed what I've said all along, this
was a reporting error, not a financial loss. Okay.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
The biggest mistake he made was getting too emotional and
threatening to release confidential information, in which that was bad,
which he went back on later. But you know, it
got to the point almost where the Governor and sled
we're gonna have to stop him. That that was that
was the way his emotions got the better of him. Yeah,

(40:11):
But other than that, I'm not sure. You know, if
you're the average voter, are you really up in arms
about it? Probably not.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
It doesn't seem like it. And yes, unless that happens,
I don't see any way you get enough House members
with the primary coming up, because every two years they
got to face they got to face the voters, you know,
every two years. How you get enough of them to

(40:40):
convince them that this is a this is a good
thing to do.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
Yeah, the timing is going to be even better for
Curtis loftis in twenty twenty six than it is in
twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Absolutely, And he don't even need to run on this,
let's face it. I mean, he's who's going to go
up again. No, Remember, doesn't matter what haves in June
is all that matters now, unless you know, Grooms or
Goldfinch or some senators can convince somebody to primarium. But

(41:09):
I don't think even that works. So we'll see. So
we were just five days left. I mean, let's look,
there's still putty that's got to be done. Uh, let's see,
tort reform hadn't happened yet. They've been talking about legalizing
online sports betting here. That's still early in the process.

(41:30):
That's probably not going to happen. The casino gambling question,
you know that's out there. Yeah, private school vouchers for
crying out loud, big priority. We were told going in,
that's not done. What am I missing here?

Speaker 4 (41:50):
Did you say energy?

Speaker 3 (41:51):
I did not. I said it yesterday, but I didn't
say yet today. Yeah. Energy, You know, the sky was
falling to hear it said when we enter this session.
My goodness, you know. And it's true. We got to
do something to be able to generate more energy here
in this state, not just because so many people are

(42:12):
moving here and so many are but because you know,
we're we're we're the we're the data business now and
these big data farms are sucking up the energy left
and right like you wouldn't believe. Yeah, we're we're in
an energy crunch. It's coming fast and hard. You know,
we'll be the next Spain in Portugal if we're not
careful here. So yeah, so where are we on that? Yeah,

(42:39):
So a lot needs to happen in five days. And
remember they passed an amendment that coming back in extra
sessions in overtime extra innings. You can only come back
for one reason, one reason only. That is to debate
the budget and finish it up. That's it, unless you
can get a two thirds majority on both chambers to
say no, let's take this up too. So yeah, not

(43:02):
at least it happened five short days where.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
The spirits of America lives off every day each other
and Robert coming from and learned from each other. One
on three point five FM and five sixty am w VOC.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one on three point five FM and five

(43:25):
sixty am w VOC.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Final thoughts at eight forty on a Wednesday morning. We
got lots of them. Lets get right to it. First
up update from Myrtle Beach. Now initial report from a
SLED on that officer involved shooting over the weekend that
took the life of an eighteen year old Bennettsville man,
Jerrus Davis. Now, according to sled's initial report, yes, in fact,
Davis was the individual who was firing into a crowd.

(43:57):
The report also stating as we knew that eleven other
people were injured, but does not tell us how they
were injured or what their medical current medical condition is
someone hit by gunfire from Davis or potentially from law enforcement. Again,
the only shot fired by law enforcement that we're aware

(44:18):
of is the one fired at the alleged shooter in Davis.
So that's a new development as of yesterday as far
as the information that was released. But there's still a
lot more to know about that. It was on, it

(44:38):
was off, and now it's done. A limestone. University announcing
plans last night that they're board meeting to shut their doors. Now.
Last week they thought, well, wait a minute, hang on,
hang on, maybe we won't have to. They thought they
might have found a you know, somebody who could bail
them out of the situation. What they did was it
six million dollars. I think they said something like to

(45:01):
tie themselves over until they could collect a tuition for
the next semester in the fall. They I'm getting about
two million dollars in donations, which, by the way, to
their credit, they say, since they're now closing their doors,
they'll give that money back to their donors, thank you.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
They've got a baseball team that's still playing. They're in
the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
On Friday, they're playing here, aren't they are they are
they playing in this tournament in Lexington or not?

Speaker 1 (45:29):
No?

Speaker 3 (45:30):
No, no, that's that's enough tournament. Okay, yeah, man, yeah,
what about the kids? None of those who have enrolled
or planning to attend in the fall. But you know
some of these kids who are playing sports, they have
They just recently, in the last couple of years put
a football team on the field at Limestone. You know

(45:51):
what we can think about these kids that have Wow,
I'm gonna go play college ball. Now you're not welcome
to the portal, at least not there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Irmo building a new town hall. The approval here earlier
this month. Who to spend close to six million dollars
total and no tax increase, No tax increase? Now, how
is that? How is that possible? Well? Uh, one point

(46:26):
one million dollars from the estate budget, says Namoi. Papa
over it to Channel ten. But then well, at least
part of the money that they've got here, well a
big chunk of it. It looks to me like, what
is this is a six million dollar project? Five million
dollars the year, Irmo Mayor telling the TV station in

(46:47):
federal funding related to COVID nineteen funds. Okay, hard, stop here.
No one is saying that, Wow, that's you can't do
that with federal funds spent for COVID relief. That doesn't

(47:08):
seem to be a problem. I'll say it should be
a problem.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Well that, you know, to be fair, this wasn't money
that was dedicated to you know, masks or no medicine
or vaccinations or anything like that. This was this was
to help communities that were hit by COVID to recover.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Okay, be yilding a new town hall.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
That doesn't fit the bill for me, five years after
the fact, after the fact.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, this is just a kind of a microcosm of
the of the bigger issues and how we're just throwing
washingt was throwing tax payer money around left and right. True,
you know. And and so now we wind up with
what was thought to be at least by us. I guess, well, okay,
this is a judicial use of our money, all right,

(47:55):
and now we're finding out it's being done, you know,
spent for things like building a new town hall in
a small town.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Well, a lot of towns and cities used that money
immediately to recover economically after COVID and others banked it
and it.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Wasn't that that what was intended for?

Speaker 4 (48:11):
Yes, right, yes, yeah, but can you but would it
be fair to take it away saying well, you know,
if you don't use it, you lose it.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yes, okay, absolutely, because you don't need it now you shouldn't.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Well, maybe there should have been restrictions placed on that
money to begin.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Well, the right exactly, that's where we made the big mistake.
Well where they made the big mistake, right, they started
just throwing this money around left and right. Yeah, I mean,
you can't make a case to me that any building
of a new town hall is vital. M Okay, well,
and yeah, give it back and give it back to
the well.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
To me, it's the timeline as much as anything else.
I mean, you're long past COVID and this town hall
has nothing to do with it.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Well, even then, even if you'd build this new town
hall in middle COVID, I still say, how was that needed? Well? Whatever, yeah,
give it back, not like we're we're going to get
it back, but you know, count toward the Doge toll
or something.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
I at least give the Irmo government folks. Credit. I mean,
they're they're trying to make sure they don't have to
raise taxes. But you know, so instead of their taxpayers
paying for it, we all pay. We'll get everybody else's
tax money to pay for it.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Yeah. I'm not knocking the town Remo specifically on this
because this happens day in and day out all across
the country. It's this is what happens when you just
hand out money willy nilly with with you know, no
restrictions anyway. There it is. If you don't walk around
downtown Columbia, anywhere in the Columbia area, be said, be careful,
be safe, because we now rank as the twelfth most

(49:44):
dangerous metro area in the country when it comes to pedestrians. Wow,
and overall we're the third most dangerous state. In the
past ten years, new data from Smart Growth America show
that pedestrian deaths in the city of Columbia have gone
up nearly fifty percent. Yeah, well, it's it's being addressed.

(50:09):
I mean, all those changes that are going on in
five points right now, and that was a major issue there,
you know, you there's still I mean, I would say
assembly would have to be tackled at some point. Oh,
that's that's a hike to get across Assembly Street even
with no traffic. Man, that's a wide thoroughfare there, Well's.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
And they've built up some barriers to make sure the
kids don't cross in certain places. But still it's the
Assembly in the visits.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Well, there's there's. Yeah, there's the other problem right to.
I mean, you you drive down that area, you got
kids that are, you know, walking and looking down at
their smartphone and not looking up and paying attention. Right. Wow. Uh,
the judge is temporarily relieved of her official duties, says
the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This is that judge, Judge Hannah
Dugan who tried to let this uh illegal alien was

(51:00):
in her courtroom. Let's see what did this guy do here?
He beat up two people, a guy at a gal
hit the guy thirty times, knocked to the ground, choked,
and beat up woman so badly they both had to
go to the hospital. Yeah, and here's this judge. Just
because the guy was here illegally and Ice wanted him,
she escorted him out the jury room door to try
to help him get away. Wow. Yeah, kind of illegal, right,

(51:24):
At least for now, she is relieved of her official
duties and rightfully so and was it sabotage?

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (51:33):
At least one published report in the Sun claiming that
a bombshell sabotage probe has been launched in Spain into
Monday's massive power outage.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
Have you seen how close this came to being a
continental crash?

Speaker 1 (51:48):
No?

Speaker 4 (51:49):
Really? I Oh, I guess there are safeguards in place
where it just about the levels just about plunged to
the point where everything would have shut down.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
H Apparently they've found what they're calling some unusual activity
in the UK grid about the same time. So yeah,
maybe this was happened. Maybe this was an attempt by
a bad actor or a bad actor nation to take
down the whole continent. Wow.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
The grid frequency plunged just a hair above the red
line collapse threshold. If it had hit that threshold, automatic
relays disconnect major power plants and everything collapses.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Wow. And finally this a Chinese student who lives in
Japan was rescued from Mount Fuji when he climbed up
and couldn't get back down. Okay, but now Numbskull didn't
realize this. Once he gets back down, oh, I left
my phone. He later goes back on his own to
retrieve the phone, and guess what.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
He gets stuck again.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Get stuck again. You should charge him for the second
one and ban frome Ember climbing Mount Fiji again