Show Rewind 07-16-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Jesus right. He yea America for formation is wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
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 1 (00:30):
And Morning till you welcome into a Wednesday. It is
the sixteenth day of July. How the heck are you?
I'm Gary David, chegging in with the rest of the team,
sands one Christopher Thompson, who is enjoying you some time
away this week with the family. Good for him, and
I hope you're doing well here waking up on another warm,
muggy morning. Well it's that time of the year. What

(00:52):
did you do we expect? Right? This dock getting getty
better anytimes too? Goodness sakes well, I don't know, I
don't know. I'm just getting old man. It's wearing me down.
All right, Let's get at it because we got a
lot going on today. Rundown Big Stories Hot Topics for Wednesday,
July sixteenth. We started at home as usual, but we'll

(01:15):
start at home with a story that has captivated the nation,
and that's the Jeffrey Epstein story. The latest. Here a
couple of things to talk about today. First, of all
House Republicans blocking an effort by Democrats to require the

(01:38):
DOJ release all records related to Epstein. The House Rules
Committee voted to reject that amendment. All of the Democrats
on the committee voted well. Of all the well it
puts its way. All the Republicans on the committee except

(02:00):
ye for two voted to reject it. Okay, one of
them didn't vote at all, and the other voted with Democrats,
and that was Ralph Norman. We'll get into this because
you know, this has been the interesting Ralph Norman Donald
Trump thing going on here. It was Chip Roy, by

(02:23):
the way, another House Freedom Caucus member. He was the
Republican who didn't vote at all. But to know, Ralph
Norman actually voted. He wanted this done again, putting him
at odds with Trump. Ralph Norman, who may later on
this month announced a run for governor, puts himself in

(02:43):
an interesting situation when it comes to a Trump endorsement.
Nikki Hayley, also weighing in, posting on social media yesterday,
released the Epstein files and let the chips fall where
they may. Okay, so a couple of South Carolina ties
here to this. Ever, controversial and growing story on Jeffrey Epstein.

(03:07):
We got more of that later on as well. Columbia
City Council putting off a vote on whether or not
to shut down this pause on short term rentals. They
layed a first reading of an ordinance that would have repealed.
They just recently put a one year pause on the
short term rentals in the city of Columbia that just
passed last month. Well, now they're thinking about pausing that pause. Okay,

(03:33):
this all really came to point a tipping point with
that deadly shooting at a home on Lincoln Street. There
was an airbnb that was back what in May, I
guess it was. Apparently they're going to have a work
session first part of next month, a public work session,

(03:54):
just to again discuss that is it grounds for a
new trial. Yeah? I saw this last week, didn't much
comment on it, but now the National Lows has picked
it up as well. Newly uncovered text messages between Alex
Murdoch and Murdock and Eddie Smith his Curtis Eddie Smith
is alleged drug dealer. At least the defense and Dick

(04:18):
Harpoolian feel like well had they known about these text messages,
it would have changed who they called to the stand
as a witness in Murdoch's defense, and how Harpuolian thinks
that might make a difference when it comes to the
timeline of what happened. Okay, we'll get into that scary
story here, FED saying they have seized more than one

(04:42):
hundred and fifty pounds of fentanyl in Lexington County, one
hundred and fifty six pounds of fentanyl forty four pounds
of meth in a Lexington County operation. Wow, Kelly touched
on this yesterday in their rash, thought we may touch

(05:03):
on it again this morning. Can we get an alligator
Alcatraz without maybe all the alligators but that sort of
a lock up here in South Carolina? The governor saying
we could as the push is on, and it looks
like more illegals who are rounded up will maybe be
in these facilities for a lot longer, because it looks

(05:26):
like the DOJ is working in the administration, working to
revoke and not allow any bond for these individuals. So
we'll look at that too. Up on Capitol Hill, Senate
Republicans advancing Trump's request to cancel some nine billion dollars
in previously approved spending trying to cut back on some
of this. That was a fifty to fifty vote and
jad Evance had to come in and save the day

(05:46):
once again. As I mentioned again on that Rules committee
that hearing Republicans blocking the vote to release the Epstein files,
and again Ralph Norman going against the Republicans on that committee,
and Trump the House Speaker also a little break here
with the administration, Mike Johnson saying that Pam Bondy must

(06:09):
explain her Epstein's statement. He wants more action on this.
Thomas Massey, now who's always at loggerheads with Trump, the
Kentucky Republican who said yesterday he'll try to use a
long shot procedural gambit and try to force a vote
on requiring the dj release files on Epstein. So we

(06:30):
got a lot more to say. That story is not
going away now. The President meantime, on the business side
in Pennsylvania unveiling a ninety billion dollar energy and innovation
investment in the Commonwealth, the Keystone State. This is about
artificial intelligence and the energy it takes to make it run.

(06:55):
Lots of money there inflation, seeing the biggest rise in
five months, but just a few scattered signs of any
effects that the tariffs had anything to do with it.
But the blame game goes on here, the President bashing
the Fed chair after this inflation report came out. Well,
those two of them get along anyhow. The White House

(07:15):
now says they are calling for an investigation into the
auto pen. Now we know there have been hearings on
Capitol Hill, but now the White House is a weighing
in on this. They want an investigation into the well,
the incompetent and senile former presidents. They say, NBCD is,
by the way, getting hammered because they don't quite understand.

(07:36):
It doesn't seem like somebody over there doesn't. In an
article they put out yesterday on the hypocrisy of the Conservatives,
they say of Republicans, claiming that, well, James Comer has
used a digital signatures on his own official letters. That's
a lot different from what we're talking about in the
White House with the autopin which anybody could use. And

(07:58):
apparently NBC News did quite get that for whatever reason.
And Trump says he's making it easy. This executive has
actually signed a while back making English the official language
of the State. Latest though, is if you're calling a
federal phone number, it just got simpler to get through

(08:22):
the voicemail or the voice prompts the DOJ pushing English only,
No more press one for English. Okay, I get it.
If the phone answers and they say, hey, if you
need to hear this message in espaniol you know, press two.
I get that. But to tell you you've got to
press one to hear it in English just grates on

(08:45):
my very last nerve and probably yours. Two DJ says, yeah,
no more of that the federal phone system. All right, friends,
we got that and more coming your way here on
this the Wednesday morning midweek edition of Columbia's Morning News.
That it's fabulous to have reb you list, that is,
to have you with us, give yourself.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
An edge every morning with the info you can count
on Columbia's Morning You.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I gotta know what's happening on one.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
O three point five FF on 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 doub VOC.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
At six forty one. Good Morning, Wednesday, July sixteenth. I
am Gary David Christopher Thompson is off this week. Well,
things got a little more expensive last month. Consumer prices
place you to port out yesterday biggest increase since the
beginning of the year, and more than likely this means

(09:47):
the Fed will uh then not cut atest rates later
this month. But you want to blame it on what tariffs? Well,
not exactly, just a few scattered the experts say that
any of this was related to the tariffs. Now, it
wasn't a big increase overall. The CPI rose three tenths

(10:10):
of a percent last month, and that was Wall Street's forecast.
And again that's the biggest rise in inflation since January.
What's the culprit though, higher gas prices and the cost
of shelter. You take out the those items and you

(10:33):
look at the core inflation rate, which is what the
Fed really that's their preferred gage of things. So that
rose two tenths of a percentage point. You take out foods,
you take out gas, although food prices seem to be
coming down overall, though greater. Inflation went from year over

(10:57):
year two point seven percent to two points Ever, so
I should say from two point four percent for the
month of May. So again, this is gonna mean that
more than likely when the Feds get together, they will uh.
And it wasn't really, you know, because of the tear

(11:18):
of things and the uncertainty of the veed didn't seem
to be too terribly uh motivated to cut rates again.
And that of course continues to put you know, Trump
and in Jerome Powell at at at loggerheads here, Trump
continuing to attack him after this report came out, Trump

(11:42):
saying that Powell he's he's a knucklehead, stupid guy. He
really is, said Trump that we should have the lowest
interest rate anywhere in the world. The Palace done a
terrible job. Remember well, Jerome Powell is there because of Trump,
and Trump was the one who actually put them up
for that position during his first term. So, okay, are

(12:06):
you is this something you really notice? The gas prices
may be so again, it seems like food's coming down
a bit at the grocery store. The build doesn't seem
to be quite as high, at least not for our household.
Can't speak for yours, all right, So there's that. Now
looking ahead to the future, and the future is here,

(12:26):
by the way, whether we like it or not. And
the future is again artificial intelligence. Trump yesterday in Pennsylvania
unveiling a ninety billion dollar energy and innovation investment in
the in Pennsylvania, you got money coming in from Google,

(12:52):
from a black rock. This is all about well Trump's
and quite honestly, if we're going to live in a
world of artificial intelligence, we should be the leaders of it, right,
And that's what Trump is all about. This is the
largest private investment in the in the state's history. This
is not These are not taxpayer dollars we're talking about here.

(13:14):
This is private investment. Again. You had Google there, you
had Blackstone and Amazon Web Services, even the CEO of
Exon Mobile, they were all there. This is all about
the fight to be the leader in artificial intelligence. And

(13:36):
yeah again it's it's here. We got to be the leaders.
We need to to be sure that China doesn't get
any advantage over us or anybody any other nation, China
in particular. And as that was what said, the way
you win the war for dominance in AI is to

(13:56):
win the war for energy dominance. Again, this these these
servers require ridiculous amounts of energy and that's been an
ongoing conversation Mike Summers, who's the CEO and president of

(14:18):
the American Petroleum Institute, saying that over the over the
course of the last few years, energy demand has only
gone up by about two and a half percent a year.
But in the next seven years, the expectation is that
energy demand is going to go up by twenty five percent.
So we're going to go from two and a half

(14:39):
percent increases in energy demands a year up to twenty
five percent. Where does it come from? That's a again,
that's it's again. It's it's not that we the concer,

(15:01):
you know, the everyday folks are are using more energy.
It's it's it's these big server farms. It's happening right
here in this state. It's happening everywhere. So, yeah, if
you want to be a leader, you got to be
the leader of AI. If you want to be the
leader of AI is going to demand a whole bunch
of energy. And that's what well this is all about here.

(15:29):
It was what maybe was it two years ago, give
or take. Seems like it was right around December, right
around Christmas end of the year a couple of years
back that we first caught wind of this thing called
chat GPT, Well what is that? And maybe you tried it,

(15:52):
maybe you use it all the time, or any of
these other ai delios, But that was seen as some
sort of a well, okay, this is interesting, you know,
a fun new toy to play around with. You think back,
that was just a couple of years ago, if that,

(16:13):
and how far this has come in such a short
amount of time. And now that we're the point that
we're at, imagine how far is going to go in
a short amount of time what we're seeing today. And

(16:35):
if you're like me, you don't even begin to understand
what we're seeing today. I mean, it's just you can't
fathom it. But where we are today versus where we
were just two years ago or even a year ago,
consider how far we've come, and consider that chances are
pretty good that a year from now we'll have left

(16:59):
that in the dust. These systems will advance so much
in the course of the next year, it's crazy, man.
And it all demands a lot of energy. So that's
what it is all about. A ninety billion dollar investment
State of Pennsylvania. Yeah, and now they're talking trying to

(17:20):
revive the nuclear industry. Who is it Microsoft. It's a
Microsoft that's taken. It's taken over a three mile island
and a crank of that puppy back up again. Maybe
this is the fix for Jenkinsville. Maybe this is the way,
and whether that takes federal government intervention or not, maybe
this is what it's gonna take to get to that

(17:42):
second reactor over there that the construction restarted. One of
these days probably our best chance. I guess.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM on five sixty AM WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary and Christopher Thompson.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'm not going to discuss personnel matters. I think we
all are committed to working together now to make America
safe again, and that's what we're doing. It's just about
seven fifteen Good morning for Wednesday, July sixteen. That is
a g Pambondi there who's under fire from the left
hand and the right. And she's a referring. I was
asking a question about the whole Dan Bongino thing, and
you know, are they at odds? Here? Is she going

(18:23):
to leave? And I know that was her terse response
to all that. Yeah, it's not just the Democrats. As
you know, it's a growing number of conservatives that are
upset and don't believe what they're being told by the administration.
Reference to Jeffrey Epstein, the story that just won't go away.

(18:48):
So here's the latest. Now, we got a couple of
South Carooda ties to this story. First up, Nicki Haley
got into this yesterday when she posted on social media,
released the Epstein files, Let the chips fall where they may,
which is exactly the same thing Democrat Party is saying
right now, let the chips fall where they may, because
these chips are again I'm just working on the assumption. Yeah,

(19:11):
it's it's out there. There's a client list. We're not
being it's not being released to the public. And if
it ever happens, the chips are going to fall all
over the place. A lot of people will be hit
by these chips. So that was Haley's post, release the

(19:34):
Epstein files, Let the chips fall where they may. You
can never go wrong with being transparent. Redact victims' names,
but release the rest. All right, So Nikki Haley weighs
in and late Monday, so late that we even have
this story. Yesterday morning, we were with you at least.

(19:57):
But House Republicans on the House Rules Committee voted seven
to five to reject an amendment that would have forced
Pam Bondi to publish any records of evidence regarding the
fed's prosecution and incarceration of Epstein. There were two Republicans

(20:21):
on that panel. Well, one didn't vote at all, Chip Roy.
The other Republican, well, again, seven voted for it, five against.
But it's a I think that that panel is like
what eight Republicans and four Democrats. So where did that

(20:42):
fifth vote against rejecting this amendment come from? It came
from Ralph Norman. He voted in favor of the amendment. Yeah,
Ralph Norman voting for the amendment that would have forced
Pam Bondi's hand here re least anything and everything basically
the Feds have when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. Now

(21:05):
this again, it's interesting because it's it's pretty much universally
thought that what everybody is trying to get here in
South Carolina who's running for governor is to get the
endorsement of Donald Trump. It's a huge thing. And Ralph Norman,

(21:26):
in just a couple of weeks time is expected to
tell us yay or nay on his ideas of running
for governor, and we talked about this with the One
Big Beautiful Bill, which, by the way, I'm just curious here,
if all this had happened before the One Big Beautiful

(21:50):
Bill was passed, would it have gotten pasted? They're not.
They're two different things. But my point is is that
Trump seems to be loose using political capital with his
own base now because of this, So Ralph Norman votes
with the Democrats on this amendment to force Bondie's hand.

(22:14):
The amendment failed, it won't happen. But two things here.
Number one, Norman again on the wrong side of Donald
Trump on this, as he was at least initially on
the One Big Beautiful Bill. So it seems pretty unlikely
that if, in fact, Ralph Norman announces a run for
governor here in South Carolina, it would seem pretty unlikely
he would get a Trump endorsement. Okay. Number two again,

(22:41):
the fact that the Republicans on this committee ruled against
this flies in the face of a growing number of Republicans,
especially Trump's base, the MAGA base, who seemed to be
pretty united in thinking we need transparency here on this,
we got to have it now. Mike Johnson, the House

(23:02):
Speaker yesterday saying that Pam Bondi needs to explain her
statements regarding Jeffrey Epstein. This after the DOJ announced they
would not make any more disclosures in the case. This
is a break and a notable one from Trump. Trump

(23:23):
continues to stand by Bondie on this, and as that
post over the weekend on truth Social he is imploring
his supporters to just drop the matter, just move on.
But here's Johnson, who was of course instrumental in getting
the one big beautiful bill passed, working with Trump to

(23:47):
get it through the House and then try to although
he had no sway in the Senate, but that didn't
stop him from, you know, trying to do whatever he
could to make sure the Senate passed that bill, and
then when he got back to the House to make
sure the House went along with it. So this is
notable that Mike Johnson now is breaking with Trump on this.

(24:07):
I'm for transparency, he says, we're intellectually consistent in this,
and he quoted Ronald Reagan when he said Reagan used
to tell us we should trust the American people, and
I believe in that principle, and I know President Trump
does as well. I trust him, he says, but he

(24:28):
is breaking with him on this this. Uh. I didn't well,
none of us saw this one coming, right, especially after
they ramped it up, you know, starting back in February, Hey,
we got we got it, we're gonna let it out there.

(24:48):
We didn't see this. And even when it didn't happen,
even when they came out and said, yeah, there's nothing there,
it's a big nothing burger. Even then. I don't know
about you, but I didn't expect this much blow act
from this many people who were part of the Trump base.
But it is happening now. Thomas Massey, who doesn't have

(25:09):
to worry about every getting endorsement from Trump, whoever runs
against him and will be primarying him, we'll get the
endorsement of Trump. But does The Kentucky Republican yesterday saying
he would try to use a long shot procedural gambit
to force a vote that would require the DOJ to
release files related to Epstein. So he says, we're introducing

(25:32):
a discharge petition to force a vote in the House
of Representatives on releasing the complete files and all caps,
and that is co sponsored by Rocanna, who's been after
this as well, the Democrat from California. This would require
that BONDI make publicly available it is searchable and downloadable format,

(25:55):
all unclassified records, documents, communications, etc. That they have of
their possession. Well, it also says they can't be withheld
to later redacted should they cause embarrassment, reputational harm, or
political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or

(26:17):
foreign dignitary. If nothing else, this whole thing is god
us just speculating as to exactly what who was Jeffrey
Epstein and who was he working with. This whole idea
that he was some kind of an intelligence asset seems
to be making more and more sense. I got a

(26:38):
couple other things on this, we don't have time for
it now. We'll maybe get into the video more metadata
analysis of that shows there the thing had not just
one minute, but nearly three minutes cut out of it,
and a guy who spent time in the same cell
that Epstein supposedly off himself in. So there's just no

(27:02):
way it could have happened because well of the way
that Sella's is designed, and we'll we'll get do a
little bit later.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
On This is Colombia's Morning News with Gary David and
Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM and
five sixty AM.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
W VOC, Well, you got half of us, hopes I
got the week off. I'm Gary David, Good morning to you, Wednesday,
July sixteenth. Appreciates being here. So, yeah, we don't usually
do this, but we're gonna talk a little more about
this Epstein thing this morning. Okay, I know we've been
talking about a lot recently, but so is everybody else, right,
uh So, a couple of things we didn't get to
in the last segment on this that I told you

(27:44):
we would first up, Uh Michael Fronzie or FRONZIZI it
must be Fronziz. This was a mob guy, Okay. Former
member of the Colombo crime family, was interviewed the other
night by Ashley Banfield on News Nation from Zeezi. I'm

(28:10):
going with that because he's Italian spending a little bit
of time of the exact same prison cell that Jeffrey
Epstein was in when he supposedly killed himself. Now, they
weren't there at the same time he was there prior
to that. He told Banfield, there was just no way
that Epstein could have committed suicide in that cell. He

(28:34):
says that he spent seven months on that tier and
in those cells, and he says, no way this happened,
just no way, no way to hang yourself. He says,
there's nothing from a ceiling, as he said, you'd have
to be a midget and work really hard to try

(28:55):
to hang yourself. That the bunks are so low to
the ground that he says, you know, Epstein was a
fairly big guy, and he says, so you got nothing
on the ceiling to hang a bed sheet on. The

(29:18):
bed's not that high, he says, it would be Its
just impossible for him to do what they say he did.
And he says about the cameras, about them being off,
He said, he spent a lot of time there and
he never experienced cameras being broken, at least nothing he

(29:39):
knew of. And as he says, a perfect storm of
correctional officers not walking those cells. He said, they walk
in and look at you all the time. He says,
there's sometimes embarrassing to go to the toilet because they're
walking past you looking into the cell constantly. So he
says there's no way in his conclusion that Epstein killed himself.

(30:06):
And as far as the cameras and the footage, and
and just for a second, let me pause here. I'm
beginning to wonder why in the world the Department of
Justice and Pam Bondi would put out the video they
did with if you've if you've seen it at just

(30:32):
the right moment, boom video cuts. Why even put it
out there? You gotta know that by doing so, unless
you really think we're that's stupid, that all you're doing
is inflaming the situation by putting that out there, with
the footage all of a sudden it cuts off. I

(30:53):
know her explanation that they they reset it right right
before mid night every night, blah blah blah blah blah. Okay,
but the metadata that's been analyzed. Newly uncovered metadata shows

(31:15):
that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what
the DJ and the FBI has said was the full
raw surveillance video, not one minute as was originally said,
but according to the metadata embedded in the video, they
say it was more like three minutes. There were reports

(31:40):
that the video had been put together in a piece
of software called Adobe Premiere Pro from two video files. Okay,
this was not one video, this was two different videos.
The metadata apparently shows, and this too further contradicts. The
DJs claimed that it was a raw footage. So they

(32:03):
looked at this a little further, and they showed that
one of the source clips was about two minutes and
fifty three seconds longer than the segment that was included
in the final video, indicating that footage had two minutes
and fifty three seconds appeared to have been trimmed out

(32:25):
of the video before it was released. Now, there's no
way of knowing what was in that, old man, none

(32:46):
of this makes any sense, does it. This this early
on in an administration, I mean, it's we're only what now,
six months into the administration. I'm beginning to believe that

(33:11):
this is gonna and I hope I'm wrong, but I'm
beginning to believe if somebody does. And I think this
is why you're seeing Mike Johnson now kind of breaking
from BONDI on this at least to a degree, not
necessarily with Trump, but with BONDI that if there's no

(33:32):
resolution to this by the time we get into twenty
twenty six, the midterms could be an upheaval here. I,
if I may be so bold as to make a prediction,
Pam Bondi is going to take the fall for this.

(33:55):
I know Trump's supporting it right now and he's telling
all of us to shut up. But I think it's
going to come down to the fact that Bondi is
going to have to take the fall for this. But
I also have found it hard to believe that that
Bondi is just if there's some kind of cover up

(34:16):
going on here, that it's all Pam Bondi doing, You
cannot convince me that's the case. This certainly has the
potential to do a lot of damage to the Trump administration,
and not from the left. They're about to do damage
every day whatever they can. It's doing damage from Trump's
biggest supporters, who are showing people that they believe in

(34:41):
certain things like transparency more than they believe in just
say Donald Trump, which is actually the way it should be, right, Okay.
I think at some point we see Pam Bondy go
away and that will be the attempt to put all

(35:02):
this finally to bed. But I don't know that it does.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM on five sixty AM WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Stay fifteen, Wednesday, July sixteenth, Morning till you. Let's get
back home here for a couple of stories. Uh, First up,
this is scary stuff. DJ announcing yesterday that the DEA,
along with state and local agencies, seized more than one
hundred and fifty six pounds of fentanyl. I want forty

(35:40):
four pounds of meth in Lexington County. Wow. I mean,
that's enough fentanyl to kill us all, isn't it? More
than one hundred and fifty six pounds of this stuff
for the records so far this year. The DJ is

(36:03):
saying that, and this is not just a Lexington County,
but this is across the country. They've they've they've seized
some forty five hundred pounds of funnel dangerous stuff, very

(36:25):
scary stuff. And there you go, more than a hundred
and fifty pouns in Lexingdon County. Wow. Okay, all right,
so I'm trying to figure this one out. It wasn't
but what a couple of weeks ago that Columbia City
Council decided they put a moratorium on new licenses granting

(36:51):
new applications for short termmentals in the city of Columbia.
This going back to that deadly shooting in an airbnb
over in the Elmwood Park area, what about two months ago.
So they had, you know, a couple of readings and
they passed this this more a one year ban on
new applications. Now, it didn't affect anybody who currently had

(37:13):
the okay to use their residences as an airbnb, but
there'd be no new ones. Well, maybe they've had second
thoughts here. Yesterday they put off a vote on whether
to strike down that pause. So they're looking to pause

(37:37):
the pause. I guess so a delay of that first reading.
Now word is is that they want more time to
review and refine the rules related to enforcement, how many
people can be in an airbnb and who's eligible to
be there. From a guest perspective, may I recommend saying

(37:59):
this decision to revisit the case came after more than
a year of data collection. I suppose you could argue, well, okay,
maybe you should have put off that first vote to
ban it until you reviewed all the data. But maybe
you just weren't available. I don't know anyway, but they
want to look at it again, and apparently there will
be a plating a public work session August fifth to

(38:22):
discuss some possible changes how these short termentals are regulated.
That's been some of the discussion on how you know
you get X number of points and you know you
can't rent it out anymore. And well it has been
very rarely, if ever, enforced, and that's what neighbors have
complained about. And well, we'll see where it goes. So
there's a possibility they strike the ban, but they, you know,

(38:43):
make sure they're properly regulating these things, which is the
I think the least we can ask for, right, I think?
So all right, now, I saw this story popped up
a week or two back, but now it's made at
least national news in some publications. I think Fox, Yeah,
foxnews dot com pick this story up. It has to

(39:07):
do with Alex Murdoch and Curtis Atti. Smith is an
alleged drug dealer. Well Dick Carpulian now saying that some
newly uncovered text messages between Murdoch and Smith could have
dramatically altered their trial strategy. The defensive trial strategy and

(39:30):
possibly prevented a conviction, says are polium. Well at this point,
take that with a grain of salt. This is what
any good defense lawyer will say. But does he have
something here? My first question would be, wait a minute,
how did you uncover these or how were they not

(39:51):
uncovered in the first place? These text messages. I mean,
it's not hard to come up with this stuff, right,
Why was it it available for the first trial? Well,
Harpootlian says that these messages were not provided to the
defense during the trial. All right, So in the words

(40:13):
I they were was held by the prosecution as his
is his argument, and that had they had them, he
says that they might have led to a decision not
to call Smith to the stand. It could have made
a difference, he says. He says, these messages offer new
insight into the timeline of drug distributions, some of them

(40:36):
happening the very week of the murder. So what are
they here? Well, they show that the two message back
and forth in the days leading up to the murder
of Maggie Murdoch and Paul Murdoch that happened on June seventh,
twenty twenty one, four days before Smith text Murdock, Hey, brother,

(41:01):
I need to get the check you got one or
are you gonna be around later? Later that day, Murdoch
responds he had to deal with some bs this morning.
All right, give me a holler, says Smith. The day
before the murders, Murdoch textas Smith and says call me back,
gets a quick text back, tell me what I heard

(41:24):
is not true. Call me please. Now this is the
day before the murders. I'm not sure what he'd be
responding to. Uh, all right, well, you know, to me,
it doesn't make a what is this show? Well, the texts,
Harpulian says, the ones they didn't have indicate a little

(41:46):
more of the timeline of the distributions, and that some
of them of the week of the murder. We're not
aware of that, he says. Have we been aware, we
might we may have made a difference in our decision
not to call Smith to the stand. Again. I don't
know what this would have shown. I think it was
pretty much given on everybody's mind, including the minds of
the jurors that you know, Curtis Eddie. Smith was supplying

(42:09):
Alex Mordock with drugs, and maybe there's more to this
that I'm aware of, but I don't see if nothing
else is going to be an argument made by the
defense that hey, we weren't given all the relevant evidence

(42:30):
here in the case. We didn't have access to these
text messages that could have changed the way he went
about doing things, and so we need a new trial.
We need this one tossed out. I guess that's the point.
I don't know, but just based on some of those
messages right there, I mentioned how that changes anything, But
that's what good defense attorneys do, right hear about it.

(42:52):
We've had multiple Democrats politicians talk about it, trun people
and incited violence.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
One on three point five FM and five sixty A
w VOC since Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and
Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM and
five sixty AM w VOC.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Ben our final thoughts here on a Wednesday morning. It
is coming up on eight to forty. Good Morning till Yeah,
let's see. I believe Jonathan Kelly mentioned this in the
era rash thought yesterday, the idea of an alligator Alcatraz
like lock up here in South Carolina. Could that happen

(43:34):
well over the weekend. Christy Nome, the DHS director, said
that a number of governors had already approached her expressing interest,
and the governorment Master's Office confirming that, yeah, we could
become one of those. No, I'm saying that several other

(43:56):
states are actually using Alligator alcol tras as a model
for how they can partner with us, and that she
has had ongoing conversations with five other governors, and again
the Governor's office here confirming that, yeah, apparently we are
one of those that our law enforcement and a National
Guard could collaborate and participate with the FEDS on illegal

(44:20):
immigration enforcement and deportation, was a statement from the spokesperson,
Bradon at charijac Now, Okay, cooperating is one thing, but
actually having a facility where we would house these folks, well,
this gets down to that whole you know. Yeah, but

(44:41):
not in my backyard, regummen, Right, Yeah, okay, you'd have
to put it somewhere, and you're gonna make somebody unhappy. Ice,
by the way, is ramping up a detention without bond hearings.
They have moved to detain far more people than before

(45:02):
and doing this by using the legal authority to jail
anybody who enters the country illegally without allowing them a
bond hearing. Todd lyons. The acting ICE director wrote a
memo about a week ago saying that the agency was
revisiting it's extraordinarily broad and equally complex authority to detain

(45:24):
people and that effectively, immediately people would be ineligible for
a bond hearing before immigration judge. Instead, they could not
be released unless the Homeland Security Department makes an exception. Okay, well,
how this is different from the Biden years and the

(45:44):
Biden years of course, Well, there weren't any bond hearings
that people just let go to rome about the country freely.
Oh we've heard all the stories of people who were
given up, Yeah, given a court date for a bond
hearing five, six, seven years down the road. Let's face it,
we do not have enough immigration judges to grant bond

(46:06):
hearings to all these people. We just don't. DHS saying
that that ICE will have plenty of bedspace now that
the President assigned a law that spends about a one
hundred and seventy billion dollars on border in immigration development.
So in some of that bedspace, again related back to

(46:28):
that prior story that might come right here in South
Carolina with our own version of Alligator Alcatraz. Be curious
to see where they might put that thing. The Pentagon
announcing yesterday they had ended the deployment of those two
thousand National Guard troops in Los Angeles. Now that's well,

(46:50):
that's two thousand. There's still others there, about four thousand
all told, and some seven hundred Marines have been there
since early June, so not all have left, but about
half of them have now. Gavin Newsom defending illegal immigration,
calling for a pathway to citizenship. In an interview a Monday,

(47:16):
he claimed that illegal immigration has not negatively affected America's
Americans ability to find work, he says, is one of
California's most vital industries. California issue and we all should
be incentivizing this sort of modernization rather than just out

(47:37):
justifying outdated and exploitative labor practices. He says about half
about half of the ag workers in his state and
forty one percent of construction workers are not just immigrants
but illegal immigrants. Did you get say about half of
the agriculture of the farm workers and four out of

(47:58):
ten construction workers are in this country illegally. This is California,
and saying that his state collects some eight and a
half billion dollars in tax dollars every year from illegal immigrants,
and without a workforce, that's not going to happen, he says,
and that you know, Americans don't want to take those jobs.

(48:20):
Really well, okay, I might say, yeah, they didn't want
to go work the farms, but construction really wow? Okay, yeah.
Senator Republicans advancing the president's request to cancel some nine

(48:42):
billion dollars in previously announced spending here, okay, so we've
got the one big, beautiful bill would upset some Republicans,
mainly conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Was the increase in spending here,
but they're trying to claw back some of that money
nine billion dollars. Now. There are concerns from some on

(49:04):
Capitol Hill that these recessions could be bad for poor
people around the globe and for public radio and TV
stations in their home states, to which others say, well, fine,
there was a tie vote by the way in the
Senate and JD. Vans had to come in once again
and break a tie a final vote now that was

(49:28):
just their just advanced moves along. The final vote could
happen as early as today, and that happens that it
will go back to the House for another vote before
it would go to Trump's desk for a signature before
a Friday deadline. So they're trying to get you know,
some of this money back out here, and some of
this was Doge cuts, so just I guess trying to qualify.

(49:49):
And yeah, one of the bull's eye is on the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Okay. Meanwhile, the NEA under fire
the National Education Association. You got some Republicans up in
d C now who say they plan to introduce legislation
to revoke the federal charter of the NEEA over its

(50:12):
political priorities. Mark Harris from North Carolina and Marshall Blackburn
and Tennessee say they will each introduce the National Education
Association Charter Repeal Act. This is the largest teachers union
in the country, and I think we know about their politics,
absolutely we do. You had Corey DeAngelis last week, an

(50:36):
education activist obtained the NEEAIDS convention resolutions that they just
recently passed, and they did in fact include, yes, several
political positions to try to combat Donald Trump. Oh yeah,
they used fascist and actually they misspelled the word fascism. Yeah,
this is this is the National Education Association in their

(51:00):
resolutions misspelling the word fascism. Yeah. The resolution they passed
promised to defend against Trump's embrasive fascism by of course
using the term fascism and their materials to identify as
programs in action. So yeah, this is the political slant

(51:20):
of an organization that is long lost, long ago lost
their what their core job is. And then it's to
educate our kids. Our children's are our nation's kids. They're
more interested in just fighting Donald Trump. It's more than
just the oversight committees on Capitol Hill. Now the White

(51:42):
House apparently investigating as well, investigating Joe Biden juice of
the auto pen. The senior officials in the administration telling
Fox News Digital they're already looking at tens of thousands
of documents that have been turned over by the National
Archives and Records Administration, and yeah, they're looking at communications

(52:04):
and other records related to Biden's use of that pen.
NBC News with egg on their face when they ran
a story an article yesterday, trying to show the hypocrisy
of those on the right who are criticizing the autopen
by the Biden administration. The article points out that that
James Comer, who was the chair of the House Overside
Committee holding these hearings, that he had used a digital

(52:26):
signature on his own official letters letters about the autopen. Now,
you may have done this to yourself. There's a lot
of online programs these days. I guess said documents all
the time and I just you cook on fill and
sign and you feel it. Okay. That's one thing. This
is not over. That James Combert himself used that method

(52:50):
to sign his own letters is one thing. The auto
pen that they're talking about in the Biden administration, that's
something else. Who was using them as what they want
to know, NBC, They tried their best. But it's things
like that that show you why this is true that
broadcast viewing hit a new low last month. The Nielsen

(53:16):
rankings show that broadcast TV well shrunk down to eighteen
and a half percent of viewership. Yeah, that's it. About
eighteen and a half percent of people that are watching
TV these days are watching network TV. We're all streaming.
That's where we are. Final thoughts there for Wednesday, July sixteenth,