Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ilgesuous. Hell yeah, set America and Jeryllin for regious, for
nation under God. This 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 (00:29):
Well, my friends, we have made it to Friday. Good
morning to tell you sixteen after six Friday morning, July
the eighteenth. I hope you were well and ready to
sweat again today. Oh my goodness, what one O seven
He didn't expY today? We could see he'd expius over
the weekend. Some of the models are calling for you know,
(00:51):
one hundred and ten or so. So dangerous heat continues,
and we don't have any relief coming anytime soon. Yeah,
I'm just looking ahead here. Hang on a minute, No, yeah, no, oh, hey,
Tuesday high about ninety one. That's as good as it's
(01:13):
going to get when it comes to relief for us
around here. So, and we're a couple of degrees warmer
this morning than we normally are to start the day, FYI.
And right here at seventy seven here at the radio ranch.
So yeah, there we go. More of this. Yeah again,
Really dangerous heat continues across the Midlands. All right, let's regardless,
(01:37):
let's get ready for the weekend. Shout, well, let's get
ready for the day first. Then won't worry about the weekend.
Right by the way, my name is Gary David Christopher
Thompson normally here, but it's off this week. He's back
on Monday. Let's get right to it because there's a
lot on the docket today, the rundown, the big stories,
the hot topics, a number of local and state wide
items of interest today as well, including new well new
(01:58):
data on immigration shows that the monthly number of ice
arrests here in South Carolina have tripled. Last year, ice
arrests were about one hundred each month on average. This year, well,
it doubled and it tripled. March we saw the most
(02:20):
arrests at three hundred and forty five. So again the
number of ice interventions here in our state is rising,
as it is in most other places. More news this
morning on this landscaping firm that was hired by Richland
District one to do landscaping work at their early learning center,
(02:44):
which now has gone belly up. Of course, we have
talked about this before. B and G Landscaping again, a
company that did not have a county business license, a
company that owed backed taxes to the state, a company
that seems like the state paper says it didn't have
a provided proof of insurance in response to proposal requests
(03:09):
they were issued back in twenty twenty and a company
that apparently Richland One, paid more than established rates too.
This story's not quite over yet. You know, this year
smacks of maybe somebody knew somebody and was somebody getting well.
I don't know, it just smacks of that. I'm not
(03:29):
saying it was, but we'll take a look into some
of that dick car pool. You're doing a lot of
talking these days about the Alex Murdoch trial in conviction
of murdering his wife and his son back in twenty
twenty three. We mentioned earlier in the week there's some
text messages between a Murdoch and his Yes, his cousin,
(03:49):
isn't he Eddie Smith? Curtis aidiy Smith also allegedded drug dealer.
But to some of those texts that have popped up now,
the defense cid he did not have access to during
the trial. That might have changed changed the way they
approached things and the witnesses they called I didn't quite
we read some of those text messages. I didn't quite
get what what the point was. But well, the latest
(04:11):
is is that Murdoch now says, well, remember the ager,
the ager that well looks like she might have been
leaning more towards acquittal of Murdoch again like exactly how
he knows this for sure, but that her dismissal could
(04:35):
have changed the outcoming. Said a worst case, he thinks
it could have been a mistrial. All this is a
Murdock's defense team continues to push for on appeal and
for a new trial in that case. All right, He's
still running for governor as a Democrat despite his arrest
for running in the streets nude. I'd almost forgotten about this,
but we mentioned it when it happened. Mullins McLeod, a
(05:00):
dominant Low Country attorney who is running as a Democrat
for a governor two months ago, was well arrested by police. Well,
I say he was running nude. He was wearing his underwear,
but that was about it. Seems like I don't know,
(05:21):
something was It was bizarre behavior and it continued. He
was locked up at least briefly. But he's still gonna
run he says, so, well, he can say he's done
something that nobody else has. I guess Stephen Colbert's and
I only mention this here in the rundown with our
local stories because of course he's from Charleston. I grew
up on James. I don't know. I believe it was,
(05:42):
but Colbert's Late Show, the show that originally came on
years and years and years ago with David Letterman. The
show canceled right after a Colbert secured an Emmy nomination.
By the way, of course, CBS going through a lot
of stuff right now, and they say it had nothing
to in. Colbert himself says, he got nothing to do
with me. The whole show is going away. It's just
(06:02):
not making financial sense for CBS. The network says, So
there's that, but it is wilding up some Democrats upon
Capitol Hill who want an explanation from CBS, which you know, again,
does CBS owe any politician and explanation over this. Well,
if you are a frequent guest visitor and you enjoy
(06:22):
the Harveston State Forest, well you probably know it's been
shut down for a couple of days because of those
rabbit dog attacks. Even if you're not. You probably know
that they'd hope to open it, to reopen it yesterday,
but now they tell us it'll be closed at least
until Tuesday, which I guess means they haven't gotten those
rabbit dogs yet. The House got it done yesterday, signing
(06:44):
off on the Recisions Bill, not recession bill, that's heard
people called it recisions bill. This is where they're taking
money already budgeted, in this case for us AID and
for PBS, PBS and NPR somewhat nine billion dollars worth
of bringing it back, taking it back out of the budget,
(07:06):
not going to spend. A House passed it after the
Senate passed it the night before and a late night vote,
o rama. It's gone to Trump's deest now where he's
expected to sign it today. Speaking of Trump, h latest
here Wall Street Journal within article and uh there, these
(07:27):
were letters that were written to Jeffrey Epstein for his
fiftieth birthday as his uh well, right hand woman Julane
Maxwell was preparing a special gift for the occasion. One
of the letters, of Wall Street Journal reports was from
Donald Trump, and well it was a pretty body letter.
(07:48):
And well, this has got everybody's tongues wagging, and all
the talk has turned to this. Now Trump threatening a
lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over this, as he
denies he ever wrote that letter. It also had a
pretty body drawing attach to it. Meantime, more serious business,
the President directing the A. G. Pambondi to release the
(08:11):
relevant grand jury transcripts in the case. She says she
will be releasing those. I don't know what that will
show us, if anything, and if nothing else, will Pam
Bondy survive all this that remains to be seen. The
White House coming out in some transparency here and after
(08:31):
questions were raised over photos showing that the President's legs
were swollen, hand was swollen. He has had a full
physical and he is he is suffering from a condition
that many folks the president's age have, chronic venous insufficiency
is what they call it. So there is some swelling
now to tell you. Apparently the the doctor's report listing
(08:55):
a number of things to his vital signs. And well,
let's see that he's seventy five inches tall, which is
what but six y three is that right? Sixty three
weighs two hundred and twenty four pounds. I don't think so,
but hey whatever, all right, we'll get to that. Oh
(09:17):
the story. Everybody's talking about the Coldplay kiss cam and
while the the couple that got caught on that thing
and apparently they were well maybe they were a couple. Okay,
apparently they were, but at least he a CEO of
an astronomy company, was a married man. And everybody's buzzing
(09:38):
about that one. All right, we got that more coming
your way here on this It is the Friday edition
of Columbia's Morning News. It is good to have you
here where the spirits of America lives off region. Every
day we spuck each other and rob we're coming from
and learned from each other.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Went 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 O three point five FM
and five sixty AM w VOC.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It is six forty one and good Morntiya. It is Friday,
July the eighteenth, and yeah, it's wicked hot. As title
just mentioned. Something of that he did next today could
problemed about one hundred and seven or so, and we
had the potential over the next couple of days to
see heat. The next values as high as about one
hundred and ten. So there there's that, all right. So
(10:29):
Jamie Harrison failed Senatorial Canada from South Carolina and failing bigly,
a one hundred and thirty million dollars fail, then rewarded
for his efforts by being given the reins of the
Democratic National Committee, which he now says, well, he really
didn't have any any real ability to make any changes.
It was just kind of, I guess, a figurehead thing.
(10:51):
But well, regardless of there's tenure as the head of
the DNC. Well they lost everything, the House, the Senate,
the White House, all of it. So now Jamie is
going to venture into the podcast arena, and he launched
his first episode yesterday. It's called at Our Table and
(11:13):
he had Hunter Biden on yesterday. I guess that's a
pretty good way to start. You can at least get
some publicity for your podcast when you have put Darling
Hunter on, and in it, Hunter expressed his unhappiness that
the Democrat Party, with their lack of loyalty to his dad,
(11:37):
we lost the last election because we did not remain
loyal to the leader of the party. He said. We
had the advantage of incumbency. We had the advantage of
an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down. Okay,
so Hunter living in an alternate universe. Obviously, maybe he
(11:58):
didn't watch that debate. Of course, Hunter and Jill and
the rest of the Biden clan and well the Inner circle.
Remember they were all pushing this, this lie to us
that that Joe was just fine, and only that he
was just fine, that he was capable of leading this
country for an additional four years. Okay. He also addressed
(12:26):
claims made by Jake Tapper in his book Original Sin,
saying that Tapper's writing that Hunter himself was the acting
chief of staff, claims that was obviously not true. What
do you think he was going to say? Okay? So
(12:50):
Hunter still thinks to this day that his dad should
have been the nominee, and had he been, he would
have won, and had he won, he could have effectively
himself led this country for another four years. Gotcha. Now
the party itself is in tatters. Gallup the new Gallup survey,
(13:13):
Democrats have record well, this is about American institutions. Okay,
Democrats have record low confidence in key American institutions. Meanwhile,
Republican confidence has rebounded. So okay, you see what's going
on here. It depends on who's in power, whether or
not you have any confidence in our government now. Quite honestly,
(13:37):
at any given point in time, you should at least
be a little wary of our government. But even then,
the numbers aren't that big. Republicans, for example, even with
Trump in the White House, just thirty seven percent of
Republicans surveyed by this gallipole have a great deal or
quite a lot of confidence in the institutions they have
(13:58):
been tracking now for over four decades. That's not good. Democrats, however,
their confidence in these nine institutions is reached a record
low of twenty six percent. So neither way even the Republicans.
(14:19):
With Republicans running the show, you know, just thirty seven
percent whether with a great deal or quite a lot
of confidence in our government institutions, that's not good. But
Democrats are twenty six percent. Well, it's crazy just because
who's in power. So suddenly maybe you had confidence a
(14:40):
year ago, but now you don't because your party's not empowered.
Come on, if you want to see polling numbers about well,
not a institution, but in this case a candidate, and
do you have confidence in this person? I would love
to see what they that same poll addressing this guy
Zoe ran Mom Donnie, who apparently, after all, is in
(15:03):
fact a communist. Newly resurfaced video Mandami talking about the
housing crisis when he's just kind of well casually admits,
(15:25):
he says, my platform is that every single person should
have housing. And he says, I think, faced with these
two options, the system has hundreds of thousands of people
in house, right for what if there's any system that
could guarantee each person housing? Get this now, whether you
call it the abolition of property or a state wide
(15:49):
housing guarantee, it's preferable to what's going on right now now.
Housing has been one of his key platforms in his right.
And this guy's been serving in the in the legislature
in New York for a couple of years now. But
that just Hey, whether you call it the abolition of property,
(16:10):
that's a communist ideal that is right out of the
Carl Marx playbook. And this guy calls himself a democrat socialist. Hey,
he's not a democrat. I'm not even sure you can
call him a socialist now I think you just call
him a flat out comie. Huh. Yeah, so that's back
(16:33):
out there. Now. Is this going to change the minds
of any people in the New York City who have
voted for him in that Democrat primary, Well they changed
their tune again. New York City just the opposite of
South Carolina. Doesn't matter about what happens, you know in
the general election. Well it's it's this time. You get
(16:55):
all kinds of players in it. This time. You got
this nutcase who seems to have all the advantage. You've
got Cuomo gonna run as an independent. You got the
current mayor also going to run as an independent. You
got Curtis Sliva who's running as a republic It's going
(17:18):
to be very interesting. And typically who could care less
about the run for mayor in New York City, Well,
this time around because of this guy and the influence
that he could have on the Democrat party. You got
a guy running in Minneapolis right now who's just as
about as communist is, if not more so than Mondamie.
(17:41):
How many more of these are we going to see
pop up? Huh?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
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 (17:58):
Well, here's Gary David. That's me and Christopher Thompson and
is joining his final day of vacation today. I went
by quickman talking my wife last night in our vacations
in a couple of weeks, and I hope ours does
to go as quick as Christophers did, at least the
weakest slung by from me personally, maybe sort free, I hope.
So all right, it's going to have you along on
a Friday morning, getting ready front of the hot, scorching,
(18:20):
potentially dangerous high weekend. Again, those heating next values we
could see sometime of the course the next couple of
days heatd next values as high as one hundred and ten.
So head's up. I don't plan to do much of
anything outdoors this weekend. I don't believe. All right, now
we're going to revisit because there's been new reporting on
(18:41):
this by the state paper. Richland won the U now
Belly Up Early Learning Center. The problems they had well,
number one that they were trying to convince well I
guess not even convincing Eve, and bother the ask the
state Education Department was this a real school or not
(19:01):
to qualify. Bottom line was it didn't. They didn't bother
to go through Richland County to get any any sort
of work permits, which is still just blows my mind
how they were able to do as much as they did.
It's not like it's somebody doing something on the back
of their house that you know, nobody in the county
(19:22):
is going to notice. I mean, they were clearing massive
amounts of land to build something and it hadn't pulled
the first work permit for it. Okay. Well, then when
they started to you know, knocking things down, and then
we had problems with runoff, and then they faced lawsuits
homeowners who said they're their properties, their homes were badly
(19:46):
damaged by the runoff from this. Well. The landscaping company
at the heart of this is back of the news again.
This is B and G Landscaping, a company that recently,
this is key recently obtained a county license, but at
the time when they were hired by the school district,
(20:07):
they didn't have one. Not only do they not have
a county business license, they owned back taxes to the state.
As the paper reports, they appear not to have provided
proof of insurance in response to a request for proposals
that were issued by the district in late twenty twenty.
(20:28):
They now have a license, but they still have more
than ten grand and unemployment taxes. Well, this BG Landscaping
was one of four landscaping firms that were awarded contracts
in order to supplement the county's own landscaping department. Okay,
so the school district, the county, they have an owned
(20:50):
landscaping department, but they I guess it ain't enough, so
they're farming out some work to what they did four
over landscape companies, including this one. Okay, but an audit, now,
an internal auditor has a red flagged some information. Actually,
(21:17):
this audit was a decade more than a decade ago
before they got this contract back in twenty twenty one.
Without is the record show meeting several of the district's requirements.
And I just mentioned some of those. No license. For example,
this BG Landscaping at the time they were blooming and
(21:39):
grooming landscaping services. There is a small operation run out
of the owner's home. Okay, there's a lot of those.
That's fine. They've been paid somewhere in the neighborhood of
two million dollars over the term of this contract for mulching,
for pruning, irrigation, landscape demolition, more than the established rates. Apparently,
(22:08):
still a lot of questions here. And again, this is
an outfit that has had a relationship with the school
district now for nearly a quarter of a century. So yeah,
you can say, well, yeah, there was a comfortable thing
they've been using for a long time and keep going
back and back. But somebody didn't do their due diligence.
(22:30):
When kelvin Washington, the internal Auditor reviewed the procurement of
B and G back again more than a decade ago
at their customer board member, he found that the company
had been hired without a competitive bidding process, and that
is a strict violation of the district's procurement code. Of course,
as it should be that there was no formal contract
(22:53):
and no oversight all right now, I'm not placing the
blame here on B and G. Landscaping goes here to
want the school district for and again, if they were
a private company, they do what you want to do.
But they're not. They are funded by taxpayer dollars. Your dollars.
(23:15):
And this seems to be an ongoing issue here, No
no competitive bids, just just handed to them and again
continued to do that, and has continued to use their
work even when they were unlicensed, owe back unemployment taxes,
(23:39):
and the list goes on and on. Well, the new
super over at Richland one has got some work to do.
This this wasn't this was the school board. Now that
has been the result of all that. It is a
lengthy article. Uh so, hats off the state paper for
really digging into this one. You know me, I print
everything out. It's like seven pages long. Contractual compliance issues, overcharging.
(24:07):
It looks like the price they were charging the school district.
I'm gonna stop saying the school district. The price they
were charging taxpayers, the article states rarely corresponded to contractual
unit prices and differed considerably from invoice to invoice. So
I guess, snipp at it on the day, sounds like
(24:31):
the for about pretty much the same amount of work
they were charging more one time than another. Hmm. Well,
hopefully this again, that is not just coming to the light now.
(24:55):
It came light a while ago. Maybe this time we
get somebody's attention over there. Let's hope so. But then again,
I don't know, because this first internal audit relating to
this company again was done in twenty eleven and they
showed all kinds of issues. Then that was fourteen years ago,
and that was a decade before they were hired on
(25:15):
to do the latest round of work. And for that
they've garnered about two zero point three million dollars of
your money.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Your morning News, getting ready for work and all day in.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Fault and check in throughout the day.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
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 sixty am doub VOC.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
All right, seven thirty nine, we'll get to the latest
on the attempts to secure a new trial for Alex Murdoch.
Here come out up here in just a couple of minutes.
But first up, you know, the gubernatorial race starting early
here in South Carolina. Republicans, you got Alan Wilson, you
got suddenly went blank, the senator from the upstate. Yeah,
(26:14):
you know what I'm talking about. It's Friday, Come on,
give me a break already. Josh Campbell, thank you. Yeah,
it just popped in my head. Now we got the
lieutenant governor, of course, Pamela of It. In the matter
of ten days or so, we might get Ralph Norman,
and we don't know what happened with Nancy Mace right now.
(26:36):
But we always focus on the Republicans because well it's
it's South Carolina and again the primary in June, June ninth,
I think the date is will for all intents and purposes,
determine who our next governor is. So we very seldom
talk about the Democrats. Well, because they got a snowball chance, right,
so let's give them some love for a minute or two. Right, Democrats, Well,
(26:59):
in this case, one particular Democrat running for governor, and
that is a Mullins McLeod. You might not have even
realized that Mullins McLeod, who Well, if for folks in
the low country, they're probably probably somewhat familiar with that name.
I'm not very familiar. He's a very prominent Charleston attorney
(27:22):
who is running for governor. But after announcing, well that
something something happened, actually this happened a few days before
he announced, but he went ahead announced and he's he's
going on his campaign here. According to an incident report,
(27:46):
a police in Charleston, and this was provided to fits News, said,
an unnamed individual later identified as McLeod was observed walking
along the battery. We talked about this. You may recall
walking along the battery screaming the top of his lungs.
This was back on May fourteenth. His screams, per the
(28:08):
police report, could be heard from approximately one city block away. Okay.
At the time, cops didn't know who this was. The
gentleman was observed to be wearing only his underwear in
shoes at the time, and when officers accosted him and
(28:30):
asked why is behaving so bizarrely, he started to yell louder,
locking out his arms. Asked for his name, he claimed
first that he was God and then that he was Superman. Okay, well,
they took him in, at which time he allegedly continued
(28:52):
to ramble incoherently and at one point lashed out and
kicked another prisoner. Police. According to Fence News, they thought
at first he was high on drugs. His attorney says, no,
he was not. Uh okay, I don't know what was
the I don't know what would that happen there, why
(29:15):
he was in the state he was in, But you know,
yelling at the top of his lungs, wearing only these
underwear and his shoes along the battery in Charleston. And
he's still running for governor. So he's done things the
other candidates can't say they've done. Okay, So a little
love for the Democrats running for governor. Here's South Carolina
(29:36):
right there. They have it. You can't say we don't
give him fair coverage right now. We talked a few
days ago. I even went down some of these text messages.
The latest here is to Carpoolian and Murdock's defense attorneys.
So I don't know how they're getting paid these days.
I have no idea, but they continue to try to
get his first conviction tossed and get him a new
(29:58):
trial here. So a few days back, we were telling
you that Harpoulian, in an interview, had said that there
were a series of text messages that they did not
have access to at the time of the trial. And
(30:21):
those messages, which originally were revealed i FITS News showed
that Curtis Eddie Smith's alleged drug dealer and a Murdoch
we're communicating by a text message in the days leading
up to the murders. Our building says he and his
team were unaware of these texts during the trial. They
(30:46):
might have called Smith as a witness had they known.
Now we've ran down some of those texts, and they well,
about a week ahead of the murder, provided some timeline
about drug distribution. But the ones we had access to,
at least that we talked about, I didn't see how
they changed the story at all. But whatever. But now
(31:13):
you've got Harpulian making claims that well, one juror who
we all remember her name, or at least the name
she was, her nickname, the egg Lady. Do you remember
the egg Lady right? That she had been vocal in
the jury room about her doubts as to Murdoch's guilt.
(31:35):
Now you recall the egg Lady was dismissed just days
before the verdict, Harpootlian says, and they did interview the
jury members afterwards that a second juror had told them
that she was pressured into voting guilty by Oh here
(31:56):
we go, Becky Hill, the former clerk of court who
now has her own problems, of course, and other jurors
convinced her and pressured her into voting guilty. And you
recall the defense allegations that Hill tried to sway the
jury to sell more copies of her book that didn't
(32:17):
work out so well, and that she Harpilion claims she
told several of her co workers that a guilty verdict
would be good for book sales and she was working
to influence them to convict. Well, Okay, well Hill's got
that's a whole nother story right there. But that the
claims now by a Murdoch's defense team that the egg
(32:40):
Lady had serious reservations about a guilty verdict and was
not afraid to make them well known in the jury room. Okay,
so I guess the accusation here is is that, yeah,
she was gonna at the very least. The Murdoch defense
team claims this would have been at a mistrial hung jury,
(33:05):
they would not be able to reach a verdict at
the very least. I don't think they're trying to make
the claim that he'd have been found not guilty but
a miss trial hung jury. Whatever's ald of neutron, that's
what they're that's what they're going for here. So that's
a couple of different things here. And in the last
week that Harror Pooley has been talking about again this
(33:28):
is this is what what good of fits attorneys do, right.
I mean you you might nit pick here, nitpick there,
and sooner later you might you might have a little something.
I just don't know that where they have any interest in
in in reacing that whole circus play out all over
again in a h a two point h trial, I
for one would not be looking forward to that. Okay,
(33:54):
Still a lot to talk about this morning. The House
voting last night along to take the sentence recessions not recision,
not recession, but recision bill. Now I've gone and done it.
I've heard so many people say, recession recision bill to
take out that some nine billion dollars in funding that
had already been approved in the budget. They got that done.
(34:18):
We'll be talking about that this morning. We've got that
still to come. And yeah, more Jeffrey Epstein news that
have to pass along to now this Wall Street Journal
publishing a letter, pretty body letter and drawing that they
claimed Donald Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein on his fiftieth birthday,
(34:39):
So we'll be discussing that at the eight o'clock hour
as well.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yep, two Colum Years Morning News on one O three
point five FF on five sixty am WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
I appreciate y'all joining us this morning. It is Friday,
July eighteenth. Another late night on Capitol Hill. Last night,
there's been a lot of those has of late even
there lots of them. This time around. It was well
fully warned because this was no artificial deadline. Congress had
to act otherwise that money was going to get spent.
(35:18):
Let's call it a start. In fact, that's exactly what
Steve's Scale said last night in the debate on this bill.
I would say it's a good start. So not the recession,
but the recision bill clawing back nine billion dollars in
spending cuts, money that again had already been budgeted, had
(35:39):
been approved to be spent, and if it's it wasn't
done by today, then the government would have been re obligated,
the White House, that is, would have been re obligated
to well spend have those money spend as planned. So
they got it done. The Senate in a late night
vote Onnesday night, and then the House last night just
(36:02):
minutes after midnight getting it done. So that package is
on the President's desk for signature today. Final approval was
two sixteen to thirteen, so both these votes were tight.
It was about a three vote margin in the Senate.
As I recall, there were I think two Republicans who
(36:29):
sided with Democrats on this vote. I don't recall the
names right now, but nobody could really know. I don't
think so that got done, but it is somewhat symbolic
based on the amount of money that we're spending, the
size of our deficit, our debt. Our nation's dead. But
(36:52):
it'll block eight billion dollars in funding for USAID, which
has been kind of one of the focal points in
the dose cuts, and a billion dollars more to the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Those dollars had been allocated by Congress for the duration
of fiscal year twenty twenty five, but that gets cut off.
(37:18):
And the Republicans are hailing this a victory, as a
or as a defeat actually for what they're calling woke
initiatives abroad. The Democrats say that we are getting critical
four and eight. Okay, so this goes to the White House,
and yeah, it's what's called a start. Okay. This hasn't
(37:41):
been done in a long time. The last time a
recisions package was signed into law was nineteen ninety nine. Yeah,
it's been thirty six years. We've seen one of these done.
(38:02):
And I remember the House originally, their original version was
a little bit bigger. It was nine point four billion
that was trimmed down by the Senate after some had
concerns on that side about cutting a funding for HIV
and AIDS prevention research in Africa, so they trimed that out.
The House went along with it, and it's a done deal.
(38:23):
Now again the big chunk of this is for USAID,
but the billion dollars for NPR. And I even heard
this in report a few minutes ago right here on
this very radio station, talking about well, this could be
dangerous that the public safety is at risk now with
(38:44):
these cuts mainly in rural places. They're trying to argue
where lack of access to National Public Radio, for example,
you wouldn't be as if there are no other media
outlets in these places, no TV stations, no radio stations,
(39:06):
no internet. As though, show me a place in this
country where the only way you can get your news
is by listening to some NPR radio stations. It doesn't exist.
But this was what they were trying to say. This
was going this was a risk to public safety. Well,
(39:26):
Caroline leve at the White House Press Secretary, answering that question,
this was the claim made by Catherine Marr. She's the
CEO of NPR. She claimed yesterday, Yeah, that slashing federal
funny to her network would potentially be a risk to
public safety here in this country. That is ludicrous, totally ludicrous,
(39:54):
and you know, quite honestly, kind of like, well, for example,
this radio station, Okay, we are live at local all
morning long up until nine o'clock and then it's you know,
satellite national satellite shows. That's what you get with NPR two.
Matter of fact, especially in rural areas, I doubt you've
got any live programming or live people working in an
(40:15):
NPR station. I could be wrong. Now. In addition, the
CEO of NPR tried to convince us that they're they're
they're not biased. Well, okay, that's easy to refute, isn't it.
(40:40):
They have a history of publishing politically slanted headlines only
the favor of the left, but they refuse to correct
any false narratives. The CEO herself, Catherine Marr, who says
they're not biased, Well, she comments towards Trump, like back
(41:02):
in twenty sixteen, she called him a racist. She wrote
on X in twenty twenty, he's a deranged racist sociopath,
and then made a claim in a separate post that
the United States is addicted to white supremacy. This is
the ceer of of the CEO, that is if in
PR who tried to tell see it in yesterday that
(41:23):
her oled is not at all biased, Well, she certainly is,
and she's the big toe. Remember it was in PR
five years ago that refused to cover the Hudder Biden
laptop story. And at the time they wrote, they wrote
they did not want to waste the listeners and readers'
(41:45):
time on stories that are just pure distractions. Yeah. NPR
in November of twenty eighteen falsely reporting that Donald Trump
Junior lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during testimony about
plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow, when he was
actually referring to an entirely different project. They falsely reported
(42:11):
that they didn't correct it. And of course, don't even
get me started on NPR and the COVID thing and
the virus researchers and the lab leaks and all that.
So there said Catherine mar the CEO, We're not biased
at all. Oh and by the way, if you, if you,
if we lose funding, this is not going to shut
(42:34):
down all NPR radio stations or PBS outlets across the country.
But to hear her tell it, we in big trouble
now because it ain't gonna be around anymore. Okay, So
the cuts they go through had had to be had
(42:56):
to be done by today or else they couldn't have
done it. That money would have got Yeah, it had
got spent and in ways that we can only imagine.
Call a start this again. These were cuts those two
particular areas. Gotta thank Elon Musk for for bringing this up.
(43:20):
This was part of the whole Doge thing. So these
are the first cuts that I'm aware of that Musk
and Doge had identified and suggested, aside from getting rid
of a bunch of waste and you know, space taken
up by people working in the bureaucracy that really weren't
doing anything. These are the cuts that the first ones
that had been actually you know, put into law. So
(43:40):
they're celebrities who know not a darn thing other than
you know, singing and dancing on stage.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton 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
Old three point five FM and five sixty AM WVOC.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
On our final futs SEV eight forty one on a
Friday morning, we got a grab back of stuff here.
Let's jump right into it. Hey went in here. New
data coming out from Customs and Immigration Enforcement showing that
more arrests are being made. Of course, we know that
across the country now deportations are actually lagging behind what
(44:26):
old Barack Obama did, for example, but arrests are a
rising quickly. And here in South Carolina the average monthly
number of arrests here has tripled. Last year, they are
about one hundred each month. Well that number doubled, and
now it has tripled. So far. The most we've seen
(44:46):
any one given month was March when there were three
hundred and forty five I legal immigrants arrested in this
state by ICE. And according to the data, forty seven
percent of the those arrests here in our state were
illegal immigrants with pending charges. Another forty one percent were
(45:09):
on people already convicted of a criminal charge. Remaining twelve
percent described by ICE records as people who had committed
other immigration violations. Okay, of course we had that big
raid remember down in Charleston County down under the Ladsdon area.
That was the back first part at June's I recall,
(45:29):
and they were eighty arrests at that one, so that
was a big one. But again look at the breakdown.
Forty seven percent of those arrested were people with pending charges,
another forty one percent, so that's eighty eight percent. Another
forty one percent were already convicted, So eighty eight percent
of people had some sort of a criminal charge, either
a conviction or a pending charge. Okay, boom. You might
(45:54):
have heard Thomas mention this the uh what was this?
Move Buddha? Okay, move Buddha. They've got a tool on
their website that estimates moving costs, connects users with movers.
That's what they're all about. Well, they analyze fifty five
thousand searches between the first part of the year in
(46:16):
March tenth and they found that, well, Myrtle Beach is
a top destination for people dreaming of a fresh start.
Really wow. For every one hundred people who wanted to
leave the Myrtle Beach area, two hundred and fifty five
wanted to go there. Greenville was also up around the
(46:36):
top of the list. It was at number three. Charleston
and was at number eight. Yeah, more people want to
go there than want to leave there, so expect our
population to continue to go. By the way, totally unrelated,
but since we're talking about best of lists, there's a
restaurant in Charleston. Magnolia's not familiar with it. One of
(47:00):
the big ranked now as by Yelp, is one of
the top places in the country to get fried chicken.
You want to check that out. The news that Stephen
Colbert's Late Show has been canceled by CBS. Colbert, of
course Charleston native grew up. I think it was on
James Island. You just want an Emmy, But it's not
(47:26):
anything to do with Colbert. Apparently the network says it's
strictly financial. The show itself is being canceled. This is
the one that you know, started all those years ago
with David Letterman. It's the show's just going goodbye, and
you know what, these other late night talk shows may
soon follow suit. Of course, the Democrats think this is
all political. You've got shifty Adam Shift and Elizabeth Pocahontas
(47:52):
Focahontas Warren both demanding saying the public deserves to know
why the show is canceled. Was it politically motivated? Well,
CBS told us it's all about the dollars and cents,
you know, because guess what they're up business. They have it.
The Harvest State Forest will stay closed. Apparently they had
(48:15):
hoped to reopen it yesterday after a series of a
vicious pit bull like dog attacks. Apparently they didn't find
the dogs. Now they say it will be closed at
least until next Tuesday. So if you frequent that area
over the weekend or anytime, you won't be able to
do it at least until next Tuesday. It may go
(48:36):
later than that. There was well a lot of consternation concerned,
wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth over the swollen ankles
of Donald Trump. Well, the White House yesterday revealing what's
going on here. It's a vain condition that's not unusual
in someone his age. Chronic veinous insufficiency cause a swelling
(48:59):
of the legs. One of his hands also swollen. This
is something that happens when the legs, the veins of
the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up
to the heart. Levit describing this as mild swelling and
its lower legs. I've seen pictures. It's not really mild.
It's pretty substantial, but it's not uncommon in somebody over
(49:21):
the age of seventy and Trump is almost eighty. Now, okay, uh,
but it did the White House physician the release saying
that Trump remains in excellent health, exhibiting robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological,
and general physical function. But it also said this that
(49:41):
that Trump is seventy five inches tall, which will make
make them what six y three and weighs two hundred
and twenty four pounds. I might have to question now
on but hey, who might well anyway, And then, of course,
the latest flapping the Epstein thing is the Wall Street
(50:01):
Journal that put out an article that says a letter
that was sent from Trump and many other Epstein associates
back for Epstein's fiftieth birthday, that that letter was a
pretty body one like most others in the album, that
it contained several lines of typewritten text framed by the
(50:22):
outline of a naked woman which appears to be hand
drawn with a heavy marker, and some other things, and well,
I'm not going to get into what all it claimed
it was, but anyhow, this was the Wall Street Journal
article saying that this letter had been sent to Epstein.
This was again, back for Epstein's fiftieth birthday, so many
(50:43):
many moons ago. Trump is now threatening to sue the
Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, the owner News Corp.
After having released that letter. He denies he ever wrote it,
and on the actual Epstein case front the President yesterday
(51:03):
directing Pam Bondi to release relevant grand jury testimony related
to Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not sure, but that'll show us
anything we didn't already know. And everybody talking about the
Coldplay kiss cam and the couple caught on it, who
suddenly when they realized they were on the kiss cam
on the big screen. They got out of there as
(51:24):
quick as they could. Apparently he's married, she's not. He's
her boss though he's a CEO of a company and
she's like their human resources director. People are having some
fun with that one.
Ilgesuous. Hell yeah, set America and Jeryllin for regious, for
nation under God. This 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 (00:29):
Well, my friends, we have made it to Friday. Good
morning to tell you sixteen after six Friday morning, July
the eighteenth. I hope you were well and ready to
sweat again today. Oh my goodness, what one O seven
He didn't expY today? We could see he'd expius over
the weekend. Some of the models are calling for you know,
(00:51):
one hundred and ten or so. So dangerous heat continues,
and we don't have any relief coming anytime soon. Yeah,
I'm just looking ahead here. Hang on a minute, No, yeah, no, oh, hey,
Tuesday high about ninety one. That's as good as it's
(01:13):
going to get when it comes to relief for us
around here. So, and we're a couple of degrees warmer
this morning than we normally are to start the day, FYI.
And right here at seventy seven here at the radio ranch.
So yeah, there we go. More of this. Yeah again,
Really dangerous heat continues across the Midlands. All right, let's regardless,
(01:37):
let's get ready for the weekend. Shout, well, let's get
ready for the day first. Then won't worry about the weekend.
Right by the way, my name is Gary David Christopher
Thompson normally here, but it's off this week. He's back
on Monday. Let's get right to it because there's a
lot on the docket today, the rundown, the big stories,
the hot topics, a number of local and state wide
items of interest today as well, including new well new
(01:58):
data on immigration shows that the monthly number of ice
arrests here in South Carolina have tripled. Last year, ice
arrests were about one hundred each month on average. This year, well,
it doubled and it tripled. March we saw the most
(02:20):
arrests at three hundred and forty five. So again the
number of ice interventions here in our state is rising,
as it is in most other places. More news this
morning on this landscaping firm that was hired by Richland
District one to do landscaping work at their early learning center,
(02:44):
which now has gone belly up. Of course, we have
talked about this before. B and G Landscaping again, a
company that did not have a county business license, a
company that owed backed taxes to the state, a company
that seems like the state paper says it didn't have
a provided proof of insurance in response to proposal requests
(03:09):
they were issued back in twenty twenty and a company
that apparently Richland One, paid more than established rates too.
This story's not quite over yet. You know, this year
smacks of maybe somebody knew somebody and was somebody getting well.
I don't know, it just smacks of that. I'm not
(03:29):
saying it was, but we'll take a look into some
of that dick car pool. You're doing a lot of
talking these days about the Alex Murdoch trial in conviction
of murdering his wife and his son back in twenty
twenty three. We mentioned earlier in the week there's some
text messages between a Murdoch and his Yes, his cousin,
(03:49):
isn't he Eddie Smith? Curtis aidiy Smith also allegedded drug dealer.
But to some of those texts that have popped up now,
the defense cid he did not have access to during
the trial. That might have changed changed the way they
approached things and the witnesses they called I didn't quite
we read some of those text messages. I didn't quite
get what what the point was. But well, the latest
(04:11):
is is that Murdoch now says, well, remember the ager,
the ager that well looks like she might have been
leaning more towards acquittal of Murdoch again like exactly how
he knows this for sure, but that her dismissal could
(04:35):
have changed the outcoming. Said a worst case, he thinks
it could have been a mistrial. All this is a
Murdock's defense team continues to push for on appeal and
for a new trial in that case. All right, He's
still running for governor as a Democrat despite his arrest
for running in the streets nude. I'd almost forgotten about this,
but we mentioned it when it happened. Mullins McLeod, a
(05:00):
dominant Low Country attorney who is running as a Democrat
for a governor two months ago, was well arrested by police. Well,
I say he was running nude. He was wearing his underwear,
but that was about it. Seems like I don't know,
(05:21):
something was It was bizarre behavior and it continued. He
was locked up at least briefly. But he's still gonna
run he says, so, well, he can say he's done
something that nobody else has. I guess Stephen Colbert's and
I only mention this here in the rundown with our
local stories because of course he's from Charleston. I grew
up on James. I don't know. I believe it was,
(05:42):
but Colbert's Late Show, the show that originally came on
years and years and years ago with David Letterman. The
show canceled right after a Colbert secured an Emmy nomination.
By the way, of course, CBS going through a lot
of stuff right now, and they say it had nothing
to in. Colbert himself says, he got nothing to do
with me. The whole show is going away. It's just
(06:02):
not making financial sense for CBS. The network says, So
there's that, but it is wilding up some Democrats upon
Capitol Hill who want an explanation from CBS, which you know, again,
does CBS owe any politician and explanation over this. Well,
if you are a frequent guest visitor and you enjoy
(06:22):
the Harveston State Forest, well you probably know it's been
shut down for a couple of days because of those
rabbit dog attacks. Even if you're not. You probably know
that they'd hope to open it, to reopen it yesterday,
but now they tell us it'll be closed at least
until Tuesday, which I guess means they haven't gotten those
rabbit dogs yet. The House got it done yesterday, signing
(06:44):
off on the Recisions Bill, not recession bill, that's heard
people called it recisions bill. This is where they're taking
money already budgeted, in this case for us AID and
for PBS, PBS and NPR somewhat nine billion dollars worth
of bringing it back, taking it back out of the budget,
(07:06):
not going to spend. A House passed it after the
Senate passed it the night before and a late night vote,
o rama. It's gone to Trump's deest now where he's
expected to sign it today. Speaking of Trump, h latest
here Wall Street Journal within article and uh there, these
(07:27):
were letters that were written to Jeffrey Epstein for his
fiftieth birthday as his uh well, right hand woman Julane
Maxwell was preparing a special gift for the occasion. One
of the letters, of Wall Street Journal reports was from
Donald Trump, and well it was a pretty body letter.
(07:48):
And well, this has got everybody's tongues wagging, and all
the talk has turned to this. Now Trump threatening a
lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over this, as he
denies he ever wrote that letter. It also had a
pretty body drawing attach to it. Meantime, more serious business,
the President directing the A. G. Pambondi to release the
(08:11):
relevant grand jury transcripts in the case. She says she
will be releasing those. I don't know what that will
show us, if anything, and if nothing else, will Pam
Bondy survive all this that remains to be seen. The
White House coming out in some transparency here and after
(08:31):
questions were raised over photos showing that the President's legs
were swollen, hand was swollen. He has had a full
physical and he is he is suffering from a condition
that many folks the president's age have, chronic venous insufficiency
is what they call it. So there is some swelling
now to tell you. Apparently the the doctor's report listing
(08:55):
a number of things to his vital signs. And well,
let's see that he's seventy five inches tall, which is
what but six y three is that right? Sixty three
weighs two hundred and twenty four pounds. I don't think so,
but hey whatever, all right, we'll get to that. Oh
(09:17):
the story. Everybody's talking about the Coldplay kiss cam and
while the the couple that got caught on that thing
and apparently they were well maybe they were a couple. Okay,
apparently they were, but at least he a CEO of
an astronomy company, was a married man. And everybody's buzzing
(09:38):
about that one. All right, we got that more coming
your way here on this It is the Friday edition
of Columbia's Morning News. It is good to have you
here where the spirits of America lives off region. Every
day we spuck each other and rob we're coming from
and learned from each other.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Went 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 O three point five FM
and five sixty AM w VOC.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It is six forty one and good Morntiya. It is Friday,
July the eighteenth, and yeah, it's wicked hot. As title
just mentioned. Something of that he did next today could
problemed about one hundred and seven or so, and we
had the potential over the next couple of days to
see heat. The next values as high as about one
hundred and ten. So there there's that, all right. So
(10:29):
Jamie Harrison failed Senatorial Canada from South Carolina and failing bigly,
a one hundred and thirty million dollars fail, then rewarded
for his efforts by being given the reins of the
Democratic National Committee, which he now says, well, he really
didn't have any any real ability to make any changes.
It was just kind of, I guess, a figurehead thing.
(10:51):
But well, regardless of there's tenure as the head of
the DNC. Well they lost everything, the House, the Senate,
the White House, all of it. So now Jamie is
going to venture into the podcast arena, and he launched
his first episode yesterday. It's called at Our Table and
(11:13):
he had Hunter Biden on yesterday. I guess that's a
pretty good way to start. You can at least get
some publicity for your podcast when you have put Darling
Hunter on, and in it, Hunter expressed his unhappiness that
the Democrat Party, with their lack of loyalty to his dad,
(11:37):
we lost the last election because we did not remain
loyal to the leader of the party. He said. We
had the advantage of incumbency. We had the advantage of
an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down. Okay,
so Hunter living in an alternate universe. Obviously, maybe he
(11:58):
didn't watch that debate. Of course, Hunter and Jill and
the rest of the Biden clan and well the Inner circle.
Remember they were all pushing this, this lie to us
that that Joe was just fine, and only that he
was just fine, that he was capable of leading this
country for an additional four years. Okay. He also addressed
(12:26):
claims made by Jake Tapper in his book Original Sin,
saying that Tapper's writing that Hunter himself was the acting
chief of staff, claims that was obviously not true. What
do you think he was going to say? Okay? So
(12:50):
Hunter still thinks to this day that his dad should
have been the nominee, and had he been, he would
have won, and had he won, he could have effectively
himself led this country for another four years. Gotcha. Now
the party itself is in tatters. Gallup the new Gallup survey,
(13:13):
Democrats have record well, this is about American institutions. Okay,
Democrats have record low confidence in key American institutions. Meanwhile,
Republican confidence has rebounded. So okay, you see what's going
on here. It depends on who's in power, whether or
not you have any confidence in our government now. Quite honestly,
(13:37):
at any given point in time, you should at least
be a little wary of our government. But even then,
the numbers aren't that big. Republicans, for example, even with
Trump in the White House, just thirty seven percent of
Republicans surveyed by this gallipole have a great deal or
quite a lot of confidence in the institutions they have
(13:58):
been tracking now for over four decades. That's not good. Democrats, however,
their confidence in these nine institutions is reached a record
low of twenty six percent. So neither way even the Republicans.
(14:19):
With Republicans running the show, you know, just thirty seven
percent whether with a great deal or quite a lot
of confidence in our government institutions, that's not good. But
Democrats are twenty six percent. Well, it's crazy just because
who's in power. So suddenly maybe you had confidence a
(14:40):
year ago, but now you don't because your party's not empowered.
Come on, if you want to see polling numbers about well,
not a institution, but in this case a candidate, and
do you have confidence in this person? I would love
to see what they that same poll addressing this guy
Zoe ran Mom Donnie, who apparently, after all, is in
(15:03):
fact a communist. Newly resurfaced video Mandami talking about the
housing crisis when he's just kind of well casually admits,
(15:25):
he says, my platform is that every single person should
have housing. And he says, I think, faced with these
two options, the system has hundreds of thousands of people
in house, right for what if there's any system that
could guarantee each person housing? Get this now, whether you
call it the abolition of property or a state wide
(15:49):
housing guarantee, it's preferable to what's going on right now now.
Housing has been one of his key platforms in his right.
And this guy's been serving in the in the legislature
in New York for a couple of years now. But
that just Hey, whether you call it the abolition of property,
(16:10):
that's a communist ideal that is right out of the
Carl Marx playbook. And this guy calls himself a democrat socialist. Hey,
he's not a democrat. I'm not even sure you can
call him a socialist now I think you just call
him a flat out comie. Huh. Yeah, so that's back
(16:33):
out there. Now. Is this going to change the minds
of any people in the New York City who have
voted for him in that Democrat primary, Well they changed
their tune again. New York City just the opposite of
South Carolina. Doesn't matter about what happens, you know in
the general election. Well it's it's this time. You get
(16:55):
all kinds of players in it. This time. You got
this nutcase who seems to have all the advantage. You've
got Cuomo gonna run as an independent. You got the
current mayor also going to run as an independent. You
got Curtis Sliva who's running as a republic It's going
(17:18):
to be very interesting. And typically who could care less
about the run for mayor in New York City, Well,
this time around because of this guy and the influence
that he could have on the Democrat party. You got
a guy running in Minneapolis right now who's just as
about as communist is, if not more so than Mondamie.
(17:41):
How many more of these are we going to see
pop up? Huh?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
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 (17:58):
Well, here's Gary David. That's me and Christopher Thompson and
is joining his final day of vacation today. I went
by quickman talking my wife last night in our vacations
in a couple of weeks, and I hope ours does
to go as quick as Christophers did, at least the
weakest slung by from me personally, maybe sort free, I hope.
So all right, it's going to have you along on
a Friday morning, getting ready front of the hot, scorching,
(18:20):
potentially dangerous high weekend. Again, those heating next values we
could see sometime of the course the next couple of
days heatd next values as high as one hundred and ten.
So head's up. I don't plan to do much of
anything outdoors this weekend. I don't believe. All right, now
we're going to revisit because there's been new reporting on
(18:41):
this by the state paper. Richland won the U now
Belly Up Early Learning Center. The problems they had well,
number one that they were trying to convince well I
guess not even convincing Eve, and bother the ask the
state Education Department was this a real school or not
(19:01):
to qualify. Bottom line was it didn't. They didn't bother
to go through Richland County to get any any sort
of work permits, which is still just blows my mind
how they were able to do as much as they did.
It's not like it's somebody doing something on the back
of their house that you know, nobody in the county
(19:22):
is going to notice. I mean, they were clearing massive
amounts of land to build something and it hadn't pulled
the first work permit for it. Okay. Well, then when
they started to you know, knocking things down, and then
we had problems with runoff, and then they faced lawsuits
homeowners who said they're their properties, their homes were badly
(19:46):
damaged by the runoff from this. Well. The landscaping company
at the heart of this is back of the news again.
This is B and G Landscaping, a company that recently,
this is key recently obtained a county license, but at
the time when they were hired by the school district,
(20:07):
they didn't have one. Not only do they not have
a county business license, they owned back taxes to the state.
As the paper reports, they appear not to have provided
proof of insurance in response to a request for proposals
that were issued by the district in late twenty twenty.
(20:28):
They now have a license, but they still have more
than ten grand and unemployment taxes. Well, this BG Landscaping
was one of four landscaping firms that were awarded contracts
in order to supplement the county's own landscaping department. Okay,
so the school district, the county, they have an owned
(20:50):
landscaping department, but they I guess it ain't enough, so
they're farming out some work to what they did four
over landscape companies, including this one. Okay, but an audit, now,
an internal auditor has a red flagged some information. Actually,
(21:17):
this audit was a decade more than a decade ago
before they got this contract back in twenty twenty one.
Without is the record show meeting several of the district's requirements.
And I just mentioned some of those. No license. For example,
this BG Landscaping at the time they were blooming and
(21:39):
grooming landscaping services. There is a small operation run out
of the owner's home. Okay, there's a lot of those.
That's fine. They've been paid somewhere in the neighborhood of
two million dollars over the term of this contract for mulching,
for pruning, irrigation, landscape demolition, more than the established rates. Apparently,
(22:08):
still a lot of questions here. And again, this is
an outfit that has had a relationship with the school
district now for nearly a quarter of a century. So yeah,
you can say, well, yeah, there was a comfortable thing
they've been using for a long time and keep going
back and back. But somebody didn't do their due diligence.
(22:30):
When kelvin Washington, the internal Auditor reviewed the procurement of
B and G back again more than a decade ago
at their customer board member, he found that the company
had been hired without a competitive bidding process, and that
is a strict violation of the district's procurement code. Of course,
as it should be that there was no formal contract
(22:53):
and no oversight all right now, I'm not placing the
blame here on B and G. Landscaping goes here to
want the school district for and again, if they were
a private company, they do what you want to do.
But they're not. They are funded by taxpayer dollars. Your dollars.
(23:15):
And this seems to be an ongoing issue here, No
no competitive bids, just just handed to them and again
continued to do that, and has continued to use their
work even when they were unlicensed, owe back unemployment taxes,
(23:39):
and the list goes on and on. Well, the new
super over at Richland one has got some work to do.
This this wasn't this was the school board. Now that
has been the result of all that. It is a
lengthy article. Uh so, hats off the state paper for
really digging into this one. You know me, I print
everything out. It's like seven pages long. Contractual compliance issues, overcharging.
(24:07):
It looks like the price they were charging the school district.
I'm gonna stop saying the school district. The price they
were charging taxpayers, the article states rarely corresponded to contractual
unit prices and differed considerably from invoice to invoice. So
I guess, snipp at it on the day, sounds like
(24:31):
the for about pretty much the same amount of work
they were charging more one time than another. Hmm. Well,
hopefully this again, that is not just coming to the light now.
(24:55):
It came light a while ago. Maybe this time we
get somebody's attention over there. Let's hope so. But then again,
I don't know, because this first internal audit relating to
this company again was done in twenty eleven and they
showed all kinds of issues. Then that was fourteen years ago,
and that was a decade before they were hired on
(25:15):
to do the latest round of work. And for that
they've garnered about two zero point three million dollars of
your money.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Your morning News, getting ready for work and all day in.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Fault and check in throughout the day.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
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 sixty am doub VOC.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
All right, seven thirty nine, we'll get to the latest
on the attempts to secure a new trial for Alex Murdoch.
Here come out up here in just a couple of minutes.
But first up, you know, the gubernatorial race starting early
here in South Carolina. Republicans, you got Alan Wilson, you
got suddenly went blank, the senator from the upstate. Yeah,
(26:14):
you know what I'm talking about. It's Friday, Come on,
give me a break already. Josh Campbell, thank you. Yeah,
it just popped in my head. Now we got the
lieutenant governor, of course, Pamela of It. In the matter
of ten days or so, we might get Ralph Norman,
and we don't know what happened with Nancy Mace right now.
(26:36):
But we always focus on the Republicans because well it's
it's South Carolina and again the primary in June, June ninth,
I think the date is will for all intents and purposes,
determine who our next governor is. So we very seldom
talk about the Democrats. Well, because they got a snowball chance, right,
so let's give them some love for a minute or two. Right, Democrats, Well,
(26:59):
in this case, one particular Democrat running for governor, and
that is a Mullins McLeod. You might not have even
realized that Mullins McLeod, who Well, if for folks in
the low country, they're probably probably somewhat familiar with that name.
I'm not very familiar. He's a very prominent Charleston attorney
(27:22):
who is running for governor. But after announcing, well that
something something happened, actually this happened a few days before
he announced, but he went ahead announced and he's he's
going on his campaign here. According to an incident report,
(27:46):
a police in Charleston, and this was provided to fits News, said,
an unnamed individual later identified as McLeod was observed walking
along the battery. We talked about this. You may recall
walking along the battery screaming the top of his lungs.
This was back on May fourteenth. His screams, per the
(28:08):
police report, could be heard from approximately one city block away. Okay.
At the time, cops didn't know who this was. The
gentleman was observed to be wearing only his underwear in
shoes at the time, and when officers accosted him and
(28:30):
asked why is behaving so bizarrely, he started to yell louder,
locking out his arms. Asked for his name, he claimed
first that he was God and then that he was Superman. Okay, well,
they took him in, at which time he allegedly continued
(28:52):
to ramble incoherently and at one point lashed out and
kicked another prisoner. Police. According to Fence News, they thought
at first he was high on drugs. His attorney says, no,
he was not. Uh okay, I don't know what was
the I don't know what would that happen there, why
(29:15):
he was in the state he was in, But you know,
yelling at the top of his lungs, wearing only these
underwear and his shoes along the battery in Charleston. And
he's still running for governor. So he's done things the
other candidates can't say they've done. Okay, So a little
love for the Democrats running for governor. Here's South Carolina
(29:36):
right there. They have it. You can't say we don't
give him fair coverage right now. We talked a few
days ago. I even went down some of these text messages.
The latest here is to Carpoolian and Murdock's defense attorneys.
So I don't know how they're getting paid these days.
I have no idea, but they continue to try to
get his first conviction tossed and get him a new
(29:58):
trial here. So a few days back, we were telling
you that Harpoulian, in an interview, had said that there
were a series of text messages that they did not
have access to at the time of the trial. And
(30:21):
those messages, which originally were revealed i FITS News showed
that Curtis Eddie Smith's alleged drug dealer and a Murdoch
we're communicating by a text message in the days leading
up to the murders. Our building says he and his
team were unaware of these texts during the trial. They
(30:46):
might have called Smith as a witness had they known.
Now we've ran down some of those texts, and they well,
about a week ahead of the murder, provided some timeline
about drug distribution. But the ones we had access to,
at least that we talked about, I didn't see how
they changed the story at all. But whatever. But now
(31:13):
you've got Harpulian making claims that well, one juror who
we all remember her name, or at least the name
she was, her nickname, the egg Lady. Do you remember
the egg Lady right? That she had been vocal in
the jury room about her doubts as to Murdoch's guilt.
(31:35):
Now you recall the egg Lady was dismissed just days
before the verdict, Harpootlian says, and they did interview the
jury members afterwards that a second juror had told them
that she was pressured into voting guilty by Oh here
(31:56):
we go, Becky Hill, the former clerk of court who
now has her own problems, of course, and other jurors
convinced her and pressured her into voting guilty. And you
recall the defense allegations that Hill tried to sway the
jury to sell more copies of her book that didn't
(32:17):
work out so well, and that she Harpilion claims she
told several of her co workers that a guilty verdict
would be good for book sales and she was working
to influence them to convict. Well, Okay, well Hill's got
that's a whole nother story right there. But that the
claims now by a Murdoch's defense team that the egg
(32:40):
Lady had serious reservations about a guilty verdict and was
not afraid to make them well known in the jury room. Okay,
so I guess the accusation here is is that, yeah,
she was gonna at the very least. The Murdoch defense
team claims this would have been at a mistrial hung jury,
(33:05):
they would not be able to reach a verdict at
the very least. I don't think they're trying to make
the claim that he'd have been found not guilty but
a miss trial hung jury. Whatever's ald of neutron, that's
what they're that's what they're going for here. So that's
a couple of different things here. And in the last
week that Harror Pooley has been talking about again this
(33:28):
is this is what what good of fits attorneys do, right.
I mean you you might nit pick here, nitpick there,
and sooner later you might you might have a little something.
I just don't know that where they have any interest in
in in reacing that whole circus play out all over
again in a h a two point h trial, I
for one would not be looking forward to that. Okay,
(33:54):
Still a lot to talk about this morning. The House
voting last night along to take the sentence recessions not recision,
not recession, but recision bill. Now I've gone and done it.
I've heard so many people say, recession recision bill to
take out that some nine billion dollars in funding that
had already been approved in the budget. They got that done.
(34:18):
We'll be talking about that this morning. We've got that
still to come. And yeah, more Jeffrey Epstein news that
have to pass along to now this Wall Street Journal
publishing a letter, pretty body letter and drawing that they
claimed Donald Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein on his fiftieth birthday,
(34:39):
So we'll be discussing that at the eight o'clock hour
as well.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yep, two Colum Years Morning News on one O three
point five FF on five sixty am WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
I appreciate y'all joining us this morning. It is Friday,
July eighteenth. Another late night on Capitol Hill. Last night,
there's been a lot of those has of late even
there lots of them. This time around. It was well
fully warned because this was no artificial deadline. Congress had
to act otherwise that money was going to get spent.
(35:18):
Let's call it a start. In fact, that's exactly what
Steve's Scale said last night in the debate on this bill.
I would say it's a good start. So not the recession,
but the recision bill clawing back nine billion dollars in
spending cuts, money that again had already been budgeted, had
(35:39):
been approved to be spent, and if it's it wasn't
done by today, then the government would have been re obligated,
the White House, that is, would have been re obligated
to well spend have those money spend as planned. So
they got it done. The Senate in a late night
vote Onnesday night, and then the House last night just
(36:02):
minutes after midnight getting it done. So that package is
on the President's desk for signature today. Final approval was
two sixteen to thirteen, so both these votes were tight.
It was about a three vote margin in the Senate.
As I recall, there were I think two Republicans who
(36:29):
sided with Democrats on this vote. I don't recall the
names right now, but nobody could really know. I don't
think so that got done, but it is somewhat symbolic
based on the amount of money that we're spending, the
size of our deficit, our debt. Our nation's dead. But
(36:52):
it'll block eight billion dollars in funding for USAID, which
has been kind of one of the focal points in
the dose cuts, and a billion dollars more to the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Those dollars had been allocated by Congress for the duration
of fiscal year twenty twenty five, but that gets cut off.
(37:18):
And the Republicans are hailing this a victory, as a
or as a defeat actually for what they're calling woke
initiatives abroad. The Democrats say that we are getting critical
four and eight. Okay, so this goes to the White House,
and yeah, it's what's called a start. Okay. This hasn't
(37:41):
been done in a long time. The last time a
recisions package was signed into law was nineteen ninety nine. Yeah,
it's been thirty six years. We've seen one of these done.
(38:02):
And I remember the House originally, their original version was
a little bit bigger. It was nine point four billion
that was trimmed down by the Senate after some had
concerns on that side about cutting a funding for HIV
and AIDS prevention research in Africa, so they trimed that out.
The House went along with it, and it's a done deal.
(38:23):
Now again the big chunk of this is for USAID,
but the billion dollars for NPR. And I even heard
this in report a few minutes ago right here on
this very radio station, talking about well, this could be
dangerous that the public safety is at risk now with
(38:44):
these cuts mainly in rural places. They're trying to argue
where lack of access to National Public Radio, for example,
you wouldn't be as if there are no other media
outlets in these places, no TV stations, no radio stations,
(39:06):
no internet. As though, show me a place in this
country where the only way you can get your news
is by listening to some NPR radio stations. It doesn't exist.
But this was what they were trying to say. This
was going this was a risk to public safety. Well,
(39:26):
Caroline leve at the White House Press Secretary, answering that question,
this was the claim made by Catherine Marr. She's the
CEO of NPR. She claimed yesterday, Yeah, that slashing federal
funny to her network would potentially be a risk to
public safety here in this country. That is ludicrous, totally ludicrous,
(39:54):
and you know, quite honestly, kind of like, well, for example,
this radio station, Okay, we are live at local all
morning long up until nine o'clock and then it's you know,
satellite national satellite shows. That's what you get with NPR two.
Matter of fact, especially in rural areas, I doubt you've
got any live programming or live people working in an
(40:15):
NPR station. I could be wrong. Now. In addition, the
CEO of NPR tried to convince us that they're they're
they're not biased. Well, okay, that's easy to refute, isn't it.
(40:40):
They have a history of publishing politically slanted headlines only
the favor of the left, but they refuse to correct
any false narratives. The CEO herself, Catherine Marr, who says
they're not biased, Well, she comments towards Trump, like back
(41:02):
in twenty sixteen, she called him a racist. She wrote
on X in twenty twenty, he's a deranged racist sociopath,
and then made a claim in a separate post that
the United States is addicted to white supremacy. This is
the ceer of of the CEO, that is if in
PR who tried to tell see it in yesterday that
(41:23):
her oled is not at all biased, Well, she certainly is,
and she's the big toe. Remember it was in PR
five years ago that refused to cover the Hudder Biden
laptop story. And at the time they wrote, they wrote
they did not want to waste the listeners and readers'
(41:45):
time on stories that are just pure distractions. Yeah. NPR
in November of twenty eighteen falsely reporting that Donald Trump
Junior lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during testimony about
plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow, when he was
actually referring to an entirely different project. They falsely reported
(42:11):
that they didn't correct it. And of course, don't even
get me started on NPR and the COVID thing and
the virus researchers and the lab leaks and all that.
So there said Catherine mar the CEO, We're not biased
at all. Oh and by the way, if you, if you,
if we lose funding, this is not going to shut
(42:34):
down all NPR radio stations or PBS outlets across the country.
But to hear her tell it, we in big trouble
now because it ain't gonna be around anymore. Okay, So
the cuts they go through had had to be had
(42:56):
to be done by today or else they couldn't have
done it. That money would have got Yeah, it had
got spent and in ways that we can only imagine.
Call a start this again. These were cuts those two
particular areas. Gotta thank Elon Musk for for bringing this up.
(43:20):
This was part of the whole Doge thing. So these
are the first cuts that I'm aware of that Musk
and Doge had identified and suggested, aside from getting rid
of a bunch of waste and you know, space taken
up by people working in the bureaucracy that really weren't
doing anything. These are the cuts that the first ones
that had been actually you know, put into law. So
(43:40):
they're celebrities who know not a darn thing other than
you know, singing and dancing on stage.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton 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
Old three point five FM and five sixty AM WVOC.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
On our final futs SEV eight forty one on a
Friday morning, we got a grab back of stuff here.
Let's jump right into it. Hey went in here. New
data coming out from Customs and Immigration Enforcement showing that
more arrests are being made. Of course, we know that
across the country now deportations are actually lagging behind what
(44:26):
old Barack Obama did, for example, but arrests are a
rising quickly. And here in South Carolina the average monthly
number of arrests here has tripled. Last year, they are
about one hundred each month. Well that number doubled, and
now it has tripled. So far. The most we've seen
(44:46):
any one given month was March when there were three
hundred and forty five I legal immigrants arrested in this
state by ICE. And according to the data, forty seven
percent of the those arrests here in our state were
illegal immigrants with pending charges. Another forty one percent were
(45:09):
on people already convicted of a criminal charge. Remaining twelve
percent described by ICE records as people who had committed
other immigration violations. Okay, of course we had that big
raid remember down in Charleston County down under the Ladsdon area.
That was the back first part at June's I recall,
(45:29):
and they were eighty arrests at that one, so that
was a big one. But again look at the breakdown.
Forty seven percent of those arrested were people with pending charges,
another forty one percent, so that's eighty eight percent. Another
forty one percent were already convicted, So eighty eight percent
of people had some sort of a criminal charge, either
a conviction or a pending charge. Okay, boom. You might
(45:54):
have heard Thomas mention this the uh what was this?
Move Buddha? Okay, move Buddha. They've got a tool on
their website that estimates moving costs, connects users with movers.
That's what they're all about. Well, they analyze fifty five
thousand searches between the first part of the year in
(46:16):
March tenth and they found that, well, Myrtle Beach is
a top destination for people dreaming of a fresh start.
Really wow. For every one hundred people who wanted to
leave the Myrtle Beach area, two hundred and fifty five
wanted to go there. Greenville was also up around the
(46:36):
top of the list. It was at number three. Charleston
and was at number eight. Yeah, more people want to
go there than want to leave there, so expect our
population to continue to go. By the way, totally unrelated,
but since we're talking about best of lists, there's a
restaurant in Charleston. Magnolia's not familiar with it. One of
(47:00):
the big ranked now as by Yelp, is one of
the top places in the country to get fried chicken.
You want to check that out. The news that Stephen
Colbert's Late Show has been canceled by CBS. Colbert, of
course Charleston native grew up. I think it was on
James Island. You just want an Emmy, But it's not
(47:26):
anything to do with Colbert. Apparently the network says it's
strictly financial. The show itself is being canceled. This is
the one that you know, started all those years ago
with David Letterman. It's the show's just going goodbye, and
you know what, these other late night talk shows may
soon follow suit. Of course, the Democrats think this is
all political. You've got shifty Adam Shift and Elizabeth Pocahontas
(47:52):
Focahontas Warren both demanding saying the public deserves to know
why the show is canceled. Was it politically motivated? Well,
CBS told us it's all about the dollars and cents,
you know, because guess what they're up business. They have it.
The Harvest State Forest will stay closed. Apparently they had
(48:15):
hoped to reopen it yesterday after a series of a
vicious pit bull like dog attacks. Apparently they didn't find
the dogs. Now they say it will be closed at
least until next Tuesday. So if you frequent that area
over the weekend or anytime, you won't be able to
do it at least until next Tuesday. It may go
(48:36):
later than that. There was well a lot of consternation concerned,
wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth over the swollen ankles
of Donald Trump. Well, the White House yesterday revealing what's
going on here. It's a vain condition that's not unusual
in someone his age. Chronic veinous insufficiency cause a swelling
(48:59):
of the legs. One of his hands also swollen. This
is something that happens when the legs, the veins of
the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up
to the heart. Levit describing this as mild swelling and
its lower legs. I've seen pictures. It's not really mild.
It's pretty substantial, but it's not uncommon in somebody over
(49:21):
the age of seventy and Trump is almost eighty. Now, okay, uh,
but it did the White House physician the release saying
that Trump remains in excellent health, exhibiting robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological,
and general physical function. But it also said this that
(49:41):
that Trump is seventy five inches tall, which will make
make them what six y three and weighs two hundred
and twenty four pounds. I might have to question now
on but hey, who might well anyway, And then, of course,
the latest flapping the Epstein thing is the Wall Street
(50:01):
Journal that put out an article that says a letter
that was sent from Trump and many other Epstein associates
back for Epstein's fiftieth birthday, that that letter was a
pretty body one like most others in the album, that
it contained several lines of typewritten text framed by the
(50:22):
outline of a naked woman which appears to be hand
drawn with a heavy marker, and some other things, and well,
I'm not going to get into what all it claimed
it was, but anyhow, this was the Wall Street Journal
article saying that this letter had been sent to Epstein.
This was again, back for Epstein's fiftieth birthday, so many
(50:43):
many moons ago. Trump is now threatening to sue the
Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, the owner News Corp.
After having released that letter. He denies he ever wrote it,
and on the actual Epstein case front the President yesterday
(51:03):
directing Pam Bondi to release relevant grand jury testimony related
to Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not sure, but that'll show us
anything we didn't already know. And everybody talking about the
Coldplay kiss cam and the couple caught on it, who
suddenly when they realized they were on the kiss cam
on the big screen. They got out of there as
(51:24):
quick as they could. Apparently he's married, she's not. He's
her boss though he's a CEO of a company and
she's like their human resources director. People are having some
fun with that one.
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