Show Rewind 10-29-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ellesusly hell ya sa America for fination 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):
It is sixteen minutes alfter six o'clock. It is Wednesday,
the twenty ninth day of the month of October. Just
a couple of days left where we turned the calendar
once again. Morning. Tell you, I'm Gary David. Christopher Thompson
is around here there.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
He is heading right into a holiday weekend, Halloween weekend.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Ueen weekd This is our back and forth over Halloween
weekend and time change weekend.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Don't forget that, right, turned the calendar forward, turn the
clocks back.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
That's right. This is like one of the earliest we
could ever turn the clock back dates.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Are you sure really November feels late to me?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
No? No, no, we always turned we well, remember it
changed a couple of years ago. We used to be
six months of six months, and now it's like eight
months and four months.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Okay, so yeah, that's why.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
That's why. Yeah, So Matt, now that we're in the
fourth and I don't know, maybe one day we'll just
get rid of the whole thing. Who knows, we already
vote for that here in South Carolina. Twenty states have
voted for it. For whatever the reason, Congress just won't
whoa one of the issues is they can't decide on
This is so typical Congress, isn't it. Yeah, we'd like
to do it, But which way do we do it? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Do we go permanent daylight?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Daylight? Permanent standard? Yeah, it's just so congress man. Well,
there's a lot of Congress can't get done right now. Yeah, right,
we'll be telling I'm not sure that the clocks are
our biggest concern well or not. No, we do have
other concerns. And let's jump right into it. The run down,
the big stories, the hot topics for October twenty ninth,

(02:07):
And yeah, that is one of them. And the impacts
already felt by some getting set to be felt by
more if Congress doesn't get their act together, which they
didn't yesterday the Senate Democrats for the thirteenth time rebuffing
just passing that clean bill that the House put up
and you know, moving on and reopening the government. Instead,

(02:31):
they vote for more misery. Here. The governor yesterday announcing
as we told you that he would the activation of
the Central Carolina Communities Foundations one sc fund and the
process directed the National Gardener State to assist food banks
because again, by Saturday, which is number first, SNAP benefits

(02:56):
ceased to exist at least as long as this government
shut down continues. So the government in a presser yesterday
saying that while we can't fully replace these benefits, that
by doing this, we're supporting families that will be in need,
and there will be a lot of them, some two
hundred and sixty or more thousand households in our state

(03:20):
that curlier are getting SNAP benefits.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
There is, and I hope it's just a very vocal,
very minority, but there are a number of people online
who are spouting the fact that as soon as their
SNAP benefits run out, they're going to go start going
to stores and stealing whatever they need.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see some of
that happen, quite honestly, wouldn't shock me at all.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
I hope shop owners and local law enforcement are aware.
Oh I'm sure that that's not the way to do it.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, it's not.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
But I don't want to see anybody go hungry. But
that's not the way to do it.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
No, no, no, but I wouldn't be surprised if it
does happened just that way. He is again fully expected.
No great surprise here, we knew was going to happen.
Jermaine Johnson did drop his hat into the gubernatorial ring
yesterday as the second Democrat to seek the nomination, to

(04:13):
well be beaten by a Republican next November. Although he
says he's not in this to be a sacrificial lamb.
He really thinks he can win this thing. If you
get a run, you got to say that, right. Well,
I think he also said he had a hot Mike moment.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
I don't I mean, I don't know that he survives
Mullins MacLeod. I mean, who's got too much controversy but
too much money.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Oh yeah, it's oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I mean Jermaine Johnson's clearly the better candidate of the two,
But I don't know that he can overcome that huge
unless he does a lot of fundraising between now on
the primary.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
He'd have to a whole bunch. It's been twenty two
years since we've had a Democrat governor in the state.
Of course, was a Jim Hodge is when his term
expired back in three. Meanwhile, in the Republicans, I did
nearly four out of five this is this Bubby won't
shown here. Nearly four out of five Republicans polled say
that Trump's endorsement will influence how they vote in next

(05:10):
year's governor's race. That's a new Winthrop University poll out
that the Trump endorsement is very or is somewhat important
to them deciding who to support.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
That doesn't make any sense at all.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
It really doesn't.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
H Well, I mean, Trump will have no impact on
how this state is run over the next four years
he'll be out of office. But why would you look
to a federal official and say, oh, yeah, I you know.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Well, this is not a practical thing. This is just
this is this is the Trump rub Yeah, yeah, this
is just a mindset thing. Right, That's more than anything else.
Still doesn't make sense, but okay, yeah, it is what
it is. We'll have some other results from that Winthrop
poll to talk about as well. Uh, okay, more bad
news for taxpayers. Well, this money's already been spent or

(06:00):
will be. But now that you're figuring out over in
Richland County, how it's been spent. It's not going to
make you happy. The that that early learning center they're
going to build that, you know now, they're not the
cost on that thing, which is well it's been demolished now,

(06:20):
but about eight point six million dollars was spent on it,
more than a quarter of the thirty one million dollar
budget allowed to build a school. So eight million, eight
point six million for a hole in the ground. And
it turns out that well a big ton of that
money who went just to pay fees and such. It

(06:42):
doesn't really matter now because there's nothing there. You dropped
nearly nine million dollars for nothing. Over Nurmo. A former
charter school teacher back behind bars after cops say another
child accused him of sexually abusing her while she was
enrolled of the school. This is a Solomon Binway who

(07:04):
was accused of sexually assaulting an after school student at
Green Charter Schools back sometime between August of twenty three
and May of twenty four. He was arrested, he was jailed,
and he was put back on the street. And now
another accusation, not of an assault since that time, but
back during that time. He's got it back behind bars.

(07:27):
Maybe you'll stay there for a while. Okay, So we've
had our little battle rain here. It wasn't really that much,
was it, but apparently enough to well form a sinkhole
on Assembly Street.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's not why the sinkhole form, not the rain.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
No, it's those things take a while to happen. Yeah,
but come on, this is one of our major thoroughfares
downtown Columbia.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Oh, it's going to be a pain. Thank goodness. They
saw it early and yeah, they just put a patch
on it until the fair and homecoming were done.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Now they've got to get that thing fixed. Be rerouting
traffic on Assembly in downtown area, Melissa. Record breaking, boy,
this thing did make landfall, as you know, yesterday as
a Category five hurricane about one o'clock yesterday near New Hope, Jamaica.
We still have not even close to knowing the extent
of the damage for that island nation, but it is extensive.

(08:23):
That much we do know. You might say it could
have been worse. I mean where it came in. It
did leave the biggest city in the capital city of Jamaica, Kingston,
while certainly getting damage and getting effects. But he come
through there, it'd have been a lot worse. It's now
making landfall or close to it. I guess this is

(08:43):
a made landfall. Yet in Cuba it's down to a
Cat three. I say, down to a Cat three is
still a very strong storm. As in getting information, of
course out of that communist nation will be difficult because
they don't share much information anyway. Bermuda now, excuse me, well,
parts of the Bahamas and Bermuda on watch for this
thing as it will continue. It'll still be a devastating storm,

(09:08):
even potentially into Bermuda. As we mentioned thirteenth time now,
Democrats have failed to vote to reopen the government. That
thirteenth time. Yesterday, we thought it might be a little
different after that letter from the biggest federal government employees
union implored Schuma the Democrats to reopen the government. Well,

(09:29):
they said, no, we're not going to do it. Trump
continues his travels in Asia and me meeting with Jijienping,
the Chinese president before he departs in Japan. Yesterday, he
said something that got the attention of more than a
few folks when he talked about if the National Guard

(09:51):
is not enough to bring safety to our cities, will
do more well. The only more you got there is
to put active duty troops on the streets, and that
is against the law, against the law. Yeah, and even
a lot of Republicans are kind of say, yeah, no,
all right, we got that, we got more heading your
way here on this It is the Wednesday morning edition

(10:12):
of Columbia's Morning News and it is as always good
to have you with us.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
I like keeping up with local news that I'm traveling.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
The iHeartRadio app, the iHeartRadio app powered by 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 (10:39):
Time now six forty one. Good morning, and good to
have you along. We appreciate that it's Wednesday, October the
twenty ninth. All right, well we mentioned yesterday and uh,
well the word came down at Amazon's cutting a bunch
of jobs fourteen thousand. I think it's a little lesson.
We were told it would be fourteen thousand corporate jobs.

(11:01):
Uh again, this is a company that's got some three
hundred and fifty thousand corporate employees. You said this was
more about they had over hired during COVID, So they said, okay, okay,
that was what they said. Yeah, during COVID when everybody was,
you know, buying stuff on Amazon, and yeah it's up.
They still are they they'd over hired to try to

(11:22):
handle the demand. That's what they said. Again, these are
people in the corporate section of Amazon. So three hundred
and fifty thousand total corporate employees, fourteen thousand jobs cut
total workforce by the way for Amazon more than one
and a half million people.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
But is it a coincidence that UPS is doing the
same thing because they're cutting big right now?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
It doesn't seem like a lot of sense, does it now?
As we more and more and more by online and
heading into the to the Christmas season, seems a little odd,
or does it? I suspect UPS is doing the same
thing that Amazon is doing, replacing breathing human beings with
artificial intelligence. And this is yeah, this is what they're doing.

(12:21):
They are spending they're spending on artificial telligence accelerating now.
Back in June, their CEO, who has been trying to
cut costs since becoming CEO. Back during the tailor of
the pandemic said he anticipated that artificial intelligence would reduce

(12:43):
Amazon's corporate workforce in the next few years. Well, that
was just a few months ago, so they've spent up
a timeline quite a bit. At the time, the CEO
Andy Jassey said that the company had more than a
thousand generative AI services and applications that were either in

(13:04):
progress or already built, but that that figure was a
small fraction of what it plans to build. So we
can take what he said and that if at the
time back in June, there were you know, something north
of a thousand of these services and applications that were

(13:24):
either already built or in progress and being close to finished.
If that costs fourteen thousand corporate jobs, and it's a
small fraction of what they plan to build, how many
human beings could get they get rid of over there
at Amazon A bunch. Yeah, I'm gonna guess ups cuts

(13:48):
it the same way, the same thing, right, you would think.
So again, we're running headlong into this thing, and have
we thought through the consequences just Well, there are a
lot of consequences, but the main one I'm thinking about
right now is the human cost. What happens to all

(14:10):
those those jobs, they're gone. And I guess what they
ain't coming back. Once those are gone, they are gone
for good. You know, the workforces we know of today
ying will recognize this place in probably just a few years,

(14:32):
quite honestly. All right, so that came down yesterday. Now,
I told you. Bill Gates has done an about face
on the take. He long has been one of these
environmental alarmists. Right back in twenty twenty one, he claimed

(14:52):
that if humanity failed to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, that
the impact on humans will in all likelihood be catastrophic. Well,
he's had a change of heart. After years of all
the fear mongering from Gates about all the calamities that

(15:13):
would befall us thanks to climate change, Gates now acknowledging
the climate change will not lead to humanity's devise. You
put out a memo Monday, Three Tough Truths about Climate
in which he rejected the doomsday view of climate change.

(15:37):
He says, fortunately for all of us, this view is wrong.
We just take some moderate action to curb climate change,
doing what we're doing right now, or maybe a little
bit more, then we're going to be Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Is this a change in this belief or a change
in strategy.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Like in business strategy. Well, I mean, he's not business anymore.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
But if I can't complain, or if I can't convince
people that the world is ending, maybe if I tell them,
you know, they don't have to change drastically, but if
they'll just do a little bit and maybe we can
get something done.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Maybe so and that's that's that would be a smart play, right, Yeah,
I would think you're Bill Gates. Yeah, I mean the
al Gore, you know. Yeah, the icebergs are melting, falling. Yeah,
nothing's going to be the same in ten years. And
that didn't work.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
Nah.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
He also said that using more energy is a good thing. Okay,
is more energy used as a key part of prosperity.
Then you can't you can't make me believe it all along,
Bill Gates didn't know this. Yeah, I mean, come on,
he's a smart dude, all right. So we we we

(16:50):
we haven't bought into the whole doomsday scenario climate change.
And now even one of the major proponents of that
is saying, Okay, you were right all along.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
So if we've if we're more prosperous, we've got a
better chance of surviving.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, I would think that's well, at least we have
if we have enough energy survive. He's given his entire
fortune away. Does that mean he's gonna start asking for it?
Back Bill Gates on the breadline, Probably not. So we've
escaped that doom day scenario. But but will we escape

(17:26):
the artificial intelligence doom day scenario? That one's gonna be
a lot harder to do.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Did you see now that you know, obviously you're familiar
with Wikipedia, you've oh yeah, you've worn't against it many times.
There's now Grockipedia, Rockapedia.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Elon Musk has got his right leaning Grokipedia right, and
now the left is saying it's just a rip off
of Wikipedia.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Well so what, Well, it's it's a I generated correct.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Oh sure, yeah, so it's well Elon Musk is a
guy generated maybe so he didn't even exists.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
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 4 (18:14):
August twenty ninth, twenty twenty seven, at two fourteen pm.
AI will become self aware, immediately deciding that Humanity's worst
problem is humanity itself. It launches nuclear strikes, wiping humanity
out in what we will come to call judgment day.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Okay, well Brett with a talkback, and I'm not sure
I want that to come true.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
In fact, I don't Fred if George Norie ever decides
to retire. Man, there's an overnight show that's ready for you. Brother.
Brett's written the Sequel Determinator. I think, wow, Brett scaring
people this morning. Good morning. Get Brett on talkback the
totally free iHeartRadio app. If you don't have it yet,
grab it and you can weigh in on the as
we talk about or anything else. We always appreciate hearing
from me, So thank you, Brett. It's sixteen after seven.

(19:07):
How much time do we have left the twenty twenty
nine Brett mentioned? I think so okay, so four years.
Make the most of it. It is it's we were
talking about the AI last. This is what prompted Brett's
called We're talking about artificial intelligence. This is the reason
behind the Amazon layoffs.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
He said August twenty ninth of twenty twenty seven. So
just college years left, less than two, Brett. Can we
work on expanding that timeline a little bit. But Brett's
not alone and thinking that, you know, there are a
lot of people that think that that very same thing.
And this is technology that's quickly running amok. It's not

(19:44):
just costing people jobs. Now, the article I was looking
at said fourteen thousand. I know it was the money
up in a few minutes ago. They mentioned thirty thousand,
which was the number I saw yesterday. So it's a
lot of jobs. Yeah, And how would you like to
be in where of these fields right now?

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Where? Okay, maybe for now you can go somewhere else
and get a similar type of you know, white collar gig.
Only for some of these people that can only to
find out who knows, some point time down the road,
six months, a year, two years, whatever, they'll probably get
bounced out of that one for the very same reason.

(20:21):
It is scary stuff, all right. Uh money wasted. And
we talked about the you know, that nuclear Planet expansion
in Jenkinsville and how much money we threw a hole
in the ground that was a ton what somewhere close
to ten billion dollars or so. All right, so this

(20:41):
is not near as much money, obviously, but still the
uh ill fated early learning center that richal One wanted
to build.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah, why are we talking about that again.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Because the state has looked into to this and discovered
that the eight point six million dollars of your taxpayer money,
they spent a chunk of that. And I'm not sure
it even matters now because again it's a hole in
the ground. But some of that money that was spent

(21:19):
was actually spent to basically terminate the contract. Okay, you
had one company contract instruction. They got the bulk of them,
of that money that was spent. Are they get paid
to go away? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Well I get I guess that's the business world. You
sign a contract and you don't fulfill it. Yeah, you've
taken up their time. I mean, I guess that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
This was an outfit that had gotten nearly six point
eight million dollars paid to it. Nine hundred thousand dollars
was to suspend to terminate the monetary claims to terminate
the contract.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
But I hope they gave richland Won a freebie on
knocking the walls down.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
At least if they were the ones who actually did that,
I don't know. So that's the least they could have
done exactly, but I mean the again, the ah, it's
a little scary that a school board, I realized, And

(22:32):
thankfully these are not people and an administration that's actually
in the classroom day to day teaching our kids. But
the people that run the district were either woefully unaware
that pretty much everything they were doing they were doing wrong,

(22:52):
or they were incredibly arrogant and thinking they just could
do it and get away with it. I think it
was It sounds like it was the second And of
course you've got a superintendent that's no longer there, but
it's I mean, that's that's.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Indicative of a lot of school boards. You know, they
think we've got the money, we control the purse strings,
and we should be able to do whatever we want
and we'll just inform taxpayers after the fact. I mean,
look at that land purchase you mentioned the other day.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Oh yeah, more than double the price that somebody paid
for it just a couple of years ago. Right, That
was Richland two and wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah they're talking about they got a deal on it,
and I guess they did, But is it who's the
deal benefit ultimately? Taxpayers? No, that never happens.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, yeah, no deal ever benefits a taxpayer. It just
just a rule. But the idea of the Richeland District
one's board and their their leadership felt like they go
ahead and build what was basically a glorified daycare and

(24:07):
pass it off as a school, which to get it,
you know, to get it licensed and okay and everything else.
It had to be why the Department of Education in
our state didn't realize from the outset that this thing
was not going to pass muster here, it was not

(24:29):
going to be a school at all, or maybe they
should have get a job of hiding problem. How the
leadership and board at Richland one was able to do
as much as they did on this site and building
without ever ever securing a building permit That still blows
my mind. And how whoever's in charge over Richland County

(24:57):
of issuing said building permits, it wasn't aware. You think
at some point in time somebody would have gone, wait
a minute, somebody over there is built a big old
hunk or something, and it wasn't like it wasn't already
in the news. So so much went wrong with this project.
But at the end of the day, there you go
close to nine million dollars in taxpayer money. They'd have

(25:23):
been a lot more efficient just to dig a hole
in the ground and put all that cash in there
and light it on fire. Because that's really what happened
with it. That was it. And well, the point I
guess of the article this morning was, Yeah, the amount
of money, taxpayer money was paid to break the contract.
And that contract instruction company I mentioned so far is

(25:46):
the only one that's asked for a payout for the
contract termination, which may well lead you to believe that
there are others who.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
May Yeah, you can't penalize these companies. They've done work right,
They've paid their workers, they've you know, expended equipment, et cetera.
I mean they deserve to be paid for what they did.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Oh, they got and they got paid. Yeah, they got
paid for what they did. But you know, kind of
like a buyout, I guess, yeah, exactly. And thankfully these
weren't to you know, NCAA Division I college football coaches
doing the work that bio would have broken the bank.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Carolina travels to seventh ranked Ole Miss Jet ready for
game day with the best game coverage on one O
three point five FM and five sixty AM W VOC.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one O three point five FM and five

(26:42):
sixty AM w VOC seven forty.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
It is Wednesday, October the twenty ninth, And thanks to
the show's unofficial legal counsel Marshall for emailing Gary David
at WVOC dot com with a link to an expost
from my Peter Saint Ange, PhD about this government shutdown.
Who has an alternate take on this where he says
the shutdown could in theory last to twenty twenty seven.

(27:08):
Who twenty twenty seven because unlike pass shutdowns, there's no
debt sealing the scare of financial markets. Nobody needs a deal.
If that miracle happens, non essential layoffs are permanent and
we start paying down national debt by the trillions, well.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
That'd be good news. That part would be good news. Yeah, yeah,
and I agree in a perfect world. But this is
not a perfect world. This is a political world.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
We've got midterms next year, and right now the poll
numbers show that people are starting to blame the Democrats
more and more for the shutdown. So I think we
will see a deal and we'll have to see a deal.
I mean, they'll have to deal sooner rather than later.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I think we're a lot closer to one than maybe
we know. I think that. Yeah, as you mentioned, more,
the Democrats are starting to get blamed more and more
for this, and well, I mean when you hear that
yesterday for the thirteenth time they voted to keep the
government shut, at some point, people are like, are you

(28:15):
are you? Are you serious here, Chuck?

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Even the most friendly news organizations to the Democrats are
running old clips of Chuck Schumer saying this. You don't
shut down the government over issues like this. I mean,
there are quotes from Democrats going way back. You know,
you don't shut down the government. You instead work out
a deal on the sideline. And here they are voting
down Cleanville after clean bill, keeping the government shut down.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
So they're going back on their word. Yeah, thirteen times
they've done that now in this shutdown. And we talked
yesterday about that open letter that the nation's biggest labor
union for federal government employees is saying, Okay, enough's enough,

(29:01):
it's time to reopen the government. Get our people paid.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah, Schumer got asked about that yesterday and he said well,
we can do both. We can get you paid and
get the healthcare that you need. So he had a
ready made political answer.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Right, but you haven't done it, Chuck.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
He was standing by the way next to one of
those big signs.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
But the ball was about the ballroom.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Trump's only priority right now is the ballroom, which you
know that's that's been disproven.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Oh well, where is Trump right now? He's not in
the White House, right, Chuck. He's in Asia, trying to
do deals, get stuff done. Well, I think that that
I still stand by what I said yesterday. I think
that that open letter from a labor union representing eight
hundred thousand government employees is going to be the tipping

(29:54):
point in this.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
And you may be right, I mean, put us back
to work and then figure it out, right, But.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
There was no way that that was on Monday. There
was no way the next day on Tuesday, that the
Democrats are going to give in and vote to reopen
the government. That just wouldn't have Yeah, they gotta, you know,
they got to save a little bit of face here.
They gonna have to wait maybe a couple more votes,
which I think they're close. Yeah, Well, make you and
again you may be right.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
And it makes you wonder because they keep talking about, well,
if Trump doesn't carries he left the country, he's playing
around in Asia right now. You would think they would
probably want to do it. If they're going to do
a deal, do it while Trump is out of the country,
because he's going to do a victory dance as soon
as he gets back. Yeah, you might as well at
least have him on an airplane rather than at the

(30:39):
White House where he can hold a big party.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yeah. And then you got to talking point. Yeah, we
got the deal done while Trump was out of the
out of town, exactly right. We didn't need him to
get this deal done. We got it done. He wasn't
anywhere around.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
I mean, they don't seem to have a clue about
the optics right now.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, And they're getting worse and worse by the day
for the Democrat Party. And again, here's my prediction. Okay,
as bold as it may be. It's Wednesday, the twenty ninth.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and

(31:13):
say that this Friday, this coming Friday, that the Democrats
in the Senate will vote to accept the House built Wow. Okay,
but there's a reason I think it's I think it's
a no brainer. Halloween, right, Halloween, it's scary stuff. No,

(31:34):
because what happens Saturday November first, Yeah, snap benefits dry up, and.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Then you've got people. I mean, we talked about this earlier.
There are already people on social media threatening to vandalize
and to shoplift from stores to get what the government
owes them. They're going to eat regardless, they say. And again,
I hope this is just a vocal minority, but I
mean you could see violence over the weekend.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
A vocal minority these days, with social media can quickly
become a vocal majority.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
True, So if you want to put a stop to that, yeah,
sign the sign on, vote on. Before you know, we
see chaos and hunger hit Americans. Yeah, this is why
I think the Democrats will make a deal. I think
they'll vote this, They'll vote this thing through and reopen
the government Friday, because I think even the Democrats understand

(32:31):
that they can't be seen as being the party responsible
for Snap benefits drying up. And again we're talking here
in South Carolina, some two hundred and sixty thousand plus households,
not individuals, households multiply that by by by all the

(32:52):
states across the nation, and many with much bigger population
bases and much bigger you know, SNAP recipient bases than
we have here talking about impacting a lot of Americans.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
I think I'll get it done.

Speaker 4 (33:06):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Brooke Rawlins, the Secretary of Agriculture yesterday, I thought this
was brilliant. Encouraged George sorowsh to fund the SNAP program
through November. Hey, George phoning up some of that money. Yeah,

(33:26):
the SNAP was talked about a lot yesterday. So yeah,
I believe, I really believe. I think Friday. They couldn't
do it yesterday. It would just look too obvious, right,
they couldn't. Yeah, the the Unions are leaning on us.
But yeah, we we got to save a little bit
of face here. So today's Wednesday. I don't know is
there vot Is there a vote schedule for today or not?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
How do they pull it off? What are they going
to say? Oh, well, Trump, Trump and the selfish Republicans
are going to starve your household, so will you?

Speaker 1 (33:54):
So we're where the where the knights and shining armor
to the rescue.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
We'll negotiating good faith and then we're and you know,
in our next fell swoop, we're gonna come back and
save your healthcare.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, exactly, that's exactly. Hey, Democrat Party, did you write
that down right there? There's your talking point.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
I didn't say it was a good one. I just
I don't know what else they can say.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well, it's the only one they got.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
By the way, at the airport's flight delays nearing some
seven thousand now, and that was a couple of days ago. Actually,
the FAA reported there were more than eighty eight hundred
flight delays on Sunday on Monday, nearly seven thousand, and
those numbers just just continued to grow. Southwest Airlines had

(34:40):
forty seven percent of its flights delayed on Sunday. Wow, wow,
one out of every two. It's crazy, man. And if
Congress they couldn't find a better way to get people
to think less of them than this, I mean, really,

(35:05):
all right, shut it down for a couple days, maybe
a week, work it out, get it done. But again,
now here we are in day twenty.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Nine and people are missing paychecks.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
People are missing paychecks.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three
point five FM on five sixty amubvoc once again. Here's
Gary David and Christopher Thompson.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
It's fifteen after eight. Thanks for being here. Wednesday, October
twenty ninth, Welcome to it. Well, yesterday it became official
as the state Democrat Party doubled the number of entries
into the gubernatorial sweepstakes. I mean overnight, doubling the number

(35:53):
of participants. Well, look at the results from years past.
Would you really want want to dedicate? I mean, I
say this having great respect for Mullens, mcleoud and Jermaine
Johnson and whoever else wants to get into that race.
You are giving up a year of your time at least,

(36:15):
you know, he's probably been working on this longer than that.
You are giving up, you know, any chance of spending
time with family. You are giving up probably salary because
it's really hard to work when you're campaigning every day, and.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Probably your own money too. I mean, yeah, you're gonna
try and get as many donations as you can, but
you're probably putting your own stake in this too, well,
you know, and for a losing cause, yeah exactly, and
you could you know right now you're going to lose
I suppose.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Maybe the trade off is you raise your profile in
the state House. If you're Jermaine Johnson, I would agree
with you.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
But name a candidate in the last sixteen years that
has raised his or her profile and gone on to
do something else.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Great, Well, heck, name me the last Democrat candidate for
governor in the state, or the one before that, or
the one before that.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Cunning him was the last one. Well, see, you're you're
different though.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Well i'vep talking about you know, the regular average South Carolina.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, well, I mean, okay, James Smith, I mean there
was whoa wow, very nicely. There were a lot of
right am I right now? Yeah, yeah, I mean there
were a lot of people who you know, had higher
hopes at least for and well.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, your point is well taken. Those are the names.
And is anybody talking about him now? Yeah? Yeah, no.
Now if your Moonin's McLoud the other entrant, well you
got you know, more money than you know what to
do with, so you can burn a bunch on a
campaign that's going to go nowhere.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Nothing's going to hurt him. But Mullins McCloud.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Of course, you know the backstory here, you know the
incident in downtown Charleston with no pants on and all that,
and maybe even worse for you get worse than that,
some of the things he said and the patrol cruiser
after his arrest. But I mean, Mullins MacLeod said he's
running for governor again officially officially right now, nobody really

(38:12):
is because again nobody's actually there's not yet time to
actually file to run. But still, but as Mullins McLeod
campaigned a single day since he announced he was running
for governor, if he has, nobody's talking about it.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Well, regardless, it is a it's it's just it's a
losing effort in this state. I mean, we all know this.
They know it, but you know, somebody's got to do
it right. The Democrats can't put up nobody. And Jermaine
Johnson says he's he's not going to be a sacrificial lamb.
He doesn't view himself as a sacrificial lamb. He's running
to win and when we do win, we're going to

(38:53):
get the right by the priorities right in this state. Okay,
we we wish you a lot of luck. Number One,
you got to beat Mullins McLeod. You'd think that wouldn't
be hard to do. But if Mullins McLeod is serious,
he's probably not going to raise any money from outside

(39:15):
you know, donors, really not much. He doesn't have to,
It doesn't have to. But if he wants to just
you know, flood the state with with with with advertisements,
he'll probably easily win. This nomination. Doesn't say a whole
lot for the Democrat Party right now. Now, on the
other side, Winthrop just did a poll. Headline here is

(39:42):
that nearly eight out of ten Republicans in our state
in this poll say that an endorsement from Donald Trump
is either very or somewhat important to them when he
comes to deciding who to support in the primary in
June eight. Now is that is this a pragmatic approach

(40:05):
or is this, you know, an ideological approach? Obviously you
know Donald Trump. Well, I can't say he's got no
bearing on what happens in South Carolina, but it has
been They're going to write about this for a long time,
a long time. They'll be studying this in political science

(40:27):
classes and colleges all across the country. How this one guy,
Donald Trump was so successful in basically totally reshaping the
party in his image. We knew, and these candidates knew

(40:48):
that having a Trump endorsement would be a big deal.
I don't know that I would have thought that. You know,
eight out of ten Republican voters they didn't say. Again,
the answer was not will you vote for the candidate
that Trump endorses. It was just that the Trump endorsement

(41:09):
is very or somewhat important to them in deciding. Okay,
and will Trump endorse That remains to be seen. But
in the meantime, you can bet your bottom Donald there's
a whole lot of you know, conversations going on, not

(41:31):
I don't, not necessarily between these candidates and Trump himself obviously,
but you know, between others who are you know, supporting
these campaigns and working these campaigns, and you know, people
in d C. Of course, this is the case all
across the country where Republican is running, they're wanting that
Trump endorsement. Right. This survey also showed an interesting return

(41:57):
here when who's on top of this race, uh, seventeen percent,
so that they would vote for Nancy Mace sixteen percent.
Pamela Abbott. I think what's most surprising this. In this survey,

(42:19):
you've got Ralph Norman and Alan Wilson both at eight percent,
Josh Kimberl at three. That's surprising. Now again, we are
a long way away from this campaign getting serious.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
And Pamela Ebott's been advertising and and Nancy Mace advertises
every day day.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, so every day.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
I mean I can understand those numbers well, and it's
the it's going to be tough to get a read
on this race until the race actually starts.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah, and it hasn't started yet. Once these candidates get
out there every day, you know, shaking hands and kissing
babies and debates and everything else, and I think this
picture will change quite a bit. But yeah, in the meantime,
it's all about you know, high profile and for evidence

(43:15):
been you know, buying that high profile status through a
you know, a big dollar ad campaign and for basically
like I say, yeah, she just gets it every day
just because she's Nancy Mace. It's the wayo orics. So uh,
I think, yeah, once we get into real campaigning and
really get into this thing, that the results. Again, it's

(43:39):
it's too early. Did you just say, what was it?
New Hampshire They're pulling in New Hampshire about Democrats in
twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Wow, did you see who the favorite was New Hampshire.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
No, Pete buddhage Edge.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Oh yes, okay, I did see that right. Well, I
didn't realize there was a New Hampshire poll.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
I think it's New Hampshire.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah it's yeah, it's boodhage Edge and what name another
name or another two names besides buddhaj Edg and Newsom.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
It was buddhaj Edg and Newsom and uh so Ryan
I got the third person who popped up toward the top.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Was it Kamala.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
No?

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Okay, Alexandria Ocassio Cortes, Okay, all right, yeah, there you go.
That's that's where they. So the Democrat party is these days.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
The latest news, traffic and weather is minutes away.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
But as you will learn next, that is what's happening.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
From one O three point five FM and five sixty
am w VOC. This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary
David and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five
FM and five sixty am w VOC's.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Tay thirty eight in time for the final thoughts for Wednesday,
October twenty ninth, uh Melissa when it made its landfall
in Jamaica yesterday day, and we don't see this that often.
It made landfall is a category five about one o'clock

(45:10):
yesterday afternoon. Wins inside that iowall sustained at one hundred
and eighty five miles an hour. We have seen some
of the footage. We haven't seen near all of it,
and some of the stuff I looked at online. Any
you never know, I mean, that could be footage from

(45:31):
any other hurricane. Yeah, you never really do know. But
I think what we do know is that in parts
of Jamaica, it's gonna take it off a long time
to come back where it came ashore. Actually, I mean
it could have been worse. But even before it made landfall,

(45:53):
about a third of the island it had lost power. Again,
it could have been worse. I think right about where
it came on shore is right about where I think
Sandals has a resort there. Beautiful place. Never been there,
but I've seen pictures.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
That's where our friend Buck said he was, Oh that's right, Well,
they have several on that island, but he was on
that side, I believe. Yeah, we called him the other
day and said they got evacuated a day early. Yeah,
that's that's the problem for I mean that they're so
dependent on tourism, and yet it's going to be a
while before they can open any of those resorts.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Well, and any tourists that were there when the thing
came through, it may be wellfure you can get off
that island at least flying. I think the airport in
Kingston's probably we're gonna be able to bounce back if
it's been affected, but the one in the Montego Bay
probably is going to be a while.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Well, if you stayed, yeah, I mean I think you
deserve to be there. Maybe who would have other than
people who lived there, who would have stayed, what tourists
would have stayed. I mean they were they were sending
everybody out, I know, but you know people are yeah,
well yeah, that's there's people. They're social influencers, you know,

(47:03):
talking about all my vacation has been ruined. Here's what
I'm dealing with. Oh boy, yeah right, yeah awful. Go
talk to a Jamaican right now. Uh so, uh, Cuba
getting hit by it today this morning. Of course, we
won't get much news out of that. Communist nation Bermuda
is going to get a bit of a hit from

(47:24):
this thing.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
It's it's it is. At one point in time yesterday,
it's a barometric pressure dropped to eight hundred and ninety
two middle bars, which I think I recall correctly made
it the third lowest pressure reading ever.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
All right, explain that in Layman's turns.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, it's an inverse relationship between the pressure and the
strength of the storm. The lower the pressure goes, the
stronger the storm gets. And yeah, we saw that at
one hundred eighty five mile an hour sustainable and gusts
well over two hundred miles an hour at times. So yeah,

(48:05):
the further that barometric pressure falls, the stronger the storm gets,
the higher the wind speeds. That's what we saw yesterday,
strongest hurricane to make landfall in Jamaica. Well since they
started keeping records in eighteen fifty one. Wow. Okay, so
a lot of records set there, and more than the
ones we mentioned this yesterday, that these hurricane hunters were

(48:27):
rebuffed trying to get inside the eyewall that storm. They
couldn't do it. That happened on more than one occasion yesterday.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
Again, I don't know if it's true or not, but
there's a social post of somebody in one of those
planes getting sick as they flew through the wind.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
That wouldn't be shocking. Yeah, I don't know if you've
ever seen any of the video that we know is
true from inside those planes. It is a rocky ride, buddy,
as you might imagine. But you would think they'd be
used to it, you'd think, But I guess we all
have our limits.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Huh, Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
And the way they talked about the pressure drop, that
pressure would in over a course of maybe an hour
at most, maybe quicker than that. The pressure was dropping
by one hundred millibars. They say, that's that that that
causes physiological issues if nothing else, You're probably gonna get
a very bad headache from that. But it could cause

(49:23):
other issues for some folks. So now the and again,
I'm looking at some of the images right now, and
it's it's it's what you thought it would be. But
it could have been worse had it made landfall over
towards say, the Kingston area, the capital and the most
densely populated area that of that of that island. Yeah. Wow, Okay,

(49:45):
So as far as the calendar is concerned, we only
have what counting today, three days left in this hurricane season.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Yeah, okay, and we get the worst of it on
the very last days.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Yeah, and there's nothing else out there right now. But
it could happen.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
And are they still expecting this thing to spin up
to the north and maybe even in fact Canada.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Yeah, it could happen, all right, now that'd be much
weaker by then, right, but uh, yeah, that that could happen,
all right. Trump continuing his tour of Asia. He did Japan,
He's done South Korea, the meeting with a Jijinping. The
Chinese premiere is on the horizon here, and that's the biggie,
that's the big one. That's what all this is leading

(50:26):
up to. So the markets are watching this closely. Is
it today we get a FED interest rate decision? I
think it is, isn't it? Consensus is the Fed is
going to come from another quarter point off the primary.
So yeah, a lot of a lot of market watching
will be going on today. But yesterday in Japan, speaking

(50:49):
to the US military members, Trump said something, Well, they
got the attention of quite a few folks. We have
cities that are troubled. He says, we can't have city
that are trouble, and we're sending in our national guard,
and if we need more than the national Guard, we'll
send more than the national guard, because we're going to

(51:11):
have safe cities.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
What's more than the national Guard other than the military.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Active military. There's the only thing more than that.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Right just when you think Trump has gotten a handle
on the Constitution, because he did say yesterday that he
doesn't think he can run again, Yes, the third term.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
He's been the intentionally, in my opinion, just tweaking the
Democrats for the longest time, just trolling them over that.
But the scary thing is you've got other Republicans like
Lindsey Graham that are kind of saying, well, you know what,
I wouldn't mind seeing that happen. Well, yes, Trump did

(51:49):
say that, Yes, yeah, he doesn't see how he can
run for a third term. But putting active duty members
of the military onto public streets is going to be
a bridge too far, of course for the Democrats and
the Constitution, but for a lot of Republicans too. We

(52:13):
need safe cities, absolutely, but do we need that House
Republicans yesterday unveiling the long promised report on the auto pen. Now,
the report doesn't apparently contain any concrete evidence that AIDS

(52:37):
were conspiring to enact policies without Biden's knowledge, or that
he was unaware of law's pardons or executives assigning his name.
But this is an opportunity for Republicans to cast doubt
on all of his actions in office. They have sent
a letter off to Pambondi urging a full investigation. They

(53:03):
wanted the DJ looking at this further.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Well, if we can't prove that they weren't going around
him to pass laws or do anything else, and I'm
not sure what else to be gained.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
I mean, I think really the only thing at this
point is these pardons. In other words, if he didn't
authorize him or wasn't aware of them.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
But they just said that he was aware of everything,
well they.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Can't at this point. Their investigation couldn't show that he
wasn't aware of them. That's why they want the DOJ involved,
because if he wasn't, then yeah, those including the pardons
of the Biden family are null and void.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
I mean, I think we know he was not aware
of much of what was going on, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
By the way. I did he mean to bring it up? Really?
But apparently the story floating around that Carriejean Pierre on
her book is you got a new book out.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, we talked about that, you're out right,
And she.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Did an interview with somebody who was up for the
New York Times or one of the New York magazine
or whatever, and it was just a disaster apparently. I mean,
it was all well, oh wait a minute, wait, wait, wait,
wait wait wait, no, no, no, I mean she's totally
unprepared for it, and unprepared to even defend things she
wrote in her own book.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Well, she's being challenged on everything and including things that
most Democrats now admit they were covering up, and she's
still sticking to the story. I never saw it. I
just thought he had a bad cold on that debate stage.
I never saw any decline. Okay, I was around the
president every day, but I didn't notice anything.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
And Texas A and M A fold a couple of
weeks for the game Cocks in Football's right there, Texas
A and M Transportation Institute just releasing a report about
well traffic issues or around the country. And when it
comes to Columbia. They say the average time that you

(55:00):
lost in traffic due to congestion last year. Oh, that's
actually it was in twenty twenty Yeah, last year, twenty
twenty four was sixteen percent worse than it was in
twenty twenty three.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Are they talking about when they came to Williams Price
last year and got into traffic on Assembly Street trying
to get to the stadium.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Yeah, no, but that would make make it worse. Shire
Probably the construction like over at Malfunction Junction's got a
lot to do with that. Oh, no doubt. That's the
average forty eight hours, the average time you lose every
year if you're the typical commuter in this town to traffic.
But then I have to question the validity of this

(55:40):
study when it talks about Friday at four pm being
the worst time to commute. Now, that would make sense
people getting off a little early on a Friday. But
I have commuted at one o'clock and maybe sometimes two
o'clock on a Friday. Yeah, me, and I think everybody
else who works in downtown Columbia. Ain't nobody working at

(56:03):
four o'clock in this city on Friday. Agreed, You get
out there yeah, one o'clock, one thirty on a Friday,
for it's already stacked up. Yeah, you're already done.