Show Rewind 11-20-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Jesus right. Hell yeah, America, thanks for reus for nation.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yes is wrong. This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary
David and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five
FM and five sixty AM.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
W VOC and good morning to you. It's fifteen minutes
after six. It's Thursday, November twentieth. It's one week away
from Thanksgiving Day. Good morning to you. It's good to
have you with us.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm Gary David.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
If we haven't met yet, how are you nice to
make your acquaintance. That is Christopher Thompson joining us. Good
morning morning to you, sir. Comfortable this morning. We're in
the fifties spread across the Midlands. And yeah, look at
ahead Thanksgiving Day forecast. Do I have that in front
of me or not?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well? Wednesday? Wednesday is gonna be like seventy five next? Okay?
We next Wednesday?

Speaker 3 (01:04):
A yeah, yeah, So I'll have to I'll have to
jump out a little bit further into that Thanksgiving Day forecast.
I think we're expect to be, you know, pretty much Oka.
I think it's gonna be rather warm, as I recall,
I don't know I can I can find it for
way real quick.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
Here I mean, I just I just heard Tyler mention
the eighties and I thought, oh my gosh, right, yeah,
this is late November or mid November.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, I tell you no, See, now that I look
at this, this is the problem with these these algorithms
are using on all these apps now with forecasts. Everyone
you look at it tell you something different. Have you
noticed that? Yeah, oh, here the weather dot Com app.
While the National Weather Service is talking about next Wednesday,

(01:47):
partly Sunday in seventy five, the weather Channel app says, uh, yeah,
temperature about right, but a sixty percent chance rain next Wednesday,
which National Service is not mentioned at all. And they're
talking about a sixty five percent chance of rain Thursday
and seventy percent chance rain Friday and a Friday high
next Friday fifty six. You know, I've come to this

(02:08):
point in life now where I just say, you know,
I'll just wait and see what actually happens.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Or at least wait until the day before, or at
least till the day before.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, if you're planning on driving, and a lot of
folks had plans to fly and maybe they've changed them
because of the shutdown, well things seem to be pretty
much back to normal. But again, you know, if you
if you're if you're traveling around the state. For example,
they tell us that in the Triple A this is
their advice. Worst times to be driving Next Tuesday, basically

(02:41):
anytime after twelve noon if you want to, if you
if you're leaving next Tuesday, leave before lunchtime. Wednesday, leave
before eleven am. After that all bets are off.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
And then if you're you know, heading back on Friday
or Saturday, again, try to leave before ten or eleven a
block in the morning. After that things will be pretty dog.
I'm busy, so you'll be careful out there, all right.
Run down big stories, hot topics here at home, a
couple of things to get into. A judge is trying
to decide whether or not to release a former Midlands

(03:16):
teacher on bond. This after new allegations that this teacher
sexually assaulted miners came up last month. This is the
case of Sliman Benoit, who was a substitute teacher and
after school director at Green Charter School in the Midlands's
a guy facing multiple charges of criminal sexual contact with

(03:36):
a miner. And I'm not even in my wildest dreams
what I recount to you over the air, some of
the descriptions of what this guy is accused of doing.
I'm not real sure why there's anything to weigh here
as to whether or not to release this guy on bond.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well he was out, Yeah, he was out.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yeah, and his lawyers arguing, Okay, well he didn't do
it anything new, You've just figured out other things he
did in the past.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, but you know, the cumultive effect of that, we'd
think would be weighing on the judge's mind here, and
let's get let's hope so because again, some of these
details are just.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Sickening.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Meantime, families of three girls who were allegedly assaulted by
this same teacher have sued the school now.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Can't blame him.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
A woman here in our state facing charges of attempted
murder after she allegedly tried to terminate her pregnancy. This
is a twenty year old Joscelyn byrom up in rock Hill.
She was arrested a couple of days ago attempted murder
unlawful neglect of a child. According to cops, she took

(04:53):
medicine to induce labor while she was twenty seven weeks pregnant,
didn't render any aid or call for any emergency services
for the newborn after she gave birth. Ok This is
different than this abortion debate over the state House that's
defunct for now at least of you know, jailing or
charging you know, a woman with murder for getting a

(05:14):
you know, an abortion, a traditional abortion.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
It's a very different story here.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
A sheriff's deputy in Lectionton County failed to follow safety
protocols and training and that caused another vehicle to hit
a high patrol trooper during a routine traffic stop. There's
going to a lawsuit. Okay, this is interesting, the lawsuit
filed by the injured trooper. He is suing the Lectionlon
County Sheriff's department over this. Okay, don't hear that every

(05:40):
day the big news The President is signing off on
the bill to release the Epstein files. Okay, well that
was yesterday, so the clock starts thirty days. The dj
has to release these files. Okay, we talked about this yesterday.
If you're really hoping for from some just earth shattering

(06:03):
just like nuclear type bombshells, here, I don't think it's
going to happen. Remember, the bill calls for the release
of unclassified documents.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Number one.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
I don't know that we will ever know if all
the files were at leased or not. But I'm just
brace yourself. If you're hoping for something just massive to
come out of this, I don't think it will.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
But we'll see again.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
We'll get a little further into this a little bit
later on some of the reasons why I think that
we're not going to see a lot of bombshell type stuff.
There are already apparently plans according to some matter of fact,
a document that was circulated by the House Speaker shows

(06:56):
some of the ideas here that he has on what
should it should not be released. Meanwhile, word that Akeem
Jeffrey's campaign solicited money from Epstein. Allegedly this was part
of his twenty thirteen campaign effort. I know, a while ago,
but at that time Epstein had already pled guilty to

(07:18):
solicitation of prostitution involving a minor under the age of eighteen.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
So it's not like that's not the pocket you want
to reach into for a little help, right exactly.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Okay, another big problem for Republicans on Capitol Hill. I'm
not saying the Epstein. Thing is this is a problem
for everybody, I think, but for the Republicans. We've got
rising health insurance premiums and the pressure is on for
the GOP to do something. Now we know Trump's pushing
direct payments. The GOP is looking to come up with
an alternative to the enhanced subsidies, and meanwhile Americans are

(07:53):
getting ready to pay more. The plan that Senator Cassidy
has the Louisiana Republican critics say it will not lower
these skyrocketing premiums. But the question is is what's behind
all this? Why are these premiums exploding on us? Well,
it looks like some people are coming up with some answers,

(08:15):
at least they think they are. Now does that fix anything?
But well, no, that's going to be up to Congress.
But why are these premiums skyrocketing? We'll take a look
at that. This morning, Charlotte now over a two hundred
and fifty arrest after the border pool operations began up
there this past Satura's operation Charlotte Web Charlotte's Web, i

(08:36):
should say. And the Texas redistricting plan that was blown
out of the water by a federal court now that
as we anticipated, raising more questions nationwide about redrawn maps.
By the way, one of the judges on that panel
in Texas excoriating his colleagues over this ruling, talking about

(08:59):
part and ship from the bench and yeah, another state,
another red state has going to have to redraw their
redrawn plans after, of course, says some of those redraws
were in their opinion based on racial things. Yeah, and

(09:21):
Trump will meet with Mom Dommy tomorrow to be a.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Fly on the wall.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
I don't know if that's going to be any public
in that or not, but that will expect that to
be volatile.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
I expected to be volatile.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
When they come out of the meeting, they'll be nice
to each other and then they'll come out and bash
each other. Probably depends on what Mom Donnie says. Yeah,
it depends he'll endear himself to Trump. Oh, he'll put
on that big Mom Dommy smile.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah. You know to expect on that one, don't you.
All right, friends, we'll get to that more coming up
here on this. It is the Thursday morning edition of
Columbia's Morning Is. We appreciate you being long.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Hear about it. God, wake up for the country. Talk
about it.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
This is this is pure evil. One O three point
five FM and five sixty am w VOC. This is
Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on
one O three point five FM and five sixty am
w VOC.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
And six forty one. Good morning.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Appreciate you joining us on this Thursday morning, the twentieth November,
a week away from Thanksgiving Day.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Wow, big stories, of course, the.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
President's signing off on that bill to release the Epstein files.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
But will we see everything. We'll get to that a
little bit later on.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Plus Republicans scrambling to try to come up with something
to alleviate the burden of rising healthcare costs. What are
they up to and do they have time to try
to do something anything? We're talking about that this morning
as well. Now yesterday morning in this same segment, I
believe we were talking about the economy and on Wall
Street and we were talking about the AI tech and

(11:01):
all the concerns over that, and we mentioned that in
Vidia was going to release earnings yesterday and it seemed
as though the general consensus was it's not going to
be good and here comes the big crash. Well guess
what it turned out that it was good. Oh yeah, okay.

(11:23):
As a matter of fact, Q three earnings released by
Video better than Wall Street expectations. So a strong earnings
report from in Vidia yesterday.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Well, anytime you exceed expectations on Wall Street, did, that's
a good thing.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah. Down, futures are head to twenty four this morning.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
S and P is up about seventy three.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
The tech stocks, as you might expect, up three hundred
and fifty four points right now in pre market trading.
So so uh this following yesterday when we saw the
the Dow go up?

Speaker 1 (12:08):
What was it? Slightly?

Speaker 3 (12:11):
But these these are rat reports too. We come in
late to day, so we expect a good day today.
So yeah, in Video beats market expectations and their CEO
predicting what he calls a crazy good Q four after
the strong earning supports for Q three so good. So
AI is not dead not yet? Well no, a, I'm

(12:32):
afraid it will never be dead.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah. Couldn't kill it off before we wanted to do
it this morning, No, No, we couldn't.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
We also talked briefly yesterday about the CEO of Google
soon Darpa Chai, who was telling us in relation again
to a tech bubble, that if that thing, if that
thing bursts, it won't be just be you know, tech
companies that get brought down by it, but it'll be

(13:02):
all companies. His included of course he's a tech company,
but still. He also, in an interview with the BBC,
had this to say about artificial intelligence. He compared replacing
humans with AI to getting a refrigerator for the first time. Okay,

(13:24):
I'm gonna need some help with that one.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
What.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, our first refrigerator, he says, radically changed my mom's life.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Okay, now I'm not sure. So he's going back to
how old this guy is? Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
He's from India, I think so maybe refrigerators relate to
get to the to the scene. I don't know, but
that artificial intelligence should be welcomed because we humans are
overloaded and juggling many things. Well that's true, we are overloaded.
We are juggling many things. But yeah, you're talking about

(14:01):
replacing humans with AI, and that also means replacing humans
with AI and in the workplace. Right, I don't get
this analogy here with getting a refrigerator for the first time,
but anyway.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Can I ask a stupid question. Well, I'll give you
a stupid answer more likely.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
And you're the business guy. I don't understand. If AI
is so valuable, if we can't see a future without AI,
then how is it possible for these tech companies to
be overvalued? I mean, well, we can't even estimate how
valuable they are because they are the future, right.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
So, yeah, they are, and they'll be dips, they'll be valleys,
I'm sure. But yeah, yeah, it's a valid question. We're
not turning back on this thing now. If for no
other reason. Then you know, if you can get the
entire world to get together and say you know what, Okay,
that's enough, we're gonna.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Stop, that'd be one thing. But that's not gonna happen.
You know.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
The first Lady was it yesterday giving giving a speech
to the Marines up in North Carolina, talking about the
battlefield of the future. And it sounds a lot like
watching the movie Terminator, you know, the things she had
to say about robotics and drones and everything else on
the some panels, a very dystopian speech, but yeah, it's

(15:28):
the things she had to say to these marines about
the future of the battlefield yeah, conjured up exactly that
versions of the first time you saw a terminator one
of those opening scenes, the opening scenes I recall, and
you're like, wow, but that'll never happen here.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Guess what I mean.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
It looked almost positive in a way because it's robots
fighting instead of us. Yeah, so maybe human lives get
but as we know, that's not the way it's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Until you meet that moment of singularity when the robots
started thinking for themselves, right, Yeah, and we seem to
already kind of be there. That's the scary part.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
We should have known this was coming. We've been Hollywood's
been warning us about this for years now.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Hal warned us, he did.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Now, Okay, the the scary proposition, the scary the doomsday
well maybe not doosday, but the the doom and gloom
scenario from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation otherwise known
as NRK. Okay, the drc U this week warning that

(16:46):
winter electricity demand is increasing. I think we knew that,
but especially in regions with high concentrations.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Of AI data centers.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, By the way, that includes us in South Carolina.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
We didn't see this coming, right, or who shouldn't have
seen this?

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Their new reliability report is that much of North America
is at risk of failing to meet demand in extreme
operating conditions. Regions loaded with high with energy hungry AI
data centers face heightened outage risks during intense winter months.

(17:27):
That winter electricity demand is rising at the fastest rate
in recent years, particularly in areas where data center development
is occurring. Okay, I got a question here, because here's
what it sounds like to me that when energy demand

(17:47):
is peaking in cold winter months or hot summer months,
or whenever it happens, this almost makes it sound like
to me that these AI centers are getting preference here,
they're getting priority. Here's an idea, shut down the flip
and AI centers and keep people's heat on in their homes.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
I was going to say, i'd, you know, rather than
write my resume and you know, write my son's term paper.
I'd rather stay comfortable this winter time. I'd rather not die.
But can you prioritize, for example, we know AI is
doing a lot of trivial things that people are relying
on it, but what is it doing that's important? Can

(18:29):
we just afford to shut down an AI data center
and say, well, we'll turn it on again when you
know we need less heat?

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Well, I mean, heck, nery a week goes by now,
or there's not some sort of an internet outage for example, true,
and it lasts maybe a day or a half a
day or a couple of hours whatever, and we survive.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
We yeah, and we're still here. You know, we're still here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
I suspect there are some things now that are and
I want to get into this whole you know, vital
for national security thing here, But it sure seems like
there could be some kind of prioritization where Okay, yeah,
it'd be nice to have this, but we really kind
of need to keep the heat on for people. Okay,
is anybody even thinking about that? Or are we looking

(19:14):
for a you know, an upcoming winner with this? What
will you have a La Nina this time around? Whichever
it is, they're going to be parts of the country
to get extremely cold, extremely cold. Are we looking at
blackouts just so the AI data centers you can keep
up and running or do we all go down?

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Okay, there you go. From the from NURK, the Electro
Reliability Council six fifty. Thank you for joining us. It's
the Thursday morning edition. We're trying to keep the lights
on here on WVOC.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
You're listening to Columbia's morning news on one oh three
point five FM and five sixty am w VOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson SEV seven.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Good morning and good have you on board for Thursday,
November the twentieth.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
For the women out there like myself who haven't gotten justice,
this is a moment that gives I hope, all of
us hope across the country.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Nancy Mace commenting after the Senate, remember the Senate the
day before had by you what they call unanimous consent,
had said, yeah, I passed this Epstein bill, but the
final vote wasn't taken until yesterday morning to make an
official and then Trump signed off on that bill.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
To release files.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Now the clock starts ticking as of yesterday, thirty days
the dj has to release the Epstein files. Okay, now
the question becomes, or are we getting set up for
another big letdown here?

Speaker 4 (20:55):
Well, even if they were redact something, they have to
write a report saying why they were redacted?

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Did it? And remember those two words national security? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (21:06):
Right, I mean, you know that's the that's the problem
with Jeffrey Epstein is he dabbled in a little bit
of everything. I mean, he was one of those major
media players that wound his way in one of befriending
heads of state and princes and everybody in between. Did

(21:29):
he befriend them or did he blackmail?

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well?

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Yeah, that's that's another question, right. You know, how involved
was he in state craft? And was he making foreign
policy by you know, making moves with foreign dictators and
foreign leaders.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Even the bill itself, remember says a release of all
unclassified documents. Yeah, unclassified. Now, redactions can be made to
protect the identity of victims.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Okay, I mean the Justice the Justice Department can turn
around and say, okay, because this is an active investigation
of that too.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
We've we've found since we started reading through these documents,
we've found that we want to explore this further. So
we're going to investigate this person. And so you can't
have that person's name or anything about what the Epstein
files said about that.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Person, which is the same excuse the Biden administration used
because there were active investigations.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, and the Galaine Maxwell case was active.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
So how much do we actually see. Mike Johnson, the
House Speaker, and a lot a lot of people had
attention to this, circulated a document again saying of the bill,
it jeopardizes futural federal investigations, and we have national security

(22:58):
concerns regarding classified information.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
That was.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Johnson talking and quoting from a document that his office
put out detailing five flaws with the bill.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
In the fifth and final flaw there you go, titled
national security concerns, Johnson's saying, it's incredibly unwise to demand
that DOJ declassify materials originated by other agencies. That declassifications
should protect sources and methods. So, in other words, uh,

(23:40):
does the final say go to the Trump administration because
of national security? So you got two things here, national
security concerns and active DJ investigations, and.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
The Justice Department will have to weigh all that versus
the public's right to know.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, okay, so just a what if here? Yeah, the
DJ has thirty days to produce these documents. I would
suspect that, well, thirty days from now would put us
you know, almost a Christmas week, might we hear, well,

(24:27):
we're working on it, but you know it's Christmas time
and you know, we people are you know, taking a break,
and so we need a little more time here. Okay,
that's one scenario.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
I think Congress would hold their feet to the fire
on that thirty day deadline.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
You would hope. But you know, the scenario that they
release these the unclassified portions, and they release the ones
that don't hamper active investigations, They released the ones that
don't cause national security concerns or were originated by other

(25:10):
investigative organizations within the government, and we wind up with
what we seem to always wind up with. What is
the reaction going to be from the American public.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
I think they'll take their cues from Congress. Remember it's
Congress that has been driving this. I'm not sure the
American people are all that invested. I mean, we certainly
lost interest over the last few months. Maybe at the beginning,
we were excited and you know, titillated by all this.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
You know, what is the good We all fired up
first part of the year when yeahm BONDI said, ye,
I'm dumping all this stuff, right, And all we got
was stuff that had already been dumped.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
I think we've moved on.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
I think the American people are more worried about the
economy and crime and everything else than anything that might
be in these files. I think Congress is going to
drive this discussion, and whether Congress is satisfied with what
they see is probably how the American people is going
to perceive the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
I agree that this is not a pocket book issue
for us at all, But yeah, I think the reaction
is going to be whether whether or not by and
large American public really cares. I think the American public
has probably bought it a whole you know, eyes wide
open thing. That movie, remember that that that you know,

(26:32):
at that at that level, that sort of thing probably
does exist, and it wouldn't shock us unfortunately. But I
think the American people are going to feel again like, well,
we just got hoodwinked, you know, we just got told,
you know, here here come the goods, and you fail
to deliver again.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I think there's going to be a big outcry. Again.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
It doesn't affect you personally, I get it, but it's
just gonna be another feeling.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Okay, Yeah, this is this is typical Washington d C. Crap.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yeah, we'll see James Comber meantime, the chair of the
House Oversight Committee, very heavily involved in all this, of course,
and now accusing Haikim Jefferies of trying to solicit money
from Epstein. This was a number of years ago. Comber
says that there are a lot of Democrat fundraisers that

(27:23):
invited Epstein to an event and one including to potentially
privately meet with Hakim Jeffries. Now this was long before
Akiem Jeffries was the House Minority leader. This was back
in twenty thirteen, but it was just a couple of
years after Epstein pleaded guilty through a solicitation of a
prostitution a prostitution involving a minor under the age of eighteen. Okay, so,

(27:50):
and Larry Summers, who's already withdrawn from public life and
it's going to stop teaching at Harvard now, is resigned
from the board of Open AI. You know, just to
a cautionary tale there for any of the name that
may pop up and all this stuff if it does on.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
The air, on the on the job check in while
you work for the very latest.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Ill day one old.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Three point five FM man five sixty Am Double Voc.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher
Thompson on one Old three point five FM and five
sixty Am doub Voc.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
It is seven four and it's Thursday, No. Number twentieth.
It's good to have you with us. We appreciate that. Hey,
some good news this morning. You know, wherever get good news?
Maybe I'm just have I just gotten too cynical to
my old age?

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yes, Oh sorry, did I answer too quickly there? Just
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
I think we both have. I think that's a that's
the nature of this job. Yeah, you see too much
come across your desk and you think, how can that happen?

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Really?

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah, really, so when some good news pops up, you
don't want to be sure. Actually, we had some good
news we shared earlier. Yeah, the at least for now,
that the potential for a a tech bubble burst has
been delayed. Hopefully, you know it won't happen. But the
Nvidia earnings dropped yesterday and it exceeded Wall Street expectations.

(29:13):
So that was good news.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Good news.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
The market's responding this morning, the futures markets, let's see,
I have them for of me a minute ago. I
don't know what I did with them. Oh, come on,
there we go. Yeah, Dow futures are up to twenty eight.
Thought it could be a little bit of a tech
tech stocks or have been soaring this morning. Yeah, tech futures,

(29:38):
the Nasdaq up three hundred and seventy three points. So yeah,
a big sigh of relief there on Wall Street over
the Nvidio earnings. And then we get this Zillo now
saying that the October housing market the strongest in about
three years, about a five percent annual increase year over
year in new listings and pending sales. There's still plenty

(29:59):
of challenge out there. This is not anywhere near fully recovered.
But yeah, some good news on the housing front.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Isn't the concern now that our homes are over valued?

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:13):
And then they are starting to come down. Okay.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, the the national median price of a home now
is three hundred and sixty two thousand dollars. It was
a bit higher than that, and of course, you know,
mortgage rates have been coming down, not as far down
as people would like them to come, but mid October
they were at the thirty year fix was six point
twenty seven two years ago, that was seven point sixty three,

(30:38):
And that makes a whole big hill of beans difference
on thirty year mortgage band, a big one of course.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Still.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
You know, as we've talked about on numerous occasions, the
average typical first time buyer age is now forty years old.
Forty fifteen years ago it was thirty. Okay, so but hope.

Speaker 4 (31:00):
Get out of your parents' basement, Ridget really already, get
your own own, go get a job.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
By speaking of getting a job, we mentioned this the
other day. The woman who just won the mayor's chair
in Seattle the Socialists, Yes, can't think of her name
right now. She actually we talked about it. She was
getting help from her parents for childcare. Yeah, they were
like supporting her. When it came to that she's forty

(31:26):
three years old, okay, still still getting money from mom
and dad to help it to help me, and she posted,
I know that I've decided to accept a new job
mayor with a nice, big plum salary. She says, I
no longer have to rely on mom and dad for
expensive daycare costs. She's forty three years old on and

(31:47):
by the way, her husband he doesn't work, he's unemployed. Okay,
these are the people that are that are causing the
problem here.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Of course, that isn't a nutshell kind of the socialist idea.
Isn't it live off of somebody else as often as
you can and for as long as you can.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Okay, good, all right, So good news there. Now, this
is why I'm so cynical. Okay, stories like this are
popping up way way too often. Now, this is not
a news story, but the latest here. This is a guy,

(32:24):
Suliman Benoit, who was a substitute teacher and after school
director at Green Charter School in the Midlands. A judge
now is trying to determine whether or not to release
him on bond.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Now.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
He was initially back early this year, back in February,
posted a seventy five thousand dollars bond those for charges
that were filed. Then he was charged in April then
with an additional four counts of third degree criminal sexual
conduct with a minor. There have since been more kids

(33:03):
come forward. He's now facing more than a dozen charges
of sex crimes against minors. And even though he was
earlier the year bonded out, he's back behind bars now
and a judge is trying to figure out whether or
not he should be released.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
I would say no.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
I think any rational human being would say no. But
what does the law say if he's bonded out once
and hasn't committed any new crimes. It's just we've discovered
more of your old alleged crimes.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, that'd be like, I guess, you know, somebody bonding
out on an assault and battery charge, let's say, and
then it comes to light later on that. Wait, this
person murdered somebody you know a couple of years ago.
In a case like that, you know you're staying well.
I don't know that you are, but you would hope

(33:54):
you'd be staying behind bars even though again, you hadn't
committed a crime since you were first bonded out on
the crime. I would hope that'd be the way it goes. Now,
his his lawyer, that's the argument he's making. You know,
he hadn't done anything since he first bonded out, so
why would you not let him out? Well, and I'm

(34:15):
gonna tell you if you know, if you want to
go online, the state paper, uh gets pretty graphic in
the details of what at least one victim says, this
was a first grader.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
As to.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
The heinous act that this guy did by telling this
first grader, you do this, and uh, everybody else in
the classroom will get.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
We'll get recess time.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
So I'm not even gonna bother to describe exactly what
it was that he's alleged to have done.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
And using peer pressure.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yes, with a first grade, with a first grader, And
that was not the only allegation. Of course, what a dozen.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Now now the family, Yeah, I was gonna say.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
What may be more disturbing is the family seems to
feel like the school shielded him.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yes, So now you've got families of three of these
young girls suing the school and the state public charter
school district saying just that that not only they failed
to protect these students, but they failed to report the
abuse to authorities. Again, earlier this year, the principal of

(35:39):
the school This is Green charter School, Tina Shaw, was
arrested charges that she failed to report child abuse of
the school.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
But that was that was a complicate I remember that case.
That was complicated because didn't she.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
She passed it along to somebody higher up.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, but didn't It was it was the channels she
didn't follow.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Yeah, I gotta tell you, man, if I if I'm
if I was in her position and I was made
aware of that channels, be damned, man, I'm going straight
to the car. I'm done on nine one one. Yeah,
all right, which is what she should have done the
first time.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Now.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
I don't know where that case stands right now. But
but but now you've got a lawsuit by families of
three of the girls, and I wouldn't be surprised if
if there there aren't more, because again, you're talking about
a dozen charges them. That doesn't necessarily mean a dozen
different individuals kids individuals is to be kids, first graders.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
But it could be.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
There are so many legal technicalities to these cases. But
the bottom line is it's sick behavior.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah. So, yeah, that's why I'm so cynical these days.
I guess I get it. We see this way too
long for knowing.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
You're listening to Columbia's morning news on one oh three
point five FM and five sixty am WVOC. Once again,
here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
It is sixteen minutes now past eight o'clock in the
morning for Thursday November the twentieth, Happy to have you
with us.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Thanks as always.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Coming up, Republicans scrambling trying to come up with something
to say, votes to not lose votes because of aspiraling
healthcare costs and these enhanced subsidies for Obamacare. But first,
Republicans continue to find ways to fight each other.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
What's new? Huh?

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Okay, this goes back to something you got snuck into
that bill to reopen the government, and that was a
John Thune inserting this little clause that senators could actually
sue the government over.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Operation Arctic Frost. So we're talking about just to select
number of senators.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yeah, just just eight I think all told, including hours,
including hours, and only one of the eight said yeah,
I'm gonna sue, and that was Lindsey Graham. Well, uh,
Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, said, well, the House voted
to kill that, to repeal that provision.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
And you might be saying, well, why didn't you look
at it at the time before you just signed off
on what the sentence sent over. Well, they had to
get the government reopened, and I'm not sure they even
knew this was there. Tell you the truth, this happens.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
So this was the.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Ability to sue for for five hundred thousand dollars in damages.
So Johnson says, yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
No, we're we're, we're, we're.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
We're going to xnay that. But John Thune said, no, no,
we're not. What's what is this?

Speaker 1 (38:59):
I just can't get along? All right? Now?

Speaker 3 (39:02):
You better get along on this one in a hurry?
What to do with these enhanced subsidies? The Hill reporting
that the GOP rushing to deliver an alternative, and we
already know that to be true. And yeah, we're beaten

(39:23):
the dead horse here, I know. But we've said this
many times in the past couple of weeks. Why did
you wait till now? We have known for a long
time that those in hand subsidies we're going to sunset
at the end of twenty twenty five. Why are we
sitting here November twenty if at twenty twenty five and
the Republicans are still scrambling to come up with an alternative.

(39:44):
Now again, the President wants this subsidy money so directly
to you if you're on Obamacare, and Republicans are trying
to find a way to make that happen. It doesn't
fix the system. That's broken. It's still you know, other
taxpayers subsidizing other people to have health insurance. But as

(40:08):
The Hill reports, the ideas Republicans are are are batting
around are are vague.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
Yeah, I was going to say, I haven't heard a
detailed part. We're going to give it back to you.
All right, Well that sounds popular right off the bat,
But all right, what does that mean? What do I
do with it? It's mine?

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Well, it's I think the idea was it would go
into your HSA account, so you're not able to go
out and spend it on a you know, a big fancy.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Dinner, but I can spend it on my own healthcare.
You've been on you spend on your own healthcare?

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Right, How does that fix the costs the rising cost
of health care?

Speaker 3 (40:46):
It doesn't matter of fact, You've got health experts now
warning that this sort of an idea direct cash proposal
could create what they're calling a death spiral, where people
that are healthy would drop coverage and then use the
subsidy that cash are getting in their HSA to pay

(41:08):
at a pocket costs.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
So if more people drop their coverage, then the coverage
the cost of coverage rises for everyone else.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Exactly, so this could have just the opposite effect. Okay,
Trump earlier this week telling Congress not to waste time
on an extension of what's going on right now, the Republicans,
that is, but to take a harder line, no bipartisan compromise,

(41:37):
Come up with your own plan.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
I got a plan, do it.

Speaker 4 (41:40):
Well, this makes sense because you know, the Republicans are
scrambling at this point. They haven't had any time to
really come up with a healthcare idea they or.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
They did have time, right, yeah, they had time.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
But you're right, that was sarcasmic. That was to I
didn't look over there. Your tongue was firmly implaneted. Yeah,
oh yeah, yeah. Well, the only Republican who seems to
be seriously working on this so far has been Bill Cassidy,
the Louisiana Senator. But again, the quote unquote experts were

(42:13):
saying even his his ideas are not going to lower
the premiums Now, a lot of Democrats are saying this,
but a lot of policy experts are saying this too.
And you know, I don't know enough about how all
this would work to even venture a guess as to
whether or not what they're saying is accurate or not accurate.

(42:35):
It'd be nice we could just get the let's score
political points thing out of it, and let's see how
we can fix this for the American people. But why,
why are the again the subsidy argument aside. Even if
even if the two sides got together and the Republicans said, Okay,

(42:56):
we're going to extend what we've got now for some
period of time. Remember Chuck You's hum wanted for a year,
putting it into the midterm year, Haking Jeffreys wanted it
three years, putting it into the next presidential cycle. Again,
we're talking about scoring political points here. But even if
they came up with some sort of a solution here,
an extension, the cost is still going to be higher

(43:20):
than it was. The rates are still going up right now.
The premium price increase for twenty twenty six is about
twenty six percent higher than it was in twenty twenty five. Now,
again these subsidies do expire, you're talking about it increasing
not twenty six percent but one hundred and fourteen percent.
But still if the subsidies are extended, it's still going

(43:42):
up by about a quarter.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
And that's healthcare in general, noting the moneral here, right,
in general.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Right, But when it comes to Obamacare, what is driving
the cost here? Well, a couple things here. The guaranteed issue,
and that was the big selling point for Obamacare originally. Right, Yeah,
you've got a pre existing condition. Yeah, you got to be.
It doesn't matter. They got to right, they got to

(44:09):
cover you. That is again, and I'm not I'm not
going to argue whether it's wrong or right. I mean,
I think it was right. You had an existing condition,
and now you're being forced to get new healthcare and
I say, no, we're not going to cover you for that. Well,
but the bottom line is is that is raising rates.

(44:32):
It has raised rates and made it more expensive. The
community rating rule, that's a rule that keeps insurers from
charging older people more than three times when they do
younger people, regardless of health status. It basically amounts to
a government price controls. You're going to you're the insurance

(44:57):
companies like it or not. I'm an old person, I
wouldn't like this. But you know, there you charge two
people the same, regardless of age, regardless of the health condition.
Everybody gets the same. And then there's some other you know,
mandated service coverages and things along those lines. We won't
get too deep in the woods on that, but these

(45:19):
are just some of the reasons why. And again, in general,
health care insurance costs and health care costs are rising,
and that doesn't seem to stop. But when it comes
to Obamacare specifically, those are some of the reasons why
the rates have continued to go up and are going
to go up. Subsidy argument aside twenty six percent for
twenty twenty six A lot of people shopping on the

(45:40):
open marketplace have already discovered that, much to their their chagrin.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Traffic end weather when you needed most every ten minutes mornings.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Because I need to know what I'm going to wear
in the morning.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
On one O three point five FM and five sixty
am w VOC, this is Columbia's News with Gary David
and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM
and five sixty am WVOC.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
And our final thoughts here at eight thirty nine on
a Thursday morning, and stop, hold, hold everything, stop the press.
We have more good news to add on today. We've
had what we talked about the Nvidia earnings yesterday. It
came out beat expectations. So the tech bubble burst is
averted at least for now. So that was good news.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yes, what else do you m We talked.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
About the housing market rebounding some in October, best numbers
we've seen in a while when it comes to housing,
and the job support just dropped. It got delayed because
of the government shutdown, but it just came out. Economists
expected that the economy would have added fifty thousand jobs
in November. It added one hundred and nineteen thousand. Wow,

(46:54):
consider this. In August it was twenty two thousand. So
we've gone from twenty two k in August to one
hundred and nineteen thousand in September, and now futures are
up about three hundred and seventy some odd points right
now as a result. So yeah, there you go, more
good news this morning. Okay, final thoughts now up. In

(47:20):
rock Hill, a twenty year old arrested a couple of
days ago, charged with attempted murder and unlawful neglect of
a child. She allegedly tried to terminate her pregnancy. She
admitted that she took medicine to induce labor when she

(47:40):
was twenty seven weeks pregnant, and when the induced labor
was successful and she gave birth, she did not render
any aid or called, you know, an ambulance or anybody else. Now,

(48:02):
this is separate apart from this strict bill which would
have been the strictest of the nation that did not
get at a subcommittee the other day over the state House.
That was one that would have charged a woman who
terminated a pregnancy with murder and up to thirty years
behind bars. This is different. We have a law in

(48:23):
the books right now, of course, that abortions are outlawed
after six weeks cardiac activity is detective. But again in
this case, she attempted to determinate the pregnancy, the child
was born, and then she let it die. So she's

(48:44):
charged with attempted murder. Just north of Rock Hill up
in Charlotte, over two hundred and fifty arrests now reported
after a number of days and border patrol operations are
Operation Charlotte's Web, which started off with a bang on Saturday.
I think it was about a hundred and eighty or so,
wasn't it first day? So that the paces slowed, but

(49:07):
as of well, the latest numbers we have Tuesday night,
more than two hundred and fifty. Now, remember this is
a blue city and the police department there, while they've
been instructed not to interfere with these operations, they've also been.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Instructed not to help. Okay, and then who was it?

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Oh? Yeah, somebody wrote a story about a Latino themed
ice cream shop in Charlotte that the owner had to
shut it down because he says his workers are too
scared to drive to the shop and work well.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
He said, to shut down. Schools are empty in many
locations in Charlotte. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Earlier in the week there were reports of about twenty
five percent absence, he rates. Okay, Hendrick Motorsports triggering the
Liberals signing a one point five million dollar deal an
ice contract for Chevrolet vehicles.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
It's business. It's a business doing business stuff. Huh. I
doubt they really care whether they're triggering Liberals or not
with this.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Now, this is, as we warned the other day, you
gotta come back to bite us when I say I'm
talking about the collective conservative base in this nation. That
federal court decision in Texas to block the redrawn district maps.

(50:46):
By the way, if you missed it, Jonathan Kelly's rash
thought gave me a different perspective on Ralph Norman's call
to eliminate basically James Clyburn's seat in the in the
sixth district.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Very good point.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
As a sixty to forty state, you look at California
and what they're they've just done. They too, is sixty
forty state, just a sixty Democrat forty Republican, and they're
gonna make it to where there won't be any Republican
representation in the House of Representatives. Other states have done
this too, So yeah, why shouldn't South Carolina? That portrayed

(51:21):
that in a whole new life for me. I gotta
tell you, Well, but it was that Texas move prompted
by Trump to redraw the maps, and then the court
steps in and says, now you can't do that.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
You know the story.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Well, now this is raising questions nationwide other states. Alabama,
I think, yeah, yeah, Alabama, George ordering a small, just
a small redistricting effort that it'd be overturned again. As
we said the other day, you notice when this happens

(52:00):
to overturn these redrawing of the maps, it's always in
red states. I'd have to go back and look the
last time a court ordered a redraw and a blue
state to be rolled back.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
I'm sure it's happened. I guess maybe I'm not sure.
But this is again, this is causing issues in other
states nationwide. This is something that I think that the
lesson here is if you're a Republican state and you're

(52:38):
going to redraw maps, there's always going to be a
legal challenge regardless, that's a given, but.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
You're going to have to have a legitimate justification for
doing it right to get it past these courts.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Because it just ain't going to happen. So you know,
states Republican states that have done this, are considering or
have considered of doing this, are paying close attention.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Now. How many other.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Redraws in red states are going to be shot down
by courts? I don't think we've seen the last. And again,
as we mentioned the other day, just if you consider
Texas and California, this is going to probably mean an
additional six seats in the House of Representatives that will

(53:33):
be blue seats, an additional six to what they have
right now. So this says the real possibility of tilting
the balance of power at least in the House of
Representatives back to the Democrats come the midterms and nothing's
going to stop it.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
And then two years after that you've got more electoral
votes for those states, right or less right.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
So this could turn out to be a major disaster
for the Republican Party major but it's too late now,
I can promise you. If Rob Norman gets his way
here in South Carolina and the State House redraws maps
to basically eliminate James clyburn See from ever being held

(54:21):
by a Democrat again, that probably won't stand either. Okay,
and get a load of this Noah out now. With
some new information on Hurricane Melissa. They one of the sonars,

(54:44):
that one of these hurricane hunters, And are those some
crazy people or what? Yes, they are, Oh my goodness.
And even in this storm it was so bad that
on multiple occasions they had a turnaround in skeit Addle.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
You're talking about the hurricanes. Have those planes?

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, they found a re inside the eye of that
storm of two hundred and fifty two miles an hour.
That is a record. They have verified it. That is
the strongest wind hurricane ever recorded, two hundred and fifty

(55:17):
two miles an hour. You know, you think about those
typhoons out of the Pacific, which are much stronger than
the hurricanes we have here. But the prior record was
a typhoon in twenty ten in the Western Pacific that
had o'clock wind speed at two hundred and forty eight
miles an hour. So this breaks that record two hundred
and fifty two. Luckily, nobody in Jamaica or anywhere else

(55:40):
actually saw windspeed like that hit land, but it was
bad enough, of course, as it was match a two
hundred and fifty two miles an hour. They are getting
stronger