12 Days Of Preston, January.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Good morning, friends, Welcome to the Twelve Days of Preston
On the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I am here virtually, actually,
I am taking some time away from the normal broadcast
and we're presenting twelve special shows. These shows are going

(00:41):
to be a year in review, if you will. We'll
look back on the twenty twenty four year and bring
you interviews and the stories that shape the year, one
month at a time. So each show in the Twelve
Days of Preston will tackle one particular and this being

(01:02):
the first show, we will tackle the month of January,
so we'll get to that. We'll unpack all of that
with some interviews that I think you'll enjoy and try
to keep you company while we are away from doing
live programs and just reflect back on a very very

(01:23):
tumultuous twenty twenty four. But as always, we begin with
a verse of scripture, and I'm going to go with
what I think is probably the best known. It's certainly
the scripture that everybody holds up at the athletic events.
Right you remember the guy with the rainbow hair who
used to hold up the John three point sixteen and uh,

(01:45):
what man, what a what a warrior for the cause,
right and uh, and there are actually people I've seen
it more and more frequently in recent years, and it's
like folks are starting to pick up the the idea
that maybe this world needs a little bit more Jesus well,

(02:07):
and we know the answer to that is a lot.
But we're gonna look at scriptures in light of the
season that we're in, and this season is advent. An
advent means the coming of Jesus. And John three point
sixteen the most famous passage of all scriptures probably is

(02:34):
I think appropriate to kick off our twelve days of preston.
It says, for God so loved the world that he
gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish, but have eternal life. I have always, always,

(03:00):
I have always used that verse as kind of my
inspiration for giving at Christmas time. I love giving Christmas
gifts at Christmas time. It brings me joy to give

(03:21):
to the people that are close to me, family and
a few friends, and to bless them. And it's out
of a heart that I hope is forged after God's.
God was the ultimate and is the ultimate first gift giver.

(03:48):
He loved you and I so much that he gave
his only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish,
but have eternal life. And I want to zero in
on that whosoever, because friends, that is every single one

(04:12):
of you, no matter what you may think about, your
destiny is determined, and you have no say in the matter.
You have all the say in the matter whosoever believes
in Him. And so perhaps the greatest Christmas gift of
all for you this year would be a decision to

(04:37):
embrace that original gift that God gave. It is December nineteenth,
and so we will do what we always do. Look
inside the American Patriots Almanac. You know a few people
realized at the time, but the issue of Popular Electronics

(04:58):
magazine that hit the news stands in the Lake December
of nineteen seventy four marked the beginning of a modern revolution.
On the cover, beneath the headline World's first mini computer Kit,
sat a photo of a plain looking box covered with
rose and switches of lights. The machine was the Altaire
eighty eight hundred, and for about four hundred bucks, anyone

(05:20):
could buy the kit and assemble it them assemble it themselves.
It was the first truly personal computer to come to
the market, Thousands of hobbyists rush to place orders. In Boston,
a young computer programmer named Paul Allen picked up the
magazine Ran Too his friend Bill Gates, a student at Harvard.

(05:42):
The two had been computer enthusiasts since junior high school
and a dream of making their mark in the game.
Look it's gonna happen, Alan said, waiving the article. I
told you this was going to happen, and we're going
to miss it. Gates decided to leave Harvard and start
a software company without and they wrote a program for
the Altair and Microsoft Computers. Microsoft Corporation, if you Will

(06:07):
was born. Meanwhile, in California, at the same time, a
twenty year old Steve Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak
wanted to build their own small computers. Jobs sold as
Volkswagen Van Wosniac sold as scientific calculator to raise the
money to start Apple Computers, Inc. In nineteen seventy six.

(06:28):
They assembled their prototypes and Jobs family garage. Early Apples
were among the first personal computers. Nineteen eighty one, industry
giant IBM introduced its own personal computer, the IBM PC,
run by Microsoft software. Other companies followed suit. By the
mid nineteen eighties, the American bred personal computer revolution was

(06:52):
poised to change the world. By the way, it's noted
that a lot of people advised Gates not to leave Heart,
but he did not share that opinion, so he did.
Also on the date December nineteenth, seventeen thirty two, in Philadelphia,
Benjamin Franklin begins publishing Poor Richard's Almanac. In nineteen seventy seven,

(07:17):
George Washington's Army enters Winter Camp at Winter Camp at
Valley Forge. In eighteen seventy one, Mark Twain receives the
first of three patents who Knew for improved suspenders. And
nineteen ninety eighth US House impeaches Bill Clinton for perjury

(07:38):
and obstruction of justice. Andrew Johnson was the only other
president at the time to be impeached. And so there
you have it, this date in history, December the nineteenth
from the American Patriots Almanac. Now, let's kind of set
up where we're going here. For the rest of the show,

(08:00):
We're going to bring you some interviews that I think
are noteworthy from the month of January. Again, this is
January twenty twenty four. Recapped and brought back to you.
And so we'll share entire interviews, editing interviews of some

(08:20):
comment here and there and let you just kind of
go back in time and think about what a year
it was, the year twenty twenty four. This is January
and show number one, day number one on the Twelve
Days of Preston, And we're back the Twelve Days of Preston.

(09:14):
Thanks so much for joining us. We are going back
through the month today of January twenty twenty four. And
even though we are at the end of the twenty
twenty four football season, we were in January talking about
the end of the twenty twenty three football season, and

(09:36):
it was a very big deal. In fact, it was
one of those rare occasions when sports crossed over into
news because the Florida State football team got left out
of the College Football playoff and then played Georgia. FSU

(10:01):
was not the FSU team that played in the regular season,
and even not the same team that played in the
ACC championship game. And I talked with the managing editor
of war chand dot com, Irishchafell, about it all. Did
it take you a while as an even as an
objective media guy, but still a fan of FSU to

(10:22):
get over what happened on at the Orange Bowl.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
You know, I don't know. I mean part of me
was like I felt worse I think, in the month
leading up to that game than I do right now,
you know, I you know, I and I wrote a
column that week, basically the day of the game, basically
just saying they just need to get this over with
and let this happen. Whatever's going to happen is gonna happen,
and then they can start the process of moving forward.

(10:48):
And uh, you know, December was a terrible month for
Florida State in a lot of different ways, Florida State
football in a lot of different ways, and uh, you know,
I just felt like they had the kind of as
one of those just take the medicine, get it over
with and move forward. So yeah, it was disgusting to watch,
but you know, even as soon it was over, I
felt like, Okay, at least now they can start moving forward.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
There are examples going back a few years now of
players' high profile players who decided NFL career notwithstanding they
were going to play. They're going to play with their guys.
It's a team game. They warred together all season long,
some of them longer than that, obviously, and they were
going to play. Have you had any thoughts about whether

(11:33):
some of those guys maybe just should have suited up anyway?

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Oh, I think a bunch of them should have. You know,
to me, I've always understood you, at least since this
started the opt out era, you know, seven eight years ago,
that that you know, if you're a first round pick,
you know, I get it, and if you're not in
a playoff game, I get it. And as you said,
there are examples of guys who have played, there are
also a lot of examples of guys who didn't play.
I mean there are guys this this bole season who

(12:00):
didn't even decide yet if they're going to come back
next year, but they said, I'm still not playing in
the bowl game. Like I may come back next year,
but I'm not playing in the bowl game, which is
a whole different animal. But yeah, I mean, there's a
bunch of guys that opted out that I think are
not going to be might not be drafted, might be
drafted late in the first round, or might be late
drafted late in the draft. They were not risking a

(12:23):
lot of money by playing in that game. I just
think it was it was a perfect storm where you
had a team that all year was focused on one goal,
which was well two goals, winning the ACC. I think
the big goal was getting to the playoff, and they
felt like they went undefeated, they would do that, and
they went undefeated and still didn't get in. And then
several of the top players were you know, as soon

(12:44):
as that was decided, the team knew that Keon Coleman
and Jared Verse and you know, probably Trey Benson, a
few guys were definitely not gonna play, and you already
had lost Jordan Travis, and I think that just led
to a kind of a cavalcade of guys saying, you
know what, you know this team isn't gonna be the same,
so I'm gonna go ahead and start getting ready for
the draft.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
No team in the top twenty was hit by opt
outs like FSU, not even and I would say not
even close to one team was hit like FSU.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
I don't know if any team in the history of
college football has been. I mean it was, and it
was a unique situation also because you had so many
guys who either came back for this one season. You
know all that, you know again the Jared Versus and
and Trey Benson's and Johnny Wilson's and you know a
lot of guys, you know, Tatum Bethune, a lot of

(13:31):
guys who really this was the one year they were
coming back for. And then you had the one year players,
you know, the Keon Coleman's and Braden Fisks and some
of those guys who were only here for one year.
So I think it was a combination where you didn't
have you know, a lot of the guys that you know,
some of these other schools maybe had invested four or
five years in their program and and you know, they

(13:53):
weren't there just for this one big run. I just
think it was a unique situation.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Irisha fell with us. When we come back, we're gonna
keep talking about this opt out problem because the bulls
are in jeopardy.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Let's just start with the presumption that he's right. Believe me,
it works around here. This is the Morning Show with
Preston Scott back with Irishafell. Subscribe Warchant dot com. You're
gonna get so much good intel, great reporting, and some
really insightful columns all in one place war chant dot com.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Ira.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
I've given this a lot of thought, and obviously I'm
a little older and I do have a little old
school mentality here, and I admit it. I still believe
that the kids getting scholarships and tutors and room and board,
I think that's a pretty sweet deal given the cost
of college education these days. But that said, the coaches

(14:47):
were making millions. EA sports was making millions, the NCAA
making you know, multiple fold times that, and so I
get it. But the players decided that they wanted to
be more treated like a pro and il money and
so forth, right, So why don't we just sign them
to a contract. And this would be across the country

(15:09):
that to play a scholarship sport, in any sport, you
sign on to play for that year, whatever games that entails.
If that's a bowl game, it's a bowl game. If
it is a playoff, it is a playoff. And whatever
we need to do, whether it's an insurance thing for
an NFL bound player or an NBA bound player, or

(15:29):
whatever the sport might be, we sign into a contract
because if we don't do something. The expanded playoff to
twelve and I think eventually sixteen teams is not going
to matter because outside of that, those Bowl games are
going to be meaningless exhibitions. Why bother play them?

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, you know, it's definitely a fair question. I think
that maybe that's a good solution, and maybe that's where
it's all going. I mean, I think if you talk
to people inside the sport, I don't know if anybody
knows exactly what it's going to look like in a
few years, but everybody I talked to who seems to
you know, who's really plugged in, believes that they're going
to go to a point where there's real revenue sharing

(16:09):
and it and it changes from this payer play model,
which is it is right now where you have these
schools coming up with these you know, basically what used
to be under the table deals now are over the
table deals. You get people to come to your school.
What's going to happen is the TV contract is going
to get split because some of some of these court
decisions that are coming down the pike. And so, say

(16:30):
it's one hundred million dollars that goes to a conference,
you know, a big portion of that's going to start
going to the players. And if that happens, then you
that leads to, you know, collective bargaining and things like that.
So it may get to that point. But you know,
it is ridiculous what's going on right now with the
bowl system. But I don't think there's a solution until

(16:51):
something like that happens. So I think you're probably on
the right track.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I just don't see a way that. You know, again,
I go back to the fans, the boosters, the bowl presenters.
I mean, the Orange Bowl had to be just dying
watching that game unfold. Kirby Smart said it. Even though
he played a little bit of a role. He ran
up the score. He didn't have to, he did, but

(17:14):
he said it. He said college football needs to see
what happened here tonight, and I thought he was very gracious.
He said, that's not Florida State what we saw.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
No, for sure, and I'm glad he said it. You know,
it's one of those things where I don't again, I
don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the Bulls
because they've let TV do this to them. You know
that they took the checks from ESPN, and basically ESPN
has made it clear they don't care if there's ten
fans in the stands. They'll hold bulls whenever they want,
wherever they want. They'll move them, they'll change the names,

(17:44):
they'll do anything. They don't care if fans go. They
just want programming during that month to go around the
NFL schedule. And so they've got what they wanted, you know.
They they've they've they've they've created this situation where the
Bulls are meaningless. They wanted to play off, they wanted
all these other things, and so now you know, again,
to me, I don't have a lot of sympathy for

(18:05):
the Bulls because they've they've taken the checks from ESPN
and let ESPN just bastardize the whole system. And so
you know, they are they're at where they're at. But
I agree with you for the for the good of
the sport, you know, because you know what happened. You know,
I don't know if I've seen FSU fans as mad
as I did in the week or two leading up
to that game, and the anger went away from the

(18:28):
playoffs snub to frustration about this team and the fact
that all these kids weren't going to play. And so
so I get that, and that's a that's a problem
that they can affect it, you know, not just the
entire sport, but obviously each individual program.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
There is a massive conflict of interest of a major
network that controls largely as you talked about the scheduling
and so forth. And I mean, they own the college
football playoff for all intents and purposes, but they own
a sports book. I read that is a conflict of interest.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
And I don't know how he got here. When I was,
you know, in the late nineties, I worked for sports
CBS sports line dot com, which was originally sports line
dot com, and part we had gambling information on the site.
That was a differentiator between sports Line and ESPN dot com.
And when CBS bought into sports Line, CBS made sports
Lines sell off all their gambling information and they created

(19:19):
a news site called Vegas Insider, which I actually ran
as gambling site, gambling information site because CBS couldn't be
affiliated with gambling. And that was you know, I mean,
it's in our lifetime. It was only thirty years ago.
It wasn't like it was one hundred years ago. And
then we went from that to at some point we
can advertise draft fantasy information on television to some point, no,

(19:41):
we can provide all gambling information. And so now where
ESPN is is in bed with a sportsbook. I don't know,
it's incredible how we've gotten here, but you're right, I mean,
it could lead to all kinds of questions and problems.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
I Risha Fellowarchan dot Com Back with more of the
Twelve Days of Preston, Back with Twelve Days of Christmas,
and the first show is the month of January, and

(20:17):
we visited with our resident historian, doctor Ed Moore, who
talked about the founding of Florida's capital.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
This area is ripe with historical sites that most people
have never gone to.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
Or visited and don't know why they're there.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
And that's fascinating to me. I mean, the area really
there were natives here, not Seminoles. They weren't Seminoles, didn't
really even come into being until sometime during the seventeen hundreds.
They started calling them that, and it was almost a
nickname in the Creek language. Their words that sounded like

(20:57):
seminole meant runaway or outlaw, and if you look at
the history of that tribe, that's essentially what it was
a lot of people trying to get away tribes trying
to get away from one another. Small tribes, runaway slaves,
outlaw type whites that went there. The Gullahs from the

(21:18):
Carolinas would come down, mixed race, and then over time
they just started calling them. They got more organized, started
calling the Seminoles the Indians that were here. Prior to
that though, the Natives were various tribes that were in
the area, a lot of them that were Creek from
the Creek coming down out of Alabama and the Red

(21:42):
Stick Creek tribe. The Creeks had two different tribes, but
the Red Sticks came and really were strong in this area.
It was a very settled area. You can go down
off of Myers Park and to the east of Myers
Park back in a street or so, right off a
Lafayette Street. There was a state park in there that's

(22:03):
tucked in there. That's only a five acres or something
that was part of the original it's Governor Martin way
back in eighteen hundreds had a house there and it's
a little small area that was a settlement. There was
a settlement up on the top of the hill the
grassy area where the capital ended up being. And then

(22:25):
there was a settlement that the Spanish ended up building
the mission that's out on West Tennessee Street, and there's
a hell of a museum there that people how to
go visit. There was a lot of activity in this area,
and most people aren't aware of that. They just thought, oh, well,
they decided. I mean, the myth is that two guys,

(22:46):
one from Saint Augustine and Governor Duval had these guys
they wanted to create a new capital. They used to
rotate from Pensacola and Saint Augustine in the early days.
That's a long way to go between the two spots.
You've all heard the term manifest destiny, you know, it's
what they created back then. It was a marketing tool

(23:08):
to say the United States should be from sea to sea.
It's sort of like with the Palestine. People are trying
to use now the Palestinians from the river to the sea. Well,
we wanted, we wanted to go from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. I think do way I read it. This
area and the establishment of Tallahassee as the capital was

(23:29):
sort of the lynch pinned that occurring Florida, East Florida,
West Florida where Spanish controlled this Spain control that in
West Florida really went all the way kind of to
the sabine Aban River, however you pronounced it way over
in Louisiana, Texas border mobile. All that was part of
West Florida and East Florida kind of went from the

(23:52):
Perdido River. Perdido was in west I'm sorry, maybe the
Apalachical River east and the Spanish were only only really
in Sant Augustine. And the reason they were interested in
settling here, and I'm talking three hundred years roughly three
hundred years before Tallahasse got founded, when you had Panfilo
Denvez and Hernando de Soto came through this region, settled

(24:17):
here for camped here, destroyed the Indian villages that were
here at an Haiko, which is the one that was
down by Myers Park, wiped him out. When DeSoto got here,
they had about two hundred and fifty buildings in their settlement.
That's how big the Indian settlement was that was here.
So there was a lot going on here the US.

(24:39):
Andrew Jackson, who was you know, he was such a
sterling soul, would just come down as a general, come
down and just kill a bunch of people, you know,
he raided. He took Saint Mark's they hung to British officers.
The Bretz head of Fort There came in and hung
two of those guys for disturbing the peace. Basically a
lot of crazy stuff going on. They decided to negotiate

(25:04):
with Spain, who was at war. You want to go global.
Spain was at war with France and called the Peninsular Wars.
They decided to negotiate with Spain. Spain needed money, so
for five million dollars, basically they settled off that they
seeded East Florida the United States, and Tallahassee would have

(25:24):
been on the border East Florida, West Florida, then the
west part what they call West Florida. Spain didn't ced
it to the United States, but basically just sort of
gave it up. And during that time frame there was
a rebellion. There was a Republic of West Florida. There
was the Muskogee Republic. I think this the Indian tribe
created tried to create a country. All kind of flags

(25:47):
flew over the Panhandle of Florida during that period of time.
Critical element though in the it was the Adams Ownest
Treaty and it was John Quincy Adams, who was Secretary
of State under Monroe and the negotiator for Spain. Spain
seated everything east of the Sabine River, which border is

(26:07):
the river that goes between Texas and Louisiana. And if
you look at the map and kind of go ziggi
zag up towards the northwest up to the forty second parallel,
which became Oregon, it was the Oregon Territory. United States
boom got all that land. They had already done the
Louisiana purchase, but that only took basically what was the

(26:29):
Missouri territory. We now went all the way to the Pacific,
and then they created We're going then against the British
and the Russians who also wanted that territory. Tallahassee got
established because of the necessity of not having meetings of
government officials in the Florida Territory one year in Saint Augustine,

(26:50):
the next time in Pensacola, and going back and forth.
That's not an easy transit. Now. It was horrible back then,
absolutely horrible. So Governor William Pope Duval appointed two commissioners,
John Lee Williams of Pensacola and doctor Williams Simmons of
Saint Augustine to try to find a new spot. Well,

(27:12):
doctor Simmons came across and went to Saint Mark's at
the fort there and waited for John Lee Williams. And
you can listeners can go online if you google John
Lee Williams journal. He kept a pretty meticulous journal of
his travels together here Pensacola to Florida. If you've driven it,

(27:32):
you've crossed a lot of rivers. There's a tremendous amount
of rivers, and when you don't have really accurate maps,
specific maps. He sailed here. He didn't take a horse
or a buggy or anything. They took a small sailing
craft and tried to make it from Pensacola. And the
journal is fascinating. I think when you read it, you
didn't say it for sure because they didn't know. I

(27:54):
think they got hit by a hurricane at one point.
He talks about what was going on and how damage
everything was and they had to shelter, and he probably
got hit by a severe tropical storm or a hurricane
that knocked him out. And the journal goes step by
step he's stopped and in the destined area. He stopped

(28:16):
at Port Saint Joe area. He stopped in Panama City
area and talked about trying to stay inland behind the
Barrier islands, and yeah, I mean it's it's tremendous. He
camped at Saint Vincent's Island, camped on Saint George Island,
worked his way, then tried to go inland for a
bit and had to come back to the boat. He
built a raft at one point to get across what

(28:39):
he thought was the Oak Lockney Bay, but really was
Apalachicola Bay. And you know you're reading all this, I've
been to all those places, so it's very fascinating. When
he finally got to the fort at Saint Mark's River,
at the bottom bottom of the river there where the
two rivers come together, excuse me, Doctor Simmons was what

(29:02):
had been waiting for him for two weeks, fourteen days,
sitting waiting. So he made it always from Saint Augustine
to there, and then had to sit there for two weeks.
And then they had heard about this grassy area and
this open area. The two of them decided this area
right here is the perfect spot. And when John Lee

(29:22):
Williams wrote to the governor. He told him they decided
the spot, but they really hadn't made up their mind
yet exactly where to.

Speaker 6 (29:30):
Put the capital.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
But it was two very adventurous people. I mean, this
was the wilderness.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Doctor Ed Moore joins us usually on a monthly basis
with a little more history and obviously tackling the state
capital of Tallahassee where we base our program. Back with
more the Twelve Days of Preston the month of January
twenty twenty four, here on The Morning Show with Preston Scott.

(30:12):
Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston. This is
show number one, day one, otherwise known as the Month
of January. This is our look back at the year
twenty twenty four here on The Morning Show with Preston Scott.
Kind of a recap of the big stories, the interviews,
the things that we talked about through the course of
the year. And in this segment, I'm going to share

(30:34):
an interview that, though brief, was special to me because
it brought back memories of my dad. Now, to set
this all up, I've got to go back to nineteen
fifty three because that's when my dad was doing football
for a network. You likely haven't heard of, called the
Dumont Television Network. They were the first to do NFL

(31:00):
broadcasts coast to coast, but they weren't well known because
they didn't have a whole lot of cities with affiliates. Well,
it was in nineteen fifty six, three years later that
my dad went to work for CBS Television. Now here's
a little known fact about doing the NFL on TV.
In the early days of television, announcers were assigned to teams.

(31:28):
They weren't the national broadcast team that we would eventually
come to know and know to this day. They were
assigned to individual teams, and my dad, being the newest
guy at CBS, got what was considered to be the
worst team in the league because the new guy gets
the worst, right, Well, Dad was assigned to the green

(31:51):
Bay Packers, and again this was nineteen fifty six. Green
Bay wasn't very good. We lived in Pittsburgh at the time,
or the suburbs of Pittsburgh. I wasn't even born yet.
And in nineteen fifty nine, three years into my dad's
tenure as the TV announcer for the Green Bay Packers,

(32:13):
a guy got hired as head coach named Vince Lombardi,
and everything changed. The Packers started winning games, started winning championships,
and when the first Super Bowl came around, my dad
was on that broadcast. He was the play by play
voice in the first Super Bowl representing the green Bay

(32:37):
Packers because the Packers were playing the Kansas City Chiefs.
He was also the announcer in the second Super Bowl
and a couple of subsequent Super Bowls. After the second
Super Bowl, they went to what they do now, the
national team, and my dad was the number one lead
national announcer for CBS Television covering the NFL, But those

(33:01):
early years it was the green Bay Packers. Dad's affiliation
with green Bay so strong that he was inducted into
the green Bay Packer Hall of Fame. One of the
players he broadcasted was a guest on My show. And
here's my visit with Hall of Famer Jerry Kramer.

Speaker 7 (33:23):
Hi, President, I'm doing just sensational. I'm having a wonderful ride.
I'm an old dude that passed his time and still
having fun and still doing well. Was it has just
been a wonderful experience. This folk is a love affair.

(33:43):
We talked a lot about the fringes of football and
outside of the game and the celebrity aspect of it.
And it's just been a wonderful ride and I'm pretty
pleased with it.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Tell me what was the idea that inspired Run to Win?
What is the concept behind the book? Jerry?

Speaker 7 (34:03):
Well, if the phrase came from my sophomore year at
high school. I had a lion coach, and I had
big feet, and I had big hands, and I had
grown about a foot and I was clumsy as as
anything you could imagine. And my line coach came up

(34:25):
to me one day and grabbed my hands, held it out,
looked at it, and he said, son, you got big hands,
you got big feet. One of these days you're going
to grow into them, and if you do, you'll be
the heck of a football player. And he started to
walk away, and he got three or four steps away,

(34:47):
and he stopped and turned around and gave me kind
of a Mona Leasha's smile and said, your cans if
you will? And I said can what if I will?
Want finished the sentence? What are you saying? What are
you trying to tell me? He just gave me that
smile and walked away. And the more I thought about it,

(35:12):
the more I knew that he was putting the burden
on my map. It was my actions and my intensity
that would make me a football player or not. And
so I began to learn about football and emotions and
how they went together.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's one of the beauties of sports. Isn't a jerry
that it prepares you for whatever life throws your way?

Speaker 7 (35:39):
It really does, you know. I think of coch Lombardi,
and I think of preparation, consistency, commitments, pride, characters, discipline, grint,
just plain old grit. All of those qualities are necessary

(36:02):
to play at a high level in the NFL. They're
also necessary to play at a high level in life.
And that was what the beautiful part of the philosophy
was and the coach was, is that it's not only
prepared you to play games, it's prepared you for life.

(36:22):
So he was a very bright human being, a very
effective human being.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Is that why? You know? Obviously I have a little
bit of an inside track because of my dad, Ray Scott,
who was with you guys for all those years. Is
that why so many Green Bay Packer players that played
for Lombardy have been successful in life? Embracing those disciplines
and concepts.

Speaker 7 (36:47):
I would say it was because it certainly impacted my
life and my off the field activities. I had a
telligence show in Green Bay. I had a commercial diving
business in Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. I was
building some apartments in Tulsa before I got out of football.

(37:08):
But I was trying to do things the right way,
and it didn't fail me. In life, I spent so
much time working on things that I really didn't think
of the philosophies as much as a job. But I
used the philosophies and I lived by it, and they

(37:30):
made a difference in my life, and I think they'll
make a difference in any life. There's a fight to
say for achievement, for success, for winning that there's ru
in sweats and tears, and if you want it and
want it badly enough, it's yours. You couldn't have it

(37:50):
if you will.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
I hope you enjoyed my visit with NFL great and
Hall of famer Green Bay Packer Hall of Famer Jerry Kramer.
You may remember the Ice Bowl, the game between the
Packers and the Dallas Cowboys that would determine so much

(38:12):
in the history of those franchises. Jerry Kramer threw the
block on that bitterly cold day sub zero temperatures that
got Bart start into the end zone, that in essence
won the game for Green Bay. It's a controversial play.
Dallas fans will say that he he beat the snap

(38:32):
and it shouldn't have counted. He'll simply say that he
anticipated the snap quite well. Bottom line is it was
a great block and it decided the game. Very few
people know that that game was so cold that officials
didn't use whistles for almost the entire game. Early on,
when they put those old metal whistles in their mouths,

(38:54):
it would stick to their lips. It would freeze instantly,
and they would when they pulled the whistle from their
skin from their mouth, the skin from their lips would
come off, and so they did away with whistles for
almost the entire game. That's how cold it was. And
my dad was broadcasting that game as well. It's known
as the Ice Bowl. You know, there's Green Bay Packer

(39:17):
teams that shape the life of Jerry Kramer and Bart
Starr and Willie Robinson and so many other players. Max
McGhee and Donnie Anderson and Ken Bowman, and I mean
the list goes on and on. They will credit the
old man, Vince Lombardi for their successes in business after

(39:39):
they left playing football. Hope you enjoyed the interview, and
I hope you enjoyed the first hour. We'll be back
with our number two, the Twelve Days of Presston. Let's
get right to it. It's the an hour, Day one,

(40:01):
the twelve Days of Press in the month of January.
We go back to an interview with Robert Herjievek in
town for the Power Forward Speaker series by First Commerce
Credit Union from Shark Tank.

Speaker 8 (40:12):
Good morning, very excited to be going somewhere warm in Tallahassee.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Well, we'll have to wait and see how warm it
is next week, but we can hope for the best.
Hey tell me so, I was reading through your bio,
your resume, and it is so vast, it is so large.
I was trying to figure out, how do you capsule
it all? If you were introducing yourself, how would you
do it?

Speaker 9 (40:34):
Well?

Speaker 8 (40:34):
I would gosh, I thank you for saying that. I
think I'm just a super happy guy and I like
to think I'm a great dad. But you know, I
think the great thing about Shark Tank and about me
and most people and businesses. If you're deeply passionate about something,
anybody can do it. I mean, look at the five

(40:55):
of us, for God's sakes.

Speaker 9 (40:57):
Look at Barbara.

Speaker 8 (40:58):
If she can do it, anybody can do it. But
that's the great thing about business man, right like it's
you don't need a god given talent. You can just
get there by the power of will.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
How do you define success?

Speaker 8 (41:11):
You know, I think in general what I would tell
people about business and happiness and success is freedom. You know,
there's the old saying you quit a forty an hour
a week job in order to work eighty hours a
week for yourself. And while that's true, you always find
the time for the things that are really important. That's

(41:33):
a great thing about having your businesses. You get to
set your own schedule, you get to be there for
your kids, you get to do all these things. The
downside is you got to wake up early, you got
to work later than most people.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
When you're considering somebody else's business on Shark Tank, what
are the tangibles that you're looking for? And conversely, how
do you measure or seek out the intangibles.

Speaker 8 (41:58):
What's interesting is most people don't realize that on Shark Tank,
the average pitches by an hour and we know nothing
about the people before they come out, like literally nothing,
We have no we don't even know their name. The
first question is, hey, what's your name? And it's funny
because we sit there twelve hours a day, we're grumpy,

(42:18):
we're thinking about our other businesses, and then you come
out and our first reaction is not, oh my gosh,
you're there. So the first thing the intangible is you
got to get our attention right like, you got to
you got to be exciting, you got to be interesting,
you got to be different. That doesn't mean you need
a pony and a hula who, but you got to

(42:41):
get our interest.

Speaker 6 (42:43):
You know.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
I heard someone once say that people intrinsically want to buy,
but they hate to be sold. Is that kind of
what you're saying? Create an environment where where you create
an environment If we're pitching the sharks, I want to
create an environment where one of you wants to buy.
I don't want to make you feel like you're being
sold something.

Speaker 8 (43:04):
I haven't heard that expression for many years, but it
is so true. It is so true. Everybody hates salespeople, everybody.
Everybody thinks salespeople are the used car salesman. But the
art of selling is creating value. And there's this magic
moment in Shark Tank to your point, where we start

(43:27):
bidding against each other because we want the deal. The
best sale is the one where you make the buyer
think they made that decision. And that's what Shark Tank's about.
Get us excited, get us bidding, and all the power
transfers to the person pitching.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
When you are bidding, if you will borrowing that term
against one of the other sharks, do you try to
undersell yourself as being interested or do you go over
the top to express interest?

Speaker 8 (43:58):
Such a great question. I know we've been doing it
for the mean bald guy. Kevin and I have been
doing the show for twenty years, five years in Canada
right and now fifteen in the States. So it's all
situational and depends on the moment. Sometimes you need a
lot of bravado. Hey go with me, I'm the best sharks.

(44:19):
Sometimes you want to be the opposite of somebody else.
It all depends on the situation. I think the challenge
is we all know each other really well, and we're
always trying to be unpredictable.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
What's the challenge of taking all of your years, all
of your experiences and trying to find a way to
distill it at an event like Power Forward.

Speaker 8 (44:43):
The great thing about events like that, and the reason
the Barbara and I and I think all the Sharks
love doing them is, you know, the platform of Shark
Tank is really about the ability to change your life.
And I know it sounds high faluting and maybe corny
to some people, but we are that classic American dream

(45:04):
you can get out there and you can change your life.

Speaker 9 (45:07):
And as we go out and we talk to.

Speaker 8 (45:08):
People at event like this, we see that dream and
we see that excitement, we see that passion, and I
think as old and jaded as we are, we are
all driven by opportunity and we see ourselves and people.
People don't realize this, but we are the number one
show on television for families. It's one of the few

(45:31):
shows that you can watch with a mom and a
dad and kids and kids just love our show and
we love doing it.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
I think what stands out to me is the number
of jobs that you all, along with the entrepreneurs, have created.

Speaker 8 (45:47):
It's incredible. I think that the last stat I read
was something like ten thousand or twelve thousand jobs. But
you know, employment, a bigger salary, a better living, these
are all by of building a successful value driven business.
I've met a lot of you know, one of the
great things about being a Shark is you get to

(46:08):
meet a lot of really successful business owners and people
in general. And I've never met somebody really successful who
doesn't love what they do and doesn't want to do
it all the time and doesn't want to talk my
ear off about it. And I think that's the great thing.
Right Like, I'm in the computer security business. I love

(46:30):
that business. I'm doing it for thirty years, and I
think you'll find the same with Sharks. I mean, gosh,
get Mark talking about basketball, and that's going to be
a very long dinner.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
One last question, if we could find a way to
kind of go back to when you were starting in
your various entrepreneurial or business adventures and somehow we just
sort of erase that, but we took your same mindset
as it is. What are the differences you think in

(47:04):
being an entrepreneur now? What are the different challenges versus
when you started.

Speaker 8 (47:10):
I think the biggest that's a great question, by the way,
and Cuban and I just talked about this, and I
think if if you were to race all that and
took my current mindset to thirty years ago, the biggest
difference would be my ability to believe in a dream

(47:32):
bigger than me. And you know, I think part of
the challenge with being an immigrant like I am, or
coming from a poor background is you're limited by what
you think you can achieve, and there's always this element
of you want to do great, but you want to

(47:52):
protect your downside. And you know, Cuban always talks about
this and says that everything he does he believes he's
going to win one hundred percent of the time. And
I think like that now, But when I was younger,
I would be thinking like, yeah, I want to win,
but I really don't want to lose. And I think

(48:15):
it's just that belief that the world is a wondrous place.
And you know, if you want to own a basketball
team you can one day. If you want to buy
a jet one day you can. If you want to
get a better education for your kids, you can. You
just got to add that that is the core of
every great business from.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
The month of January. In twenty twenty four, Robert Herjebak
of Shark Tank, it's the twelve Days of Preston on
the Morning Show with Preston scottan back with the Twelve

(49:00):
Days of Preston. January twenty twenty four is day one,
and in these segments, I'll be talking here and there
with former producer Grant Allen, and of course, being January,
never too early to talk a little political. The first
ad for Joe and Kamala the Resident and Vice Resident

(49:26):
of the United States being released and it will begin tomorrow.
What's significant about that. Tomorrow's January sixth. So they're running
these ads in full in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,

(49:48):
and Wisconsin. Shorter versions will run elsewhere, but the full
sixty second ad will run in those states. He will
highlight the existential threat our country's democracy faces from MAGA
extremism that now defines the Republican Party. Crazy. Joe says,

(50:11):
I've made the preservation of American democracy an essential issue
of my presidency. There's something dangerous happening in America. There's
an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs
in our democracy. I'm just going to point out to you.
I should need to do this, but I feel like
I do. I need to remind you we are not

(50:32):
a democracy. We have never been a democracy. We functionally
are acting like one. It's kind of taken on, but
that's not what we are. He's gonna it is exactly
the tactic of the left. They try to think and

(50:57):
treat people like they're stupid, and they repeat lies often
enough that people begin to believe them. Immigration versus illegal immigration.
They just want to end all immigrants. No, we want
to end the illegal immigration. But that conflation works. It

(51:19):
happened with COVID conflation. Well, it's the same as any
other vaccine children get. No, it's not the same. They're
totally different. This is the same thing democracy, democracy, democracy wrong.
Constitutional republic, constitutional republic. We are a constitutional republic. Second

(51:42):
big story in the press box. According to a former
CIA analyst, doctor John Gentry, now a professor at Georgetown,
spent twelve years. He said that the Intel agencies are
going to help Biden. They'll do what they can to
help Biden beat Trump. Why. Well, because the deep state

(52:03):
wants to keep a Republican from winning. They like the
way things operate with Democrats. Honestly, that should be one
of the biggest talking points because that cuts across the
political spectrum. Only the weirdy weirdy weird extremist lefties like

(52:29):
the CIA and the intelligence community to be in your business,
to be spying on you. And so the prediction is
they're going to do what they've done previously. They're going
to do what they can to help. And then lastly,
this was just hilarity. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro

(52:55):
Mayorcis is attributing to climate change the historic migrant surge
into the country. It's climate change that's what's driving everybody
to the United States. We'll have more on climate change
in just a few minutes a visit with someone who's
kind of an expert on the subject. But we transitioned

(53:18):
and talked about the calculus of this campaign and election season,
especially in the House of Representatives. Bill Johnson, Republican from
Ohio in the House, confirmed earlier this week that effective
January twenty first, he is leaving Congress. He's going to
be the president of Youngstown State University. Isn't that where

(53:43):
Jim Tressel is currently president or was was retired? He
retired how long ago?

Speaker 6 (53:49):
Do you know?

Speaker 1 (53:50):
Last year or so, so they've been serving with an
interim since I'm not sure. Potentially, Well, Johnson's departure comes
to the middle of the two government funding deadlines, which
are coming January nineteenth and February second. The House and
Senate must reach an agreement. They are under a continuing

(54:13):
resolution and remember that's it. Time to get a budget done,
no more crs. The problem with Johnson leaving is that's
a two seat margin. Now for the GOP it gets smaller.
But Representative Brian Higgins of New York is leaving in

(54:38):
February allegedly now he might get pressured to change his mind.
Some money he'll show up in his savings account and
he'll be asked to stick around. Probably, But if he leaves,
that brings the margin back to three. Keep in mind,
Kevin McCarthy step down the end of the year. Yes,
good bye. It's kind of like the movie Tombstone, Well Bay,

(55:06):
Curly Bill brocious to Kevin McCarthy. Yeah. Representative Mike Garcia
of California said, between God, gravity and indictments and retirements.
We're one day away from losing the majority depending on
what happens. That's the importance of the upcoming election. Another

(55:27):
story that I thought was worth pointing out ramsen Kadirov.
He's the appointed leader of Chechnya. Putin put him in
power in two thousand and seven, and so he is.
He's going after anybody helping Ukraine to the extent that

(55:54):
he told security commanders if someone infringes on public safety,
an officer or a tourist, and if we don't even
find the offender, we won't keep looking for them, but
we will definitely find their relatives, as is customary from
time immemorial immemorial. That's I mean his words. If one

(56:15):
of the relatives has done wrong and the criminal cannot
be found, their brother, their father would be killed. Thus
our blood feud will be repaid very quickly. Otherwise, a
person kills someone and lives with impunity, and their relatives
start renouncing them, and so he is, he's And I've

(56:37):
got to finish here so that I can make the
point I want to make here. No relatives renunciation is
effective until we kill someone from their family and take
the right of blood feud. These are Islamic extremists that
Putin's in bed with. And I just want you to
get your mind around the way these people think. And

(56:59):
I'm using people with air quotes because I don't necessarily
think they are. I know that God loves them, That's
why he's God. And I'm not because I struggle with that,
but I know that God does. But here's the thing,
this is how they think doesn't matter the wrong. I mean,

(57:21):
people have members of their family that are ridiculous. The
way this guy thinks, Well, we'll just kill dad, mom, brothers, sister, wife, kids.
If we can't find him, that's fine, we'll kill somebody
else who's done nothing. Time for another edition of stupid

(57:46):
criminal Stories. My man Dwayne Walden fifty seven, church pastor
and husband of LaToya Gladney, manager and training at a
Donald's in North Carolina. She told police her employees were
disrespecting her, so she called her husband. He showed up,

(58:12):
walked into the kitchen, and began punching Theodore Garlington in
the face. He then wrapped his hands around Garlington's neck
and began pushing his head toward a deep friar as
one naturally does before he could be pushed into hot
oil with his face in the oil, good employees interceded,

(58:36):
pulling him off. The victim. Garlington suffered a large contusion
to the forehead and the right eye, along with scratches
on his neck. So he was the pastor, the good
pastor with man. Can you imagine being baptized by this guy,
my man, that's hilarious. Yeah. So the good Pastor was

(58:59):
a rested for assault and his trial scheduled for later
this month. Sorry, it's not Walden, it's Wading Dwayne Waden.
He works as a semi truck driver and his pastor
of Elevated Life International Ministries. I wonder if that's going
to continue.

Speaker 6 (59:18):
We'll see.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Oh some of the fun we have stupid criminal stories
talking about Congress. They kind of fit together, now, don't they.
Oh well, we're looking back at the year twenty twenty four.
It's the Twelve Days of Preston. Day one is the
month of January, first month of the year. So we'll

(59:40):
continue our look back into the year that was as
we look ahead to the year that will be, God willing,
so stay with us. More to come on the Twelve
Days of Preston here on the Morning Show with Preston'scott.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
In an earlier segment, we were talking about the fact that
the Biden Harris administration was blaming climate change on the
immigration problem on the Southern border. We've heard over time
how climate change is responsible for every evil thing. I've

(01:00:27):
maintained that the climate just changes, whether it warms or cools,
that's what the climate does. It's been a process since
God created the heavens and the earth. My guest, Greg
Wrightstone is a geologist by trade. He's an author Out
of Necessity, and we talked to him in January about

(01:00:49):
his companion book, a follow up book to Inconvenient Facts,
called Convenient Warming. Greg is of the opinion that we
are in fact warming, but it's not man made. It's
the climate being the climate. He further asserts that the
warming is actually good for the planet, and he has

(01:01:11):
the data to back it up. But we talked about
the need for the second book.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Well, yeah, you know, it.

Speaker 9 (01:01:17):
Was a gradual evolution. When we've talked over We've talked
quite regularly over Gee, what's it been five six years? Yeah,
And you know when we talk I always go back
to there is no climate crisis. But really this has
been an evolution for me and the CO two coalition
is not only is there not a climate crisis, but boy,

(01:01:39):
by every metric you look at, Earth's ecosystems and humanity
are benefiting from modest warming and more. CO two it's
this huge I call it the greatest untold story of
the twenty first century. It's the story of a thriving Earth.
It's completely an opposition to what we're being told. We're

(01:02:00):
being told regularly in new on uncertain terms that we're
going into a climate crisis, a climate disaster, that rising
seas will swallow islands and heat waves will increase and
people will die. And boy, just as you look into
it in each one of these allegations, if you actually

(01:02:21):
look at it, just the opposite's happening. It's you know,
I've got the book in three sections, and the last
section is life is good in getting better, and I
start with my quote from Frank Sinatra, the best is
yet to come. And that's what we see. It's it's hard,

(01:02:41):
it's hard to argue about this against this because the
facts are stark and uplifting actually.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
But yet we find ourselves needing a book like this. Now,
you know, Greg, I'm I'm a little bit different from
you in that I'm still not convinced we're warming all
that much because the temperatures, you know, they give us
faulty numbers based on where they place the temperature reading devices.

(01:03:10):
I mean, I don't feel like we ever get really
clean data. But if I accept that we're warming, I know,
and you know, this is a natural process that Earth
has done for well since God made it.

Speaker 9 (01:03:22):
Yeah, well, you're right that it's over as. The warming
is overstated, But there's absolutely and there's no doubt that
we're warmer today than we were three hundred years ago,
Absolutely no doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
For example, just we can do.

Speaker 9 (01:03:36):
I can go eighteen miles south of where I am
in Arlington, Virginia and get down to George Washington's home,
and they have an ice house there that he built
for Martha. Martha loved ice in her summertime drinks and
every winter he'd have his enslaved workers and some of
his adventure service. They get down to thetomach with big

(01:03:57):
sauce and they cut big slabs of ice out of
the tomic. Okay, And that was in the late seventeen
hundreds and the last time the Potomac froze like that
was some twenty five years ago. It occurred every single
year at that time because it was a lot colder.
And so we can look at historical data like that

(01:04:18):
to say, yeah, maybe they've got the degrees off by
five tenths of a degree or something. Maybe we don't
have it exact, but there's no doubt in my mind
that we are warmer today. And even just taking the
data that they're using, we've warned all about a degree
since eighteen fifty one degree centigrade and that's not too

(01:04:44):
alarming to me. And again I look back at another
section of the book. I look at human history, equate
human history to temperature history, and find that the warmer
periods were warmer than today, and all of them were
hugely beneficial.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
If the algores of this world, which clearly they want
to make money, they also want to use all of
this to control our lives. If they had come out
with the idea, hey, you know what, looking three hundred years,
over a span of three centuries, we're seeing a modest
warming in the climate, and here's what we can do
to take advantage of it, we'd beat a whole different

(01:05:21):
discussion different places in the world. Wouldn't we Oh, we would.

Speaker 9 (01:05:25):
And you know, Michael Mann was one of the climate
I'm going to put in air quotes scientists that came
out with. It was his hockey stick that he created
out it's in air. And you know, he was asked,
what's the ideal temperature for the planet. He said, well,
that's easy, it's what the temperatures were before we started

(01:05:47):
adding CO two to the atmosphere. Well, that would put
us squarely in the middle of the temperatures of what
was called the Little Ice Age. That was horrific. It
was half the population of Iceland perished. Third of the
population of the world died during that time because mainly
of cooler temperatures. Because they had each of these cool

(01:06:08):
periods like that we're associated with crop failure, famine, pestilence,
and nasty population and these were horrific. No, no, no, history,
he would call me, and he does call me a
science denier. I would call him a history denire because
he's denying what history actually tells us about warming and cooling,

(01:06:29):
and that is that we should welcome the warmth and
fear the cold again. It's just opposite of what we're
being told.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Well, but that's why I wrote this book.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
But Greg, that's actually borne out every single year in
the news cycle when cold snaps kill people and when
there's a heat you know, imagine it gets warmer in
the summer. Go figure, it's a crazy phenomenon. But the
fact of the matter is more people dyeing cold than
they do in heat or warmth.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:06:58):
The largest study of its kind was done by doctor
Antonio Gasprini. He looked at seventy four million temperature related deaths.
In that study, he concluded in his team of twenty
some scientists are actually doctors around the world, that twenty
times as many people die cold related deaths as heat
related deaths twenty times. There was another large study that

(01:07:20):
concluded was fifteen times as many people die due to
cold as to heat. Well, what does that tell me?
That tells me that global warming saves lives. And you
know when you say that people's heads explode, you can't
say that, Well, yes I can. And the facts, the
facts corroborate that that global warming, another degree or so

(01:07:43):
of warming, it may save millions of lives from premature
deaths related to cold, and again these are things, these
are things, you know, say it once more. We should
welcome the warmth and fear the cold. And that's what
history tells us, that's what the science, effects and the
data tell us. It's completely I don't know why these

(01:08:09):
people are doing this. Basically, your listeners are being lied
to on a daily basis about a climate change and
the dangers of a moderately warm climate. They're telling us,
aren't they, Well, we can't get a degree. You probably
heard of a degree and a half warmer and then
it was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Well, we've
already warmed up one point two degrees. What they're warning

(01:08:33):
us about is three tenths of a degree integradeed warming.
That equates to half a degree fahrenheit. If your studio
went up or down half a degree while we're talking,
you never notice it. It wouldn't trigger the thermostats. And
if you're that worried about half a degree fahrenheit of warming,
it just moved nineteen miles further north and your average

(01:08:54):
temperature will fall by half a degree fahrenheit. It's just
when you look at it and things like this, they're saying,
we go you know the world's going to come to
an end because half of uria warming. It's ludicrous, isn't
it when you look to put it in that in
that context?

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Geologist author Greg Wrightstone always terrific insight. You talk about
bedrock science. Huh A geologist, Yeah, I think so. All Right,
this is the Twelve Days of Preston. If you're just
tuning in, we're recapping the year twenty twenty four, kind
of sort of a best of key interviews, little segments,

(01:09:35):
some insights as we take you through the year twenty
twenty four. And day one of the twelve Days of
Preston is the month of January, So stay with us.
More to come on the twelve Days of presson the
month of January. Here on the Morning Show with Preston
Scott back with the twelve Days of Preston the month

(01:10:01):
of January in twenty twenty four. We're looking back and
we're going to get to one of my favorite guests
from the Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakowski. He's a constitutional expert,
and we turned to Hans when we've got big issues
to discuss, and right there starting the year, we had
a massive case to get some insight from Hans about

(01:10:24):
I have been waiting to talk to you since I
saw the decision by the Supreme Court about Texas. Explain
what you can explain about this. I just got an
email from somebody saying, look, there are no notes on
this because it wasn't really a constitutional ruling. They just
stayed a lower court ruling. But Texas is saying, forget
that we're putting wire up anyway, help us make sense

(01:10:47):
of this from a constitutional perspective.

Speaker 10 (01:10:50):
Yeah, this was not a decision on the merit.

Speaker 9 (01:10:53):
You know.

Speaker 10 (01:10:54):
What happened was Texas put up twenty nine miles of
concertina or bar wire along one of the most heavily
trafficked areas, Eagle Pass in Texas, and when the border
patrol started going in and cutting holes in the fence
in order to allow illegal aliens into the country. There's

(01:11:15):
video showing them doing that. Texas actually sued the Biden
administration for stealing property and conversion, the reason being the
barbed wire was put on state property, state property or
private property where the owners had said, sure, put this up.

(01:11:40):
There was an injunction issued by the Fifth Circuit Court
of Appeals telling the Biden administration that they couldn't destroy
this wire while the case was on appeal, and the
Biden administration filed an emergency request with the US Supreme
Court to dissolve that injunction. Supreme Court said, yeah, there

(01:12:02):
won't be an injunction in place while it's on appeal
to two sentence order. So yeah, the bid administration may
have won this round, but the battle is still going
on and that's in the lower course. Now here's the
most intriguing thing Preston about this. All all that meant
was that there's no order in place preventing the Biden

(01:12:28):
administration from cutting holes in the fencing or removing it.
But there was no order put in place preventing the
State of Texas from continuing to put down the wire.
So all these people who say that Texas who Texas
Governor Greg Abbett is going to be violating the law

(01:12:50):
if he continues to put down they're just wrong. Now
he can put up as much wire as he wants.
It's going to be a race between Texas putting up
the and the Biden administration going in and removing it.
But he's not violating any court order by doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
Help me understand under what authority the federal government has
to regulate any kind of fencing that goes on a
private landowner's property.

Speaker 10 (01:13:21):
Well, I don't think they do. But what the Supreme
Court basically said was, We're not going to make this
decision now, We're going to let the lower courts make
this decision. And I think the lower courts are going
to decide in favor of Texas. I think Texas is
actually going to win this losses.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
How can we best understand the decision by John Roberts
and Amy Coney Barrett to side with the activist judges.

Speaker 10 (01:13:53):
The way you have to think about this is that
they don't like getting into cases in the preliminary stages.
And remember all of this was simply over a preliminary injunction, right,
And a preliminary injunction is an injunction that is in
place while the case is being argued on the merits.

(01:14:14):
The Supreme Court doesn't like to get into that issue.
They want the lower courts to hear all the facts
and the evidence in the case and make a decision
before it gets to them and they consider it. I
think this is such an look. Don't get me wrong,
Don't think that I am defending what they did. I

(01:14:36):
think it's in line with their procedures, but I think
this is an extraordinary circumstance, one in which they should
have allowed the injunction to remain in place while the
case is on appeal, because without it in place, the
Biden administration has made it clear they would do everything
they can to make sure as many illegal aliens as

(01:14:58):
possible get across the border. Let me just say you
one thing about this incident. Texas had video not only
showing border patrol agents cutting holes in the barbed wire,
but then putting out a rope ladder, a rope ladder

(01:15:20):
through the hole to help the illegal aliens climb up
the bank and into Texas. And there's video of a
border patrol boat out in the middle of the river
where all this is going on. And are they doing
anything to prevent the aliens from getting across. No, they're

(01:15:41):
just sitting there passively watching these aliens come through. And
once they're through the hole, do you think the border
patrol agents escort them to a processing center. Why No,
they just stay here. Head down the road. You should
stop at this processing stone, and.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
They just let them go.

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
Use traffic, weather, sports, entertainment, and the Truth The Morning
Show with Preston Scott on News Radio one hundred point
seven WFLA.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
All right, we have a little better understanding of the
legal landscape of what's going on in Texas as it
relates to the border. But Hans that led to first
of all, I feel like the justices had a responsibility
to give us a little more of an explanation on

(01:16:33):
what they were doing and why they were doing it,
their thinking in this we might have been spared a
little bit of a heartache. But it led to a
discussion that Grant and I had, and that I know
that many people across the country are having. The Left
has been trying to quote delegitimize the Supreme Court and
basically ignoredge rulings and say, yeah, whatever, we don't care

(01:16:55):
what the Supreme Court says. We're close to seeing that
on the other side of the isle with rulings like this, aren't.

Speaker 10 (01:17:01):
We Well maybe, although again I want to emphasize that
the critics out there who are saying that Greg Abbott
is not complying with the Supreme Court's order by putting
up more fencing are simply wrong, I understood. So they're
wrong about that. And so far, so far. Look, there

(01:17:24):
hasn't been a single instance that I know of of
Texas or any other state disobeying any court order on
these issues. The Biden administration does that all the time,
Like the President just announcing that he's going to forgive
even more billions in student loans after the Supreme Court

(01:17:46):
told him you don't have the power to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
That's what I'm driving at is, I feel like we're
at a very dangerous point here when you've got Justice
Roberts who flip flops. But between being an originalist and
being an activist, I think he's got pride issues and
I think he likes to be the center of attention.
That's just my analysis of it. But you know, it's

(01:18:11):
a dangerous place to be where a percentage of the
population just says about a Supreme Court ruling, get whatever,
we'll ignore it.

Speaker 10 (01:18:20):
Oh, I listen, I agree. But we're having this breakdown
of our entire justice system. And frankly, it's caused by
the left. It's caused by bad decisions by ideologically driven judges,
and it's driven by the way the Biden administration has

(01:18:40):
weaponized the Justice Department and the FBI you know, the
law enforcement is now being used to target the political
opponents of the political party that controls the White House.
That's that really hasn't happened in our history that I
know of, and that's just another reason why we're in

(01:19:04):
a situation we are. People see that there is now
a two tiered justice system and whether or not you're
prosecuted depends on which political party you're at.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Hans von Spakowski with us. You'll hear him in The
Twelve Days of Preston from time to time because he's
one of the best guests we could possibly have on
the show. We're blessed with a lot of good ones.
All right, friends, that's our two in the books. Twelve
Days of Preston continues on the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

(01:19:55):
It is the third hour the Twelve Days of Preston
day one, which is January twenty twenty four. It's kind
of a year in review and a best of all
wrapped into one. This is our Christmas gift to you
since I'm on vacation crazy right, Yeah, anyway, since we're

(01:20:17):
chronicling what we discussed in January of twenty twenty four,
I had no choice but to talk about January sixth, right,
you know, since since Joe Biden and Democrats have made
such a big stinking deal of commemorating January sixth every year,
trying to tell you awful anyone is it supported Donald Trump,

(01:20:42):
MAGA extremists. There's been an investigation going on into the
investigation of January sixth to see Republicans now currently control
the House. And to be honest with you, you know,
we many of us voted for Donald Trump in twenty
sixteen because we knew that the Supreme Court was vital

(01:21:07):
and as rotten as some Republicans are. You might consider
that we need to keep Republicans in charge of the
House and then take control of the Senate. It for
no other reason to keep digging into the misdeeds of
Democrats as it relates to January sixth alone, Representative Clay Higgins,

(01:21:29):
who is a FORMERLO He's from Louisiana, quoting, we believe
that there were easily two hundred FBI undercover assets operating
in the crowd outside the Capitol, embedded into groups that
entered the capitol or provoked entry of the Capitol. We
believe two hundred is a conservative number. He makes several points,

(01:21:56):
among them, how did people know how to get to
Nancy Pelosi's office? There are no signs. How did people
know how to get where they were going? He said,
if you look at the video, there are people already
inside that seemingly guided them. We've already told you the

(01:22:16):
video of doors being opened, Capitol guards, Capitol police almost
escorting people around. You know, the infamous Viking's Jacob Chancelly
is yep, you know, I mean literally guiding him. But

(01:22:38):
in the video you notice some other things. You noticed
highly trained police professionals firing off gas canisters where police
are gassing their own people. What that did is it
caused them to fall back, so the crowd advanced. Then

(01:23:00):
they gassed him again, unbelievably, tear gas canisters you watch
it on tape, fired again, and then they had to
retreat again. Then there was Ray Apps, who, ironically, not
only the night before, is on tape telling the crowd

(01:23:22):
what they need to do the next day. But at
every single flash point he was there, and he seems
to be interacting with a handful of people, whispering into
ears and on and on the video you see him
escorted away. It looks to me like he's escorted away

(01:23:43):
by by law enforcement, but he wasn't arrested. Claims he's
been driven into hiding by death threats, pled guilty to
misdemeanor charges. Now what have we seen about those kinds
of charges? What has happened to people? Keep in mind,
Ray Apps is on tape, very visible at every single

(01:24:10):
flash point in this entire episode. You could say that
he was kind of leading the charge without going beyond barriers.
He walked away surrounded by people that were escorting him
through the crowd. That's visible on the tape. No jail time,

(01:24:35):
no restrictions, maybe one hundred hours of community service. I
would call that a slap on the wrist. If that,
maybe it's more a pat on the back. Job well done.

(01:24:58):
Then there's this the family of Ashley Babbitt, who, by
the way, full disclosure on that video. You see her
shot and killed, but you see what happened. Her family
suing the government for thirty million dollars in wrongful death lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, her family said she was unarmed. True,

(01:25:24):
her hands were in the air when she was shot
by Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd. That's also true, she
posed no threat to the safety of anyone. They claimed
she was ambushed, Bird was not in uniform, did not
identify himself as a police officer, and did not issue
a warning before opening fire. All of that, based on

(01:25:46):
what I saw and listened to, is true. What have
we learned over years from Charlie and JD on this
program about use of force that you have to have
you have to be threatened, there has to be an
imminent threat. Police have to have a reason for deploying

(01:26:13):
lethal force against somebody. Maybe there's going to be an
effort to explain this away, but to me, the big
stories in the press box warrant your attention because in
my mind, this is another reason why we need to

(01:26:35):
make certain that a Republican wins the White House, because
these people should be pardoned. There's a handful that might
need prosecution based on the video that I've seen, and
might deserve sentences a handful. But they're bragging right now
that over eight hundred and some odd have been convicted.
They're still arresting people and this will go down. Is

(01:27:00):
one of the most shameful episodes in American history. And
it's not January sixth, never ever, does it get old
talking about the injustices of January sixth, and that has
nothing to do with that rally. Trust me. Yeah, there
were some lawbreakers, but yeah, Vivek Ramaswami made a bit

(01:27:20):
of a name for himself. At the very least, he's
a pretty good apologist for conservative values, and he dropped
this bomb a few days back. Campaign stopped Washington Post.
Merrill Cornfield asked the question, I'll tell you what the
question is because you can't hear it real clearly. Do
you condemn white supremacy in white nationalism? This is epic.

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
Supremacy and whism.

Speaker 11 (01:27:46):
I mean, who are you with washing It's a Washington Post,
all right, so potato potato, Okay, of course I condemn
any form of vicious racial discrimination in this country. But
I think that the presumption of your question is fundamentally
based on a falsehood that that really is the main

(01:28:08):
form of racial discrimination we see in this country today.
Institutionalized racism is institutionalized racial discrimination that we see that
doesn't come from somehow discriminated against people on the basis
of some tenetive white supremacy.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
It's based on affirmative action.

Speaker 11 (01:28:22):
It's based on actually discriminating against people on the color
of their skin in a way that's actually institutionalized today the.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Vick Gramaswami when he was still running for president, at
least the GOP nomination. All right, more to come on
the Twelve Days of Preston. Welcome back to the Twelve

(01:28:58):
Days of Preston. And this is day one, chronicling the
month of January twenty twenty four. Now you might recall,
because it is an election year, the legislative session is
bumped up quite a bit, and it started in January,
and I thought it was appropriate to have the Secretary
of the Department of Corrections, Ricky Dixon, in studio for

(01:29:21):
a long sit down. We spend a lot of time
talking about corrections in all of the various issues on
the radio program, and I thought it was really helpful
to have the Secretary explain a lot about how corrections works.
And we started with the fact that it is the
Department of Corrections and not the Department of Prisons.

Speaker 6 (01:29:45):
No, not at all. I'll say that a lot.

Speaker 12 (01:29:46):
Actually, when we talked to our staff, Let's remember we're
not the Department of Prisons or the Department of Corrections.
We have a purpose, and that corrections missions very much
part of what we do. It can't be secondary to
do everything else. It's embedded in our being in existence
as a correction's agency.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
As I talk about twenty thousand plus returning citizens every
year in the state and the importance of addressing that,
is that something that's on the radar of the correctional
system nationally. And if so, how many states are giving
it focus as you are here in Florida.

Speaker 6 (01:30:23):
I think most are.

Speaker 12 (01:30:24):
I think it's a conversation that I've seen evolve over
the last you know, at least four or five years,
decades really now to different extents in different states. There's
different focus both in terms of narratives and resources applied
to its success. I think a lot of states though,
are probably like we were. We had some you know,

(01:30:45):
if I go back several years, we had some really
good programs that we were proud of. But if you
impact twenty five people in a population of eighty thousand,
you know, what are you doing. You've got to focus
on programs you can scale up and have the greatest
impact with the greatest number of people, and tie those
programs to real jobs. And so that level of sophistication

(01:31:05):
in the past, probably in a lot of other states,
and in Florida as well. I'm not sure was there
we had various programs we'd offer, but I think we're
moving in a direction with the support of the Florida
Foundation for Correctional Excellence, and just a real shout out
to you and those other board members that are on
that board. I appreciate the intellectual level and the business
experience and that they bring, but we're trying to, you know,

(01:31:27):
take our level of operation to a new level in
terms of really identifying the program needs relative to the
job market today, relative to the locations geographic locations these
individuals are going to and to make our system work
to complement those employment needs and instead of work against it.
SOT A lot in that area is being done.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
Let's talk about the progress made. Last time we talked,
legislative session was rolling along the last House, Senate, the Governor.
Of course, it's it seemed as though it was a
good productive session for corrections break that down.

Speaker 6 (01:32:04):
Was it?

Speaker 12 (01:32:05):
It absolutely was, And I can tell you with all honesty,
I'm not sure i'd be doing this right now, but
we're not. For Governor de Santus and his support and
understanding of the needs of corrections. First of all, you
and you hear him say this all the time, and
I appreciate it so much as a taxpayer and a
citizen of Florida. There's a there's a recognition that that
Florida has to be safe to have tourists want to
come here, to have people want to move here and leave.

(01:32:26):
That's or live. That's at the you know, the very
the root of that being successful for Florida, for our state.
And I think in the past with various leaders, there's
not necessarily there's always been that appreciation of law enforcement
and their role and the judiciary, but the back end
of this criminal justice system is corrections. We're the receiving

(01:32:47):
back end of that. That system and the corrections has
to be supported for us to be successful with all
those things for public safety in Florida, not only and
I think here's the missing link, and I think we're
doing better at educating and speaking about it more. But
it's not just that they're safe while they're in our custody,
because some are there for two years and some are
there for life. But as you mentioned over twenty thousand,

(01:33:10):
a year getting out. That's a staggering number. Yeah, over
eighty percent of those in our population right now we'll
be back in the community one day. So recognizing that
whether you do it, you know, for the sake of
the individual's second chance or not, let's do it for
public safety, because if they come back, there is a
victim most often tied to their return to prison.

Speaker 1 (01:33:31):
Let's quantify then versus now some of the things that
have happened internally with corrections and some of the opportunities
you've had to improve things for workers.

Speaker 12 (01:33:43):
To begin with, Well, I enjoyed speaking with you about
a year ago, and we were kind of in the
recovery mode then, and we've advanced so much in just
a year from where we were then. A credit to
again the governor, in the House and Senate leadership. So
specifically as it relates to legislative wins last year, the
one of the most significant areas of improvement with salaries.

(01:34:06):
You know, we went from if I look back through
or four years, staff were around thirty three thousand dollars
a year and up to almost fifty now you know,
close to that. So that's made a remarkable improvement at
our ability to recruit and retain sure staff and I
can tell you and we'll get into other things related
to re entry. I know, I know later in the show.
But it's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's

(01:34:28):
hard to concentrate on self actualization if you're looking for
food and water. Now, that was kind of us. We
were trying to do a good job with education, programming,
all these other areas that are important, but we were,
you know, dying on the vine in terms of staffing,
and you know, especially following COVID and some of the
impacts that this profession and others were having in general.
So our recovery in that area is first and foremost

(01:34:51):
important to be successful in every other area. So going so,
getting that the significant pay increases, becoming competitive with other
law enforcement agencies and other employers in general in the
various areas of the state. Well on our way to recovery.
There was a time we had about six thousand vacancies.
We're down to just over two thousand right now, so
that's a significant down fast. Now, some of that was
due to we forfeited some positions due to the population

(01:35:14):
draw it, but most of that is recovery and that
again is a credit to our lawmakers recognizing the need
to take action in that area and restore the system,
and their good work is paying huge dividends for us.

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
You know, my transformation and thinking Secretary Dixon came from this. Well,
there's the way that things ought to be, but then
there's the way that things are. And I think for
many people listening today getting to that reality nugget that
there are going to be this many people becoming citizens,

(01:35:49):
returning to communities. This is a reality. Whatever you think
things ought to be, this is a reality. Now what
are we going to do about it? To me is
that the fundamental question that corrections is charged with answering
it really is.

Speaker 12 (01:36:03):
And again these statistics are staggering, and I get another
one that shocks me always is realizing that about six
to seven thousand individuals come to us a year with
less than a year to serve, so that the turnaround
that happens through our system and the churn is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
Let's talk about one facility where you have kind of
brought a lot of your ideas on staffing and support
and gathering inmates of a certain type in one spot.

(01:36:39):
You what have you learned what can you quantify from
doing things a little differently?

Speaker 6 (01:36:45):
We learned so much.

Speaker 12 (01:36:46):
This was kind of born out of desperation several years ago,
probably going back five or six years ago, when we
didn't really see any help in sight in terms of
some of the resources that have come our way in
recent years, and we just realized we need to find
to manage the population differently, to use incentives to get
the cooperative behavior that we were seeking. And so what
we started doing was, and it's different than other states.

(01:37:08):
A lot of states solely categorize on escape risk, violence risk,
and things like that, and we still do that too,
but we put a very remarkable impact on their behavior.
So we focus a lot on their behavior, and we
you know, I brak a lot about our incentivized prisons.
We're up to by eight of those now, where we

(01:37:29):
take individuals who have gone two years without a discipline
air report and we put them with like minded individuals
that want to focus on education and self better better. Right,
So that has worked remarkably well on that side of
the house. But what will happen if you do that
is you'll leave behind in these other prisons a more
dangerous individual. And so we the other the counterbalance to

(01:37:50):
the incentivized was we determined that we were going to
remove those that distract others from doing well, those that
create violence, those that kind of call the show, so
to speak, and we were going to identify them and
put them in a location altogether.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
Now, on the surface, some would say, oh boy, you're
putting you know, gasoline and fire in the same spot,
And I had.

Speaker 6 (01:38:11):
Those thoughts myself. We talked about this.

Speaker 12 (01:38:12):
We had a lot of conversations about how dangerous is
this to take because what we're essentially doing is taking
the most dangerous in mates in Florida and putting them
together in one prison. And that sounds pretty dangerous, and
it would be if we didn't do what we did
at the time and add all the necessary resources to
keep it safe. Okay, So with limited resources, we really
beefed up our staffing in that prison, We beefed up

(01:38:34):
our programming, and we keep and also our security mechanisms
are fencing, our metal detectors. So we hardened that prison
for a hardened individual. And the message basically is if
you get selected to go here, you're going to be
there for a long time, at least a year to
two years, maybe more, until you cooperate with the programming
and not just any programming, programming targeted to their needs,

(01:38:57):
anger management, those type of needs that aren't met, and
those individuals selected to be there.

Speaker 6 (01:39:02):
We keep them.

Speaker 12 (01:39:02):
Busy from the time they wake up to the time they.

Speaker 6 (01:39:04):
Go to bed.

Speaker 12 (01:39:05):
They're searched everywhere they go, they walk in straight lines.
It's a very structured facility. Here's the remarkable thing that
happened with that, with this initiative is now we've got
what should be the most dangerous prison in Florida operating
in the most safe way with the least amount of violence,
almost compared to our other prison. So what we prove

(01:39:26):
to ourselves and others is resources matter.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
Just part of a really good sit down with Department
of Correction Secretary for the State of Florida, Ricky Dixon.
You're listening to the Twelve Days of Preston. We'll be
back with Morton. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston,

(01:39:57):
chronicling the year of twenty twenty four, kind of a
year in review plus a best of Now you're probably
going to hear this guy over these next twelve shows,
because if you're a regular listener of The Morning Show
with Preston Scott. You have probably come to realize this
guy is one of the best of any guests out there.

(01:40:18):
Is why Glenn Beck has him co authoring all of
his books. He's Justin Haskins with a Heartland Institute website
Stoppingsocialism dot com, and we talked about some very important polling.
Justin had a hunch and he wrote the poll and
it was conducted and the results were well alarming. Last

(01:40:42):
time you and I talked, you broke some news. There
was a new poll that was released by Heartland Institute
that you wrote. It was a poll done with Rasmussen.
Tell us what the reaction first, reset what the poll
basically told us, and reset the reaction.

Speaker 13 (01:41:01):
Yeah, it was an absolutely incredible poll. Essentially, it asked
voters twenty twenty voters in the presidential election questions about
mail in balloting and if they actually cast a mail
in ballot. They asked those voters whether or not they
engaged in certain activities that are fraudulent activities, so voter

(01:41:24):
fraud without telling them that it's voter fraud. So we
asked people, for example, if they voted in a state
where they're no longer a permanent resident. Now, you would
think that a lot of people, whether they committed fraud
or not, would not answer that question yes, even if
they did commit fraud, because who's going to admit to
doing fraud. But what we found was that an incredible

(01:41:47):
amount of people overall, about one in five mail in
ballots that we asked, said that they committed at least
one kind of fraud, and the numbers actually higher than that.
Were still digging into the data because it's conceivably possible
that a person answered yes to one question and then

(01:42:08):
maybe answer just to another question, and it gets complicated.
But the point is it's at least one in five,
and it could be even higher than that, could be
one in four or more, which has an incredible impact
on the way we think about the election. So the
reaction to it has been just absolutely incredible from people

(01:42:29):
on the right. Of course, people on the left have
mostly just completely ignored it, they don't want to talk
about it at all. But people on the right, politicians
President Donald Trump, for example, states across the country of
lawmakers now taking a hard look at that, including there
in Florida. What to do about mail in balloting, because
this poll is probably the best evidence we have that

(01:42:53):
widespread voter fraud did happen in twenty twenty, because this
comes directly from voters saying, yeah, I did these things
and it probably did impact the election.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
Roughly one in five admitted though they didn't know at
the time they were admitting to committing voting fraud. They
just thought they did something, but they didn't know it
was illegal. Basically, is that about right?

Speaker 13 (01:43:15):
Well, we don't know exactly, but my guess is that
there's at least a fair number of people who didn't
know that some of these things were fraudulent. Though it's
hard to imagine that you don't know that voting in
a state where you don't you're not a permanent resident,
That's okay, it's kind of hard to imagine that, But
I mean, I think that there were some people that
fell into that category.

Speaker 2 (01:43:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:43:35):
We also asked people if someone else filled out their
ballot for them. We asked people if they filled out
someone else's ballot. We asked people about essentially forging signatures,
which is another one of those things that you think
people would understand is not okay, So all different kinds
of fraud too. We didn't ask just one question about fraud.

(01:43:57):
Another really crazy thing from the poll. It didn't get
as much attention, but we asked people if anyone offered
you money to vote, money or a reward, and eight
percent of all voters, not just mail in ballots, but
people who went to the polling places as well, eight
percent said that they were offered a reward to vote,
which is pretty stunning when you think about it, because

(01:44:19):
eight percent of one hundred and fifty nine million ballots
is a massive number of people losing over ten million ballots.

Speaker 1 (01:44:27):
I was just I was just going to ask you that.
I mean, the one in five number is almost a
micro view macro wise. What does that roughly equate to
in terms of that vote, the millions of ballots, how
many potentially were fraudulent?

Speaker 13 (01:44:44):
Yeah, well, there were sixty eight million ballots cast in
the twenty twenty election by mail, just by mail, which
is by far the most number of mail in ballots
we've ever had. It's never even been remotely close to that.
If one in five of those mail in ballots were fraudulent,
that's thirteen million ballots. Actually more than a little more
than thirteen million ballots that could potentially have been fraudulent

(01:45:06):
in the election, which is far more than the gap
between Trump and Biden in the popular vote. So, and
just to keep it, you know, not that I need
to remind people, but in the key swing states the
election was decided by in some cases ten thousand votes
or less out of three million ballots, so fractions of

(01:45:30):
a percentage point. So this could have had a massive
impact on the outcome of the election.

Speaker 1 (01:45:35):
So justin this now begs the question or questions, who
paid attention to this? Who did you get the attention
of that might lead to something significant happening as a
result of what you learned.

Speaker 13 (01:45:51):
Yeah, well, what needs to happen for one hundred percent,
what needs to happen is there either needs to be
no more mail in balloting unless you have a good
excuse for doing it. Okay, So that that used to
be the norm, and it is the opposite has happened
now the norm is become you just get to cast
mail in dollars no matter what, or you need to
have people use a notary when still when signing a

(01:46:15):
mail in ballot, so that there's an objective third party
who's signing off on this saying yes, this person who's
signing this ballot, it really is the person who is
supposed to be signing the ballot. And only three states
have that requirement Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (01:46:31):
That's it.

Speaker 13 (01:46:32):
All the other states don't have that. Most states don't
even have a witness requirement, and a lot of states
don't even verify signatures.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Well, I would go, but I was going to ask
you that even if you use a notary, how many
states actively even pay attention to whether someone that is
a fixing that seal is really a notary.

Speaker 13 (01:46:52):
Yeah? Well, I mean then that would become the next problem.
But I think that if you just require even if
you just required people, even if people they had to
go to the notary, yeah, it would probably reduce reduced fraud.
Just so that read. So, who's been paying attention to this? Well,
there have been a lot of state lawmakers across the
country that have taken note of this, which is a

(01:47:12):
really good thing because they're the ones that need to
pass laws to fix this. President Donald Trump has made
this a massive issue. He's talked about this specific poll
numerous times now since it came out, And so there
is some movement. But the mainstream press, other than one
article in the Washington Post, which essentially completely dismissed the

(01:47:32):
whole thing, there really has been no mention of it
at all from the mainstream press. And I'm sad to
say this because I write for Foxnews dot Com a
lot and I love Fox News. But Fox News basically
other than Jesse Waters did it talked about this on
one episode of the show. Nobody else at Fox News,
to my knowledge or on their website, has mentioned this

(01:47:53):
a single time.

Speaker 1 (01:47:54):
I wish I could tell you I was surprised.

Speaker 13 (01:47:57):
Yeah, well, I know, and it's an It's sad that
that's the state of things, but unfortunately that's what's going on.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
What wouldn't it be fair to say, justin that every
time quote a deal is made, the pendulum always moves
towards the Democrats. They don't get all that they want,
but they keep it moving in their direction. We don't
ever seem to get it moving the other way.

Speaker 13 (01:48:19):
Yeah, no, that's one hundred percent. That's how progressivism works.
You progressively change society over a long period of time
with tiny little bites of the apple. Yeah, before you
know what, the apple's gone. That's that's how it works.
That's definitely what they're doing. And I think that I
think what every leader in the Republican Party needs to
understand is that they're also afraid of bad press and

(01:48:42):
the media and everything that if they if they don't
do a deal, and they don't they don't work with
the Democrats, they're going to, you know, look bad. It's
going to hurt them. It's not going to hurt you.
They are the mainstream media already hate you. They already
do NonStop bad press for you. It's that doesn't matter.
Stand up for what you believe in and it will
work out in the end. That's what I think. They

(01:49:03):
absolutely have to do this. But you see Republican after
Republican after Republican play this game when they get into
a position of leadership. It's a huge mistake. It never
works out. Even Mitt Romney, if you remember when he
ran for president, he is and he's essentially a Democrat
or you know, as moderate a Republican as you could find.
They trashed him too when he was running for It

(01:49:24):
doesn't matter, you know how moderate you are, So stand
up for what you believe in and it will work out.

Speaker 1 (01:49:30):
Justin Haskins at the Heartland Institute. We've got one more
segment to go. It's the Twelve Days of Preston. Here
on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. One segment remaining

(01:49:59):
on the first of the twelve Days of Preston. Day
one is equal to the month of January, Day two,
February and so on. So tomorrow we will recap the
month of February and some of the highlights from the
Morning Show. So it's kind of a best of and
a year in review all combined into one giant gift

(01:50:21):
known as the Twelve Days of Preston. Now I've mentioned
the frequency of some of our guests. We try to
book great guests every month, and this is definitely one.
We started getting Lee Williams on the program a couple
of years ago. He's called the gun Writer. His work

(01:50:43):
is found at the website The gun Writer dot substack
dot com. Sign up for the email. You will love
the material you get. It's all about the Second Amendment
and this was our January visit. Sadly, as I read
your latest piece yesterday, I squirmed a bit in my chair.

(01:51:04):
Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act of twenty twenty four. What
in the world.

Speaker 4 (01:51:11):
Yeah, when you read the title, you know, what does
that mean? Private paramilitary activity? But my god, man, when
we read it, when we read the bill and what
it actually does, it is insane. It basically is a
way to paint a target on the back of every
law abiding gun owner in the country. And it's a
way to stamp out firearm training. It's crazy. It criminalizes

(01:51:35):
publicly patrolling, drilling, or engaging in these are the words.
You got to pay attention to harmful or deadly paramilitary
techniques or training to engage in such behavior. So we
post a question, what are harmful or deadly paramilitary techniques?
You know, is this CQB, is this movement on the
range transitioning from my carving to my pistol malfunction, drills

(01:51:56):
off and shooting, or just punching holes in paper. The
authors of this bill, Jamie Raskin from of course Maryland,
he's leaving that up to the federals and the prosecutors
to determine what that is. So basically it's whatever they want.
And if you violate this bill first time, you're looking

(01:52:17):
at a year in jail. Repeat violators two years. If
there's anybody hurt five years. If a death occurs, it's
a life sentence. So they also of course added a
porfeiture clause. They violate this bill that can take all
your guns a year. It's clear they're going after training
and they're trying they're trying to correlate, you know, the

(01:52:38):
January sixth, they use that to try and sell their bill,
and they mentioned the oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
You know, first of all, militia used to be a
holy thing everybody when the Founders were there, every able
body had to be a part of the militia. And
now they've they're redefining that to make it something nefarious

(01:53:00):
to go after training. And it sucks because this could
actually get through if they sell it correctly.

Speaker 1 (01:53:06):
Lee Williams Withers Lee, this this smacks of assault weapon,
the ambiguous term that means anything or everything that they
want it to mean.

Speaker 4 (01:53:18):
Yep, one hundred percent. I mean and I trained regularly,
and I'm fortunate to live in the Free State of
Florida where I can go to a range that treats
me like an adult, where I can drop him a holster,
I can shoot while moving, I can He's actually set up.
Of course, as a player there where you're shooting for
moving vehicles, which is a great time. You can shoot
at night wearing nods, so basically I can train at

(01:53:42):
my level. I don't have to stand there and just
punch holes and paper at a flat range. All of
this is going to be at risk if this goes through,
and you know Biden wants it, and you know Rasking
is no fool. I don't agree with his politics. He
is a very smart character. So I hope this could
easily clear the Senate. I hope it doesn't clear the House.

Speaker 1 (01:54:03):
Well. I was just going to say, you know, even
in in in Florida, stupid bills are introduced. In HR
sixty nine eighty one is the bill we're talking about.
It's a stupid bill. It's a dangerous bill. Where what's
the status is it even getting a committee hearing?

Speaker 4 (01:54:21):
Not yet, but anything possible. What we wanted to do is,
you know, knowledge is power.

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):
We wanted to.

Speaker 4 (01:54:28):
Make sure everybody knows that this is this is a
huge blow to trainers and training and what good are
firearms if you're not training with them constantly? I mean,
the true intent is to is to stop training, especially
tactical training, as on the radio yesterday with a good friend.
He's a Delta veteran. I said, Bob, they want to

(01:54:48):
put you out of business, which is what they want
to do. So it scares them. Where the instructors of
this in this company, if this goes through, would be
one over a zealous prosecutor away from being charged, as
would anybody that would go to take one of their courses.
So we wanted everybody to know about this abomination.

Speaker 1 (01:55:08):
If we go back to the year twenty twenty three,
the year that just was in all the things that
you've had your eye on, and you've written about what
was most impactful, good or bad on the Second Amendment front,
I feel like I know where we might go, but
I don't know. So you tell me.

Speaker 4 (01:55:28):
The most important story from last year is something I
never wrote humulatively. Yeah, we wrote about him, but I
never actually put it all together, and obviously that's my fault.
We experienced what I like to call post ruined tantrum
laws at a scale no one could imagine. Okay, we

(01:55:50):
had the beautiful bruined decision in twenty twenty two from
the Supreme Court said you have a right to career
and firem outside of your home or self defense. If
you want to to gate a second a member of
related law, you have to find a corresponding law from
the era of the Founder's Great Decision. We had no
idea how intense the backlash would be. We had lawmakers

(01:56:11):
in blue states and nationally sponsoring and introducing and getting
signental law laws that they know don't pass, the Bruin
tests that they know are unconstitutional, and the creativity. No
one had any idea. I mean, my god, in California
they tried to They put a separate bill into further

(01:56:34):
criminalize thirty round and standard capacity magazines by saying if
you have thirty rounds in an AR and AKMG, that
violates their local laws on gunpowder storage. I mean, that's
pretty creative. So we saw the absolute craziest crap from
across the country. We had no idea we would see it.

(01:56:55):
We look forward after Bruins and doings, finally doing some
open field running being the Second Amendments Foundation that I
work for, and you know, we're spending a lot of
time on these unconstitutional bills. I think at some point
the judiciary at the federal level is going to be
a little angry and start slapping some of these down.
These are frivolous lawsuits, the frivolous laws that they're passing

(01:57:19):
that they know damn well or unconstitutional.

Speaker 1 (01:57:22):
Where does the attack on the FFLs. You've highlighted some
stories in particular over others because of just the egregious
nature of what the federal government's doing to FFL holds holders.

Speaker 4 (01:57:35):
It's ramping up. We thought that by bringing sunshine to
the fact that they're going after our gun dealers, our
federal fire arm lace disease FFLs for the most trivial
clerical mistakes, that they would back off.

Speaker 5 (01:57:49):
They haven't.

Speaker 4 (01:57:50):
They haven't. They're still going after them. We will see
nearly a thousand FFL revocations or forced surrenders last year.
When everything's added up, I will say this, and that's
coming straight from Biden and straight from Steve Dettelbock, the ATS.
Then I will say this, and I'm kind of proud
about it. Preston, my employer, second member Foundation just sued

(01:58:12):
Attorney General Garland and ATF director dettle Box and FBI
Director Ray trying to restore the civil rights of folks.
So the Second Amendment rights a folks to use medicinal marijuana.

Speaker 1 (01:58:26):
Protecting the Second Amendment by writing about the stories that
are impacting it. The gun Writer dot substack dot com.
You get articles to your email box at no charge
to you. Now, if you want to support the work,
absolutely do it, Lee Williams, The gun Writer dot substack

(01:58:51):
dot com. That's going to wrap up the month of
January in the twelve Days of Preston tomorrow, the month
of February. My friends, thanks for listening to the Morning
Show with Preston Scott in the Twelve Days of Preston

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