Ep. 5519: Fraud Hearings.

This is the full episode of The Morning Show with Preston Scott for Thursday, January 8th. 

Our guests today include:
- Steve Steweart 
- Dr. David Hartz 
-
-


Follow the show on Twitter @TMSPrestonScott. Check out Preston’s latest blog by going to wflafm.com/preston. 
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Good Morning Thursday on the Morning Show with Preston Scott.
It has been a minute since we've done a Thursday show.
In fact, it's been three weeks since we've done a
Thursday show. Welcome to January the eighth Show, fifty five nineteen.
He is Jose, I am Preston, and it is delightful

(00:38):
to share this time with you. I must get promptly
to God's word Romans won We've been spending some time there,
and what I want to do is I want to
just because this is the last week. We can't do
a deep dive on Monday because of the playing of

(00:58):
God Bless America or Friday because we do a Christian
song to start the show. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we
tend to take a little more time and go a
little deeper into scripture. And we've been going through Romans
one and we've talked about God revealing himself, how he

(01:25):
does that, and what Paul's trying to communicate here in Romans.
And then he gets to this, he gets to people
that deny God, and he says in verse twenty one,
for although they knew God, they did not honor him

(01:46):
as God or give thanks to him, but they became
feutile in their thinking and foolish hearts, and their foolish
arts were darkened. Now I'm gonna stop there because as
you read on, and that's what I'm gonna ask you
to do. All of the questions that you know you

(02:07):
frequently saw in the various encounters on campus where Turning
Point USA set up a table and engaged with people.

(02:31):
You routinely saw Charlie Kirk be challenged by people trying
to tell you that God doesn't forbid X, Y and Z.
Romans Won blows all of that up. But the cautionary

(02:56):
tale is that if you want these things, if you
want the desires of your flesh, God will give you
over to him. Okay, this is what you want. Keep

(03:19):
in mind, in the Old Testament, the Israelites said, we
want a king just like everybody else, and God said, really, okay,
let me know how that works out for you. Even David,
a man who is described as a man after God's

(03:40):
own heart, was full of failure. And that's one of
the beauties of scripture is it doesn't cleanse any of that.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
It it.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Lays bare the shortcomings of man and of men and
of women, and of humanity and the rest of Romans
wand just lays out, really, you have no interest in
following God, huh okay, And then it talks about the

(04:15):
sexual perversions and the LGBTQ community is all about that.
It does not mean God doesn't love those people. Of
course he does, and there's opportunity for redemption for every
single one of them. But if you keep living in
that way, and this is the cautionary tale, because they're feutile,

(04:40):
their minds became futile the way that they thought denying God,
God allowed their foolish hearts to be darkened. If you're
out there listening right now and you're one of those,
God whatever, there's a warning here in what follows. All

(05:06):
I'm gonna do is challenge you to pick up Romans
one and read, just read. All right, We have got
a show, friends, We are packed, so stay with us

(05:27):
here on The Morning Show with Preston Scott, his job
to keep you informed.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
The Morning Show with Preston Scott on News Radio one
hundred point seven WFLA.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
My package tape bound edition of the America and Patriots Almanac.
How many years I've used this one, but it's got
so many notes written in it. Now I can't I
can't depart. I just add to it. Something needs to
be added to it. I add to it. I just
write it in the bottom. Let's see January eighth, seventeen ninety,

(06:17):
President George Washington delivers the first State of the Union
address in New York City. Wonder how many people heard it.
He was notoriously soft spoken, which is interesting for a
commanding general on a horse. Eighteen fifteen, US forces led
by General Andrew Jackson defeat the British in the Battle

(06:40):
of New Orleans. It would be one hundred and three
years later before anything else finds its way into this book.
In nineteen eighteen, President Woodrow Wilson outlines his fourteen points
for peace after World War One. In nineteen thirty five,
Elvis Sleep was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. You know where

(07:04):
that is, Tupelo. It's a mile south of one below nineteenth.
It's an old joke. I think it's George Carlin.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Nineteen sixty four, President Lyndon B. Johnson declares war on poverty.
How'd that work out? You can't just throw money at things?
Nineteen eighty see the Beauty of these segments, is you
get a nugget like that? Nineteen sixty four, sixty one two, sorry,

(07:44):
sixty two years ago, sixty two years later, we're still
doing the same crappy things to try to help people,
and it doesn't change things. Throwing money at things doesn't
change things. Nineteen eighty seven, the Dow Jones industrial average

(08:07):
closes above two thousand for the first time, and now
we're at what forty six, forty seven, forty eight thousand.
So there you go. Let's see what else do we
have here? It is this is good. It's National Career
Coach Day. Okay. By the way, was it Richard that

(08:30):
called in the other day on resolutions wanting to improve
his golf game? I think it was Richard. You have
not written me, sir, I can help you. I'm just
telling you I can help you, and I don't have
to meet you at the driving range, although I could
do that. I could help you. I can help you

(08:56):
with the mental side of golf and how to manage
yourself on a golf course to safe shots.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
It is National Winter Skin Relief Day. We haven't had
a lot of that because we've had up and down humidity.
Usually winter meets dry and dry means low humidity, and
low humidity means itchy skin. But here's my favorite. It's
National Joy Germ Day. You know what that is. That's

(09:32):
spreading joy by being happy that it is contagious and
you know what it is. It is even if you
have to tell it to yourself that you're going to
have a good day. If you make that declaration, you will.
You will. When you face things, you will say I

(09:54):
am going to have a good day. Regardless, you will
power through it. Today's National English Toffee Day, heath bar underrated,
underrated goodness. And my wife will be thrilled to know
it's National argyle Day and National bubble bath Day. My

(10:21):
wife has been known to take a bubble bath where
the bubbles left the bathroom. I am not kidding. We
have what's called an air bath, not a jacuzzie. It's
an air bath. Look it up and yeah, sixteen past
come back with a heartbreaking.

Speaker 6 (10:44):
News on your phone with the iHeartRadio app and on
hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home, Xbox and so no, no,
this is Chrysler an Iheart's radio station.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
So many people know of my affection for a mic
rib and let me pause and just say on the
front end, come on, Arby's, bring back the arbecue. Now
you're crinkling your nose. You don't know about the arbecue,
do you.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Is that like a series of sandwiches or is.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
That one they got rid of it? It is the
It is the Arby's roast beef sandwich, only it is.
It is roasted in a thick, rich barbecue sauce. It
is the best barbecue beef sandwich. Not brisket. It's not brisket,

(12:04):
and they will roll out a brisket sandwich or something like.
It's not the same. The barbecue was a thing of
beauty and they dumped it. It's like, what are you thinking? Anyway?
So McDonald's is facing a class action lawsuit because some

(12:24):
nerds out there are saying it doesn't contain any actual
pork rib meat, so call it in a McRib. The
attorneys are all snooty. They call it a McRib. It's
a sleight of hand. It's fake. It's all pork. They
shape it like a a a baby back rib without

(12:46):
the ribs. Yes, they do that. They press it into
a mold and make it look like that. So they're
being sued, and you know what, they're gonna win. McDonald's
is gonna win. Not these people, these knuckleheads are the
reason why things cost more, this kind of crappy lawsuits.
And you're like, whoa, you're kind of strong on this. No, no, no,

(13:07):
think about this for just a second. It's called a
McRib and there's no rib meat. Well, they're right, there
isn't any it's pork though, it's all pork. Here's what
they're not saying. So what about a hamburger hot dog?

(13:33):
You mean there's no dog and hot dogs? Right? No,
w and so and there's and there isn't ham and
a hamburger. It's beef might be different kinds of beef too,
So what we're gonna get in now? We're suing everybody

(13:53):
that calls it a hamburger. Stop it, just stop it.
This is the kind of silliness that, on one hand,
it makes me laugh, secondhand, it makes me angry. It jerks.

(14:14):
They're suing the plaintiffs despite its name and distinctive shape.
Its meat patty has been deliberately crafted to resemble a
rack of pork ribs. What's your point? It is a McRib,

(14:38):
The biggest problem with a McRib is they only let
those things roll out for three or four weeks. They
were gone before Christmas broke my heart. I only got
to enjoy a mcgrib maybe three times. Debuted in nineteen
eighty one, it used to be a regular on the menu,

(14:59):
and then they rolled it a way to do exactly
what happened. They got people so upset. They said, okay,
we'll throw it out there once a year, and it
rolls out right around Thanksgiving for about three or four weeks,
and then they pull it, and it's usually unceremonious. The
signs will still be out and the local McDonald's will

(15:20):
be out of them, and it's like, you're kidding me, right,
you're kidding me. My love is so strong for a McRib.
I had a listener send me a hot wheels number
eighty nine NASCAR, which was sponsored by mcribb, and it

(15:41):
has the McRib decal on it. First of all, that's
how much you people extend your love to me. And
I thank you so much. And it's sitting here, right
here in my studio in front of me. It's right there.
It has been the moment I got it. I found
a place on my I'm in my studio for it.

(16:02):
It's not a bobblehead. I don't know what kind of
McRib bobble you could come up with, but maybe I'll
do that. Maybe I'll come up with a McRib bobble
twenty seven minutes past the hour, Paul Boy, the Big
Stories in the press Box, just the number is massive.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Come to m a d radio network where we challenge
you to make a difference. And this is the Morning
Show with Preston Scott. Okay, I gotta get right to it.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Big Stories in the press Box and we were not
doing a deep dive. Do not have time. I'm putting
this on your radar. You dig amongst yourselves and we'll
talk a little bit more about some of this than others.
The governor is going to call for a special session
after the regular legislative session to look at redistricting. This

(17:06):
is all about trying to Now I'm just gonna say it,
this is about trying to protect the GOP in the midterms.
And the fact of the matter is Florida has the
basis for this argument because it got screwed over in
the census. We should have another seat or two. So

(17:27):
we'll see where that leads. United States military has seized
two more tankers. One, according to the Wall Street Journal,
was being guarded by parts of the Soviet Soviet Russian Navy,
including a sub. We took it anyway. It was off

(17:48):
the coast of Ireland a couple hundred miles away. Got
another one in the Caribbean. And there's there's a I'm
being told by sources a lot of activity in the Keys.
The military's around the Florida Keys, which tells me there's
more to come. Don't know what it is. More to come.

(18:10):
Is that related to Cuba? Is that related to Venezuela?
Is it related to Operation Southern Spear and getting these tankers?
I don't know, but I'll tell you what Trump's doing.
Trump's sending a message to China, stay out of this hemisphere.
It's a good message. Now. Who was Renee Nicole Good?

(18:31):
She was the woman killed in Minneapolis by an Ice agent.
I watched the video. Her mother, of course, is I mean,
obviously heartbroken. But she's making excuses. This is so stupid.

(18:53):
She was probably terrified. No, she was in the middle
of protesting. She says, she's not a protester. Well, the
video says otherwise. She was blocking ICE agents from doing
their job, and when they asked her and approached her
with her window down to get out of the vehicle,
she refused. She continued to block them. An ICE agent

(19:17):
got in front of the vehicle, she hit the gas,
attempted to hit the guy to get away or get away,
which would have hit the guy. It doesn't really matter.
The car becomes a deadly weapon, and he had reasonable
fear of death or bodily injury. A vehicle is a
deadly weapon. This was an act of domestic terrorism. That's

(19:43):
not reading from the script. That's just a fact. You
can watch the video. All she had to do to
not get shot was to do what she was supposed
to do, which is put the car in park and
get out. It's all she had to do.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Minneapolis's Mayor Jacob Fry, being the he is, calls the
self defense claim bs to ICE. Get the bleep out
of Minneapolis. We do not want you here, and I'm
going to take issue with that. I think the overwhelming

(20:20):
majority of Minnesotans want ICE there. They want this nonsense
to stop. They want the illegal Somalis out of their state.
They want all of the illegals out of their state.
I think the majority are scared to say anything because
the loons are running the communities. Now, let me share
something else here that I think is important to consider.

(20:41):
The side that is that celebrated the execution of Ashley
Babbitt is now going to express outrage for a woman
that actually attempted to harm a government official. Babbit did
none of those things. Ashley Babbitt was given no warnings.

(21:06):
She was shot and killed nothing. She posed no threat
to anyone. This woman hit the gas on her vehicle.
Just want to remind you she was given a lawful order.
She disobeyed. This is what happens. Judge clears the way

(21:27):
for the Minnesota welfare fraud ringleader to forfeit all of
her millions. This is a woman that's been convicted by
a federal jury. Judges signed off. She had three point
seven mili in the bank. She started this company in
twenty sixteen, Feeding our Future, a nonprofit, and when COVID hit,

(21:50):
she saw the opportunity started bleeding money away and saving
it and buying stuff like her Porsche and her luxury goods.
And the judges said, yeah, state can seize all of
that government can.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Have it.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
An audit. Minnesota more fraud. There's more, and there's audio
of the attorney general meeting with the convicted fraudsters. Here's
my question for you before we get to more. This
is a short version. Here's my question. How do you
get an appointment with the attorney general of any state?

(22:27):
Try it? Just letting you know you get an appointment
if you are someone You know what I'm saying, wink wink.
Not not forty one minutes after I told you, I'm
not even done.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
The thought or story you want to share, write them
at Preston at iHeartRadio dot com. Yes he knows how
to read. Well, actually his producer reads him. He doesn't
know how to read. Welcome to the Morning Show with
Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Or Okay, this is not just happening in Minnesota. Now,
it's egregious. There we're talking nearly nine billion dollars of
fraud in Minnesota.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
A loan.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
But according to town Hall, members of the Somali government,
including a UN ambassador, minister of Foreign Affairs, as well
as a member of Somalia's parliament, all own health companies
in either Ohio or Minnesota. How is it that Somali

(23:42):
government officials are owning businesses here in America because they
found the Spickett is running, the Fawcet's been turned on,
and they're funding terrorists. Now Congress is starting to weigh

(24:05):
in on Minnesota. A rising star in the Republican Party
is Congressman Brandon gil Out of Texas. We've shared some
of his dissection of various witnesses in various committee meetings
over the last couple of years. He decided to have

(24:30):
a chat with Brendan belou and uh Blue is one
of the one of the quote experts defending Minnesota, and
so Gil had some questioning. Listen in. It's it's worth
listening to this because gil Gil puts it squarely on

(24:56):
the shoulders of this guy to in the facts.

Speaker 7 (25:01):
Start with you, mister Baluu again, thank you for being here.
Ask you does large scale Somali immigration make Minnesota stronger
or weaker? Certainly stronger, certainly stronger. Do you know what
percentage of Somali headed households in Minnesota are on food stamps?

Speaker 1 (25:17):
No?

Speaker 7 (25:18):
Fifty four percent. Do you know what that number is
for Native Minnesota headed households.

Speaker 5 (25:23):
Well, to be clear, a majority of those.

Speaker 7 (25:25):
It's seven it's seven percent. There's a big difference between
fifty four percent and seven percent?

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Is there?

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Not?

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Use me?

Speaker 5 (25:30):
So I could I answer the question?

Speaker 7 (25:31):
Let me let me move on. We've got a lot
of questions here. What what percentage of Somali headed households
in Minnesota are on Medicaid?

Speaker 5 (25:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (25:38):
It's seventy three percent. Do you know what that number
is for Minnesota native households?

Speaker 5 (25:44):
Again, you're using the phrase Minnesota native households the number.

Speaker 7 (25:47):
If the number is eighteen percent, that's a quite an
astounding difference.

Speaker 5 (25:51):
I think we would Can I answer the question? Please?

Speaker 7 (25:53):
Let me ask you one more and then we can
go onto that. What what percentage of Somali headed households
are on welfare in general?

Speaker 1 (25:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (25:59):
It's eighty one percent. What about let me just ask you,
after ten years of being in the United States, what
percentage of Somali immigrant households are on continue to be
on welfare?

Speaker 4 (26:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (26:11):
The number is seventy eight percent. So even after ten years,
seventy eight percent of Somali immigrant households continue to be
on welfare. Do you know what that number is? For
native Minnesota headed households again US non Somali immigrant immigrant
headed households.

Speaker 5 (26:28):
If I can just answer the question you're using the
phrase native Minnesotans. The majority of Somali Minnesotans are as
Minnesota as any of us. They were born in the
United States. It's only eight thousand of the one hundred
and eight thousands in the.

Speaker 7 (26:42):
Never Nevertheless, the welfare usage is astoundingly different. Let me
ask you again, does that make Minnesota stronger or weaker?

Speaker 5 (26:49):
Again? I'd like the opportunity to answer the question here.
So again, the majority of Somali Minnesotans are born in
the United States, as I understand.

Speaker 7 (26:58):
Okay, well, what percent of working age Somalians who have
been in the US for ten years or more? Ten
years or more, how many of them speak English very well?
I don't know about half.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, there you go. Forty six minutes passed the.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
OLUM Morning Show with Preston Scott Boy.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
That escalated quickly.

Speaker 8 (27:30):
I mean that really got out of hand fast on WFLA.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
When the big stories of the press box really take
ten minutes. It got a lot of stories. It was
so hard yesterday going. So I just okay, we're gonna
get it all out there, and we're rarely scratching the
surface there. There are other things, and we'll get to

(28:07):
some of it a little bit later on in the program.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
But.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
A lot of you will have excuse me, forgotten this name.
A little cough there turned into a laugh. Do you
remember the name Aldrich Ames? Now, Jose has no idea
what I'm talking about. When were you born two thousand
and eight? No, I'm just kidding a nineteen eighty eight, Well,

(28:34):
when you were six years old. Ames pled guilty to espionage.
He was a longtime CIA case officer specialized in Russia,
and he pled guilty in nineteen ninety four on espionage

(28:55):
charges passing classified information to the KGB starting in nineteen
eighty five. He was sentenced to life in prison. Listen
to what he said in an interview. Well, the reasons

(29:16):
that I did what I did in April of nineteen
eighty five were personal, banal and amounted to really kind
of greed and folly, as simple as that. I knew
quite well when I gave the names of our agents
in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to
the full machinery of counter espionage. In the law then

(29:36):
prosecution and capital punishment. Certainly in the case of KGB
and GRU officers who would be tried in a military court,
and certainly others that they were almost all at least
potentially libel for capital punishment. There's simply no question about that.

(29:57):
He calmly, as matter of factly, just described the fact
that that he gave up about one hundred people that
were executed, many of them. Well, he's dead now. Aldrick
Games died in prison. He compromised over one hundred Soviet

(30:19):
and Eastern European assets and multiple US assets, received payments
totaling two point five million. KGB kept another two point
one earmarked for him in a Moscow bank. He was
hoping to get to Russia and get away. Didn't happen.

(30:40):
He is dead at the age of eighty four. Died
in a correctional institute in Cumberland, Maryland. I just the
reason why that story I thought was worth mentioning is
because for many of you you remember remember that guy,

(31:02):
You remember that is that was a level of betrayal
that was you just didn't see it coming. You know,
He's he's selling out the United States. Is Reagan is
winning the Cold War, mister Gorbachev tear down this wall.

(31:29):
And while Reagan's working and ending the Soviet Union because
he did, this guy's selling out our country and a
lot of you remember, and I thought, you know what
we need to we need to there you go. He's
been sitting in anonymity appropriately and he's dead now and

(31:54):
he'll go back to anonymity. Here we go. As I
said at the start of the show, this is our
first Thursday in three weeks. This is crazy. It maybe four,

(32:17):
I don't know. It's good to have you with us.
So Thursday, January eighth, on The Morning Show with Preston
Scott Jase. I'm Preston and this is the executive editor
of Tellastup Reports. He is Steve Stewart. Our first visit
of the year. Did you have a nice holiday? Yes,
I did, good, enjoyed it. Yeah, a lot of family
in you know now they're ready to go out, all right, but.

Speaker 9 (32:40):
Yeah, good to be here. Got a lot to go through.
We've got a paper coming out today. I would uh,
twelve pages of just a lot of good information.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
And a lot of data.

Speaker 9 (32:48):
Yes, So want to start with two data stories, which
these are just facts, right, off the ground. Yeah, so
as you know, your listeners know, we track TPD incidents
and so we don't have to wait for the data
to get scrubbed by the fba I or any other bureaucracy.
The numbers come in on a daily basis and we
can give you we can report what happened in twenty
twenty five and the good news and there's some good news,

(33:09):
is it? Overall crime incidents were down twenty two percent.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
When you compare it to twenty twenty four, property crime
down twenty eight percent. Does TPD have an offering as
to why not yet? What their explanation, which I mean.

Speaker 9 (33:24):
Look, if you go back two years ago, they came
and asked for a tax increase, to hire more officers
and to invest in technology. I've argued that the property
crime reductions are I think due in part to the technology.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
The cameras are everywhere.

Speaker 9 (33:39):
You got real time Crime Center which is monitoring things
in the real time, and so auto burglars and thefts
have taken a real hit in terms of decreasing because
you're going to get caught, and so the data shows
those numbers are down. Violent crime last year was down
sixteen percent. Is down about six percent sent this year.

(34:01):
HM and the one stroke are the one thing of
One bad news about this data is over the last
four months of twenty twenty five, the number of assaults
has just gone its spiked and we would have been
down double digit if it hadn't been for that. We're
gonna have to see if this trend continues. But just
to give you an example, in the last four months

(34:21):
in twenty twenty four, there were two hundred assaults. This
past year, three hundred fifty percent increase and assaults in
the last four months. I mean, we were trending down
up till about September. Why that has happened, we don't
know yet, but those are those are the numbers on
the ground. Again, overall good news in terms of where
crime is headed. Uh, but it will be interesting to

(34:42):
see if that trend continues into the year.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
And it's not something that necessarily law enforcement can do
anything about because there are a reactive force.

Speaker 9 (34:50):
Yeah and yes, and you know those things are usually emotional.
They're not thinking about, oh, I'm gonna get caught. But again,
it's a huge increase now real quick on the fatal
shootings which we track down over last year, I think
there's eighteen and twenty twenty five. The previous two years
they're twenty three, twenty four, So that is good news.
Geographically very interesting if you look at the pie shape

(35:13):
between Meridian and you go around to the east all
the way to Appalachi and you go from downtown that
pie shape, not one fatal shooting in that area, which
is a large proportion of le un County.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
So that leaves the rest of the area and we'll
come up with a story to show geographically where these
shootings are.

Speaker 9 (35:32):
But I thought that was interesting, not one fatal shooting
in that area.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Interesting indeed. Yes.

Speaker 9 (35:37):
Now on the other on the data side, we track
real estate sales for the economy side of things. And
the reason I wanted to talk about this, and we
have a story up on this, is we're starting to
see finally a change in median sale prices of existing
homes over the last two months have dropped to total
of five percent. This is from the Florida Association of Realtors,

(35:58):
and so there's some movement on that. You know, this
has been a big national story in.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Terms of affordability.

Speaker 9 (36:04):
Now, the thing that I've argued is that there are
a lot of different mitigating factors on home sale prices.
There's some at the national level, interest rates, things like that,
but there's a lot that can be controlled locally in
terms of growth.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Policies, zoning and permitting right.

Speaker 9 (36:19):
And one of the things that we're going to see is,
you know, things may get favorable from the national perspective,
but if locally we are constraining the supply of new construction,
people here will not benefit from that.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
And so that's what we got to keep an eye
on well. And benefit though would be qualified benefit in
terms of people being able to enter the housing market.
People will benefit if they're selling their home because it
keeps prices up, but it's not going to help the
problem exactly. Now, we got more to come. Steve Stewart
with us from Tellassi Reports again subscribe, get that paper,

(36:51):
great way to start the year. Go to Tellassireports dot com.

Speaker 8 (36:59):
Back.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Do you want him on that radio America can handle
the truth?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
You need him on that radio nine to noon on
w FLA. Back with Steve Stewart of Tallahassee Reports. Getting
some data on crime on real estate, which of course
impacts the community. Another thing, Steve, that really impacts the

(37:25):
community's healthcare in any given community, and there's a lot
of moving parts and pieces, and with it come a
lot of opinions on what's going on with TMH FSU
in the city.

Speaker 9 (37:35):
Yeah, so we're gonna have a City Commission meeting on
next Wednesday when the city will more than likely transfer
the city OneD assets at the hospital to FSU.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
And so this is an issue. It'll be a three
two vote. It'll be a three two.

Speaker 9 (37:48):
Vote, and then and then we'll move on to see
if FESCHU and TMAHS can work things out. But during
this process, this is a great issue to dive into,
and there's so much that people don't know. I mean,
you know, the very beginning, there are people that were
shocked that the city still owned the assets in the land.
You know that I was one of them, exactly, And

(38:08):
so I started digging into this. And you know, when
we when I first ran for office in twenty ten,
one of the things I always heard about was that
this community was a bunch of different silos. People were
operating in their silo and they didn't want to get
out of it because they had their cheese they were protecting,
you know, And so this is I think this is
the beginning of knocking down some silos. But I started

(38:30):
digging into and I actually got a copy of the
nineteen seventy nine lease that was signed originally between the
city and the nonprofit that operated a hospital. Okay, and
very people, very few people understand exactly what was in
that lease, because now we've got this hospital that this
calls itself a private not for profit, but if you

(38:50):
really read the lease, it is not a normal lease
between a city government and a private not for profit.
And the reason that there are primers in there that
may make that committee hospital a community hospital, and they've
been ignored for fifteen years. We well, for example, did
you know that board meetings are open to the public
at TMH? Have you ever have you ever been have

(39:14):
you ever seen a notice for a board meeting?

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I've never seen a notice for a board Now in.

Speaker 9 (39:19):
The lease that is required that those board meetings be
open to the public. Also, the City Commission confirms appointments
to the board. Have you ever seen any solicitation for
people to sign up and possibly be a board member?

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Item on it?

Speaker 9 (39:36):
What they do is they have agenda items, but it
always comes from TMH. They are putting forward the board
member and there's very little discussion. But like other boards,
there's not solicitations put out. Hey listen, they need a
board member who's interested. It is a very controlled process. Now,
those are the most public things. The other things in
the lease that will shock you is that the city

(39:58):
has the right to look at the financial accounts and
records of the Hospital of TMH. And I called over
to the city. They have no record of ever.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Being done, and that agreement is still enforced, still enforced.

Speaker 9 (40:14):
They have the right in the lease to actually look
at the hospital's budget.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Never been done.

Speaker 7 (40:21):
Wow.

Speaker 9 (40:22):
And so there is a story behind this, and I
don't know why, but I have a theory that it
started about fifteen to twenty years ago where things started
getting sealed off from the public. And the point of this,
of bringing this up is we are now standing at
a divide between a community.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
We've got politicians that are using this issue. If we had.

Speaker 9 (40:44):
Followed the prescription of the leaders that created this lease.
You heard what he yeah, yeah, in nineteen seventy ninety,
nineteen eighty, we would be in a much better position
to deal with the transformation and this healthcare industry because
we would have cities involved with the operation of this hospital.
We do not, based on what our forefathers wanted to happen.

(41:09):
And so I think it's interesting to know these things.
I think people will be shocked to know what you know,
what is in the lease. And this all started when
I asked for information from TEAMAH. They said, well, you know,
we're a private no not for profit.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
No you're not.

Speaker 9 (41:24):
And if you read the lease, you you are a
community hospital. And what has happened is they've taken the
community out of it and they've left it up to
the insiders to deal with this process. And now we
find ourselves, you know, trying to deal with a task
that has to be dealt with the transformation of the
healthcare industry, and it's going to be more difficult than

(41:44):
it would have been if we had followed, you know,
if this would been a transparent and accountable process over
the last fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
You know, where it is now I can't speak to
because I can't speak to the motivations. But my hunch
is that this originally got to this place through sins
of omission versus co mission, and they just the city
took the position of we don't want to deal with it,
Let them run the hospital. And the hospital said happy,
happy to do.

Speaker 9 (42:08):
So, exactly, And that's not what the people that structured
at least wanted to happen, exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Very clear. Yeah, there were they put safeguards in there
that have not been followed, and others seemingly have taken
advantage of that. Exactly. All right, Oh wow, good stuff there.
That's always good stuff. When we come back, more things
that impact this community. Next on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
The u FLA at w FLA, FBM dot com, on
your phone with the iHeartRadio app and on hundreds of
devices like Alexa, Google Home, Xbox and Sonos and Iheart's
radio station.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
They told Steve he's making my head hurt. All this
all this information that is corroborated. It's it's all in writing.
All right, let's transition. I mean we've covered okay, we've
covered crime, we've covered real estate, we've covered the community,
quote hospital, community hospital, now schools.

Speaker 9 (43:23):
Yeah, so there's going to be a big debate coming
up this year. Well, we'll see if it's a debate,
there's Alvi Smith is going to try to make it
a debate about the issue with and this comes down
to finances. I mean, if you look at Leon County schools,
they have lost customers.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Ten to fifteen percent of the last five years, three
thousand students.

Speaker 9 (43:43):
They have thirty three thousand students, say five years ago,
they're down.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
To twenty eight twenty nine thousand. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 9 (43:49):
This is happening around the state for various reasons. We've
talked about this. Other areas are closing schools.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yep.

Speaker 9 (43:54):
Leon County is fighting that tooth and nail. They don't
want to close three or four schools. Alva Smith keeps
bringing this issue up with the data and the information,
but the board is a three to two split the
other way, and Superintendent Hannah does not want to close schools,
and neither do three of the board members. But the

(44:15):
kicker hit here is they they are making argument to
leaving these schools open, not closing one school, okay, and
they're going to ask you to increase or going to
try to increase property taxes this year under the guys
that we can give that money to teachers. Alva Smith
is arguing that, look, if we close some of these schools,

(44:38):
you know, we can take that money and give to
the teachers. So this is going to be a real
interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Now. Five years ago, ten years ago, you.

Speaker 9 (44:46):
Know, I was naive and I would say, oh, there's
no way they're ever going to vote for a property
tax increase with schools at low capacity. I said that
about the Children's Services Council. I said that about raises
for the city commitsers and I was dead wrong. So
this will pass if they if they ask or a
property tax increase to pay for teachers, they will get
the pr machine going that this is all for the

(45:08):
teachers and your kids, and it'll pass. So everybody needs
to be aware of this. What can you do about it?
I'm not sure. I mean it's again, it's a three
to two split on the school board.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
The three.

Speaker 9 (45:21):
The three are Roseanne Wood, Roseanne Wood, Darryl Jones, and
Marcus nich And so you know, look, I understand closing
elementary schools and neighborhoods is a tough thing.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah, because you've got to rezone, you got to send
your kids to a different place. Right.

Speaker 9 (45:38):
However, it's it's demographics that you can't run away from.
I mean, they're not just looking at the population now,
they're looking at kids they're being born five years ago,
you know, are being born now in these areas, and
it's just not going to facilitate these schools well.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
And and the argument is also that parents aren't bringing
their kids back. Kids have left, they've gone to other schools,
they've gone to virtual they've stayed at home, right.

Speaker 9 (46:03):
I mean, there are a number of factors here, and
part of it is the you know, the ease of
school choice outside the school system, the ease of school
choice within the school system. I mean, there are people
in Clarida States that are that are zoned for high
schools that they don't go to because you can choice out,

(46:24):
you know, within the system. And also there are demographic
shifts where people with families are moving. There are neighborhoods
that are not family friendly in this community, believe it
or not. And when I say that, I'm talking about
you know, talking about crime, talking about people don't like
to go to schools that have bad ratings, so they
move to different areas. I mean, that's just a fact.

(46:46):
And so that's happening within Leon County. You know, if
you go and look at Jacksonville, Duval County, the issue
they have there is the same thing, but it's on
a bigger scale. They have people leaving the county. They're
moving to Clay County to the west, they're moving the
same John's County to the south. Yeah, and they've closed
twenty five thirty schools.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
I'd be curious to know how many of those schools
were underperforming. Well, you know, the other issues.

Speaker 9 (47:10):
The schools that are underperforming here in terms of capacity
and grades are Title I schools, so they're getting federal money.
And so that's another tough decision to make because when
you close those schools, the federal money goes away.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
And so but there's still a significant cost savings that
the net savings outweighs it right, well, definitely in.

Speaker 9 (47:30):
Terms of and that's what that's the argument that Alvis
Smith is making. However, I mean supers in a hand
it doesn't want to talk about this anymore. They have
tried to make this point that look, we're not going
to cossaidate schools. We're going to move on to other options.
The other option is a property tax increase, So you know,
we'll keep an eye on and see where it goes.
But it's just again, it just doesn't make sense to me,

(47:53):
But we do live in a progressive city and I
you know, and I think that it would probably pass.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Well. The fact that Leon County may be one of
the only counties in the state that refuses to close
schools matches the fact that Leon County is also the
city of Tallahassee's home where we're the only city that
won't have districts. I mean, there's this going against the.

Speaker 9 (48:13):
Current right and I think these financial issues will come
to a head this year and then we'll see where
we are. But it may be just the same that
it's been for years, right, right, Well.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Hopefully your reporting will be read by more and more
people and we'll have a shot. There we go. Thanks,
Thank you, President Steve Stewart. Back with us as always
on Thursdays, talking about the capital city of the Sunshine State.
It's Tallassee. Reports dot Com.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Come to m A D Radio Network, Make a Difference
Radio Network, and this is the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Oh Boy. Once again Minnesota powder Keg and the left
is taking advantage of the opportunity to bring chaos. Let's

(49:26):
talk for a second about the shooting yesterday. Hopefully, well,
I mean, do you really want to watch police have
to shoot and kill a woman. It's not graphic, but
it does happen, and it's not please. It's an ice officer.
The agent was about to be hit, was in fact

(49:49):
hit by the vehicle. Renee Nicole Good. Mom's trying to
tell everybody, Oh, she was just terrified. She's not a protester. Well, no,
she was there protesting. In fact, she was there violating
federal law. She was impeding the work of federal agents.

(50:09):
So in fact she was a protester. This young lady
placed herself in the middle of all of this, and
when told to get out of the vehicle, she refused,
and then she floored it. And she was at that
point driving a deadly weapon, and an officer who was

(50:31):
in fact hit by the vehicle, pulled out his firearm
and defended his life and that of his comrades. But
I want to talk for just a second about this
young lady. This is what happens when you place yourself

(50:54):
in these situations. But I also want to point this out.
She was previously married to a guy named Timmy Ray
Macklin who died at the age of twenty three or
sorry in twenty twenty three at the age of thirty six.

(51:16):
She had a child with him, but she divorced him
and then decided to become a lesbian and had a
female partner. This is the woke LGBTQ illiberal. You can

(51:42):
tie it all together in a bow mentality and where
it leads and in an interesting sort of irony. It
connects to our verse today in Romans One, where God said,
you know, if you turn away from me and pursue

(52:04):
these things, I'll give you what you want. You go
right ahead. I'm not stopping you. Here's what's gonna happen.
I would submit. This young lady reaped what she was sewing,

(52:26):
and she placed herself in situations that led to her demise,
led to her panic. Her mother's just in a state
of denial. Publicly, at least, I feel for her, this
woman's child. This is the self centeredness of these types

(52:50):
of actions. You don't think about the consequences of your
individual choices. What will this mean for my child if
I get arrested, let alone, in this case, she was killed,
What will it mean to my parents, who of course
love her, regardless of the choices she's made with her
change of sexuality preference. They love their daughter, absolutely, you

(53:16):
love your child. But this is the self centeredness that
God says you want, you want to go here. Okay,
you are outside of my protection, you are outside of
I can't do anything for you. One of many big

(53:42):
stories in the press box. Forty minutes to Pass the.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Obum got on news radio one hundred point seven WFLA.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Our first Optimum Health Naturally segment of the year, and
we are joined by doctor David Harts. Good morning, sir,
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Do you have a nice holiday?

Speaker 4 (54:19):
Good morning, Preston did did? It's good to talk to
you the first of the year.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
You know, everybody is interested in pursuing a longer lifespan,
and I think a lot of people just think, well,
as long as I take enough supplements or take enough meds,
I'm gonna stave off father time.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
You know that's exactly right. And you know, we've talked
about all kinds of different things through the years on
this segment, about what we can do in all kinds
of different ways. But one of the things we many
times don't think about it, especially if we're sedentary, is
you know, you can't really the truth is as most

(55:00):
people wish that they can just pick a supplement and
be totally healthy, but you can't out supplement inactivity. When
you're really not moving and especially sitting for a long
period of time every day, it does unbelievably bad destruction
to your body. And if you really want a really affectable,

(55:24):
reliable anti aging protocol, you got to start with moving
daily and some strength training and consistency and protecting your joints.
You got to move because if you're not doing that,
everything just breaks down. What we want to do is
you want to build capacity and to be able to
live a long life and be feeling good as you

(55:44):
get older. And what we're not doing in our society
many many times is we're just we're being very sedentary.
So let me give you a little bit of time
we have this morning to give you a little bit
of a basic kind of movement program or something you
can start with first. That's why you can start with
daily movement. I mean, if you're sitting all day long,
you've got to get up and move at least three

(56:05):
or four minutes every hour and get up and change
your position and move around. If you can take a walk,
that's even better. But you've got to be able to move.
Then it's really good that maybe you take a five
to ten minute walk after you eat. Just make it
something consistent in your life. It's got it helps blood
sugar regulation and also just strength. But then if you

(56:27):
can do this, it's very important to do. To do
strength training is one thing we don't do is we
get older, is we let muscle mass decrease. And when
you do that, it's sex metabolasm with sects all kinds
of different parts of your body. So a little bit
of light strength training is really really super important. And
then and then eventually if you can do some some
kind of power strength training where you get a little

(56:49):
bit stronger because you know, practice doing squats or something
like that. If you're older, you have to have be
sure you you know, protect your balance and so forth.
But if you can get the place where you can
get your lower a body stronger than if you fall,
you can get up, you know, yeah, and that's what
happens a lot of times when we get older. We
don't have the strength to be able to actually get
back up again. And then you know, do step ups

(57:12):
for balance. Balance control is really important. Single leg stands
where you stand and you safely support yourself that you
stand on one leg. In fact, there was a research
study that said that it was a correlation between how
long you could stand on one leg and how long
you live.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Oh yeah, we talked about that study here on the show.

Speaker 4 (57:30):
Yeah. I think we did do that, didn't we. Yeah,
So that's really really important because a balance is definitely
directly related to how long you live. So and then
split squat, stability, load, mobility, holds they call them. There's
different things that it's hard to go through all right now.
But the idea is if you want to get to

(57:51):
you know, some kind of an exercise facility that does
individual types of strength training is really really good, or
just do it on your own. Anything you do to move,
it's better than to stay and still. And you got
to start slow and then you build a robick exercise
where you get a little bit of uh, you know,
stress on your cardiovascis system and you start it slow

(58:12):
and I of course you got to check with your
doctor if you have any health problems to be sure
you can do it. But get moving is I think
is a really good resolution at the beginning of this
year is if you haven't been moving, get moving and
start start building some some resilience and some overall ability
to be able to persist in your in your exercise.

(58:32):
It will make a big difference.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Doctor Hearts is always thanks for the time. We'll talk
again soon, okay, present, have great day, Thank you sir.
It doesn't it tie in what we talked about with
the resolutions. Start with attainable goals so you don't get
frustrated and quit. And if you miss the workout, it's okay,
get back at it the next day. Forty seven minutes

(58:54):
past the.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
Hour, the Mayor of Reelville dispensing information at the speed
of sound. It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. All right,

(59:28):
here we go, inspired by jose Can you.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
See, we're recommending a place for you that he himself
visited during the holiday season. Tell us more about lou
Ray Call Caverns.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Alrighty yeehaw, So here we go. Lou Ray Caverns was incredible.
My buddy told me about it. Him and his wife
worked there. A friend of mine, who and who women?

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
His wife? Yes? They both and his wife, yeah, they
both worked there and his wife Yep, that's true. Ain
line Oh my god, So my wife is having a
heart attack right now. Him and his wife.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Yeah, they both worked there and it was founded in
eighteen seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
So it's a massive cavern. Yeah. Huge. Took us about
an hour, almost.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Two hours to walk through the whole thing really. Yeah,
it was just jaw dropping. They have a couple of
bodies of water in there. One's called the Dream Lake.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
One's called the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Dream Lake and the Silver Sea.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Okay, the Dream Lake will trick you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
It makes you think it's like a big, massive area,
but it's just a little part of the cavern with's
water underneath it that's not even an inch deep.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Yeah, so you see it and you think, oh man,
it just drops down bottomless thirty feet just a little
tiny little puddle.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Okay, what's pretty big? Yeah, big puddle, but it's a
big yeah. Yeah, it's not a deep one. Yeah, absolutely.
And it's they have.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
One of the world's largest instruments in there. It's it's
a organ that uses the cave uh to make music.
Pretty incredible stuff. Yeah, absolutely, hearing it such a beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
And haunting sound sort of.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
And then yeah, so it's not just the caverns. They
have a car and carriage caravan Museum, the Shenandoah excuse me,
the Shenandoah Village, Heritage Village, a toy town junction, and
they got a garden maze, a pretty big beautiful garden maze,
a rope adventure park, the sea.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Part of Virginia Tower lou Ray. Yeah, but what part
of Virginia north south east west?

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Oh boy, it's about thirty minutes from DC.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Okay, so not far from the nation's capital.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Yep, not far from there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
You can go to the website Loureycaverns dot com l
u r a Y Caverns dot com and you can
learn all kinds of information. You'll see some of the
video of the place that he's he's describing. He took
some pictures for me, but I said, there you go.
Uh yeah, it's thirty six bucks for adults, thirty four
for seniors, eighteen for kids six to twelve, kids under six,

(01:02:24):
under six they're six, they're paying, they're under six free
of charge. And there are self guided tours. And of
course he mentioned some of the other things that are
that are available there, which I am all about. So yeah,
put it to the list. And they do have guided
tours as well. So there's your roady suggestion for this

(01:02:47):
week now when and by the way, I have not
only a pen from lou Ray Caverns that has my
last name on it. I think it's meant for a
first name, but he probably couldn't find a press and
probably couldn't settled for my last name Scott. But it's

(01:03:09):
beautiful wood and I got a backscratcher, the gift that
keeps on giving man a backscratcher. Come on, we come back.
Scott Beacon, the Bline Blogger, will join us. Thenzeuela. Some

(01:03:32):
facts about Venezuela when you have a discussion with family
and friends so you're a bit more informed. Next on
the Morning Show with Preston Scott. That's an interesting way

(01:04:05):
to start the third hour of the radio program known
this The Morning Show with Preston Scott. How are you friends?
Good to have you with us, first week back after
a lengthy time away, and we are joined on the
phone line by our friend Scott Beacon, otherwise known as
the b line Blogger. You can find his work at
b line Blogger dot blogspot dot com and Scott Happy holidays.

(01:04:28):
How are you sir?

Speaker 10 (01:04:30):
Debut Preston, Happy New Year.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Tell me when did when did you start doing the
digging on Venezuela, Because when I saw your piece, I
knew it was going to be data driven. They always are.
But I have to believe you got interested in starting
to look at this long before we took Maduro out
of the country.

Speaker 10 (01:04:52):
Oh yes, I've written about Venezuela for a number of
years in my blog, and it's an interesting study to
get in from a data standpoint, because when you look
at how prosperous and successful and rich Venezuela was at
one time and how that's changed in the last twenty
five years, it's quite a lab study with regard to

(01:05:16):
the failure of socialism and collectivism compared to other countries
in the world that have gone the other way, even
in Latin America. You know, you look at Chile and
what they've done compared to Venezuela over the last thirty
or forty years, and you look at countries like Poland,
it's really a sad state of affairs. What's happened to

(01:05:36):
Venezuelan people over the last twenty five years.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
I want to get to those comparisons, but I want
to start where You started in your column with what
you do know, and it starts by quantifying the suffering
inside of Venezuela since nineteen ninety nine. That was when
Hugo Chavez took over and things just went literally from

(01:06:02):
pretty good to horrible. To give us some of the
numbers and some.

Speaker 10 (01:06:06):
Of the data, yeah, it's it is a sad state
of affairs of what's happened to that country. You know,
there's different numbers out there. I actually the data that
I use was the most conservative. There's some that say
that ninety percent plus of the Venezuelan people are living
in poverty today.

Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
I just use the.

Speaker 10 (01:06:26):
Number seventy percent. But still, when you compare that to
the United States and the rest of the world, it's
pretty sobering. When you look at you know, their GDP
for capita. You know, they really are not much different
than they were twenty five years ago. Right now, I mean,
the rest of the world is just passed and by
the rest of Latin America has passed. And by I

(01:06:48):
mean they were the richest country in South America twenty
five or thirty years ago. Now they're the poorest. They
have an inflation rate that's more than five hundred percent
per year. Some of these numbers are hard to put
together because the government there are so dysfunctional they don't
even produce reliable statistics any longer, so it really is

(01:07:10):
hard to get your hand around some of the numbers.
But an independent economist has come up with an annual
inflation rate for Venezuela that's over five hundred percent. So
we have a situation too that this has caused enormous
numbers of people to leave the country, some for economic reasons,

(01:07:30):
some for political reasons. And obviously we also know that
Maduro empties a lot of the jails and sent them
to the United States. So the end result is just
over the last ten years when things have really gotten bad,
the Smiths are about eight million people have left Venezuela,
which is about twenty percent of the population in a decade.

(01:07:53):
It's staggering.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
You mentioned some other countries. Let's start with Poland. We
got about a minute left in this segm man, give
us a quick snapshot of the comparison between Venezuela and Poland.

Speaker 10 (01:08:05):
If you go back to nineteen ninety nine two thousand,
when things you know, kind of changed in Venezuela, Venezuela
and Poland, we're basically the same with regard to gross
national product. Today Poland has about, you know, six seven
times the GDP that Venezuela does. And why is that interesting? Well,

(01:08:26):
Poland lived under collectivism for many, many years and decades
under the Soviet Union, and they broke free of that
and shows a capitalism or free market system. Venezuela did
exactly the opposite, and look what happened after twenty five years.
It's staggering.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
Joining us on the program is Scott Beacon. He is
an analyst, he's a data cruncher. It's what he did
professionally for years. And he writes now what's called the
bee Line Blogger and it's Bline Blogger dot blogspot dot com.
You can sign up get the newsletters that come out
multiple times a month, if not a week, and you

(01:09:05):
will be better informed about whatever it is that he's
writing on. Great source of information we've used for many years,
and great to have him back on the program. More
with Scott next on the Morning Show.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
And women serving our great nation and our armed services,
those serving communities as law enforcement officers and first responders.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
I say you are all essential workers.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Back with Scott Beak and the Bee Line Blogger. We're
talking about Venezuela. I told you earlier in the week.
You know, we came back on the air Monday after
nearly three weeks away, and obviously the big story on
Monday was the capture of Nicholas Mduro and his wife.
And I told you when I got Scott's peace that

(01:10:04):
I wanted him to come on the program to start
talking about some of the data to quantify just how
bad things are. You know that that's the mainstream media
is of course ignoring that, Scott. They're they're ignoring how
bad even those stories have been leaking for you know,
a decade and a half or two about how bad

(01:10:25):
food sources have gone to the point where they're killing
zoo animals and eating anything that they can get their
hands on for food. You use the word collectivism. I
want to make sure that when people hear that, they
know what you're talking about. To find that for.

Speaker 11 (01:10:40):
Us, well, you have you know, you have people in
Venezuela that took over that were pure socialists or communists
who believed in the the rights of the of the
government basically, which it translates the leadership to control everything.
And you know, gradually they took over everything in the

(01:11:04):
country of any value. They took over the oil industry,
which is where you know, a lot of the wealth
you know, came from in Venezuela at one point. And
you know, gradually they took the property. They took the
oil oil property from the companies that were there, They
took the private property. They tried to run up themselves

(01:11:25):
all the people over time that were knowledge believen. The
local people eventually left and eventually they didn't have the
oil revenues that they had, and then that filtered into
everything else. For a while, the oil was.

Speaker 10 (01:11:39):
Still pumping and they could as the food sources and
other things went down, they used that to subsidize the
food or the gasoline. But eventually, as things got worse
and worse, those things dried up too, so that after
a while you really don't have anything that's the productive
left in the country and you get people that you know,

(01:12:02):
have to live in poverty and eat dogs and all
the other things. And why twenty percent of the people
left the country because it's not sustainable.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
This South America in general, Scott, it offers us a
complete and total example of collectivism, socialism, communism versus capitalism
and free market principles, does it not.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
Oh?

Speaker 10 (01:12:28):
Yes, And as an ebb and flow, we've seen in
a lot of South American countries. You know, we're seeing
it in Argentina, which you know went through a lot
of socialists type individuals and then then really kind of
on the other side. Now, Chile is another example that
has gone back and forth. But it seems like every
time that they break away from the socialism and go

(01:12:51):
the free market way, they prosper. But then it only
takes a little while for someone to say, well, something's
going to be better, and they move the other way,
and then things deteriorate. So it's a classic example. As
you mentioned, it's almost on like a laboratory of the
failures of socialism.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Well, Venezuela used to be, if I if I remember
your piece correctly, it was it was, And what I
remember in myself is it was the wealthiest nation in
South America. Now it's not. And Chile was at the
bottom and now it's at the top.

Speaker 10 (01:13:25):
Exactly. H You know, I knew someone I had a
friend a number of years ago there was a country
manager in Venezuela, and you know, just raved about the
life that they had there and loved living there and
the resources they've gotten, the beauty of the country and
just all destroyed.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
Scott Begon with a Scott standby. We got another segment
to go. We're going to talk about what what's next,
what happens, Does Venezuela have a pathway at all? How
do you recover? Seen past the hour here in the
Morning Show with Preston Scott Scott Beacon with me Beeline
Blogger dot blogspot dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:14:11):
Uf LRA, on your phone with the iHeartRadio app and
on hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home, Xbox and
Sonoso and Iheart's Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Season back with Scott Beacon, the Beeline Blogger, and we're
talking about Venezuela. We're seeing in the news Scott that
just because Maduro and his wife are out, it doesn't
change anything. They still have entrenched corruption and they have

(01:14:45):
a system that is a failed system. So what are
your expectations. What do you think the glide slope is
for Venezuela to turn things and get back to a
path of being able to sustain itself as a nation.

Speaker 10 (01:15:01):
Well. As difficult as it was to go in to
Venezuela in that raid that they did, and how bold
that was to go in and fetch you know, Maduro
out of the country with his wife and get out
and bring him to New York City to stand trial,
that's nothing compared to what the challenge is to move

(01:15:21):
Venezuela forward with the potential leadership vacuum that they have.

Speaker 8 (01:15:25):
So yeah, as they're.

Speaker 10 (01:15:27):
Running the blog, I'm reminded of all the late General
Colin Palell citing the pottery barn rule before the two
thousand and three Iraq War. You know, you break it,
you own it, and so therefore, you know, how do
you move forward? And I think they have learned some
lessons from the past. And I think even though it
could be disheartening to think, well, why do we have
some of the same people the inner circle, why are

(01:15:49):
they still around? And I think the answer to that
is the reality is you need some stability in order
the country doesn't go into complete chaos. I think President
Trump and Secretary of Rubio are planning to hopefully work
with some of the people that have been in that
inner circle for a period of time for a transition

(01:16:12):
and then their will, if you will, to the United
States interest and try to keep some stability there while
moving to democratic elections over time. Now, as I cited
in the blog post, Yeah, that's going to require a
lot of patients. I think by the Venezuelan people, I'm

(01:16:32):
sure they want change immediately. They don't like the fact
that they've had to live under the conditions they've lived
for over the last twenty five years. But it's going
to take a while to get to that next step,
and that's not going to be easy. But one of
the things that you know, you have to like about
Donald Trump, and I mentioned this in the blog as well,

(01:16:53):
is to be great first, you have to not be
afraid to be great. And that's that's quite an attribute just.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
To have that.

Speaker 10 (01:17:02):
And one thing I'm sure about Trump is that he's
not afraid to be great. You know, many presidents in
the past over the last twenty five years talked about Venezuela,
but nobody did anything about it. And he took the
action and if he successful, you know, he's changed the
geopolitical calculus for the entire world. Because this wasn't just

(01:17:23):
Venezuela and the United States. This directly affects what's going
on in Russia, what's going on in China, the effects
it has in Cuba, and what we're seeing in Iran
right now. I mean, do you think the people would
be riding in the streets right now if they didn't
see what is going on in Venezuela and given them hope.
So the stakes are huge, and I wish I knew

(01:17:46):
how it's going to work out, but I know you
couldn't have a possibility that we have today without taking
the steps that President Trump took and taking Maduro out.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
You know, I have shared with it just a handful
of people, you know that have been critical about not
installing you know, the right person, whoever that is, like,
you can determine that immediately. Well, if you don't have
the military on your side, it doesn't matter. You're gonna
you're gonna create another firestorm of a problem. So I

(01:18:18):
think I agree with you. I think he's wise to
work with what's there, hope that they're learning some lessons.
Early indications are they're learning some lessons about what the
capabilities of the country are. And I think that you're right.
I think that this is not just a message to
China and Russia and Iran, it's a it's a message

(01:18:39):
to Cuba, it's a message to the hemisphere, and that
it's going to be in everyone's best interest for us
to all get along on our side of the of
the globe.

Speaker 10 (01:18:50):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:18:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:18:51):
The one thing I would like to see, and I
haven't seen it mentioned, you know, I would like to
see a major effort by the United States to bring
food into Venezuela. You know, we've seen some of the
farmers with the tariff situation, some countries have cut us
off and dine there or whatever. I would like to
see a massive outreach the Venezuela with food and very

(01:19:13):
clearly showing a tangible thing that the United States is
on the side of the Venezuelan people and that's something
we could do very easily. It would help our farmers,
would also help the people of Venezuela. I would really
like to see that take place soon.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
Do you see that as a barter we get some oil,
they get some food.

Speaker 10 (01:19:34):
I wouldn't do it at a barter situation. Yeah, I
would do it as a humanitarian situation. And really the
show we're with you ye, you know, we're with you,
and yeah, the oil is aside you. A lot of
people want to make that this is a grab for oil,
et cetera. Really the oil is the Venezuelan people. I mean,
certainly we can collaborate them with refinery capabilities and cut

(01:19:57):
off the flow that was going to Cuba and a
ra and kind a Russia the bad actors to our
own benefits. But you know, really they deserve they deserve.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
That oil on they had, just like they used to.

Speaker 10 (01:20:14):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
Scott, thanks as always. I appreciate all the data that
you pull together and present in such a tidy fashion.
I appreciate it very much, and thanks for making time
for us.

Speaker 10 (01:20:25):
Always enjoy at pressing. And again, happy New Year to
you and all your listeners.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Thank you very much. Scott Beacon with us this morning,
and again subscribe. It costs you nothing. Sign up get
his newsletters. You will be a much better informed person
on all the things he writes about. Bline blogger dot
blogspot dot com. Fit like a fine wine.

Speaker 12 (01:20:56):
Ah, excuse me, man, Please have some more water the pellegrino. Yes, sparkling, mm,
this breeze very nice. Good morning and welcome to the
Morning Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
Victor likes himself some free All right, let's unpack a
few more things here, big stories in the press box.
The Governor Ron de Santas wants a little redistricting done
in Florida, and he wants it done this year. Hmmm.
I wonder if that would take effect for the twenty

(01:21:34):
twenty six mid term elections. You think he is calling
for a special session after the regular legislative session. He said,
we're going to let the legislature focus on the issues
Floridian Floridians are facing before devoting full attention to congressional
redistricting in April. So we've got the session starting on Tuesday,

(01:21:59):
will visits and we'll talk with sal about this a
little bit on Monday as well. Because this is a
big story. I would tell you that the United States
Census screwed Florida out of one, perhaps two, maybe more
seats which we should have in Congress. And so the
idea of redistricting is not lost on me that it

(01:22:22):
might might be something that does need to happen and
force the Census's hand on this, if you can, I
don't know. US military has seized two more tankers in
the Atlantic, one off the coast of Ireland, the other
in the Caribbean. What's interesting to me is one of

(01:22:44):
these tankers slid by the US turning off. It's you know,
locators and switching. I mean they painted a Russian flag
on the side of it to try to fool everybody,
and tried to re register the ship, and work Coastguard
took the thing. Allegedly. The Wall Street Journal had reported

(01:23:05):
that that particular tanker was being escorted by some ships
with the Russian Navy, including a submarine, which may not
have been read October just saying no, he went right October.
But that's a cool movie. Anyway, we got it. We
just said yeah, whatever, and we took it, okay. Renee

(01:23:30):
Nicole Good is the young lady who lost her life
by being stupid. When you insert yourself as a protester
and use your vehicle to impede the work of agents
working for the federal government in immigrations enforcement, and then

(01:23:50):
you hit the gas. Even if you intentionally nudge him,
it doesn't matter. She was ordered to get out, she didn't.
She was ordered again to get out of her vehicle.
She didn't. She was ordered again, multiple times. She was

(01:24:12):
told get out of the vehicle. She did not. She
floored it. The officer, fearful of his life, shot her.
She died. It's a shame, it is, but it's one
person's fault hers. She wasn't there holding a sign on

(01:24:35):
a sidewalk. Alexandri A Casio Cortez should be censured for
what she just said. She's already under not even investigation,
but she is in fact branded as a complete flaming idiot.

(01:25:00):
But what she said, what you saw is a cold
blooded murder. No, what you saw is an attempt at
a domestic terrorist act, an attack on a federal officer.
Officers failure to obey commands of a federal officer, and
the results, the consequences of what happens when you don't well.

(01:25:25):
By the way, she's a member of the LGBTQ community.
Just say there's more. We're not done. I've devoted time
for this forty minutes past the hour. More stories, just
putting them on your radar. You do your own deep dive.

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
Mit them to the MAAD Radio Network, where we challenge
you to make a difference in your world in a
positive way, improving the lives of others. It's The Morning
Show with Preston Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
To quote Rahem Cassam on X, the side that celebrated
the summary execution of Ashley Babbitt in the US Capitol
is now going to express outrage about a woman killed
for actually attempting to harm law enforcement officers in their
line of work. She's given a lawful order, tries to

(01:26:31):
drive off by driving through a law enforcement officer standing
in front of her. He's well within her his rights
to shoot, period end. It just is what it is.
It is a tragedy. This young lady lost her life,
that a child lost his last parent. She switched teams
when her husband died, she became a lesbian. It's it right.

(01:27:02):
It's not her right to involve herself in trying to
impede the work of officers, which is what she was
exactly what she was doing. Now, this is all about
what's going on with Somalians being in this country illegally
and scamming this country out of nine billion dollars of money.
There's an audit that was done by the State of Minnesota.

(01:27:27):
It's not a watchdog group, a state audit conducted by
the Office of the Legislative Auditor found widespread failures and
internal control problems in the Department of Human Services Behavioral
Health Administration grant program. Oh you think they I'm summarizing

(01:27:48):
they didn't really safeguard where the money was going, who
was really applying, or any of it. Wow, thanks for
that and oh, by the way. Audio Now Minnesota Attorney
General Keith Ellison facing scrutiny over a twenty twenty one audio. This,
by the way, is when it all blew up. COVID

(01:28:11):
meeting with members of the Somali community who would soon
be convicted. They've been convicted of defrauding millions of dollars
in taxpayer money. In the recording, the fraudsters can be
heard asking Ellison to help keep them secure, help them sorry,
to help them secure more funding. And he said in response,

(01:28:36):
quoting that's the only way we can protect what we
have by inserting ourselves into the political arena, putting our
votes where it needs to be, but most importantly, putting
our dollars in the right place, and supporting candidates that
will fight to protect our interests. He said, that's right.
He said, there's no wrongdoing on my part. Maybe maybe
there isn't maybe, but maybe not. See the question I've asked,

(01:29:01):
is you ever try to get a meeting with an
attorney general? Not just anybody gets a meeting with a
state attorney general. I'm just telling you it just is
the way that it is. Judge is taking money from
Amy Bach. She is the alleged mastermind of a lot

(01:29:24):
of this fraud. She's not a Somali, She's just someone
who took advantage of the situation, put a few million
in her bank account, bought some nice things, including a
portie designer, handbags, some property. Judge said, yeah, you can
take it. She's been convicted. I'm still not done. I'm

(01:29:53):
I'm still not done, but I'm out of time. That's
why it goes six minutes past. Get you ready for
tomorrow's show. Next Well, it was a heartbreaking day for
Jose behind the console there, h r it happens. Poor guy.

(01:30:19):
He's really in there crying right now. I'm gonna keep going.
I'm gonna I'm gonna take off a couple of stories
just again. The idea is just make you aware of them.
Iranian protesters listen to this. This has got to just
burn the Ayatolla rename a street in Tehran after Trump,

(01:30:52):
and please don't let them kill us. Since Trump comments
about the Iran protests, I've seen the numbers of videos
on a running and protesters either thanking him or in
this case, renaming streets after the US President. They're killing
protesters in Iran. And at some point, listen, now, one

(01:31:19):
of the guards is going to be poeting a gun
at a family member, and he's gonna say I can't
do this, and he's gonna turn to his comrades. He's
gonna say we can't do this. And maybe they then
take their firearms, lift them up and do an about

(01:31:42):
face and drop them and point them in the other direction.
You know what I'm saying. I think we'll switch sides
something like that. We'll see, We'll see where it leads.
This is good. Apparently the CIA advised Trump against supporting

(01:32:05):
Venezuela's democratic opposition. Again, I think this is actually a
smart move by Trump. If you install somebody that the
military is not going to support, it doesn't matter. You
need to your You just said, hey, we can snatch

(01:32:27):
you whenever we want. So you're either going to cooperate
and start making changes or else, and it leaves a
little stability in place, and you just start. You put
them on a clock. That's all. And there's one more story,
but we'll we'll get to that. We'll get to that
story tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
Brought to you by Barono Heating and Air. It's the
morning show on WFLA. Well, you heard us go through
the big stories in the press box. We started with
Romans Won, the latter part of Romans One, and it's
just here's what Romans one is saying, if you want

(01:33:07):
to just ignore God and pursue other things, He's gonna
let you do just that. And what comes your way
comes your way. And anybody out there that says God
doesn't forbid homosexuality, God doesn't forbid, don't think so. Check
out Romans Won, among a lot of other places. I'm
just saying, the governor is going to push the legislature

(01:33:31):
to look at redistricting. I'll be interested to know if
the Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Danny Perez
have a wine fest and cry about the fact that
he called a special session without consulting them whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
Remember they got their nose out of joint last year.
Same issue. We called the special session. He could ask
for one, but we call oh none of you were
elected statewide? He was. We talked about Renee Nicole Good.

(01:34:12):
She is the young lady who was stupid and lost
her life as a result of making dumb choices. That happens.
Minnesota is a train wreck. Minnesota is an absolute train wreck.
The Somali fraud that's gone on is not just limited
to Minnesota, though it is in Ohio as well, likely
in other states. He's in Minnesota as a blueprint how

(01:34:33):
to rip off the federal government, how to rip off
state governments, state repend State US Representative Brandon gill out
of Texas man, he is. He's someone to pay attention to.
You might want to get on his feed. McDonald's hit
with a lawsuit claiming a mccrib doesn't contain real rib meat. Okay,

(01:34:55):
so are you suing next anyone who calls it a
hamburger or a hot dog? Just asking That's another on
the subject of stupid lawsuits that are dumb like that
just to annoy me right after they make me laugh,
or maybe they annoy me and then they make me laugh.
I don't know, but there's a combination of laughter and annoyment.

(01:35:19):
Tomorrow our first edition of What's the Beef in a
long time, first edition of the year, And I'm going
to tell you about my trip, Mike. I'm gonna tell
you what I did. I'll buy Christmas take hay shod,
that and more tomorrow on the show. Have an awesome day.