May 9, 2025 • 52 mins
Justice Bob Orr, the man of the hour, dives into an electrifying convo with co-hosts Colonel Moe Davis and David Wheeler, tackling the crazy world of political gerrymandering and the fight for fair elections in North Carolina. He shares the wild ride of his political journey from the Republican Party to becoming an unaffiliated voter, all sparked by the tumultuous Trump era. Orr passionately argues that manipulating voter districts isn't just a political game; it’s a direct threat to democracy itself! He also spills the beans about his ongoing litigation aimed at securing a constitutional right to fair elections, reminding listeners that democracy's core shouldn’t be up for grabs by any party. So, buckle up and get ready for some serious legal insights mixed with a sprinkle of humor as these three dissect the state of politics, the judiciary, and even the weird world of peanut butter-flavored bourbon!
Takeaways:
- Justice Bob Orr shares his journey from the Republican Party to being unaffiliated, emphasizing the growing significance of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina's political landscape.
- The discussion highlights the fundamental unfairness of gerrymandering, especially how it undermines the principle of fair elections and representation for all citizens.
- Bob Orr passionately argues for the need to establish a constitutional right to fair elections, amidst the ongoing challenges of partisan gerrymandering and election manipulation.
- Both co-hosts and Justice Orr reflect on how the political climate has shifted, particularly how social media and the decline of traditional news impact public discourse and democracy.
- The podcast dives deep into the legal battles surrounding voter manipulation and the implications of the recent court cases on North Carolina's election integrity.
- Orr provides strategic advice for aspiring politicians like Moe Davis, stressing the importance of a focused campaign plan that resonates with the voters' core issues.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- American Muckrakers
- Raleigh
- Kamala Harris
- Donald Trump
- Joe Biden
- North Carolina Supreme Court
- Citizens United
- Blue Ridge Parkway
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Grinds grandiose gibberishinto glittering dust under the big
top of biting brilliance. Whosays alliteration is dead? I'm David
Wheeler, your audacious andmarginally mirthful maestro from
American muckrakers hurlingrazor edged repulsed at the clownish
calamities of politics andculture. Bob, you have no idea what
(00:31):
you got yourself into.
That's true.
Prepare for a dazzling delugeof daring discourse that'll leave
you gasping in the sawduststrewn stands. Before we plunge into
the muck filled midway, here'sColonel Mo Davis ready to unfurl
his own fanfare and presentour spectacular guest. Take it away,
Mo.
Well, I feel so inadequateafter that. No, listen, thanks everybody
(00:58):
for, for joining in again.It's a pleasure to be back with you.
And we've got a, a specialguest today, the honorable Bob, or
who I think folks here inNorth Carolina certainly know quite
well. But he's particularlysuited, you know, to join David and
I, you know, because I'm herein Asheville. David's up in Spruce
Pine, but Judge or has deeproots in this area. He was raised
(01:23):
over in Henderson county,practice law here in Buncombe county
and today he's up in Y Countyto his place up there. So Judge or,
it's a real privilege to haveyou on here. Thank you for doing
this.
Well, it's a treat to talkwith you two guys and it's always,
always a treat to be inwestern North Carolina. I'm halfway
(01:44):
between you and Buncombecounty and David over in Mitchell
Counties. Yeah.
And it's a beautiful day herein western North Carolina. So man,
that's the weather here isthe, pretty nice today. Hey, listen,
let's start out. You, youknow, had a long history in the Republican
Party, you know, serving onthe Supreme Court for, for quite
(02:05):
a few years. You were agubernatorial candidate on the Republican
side. You were a delegate tothe Republican convention. And you
know, next thing you know,we're, you know, you're here stumping,
stumping for Kamala Harris. Sohow did that, how did that transition
take place?
Oh my God. We can thank DonaldTrump for lots of things, but I was
(02:29):
a John Kasich guy back in2016, one of his North Carolina co
chairs and was adamantlyopposed to Donald Trump. And when
he made his very offensivecomment about Senator John McCain,
I thought that was the end ofhim, but obviously it wasn't. And
(02:53):
so I got elected as adelegate, a Kasich delegate to the
2016 convention and wasinterviewed after I got up there
by Raleigh television stationthat, that asked if I had changed
my mind about supportingTrump. I had earlier said in the
primary I would not supporthim if he was the nominee. And I
(03:17):
said, no, I haven't changed mymind. I think he's a danger to the
country and a danger to theRepublican Party. And that night
I got an email that mycredentials were being withheld unless
I did a mea culpa. And so Itold them they could stuff it, and
I was headed back to Raleigh.So it was, it was a short tenure
(03:38):
there at the 2016 NationalConvention in Cleveland. But, but
I was opposed to Trumpliterally from day one in, you know,
work to try and help Joe Bidenget elected in 2020. And then after
January 6, I said, I justcan't be affiliated with the, the
(04:03):
party any longer based uponwhat happened in the responses in
the Republican Party. And so Ibecame unaffiliated. And, you know,
it's kind of a, kind of a coolstatus these days.
Well, you're in the biggestgroup, you know, here in North Carolina,
unaffiliated is the biggestcategory of voters. So you're, you're
not alone.
(04:23):
Yeah, it's, it's the fastestgrowing and in the. Really, the key
to literally every electionis, you know, how are the unaffiliated
voters going to, going to break.
Well, you know, it'sinteresting to me, too, that, you
know, as you just said, it'sthe biggest voting group here in
North Carolina, but understate law, you know, we just had
(04:47):
the ouster of the head of theboard of elections after the Republican
appointees took over. But.
Right.
Unaffiliated voters areprohibited from serving on boards
of election. You got to be amember of the Republican Party or
the Democratic Party. And thebiggest group of voters are ineligible
from serving.
Yeah, the interesting thing,there was a lawsuit that actually
(05:09):
challenged that. And so theywent back and technically changed
the law to, so that the chairof the Republican Party, the chair
of the Democratic Party, couldappoint an unaffiliated voter, but
they never do. And so, youknow, it was form over substance,
but the lawsuit ended upgetting dismissed. But as a practical
(05:30):
matter, you know, the 40% ofthe North Carolina electorate who
are registered as unaffiliatedvoters or even in, you know, the
sort of fringe parties,Libertarian, the Green Party, they,
they have no service, noopportunity to realistically serve
(05:51):
on local boards of rela ofelections or certainly on the state
board, unless they're aDemocrat or a Republican. It's fundamentally
unfair. Something that needsto be changed, but I don't, don't
know that's going to happenanytime soon.
Yeah, it seems like the twoparties hate each other, but they'd
rather have the enemy theyknow than a, another, a potential
(06:11):
enemy out there to have todeal with.
Yeah.
Let me ask you, you know, thisweek, finally, at long last, the
Allison Riggs JeffersonGriffin case came to a conclusion.
But God, that drug on for, forsix months. It was the last race
of all the races in thecountry to, and I guess it officially
(06:32):
has not been certified yet,but will be soon. But you know, the
Republicans have a, you know,with her being seated again or have
a 5, 2 majority, I mean, hadthey won, they'd have a 61 majority.
And I don't know what you cando with a 6:1 majority. You can't
do with a 5, 2. So why spendall this time and money and, you
(06:57):
know, put the state throughall this turmoil over this one seat?
Well, here's OR's theory onit. And after the 2020 legal debacle
by the Trump campaign, wherethey had a clown car full of purported
(07:17):
lawyers running around filinglawsuits that they all lost, I think
there was a strategic decisionby Trump and the national Republican
Party that they were going tolawyer up with really well qualified
skilled lawyers. They weregoing to put a bunch of money to
(07:37):
the side, and if Trump neededit in 2024, they would be ready to
jump into court. And so Ithink all of this was set up for
Trump. But then at least inNorth Carolina, he didn't need it.
He won the state byconsiderable margin. The other two
really important statewideraces for governor and attorney general,
(08:01):
the Democrats unhandedly. Sothe only, the only close race out
there was this Supreme Courtseat. And in my opinion, I think
there was a command decisionat the Washington level. Well, we've
got the lawyers, we've got themoney, we've got favorable courts.
Let's push this and see howsuccessful our theories might be
(08:23):
or what kind of precedent wecan establish. And so I judge Griffin,
to a certain extent, obviouslyhe had to agree to it, but to a certain
extent I think he was alongfor the ride. And this was essentially
being driven at the nationallevel. And, and yeah, it took six
months, but if they'd keptappealing, it could have been another
(08:45):
year. But fortunately it is.
Yeah, I was glad to see thathe put out the announcement. He wasn't
going to appeal, but I waskind of expecting it to keep dragging
on. But at least that's behindus now.
Well, I will Say Judge Meyer,who, of course, was Trump appointee
from his first term, thefederal District Court judge that,
(09:07):
that ruled against JudgeGriffin's position. I mean, wrote
a really strong decision andactually took some subtle shots at
the Supreme Court and Court ofAppeals Republican majorities that
had allowed at least part ofJudge Griffin's lawsuit to continue.
(09:29):
And, I mean, it was, it wassufficiently strong that I think
Griffin's legal team said,well, there's no way we're going
to get this reversed at theFourth Circuit. Supreme Court won't
take it, so let's just goahead and, and wrap it up. But it
was a pretty damning opinionfrom Judge Meyer and again, somebody
(09:52):
who was a Trump appointee.
Right? Yeah. You certainlycan't, you know, scream that he's
some, you know, liberalactivist judge when he has a Trump
member of the FederalistSociety of the nra. Kind of hard
to say that, you know, he wasa, a liberal plant, but.
Yeah, actually, actually, Mo,you, you may remember this guy, guy
(10:13):
named Madison Cath Thorne.
That name sounds familiar.
Yeah, that, you know, therewas. There was some litigation I
was involved in with anational group trying to disqualify
Cawthorn under the U.S.constitution. And, and the case came
before Judge Meyer, and hewrote a very favorable opinion on
(10:36):
behalf of Cawthorn. And, youknow, we had to get him reversed
at the 4th Circuit. And then,you know, then Chuck Edwards beat
Cawthorn in the primary. But,you know, I mean, his rulings have
certainly not been on theliberal side or in my experience
with him.
Yeah, I read his opinion. Ithought it was very well written.
(10:58):
And particularly at the end,he, you know, he said, you know,
anybody that's ever played aboard game or sports knows that you
don't change the rules afterthe game's over. And.
Yeah, yeah, but obviouslyJudge Griffin's legal team didn't
believe that.
Hey, speaking of litigation, Iknow you've got a case that's ongoing,
the Fair Elections case. Canyou. Can you tell our listeners a
(11:20):
little bit about what's goingon with that case and why you brought
it?
Yeah, and I, I reallyappreciate you giving me a chance
to talk about it, and I, Iwish there was a way to simplify
it, but I'll. I'll do the bestI can. You know, there's, there's
been a. A ream of litigationover the years around the country
and certainly here in NorthCarolina over partisan gerrymandering.
(11:43):
You know, the, the drawing ofdistricts in such a way is to create
a map that favors yourpolitical party. And a few years
back in a case out of NorthCarolina, the U.S. supreme Court
said that partisangerrymandering was a non justiciable
political question under theU.S. constitution. And you know,
(12:07):
there was no limitation onwhat the legislature could do when
it came to partisangerrymandering. We ended up with
a similar decision out of theNorth Carolina Supreme Court in the
Harper 3 case in which theysaid that the claim for proportionality,
(12:29):
you know, there should be halfDemocrat, half Republican seats,
that there was no stateconstitutional claim for that. So
those decisions essentiallytold the General assembly, when it
comes to politicalgamesmanship, you can cook the books,
you know, stack the deck, rigthe, rig the system any way you want
(12:51):
to because the courts can't doanything about it. But there was
a question asked at the oralargument and it said, well, do we
have a right to fairelections? And that got me thinking,
well, do we have aconstitutional right under the state
constitution to fairelections? And so we ended up and
(13:12):
have brought this lawsuit witha group of 11 plaintiffs, good citizens,
good government folks. Andwe're raising, you know, the question
not, not in the context of themaps, but in very specific districts
where General assemblymanipulated the voter pool by shifting
(13:35):
these people here and addingthese people, all of, all of whom
they had this in depthpolitical data so they know essentially
how they're going to vote. Andthey created three congressional
districts that had been tossup districts in which there were
Democrat incumbents. But afterthey manipulated the voting pool,
(13:58):
all three Democrat incumbentsdeclined to run. And in fact, at
least in one of the districtsthere was no Democrat ran. And so
the question is, I mean,everybody says what do you mean by
fair? Well, what we mean byfair is that government, in this
case, the General assemblycan't rig an election by manipulating
(14:20):
the voter pool using all ofthis political data to in essence
guarantee how the election'sgoing to come out. And so it's not
a political gerrymanderingcase and as, as you know, has been
litigated previously, but itis a fair election case. And I know
(14:43):
I probably bored yourlisteners to tears with that explanation.
But the, you know, thequestion is, well, where, where does
it say in the Constitutionthat you have a right to fair elections?
Well, it doesn't, you know, itsays you got a right to frequent
elections, you got a right tofree elections. But, but it doesn't
say anything about fairelections. So we have argued that
(15:05):
the unenumerated rightsprovision provides for fair elections.
And that provision in thedeclaration of rights essentially
says, yeah, we've set outspecific rights, but we also have
these unenumerated rightswhich the people still retain. And
(15:26):
our position is if you don'thave a right to fair elections, you've
completely undermineddemocracy. I mean, the whole concept
of government and electing thepeople, giving them power, is dependent
upon fair election. A fairelection meaning that the General
assembly, whether it'sDemocrat controlled or Republican
(15:48):
controlled, can't manipulatethe process so as to influence the
outcome. So in a long winded,not terribly simple explanation,
that's where we are. We lostat the trial level. It's on appeal
to the intermediate appellatecourt, court of appeals. We do not
have a date for oral argumentyet or a panel assigned, but it will
(16:14):
either be in June or early inthe fall.
So justice or I moved here in2010 and I wrote an article yesterday.
That.
I think it's my fault thateverything went downhill after that.
But you can rate it@substackamericanmokrakers. Substack.com but
(16:39):
were the Democrats this badabout gerrymandering as well before
2010?
You know, I mean, yeah, theywere. The, the difference is the
Republicans now have thebenefit of substantially more sophisticated
(17:02):
technology and data. I had aprominent Republican political consultant
tell me that he had 2,000 datapoints of information on every voter
in the state. Now, if you havethat kind of data, information, and
with the sophisticatedcomputer technology that we have
(17:25):
today, if you want to draw adistrict with 8% Methodist, 4% teachers,
you know, 36% registeredDemocrats, and then, you know that
based upon past elections,that this pool of voters voted Republican
(17:48):
nine times out of 10, both atthe state and national level. You
know, you have the ability to,with, with laser like precision,
determine the outcome of theelection before the people ever even
have a chance to vote. Andyeah, if, if the Democrats were in
(18:10):
power, they'd probably,probably be using the same technology
to stick it to theRepublicans. But, but, but, sorry
to interrupt, Bob.
But as a, you know, avenerated jurist in this state, how
does that make you feel? Imean, you're a guy that is steeped
in the law and loves the law.What, how does that make you feel
(18:33):
about politics in this state?
Well, yeah, I mean, it is,it's a national issue. I mean, there,
there are few places that havesystems that, you know, take the
political aspect out ofdrawing districts, but it, but it
really is underminingdemocracy. And, and you know, we
(18:54):
talk a lot about it. We talkedabout it a lot in this last election.
We talked about, you know, wetalk about it now with things that
Trump's doing. But if, if thesystem of selecting the representatives
of the people is a done deal,and all you got to do is look, look
(19:15):
at the 2024 results. I mean,out of 120 state House legislative
seats, maybe a half dozen wereactually competitive, you know, and
that's by design. And soyou're, you're undermining the ability
of the people to really havean influence on the election process.
(19:38):
So, yeah, it concerns me. Imean, it's a good government issue.
And we argue in our briefs inthis case that, you know, we don't
care whether a Democrat winsor a Republican wins or a Libertarian
wins. The bottom line isgovernment can't dictate who wins.
You know, it's the voters, thepeople. And that's the whole, you
(19:58):
know, historic concept of, youknow, the founding of this country
and the beginning of, youknow, this state. And we're getting
ready in a year to becommemorating the 250th anniversary
of the Declaration ofIndependence and the first constitution
in the state of NorthCarolina. And, you know, this whole
(20:22):
historical basis of democracyhas to be rooted in government not
picking and choosing who getsto win. I mean, otherwise we're not
any better than Russia.
What's the point of having elections?
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Imean, you might as well not not have
(20:42):
elections.
Yeah, well, here's anotherquestion. So obviously you guys are
in litigation over this, andso you've got probably a broader
national view than anybodyelse in North Carolina. But what
is the trend nationally? Is ittowards this sort of hyper partisan
gerrymandering? Or is thereever going to be a point where we
(21:06):
go back to a level of fairnesssimilar to, you know, I grew up in
Iowa, and the Iowa plan usedto be pretty fair. I think they've
made some changes to make itless fair. But where is it swinging
this day? And do you see anyhope that it could swing back to
fairness?
Well, you know, it swings tofairness when the body politic is
(21:31):
fairly evenly divided. If thelegislature right now was out of,
let's say, the state House, ifit was 65 Republicans and 55 Democrats,
or maybe 62 and 58, you know,both parties may say, okay, you know,
(21:55):
it makes sense to go to anapolitical line drawing process or,
or a, you know, distributionof voters process, but as long as,
you know, a party has astranglehold on power, which now
in North Carolina, theRepublican Party has legislatively,
(22:16):
even though they're, you Know,there's, they're one vote short of
a veto proof majority in bothhouses, you know, and there's some
states, I'm sure, California,where for example, where the Democrats
have that stranglehold. But,but people don't want to give up
power. I mean in, I've beenkicking around politics here in North
(22:39):
Carolina one way or the other,you know, 50 years and neither the
Republicans nor the Democratswhen push comes to shove, want to
give up power. And to give upcooking the books on, on legislative
and congressional districts isjust, it seems like it's too much
(23:00):
to ask them. Yeah, they justaren't willing, willing to give that
power up. And frankly therewas a big, big bipartisan push when
the Democrats controlled thelegislature. You know, I'm saying
the early 2000s, saying, youknow, look, the tide's going to roll
the other way. You know, now'sthe time to, you know, do a good
(23:23):
government independentredistricting commission or some
other way of doing it. Andthey just couldn't get the votes
to do it. And then theRepublicans take control and they're
like, okay, we know how you work.
Payback's a bitch. Bob, I knowyou probably don't use that phrase,
but I do. That's right, that'sright. But, but justice or I mean
(23:48):
one of the differences isCalifornia. I think the legislature
probably a little morereflective of the population of the
California.
Yeah, yeah.
The partisan makeup versus,you know, Mo's probably going to
jump in here a second. I'mgoing to steal his stat. But you
know, Democrats are not,they're in the minority, but it's
just by a little bit, youknow, voter wise in the state. But
(24:12):
they're clearly outflanked inthe legislature. And that, that is
the big difference in my mindbetween North Carolina and California
is California is a little morelegislature is a little more reflective
of the people.
But yeah, well, you know, thatwas the argument that the Democrat
plaintiffs in the Rucho caseand the Harper case, they said look,
(24:32):
we're a 50, 50 state,therefore the districts should be
proportional. In both the USSupreme Court and the North Carolina
Supreme Court said, well,there's no constitutional right to
proportionality and we don'tknow how, you know, what constitutes,
you know, a fair proportion.Is it, let's say congressional seats?
(24:52):
Is it seven and seven? Is itsix, six and two toss ups? You know,
is it, you know, all or all ornothing? I, you know, people just,
you know, the public has to, Ithink, you know, put pressure on
the legislature. But if you'rein a, if you're in a. Well, you know,
(25:16):
look, David, the, the Housedistrict, senatorial district that
you live in, that, that I'm aregistered voter in, you know, it's
overwhelming Republicans. Soare, are the, our representatives
going to vote to give awaypower? I don't think so.
You know, but, you know, NorthCarolina, up until this current Congress
(25:39):
took office in January, youknow, it was 77, which, you know,
is reflective of the state.You know, even in 2024, we voted.
You know, Josh Stein's aDemocrat. He won pretty handily for
governor, and then DonaldTrump, you know, won on the presidential
side. So it seems like wetruly are. You know, people talk
about purple states that thisis a purple state in that 77 map
(26:04):
seemed to be prettyreflective, but, you know, it got
redrawn and now it's 10 4,which is not really reflective of
the voters. And it reallyshifted. I mean, that's the difference.
If you look at the House ofRepresentatives, now that you're
taking away those three seatsis made a big difference.
Yeah, but, you know, and theysee that, okay, we cook the books
(26:27):
in North Carolina, we pickedup three congressional seats. And
not only does that help thepolitical party in North Carolina,
but gosh, look at the effectit had nationally in determining
the, the majority in the Houseof Representatives. But, but that's
the point, Mo. And really thepoint of the litigation is if you
(26:52):
can manipulate who gets tovote for a particular seat so as
to statistically virtuallyguarantee that your candidate's going
to win, I mean, you've, you'veundermined the whole concept of a
fair election and ingovernment just can't do it. The
(27:15):
whole concept of theConstitution, state Constitution
in particular, is that thepeople place limitations on their
government through theConstitution. But if how you select
those people is undermined bythis, this manipulation of the, of
(27:36):
the district process, then youjust completely, like I said, undermine
democracy.
Right. You know, this week,Chief Justice Roberts was speaking
up in Buffalo and spoke upabout the independence of the judiciary
and it being a check andbalance on both the legislative and
(27:57):
executive branches. It, itseems like Congress is, certainly
appears to have just given upon their duty to act as a check and
balance. It seems like thejudiciary to an extent is. And so
I was really happy to see theChief justice say that. But, but
(28:18):
what's your thought on therole of the judiciary and the environment
we're in right now?
Well, I think it's probablyone of the most dangerous elements
of where we are today in thatboth the federal judiciary and in
many states, the statejudiciary have become not only actually
(28:43):
more partisan, but the wholeprocess of getting to be a judge
and the way the media treatsthem, the way the public treats them,
the way the party treats themis that they're not supposed to be
independent. You're supposedto be a loyal Republican or you're
supposed to be a loyalDemocrat. And you have confirmation
(29:05):
hearings at the, at the U.S.senate for presidential nominations
to the federal bench. Andthere are all these litmus tests,
all these questions asked thatare trying to stake them out. And
the, the real genius of the,the three branches of government
in our system is theindependent judiciary, that they're
(29:29):
there to keep both thelegislative branch and the executive
branch within their, withintheir boundaries. And, and if, if
the courts are unwilling to dothat and if they're making decisions
based upon the political partyof the advocates, then you have lost
(29:55):
all, all efforts to, you know,contain excesses of power. So, and,
and I think, you know, I mean,I ran five statewide partisan elections,
and so I served eight years onthe Court of Appeals, 10 on the Supreme
Court as a, as an electedpartisan. But I will have to say
(30:18):
in, in my experience, youknow, for the most part, the work
of the court was viewed asapolitical. And you know, every now
and then you get a hot buttonpolitical case and, you know, folks
tended to break along sort of,you know, their, their backgrounds
politically. But it was, we,we didn't view ourselves as the,
(30:42):
When Bev Lake and I wereelected to Supreme Court in 94, five,
two, Democrat, Republican, wedidn't consider ourselves the Republican
caucus or, you know, that,that we were there as representatives
of the Republican Party. Youknow, we were there as, as independent
jurist. And I, I think thatthat way of thinking about judges,
(31:09):
both, both by the individualsserving as judges and, you know,
the people who put them therein the public and the media, you
know, all see them aspartisans. And it, it really worries
me that it's, it's underminingthe, the whole concept of the independent
(31:30):
judiciary.
You know, the last coupleweeks we've had Adam Kinzinger on
and, and Joe Walsh and youknow, both were, you know, pretty
conservative Republicans whenthey served in Congress. And both
are kind of, you know, withouta party now because they're, you
know, certainly not welcomeback in the Republican Party. But,
(31:50):
you know, both of them saidthat we'd ask them, you know, could
you see yourself being aDemocrat? And they said, you know,
if the Democrat DemocraticParty opened their aperture and had
a broader range, you know,from center to, to far left. But
you know, it seems like inrecent years the Democratic Party's
kind of had that purity testas well where, you know, if you didn't
(32:12):
click all the boxes on, youknow, social issues, then, you know,
there wasn't room for you. Butyou know, they said if the party
had a broader range that theycould see themselves in the Democratic
Party. Do you see? I mean,you, you know, you were working for
Kamala Harris to try to get,get her elected. Could you ever see
(32:33):
yourself being in theDemocratic Party?
Well, you know, my mother,rest her soul, was a retired public
school teacher. She was alifelong Democrat. So, you know,
the, the irony is that, that Ispent 45 years of my life beginning
(32:57):
at a time when Republicanswere really very much minority party.
You know, so, so my career as,as a member of the Republican Party
was trying to build a viabletwo party state really on a platform
of good government. Because wedidn't think the Democrats were,
(33:18):
you know, as, as goodgovernment oriented as they should
be in, in, in a lot of ways.And you know, I mean, I think people
today, particularly with somany people moving here, they don't
know their history. But youknow, when Bev Lake and I were elected,
well, when I was elected tothe Court of appeals in 1988 for
(33:38):
the first, I, I was the firstRepublican elected to a statewide
judgeship since 1896. Youknow, so I mean, that just sort of
tells you, you know, where,where the politics of that era was
and it's changed now. But youknow, I mean, I, I wouldn't, I supported
(34:00):
a number of Democrats hereover the last few years, but first
part of my career it wasfighting Democrats and every time
I ran they were trying to beatme. So, so I guess there's still
a little residual reluctanceon my part to be a member of the
Democratic Party. Although,although I will say I, I got to speak
(34:21):
at the Tim Waltz rally inAsheville, which was great fun, and
ran into both my opponent fromthe 2002 Supreme Court race and the
then chair of the DemocraticParty, who I will say was, was not,
(34:42):
not very kind to me in thecontext of that election. And we
all laughed and had ourpicture together and whooped an,
hollered for Governor Waltzand, and, and the Harris ticket.
So I, I never foresaw that,but that's where I am.
All right, let me ask. Youknow, you and I both, when, you know,
(35:05):
David's, you know, relativenewcomer to North Carolina, but you
know, you and I grew up, grewup here. And, you know, back when
we were young, you know, NorthCarolina was the envy of the South.
You know, we had good schoolsand good roads and we had Research
Triangle park. For anybodyever heard of Silicon Valley, what
(35:25):
happened?
Well, you know, I, I like toblame talk media. I mean, I, I really
do think social media and the,the whole, I mean, is, is, you remember,
Mo, we, we grew up watchingthree, maybe three national news
(35:49):
networks with Walter Cronkiteand Huntley Brinkley and Tom Brokaw
and. Or others. And, and, youknow, now people don't get their
news from television. It'sfrom social media, it's from influencers.
I haven't quite figured out, Iguess David's an influencer, you
(36:11):
know, but it's.
Not necessarily the rightdirection. Yeah, you saw my campaign
for.
I've been there, I've beenthere, you know, so I think that
the demographics of the statehas changed. I mean, ironically,
(36:33):
in the western part of thestate, when I was growing up, whether
you were a Democrat orRepublican probably depended on whether
your ancestors fought for theConfederacy or fall for the Union.
You know, now that's oldhistory, but that was the, you know,
there was a, in Hendersoncounty, there was a Republican funeral
(36:54):
home and there was a Democratfuneral home, and it was based again
on, on which side you hadpicked in the, in the Civil War.
So I, I just think, you know,the demographics have changed. The
whole media world has changed.The, you know, the, the culture of,
(37:16):
you know, the way people talkto other people, things they, they
say and I mean, there arethings that are said on television
today that my mother wouldhave grabbed me by the scruff of
my neck and washed my mouthout with soap and then took a hickory
stick to me. I mean, you know,and now it's just sort of common,
(37:38):
common practice. So I, youknow, things have changed for the
worst, in my opinion. Yeah,there have been a lot of good, good
changes in, in some, someareas, obviously, but culturally,
you know, the partisanship,the, the tribalism, you know, I think
(37:59):
fewer people go to church. Youknow, maybe that's a problem, but.
Right.
You know, so it's, it's just avery different world than when I
was coming along. I mean, and,you know, I look at when Jim Martin,
who was elected twice as aRepublican governor, he ran on better
roads, better schools andbetter jobs, you know.
(38:22):
Right.
Which, you know, for governor,that's really where it was at, you
know. Now, you know, it'sabortion rights and bathroom bills
and, you know, all of thesehot button social issues that are
driven by the national medialandscape. And I also think from
(38:44):
a good government standpoint,that Citizens United, which opened
up the, you know, this floodof outside money and dark money into
campaigns, is. Has really sortof undermined campaign integrity
in a lot of ways.
Yeah, I agree. I think, youknow, when I look back, I think two
things. Citizens United iscertainly one in the corrupting influence
(39:07):
of money, but the other was,you're talking about, you know, when
we were growing up, the news,you know, when Walter Cronkite said
that's the way it is, that wasthe way it was.
You're exactly right.
And, and you could disagree onwhat the policy implications ought
to be from that, but youstarted out with everybody on the
same set of facts, right? Andthen, then the Fairness Doctrine
went away. And then a coupleof years after that, we got Fox News
(39:30):
and cnn, and I think, youknow, the demise of the Fairness
Doctrine and Citizens United,those two combined, to me have a
big, big role in where we are today.
Yeah, I think you're exactly,exactly right. In some respects,
like Citizens United andcampaign finance is even a bigger
(39:50):
problem than gerrymanderingand in fair elections to, to some
extent, I mean, it's just.It's polluted. Polluted races now
where they don't even try totell the truth. It's like. Anyway.
Well, what about, what aboutour friend here running for Congress,
(40:10):
Bob?
Well, I'm all for it now. I'mgoing to go ahead and say this now.
I think Mo's a nice guy, and Ithink Mo needs to be more of a nice
guy. You know, you, you can,you can hit the, Hit the opponent
and the opposition party hard,but I, I'm still a believer that
(40:34):
likability is a factor in, inpolitics in the middle, the swing
voters that our friend runningfor Congress has to get, you know,
that we got to make sure theylike Mo. Likable guy. So I had to
keep him away from you. David, too.
He's a bad influence.
So you're an influence. You'rethe bad influence.
(40:57):
Well, listen, I, I haven'tsaid once.
Wait, wait.
I just did. I just did. But,no, that's actually really good advice.
And there are ways that we canwork around that, I think. And Mo
is a good guy. I mean, look atLisa. She wouldn't have married him
and he'd been an asshole likeme. But. So where, where else do
(41:18):
you. What other advice wouldyou have for Mo and for those folks
that don't know earlier thisweek, Mo had an article in the Smoky
Mountain News that he's goingto run for Congress against a guy
I called Chunk Edwards here inwestern North Carolina. But what
other advice do you have for,for Mo?
(41:39):
Well, I, I think it's, you gotto put together a campaign plan.
He and I have talked about it.I mean, you know, and I think you
do it 18 months out and yougot to figure out how many votes
do I have to have to win in anawful off year election in 26, where
are those voters, who arethose voters and what are those voters
(42:03):
concerned about? And thenwhat's the message that resonates
with them? And I think, Ithink, you know, unfortunately in
Trump world, there's so manyissues and so many things that you
kind of want to talk about andget people engaged. We have an information
(42:24):
overload and I think thevoting public, other than people
like us, are becoming more andmore disengaged from the information
system. So I think having agood game plan that's based upon,
again, how many votes do Ineed to win? Where are those votes
(42:45):
that, you know, that I canpick up that prior candidates have
not been able to get? And whatare the two or three really gut issues
that I can drive home over andover and over again to get that,
that North Ashevilleunaffiliated, 50 year old housewife
(43:09):
with a couple of kids who isliving a pretty good lifestyle. How
do you get her to devote forMo as opposed to Chuck Edwards, who,
you know, to me Donald Trumpis an evil bad guy. But Chuck Edwards,
you know, he's just kind of aguy, right? You know, you know, own
(43:32):
some McDonald's, remember acouple of country clubs. You know,
I think he actually, you know,wants North Carolina and western
North Carolina to do well.He's just, you know, he's a Trump
loyalist. So anyway, so doyou, do you.
Think Mo can win? That's atough question in front of the candidate.
(43:54):
Well, you know, when I, when Iran in 88 for the court of Appeals,
nobody thought I could win. Imean, history said I couldn't win.
You know, so if I, I thinkit's winnable. I mean, you know,
Democrats have certainly woncongressional seats, but it's got
to be, it can't be just aconventional campaign and it can't
(44:18):
just be a scorched earthcampaign. I think it's got to be
a very tactical, shrewdlyanalyzed, strategic campaign. And,
you know, you're not going towin by a lot, but you only need to
win by one.
What do you think, Mo?
(44:39):
That's my approach to Wordleevery morning. If I get it in six,
then I've won. So. No, I. Iagree it. And I think, you know,
there. There are enough folksaround here, particularly after Hurricane
Elena. Folks, you know, we. Wewere behind before Hurricane Helene
hit, and it's reallyexacerbated the problem. And I think
(45:02):
some of these policies, youknow, cutting. I was out hiking yesterday,
and it was really kind ofeerie. We were along the Blue Ridge
Parkway, and it was just deadquiet. I mean, normally there are
cars up and by.
Yeah.
And it's closed. And so, youknow, these cuts to the Park Service
and the Forest Service andNoah and all these other things,
(45:22):
you know, as people feel thepain, I think it might give folks
a pause that they wouldn'thave had otherwise. And I think.
I think. I just know we can dobetter for western North Carolina
than we've been doing.
Yeah. And. And I think, youknow, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a
great example on. On how youmessage that you. You know, in a
(45:47):
lot of ways, the Blue RidgeParkway isn't just a scenic drive.
You know, that's great forpeople interested in the outdoors
and the beauty of westernNorth Carolina. It's a huge economic
driver for western NorthCarolina. And if it's shut down like
it is now and is going to befor a good, good long while, I mean,
(46:12):
you can talk about all of thethings you're doing to bring back
the region, but you'reundermining at the same time, if
you're pulling out a hugeeconomic engine like the Blue Ridge
Parkway for six months or ayear or the like. So. But. But how
you frame that, what, how yousay that, how does that resonate
(46:35):
with this voter you're tryingto attract, I think is the real challenge.
And, you know, the issuesthere, there are a lot of facets
of it. But I told David, thisis long before your time in the state,
but the 1980 U.S. senate racebetween a guy named John east, who
(46:55):
was a Republican collegeprofessor at East Carolina who had
had polio, so he was in awheelchair, was running against an
incumbent Democrat senatornamed Robert Morgan, who'd been Attorney
general, and, you know, verymoderate conservative, and the east
campaign ran one ad, literallyone ad that Robert Morgan gave away
(47:19):
the Panama Canal, just thatsimplistic, just that short. And
they ran it over and over andover and over till we were all screaming
and east ends up and wins therace. So the power of the right message
in delivering it over and overand over is something that I think
(47:41):
candidates can sometimesforget about or consultants forget
about, so.
Well, I think we have ourissue. Chuck Edwards is the guy that
gave away the Panama Canal asfar as I'm concerned.
Well, Trump's trying to get it back.
He gave away the French broad rivers.
(48:03):
Yeah. Well, there you go. So,anyway, but I'm excited for Mo. Better.
Better him than me, though.
Yeah. All right, well, thishas been a lot of fun. One of the
things we do talk about beforewe wrap these up is bourbon. So what's,
(48:24):
what's your libation of choicethese days, Bob?
Well, as I'm, I'm trying tosupport Canada and Scotland because
they're against Trump, butthis is terrible. I was asking about
a graduation present for acollege graduate, and they said,
(48:48):
oh, peanut butter flavoredbourbon is the. Is the hot thing.
I said, you got to be kiddingme. And I'll be damned. I went in
the ABC store and they said,oh, yeah, we sell a lot of this stuff.
And I'm thinking, really? I'venever tried it and probably won't,
but the most recent bottle Ibought was a Carolina peanut flavored
(49:15):
bourbon that was distilledsomewhere down on the outer Banks.
That's just wrong.
It is wrong. It is wrong.
But you know, Mo, I'm glad youdidn't say you loved it because.
Yeah, I'm afraid Chuck coulduse that against you.
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Well, he should.
I mean, I like peanut butterand I like bourbon, but the two?
(49:37):
Just don't do it again. Iknow, I know. That's crazy. Great.
Well, that shows you thechallenges. They're all drinking
it on the campus, you know,you got to be aware of.
Yeah. All right, well, that'sa wrap for this romp through the
mucky circus. Hold on, Bob,you gotta listen to some more alliteration
(49:59):
here, all right? Where we'veskewered the sanctimonious silliness
not of Judge Orr, but ofothers with the flourish.
Time out. The battering nabobsof nepotism.
There we go. I love it. I loveit. And I'm David Wheeler, slightly
comedic ringleader fromAmerican Muckrakers, signing off
(50:20):
with the ever gallant ColonelMo Davis. If you love this daring
display of discourse, join thecarnival, join us, follow us, share
the show, and dive deeper intothe muck at americanmuckrakers.com
where you can learn more ortoss a coin to keep this big top
blazing. Until next time, keepyour eye on the long game. Don't
(50:42):
stop believing the truthmatters. And with all due respect
to Judge Bob Orr, our guesttoday, Muck you!
All right.
This has been Muck you, cohosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville,
North Carolina and DavidWheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
(51:04):
Thanks to our guest today,Justice Bob Orr, former Associate
Judge on the North CarolinaSupreme Court.
You can can read more aboutJustice Orr's current litigation
project to make North Carolinaelections fair at his X account with
the handle Judge Bob Orr. Muckyou is produced by American Muckrakers.
Copyright 2025. Follow us onBlue sky under AmericanMuckrakers.com
(51:27):
and on substack aAmericanMuckrakers.substack.com You
can learn more and donate atAmericanMuckrakers.com David and
Moe hope y' all come back soonfor a new episode. And remember to
never take shit from anyone,especially Trumpers.
Grinds grandiose gibberishinto glittering dust under the big
top of biting brilliance. Whosays alliteration is dead? I'm David
Wheeler, your audacious andmarginally mirthful maestro from
American muckrakers hurlingrazor edged repulsed at the clownish
calamities of politics andculture. Bob, you have no idea what
(00:31):
you got yourself into.
That's true.
Prepare for a dazzling delugeof daring discourse that'll leave
you gasping in the sawduststrewn stands. Before we plunge into
the muck filled midway, here'sColonel Mo Davis ready to unfurl
his own fanfare and presentour spectacular guest. Take it away,
Mo.
Well, I feel so inadequateafter that. No, listen, thanks everybody
(00:58):
for, for joining in again.It's a pleasure to be back with you.
And we've got a, a specialguest today, the honorable Bob, or
who I think folks here inNorth Carolina certainly know quite
well. But he's particularlysuited, you know, to join David and
I, you know, because I'm herein Asheville. David's up in Spruce
Pine, but Judge or has deeproots in this area. He was raised
(01:23):
over in Henderson county,practice law here in Buncombe county
and today he's up in Y Countyto his place up there. So Judge or,
it's a real privilege to haveyou on here. Thank you for doing
this.
Well, it's a treat to talkwith you two guys and it's always,
always a treat to be inwestern North Carolina. I'm halfway
(01:44):
between you and Buncombecounty and David over in Mitchell
Counties. Yeah.
And it's a beautiful day herein western North Carolina. So man,
that's the weather here isthe, pretty nice today. Hey, listen,
let's start out. You, youknow, had a long history in the Republican
Party, you know, serving onthe Supreme Court for, for quite
(02:05):
a few years. You were agubernatorial candidate on the Republican
side. You were a delegate tothe Republican convention. And you
know, next thing you know,we're, you know, you're here stumping,
stumping for Kamala Harris. Sohow did that, how did that transition
take place?
Oh my God. We can thank DonaldTrump for lots of things, but I was
(02:29):
a John Kasich guy back in2016, one of his North Carolina co
chairs and was adamantlyopposed to Donald Trump. And when
he made his very offensivecomment about Senator John McCain,
I thought that was the end ofhim, but obviously it wasn't. And
(02:53):
so I got elected as adelegate, a Kasich delegate to the
2016 convention and wasinterviewed after I got up there
by Raleigh television stationthat, that asked if I had changed
my mind about supportingTrump. I had earlier said in the
primary I would not supporthim if he was the nominee. And I
(03:17):
said, no, I haven't changed mymind. I think he's a danger to the
country and a danger to theRepublican Party. And that night
I got an email that mycredentials were being withheld unless
I did a mea culpa. And so Itold them they could stuff it, and
I was headed back to Raleigh.So it was, it was a short tenure
(03:38):
there at the 2016 NationalConvention in Cleveland. But, but
I was opposed to Trumpliterally from day one in, you know,
work to try and help Joe Bidenget elected in 2020. And then after
January 6, I said, I justcan't be affiliated with the, the
(04:03):
party any longer based uponwhat happened in the responses in
the Republican Party. And so Ibecame unaffiliated. And, you know,
it's kind of a, kind of a coolstatus these days.
Well, you're in the biggestgroup, you know, here in North Carolina,
unaffiliated is the biggestcategory of voters. So you're, you're
not alone.
(04:23):
Yeah, it's, it's the fastestgrowing and in the. Really, the key
to literally every electionis, you know, how are the unaffiliated
voters going to, going to break.
Well, you know, it'sinteresting to me, too, that, you
know, as you just said, it'sthe biggest voting group here in
North Carolina, but understate law, you know, we just had
(04:47):
the ouster of the head of theboard of elections after the Republican
appointees took over. But.
Right.
Unaffiliated voters areprohibited from serving on boards
of election. You got to be amember of the Republican Party or
the Democratic Party. And thebiggest group of voters are ineligible
from serving.
Yeah, the interesting thing,there was a lawsuit that actually
(05:09):
challenged that. And so theywent back and technically changed
the law to, so that the chairof the Republican Party, the chair
of the Democratic Party, couldappoint an unaffiliated voter, but
they never do. And so, youknow, it was form over substance,
but the lawsuit ended upgetting dismissed. But as a practical
(05:30):
matter, you know, the 40% ofthe North Carolina electorate who
are registered as unaffiliatedvoters or even in, you know, the
sort of fringe parties,Libertarian, the Green Party, they,
they have no service, noopportunity to realistically serve
(05:51):
on local boards of rela ofelections or certainly on the state
board, unless they're aDemocrat or a Republican. It's fundamentally
unfair. Something that needsto be changed, but I don't, don't
know that's going to happenanytime soon.
Yeah, it seems like the twoparties hate each other, but they'd
rather have the enemy theyknow than a, another, a potential
(06:11):
enemy out there to have todeal with.
Yeah.
Let me ask you, you know, thisweek, finally, at long last, the
Allison Riggs JeffersonGriffin case came to a conclusion.
But God, that drug on for, forsix months. It was the last race
of all the races in thecountry to, and I guess it officially
(06:32):
has not been certified yet,but will be soon. But you know, the
Republicans have a, you know,with her being seated again or have
a 5, 2 majority, I mean, hadthey won, they'd have a 61 majority.
And I don't know what you cando with a 6:1 majority. You can't
do with a 5, 2. So why spendall this time and money and, you
(06:57):
know, put the state throughall this turmoil over this one seat?
Well, here's OR's theory onit. And after the 2020 legal debacle
by the Trump campaign, wherethey had a clown car full of purported
(07:17):
lawyers running around filinglawsuits that they all lost, I think
there was a strategic decisionby Trump and the national Republican
Party that they were going tolawyer up with really well qualified
skilled lawyers. They weregoing to put a bunch of money to
(07:37):
the side, and if Trump neededit in 2024, they would be ready to
jump into court. And so Ithink all of this was set up for
Trump. But then at least inNorth Carolina, he didn't need it.
He won the state byconsiderable margin. The other two
really important statewideraces for governor and attorney general,
(08:01):
the Democrats unhandedly. Sothe only, the only close race out
there was this Supreme Courtseat. And in my opinion, I think
there was a command decisionat the Washington level. Well, we've
got the lawyers, we've got themoney, we've got favorable courts.
Let's push this and see howsuccessful our theories might be
(08:23):
or what kind of precedent wecan establish. And so I judge Griffin,
to a certain extent, obviouslyhe had to agree to it, but to a certain
extent I think he was alongfor the ride. And this was essentially
being driven at the nationallevel. And, and yeah, it took six
months, but if they'd keptappealing, it could have been another
(08:45):
year. But fortunately it is.
Yeah, I was glad to see thathe put out the announcement. He wasn't
going to appeal, but I waskind of expecting it to keep dragging
on. But at least that's behindus now.
Well, I will Say Judge Meyer,who, of course, was Trump appointee
from his first term, thefederal District Court judge that,
(09:07):
that ruled against JudgeGriffin's position. I mean, wrote
a really strong decision andactually took some subtle shots at
the Supreme Court and Court ofAppeals Republican majorities that
had allowed at least part ofJudge Griffin's lawsuit to continue.
(09:29):
And, I mean, it was, it wassufficiently strong that I think
Griffin's legal team said,well, there's no way we're going
to get this reversed at theFourth Circuit. Supreme Court won't
take it, so let's just goahead and, and wrap it up. But it
was a pretty damning opinionfrom Judge Meyer and again, somebody
(09:52):
who was a Trump appointee.
Right? Yeah. You certainlycan't, you know, scream that he's
some, you know, liberalactivist judge when he has a Trump
member of the FederalistSociety of the nra. Kind of hard
to say that, you know, he wasa, a liberal plant, but.
Yeah, actually, actually, Mo,you, you may remember this guy, guy
(10:13):
named Madison Cath Thorne.
That name sounds familiar.
Yeah, that, you know, therewas. There was some litigation I
was involved in with anational group trying to disqualify
Cawthorn under the U.S.constitution. And, and the case came
before Judge Meyer, and hewrote a very favorable opinion on
(10:36):
behalf of Cawthorn. And, youknow, we had to get him reversed
at the 4th Circuit. And then,you know, then Chuck Edwards beat
Cawthorn in the primary. But,you know, I mean, his rulings have
certainly not been on theliberal side or in my experience
with him.
Yeah, I read his opinion. Ithought it was very well written.
(10:58):
And particularly at the end,he, you know, he said, you know,
anybody that's ever played aboard game or sports knows that you
don't change the rules afterthe game's over. And.
Yeah, yeah, but obviouslyJudge Griffin's legal team didn't
believe that.
Hey, speaking of litigation, Iknow you've got a case that's ongoing,
the Fair Elections case. Canyou. Can you tell our listeners a
(11:20):
little bit about what's goingon with that case and why you brought
it?
Yeah, and I, I reallyappreciate you giving me a chance
to talk about it, and I, Iwish there was a way to simplify
it, but I'll. I'll do the bestI can. You know, there's, there's
been a. A ream of litigationover the years around the country
and certainly here in NorthCarolina over partisan gerrymandering.
(11:43):
You know, the, the drawing ofdistricts in such a way is to create
a map that favors yourpolitical party. And a few years
back in a case out of NorthCarolina, the U.S. supreme Court
said that partisangerrymandering was a non justiciable
political question under theU.S. constitution. And you know,
(12:07):
there was no limitation onwhat the legislature could do when
it came to partisangerrymandering. We ended up with
a similar decision out of theNorth Carolina Supreme Court in the
Harper 3 case in which theysaid that the claim for proportionality,
(12:29):
you know, there should be halfDemocrat, half Republican seats,
that there was no stateconstitutional claim for that. So
those decisions essentiallytold the General assembly, when it
comes to politicalgamesmanship, you can cook the books,
you know, stack the deck, rigthe, rig the system any way you want
(12:51):
to because the courts can't doanything about it. But there was
a question asked at the oralargument and it said, well, do we
have a right to fairelections? And that got me thinking,
well, do we have aconstitutional right under the state
constitution to fairelections? And so we ended up and
(13:12):
have brought this lawsuit witha group of 11 plaintiffs, good citizens,
good government folks. Andwe're raising, you know, the question
not, not in the context of themaps, but in very specific districts
where General assemblymanipulated the voter pool by shifting
(13:35):
these people here and addingthese people, all of, all of whom
they had this in depthpolitical data so they know essentially
how they're going to vote. Andthey created three congressional
districts that had been tossup districts in which there were
Democrat incumbents. But afterthey manipulated the voting pool,
(13:58):
all three Democrat incumbentsdeclined to run. And in fact, at
least in one of the districtsthere was no Democrat ran. And so
the question is, I mean,everybody says what do you mean by
fair? Well, what we mean byfair is that government, in this
case, the General assemblycan't rig an election by manipulating
(14:20):
the voter pool using all ofthis political data to in essence
guarantee how the election'sgoing to come out. And so it's not
a political gerrymanderingcase and as, as you know, has been
litigated previously, but itis a fair election case. And I know
(14:43):
I probably bored yourlisteners to tears with that explanation.
But the, you know, thequestion is, well, where, where does
it say in the Constitutionthat you have a right to fair elections?
Well, it doesn't, you know, itsays you got a right to frequent
elections, you got a right tofree elections. But, but it doesn't
say anything about fairelections. So we have argued that
(15:05):
the unenumerated rightsprovision provides for fair elections.
And that provision in thedeclaration of rights essentially
says, yeah, we've set outspecific rights, but we also have
these unenumerated rightswhich the people still retain. And
(15:26):
our position is if you don'thave a right to fair elections, you've
completely undermineddemocracy. I mean, the whole concept
of government and electing thepeople, giving them power, is dependent
upon fair election. A fairelection meaning that the General
assembly, whether it'sDemocrat controlled or Republican
(15:48):
controlled, can't manipulatethe process so as to influence the
outcome. So in a long winded,not terribly simple explanation,
that's where we are. We lostat the trial level. It's on appeal
to the intermediate appellatecourt, court of appeals. We do not
have a date for oral argumentyet or a panel assigned, but it will
(16:14):
either be in June or early inthe fall.
So justice or I moved here in2010 and I wrote an article yesterday.
That.
I think it's my fault thateverything went downhill after that.
But you can rate it@substackamericanmokrakers. Substack.com but
(16:39):
were the Democrats this badabout gerrymandering as well before
2010?
You know, I mean, yeah, theywere. The, the difference is the
Republicans now have thebenefit of substantially more sophisticated
(17:02):
technology and data. I had aprominent Republican political consultant
tell me that he had 2,000 datapoints of information on every voter
in the state. Now, if you havethat kind of data, information, and
with the sophisticatedcomputer technology that we have
(17:25):
today, if you want to draw adistrict with 8% Methodist, 4% teachers,
you know, 36% registeredDemocrats, and then, you know that
based upon past elections,that this pool of voters voted Republican
(17:48):
nine times out of 10, both atthe state and national level. You
know, you have the ability to,with, with laser like precision,
determine the outcome of theelection before the people ever even
have a chance to vote. Andyeah, if, if the Democrats were in
(18:10):
power, they'd probably,probably be using the same technology
to stick it to theRepublicans. But, but, but, sorry
to interrupt, Bob.
But as a, you know, avenerated jurist in this state, how
does that make you feel? Imean, you're a guy that is steeped
in the law and loves the law.What, how does that make you feel
(18:33):
about politics in this state?
Well, yeah, I mean, it is,it's a national issue. I mean, there,
there are few places that havesystems that, you know, take the
political aspect out ofdrawing districts, but it, but it
really is underminingdemocracy. And, and you know, we
(18:54):
talk a lot about it. We talkedabout it a lot in this last election.
We talked about, you know, wetalk about it now with things that
Trump's doing. But if, if thesystem of selecting the representatives
of the people is a done deal,and all you got to do is look, look
(19:15):
at the 2024 results. I mean,out of 120 state House legislative
seats, maybe a half dozen wereactually competitive, you know, and
that's by design. And soyou're, you're undermining the ability
of the people to really havean influence on the election process.
(19:38):
So, yeah, it concerns me. Imean, it's a good government issue.
And we argue in our briefs inthis case that, you know, we don't
care whether a Democrat winsor a Republican wins or a Libertarian
wins. The bottom line isgovernment can't dictate who wins.
You know, it's the voters, thepeople. And that's the whole, you
(19:58):
know, historic concept of, youknow, the founding of this country
and the beginning of, youknow, this state. And we're getting
ready in a year to becommemorating the 250th anniversary
of the Declaration ofIndependence and the first constitution
in the state of NorthCarolina. And, you know, this whole
(20:22):
historical basis of democracyhas to be rooted in government not
picking and choosing who getsto win. I mean, otherwise we're not
any better than Russia.
What's the point of having elections?
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Imean, you might as well not not have
(20:42):
elections.
Yeah, well, here's anotherquestion. So obviously you guys are
in litigation over this, andso you've got probably a broader
national view than anybodyelse in North Carolina. But what
is the trend nationally? Is ittowards this sort of hyper partisan
gerrymandering? Or is thereever going to be a point where we
(21:06):
go back to a level of fairnesssimilar to, you know, I grew up in
Iowa, and the Iowa plan usedto be pretty fair. I think they've
made some changes to make itless fair. But where is it swinging
this day? And do you see anyhope that it could swing back to
fairness?
Well, you know, it swings tofairness when the body politic is
(21:31):
fairly evenly divided. If thelegislature right now was out of,
let's say, the state House, ifit was 65 Republicans and 55 Democrats,
or maybe 62 and 58, you know,both parties may say, okay, you know,
(21:55):
it makes sense to go to anapolitical line drawing process or,
or a, you know, distributionof voters process, but as long as,
you know, a party has astranglehold on power, which now
in North Carolina, theRepublican Party has legislatively,
(22:16):
even though they're, you Know,there's, they're one vote short of
a veto proof majority in bothhouses, you know, and there's some
states, I'm sure, California,where for example, where the Democrats
have that stranglehold. But,but people don't want to give up
power. I mean in, I've beenkicking around politics here in North
(22:39):
Carolina one way or the other,you know, 50 years and neither the
Republicans nor the Democratswhen push comes to shove, want to
give up power. And to give upcooking the books on, on legislative
and congressional districts isjust, it seems like it's too much
(23:00):
to ask them. Yeah, they justaren't willing, willing to give that
power up. And frankly therewas a big, big bipartisan push when
the Democrats controlled thelegislature. You know, I'm saying
the early 2000s, saying, youknow, look, the tide's going to roll
the other way. You know, now'sthe time to, you know, do a good
(23:23):
government independentredistricting commission or some
other way of doing it. Andthey just couldn't get the votes
to do it. And then theRepublicans take control and they're
like, okay, we know how you work.
Payback's a bitch. Bob, I knowyou probably don't use that phrase,
but I do. That's right, that'sright. But, but justice or I mean
(23:48):
one of the differences isCalifornia. I think the legislature
probably a little morereflective of the population of the
California.
Yeah, yeah.
The partisan makeup versus,you know, Mo's probably going to
jump in here a second. I'mgoing to steal his stat. But you
know, Democrats are not,they're in the minority, but it's
just by a little bit, youknow, voter wise in the state. But
(24:12):
they're clearly outflanked inthe legislature. And that, that is
the big difference in my mindbetween North Carolina and California
is California is a little morelegislature is a little more reflective
of the people.
But yeah, well, you know, thatwas the argument that the Democrat
plaintiffs in the Rucho caseand the Harper case, they said look,
(24:32):
we're a 50, 50 state,therefore the districts should be
proportional. In both the USSupreme Court and the North Carolina
Supreme Court said, well,there's no constitutional right to
proportionality and we don'tknow how, you know, what constitutes,
you know, a fair proportion.Is it, let's say congressional seats?
(24:52):
Is it seven and seven? Is itsix, six and two toss ups? You know,
is it, you know, all or all ornothing? I, you know, people just,
you know, the public has to, Ithink, you know, put pressure on
the legislature. But if you'rein a, if you're in a. Well, you know,
(25:16):
look, David, the, the Housedistrict, senatorial district that
you live in, that, that I'm aregistered voter in, you know, it's
overwhelming Republicans. Soare, are the, our representatives
going to vote to give awaypower? I don't think so.
You know, but, you know, NorthCarolina, up until this current Congress
(25:39):
took office in January, youknow, it was 77, which, you know,
is reflective of the state.You know, even in 2024, we voted.
You know, Josh Stein's aDemocrat. He won pretty handily for
governor, and then DonaldTrump, you know, won on the presidential
side. So it seems like wetruly are. You know, people talk
about purple states that thisis a purple state in that 77 map
(26:04):
seemed to be prettyreflective, but, you know, it got
redrawn and now it's 10 4,which is not really reflective of
the voters. And it reallyshifted. I mean, that's the difference.
If you look at the House ofRepresentatives, now that you're
taking away those three seatsis made a big difference.
Yeah, but, you know, and theysee that, okay, we cook the books
(26:27):
in North Carolina, we pickedup three congressional seats. And
not only does that help thepolitical party in North Carolina,
but gosh, look at the effectit had nationally in determining
the, the majority in the Houseof Representatives. But, but that's
the point, Mo. And really thepoint of the litigation is if you
(26:52):
can manipulate who gets tovote for a particular seat so as
to statistically virtuallyguarantee that your candidate's going
to win, I mean, you've, you'veundermined the whole concept of a
fair election and ingovernment just can't do it. The
(27:15):
whole concept of theConstitution, state Constitution
in particular, is that thepeople place limitations on their
government through theConstitution. But if how you select
those people is undermined bythis, this manipulation of the, of
(27:36):
the district process, then youjust completely, like I said, undermine
democracy.
Right. You know, this week,Chief Justice Roberts was speaking
up in Buffalo and spoke upabout the independence of the judiciary
and it being a check andbalance on both the legislative and
(27:57):
executive branches. It, itseems like Congress is, certainly
appears to have just given upon their duty to act as a check and
balance. It seems like thejudiciary to an extent is. And so
I was really happy to see theChief justice say that. But, but
(28:18):
what's your thought on therole of the judiciary and the environment
we're in right now?
Well, I think it's probablyone of the most dangerous elements
of where we are today in thatboth the federal judiciary and in
many states, the statejudiciary have become not only actually
(28:43):
more partisan, but the wholeprocess of getting to be a judge
and the way the media treatsthem, the way the public treats them,
the way the party treats themis that they're not supposed to be
independent. You're supposedto be a loyal Republican or you're
supposed to be a loyalDemocrat. And you have confirmation
(29:05):
hearings at the, at the U.S.senate for presidential nominations
to the federal bench. Andthere are all these litmus tests,
all these questions asked thatare trying to stake them out. And
the, the real genius of the,the three branches of government
in our system is theindependent judiciary, that they're
(29:29):
there to keep both thelegislative branch and the executive
branch within their, withintheir boundaries. And, and if, if
the courts are unwilling to dothat and if they're making decisions
based upon the political partyof the advocates, then you have lost
(29:55):
all, all efforts to, you know,contain excesses of power. So, and,
and I think, you know, I mean,I ran five statewide partisan elections,
and so I served eight years onthe Court of Appeals, 10 on the Supreme
Court as a, as an electedpartisan. But I will have to say
(30:18):
in, in my experience, youknow, for the most part, the work
of the court was viewed asapolitical. And you know, every now
and then you get a hot buttonpolitical case and, you know, folks
tended to break along sort of,you know, their, their backgrounds
politically. But it was, we,we didn't view ourselves as the,
(30:42):
When Bev Lake and I wereelected to Supreme Court in 94, five,
two, Democrat, Republican, wedidn't consider ourselves the Republican
caucus or, you know, that,that we were there as representatives
of the Republican Party. Youknow, we were there as, as independent
jurist. And I, I think thatthat way of thinking about judges,
(31:09):
both, both by the individualsserving as judges and, you know,
the people who put them therein the public and the media, you
know, all see them aspartisans. And it, it really worries
me that it's, it's underminingthe, the whole concept of the independent
(31:30):
judiciary.
You know, the last coupleweeks we've had Adam Kinzinger on
and, and Joe Walsh and youknow, both were, you know, pretty
conservative Republicans whenthey served in Congress. And both
are kind of, you know, withouta party now because they're, you
know, certainly not welcomeback in the Republican Party. But,
(31:50):
you know, both of them saidthat we'd ask them, you know, could
you see yourself being aDemocrat? And they said, you know,
if the Democrat DemocraticParty opened their aperture and had
a broader range, you know,from center to, to far left. But
you know, it seems like inrecent years the Democratic Party's
kind of had that purity testas well where, you know, if you didn't
(32:12):
click all the boxes on, youknow, social issues, then, you know,
there wasn't room for you. Butyou know, they said if the party
had a broader range that theycould see themselves in the Democratic
Party. Do you see? I mean,you, you know, you were working for
Kamala Harris to try to get,get her elected. Could you ever see
(32:33):
yourself being in theDemocratic Party?
Well, you know, my mother,rest her soul, was a retired public
school teacher. She was alifelong Democrat. So, you know,
the, the irony is that, that Ispent 45 years of my life beginning
(32:57):
at a time when Republicanswere really very much minority party.
You know, so, so my career as,as a member of the Republican Party
was trying to build a viabletwo party state really on a platform
of good government. Because wedidn't think the Democrats were,
(33:18):
you know, as, as goodgovernment oriented as they should
be in, in, in a lot of ways.And you know, I mean, I think people
today, particularly with somany people moving here, they don't
know their history. But youknow, when Bev Lake and I were elected,
well, when I was elected tothe Court of appeals in 1988 for
(33:38):
the first, I, I was the firstRepublican elected to a statewide
judgeship since 1896. Youknow, so I mean, that just sort of
tells you, you know, where,where the politics of that era was
and it's changed now. But youknow, I mean, I, I wouldn't, I supported
(34:00):
a number of Democrats hereover the last few years, but first
part of my career it wasfighting Democrats and every time
I ran they were trying to beatme. So, so I guess there's still
a little residual reluctanceon my part to be a member of the
Democratic Party. Although,although I will say I, I got to speak
(34:21):
at the Tim Waltz rally inAsheville, which was great fun, and
ran into both my opponent fromthe 2002 Supreme Court race and the
then chair of the DemocraticParty, who I will say was, was not,
(34:42):
not very kind to me in thecontext of that election. And we
all laughed and had ourpicture together and whooped an,
hollered for Governor Waltzand, and, and the Harris ticket.
So I, I never foresaw that,but that's where I am.
All right, let me ask. Youknow, you and I both, when, you know,
(35:05):
David's, you know, relativenewcomer to North Carolina, but you
know, you and I grew up, grewup here. And, you know, back when
we were young, you know, NorthCarolina was the envy of the South.
You know, we had good schoolsand good roads and we had Research
Triangle park. For anybodyever heard of Silicon Valley, what
(35:25):
happened?
Well, you know, I, I like toblame talk media. I mean, I, I really
do think social media and the,the whole, I mean, is, is, you remember,
Mo, we, we grew up watchingthree, maybe three national news
(35:49):
networks with Walter Cronkiteand Huntley Brinkley and Tom Brokaw
and. Or others. And, and, youknow, now people don't get their
news from television. It'sfrom social media, it's from influencers.
I haven't quite figured out, Iguess David's an influencer, you
(36:11):
know, but it's.
Not necessarily the rightdirection. Yeah, you saw my campaign
for.
I've been there, I've beenthere, you know, so I think that
the demographics of the statehas changed. I mean, ironically,
(36:33):
in the western part of thestate, when I was growing up, whether
you were a Democrat orRepublican probably depended on whether
your ancestors fought for theConfederacy or fall for the Union.
You know, now that's oldhistory, but that was the, you know,
there was a, in Hendersoncounty, there was a Republican funeral
(36:54):
home and there was a Democratfuneral home, and it was based again
on, on which side you hadpicked in the, in the Civil War.
So I, I just think, you know,the demographics have changed. The
whole media world has changed.The, you know, the, the culture of,
(37:16):
you know, the way people talkto other people, things they, they
say and I mean, there arethings that are said on television
today that my mother wouldhave grabbed me by the scruff of
my neck and washed my mouthout with soap and then took a hickory
stick to me. I mean, you know,and now it's just sort of common,
(37:38):
common practice. So I, youknow, things have changed for the
worst, in my opinion. Yeah,there have been a lot of good, good
changes in, in some, someareas, obviously, but culturally,
you know, the partisanship,the, the tribalism, you know, I think
(37:59):
fewer people go to church. Youknow, maybe that's a problem, but.
Right.
You know, so it's, it's just avery different world than when I
was coming along. I mean, and,you know, I look at when Jim Martin,
who was elected twice as aRepublican governor, he ran on better
roads, better schools andbetter jobs, you know.
(38:22):
Right.
Which, you know, for governor,that's really where it was at, you
know. Now, you know, it'sabortion rights and bathroom bills
and, you know, all of thesehot button social issues that are
driven by the national medialandscape. And I also think from
(38:44):
a good government standpoint,that Citizens United, which opened
up the, you know, this floodof outside money and dark money into
campaigns, is. Has really sortof undermined campaign integrity
in a lot of ways.
Yeah, I agree. I think, youknow, when I look back, I think two
things. Citizens United iscertainly one in the corrupting influence
(39:07):
of money, but the other was,you're talking about, you know, when
we were growing up, the news,you know, when Walter Cronkite said
that's the way it is, that wasthe way it was.
You're exactly right.
And, and you could disagree onwhat the policy implications ought
to be from that, but youstarted out with everybody on the
same set of facts, right? Andthen, then the Fairness Doctrine
went away. And then a coupleof years after that, we got Fox News
(39:30):
and cnn, and I think, youknow, the demise of the Fairness
Doctrine and Citizens United,those two combined, to me have a
big, big role in where we are today.
Yeah, I think you're exactly,exactly right. In some respects,
like Citizens United andcampaign finance is even a bigger
(39:50):
problem than gerrymanderingand in fair elections to, to some
extent, I mean, it's just.It's polluted. Polluted races now
where they don't even try totell the truth. It's like. Anyway.
Well, what about, what aboutour friend here running for Congress,
(40:10):
Bob?
Well, I'm all for it now. I'mgoing to go ahead and say this now.
I think Mo's a nice guy, and Ithink Mo needs to be more of a nice
guy. You know, you, you can,you can hit the, Hit the opponent
and the opposition party hard,but I, I'm still a believer that
(40:34):
likability is a factor in, inpolitics in the middle, the swing
voters that our friend runningfor Congress has to get, you know,
that we got to make sure theylike Mo. Likable guy. So I had to
keep him away from you. David, too.
He's a bad influence.
So you're an influence. You'rethe bad influence.
(40:57):
Well, listen, I, I haven'tsaid once.
Wait, wait.
I just did. I just did. But,no, that's actually really good advice.
And there are ways that we canwork around that, I think. And Mo
is a good guy. I mean, look atLisa. She wouldn't have married him
and he'd been an asshole likeme. But. So where, where else do
(41:18):
you. What other advice wouldyou have for Mo and for those folks
that don't know earlier thisweek, Mo had an article in the Smoky
Mountain News that he's goingto run for Congress against a guy
I called Chunk Edwards here inwestern North Carolina. But what
other advice do you have for,for Mo?
(41:39):
Well, I, I think it's, you gotto put together a campaign plan.
He and I have talked about it.I mean, you know, and I think you
do it 18 months out and yougot to figure out how many votes
do I have to have to win in anawful off year election in 26, where
are those voters, who arethose voters and what are those voters
(42:03):
concerned about? And thenwhat's the message that resonates
with them? And I think, Ithink, you know, unfortunately in
Trump world, there's so manyissues and so many things that you
kind of want to talk about andget people engaged. We have an information
(42:24):
overload and I think thevoting public, other than people
like us, are becoming more andmore disengaged from the information
system. So I think having agood game plan that's based upon,
again, how many votes do Ineed to win? Where are those votes
(42:45):
that, you know, that I canpick up that prior candidates have
not been able to get? And whatare the two or three really gut issues
that I can drive home over andover and over again to get that,
that North Ashevilleunaffiliated, 50 year old housewife
(43:09):
with a couple of kids who isliving a pretty good lifestyle. How
do you get her to devote forMo as opposed to Chuck Edwards, who,
you know, to me Donald Trumpis an evil bad guy. But Chuck Edwards,
you know, he's just kind of aguy, right? You know, you know, own
(43:32):
some McDonald's, remember acouple of country clubs. You know,
I think he actually, you know,wants North Carolina and western
North Carolina to do well.He's just, you know, he's a Trump
loyalist. So anyway, so doyou, do you.
Think Mo can win? That's atough question in front of the candidate.
(43:54):
Well, you know, when I, when Iran in 88 for the court of Appeals,
nobody thought I could win. Imean, history said I couldn't win.
You know, so if I, I thinkit's winnable. I mean, you know,
Democrats have certainly woncongressional seats, but it's got
to be, it can't be just aconventional campaign and it can't
(44:18):
just be a scorched earthcampaign. I think it's got to be
a very tactical, shrewdlyanalyzed, strategic campaign. And,
you know, you're not going towin by a lot, but you only need to
win by one.
What do you think, Mo?
(44:39):
That's my approach to Wordleevery morning. If I get it in six,
then I've won. So. No, I. Iagree it. And I think, you know,
there. There are enough folksaround here, particularly after Hurricane
Elena. Folks, you know, we. Wewere behind before Hurricane Helene
hit, and it's reallyexacerbated the problem. And I think
(45:02):
some of these policies, youknow, cutting. I was out hiking yesterday,
and it was really kind ofeerie. We were along the Blue Ridge
Parkway, and it was just deadquiet. I mean, normally there are
cars up and by.
Yeah.
And it's closed. And so, youknow, these cuts to the Park Service
and the Forest Service andNoah and all these other things,
(45:22):
you know, as people feel thepain, I think it might give folks
a pause that they wouldn'thave had otherwise. And I think.
I think. I just know we can dobetter for western North Carolina
than we've been doing.
Yeah. And. And I think, youknow, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a
great example on. On how youmessage that you. You know, in a
(45:47):
lot of ways, the Blue RidgeParkway isn't just a scenic drive.
You know, that's great forpeople interested in the outdoors
and the beauty of westernNorth Carolina. It's a huge economic
driver for western NorthCarolina. And if it's shut down like
it is now and is going to befor a good, good long while, I mean,
(46:12):
you can talk about all of thethings you're doing to bring back
the region, but you'reundermining at the same time, if
you're pulling out a hugeeconomic engine like the Blue Ridge
Parkway for six months or ayear or the like. So. But. But how
you frame that, what, how yousay that, how does that resonate
(46:35):
with this voter you're tryingto attract, I think is the real challenge.
And, you know, the issuesthere, there are a lot of facets
of it. But I told David, thisis long before your time in the state,
but the 1980 U.S. senate racebetween a guy named John east, who
(46:55):
was a Republican collegeprofessor at East Carolina who had
had polio, so he was in awheelchair, was running against an
incumbent Democrat senatornamed Robert Morgan, who'd been Attorney
general, and, you know, verymoderate conservative, and the east
campaign ran one ad, literallyone ad that Robert Morgan gave away
(47:19):
the Panama Canal, just thatsimplistic, just that short. And
they ran it over and over andover and over till we were all screaming
and east ends up and wins therace. So the power of the right message
in delivering it over and overand over is something that I think
(47:41):
candidates can sometimesforget about or consultants forget
about, so.
Well, I think we have ourissue. Chuck Edwards is the guy that
gave away the Panama Canal asfar as I'm concerned.
Well, Trump's trying to get it back.
He gave away the French broad rivers.
(48:03):
Yeah. Well, there you go. So,anyway, but I'm excited for Mo. Better.
Better him than me, though.
Yeah. All right, well, thishas been a lot of fun. One of the
things we do talk about beforewe wrap these up is bourbon. So what's,
(48:24):
what's your libation of choicethese days, Bob?
Well, as I'm, I'm trying tosupport Canada and Scotland because
they're against Trump, butthis is terrible. I was asking about
a graduation present for acollege graduate, and they said,
(48:48):
oh, peanut butter flavoredbourbon is the. Is the hot thing.
I said, you got to be kiddingme. And I'll be damned. I went in
the ABC store and they said,oh, yeah, we sell a lot of this stuff.
And I'm thinking, really? I'venever tried it and probably won't,
but the most recent bottle Ibought was a Carolina peanut flavored
(49:15):
bourbon that was distilledsomewhere down on the outer Banks.
That's just wrong.
It is wrong. It is wrong.
But you know, Mo, I'm glad youdidn't say you loved it because.
Yeah, I'm afraid Chuck coulduse that against you.
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Well, he should.
I mean, I like peanut butterand I like bourbon, but the two?
(49:37):
Just don't do it again. Iknow, I know. That's crazy. Great.
Well, that shows you thechallenges. They're all drinking
it on the campus, you know,you got to be aware of.
Yeah. All right, well, that'sa wrap for this romp through the
mucky circus. Hold on, Bob,you gotta listen to some more alliteration
(49:59):
here, all right? Where we'veskewered the sanctimonious silliness
not of Judge Orr, but ofothers with the flourish.
Time out. The battering nabobsof nepotism.
There we go. I love it. I loveit. And I'm David Wheeler, slightly
comedic ringleader fromAmerican Muckrakers, signing off
(50:20):
with the ever gallant ColonelMo Davis. If you love this daring
display of discourse, join thecarnival, join us, follow us, share
the show, and dive deeper intothe muck at americanmuckrakers.com
where you can learn more ortoss a coin to keep this big top
blazing. Until next time, keepyour eye on the long game. Don't
(50:42):
stop believing the truthmatters. And with all due respect
to Judge Bob Orr, our guesttoday, Muck you!
All right.
This has been Muck you, cohosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville,
North Carolina and DavidWheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
(51:04):
Thanks to our guest today,Justice Bob Orr, former Associate
Judge on the North CarolinaSupreme Court.
You can can read more aboutJustice Orr's current litigation
project to make North Carolinaelections fair at his X account with
the handle Judge Bob Orr. Muckyou is produced by American Muckrakers.
Copyright 2025. Follow us onBlue sky under AmericanMuckrakers.com
(51:27):
and on substack aAmericanMuckrakers.substack.com You
can learn more and donate atAmericanMuckrakers.com David and
Moe hope y' all come back soonfor a new episode. And remember to
never take shit from anyone,especially Trumpers.
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