09 10 25 Here comes a tax increase for your SC COUNTY MAINTANED Roads!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Jonathan and Kelly Show.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Jonathan Rush, the story has trickled up from so from
local news to social media and now to the President's attention,
and it's being used, as you said, Brian, as a
political symbol.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Kelly nash Maga media.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Calling for more forceful punishments and more incarceration.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
And Kelly Show Brian Settler upset over the whole coverage
of the slain Ukrainian on the Charlotte Trent light rail
because this isn't even news. Why are we even talking
about this on CNN for God's sake? Yeah, I mean,
come on, this is a local news story. This is
something might be printed previously in like the Saluta Standards Sentinel.
This is just a local story.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's like when the farmer's cow got out and it
just happened to wander in the street, or a deranged
psychopath stabbed somebody in the neck. I mean, it's the
same thing.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I like the I like the cow story. Remember when
me isie' maley's cow kicked over? Did they talk about that?
If you were in you cogo, you might have read
about it. I don't know. If you didn't read about.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
It, you probably couldn't have read about it because your
city was Birds of the Cry.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
But you might have read about that. That was even
printed in at frigging history book. Yeah, it's just a
local store. It's a little something something. Ryan Setler should
have been here to put it in his place. See
this is a local story. Now, I don't know. I'm
just gonna spitball a little bit and go, gosh, I've
been I wish I'd have been in the sitting across
in the the hollow just uh studios of CNN. Okay,

(01:32):
with one Van Jones. Was he on that? I don't
think he was on a different panel discussion? Nonetheless, Okay,
it's a local story.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Is like, was George Floyd a local story? It seems
like George Floyd. I mean, that's just one individual, one
little confrontation with the police went wrong. Some say it
was murder, some say it wasn't. But either way, that's
just one person. Seems like that's a local story. By
Brian's that is the epitome of a local story. According
to Brian Settler, that would be the epitome of a

(02:06):
local story because a local story would have no international
or national or otherwise interstate even ramifications. For instance, in
this story, I might would argue if Brian settler were
here that unlike illegal aliens who shouldn't be here, in

(02:26):
this case, the victim herself shouldn't be here. She's only
here because she is an award was an a war
torn country because Joe Biden sent Vladimir Putin an engraved
invitation to take try to think over Ukraine. So she
shouldn't be here. She should be safe in her original home.

(02:47):
But she's here because of a little international dust up
caused by the government, which will make it a national story.
Now it's an international story because it's in Europe, so
that's an international tie to a national tie.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
So she shouldn't be here at all. Now we have
a mental health crisis in the country that even CN
is discussed. And because the girl the other day, I'll
see an intelligence this is not his problem, because he's
got he's got mental health issues. The last person to
realizes they have a mental health issue is a person
with a mental health issue.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
But he recognized that he had a mental health issue
because he called nine to one one out himself.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
He exactly just proved that point wrong.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, he said, I'm hearing voices, and I don't think
I can control of what they're telling me, and I
can't stop from doing what they're telling me.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Brian Settler claims that this story, which was a local story,
was picked up and then propagated and inflamed through social media,
which then necessitated that Donald Trump draw his attention to
it and make a national news story out of it,
which you're going to point out right now, you're four
days late on a national news story and you're CNN.

(03:54):
So it became a national news story when the President
mentioned it, but only when the President mentioned it, because
this is all pro it's not propaganda, because it's true.
This is all propped up truth, but politically motivated information
from the bag of forces who live on social media.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, let's take it even further. Basically, the argument is
that Charlie Kirk hates black people and wants them all imprisoned.
That was the real story, and Charlie Kirk has the
President's ear, and so we said, we have an opportunity
to arrest more black people. Let's take full advantage of it.
Donald And Donald said, well, hang on a second, give

(04:30):
me a little time to catch up. I hadn't heard
about this local news story, but now I'll inflame it.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
I haven't heard the original podcast where Charlie Cook made
his announce or made that proclamation as is now propagated
by CNN. Did Charlie Kirk actually come out and say
that the man on the light rail killed the girl
because she was white? I have not heard it.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
I mean, I don't know. I can't say he did
or he didn't. But even if that was the case,
let's say, what's the guy's name? I forget his name,
Nick Flentes, Right, isn't that his name? The guy, the
big white supremacist. Yeah, the Nick Flentes is the one
who reported it first. Say I'm just making that up.
Well known white supremacist Nick Flentes said, uh, here we

(05:16):
have another example of blacks targeting whites for no other
reason other than the fact that they're white. Anybody could
watch that video and say to themselves, and again, critical
thinking is important. Doesn't look like he was targeting her
because she was white. It looks like he was targeting
her because he's possessed by a demon. It looks like

(05:38):
whoever had the misfortune of sitting in that seat was
going to get stabbed, and I you know, did the
guy say something racist afterwards? I have not heard that
he said anything racist, well other than I got that
white chick. Yeah, he made the comment I got that
white chick.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah. Now, how do we know that in itself is
not a racist statement? It could be just scriptive. Well,
it is descriptive, I mean, because that's descriptive meaning it's
only descriptive. But it wasn't race. He didn't say I
killed her because she's white.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
It's just as racist as it is sexist. I got
that white chick, that's right. If the fact that you
pointed out she's a female, or as far as you know,
did she identify her.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
More sexist because chick is a derogatory term.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
White is the actual But you should have said that
I got that Caucasian female.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
That's true. Birth got it. So I don't know. I
realized Brian Settler works on CNN and I'm just hearing
Columbia on WVOC and doing a podcast with Killing Nash.
So who am I to take to take issue with
the words of one Brian Settler.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Well, he's gonna you know, he's got the big thoughts.
So he's got a lot of big thoughts and this
is again a nothing burger, I mean, and he'll always
throw out that.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Of course, it's sad to give you the they give you.
The wink is as good as a nod to a
blind to the to the thoughts and prayers blind horse.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
But the motivation about this becoming a national story is
simply to give Donald Trump more power to seize black
lead cities.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I'm glad you brought that up, because yesterday, as I
was watching waiting for the press conference in Charlotte, I
decided I would a watch one monitor and listen to
it while I simply watched muted two other monitors, one
on CNN and one on MSNBC. Now I've forgotten what

(07:36):
CNN was talking about. I think it was about the
Epstein files. It was it was something about Donald Trump
is a sex fiend. Now then seventy nine, he's still
a sex fiend, yes, or was, and you know it's
still punishable. So now MSNBC was doing two stories at

(07:58):
the same time. They were telling you that Donald Trump's
takeover of cities with the National Guard is in fact
the recreation of Hitler's Gestapo.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
These are the well I had heard them use the
phrase brown shirts. So that's Mussolini with the Brownshirts, but
you're saying now it's the Nazis.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
They went back to the Gestapo. Now, they correctly stopped
using the SS, which was a political force but also
was a military force, so it was kind of both.
But the Gestapo plainly was just a police force. So
they were saying that while at the same time saying
that Donald Trump's elon musk doge efforts had previously ripped

(08:49):
the financial support out of anti crime programs that enabled
him now to reach into cities like Chicago and states
like Illinois, Boston and the like. So he took away
the programs that would have prevented crime, so that he
can now come back with the military in his over
authoritarian reach, which will lead to him certainly now having

(09:12):
the SS, which is a military and police force, take
over the law enforcement of all fifty states. Now, that
would be a larger story, I agree, given Bryance Settler's
determination of what's a national story, that would be a
larger story if it were true, which should be the
new MS now MS thirteen, Now, if that were their

(09:36):
new positioning statement inside the news arena, that would be
a national story if it were true. Now, none of
that's been proven to be true. You can speculate on
that's what his thought process is all day long, but
that hasn't proven itself yet.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Is I mean, it's so frustrating. But I mean, if
you're is your if your theory is Donald Trump wants
to nationalize the police forces, which is in violation of
a lot of different rules and regulations and norms. Certainly,

(10:15):
but if that's your claim, what what is his motivation
behind that? Is it to in fact stop murders and
rapes and carjackings, because that's what he did in DC.
And you're against that. I understand being against the nationalization
of a police force, especially if it's being used to

(10:36):
target minority groups, which is I guess the fear right
is that Donald Trump is going to send it in
an all white national guard. Uh well, I guess you know,
it doesn't matter their skin color, because like we learned
with the police that even black police officers hate black neighborhoods.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
That's what we learned. So I did not know that.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Oh yeah, because they're they're not black, that they're the
blue that's their race's blue. So I don't know what
the color of the National Guard. Is it green because
it's a military force. I don't know, but either of
the Green Shirts only swear allegiance to the Green and
they're here to oppress all minority people groups, especially those
who don't speak English. They're in for a rough time,

(11:19):
probably imprisoned, and the rest of you will be shot
on site. I guess. I don't know how Brian Settler
wants to make this as ugly as possible. But Donald Trump,
if you just go off of his recent and even
distant history, go back to the eighties, I know they
like to make a big deal about the Central Park five.

(11:40):
Go ahead, make a big deal about it. He was wrong,
he got it wrong. And what did he do? The
some bitch admitted it and he apologized, Yeah, I was right.
That was the one time that you know, Donald Trump
was wrong on a social issue. He ought that they
had done it. Should we bring up Reverend al and

(12:03):
ta Wanta Braley. I mean, he's never really apologized for
Tawanta Braley. And for those of you who not old
enough to remember it, to Wanta Braley made up a story,
complete fabrication, that she was raped by white guys in
Central Park and they defecated on her, and they did
all kinds of horrific things. And Al took that story

(12:25):
without a shred of proof, and some would say conspired
with toa Wanta Braley if you want to make it ugly,
in order to elevate his national platform and him and
the what was the name of that group that he had,
like the Truth Action Group or.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Whatever the hell they were called, National Action.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Action Jackson whatever. They all got out there and they
shut down stores, they shut down anybody who said that
ta Wanta Braley was a liar, that ta Wanta Broley
should at least be able to provide a consistent story,
because it changed every flip in time she opened her
mouth one the time's changed, the amount of people there changed, whatever,

(13:06):
it all changed every time she spoke.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Now you're saying Al didn't apologize, No, but I'm glad
he learned his lesson because like when the girl, the
stripper who claimed that she was right by the cross
Team Cross Team. See, now he had already learned his lessons.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
So when that happened, oh now jumped all over that
one too. He's like a what do they call it,
a junebug.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
He's a jumper is a duck or a june bug. Yeah,
got it all right, So all that's going to continue
to play out. Now we today we learned something that
counties you would think would celebrate, but the counties would
tell you, look, don't start celebrating yet, because all this

(13:49):
means is we have to increase our taxes on a
county level unless something has changed in the past two years. Now,
I don't know that it's changed or not. I needed
ought to a county councilman from one of our counties.
The state of South Carolina, let's go just talk about
roads and the state of South Carolina. They're great way

(14:10):
back in the day. And I only know this because
one of my family friends, mister Wilbur great guy. He
was in charge of the saluted County road maintenance program.
And I know that because I've actually ridden on a
road greater, which is a very cool piece of equipment.

(14:31):
But he was in charge of that. So the counties
would maintain a large portion of their county on what
was then determined as county roads. Now we still have
county roads, but not nearly as many. But that was
the way that worked. And then the state said, you know,
something we can do a better job. Of course, they're
the elected officials at the General Assembly. They only have

(14:52):
your best interest in mind.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
We've got the power of the state behind us. How
can we fail.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
So we we will take over the mass majority of
the roads, so much so that we're the top five.
Is it of states whose roads are maintained by the
state government not the local government.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, no, we're number four. Now we have more state
highway than like you know, we have thirty two thousand
square miles in the state of South Carolina. So we're
one of the smaller state where there's only nine states
smaller than us. Yet we have more state highways than

(15:33):
North Carolina, more state highways than Oklahoma, more state highways
than Oregon, more state highways than Colorado. Colorado is literally
four times as large in South Carolina, and yet we
have more state highways. How could that possibly be is because,
as you said, they seized control and then they neglected it.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now the reason I say you're going to have to
increase your taxes is that we have heard I know
up until two years ago, and maybe it's changed. Maybe
the state government has decided the refund all the counties
all their tax money that they collect and forward to
the state. But we've heard counties whining, not whining, complaining,
not complaining, bitching that they send all this money to
Columbia and then they don't always get their money returned

(16:21):
to them that should be returned, the state keeps it.
So if the county's now going to take over the roads,
are we to believe that the state is actually going
to return all that money that they have shown in
the past they would not return to begin with, so
that we can maintain those roads. Or you got to
pay more in county taxes because the state gave you
back the authority to maintain your own roads.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm rather confident that the state is not issuing refunds.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Right. They're not going to say they're not going to
straighten because they've already taken your money for twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
You've already paid for the twenty twenty six maintenance that
the state's supposed to do with your twenty twenty five
tax returns. So no, they're telling you to go pound
sand And by the way, according to the dot head,
now we need a billion dollars more.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah right now, God, that's a lot of money. But
I just read today and Kelly reiterated, I think in
the rest I'm not sure the amount of money it
costs to is.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Resurface four hundred thousand dollars to resurface one lane one mile.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
One lane one mile four hundred thousand.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
So you want to do a mile of highway and
it's a three lane thing, that's one point two million
dollars for one mile one that's to resurface it. It's
not to build it. It's not to do anything. And
by the way, they point out, that doesn't include clean
up costs and other assorted things that are near our
sidewalks than none of that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
That is a lot of frigging money. Is that asked?
Is this gold streets? Are we paving the highway to
the heaven? Here? Is this a golden highway we're paving
for four hundred thousand?

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Well, and the ironic thing is the state has done
and I'm going to use a nasty word, heres poor.
The state of South Carolina has done such a piss
poor job of maintaining the state run highways that while
the counties have suffered sending all their money basically to

(18:17):
Columbia in order to get nothing back. They have maintained
their roads to the point which again county roads suck.
Only thirty four percent of them qualify as good or
anything better, good, better, best, any of that. Thirty four
percent of the county roads in South Carolina meet that
minimum standard of good. That's more than double what the

(18:40):
state has. The state of South Carolina has fourteen percent
of their roads are considered good, better, or best.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Now, Kelly said, roads, so highways, I'm going to anything
that does not include bridges.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
The bridges are falling down all over the place. Forget
London Bridge. Focus on the ones going over the Broad
River because they're I mean, one of the most deadly
bridges in the world is literally two or three miles
from where we're sitting right now.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
These bridges, and we have hundreds of them in South Carolina,
have been classified as imminently dangerous. They are deafened, they're
destined to fall down soon, and you have hundreds of
thousands of vehicles traveling over them. You know, if you
just look at them substantially, at the entire state, hundreds

(19:34):
of thousands of vehicles travel every day over bridges that
are destined to collapse in the not too distant future.
It's just a matter of when it's no longer a
matter of.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
If somebody asked me the other day, because they sell
me buying a powerball ticket, but that one point nine
billion dollar powerball, and they said, do you know the
odds of winning that? I said, yeah, it it's a
long shot. He said, you're a mathematical idiot. I said, really, really,

(20:05):
Now when you go home, how many bridges do you
cross in our state? He said, what I said, think
about it, turn around, walked off. What we're talking about here?
I wondered if he went to his phone and googled it,
your odds, your odds of being a part of it.

(20:26):
What won't be a national story, Brian Settler, ain't gonna
be talking about your drowned ass. Oh no, oh, hell no, no,
that's a local story. We had a bridge. We had
a bridge at Columbia, South Carolina fall seventy two cars
were now at the bottom of the Congrete River. That's
not going to make CNN's national news. That's a local story.
You might read about that and something like Cola Daily.

(20:49):
They didn't even want to cover that on WYS.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
I mean, I just put in South Carolina bridge collapsing. Right,
I thought maybe i'd get some statistics. This is a
local story. Did we talk about this Pickens County, South Carolina.
It's an apparent bridge collapse. Well, I don't know is
the bridge standing. If the bridge is not standing, it

(21:13):
has collapsed. And this is South Carolina. One thirty three
bridges by identified fifteen years ago as structurally deficient and
in need of immediate replacement. Again, that was almost last century, right,
it is now apparently collapsed. South Carolina's got a strategic

(21:39):
ten year DOT plan to greatly reduce the number of
closed and load restricted bridges that are currently increasing in
South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
I want to give a big salute to the engineers.
It built some of our bridges sixty seventy years ago.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
You thought the roll would be there for forty years.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
You guys did the hell of a job. Now absolute,
if you had famed members that are currently headstoned somewhere,
just no, I salute them for their efforts. They did
a hell of a job. But literally, we have bridges
here that are standing that could have been burned down
by William Tacumpsey Sherman. For God's sake, that's how old.

(22:20):
Our infrastructure is in the state of South Carolina.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
South Carolina is one of the leading states in the
country to have deficient bridges, according to a new report. Again,
we're not a very big state, yet we lead the
country with defision bridges.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
And how do we get here, Kelly. We get some
big thinkers over there at the General Assembly. They'll tell
you they are. So the problem is we get too
cute by half around here because we take our state
pot of money and then we determine roads that we
can improve. Because guess what we get when we improve

(23:02):
road You get those lovely federal dollars. We get to
pick out the biggest, juiciest federal teat possible to suck on,
and we suck that thing dry because we're making a
road improvement. Now, if you just resurface or repair or
rebuild what's a deficient bridge, you don't get no federal

(23:25):
money for that, damn it. It's a part of the interstate,
damn it. So we spend all of our pot of
money over here on these road improvements because we get
moneies that we can use. But then we have to
spend some of our own money to complete that project.
So we can go back next year and pick out
another fat, juicy teat to suck on. So by the

(23:46):
time you look around, you do four or five, six
of these projects, your little pot of money over here
is going down to nothing. Now we got to this
is all a vicious cycle of bulk. Yet, so now
that you can plain and again that your roads have
potholes in them. Now we got to we got we
sunset it that wall. We had to bring it back

(24:09):
the gas tax. Then you got your corporate you got
your county taxes, you got those signs they put up
that point out proudly. This is part of the Rickland
County one cent road improvement program you voted for. Look
at your tax money is improving your lives.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Don't you want to park?

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Would you rather have a park or a bridge?

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Exactly?

Speaker 3 (24:28):
And you already got the bridge, by the way, DOT
wants you to know they're doing a great job. Look,
South Carolina's got nine and twenty seven bridges, all right,
only five point one percent. In other words, four hundred
and seventy seven four hundred and seventy seven bridges are
considered very poor.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
It's only four.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Hundred and seventy seven bridges that's a very small but
they've also identified reading this in the state newspaper, the
state has identified in addition to those four hundred and
seventy seven bridges, there's one nine hundred and twenty nine
other bridges that also need some pretty substantial repairs. So
we're talking about like twenty two hundred bridges. Well, I mean,

(25:11):
why would you even care about that? That's a local story.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Thank you, Lord Jesus. That bridges are so inexpensive to build,
we could do it.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Should we in fact blow them up and then just
start over again?

Speaker 1 (25:26):
That's a great question, because remember fairies, let's bring back fairies.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Well, but remember, like, so you and I have to
go over the same little bridge. It's not little, I mean,
it's what is it about a quarter of a mile
right over here on Broad River or whatever. And that
was part of the great Obama shovel ready projects, yes,
and that they worked on that. I don't think I'm exaggerating.
It was like five years to actually rebuild the bridge

(25:55):
and maintain it as an opening. Yet in Philadelphia you
had a tractor trail explode underneath an overpass on I
ninety five, and they flipp and tore the whole thing
down and rebuilt it in a weekend.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
We did the same here thing here in South Carolina
on I twenty about two months ago. Remember that truck
that ran into the trustle that held the bridge and
they destroyed the whole damn thing and just.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Tear it down build a new one on I twenty.
It's easier and quicker and probably just as expensive to
tear it down and build it over. So again we
have If we're looking in South Carolina, if you're worried
about your bridges, the good news is it's only five
percent of them are about to implode, four hundred and
seventy seven of them. Now again, there's another one nine

(26:45):
hundred and twenty nine bridges that need significant repairs, and
we've already committed. Wow, look at that. South Carolina put
on their big boy pants back in June of twenty
twenty three, and they made some hard decisions and set
aside thirty three million dollars thirty three million dollars to
repair four hundred and seventy seven bridges. You couldn't even

(27:06):
pave a half mile of the flipping bridges.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
If if Ways, which is one of my favorite apps,
always trust the waves. If you know, when you pull
up ways, it'll ask you, would you like to avoid interstates?
I always have to do that for Sally because she
hates driving on the interstate. Do you want to avoid
toll roads? If we could get ways to actually put
in there, would you like to avoid deficient bridges? Oh?

Speaker 3 (27:32):
My god, did they get the hell out of the state?
I could I can't leave the state.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I were at home. I couldn't get out of Forest Acres.
I swear to God, there's three places, three sections of
Forest Acres I couldn't get to.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
You got you gotta get to North Carolina staff