Dixie Dems: Reading the Tea Leaves

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: Hey, we're back with another episode of the Dixie Dems. It's the podcast from Lean to the Left that takes an irreverent look at politics in the south as well as nationwide. So stay with us. Hey guys. Welcome to the Lean to the Left Podcast in the March 20. 23 episode of the Dixie Dams with my partners Arthur Hill from North Carolina, and Robert Thompson from Georgia. Arthur's communications Chair, the Brunswick County, North Carolina Democratic Party.

[00:00:33] And Robert Thompson is based in Atlanta. He founded Peach News now in its opinion podcast. Got damn Liberals, which is worth a listen. Me, I'm based in South Carolina, home of G O p Trump acolytes senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, one of whom got wiped out in his bid for the 2016 G O P presidential nomination, and the other for whom a similar fate awaits in 2024. That's my prediction. 

[00:01:06] Today, we'll take a look at what's happening politically in our three states as well as across the country, so welcome guys. 

[00:01:15] Arthur Hill: Thanks Bob. 

[00:01:17] Bob Gatty: Hey Arthur, what's happening in North Carolina? I read that the Republicans there plan to reverse a redistricting decision. 

[00:01:25] Arthur Hill: What's happened is in North Carolina we elect our judges all the way up to the state Supreme Court, which is a process I've got some questions about, but that's what we do. And in the last last year the Supreme Court, which had been three to two Democrat, became three to two Republican.

[00:01:48] First thing the legislature did was ask the court to reconsider decisions that the democratic led version of the court had made a couple years ago on gerrymandering and voter id. So they had hearings on that. Yesterday, Tuesday and remains to be seen what'll happen.

[00:02:11] But the people are betting that since the Supreme Court has now controlled by Republicans, that the, court will restore the original gerrymandering plan that the Republicans had put in place which obviously favors Republican legislators and and also reimpose a, voter ID requirement, which a previous Supreme Court Had kicked out.

[00:02:37] So exciting times at the State Supreme Court, there was a fairly significant demonstration out in front of the building while the hearings were going on. And a number of members of Congress and state democratic officials spoke at a press conference again, outside the building during the rally.

[00:02:59] So don't know whether that'll make any difference, but they did it and they were there and they aired their views. So, that's what's going on with the Supreme Court. We also had, last week we had our state of the state speech by the governor and a response by the Republican lieutenant.

[00:03:19] He Cooper, Roy Cooper, the governor gave a pretty good speech about the need to improve funds for education, which is a raging issue in in the legislature headed by the fact that there's a Supreme, the Supreme Court again made a decision sometime ago to release $1 billion in funds for, secondary education, and the Republican legislature has yet to do it.

[00:03:44] The governor also talked about Medicaid expansion, which finally the legislature has gotten behind and it looks like later this year the legislature could approve an expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina. However, the devil's in the details and they, the Republicans are trying to tie Medicaid expenditures to somehow to the budget to the state budget, which wasn't part of the original deal under Obamacare.

[00:04:17] So we'll see what happens with that. The response to Cooper's address was by a lieutenant governor Mark Robinson who's a pretty radical Republican and who probably will be the Republicans candidate for governor in 2024. . And except he, he's a pretty much of a radical, but it was a pretty calm and orderly speech for him.

[00:04:43] And I think most observers were surprised and were quick to remind viewers what the Lieutenant Governor has said about things like abortion in the past. So that was the exciting event that took place last week. And the legislature is considering behind the scenes another resolution to join 19 other states that have called for a convention of states to amend the Constitution.

[00:05:18] It requires 34 states to to approve similar resolutions to get to, actually force a convention. And a lot of conservative groups around the country led by the Koch Foundation and and people like that are, pursuing adoption of the legislation to primarily for two reasons.

[00:05:41] One, to impose term limits on members of Congress, and two to impose some restrictions on constitutional restrictions on federal budgets which they feel are outta hand. Something to keep your eye on. I don't know whether it'll ever happen, but n 19 states have approved it so far and and there are lobbying campaigns going on and a lot of Republican controlled legislatures to get their approval.

[00:06:08] So we'll have to see what happens with that. That's about it for me.

[00:06:12] Bob Gatty: Okay. Okay. What's going on with you, Robert? 

[00:06:17] Robert Thompson: You're seeing the Republican party zero in on their niche issues that are not popular with everyone, even though they're gonna tell you that they're popular with everyone.

[00:06:29] Very interesting to hear that. But I did do an episode. I came across Steven Owens. He works for the Georgia. Budget and Policy Institute here in Georgia, and he had some background in education. I believe he taught grade school at one time, but the organization that he's with now, they are nonpartisan, but they try to make sure that everybody in Georgia is aware of how our budget is put together, where the expenditures, where the tax credits and so forth. And so there, the episode is live and it's very timely because Georgia's legislative session is about 40, 45 days and it's in session right now. It feels like that's very short. A lot of other states I think go a little bit longer, but that's how we do it here in Georgia.

[00:07:20] But there are some school voucher bills that I was actually thinking that here in Georgia we did not have any form of school vouchers. I was corrected. And there was actually a story that Steven told about a private school down in South Georgia that I am well aware of. I grew up down there and he basically said it was a state funded failure.

[00:07:50] I don't, quote me on those words exactly, but you've got state education funds going to a school that is not really doing all that well. And when they've looked at and comparing these private schools to public schools, the, outcomes are not really there, but yet, of course generally Republican led legislators, they are out there trying to tout these bills.

[00:08:17] It was also interesting and, I can see this happening, so you've got a lot of rural Georgia Republican legislatures. They're not really happy about these school vouchers. They view their small communities and their small schools as working and these school voucher bills potentially taking away from something that's working in their communities.

[00:08:40] So it was very interesting to hear his side of what's literally going on, And I encourage everybody if you go out, it's resist.Bot. So this website, again, that's an odd u url I agree. But it's literally type into your resist.bot and use a tool like that to make sure that your voices are heard and both state government and federal government but especially here in Georgia right now with all these bills flying back and forth in this quick session.

[00:09:10] Like I said, 40, 45 days. To get this stuff done. We discussed about generations of Georgians paying that top 6% income tax. Republicans blew that all outta the water, and of course they adjusted that top tax bracket down. I think it's five and three quarters or even less now.

[00:09:30] And they're also, as I keep saying here in Georgia, through these generations of time. This will probably be the second Georgia tax rebate that Republicans and Kemp are pushing out. I still equate that to basically paying for votes. If you are in office and you're rebating taxes back to taxpayers, that's basically paying for votes and it's never been done here in Georgia the whole time I've lived here my whole life. And now we're looking at a second rebate. To pay off and get those votes. So that's, bills that are making their way. It was in the AJC to Georgia for heavy trucks. So the, limit as you go down the road in these rural area, as you see 80,000 pounds, as these trucks are barreling down the road. There's a bill to make it 88,000. And you've got folks in local communities that are not so happy about this, you've got folks that have been killed by these heavy trucks that either didn't stop or were not able to stop because they were so heavy.

[00:10:31] And so again, that's House Bill 180 9. We'll see what happens. Further out west. There's two more things here. I wanna give kudos to my win of the week. This is Senator Machaela Kavanaugh in Nebraska. She is into three weeks of filibuster over some trans bills that are being introduced in small Nebraska.

[00:10:53] If much about Nebraska, there are more cows and chickens in Nebraska than people. She has brought the legislature to a grinding halt and is talking about things like girl Scout cookies and barbecue recipes in order to stop these bills. And honestly, I need to send her a box or two of Girl Scout cookies because she's doing the Lord's work in the rural state of Nebraska out there. 

[00:11:22] And then lastly do we wanna send our condolences to Moscow, Mitch, who fell and bumped his head ? 

[00:11:28] Bob Gatty: Yeah, I think we should do that. Oh yeah. 

[00:11:31] Arthur Hill: You wanna send a couple of boxes of those raspberry cookies that the, whoever, whatever company is that makes Girl Scout cookies ran out of. 

[00:11:39] Bob Gatty: Yeah I, heard they, they were selling for I don't know, a thousand dollars a box. 

[00:11:45] Arthur Hill: Yeah, they were selling on eBay and the company was all TikTok and got outta shape because somebody else was selling their cookies.

[00:11:52] Bob Gatty: I know I was at Walmart the other day. And people were selling Girl Scout cookies outside of Walmart. And I just glanced over at the table. I didn't see any of those raspberry things. I was gonna try to get a box of 'em if they had 'em, but I didn't see any. That's a pretty, that's pretty amazing.

[00:12:13] All right. So are you done there, Robert? You, shot your wad, have you? 

[00:12:19] Robert Thompson: That was fun.. I, do wanna repeat it. Senator Machaela Kavanaugh out in Nebraska. Yeah. She is doing the Lord's work. I appreciate it.

[00:12:28] Bob Gatty: Yeah, it sounds like she is. There's a bunch of crazy stuff going on in other states.

[00:12:35] Other, some Southern not, all Southern. , certainly the republicans in the South are not wasting any time and putting together these crazy bills that attack L G B T Q people and everything else.

[00:12:55] Robert Thompson: Remember they also copied and pasted them. 

[00:12:58] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. 

[00:13:00] Robert Thompson: Cause folks are not that smart to stay up at night and write them.

[00:13:02] So Yeah 

[00:13:04] Bob Gatty: You're, right there. 

[00:13:05] Arthur Hill: Yeah. Those organizations writing those bills, 

[00:13:07] Bob Gatty: national. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that last time. Yeah, we did. Yeah. That's probably what's going on anyway. Here in South Carolina we just had that Alex Murdaugh trial. That's the lawyer in the state who had been charged with killing his wife and son. He was convicted since our last episode. He was convicted and he's been sentenced at two life consecutive life terms. And that's pretty amazing, it's not really a political development although, that family has been active in Local politics here for a long, time.

[00:13:57] His father and grandfather were prosecutors unfortunately for that family, which was respected to the point where they, called that area of the state, Murdaugh country. Unfortunately for, that family The reputation has, been shot after generations of Effort by Murdoch's father and grandfather.

[00:14:31] Robert Thompson: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, I had a friend that's a Reba McIntyre fan. Do you? I believe it's the nights the light went out in Georgia and there's a lyric and that song Don't trust your soul. A Backwood Southern Lawyer. and it she sang that at her concert and got a standing ovation recently.

[00:14:52] Bob Gatty: Well, Murdaugh’s lawyers say they're gonna appeal. I don't think they've got a much of a chance that the legal beagles here think that that that they don't really have much grounds. But we'll see. That judge was really, good. The one that handled that case. Anyway that's that. Now we've got more than 20 Republicans in the State House that have introduced legislation that would impose the death penalty on women who undergo abortions.

[00:15:29] Now to me that's just a freaking incredible thing. Most, attorneys that I've spoken with don't think that bill, if it's passed would, pass Constitutional muster. But you never know. The, state is crazy. Anyway, so much for right to life, that's what I got to say about that.

[00:15:54] They wanna impose a death penalty on, women. That have abortions for whatever reason. 

[00:16:01] Robert Thompson: I'll, just repeat what my friend said. You know that this is another nail in that coffin, and this is another friend said it's the handmaid tale. If you watched that show or read the book.

[00:16:11] Yeah. It's the same thing all over again. Yeah. 

[00:16:14] Bob Gatty: As Robert indicated South Carolina isn't the, and Georgia, they're not the only states that. whether Republicans are up to no good. We've seen this going on, especially in Florida with DeSantis. They've got bills there to ban gender studies, limit trans pronouns and establish a Universal school choice voucher program.

[00:16:39] They want to ban abortion at six weeks. DeSantis is constantly attacking the LGBTQ plus community from criminalizing drag shows to restricting transgender rights, expanding gun access by scaling back licensing requirements and encouraging school employees to carry guns, targeting educators and students by slashing curriculum and banning books.

[00:17:11] That's all part of he, he, has that bill as anti woke. I guess it's a law. Anti woke law in Florida. Do you guys know what, I had somebody write a blog for my Lean to the left blog site about, woke, what the origin of woke and what it. What it means, and I still don't understand. I mean if, what the hell is what is woke?

[00:17:39] Robert Thompson: If, Moscow Mitch had been woke, he probably would not have fell and bumped his head. 

[00:17:45] Bob Gatty: That could be . At any rate from what I understand, the definition of woke is someone who wants to be fair and just and, does not discriminate and, is not racist, is and, so on.

[00:18:05] If that's the definition of wolf, then sign me up. But incredible. 

[00:18:12] Robert Thompson: There was a lady on some sort of news interview and they asked her, they said, What is woke and she couldn't answer it. 

[00:18:20] Bob Gatty: I know there's a story in the, there's a story in the Washington Post the other day about that saying that the Republicans can't even define what woke is, even though they all spout it.

[00:18:33] So it's, just ridiculous. 

[00:18:36] Robert Thompson: It was the same with socialism yeah, True. Even forbid we cut Social security, Medicare, cause that's the socialism, right? 

[00:18:44] Bob Gatty: But, Florida doesn't have a what's the word I'm looking for? They don't own the the ability to propose hateful legislation. In Virginia.

[00:18:57] There's a host of bills aimed at transgender use that were killed in the general assembly, but Governor Glenn Youngen supposed to be a moderate Republican, has proposed so-called model policies and I really don't know what they are, but they're pending. What I've been reading, the indication is that they probably haven't reached a conclusion, so there'll probably be more action in, in, in Virginia on that and probably some threatening legislation.

[00:19:32] Arthur Hill: It's gonna be DeSantis. I, think there's a reasonable chance that the DeSantis may overstep. He's got a hell of a legislative agenda waiting for the state legislature down there to, approve. But what if and, he wants a hundred percent participation in a hundred percent approval so he can show the country that he is, has the ability to govern, which with that legislature if, my dog were governor, he'd probably could get some stuff through too. But he may be running a risk of overstepping a little bit. And he's already started with what happened yesterday after his comments came out about Ukraine and a lot of national Republicans took him over the coals for that saying that we have to stand behind Ukraine and we have to support Ukraine. And DeSantis was saying it, it's not important. We shouldn't in effect he said we shouldn't be supporting him. So he might overstep and he might get into trouble for not being able to do what he is trying to do as governor of Florida.

[00:20:41] We'll see. 

[00:20:42] Bob Gatty: Yeah, we'll see. That's gonna be an interesting... did you guys think that it's really Trump and DeSantis and that's it. Or do you think that some of these other people will have some sort of legitimate shot at the Republican nomination? 

[00:20:59] Arthur Hill: I think your ex-governor is gonna come on.

[00:21:01] She's not now. I think she's only four or 5% in the polls, but that's because most people don't know who she is. And but I think she, has the ability to rise in the polls. I don't know. And, I think Trump's in free fall. I, just, I don't see I don't see him being as big a factor in the primaries as he has been in the past.

[00:21:25] Robert Thompson: If you look at, if you look at Trump he did not get the popular vote the first time. He lost the second time that I, don't see that trend changing, especially with what all of his cronies are doing that they're losing election battles. You've got the the, voting machine maker outing everybody at Fox News.

[00:21:50] Versus the lies that they've been telling and, having a financial impact to that. I don't know. We'll see. 

[00:21:58] Bob Gatty: You, mentioned, Arthur, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, and thinking that she's got a chance to rise in the polls. She might. She's, popular here. A thousand people turned Out at her rally here the other day which I thought was a really good turnout for her. A thousand people. But that's, gonna be a tough, do you really think that she's got the legs to to win the nomination? 

[00:22:32] Arthur Hill: To be perfectly honest, she scares me. She's, intelligent. She's she's attractive. She represents a clear alternative to Trump and DeSantis. And I think and, Pence isn't going anywhere. So I, think that if Republicans who are looking for somebody to ally with that are Repelled by Trump and DeSantis. You've got Nikki Haley standing out there waiting in the wings to to increase her popularity.

[00:23:08] And, it's really early that not too many people outside of South Carolina know about Nikki Haley and even though, and she's got a track record. She's a governor, she's a former ambassador to the UN. So she's got chief executive chops and she's got international relations chops.

[00:23:27] I think once the word starts getting out around her I, let me be clear. I'm not supporting Nikki Haley for President , but but I am saying that I think she could be a formidable candidate in a general election. 

[00:23:41] Bob Gatty: I think that you make a really good point Arthur and, then you've got the women's vote too, that she likely would be supported by a lot of women, even though some of her positions are contrary to what's really beneficial for a lot of women.

[00:23:59] Yeah, you're probably making a very, good point there. 

[00:24:03] Arthur Hill: She did a wonderful job. Again, I'm not supporting her for president, but she did a, wonderful job during that fiasco with a confederate flag. She just she was spot on in how she handled that.

[00:24:19] And I don't know whether that'll come up again now, but I remember thinking at the time, boy, if she ever runs for president, she could be a good candidate for the Republicans.

[00:24:29] Bob Gatty: Remind the people what she did with respect to that. 

[00:24:33] Arthur Hill: When there was a outcry about flying the Confederate flag on the grounds of the state capitol in South Carolina Haley in essence came out in support of taking the flag down and and replacing it with with another state flag. And I think that her position on that was was, right on it. It came as I recall. I think the timing was it came after that mass shooting in Charleston. Yeah. And so the, timing was exactly right and she did a great job of expressing her views and her position and, the flag came down.

[00:25:18] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay. All right. I was reading the other day that In Oklahoma, this is changing the subject a bit, but in Oklahoma there's this Republican congressman by the name of Jim Olson who says that the Bible endorses corporal punishment of disabled kids. Can you fricking believe that?

[00:25:48] Robert Thompson: I'll believe it. You know that this happened, and why, don't you just go ahead further and kill 'em off? Nazi Germans would. 

[00:25:55] Bob Gatty: Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Yeah.

[00:25:59] Robert Thompson: And it goes back to these republicans that they want to protect. These unborn children, but once they come out, they could care less.

[00:26:08] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Now, apparently his comment about that came as part of a debate about a bill that would bar schools from spanking children with disabilities. I didn't know that was even allowed anymore. So you need a bill to specifically to ban that in Oklahoma. Is that crazy? 

[00:26:34] Robert Thompson: Just check his batteries. Cause it sounds like he's going way off script . 

[00:26:38] Bob Gatty: Sounds like it. All right. Back to Trump. Do you guys think that there's any chance of a moderate Republican, would you say that Nikki Haley is a moderate Republican? Arthur, I think she's, no, she's not. She's a right wing nutcase. 

[00:26:57] video1965161664: Yeah, 

[00:26:58] Arthur Hill: she's not, I don't know.

[00:26:59] She's, I dunno that she's a nutcase. I wouldn't go so far and say she's a nut. 

[00:27:03] Bob Gatty: Yeah, you're right there. I shouldn't call her a nutcase. No, 

[00:27:06] Arthur Hill: Definitely right wing. Very much of, a conservative. That's, why her stand on the flag was so eye opening. Yeah. I thought. But but no, she's not a moderate.

[00:27:19] And moderates, didn't do well this week. You heard that there's a story out. Washington Post today about the Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, Republican Maryland, who's, who is a moderate right. And his chief of staff apparently is going to jail for, fraud and, embezzlement.

[00:27:39] And fortunately for Hogan, he's already announced that he's not running for president. He, put out a letter last week saying he wasn't running for president. But it's, this isn't a good climate for, moderates in the Republican party. 

[00:27:54] Bob Gatty: No, not is, was there, by the way, on that story, was there any, indication that his chief of staff's legal problems might brush off onto Hogan?

[00:28:09] Arthur Hill: No. No, not yet. Yeah. And Hogans denied he knew anything about what this guy was doing, but but no, no, trace of that yet. The only thing I can say about talking about the house, the US house is there's a core of moderate Republicans, 15 to 20 people in the house that could under the right circumstances, ally with Democrats to, pass some legislation in the house over the opposition of the rest of the Republican party. So there is a theory that that, maybe moderate Republicans in the house could control have, the power to control what goes on, what comes in, out of the house.

[00:29:02] But haven't seen any evidence of that happening yet. We'll have to watch it and see. 

[00:29:08] Robert Thompson: So on the Senate side, I would look at Lisa Murkowski. Yeah, probably being as close to modern Republican as you can get. And she actually got a win for her state. They're gonna start drilling out there in Alaska if you read that story.

[00:29:24] But apparently that there were some discussion in that story that, that particular project was mentioned every time her and her staffers met with somebody at the White House. Yeah, that bipartisan and the moderates there...

[00:29:39] Bob Gatty: hey, what did you think of Josh Hawley accusing the Biden administration of being anti-Catholic?

[00:29:47] Did you see that? 

[00:29:49] Arthur Hill: I saw that, that's boy, talking about the pot calling the kettle black. That was just an astounding statement given Biden's religious activity and I just can't believe you said that. I can't believe anybody. I can't believe anybody would believe that, but they probably do.

[00:30:07] Bob Gatty: Yeah, I know. It's amazing. To me. Biden is a strong practicing Catholic, and he's in trouble over his abortion position. But I frankly, I think his abortion position is one out of political necessity, not necessarily something that he. 

[00:30:27] Robert Thompson: I would ask you, this is the same Josh Hawley that was running the other way away from the January 6th protesters.

[00:30:33] Bob Gatty: Yeah. He's the one that was holding up his victory fingers. 

[00:30:38] Arthur Hill: He did that and then a half hour later there's another picture of him running away, running through the corridors of the Capitol. There's video of that. 

[00:30:45] Bob Gatty: I know. 

[00:30:46] Arthur Hill: Right, after George Romney went running by the same place

[00:30:49] Bob Gatty: I know. Oh, it's what a wonderful group of people we are represented by. It's just amazing. 

[00:30:56] Arthur Hill: So Ted Kennedy had the same problem. Speaking of practice of Catholics, Ted Kennedy had the same problem with with the abortion issue that that Biden does now. So that, that's nothing new. 

[00:31:08] Bob Gatty: That's true. You mentioned a minute ago I think it was you, Arthur, that Trump's performance has just been abysmal. Can you imagine sitting through a two hour Trump speech sitting outside? 

[00:31:25] Robert Thompson: That, that's not, that's why they're not woke.

[00:31:27] Bob Gatty: Yeah I just can't freaking imagine I listened to that man for five minutes. Not even, I can't do that. Fi five seconds and he just drives me crazy. Imagine sitting there for two hours listening to him drone on and on, and whining and carrying on, and people do it. I just don't understand it.

[00:31:49] Robert Thompson: Like I said if that's the best that Republicans can come up with you're gonna lose again. 

[00:31:56] Bob Gatty: Yeah, for sure. You see the CPAC conference 62% of Republicans at that conservative political election committee conference. 62% of Republicans voted for Trump in a straw poll and only 20% supported DeSantis.

[00:32:16] And I don't know, I don't think Haley got much more than four or 5% if she got that. 

[00:32:22] Arthur Hill: That's what she's, that's pretty much what she's getting out everywhere. Yeah. The Thing about Trump. Trump some of the, sometimes when, Trump is actually able to put one logical thought after another, he reminds me of Rush Limbaugh. You guys remember Rush Limbaugh? 

[00:32:43] Bob Gatty: Oh, yeah. 

[00:32:44] Robert Thompson: Even further Rush Limbaugh has polluted how many of our public airways, by the way, but 

[00:32:49] Arthur Hill: Yes, Speaking of polluting the public airways. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But he had the uncanny ability to be able to make an initial statement I'm talking about Limbaugh now that was a little bit off. It was about 90% right and about 10% wrong. And then he'd start building on that statement. So it looked like the leaning tower or a piza as it went up, because it got more crooked, more off base and more off base until he got to the logical conclusion, which was clearly made no sense at all.

[00:33:24] But unless you went back and looked at where he started from. And, Trump has the Trump when he is, Doing as well as he can. He has the same ability to, do that. And he'll start off by saying All news is fake, and then he'll just take off from there and he'll go up and, I think people are getting, they've listened to Rush Limbaugh do it for however long he did it, 20 years, whatever it was.

[00:33:51] And now they've listened to Trump do it for eight or nine years. I think people are getting tired of it. Yeah. And and He's not selling out the venues like he used to. 

[00:34:02] Bob Gatty: No, that's true. And, the Department of Justice the other day said that he can be sued for January 6th.

[00:34:11] I have said this all along. I, think that the, legal issues are going to end up getting Trump more than anything else. I really do. I think he could end up in some serious legal, if not behind bars, pretty close to it. 

[00:34:31] Robert Thompson: He'll just continue hiring Rudy Giuliani, who I don't think he can practice law anymore, 

[00:34:37] Bob Gatty: right?

[00:34:37] No he's, done. Yeah. They pulled his law license. Yeah. Yeah. . 

[00:34:44] Robert Thompson: Can you imagine being an attorney and getting a phone call from Trump is, Hey, I need a, lawyer, , just feeling nauseous and really, am I taking this phone call? 

[00:34:57] Arthur Hill: That, might not, be so bad if he paid his bills. 

[00:34:59] Bob Gatty: Yeah. I was just gonna say the guy doesn't pay his, doesn't pay anybody.

[00:35:04] Arthur Hill: Yeah. by the guys he that that he hired. 

[00:35:08] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Hey, what do you guys think about this bank fiasco that's going on? I was, I interviewed a guy yesterday, or the other day who is a financial wizard of sorts. And he, believes that, we haven't seen anything yet that there's a lot more to come.

[00:35:31] And then Moody's gave a, really bad rating for banks nationally, I think it was yesterday. Does this concern you guys? 

[00:35:42] Robert Thompson: If you, what was it? Close to a decade that our interest rates were basically zero. And the the house I'm sitting in right now is that financed at less than 3%.

[00:35:56] The car that I have was financed at 1.5%. That's basically zero interest, and you had that going on for a decade. No one wants to admit that was one of the leading causes of inflation. and now you've got the results of that. Yes you can finally get some interest on your savings, but there were a lot of knee-jerk reactions that this radical rise in interest rates that had to be done, cuz you cannot keep interest rates that low for that long.

[00:36:29] But this rise in interest rates had to be done. It's the same thing that happened back with the mortgage meltdown. You've got all the investors pointing fingers looking for their checks and their money, and at the end of the day, it's musical chairs and you're gonna have some banks fail and go. If, you've ever watched C N B C that this week and end of last week there was a lot of white privilege crime and there was also someone who wrote an opinion piece, I believe with the Wall Street Journal saying that Silicon Valley Bank had a issue with discrimination because they had, what was it? One black person, two or three women on the board, and they claimed that they were distracted by diversity instead of running a can. You literally believe that someone is trying to point fingers at diversity for a bunch of old white men failing to run a bank properly?

[00:37:25] That's a lot of white privilege on display and a lot of rich white privilege. 

[00:37:30] Arthur Hill: There's a, the political fallout from this will, will be interesting. I, think it'll, and maybe it already is all out of proportion to what's going on with the financial fallout. And, it seems to be fueling the fires.

[00:37:45] And, it may be that some of the political fallout and the finger pointing that Robert's talking about could have an impact on banks and people pulling their deposits out of banks that wouldn't have otherwise have taken place. If you watch cnn and I'm, sure the other news networks this is this, basically is all they're talking about.

[00:38:09] This last two, three days. And and all other issues have taken a, backseat. And I think that the, fallout from the publicity that the, bad fortunes of one or two banks have received in the last week are probably gonna be far greater than the effects on the financial community, the long-term.

[00:38:35] Although the stock market's not doing well today. 

[00:38:37] Bob Gatty: No, it's not. It's down another couple hundred points. Yeah 

[00:38:41] Arthur Hill: But, it'll rebound. 

[00:38:43] Robert Thompson: But Joe Biden said it best, if you want capitalism, this is what you gotta deal with. 

[00:38:47] Arthur Hill: Yeah. Yeah. Why, are we having an argument? Why? Robert has a very good point.

[00:38:52] Why are we having an argument about whether this, whether or not this is a bailout? When when what's really at stake is the credibility of, our financial institutions. It has nothing to do with who's paying to, help avoid a crisis. Everybody should be united and trying to decide that this is what had to happen in order to stem the crisis from happening.

[00:39:17] But it doesn't seem. The political fallout seems to be taken over. 

[00:39:21] Robert Thompson: The Republicans, I'd rather just default on the debt and just burn it all to the ground. Several of them said that. 

[00:39:27] Bob Gatty: I don't know. I think it's a scary thing, especially when for, seniors who, need to live on their savings and investments I know In my own case I've just lost a ton of money in the market since Putin decided to invade Ukraine and hasn't come back from that. And it's a scary thing because your livelihood depends on, you've saved all this money all these years, invested it as best you could.

[00:40:05] and then you've got these kind of external things that go on and this, bank fiasco is, just another one. That's scary. It really is. 

[00:40:17] Robert Thompson: Again, Republicans, social security, they wanna privatize it so that all of that money that would be a guaranteed payment is suddenly, oh no, here's your check.

[00:40:26] You go invest it. None of us are professional. 

[00:40:30] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Speaking of speaking of that, Nikki Haley the other day when she was in South Carolina yesterday, I think it was said that she supports redoing social security totally. And that a senior should be people on social security now should be held harmless, but that young people need to have a different approach for the thing to be solvent in the future.

[00:41:05] Robert Thompson: And I'll back to, grandfather would never vote for Republican Social Security and Medicare away. Yep. And here we are again. Every time we're again 

[00:41:18] Bob Gatty: Back when, I was working on Capitol Hill in the seventies, this was an argument. I remember having to debate my boss's democratic opponent.

[00:41:30] At that time I was working for what was then known as a liberal Republican from New Jersey. and I had to debate his Democratic opponent about whether or not there should be a increase in social security and the Republicans opposed it said that it would Contribute to inflation and to the federal deficit.

[00:41:54] So therefore they opposed any increase to in social security and that was back in the, that was back in the early seventies. They were still fighting the same fight. It's incredible to me. So 

[00:42:10] Arthur Hill: anyway, I was, when I was working on the hill, the thing are, three. Subjects that we'd get mail about from, our constituents were social security, gun control, and get the US out of the UN.

[00:42:26] Bob Gatty: Oh really? 

[00:42:28] Arthur Hill: Yeah. Those were the three biggies. 

[00:42:29] Bob Gatty: Get the US out of the UN. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that too. Sure. Yeah. Okay. You guys got anything else going on? 

[00:42:40] Arthur Hill: I, just want you guys to, take a look at what's going on in your respective legislatures and see if see if what the deal is with this state of article five Convention to amend the constitution.

[00:42:54] I don't know whether Georgia and South Carolina have passed resolutions on that or not, but I don't, either that concerns me. 

[00:43:01] Bob Gatty: To amend the constitution to do what, 

[00:43:04] Arthur Hill: to do whatever the hell they wanna do. The each state would send a delegation to a convention and they could they could debate anything they wanted to.

[00:43:12] They, people were advocating it are talking about turn limits and budget control, budget ceilings and so on. But it could be anything. It's the, it was wide open. 

[00:43:26] Bob Gatty: Wow. 

[00:43:27] Robert Thompson: I'm sure we have plenty here next door that are hell. We, had a whole of fake electors ready to go and put Trump back in office .

[00:43:35] Bob Gatty: Okay guys, I hope that next time we have something more positive to talk about. All this stuff has been a big downer today, I think. 

[00:43:46] Robert Thompson: Mean, we still gotta send cookies to senator Kavanaugh

[00:43:50] Arthur Hill: one of those ones on eBay, . 

[00:43:52] Bob Gatty: Okay. All right, guys. I thank you very much for being with us again on our Dixie Dems episode of Lean to the Left and we'll do it again next month.