Iesus er Fay. Hell, yeah, Saints America and for Regius one.
Nation and you're visible and yes it is wrong.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM and five sixty AM w VOC.
More until you're welcome ahead. It is fifteen minutes after six. It's Friday, Friday, the final day of the month of February, the twenty eighth. Welcome to it. I'm Gary David Christopher Thompson. Good morning to you, sir.
It means we're what one sixth of the way through the years?
Almost? Yeah, I did math. That was even. Yeah, let's see you got your Gary carry you're one.
But how about that, I mean twenty twenty five?
Yeah, going quickly, I just went deaf in my left ear over here. Oh, I forgot about it. This I usually eight dollar headphones here in the studio. I totally had left. Yeah, my left side of my headphones crapped out yesterday morning. And so while I'm on the here, I got on Amazon and order me another eight dollar pair of headphones. So why do youse eight dollar headphones at work? I said, I leave the expensive ones here Are you kidding me?
You probably ought to make an investment there, But actually I have a if you plan to stick around for a few more years.
I'm trying to yeah, no, yeah, it's They last me about a year for eight bucks. It's not a bad investment. I'm jiggling with it right now, trying to get my left ear back there. It is if I just don't move.
My head, stand with your left foot out, yeah.
And hold your head just a certain way. Oh well, anyway, I got I do, actually do have an expensive pair next door. I have to go learn and grab those hair about it. I can do it right now. No, I'm sorry, I can muddle them through. Well, good morning.
You are tap dancing like we have nothing to talk about this morning.
I don't have anything. Do you have anything to bring to the table, because I'm.
Hoping you're gonna read the Epstein list in its entirety?
Oh? I just did? Did you? Did you catch it? Wow? Yeah, we'll get to that nothing burger so far, And I'm waiting for you to explain Gene Hackman's death. O suspicious? You know why they said yesterday morning? It was not suspicious.
I don't know no idea it is definitely suspo could have come across that crime scene and said there's nothing suspicious here.
I yeah, well we we wanted about that yesterday morning. I mean, come on, well we'll get to Yeah, we will. We'll get into some of that this morning. Certainly, run down big story's hot topics for the final of the month. By the way, right after the sun sets tonight, if you if you look in just the right spot, you see a rare seven planet alignment. I can't wait to see Saturday. I want to see the rings. You will see the lights of the sky. Uh. But you don't
even need a telloscope or anything. You should be able to see it tonight, and the weather should be cooperative. Yeah, clear sky. So and there's that. It doesn't happen that often, but I hear it's like only once every twenty five years or something like that. No, it happened again in August. Never mind, I thought that was something special. Right, I'll
run down the big stories of hot topics. Well, we'll start here at home where treasure Curtis Loftus was on the hot seat yesterday testifying in front of the Senate Financial Constitution Senate Finance Constitutional Subcommittee I didn't know we had one of those. And I guess he's had enough.
It sounds like it. Huh, yeah, you would think he would have been a little more I don't. I mean, with that kind of error and it's hanging over your head and has been for months. I guess he's just decided it's time for me to fight back.
I'm done apologizing, right, so we'll get into that this morning. His uh, I was also issuing a detailed report on the conversion entry on the missing that never existed, so
it wasn't really missing one point eight billion dollars. One of the men that Nancy Mace is accused of being a predator in her house speach a couple of weeks ago, Brian Musgrave, has sent an open letter to me Stew's attorney, which, by the ways, Eric blanned, demanding that Mays either show evidence to back up her allegations, retract her claims in issue a policy and apology, or prepare for the matter to move forward in court. And I remember she made this speech on the on the floor of the House
of Representatives. So under the the guys of you can say whatever you want to and you can't be sued for slander. Right, Well, we'll see how that works out. We will see if if you own a company here in the state of South Carolina and you were doing the old DEI thing, well, two bills being considered the state House would tell you got to stop doing that,
at least if you want to do business with state government. Okay, they can't control everything, but if you want to do business with them, you need to stop all that nonsense. The Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit Based Opportunity Act is what it's called. Did you did you read this article on the state paper yesterday, TEF about three of the suspected shooters. Remember that the incident at Middle Lake Park about two years ago or so, you had three
individuals charged with the attempted murder, eleven counts each. Well, those charges have been dropped, they've been cleared now. But the problem is the article is very specific about one of these individuals, and that well it was pretty much proven that this person wasn't anywhere near the scene when had happened. But does specify why charges will dropped against the other two? Did it? Did I miss something?
Now?
I don't think it. Yeah, great tale about one, but nothing about the other two. Okay, so you want the list of the names if you've got them. Yeah, no, I don't. Somebody's got him. Apparently the field office of the FBI and the Southern New York has him, I guess. But well, that was a nothing burger yesterday, just a whole lot of what we already knew. Yeah, I mean the same thing. This was the same information that was was released during the Gallain Maxwell trial. We didn't see
anything we didn't already know about. Which again, Pam Bondi knew this when she h you know, made a mention that this would be released yesterday. When she made that that came on on Wednesday, she knew she didn't have anything to really release. So now she's accusing the FBI of holding back, of burying thousands of pages of these Epstein documents, of these secrets. Cash bettel Is, a new FBI director, vowed to redouble the search for these missing documents.
So are they missing? Are they being withheld? Do they not exist? Well, okay, this is again, this is what we feared. Maybe Bondis should have been a little more forthright and saying, well, you know, i'd really got nothing new, but I'll give you what we have. I don't know the Gene Hackman death suspicious? Yeah, yeah, guess? And how long had Gene Hackman and his wife been dead?
Doesn't sound like he had been dead all that long, but it sounds like the wife had been there.
A good while, mummified, bloated, I mean, in two different parts of the house. Yeah, did she died? Did he not? At ninety five years old? Couldn't take what? We don't know, but yeah, it was just really weird yesterday when the word was well, it's not suspicious, how could that be? They've ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning apparently, so it's not that So it's got to be suspicious, right, you would think? Wow? So yeah, I mean, we the investigation is ongoing in
New Mexico. And how long exactly had the body's been there? It well, at least in her because it's been a while. Can consider the state of the state of her her her.
Body, even the nine call was painful to listen to.
Yeah, initial preliminary autopsy apparently shows that there was there was no external trauma to either Big day in DC today, as Vladimir Zelenski visits the White House, the Ukrainian leader will meet with Donald Trump, and this is the day when it's supposed to be signing that that key minerals deal that well, the hope is this will help bring it into the the war and the war with Russia. I'm not exactly sure I understand why or how in signing that deal that brings the war to an end,
but whatever, it takes. No security guarantees apparently being given up this US on this one, Well, they're there. As Trump said yesterday, Kiev will be granted automatic security guarantees by the mere presence of American extractors. On your Ukrainian source, I guess that's the idea. We're going to send Americans over there to uh procure some of these rare earth minerals, and just by doing so, uh, you know, Putin's not going to be you know, raining down missiles for fear of killing Americans.
But they're not going to stay. Trump's already said if they're peacekeepers involved, they'll be from the European side, right.
Uh. Federal judge in California ruling against the d White House ordering it rescind an order calling for the firing of probationary federal workers. Okay, for every executive ordered, there's a Democrat judge out there somewhere that's going to say no to it. I think we've seen that here in the first of months or so. But more layfts being an ounce Social Security Administration lay off at least seven
thousand employees. Ow, Well, have you dealt with the Solid Security Office recently, especially the one here in Columbia or on the phone, be sure to pack lunch and dinner. Either there's a lot of people working there aren't doing anything, or they're severely understaffed. I'm not sure which one it is. But this is not gonna make your you're venturing more enjoyable, I could promise you that.
Well, they need to figure that out. This is this is some of the criticism that DOGE is getting. Is there, you know, being a little less than precise with their cuts. But maybe they've gone through the roster and realized that there are there's bloat there just as well as every place.
Elting. I'm sure there is. I'm sure that. Well, we'll get to that more coming up on this the Friday morning edition of Columbia's Morning News. That is always good to have you with us.
It's the latest news, traffic and weather is minutes away.
But as you will learn next, that is what's happening.
From one O three point five FM and five sixty AM w VOC. This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM and five sixty AM w VOC.
A lot of those programs, from education to healthcare, they shouldn't be in Washington, d C. They need to be devolved to the states and to the people where they belong. So President Trump is leading us to a golden era for America. But that new golden age in our country will also be a golden age for federalism. Just kick it down to the states. That's what our founders envisioned.
YEP six forty two. Good morning. If a bag Ramaswami, who you may recall, was at least for a moment or two part of the Doze effort, I mean he left before things really got cranked up. Now of course wants to be the governor of the Buckeye State. But Ramaswami commenting on the Doze effort in the cuts and in certain departments, as he just mentioned that, Yeah, the way the founders envisioned it. The state should be making these ideas Department of Education as such. There's a misnomer people.
You forget that the Department of Education at the federal level hasn't alway existed. I mean, it goes back to what the seventies. Maybe I don't recall the top of my head, but it hadn't always been around. Well regardless, the cuts continue. In a little more detail on the latest here. First of all, a judge in California ruling against Trump shocking telling the White House to rescind an
order calling for the firing of probationary federal workers. Now, the Officer of Personnel Management, as we discussed yesterday, had issued a memo, I mean right away when Trump took over, instructing agencies to promptly determine whether or not probationary workers should be retained. Then an internal email from OPM later
ordered agencies to fire the rest of the probationers. Now, a judge yesterday in the Northern District of California, so you get an idea what this judge is all about, called the memory legal order to be rescinded, but did not reinstate employees had already been dismissed. Okay, so we see the pattern here of Trump executive order, Democrat activist judge at least puts it on hold. Yeah, now, we mentioned this a few minutes ago. The Social Security Administration
preparing to layoff at least seven thousand people. How big is the Social Security workforce in this country about sixty thousand, So this is more than ten percent of its staffing. This riff, according to a second person now speaking of the condition of anonymity, could be as high as fifty percent. Fifty that would be thirty thousand people. Well, not clear how these layoffs would directly impact benefits. We didn't think of any impact on benefits. But boy, on customer service,
are you kidding me? If you have ever had to deal with especially this host security, I was here in Columbia. It's a nightmare. It's just a nightmare. I had to deal with an issue with my late father in law a couple of years ago. I get over there. I thought early enough of the day to you know, kind of breeze through. Was I wrong? It starts with the
line of the elevator on the first floor. Okay, that's where the line starts, and then they take a group of a number of people who can fit in and by the time, after about a thirty minute way to get onto the elevator, I thought, okay, smooth sailing now, No, huh huh. Once the elevator stops, you enter a room that looked like the DMV used to look, you know, jam packed with people. It took hours and guess what after all of that, they couldn't even fix the issue.
Well, let's hope they're going to evaluate these cuts and make sure that they're not taking out the wrong people.
Yeah, you know, I don't know how customer service at least at the Columbia Office of so Security can get any worse, but this could make it worse certainly. By the way, just a little quick tip. I learned this one from Jeff Hallibert Health Markets. He says he when he has his clients who need to deal with in person with SOI Security administration, he says, drive to Aiken, go to that office there. You'll save time by driving to Aiken as opposed to go on the one downtown
on Assembly Street. Good tip, simply whichever. Okay, yeah, so anyway, Oh and by the way, if you think you could get on the phone with these folks and get any quicker, better service. Forget that too. Now that's hours of your day wasted as well. But yeah, I mean, if you have at least seven thousand, I don't know what that means for customer service. But there's also this were that hundreds of weather forecasters and other NOAH employees on probationaries.
Those are probationary status. Now we're let go yesterday.
And they let people know it on social media.
Oh yes they did. Some of these were meteorologists who do do forecast local forecasts in the National Weather Service offices across the country. It appears to be two rounds of cuts, one of five hundred and one of eight hundred, according to a former Noah Chief scientist, who said he got the information from someone with firsthand knowledge. Well, we'll see. That would be also about ten percent of Noah's workforce.
Now I know you can easily say, well, you know, they can't forget the forecast right anyway in this particular case, though, when it comes to Noah, I think the more important thing is is the accuracy of a severe weather forecast.
Sure, and I think if you if you consider that that sounds like an awful lot of meteorologists.
Yeah, yeah, it does. And well, you know, technology being what it is these days, you know what you know occurs to me. What we're seeing here is this is the future for all of us thanks to AI. Okay, the truth of the matter probably is is that, you know, the technology available today has probably made some of these positions, or at least the need for so many of them obsolete.
Well, and quite honestly, the other thing is is the government simply going through what we've all gone through by now, and you and I, you and I have certainly gone through it in this building. And that is that the powers that be figure out, okay, who's essential and who can do more than one job now? And and how do we make it more efficient? How do we save money? Well by doubling up on the people we've got.
This is what Yeah, you're right, this is what we've been going through here in this business for ten to fifteen years.
And other businesses have too.
What is plenty of private businesses, yes, non government business You're right. The government's just catching up with the rest of us. Right now.
There's only one business in town that's gotten bigger instead of smaller over the years, and that is Uncle Sam.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, okay, well but never fear the judge somewhere is going to step in and say you can't do this anyway.
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three point five FM on five sixty am WVOC. Once again, here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
Hey can more and tell you it's fifteen minutes after seven o'clock. It's Friday, Friday. I'm Gary. That's Christopher right over there and New Europe all night long reading all the all that that document done from Pan Bondi on the Epstein file.
So I don't think so.
I'm surprised you got tont sleep at all that night, and how excited you were to get this information.
I mean, we didn't learn anything new nothing. I mean you sew people walking out of the White House or out of offices in Washington, d C. Holding these binders up saying I've got it, I've got it. But what did they have?
They just had information that we already have. Let's see. I'm so confused, man. You go back several days when Pam Bondi said it's right here, on my desk for a review. And then she goes on the other night on Fox Wednesday night, says, yes, this should be released tomorrow.
But she knew yesterday, she knew she didn't have it.
She knew she had nothing. Yeah, oh, well she had a few things. She even said, she said, well, you know, don't we got you know, we got flight logs, and you know, we got this and that, and you know, and obviously this was a very sick individual. But yeah, so she knew. Now. Earlier in the week, maybe she thought she had more than she was going to get, but I think it was pretty obvious now and now that in retrospect as of Wednesday night, she knew that
what she had was really a nothing burger. This is the same stuff that we we'd already seen this. This came out during the Glenn Maxwell trial.
And this was in part, you know, more of that effort like the White House has done to rearrange the pressure room. This was the effort yesterday to make the big release even though they didn't have anything, because they were bringing in all these bloggers and influence influencers and giving them the quote unquote Epstein report. But it end up blowing up in their faces, because you know, everybody went back to their their blog or their YouTube channel and said I got nothing.
Right, So I'm confused as to why Bondi even brought it up to begin with. This week now, so she releases stuff we've already seen and then sends off a letter to Cash Patel accusing federal investigators in New York and the FBI in the Southern District of New York with with with withholding thousands of pages of Epstein documents.
She said she'd requested the full case file before Patel was confirmed as the head of the FBI, got about two hundred pages of files, which for the record, is a smaller number of pages than were released last year and the civil lawsuit connected to Maxwell. So she even get all that, So we already knew more than what
BONDI shared with us yesterday. But my question is, okay, so maybe earlier in the week she thought she was going to get everything, and then you know, come about Wednesday or so, what she got was was nothing, and then she had to Okay, well, but my wife and bothered to release it. Then say hey, listen, we're still working to get all of the files that would have data ticked us off. Yeah, but not like yeah, there was this thing yesterday.
Too much build up to do what they did yesterday.
Okay, so Bondie writes, I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents, where sponsored to my request, was repeatedly assured by the FBI, we'd received the full set of documents. Then all here we go in late yesterday, so this would have been Wednesday. I learned from a source that the FBI Field office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to
the investigation and the indictment of Epstein. She said the FBI had never disclosed the existence of those files and demanded they be turned over by Friday morning this morning. So her deadline to the FBI is eight o'clock this morning to over the full and complete files. She wants all the records, the documents, the audio of the video, all the materials related to both Epstein and his clients, regardless of how much information was obtained, she says, So
does she get it now? Patel, who just took over the reins of the FBI, posting on X that the bureau is in a new era now there'll be no cover ups, no missing documents, no stone left unturnle We're gett ready to find out here are we almost kind of doubled down? Now, Okay, this first release was less than impressive. We'll call it. Is she going to get the rest of them by eight o'clock in forty minutes this morning? And if so, are they going to be released by you know, eight thirty? What do you do?
Call everybody back and say, we've got some additions to your binder. Bring your binder back. We want to put a few more pages in it.
Bring back your three ring binder.
Because that was the big deal yesterday, is if you had a then you immediately held it up on social media. I got the Epstein report.
Well, and maybe for Pam, she's an experienced prosecutor and did a great job in Florida's Attorney General. But but maybe she's not quite yet learned the ways of DC. You can maybe argue she maybe you should have known to, you know, to to to keep the amo dry until you're sure that you're you're your gun is fully loaded here and you can deliver on what you said you would. Yeah, yeah, there was pressure. We talked about it, you know, and
a Paulina Luna. It was all over about you know, release you said you you said you would release this stuff, you said you release it, and then you had Marshall Blackburn the last couple of days released these things. So maybe she felt under some pressure to put something out there. But man, I bet she won't do like that again. Huh hm. But the other part of the story is, of course, is is the ifb I trying to hide something. Well, from what we're told by BONDI, it sounds like they are.
What would be their motivation? I mean, you got a new guys in charge here. The obvious speculation again, as we mentioned yesterday, is that something involving Trump is in that report.
Well, I would make an assumption here that if there was something in that report that involved Trump, Trump would know about it, right, you would think so. And Trump never would have put a big press, full court press on to release you know, not only these but the JFK and the and the the MLK files and everything else, right, just not even not even brought it up. Now, maybe that's not the case, but you'd have to think so.
But look again, there are people obviously trying to protect people, or are they thinking they're trying to protect the American public that we just can't handle all this.
That's been the argument about the JFK files for years. We can't handle knowing that our government killed our president.
But so many people already think that anyway true, and so many people are thinking that this Epstein thing that are all sorts of very important, influential people that were associated with this kind of of internable behavior. I think we can handle it.
Maybe you'll have something to handle it about forty thirty seven minutes.
Yeah, I'm not going to hold my breath, but if it gets out of here before we get off here, you can you can bet well we'll be going over it.
Give yourself an edge every morning with the info you can count them on it. Columbia's Morning News, What's Happening one one O three point five FM on five sixty am WVOC. This is Colombia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on one on three point five FM and five sixty am w VOC.
Hey, Good morning guys, and happy Friday. So I'm listening to you talk about the EPSTINC files and the release that was supposed to come and they raided his island. Where are the electronic files? Where are the videos? Where the photographs? Isn't there a lot more to this that we're kind of being diverted away from until somebody really directly addresses it. It's just going to fuel the fires of conspiracy.
That's exactly what's going to happen. Good morning, seven forty two. Thanks for the comment there, and thanks for listen man. We appreciate that.
Responding on the talkback that was Mark, Thank you Mark, Thank you Mark.
Thanks for being part of the family here. Brother. You can also also weigh in whenever you like on the talkback app, the talk back feature on the iHeart Radio app, which is absolutely free and we encourage to do so. The adding downloaded yet a Cassia is very cool. Yeah, it is the they rated it. They've got stuff, Okay, they've got stuff, lots of stuff, and he's dead. Yeah. And until yeah, as Mark just said, until it's all released, we're just gonna we're left to speculate, and sometimes the
speculation gonna be worse than the actual facts. I don't know if that's gonna be true in this case or not, but it's not gonna stop us from speculating and imagining the worst. All right, Well, in seventeen minutes, that's the deadline for the FBI. They turn over the rest of these documents to Pam Bondi's office. We'll see what happens. Now. Yesterday here in town, Curtis Loftus on the hot seat in front of a This was the Senate Finance Constitutional sub Committee.
Y'all have continually confused fund and accounts. Fund and accounts. We don't deal with the funds. We deal with the accounts because a fund is not a bank, it is an accounting record.
Okay, So you feel like me, you're probably confused by all that too, Uh? Are are members of the of this committee also confused by that? The funds and the accounts. Now, remember what looked to be pretty damning evidence against Loftus originally was that he had his office had said, but yeah, you know that that that one point eight billion dollars, uh, you know, wound up being what was the number, like
two hundred million dollars or whatever? And uh, you know in interest in uh and and and and gains on that money being invested. WHOA, that money never existed? How could that be? Well? You know. Then he came back and further explained. He says, well, yeah, well we didn't have that money. But the point what we were saying was if that money were invested, it would have brought two hundred million dollars. I think that was the number into the state coffers. So his explanaial, I didn't say that,
you know, we there's two here. Look at that, there's two hundred million dollars. We just we just gained off of money that didn't exist. You says, had the money existed, we would have Now, so funds and accounts. We don't mage accounts. I think I got that straight, don't. We don't manage accounts, We manage funds.
Uh.
Yeah, this is this back and forth. I don't know what this is going to get us, because you know, well, I.
Mean Larry Grooms, the senator who's in charge of that committee, is out for blood at this point, and he's he's wanted Curtis Loft has gone from the moment this and probably before that. I mean they've butted heads before. I you know, I'm not sure what's to gain at this point because this has lasted so long now, and I mean loftus is going to be out of office soon.
Wear at least up for reelections soon. True.
I don't think he's running again, is he? And I think he said he's not.
As he said that. I think so, I don't recall. Well, yeah, I mean twenty twenty six or a year and a half out from this term being over. Yeah, this is this is almost starting to smell like this is okay. These are all just personal vendettas and grudges going on here, because hey, you and me, all right, as the taxpayer, as the South Carolina citizen, we don't even have a dog in this hunt man. We never have. The money didn't exist. Uh now what.
We what we want our accounts to be on the open.
That's what we want out of all this is that this just doesn't happen again, and that we can have some faith in the in our in our system, whether it's the comtroller or the treasure or or whom at the auditor's office or whomever. I mean. Curtis Loft is the last man standing here.
And we want financial institutions to have faith in the state of South Carolina.
Moreton, this is this is where we do have a dog in the hunt. Yes, uh, we we know again there's an SEC investigation going on, and we also know this has the potential to have a negative effect on our state's credit rating, which has been stirling. And if that takes a hit, then yeah, I mean floating bonds gets more expensive and all that that all boils down to us then as taxpayers and citizens. So we we
do have that dog in the hunt. But I mean, listen, it was a week ago and I don't recall her name now or her position, but another member of officer's office testify. I remember he was on I think on a hunting trip or something pre planned so he couldn't make last weeks. But now so he makes this week, Well where does it end? At what point do you say, Okay, Curtis LoVa is not going to step down now. I think it was Heather Bauer, I think who wanted to
bring up impeachment charge was against him. But he's not gonna He's not gonna walk away from this position. He's not gonna pull a Richard Extrom or the auditor who we never knew even existed or who he was. That Curtis Lava is not going to do that. And short of impeaching him, and I don't know that there's enough votes over there to make that happen either. I'm beginning to what what's the point and the back and forth.
Here Larry Grimm says he's going to make a report and at that point he expects to have some sway over what the rest of the Senate decides to do.
No, that's that's gonna be what would have to happen. That would be the next step. So the ongoing saga goes on, and again the bottom line is this. The money never existed anyway, so it ain't like we lost something. But yeah, we should have accountability and faith. There's transparency and things are being one the right way, no matter who's responsible.
And we should also be able to rise above the personal stuff and be professional.
Well, then that ain't happening.
You're listening to Columbia's Morning News on one oh three point five FM and five sixty am WVOC. Once again, here's Gary David and Christopher Thompson.
It's so good to have you with us this morning. It's Friday, finally the work week, and finally the month of February. Here comes March and all the badness it comes with it. Welcome in or thanks for hanging out. We appreciate it. We got forty five, forty four, now more minutes with you and uh, for the record, sixteen minutes have passed since Pam Bondi's deadline of the FBI to turn over the rest of the Hackman stuff, not hackm I get read to talk about Hackman, the Epstein stuff.
It's the new major story. Yeah right, I'm doing Brian Williams here, I'm conflating. Uh. Yeah, there's been no word as to whether or not they have We'll keep an eye out. Yeah, but the Hackman story, Oh my goodness. Do we need to delineate here between the words or the phrase suspicious as opposed to no foul play? Maybe? So what was it they said yesterday morning?
There's no evidence of foul play.
No evidence of foul play. Okay, so maybe I conflated that with they thought it wasn't suspicious, because it's sure as heck was suspicious, and they're calling that suspicious. Now, Yeah, this is uh. I'm guessing. Well, at some point in time know exactly what happened here, I would hope. But how long had Hackman and his wife been dead? I mean sounds like it could have been weeks.
Yeah, that's that's the major crush. The dog raised suspicions. The dog made it automatically a little more suspicious.
Mm hm.
You know, you have two people who have been married a while who died. That's not off the rails to suggest they died together in some form or fashion.
Yeah, that's what it sounded like initially to me. It was a murder suicide thing. And the dog's a different story.
I mean, I think a lot of people initially assumed that she might have found I mean, Gene Hackman was what ninety five years old? Yeah, yeah, she might have found him dead and then decided all right, I no longer want to live either. Yeah, but yeah, the dog, that would have made sense. The dog changed all that then, apparently.
Because I had my Apparently he loved his dogs. So maybe it's a case of, well, you know, I don't want the dog to you know, I'm taking the dog too. But aren't there words there more dogs in the house.
There were, so they were alive, and the one dog that was dead was in a closet near her.
Yeah, I don't know, man, it's a bizarre.
Yeah, And apparently she had been dead for a while. Mumma fied, is how they describe her appearance.
Yeah, face bloated and yeah, and a bottle of prescription pills strewn all about the place.
And then he's dressed up with sunglasses and a cane as if he had just right, as if he had just come in. Yeah, yeah, and maybe was trying to run back out for help.
Who knows, Yeah, who knows.
But they've studied the gases and apparently there's no carbon monoxide and no other issues there.
So in the pulmary porses no signs of external trauma. So I don't know. Yeah, we're left to speculate for now. But I guess what makes most sense is maybe maybe she overdosed. Maybe and uh yeah, Hackman maybe had a heart attack. He's ninety five years old, you know, a heart attack or something on the way out trying to get help. Who knows. Maybe we'll find out one day anyway, But yeah, suspicious.
Yes, it's going to take a month just to get cause of death. So oh sure you're going to be wondering about it for a while for a while.
Yeah, all right, switching gears here, it's uh, you've heard the reports this morning. No doubt Brian Musgrave, one of the men who was accused by Nancy Mace a few weeks ago being a predator in her speech on the House floor, now is fighting back. And I remember probably I guess it was the Posting Courier was the only outlet to name the other men that she was referring to in that in that House speech, Musgrave being one
of those. He's being represented by Eric Bland, and yeah, this is gonna be good, right, So it's going to.
Be a competition between Bland and Mace to see who can win the headline or.
They both know how to get headlines and attention, right, Yeah.
They both love personal attention.
So this open letter is sent to the congresswoman and to members of the media yesterday demanding that Mace either show evidence to back up her allegations, retract her claims and issue an apology, or prepare to see me in court. Now. Remember Mace gave this speech on the floor of the House, and I always forget what the what the official phrase is where basically, if if you're a member of Congress and your you can say whatever you want to on the floor of the House. And be worried about any
any ramifications. Right, can't be accused of slander because you're a congress person and you set it on the floor of the house. Go figure. You and I would not have that sort of luxury. But if you're a congress person, you do. Just like in political advertising, you can say whatever you want to to be anywhere near the truth. And well, if you're a you know, a private business and try to do that, well that could be a problem. But regardless, I guess this is going to be tested. Huh.
I don't in a million years see Nancy Mace now saying oh, yeah, I'm sorry, it didn't really happen. I'm sorry that's not going to happen.
Especially with her political aspirations being what they are exactly, that would be a tough one to survive.
Now show the evidence to back it up. His letter says, here's one of the problems I have from the get go, the simple idea that Mace chose that setting for that reason to make these claims. Now, to me, I'm just trying to think as logically interrational as I can here, and that may be a stretch. But if she had the you know, if she had the receipts, why bother to you know, put yourself in a situation where people could say you only did this in this setting so
that you couldn't be sued for slander. If you had the receipts, if you had the evidence, why did you choose to do it there? Why not just do it in your district or wherever, any anywhere but the floor the House of the Floor, Flora, the House of Representatives.
Call a I mean, she wound up getting a lot of attention. But call a well publicized press conference and you'll get a lot more attention. Well right off the bat, then.
You did this at seven o'clock at night and in front of about you know, three people in the House representative exactly. If you'd have called a you know, a noon press conference, then all the cable channels would have covered.
It probably, yeah, and then talked about it for days.
Yes, So yeah, I mean, does she have any evidence? She says she's seen the phone, But does she have any evidence? Could it be possible that this whole thing could wind up being the undoing of Nancy Mace here?
Well, if she thought, if she doesn't have anything, and thought she would just simply bluff her way through this undercover of being on the house floor. Yeah, that wasn't the smartest move.
Yeah, I mean, time's gonna tell. I suppose so. At least one of these men, Musgrave is he's calling her out on this. Stay tuned stand by.
This is Columbia's Morning News with Gary David and Christopher Thompson on one O three point five FM and five.
VOC some time for our final thoughts here on a Friday morning, it is eight forty Good morning to you, and forty minutes past since the deadline. If I missed something, mister Thompson, is there any news that I don't think The FBI, as far as we know, has yet to turn over. Maybe they have, we just don't know about it. At the rest of the Epstein files to Pam Bondy, Okay, all right, well, grab a cup of coffee or something and keep an eye uner her office. Keep on Yeah,
exactly all right. There's not one, but two bills being considered here over in the state House that would prohibit any company that promotes DEI from doing business of state government. The bills, called Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit Based Opportunity Act, would be one just what I said, no part of the state's government could do business with any company that's promoting DEEI policies. Boom. Okay. Now the critics say, well, you know, the government has no right to get into
people's h aren't hiring practices and such. These same critics, of course didn't say that when well, the government was doing just that right if through refusing to do business at a federal level in other states with companies who weren't participating in diversity, equity and inclusion. Kind of like, for four years, the left just totally ignored the fact that we had you know, prices were high, and now that's all they can talk about the price of eggs, not in China but in the US.
Yeah, okay, Well it's kind of like for years, race based college admission was just seen as the norm.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, it was given.
Not anymore instead of just going on merit.
Are you going to buy anything today, mister Thompson, Maybe to spend some money, I don't know, boost the economy a little bit.
Okay, I guess I will. Okay, well, some people won't. Oh, today's the boycott. Today is the boycott? Yes, the twenty four boycott day. It's coming from the People's Union USA. So the economic blackout twenty four hours of spending abstinence. Okay, you're just gonna buy it twice as much stuff tomorrow. You're gonnauy the stuff tomorrow. You didn't buy it today because you're boycotted today. So I mean, I'm much where
the point is here. Well, just to get some attention here, do we measure the economy by the day instead of by the way hour period?
I don't think we do.
How did they know they're gonna make even a small impact?
Yeah, I don't know, but I hope those who are planning on taking part, you know, gassed up their car yesterday maybe or bought some food and such. Okay, Interestingly enough, they've advised our customers to abstain from making any purchases in store or online, but not from big retailers. Are changed. They want participants to avoid fast food and yeah, putting gas in their car? What did I read that?
Right?
But particularly not from big retailers or I would think those a the people that have the biggest issue with them. Whatever. So you know, I do plan to buy something today, and if I hadn't, I would. Now, now we do have again still issues in the economy and issues in the real estate market. January pending home sales dropping to the lowest level ever on record. Well, I say ever, they started tracking this back in two thousand and one, so in the last quarter of a century. Yeah, lowest
we've seen. Mortgage rates were also higher last month. Gay, This goes back to all of the out of the issue that well, you know, get get Trump into office and he's going to change it right away. No, he's not. Nobody could do that. Whoded he couldn't do that, and two thirds of the monthsho Obiden was president. But I don't expect that to see any changes when the February
reports come out. Not going to happen. You got a new poll out saying that the majority of Americans, actually a vast majority, seventy seven percent, say that their income is not keeping up with inflation. I'd agree with that. Yeah, that that hasn't changed yet. Let's hope that it will. But that's not going to change again overnight. Twenty three percent say they think we'll plunge into a recession. Remember
that recession thing is a weird thing. Remember how they just ignored the rule of thumb a couple of years ago. What was it? Was it two or three straight quarters of GDP decline meet you in a recession? I know, we don't go by that. And it's you know, a group of economists with some kind of a weird name for their group. I can't recall what that is. Who after the fact say yeah, remember back in twenty twenty four, that was that was a recession. Oh and we didn't
even know it. So this whole recession thing, I mean, we just'rester we're just we live in and they decided later on that we did I guess. Yeah. Part of the problem with all this is, well, it has been the government giveaways. Speaking of which, this news out now taxpayers and Illinois. This is JB. Pritzker State. This is that sanctuary State paid out one point six billion dollars for healthcare programs for illegal immigrants in the last four years. Yep.
This based on spending projections estimated by Printzker's administration and an audit that was released this week. Because Republicans of the state House, they have wanted it. One point six billion dollars health care for illegals and that's just one state. You throw in California, New York. Imagine the possibilities. Huh wow and listen, it cuts both ways. The Michigan Republican Party condemning comments made by one of their delegates. This his name is His name is Ryan Anderson. He's an
Ottawa County Republican Party delegate. This is a guy who has said the Holocaust didn't happen. But what gut is the comments got him condemned where he referred to Adolf Hitler as a hero. Adolf Hitler is one of the true heroes of history, he said in a Facebook post, and then doubled down on comments but said he's not announced. He didn't hate anybody. That Hitler heroically fought against the Russian Bolsheviks who interstalled and murdered millions of Christians. Blah
blah blah blah blah. Uh wow. Yeah, thankfully the Michigan Republican Party quick to condemn those comments and the guy, Let's face it, the guy shouldn't be a delegate anymore. I don't know what it takes in Michigan in their party apparatus to get somebody, you.
Know, kicked out, but hopefully that would do it right there. Why this sudden fascination with and it seems to be Republicans with flirting on the edges of adoring Nazi Germany.
Well, I don't know, you know, And are they really or is there just now several years of the Democrats saying they are that anytime you just kind of throw your hand up in the air to wave to somebody, now you're making a high Hitler salute, is what they say. I don't know, but in this case, yeah, this guy absolutely, he didn't floor it with it. He went right there. No unforgivable