Welcome friends, day two of the twelve Days of Preston, and that of course means we're going to chronicle the month of February. This is kind of our gift to you as opposed to having you listen to something that a lot of you don't enjoy listening to over and over again, because I had just heard it the hour before.
We decided a few years back that we would do a year in review and sort of kind of a best of the Morning Show with Preston Scott and offer it as a gift, a way of saying thank you and keeping you a little entertained by going back through a very interesting year. Right the year twenty twenty four was quite the year, and we're going to take you through it. Yesterday was the month of January. Today is December twentieth. More on that in just a few moments.
But today is the second day of Preston, So it's the month of February. And so we'll knock off each month with each show as we go through the process of building these twelve days out for you. And so while we are away on a little vacation time for us, we still wanted to take the time because these do
take some time to produce. We wanted to take the time to share what we thought were key interviews and segments from the programs in a given month and repackage them and boil them down into our three hours together. So that's what we will do, and as we always do, we will we will art this program as we do every show, with some scripture, because you know, what's the old expression that you see on the cards. You can't spell Christmas without Christ. And so you can do all
you want to celebrate Christmas. I mean, that's that's awesome and fine, But to do it without acknowledging Christ, I just think it'd be a shame.
You know.
It's it's interesting to me that, for one reason or another, basically everything around the world shuts down on December twenty fifth, which of course is just a few days a few days away. And so even though the world does not all acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God and worthy of celebration, they sure acknowledge him by shutting down everything at Christmas time on Christmas Day. And so our verse
today it's actually a series of verses. You know, Christmas is the day that we celebrate the birthday of Jesus. Was it December the twenty fifth? Well, no, probably not, but that's the day that we've settled on, and we're going to honor Jesus on December the twenty fifth. But it's accurate to say that Jesus has a birthday in the same sense as anyone else in history. Right, can a day in December truly mark the beginning of the
Son of God? Well, but that's where things change, right, That's where Jesus separates himself, because unlike every other baby, Jesus really didn't have a beginning point. We acknowledge his birth in human form, but he existed before his birth. The apostle John stated in the beginning was the word. The word had already existed. The word was Jesus. Jesus himself declared his pre existence before Abraham was even born. I am, he said in John eight fifty eight, and
he affirmed his true origins. I've come down from heaven. John the Baptizer was born before Jesus, testified to Jesus's eternal nature, saying he existed long before me. But yet John was born before him, so he knew the nature. If you will of Jesus and eternity passed. Jesus as the son of God, communed in perfect harmony with his Father and the Holy Spirit. This is the mystery of the trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit three and one, coequal, coexistent,
co eternal. And so you then have to get to wrestling with the question of why did God the Father send his so to creation? What was the purpose? Well, we kind of touched on that yesterday John three point sixteen, But today I just want you to consider that gift that God so loved the world he gave. It's the gift of grace. But like any other gift, it's meaningless unless you receive it. You know, if I give my wife or my children a present, I take the time to wrap it up, and yes, I do the gift
wrapping because I'm just that way. I love wrapping gifts. It's something my mom and I did together. It's a pretty good gift wrapper. So if I wrap a gift, it's not a gift until it's received. Until then, it's just a good intention. It's what is something that I've planned to give, But you've got to receive that gift. My children have to receive. My wife has to receive any gift that I offer her, and for you and me, God has to be received. We have to make that choice,
all right. As I mentioned, it is December the twentieth. It's a Friday. Opening up the American Patriots Almanac to the twentieth we have. In sixteen oh six, Jamestown settlers set sail from England for Virginia. Seventeen ninety first successful American cotton mill begins operating in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Louisiana. Purchase formally completed in New Orleans in eighteen oh three. South Carolina becomes the first state to seceed from the
Union in eighteen sixty. In eighteen ninety one, in late December, John Nasmith works out the basics of basketball, and in nineteen fifty one, an ex nmental reactor near Rco, Idaho produces the first electricity ever generated by atomic power.
What are you kidding me?
So there you go this date in history. From time to time, as we do the twelve days, we're gonna let you listen to a little sound of the season if you will. And so I think that's what we'll do. We'll head into break come back we'll start unpacking the month of February. It's the Twelve Days of Preston, and we're going to go through each and every month, each and every day through the twelve days as we recap a year twenty twenty four on The Morning Show with Preston Scott Dude.
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Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston. This is day two, which means the second month of the year and the month of February. We'll kick it off with a visit with state Chief financial Officer Jimmy Patronis covered a lot of ground, including some hurt feelings after Florida State University got snubbed out of the college football playoffs, but we also talked about Jimmy's career in a broader sense, including how far back it goes.
So I did eight in the state legislature and I was working at the restaurant, so you know, doing what I was supposed to work and have a real job at home. Then I was term limited out I was going home. Rick Scott asked me to go on the Public Service Commission, so I was there three years and then twenty seventeen he appointed me to be CFO after my Kadie, my wife, gave me permission. So then elected
in eighteen and re elected in twenty two. So I'm I'm about to cross the threshold of you know, working on my I guess my seventh year.
How many is it term limited?
Yeah, it's term limited. If I finished this term, which I'm tending to, I'll be the longest servant's CFO in the state's history.
And that's it. You're done.
Yeah, I mean, well, I mean there's there's I mean, unless you're going to change the constitution. But yeah, I'm done. I bet. I do think I got the best job in the state. Nobody nobody shows up the work unless I find the paycheck. So when everybody takes my phone call because of that, So it's it's it's good stuff.
How would you describe to somebody like you're sitting down with a person that's not involved in politics, They don't really know, probably don't care, and they say, what is the job of the CFO. How do you describe your job in life like a coffee table discussion.
Yep. For the first thing I tell them, I said, it's like I'm the state's business manager. I payl the bills, a balance, a checkbook. You know, a license. You know, over a million insurance licenses in the States of whether it be your you know, guy says your car insurance, life insurance, health insurance. I do all insurance consumer fraud.
You know.
Here's another one people don't realize, you know. I ask them, you know, a licensed funel homes and then funerals. Why do your license fuels? Because people by pre need. It's like an insurance product. So where there's where there is a a fiduciary responsibility with an insurance role and it's tied to the consumer, I have a responsibility. I'm the
state fire marshal. I regulate blasting anything is like the governor's office didn't want I ended up getting when they rewrote the constitution twenty years ago.
When we look at the legislative process, we're in session right now, and the one mandate is to balance the budget. As you well know, how much, if any input do you have on it on the front end or the back end.
So it's interesting, not a tremendous amount. But you know, back during COVID to the legislature, the Speaker and the Senate President and the governor have the revenue estimating conference where they're going to have the projections, and they built the budget. But what I did, which ruffled some feathers, buff All was important to do, is I started, I saw what was happening with COVID, and I started sending it.
People don't like him when you send letters, but I sent a letter to those those different parties saying, you know, these are some concerns I've got. Oh, they didn't like me sending letters, but you know that's part of my job is I managed a checkbook even though they dictate what I can spend and I can stop payment on something. But you know, I've been around this process long enough. I've seen more than one dip in the me and
I get paranoid. When are states, you know, cash reserves where again we're where like a seasonal business on a beach destination. We ever ups and downs of the cash flow of the state. When tourism's here. We've got lots of money right now, it's just all the way around. We've got plenty of money, but time is fleeting. And you know, like I said, COVID, COVID wiped out the state financially, but we bounced back very quickly.
Jimmy word association, I say, ESG.
You say, worst thing you could do to the profitability of a company. Explain that's that's a word style that I gave him more than a word.
Oh no, no, no, sir, that you are not even close to Kamala Ra's territory.
You say ESG, which is three letters, and I say that.
Explain to people why why is Florida's so focused on fighting ESG. It started last year with stuff that made national headlines, but the fight is continuing. Explain why so ESG is.
It seems to continue to weave itself into corporate boardrooms. Corporate boardrooms don't know what to do with it. You've gotten the situations where a chairman or a board of directors is saying, you've got to adopt these ESG policies. Some of this stuff has been dictated by some of the stock exchanges. That stands for environmental, social and governance. So I mean, if you understand what the term woke is, if you woke kind of goeskin in hand with ESG.
And the more environmental friendly you are, the more social agenda friendly you are, the more your governess reflects supportive of those two. You know, they score you as like having a high ESG score. And you have companies that praise themselves on the media about being that, but that has zero sensitivity to the bottom line. So this is where like in the case of black Rock, black got way out in front on this, but they're also one
of the biggest managing of assets in the world. You know, it started affecting their bottom line, which is firefighter's pensions, it's law enforcement pensions. And I just said, you know, I don't want it doesn't perform well. But two, you know, it's not what's going to create the best thing for the buck when it comes to investment of people like that in the long run.
I'm curious, Jimmy, you know there's a story. We haven't even talked about it yet today and I doubt we will today. Disney got whipped one more time in court the state of Florida, one against Disney. It was a pretty significant ruling yesterday. But Disney is all in on ESG. But yet they somehow are escaping their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. It's a publicly traded company. At what point does that rooster come home to roost?
I think at some point it will. As long as you've got stock exchanges that have some form of an es G expectation in their governance, then then this is going to make the water, you know, kind of murky when it goes into a court. It comes down from a lot of influence from Washington, out of the White House. And so where we feel like we have the high ground we take is to call them out as ESG
doesn't always have the best outcomes on investment. And Daddy always said, you want to get somebody's attention to get into their pocketbook. So I mean where you have dollars fleeing the ESG funds or the es G companies. Because some companies proudly, you know, put it front and center. Some of them they check the box and they do whatever they mentally have to do because they've got a border of directors that still believes and have a maximum
profitability every single year. But yeah, it's in the case of Disney, they they they've you know, doubled down on it. Yes, they wasn't a good day for Disney bottom line.
In the state of Florida, the lawmakers, and I'm guessing with some guidance from your office, they're erecting barriers between the public and the businesses of Florida and the banking and lending institutions that want to try to score companies and businesses and loan applications with ESG.
Yeah, basically said, if you're going to only lend money to a business and the more woke that they are, the more ESG friendly that they are, we're going to give you a lower interest rate.
That's horrible.
That's horrible, you know. So we said, if you're going to do that, we made one hundred and seventeen banks they sign attestation inform saying we do not score loans in this method or manner. So, okay, as long as you don't do that and you really care about somebody's
business fundamentals, then you can do business. With the State of Florida and the scheme of things, that's a pretty big stick we have to use over the banks, because if if the State of Florida starts pulling out my checking account of loan's got sixty billion dollars in it, that's to included in the two hundred billion that we've got in retirement and funds. The state of flord is int a great financial place, but we've got a lot of financial.
Ice too, And I'm going to remind the CFO that we we stress on this program no profanity. And I say that because, as I mentioned this next word association. So I say NC double A and you say say for broadcasting.
Uhar, you were stuck.
Because your first instinct is I want to say something with four letters, all right, So I say NC double A. You made a lot of waves publicly in the wake of Florida State being axed out of, snubbed whatever from the college football playoff. We talked in the break Senator Rick Scott's asked for documentation, has he gotten any?
So they immediately fired back a letter from their compliance officer, which you know was was careful not to expose any any liability. But I tell you, the NCAA is in Washington a lot and they and they use it for cover because they've got such a train wreck of an administration right now. They're getting nothing solved with NIL, the portal, the challenges that's created, the debacle that happened with the playoff system, How.
That playoff workouts, Well, we're in the midst of it. You'd be the judge of that. We'll be back with more the Twelve Days of Preston here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston. Our gift to you a year in review the month of February today on the Morning Show with
Preston Scott and one of our favorite guests. One of your favorite guests is Sal Newso then with the James Madison Institute, now Executive director of Consumer's Defense, but always talking about what's going on inside the legislative halls of the Sunshine State. The Governor's office. Go, yeah, the governor's.
Definitely getting more involved in legislative Well, he's back, Yeah, he's back. In addition, there's something I wanted to highlight because it's a pretty big deal. He filed suit against the Biden administration and it's in respect to the children's health insurance program in Florida. Chip it's a subsidized insurance offering, and it has a lighting scale for really really small premiums at certain income thresholds, so it's meant to be a safety net. So Florida was the first state to
operate this program. Now, under the parameters, the legislature was able to expand this program to cover even more kids as recently as last year. So the Biden administration issued a ruling through the Center for Medicaid Service as CMS stating that states must provide continuous coverage even if people have stopped paying those tiny premiums. So in effect, it
would create a free for all into the program. People go in, they stop paying, and they can't get the state has no way to get them back on track. It's definitely a push by the FEDS to backdoor control
over how the state does health insurance policy. I mean, it's clearly aimed by the leftists to come in, and as you would imagine, the left media has gone upon oplectic just claiming that all that the Dysantas administration wants to do is kick kids off of insurance, which is ridiculous considering we've expanded the program and we're doing it in a way that helps protect the state's budget and ability to continue to expand it, and so DeSantis filed suit.
It's something we know conservative should all get behind because it's actually protecting the people who need this the most and allowing the state to do what it can.
And then, look, life teaches us that if you don't have a little skin in the game, no matter how small it is, you have no value of it.
Well, and if you think about it, from the left's ultimate goal is a completely universal, quote unquote government controlled health system. This is one little step along those yep, along that road. And wisely the governor sees it for what it is and says, oh, no, we are doing this in a way that you can't do. That you've shown you're completely incap bull of doing, and we're going to sue to keep that going. All right, The governor got a huge win. We mentioned it briefly in court
against Disney. Explained, Yeah, so federal court Judge Allan Windsor tossed the Disney defamation suits. So Disney had sued the governor, claiming that it was political retaliation for them speaking their mind on a particular bill, and the judge in the case tossed it, and now Disney has said they're going to appeal. I think this is just a loser for them. They continue to get egg on their faces as continues. So you know, if I was a consultant for him, I would say.
Just go away. The governor also came out publicly regarding four specific resolutions. What were those and why do you think he came out on these?
Well, one the political calculus. This may be a good kind of political narrative for him if he is thinking about running four years from now. The resolutions are to adopt term limits for Congress, to pass a balanced budget of men for the United States Congress, a line item veto for the President, which would need to be an amendment because the Congress passed it in the nineties and it was tossed by the Supreme Court. And then I love this one. Force Congress to be subject to all
laws that it passes. What a novel idea go figure. So that's it's a pretty big deal. There are what they call Article five conventions around the country.
Constitutional Yeah, the Convention of States days coming up on the twentieth of February.
These are all efforts to invoke Article five, which allows the states to come together and propose amendments of the Constitution. Florida is moving all of these and so looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
Governor Rondasanus very publicly didn't just support Texas. He's sending the Florida National Guard.
Yeah, not only the Florida National Guard, but the State Guard, which was established for him a session or two ago, I think it was two years back.
Well deeps there or FDL E and even some state troopers are there and so forth.
Yeah, so you've got this effort of partnership between two very conservative states. Both are border states, but approach border control very differently, Texas as a landmass border, Florida as a coastal border. But the fact that this is kind of sent the left also into its He reveals to me just how bent they are on nothing but complete
open borders. And we were talking before the show about you know, I'm trying to pay attention to the border bill that they're trying to pass, and it just seems like it's got a complete lack of Logically, we're going to allow five thousand a day through the border, I mean the number should be zero, but you in addition to that You've got the district attorney in New York City. I think it's Alvin Bragg. Yep, he indicted Trump and he's refusing to do anything about illegal immigrants and crime
in his own district in New York. I mean he's letting them out in are going out and committing more crimes.
Yeah.
So it's a something that while JMI doesn't, you know, kind of do immigration and border policy, it's something we're following.
Quite a bit. What are the highlights of what happened in a really busy week in the legislature.
Yeah, it was.
It was a really really busy week. HB fourteen oh three is a big one. It's making changes to the vehicles for school choice programs in Florida.
It passed the full House.
Now what it would do is expand the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which goes to special needs kids. It's a different pot of money, and it also consolidates the Hope Scholarship into the new ESA. The Hope one was for the kids who were bullied and assaulted. They're just moving that into the ESA and that one's going away. In addition, thirteen sixty one past the full House, which would expand the ESA into the VPK program for kids that aren't reaching
early reading and math benchmarks. And this is something where I think they're going to start taking little bites at the apple on VPK and try to get school choice into those programs as well. Okay, HB forty nine, We've talked about this a couple of times, easing employment restrictions on sixteen and seventeen year olds. It passed the full House, the Senate version. Danny Burgess, Senator Burgess has got it. It's made it through one stop, so I see that
moving as well. HB six thirty five from Fiona McFarlane. We haven't talked about this one, but I got a look at it, and it's a really really great bill offering tax breaks for businesses that offer childcare for employees. So if a business offers either childcare in house or they provide childcare payment as a benefit, they can take a deduction from their either their corporate income tax insuran's premium taxes, a few other taxes of the state levies.
I saw this one late, but I absolutely loved it. The Senate version is moving as well. Kudos to Ret MacFarlane for kind of the foresight on this one, fake weed on the chopping block HB sixteen thirteen, It passed a committee. It would severely restrict products that mimic some of the effects of THHC, but you can buy them without a medical marijuana license or what have you. Thus far,
it's legal. They're trying to as I've read about it, they're trying to gear up for when recreational marijuana does in fact get on the ballot and likely passes. So it's one that if you're into those things, you're likely paying attention and you may not like the restriction, but be prepared because I.
Do see that when moving all right, pitbull owners pay close attention.
Yeah.
House built eight seventy three from Representative Pain Dangerous Dog Liability Insurance. It pass committee unanimously, also moving in the Senate. Now it's not based on breeds, and that's very important, but rather dogs that have a specific individual history. So if your dog attacks or bites, or there's a complaint and it's and it's verified, then you would be required to obtain one hundred thousand dollars of liability coverage.
Or get rid of the dog.
And so it's been implemented in a couple of other states very effectively, and I kind of and you like it.
Because there's there's in every breed. There are sweetheart dogs and there are more aggressive dogs.
Yeah, and a blanket either ban or requirement to have liability insurance if you've got some, you know, fifteen year old pit bull that isn't doing anything at all except lying around on your couch. I like the approach that really kind of targets this in a manner that's that that is better than a blanket co approach.
We've got more of our legislative update with sal Nowzo coming up next on the twelve Days at Preston. All Right, we're in the month of February in the twelve Days of Pressent and continuing our legislative update in the middle of the session with sal new Zoe.
We talked briefly last week about a couple of reform bills, one that would restrict third party financing of litigation. It was on the agenda for a committee hearing, but it got postponed and as of yesterday I couldn't figure out why, and nobody seems to be saying why. It could be some technical language, but I'm paying attention to that. However, Senator Jim Boyd's bill, Senate Bill seventeen sixteen, would allow what are called surplus lines insurance providers to take over
policies from citizens property. Surplus lines are kind of specialty insurance providers. They had been banned from citizens for a variety of reasons. But we need to offload citizens policies into the mark. So this is a good move. There another tort reform bill beginning to move, Senate Bill two thirty eight, limiting litigation against assisted living facilities. Now, the crux of this bill is in regard to who can be sued in many cases, als have independent operators, they're
owned by large companies, hedge funds. We've got an aging population that's growing, a lot of people are going to be going into ALFs, and so this is kind of a foresight bill to get ahead of the game. There, Okay, HB fifteen sixty one, Good luck.
Oh yeah.
Representative Demi Busata Cabrera is moving specific reforms to what procedures can be performed in an office versus a surgical center. It's targeted at something called Brazilian butt lifts. And I only mentioned it because I wanted to say Brazilian butt lift on the show. Who doesn't exactly along those same lines will continue. Senator Clay Yard Senate Bill sixteen to ninety requiring employees of adult establishments to all be twenty one years or older.
It's moving.
So if you want to be an adult dancer, first off, I would say please reconsider. But if that doesn't work, you have to wait until you're twenty one.
Rep.
Amnesty in the House as a companion, that's moving. House built three ninety five from Dean Black protecting historical monuments. It's moving in both chambers. He's been kind of championing this for a couple of sessions. The Senate Companion Bill gets a second stop this week. The bill was changed a bit so the monument has to have been in place for twenty five years. I don't know why they picked that year or that number of years as a starting point, but that's the way that they're kind of
getting some folks over over onto their side. There one more twelve to twenty three from Bobby Pain lowering the age to buy a long rifle back to eighteen. It's moving in the House. I'm I feel it's likely to pass but according to the Senate President, it is a non starter for them. So just wanted to call attention to that one as it as it continues to move forward, how.
Long before that ends up in court and tossed out.
Well, somebody's got somebody's got a an eighteen or nineteen or twenty year old has to sue, and then it's got to move through the process.
There. This is what normally happens midway through the legislature, Gosha, things start going, yeah.
This is this is the first of the two, kind of like moving weeks where stuff is just all of a sudden, now the floodgates are open. Moving on HB five point thirty three from Fabricio would close the loophole and require all inmates in state facilities to have DNA samples collected. It's ready for the House floor Senator and Goolia has a Senate Command Companion that's moving the full Senate past SB two eighty, which would provide a state
level regulatory system for vacation rentals. House Companion has made it through its first stop, but it has two others, and that would preempt most of the local regulations that are in place around the state for airbnbs and whatnot interesting tack and a large agency bill for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The bill now has a provision banning the production or sale of fake meat. And we don't mean like veggie burgers, we mean like lab created,
cultivated meat. So the agency bills typically get passed, so I'm paying attention to see how this looks.
Moving ahead.
Sixteen thirty nine, requiring official documents to identify an individual's sex as opposed to gender identity. It passed its second stop, and I expect the House to pass it. It currently does not have a Senate companion, so one of two things will happen. Either it'll pass the House and that'll be it for this or a proposed committee bill could pop up. Those can be filed late in the session, in which case it could move really really quickly. So
we'll have to see what happens there. All right, what's coming up this week? This week, we've got today We've got a first Senate committee hearing for the companion bills
to HB one in HB three, that's this afternoon. I'm hearing that the version that the House passed it's going to be changed before it gets to the Senate floor, but I'm definitely paying attention to how it progresses and what the amendment changes, because, as we've talked about, there are some concerns on whether or not the age verification piece is constitutional given what other states have done. And you know, as the governor has said, as others have said,
you really want this to stick. You want it to make it past any kind of court issues, and that's something that I'm kind of paying attention to as.
We move forward. It's one of my biggest complaints with Congress is that they pass laws that don't pass constitutional muster. Why bother?
Yeah, yeah, And you know, I understand where the Speaker and others are coming from. I agree with the intention, but kind of the direction that it's going. I'm paying attention to what the Senate does. Final segment here, What else is coming up this week? Can we just first talk about the fact that it looks like we're going to make it through all five pages of notes?
Well not now, you just wasted time.
Darn it all right, Senate Regulated Industries, they're gonna hear Jay Trumbell's bill, which would lift regulations on the size of wine containers, which personally I am all in favor of. I want gallons of wine available at restaurants and wherever you had it. Hook up an iv man if someone wants to whatever allow I believe in free markets.
Preston. I've never had a glass of wine in my life. I don't care, but I don't care what the government thinks about how big a wine glasses.
Exactly, exactly, all right. Kudos to Chip Lamarca, who's got the House bill. He's been championing this for many years. Also first stop for a really great bill to establish
what's called a limited barber license. What this would do is it's almost like an apprenticeship for a barber, and it allows an individual and I want you to think about someone kind of returning from to society from prison or who you know can't afford yet to get into barbering school or pay the eleven thousand dollars average tuition. It would allow them a limited scope under the tutelage
of an existing barber with supervision. And so the House and the Senate committees are taking that up this today and tomorrow. We've also got a bill from Rep. Allison Tant It would make Florida a hands free state, so if you're in your car and your phone is there, you would not be able to touch it. After that bill passes, if it does in fact move Tuesday, we've got a big Banking and Insurance Committee hearing in the House.
In addition, in that bill or in that committee hearing, you've got a cybersecurity bill from Rep. Mike ga Lombardo. It gets a second committee stop. We're starting to pay attention to it. It's really really good, but the goal is really to position Florida, especially on the state government side, to protect it from the inevitable thousands and in some cases millions of hack attempts that come in from China
and other adversaries. A ton of bills in the Senate Community Affairs Committee along with the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee. I looked at the calendar for that. I think it was like twenty bills or something like that. Healthcare Appropriations Committee is also going to hear several bills we've met in prior weeks, including one that I spoke about I think it was last week on dental therapy. Pay attention to this because, as I've mentioned, Florida has tremendous healthcare
provider shortages. What this one would do is establish a mid level provider category to do very routine stuff, basic fillings, basic extractions, and some other things along those lines. And the idea is you've got rural areas in the state that have maybe one or two dentists for one hundred thousand people, and it just can't be allowed to continue as we grow.
Sow New zoh now with Consumers Defense, offering a look inside the legislative session about halfway through, but early in the month of February, here on the Twelve Days of Preston. Welcome to the second hour of the second day of the Twelve Days of Preston. Good morning friends, I'm Preston Scott. This is our Christmas gift to you. While we are away taking our Christmas break, we're keeping you company by doing a best of kind of a look back at the year of twenty twenty four and reminding you of
the stories that shaped the year. A tumultuous year, an incredible year, and we're just going to ease you right on through it. So Day one was the month of January. That was yesterday. Day two today Friday, December the twentieth is the month of February, and so we begin this second hour with what really ended up being one of the biggest stories of the year, because you you mark
the times sometimes with events that you know. I described this one as bittersweet, and it was the passing of FSU baseball coach Mike Martin sor eleven.
Was is.
A legend as far as coaching, definitely one of the very few goats on the mountain. No coach in any sport won more games in the NC two A than Mike Martin did as coach of FSU baseball. And so we're going to take some time here this morning and hour number two to remember the day that we talked about with great great fondness, our dear friend Mike Martin Senior, otherwise known as eleven.
Doubt the most difficult, the most unpredictable sport. I mean, who would have ever thought six weeks ago that we would get to Omaha.
I'm just so proud of the young men.
They're obviously very disappointing now, but what they accomplished just will not go unnoticed. To get to Omaha and have an opportunity a lot of credit just goes to those young men, and all the credit goes to our staff.
That is the legend. Eleven Mike Martin courtesy of ESPN in the wake of Florida State's last appearance in the College Baseball World Series with Mike Martin at the Helm in twenty nineteen, the seventeenth appearance in the World Series with eleven running the baseball program, forty years as head coach, forty visits to the NCAA tournament. That's just insane. Good morning, everybody, The Morning Show with Preston Scott, The Big Story in the press Box, brought to you by Restore Carpet Karen Tyle.
It is a It is a bittersweet morning. It was a bittersweet day yesterday. If you met Mike Martin ever in your life, you felt like he was your friend. Eleven passed away yesterday at the age of seventy nine, just eleven days short of his eightieth birthday. Three year battle with louis body dementia. It was about a year ago. I played golf with eleven and saw some signs, but I first met Mike at the FCA Golf Tournament more than twenty some odd years ago. In that particular year.
It was being played out at Seminole and he was standing at a par three and for a donation to fca an extra donation, he did a golf ball for you on the on that whole, you should know eleven could play golf. Not only was he an amazing baseball player. In fact, when he left Wingate Junior College enrolled at Florida State, he helped lead the Noles to the sixty five World Series and then the UNCAA Tournament the next year as well. He coached at Cobb Middle School, He
coached at Godby High School. He coached at TCC. Then he was hired by Woody Woodward as an assistant in nineteen seventy five. Spent four seasons as an assistant under Woodward and one under Dick Hauser. When Hawser took a job as the manager of the New York Yankees, FSU Baseball hired Mike Martin as their head coach and never looked back forty consecutive seasons. The winningest coach of any
sport in NCAA history, Baseball, of course, any sport. It's an amazing accomplishment, but all of that pales by comparison to who Mike Martin was. He was a gentleman. I think he's one of the finest people I have ever been privileged to know in my entire life. I have a baseball here that he signed to preston a true friend, Mike Martin Proverbs three five and six, where it says trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge
him and he will make straight your paths. You know, there were so many people writing and reminiscing, and I read a lot of that stuff, listen to a lot, watched a lot of things because Mike Martin Sr. Is just such an incredible guy. And I shared one article that I read that I thought offered a really nice
glimpse into eleven. I was reading Corey Clark at war Chant and he talked about how he was introduced two friends of Mike at a dinner or banquet or something, and he said, he made me feel so special because he just said, my friend Corey. It wasn't the writer, the sportswriter, the reporter. It was my friend Corey. That's eleven. That's exactly who he was. He just was a gentleman at all times loved to win. Fierce competitor, absolute fierce competitor.
Yeah.
I was watching the news last night and they were showing highlights from that last twenty nineteen College World Series run and that was like the most energy I think I had ever seen Mike Martin have. And it was his final season. Everyone knew it was his final season. They were the last team or one of the final four teams to make it into the NCAA Tournament, win the regional sweep in the Supers, going to the College World Series, and Mike was his amped as ever and that.
Was like, that was magical. Two years earlier when they went to Omaha, here's how it sounded. Ah, that was ethically cool. How good is that? Former producer of The Morning Show with Preston, Scott Grant Allen with me on that day. Big baseball fan and Grant loved himself some eleven. But we decided we'd clear some time out and let listeners call in and share any special stories they had. And that's next. Counting down the Big Stories of twenty
twenty four. We're in the month of February, on the second day of the Twelve Days of Preston Here On The Morning Show with Preston Scott. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston the second day. It's Friday, the twentieth of December, and being the second day of the Twelve Days of Preston, we are chronicling the month of February and in this segment we turned it over to the listeners of the Morning Show to share their remembrances of seminal legend baseball coach Mike Martin, who passed away
on February the first. This was the very next day and we opened up the phone line. So let me remind you that if you hear me give the phone number, don't call because we're not We're not at the studios. We're on a break. But we kicked it off with Linda.
So back in nineteen ninety six, my son was turned five and we were taking him to an FSU baseball game on his birthday.
Back then, they was.
Placed the name of the birthday boy or girl on the scoreboard. But when I called about three months ahead, they told me they already met their quota and they couldn't add one more name. They couldn't really do anything for him. So I emailed coach Martin and told him what had happened and asked if maybe a bat boy could bring my son a ball just to toss it
to him from the field. And Coach Martin actually called me and said he could do so much better than that, And so Adam got to shadow Coach Martin on game day from warm up to the locker room to the game. He got to sit on the bench with the team. And it was actually Coach Martin that taught my son
to shake hands like a man. He had got an autograph baseball by the whole entire team, including all the coaches as well, and that was just because well when he called me, he said, I can't believe that people can't go to the trouble to make something special for you know, the youth.
So I can do so much.
Better than that. And that's why he got to spend the whole entire game day shadowing Coach Martin.
I would imagine that is something that your son is just holding in his heart as what an amazing day that was.
Yeah, and he had his little red baseball glove and right now in his room and home. My son is in the army now, but I still have his things in his room at home, and I have his little red glove with that autograph.
Baseball in that.
Glove, Ricky, thanks for calling in your memories.
Yes, when I was in the sixth grade. This is back in nineteen sixty six at Leonard Western Elementary School, Mike Martin was our intern. He interned and he always walked around with a bat that had led on the end of it, so we all knew he was a baseball you know something. And he was getting ready to try out for the Mets, and we had a softball unit.
And my little league and cub League coaches had taught me to try to teach me the bat right handed, so my grip was like a right hander, but I was a left hander, so I was cross hand batting and he noticed that and he came.
Up to me.
He said, Ricky, you're never gonna have much power that way. Switch switch your hands so you'll have some power when you hit the ball from the left side. And so he did, and when he got ready to leave, he he I got his autograph, and I still have it today. It said to a cross hand slugger, Mike Martin, Oh.
My goodness, gracious, what an amazing story. How special is this'll have that?
Yeah?
I was just gonna say, how special of a momento is that?
Right?
Yeah?
Wow?
Yep, that's a fun.
Time, awesome story, Ricky, thanks so much for calling in. It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Twelve minutes past the hour of the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Mike Martin, senior FSU's baseball coach of forty seasons and forty consecutive years in the NCAA tournament, passed away yesterday at the age of seventy nine, result of dementia. And we are remembering Mike. We are honoring Mike with our words and our memories. And Roy, thanks for calling in this morning.
He was my pe coach back in seventh grade. I'm sixty two years old, so that would put him at Cobb Middle School. And I want to tell you a funny quick story. It was during gym class and these guys he was our gym teacher, and these guys had been a couple of friends of mine, had been kind of picking at each other all week like they wanted to fight. So he shut down the class a little
early and brought us all into the locker room. He locked the door behind us, and he got these two guys and said, all right, I've been noticing you guys have been wanting to go at it, So here we go. We all lined up on the on the wall and he told them the rules. You know, there was gonna be no no biting, kicking or anything like, just kind of rattling, right. So he let him go at it, and we were all sitting there watching. He let him go at it for about five or ten minutes, and then he stopped it.
And says, all right, y'all had enough.
Y'all shake hands, but I'm gonna have to give you all, both of you a couple of licks. They went and got his big paddle, brought it out there and made them assume the position, and we were all counting down like one, two, and on the third swing he went a little high and the lights up overhead what for us at lights were and and busted them all to hell. At that point he just said to us, all right, y'all get out of here and don't tell anybody anything.
I never will forget that. He was the coolest coach man.
Oh buddy, what a great story. How fun was it to watch his career unfold as head coach of FSU baseball.
It was amazing, Yeah it was.
It was great.
But yeah, that's one thing I'll always remember about him is that that incident that happened in the locker room. I don't think many people know about.
Until now.
I can come out with it now.
Thank you, Roy, I appreciate that story so very much. Twenty one minutes after the hour, if you missed the big story this morning and the news broke yesterday afternoon that FSU's longtime baseball coach, He's a member of every notable hall of fame that there is. Mike Martin Senior passed away yesterday at the age of seventy nine. He had a three year battle with Louis body dementia. And we're just taking some time to remember eleven, share some stories.
We'll talk to Adam Farrow in just a little bit, who played for eleven in nineteen ninety five and ninety six. But let's go back to the phone lines. Bryce, thanks for being patient. What are your favorite memories or thoughts?
Hey, good morning, guys. One of the biggest memories of eleven that I have is going to all the camps and gritting to meet and Greed and he was always one of the nicest guys I remember talking to there. But even bigger than that, I was struggling in school as a young, young child, and I remember coming home one day and having a voicemail and eleven was just encouraging me to keep keep my head up and keep
trying to do the right things. And you know I was, I was not on a good track to to make it through, but I was able to go off his encouraging words and put the pedal to the metal and get through the things I was struggling with. So that's something that's always going to stick with me.
On for eleven, How did that happen?
I think my mom must have reached out to him or something other. You know, I was young, I didn't. You know, it was magical to me just I thought I was the biggest guy in the whole world when when I got home, when I had a voicemail and you know, he used my name and he was talking directly to me about all this stuff I was going through and struggling with. So, uh, something that's always stuck
with me. And you know, I always remember, just keep your head up right to you you're doing the right things and you'll make it through.
Wow. What a great story. Does that just it typify and exemplify who Mike Martin was.
Absolutely it does.
And you know, my grandfather always had seasons, so we were always in the stands there and as a young boy always dreamed of play in for him at Dick Heal the.
Stadium there, and you know, just great guy.
And it's sad that, you know, we've lost another legend at FSU along with Bobby Valden.
Bryce, thank you for sharing that story. That's just a wonderful story. And I'm certain at some point the family is going to hear some of these stories and it will encourage them. And again, these are things he did routinely to just reach out and try to make a difference in people's lives. When he was asked, boy, he just did. Greg you're the final caller here. What are your thoughts and remembrances.
This is a story from twenty five years ago at Blockbuster Video. Okay, I was going in to get some videos and walking around my usual thing, and there was this guy alone against the wall, looking perplex and looking around. But I had to go by there and I couldn't help saying, because I'm a forty year fs you person, so I knew who he was. I said, hey, coach, and he didn't. He didn't. He actually answered me nicely. He said, hey, do you have any recommendations for a movie?
I'm so skinned of movie for my family. I don't know what to do, and I didn't have an answer. I showed him a few places to go, but I could tell in those few seconds this is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. I knew what a genius he was on the Diamond, but you know, it really affected me.
Back with more of the Twelve Days of Preston. Let's get back to it the Twelve Days of Preston, and in this segment we chronicle our visit with doctor ed Moore a little more history, and in this case the month of February, we decided to talk about the history of the Sunshine State.
It's a fascinating bunch of stories. I keep going down these different rabbit holes on all of this, and essentially on this date was the signing of the Adams o'nice Treaty. Adams o'nice Adams Onice, said John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State under President Monroe. And this fellow o'nee was the some kind of name plen of potentiary something. Oh yeah,
he was a minister from Spain. And the reality of it all is that Florida went to Florida had East Florida and West Florida, and being American early on, they just decided on West Florida. They just moved down in there and took it over. I mean, so from that
they meaning settlers, okay, and Spain. Spain had been tied up since around eighteen ten for seven or eight years in what was called the Peninsular War, was against Napoleon Spain, Portugal and England against France and his empire ambitions fought on the Peninsula, the Iberian Peninsula if you think of the Gulf of Mexico. At that point, Spain controlled the entire Gulf of Mexico basically from Florida all the way around across South America. They just didn't have the money
to do all of that. I mean, the reach to the old reach exceeded their grasp.
You know.
And that wasn't for Havn, that was for Jungle sure, you know. So it was kind of tough on them. US got pretty favorable terms. Basically, they didn't have to pay anything. This is for East Florida. We had already seated West Florida just by that's ours. We got for the equivalent debt of five million dollars not paid to Spain, but paid to other people that Spain owed money to.
This is how this So we took on their debt.
We basically took on their debt, you know, so sort of a Trumpian kind of mode.
Yeah.
I was just going to say yeah, yeah, and ended up with territory. Now, I pulled some numbers because the numbers are fascinating. Around that time, we didn't do a census until eighteen thirty, so you got to go back eleven years. But you can get a picture of this Leon County. Leon County was the largest populated county in Florida. Now, this is by eighteen thirty. When this took place, there were only two counties in Florida, Okay, Saint John's County
and Escambia County. Those were the only counties that were in Florida, and then they were spun off Jackson County in the Panandle and Duval County spun off. So then we had four counties in Florida. But by eighteen thirty, Leon County had roughly sixty five hundred people.
That was it.
But did the city of Districts Florida Florida. Florida only had thirty five thousand people in eighteen thirty. Now I trace my ancestry in Florida back to around eighteen thirty five. They started coming here and you realized they're hardly there was nobody here, you know. And why Spain wanted to get rid of it. One was just because it was
just burdensome to them. And two is they were getting constant complaints because what became the Seminole tribe of Florida was going across into Georgia out of Florida and stealing slaves and bringing them back and freeing some and keeping some. There was all of this kind of stuff. So all the plantation owners all across Georgia and Alabama were mad about what was going on down in Florida and looking
to Spain to try to straighten it out. Spain was incapable of straightening it out, so they We're going to give you the problem that and Andy Jackson, who became the first governor. Florida was run by the military basically once we took it over in this timeframe, but he had already done incursions down into Florida. They formed first. Our area here has so much history that most people aren't aware of. If you go on Lake Seminole up towards the top, there was Fort Scott that was formed
there where the Flint River comes down. Then the Fort Gadsden, which is just above Appalachicola. When you come up that way, you'll come by the signs on the river, right on the Apalachicola River. At that time, they called it the Negro Fort because it was mainly occupied by runaway slaves that had arms. And Andy Jackson came in and blew that whole place up, using Fort's god as a way to get in and out of Florida. They just gradually militarily just took over the state. You know, we all
know the story. Most of it's wrong about how Tallahassee got founded as the capital, but there really weren't good roads anywhere. So they put out a contract and a guy named Bellamy that lived in Monticella picked up the contract and he used mostly slaves to build the road from the San Marcos Monastery to Saint Augustine. They paid him somewhere thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars to build the road that far. He built it too narrow that two
cars could have carts couldn't pass each other. They left the stumps in along the road, and they thought they cut him short enough so that the wagon would clear it. But you had to go all around. I mean, it was kind of a mess. They had to ford probably half a dozen rivers between Tallahassee and Augustine. That fourteen thousand dollars. I couldn't find a calculator that would tell me how much that was worth today, but most of the calculators go from nineteen thirteen for some weird reason,
inflation calculators from nineteen thirteen to now. That would be four hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars, probably four times that value to build a road that far for only fourteen thousand dollars. But the crew that hired them included people like a guy named Zephaniah Kingsley Stefania How would you like that for a handle?
Okay?
He was a.
Plantation owner, a slave owner, polygamists. He had four wives that had been slaves that he freed and took on as his wives and had children with all of them.
He was one of those thirteen legislators appointed by the President, and what he pushed in Florida developing the territory was to allow for polygamy and allow for slaves if they were family to inherit be able to inherit under US law and Florida law at the time, if you had a child with a slave, that child wasn't entitled any of your property and ay of your parents, and you couldn't really leave it to him. The will could be challenged as being insufficient if you tried to do that.
His wives, the four of them and all their kids fled from Florida when he passed and went to Haiti, and his sister and her family tried to take over
his plantation. Anna Is, one of the wives, came back and they challenged all of this in federal court in Duval County, and one they ended up winning because going back to the Adams Honest Treaty or Onee Treaty, the provision in there that went to Spanish law, and under Spanish law, any slave born prior that was freeborn prior to eighteen twenty two, was entitled to equal treatment under the law.
And so she ended up people what tangled.
Now let's say I'm going down these rabbit holes and you're reading all this, and then she went a bridge too far, basically because what she then demanded was getting back the slaves from the plantation, from his Kingsley's plantation, at which they forced the people who had taken them all to give them back to her. But then she tried to go in the slave rental business. Oh boy, and that's how she was going to fund everything. Because here I thought you were going to tell me she
got them back to freedom. No, not at all. It's an interesting freed slave owning slaves and then trying to rent slaves out to other plantations.
And you can't make that up.
No, you can't make that up at all. But that's Florida. There's a whole other series that maybe we'll talk about a little bit next time. I could talk about this stuff forever, dealing with Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach and how it got invaded. There was a backroom deals in
Washington paying some Georgians to go down. This is when Florida still was owned by Spain, sending troops in coming across from Saint Mary's down and taking control and then trying to move down to Saint Augustine, and Congress got mad about it, and Monroe kind of went oops, never mind, called them all back, gave it back to Spain, Spain saying it's nuestro, it was theirs. Yeah, they just came right they left from the troops, ran away from them.
And then when the troops left, Patriot group and a troop group, two different armies Spanish came right back in and took over a millia island again. So Florida's always been kind of strange that people coming and going.
Doctor edmore with me here on the Twelve Days of Preston. We'll be back when more. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston as we look back in the year twenty twenty four and get you ready for Christmas. It is Friday, the twentieth of December, but it is the second of the Twelve Days of Preston, and that means
it's the month of February. Now. In this segment, it's our visit with Matt Staver of Liberty Council fighting the good fight, going before the State Supreme Court in early February to try to argue against putting Amendment four on the November ballot, which sadly it was. Here's our discussion.
Well, tomorrow at nine o'clock at the Florida Supreme Court will be having oral arguments on the Florida Portion Amendment. They have now gotten over eight hundred thousand signatures to put on the ballot. So the last thing is this argument here. Any voter initiative has to comply with two things. Number one, it has to be very clear and nonambiguous, without any deceptive language or information, you can't deceive the voters. And number two, it must address only a single subject,
not multiple subjects. So your yes is just a yes on one specific issue, rather than a yes on some things you agree with but not on other things that you don't agree with. So that's the issue. Tomorrow at the Florida Supreme Court, I'll be presenting an argument along with the Florida Attorney General and then the proponents. This language is so broad. It says that no law shall prohibit penalized delay or restrict abortion prior to our buildy. It means no law, no law. Just listen to these words.
No law shall restrict abortion before viability. Now that's going to be late second, early third trimester. That means no parental consent, no informed consent, no waiting periods, no licensing requirements of doctors, no health and safety standards, no ban on partial birth abortion nothing. No law can restrict abortion. Every law restricts its subject matter. And if you say
no law shall restrict abortion, that means nothing. Everything is wiped out, totally wiped out, with his abortion totally unregulated. And then after viability, after viability, a healthcare provider can have an absolute veto over any late term abortion law just by saying that it's necessary to protect the health
of the woman. Now, who is a health care provider, Well, that's not defined, but under Florida law, healthcare practitioners include fifty eight categories, which includes a nine to one to one operator, a tattoo artist even or an orthodic fitter assistant somebody who assists an orthodic person to put, you know, things in your shoes that have no medical training, an audiologist someone who's an optimologist. It has a huge list fifty eight categories. When you and I think of health
care provider, we think of a medical doctor. No, these are non medical people that would be under the term health care provider, and they would have the ability to determine post viability, whether the baby's viable, and even if it is viable, it doesn't matter what the law is, whether that person could still have an abortion. So really you have totally unregulated abortion through all nine months of pregnancy at any time for any reason uptil the point
of birth. And that is very deceptive. That is not explained to the voter in this ballot summary that they have proposed to go on the ballot. The voter will not read what I just said. But that's in fact what this amendment does, and.
That's why it's deceptive.
It fools the voters intentionally to vote for something that they would never vote for. Floridians, no matter where they are on this issue, would never vote for no regulation, no health regulation, nothing.
You are listening to the Mad Radio Network where you're challenged to make a difference each and every day. Good morning, and welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Making a difference. It's why I support the Liberty Council challenge. You to do the same, go to lc dot org. Matt stab the founder and chairman with me Man. I want to focus on two words here for a quick couple minutes each. The first word is health. The liberal left.
Loves to be ambiguous when it uses words assault weapons, health. How are we defining the health of a mother?
It's not defined. That's another problem, So before viability law at all. After viability, a healthcare provider that I've already talked about has an absolute veto power over any law if that person says it's necessary for the patient's health.
But health is not defined health. You know, when you go back to do versus Bolton back in nineteen seventy three, the companion of Roe v. Wade abortion decision use the World Health Organization definition of health, and that included physical, mental, emotional, psychological, chiological, financial, the age of the woman, all kinds of things that you wouldn't normally think of as health. When you look at the who's definition of health today, it's even broader,
So it means not just the absence of disease. It is everything, whether it's financial or whatever. It is sociological, the location where you live, where you work, what your career is it is undefined. That's why when this amendment says that after viability, a healthcare provider can still say an abortion is necessary to protect that health is undefined. You can't challenge that because health is anything. There's no objective reality here, Matt.
The other word I want to focus on is a word that's been used a lot here, and that's the word viability. You know, when I used to speak on some college campuses, the topic would come up and I would tackle the what I think is the fallacy of the argument of viability because in technical, literal and I think legal terms, when you define viability, a child isn't viable until they can speak, communicate, walk and talk and communicate what their needs are. They are dependent on others
for the first five, six, seven years of life. We could joke and say, well some into college years, but you get my point.
That's right, and that's exactly right. You know, some people think of viability and this is also another problem with the deceptive nature of the baby being able to live outside of the mother's womb. So maybe late third trimes, late second trimester, early third trimester, twenty two to twenty four weeks and we're in there. Well, that may be somebody's definition, right, but that's not the universal definition, because
viable could be something like you're talking about. If the baby is outside the mother's womb, they always need assistance, right. You can't just birth a baby and let it sit there. It's going to die on its own, So it needs assistance, whether it's in the womb at the third trimester or out of the womb, you know, and it's actually physically there by itself, it needs assistance. So is that baby viable? I know for a fact that there are some people
that are advocating professors at different universities. A professor by the name of Singer at Princeton University. He used to say that it would be like two years post a birth that you would give a right to life to a child, because until two years they're not able to make it on their own, and therefore they wouldn't be viable in that respect. So you know, you have the word viable necessary. What's necessary? It's not because of the
dire you know, life and death of the mother. It's whatever anybody says.
It is.
Health and healthcare provider, all undefined and all exceptionally brought well.
Matt Stabor tried. Ashley Moody didn't show up, which was kind of weird, but Matt tried. Unfortunately, the State Supreme Court weird. The four male justices put the thing on the ballot back in November, and the female justices said, no, this is this is not clear, it is not single subject, and on and on the objections went. But what's done
is done. It still gives you a snapshot of the fight, right, and Matt Staver Liberty Council the best fighting across the country frequently before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of all of us. All right, it's the Twelve Days of Preston. We've got two hours of the month of February all condensed together. And now we'll move to our number three. It's the second day of the Twelve Days
of Preston and the month of February. And we'll get to our three next right after the news here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott, get right to it. The third hour of the Twelve Days of Preston, day number two. This a visit with us Senator Rick Scott.
Let me tell you it's wonderfully on your program but I is shooting and said, your faroh government is completely dysfunctional.
I was going to ask you where do you start? I mean, let me before we get to the media issues. How big of a shock was it to your system to leave Florida's governance, governing this state, the legislative atmosphere, the balance, budget, term limits and going to that nonsense in Washington.
You know, the thing is, you know, I've always I've done a bunch of business startups, so when you know, it's like it's like a startup and but I've taken over a lot of businesses and fixed them. This is a broken down business up here. It's you know, what you're trying to figure out is why don't these people care about like the budget, national security, you know, families, voters. I mean, it's just fascinating when you look at the
decisions that are made up here. You think, who in their right mind would allowing eight million people let's say ten percent of them are bad actors, one percent are bad actors, criminals.
Drug sellers, you know, terrorists.
That that pretty bad day for this country. And that's what's going on every day. You look at that, and you look at why wouldn't Why would we not focus on having a lethal military rather than a woke military.
Or I mean, and.
Krestin, you realize how bad the budget is. We've had a one point eight percent increase in population in five years and the budgets up fifty five percent.
Well, I was going to ask you what's the bigger problem, the border or the budget or are they one A and one B.
They're all the it's all the same. There's you know what's interesting is nothing's getting better, nothing's getting fixed. It's not that hard. I walked in, you know, when I became governor, I walked in with the four billing dollar budget debt, said what do you have to do? Say, well, this is how much I make, this is what I'm going to spend. It's not the hardest thing in the world, right, And so so I did that when I was governor, I said, Okay, this is what we're going to take in.
We're not going to spend more than that. I mean, that's what this is what the voters have decided to give us in tax revenues. So we're not we're not going to do anymore. And by the way, we don't need more tax revenues. So but up here, numbers they are irrelevant. People have no idea. Do you realize that that your federal budget, we're re collecting less revenues every year. Now, our revenues are going down, but are spending going up.
Well, I was going to say, the largest source of revenue right now is borrowing money, and that's unsustainable.
Think about it.
We are borrowing more money than the increase in our gross domestic product. It our debt is going up faster than our economy is growing.
How do you do that?
But don't worry. You know, up here, no one cares.
It's free.
It's everything's free up here.
Well, you know, the Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell is vowing we're not going to have a government shutdown. Senator, I think there's a bunch of us out here that don't fear one bit of government shut down.
No one wants to shut down. But McConnell and Schumer they orchestrate this so they can do it omnious. I've did appear my fifth year. This is the first year we haven't done it. What they do is they orchestrate it right before Christmas. I say, oh, if you don't vote for this. The world's going to end.
Yep, you know that.
You know nobody will be able to survive tomorrow, you know so, And you know why they wanted because they get their ear marks. Last last year we had seventy five hundred ear marks. So you're paying for roller skating rinks and sidewalks and private country clubs, all sorts of stuff. I mean, because you know that's what your federal government. You know, that's what you're expected, right, So that's but you know, if you're if you're Schumer, McConnell, then you
get all your special projects. Nobody knows the button, no, so you realize here's how they give it to us, because they gave us the Omnimus. This last one at one through in the morning to Tuesday be for Christmas, and they wanted to vote, vot vote on it that day. It was three times to size the Bible, not as interesting, harder to read. Okay, they wanted to vote that day. We at least postponed it for two days. But nobody could.
Nobody knew it was in it. But they got the votes because they got all the Democrats and McConnell got his his friends to vote for it. So so it was one point seven trillion dollars with no accountability, all alas borrowed money.
It's not enough to just get control of the House, the Senate, and the White House. To try to get some common sense in place. We have to have like minded people. How do we do that? How do we make sure that the Republican Party isn't filled with rhinos?
Right?
You know, how do we get there?
You need Here's what you need to do. Anybody that's running bet them. I mean, think about it. When you hire somebody to do anything at your house, you look at the background. You know what happens in politics. Look, Johnny gave a great talk, Let's make him something. No, Johnny's never had any success. He might be a good talker, And look at their background. If they can't budget, if they can't bounce their own budget, you think they're going
to balance somebody else's. So I think it starts with the voters have to have higher expectations and then hold people accountable when they get in. When somebody's running, so I'm running for reelections, people should ask me what are you going to do? Right? What is your focus going to be? And then it's my job to do that or I don't get hired again. And so it's our fault as voters. We don't have high enough standards. We said, well, he's the right party, so I'll vote for him. No,
if you want something done, remember have pressure ways. If you want something done, and get the busiest person to do it, right, why don't we elect people that have had success. Let's get to the background, right. If they've had success in that background, you're probably gonna have success in this.
But there comes a point where you know, we get only so many choices, and we hear people talk about picking the lesser of evils.
I tell people, go run for office, Go volunteer on campaigns. You can make a difference. And you know the other thing is everybody can write not bed. Everybody can write letters to the answer. Everybody can show up and support our you know, opposed candidates.
Go do it.
I mean make this is this is rip. If you want your government to get better, get your button gear and get more active. Don't don't don't complain, get active like I like it. I have people that just bug the living daylights out of me. Guess what it's good for me? Because they care about issue, and they probably know more about than I do. And it gives me ideas how I can solve their issue.
That's my job.
Like I've got a guy that gets up every day it says, how can Rick Scott get it there, get rid of the Casher regime?
You know what?
I work on it a little bit every day because his name's Tony Costa. He's get up every day and says he's a Cuban refugee. He bought in the Bay of Pigs. He says, I want that guy. I want the cashier scene gone. Rick Scott's got power. I'm gonna see what I can do the game done. And he gives me ideas and I work on him. That's how this is supposed to work.
Be active.
We've got the shutdown looming again on Friday, and then another deadline a week later.
Well, the only real answer right now, Construc Schumer won't do spending bills. The only real answer, and I just not bet on this in the hill, is that we should do a continued resolution through the end of the fiscal year and then start next year and actually try to.
Pass the budget.
I'm on the Budget Committee. We don't have meetings about the budget. We don't have a vote on a budget. I mean, the first thing they have to do is if you want to pass a budget, start talking about it. But they don't. But Schumer McConnell don't want it because they'll go do a spending bill and they'll get just what they want in and nobody else will know what's in it. Every Wendy have a dinner with a bunch of fiscal responsibility people in the House, and no one
none of us want a continue resolution. None of us do. But do we want an omnibus? That's way worse. And so I think it's our only option out right now. But with the person we've got, we've got that going on, We've got the Israel Aid we've got Are we going to support or not Ukraine? Are we going to secure a border? You know how remember how PISA was used to surveil the Trump campaign. Well that's going to expire.
I think it's April eleventh, or we're going to get it fixed to where you know, this doesn't happen again. We got to I mean, but all these things are coming to head because mccollin Schumer sit there and they think they'll just cramp something down our throat at the last minute.
He is a hoot to talk to, all right. Twelve Days of Preston continues next on The Morning Show with Preston Scott. Welcome back to the Twelve Days of Preston. Third hour of The Morning Show with Preston Scott. We're on vacation. That doesn't mean there's not great content because we're sharing the month of February with you. On the second day of the Twelve Days of Preston, and this is my visit with one of the most distinguished members of the Florida Legislature, served our country for years and
is just a wonderful man. And here's my visit with Florida House Speaker Paul Renner from February.
Preston, good morning. Great to be with you.
I appreciate your time. Let's get started because there's a lot to talk about. A very busy session. We chronicle it all throughout the legislative session with sal News at the James Madison Institute, but a lot of attention. It has the number one House Bill one. First, give everybody kind of an overview of the intent of the House Bill one and then its evolution as it's gone through the legislative process and where we are now.
Sure, Well, I mean House Bill one in essence says that kids under sixteen years of age should not be allowed on to addictive technology platforms that use addictive technology as distinguished from the rest of the Internet. It carves out email and text messaging and really the line share
of the Internet. But those platforms that use addictive technologies, the dopamine hits of likes and hearts and notifications that get kids on keep them on for hours and hours, and we know that that leads to depression, self harm, even suicide. We're aiming to say, look, stay off it until you're age sixteen, and then you can get on and go from there. And so that's what the bill does.
How do you keep it from becoming And forgive me for making a crude comparison, but one of my complaints with the left side of the aisle is they talk about an assault weapons band, but yet they never can figure out how to define assault weapon. How do you define a platform that is a danger versus one that is not?
Sure?
Yeah, there's actually five different paragraphs, all of which have to be mad and I can't quote it to you verbata. Essentially, you have to be able to track you're tracking kids data without their knowledge or consent. You're you're taking that data and targeted target marketing to them again without them knowing. And then these addictive components, it's got to be addictive or deceptive features that lead to uh, you know, addictive
kind of habit forming behavior online. We were going to further define that in an upcoming amendment UH in the Senate that says that you've got to be on a certain number of hours. You've got to show that the platforms are capturing a number of kids for a number of hours to evidence that addiction. And that's how we define it. If you if you're not in that window, you're not in the bill. And so the easy thing for the platforms to do is take away the addictive components.
But it's so lucrative that the number of hours translates into money. So you have a situation, we have kids, you have addiction, you have harm, and you have money. Kind of sounds like trafficking to me, and so you have this life form of digital trafficking that is happening really without the kids knowledge and understanding. Because it's almost imperceptible.
They don't know why they have to stay on all this time, but these addictive techniques are keeping them on the platforms and it's extremely lucrative and also extremely harmful to our kids.
What has informed the evolution of the bill has the similar bills in other states that have been enjoined by courts? How is it moving through? What changes have been made from start to where it is now?
Yeah, yeah, we have tried to, you know, obviously look at what other states have done, including states where the courts have shot their bills down and aim at the technologies. You're completely clear of content, which of course could run a foul of the First Amendment. And so that's really that I think the unique thing. And we're working with lawyers at a national level on the conservative side of the Aisle to make sure that this can get through
Supreme Court challenge ultimately. And so the evolution we had some language in there that included seventeen and eighteen year olds that had some notifications and this kind of thing, and quite frankly I and others felt, you know, and looking at it, we want to be a smaller target for the courts that this is probably not what we need to deal with this year. So we took that
out and the Senate stopped. It just happened yesterday, so there's nothing to do with seventeen and eighteen year olds anymore. We'll have a few other modifications in the next Senate committee stop, and then they'll vote for it, send it over to us, and we'll vote on that final bill.
I think a lot of us agree with the intent of what you're trying to do with House Bill one. Similarly, what about the simple step of banning cell phones in schools other than that circumstance when that phone can be used to make a call from the school office.
Yeah, and I know they took credit for that, but we actually did that in a bill last year. Now, what we did is say it can't be in the classroom, so in between classroom periods they could jump on the phone. And maybe we need to go back and just make it from the time you walk in all the time
you walk out. But clearly you shouldn't be on the phone while your teacher's trying to teach you or taking a picture of the smart kids test, no doubt, and to your friends, you know, but what we've seen is, as you said, is disciplinary actions are down, kids are engaging with each other, and you know, when you go and talk about the parental component of this. I was
just with a group last night. They said, you know, when I got my kids and it's a fight, you know, just put your phone down while we have lunch or dinner together. And the difference is they come out of the stupor and they're real kids again. And so you know, you see, you see how this really does put our kids in this almost a trance or stupor sometimes and
we've got to get them out of that. It helps them learn better, it helps their mental health, it helps them, you know, do a whole bunch of things that you know I probably did as kids. It didn't involve social media because it didn't exist back then. And so it's been very helpful just to get the school the phones
out of the classroom alone. And I think you're going to see increases in academics, You're going to see improvements in mental health and issues that revolve around the school, especially in the disciplinary area.
But what about the expansion of it, Because I mean, it's a no brainer in the classroom, but where the violence is really taking place is in those in between times. It's in those lunch hours. It's when kids are getting picked on the most, and it's being picked they're doing it to videotape, to set up an incident to videotape. Let's get them out of their hands.
Yeah, I'm one hundred percent for it. And you know, we did it in a way we thought was measured. But I think it's it's perfectly appropriate to just say schools for school, and you put your phone down. If you have an issue, like you and I I did when we were that age, you go to the front desk, principal calls your parents if you need to go home, you're sick, or something happens, you know, so you don't need to have a phone in during.
The school year.
And I think that's an appropriate next.
Step along the same lines I have. You know, I was involved in private education for many years, mister speaker, and we had an advantage over the public schools. If we had a kid a set of parents that weren't doing the right things, we could just put them out. I am of the opinion that we need to do for our public schools what we've done with law enforcement. Let's put cameras in every single classroom.
Yeah, I mean, I think we're talking about something that's internal to the school that can monitor, you know, disciplinary actions.
Yep.
You know, going back to the topic we just covered back in my hometown, I don't if you remember last year a guy had as a student, got his phone taken away from him by a teacher. He comes up behind her and pumbles her to the ground and she went to the hospital. She had some severe, I think, some long, long, long standing injuries from that over a cell phone, and so it was captured on video, and obviously from a prosecution standpoint, you could prove what happened.
And so you know, there are problems, and you're absolutely right that some of these teachers. You know, we pass a law and they just laugh at it and ignore it. And we're chipping away at that each and every year. And as you know, K twelve, education and higher education for that matter, are super important to me, and we've done a lot in in that space and we'll continue to do.
So let's switch to the Convention of States. You recently wrote a piece that was published in The Hill. There's a rally coming up on February twentieth. I'm going to be at it. Your thoughts on Florida being kind of signed on to the Convention of State's idea.
Yeah, you know, I've had some people kind of eye roll and this is kind of gimmicky. This is deadly serious to me. And there's the reason why I did
it on the very first day of session. We normally don't go into session on the first day to do balance budget and term limits, which you know we did a decade ago, but because of the spotlight Florida's in, I wanted to really just you know, hit the drum and make sure other state legislatures join on because I truly believe, and I said it in my opening day speech, if we're going to save the country, we need these amendments.
We need a balanced budget, we need term limits. The Governor and I have talked and he wanted to do line on in veto and also something that says if Congress passes a law, they can't exempt themselves, which I love, and.
So we're doing that now.
I think it's up this week or you know, we'll kept on the floor here soon. The Senate's already passed balanced budget and term limits. I expect them to follow on the other two and these are really If we did these four things, especially the first three, it would be transformative and it's really necessary. So we're going to save our country.
Yeah, Sadly the lawmakers have abused their privilege up in Washington, and I think it's the last resort that we have as citizens is to call the Convention of States. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Lastly, back several years ago, in fact, it's been a few decades, the legislature passed that Florida was going to be you know, English is the official language of the state, but it's never been implemented, it's
never been enforced. But yet it costs taxpayers a lot of money in the public education space as well as other locations. What's preventing us from from you know, attacking that issue because it helps immigrants to speak the language, it doesn't It doesn't help us at all for them to continue to speak a tongue that we don't know what they're saying.
Yeah, I mean, like, I think it's great to speak multiple language. It gives you advantages. But English has been and always should be our official language. There's not a lot of unites us anymore in a common language is one of those things. Yep, that's important. So I'm certainly supportive of the notion overall that we continue to swim in that direction. We don't let people just do whatever. I think it's important that we continue to find places where we can be united.
Great visit with Florida House Speaker Paul Renner from the month of February. That's where we are. It's the second day of the Twelve Days of Preston. We've got so much more to come as we bring you the best of twenty twenty four. Stay with us, back with you on this Friday, December the twentieth, the Twelve Days of Preston. It's day number two and that means the month of February. And one of our favorite visits each and every month
is with the entertainment editor at breitbar dot com. He's the author of the Fifty Things books and he is a former intern of this fine radio program, Jerome Hudson, and we talked about, among many other things, Peter Schweizer's new book Blood Money.
The executives at HarperCollins for forty eight hours didn't actually believe their own eyes. The book was selling so fast. I mean, you know, that you're creating something that is really touching the nerve. When you know, people who I assume is dedicated most their professional lives selling books, don't even believe that a political non fiction writer. And Peter Schweitzer is selling as many books as fast as he is.
But he's but he's he's he is.
What Mark Levin, Peter Switzer is what Mark Levin says. I mean, he's the most important investigative journalist on the planet. And I think I've said this before because I left Jai coincidentally. I mean, when I left in twenty sixteen, man,
they've really been on a heater. But working on Clinton Cash and seeing you know, award winning New York Times best selling reporters sort of putting their their professional lives, you know, on the line reporting how the Clinton family, Hillary and Bill Clinton used their foundation to sell out America and rich themselves.
You know.
I think that was a turning point. That book came out twenty fifteen, and Peter has done. I thought Clinton Cash was at least ten to twenty percent of the reason why people were just turned off to Hillary Clinton. They just didn't they just couldn't bring themselves to support the woman because of what Peter exposed, the corruption and graft in that book, and he's done it. It's bipartisan. I think Blood Money is Peter in the Fine People over at Gai's best work. I think it's God's work.
I mean, who else is doing this, Preston, I mean, it's Peter Schweitzer's Government Accountability Institute, and it's Breitbart and a handful of others. But it's really you know, Peter in his his brain and his guts and his will. I mean, it's not sixty minutes, is my point. Right, it's not in NBC Universal. These are billion dollar conglomerates. But the reason they don't do it is because they're so beholden to China, right and and and that's that's
you know, that's why the book's called Blood Money. I mean, these people are literally have literally launched a campaign to kill US citizens. And if I say that, the first thing that people probably think about is, you know, a black plague level pandemic being unleashed from China.
No.
No, these people have.
Have war gained a plan, a concerted, well funded effort to pump poison into our communities, and it is happening. They spread propaganda. I mean the aforementioned Hillary Clinton blaming her law us on Putin when her husband was in Moscow giving you know, forty five minute speeches for half a million dollars to Russian bankers. I mean, it's it's just awful. It takes the eye off of the big
bad demon, which is China. But anyway, it's incredible. It's I mean, it's like Michelle Obama, Preston and then Peter Switzer and book sales.
I mean, hang on a second. Peter Schweitzer hopefully will be with us next week. The book is Blood Money. Why the powerful turn of blind eye? While China kills Americans? Time flies when you're having fun. And we were just laughing off air about conversations we probably ought to have on air, but we we would have to we would have to edit them, and not for reasons of language, but for reasons of disclosure, because we talk about people that we know that we were common friends with that
wouldn't necessarily want to be discussed publicly. But let me just real quickly, and then we'll get to talking about guns and firearms if you want. Let's let's for a second go back to that segment. About China. I have been beating the drum about all of the reasons why TikTok is a danger.
Now.
I was watching the testimony of the guy who's allegedly the founder of TikTok. He's saying, you guys are barking up the wrong tree. I'm from Singapore, I've got no ties to China. Who's telling the truth here, Jerome.
Well, I mean in the documents, I guess, I guess it's on the term of use of TikTok has got to be buried in there somewhere. But the owner, China owns the company that owns TikTok. And if you do business with China, your intellectual property, any of your trade secrets, it is, it is a law in China. Once you sign on the dotted line to do business with the Communist Party, they can look at your books, they can look at your IP, they can take it. It's just
a fact. I mean, in the coming you know, months to a year, we're going to see what was always a very rosy relationship with Elon Musk in the Chinese government, it's already gotten nasty. I mean, China's declared war on Elon Musk. Because he's a smart man and he had to know that he was getting in bed with the worst people to do business on the planet. But you know it anyway, now, TikTok is poisoned.
And I was literally.
Driving just a nice five thirty am drives what I like to do. I needed to get gaff and I was listening to the Fox News break and it was just it was just another TikTok store. It's some challenge or something, and it was just like, it's poison to me.
The overarching issue is China has stated publicly their hope is to take this country, literally take this country without destroying any infrastructure because they need the resources, they need the infrastructure, and so it's all about gleaning intel about what Americans think, what they watch, what they do. And by being part of TikTok, you're giving them all of that psychological profile info they want.
Yeah.
Maybe, folks, I mean we're talking about it. Sound like Joe Biden. Folks, We're talking about a country.
Come on, man, come on man.
I mean they're doing ethnic cleansing, cleansing to the tune of one to two million people. Yeah, I mean, they harvest organs, they test you know, the fusion between monkeys and humans. So and they they they have hackers who corrupt twenty three and meter databases. They will use your face every like everything you share, uh, you know, to the advantage of taking down the West, the Western world.
I don't.
It's just it's crazy, Like I don't have TikTok on my phone. I just told you I didn't even embed a TikTok uh link into a bright barred article because I just it just feels.
Dangerous, it feels dirty.
But you know, look, and as we.
Were talking off the air, I mean, you know, China's the biggest, the largest manufacturer or they have the largest steak in control in the largest manufacturers of surgical gloves, Like you can't you can't touch a patient without wearing surgical gloves. And as I said, if China just wanted to do like an oopsie, I think you're absolutely right, you can't. I'm a niacle regime like the government being run in Beijing. Man, it's just you can't put anything
past these people because they've done everything. They've done every atrocity under the sun. And I mean that's why what Peter Swizer and his team are doing with blood money, because they're not only calling out in great detail explaining what China's plan for America is, but they are They're naming names. They're us politicians, people we've elected to protect and promote America's best centers, who are literally selling us out to the worst people on the planet in China.
From bright Barton dot com. Jerome Hudson, Entertainment Editor, our guest on the Morning Show, back with more our final segment on the Twelve Days of Preston. Come back to the Twelve Days of Preston. I'm Preston Scott, our Christmas gift to you. This is the month of February. We're wrapping it up with a visit with Lee Williams, the
gun writer. We talked about all the things the Biden administration was doing to attack the Second Amendment, and I just commented that it seems as though we have to rely on the courts to stop these unconstitutional and illegal acts.
Biden's cub all of anti gun people in the White House have pushed the ATF into criminalizing bumpstocks, pistol braces, aftermarket triggers, locks of metal that they say could be turned into a firearm, and the courts are slapping all of these down and they just keep going, man, I mean, they just keep going, knowing full well that they're going to get overturned by the courts. Like it's cool, Like
they don't care. Now we're going to see that statement for Biden that he made, I mean, all of us in the second the men of community just rolled our eyes like, yeah, we've seen this going on for months, years already since Joe was elected. He doesn't care what the Supreme Court says. We think, however, that that's just
going to energize at Supreme Court right now. Second amend of Foundation, NRA, Gun Owners of America and National Association and Gun Rights are all asking very politely, but very consistently, asking the Supreme Court to review the Illinois assault weapon ban or so called assault weapon ban. We think this will be the case that will overturn this all of this crap about America's most popular rifle, and folks will be able to own the best tool to defend themselves
regardless of where they live. Right now, your ability to own an AR or an AK depends on your zip code here in Florida. Thankfully, we live in a semi three state we can own them. You can't in California, you can't in Illinois, can'ton Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Hawhi, you name it. That should not be the case. Your
rights should not be dependent upon where you live. So we're hoping that the court is so angry at what the Biden Harris administration is doing to our civil rights today that they'll take it out and start getting up some more victories.
You know, we've been paying attention to a bill it's likely not to pass the House, but Democrats try and introduce a bill that in essence, would ban any level of training at a gun range. What less you wrote about what goes on in Finland, tell us a little bit about that.
Well, being a proud half thin, I am very proud of the country from where my grandparents came. Finland has an eight hundred and thirty mile border with Russia, and they take the Soviet Union or the former Soviet Union, very seriously because they've been invaded and they kicked their butt. So Finland incorporates armed citizens into their national defense plan, which I think is brilliant. And you know, they just joined NATO last year and Putin vowed to retaliate so well.
The Fins take that seriously. So they're increasing the availability of rifle ranges to their citizens who are part of their plan, part of their defensive plan. They're building three hundred more ranges and some one of my readers did the math for a country of our size to make an increase of an increase of that amount, we would need thirty thousand more ranges. And I hope we get them. You know, it's one thing to keep and bear, it's
another thing to have access to range. A lot of these blue states they're not going to let you train anywhere.
Man.
It's sad.
Lee Williams, thegunwriter dot substack dot com, has written a piece that really speaks to Black History Month as it relates to the Second Amendment. Lee, go, this is a brilliant piece.
Thank you. It was fun. It was an idea from Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. He said, why don't you write it, but take a look at this. Call these guys up. And I got to tell you, man, I had a great time and I learned so much doing this. I mean, you got to look at the tradition of farms as different for Black Americans, there were codes after the Civil War that prevented them from owning firearms. That was there, and that's why gun control has its roots in racism.
Yep.
In Florida, you know, a white person could enter a black owned home and just look for guns without a warrant. Louisiana, white folks could stop blacks wherever they were searching for weapons. If they refused, they could use deadly force. And you can't mention black history and firearms without mentioning the Reverend Martin Luther King. He was denied to carry permit by
the Sheriff's office in Montgomery, Alabama after his home was firebombed. Okay, Martin was a gun owner and he believed in self defense. Obviously he espoused a nonviolent political action, but he was a gunner. Same with Malcolm x E. There's that famous picture of him with the m one carbing looking out his windows scared. So I talked to Robert Kottrell, who was a professor. He's a law professor George Washington University, probably one of the top three minds scholars in the
Second Amendment world. And it was just fantastic. I ran the interview with him. As a Q and A because his words I just couldn't paraphrase anything he said.
It was just too important.
And he talks about the black codes. He talks about firearm ownership getting lower among blacks, but now it's finally catching up. But I spoke to the Reverend Ken Blanchard, and he wrote a book that I think should be on everybody's bookshelf, Black Man with a Gun. It's an ownership manual. But when it came out, it's designed for first time gun owners who are black, but it should be required reading for anybody who wants to start talking and getting into the gun world. It is a fantastic book.
And he said he when he got out of the military's brain and when he got out of federal law enforcement, he just wanted to start teaching and training. But he had to overcome hundreds of years of conditioning. It was bad, I mean three hundred years of cultural conditioning that said to blacks, guns are bad, leave them alone. Even the gun owners he was running into were pretty much undercovered and not public about owning guns. And then we looked
at the great Walter E. Williams. He's a professor. Unfortunately he passed away in twenty twenty and I resurrected.
Some of his columns.
His column appeared in more than one hundred and fifty newspapers. He was an economist, a great friend of the libertarian mister Soowell, a professor Soowell, and man did he have an acerbic wit in his column. When Congressman John Lewis said the British are not coming. We don't need guns to kill people, Williams just handed him his hat with his head in it. A brilliant writer. I've been reading his columns that are still out there online ever since.
Was eulogized by Ted Cruz, who said his legacy will endure as we continue to fight for liberty. It was really fun, President, and I learned a heck of a lot. And let me tell you, Professor cottro has a new book coming out that's going to be huge in the Second Amendment world, to trust the people with arms. He looks at the Supreme Court the Second Amendment. I asked him if he was a black scholar or a scholar who just happened to be black, and he said both.
You can't separate what he and his people have gone through culturally. And a fantastic interview and a great guy.
You know, when you mentioned doctor Williams, it makes me smile because he was a friend of ours. He was a regular guest. Wow, he was a regular guest on my show. And never ever did I send him a note asking him to come on the program that he didn't respond within hours And just a gentleman. And as you as you note, a brilliant mind. And we lost a treasure when we lost doctor Williams. What is the biggest takeaway for you having spent time in this case talking to and reading about these three men.
Wow, I would say that what they said about how the Second Amendment affected them and how blacks in general were treated, it's still going on today. We're still seeing the same type of discrimination in this case with the Second Amendment that they faced in their youth. Look at the Biden Harris administration. They're still trying to ban guns in public housing. People are being discriminated against in terms of the Second Amendment based upon their race. Look at Chicago.
Look at how difficult it is for these urban cities for people to own guns for self defense. Now, keeping that in mind, you know the largest segment of new gun buyers right now are black females, and they're finally getting through, getting passed this racial conditioning, this cultural conditioning, and they're realizing, you know, I got drug deals being
committed right outside my front door. I want a gun for self defense, and they're buying him and they're getting trained, which I think is fantastic.
Lee Williams. You find his work at his site, The gun Writer dot substack dot com. It's great newsletter, all right friends, that polishes off the month of February on Monday back with the third day of the Twelve Days of Preston with the month of March. Until then, have a great weekend and thanks for listening.