Good.
A mate said, welcome to Thursday, February twentieth, here on the Morning Show with Preston's got very excited to share this show with you today. He is Jose and you see in Studio one A. I'm here in Studio one B. I am Preston, and it's a delight to be with you today. I'll tell you about the show in just a few minutes, but first let's take a peek at scripture. First, Timothy four A few verses here, verses six through ten. If you put these things, remember now this is Paul
writing to Timothy, his young protege. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. Being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. Now listen that last train yourself for godliness is now going to be expanded. So listen to
what Paul writes. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For this for to this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on a living God who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. So the saying that is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance is the one that precedes it. Bodily
training is of some value. Godliness is of value in every way, as it holds the promise for the present life and also for the life to come. So what I want to focus on for just a second here, what Paul's communicating is, Yeah, take care of your body. Training your body is useful. It's not a bad thing. But don't let that take the place, and don't let that replace and don't let that dominate your time. Train yourself in the things of God. Notice, though, it's not
just about eternity, it's about now. And isn't it interesting that training yourself in the things of God. Paul suggests it has benefits in eternity. Now, I'm not going to promise you that I fully understand that. I just know it's there. Paul's saying that not only will the training that you offer, the time that you give to God, to learn more about him, to learn his word, to
allow yourself to be refined by that. Not only will it benefit the here and the now, your life, the people who you interact with, your family, your kids, your coworkers, your peers, your buddies, it has benefit eternally. Well that's interesting. So I guess what Paul's saying is, don't forsake this. Make time. Make time today on the program Busy Day, its Thursday. Thursday's busy. We got a lot of things.
We got Steve Stewart. Next hour, we've got doctor Steve Stevenson, our Pause for Thought segment, a very important pair of topics we're going to deal with with regard to our pets, give you a road trip idea. And then in the final hour, I've got the book in my hand. Here it's race against time. This is what John Grishap had to say. John Grisham, the novelist all the crime novels right.
For almost two decades, investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell doggedly pursued the clansmen responsible for some of the most notorious murders of the Civil rights movement. This book is his amazing story. Thanks to him, and to courageous prosecutors, witnesses, and FBI agents, justice finally prevailed. Jerry Mitchell, himself a reporter, reopens the unsolved murder cases of the Civil rights era. He'll join us for five segments this morning, talking about these cases,
some of the cases that inspired movies. We'll get to that in the third hour. I can't wait to talk to Jerry this morning here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Febbrewary. Be honest, when you were a kid, did you say February? Febuary February. It's tough putting that r in there after the b feb Brewery. It's tough. February.
Like some.
Go to the library now the library kindergarten, like it's a garden for kids. The kindergarten. I mean, I didn't know is kindergarten? For years? What's a garden? I knew what a garden was. I guess I just always thought when I was a little kid, I always thought that, well, that's just the funny little thing that they call this place to plant children. Kindergarten, all right, February twentieth eighteen
o nine. Supreme Court rules that the power of the federal government is greater than the power of state governments. Eighteen thirty nine. Congress outlaws dueling in the District of Columbia eighteen thirty You can't shoot each other anymore. Why sir, that's an insult to me. I will shoot you. Talk about uncivilized, my goodness, gracious in the air of gentlemen. Why sir, you have besmirched my legacy. We shall meet at noon and shoot it out unless we both miss.
It's like, really, you guys are gonna go shoot each other over this. Just haka loogie man and call it a day. Just spit on each other, whatever y craziness. Eighteen sixty two, Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son dies in the White House of Typhoid. Nineteen forty two. Listen now, Lieutenant Edward Butch O'Hare becomes the Navy's first flying ace of World War Two, shooting down five jap and these bombers headed for the USS Lexington O'Hare International Airport, Chicago.
There you go, There you go. Named after a World War two ace, the first ace of the Navy, and in nineteen sixty two, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth. Today is National Leadership Day, National Comfy Day. Probably wanted to know that before you You go to work, though, right, so you can wear your pjs. It is a National comfy Day. It is National Muffin Day, so on your way to work and your pjs, pick up some muffins for everybody at the office. National Love
your Pet Day. Awe perfect because we've got pause for thought today in today's National Cherry Pie Day, I cannot say that I've ever acquired a taste for fruit pies. I will, on occasion, on occasion, very rare occasion, eat a couple of bites of an apple pie, but that's just not my thing. I'd rather just eat an apple than have an apple pie. I like apples. I don't know what it is. I've never I've never gravitated to
fruit pies. So you celebrate a National cherry Pie all you like, I'll let you have mine sixteen minutes after the hour, tell you about the a thrift shop find next. Something like what I'm about to share is far more likely to happen to Jose than me, because he's a thrift shop guy. He loves going to secondhand stores and rooting around. Oh yeah, he's he's a self proclaimed dumpster diver. He sees something interesting sticking out of a dumpster, he's pulling over.
True.
Yeah. Yeah. If you're driving through a neighborhood and you see something set out, that's like the mother hall of all time because you don't have to dumpster dive. Yep. And everybody's always embarrassed when they're with me, they're like, oh no, please, don't don't.
Well, they can see us.
You don't have tip. I'm very specific. I will occasionally go in into a thrift store just to look around, although I got I have to tell you that the smell is sometimes a little off putting because clothing that comes out of the attic usually just has a musty kind of smell. And I don't know why, but those stores just tend to smell like that, and so it's a little But I do like rooting around because there's every now and then you'll find something that's like pretty
cool that someone else just in there. It's priced to sell baby out the door three bucks, five bucks. Whatever I've for example, on my list of something I want to find is I want to find a first edition copy of the book Jaws. Here's the thing. Almost everyone that's listed as a first edition on like these book sites or eBay, they're not. I know how to tell the first edition. See, there's a tell it was. It was printed in a way that there's a there's a mark at the end of the book that is only
on the first edition. And I know what it is. And so I go into bookstores that sell used books, and I'll go into a you know, a thrift store just for the sake of seeing if they have a copy of Jaws. And then I know where to exactly where to go in the book to find out if it's an actual first edition. I swore I had one, but I think it it got sold or at a
sale over the years that we held. But anyway, this is just a very cool find and it doesn't have it might have had some value monetarily, but the people that found it did the right thing. The staff at Rescued Treasure's thrift store that's connected to the Wyoming Rescue Mission, rummaging through boxes and boxes of donations. You know, they get donations and then they sort all this stuff out right, launder what they need to launder or do whatever they need to do. And by the way, if you launder
stuff and advance, it helps them a lot. They came across a three hundred and fifteen page red leather bound book. It was. It was a a book, a police docket dating back to nineteen oh four from the Casper Police Department. Riding a horse while intoxicated on horseback resulted in a fine of four dollars and ten cents for one soul. Disturbing the peace and carrying a deadly weapon was another charge it. They returned it to the Casper Police Department.
They did the right thing. They just they said, here you go, because I mean, this is history, fascinating glimpse into the early crimes and daily occurrences that police officers faced back in nin all the way back to nineteen oh four and then forward a little bit. Police Chief Keith mcfeeders, the history of any organization is an important aspect of its culture and its future. We will ensure that this is this record of our history is preserved
with honor and dignity. I didn't know this. The National Archives maintains a historical law enforcement record relating to federal law enforcement agencies and courts from the seventeen nineties forward. But here's the question, is everything there No, you know, it's not. You know it's not. But indirectly that connects
to our guests in the third hour, Jerry Mitchell. In fact, it was a movie that inspired him to start digging and what he found led to the conviction in four very high profile cases of the person behind and as
well as there were other convictions. But people responsible for the murders of some of the most high profile civil rights cases that were out there, they spent the rest of their life in prison because of the work of one investigative journalist and of course others law enforcement prosecutors that said, yeah, this is not then, this is not the old South, this is not the old Mississippi. And so former investigative journalist writer Jerry Mitchell joins us for
the third hour. Cannout wait twenty seven past. Good morning, friends, Come on, let's go Thursday in the Morning Show. This show is going to pick up speed as we go, and so buckle in, kiddos, It's Thursday on the program. Big Stories in the press Box. Florida Egg Commissioner Wilton Simpson has sent a letter to US senators and members of the Trump administration to pull the United States, at least US forests out of the European Union's proposed deforestation regulation,
to which I say, who the crap cares? What they say? Apparently Biden put us in this nonsense. I don't know. But what this, what this calls for is I mean, this is stunning. This would limit the ability of the United States to manufacture wood, rubber, to raise cattle, coffee. Doesn't that sound like Bill Gates? That's Bill Gates stuff, palm oil, soybean. But let's focus on wood because that's
what he's focused on. You see, the Euro's buying into the global warming nonsense, want to keep all trees forgetting that good forest management requires there to be trees. You cut, and you plant, and you keep planting, and then you cut some more, and it's a constant process. That's why when you have a set of natural disasters like hurricanes knock down the forests of Florida, it presents a problem because it interrupts that cycle. But we shouldn't be part
of anything like this to begin with. It's so reminiscent of the days when I was around, when we said, no more paper bags at grocery stores, plastic, no more paper straws. We've got to save the forest plastic and now what, uh, never mind that plastic thing. We got to go back to paper. Come on, so silly. Elon Musk advising the President, offering the idea that perhaps we need to give a dividend check back to United States taxpayers for the waste and the money that we're saving.
And the suggestion is that if they save twenty percent, if they get two trillion dollars of savings, the idea is being floated to send every tax paying household a check for five thousand dollars if you get to half of that, which is what they're kind of kicking around now that they might be able to find half of that initially, although they're literally at the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Okay, twenty five hundred dollars. But here's what's important.
It's not about the dollars at this point. It's about the principle. Elon Musk is correctly hammering home this singular thought. It's not the government's money. This money belongs to the American citizens. It's theirs that has been lost in Congress, and not just by Democrats. It's been lost by Republicans. It's been lost by presidents on both sides of the aisle for decades. They have forgotten it's not their money, it's hours. You spend your money a whole lot more
frugally than you spend somebody else's. I just love the idea, and then this, I put this as a big story because I think it is one. KFC is moving its headquarters from Louisville, Kentucky, to Texas. Kentucky Fried Chickens Corporate HQ is going to Plano, Texas. While one of the things that's happening is businesses are moving to states that don't have personal income tax. But I have to tell you, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sure, I ought to stay in Kentucky,
don't you think? Forty minutes past the morning, Joe at Preston Scott on news radio one hundred point seven WFLA, Kentucky's personal income tax rate is four percent, So after you pay your federal taxes, which will be anywhere from whatever to thirty six thirty eight percent depending on your income level. And I'm telling you it to moral just
is government shouldn't take more than God asks for. But I also think that everybody should pay something something ten percent for someone who makes one hundred thousand dollars a year is a heck of a lot more money, but it's the same percentage. It's the same amount of sacrifice as three hundred bucks is for someone that you know, earth three thousand dollars is for somebody that makes thirty But there's a difference in what that discretionary money, whatever
money you have. I mean, to the person that doesn't make as much money, that three thousand dollars impacts that more than the person that makes one hundred thousand dollars. So that's where the fair tax comes up with that prebate. But anyway, my wife and I had this discussion yesterday and it was about the whole United States Russia Ukraine triangle and trying to understand the war. Why did Russia invade and try to take parts of Ukraine. I know
that it goes back to at least twenty fourteen. I know that it has to do with lithium and grain. I know Russia wants to corner the market on lithium. It leads that part of the world and by getting certain parts of Ukraine they do that. Ukraine is also sort of like a bread basket of Europe, tremendous grain production. But not lost in all of this is the fact that Joe Biden had dealings with Ukraine through his son and profited, which to me explains three hundred and fifty
billion dollars worth of aid while Joe was president. In my mind, Russia felt like while Biden was president, it was a good time to go ahead and do this. He felt like Joe was in a putin. Had to know, had to know about the money paid to Biden, had to And so there's a part of me that thinks, okay, he pulled the trigger on this invasion, sort of calling Joe's bluff in the sense, what's Joe gonna do? Trump and Zelensky are having words back and forth. It's not good.
Trump's pointing out they haven't held elections in a minute in Ukraine. Zelenski, fairly or not, says, how do we do that? We're we're in the middle of a war, we're fighting for our nation. But they've also lost half the money we've given them. They don't know where it went. Well, of course it went to like it always does to people that are skimming these funds. So I don't have a really good answer on why this war is. You can look back and read all kinds of history of
the relationship between these two regents. It goes back to the to the collapse of the Soviet Union to a large extent, Russia's been angry about it ever since Gorbachev. You know, it basically happened. I don't know what the solution is. I know this America is getting nothing out of this deal. Trump's saying, we need something. We need some really, we need some of your resources. We need some of that lithium, we need some of that grain. We need something for what we're giving you. So I
wish I had a better handle on this. I'm gonna see if I can dig up somebody that can better explain the history of this region and what what's really at stake here and what the options are for us. There's some people that say, hey, you got to stop Russian aggression. I don't know that it's our job in this setting. I just don't know. I don't know that Ukraine is any more, sorry, is less corrupt than Russia is.
I don't know, I don't know if I want to pick between the two of them, and I certainly don't want to lose people over it. We've already lost, you know, a third of a trillion dollars, if not more. Anyway, forty eight passed, just saber rattling going on there to pay attention to WUFLA fifty three minutes past the hour Morning Show with Preston Sky. Elon Musk wants to look into Fort Knox, as in, we want to see the gold. It has been decades since anyone's been allowed to look inside.
The backstory here is fascinating. Fort Knox is where the gold reserves are of this country. Looking for the gold at Fort Knox, he wrote on X the gold is the property of the American people. I sure hope it's still there. Talk about making a few people nervous in the There have been some classic memes out about this, one showing a bunch of IOUs inside the vault, a bunch of sticky notes on the walls. I owe you five billion dollars of gold, he said. Who is confirming
that gold wasn't stolen from Fort Knox? Maybe it's there, maybe it's not. For years, the government has called for an audit of Fort Knox. Back in two thousand and eleven, when he was a member of the House, Rand Paul hosted a congressional hearing about legislation to audit and inventory the gold reserves. At the time, he said, no one from Congress has been allowed to view the gold at Fort Knox in nearly forty years, and that was fifteen years ago. It's been fifty five years since someone's seen
the golden gold in Fort Knox. In twenty twenty one, Representative Alexander Mooney of West Virginia Republican filed the Gold Reserve Transparency Act, which requires the GAO to report on gold reserves every five years. It failed to advance through Congress. You talk about something that's a little scary. Where's the gold? How much do we have? Elon Musk once again underscoring it's our gold. It belongs to the citizens of this country. It doesn't belong to the government. Steve Stewart will join
us from Tallassee reports. Remember in the third hour, Jerry Mitchell, the book Race Against Time. A lot to come this morning here on the Morning Show Second Hour Morning Show with Preston Scott Thursday, February twentieth. Good to be with you. Steve's over there giving me the clockwind. Let's go, come, come on, let's come. Good stuff to talk about. Let's come comes in here, bounding into the studios just the way he'll bound out of the studios too. Executive editor Talasi reports, Okay.
Go go.
Dan Cleman passed away this week. May not be a common name for people who are listening, but he was a city manager, a very pivotal city manager two decades, yes, twenty years, from nineteen seventy four to nineteen ninety four. And the reason I want to talk about in passing is because the research and reading about his situation, I think is it tells the story about where we are
on the city manager position. If you look at before nineteen seventy four, the city manager was was an had a more of an engineering background, and they ran the electric utility and you know, the road construction infrastructure, and it was really behind the scenes. They just got things done. You had the elected officials. When Dan Cleyman was a city manager, he was the first sort of public administration type to take that position.
Was there a reason why they went that route?
No, he was obviously a He was obviously a very good candidate. He was twenty eight years old at the time, I believe, so a stellar operator. And so he continued to operate behind the scenes, but again in a different in a different way because he had a different background. But the key thing was behind the scene means for twenty years. He resigned in nineteen ninety four, and I think this is where it gets interesting. Over a political squabble had to do with the police chief, and we
can talk about that later. There's a lot of details there, but that was the transition from the city manager staying behind the scenes taking care of the municipal work that needed to be done, okay, and entered into the political realm. He resigned, They replaced him with someone from Colorado that only lasted two years and they went back and that's when Anita Favers was hired in nineteen ninety seven, and she had a run up to another about another twenty
year run. However, she is the one that took over when the transition of the political side of things started to rear its head, and we saw that near the end of her term that she was the focus of articles in media and became more of a personality, A lot.
Of questions asked about the spending and what things were spent, where money was spending, where it.
Was exactly, and so now what we get is and there was some question I remember when I was running for office about her being replaced if the composition of the city Commission was different. So you start to see it that would have never happened, you know, in the seventies, eighties and maybe the early nineties until this transition. And so now we had again Anita Favors retires, and we have another city manager that only lasts one or two years,
and then we have ResCode. Now res Gode is might as well be an elected official, because if you look at the media treatment and the political treatment of mister Goad, it is like an elected official. The transition is gone from the seventies of building the power plant and building roads and getting things done to this figure. Now that is actually can be run against in elections, as we saw with mister Gold. Explain what you mean by that, Well, you can run and say, look, Reese Goad is doing.
You know, he's corrupt because he's enforcing this policy, and if you elect me, I'll vote to replace him. That would. I mean, you are taking a.
Bureaucrat who is charged.
With basically, you know, running the nuts and bolts of government, which a lot of people don't know about. Bonds, making sure you know that, you're meeting regulations, you're building roads, you know, and making sure you have enough electricity, eternal lights on. All that stuff is taken for granted. Now we're moving into this political realm, and so now it's interesting to think about mister Goado, who dodged the proverbial
bullet in the last cycle. Is he this next figure that can last for fifteen to twenty years before another transition. I think that with mister Claimant's passing, obviously it is his approach has gone forever and it is now much more as our politics because of social media and everything, there are more targets on the one question I asked, though it doesn't seem to be that way across the streeta Learon County, I wonder why is it because of districts?
Is it because they has more elected officials and it's districted, and so there's it takes more coordination to go after a bureaucrat.
I think so.
But anyway, I thought that was an I thought it was an interesting, uh, interesting perspective.
Nothing but interesting perspectives coming here with Steve Stewart of Talassi Reports. More next on The Morning Show with Preston Scott. It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Let's talk about kids, because when you talk about children, Steve, we're talking about our future.
We are And I got some again some interesting things to share with you.
Okay, that is.
Summit this week having to do with children. Whole was it called Whole Child Leon which was started in two thousand and five by Lauren Osley because she likes children and wants to help we all like children, we do, I mean, and acknowledging that there's some issues. So they had this sum The Children's Services Council was involved because that is obviously been created in the last few years to help out children. And you know there's word they use,
the term moving the needle. So I thought that was interesting.
But where have we heard that?
A couple of things I want to point out, So they're starting to look at one of the statistics that they're now starting to use because it's one that t can measure is or they try to measure is kindergarten readiness.
Okay, and in twenty twenty.
Before the pandemic, we were about sixty percent, it felt like forty seven percent. So in twenty twenty two, so they're using this as so huge drop and now we're climbing back up. I don't know that that's a sign of success, but it is good news. It's gone from forty eight to fifty three percent. All right, those they move the needle there now who gets credit for that?
I don't know will continue to follow that. But one interesting thing, Superinto Hannah spoke out, and they are starting to figure out and Superintendent Hannah's figured this out that you know, we when I look at my test scores and what's going on in my school system, it can't be me and my teachers and the buildings. It's got to be the product that we're getting at five years old.
And so Superintendent Hannah says, we got to work on the product that we're getting before five, you know, a readiness.
Right.
Well, so now they're getting to where where we have talked, right, there's but they are dancing around the actual problem. Okay, they have acknowledged we're not getting kids that are that are ready so now why is that? Okay, And there's you know, the discussion about you know, ninety percent of brain development happens between the ages of zero and three, and so there's talking about all these facts. But the problem is is the environment that these kids are growing
up in. And so they're trying to address this through the CS Children's Services counsel you know, things called brain bags which they give to parents, you know, kids that are or parents that are having kids. But they're not really addressing the major issue yet, but they're getting there,
and I think at some point maybe they will. That's the obviously, the family structure, the culture that the kids are raised in that impacts the product you're getting at five years old and trying the home matters and they're you know, they know it, no, they know it, but they don't know how to deal with it. Because what happens if you start holding people instead of trying to hold people accountable. You're trying to fix a problem. Okay,
it's like you know, it's like a teenager. If they continue to do the same thing and you just fix it without trying to talk to them and say, listen, this is how you don't do this again.
Well, Steve. That's what the colleges and universities have been dealing with for the last few decades. They've been doing remedial education the first year or two of college because they're not caught up, they're not ready for college. It's the exact same problem that the schools are inheriting at kindergarten right now.
The point with Superintendent hand It is, I completely agree with him on the getting ready and the product that's coming in, but that's not one hundred percent of the issue for a number of reasons, and we don't have time to get into that. But they are focused on this issue, and look all you got to do. I continue when we watch these meetings. We're doing the meeting briefs. I listened to a lot of people talk, you know, just to get the nuggets of information. These Title one
schools have been Title one schools for years. There's no there's no movement, there's no I don't think that we've had a celebration to where that there's a Title one school that is no longer a Title one school, And that in itself tells you the depth of the problem. And they're starting talk about a systemic problem that's systemic.
That is the word.
And the point to take away from this segment is we are starting to understand where the problem is, but we don't we're not addressing what the actual solution is. We're trying to put band aids on it, throw money at it and say, you know, and that may have some impact, but it's not gonna.
People don't want to hurt feelings exactly, and that's the that's the problem. It's like it's like gun crime. We don't want to speak about the obvious, right, and again that's an accountability issue. But we may get there at some point. All Right, we got more to come. Steve Stewart with us from Tallassei Reports. Subscribe go to Tallahassee
Reports dot com. I am like the guy that you bring on in the company softball game as the permanent pitcher, because I just I just lobbed softballs over the middle of the plate for everybody to hit out of the park. Steve Stewart's up to bat for the third time and here it is fire service fee.
Go.
Now, this sounds like this is going to be boring, but I did reveal a fact and you tilted your head like you were surprised. So stay tuned on that fire service fees. Everybody pays them and still support public safety. Controversial issue because of a couple of things. First, years ago, municipalities started to move the fire service out of your property tax, out of the general fund and pay for it using a fee. The reason they did it here is because there are a lot of buildings that don't
pay taxes because they're nonprofit government buildings. So then you can charge fee. Yes, exactly, universities. Okay, so they moved it. They moved it out years ago, and then pribably the two thousands and other municipal municipalities did it a cross the state and so here. The first quarter budget update from the city revealed two problems we talked about the Star Metro issue. The fire service fee is going to be short, and it's I mean, they're being very transparent by this.
We're gonna need about another twelve million dollars. Isn't it funny how they're transparent when they're short and need more cash. Hey, And so it's gonna be about twenty to twenty five percent twelve million dollars. And you know that's about another uh, they say about another sixty to seventy dollars a year from from residents. So the fire service fee, they'll do a rate study. They got to pay for new fire stations, new bargain agreement which was just agreed to, and.
So, and this impacts anybody that's in the city or county.
This isn't it. Yeah, So what happens is the city's in charge of basically administrating this. They negotiate, they provide the services, the Leon County signs onto the agreement and then collects money from the unincorporated area and it all goes into a pot, which is that pod has got fifty eight about fifty maybe sixty million dollars in it. Okay, so they're going to need an increase. That's going to be the thing to keep an eye on this year in terms of, you know, local government and how your
taxes or how your fees are going to go up. Now, a couple of things here to note. Leon County schools quit paying They were paying into the fire service fee of fund about a million a year. There's been some lawsuits around the state the school boards shouldn't pay in and we've talked about this in the past. This is going to become another issue this year because they're looking for money.
What's the base argument on why they shouldn't and why they've been victorious.
Well, so the base argument is that they're you know, they're basically passing this cost on to taxpayers through taxes, and they would have to you know, so should Leon County Schools create a fire service fee because they're having to pay for it now They didn't have to pay for it before when it was in the property tax. And so they successfully challenged that here in Leon County, there was an agreement into two thousands that the school board from what I'm told is that they would be
held harmless. You pay the fee and we'll give you a break on your electric utility rate. Okay, because the school board pays for their electricity. Well that has gotten out a whack to a tune of probably about seven hundred thousand dollars. So now they quit paying. Rocky Hanna decided to quit paying, and the city, knowing that these court cases are out there, really hasn't done anything about that. They just they continue I guess they continue to build them.
But this is going to come to a head now, and it did come up in the in the workshop that look, if they're not going to pay, don't we need to at least claw back our discount on the electric rate. And so this could hopefully, I mean, I would think that this would get the best outcome. Here is the for this, I get resolved behind the scenes. You don't want to get into a debate among the county, the city, and the school board over a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Tell me this does the utility profit off of providing utilities to consumers?
When you say profit, this is what happens they do this on all these utilities, is they take a portion of that money goes back into the general funds. So yes, it is paying. There are there are moneies that are being paid for electricity that are in addition to the cost of producing that electricity. A private sector company like Flora, you know, FP and L, they only charge what it
costs to produce the electricity, okay, and their profit. The city charges what it costs to produce it, and then they charge more to go back to the general fund to fund there.
Is a profit.
Even so, even though I don't think you know, I think it's more of a subsidy or a I mean when you say profit, it's like there's there's access funds than the cost of providing the service.
Exactly there is.
There's that way on water and waste water on uh and.
Maybe even be why why would I mean, I suppose you would you The argument then, is the school district getting a break benefits tax payers.
Yeah, this seems weird. It's getting the money from a different source real quick. The head tailt was this in Okallo, they collected a fire service for years in a non transparent way and a court ruled that the city of Ocala had to refund eighty million dollars to residents and they had to redo how they were doing the fire fee. Now they are collecting it again. But that is how technical and how controversial this this fee or collecting money for fire services can can be.
Thanks as always, Thank you pressing Steve Stewart tell Us Report. Subscribe, get the paper delivered to you and support the work of independent journalism here in the capital city at Tellasti Reports dot com. Foster thought, few minutes if he wrote a suggestion and Jerry Mitchell, author of the book Race Against Time, about a half hour from now, a reporter reopens the unsolved murder cases of the civil rights era. This is an incredible read. The work he did brought
justice delayed, but justice nonetheless. Murderers who thought they got away with it, smug arrogant clansmen. They all sat down with him before I think, before they were convicted. There's a story of one of them saying, there's some reporter stunning up trouble and he's sitting there having breakfast with
the guy who's stirring up the trouble. Hilarious. But these are these are inhuman crimes at the land committed and have caught all of them, but some of the most high profile ones solved because of the work of the guy that we're going to interview in about a half hour. Big stories of the press box this morning. Kentucky Fried
Chicken moving its headquarters from Kentucky to Texas. It's just it just seems seems like Kentucky out of reconsider its legislative priorities with just saying uh, yeah, they're just about one hundred employees are going to have to relocate in the next six months. Young Brands owns KFC and they are they're going to have two corporate headquarters, one in Plano, the other in California. I don't know why you would go to California or stay there. KFC and Pizza Huts
Global teams are already based in Plano. Taco Taco Bell and Habit Burger and Grilled teams are in Irvine, California. It just seems so wrong, doesn't it. The brand, the colonel, the Colonel, Harlan Sanders, I mean, he's Kentucky, That Kentucky colonel just does it just does it flow off the tongue. Kentucky Fried Chicken based in Texas. It's just Elon Musk the president kicking around the idea of sending money back to you and me a dividend check from money saved. Yeah.
I think what I want to take away from all of this that Doge is doing is this. I think this is the the singular takeaway. It's your money. It's not their money. The only part of it that's theirs is the portion they contribute in their taxes. It's our money. The idea is if they save twenty percent, send a check five thousand dollars to each taxpayer. That'll work. That'll work. Forty minutes past the hour, Doctor Steve Steveson standing by
talk about our four leg at buddies. Next, don't forget now the new iHeartRadio app It's been redesigned to allow presets. Getting a lot of response to people popping in the program. Now the radio station should be your preset, The show podcast should be a preset. What do you enjoy listening? To make it a preset? No more fumbling around. You just hit button number one, two, three foot. I think there's twelve presets, so take advantage on the new iHeartRadio
apples talk about our four legged friends. Doctor Steve Steverson joins us from the Bradfordville Animal Hospital. Good morning, my friend. How are you, sir?
Hey Preston, I'm good.
How are you?
I'm doing well. You know, I've talked about the fact I work with a dog training group, dog Pond Kennels, and I talk about how I look at people walking their dogs and I sometimes wonder who's walking who because because it's oftentimes a tug of war. You point out there's a difference between walking for exercise and walking to train your dog.
No, absolutely, Preston. A lot of us see dogs or have dogs that get super excited and they're lunging and jumping and barking at something as you're walking the monol. And so we need to retrain those dogs to be calm when they're approaching something that they get excited about. This thing that they get excited about, we call that a trigger. And so you want to identify your dog's
triggers and then determining be very specific. Decide now is it one hundred feet away or forty feet away or ten feet away?
When does this.
Trigger really stimulate my dog to start being out of control? And then you want to have that dog so that they are still calm but aware of the trigger. They haven't gotten out of control yet. So now that what we call below threshold. And at that point, you want to start giving the dog a treat, something he really just would die for, you know, a little piece of meat or jerky, or a cube of cheese or some
training treat he really really likes. So you give him this treat, so he turns his attention from that trigger to you, and then every time he turns and looks back at the trigger, you call him and give another treat. And so pretty quickly these dogs realize, hey, this is not a bad thing. They'll look at the trigger and then look back to you expecting a treat, which is exactly what you want to have happen. And so you give him this treat and you praise him, and gradually,
over time that trigger is getting closer and closer. So from let's say fifty feet to forty to thirty until they say it's a Your dog's trigger is another dog walking on a leash, and so you see this other dog approaching. You can get to the point where your dog will stop and look at you for praise and treats as the other dog walks by. Now that's not
a one week thing. It can take a lot of training to get to that point, but that is a very effective way to teach a dog not to be so excited and out of control when their trigger shows.
Up, and a smart dog will just simply stop and look at you all the time and wait for a treat that that would.
Be This doesn't work well if the dog it's off leash, says mainly for just on leash, sure, and there are a lot of other variables in there you have to deal with if the dog is off leash, But you.
Have to be very patient and realize, if you're going out for a walk with your dog to get exercise, you're going out for a power walk with your dog like you always do, that's probably not a good time to do the training. You want your training walks to be as shorter and not quite so intense as a power walk.
You know, if a dog ever gets off a leash, it runs away from the house, gets out of the backyard, that's when our next topic becomes really important. And I've done stories about this over the years in my good News segment where dogs are reunited, cats are reunited with their owners sometimes steve thousands of miles away or years later because of one simple thing.
Yep, they're exactly correct, Preston. In fact, there's an article just the other day about this where an owner was moving across country and they were took a rest stop in Arizona. Their dog got away from them. They stayed in Arizona for another week trying to find their dog and could not, so they finally had to leave and go on to California. And then years later they get a phone call out of the blue and this gentleman says, hey,
I have your dog. And they had traced this dog back to the owner by the microchip this dog had. And so microchips are such a great way to be able to reunite a dog with their owner. So they're really really important, easy to do, just takes a quick minute or two for a veterinarian to put that chip
in and then it's registered. It's on a national database and so then anybody can find this dog and they can go call the database company there's a universal database microchip and say hey, we found this dog with chip number one, two three four, and they can look it up and say, oh, yeah, that's Preston Scott's dog, and we'll call them. They won't give out your number, they'll say we'll contact the owner and let them know that
you have their dog. And so it's a very effective way to reunite a dog with their owner.
And there's a uniform placement of those chips and dogs or.
Cats, right, Yes, there is very It's standardized on the top of the base of the net, kind of between the shoulder blades. So in Leon County, every animal control truck has a microchip scanner on it, and so they're supposed to when they find a lost dog. The first thing they do before you can put the dog on the truck is scan the dog for microchip, and then it's supposed to be scanned again when it enters the
animal control facility. It's the Taoci Leer County Animal Shelter, so to check again to make sure a chip wasn't missed, because if they can find a chip, they can reunite that dog with their owner.
Good stuff, Doctor Steverson, Thank you, sir, and we'll talk again in a couple of weeks.
Great thanks Bresting, Thank.
You, sir, doctor Steve Steverson with us this morning, forty seven past the hour, you Mayor of Realville. It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Fifty minutes and it's past the hour. EV truck maker Nicola Corporation has filed Chapter eleven. CEO said in a statement, like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macro
economic factors that have impacted our ability to operate. That's a nice way of saying, unless we get large government subsidies that force people to buy our products, we're not gonna make money. I can only hope that this insanity is in the rear view mirror. If you're all about an EV man, have at it. I just hope you understand what you're buying, because in ten years you're gonna have no value in that vehicle because when those batteries
go bye bye and they degrade over time. You know, an engine might lose a mile per gallon after after a while, maybe, but you're not going to see the degradation that you see with evs and their lack of efficiency moving forward. They are never more efficient than they are when you buy them, and from the moment you buy them, they become less and less efficient, because that's that's the nature. I mean, how often have you had to buy the new rechargeable toothbrush because you can't change
out the battery. It just it just goes so long. How about your phone? They don't make phones with replaceable batteries anymore for the most part. Do you notice that, So when that battery says see you, you got to buy a new phone. I don't know why it's been so difficult for people to understand that transference of te technology and how it just works to evs. When the batteries say goodbye, it's just over and you got to buy new batteries. Except with a vehicle, you're looking at
thirty grand or more. It's crazy anyway, just wanted to point out another one bites the dust. Road trip. All right, we're always looking for something to do, right, some of you travel all the time. You're always jumping in the RV or the camper van or just hitting the road. Some of you are on the road right now. You're listening to me on the road, and some of you are thinking of things to do in the summer or
spring break. Well, this comes courtesy of a listener the discover dot com blog Best road Trips in America, State by state. We're kind of working out from Florida, Obama. The recommendation here is a roady along the Gulf Coast now the Gulf of America Alabama State Roads. They link the states of Mississippi, Florida to Alabama. And uh, there are places to stop, there's hotels, there's restaurants, and the
entire drive is scenic. But the recommendation here is Gulf State Park, biking, paddle boarding, kayaking, and you'll find the Golf State Fishing and Education Pier, which is the largest on the Gulf of America. So there you go, Little suggestion for you for a Roadieuhbama USSA, Alabama, by the way, is a worthwhile stop if you're driving down itent heading west, pulling into Battleship Row. I think they've got a submarine there as well that's dry docked that you can go
inside of. All Right, we come back. Jerry Mitchell Race Against Time is his book. Next on The Morning Show with Preston Scott by pass the hour. Good morning, friends, Welcome to the third hour of the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Hose's running the radio program as always, It's show fifty three to twenty and great to be with you. I'm Preston, and as you well know, over the years, I generally only interview authors of nonfiction. I don't generally
have time to read books of fiction. They just don't interest me that much. And out of the perhaps hundreds and hundreds of authors I've had over the years, I can honestly say I don't think I've interviewed anyone as important with regard to the work that they've done as
this gentleman that I'm going to introduce you to. Jerry Mitchell worked for more than three decades as a reporter at the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, and as an investigative reporter, he did what I would guess is the pinnacle of anyone that enters into that line of work. He did work that changed the trajectory of history, in this case, bringing justice where there had been nothing but injustice.
Murders in the Civil Rights era that went I won't say unsolved, but where justice did not prevail for a myriad of reasons, although there's a commonality in that. And Jerry, welcome to the program. It really is an honor to have you on the show.
What it's good to be with you. Thanks so much.
Where does this start for you? Take me back to before you were a reporter, growing up, when you were a kid. When did you far first start hearing about these stories of these murders of blacks and the Civil Rights era and what was what's your recollection of them and the impression they left on you as a kid.
Well, I was pretty young when a lot of this happened. The one that I recall most clearly was when doctor King obviously was assassinated and just the incredible sadness with that. But it really, to be honest, it really wasn't until I came to Mississippi in nineteen eighty six that I began to learn about these cases. It was not something known to me at all. I mean I had grown up kind of a sheltered white Southern life, and so I'm be honest, I was totally ignorant of a lot of this.
You know, what opened the door? Then? What what started you down this road?
Well what happened was I It sounds odd, but I went to see a movie. I went to see. It was the press premiere of a film called Mississippi Burning, which is kind of a fictional takeoff on real life event here in Mississippi. The three civil rights workers who were killed by the qu Klux Klan in nineteen sixty four. The FBI investigated. Really a miracle was ever solved, you know, because the bodies were like buried in a damn fifteen
feet down. I mean, you know, it's incredible. Dave and solved the case.
And so.
That was It was a press premiere and two of the FBI agents who investigated the case came to the press premiere and one of them was sat by me. And so that was the beginning. As I kind of term at my education about some of these things that happened. I had no idea. It was shocking to me. I was just couldn't believe it. That not it was not just these guys, you know, committed these murders. It was
the fact that they were never prosecuted for murder. I was like watching this on screen and it's like a triple murderer. I mean, you know of a triple murder, and nobody ever gets prosecuted, you know, for murder. And that was what shocked me, and kind of that was kind of the beginning, as I'd say, of my education. That was in January of nineteen eighty one.
The book is Race Against Time. Jerry Mitchell, the author and investigated reporter with the Clarion Ledger. We're going to talk more about that case as well as others, and they're chronicled in the book. It's an incredible read and I encourage you to get the book. More to come with Jerry Mitchell here in the Morning Show with Preston Scott. The book is Race Against Time. The reporter reopens the unsolved murdered cases of the Civil rights era. That reporter,
that author is with me. Jerry Mitchell Jerry, Let's pick up there, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner. You are in the heart of this world, living in Jackson, Mississippi. So how did you calculate how did you determine where you were going to start looking?
Uh?
Well, I had fortunately had the help of two FBI agents who investigate the case, and one of those agents actually handed me a copy of the book, and I, you know, I had not read it. I didn't even know about it. It was called Attack on Terror, and it was all about that case as well as other cases. So that was really started my journey. And then from there began to talk to you know, talk with families, talk with people who knew about the case, and began writing about that case.
So, I mean, I can't believe that. One of the things that stands out through this book to me is how the people that were largely responsible for these murders are so arrogant that they'll sit out and talk with you.
Almost all the killers talk to me. It was really fascinating. Yeah, it was, yeah, you know, and I think they had gotten away with it for so long they felt they had nothing to fear. I interviewed Edgar Ray Killen, who was kind of the guy that kind of orchestrated those killings and interviewed, like I said, other killers as well.
What is it that turns this into an active investigation? Then let's stay focused on the Mississippi burning case. What was it that caused this to finally see the light of day of a courtroom in an honest trial.
Oh well, it ended up being There ended up being other cases in between, but it ended up being in two thousand and five. You know, kind of went through a lot of machinations. I mean, I wrote about there was an interview that the guy that was the head of the klan did with the Missisippi Department of Archives in history, but it was sealed, and so I was able to get sources to leak it to me, and in that interview Bowers. There was a federal prosecution in
nineteen sixty seven. Bowers was among the seven clansmen convicted. The rest of the eighteen walked, and in this interview he said, it was quite delighted to be convicted and have the maintenance heat of the entire fair walk out of the court of a free man. It was referring to a guy named Edgar Ray Killing. And so I reached out to Edgar Ray Killing and talked to him quite a bit, and we even, you know, met for dinner and talked, and he talked to me at link
many many times. But he when I asked him, you know, if anything to do with the killings, he said no. And then he basically told me this story about himself. When doctor King was assassinated in Memphis, the FBI had no idea who did it, so they kind of went around interviewed, you know, klansmen and other people they thought might have had a role or kind of the usual suspect, she'd say. And so they went went and interviewed him
and basically asking his squareabouts. On April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, he refuse to talk to him, but the agent left his card. Time goes on Edgar Ray. Hillen picks up that card, calls the agent wants to know who killed King. And the agent's like, why do you want to know? And Kenton says, man, I want to shake his hand,
you know. And you know, sometimes people will see these older men and they'll be like they'll say to me, you know, they're going on trial or they've been arrested or they're going up to prison and they'll say to me, Jerry, why don't you leave these old memlum? And I tell them these were young killers. They just happened to get old.
Great point, Jerry, stand by Jerry Mitchell with us. Race Against Time? Is the book more to come here on The Morning Show with Preston Scott. Author Jerry Mitchell, investigative reporter for the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi for better than thirty years. My guest, we're talking about the book Race Against Time. He mentioned the movie Mississippi Burning, how that kind of started his journey in looking into these cases. One of the other cases that is written about Jerry
and your book is based on. It's really the inspiration of the movie Ghosts Mississippi, which you kind of had a role in that movie as a consultant. Tell our list about Medgar Evers, because he is one of the many of the civil rights movement that I don't think gets much attention.
I'm so glad you mentioned about him. He was or to hero. He fought in Normandy. You know, the African American soldiers of course went to war, but of course segregation still existed in the war at that time, so you know, the white soldiers would be served first, and you know, and all these kinds of things that were happening, which is really unfortunate. But he was a part of,
like I said, fighting in Normandy. He was a part of the Red Ball Express, which really they supplied like when General Patton kind of in his troops kind of screamed across France and pushing the Nazi troops back into Germany. The Red Ball Express is the one that kept you know, the gasoline and you know all these other things supplied
to those troops, which was critical. And then returned home, you know, after fighting the Nazis to have to fight racism all over again in the former Jim Crow that barred African Americans from restaurants and restrooms and of course voting booths. And so he wound up becoming the first field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP. He would put about forty thousand miles a year on his Osman wheel driving around.
He would be investigated the Emmett Till case. Even before the Emmett Till case, he was investigating killings of just friends of his that were involved in the civil rights move and just because they were black and they had dared to try to vote and encourage other black Mississippians to vote, they were you know, gunned down. As one of them was gunned down, Lamar Smith was gunned down the courthouse lawn in the middle of the day with everybody standing around. And of course none of these killers
were ever prosecuted. They were prosecuted em till case, but obviously the killers walked away. The jury acquitted the killers, who then confessed their crime months later to Look magazine. So MegaR was very involved in the movement, and on the same night at President Kennedy uh told the nation the grandtons and slaves were still not free. He was shot in the back and his own driveway after riding home.
Of course, his wife and children heard the shot, rushed outside, you know, saw the blood, screamed and yeah, incredibly, and it was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
You ended up being face to face with the man who was eventually convicted of shooting and assassinating Medgar Evers, how did you we've just got a minute left on this side of the break. How did you set that meeting up? Why in the world, would this guy agree to sit down and talk with a reporter.
I'm a white Southerner wasp, you know. I mean I had all the I checked all the boxes. Like he asked me a series of questions. You know, where'd you grow up? What are your parents' names? Where'd you go to college? I mean all that was kind of questions, where do you go to church? Where do you live? And I could have refused to answer this question, but I knew he would love my answer, so I just answered and he said, come on. So that's how that happens.
Byron Della beckwith I want to talk about that conversation. Next joining me is Jerry Mitchell. The book is Race Against Time. More to come on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Thought or story you want to share? Right, I'm at Preston at iHeart Radio dot com. Yes, he knows how to read, well, actually his producer reads him. He doesn't know how to read. Welcome to the Morning Show with President Scott. The book is Race Against Time.
Jerry Mitchell, the author is my guest years with the Clarion Ledger, now co founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and to chat on that for just a moment, in a few moments, tell us about those girls.
Those four girls were the ones who were killed by the Klan in Birmingham in nineteen sixty three. The Klan planeted a bomb in the church that went off, and those girls were getting ready for actually kind of a children's service, and the title of the lesson kind of cruelly ironic, was the Love that Forgives and were killed.
Four girls were killed, a fifth girl, Sarah Collins, was blinded, and about fifty people injured, and two young African American men were killed as well that day in what followed. So it's pretty brutal day in Birmingham. And so no one was ever prosecuted in that case until attorney Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley prosecuted Bob Shamlicks. His nickname was dynam Bob by the way, he was the one who built the bomb, and he was convicted in nineteen seventy seven.
But then the case lay dormant until you know, the FBI decided to resurrect it in nineteen ninety six. And that I just after Sam Bowers was convicted. We just decided to look at what cases were being looked at, you know, by the FEDS and others.
How many people total Jerry have have found their way into prison. I know that many of the main perpetrators died in prison, which is appropriate. How many total convictions as a result of the investigating that you and others have done.
Well, if you included everyone, I think there's been twenty four convictions in the civil rights cold cases since they began to be reopened in nineteen ninety.
You write in the book, and forgive me if I get this paraphrased incorrectly, but generally speaking, you write about the fact that this is not just about pursuing justice, about justice delayed. And this point I thought was brilliant. It's about pursuit of memory. Explain what you.
Mean, Well, you know, basically, you these things are remembered, and you know generations that follow. You know, that's who gets to control that, Who controls the narrative, who controls quote unquote the truth. It's very important. I mean, George Orwell wrote a whole book about that in nineteen eighty
four book. And so I think Marly Evers may have done the best job of summing this up when she said, we keep repeating our history because we don't know our history, and so I think that's why it's more than just justice. It's also about telling the truth.
I think it's important and you point this out as well, that these men involved in these crimes are now remembered for their crimes, not for being in the case of Sam Bauer, is a pinball salesman or something.
Yeah, exactly exactly, amusement device gott. Yeah, it's yeah, that's what needs to happen, you know, these people, because they live for decades, you know, getting away with these crimes and you know, when unpunished. So it's it's appropriate that we as a society, you know, put that stamp on it. And I think that's why what we do as investigative reporters and journalists is so important, because you've got to have truth before you have justice.
Perfect lead into the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting tell our listeners about it.
Well after So, it was about like the third buyout by the Clarion Ledger, you know, that was being offered, and I thought, well, I guess I better take this one.
So I.
So I took the buyout and used that money toward the nonprofit, you know, started a nonprofit called the Missippi Center for Investigator Reporting. We did that in twenty eighteen, I mean twenty nineteen when I left there, and so then we proceeded to basically the Mississippi needs and it's true elsewhere as well, Mississippi needs more investigator reporting, not less, and so we set out to do that. And there really wasn't that much investigator reporting because newsrooms and shrunk
and the same again all over the country. Yeah, but yeah, so that's why we started. And then we joined forces with Mississippi today in twenty twenty three, and we now have kind of a stable of young investigator reporting reporters that we're working with and training and very exciting. We actually were Field surprise finalists last year so for our work on the Mississippi Sheriffs.
So yeah, well done, Jerry. Thank you for carving out so much time for us, and I'm honored again to visit with you, and I thank you for your work so very important, and I hope a bunch of people that may not have known about the book know about it now. And again, thank you very much for all you're doing.
Well.
Thank you Preston very much for having me and just as a person of faith, I certainly give credit to God.
Amen to that. Well done, sir, thank you. And that's where justice ultimately is going to prevail for these guys that think they got away with it. Justice on this side of eternity may in fact be delayed, but before God Almighty, it will not be denied. Jerry again, thank you very much. Forty eight minutes past the hour. I hope you enjoyed that race against time. Jerry Mitchell, the author here on the Morning Show with Preston Scott deedless to say. All we can do is scratch the surface.
Jerry is a prime example of why I don't no offense to novelists out there. If your thing is writing novels awesome. I'm actually a subject in a novel that someone wrote about kind of you know, End Times prepping disaster coming to America type thing. A series of books that an author wrote and they wrote in segments with me as part of it. I mean, it's like crazy, and that's awesome. But books that mark history, that chronicle history, that in this case uncover the truth of history. Jerry's
remarkably humble. But when I say that his work has put four people directly responsible for murdering others behind bars, the main perpetrators in the case of beck with the man who pulled the trigger and shot Mett Grevers in the back coward, and he died in prison. Man, I just hope that you enjoyed that, and I hope that you go ahead and get the book. You can get it in two days on Amazon. Man, they'll have it right there to you race against. And here's what's also important.
You'll know the people who died, and that's equally important. All Right, we don't have the typical reset of the program. Last hour, very different, very special. I carved out time for that for very specific reasons. And again I hope that hope you got something out of that that's going to be in the best of that's coming in the February Best of on the twelve Days of presst. And
I promise you that tomorrow the program will reset. Obviously the news of the day, share some good news with you, give you a chance to get it off your chest, whatever it might be. Get to Collie in, get it said, clear out your craw what's the beef? Tomorrow we'll have the best and worst few headlines from our favorite source of satire, the babylin b Till then, my friends, thank you as always for sharing your time with us, and
have yourself an awesome day. Stay warm them out there, Cover the plants tonight