Congressman Ralph Norman on the Looming Government Shutdown and Jon Levine's Insight into the Biden Family
01:04:49 Share

The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone.

Have some great interviews on tap for you today. First up is going to be Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina's 5th Congressional District. Then we're moving on with John Levine, who's a reporter for the Sunday New York Post and friend of the show, Alexander Rakin, coming back to answer Chuck's big question from last week. But first up, Congressman Norman, a lifelong resident, not just of South Carolina, but South Carolina's 5th District district.

graduated from Rock Hill High School in 1971, attended Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, graduated in 1975. Boy, I'm... Congressman Norman, do you run into friends you went to high school with and they're saying, Congressman, I can't believe you're a congressman. I never saw that in you. Do you ever have that conversation? Many times, my wife included. Hey, so...

The talk right now is about a possible shutdown. And Republicans, especially members of the Freedom Caucus, are holding the line saying we have to get this under control. One thing we feel that Republicans don't do very well is we don't tell people how and why this is important for their personal finances. So you're in the construction business for many years, a successful construction business.

Why tell folks listening and your constituents and those nationwide, why home ownership now is unaffordable for 99% of Americans. How does mortgage interest rates correlate with a national debt? And so why is it important we get our fiscal house in order if people want to have home ownership?

Well, a great question. Sam, mortgage rates have to do with our national debt because as the prime rate rises, the debt, which is $34 trillion in county, which the interest alone is $20,000 per second.

$20,000 per second for your listeners on just the interest. That's why we cannot continue this path toward insolvency. Financial security is, I mean, economic security is national security. We've got to put priorities on where we spend money, but more importantly, get curb the spending that's been rampant by both Democrat and Republican. So what you're hearing the debate about is, well,

One, a spending level that we just like every family budget, every business, you have levels that you can spend. If not, you start cutting.

What we've come up with to send to the Senate is financial cuts. So that along with border patrol, the crisis in this country is the number of illegals coming in. So to simplify it is cuts and then it's making this administration have border control, which we'll see if it passes or not. I will go back to the well in about an hour and we'll see if we can pass this.

So right now, as I understand it, I think this year is the first time when we're projecting the amount of money that the country has to spend to make interest payments on its debt to be higher than our total military spending. Is that correct? In four years, the actual number will be that the interest alone today is like $460 billion every 12 months.

If you go forward four years, it's projected to be $860 billion, which is the entire budget for our military. But beyond just that, I mean, which has huge national security implications, but back up to Chuck's point, this is affecting everybody's credit card interest rates. It's driving their mortgage rates from 2%, 3%, 4% up to 7%, 8% plus percent. It may hit 9% soon.

Those are real impacts every day in your wallet. Add in the gas prices, add in the more on energy, add in the cost of the border. Americans just can't afford this administration and the Democrat priority list, can they?

No, they can't. And as you mentioned, it affects every segment of our society. Housing has always been the bellwether for the economy. But the reason it is, and people ask me that all the time, is you have over 140, you affect over 140 different populations.

industries if you if you call it in building a house from footings to the architect to the wood products to the window products all of that and housing is slowing down we're in South Carolina people are coming to South Carolina but with interest rates going up and the affordability factor the supply chain shortages and then compound that with what we're paying for gas now what we're paying for milk for groceries

We can't get a lot of products now that we used to be able to get. So it's a chain effect. But the bottom line, we've got to get a handle on spending. Every dollar in Washington, D.C., has got an advocate for it. And I will tell you, it's been a tough sledding to get any cuts of any manner. One thing you're seeing for CNN had a story today about a cafeteria worker who will, you know, because if we shut it down, she won't have a job, won't get a paycheck.

Let's take a step back on a minute on the real estate construction industry. Right now, interest rates are at 7.19%. If we don't get this tackled, it's a two-part question. If we do not get this tackled, this debt problem, do you see a possibility that we get 9%, 10%, 11% interest rates for mortgages? Yeah, rates will keep going up. Inflation will keep going up. The bellwether, the way you get to start with the inflation is, one, go back to –

Going back to getting gas from America, getting oil from America instead of buying it from OPEC countries, which are 13 countries that hate America. That's the first step. I don't have too many concrete trucks that operate on batteries. Secondly, we have to get these crony capitalism. The government is propping up with borrowed money, the electric vehicles, for example. The public doesn't want that.

And thirdly, we have to be a manufacturing company. This administration has run businesses to China.

They run up to town, which is where most of the batteries are. It's insane. Congressman, to back you up right there, because I want to hit on this point, Chuck, with the EVs, right? So somebody in, I believe it was Iowa, wanted to put in a charging station for 30 electric semis. And they were told they couldn't do it because it would draw more power than the entire city it was outside of.

How do Democrats on the floor, like how do they justify this push into EVs with the massive costs that are associated with it? I just don't get what they're doing. And that's a huge part of the inflationary discussion because you're talking about $200 billion a year that they've handed out in tax breaks for these sort of fake industries.

They are fake industries and what we're I'm on the financial services committee. We're going to start getting to actually see where the actual checks go for wokeism for this global warming that you know, which is basically their guide. So we're just being global warming in any dollar amount, but that goes to some industry somewhere. Somebody is getting a paycheck and

And it's so many things that you can analyze and cut from this budget. And it's just not as impossible to get right now. But hopefully, we're going to make a change in it. And we cannot continue to let illegals come across the border. We cannot continue to spend millions of dollars to build walls in Lebanon and Jordan and other countries.

We cannot continue to build new buildings for FBI agents when they're vacant buildings in Washington, D.C., everywhere. So it's a chain reaction, but it all starts in the longer stairway has the first step. We got to take the first step.

We're with Congressman Norman. He is from South Carolina's 5th Congressional District. For our friends on radio, you can catch this interview on Florence, South Carolina, News Talk 1400. Congressman, give our folks a brief synopsis of what's going to happen in the next 24 hours, you feel, and what Republicans are asking that Democrats are balking about.

Okay, what we're going to present to the Senate. And for your listeners, you know, you got three branches of government, executive, the Senate, and you got the House. The House controls the purse strings. Nothing is spent until we vote on it.

What we're sending over to the Senate will be a, you call it a continuing resolution, but it's just an agreement to keep the government funded for the next 30 days until we can get all the appropriation bills. There are 12 of them. We voted on three. We got four that passed, three last night, a total of four. Now, for your listeners to know why is it all taking place now, we should have had it decided back in June or July.

but it was not a priority for some reason. It just wasn't. And it's like the analogy I use, it's like having, seeing your gas tank gauge on empty, you keep driving. And then here we are at the date, uh,

that a car runs empty with the date that the new budget year kicks in October 1. That's never changed. That hasn't been a secret. I'm glad you brought that up because that's been a point of contention for us here on this show is why does this not become the priority day one after you've passed last year's spending bills? I mean, that's just it's crazy bad management.

One of the things we, I was one of the five that would not vote for Speaker McCarthy. And we caught a lot of negative press and negative comments. But all we did were ask just what you talked about. Have regular order, pass appropriations well in advance of the time that we had the budget year. Have your arguments. We asked for 72 hours to look at bills. Under Pelosi, we would get a 4,175 page bill and have 12,

12 hours to look at it. The biggest speed reader cannot do that and comprehend it. But that being said, what you will see on the House, if you turn on the channel for the House, is debate on a bill, continue resolution to keep the government funded and have a cap for all the 12 appropriation bills, the remaining eight, 1.47, have strict border control to make this administration stop the invasion that's taking place on the border.

And we've got a commission that's set up for some other things, but that's the basics on it.

Congressman, we have just about two minutes left before we come to the end of this segment. We really want to thank you for joining us today. What do you see? I know we're real quick and I want to make sure we give folks a chance to find out how they follow you and stay in tune with your campaign. What do you see happening in these next 48, 72 hours a week with this budget? Are we going to be able to get individual bills through? Is there going to be a shutdown or are we looking at an omnibus that gets passed with

Kind of bipartisan support that's undercutting the agenda of the right.

Here's what's gonna happen if the if we if the House does not pass the continuing resolution with those things I mentioned and it goes to the Senate, they will propose a level of spending that will blow everybody's mind. They will not take up border security and and it's called a discharge petition. A number of House members from that serve in New York do not want to go side with Democrats and I hate to see that.

Briefly, 30 seconds left. You're a surrogate for Nikki Haley. Why is she the best bet to be president of the United States? She'll give us eight years. She could be elected. She's a conservative. I've seen what she's done in South Carolina. She's the best. She will be the Margaret Thatcher of America, will be the first female elected president.

Congressman, thank you so much. Folks, you can follow him at Ralph Norman on Twitter. You can also check out his official account at Rep. Ralph Norman, also on Twitter, Norman.House.gov if you want to check out his website. Congressman, thank you again so much for taking the time out of what is a very busy and hectic day for joining and joining us. We really, really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.

Folks, we're going to be coming right back in just a moment with John Levine, reporter for the Sunday New York Post. Breaking Battlegrounds back in a moment.

At Overstock, we know home is a pretty important place, and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has everyday free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high-quality furniture and decor you need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock, making dream homes come true.

All right, welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Thank you again to Congressman Ralph Norman for joining us for the first segment. Next up, I think this one's going to be fun, Chuck. We've got friend of the program, John Levine, coming back. He's a political reporter for the Sunday New York Post. He had a little fun this week, it sounds like. Yes, he did. So, John, you went to New York City's finest restaurants, and you dressed like Senator John Fetterman. How'd it go? Well, it's good to be here. I guess the short answer is,

Oh, it did not go well at all. I was I was unceremoniously shown the door by by many by many great establishments in this city. I wouldn't actually say anyone was openly hostile. I think a lot of people thought I was just crazy. It's a crazy person comes up to you in New York.

You don't want to be openly hostile because it could end very badly. So you just kind of smile and please just leave and don't make a fuss. So we know there's two types of communication when we surprise people. One, what their words are, and they're taught to be kind. I'm sure these are professionals. What did their face say to you when you walked in like that and asked for a seat?

The face told me crazy. The face told me that they thought I was a, have you ever ridden like the New York city subway? A long ago, long ago, crazy person. And if you will, you know, they're flapping around, maybe they're spitting and talking to themselves. You just don't, you don't want to look at them. And if you do look at them, you just, you want to be neutral, but like it's, you don't, you could, I, it's just an expression I know. Cause I've seen people make it and I'm sure I've made it. And I saw it on their faces and,

But some places also let me in, I have to stress. Some places I was very surprised by. So what's the biggest surprise that let you in? I mean, if your audience cares about New York City, you know, high dining, I would say Nobu was a huge surprise. That's a restaurant co-owned by Robert De Niro and one of

One of Hunter Biden's favorite spots. Sonobu let me in with no issue. I mean, you could probably be a crackhead and go to Sonobu, apparently. And Eleven Madison Park, which is like a triple Michelin, very bougie place. It's all vegetarian now, which is crazy to me. Wow. To drop the kind of money to eat there, it's all vegetarian. That's a heck of a gig if you're the restaurateur, though. Talk about saving on your food costs.

Well, it's brilliant. You don't lower prices at all, and you say you're going green or something about the earth. And you basically can double your profits. Hotels don't have turndown service anymore. Oh, it's green. I just want to save money. Yeah.

So, yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. It was a very easy idea. It was something we came up with. I bought the clothes at the Gap. I went over. I would go under the pretense of wanting to eat there. I would say something like, oh, hello, is this a restaurant? Where am I? Which, you know, these are like world-famous places where they would usually get pretty pissy when they say that. It's like going to the White House. Where am I? Yeah.

And then they would either throw me out or try to seat me, at which point I would reveal myself, who I was, my gag. And I would say, you know, if this U.S. senator came in dressed like this, usually it was a no. That's amazing. That's amazing. We're with John Levine. He is the political reporter for the Sunday New York Post. You can catch him on Twitter at LevineJonathan. This story you just did on the restaurants and dressing like fettermen,

Do you have to pitch these stories or do you have the flexibility to say, I'm going to do this?

How does that happen in the New York Post world? I mean, it's both. I mean, I come up with all my own ideas. I mean, sometimes someone will give me a good idea, but the ideas that I do are self-generated. But I have to sell them to people here. You know, I'm not, you know, there's a large chain of command here. And, you know, but it's, you know, generally, I'm very lucky. I come up with ideas and I'm given a lot of latitude to pursue them, you know, to generally get a green lit. That's great.

That's fantastic. Let's briefly talk here. The Biden administration really seems to have it out for Elon Musk. And I'm amazed by it since he is really the leader on electric cars, space exploration, satellite for people who can't get Comcast or Xfinity or something of that nature. What do you take of all this?

Well, I'll say first of all, you know, I'm reading the Musk book right now by Walter Isaacson. I would recommend it to everyone listening. It's fantastic. It's incredible. I was already a Musk fan before the book, but I'm like a really, really sold on Elon Musk. What he is trying to do is so incredible.

Like he's trying to take us into outer space and to make humans exist on other planet. And he's trying to completely get rid of fossil fuels and cars. And look, even if you aren't sold to green new deal stuff, getting off of fossil fuels will radically change our relationship to like the middle East. And there's a lot of national security interest regions reasons to want to do that. And he's doing these incredible, incredible things. It'd be like,

We like Columbus is getting ready to set sail to the new world and some sort of like, you know, Spanish Inquisition, you know, EPA is saying, oh, your sails are hurting a rare salamander. And it's like we're missing the forest through the trees. And it's just it strikes me as very punitive.

That the Biden administration is just covering him in one probe and inquiry after another. And it's punitive. It's because he bought Twitter. He's made a commitment to free speech. He's made a commitment to not censoring content in the same way that –

the Biden administration was used to having content censored. And they always said, oh, we're not telling Twitter what to do. They're a private company. But you can see when a private company like Twitter now stands up to the administration and won't just censor things because they're told to do it, you'll see they get buried in probes.

and inquiries. And you see this at all levels of government. This is not a federal exclusive thing. If you own a restaurant in New York City and you stick your head up too high, they'll come in and say, oh, your light bulbs aren't up to code. That's a $10,000 fine. Your window shades are too big. $100,000 fine. There's always...

As a Soviet would say, you show me the man, I'll show you the crime. And that's exactly what you're seeing here. I got to say, you're spot on there. And I think this is a really dangerous, pernicious thing they're doing. I think if you look right now at what the judge in New York did with the Trump organization demanding essentially the liquidation of the Trump organization, if you are a business person, a startup founder, anything like that,

Aren't you crazy to go anywhere near a blue state or a blue area and try to start a business at this point? Right. I mean, it's all it's hard even if they're not targeting you, because there's a blizzard of regulations and checks you've got to comply with. But if you stick here, I mean, if you're and I don't know that this is even necessarily exclusively legal.

I think this is all government that gets out of control. We'll always target their political opponents. But it's very tough. And if you're going to be active politically and you're going to also want to run a business, you better make sure your business is in a state that is more or less aligned with your political views or you might end up in very big trouble.

I think that might be a bipartisan problem. Yeah. You know, this seems like a generalization, I'm sure, when I make this statement. But it seems like the Biden administration does everything in this nature that they would accuse the Trump administration of doing. Oh, yeah. With better results. Yeah. I mean, everything is, you know, it's almost a funhouse mirror image. We had a three-year probe.

about Trump and Russia. I remember the Steele dossier, and that turned out to be all just BS. It was originally like a Hillary Clinton opposition research file. It was totally discredited. We had three years of Trump as a Manchurian candidate, Putin is occupying the White House. We've been overthrown.

And that was all baloney. And we said people still believe that. Yes, they do. We have the reverse situation where, OK, we know that President Biden's family was receiving millions of dollars from China, Ukraine, other countries. We know that with bank records. There's the laptop which has been authenticated. And you have things like a confidential FBI informant and an FBI generated file.

saying that they spoke to the head of the energy company where Hunter Biden was serving in a do-nothing job that he got $80,000 a month to do, saying, oh, yeah, I only have him on here because I need access to dad and he's dumb as a dog, but I need him. And I got to give $5 million to each Biden. And this is not a field dossier. This is an FBI file that was generated in early 2020. Yeah, John, I've got to cut you off real quick. We're going to be coming back with more from John Levine in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're continuing on right now with friend of the program, John Levine, reporter for the Sunday New York Post. John, I want to go back to actually a piece you did at the start of this month. Socialist lawmaker offers her Queens district for migrants, then goes silent.

How much of that is happening in New York right now? Everyone's a big talker. You know, I have a wonderful expression. Everyone is a liberal for other people. Everyone wants migrant shelters built. But then it's like, OK, they're going to come to your district. It's like, what?

And you can see this across the board. I mean, they were building homeless shelters on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And trust me, those liberals started it started to get pretty, pretty ugly up there. And, you know, these these these good, sweet people, they they weren't so good and sweet the second they were faced with any kind of consequences of the things that they call for for other people.

That's astounding, and it's a national phenomenon. Like right here in Phoenix, we've had a big issue around the homeless in the last couple of years. The city started building micro shelters or looking to build micro shelters all around. It is the bluest areas that have fought the hardest to keep them out.

Of course. Of course. So this this woman, she's a standard Democratic socialist, you know, open borders. No person is illegal. The full menu of everything. And she's in a very heated discussion with some of her colleagues, some left wing, some right wing, you know, mix. We still have some Republicans in New York. And she she said, I will build all the I'll take all the new shelters that need to get built.

And it was leaked to me. And then when I brought this to her, she ran away. And they treat my asking the question as illegitimate. It's like stop as a form of trolling, as like a bad faith inquiry. And, you know, actually, this is something if you know Saul Alinsky, an old school left wing activist, he had an expression.

which is and he was organizing left wingers in the 70s and he would say force your enemy to live up to their own book of rules and so and it's an incredibly useful tactic and i think it's it's a very valuable tactic when it comes to things like migration because new york runs around saying sanctuary city sanctuary city so someone like governor greg abbott in texas says okay sanctuary city good news and then the buses start coming

And he is forcing us to live up to our own rhetoric. And as you can see, it's causing a lot of difficulty. And you will see a lot of surprises, I think, in the elections in New York next year, in 2024, if we don't get the migrant situation handled or under control. So with your social community, people outside the newsroom, is the migrant situation...

being talked about among people in New York, among your social circle? And are they just are they are they bugged by it? And are they sort of rolling the eyes of the hypocrisy of Mayor Adams and others saying we're a sanctuary city, we can take this all and all of a sudden they're there and like, no, we really can't do this.

I mean, not everyone. I don't think people are experiencing the migrant crisis at that kind of a high level. It's just you walk down the street and migrants are just sleeping and overflowing out of hotels and and people are just saying, what is this? I don't want this here. And.

And, you know, that's a big problem with voters is they often don't recognize, like, the consequences of their actions or the votes that they're casting or the reasons we're living the way we are. And, you know, so people don't always have those thought processes. But you're right. There are a lot of people who are fed up. And I know that in the 2024 elections, this is going to be an issue that certainly Republicans talk about. And it's a very easy issue to solve. You could reroute these buses to D.C.,

And that's really where they should be. I mean, this is ultimately a federal problem. It's not New York's fault that there are migrants here. The border is an open is an open sieve because of federal policies. And so these migrants should really be at the White House and we should be sending them there. John, we have just about a minute and a half left in this segment, but.

But how are you seeing Democrats there that might start stepping up to run against other Democrats on this issue? Because it's obviously not going to be just Republicans that turn this around in states like New York.

Well, it's interesting. You know, Kathy Hochul, our governor, won her race against Lee Zeldin by about three points. And that's like as close as it gets in a state like New York. You are starting to see divisions among Democrats. I mean, Mayor Adams said New York is dying because of the migrants. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was thrown out of his job for various reasons, he was like, Democrats are screwing up the migrant issue.

In New York City, we don't have like a two party system. It's a one party system, more or less. Right. Where it's just Democrats versus more liberal Democrats. But even among that, you're seeing a lot of cleavages open up.

We're with John Levine of the New York Post. You can find him at Twitter, Levine Jonathan. Jonathan, if you, John, if you can stay with us, we want to come back and talk about some other political issues in D.C. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. And we're going to be back here with John Levine of the Sunday Political Reporter for the New York Post. We'll be right back.

At Overstock, we know home is a pretty important place, and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has everyday free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high-quality furniture and decor you need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock, making dream homes come true.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Horne, with my co-host, Sam Stone. On the line with us is John Levine. He is the political reporter for the Sunday New York Post. You can follow him on Twitter at LevineJonathan, or frankly, just subscribe to the New York Post. He'd probably prefer that more. John, you wrote an interesting tweet, which I want you to go into a little bit on the 28th. You wrote, Watergate would have been a two-day story today.

Nixon would have survived, served his full second term, ended the war in Vietnam, and would have been remembered as a great president.

Will you go ahead and talk about that a little more detail? That's like a big, big question. I know. I know. But you tweeted it. So I'm going to ask the question. This is a good question. This is a great question. It's a great question. It speaks to how news cycles have changed. You know, back then you had you didn't have cable news. You just had the printed press. And it was basically The Washington Post and The New York Times. And look, we've learned a lot about how The Washington Post operates. And we've looked under that hood, thanks to Twitter and some other ways we can see, you know, the reporters.

It was it was a much more it was a much more time of much more closed information. And the fact of the matter is, if Watergate had happened today, it would have been pushed out of the news cycle. The velocity of news is just so much faster now. And I think that like in the way we look at scandals today and where we adjudicate scandals today, it.

It just doesn't seem as bad. I mean, nobody cares that Hunter Biden is getting millions of dollars from the Chinese and the Ukrainians despite having no job. And he's the dad. Joe Biden's calling it. Nobody cares. It's just like enormous numbers who just don't care. And conversely, Trump can talk about, you know, groping women in furniture stores and get elected president. And no one cares. And I

I think just the bar for the public tolerance for presidential malfeasance is just much higher today. And yeah, Nixon, look, he was, and as for the war in Vietnam, look, he wanted to end it. Him and Kissinger wanted to end it. Ford ultimately ended it. And I just, yeah, I don't know. And if you really dig into Watergate,

If you look at who Deep Throat was, it was W. Mark Feltz, who was just a jilted FBI guy. It was a proto-Deep State person. He wanted to get J. Edgar Hoover's job. Nixon didn't give it to him. And he just dumped dirt on Nixon. I mean, it was a Deep State hit before we even had a term for the Deep State.

So that was sort of the origins of that tweet. All right, let's talk about Hunter Biden. You're right. This is a really amazing case study of the press, I feel like, defending Biden in a lot of ways. They're sort of being forced to have to cover it now. I think of all the national broadcast networks, CBS News probably does the most.

Well, but but every time they cover this stuff, Chuck, they try to spin it as a scandal. Yeah. Yeah. It's a spin. Give us your take on it. You've you've you've read it. You've done a lot of work on it. Give it. Give us a synopsis. What you think's happening? What's going to happen?

Well, the press is covering it more. No question. And a lot of it is covering it in the, well, this is happening, but here's why Republicans are still wrong. You are right about CBS News. CBS News is doing great work on this. I'll particularly point to Catherine Herridge, who has done all, has done great, great work bringing forward the IRS whistleblowers.

I think there's a certain level of development in the story that has become unavoidable for the mainstream press to ignore. I mean, when you've got Hunter Biden actively preparing to plead guilty to tax crimes, you suddenly you can't just ignore that. Right. But that's a that's a thing that's happening. And when when Hunter Biden's business partner.

is saying, yes, under oath. Joe Biden used to call in dozens of times and Dan Goldman runs around saying, well, it was just the weather. They were just talking about the weather. You know, that's at a certain point, the,

the dam does start to break a little bit. But I have relatives still. I know people who still think the laptop isn't real, that it was like a Russian disinformation type thing. They're the same people that think, you know, Vladimir Putin hacked the voting machines in 2016. And it's very sad because they do nothing but listen to NPR and watch CNN and read the New York Times. And they're in like a Bermuda News triangle.

that is impenetrable and you could have you could have joe biden taking the bag of cash with a dollar sign on it and they still just will not believe it they will not believe because they're so on the reservation to the press that they read but nevertheless i mean the story is getting out i think there was a poll recently which showed 60 of americans believe that joe biden was involved in the

in the business dealings, which is very low because it should be 100% because he was involved, which had proven 10 different ways. But even to get that number to 60% shows that you're making strides not just with Republicans who are predisposed to believe this kind of stuff, but with moderates and with Democrats as well who are predisposed by the media they're consuming to be skeptical.

So the truth eventually wins out. And I'm certainly sure that history will vindicate everything we're doing here. What do you think about the impeachment inquiry the House Republicans are doing in the hearings yesterday? What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I think we should – I think everything should proceed carefully. I'm less about – I'm not a politician. I'm less about we need to impeach, and I'm more about we need to bring forward all relevant information. That's – my bias and my predisposition is toward bringing information.

newsworthy information forth to the American people. So if I don't know that Republicans necessarily have met the standard to bring forth an actual impeachment charges, and I know they haven't called a vote on that yet. Some of their members are a little bit skittish. I think there is value to continuing to do what the oversight committee has been doing, which is finding the bank records and going very methodically through what can be brought forth and continuing to build the case. And,

But I'm not a politician. I can't say if they're doing the right thing by launching the impeachment inquiry at this time. What do you think three of the biggest takeaways so far on 100 Biden investigations that have surprised you as you've worked on this? But what are the three takeaways so far, three big surprises that you've just been sort of blown away with? Three big surprises. Let's see.

I've been surprised, and we talked about this a bit earlier, at the lack of penetration that this is like every time I've got something or we publish something or something new develops, I'm like, OK, this is it. This is it. This is this. There's no they can't spin this one away. Like the just collective yawn.

The ability for a certain segment of the political media class to just see no evil, hear no evil. You know, something that surprised me, too, is the brazenness and the aggressiveness and the arrogance of some of the people involved here. They really thought they were above the law. And you can see it in the emails. You can see it in the text message. I'm not going to get into details, but you can see it even in how their spokesmen and their comms people communicate with me to this day. There's

There's a there's a haughtiness to this. Does it feel like they all should have been above this stuff? Does it seem like that has now kind of bred down through the ranks of Democrats? I mean, really, all the way down to the street, like there's this story of the.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He went to her home and he knocked on the door to ask her a question, see if she was home. And she opened the door and there was a machete right up to his neck. Who even has a machete in their apartment? And then she chased him out of the building with a machete.

like it wasn't even just okay i'm back in my apartment now she chased him out with a machete like a crazy person i can just imagine the scene in the street psycho knife wielding woman running down the road which by the way in new york who knows how maybe no one even noticed they probably did it's like look i gotta get to my next appointment crazy knife wielding woman running down the road it's tuesday right exactly exactly and then like

In any normal country, in any normal society, she would be like promptly arrested, put in jail, done. But of course in New York, she was arrested, she was arraigned, but immediately released. And she's just back on the streets. And now it seems she has an even better job at Cooper Union, one of the best art and engineering schools in this country, I will add. And it's crazy.

And she's just she's free to roam and threaten. And again, then I feel bad for her students who are in physical danger with such an unstable person. And and Cooper Union receives a tremendous amount of New York City and state tax dollars. So the insult to injury cherry on top is, of course, that.

Everyone here in the Empire State will be subsidizing this woman. Your friend that she put the machete to his throat, he's helping pay her salary now because of this. This is just absurd. Yeah, exactly. What's sad about it, it will not get coverage by the Times and other newspapers or local news enough that people are aware of this. I am sure even New York is crazy as sometimes I think it is. I think a majority of people there, if not a super majority, would think –

You're disqualified from teaching when you take a machete to a reporter's throat and chase them out of the building. Am I right? I've had, I'm not going to name names, but I've had, I know all the reporters in New York. I've had New York Times journalists say to me in whispers, thank you for covering this. This situation was happening in my neighborhood. It was terrible. We wouldn't cover it. Usually

Usually it's the Metro guys at New York. Right. And it's like it could be anything. It could be the open prostitution ring. It could be the people selling crack, whatever it is. The Times won't cover it because the low key, the Times kind of endorses it. And we're the only ones that treat urban blight as a subject matter worthy of coverage. And the Times journalists themselves have come to me very quietly and said, thank you for covering it.

We're the only newspaper left in New York City, really. Let's talk about urban plight. We've got four minutes here left. You get one thing from the news...

And one thing you think you hear on social media, how bad is the urban plight in New York City? How bad is the drugs in New York City? What's going on there really as a person who's out there reporting on this stuff? Everything is relative. So the answer to that question is all relative. Like, is it as bad as the 1980s? No, it's not. Have you ever seen like Death Wish? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Or those kinds of movies? That was the 70s and it was the 80s.

I wasn't around for that. I wasn't alive for it. But it seems like it was a worse time there. We can look objectively. New York City, I believe, in 1992 had something like 2,500 murders a year. And you can I actually would recommend people watch old movies to see this because you can really see what New York looked like in old movies where it was just the grittiness and the awfulness. But the problem is we got much better under Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg.

Michael Bloomberg. And you could ride the subway at four in the morning and it was fine. There was sometimes more people on it than four in the afternoon. And and we were at historic lows of crime and drugs use was eradicated. And Times Square was nice. But they were law and order right now. But we've gone back. We're going in the wrong direction. But they were law and order mayors. Right. Am I wrong on this?

Absolutely. Rudy Giuliani, who's obviously had a career since then, he busted up organized crime. He defeated the mafia. And he really, you know, Times Square was like open air sewage. It was prostitutes. It was drugs. It was people getting mugged every second and killed. He cleaned it up and he made New York City a livable place.

And it was because Rudy was throwing you in jail for jaywalking. I remember when he was doing that. One of the things he did, and the law and order, I remember that transition in New York because I grew up in upstate New York. Obviously, we'd be visiting all the time for my father's business. But

One of the things that astounds me about this is Democrats in many ways deserve a lot of credit for leading the urban revival of the late 90s and the early 2000s and rebuilding a lot of inner cities and downtown communities. But they were law and order. But they were law and order. But they deserve a lot of credit for those programs that did that. Now, here they are. They're literally throwing away their accomplishments of the last 20 years.

People don't remember. People think that civilization is just natural and it's just this way because it's always this way. And they don't appreciate the amount of work that goes in to us being able to walk down the street safely.

or ride a bus safely. This is not natural. What's natural is everyone being crazy and killing each other. That's, you know, if you read the political philosophers, it's nasty, brutish, and short. That's what things are like without society and civilization and rules and laws and order and police.

So I think you have a generation of progressives now that just think, OK, we're doing all these things that are putting people in jail. Why are we doing this? And they just think that the way we live is the way it's going to be, regardless of the policies we choose to implement. And that's not true. And you're starting to see that, which is why when I go into a CVS now, it looks like Fort Knox because I can't and I have to hit the button to get anything. And there's one person working there.

And it's a mess. And you've got retail stores are going because there's so much theft. They have no ability to protect their merchandise. The city gives them no support. And

It's all about decarceration and getting people out of prison. But again, it's civilization is not it's not just the default. Right. Takes a lot of effort to keep it going. The default is a natural state of predators and prey. John Levine, want to thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Look forward to having you back on again. Folks, you can follow him at Levine Jonathan on Twitter. Jonathan, again, very much appreciate having you on. Look forward to the next round.

All right, folks, Breaking Battlegrounds, make sure you stay tuned. We do have an excellent podcast segment coming up today with Alexander Rakin. We'll be back on the air next week. The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.voteweb domain from godaddy.com. Get yours now.

Welcome and thank you for tuning into the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. Returning today, triumphant return to answer Chuck's major question from last week, Alexander Rakin, friend of the program. He does a lot of work on medical ethics. We've talked about that quite a bit, but today is about bad statistics and bad numbers.

And we are it's great timing because we are literally as we sit here recording this program watching a debate built on entirely on bad numbers going on in Washington that's going to affect everybody's future. Alexander Raken, welcome to the program. It's a pleasure to be on. So.

Last week, Chuck was asking, what is going on? Chuck, I'm going to badly paraphrase your question here. But what is going on with this debate? Where are we with the numbers right now? And what are they telling the public? Because the situation, quite frankly, appears to be a lot more dire than the general public is getting out of these discussions and catfights that they're having in Washington this week. Yeah, I mean, it's just completely absurd. The numbers just don't add up. You have...

You have the House Republicans with a bill that has zero chance of passing. It's being debated on right now, right this very instant. So McCarthy's plan is going to cut 8.1%.

in the non-defense budget. It's going to have border security measures, and yet it might not even pass. It passed the procedural vote about 45 minutes ago, but Joe Biden has already announced that even if the House would pass and if the Senate would also pass it, and the Senate has already said they're not going to pass it, they have their own bill that they're voting on, Joe Biden said that he would veto it.

So you have a bill right now which has virtually no chance of passing the Senate. And this is the way and they're trying the DOA and they're still trying to build Frankenstein out of the thing. Essentially, but Frankenstein's monster at least could move. I don't think this has a chance of moving at all.

I just in the here's what's going to happen. The the New York Times, CNN, these others, they're going to blame all Republicans and Republicans because they can't message anything are going to take the blame for something that they've passed and Biden just said no to.

Yeah, I mean, it's completely a self-inflicted error. And the real people who are going to be impacted by this aren't going to be Congress members who are still getting paid. It's going to be active duty soldiers who can't get any elective operations done right now, who aren't going to get paid. I mean, we're talking about 1.3 million active duty troops that if this bill doesn't pass,

um, are just not going to get paid. I was talking to a Navy SEAL. They're going to have to do their job. Yeah. I was talking to a Navy SEAL yesterday and said he wasn't going to get paid. And,

He said, I'm sort of torn on this, though, because I think we have to we have to get this house in order. So he you know, he said him and his colleagues, comrades were very much like this needs to be done. But, you know, I also want to get paid. And so it's a real hard thing. And, you know, we had Congressman Ralph Norman on earlier why they weren't focused on this on June and July instead of let's wait till September. Last October, last November. Start now. Yeah.

So, look, here's one thing we talked about, Congressman Norman, earlier, and I want to talk to you a little bit about it. You can explain the numbers as well. So CBS News came out with a report yesterday, and it said homes unaffordable in 99% of the nation for average Americans. Alexandra, can you explain to our audience why?

What our runaway national debt means to higher credit card interest rates, higher mortgage rates? Because I think the thing that people who want to get our budget under control are not doing is they're not messaging it. They give these silly numbers. Well, this is $20,000 more per this or $40,000 per this.

That's just funny money for people. 300 grand per family. Yeah, they don't understand what that means. What does this mean if this debt continues like it is and keeps growing? What does this mean for the future of interest rates if you want to buy a home? What does this mean for the future of your credit card debt?

Well, the future is just going to be dire. I mean, at the end of the day, you have the federal government competing with private industry on debt. And what you end up having is the more debt, I mean, debt eventually has to be paid, right? Like we're spending more on interest right now than most government services. Right.

And paying off that interest, right, to at least control the debt somehow is taking up a larger chunk of the government discretionary spending. So the impact this is having on your average American is that it's going to be increasingly more difficult to afford a house. And I mean, you just you just have to look at the interest rates right now. The interest rates, considering it's what now, like over 7 percent, 7.19 percent, say average right now for a mortgage.

And you have to also combine that with the cost of living. The value of an oil barrel right now is over $100. This isn't a couple years ago. Well, it's even worse than that. I went to visit my parents. My parents are both in their 80s. And they were talking about how much their property taxes have increased. They live in this great town in Utah where you have a lot of high-income people in the movement. It's beautiful. It's very scenic. And their property tax has gone up.

A couple thousand dollars. So, you know, because there's less homes being built, which means there's less demand, less supply, which means prices go up. Right. And then the accessor comes in and says that. So all of this is adding up to making it almost impossible to live on a middle class salary anymore.

Or you have to move. And we see a lot of Americans moving to red states precisely that because it is marginally, I mean, not marginally, it is significantly cheaper to buy

buy a house in Arizona than it is in New York State, right? But exactly it's what you're saying. The federal government is also involved with this. And it's just making everything more expensive. There's no reason for the government to not be able to fund its own programs that they've already voted on before in the past, right? And yet we see this happen...

I mean, we're seeing this happen right now, right, with a government unable to debate this a couple months ago and instead leaving it for the very last moment. Right, right. No, no, I want to make this point here. I want you to talk about it. So there is a great newsletter called the Kobasi Letter, and it says just in U.S. net interest payments as a percentage of government receipts rise to 15 percent.

This percentage has doubled over the last two years and now is as high as since 1998. The U.S. is about to see its first ever year with $1 trillion plus in interest expenses. That means we're spending more on interest than the military. Right. Right. At the same time, U.S. federal tax receipts are now down 8.4% on a 12-month basis.

We have rising rapidly debt levels with rising rates and falling government revenues. And there's a double whammy hidden in there, Chuck, because people are living on their credit cards and those rates are going up. Right. So the inflation rate we're seeing in the press, Alexander, we talked about this with you, I believe, in the past. The interest rates that the government and Biden likes to pound their chest about and say with great pride, we brought inflation down to 3% even though it was lower when he came in office. Right.

The problem is that's not the real inflation rate. The real inflation rate now is two-thirds of Americans are living off their credit card for the extra food expenses, gas prices, things of that nature. The minimum interest rate for most people is 19%, 20%. We're not at single-digit inflation. We're really at credit card inflation rates. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, I would agree with that completely. It's also worth pointing out that the inflation rate is marginal, right? So income...

increase in prices are going down, right? So the relative increase is going down, but the increase have already happened, right? You have the last couple of years of inflation have already risen the cost of living. So yeah, I would agree with that completely. Everything has already become more expensive. Everything is going to continue being more expensive and housing prices are continuing to get or continue to become more unaffordable.

it's really difficult to cut in any other way, right? When Americans just simply would not be able to afford a house. I mean, who couldn't afford when inflation rates over 7%? It is absurd. And again, the other people who can't afford this would be the federal government.

who, as you mentioned, are spending more on just paying off their interest payments than on the U.S. military. It's absolutely insane. Alexander Rakin, we want to thank you once again for joining us today. Folks, make sure you stay tuned in, download, share the podcast. But we have one more little bit coming up by popular demand, the Kylie Kipper. And Kylie's Corner is coming up right now.

Kylie, it's been a good week if you're covering murders. Thanks a million, Alexander. Yeah, it's been a great week. It never falls short of having too many topics at this point. We do seem to be in a place where we generate lots of material for you societally these days. I know, it's unfortunate. So Kylie, what do you got for us this week? Well, I feel like after last week, I was listening to it back. And the past couple of weeks, and there's multiple times when I just like leave podcasts

I don't give my people, my fans, answers. So today I have one. I actually, Kylie and I had a meal with a friend. He listens to the show. And I said, he was introducing himself. I go...

This is the Kylie of Kylie. So he goes, really? I mean, he felt he was in the presence of at least a C-level celebrity here. A C-level, please. I'm like a D maybe. At best. But so today I have two stories, one with a happier ending and then one that doesn't, but both have an ending. So my first case is Thea Chase. Her mom, Brooke Chase, is the mother of, Thea's two years old. Sorry, I started that out terribly. But on Wednesday, she's a mom.

her daughter was playing outside with her, the mom's brother-in-law. So the daughter's uncle, and he had told her to go inside and put shoes on because obviously they're outside. So the mom came out and said, like, went to go check on Thea. And the uncle was like, well, I sent her inside to get shoes. So at that point, both of them start looking for her and their house is surrounded by woods. Like I'm assuming there's not neighbors nearby based on they're in Michigan. So,

Based on this story. Is this like upper peninsula area, northern Michigan? I'm not quite versed on Michigan. Okay. Maybe. But...

So about 20 minutes of looking, they end up calling the police and right away, Michigan State Police puts up drones in the air as search units on the ground. All family friends, everyone starts looking for Thea. A family friend who's riding a four-wheeler through this terrain, it's pitch black, it's the woods, comes across the family's Rottweiler about three miles away from home. And he's barking like crazy, like aggressively, wouldn't let him closer.

And when he starts looking closer, he ends up seeing that the two-year-old girl is laying on the ground right behind the dog. But she's sleeping on the other family dog. And the Rottweiler is essentially protecting them while both the dog and the little two-year-old are sleeping on top. So what had happened was she ended up just wandering away three miles with both dogs and Rottweiler.

I'm assuming she fell asleep in because it was midnight and they were... And she's a toddler. Yeah. And they found her. That's amazing. That is amazing. Dogs are amazing creatures. They really are. Because the guy couldn't get closer to the two-year-old until police actually came because of how aggressive the Rottweiler was. Sam, what would a cat have done?

Just looked at you and walked away? I mean, it would look at you, walk away, and mark the territory for after you die, it can come back and eat you. But her mom did say that she has those dogs wrapped around her fingers, and they do come to her calls over their calls sometimes. And so she's just like, obviously grateful that

Both dogs, you know, I'm assuming she probably wandered off and both dogs looked at each other. They're like, all right, let's go with her. Dogs are a wonderful blessing for many people. They really are. And she had no idea what had happened because she came back smiling and saying, hi, mom. You're very loyal. You know what? Speaking about that, let's throw this back into politics. Major.

The Biden family dog, the second Biden family dog. Is it the 11th Secret Service agent? His 11th Secret Service agent. It's the trainer. It's the trainer. But don't they also get these from shelters? Don't they make a big deal out of this? I don't know. I think they get it from shelters. My guess is. He looks like a very purebred shepherd. And I could be wrong on this. I believe they've got him from shelters. German shepherds are pretty expensive dogs.

it's probably in a shelter for a reason. If that's the case, you might be right. No, I'm serious. And I may be wrong on it, but they're very expensive dogs. They're very loyal dogs, right? You know, obviously he's biting people. They're very loyal dogs. But if a German Shepherd's in a shelter, you don't see them. It's like if you go here to the Humane, Arizona Humane Society. It's all little dogs. Well, it's Chihuahuas or it's Pit Bulls. Yeah. Right? They have a lot of those. You know, my daughter, when she was going to college here, she,

She worked at a shelter that did St. Bernard's, and they had like 10. I'm like, how do they get these St. Bernard's? She goes, well, people get them. They look like stuffed animals when they're babies, then they realize they get to be 120, 130, 150 pounds, right? So I can't keep it in the studio apartment, right? But German Shepherds are very expensive dogs. They're wonderful watchdogs. They're very loyal.

So my guess is, and I've read this, but this may be wrong, but if they were getting them out of a shelter, there may be some character traits on this particular dog, right? If they're getting them from a shelter as adults, that's very unusual for shepherds. And, you know, dogs get very protective, and they may just not like a lot of people. I mean, he probably should be at a home with some family in Maine that there's not...

lots of unknown people coming and trying to handle it daily. I had a shepherd puppy years ago that I had an elderly shepherd at the time and the elderly shepherd tried to kill it. I mean, just went after it. You couldn't, there was no way we worked with a, I worked with a trainer for a while. So I, I called the shelter up and I'm like, here, I have this very expensive, you know, German shepherd puppy. And they're like, Oh,

Oh, that's fantastic. We can sell it to the breeder. I want to get to Kylie's next point, but we will talk about the show another time. We had a dog my daughter had us adopt from the St. Bernard shelter that he did not integrate well with other dogs. So we literally hired a dog therapist. We will talk about that another time.

Kylie, it did not work well. Kylie, go ahead. What's your next story? Well, first of all, I did look up his dog is from the shelter. Is it from the shelter? Okay, so my old age memories. But there's a reason the dog's there to begin with. It doesn't mean it's a bad dog. It just can't probably be around a lot of people. But we'll talk about the dog therapist on another episode.

So go ahead. Okay. So this case I have, there's an answer because typically these murder cases, they take obviously a while to convict. So I never, it's kind of open-ended for a couple of years, but this one, this case happened last August, Adam Simji and Michaela Paulus were taking a road trip through the Talladega national forest and

looking for waterfalls, enjoying the last of their summer before they went to central Florida. They're a couple, by the way. I forgot to throw that in there. When a woman on the side of the road flagged them down and asked for help because her car was broken down. Her name was Yasmin Hinder. She was 21 years old. And obviously the couple pulls over and helps her. And they're like, my car is just an eighth of the way down the road.

So they go down the road. There's a car. And he gets out and he starts trying to jump the car with jumper cables. It's not working. So Michaela's dad's actually a mechanic. So she calls her dad and is like, hey, we're trying to help this woman. Can you help us? They ended up not being able to get it done. The woman then turns on them and grabs a gun.

pointed at the couple and said, and tries to rob them basically said, empty your pockets and walk further into the woods. So Adam responded by saying everything we were out here helping you. Everything we have is in the car, like, and you can have it. We don't care, whatever. And at that point he then grabbed his gun out and she responded with, are you serious? And then shot him.

Yeah. And so she then goes and starts robbing them while Michaela takes off her shirt, wraps his stomach up because he was shot in the abdomen, starts giving him CPR, calls 911 trying to save his life. And the cops took about 30 minutes to get there, which they were, you know, in a national forest. They were in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, middle of nowhere. To which when the cops arrived 30 minutes later, a five-year-old boy walks out of the woods with a loaded pistol. And they obviously like point gun, drop the pistol, what's going on?

It turns out that Yasmin's car broke down three months prior and has been living off the grid robbing people with an accomplice, another woman, which they don't state who she is, but living off the grid with a five-year-old boy who was also helping rob people. And so they were arrested. And this week she was convicted to 35 years in prison and she pled guilty to second degree murder. And why did she not get the death penalty?

That's a great question. I mean, I'm serious about this. And I know everybody thinks I have a long list, and I do. And it gets added to monthly. But look. I'm with you here, Chuck. I mean, she's been doing this for months. Right. Who knows what else she put life's in jeopardy. Yep.

Why are we wasting time on a sentence with her? Just let's be done with her. Well, and so she fits a standard I think I've talked about with you before, right? But I think there should be an even higher standard attached to death penalty cases, which is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And this is one of them. This is one of them. Yeah. She's there's no doubt. And I am fine with that standard. I mean, I don't want to. I know sometimes I seem cavalier, but this fits a standard. It's like a school shooter. You have a video. What are we waiting on? Why is there even a trial? We know what he did. Well, yeah. And in this, she pled guilty and has many. She told the cops many things.

Parts of this, like the details of what happened, because she says she didn't intend to kill. She just wanted to rob them. And then he's the one that pulled the gun. So that's why she reacted that way. So she filled in the gaps for them. So we very clearly know she did it. See, I think our society, Chuck, would be much better in these cases where it is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt to execute them very quickly after the crime and publicly. We're at the point now. There's a reason we had hangings in the Old West.

No, I know. Look, it sounds crazy. But Sam's going back old school France guillotine. Sir, next. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. People don't realize, actually, that the Wild West had almost no crime. There was almost no crime in the Wild West. People think it was like crazy. Justice was swift. Justice was very swift. So you had saloon shootings because whiskey and guns are a bad mix. Always. That hasn't changed. No, no, no. That hasn't changed.

But other than that, there was almost no crime because when you did it, you were executed for it. You steal a horse, execute. Yeah. But what sparked, this is why I will most likely not help someone in need at this point because I had seen a video from Chicago and there was a, this guy that was just getting beat up in an alleyway and there was a car that had stopped and people were like, why are they just watching and not helping? It's like, well,

Well, you're in Chicago in an alleyway. We're not exactly just going to start hopping out of the car to like when two guys are beating up on one. So this is like these people are ruining it for people that actually need help. Well, I think I text you the story about the woman in Utah who got hitchhiking with the guy and they stopped at a rest stop and she stabbed him in the neck. Yeah. And my favorite line of the story was this. Please think she may have mental health problems. Yeah.

May. All right, folks. Thanks for joining us this week for Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us on BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or visit our podcast. Share with your family and friends. We would appreciate it. You can find us anywhere where you get your podcasts. Kylie, anything else as you wrap up? The Kylie. Anything else today before we wrap up? No, that's all on my end. Folks, have a fantastic weekend. Keep your fingers crossed that Congress gets its crap together. This is Chuck Horne, Sam Stone, and Kylie of Kylie's Corner. Have a great weekend.