Latest / The SEANC View / New Year, New Challenges: North Carolina's Leadership Transition

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New Year, New Challenges: North Carolina's Leadership Transition · The SEANC View

• 0:00
  Music.
• 0:09
  Hello, and welcome to the first edition of the Scenic View podcast for 2025.
• 0:14
  I'm Jonathan Owens, your communications director here. Joining me is Artis Watkins,
• 0:18
  the executive director, and Sam Klein, our digital communications specialist.
• 0:22
  We're excited to start the year off with a bang. And just, I guess,
• 0:26
  first question for you guys is, what did you get for Christmas?
• 0:29
  Okay, I got the coolest thing ever. My kids are going to take me.
• 0:33
  I like to shoot skeet. I have only gotten to do it very rarely.
• 0:38
  Very cool. But I like it. And they said, we're taking you for a weekend and
• 0:43
  we're going to go shoot some clays.
• 0:44
  And they even at one place near the coast, they have glow in the dark clays.
• 0:50
  They'll throw up. But yeah, can you imagine how much fun that would be?
• 0:52
  We have a huge place called Deep River Sporting Clays near Sanford.
• 0:57
  That's a cool place. That is a cool place. I've done some stories on that in
• 0:59
  the past. What about you, Sam?
• 1:01
  So I struggle to sleep at night because I live alone and I don't do well in the silence.
• 1:07
  So I always watched YouTube and had YouTube playing on my phone.
• 1:10
  My parents did not like that because it would just play all night.
• 1:13
  And so this year I asked for a TV for Christmas.
• 1:16
  And so they got me a small TV for my room that has a sleep timer on it.
• 1:20
  Oh, that's good. And so I can have TV in the background.
• 1:23
  Yes, sleep is important. And my mom realized she accidentally did that to me
• 1:28
  because I used to have a lot of nightmares when I was little.
• 1:32
  And so she would tell me, as long as you hear the TV, you know, everything's okay.
• 1:36
  I used to sleep with the TV on when I was... Because I knew they were right
• 1:40
  there in the living room.
• 1:42
  Oh, yeah. Sitting right there. Unless somebody had gotten into the house.
• 1:46
  I still think about that because I did have nightmares about stuff like that.
• 1:50
  And I got a coffee maker for my office because I realized that I had been spending way too much.
• 1:56
  I think drinking more coffee as I get older, you know? Like it's more and more.
• 2:02
  It's becoming worse and worse.
• 2:04
  I stay addicted to Coca-Cola. I had to start drinking less coffee.
• 2:07
  So my wife got me a Carolina Blue coffee. Awesome.
• 2:11
  I didn't even know they made that. Guess who else got a present for Christmas?
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  The state of North Carolina. Governor Josh Stein took the oath of office yesterday,
• 2:20
  which is January 1st, along with the rest of the elected members of the cabinet,
• 2:25
  right? Or council state. Yeah.
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  All new leadership for North Carolina. Although not totally new,
• 2:31
  these people were around. A lot of them were.
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  The News and Observer reached out to us and asked about the vacancy rates as
• 2:38
  one of the major issues facing Governor Stein as he takes office.
• 2:43
  What are some of the big things you can see?
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  I mean, we've talked a little on this podcast before, but it bears repeating
• 2:50
  that the financial situation, the fiscal situation for the state is so impacted.
• 2:55
  The first and second quarter of the fiscal year, 27 counties were in a much
• 3:01
  different situation in terms of what kind of taxes you'll be getting from those counties.
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  And that's because of Hurricane Helena, obviously. But that's not even factoring
• 3:10
  in the damage that was done there.
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  So it remains to be seen how much of that, of the damage is going to fall on
• 3:16
  the shoulders of the state to deal with paying for.
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  But also, again, you cannot emphasize enough, that's a lot of income.
• 3:24
  That's a lot of revenue that won't be coming in.
• 3:26
  So the revenue picture, well, the forecast, the revenue forecast,
• 3:31
  because again, this is just the first two quarters of this fiscal year that
• 3:35
  we're seeing the initial effects of this storm.
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  So this is going to take a lot of forecasting by folks who are really good at
• 3:43
  their jobs, go state employees, but this is a really tough one for them.
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  The story I'm reading about his swearing in yesterday says that recovery would
• 3:53
  be the topic of his first executive orders.
• 3:57
  That's obviously going to dominate at least the first year, but
• 4:00
  Well, remember, the legislature came back a few times, but they haven't actually,
• 4:04
  they've moved very little money, actually gotten it to the counties and the people.
• 4:09
  At this point, they've moved some money into a different fund,
• 4:12
  but not a fraction of what they're going to have to spend on it.
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  So the governor and the legislature will have to be all over this situation
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  to try to continue putting the pieces back together, not just because the obvious,
• 4:25
  we need people's lives put back together out West.
• 4:28
  Yeah. But the West is a big part of our financial engine in this state.
• 4:32
  We count a lot on the revenue that comes from the West. And it also came at
• 4:37
  the worst possible time for. Absolutely.
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  I mean, because of the tourist season up there. And so lots of questions.
• 4:45
  I mean, I think can't emphasize enough that Governor Stein's team is going to
• 4:49
  have to sit down and immediately tackle.
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  What do we do with this fiscal situation created by this natural disaster?
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  But then, you know, we did get a call about the staff vacancies around the state
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  because that's another type of disaster.
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  And we've talked about this on the podcast. We had a stabbing,
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  a terrible stabbing at Bertie Correctional just last month.
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  There was a terrible understaffing situation when that occurred. It's not just that.
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  There's so many reasons understaffing affects the broader public health and safety.
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  But in the immediate, you've got employees who it's life or death as to whether
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  or not they have enough people on the job.
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  So I think that's a tremendous challenge for him. He's going to have to address
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  it. And I'll be very, very honest.
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  Politicians have not addressed that issue. It has just gone skating along.
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  And I think that had particularly disastrous results after Helene as well.
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  We didn't have as many people to jump on to the recovery and to helping people,
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  the rescue and recovery.
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  So according to that story, since 2014, state employee pay has lagged behind
• 5:51
  general labor market by 9.45 percent. And there are about 14,700 unfilled jobs right now.
• 5:59
  I'm not sure where the 9.4 percent. I mean, just to give you a point of reference,
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  a correctional officer, a beginning correctional officer. Yeah.
• 6:07
  This always has struck me.
• 6:09
  You have folks leaving as correctional officers to go work in fast food positions. Yeah.
• 6:14
  So I'm doubtful that the average. How do you compare that job to any other job?
• 6:19
  I would say that the average state employee salary overall is only 9% behind
• 6:24
  the private sector. It used to be 14% for years.
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  It's really hard to quantify. But the benefits were better. When it was 14%
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  worse than the private sector, the benefits were way better.
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  And you had every idea that you were going to get a COLA every year as a retiree if you stuck it out.
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  And they don't believe that now because they're not getting it.
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  So speaking of this issue, we also have like a whole new cabinet coming in that
• 6:48
  has to deal with these and we have to press upon them the urgency of the.
• 6:53
  Yeah, we're reaching out to the new cabinet members to let them know.
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  Scenic's here. If they're interested, Scenic is here the way we have been with
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  previous cabinets to help let them know what we're hearing.
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  Sometimes cabinet heads don't hear because employees don't feel comfortable
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  giving them the hard, cold truth because they don't want to be perceived to
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  be a complainer or something like that.
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  But we've had some extraordinary cabinet leaders over the years who wanted to
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  know what people really thought and reached out to us.
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  And we worked with them and facilitated town halls within the agency and things like that.
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  And we're open, obviously, to doing that because the more at peace and heard
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  that an employee feels, the better service they're going to provide the state
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  of North Carolina, without question. Yeah.
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  So two of the cabinet agencies that have tremendous numbers of scenic members
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  are the Department of Adult Correction and then the Department of Health and Human Services.
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  And over Department of Adult Corrections, the secretary will be Leslie Cooley
• 7:52
  Dismukes. I said Dismukes. I keep doing that. I don't know why.
• 7:55
  We apologize if we get these names. My apologies, Secretary Dismukes.
• 7:59
  We have four years to learn them at least. So, Secretary Dismukes is an attorney,
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  well, was until this job, an attorney with the Department of Justice and prior
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  to that, the U.S. Attorney's Office.
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  And then for HHS, which is just another huge state agency, we've got Dr.
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  Dev Duda Sangvai, and he's a professor, was a professor of medicine at Duke.
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  Now, Secretary Dismukes went to Carolina for her undergrad.
• 8:28
  I like her already. Right, but then she went to Duke for law school So I mean
• 8:33
  this lovingly But what is all this Duke popping up?
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  We've got Secretary Dismukes And then obviously Dr.
• 8:40
  Sun Bai Teaching at Duke Got a big Duke influence coming in So hopefully that'll
• 8:45
  be a good thing I'm going to say something And maybe I won't get killed by friends
• 8:50
  and family But Duke kind of is like the best school in the state, right?
• 8:54
  So I mean What? What's wrong with you? I am a Duke fan, actually to the tremendous
• 8:59
  state employees at the 16 constituent universities.
• 9:03
  Where am I? Who was that person that said that? So it's going to be interesting.
• 9:09
  I mean, this is definitely a different type of cabinet, a different type of governor.
• 9:15
  This is different. So we're really looking forward to getting to know everyone.
• 9:19
  But a lot of these folks, we just don't know.
• 9:22
  Yeah. Were you surprised, given that it's the same party as the last governor?
• 9:26
  Were you surprised how much turnover there was in the cabinet?
• 9:30
  To be honest, yes. I did. Obviously, there are some folks who are staying.
• 9:34
  I know that Secretary Cashwell is staying. She's moving from Department of Administration
• 9:39
  over to Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
• 9:43
  Yeah. And Secretary Wilson is going to be Department of Environmental Quality.
• 9:48
  And we still have— Eddie Buffalo is staying. Yes, Secretary Buffalo is staying
• 9:53
  at Department of Public Safety.
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  And then— Joey Hopkins at Transportation.
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  Yeah, and I think Secretary Hopkins staying at Department of Transportation
• 10:01
  is huge, especially right after seeing what, you know, what we went through
• 10:05
  with the storm and what that rebuilding will have to look like.
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  His expertise and experience are really critical. So, but I was kind of surprised
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  that more folks maybe weren't the same.
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  But again, looking forward to getting to know everybody. I know that the incoming
• 10:20
  secretary for Department of Revenue is somebody that we do know from his credit
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  union for tenure, and that's McKinley Wooten, Jr.
• 10:28
  Okay. So there are some folks that we've heard of and know.
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  And then there's some folks, again, that are absolutely completely new to the wider scene.
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  I think Secretary Dismukes has clearly been around in the Justice Department.
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  They're the attorney general's office for a few years.
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  Dr. Sang-va is, you know, somebody coming in from outside of government.
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  So we'll see how that goes.
• 10:50
  I think it's a huge, that's a huge, tough agency to run.
• 10:54
  One position that we deal with a lot as State Employees Association is the Human
• 10:59
  Resources Director, and that will be Stacey Meyer, who is coming over from the
• 11:05
  Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
• 11:08
  Seems like she may have a kind of a history with Stein at the Justice Department as well. Yeah.
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  And clearly her state government experience is extensive.
• 11:18
  She's not only worked at DOJ, but the Industrial Commission as well.
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  I mean, she's which is great.
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  Now, that's one where you really, really need somebody who understands state
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  government if they're going to run HR for state government. So we're really optimistic.
• 11:31
  To what she'll bring to the role and excited to try to work with her.
• 11:35
  And, you know, another interesting appointment, Lee Lilly's back,
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  but he's now going to be Secretary of the Department of Commerce.
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  And of course, Lee Lilly had been Director of Legislative Affairs for a while
• 11:46
  for Governor Roy Cooper, among other things he's done in his past.
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  But we worked with him in that role and always had a good working relationship with Secretary Lilly.
• 11:54
  I kind of feel like this may be an undercovered story of the cabinet.
• 11:59
  I think that we're probably the only podcast that really maybe cares.
• 12:04
  Right. We'll go this in depth with the picks, you know?
• 12:06
  Well, let me tell you, I mean, for state employees, they absolutely watch holding
• 12:10
  their breath because you get the wrong person as the leader of the agency and
• 12:15
  the employees know just how devastating it is, not just for them,
• 12:18
  potentially, but how bad it can be for the people of the state.
• 12:21
  So the ones we know seem to be great people and the ones we don't know,
• 12:25
  I'm really forward to meeting them and sure they're bringing something to the
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  table that has gotten them the position there.
• 12:30
  We did leave out, we said Pam Cashwell's leaving administration.
• 12:33
  But Gabe Esparza's coming into that role, and he had run in the primary on the
• 12:39
  Democratic side for the Office of State Treasurer.
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  And so commerce administration seems to be a logical place for somebody who
• 12:47
  believed their organizational skills were something that drew them to public service.
• 12:51
  So our folks interviewed him at the time, like, seemed to like him very much.
• 12:55
  So I've had a conversation with him once myself and thought that he seemed very,
• 12:59
  very much wanting to serve and a smart, obviously smart guy.
• 13:03
  So he'll be the state's first Latino cabinet member.
• 13:06
  The story says. Oh, that's right. And then we got for military and veterans
• 13:10
  affairs, Jocelyn Mitnall Mallette.
• 13:13
  And so she is an attorney and Air Force veteran. I was going to say, I have not ever met her.
• 13:18
  So we're looking forward to meeting her. And that's a job really people don't
• 13:22
  talk about enough. Yeah.
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  Because we have so many veterans. We have the largest military base in the country, right?
• 13:28
  Yeah. And then veterans have a special place with state government positions.
• 13:33
  You know, they are something the state seeks out for a lot of state government
• 13:38
  positions. And then information technology.
• 13:41
  Tina and I really hope I'm getting this one right. I think it's Pichione.
• 13:45
  Tina Pichione. It says her background. She's worked at Google as well as RTI,
• 13:49
  International Fidelity Investments, and AT&T.
• 13:52
  So, again, we've got somebody coming in to run, in this case,
• 13:55
  state IT, who's coming from outside the public sector, from the private sector.
• 14:00
  And we wish her well in that and look forward to getting to know her.
• 14:04
  Rounding out the cabinet, though, is someone who's staying in place.
• 14:07
  And I think based on what we just talked about with what Governor Stein's got
• 14:11
  to face from a fiscal perspective, this is a smart move as well.
• 14:14
  He's keeping Kristen Walker on for director of state budget and management.
• 14:19
  And I think that's a good move because, you know, to keep that continuity.
• 14:24
  That seems like an extremely difficult job.
• 14:28
  She's at a lot of meetings. I bet that person has to go to a lot.
• 14:33
  Yeah, and think about it.
• 14:34
  Every problem you have comes back to how are you keeping the fiscal health of the state.
• 14:40
  Speaking of the fiscal health of the state, we also, we've talked about this
• 14:44
  many times, but we have a new treasurer, Brad Briner. I guess he took his oath yesterday as well.
• 14:49
  Shortly thereafter, he put out a video kind of explaining what his priorities
• 14:55
  are or just some of the things that he's looking at right off the bat.
• 14:59
  One of them was kind of reconfiguring the investments with the state retirement
• 15:03
  system. Another thing he mentioned, obviously, the state health plan,
• 15:08
  the financial almost crisis that it's facing.
• 15:11
  And I thought one thing that struck me was that he said that he wanted to bring
• 15:15
  transparency to cost the state health plan. What do you think he means by that?
• 15:20
  Well, I can only be hopeful. And I have to say, you know, hats off to Treasurer Briner.
• 15:26
  We've had a conversation already about all of the issues.
• 15:29
  He was nice enough to make an overture to Scenic to sit down.
• 15:33
  I know he's going to come talk to our retiring council next month.
• 15:36
  He's very open, it seems, to talking to a large constituency of the plans he's
• 15:41
  going to administer in this new role. But I hope that what he means with transparency
• 15:45
  is what Treasurer Falwell tried to do with the Clear Pricing Project.
• 15:49
  And for anyone who doesn't know what that was, and you probably don't because
• 15:53
  it didn't get anywhere, the legislature didn't like it.
• 15:56
  But the Clear Pricing Project was simply the treasurer of this state saying,
• 16:01
  I'm running a health plan that involves public dollars and the health and lives of public employees.
• 16:08
  And I can't, as treasurer, running the plan, get the information on what the
• 16:14
  state is paying individual providers, whether it's doctors or hospitals.
• 16:18
  And only the insurance company that is the third-party administrator can know
• 16:23
  that. And the only thing he did have information on was the discrepancy.
• 16:27
  The actuary for the plan said, well, you're paying some providers only 90 percent
• 16:31
  of Medicare reimbursement.
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  Medicare being the benchmark, the benchmark by which they were comparing it, the point of reference.
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  And then even though some of those providers are only getting 90 percent,
• 16:42
  maybe a doctor in a rural area.
• 16:44
  Some of them are getting almost 900 percent of Medicare reimbursement.
• 16:48
  Well, that is crazy. But again, we've talked about the advertised spa-like birthing
• 16:53
  facilities, the magnificent opulent fountains and lobbies, the multimillion-dollar
• 16:58
  CEO salaries for nonprofit hospitals.
• 17:01
  So Treasurer Falwell, years before the rest of the country, seems to have caught
• 17:06
  up and said, look, this is wrong that the public is getting taken for a ride
• 17:10
  by the big health care corporation mentality.
• 17:13
  He said, I want to have transparency. I want to set a rate at a certain percentage
• 17:19
  over Medicare reimbursement so that hospitals can make plenty of profit,
• 17:22
  but not this unknown because it's public money.
• 17:26
  And he was shot down. And it seemed the strangest thing to me.
• 17:29
  It seemed like something that,
• 17:31
  you know, not wasting public money just seemed like such an easy sell.
• 17:34
  And it's it's the sheer number of lobbyists though
• 17:37
  that were squawking and saying these hospitals were broke
• 17:40
  and couldn't get by and just absurdity just
• 17:44
  absolute absurdity so well sam's making a face i'm not kidding they ran around
• 17:49
  the lobbyists ran around saying they're broke and yet paying six million dollar
• 17:54
  salaries to maybe we shouldn't be putting fountains in hospitals if we don't
• 17:58
  have the money if you're broke knock it off and a lot of them are not for profit or nonprofit, right?
• 18:04
  Correct, yeah. And anyway, so I'm hoping that what Treasurer Briner means is,
• 18:09
  hey, I'm going to pick up that mantle, and he's got a honeymoon period right now.
• 18:13
  You know, when you're new in that statewide elected office, you've got a honeymoon
• 18:17
  period with the legislature where they're going to work with you more than they
• 18:20
  ever are going to later. So now is the time.
• 18:24
  If he's going to stand up and say, hey, the public should know if they're paying
• 18:27
  900%, 800%, 700%, 600%, They should know.
• 18:33
  So I'm hoping that's what he means, but I don't want to put words in his mouth
• 18:36
  because he's not said that exactly to me at all.
• 18:40
  Well, if he does it, we'll back him 110%.
• 18:43
  I hate 110. I hate saying more than 100, but we'll back him. Yeah.
• 18:48
  Well, that obviously remains to be seen. The legislature will be coming back
• 18:52
  January 8th. Hey, I wanted to say one more thing. I'm sorry.
• 18:55
  Before we leave Treasurer Briner, just him coming up in conversation,
• 18:59
  reminds me, he resigned from a public board, Boston, Omaha,
• 19:05
  last week, and then two private company boards as well. And he voluntarily did that.
• 19:10
  And so I want to say, hats off to him. I know that seems weird to say.
• 19:14
  Hey, thank you for doing that, because it should be kind of obvious.
• 19:17
  Yeah, there was a kind of a controversy with Janet Cowell, right,
• 19:20
  that she sat on some board.
• 19:22
  Right, because in that role as treasurer, there's no possible board you could
• 19:27
  sit on that the work, that office doesn't touch in some way, direct or indirect.
• 19:33
  Also, the treasurer's job, there's more on the treasurer, I'm telling you,
• 19:37
  than anybody in government. Yeah.
• 19:39
  And so I don't know when they would find time to do anything to moonlight.
• 19:44
  But I think that's, I do want to say again, hats off to Treasurer Briner,
• 19:48
  because he just voluntarily said, I'm not going to do that.
• 19:51
  And so I hate that it has to be like a voluntary thing. I think it should be
• 19:55
  that no statewide elected public officials should be on boards.
• 19:59
  But again, he did it voluntarily. So we're thankful that he's,
• 20:02
  I mean, that's a great thing.
• 20:03
  And like we've said before, even though we did support his opponent,
• 20:08
  we always are optimistic about the job that the treasurer will do because it's
• 20:12
  such an important job for state employees. I mean, we want him to do the best no matter what.
• 20:18
  Yeah, we want him to succeed because without him succeeding,
• 20:22
  our members do very poorly.
• 20:25
  So we're encouraged by him reaching out and planning to come to speak to our
• 20:29
  retirees, and we'll just see how it goes from there.
• 20:31
  The legislature is coming back January 8th. I guess that'll be kind of a ceremonial type thing.
• 20:37
  And then you said later in the month they'll come back and get business.
• 20:40
  Yeah, at the very end of the month they come back for business. Okay.
• 20:43
  No supermajority for the House this time, but it seems like they'll still be
• 20:49
  majority, I mean, one-party rule almost, right? I mean, they'll be functional. Yeah.
• 20:55
  Almost a functional supermajority, if not one on paper. And I don't know what's
• 20:59
  going to happen on paper because, you know, there's been an awful lot of attention
• 21:04
  around the fact that Cecil Brockman was treated poorly.
• 21:08
  Well, you know, whether he was treated poorly or not, you know,
• 21:12
  I'm not weighing into that fray.
• 21:13
  But he was not there for a vote a few weeks ago.
• 21:17
  And so a bunch of people made this massive jump on him. And actually,
• 21:21
  his attendance would have made literally no difference. Was that the veto override?
• 21:27
  Yeah. So he kind of, you know, he made some remarks that basically I'm paraphrasing.
• 21:32
  This is the kind of thing that makes people think about where they're going to be.
• 21:35
  If I was a slightly moderate legislator, I would like totally take that stance.
• 21:42
  You know, I would be very independent because it seems like you can get more done that way.
• 21:45
  Right. I mean, if you're a swing
• 21:47
  vote in the legislature, more people are going to want to talk to you.
• 21:51
  Well, I mean, both parties want their party to just stand firmly in line.
• 21:57
  That's just politics. You know, you have a caucus for a reason.
• 22:00
  You try to get the caucus to act as one.
• 22:03
  But there's always been people in the legislature who, because of their district,
• 22:08
  you know, districts are also very different.
• 22:10
  And if you have a district that has opinions all over the map,
• 22:14
  that legislator, if they're trying to represent that district and not just to
• 22:18
  move up in the caucus, they are going to sometimes do things the caucus might not like.
• 22:22
  And we're going to I think we're going to see more and more of this power struggle
• 22:26
  within the caucuses play out because the same thing happens on the Republican
• 22:30
  side. There's folks who are much more moderate.
• 22:32
  That's what I was going to say. You could see it happening on either side, right?
• 22:36
  Especially with just a one seat from a super majority.
• 22:41
  But yet, obviously, remains to be seen what happens at the legislature, too.
• 22:45
  Anything else we want to talk about before we get to our question of the week?
• 22:50
  I think we've covered most of that ground for right now.
• 22:54
  Right now, we're just kind of at a wait and see. Some exciting things are happening
• 22:58
  down the road, it seems like. But we're getting ready for the legislature to
• 23:02
  come back and getting our ducks in order.
• 23:04
  I have kind of a weird question this week. It's more of an open-ended question.
• 23:05
  Music.
• 23:15
  I always kind of fear these. I don't know about you, Sam.
• 23:18
  A little bit. Kind of a what do you think question.
• 23:21
  What are y'all's opinion on AI?
• 23:25
  Oh, goodness. I don't know enough about it to have an educated opinion. Next, Sam.
• 23:29
  Depends on what we're using AI for. There are certain things where I think AI
• 23:34
  can definitely be helpful.
• 23:36
  I've seen some commercials recently promoting AI as a fashion design kind of
• 23:42
  tool and helping figure out what works for a certain person.
• 23:46
  Like you can upload a picture and it kind of shows like according to their skin
• 23:50
  tone and their hair color and eye color.
• 23:52
  But we haven't done that for years. So, yeah, the reason I ask this is I kind
• 23:57
  of have maybe not a fear, but, you know, skepticism of AI of,
• 24:02
  you know, the coming revolution.
• 24:04
  But over the, you know, over the holidays, I was like getting into kind of micro
• 24:08
  learning as we were talking about.
• 24:10
  Suzanne brought that up. But I took this whole course on like AI,
• 24:15
  like what is what is out there for us to use like content creation.
• 24:20
  I think there's like so many opportunities out there now that are just kind of mind blowing.
• 24:26
  Oh, yeah. I feel like it's definitely good in aspects. I just it scares me in
• 24:30
  how technologically advanced it could get.
• 24:33
  Yeah. And how much it could change things. I kind of think it's going to be
• 24:38
  bigger than the social media revolution, if you will. Maybe.
• 24:43
  I think it's going to be. That has stunk. The social media revolution. Let's just face facts.
• 24:48
  That has stunk. Well, maybe. People are so much meaner, or at least they have
• 24:52
  a bigger platform to be mean.
• 24:54
  Yeah. Because of social media. I mean, the stuff I see on there,
• 24:58
  I'm thinking, everybody talks about putting reading, writing,
• 25:01
  and arithmetic back in the schools.
• 25:03
  We need to put a manners class in these schools because, and I am not known
• 25:09
  for being Miss Manners down there at the General Assembly.
• 25:13
  I'm very blunt. But give me a break. The way people are talking to each other
• 25:17
  is absolutely awful. It's true. It's crude.
• 25:21
  It's sick sometimes. As someone who has been on the harsh end of that kind of
• 25:26
  commentary, I can say that it absolutely is awful. Yeah.
• 25:30
  And just kind of the audacity of somebody. You know, like just because you're
• 25:34
  behind a computer screen, you can say whatever you want to somebody.
• 25:38
  And especially about elected officials.
• 25:40
  Look, I'm going to give elected officials as hard a time as anybody I know,
• 25:43
  but not the way people feel free to now. Yeah.
• 25:46
  The stuff they say about them and wish them openly, wish them harm and things like that.
• 25:52
  What is wrong with us? I'll see a mean comment on someone's account that I don't
• 25:58
  even know, and I'll immediately click on that profile and go and block and report
• 26:02
  them because I'm like, I don't want this on my social media.
• 26:04
  I don't want any of the negativity.
• 26:05
  So I'll immediately block and report this person, even if it's nothing to do
• 26:09
  with me. I'm like, I don't like that.
• 26:11
  You don't got to be mean. You're just saying mean things because you can.
• 26:15
  So what social media outlet do you use mostly?
• 26:20
  Unfortunately, because it might get banned, TikTok, I do use that mostly.
• 26:24
  And there's hate comments all over tiktok
• 26:27
  what about you place artists you know because
• 26:31
  of politics i'm i am on x a lot and
• 26:34
  i'm telling you some of the stuff i saw on x though
• 26:37
  just this morning i i just that's why i'm on a tear about it well and i guess
• 26:43
  that's where a lot of this stuff comes from but still some of it's not some
• 26:46
  of it's coming from actual people yeah that you You can verify those people
• 26:51
  and they feel free in this day and time. And some of them are not.
• 26:55
  It's not like, oh, it's the young people. It is not. It is people our age who
• 26:59
  like, well, I'm older than either one of you, but people who were raised in
• 27:03
  a time where that was absolutely. I don't know. Here I am.
• 27:07
  Back in my day. I am doing that. Yeah.
• 27:11
  But it is weird that you like you. You find yourself there, you know,
• 27:15
  because I bet you heard that a lot when you were younger. Well,
• 27:19
  there's just things that you didn't.
• 27:20
  Oh, some of those comments I see half the time, I will go to their account and
• 27:24
  immediately see them. And I say, you are too old to be acting like this.
• 27:28
  You are not 12. Stop commenting like you're 12 and you have some bone to pick
• 27:33
  with a 16-year-old child.
• 27:35
  Yeah. Stop it. Yeah. Does anybody use Facebook anymore, Sam?
• 27:39
  I actually use Facebook a little bit. There's a certain content creator.
• 27:42
  She's on TikTok and Facebook, but she posts her videos like a week or two early
• 27:47
  on Facebook. And so I go to Facebook to watch those.
• 27:50
  And a lot of videos that are posted to TikTok eventually get around to Facebook
• 27:55
  to where they're posted on there as well.
• 27:57
  Yeah, we used to pick on, well, we still do pick on Ashley because she didn't,
• 28:02
  my wife, she didn't use TikTok, but we called her like, she used the fake TikTok,
• 28:07
  which was Instagram Reels, which were like three weeks older than I had. Oh, yeah.
• 28:12
  Yeah. My friends will send me stuff on Instagram and I'll be like,
• 28:15
  I saw that two weeks ago on TikTok. And they're like, well, I don't have TikTok.
• 28:19
  But that's another thing. My friends sometimes will bash me for using TikTok.
• 28:23
  Yeah. Because they're like, oh, TikTok's so stupid. And I'm like,
• 28:26
  you're getting the same content I am just two weeks late.
• 28:30
  I don't know what is wrong with us. Seriously. What is it we need to do?
• 28:35
  I don't know. We need to be doing more of something. Everyone just needs to
• 28:38
  be nicer. Like, get outside, y'all. Touch a tree. Touch grass. Touch grass.
• 28:42
  My favorite thing to say. Touch grass, please.
• 28:44
  Yeah. Go build a tiny house in the West. Don't be chronically online.
• 28:48
  I know this isn't the question of the week, but did you see how the Amish threw
• 28:51
  up all those tiny houses? That was amazing.
• 28:54
  We had an event in Moore County, which was right down the road from where I
• 28:58
  live in Lee County, where they went and built those tiny houses.
• 29:01
  The whole community came in.
• 29:03
  It is so cool. My brother-in-law and nephew went out and helped them.
• 29:06
  They built like 72 houses. It was unbelievable.
• 29:09
  Yeah. Yeah, so they took a bunch up there too.
• 29:12
  It's just heartbreaking. Take a page out of that book. If you're building a
• 29:16
  house, you don't have time to be on there wishing people bad things to happen to them online.
• 29:21
  I have family from Indiana, and they're very close to a tiny little Amish community.
• 29:26
  And every single time I go up there or my parents go up there,
• 29:28
  they just left. I called them yesterday when they left. I said,
• 29:31
  did you go to the Amish store?
• 29:33
  They said, yes, we got you some Amish noodles.
• 29:35
  There's a specific brand that my family can only get in Indiana.
• 29:39
  And I have them stock me up every single time they go because I got to be at the office.
• 29:44
  I can't just go with them for New Year's Eve like I used to when I was 15, 16.
• 29:49
  But you're going to get your own missioned little school. Oh yeah,
• 29:52
  100%. I will always get those.
• 29:54
  So before we wrap up, just wanted to say that we do have plans to put out a podcast every week.
• 30:00
  We're going to do all kinds of little segments and interviews and hopefully
• 30:04
  expand what we're able to do here. This year will be our first full year in the podcast sphere.
• 30:11
  Hopefully, we can make it even bigger and better than our 32 episodes last year,
• 30:16
  which I'm pretty proud of.
• 30:18
  Yeah. And please keep listening and let us know if you want to email us and
• 30:22
  tell us how great we are. Just email us. Oh, my goodness.
• 30:26
  Give this podcast a five-star review. Yeah, give us a five-star review wherever
• 30:31
  you listen because apparently that helps us, right? Yeah.
• 30:34
  Gets you more noticed. We actually have some five-star reviews,
• 30:38
  which is awesome. Well, all right. Happy New Year, everybody.
• 30:40
  And our YouTube subscriptions have really skyrocketed. They have skyrocketed
• 30:44
  since we started posting them. We're up to like 1,600 YouTube subscriptions. Really? Yeah.
• 30:48
  Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for listening.
• 30:51
  Well, stop being mean out there. Yeah. Be nice. Bye-bye.
• 30:55
  Music.