FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Rob Holbert from Lagniappe talks Dredging Project - Mobile Morning - Thursday 8-15-24
(upbeat music) - News, sports, weather from Dr. Bill Williams, traffic info from Kane, and one of the Gulf Coast's most familiar voices. It's Mobile Mornings with Dan Brennan and Dalton R. Wig. - Dan and Dalton, if I'm talking one of the six five, Mobile Mornings, could have been long, seven minutes after eight o'clock now, and a big event going on downtown starts in about two hours. - That's right, the annual Mobile Business Chamber Expo, that's the largest business-to-business trade show in our area, and have a ton of companies, they say about 200, will be there in the booths and milling about, it's a great place to get business done or new relationships started, and we'll be there. We have the FM Talk 106.5 Mobile Command Unit, Sean and I went and parked it yesterday in our great spot, same location we've been year after year if you're looking for, well, if you're looking for us, just look for the big FM Talk 106.5 van, that should be easy enough. So you wanna get in, it's $5, if you bring a business card, you can also get free admission with a student or military ID, and as Dan said, the Expo opens at 10 this morning at the convention center, and we'll run until about three this afternoon, they say you can also pick up a free ticket at the Mobile Chamber Office at 451 Government Street. So that all gets started at 10 a.m., Sean Sullivan will be broadcasting midday mobile live from noon to two. - So help me out here, when you walk in, if you're somebody with a ticket, and you go down the escalator, we're to the left, right? - That's correct. - That's where we've been in the last few times. - Yeah, that's exactly right. You'll see the van over there, and come on by and say, hey, also in this hour, just after 8.30, we'll talk with Rob Holbert from Lanyat, Lanyatmobile.com, and get into the latest news with him. But-- - And if you're handy, by the way, the van is there. If you'd like to do us a solid and change the oil. (laughing) We'll give you that opportunity, 'cause I think it's needing a little maintenance. - So first news about, you know, we haven't talked about Nord Stream in a while, the two pipelines running from Russia to Germany, and supplying a lot of gas to Europe, or they were until they were blown up back in September of 2022. And the first news that came out yesterday was that back in June, there was a arrest warrant issued, a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man who was suspected of being involved in blowing up the pipeline. And the suspect, you won't believe his first name, it's Vladimir. Vladimir Zee, they said he left Poland before authorities could detain him, and that warrant marks the first significant development towards potentially solving who was behind the sabotage. Since then, after that story came out, Wall Street Journal put out a massive deep dive into what they say exactly happened to have the Nord Stream blown. - And before you get into this, reading this story, and so if you all are hearing this for the first time, to me, it sound, okay, serious event, I get it, Germany's really hacked off, I get it, you know, we get all that. It was a big story, it still is a big story. It's a movie, my goodness. - Yeah. - This is, if somebody would want to create these characters, it doesn't read almost like a movie? - It definitely does, if someone hasn't already begun or finished a screenplay for something like this, it would be perfect in theaters. - Because it's almost one of the, it almost feels of implausible, it almost feels like, well, that would never happen, it happened, and now we'll get into the teeth of this story, but it's pretty incredible. - And if you remember early on the finger pointing, of course, Russia to us. - Russia to us, and they still point the finger at us, the West basically initially was saying it was Russia, and remember early on, we were saying, how would Russia do that? That's one of their main sources of income, really is supplying gas to Europe. - So the theory then was, well, Russia would do that, so they can accuse somebody else of doing it, and justify their actions in Ukraine, right? - Yeah, and it seemed more harsh, the journalist, he had an article come out, I can't remember how much later after the explosions, but I want to say that in his article, he claimed that there were CIA helping to train Ukrainian divers to go down and do this, and how much of this story, I mean, I take any story basically with a grain of salt, because you have so many different players in the game, and of course, our intelligence will want to slant the story one way, if it looks bad on us, Ukraine would want to try to slant the story another way, so would Russia, and on and on and on, but this was devastating, remember? And for all this talk of protecting the climate, just blowing these pipelines, I think it was the largest release of methane gas from a man-made disaster ever, I think. - Yeah. - So, and it forced fuel prices up, energy prices went way up, Europe had a difficult time finding out how to stay warm for the winter. - Yeah, because it was in September, so it was rolling into the fall and into the winter, right, that affected Europe in that way, right? - It's exactly right. So, Wall Street Journal reports in May of 2022, a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen had gathered, toasting their country's remarkable success in halting the Russian invasion, said buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervor, someone suggested a radical next step to destroy Nord Stream. - There's the first scene in the movie, by the way. - Correct? - Yeah. - They're drunk, they're toasting their country, and one of them says, "How about this? "Where will we try this?" - That's the opening scene, then you flash back to the Russian invasion. - Yes. - And you get back to this part. - Yes. - It said the twin natural gas pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe were providing billions of dollars to the Kremlin war machine, and what better way to make Putin pay for his aggression. Just over four months later, in the early hours of September 26th, Scandinavian seismologists picked up signals indicating an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption, hundreds of miles away, near the Danish island of Bornholm. They were caused by the three powerful explosions and the largest ever recorded release of natural gas, equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Denmark. They say the Ukrainian operation cost around $300,000. - That's cheap. - That's value. And that's according to the people who participated in it. I'll tell you who all the Wall Street Journal spoke with to write this story. It involved a small rented yacht with a six-member crew. - Well, it's not small for me and you, 'cause it was a 50 foot yacht. So we would love to have one of those small yachts. - It was a six-member crew, including trained civilian divers. One was a woman. They said her presence helped create the illusion. They were just a group of friends out on a pleasure cruise. - That's smart. - As one does. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, they say initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three others familiar with the plan, but later when the CIA learned of the plan, they asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, and Zelensky reportedly ordered a halt. But Zelensky's commander-in-chief, Valerie Zelosny, who was leading the effort, forged ahead nonetheless. - So at this point, Dalton Zelensky knew the CIA, we knew that this plan was in motion. - In motion, okay. - And said, let's see here. The Journal spoke to four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot. All of them said the pipelines were a legitimate target in Ukraine's war against Russia. Portions of their account, the Journal says, were corroborated by nearly two-year German police investigation into the attack. They obtained evidence, including email, mobile and satellite phones communications, and fingerprints and DNA samples from the alleged sabotage team. - Wow. - The Germany inquiry hasn't directly linked Zelensky to the operation, though. Putin has publicly blamed the US for the attacks, and a Russian diplomat echoed that claim. He said the German investigation findings were, quote, "Fairy tales worthy of the brothers' grim." And, of course, relations at stake here between Kiev and Berlin, which has provided much of the financing and military equipment to Ukraine. - Isn't that amazing? - Germany's second to the US in funding this war on the Ukrainian side. - And the Ukrainians destroyed the pipeline, and Germany didn't know. - Well, one German official listened to this quote. He said, "An attack of this scale is a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defense clause of NATO." We've talked so much about what would trigger a NATO war response. He said, "Our critical infrastructure was blown up by a country that we support with massive weapons, shipments and billions in cash." So back to the story here, following the May pact, the May of 2022 pact between the businessmen who were providing funding and the military officers, it was agreed that the businessmen would finance and help execute the project because the army had no funds and was increasingly relying on foreign financing as it pushed back against Russia. A sitting general with experience and special operations would oversee the mission, which one participant described as a public-private partnership, a PPP, we've talked about that over the years here, he would report directly to the head of Ukraine's armed forces, the four-star generals, the Lozny, and within days, and let's get approved the plan, all arrangements were made verbally to leave no paper trail. But the next month, the Dutch military intelligence agency, MIVD, learned of the plot, then warned the CIA, U.S. officials, then promptly informed Germany. The CIA also warned Zelensky's office to stop the operation according to these U.S. officials, and then Zelensky ordered Zelensky to halt it, but he forged ahead. And they did modify the original plan. The general tasked with commanding the operation enlisted some of Ukraine's top special ops officers with experience in orchestrating high-risk missions and Zelensky and the sabotage team initially studied an older elaborate plan to blow up the pipeline. The plan for like 2014, they were looking that over and then they didn't, that's not the plan they went with. Right, they said it was too costly and too complex, so they settled on using a small sailing boat and a team of six, and that was the mix of active duty soldiers and civilians with diving experience in order to blow up the 700 mile long pipelines that were more than 260 feet below the surface. - This is interesting too, Dalton. The skipper of this 50-foot sailboat. - Yeah, the Andromeda was the name of the yacht. - And the skipper was... - The Andromeda, I should say. - He was involved in the war, left, he was able to leave. - He went on leave, without his commander knowing where he was going, he was like, "Yeah, yeah, I gotta go do that thing." No, he didn't tell his commander or anything. He left an active war scene to go do this and then he went back, like nothing happened. - That's right, one crew member, a military officer, that's the one you're talking about here, was fighting in the war actively and a seasoned skipper for were experienced deep sea divers and the crew included civilians, including the woman who was also trained privately as a diver, armed only with diving equipment, satellite navigation, a portable sonar, and open source maps of the seabed, charting the position of the pipelines, the crew set out, the four divers worked in pairs, operating in pitch dark, icy waters, they handled a powerful explosive known as HMX that was wired to timer controlled detonators and they said just a small amount of the light explosive would be sufficient to rip open the high pressure pipes, spending 20 minutes at the depth they were at requires around three hours of decompression, then the person must refrain from diving for at least 24 hours of serious injuries. They were down there, also inclement weather forced the crew to make an unplanned stop in a Swedish port, one diver accidentally dropped an explosive device to the bottom of the sea. The crew briefly discussed whether to abort the operation due to the bad weather, but that storm soon subsided and on they went and the wake of the attack, which took out three of the four conduits forming the pipelines, energy prices surged, Germany and other nations scrambled to nationalize energy companies that handled Russian gas, but collapsed after the pipelines were destroyed. Even today, Germany is paying around $1 million per day to lease floating terminals for LNG, liquefied natural gas, which only partly replaced the Russian gas flows that were channeled by Nord Stream. Germany in the aftermath here, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the US sent out warships, divers, underwater drones and aircraft to investigate the area around the leaks. They say Zelensky took the generals of Lesny to task, but the generals shrugged off his criticism, so Lesny told Zelensky that the sabotage team once dispatched went in communicato and couldn't be called off because any contact with them could compromise the operation. - Incredible story. - And so, is this left in the movie, Dalton, or is this taken out of the movie, this scene right here, where they had inclement weather and they went to and they did an unplanned stop to abort in Sweden and one of them accidentally dropped one of the bombs to the bottom of the sea. - So it's still sitting there, I reckon. - I guess it is. - I don't know if everyone got it, but I think you'd have to keep that in the movie. This is a light harder moment. - Yeah, and whose hands were on the crafting of this story, how true is it? - Yeah. - I'm not sure, you know, they say the German police. Germany has real reason to figure out who did this. - Sure. - And why? - Yeah, they have motivation for sure. - And they also said, regardless of whether some German politicians and high-ranking officials wanted to just kind of get the story away, stop thinking about it, stop talking about it. German police operate independently and they've kind of been forging on with this investigation for two years. - So interesting. - Yeah, then you piece together all these other interviews the journal did and this is what you end up with. - Amazing story. - And yeah, you caution, that's a good one. - Is it all true? - Right. - It certainly is amazing. It's 821 with Dan and Dalton. - You know when you sign up for something or you're online and you're like, I'll give it a shot. And you see this long laundry list of things you're agreeing to. You have no intention of really reading it through. You might want to do that before you click OK so you can get your 30-day free subscription of whatever. - Yeah, Disney, and we'll get into this in more detail here later in the hour, but Disney, a man whose wife died after an allergic reaction, eating at a Disney restaurant. Crazy, they're saying he'll have to litigate outside of the courtroom and not sue them in court because of the clauses in a Disney+ subscription. So we'll get to that here in just a little bit. This segment brought to you by 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Trey Bennett and his crew doing fantastic work in mobile in the surrounding areas. And they've been doing it for over 16 years. It is very easy to set up your appointment. And when you call, you can get a free on-site estimate with all inclusive pricing and no hidden fees. They get new reviews online at Google. Five-star Google reviews, pretty much every couple of days, all from local people who have used 1-800-GOT-JUNK's services. Lizzie here left a review a day ago, Five-Stars. I called 1-800-GOT-JUNK mobile today and they came right out to my apartment to remove furniture and they were so courteous and professional and didn't try to overprice me. 1-800-GOT-JUNK is very easy to set up your appointment, whether it's your business or your residence. You have junk that needs to go, they'll take care of it. You can call them today and set that appointment up at 1-800-GOT-JUNK on the phone and also online at 1-800-GOT-JUNK.com. So you texted this unnamed text or they were asking, is Baykeeper having another town hall meeting? They had one south of Theodore the other night and you let him know that they are, right? Yeah, so they'll go to the Eastern Shore for their second meeting. That's coming up August 20th, Fair Hope United Methodist Church at 6 p.m. as they discuss with the citizenry, the public, the dredging controversy with the Port of Mobile expansion and deepening project. So again, yeah, the next Baykeeper town hall, August 20th at Fair Hope United Methodist Church at 6 p.m. Doesn't have meta, be on the lookout, 4 doesn't have meta, the business expert at 8. We will, I'll be on the lookout. That's the last time I saw him was there. Jerry from Fort Morgan, pretty sure the divers were trained right here on the Northern Gulf Coast by the Navy. Yeah, I believe that was part of the Seymour Hirsch story that came out fairly early. So remember, they said there was an older plan back in 2014. Right. That was too costly and complex. Right. And I'm sure the CIA was aware of that plan as well. And I wonder, yeah, if that was part of that, training some of these Ukrainian divers over here, as Hirsch said in his story. Maz said Russia invaded Ukraine and there at war and Russia is funding the war with this pipeline. So a Ukrainian blows up said pipeline to stop the funding. European courts issue arrest warrants for the bombers, makes total sense in today's world. I understand that yet. It's part of war, but remember, Ukraine is in a NATO country. We have these quote unquote rules in place that attacking a NATO country results in a response from NATO. Ukraine bombs a pipeline that sure, it's crucial to the Russian economy and funding the war machine, but it's also crucial to Germany and a lot of the rest of Europe. And a lot of us internationally for keeping energy prices down. So if Germany did know about it, at one point that story you were talking about who knew, Germany was aware of the plan before it happened. I'm not sure about that. Okay, so Germany now is acting very but hurt. I mean, would they contributed to Ukraine's fight second most? Second to the U.S. And at the same time now, if they're just now getting to the realization that Ukraine blew up that pipeline, that'd be crazy. Yeah, I don't know if they're just now getting to the realization or just now getting to the evidence. Yeah, right. Sean says everybody knows it was us that blew up that pipeline. It's a cute story. Sounds like a movie because it's fake. Well, Sean, I mean, it could very well be fake. I'll say that. And I said a lot during that last segment that you have to take all this with a grain of salt. But this comes from the German police investigation. Comes from interviews with people who were involved in putting the plot together. Yeah, I'm sure they slanted the story. There may have been others involved. But as far as the actual operation, that was pretty detailed. Yeah, so detailed. You tend to think it's true. Rob Holbert is on the way. So what is Dan and Dalton? If I'm talking one of those six, five mobile mornings at 8.35. And when you look at the pages or online of land, yeah, you realize almost. I don't know. It's not a new realization. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And when we talked to Rob Holbert on a Thursday morning, there's a number of directions we could go in. Yeah, but let's start on a golden note. Can I say that with Paige Madden's return from Paris, where she picked up another, I believe two medals and silver and a bronze. And she returned back to Mobile Regional. I guess either I think late last week or over the weekend. And you've got a great interview. Tommy Hicks had with Paige Madden on her return here to the mainland. Yeah, Tommy hustled it up and called Paige and got lucky that she had just basically landed back in the US. And so he went out and talked to her and talked to her about the whole process and about winning some more medals at the Olympics. It's pretty awesome that she had the time to sit down and talk to him. I love the picture. And she got the medals in her hands. Tommy gets the interview and we're going to get her on mobile mornings real soon too. And just to chat with somebody that I go a week ago, you're watching her perform to the level where she is a medal winner at the Olympics. And she's right here in Mobile. It's pretty, I don't know, it just, it just fascinates me. And one of the things that was amazing too is in her camera, trying to remember, she won one of the medals in a relay in the individual race that she came in. I think that's where she got bronze. She lowered her personal record by five seconds. I mean, that's crazy in swimming. I mean, they got a checker for a trolling motor. Yeah, that was the 800 meter. That's a, that's a, that's shown on his e-bike. That's a, that's a big, big difference. When you, you know, you're talking about your personal record going down five seconds. That is cooking. It sounds, it sounds back in the day a little East German. Like, oh, what's going on? But that's ours really ported on right at the very last lap. I think it really just nailed it. But that was, that's pretty awesome. Hours and hours and hours of work between Tokyo and Paris for her to drop that number that far. And it coincided. I don't know if they did this intentionally or not, but the county commission vote to go ahead with the aquatic center out there off of Hall's Mill next to the soccer complex. And hopefully, I guess the plan is to grow many more Olympians from here. In a place where I was surprised by how many students, how many youth swim competitively around here? Yeah, you couldn't have a better time to announce something like that. Right. With say a local, a person doing so well in, in swimming in the Olympics. And so yeah, it's, you know, a lot of folks say we need it. And there's, you know, obviously a lot of people here who would like to swim. And there's not really any place to do it. So hopefully this will be something that the community can use and will embrace. Yeah. And I think it increased the numbers too. You know, I mean, so many are swimming now. And a lot of that, so many that I say the number is at this point, whatever it is. But now that we're with the aquatic center, this, we may unveil and find new swimming talents. We didn't even know we're out there, Rob, with more kids. Yeah, there's a lot of places that, you know, there's a lot of schools that can't do it. There's a lot of places where it's hard to do because, I mean, I know when I grew up, it was very difficult to, if you wanted to be on my swim team, you had to go, you know, get up at five in the morning and drive to, you know, the next city. If somebody wanted to do that, there was like one guy in our school who swam. So, I mean, it's one of those things. If you don't have the facilities available, it's very difficult to do. Yeah, they will grow this sport locally. Yeah. Well, that will be. And in the Olympics, crystal clear water, let's talk about some muddy water. And Senator Katie Britt, a big announcement earlier this week that, you know, she's continuing the work of Richard Shelby as far as appropriations and bringing federal money back to the state, said she had secured 47 million in appropriations to research and support beneficial use of sediment dredged for mobile-based shipping channel. And this, of course, comes in the midst of this big controversy that pits a baykeeper. And people lose lives, depend on the water on one side, and then also the port and business entities on the other side. Well, from what I, you know, and from what I understand about that announcement, and I think it's a great first step. I think it got out of committee. I don't know that it's made it into actual funding yet. So, you know, it's a good step, and I'm glad she's pushing that because, yeah, I mean, I think it would be, you know, with this whole issue about, you know, in bay dumping of sediment over the next 20 years, to, you know, with maintenance dredging on the ship channel, you know, I think it would be good to have an independent study from them, because, you know, you've got a baykeeper saying it's bad. You have fishermen saying, look, we've seen the difference. We have the Corps of Engineers saying, no, no, it's good. It's the best course of action for the bay, but they're also financially incented by doing that. I mean, I'm not saying they're not telling the truth, but by the same token, it, they do have a big financial incentive not to haul it out into the Gulf. It's, you know, two to three times more expensive to do that. So, it would be nice to have somebody do a study that we can see, you know, what are the best methods, because, you know, back in 1980, and that's 44 years ago, but when this was brought up before the Corps was, you know, they, the Corps said, hey, this is the cheapest way to do it, but it's not the best for the bay. And, you know, EPA came back and said, no, you can't dump in the bay. Over the course of time, they've come back and said, well, you know, it's better for the bay because we don't watch sediment loss. But, again, there's also a pretty big financial incentive to have that, to do things that way. So, I think it would be good to have, if that funding does come through, it would be nice. And I had a big meeting this week. Ray Keeper did, and there were, it was a standing room only thing where a lot of folks who were in the fishing community and the seafood industry showed up. And, you know, they have, they have a lot of harsh words for what's going on and, and feel like the overall the quality of the quality of the bay has suffered over the years because of dredging in the bay and the widening of the ship channel. Yeah, that was the meeting here. On our side of the bay, the eastern shore meeting coming up, August 20th at Fairhope United Methodist Church at 6 p.m. Does it seem like this is something, you know, they haven't officially filed this lawsuit. Bay Keeper hasn't. Does it seem like this is something they may be able to work out between the two without going to court? The way that when we talked to the Corps, when they spoke to us, they were pretty immovable about the whole thing. They did not seem open in the least to even going back and discussing it with Fish and Wildlife. So that's really what the lawsuits about is forcing them to go back to Fish and Wildlife and talk about it. And so at this point, unless they have a change of heart, you know, it's not really about whether the port likes it or not or any of that. I mean, yeah, the port of the Chamber of Commerce have made a lot of talks a lot about it. And, but, you know, the Corps, when we talked to them, basically said, look, we're not worried about the project being stopped. We're not worried about the sturgeon being hurt either. We think we're doing the best thing. And there's not even a message here for us to go back. We're not really required to go back and have that conversation. So I don't see a way it's not going to happen if nobody's willing to talk about it. If the two sides that are involved aren't willing to talk about it. You know, when in other matters, you see, at least there's a element of a governmental agency that is advocating for the side of the people, I guess you would say, we see that with the plant berry, with the coal. Yeah, the coal ash, the fed seem to jump in there for the... Well, yeah, they did. EPA did on the coal ash situation. The EPA finally came down and told you know, Alabama Power and ADAM that this was the plan that they have, it doesn't work. Right. So, you know, I would expect ADAM to come to the defense of the people. When you hear some of the stories, it's kind of heartbreaking. And that's why that was so intense down at the little church down there at the south of Theodore because people's lives are wrapped up in all this. This is what they do and a lot of the people south of I-10 have done for generations, correct? Yeah, I mean, it's a... You know, there are a lot of people who make their livelihood fishing and in the seafood industry in our community and the Bay is an important part of that. You know, there's no doubt... I mean, even the Corps admits that when they do what they call thin layer placement, which is dumping as much as up to a foot of sediment in an area, that it does kill whatever's there. I mean, they just... They say, well, it comes back in a certain amount of time. It comes back and then they say they don't... They rotate it and they don't do two years in a row there and that kind of thing. So... But their basic gist is, hey, yeah, it hurts a little bit, but it doesn't hurt as much as taking all the sediment out. They dump it in deep water. That question is still one that I think would be best determined by somebody who doesn't have a dog in a fight. I think it would be something that would be better done by an independent agency to determine because the Corps does have that financial part of the deal. They're in charge of maintenance dredging. So, you know, I think it's something that we need to look at and I'm glad we're having the discussion because it didn't get brought up before. I mean, you know, it's... And for whatever reasons, I mean, I know people have told me, hey, you know, Baykeeper did try to bring this up. But, you know, back in 2019, when it was... when all this was coming forward about the deepening and widening of the port. But it didn't make its way. Well, for whatever reason, it didn't get into the public touch. We didn't have this big debate. We didn't have these types of things. So at the very minimum, there's an awareness now. And I think that's something that we really need to talk about. We need to be aware of when these bigger ships are coming into the bay. Are they going to adhere to the speed limits that are set? Because I can tell you, you know, standing out on the bay, watching ships, they come in at different speeds. And when they come in fast, they throw a massive, massive wake. It is, you know, it's usually about six or seven waves and they're... That is... And these are going to be much larger ships with much more displacement. You know, if they're throwing big do things, there's going to be a lot of damage to property, damage to the shoreline. So those are things that have to... This is all wrapped up in that. And, you know, it's an issue that's going to be going on, I think. And, you know, I don't know if the coral wants to really sit down and talk or not. It doesn't seem like they do. Yeah. And that's in the latest issue of landing. You have to latest on the whole dredging controversy. Also a deep dive this week from Kyle Hammerick into two congressional races. One, which is expected to be close, one in District One, which is not expected to be close between Republican representative of District Two now, Barry Moore, who's the District One Republican candidate in Democrat Tom Holmes. But the one that the nation's watching, not just us, is District Two with Caroline Dobson on the Republican side and Shamari figures on the Democrat side and a good dive in here and look at how maybe Kamala Harris being added to the top of the ticket may have changed things in that race. Yeah, it is. It's good. And, you know, we actually, we've had Caroline Dobson in the office. We've finally got Shamari figures in the other day and got to talk to him. You know, they're both very bright people, both very qualified, I think. So I think they're two good choices. I mean, honestly, you know, politics being politics, people will have different takes on their policies. But, you know, my initial feeling about both of them is that they're qualified individuals and they're smart. You know, we don't have, we don't have somebody looking at going, this is a real whack out of it, which is a nice thing in a while. And, you know, like so many races. I'm not sure about that on the other one sometimes. Like so many races, this will just come down to turnout, don't you think? What the turnout always does. Yeah, I mean, it's a big issue. Turn out in the, yeah, I mean, turn out in the African-American community has been low. Turn out period has been low. I mean, just especially in kind of special elections or, you know, but the elections in general have been super low. And so, I mean, I think talking to figures, he feels like the, you know, having Kamala Harris in the race now has energized the democratic base even, which is a much smaller group in Alabama in general, but in that district is the majority of the district. So, there's some opportunities there, he thinks, for that to pump up his campaign. But he, I mean, he says, you know, he's like, I'm certainly not writing off the, you know, their opportunities in that district either. So, you know, it's not, I don't think anybody's taking it for granted. Well, we'll be following that through the pages of the land map all the way through November. Also, of course, high school football season right around the corner. I'm sure Tommy Hicks and your crew there gearing up for that with a lot of new information coming out soon. Yeah, next week, we'll have our gridiron guide. So, we'll have the, we'll have Tommy's working overtime to get everything together about all the teams for the upcoming year, all the high school teams. That'll be my cheat sheet for UTV 44. That'll be good for me. Yeah, I'll need it. It'll help. Thanks so much, man. Thanks. Appreciate talking to you on this Thursday and tell everybody down there, hello and have a good day. All right, you guys have a great weekend. Rob Holbert, Lanyat, Lanyatmobile.com. You can get the issues on newsstands for free when they come out. Also, I encourage you to sign up online at Lanyatmobile.com, have that news delivered directly to your inbox as the stories are published. So, we do here. Disney always meant one thing when we were kids. It just meant all good stuff, it seems like. Not always the case, is it? No, I have a story about a lawsuit involving Disney coming back on the other side of the break. Good morning from Dan Adalton, FM talk when it was 6'5" on the text line. Tusker says media is gaslighting on the poles. Yeah, all these, all these different poles are all saying different things. Well, they're all weighted differently. There's been a big bump for Kamala Harris. One thing you also have to compare is Harris' performance at this time relative to how Hillary Clinton was performing and how Biden was performing back in 2016 and 2020 respectively. Now, they were outperforming Harris at this time. And you're right. I mean, there's all kinds of different poles. The new Fox News poll that came out yesterday, which is a pretty consistent poll. They have one Republican polling group and one Democrat polling group and combine it together here. They still have Trump up 1% in the popular vote, which would mean probably an electoral college win for Trump. But there's a lot of time left. I still think this is going to be a very, very, very close race. More big stories going to drop before we get to election day, would you think? I would think so. And also, you have the debates, potentially changing things. Did you see that Walt's agreed to an October 1 CBS News debate with JD Vance? So that'll be October 1st. I think the next presidential debate may be the only one, depending on whether Harris agrees to others, will be September 10th. I think that's an ABC debate between Trump and Harris. Yeah, that's the one she's agreed to so far. So Walt's in, I didn't see that. He's in October. October 1st will be that debate. This Disney law, so Disney's seeking to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit because the victim's husband signed up for a Disney plus streaming service trial, which requires arbitration for disputes rather than handling it in a courtroom. Who would have known that tucked away in that when you hit okay, tucked away in that agreement that you just agreed to would be something like that? Yeah. If the kids won't leave you alone, you're just trying to. Yeah. All right. I'll just turn on friggin Cinderella. Yeah. Whatever you sign up. Now you can't take Disney to court. Now you can still arbitrate disputes, but the victim in this case, Dr. Tang Swan, died after suffering a severe allergic reaction to dairy and nuts at a Disney Springs restaurant. I think it's called Raglan. Let's see here. Raglan Road, the Irish pub in Disney Springs. And so she has this dairy and nut allergy. And according to their story, her husband's story, she passed away that night. They told this restaurant staff that she had these allergies time and time again. They said, okay, we'll make it without dairy or nuts. When they brought the food to the table, they didn't have a flag in it, which I guess is a usual signifier that the allergic stuff has been taken out, so they asked the waiter again. He just doesn't have dairy or nuts in it, right? And he confirmed it doesn't have dairy or nuts. Well, it apparently did. She had an allergic reaction later on, stuck herself with an EpiPen. Apparently that didn't get it done and she passed away, but that night, that night. And so her husband files this wrongful death lawsuit. And then Disney this week said, well, he signed up for a Disney plus streaming service trial. And in that contract, it requires arbitration for disputes. They also said his purchase of Epcot tickets through a my Disney account was also cited as an agreement to arbitrate disputes. They bought tickets to Epcot through that, my Disney app, and didn't go because she died. So they returned the tickets. They refunded the tickets in response. Piccolo's attorneys criticized Disney's argument as preposterous and fatally flawed, emphasizing that the lawsuit is on behalf of the victim's estate, not solely for the husband himself. This case, though, raising legal questions about the enforcibility of arbitration agreements in relation to wrongful death suits and the responsibilities of companies ensuring the safety of individuals with allergies. When you sign up for something like that online or whatever, do you read that whole that total agreement before you click OK? It's amazing that something like that would be in there having nothing to do with what you're signing up for necessarily, right? Yeah, I think I can speak for most people and say, no, I don't read through that - That whole thing. - It is 859, Jeff Moore is up next.