FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
State Rep. Jennifer Fidler - Jeff Poor Show - Monday 9-30-24
[MUSIC PLAYING] From Buck's Pocket to the shores of Orange Beach, at all points in between, an insider's perspective on Alabama politics. It's the Jeff Poor Show. I don't think Hank done it this way. [MUSIC PLAYING] Good morning. Welcome to the Jeff Poor Show, and I have to talk 106.5. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you for being with us on this Monday morning. Text slide 2513430106, as I get touched with the program, if you so choose. Come up in about 30 minutes from now, talk to Jeff or Fiddler every other Monday, I guess. Bit bit to say, she's been in a lot of stuff, particularly dealing with the problem or issue. Yeah, that was called the issue, the Haitian migrant issue, tracking that down. And I think what's more important than anything kind of being responsive to people's concerns. Yeah, believe it or not, I mean, that's just, that there's, I don't know, like skepticism to this is really a problem, but we get to that more in a moment. I've been thinking about that a little bit lately. Also in the program today, Keith Blackwood, the Mobile County District Attorney, and we're talking about that new statue. We had Senator Barfoot on last week, but like a crime deterrents and really what are we supposed to think of? I think there's a gang problem in Alabama. Not necessarily quite as bad as here in Mobile's other places, but there's actually a bill on the books, a law on the books that would address that. And coming out of the last session, arguably, we've seen an increase, not a decrease in this problem. And so what gives? And finally, Dale Jackson, WV it in. You know, Hammer News are calling in this morning, so stay tuned for that. The Western North Carolina, just absolutely-- I mean, it looks like I guess a hurricane did sort of go through there. If you recall, back in early August, I took a week off. And my three-year-old that I made a trip from Fair Hope all the way to Washington, DC. But we went through Western North Carolina. And I was like, you know, kind of explaining to him, like, look what happened. We were just there, like, a month and a half ago. I was born in Brevard, North Carolina, so this has got a lot of family in that area. But, you know, I guess this is sort of a political talk show. I don't think it's going to have a bigger impact on the North Carolina electorate. The guy running for governor or, like, half the Western portion of the state being underwater, and what looks to be like a seemingly unresponsive federal government, is wherever a Katrina situation. I guess it just matters to who the constituency is. The winners, if we're going to make any sort of outrage. But there's something really-- it feels like it took till today for the media to really kind of get on board and say, hey, what's going on here? But all weekend, you're just seeing no internet, no cell service. I have an uncle no one's heard from since before the storm. And what's the deal here? But this is-- well, we got the usual suspects. Republicans pounce headlines from the Beltway Press, so there's that. We'll get to that more in a moment. Donald Trump in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night also heard there was a football game. There's a couple of football goons in the state that didn't go the way I had hoped. But I congratulations to the Alabama fans out there. Who would have drive it back? From-- I know this is the Auburn's channel, but drive it back. Listen to the Bama game from Auburn. I can't believe they got rid of Eli Gold. You all have a fans that listen to the games on the radio. Am I wrong here? Tyler Watts, who at the Pelham High School, by the way, I don't know, just-- there's a-- you expect to hear a certain voice, and there's a certain nostalgia associated with the voice who call the games, and there's nothing there for me. But maybe that's because I'm an Auburn fan. Not that Auburn has a legacy there. At least their guys, kind of the Auburn Radio Network guys, kind of like follow the same cadence. Donald Trump, well-received in Tuscaloosa. We knew he would. And, you know, early on with Alabama running up the score, well, you thought, well, half the state of Georgia is probably turning game off. But then Georgia made a game of it. Um, so maybe that did kind of work out the way they had hoped. Oh, let's see here. What else we got? Oh, this made big news Friday. We did a story at 1819news, 1819news.com. Um, West Allen, the Department of Justice, the Biden DOJ is suing West Allen and the state of Alabama, not allowing the-- making the accusation that the state is purging bond citizens within a certain window, which is a violation of federal law. And the quote-unquote purge is just like who's a citizen? Who is it? You got to be a citizen to vote in our elections in Alabama, per the state of Alabama, and the DOJ says, hey, you can't do that this close to the election. Who do you think you are? Um, yeah, and it's made some national headlines because the wink in the nod is, like, let's contaminate the well. Let's make it look like it's Republicans who are playing unfair. Look, a lot of signs here that this could go Republicans away. I'm not trying to get high on my own supply here. We start seeing these sort of tactics. And one of the big tales I thought today, I saw a story about-- is it time to do a way with the Electoral College? Is there seeing, like, these stories about the popular vote and what-- do we do our elections and then they're, like, these-- are they sitting reporters out on the beat to cover things in a way that would be beneficial to Democrats? Well, I mean, everything they do is that. But particularly on this election discussion, that's another one of these signs that suggest they're losing. There's a bunch of news out there right now showing a lot of favorable things for the former president or for the vice president. Now, we got a debate tomorrow night. The vice president should debate. Like I said, this will be fun for guys like us to watch, but it's not going to matter. Do y'all remember the last presidential debate? Yeah, no one really does, do they? But a bunch of favorable signs here. Mitch McConnell and his Senate leadership fund coming out the sidelines and getting more engaged in other states shows that-- I don't know about a wave. But at least a higher tide for Republicans. That's one, did they see some data? Did they see some things to put some money in some races? Besides, the two they've been focused on are Montana and Ohio. But now they're starting to play in some other states. I still think North Carolina is going to break for Republicans more. They were going to try to use this in battle with this lieutenant governor. They were going to try to make him the story. And their narrative got crushed by Hurricane Helene. Because like I said, a big portion of that state is not getting a good quality response from the federal government. I think that impacts the electorate. I mean, it certainly makes people think, "Well, this is a Democrat-run government here. Western North Carolina is the exception of like Boone in Asheville and some of the hippie-dippy places. I mean, it's a red place, generally speaking. But if you start depressing those turnouts in those blue cities because the Biden administration doesn't really, I don't know, maybe the little slow coming out of the gate here, what their disaster response, it's a wash. I mean, this is going to be an election. There will be an October surprise, but it still feels like an election that we're voting on the status quo. Do you like what you got now? Well, vote for four or more years of Kamala Harris, or if you don't like it, vote for Trump. And it's not really going to be about the candidates necessarily, because people don't want to think about their tax policy here or there. It was okay when Trump was president, that there was the pandemic. But other than that, I mean, you know, things were terrible, and things seem, at least the perception is that they have gotten worse under Biden. And that's what's going to happen. That's the way people are going to vote. It's not going to be, I mean, you're going to hear a blunt of noise and then the top of the ticket. Members of Congress, especially our delegation, feel really good about the House. They don't think a big blowout, like 20 seats, but they think potentially 8, 9, 10 seat majority, that the House will grow as majority or Republicans, despite all of the, all of the struggles in the House Republican caucus. Like I said, Senate maps are very favorable. It's the Democrats are in trouble there. I mean, there's even to talk about Larry Hogan, who's running on the Republican ticket in the Senate in Maryland, picking that seat up. And he'll be a terrible Republican, but he'll caucus with the Republicans, and Republicans will have the gavel if he were to win. So keep an eye on that. But I tell you guys, this North Carolina stuff is the longer this goes on and the slower response time, you hear these just crazy stories about looting and, you know, no one being able to get in or out. And it's a weird place. If you've ever been there, you know, the roads, you have to go over a mountain down into a valley to get the Asheville, even the Interstates. So not a lot's coming and going. I guess with like Katrina, if you think of a hurricane, there's not a lot of mountainous roads on the coast. There's none. And you're able to kind of clear a path a little easier. This, the roads of, like, Interstates are completely washed out. Like half of I-40 between Asheville and Statesville, gone. But you go up over these mountains and you go down and they build these cities into valley and the roads have to cross the mountains. Our totally gone. Not leaving a lot of options to get in and out. Anyway, two, five, one, three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six, give me a lot to work with there. So give me some feedback and we will pick it up on the other side. This is the JetBore Show on FM Talk 1065. ♪ Make my brown eyes ♪ ♪ Don't it make my brown eyes blue ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ All right, let's take it on down to Muscle Shells through your cater. Mmm, burning now. Ooh, come on, go! ♪ Right above the Spanish court ♪ ♪ Into Mobile, my hometown ♪ ♪ You've missed the team ♪ Welcome back to the JetBore Show on FM Talk 10065. Thanks for staying with us on this Monday morning. Two, five, one, three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six, if you need to be in touch with the show, you know what to do. Find me on the hit me up on that text line. Let me go through some of these text real quick. We'll get to our next guest, Jennifer Fiddler coming up in a few minutes. Uh... We have a people problem now, but too many bad parents that teach you right and wrong about their kids are from Daniel. And they text you. You know, it gave us a little bit of an explanation, but from what I understand, University really never said anything about that. They have to. I just, I... You keep him. He's like the brand, the franchise. Even if he is... He's like Harry Carey. I mean, now when I was... They made the switch when I was a kid to Eli Gold, and it was kind of a lukewarm reception, but it kind of grows on you. And they... I don't understand this abrupt departure. But I mean, I'm not an Alabama guy. Um, I had to agree with you with Eli Gold. He was the voice of Alabama football. Well, Alabama basketball as well. Like he had a... I read his book, well, listen to his book. And I mean, like he could call a lot of other sports as well. Like he is... The thing about him, usually the voice of your, especially at SEC, the voice of your athletic program or whatever radio effort is very football-heavy. But he was like a good basketball announcer as well. And it's a rigorous schedule, but I just... I don't get it. I don't... The talent they have now is okay, but it's... Some of it's kind of annoying. Some of it's a little too Homer. You want your announcer to be a Homer, but I mean, you don't want them like... I felt there's too much like pep rally talk on the radio Saturday night. I'll see here. I have a very... This is Chris at Orange Beach, a very bear ball. You know, like gold, football, the voice of football, Tuscaloosa. So maybe running a lot of gold out of Alabama football radio. They should go to hell for it. It's a city called baseball game for the Yankees. Joy here. I used to list all the Alabama, Auburn and Alabama games. I just listed to Auburn. I possibly watch Alabama, tried listing. But with our Mr. Gold, I just can't... Without Mr. Gold, I can't get into it. J. Sir James will actually... Totally agree with you, Jeff. Eli Gold has truly missed. And then too does Bamber agree with you about Eli Gold. So it's like Chris Stewart's best game. Eli was told he slipped the past couple of years, not sure about that. I mean, just like, when you listen to Eli Gold, I mean, you could tell he was prepped and he had like... His methods were maybe antiquated. But the new broadcast is something very sterile about it. Even with the excitement, they are cheerleading Alabama for sure. And maybe that's what you want. But it feels so cookie cutter. I might as well be listening to Ole Miss or some other mid-major. And it doesn't really stand out. Chris Stewart's probably a nice guy, I'm sure. But the way that Eli Gold sort of was just dispatched and they didn't have like a ceremony. I mean, like, have like a last year and make a big deal out of itself. So town and country forward or whatever. Well, sponsors leaving. That was the problem that he couldn't... All these like classic Eli Gold sponsors, you know, you could hear them in your head. And maybe they weren't coming back. But I don't get it. I listen to most of the game on the radio on Saturday night. And who are the marquee... Essie, who calls college football anymore? It's like Learfield Communications taking a lot of these stations or whatever. And it's not as... It's not as iconic. Right? 2-5-1-3-4-3-0-1-0-6. We'll be right back. This is the Jeff Moore Show it. If it's talking about '06-5. I'm getting hammered, sitting right here at the floor of Pamela. At the floor of Pamela... I'll fly a starship... across the universe divide. And when I reach the other side... I'll find a place to risk my spirit if I can. I'll go back to the Jeff Moore Show it. If it's talking about '06-5, thanks for hanging out with us on this Monday morning. We do appreciate it. 2-5-1-3-4-3-0-1-0-6. You want to be in touch with the show? You just got to text me and I'll do my best to respond. Apparently, the most interesting, compelling topic of the day is... You like gold as the voice of the Crimson Tide, which I did not see coming. But I will just say... Listened to Alabama football and the way over Auburn this weekend. I don't know what happened there. Anyway, enough of that. Joining us now here in the Fair Hope Bureau. Always a pleasure to bring on my next guest. State Representative Jennifer Fiddler, a good morning representative. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Jeff? Doing well, doing well. Thanks for making time for us. We always appreciate you coming on. Let's kick it off here. I guess you've been really on the task here with at least a threat or a perception of resettlement, of Haitian migrants in Baldwin County. Got any news? Have you been able to figure out anything? Just to give everybody an update. I guess it all sparked with a meeting that was in the enterprise area that Jay Palmer had. Jay has a relationship with some Haitian ministers that informed him that we would have a thousand patients come to Baldwin County. So I started trying to figure out a little bit about the program and what it is is the Cuban Haitian,acs, they're from Baldwin and Venezuela, CHNV programs, two-year program that people in asylum, it's in a parole program that people can come in from those other countries. And they get moved over here to the United States and he made the comment that they were illegal. They're illegal in the sense that Congress did not approve and appropriate the funding for that. And then they're legal in the sense that the executive branch has approved it. Secretary Mayorkas has said, "Yes, it's okay." So we've had reports of this going on throughout Alabama, North Alabama, in a representative Robbins area in Silcaga where he has actually done some one-on-one interviews with some of those folks that could speak English. And so I'm just doing fact-checking. Is this true? I mean, we've got it from Mr. Palmer. And so we've been trying to find the point person at the federal level. I've reached out to the federal delegation, I've reached out to the governor's office, I've reached out to some of my Democrat colleagues, I've reached out to many people, I've reached out to some of my folks that own apartment complexes just to find out if there's anything that they've heard, anything they know of that's happening and who can I find, who is this point person. And basically, I've been told, "When you find them, let us know we'd like to talk to them too." Well, let me, I guess there's not much you could do at the state level, right? It's a federal issue, but thinking about what can the state do or what can local government do? No, I don't think the city councilman here in Fair Hope who signed that letter did himself any favors, even if he did it two years ago, that created this sort of, I don't know, rumor meal or whatever that's going on, but I think people want to know, well, traffic laws be enforced. Are we going to make sure people have drivers license to drive, or is it going to be chaos like Ohio? Is it zoning laws? I mean, there's like things where, you know, you saw how many people can live in a single family dwelling, those kinds of things that sort of lead to the, that are maybe like kind of the consequences of a big influx of people, what can the state do or what is the state, where does the state have any authority over any of this? I mean, so from your role, you look at state government, I don't know that there's much you can do, right? I've gotten a lot of ideas, for example, what is Florida doing? What is Texas doing because they are known to have the toughest immigration laws? So let's look at those. How do they differ? They've gone through court, they've made it through the court systems. Let's see what they've done. How about the NGOs? Do we have any regulation on these 501(c)(3)s, non-governmental organizations that are given money? Do you need like a business license and can you regulate that? I don't know, but those are questions that we need to vet. Because there's something we can do on that level, driver's licenses, tags, you know, is there something on that level that we can do? Yeah, I think there's a lot of things we can look at, absolutely. Well, that's a good point you make about the NGOs. I mean, they allegations out there, so this is just hearsay or whatever. If they are a decommissioning fraud by allowing people to come to places in Alabama and tell them that they have a job, a house, or whatever a place to live, just come on, get on the bus, and they're taking money from these people, and then they get here and it's not quite what they were told it would be, that's fraud. That seems like something that could be pursued by Alabama's criminal justice system, right? You know, that's a question. The one, I hope, but unfortunately, you know, I'm going to repeat this story that I had a colleague tell me, he interviewed one of the Haitians, and the Haitian told him that he had dropped in Florida, got flown into Florida, dropped, didn't know really where to go, what to do. I'm not sure where the sponsor is at this point, but didn't know where to go, he finds this person that says, "I will give you a job," they go get bused to silicauga, they live in, many of them, live in one home, so there's several people that can pay $100, $150 a month to sleep on the floor, they pay $75 a week, you know, to get to the job, and then he may work, he may not work, just, it's almost a form of indentured servitude, and so we need to be, it's not fair to them, it's not fair to the people that, you know, the communities that are, this is happening in, it's kind of, I think the fear was, oh my gosh, is there 1,000 people that don't know our culture, they don't have driver's license, or we don't know their culture. Right, all this, and who is the sponsor, because whenever I've done the research and talked to Congressman Barry Moore, he said, you know, they're coming here and they may not, we can't find the insurance form, so it's a burden on the rural hospitals, which are already in, you know, not so great shape across the state of Alabama, and they don't have insurance, so they may rack up a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of bills, or, you know, where, that's part of the issue, the sponsors need to be held responsible. Even if we abided by the federal law, which is stated, if you read the, about the, the program on the federal website, it talks about the sponsors are supposed to be, have insurance on these, we just can't find the people that are actually responsible, which is concerning to me, that's the, that is where I've been doing all the digging on that side, you know, I've gotten to the point where I'm about to call the Haitian Consulant and see if I can't, but if you're, you know, if we can't find on the federal side, or, you know, federal, federal delegation is telling me the same thing that I found, which is, can't find the, can't find anybody on that, and the, the point person over the program, it's, it's, it's not good, it's weird, right? Usually there is a chain of command or something, and this seems to be happening. Now, the way it's been explained to me, it's that whatever the federal government is doing, it's doing, but the pastor are these NGOs, and we're trying to like figure out, well, then, you know, what's that, that, that seems to be like, you find that link between the NGO and whatever agency bureaucrat or whatever in the federal government, and maybe you're making some progress, but that's, that's been the big mystery for a lot of these guys, and I, I don't know, I don't know what the answer to that is either. Yeah, we're still looking at it, and I have to say I appreciate Lieutenant Governor Ainsworth. He sent a letter to Secretary of Mayorkas telling him about this plight and how, you know, just not there it is. I don't know how many of you seen that. I did post it, and it was on X, but I appreciate him taking a stance and trying to find out, you know, what's going on and stopping the program until we can vet it a little bit better. He said so that was really important at the, the event you and I were at the other night, the point clear Republican women like, I think that they're trying to bring some of these Haitians here, but they're creating a dependency on the federal government. So, say Talladega County, for example, doesn't have the resources, the finances for an influx of Haitians, probably Bobby County can handle a little bit better than they can, but in a mass number, there's a lot of things that they will be able to cover. So good to the federal government and the federal government creates this dependency. Well, Ainsworth said, look, I'm not going to take a penny from the federal government. We're not going to make this like a thing in Alabama. And maybe that would be like a maybe a deterrence from settling here. I mean, go settle somewhere else, but not here because we're not going to take the assistance for the federal government. And I mean, maybe, I mean, that might be exactly what's happening. I have to say too, must say to everybody out there that the cities are mayor here, Mayor Sullivan has done some research of her own and talk to the cities and counties across the state because she's involved with the League of Minutes Pilates. And they have not reported a lot of crime or issues, you know, with the Haitians. So for the people that are out there that are like a little bit fearful, you know, we haven't seen a lot of problems. It's just the problems of where they live in. They don't know our culture. There's no really job form because sometimes they'll have a job at the poultry plant. And, you know, some, you know, they may not, you know, talking to my colleague, he said, you know, they may be working 20% of the time. And this other time, you know, they're just kind of, you know, sitting around. So trying, I guess not to get into trouble and enjoying our culture, but just interesting. Hey, it's a call out to anybody out there that may know who that point person is. Please contact our office 251904615 251904615. And let us know or text you, Jeff, you'll get it to me. Yeah. 2513430106 to this up on the text line. And I will pass that information along joined by state representative Jennifer Fiddler here on the program. I guess like the next question I would have is, have you heard from the governor or the AG or any of the like state level hierarchy about this? Are you, they send any, any signals? I have reached out to the governor, the staff, governor's staff. And the governor's staff has assured me that they do not know, you know, when these settlements occur or the influx occurs and they have little to no knowledge, they never get, you know, can attack. They never get contacted. So that is what I've heard. They did kind of reach out to some other agencies for me with the same answer. Well, what do you, I mean, nothing. The reason you're engaged in this, I assume is because your constituents are very concerned, right? Fair Hope City Council Monday night. Well, we, you know, they were, they had read the article in 1819 news and just and knew that Councilman, the Councilman, Corey Martin had sent a petition assigned his name on a petition. And that was for just to, on Corey Martin's behalf, that was for a Ukrainian program. He mentions, but that name on the petition, along with the thousand Haitians coming did create a lot of concern. And it all came to the city council meeting the two, right? Because he signed that letter, they must be coming to Fair Hope, which never really no one, but that was sort of the assumption that was creating a lot of people, right? They put those two things together. He's reread it in the, you know, in a, somebody saying it, right? And then you knew there was an invitation out there. Okay, let's wait a second. We're not happy with this. And so there's a lot of people here that's very concerned. And I've just started betting it on their behalf as a representative of the people and trying to find answers. I just, it, I've seen like these sort of hysteria is created in Fair Hope over the years. I'm sure you have to. And the city council here is the place where people go. Like this one was bigger than usual. Wouldn't you say standing room only, you know, seats outside the chambers there. So yes, and we did get off topic with some things throughout the night. But, but yes, there was, you know, we had a, that was a lively meeting, library books, drag brunches, you know, the Karen Wilson era, whatever, they were all like, you know, sort of high drama, but this one, I think drew a lot of people. I did. I mean, they were, there was a lot of social media going on. So, you know, day two days, three days before the meeting. So, yeah, I knew it was going to be quite a bit, but. And I mean, in those kinds of fits, I don't know what they could do, but they didn't seem I mean, they sat there and sat through it to their credit, but they didn't want to seem that like, still want to deal with this, you know, this isn't really, this is really is it our thing and we don't know anything about this. Kind of blame the messenger. But anyway, let's get a break in here. We got Jennifer Fiddler sitting in studio with us. We'll be right back. This is the Jetport show on FIT Talk, 10065. This WKRG Newsbreak is brought to you by Roy Lewis Construction, delivering on their guarantee to provide a commercial construction project that stays on task and on budget. For guaranteed quality from start to finish, call Roy Lewis Construction for your next commercial project. Welcome back to the Jetport show at FIT Talk, 10065. They should stay with us on this Monday morning. Text line, if you want to get involved, 251-343-0106, still with us here for the next few minutes. State Representative Jennifer Fiddler, we've exhausted the Haitian topic. What's going on? Elsa's going on in the district. Well, I wanted to make sure everyone knew that there was a resolution passed through the Republican Executive Committee. The resolution requests that the cities of Baldwin County and Baldwin County look at the taxes that are imposed on hearing aids and impairments. The state legislature removed the state sales tax on hearing aids and impairments for residents of Alabama because Florida and Georgia and all of our neighboring states imposed these taxes. So we felt like this would be an increase in business for our people here in the state of Alabama instead of going out of state. It would help the people that are on the lower socioeconomic level or the elderly to try to be able to better afford a way to be able to hear what's going on. There are so many people too that go out of the workforce because they have hearing issues. The resolution asks requests that the cities of Baldwin County and the Baldwin County Commission really look and study at how much revenue those taxes are bringing in. And if there's a way to see the benefit for the people versus the benefit for the city or the county, weigh those and make a decision on if we should remove those taxes for a short-term period, long-term time period, any partial time period. Our state law does have a sunset so it will run out so we can look and see what the impact is in a couple of years. So that passed at the Republican executive committee. I wanted to make sure everybody knew that. How much could the state or how much could these municipalities of these counties be raising from a hearing aid tax? The Baldwin County is going to be, of course, the biggest hit because it would be a county tax throughout the entire county. The city, some of that, is going to go to your school. So they're going to possibly really look hard at that. The cities, you know, that's going to be probably negligible. That'll really look at it. Now, this is like, are we really building our school system on a foundation based on hearing aid sales taxes? I don't know. But such as the tax code in Alabama, I guess. Yeah, you have to look at that. They'll have to, the accountants in the government, you know, the leadership will have to just look at it and see if it's something that they can get by with or not and make that decision. But this is just requesting that they take a hard look at it and consider, you know, the people's plight, you know, at that age in life. Usually, it's most of our folks wearing hearing aids are above U-65 or older. Well, what else you got for us, anything? Interestingly, I was invited to a documentary regarding the vaccine and any injuries that they may have caused. And that's put on by the Children's Defense Fund. I did that a couple of weeks ago. And I think it's going to come out in the next couple of weeks streamed. I keep an eye on that. Her city will always appreciate your time. We'll talk again soon. Thank you, Jeff. Y'all have a good morning. Well, you got to get a break in here. We'll be right back. This is FM Talk, 1-0-6-5. ♪ Excuse me, man, but where's the door? ♪ (upbeat music)