This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk. Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim
Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated educators talking education.
Yes, it is. Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated educators
talking education Monday, the week of July 4th, nations, independent celebration, fireworks,
all coming up this week, hot dogs on the grill, Johnny, you know, all those great things. I mean,
you know, some people like that, Stakes, Hammerhurst. Not all the tube stakes on the grill, man.
Sure people are coming. I'm going to be throwing a whole variety of things.
All right. Well, you know, it's a cookout time. It's basically all week long. We'll
starting Wednesday. I'll start kicking into it. And then, you know, Thursday and Friday,
we're going to be grilled. It's like, man, you're cooking out every day this week. Man,
I'm coming over. Holy crap. Okay. But you're going to wait till Wednesday to at least start.
Oh, you start. Yeah, we got some things. I got, well, I should throw in there. I got some,
I got some good veggie burgers. I got a couple of my, my own children who have, you know, gone
the vegetarian ones gone vegetarian ones gone vegan. So, uh, yeah, that makes sometimes planning
a family dinner a bit of, uh, you know what? We've got a little bit of this over here. We've got
a little bit of that over there. And, and for all of those, you know, hey, but it, yeah, happy,
you know, happy fourth week, Johnny, one of the things to remind people, um, where do you get
busted pencils? Well, go to civic media to the website. More importantly, though, to Johnny,
the civic media app, I feel like we haven't reminded people enough about how important it is to
download the civic media app, whether you're on an iPhone, whether you're on an Android type of phone,
you can get it download the civic media app. And with that, you can always have busted pencils
and all of the other great shows that go along with civic media. They're all right there,
writing your phone. You can listen all the time. And we said, just like our friends in Finland,
they listen on the civic media app to busted pencils. So that's the reality of how awesome the
civic media app is. Johnny, I know you have what, at least two or three different civic media apps
across all those phones. Oh, yeah, man, ask my smart speaker all the time to, you know,
scientific media stuff over the Bluetooth. Let's go. Let's listen to all these shows,
keep me up on like what's happening in politics of our country. But also, you know what's
happening over Wisconsin, where so many of our listeners are, hey, listeners, if you can,
subscribe to the civic media weekly digest to keep up with your local Wisconsin news and all
of our fantastic shows on the civic media radio network. So go to civicmedia.us slash email,
never miss a beat. Hey, and while you're on that, on that grind, get over to the civic media website,
check out their merch store by going to civicmedia.us and clicking store in the top right corner.
We love radio. We know you do too. Show that love and look great while you're doing it in a hat or
one of the six designs supporting refreshing hometown radio. And in fact, Tim, you can go and check
out busted pencils. Merch, right? What we're going to do for you listener, we're going to drop that
link in the description of the podcast that drops right after the show. The Tim, it's Monday,
you know, picking right up where we left off last week, Friday, you know, but before we jump into,
you know, still real and on the heels of the debate, talking about what's happening in this
country, how it's related to education, but also some things that are kind of growing out of
education, you know, this, you brought it up Friday and it's carrying heavily through the weekend,
this push from Christian nationalists, right, to really make state legislation. And now,
you know, I'm always saying, Tim, don't worry about this now. I mean, I don't know a lot, but
when it comes to education, remember, education is a state right. Well, we'd be remiss if we didn't
come back around to what we were talking about on Friday today and get back into what's happening
in Oklahoma, what's happening in Louisiana, what's happening in Texas? Because even though, you know,
I'm going to say, hey, education is a state right and there are lots of states who are pushing
back against that fundamentalist takeover. But, you know what, if it's happening in a nearby state,
it's likely to trickle. And I've said before on past shows, you know, we have a long legacy of
testing the boundaries in some of these states and then pushing out from there. And I,
I, you know, I share some of your concerns, Tim, that you brought up at the end of last week
with this sort of Christian nationalism that's being imposed on our public schools. And that's not
Tim and Johnny, being an anti-Christianity or anti-religion. But we're going to get into it tonight.
But before we get into it, Tim, you know, just how are you doing? That's the beginning of the week.
What's going on, man? I am, I am actually doing incredibly well today. The heat dome over my area
in Ohio has lifted and went out hiking this morning, 60 degrees in the morning for a hike.
Beautiful out there. It was like, this is the way it is. What a day to start a Monday. But I just
see, see Sherry, man, she's just dropping in a whole bunch of text messages. Sherry, we love you.
Sherry from Huracan out there. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about that, that king and,
and Johnny, we need a civics lesson. You know, it's thinking that one of the best places you can get
your awesome, like kind of civics lesson with friends. If you're in Madison, you go to the Madison
Monacoa Brewery, Madison Taproom. You can go there. Or, Johnny, as you always keep pointing out.
Now, too, if you happen to be all the way up in the North country, go to the Monacoa Brewery right
there on site. You know why? Because busted pencils is sponsored by the Monacoa Brewery Company.
Yeah. You know what? They are an awesome company. Monacoa Brewery Company is making Wisconsin
great again, one beer at a time. Check out Monacoa Brewery Company dot com to see where you can buy
their progressive beer. And Johnny, am I just looking at that right away? L.A. Tom has jumped on
the line before we've even really started. We haven't even started. Let's bring him on. Yeah.
Let's set the tone, L.A. Tom, set the tone. What's happening, my man?
Well, first off, guys, you know, you're right. You can listen to the Civic Media app everywhere
in the world. I'm from Wisconsin, small town, 2,000 people. And, you know, I mean, L.A. I've lived here
for years and I listen to the Civic Media every single day. And I love the actual factualness
of the radio station and everything that it brings in terms of conversation to people. And
actually shows a lot of sunlight, which is the best disinfectant for what's going on in this country.
I really wish that we could start calling these people anti-Christian nationalists because they
have nothing to do with the word Christian nationalist. And I think that, you know, I feel like
they're taking the Lord by God's name and vain. Number three, they're on the old commandments.
Because they're using Jesus' name in a way that he never really professed to be. If you
read Matthew 15 and you read some of the different things where Christ actually talked,
yeah, it doesn't. These guys are anti-Christian nationalists is what they are. They're anti-Christ.
That being said, that being said, you know, there should be a separation between church and state.
It's the bottom line. It's secular. That was the whole point of our country. And today's
Supreme Court goes and makes our president's king. And I want to ask, can Jill Biden actually now
go and I guess make an executive action to put on some sort of 13 circuit courts around the United
States, put 13 Supreme Court justices on the court right now?
Well, is it his official act? I mean, boy, LA Tom, thank you for the call right away and
hitting everything we plan on talking about tonight. Yeah, the Supreme Court ruling Christian
nationalism or anti-Christian. I know, Tom, it's all there. The question though, you know, so what
does this then imply for the current president, Johnny Lupinacci, president Biden? Does this give
the current president the ability to think creatively about what his duties are in office and how
he can execute them and how he might say, hey, look, it was part of my job, man. That's what I had
to do. I know I've been seeing a lot of speculation out there saying, what do these rulings actually
mean? Johnny, we are looking forward to actually really getting hard into that spot, you know,
particularly about that. Christian nationalism though, Tom, thank you. I think on that one, we really
need to talk about, you say separation of church and state, Johnny, kind of let us in on this one
to be talking about this, where are we going to come down on this because education, public education
is very specifically left to the states to decide in their state constitutions. And so what we're
seeing coming out of Texas, what we're seeing coming out of Louisiana, coming out of Oklahoma,
these are state actions. And Johnny, we're kind of putting this forward here to kind of tease
about them. So if a state takes the action on a public education issue, is that constitutional,
maybe is the first kind of generic question that we're putting out to everybody tonight,
listeners, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two. So yeah, you know,
just putting out there too. And yeah, just in case anybody missed it, busted pencils is sponsored
by Monacoa Brewing Company, who sued the state of Wisconsin to end that crazy voucher system.
Check it out though, you always like to give Monaco a little bit of heads up, a little bit of extra
room there. They absolutely are making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time. Check out
Monacoa Brewing Company.com to see where you can buy their progressive beer. Johnny, but that is
the question. I think we frame here coming into this. You know, we talked about it last week,
Christian nationalism, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, because these are state driven. I don't know,
you say policies or, you know, you must do commandments. I don't know if they're commandments,
but because the state has originated these policies, do they have a constitutional leg to stand on
in our public schools? I don't know, Johnny, I know we're coming up on the break here, but you
know, give you a last little bit here and to take us into the break. What are you, are you pushing
forward the idea? And I say pushing, are you putting forward the idea that maybe this is a state issue?
I mean, I believe wholeheartedly that education is a state right. That's how it currently exists.
That's how I want to remain. I think it will continue to be state to state. However, Tim, I think
some of these, you know, states belong to a country. And so some of these may have cases that kick
all the way up to the state Supreme Court. Maybe even hit the national Supreme Court. We certainly
can expect to see that in instances where we have like a mandate to include the 10 commandments in
a classroom, or that the Bible is a history book. I mean, these are things that I don't think will
make it past the state Supreme Court, but should they? They'll go to the Supreme Court at a national
level. I believe in that system. I think it's a good system. You know what, though, Tim, let's get
into the details because someone might be tuning in that didn't hear us last week. So we'll give
you a refresh and we'll get into this when we come back. Busted pencils.
I love it. Love it. Busted pencils. Fully let it education. Talk educated educators. Talk
in education. Hey, you want to jump on the horn and talk with Tim and Johnny. We're here 855-7524842.
And you know what, Tim? Mark from Paris is on the phone. Mark, what's happened in my man?
Yeah, I'm, you know, it's just, I'm just kind of, I'm not surprised, sadly, with the Supreme Court
dead, I figured they would find some way to carload, but I kind of make myself more familiar with
our Constitution over the past. Yes, since the walker days, I guess. I thought I'd copy the
federalist papers and started reading those. And what is shocking to me is they cherry-picked
a few phrases out of the federalist papers. You know, I guess they picked one out where the
something about the feeble presidency and feeble government. And you know, taking that out of
context that the voters clearly did not intend the president to be immune. They clearly did not
intend for him to be a monarch. There are enough examples in history of, of, you know, monarchs going
against the rules and that it is just sad. I mean, that, I mean, but King's actually was subject
to law and punishment. I mean, example, I don't know, but I brought up on your program, but Henry
II was ripped for his complicity in the murder of Commiss Beckett. I mean, he, you know, threw an
off-hand comment. Well, somebody written on me of this quarrel was monk or priest and it's also
Mike, Mike's took that upon themselves to go and murder Thomas Beckett when he was at prayer.
I mean, Charles II, of course, of England lost his head because he defied parliaments. I mean,
our phone and getting to the religious issue, our phone just clearly intended this to be a
secular democracy. I mean, that I've just been falling into, to the age of reason by Thomas
Payne and even though that, and he kind of was taking the Bible to task, you know, that why should
be it so admiring of these people that did some pretty horrific things? I mean, that, you know,
that apparently in numbers, you talk about the Exodus is that the Jewish people are at some kind
of war with the Midnight. So this is before the event that Israel got back to Israel, but I mean,
that Moses ordered his troops to murder all the men, murder all the boys, murder any of the women
who had known men and take, you know, and the virgin girls and girl babies were there to take,
but everybody else they could slaughter. Mark, man, he has loaded up. I always love when Mark calls
Johnny because he has got so much content and it always makes me go back to the original busted
pencils. I could hear somebody going like, this is an education talk show. What are you guys doing
with all this history, world history and politics? Like, hey, check it out though. Johnny and I,
man, we're old original social studies teachers. So when Mark calls and brings up so much information,
you know, before we though really go into the Supreme Court ruling, though, I still think we
have a little bit more to talk about on the Christian nationalism and what happened last week
in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana and putting this forward. And Mark, I'm going to agree with you,
and then we're going to let Johnny kind of take this on. I agree with you that that was supposed to
be a secular democracy and that there was supposed to be separation of state church and state.
What's coming up here is that these mandates or these kind of curriculum issues or
impositions or whatever you want to call it are originating out of the state. Now,
in what we've pointed out is that public education is a state right. I hate using that word states,
right? But it comes out of the state. And so these policies got their breath of life
at the state level. And so does that put forward then the possibility that they are
constitutionally okay? Johnny Lupinachi and you were kind of messing around or starting to dig at
that before we went into this first break. Absolutely. And I love Mark's call, you know,
Mark, thanks for listening. Thanks for calling. And thanks for sharing the knowledge that you have
because of all this week, Tim, and probably, you know, more often than not as we're in this important
moment in our in our history right now as a country and as a democracy. I'm going to keep bringing
this up. And it's deemed for this week, right? This is the week of the fourth. This is a week of
patriotism. Patriotism means more than it's often touted to be. And I want to thank Mark for being
a patriot. And I'm going to do that a lot this week, setting a good example of what what America
means for generations to come, right? How can we set that example? And one of the things that Mark
called and contributed, which is really important, is in this moment that we're in where we're
going to, you know, I said last week, I'm going to keep coming back around to it. The kind of
politics that we're witnessing is a real, you know, concerted effort towards tyranny towards,
you know, a fascist state. And I want to reserve some of that extreme language, you know, and
minimize as often as I use it, but to call it the right thing, you know, an authoritarian government
or really a fascist state, see a real converging on, you know, issues, especially Tim when we talk
about education, we see a real converging on almost one party. There's extreme pollers, but the
masses are kind of converging. And you think, well, that sounds good. It's actually a dangerous
thing, right? And I love what Mark does calls and shares that information that's rooted in historical
truth. But an even more important than than the information that Mark's sharing is his, again,
being a patriot and setting that example to investigate listener to an end to civic media, sure.
But on your own to elsewhere, figure things out, spend more time with long articles,
subscribe right to to print media, subscribe and, you know, and realize that some of what's on
the internet is out there to harm you. So you have to really commit to discerning information,
right, and learn what you can and take responsibility for what you communicate with others. I love
that Mark did that. He's sharing important history, right, that helps us all be better patriots.
And that's really, really important in this moment. So coming back around to him to what we're
doing, and I'm going to lean on this in this week of, you know, celebrating patriotism. One of the
really important things, I know you and I do this because we call, you know, public education
and institution, right? It is a better off of democracy. One of the really important things,
every single listener out there separate from your party affiliation. But as your active patriotism,
right, one really important thing in addition to all of things we're talking about is that you
commit to defending institutions, right? It is institutions that help us preserve democracy,
right? Institutions don't live on their own. They need our help, right? And I don't speak of
institutions in this sort of broad sense. I'm really saying unless you make them yours by acting on
their behalf. So when we talk about the importance of democracy, unless an LA time reminds us of this,
unless we, the people take responsibility to be the government, then we're just kind of pointing
at these empty institutions and hoping that they do good. And that's just simply not how it works.
We have to invest in our institutions. They don't protect themselves. They fall one after another,
unless we defend them and they're defended from the beginning. So listener, this is my challenge
to you as a patriot this week. Choose the institutions that you care about, whether it's court,
a newspaper, a law, a union, a profession, you know, Tim and I already pledged. We're defenders
of public education. We're here to defend that institution. We're here for the good, the ugly,
the successful, the hope, and we're constantly kind of just diving into it so we can have a better
public institution for that stronger democracy. So lots of good conversation from the listeners.
Hey, if you want to join us 855-755-2442,
hop on the horn, give us a call, join the conversation. Ten of my prompts, we're gonna get to this.
We're gonna get to this. We're going to get to this. We are. We're going to get to his
and bible's in the classroom stuff, but this is an important week, right? So folks, stay with us.
When we come back, we're going to dive more into it. Busted pencils, fully education,
load it up. Let's talk.
Yeah, got a love antiflag. What is that song? Christian Nationalist, man. You're no better than the rest.
What Neo Christian Nationalist? Oh, you know, and 855-755-2442, give us a call. Man, we are talking
everything going on right now. It's the week of patriotism. As we say July 4th coming up,
Christian Nationalism, biblical, all these things going on. But Johnny, right before the break,
though, you made a really clear point that just helped me understand my purpose in life. You
talked about us defending the institution of public education. And the way you frame that you said,
whether it's good, whether it's bad, whether we need to make it better, the institution of public
education is absolutely paramount for defense because it is the bedrock of democracy.
And that just came across to me in a way. Holy crap. Now I feel even more empowered to get on
the radio every night of the week and talk about this because it's an institution that is essential
to democracy. It is the bedrock, so the public education. So yeah, these institutions that we're
talking about here all the time. Johnny, so thank you for helping me out on that one from giving me
some clarity, man. Absolutely. Tim, it's like the justice league here. Man, you just got to pick your
institution and you got to wrap it. You got to go hard, right? And like, I mean, if you think about
it and I know it sounds funny, it sounds like like one big giant ad, but it isn't. It's really what
we talk about. If you think about civic media, right, with a commitment to hometown radio refreshed,
but really with a focus on strengthening democracy, you know, like staring face to face with
polarization in this country, saying, Hey, how do we talk to one another? How do we learn from
one another? How do we have trustworthy information? And how do we have defenders of institutions
of democracy that are experts on those that have fully committed to defending it on all the time?
So you think about like our friend Maggie Don, a legal expert, a defender of law, right? And
thinking about the ways that we each defend democracy. Tim, you know what, we're really big on
the education, the institution of public education. But together, it's sort of like a justice league
of folks who care a whole lot about this country, care a whole lot about and believe in the power of
democracy. You know, Tim, and I also want to come back. Whoa, whoa, there it is. It's true as the bell rings,
Tim. Oh my gosh, you know what happens every third segment. Sometimes we miss you. Sometimes you
miss the bell. You're tardy for class. But we caught it today, right on time. Oh, defenders of
institutions, Tim, be the best patriot you can be. That is the lesson today. That's democracy
and action. When you commit fully to we the people are the government, right? And that's the
most important thing when we have these discussions that we're having them, right? But then we're
going to go with it. Democracy and action, having that that that energy, Tim, that you just spoke
about to defend your institution, right? All right. And just like that, we got Joe Ann from Madison.
Joe Ann joined the conversation. What's happening? Thank you so much. I've got a little point to
make and then a bigger observation. The little point is that we're being conservative. You know,
if we came down from a different planet and we saw that word conservative, we think, oh,
the political party that's trying to save public education that's trying to save democracy.
That's the conservatives, right? Well, that seems a little twisted because we very much think
of ourselves as being progressive, et cetera. But the larger point is that the discussion here is
priceless to hear people in a calm manner, sort out these principles bringing in these ancient
meaning, you know, ancient and time, whatever timeless principles as well as modern day expressions.
It's wonderful. So thank you so much for what you're doing. You're talking us off the ledge.
Those of us who have been upset about the last few days. Thank you.
Absolutely. Joe Ann, I love that. Thanks for listening. Thanks for calling. Thanks for always
bringing your wisdom to the conversation. And I like what Joe Ann brings up, especially when we
talk about being a defender of an institution. I want to pitch this back out there, Joe Ann. I
think it's really important to think that we don't need to save it because a lot of what's going on
and it needs to go away. We need to defend it. We need to think of the core principle. Why do public
schools exist? Why does the institution of public education exist? And then we defend. We defend
by making it the best possible education system it can be. That's the truth for anything. If we think
about it in like a sports metaphor and anything else, right? You don't save the game. You play
defense to win the game. You play to be in it. So we have to always be thinking. And this is again
how I want to reframe it and Joe and comes to join. Second point, appreciate your props,
Joe Ann in recognition because that's the conversation we all need to have. How do we remain calm?
Right? We lean on our skill sets that hopefully, I think many of us, we learned in public education
to hold space for difference and to deliberate, to have conversations that are there, I say,
civil. In this day and age, to have this kind of conversation, to have it in a regulated way,
a way where like our emotions and our rational thinking are kind of balanced out and we're able
to think through it, we're really able to model something that is pretty radical. We're really
able to model this whole idea of that, hey, we can disagree, but we are here to share our passion,
our patriotism for better possibility. And so if we think about it, I want to think about it like
radical conservatives, we're not really trying to conserve a public education system that's not
worked for so many. We are trying to defend and fight hard for a great public education system.
Just ask the question, what is the purpose of public education and democracy? What's the
relationship between those two? And let's fight hard to have it. So that's the one, I just want
to come back on that in terms of conservatives do want to like preserve the past, but the past
does not really work. The idea was there, but we want to stoke the flames right and let that
fire ignite that public education can be and it will be a strong institution with democracy
for future generations. Man, Johnny Lupinacci, okay, I love it. I love it. Joanne, thank you so much
for the call and thank you, too, for the kudos. I put down here, too, though, and Johnny, yeah,
when she said saving it, we're not saving as much as we're defending, but then the idea of
conserving, but when you use that word institution, there is something there that says there are
something sacred about an institution that was put forward as an idea, right? An ideal public
education. And we know it's not it's not complete. It's not finished yet. It's not great the way
it could be, but the institution that was put forth about public education, should we conserve
institutions? And I think just playing on those words, though, makes it really interesting in today's
politics because it is kind of funny that the tearing down of institutions that is happening
right now seems to be happening from those who were supposed to conserve our institutions. And so
the tearing down of the institutions is, you know, again, lots of plays on word there, words there,
lots of different plays on the word can serve, but the idea of an institution, and this is where
Johnny bringing it back to the idea of this institution for us, particularly on busted pencils.
And as you say, the justice league of everybody on civic media doing their bit for all institutions,
but what we do here every night, that institution of public education because of its foundation to
democracy, L.A. Tom is just buzzing up with all kinds of texts in there.
Good job being a democracy warrior, Tom. And I think that's a great way to put it. And I love
this, Tim, we're talking about, if you think about, we're not conserving the institution that was
right, valuing, valuing the reason those institutions exist and the potential that they have. So
if we think about democracy, let's just do a civics lesson, one on one. There you go.
Street level definition for democracy. Decisions being made by those directly impacted by the
decision. I'm going to say it one more time. Street level definition for democracy. Decisions being
made by those directly impacted by the decision. Okay. So public education is supporting our
aptness, our skillfulness, our, you know, our, how successful we are at that difficult task,
right, of holding value to difference into making decisions. Everybody has a voice and everybody's
voice is valued. Everybody has a responsibility to participate in that decision making and the
decision making ought to be made in the interest of the common good. Preserving or saying defending that
is sometimes means doing away with institutions. And so if we're looking at public education,
we're saying it might mean in some cases stripping it way down because if we look historically,
public education has been a mechanism for sorting the elite, right? For dragging kids for,
you know, doing harm to black and brown bodies to not having space for women or anybody that
identified differently or identified differently than straight white men, right, suffer in a lot
of our school systems. But if we're to say, you're going to defend, we're going to be defenders of
an institution of a public education that complements democracy. Decisions being made by those directly
impacted by the decision being made. Everybody has a voice, every voice is valued. That's going to
mean radically rethinking what schools look like. And I'm here for them all the energy, right? And so
that's like, I like the joy and brought this up because sometimes, you know, we want to be really
clear, are these two guys nostalgic for a past school system? It's like, oh, no. But let's say we're
right or die for public education. And what that means is that we're going to go really hard because
it's possible, right, to do better. And we know we can and we will, right? So I love that LA
Tom's got fast thumbs in the text line. He's on the horn. He's also on the text. We love that
from our listeners. Hey, if you want to give us a call, you know what? Hey, give us a call.
Call it 857524842. Chop it up with Tim and Johnny.
Kicking it, Johnny, I love. Yeah. I love what you just said, though, too. We are here for it and
pointing out to kind of the theme of busted pencils because yeah, we're going to defend the
institution of public education because of its commitment to democracy. But we are here for it.
And in fact, anybody who's listens to listens to the show or has listened over the years knows
that our vision of public education that we're here for it, how we stop the sorting, how we stop the
harm, how we move into an inclusive space, how we elevate what it means to be educated as opposed
to being schooled or dealing with what happens in that type of shuffling around of situations that
isn't great for kids, isn't great for families, isn't great for communities. We're here for it.
Every night of the week, it is, in fact, the discussion. And this is where you are welcome to call
this show anytime because we are defending the institution of public education. But we are here
for it every night for a discussion about what would make that institution more,
more better, stronger, more equal, more inclusive, more liberating. That's what we're doing here
all the time, Lupinachi. That's what I love the way you said that.
Well, I love it, Tim. And what I want to point out here for listeners, too, because we're kind
of holding class. You know, we're riffing off one another and we've had all weekend to really
digest, you know, the explosion, the lackluster fireworks displays of the debate on Thursday.
And then, you know, all of the fire that came out of the Supreme Court decision today,
or the, you know, as we discussed it all day on the radio today. And, you know, we've been,
we've been really grappling with what does it, what does immunity mean in all of these things?
But what I want to come back to is I mentioned it last week. And I want to really point readers
or listeners to be readers and give them some, some context for some of the things that I'm
especially bringing into tonight's show is, you know, there is a really great, it's a snappy short
book called On Tyrony by Timothy Snyder. And there's a link to a short version of 20, 20 important
points to consider if you're really serious about defending democracy. So we're really drawn
heavily from that. We want to share more of it. We want you, the listener to check it out.
We think it's really important that we be our best patriots this week, especially with it being
the fourth, and we commit to defending institutions of democracy. Hey, listeners, stay with us.
When we come back, we get more into it. Busted pencils, fully-led at education talk when we get back.
Yeah, here we go. Tim's digitized it happens. You know what? It's the it's the curse of the internet.
No matter what we do, there's always going to be some kind of little digital interference.
It's probably because there's so much energy. It's so much static on the airways,
little breaking news for folks. We can't quite get into the content yet because Tim and Johnny,
we're on air live with you. We're going to catch up. But you can be sure to stay tuned to civic
media to get the details and chop it up with shows to follow afterward. You know, our guy,
Peach Schwab. I'm sure he's going to be talking about it. But with the breaking news, thank you,
LA Tom for the tip. You know, Joe Biden is speaking right now as we're talking and you're listening
on the radio. You know, President Joe Biden is speaking. He's sharing his remarks related to
the Supreme Court decision and to the immunity. So we just wanted to mention that, you know,
stick with us. We got a few more minutes and then we're going to be talking to more about that
on civic media. You can guarantee that. So Tim, we lost you for a minute there. It looks like I'm back.
And you know what? I'm out to shout out to Sandy from Minneapolis who gave us a call.
But I was on one man. I was fumble following the words all over the place and talking about my
guy Timothy Smite Snyder and where our listeners can get more about these 20 points that he makes
that help us e stronger patriots that help us to a better understand our civic duty, especially with
the rise of tyrannical governments. And I want to just emphasize, I don't, I don't use that word
lightly. I don't kind of throw that around with hyperbole or to emphasize extremism. I really mean
it. It's we're at a critical moment in this country's history where we're highly divided. You know,
we're not always making much sense and the debates kind of encapsulated that for us. We got to listen
to diverse groups of people. We got to listen to future generations. We've got brilliant, brilliant
young people, right? Really advocating for for strong democracy everywhere amongst that. And
it's not just about age because we got a wise fellow on the phone who's a regular caller Jack
from Merrimack. We got Jack on the phone. Sorry, we missed you Sandy, but we got you Jack. So Jack,
what's happening, my man? I had just had a comment or two about the so-called debate, which really
wasn't. They could have done better with an AI as a so-called moderator. By definition,
a moderator is somebody who sets rules and standards would be to call out somebody that's lying
all the time. And that just didn't happen. This result of this debate, the media, great
media, they Trump won. Well, that's like saying a football team broke about every rule on the field.
And when they were caught at a light and said, oh no, I didn't. And they won the game. And the media
says, yeah, these guys won. I mean, this is ridiculous. There should be absolutely, if there is
another debate, and if Trump wins, we'll never see another debate. There's no question about
that. At least not in my life. I'm an old guy. But anyway, the point is, if there is another debate,
one of the minimal rules has got to be real time fact checking.
Jack from Merrimack, thank you so much for that call, man. Yeah, Johnny, you know,
right, the whole fact checking part that just didn't happen during that debate. A lot of people
have called that out, you know, and is that an issue, you know, and did that potentially even kind
of make the exchange even a little bit more complicated for, you know, to hear what President Biden
was actually trying to get across at that, you know, at the debate. You know, yeah, I don't know,
it's it, but Jack, we appreciate the call. It's busted pencils. It's fully letted education talk.
Johnny, you look like you got breaking. I want to talk a little bit more about this really
briefly. And then we'll get to it. We got another caller. The phones are ringing the night,
and I love that because it's the oxygen action, right? Our, our, there you go. We share these
conversations. But what Jack brought up is really important. And listen, if you didn't get a
chance to hear the show Friday, go back, grab the podcast from Civic Media. I gave six points
that really stood out to me from the so called debate from the presidential, you know, election
campaign trail as it is right now. And one of those is the dangers of just repeated lies. And
it, and I want to say this really clearly, it's intentional because it's, it's a, it's a strategy
and tactic that can be used. If I hit you Tim with 15 points that are all over the place,
right? And that are unfactual. The amount of energy and the speed you have to debunk those lies.
You have to kind of figure out truth from life. You know, it's kind of got you discombobulated
in all around. It's like, where do I respond to this? This is a bunch of lies. And I love Jack's
analogy. It is like a football team getting on the field and just deciding the rules don't apply
to them. They're going to do what they want. And even still losing in that, they're going to say,
guess what? We won. And the media is going to be like, you know what? I think they did. And so
strengthen up media. Let's get stronger about this. Hey, do we got time? Let's get Steve.
Oh, we lost Steve. Now we lost Sandy. We lost Steve. Still listening. Sandy and Steve.
Now we got to get you on quicker. So call in early on the show. Let's get you on because we want
you part of the conversation. We love that you're listening. We love that you're giving us a
call. Caller, if you want to call anytime, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four,
two, give us a call. Also, if you're in the Madison area or you're up in Monacoa,
and you just want to sit down and talk in real person, which is another one of those really
important acts of patriotism is getting out and connecting in a corporal way, engaging in
corporal politics, getting the body out from behind the computer and going and having a copy
with somebody going on a walk, you know, sitting and talking with people, small talk matters. You
know where you can have some great small talk about politics, Monacoa Brewing Company.
There are big time advocates for public education and democracy in this country. They're working hard
to build community and to make great beer. Tim, you know what? It's always my nightmare because
that there's only going to be one beer left. Well, you know what? There's no beer left. Monacoa
Brewing Company. They've always got one ready to go for you. You can be that you can
Fourth of July can be double fist in Monacoa Brews. I know I'm going to have a hope. No.
Hey, no driving. Be careful. Maybe drink responsibly. No driving. But throw back the Brews.
It's going to be celebrating patriotism by defending institutions. More of that all week long
when you join us on busted pencils. Tim, love kicking off the week with you, my guy. Let's have
a big week. Busted pencils, fully let it education talk. See you tomorrow.