Allowing “lead” to lead in harming our children (Hour 1)

Good morning and welcome to the Earl Ingram show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

That's 855-752-4842.

You can text us at that same number.

Good morning to you, Cardi.

How you doing, man?

Man, I'm blessed to be here, man.

Another great day.

It's Wednesday, man.

How you feeling?

I'm

doing fine,

man.

You know, you

can, you can almost tell the difference outside.

in six or seven degrees.

I mean, it's not that big a difference, but maybe it's just all in our minds.

I feel like that too though, but I'm still gonna keep my pockets or my hands in my pockets.

Yeah, man.

Well, you know, so, you know, I was watching some young people yesterday.

Okay.

And they were wearing these things called skinny jeans.

I

don't

know.

Robert, you might know a little something about skinny jeans.

I don't know anything, you know, and they can't get their hands all the way in their pockets because they're wearing skinny jeans.

Amen.

No gloves, hoodies.

It must be nice to be young because you can get away with it.

But anyway, it's it's wins.

had skinny jeans over 40 years.

So it's Wednesday, and that means I'm joined by at least one member of the crew of get the lead out.

And that's Robert Miranda.

Hey, good morning to you, Robert.

Where's the rest of the crew, man?

Oh, today, Dr. Yana and Paul are in Washington, DC, doing some important work.

They wished everyone a

Wonderful week and and we're very sorry not to be here today, but they will be on next week for sure.

Yeah, you know, Robert, we got a special guest.

Mr. Derek

Byer.

Good morning to young man.

How are you?

Good morning, Earl.

Thanks.

for having me.

Yeah, I can refer to him as a young man, Robert, because he doesn't have his hair is still all one color.

His beard, his hair, you know.

So, so, so listen, listen, guys, this serious business, as always, Robert, here we've got

You know a situation happening in this nation that is serious business and we've got a man two people in place That are really dismantling all of the things Excuse me that safety nets For the American people and they're doing it to people who voted to them you can imagine

if they're gonna do it to the people who voted for them, what they do to the rest of the people.

And all I can do, Robert, is talk about in the city where we live, man, coming towards this winter, I saw people out, man, working like busy beavers, replacing lead laterals, man.

I mean, it was...

you know, just what you had envisioned and others, what we wanted to see.

And it was happening, right?

It wasn't what we had heard from the mayor 70 years it would take to do that work.

We were watching this happen before our eyes.

And now there's a man in office who's taking all that away, man.

You say

what?

Well, you know, it's not just this man, it's the billionaire class that is supporting him.

These billionaires are dead set in raking in all those taxes back into their pockets, you know, must especially, you know, that guy, my understanding is that he pays out about $10 billion or more in taxes.

And he wants to bring that back into his pocket.

This guy has aspirations to be the world's first trillionaire.

And he wants to have the government fund his SpaceX programs and live off the government dime instead of investing his own money to achieve that.

And so in order to...

give this guy his opportunity and for the government to pay for his corporations' abilities to achieve what he wants without him paying a dime out of his pocket, he's going to strip the rest of us of all of our safety nets and all of the programs that help create stability in this country, social stability.

And, you know, for him, I'm good to go for me, damn the rest of you people.

You know Robert the the tragedy in it is You know the numbers you you have been at the vanguard fighting Before the lead problem in the city of Milwaukee in city Milwaukee being one of the highest ranking cities with lead poison in To children and we were watching this change happen And we know now that the heart is going to be there, right?

I was

I was at an event the other day with the county executive, and he was talking about the impact of what he sees already, where dollars have stopped coming into the county.

Well, you know, the county has a budget of $1.4 billion, and it covers a lot of different things, a lot of, and there are many people, Robert, if it wasn't for the county,

you know, in this country, in this city, probably couldn't make it, right?

I mean,

there's a lot of struggling people, yeah.

Yeah, a lot of struggling people out there, a lot of people working two, three jobs, a lot of people wearing down because they're working two, three jobs, you know, they need help.

And, you know, when you're working that much, your body can only take so much.

And, you know, you start to wear out and you start to burn out.

And so, you know, when you put that kind of stress on people's lives and take away their ability to be at home and nurture their kids and do what needs to be done to raise a family that becomes more productive in our society, you take away all that.

Then you get more chaos in the streets, more underachieving in the schools.

The economy that these people in power today don't care about.

All they care about is how they're going to bring the money back that helps families in this country back into their

pockets.

You know, Robert, in this instance, we're going to we're talking about the fact that they were addressing the lead issue.

Right.

And and.

They're interrupting that.

Right.

Donald Trump's goal and Elon Musk's goal is to stop it.

Right.

And right in midstream, Robert, holds Doug, but now they put a halt on work.

And they don't even, and they're not going to be able, your thoughts, man, about, you know, and making sure that people in this audience understand what's at stake.

when children are exposed to lead?

What's at stake is their health.

I mean, it's not just a children's health, but also adults that are also going to be impacted health-wise by this.

This is coming at a time when he not only wants to cut all these other social programs, but he's also looking at cutting Medicare and Medicaid.

Oh

yeah, oh yeah.

you know when you put again stress like that in communities when you have people being poisoned by lead who are going to eventually need medical help and there's nowhere for them to get the help.

when their wallets and their bank accounts don't allow for them to pay for that.

You have many, many people out there who are going to be walking around in our community sick, who are going to be walking around in our community unable to work because they are sick.

And this is a tragedy.

This is just unheard of in the world's most richest country that we're moving in this direction.

It's crazy.

You know, Derek, you're a former teacher in Milwaukee public schools.

Tell us a little bit about the stories, you know, and the things that you saw take place.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I've been in the get the let out coalition since its inception.

So it's been some years now.

But what really fired me up on this issue was my experience in the public schools.

I was

teacher at Bayview High School for three years.

That's a school that has some disproportionate, you know, socioeconomic issues, high levels of students on IEPs or special education.

And you could talk to any experienced special education teacher in the city and they'll tell you that in those IEPs, you'll see lead, lead, lead, lead.

It's kind of a known issue by people working in these buildings.

To add to that experience though, you know, and I taught in the alternative education department there, some night school.

So, you know, I was dealing with a lot of our students that, as Robert was saying, just don't have much room, if any, to fall back or they really need these supports you guys were mentioning.

Um, so around 2017, um, as I was kind of getting educated with this wet issue, uh, news broke, uh, that MPS had done a, um, a, uh, like city-wide testing of water specifically.

Um, and in those tests that, you know, this article, it can be Googled pretty easily.

In those tests, they found rampant water.

And to add, add to that, um,

One of the bubblers that I sent students to every day and drank from as I walked into the class, just like anyone else, they had to put a filter on that for high levels of lead.

They had a sink in the, is like a old science room.

That sink was just spewing high amounts of lead.

So, you know, you're thinking about those people now, not just some numbers, you know, we know we're higher than the national average as is.

But now you're putting things together like these struggling students, you know, who need to be going to a building that's safe, you know, that bottom line like Civilization 101 should not be making that, harming their health just to get a sip of water.

And so that's kind of where I'm coming in.

There's like a passion that adds to it when it's personal.

You know, Robert.

And I want you to respond to this on the other side mark says if there was a true lead poisoning crisis You'd have people lining up with health issues.

This whole thing is a scapegoat, you know the ignorance and in in inhumane realities of people They they frustrate me You know to the end Robert that somebody

who is not around it and may be blessed at his children, aren't exposed to that, doesn't have enough humanity in himself that he can make statements like that.

Robert, I give you a chance to respond, 855-752-4842.

You're tuned in to get the lead out on The Earl Ingram Show.

Hey, welcome back to the Erlingham Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

You can text us at that same number I'm joined by my good friend, Robert Miranda.

Get the lead out.

And also, Mr. Derek Byer, get the lead out.

And you know, when a guy makes a statement like this person, Mark, who is so uncaring,

And even more so, Robert, ill-informed.

A guy who really does not know.

And so he chimes in.

If there was true lead poisoning crisis, you'd have people lining up with health issues.

This whole thing is a scapegoat.

Hey, Mark.

There are people with health issues throughout this nation, and it is because of lead poisoning.

Hey man, Google.

Google lead poisoning.

And you constantly talk about how smart you are and how many degrees you have.

A degree doesn't make you smart.

And you're a perfect example of somebody with letters behind his name, who's not a very bright person, because you can make stupid statements like the one you just made.

Robert, you want to respond to

that?

That's exactly right.

You're spot on.

People like Mark are very short-sighted.

They make comments that are uninformed.

And these people like Mark are the people

that Trump and Musk cater to.

These are the people that they seek out, you know, the poorly informed, the poorly educated.

Like Trump said, he loved the poorly educated because he plays on their ignorance.

And, you know, Mark's personal ignorance is based on his inability to, as you say, not care about the rest of the community.

He only cares about himself and what he sees around him.

And that blinds him to how what is going on around in society will eventually impact him personally.

And until it smacks him upside the head and cracks his gourd open wide so his brain could get some oxygen, right?

Then he'll start to realize, oh, that is a serious problem.

Let's see.

His statement just shows his ignorance and, you know, lead is a toxin, a poison that many peer-reviewed studies out there show does impact behavioral issues with children, does impact the educational achievements of children.

Many peer-reviewed studies out there show that lead plays a role in

crime in our streets.

There are many studies out there.

So Mark talking that nonsense that he talks just basically illustrates exactly his ignorance and shows that he, like others like him, have no clue about what they're talking about and just spew their nonsense.

into the public arena, only to expose more of their ignorance and stupidity.

You know, you educator, especially special ed, when you look at all the children who are diagnosed in our society now, special ed, it wasn't, I mean,

it's worse than it's ever been.

And as you stated, you see the statistics and many of them, you see lead has played a role in, in that lack of development.

Is it safe to say that?

Absolutely.

It's safe to say that now there's, you know, there's clearly a health records laws, HIPAA laws that we can't just open up the books and all that, but, um,

definitely it's a it in Bayview for example I believe the year I left it was 2015 there was about 35 a give or take the whole population of the the students that had special education IEPs and within those IEPs I wasn't special education I want to be clear I was alternative at a little different but

I served those kids and would sit in those meetings and when I got involved with lead I obviously stay in touch with my former colleagues and lead lead lead they were Really pushing that issue to the forefront to my head that this you know We don't want to say this is what did it but it's a symbol of everything right like Robert said lead is

There's UWM research that says it correlates to violence.

It correlates to learning outcomes.

And so it is disappointing to still hear people like Mark or whoever that is kind of downplay the seriousness when there's mountains of research.

We've had presidential visits on just lead here in this city.

I personally have kind of moved on from the haters Earl.

It's not right.

I think most of the city wants this toxin removed and it's kind of just the Roman Empire knew that this had to be done.

So I've kind of just put these people kind of to the wayside.

This issue continues to move forward, in my opinion.

You know, I think it's very well said, Derek and Robert.

You know, I wish I could let it roll off my back.

I like that.

It's probably, you know, a lot more advantageous to do it from that perspective than, than to let it get under your skin.

But just the fact, man, that babies and children do no fault of their own, man.

Okay.

There's nothing to do with it.

And, and, and people who are poor in this society are still American citizens and, and they, and they have equal value.

I don't care what the people with money say they have equal value in this society because number one first the human beings Number two, they're Americans and and nowhere I've read Does it say anything about well the poor Americans?

Lives are less valuable than the rich Americans that mentality has to be challenged So so guys hang on eight five five seven five two forty eight forty two Robert Miranda and Derek Byer

of Get the Let Out coalition and you on The Earl Ingram Show.

you

All right, welcome back to the Earl Ingram Show.

As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Text us at that same number.

My guest is my good friend Robert Miranda of Get the Lead Out.

And we've also been joined by Mr. Derek Byer also of Get the Lead Out coalition.

Before we go to the phone lines, Robert.

You know, you've been fighting this battle.

How many years now, man?

We started in 2015, so it's almost 10 years now.

And I

remember when you started and the fight and the lies and the distortions and the allegations against your character.

And all those things.

that that people who who clearly didn't want the truth to get out.

Right.

Yeah.

And we still have people like that.

Yeah.

And so what are they?

What is that again?

Robert by by, you know, not wanting the truth, especially, you know, I understand government.

They've got they've got a reason they've got.

some financial reasons that they don't want the truth to come out for, but average citizens.

Well, you know, the average citizen is unaware a lot about all this stuff.

It's not something that they hear about all the time.

So it gets them by surprise and they tend to question.

I can understand them.

I can understand the average citizen.

questioning and doubting and suspecting and wanting to see that the proof of what I was saying during those times is real and it is truthful.

It's the people who know that are the danger to this community, that are the danger to our society.

They know different.

They know better and they know the truth.

But rather than

move forward with the truth.

They'd rather attack the messenger with the truth and they do that because most of these people tend to want to carry favor with power and they want power to see them as an ally to power.

And so those people are the people that mostly come out and try to assassinate.

once character, try to defuse and destroy the message that's being put out there that are the most hideous and insidious in our community.

Those are the people who do a disservice to the average citizen who simply wants to get the information, decipher it, and come up with their own opinion or come up with their own thoughts on it, but are polluted.

because of the nonsense being spewed by the people who really know the truth and just want to hide the truth because it carries favor with the power structure of the city and it puts them in a good position to eventually go run and get the grants that they're going to be wanting.

Bottom line, it's about power and economics for those people.

And when they go out and try to dismiss me, I don't waste my time with them because you keep spending time with them, you're going to take away from the message.

And so what I do is I keep moving the message forward and eventually it goes past them and then they have to like dust float away and let you pass by.

That's why I don't care about what those people have to say.

All

right, let's go to David.

Good morning to you, David.

You say what?

Good morning, gentlemen.

I wanted to just point out a couple of things.

I brought this up to you previously, answer your guests in the past.

There's a reason why leaded gasoline was banned back in 1996.

Right.

And we have unleaded gasoline today.

So I would suggest that that person who texted you or emailed you.

read up on that information.

Number two, and I'm sure you're very well aware, Earl, a few days ago, Milwaukee Public Schools, multiple schools now, in addition to talking about lead in the water, you know, previously to 1978 with paint, you know, there was lead in paint.

And it turns out that multiple schools have had extremely...

way off the chart high levels of lead dust on the floors and the windowsills there's pictures of urban Milwaukee and I'm shocked and it's I don't know why I don't know what MPS is doing but I would immediately have those kids removed from those schools from even walking in those schools and and put them in you know schools that have a lower enrollment right now until that's

fully corrected because there's been multiple kids from what I read, they actually have lead poisoning.

And

so

I hope the new superintendent takes some action on that.

I know they're correcting the problem, but in the process, while they're doing that, they really shouldn't even be in there until it's, you know,

resolved and completed when the project is done.

David, thank you very much for the call.

Derek, you were in Milwaukee public schools.

You were an educator

there

and your thoughts on what Dave said.

Well, yeah, once again, this is a issue that kind of didn't pop up just in the news, you know, in this past few weeks.

It's been going on kind of.

for a long time, many years.

Those buildings are being patched together, you could say.

There's, I believe that master facilities report that MPS has to do for the state.

There's like billions of dollars of deferred maintenance on these buildings, lead hazards aside.

You know, I remember almost burning my leg in the teacher's restroom because of the radiator, you know, was like filled up against just crazy stuff that.

people don't understand unless they are inside these places.

Well the

buildings are some of 100 years old man 80, 90

years

old.

Yeah it's just kind of common sense 101 you go in there you clean out the hazards these are places of learning and here we are still here and I just wanted to add as well that we need to stop looking at this issue as like some sunk cost you know this is an investment in the health of children it's a

It's something civilized societies should want to do.

We certainly can do it, I think, no matter what the politics above us

dictate.

To further the discussion on what David was bringing up, this issue with what is currently happening with MPS is also mimicking a lot of what took place when we first started moving on the issue with the water.

And right now,

there are parents who are organizing because these parents have seen a real concerted effort to misinform and be in the middle of a lot of contradictory statements being made by the city health department and MPS.

And so the parents organized and fortunately for MPS children, the parents are taking the lead because they are not

convinced that what is being done currently with this situation at MPS is being handled correctly.

And David is absolutely right in regards to those children should be removed because just recently they found that Golden Maier once again has still led dust issues that were not remediated properly.

And so, you know, here the parents are being told

by the health department on one hand that the schools are safe enough, but then we just find out yesterday really that now they got to go back in and do more mitigating work of the lead dust issues.

And it goes to the fact that when government and bureaucracies of

of institutions like MPS are more concerned about smashing the issue and removing the issue from the news.

The ones that get caught in the middle of all this are the children in the schools who have to suffer the politics of what is happening today at MPS.

And these parents are organizing.

They are asking serious questions.

They have a petition out there demanding on NPS and the health department to do things for them.

And so we suggest that people look for let's save schools and get in touch with those parents because these parents need

support in your health.

Let's go to Mike from Kenosha.

Good morning to you, Mike.

You say

what?

Good morning to you.

Thanks for taking my call.

What a very important issue.

Thanks guys for keeping it alive and well.

into the ear of the American public.

You know, public infrastructure has been ignored for decades.

And this lead issue is just one of many examples.

We know, Mark, the caller, that lead poisoning equals deficit disorders, the rest of the development.

We know that the youngest

Children are exposed the most and they have the most impact.

We also know that we have a 40, excuse me, a 54% satisfactory reading level, that fifth grade, sixth grade.

There's signs of the impact all over the place, but here's my problem.

Because it's an expensive fix, in most of...

the poisoning is in the urban areas.

Again, the Congress just doesn't take care of the people anymore.

They got money for bailouts, whether it be savings loans or Wall Street, they have money for quantitative easing, trillions of dollars for COVID loans, but yet something as critical, as important in it impacts

you know, the youngest and most exposed in our populace.

Again, this is just another example of Congress turning a blind eye because we the people are not in control.

The corporate banks own us.

This is it.

It couldn't be better.

So I'd like to end the call by this way.

There are so many core issues.

Again, the public infrastructure, whether it's education, healthcare, whether it's lead poisoning, we must get back behind the wheel of our republic.

Otherwise, all this is going to go away and we're going to be fighting for crumbs, you

and me.

Right.

Hey, Mike, well said as always, my friend.

Robert, do you want to respond to Mike?

He's absolutely right.

We've allowed our government to be shanghied by the billionaire, multi-millionaire class.

And they bought the politicians and the politicians who are working for them, not for the people.

They're working for individuals who are feeding their campaign.

trough and doing their bidding.

And that's very, very obvious in today's government, especially under Trump.

These individuals who are saying they're out here cleaning waste and fraud in government are

putting out lies, you know, to make the people who like Mark believe that they're doing what they said they're doing and that's not the truth.

I mean, you're not going to convince me that there have been tens or hundreds of thousands of people claiming social security to be over 150 years old.

Okay.

That's not happening.

And to claim that millions more were probably dead collecting social security.

You know, people forget.

Funerals homes have to submit an SSA 741 form in order to report the death and do the death certificate that the Social Security Administration gets.

So, you know, all these lies right now.

coming from Trump and his boy, Muskie, need to be challenged by the politicians who, like Bernie Sanders and others, who say they're not part of the billionaire class trough.

Hey, Robert, was that a Freudian slip?

8-5-5-9-6-7-27-89.

It's Wednesday.

That means I get to let out coalition with my good friend Robert Miranda.

Hahaha.

you

show as always you can join us at 855-752-4842 855-752-4842.

Text us at that same number.

It's Wednesday that means get the lead out with Robert Miranda and Derrick Byer are on board.

Let's go right back to the phone lines.

Hey Karina, how you doing?

You say what?

Good morning gentlemen.

You know what?

This is a big problem.

This is a huge problem.

Because the kids are a future and this is not funny.

And I'm thinking we have a governor who are coming from education.

We have a super extended right now race.

And I think that the right thing to do and transparent thing to do

is

to.

have a recommendation and actual obligation and mandatory newsletter coming in out of every school, what is the level of a lad in school today for at least once a month.

And the parents can decide whether they want to have their schooling kids change or homeschooling, online schooling.

I don't care what it is, but the thing is we all pay taxes.

for our schools.

We all sending our kids and trusting them that they will not gonna at least harm them, okay?

And I want my child to be able to have an opportunity to study, not poison.

That's it.

Hey, Karina, thank you very much for the call.

Brendan, you say what?

Yeah, I mean look the Republicans have been waging a class war for decades now slowly chipping away and Trump is now the ultimate one to push it to the past the line what they didn't plan on was when they split up Americans into classes the class that all voted for Trump thinking that their Cheerios were going to be cheaper are now the people that they're kind of

taking a big huge political dump on and what's going to end

up

happening is these folks are finally starting to wake up slowly but surely other than those that just have racial hatred well we're never going to get them and we don't want them anyway let them sit in wherever they're sitting but the long run is going to be that the people that are going to school and their kids do have lead pipes in there and old paint and aren't getting proper school equipment

These are the people that are going to rise up against this government and people need in their communities to start putting lessons together, helping kids learn the true history of our country.

That's what needs to happen.

Communities have to come together and put the missing pieces of the puzzle for the kids together.

That's all of it.

Hey, Brendan, thank you very much for the call.

So Robert, where the battle continues?

It doesn't matter with you and Derek and the others who are on the vanguard, whether it's Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan or George Bush, it doesn't matter.

You're going to keep fighting.

Well, you have to keep fighting.

And you fight with the shoulder to shoulder with the parents of these schools as well.

And to your last caller, I believe it was Katrina.

She should look up, let's say, schools and be involved with the parents there.

These parents are organizing the way we all can learn from that.

This is exactly what is needed.

Parent power to come forward and demand the kind of things that.

Katrina was mentioned.

You know,

you know, Robert, it's not just the schools that have led.

Right.

It's the houses.

Yeah.

It's led.

It is

everywhere.

And it's in businesses.

It's in the older buildings down.

It's everywhere, right?

Exactly.

Restaurants is

everywhere.

It's a toxin that we as a society need to.

push our government to remove.

Lead can be removed.

It can.

But instead of doing that, our governments, from local to federal, rather put their priorities and their monies to building up.

Camelots and stadiums and creating vanity projects to beautify the Camelots that they had built, skyscrapers, all of that to support venture capitalism and billionaire class that doesn't want to use their own money but tax dollars to support.

their projects of making profit for them.

And we got to get on top of that and say, you know, I'm not for this.

Hey, we got to run, man.

Thank you as always.

See you in a week.

Hey, Derek, thank you.

It's good seeing you again, man.

We'll certainly have you back up next.

Dr. Robert Craig, Executive Director of Citizen Action and you on the Earl Ingram show.