We got Peter Frampton tickets to give away here on John and Gordy in the morning with Racer Sam behind the controls.
We've got John Stewart from The Daily Show talking about the terrorists.
Yeah, and we have Mike McCabe who is going to be talking about what comes around goes around and the story of Byron Kilbourne and how that relates to somebody that we all talk about every day here on the show and it's
seven minutes past the hour, weather-wise today, clouds this morning, rain this afternoon, high around 42, right now it's 33.
And we have a brand new feature here on John and Gordy in the morning.
Well, it popped up on our screen and we're going to go with it.
How do we explain this, Sam?
Do you know how this works?
So very,
very slowly, it started with our company meetings here.
We've incorporated AI note takers.
Wait a
Yeah, yeah.
Why?
I know that they happen.
I don't go to them.
Okay.
That's what our AI notetakers are for.
No, I don't have to go to them.
But yeah, we have these things and apparently we applied this tech.
I don't go to the meeting so I didn't know about it.
We applied this tech to listen to the shows.
and write a summary of each hour of the show.
Wait a minute,
He doesn't
I write the description every day twice a day once for each hour And now I've got a machine taking my job for me
No, this thing is brand new I've never seen it before
out Okay, the title 60 seconds to read
John and Gordy kickstart their morning with lively banter about yelling across rooms, raising radical kids and their handyman adventures.
They dive into political rants about Republican agendas, the hypocrisy of opposite day politics and a humorous spat between Elon Musk and Peter Navarro.
A quirky taco watch weather
Sam,
looks like we've been replaced.
I'm leaving in a month and a half.
We don't need you.
I'm leaving in a month and a half anyway.
Fine, just kick me on the way
Okay, we will.
Well, one thing that Summary didn't mention is we have Peter Frampton tickets to give away this hour.
And when you hear a song by Peter Frampton, all you Peter Frampton fans out there, and they are many, you know, he's a great guitar player.
He was in that band Humble Pie back in the late 60s, early 70s.
I remember that.
Then he went out on his own.
He had a huge album.
Frampton comes alive.
That really made him.
And so when you hear a Peter Frampton song, we've got two tickets to give away and you'll want to text us to win these tickets.
And the first one that gets through, we'll go to Peter Frampton, April 15th at 7 30 at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee.
So that's the show.
If you can't go, don't enter the contest.
Okay.
It's April 15th.
730 Riverside Theater, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
When
What should they text in?
Perfect.
Okay.
There
John, have we taken enough time?
John, what are you looking
at review or something.
This week, Trump's Department of Justice shuts down cryptocurrency regulatory enforcement.
What?
That's because they're going crazy with cryptocurrency now, and they don't want anybody to watch what they're doing, right?
Yeah.
And he signs an executive order establishing Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, moves to install new crypto-friendly SEC chairman while tariffs free fall worldwide.
All right, so anyway, that's good.
So is it good?
All of this is really encouraging.
So is the stock market?
No, it
by Bitcoin?
Is that the plan?
If stocks are no longer a safe investment, I think since we have the deregulation of cryptocurrency now, you guys need to come up with your own John and Gordy cryptocurrency.
That'll be a good deal.
That's a safe investment, right?
Yeah, sure.
That'll be
ahead.
I think I figured what Trump is up to.
You know how some companies won't hire people when they get over a certain
Boy, do we.
He's given, well, I'm up there.
It's a nice thing.
He's going to give us the ability to work until we're, oh, 90, 95, because we'll have to.
And they're going to take away social security.
So if you don't have that, you just tip over.
Simple as that.
Did you guys see any of that ridiculous speech last night?
You know, people all those countries are kissing.
Oh, he's in, he's in a tuxedo and he's rantin' and raving about all countries are kissing his eye down and they're rushing to settle this stuff with him over there.
that tomorrow.
Well, who wanted to retire anyway,
Well, they got to learn something about work ethic.
Absolutely.
Oh, they don't need it, right?
They're young, they're fine.
And there's
So I think
They're really
There was a headline I got in my onion newsletter that I get in my email every day.
Report, recession fears forcing more Americans to hold off on retiring from the presidency.
Wow.
Trump talking about staying.
Absolutely.
Staying past his second term.
Are you sure you want to start it because we're not going to be able to finish it?
Yes.
Right up against the clock,
We'll hold it off after Brittany Merleau is in here.
I want to also bring this up.
This is important.
Microsoft has canceled $1 billion in projects to build three new data centers in Ohio just five days after Trump's tariffs.
Really?
Yeah.
Lincoln County, Ohio will now lose roughly 1,000 jobs and $150 million per year in revenue for the local economy down there.
400 to 600 construction jobs and 450 permanent jobs were expected to be created.
at full operation of the three new data centers for Microsoft.
Microsoft said it abandoned the $1 billion project after careful consideration of the shift in economic forecasting.
Hmm.
Okay.
See this happened to me too.
You know, I was going to build a garage finally with solar panels and a charging station.
You've been planning this for, yes.
I really wanted to put this in.
I had, I told you I had an investment account.
I was going to spend all my money in the investment account.
I just put a garage in finally.
Right.
Now I can't, I can't because I don't know what's going to happen in this country and I'm glad that I held off.
Well, that's that's the thing.
It's uncertainty.
That's right.
That's taken over.
Microsoft said if the economy improves, the company will continue to evaluate the sites that they now own.
And we'll be following
Yep.
It is 716.
This portion of John and Gordy in the morning is brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.
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I'd like to add in, you mentioned to text in the word Frampton.
I know, but not yet.
But not yet.
There's been a couple of people who have already tried to enter the contest that hasn't yet started.
Wait until you hear Peter Frampton grace the airwaves.
Well, are we going to
you got to listen and find out.
Any moment now, whenever you hear Peter Frampton.
Sometime this
anxious that we can
I'm gonna tell you, it's sometime soon.
I wanna hear it again.
You do?
Yeah, Peter Frampton's at the Riverside Theater, Milwaukee.
Tickets are on sale now.
That show is April 15th.
at 7.30 p.m.
April 15th in Milwaukee at the Riverside Theater.
Coming up, we'll check in with Brittany Merlot.
She's got the latest on the weather.
And then Mike McCabe will join us as he does every Wednesday, talking about Byron Kilbourne, the legend of Byron Kilbourne and who that relates to nowadays.
What goes around comes around.
come.
We're sitting here.
I'm in a hoodie right now.
We're in a flannel.
We're all bundled up.
Skies are gray.
What the heck?
I know.
got
I know.
Do you have a
Yes, yes.
Taco watch versus taco warning.
Yes.
The ingredients to make it and then you have it.
Yes.
When did
Have
This has just been a thing.
I don't know.
I think it started a couple of years ago.
Someone made this meme and it was the way to describe a tornado watch versus a warning and what the difference is because people were getting it confused apparently.
So they use tacos, which I think is hysterical, but it works.
It shows the similarities.
I don't know
Okay.
All right.
Serious.
Okay.
We're sitting right now.
Temperatures are in those mid-30s, but we've got a wind chill, so it feels like the upper 20s, so still a little crisp.
Mostly cloudy skies today.
We've got spotty showers rolling in by this afternoon, and they continue to rain on us on occasion through this evening.
Now tonight and through early tomorrow morning,
That could flip to a little bit of snowfall as the system departs.
Our temperatures will be flirting with the freezing mark by tomorrow morning, so we could be waking up to a trace on the ground.
But don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.
We're gonna warm up, we're gonna get to those mid 40s, and of course it's gonna turn back to a little bit of light drizzle as it departs.
So then for Friday, we are looking at beautiful sunshine, high temperatures in the low 50s.
Saturday the sunshine continues, low 60s, Sunday.
I'm there.
I'm there.
I know.
And then Monday, it might as well just throw Monday in.
How about a 70?
go.
If Trump wants us to stay the course with his radical plan, you might want to think of a strategy that inspires our confidence that you all know what you're doing.
Like, for instance, these tariffs.
Is this a negotiation?
The president made it clear yesterday this is not a negotiation.
Let me make this very clear.
This is not a negotiation.
This is not that.
This is a national emergency.
Okay, it's a national emergency.
It's not a negotiation.
Well, I don't agree, but at least I have some clarity now.
The tariffs give us great power to negotiate.
I always have.
Is this a negotiation?
Or is this permanent?
Forget about if they're permanent or not permanent.
What are we doing?
How will this bring jobs back?
What are these jobs?
Commerce Secretary Lutnik.
Trillions of dollars of factories are going to be built in America.
The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones.
That kind of thing is going to come to America.
This is also that millions of Americans can develop the dexter those are the jobs That kind of thing is gonna come to America.
It's gonna be automated and great Americans the tradecraft of America is going to fix them mechanics fixing robotics That's what's coming to America.
We're gonna be robot mechanics The robots do the screwing
And we're just there to make sure the robots are loomed.
How long do these onerous tariffs have to stay in place to convince me to build my army of automated screw and robot mechanics?
They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks.
But I guess that's silver lining number one of this trade war.
Want something even more underwhelming?
Here's the Treasury Secretary on if we've heard the good news on the stock collapse.
One thing that I can tell you is the Treasury Secretary, what I've been very impressed with is the market infrastructure.
Yeah.
That we had record volume on Friday.
And everything is working very smoothly.
So the American people, they can be very.
Very, yes.
Very what?
Very great comfort in that.
But the
best argument so far for any of this is the same one that we got about Tinkerbell.
Being able to fly.
You have to believe.
Don't panic, okay?
You've got a president who understands
business.
I am grateful for a commander-in-chief that has the business acumen.
Luckily we have a businessman in the White House right now.
The president
You ever say, I got the book, I got the book, Art of the Deal.
Yeah, that's why we're supposed to trust him.
You ever look at chapter nine in Art of the Deal?
It's about how smart Trump is about his casino in Atlantic City.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Chapter nine, I built a casino in Atlantic City.
I'm a business genius.
Whatever happened to the casino, Donald?
You make a big announcement, but your reciprocal terra formula was just the trade deficit.
divided by imports equation.
And when you got busted on that, you threw out this ridiculous f***ing calculus problem that's just shapes, that it boils down to the trade deficit divided by imports, which is the formula that got the rich country of Lesotho hit with 50% tariffs.
Lesotho, yo, you're free rides over, you denim-making fat cats.
But we continue to blame everybody else in the world that we designed and police after World War two were the richest country in the world ever.
We're not the world's victims.
If we have inequalities in this country, that's a loss.
It does.
But
Yes, who
Kurt.
Congrats to Kurt in Madison.
He was the first person to text in when we started playing Peter Frampton.
And then another.
two more opportunities.
So yeah, tickets again tomorrow and...
on Friday.
Okay, weather wise today, cloudy, rain this afternoon, high near 42.
And right now it's still 33 degrees, a little chilly this morning.
Time for Mike McCabe to join us.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning.
Always good to see you.
And everything looking good out there for you today?
Yeah, you know,
Frampton comes alive was
One of the very first albums I had.
Those are
I didn't know any of that.
He who must not be named
Yeah Well Byron Kilburn was a wealthy go-getter, you know he and he was an outsider He he was born in Connecticut
Way back when?
Way back when.
And his family resettled in Ohio.
But then his ambitions eventually brought him to Wisconsin.
And he was a guy who was involved in a vast array of money making ventures.
He was a canal builder.
He was a surveyor and a land speculator.
But he had a particular proclivity for transportation.
wasn't into electric cars.
He was steam-powered trains in his day.
And that's where the story really gets interesting.
That really
it?
The land acquisition for the railroad.
Yeah, and Byron Kilbourne, you know, he settled in what's now Milwaukee.
And at that time it was known there were three birds, and one of them ended up being named Kilbourne Town, because he was such a big deal there.
But Byron Kilbourne wanted to build a railroad across the state of Wisconsin, from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River at La Crosse.
Yeah, but he didn't want to pay anybody for the land that he needed for that railroad.
What he wanted was for the territorial legislators at that time to use their new powers of eminent domain to condemn land in this corridor from Milwaukee to La Crosse and give it to Kilburn in a land grant.
and have seized the land from the property owners and then give it to Kilbourne so he could build his railroad.
And he ended up making over a half a million dollars worth of bribes to members of Wisconsin legislature to pass the land grant bill, made over a quarter million dollars in additional bribes to other key power brokers, including the Lieutenant Governor and the
chief clerk of the assembly and the governor's personal secretary, and then eventually paid the governor at the time, Coles Bashford, $50,000 to sign the bill into law and give him this land that he could use to build his railroad.
Byron Kilburn is known to be Wisconsin's first millionaire, which is saying something when you think that the average worker at the time was making less than a dollar a day.
and a skilled tradesman, the daily wage of a skilled tradesman at the time was under $2.
So, you know, the kind of the bribes that he was making, these were breathtaking, astonishing sums of money to throw around.
And becoming a millionaire at that time was an amazing feat when you're thinking about people living on a dollar a day.
That's what the economy was like at the time.
And so he gets his free land and he builds his railroad.
He crossed the Wisconsin River.
It is what now is known as Wisconsin Dells and named the settlement after himself.
And a lot of people don't know this, but before Wisconsin Dells was called Wisconsin Dells, it was Kilbourne.
It was first known as Kilbourne City, then just shortened to Kilbourne until 1931, when that whole land grant scandal rubbed people the wrong way to the point where they didn't want
their community associated with that scoundrel anymore, and they changed the name.
The interesting part of this story, though, with Byron Kilbourne, is the reaction it provoked from the people of Wisconsin.
That land-grant scandal led voters to rise up and vote Kohl's Bashford out of office.
There were all these other power brokers, many of whom were bribed by Kilbourne, of course, who came to be known as the 40 thieves.
And eventually, Coles, Bashford, and the 40 thieves were all voted out of office.
And that set in motion.
That was like the first tremor in what ended up becoming an earthquake in the state of Wisconsin.
Bribery was outlawed.
bad.
And here's the amazing thing.
A lot of people don't think about this, but for the first half century of statehood.
Wisconsin became a state in 1848 and it wasn't until 1897 that bribing public officials was outlawed.
So for the first half century of state it was perfectly legal
do what Byron Kilbourne did.
But people rose up against that, bribery was outlawed, corporate campaign contributions and election spending were also banned
set the stage for
an amazing flurry of progressive reforms.
Worker rights advances were made.
Child labor was outlawed.
Protections for women in the workplace were put in place.
Unemployment insurance for those thrown out of work.
Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to create that.
Financial compensation for people injured in the workplace.
Workers' comp was created.
For the very first time in Wisconsin came the first state in the nation to create such a system.
The first state health and the first state life insurance plan was created by Wisconsin, the first kindergarten, the first educational technical and adult education system.
All that was all done by the 1911 legislature.
One legislature did all of that.
And on top of it, they took the nominating.
process for elected officials out of the hands of party bosses who were picking their people in small field rooms and gave it to the people, created the first direct primary elections anywhere in the country, right here in Wisconsin.
well?
Byron Kilburn did manage to get himself elected mayor of Milwaukee twice.
Now, this is a man who was described by someone who knew him well as a man with strong prejudices and a dictatorial disposition.
Yes.
Again, an echo from the past that sure applies to somebody who's an awful lot like Byron Kilburn who...
who looked at Wisconsin as being ripe for the taking and
and threw around a bunch of money, slapped on a cheese head and thought that he could order us around.
And what Elon Musk didn't know when he did that was that there's this history in Wisconsin about how Wisconsin treats people who come in and throw their weight around this way.
But Byron Kilburn did manage to become mayor of Milwaukee twice, but
the response to Kilburn's corruption did lead to a series of socialist mayors in Milwaukee.
Those who became known as the sewer socialists, who built the sewer systems and the public libraries and the public parks and so many other things that made Milwaukee a great city and fueled Milwaukee's growth.
There was a string of three socialist mayors in the city of Milwaukee that that also were a response to the the corruption of that kill-borne era
and you know in Wisconsin was a was a trailblazer and did all these things that were firsts in the nation that then Social Security was even invented here and and was
grabbed by national policymakers to make a federal policy, but the idea was created right here in Wisconsin.
All of these things happened in Wisconsin in response to a guy and to an era.
It was an awful lot like the one that we're living through now.
And Kilburn was an awful lot like this man who just...
came to Wisconsin and thought that he could, uh, could order us around and buy himself a state supreme court seat and all that business.
He certainly didn't go to jail.
The corruption that his corruption was, of course, legally blessed at the time.
But that changed because of the public reaction to what happened that that land grant scandal.
And it altered the face of Wisconsin.
You know, Kilborn, to this day, there's an elementary school in Milwaukee that bears Byron Kilborn's name.
Kilborn Avenue is a major thoroughfare right through the heart of downtown Milwaukee, still named for Byron
And, you know, so he became a titan of industry, a major railroad baron.
But the way he went about...
his business to enrich himself, rubbed people the wrong way to the point where it led to this amazing transformation of our political culture and our social fabric.
And it really made Wisconsin a place that became a policy pioneer that the rest of the nation looked to, to create protections for working class Americans.
What Musk just tried to do, I think was done out of ignorance of Wisconsin's history.
He didn't crack a history book and he didn't learn about Byron Kilbourne or the reaction that Kilbourne's corruption provoked in our state.
But like I titled the article, what goes around comes around.
And I think what you've seen here in Wisconsin is a reignition of that instinct that people here have when
some outsider comes and figures that this is land for the taking and he can.
throw his weight around, boss people around, and exert his influence.
well.
So maybe a lot of people don't know about Byron Kilbourne.
And if they knew, they could make that comparison and probably have that same reaction to what Elon is doing here in this country.
We're seeing it across the country.
I think the protests aren't exactly against Trump.
They are against Elon and what he has managed to do to
the country.
And it's against...
the era, it's against what, you know, it's against what Trump and Musk and everybody else represent, what they're trying to force down people's throats.
And there is this powerful reaction that's been created.
I got a chance to speak to a group of high school students at DeForest High School last week and told the Byron Kilbourne story.
And not only did none of the students know the story, but the teachers didn't know the story either.
And I wrote that.
inspired me to write the Substack article.
And I've heard from so many people who've been faithful readers of mine, and they hadn't heard the story.
They didn't know the history either.
So I think this is really important for us to know our own history because people say that if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it.
But here's an example where if you don't know history, perhaps you will never be inspired to recreate some magic that was once created right here in
Mike, we got to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more with Mike McCabe.
This portion of John and Gordy in the morning brought to you by Verlo Mattress of Madison.
The Verlo mismatch sale is going on for a few more days.
Mismatch on the outside.
The same long-lasting Verlo craftsmanship on the inside.
So hurry in now.
Save an additional 10% off of every Mattress in Box Spring.
Wake up and sleep better.
Verlo Mattress of Madison, two locations.
Back with more with Mike McCabe on John and Gordy in the morning in a moment.
They make the juice
Yeah, tomorrow evening at six.
at the Eager Free Public Library in Evansville.
Eager Free.
Eager is a very prominent family rooted in Evansville.
So the library is named for the Eager family, but it's a free public library.
So yeah, it's the eager free public library in Evansville and I I actually spent the early part of my childhood on a small farm outside Evansville on Poles Road and so they and the book that I wrote the novel I wrote miracles along County Cube has some Evansville inspired parts to the story and and
This week is National Library Week.
And the library wanted a local author, particularly one who had written with Evansville sort of as a backdrop.
And I wanted me to be their speaker for National Library Week.
And so I'm going to do a presentation about the book and then sell and sign copies after the presentation.
But then I hear the news that the regime in Washington has decided to shutter, by executive order, the agency that supports libraries and museums in this country.
And public libraries and museums around the country stand to lose billions of dollars worth of financial support.
And I know it's a small gesture, but I figured I cannot go and sell and sign books and pocket the money and head off.
So I'm gonna donate all the proceeds to the
And so anybody who's in the area, Evansville is not far from Madison.
Anybody in the area who wants to come on down to Evansville, it's charming town.
little community.
And I've got some roots there from my early childhood.
Anybody who wants to come six o'clock tomorrow
the public library on Main Street.
And if you want to buy a book, it's also a way to support the public library because every dime is going
You see what's happening to the Smithsonian Museum.
And there's this active effort underway to try to scrub the historical record, erase elements of our history.
And of course, public libraries, what are public libraries, but places where people can learn about our history and about, you know, about the way things are in America, the way things were.
And, you know, in a public library, you not only find those reminders of what we were like, but also hints of what we could become because we, like I'm telling that story of Byron Kilbourne.
That's the way back in the 1800s when all that unfolded.
But it's not only a reminder of where we were as a state then, but it's also a hint at what we could become because you think about that amazing reaction by the people of Wisconsin to the corruption of that era and then all the progressive reforms that followed as a result.
That was because people rose up against that.
And we need to know that, and people in power today, people who are trying to replicate what Byron Kilbourne did then, don't want people to know that history.
They don't want people to know that part of the story.
That's why museums and libraries under assault, it's not to save money, it's to try to...
It's to try to warp history.
You know, and
another echo that comes from that story.
Yeah.
When Byron Kilburn offered all those bribes to members of the state assembly and state Senate, according to the historical record, only one
Senator, a fellow who came to be known as Anas Damasakab turned down the bribe.
Everybody else who's offered the money took it and voted for that land grant bill.
And so that legislature behaved exactly how today's Congress is behaving.
In the face of this same kind of behavior.
All but in that case, only one stood up and said, no, that ain't right.
Everybody else took the money and those were astonishing sums of money that were thrown at them.
By the
Anybody name a city after what was his name again?
His name was honest, a massive Cobb.
I don't believe he was from Cobb, Wisconsin though.
But he said it wasn't right.
But everybody else went along until the voters said, you know what?
The 40 thieves are all gone and the governor's gone.
We're going to change the direction of the state.
It was the people who rose up.
But man, that legislature behaved exactly how today's Congress is behaving.
The Eager Free Public Library.
right on Main Street.
And it was a Carnegie Library.
And Andrew Carnegie, I was just looking this up, he donated.
He was a Scottish American businessman, big, big businessman.
And he helped to build 2,500
Carnegie Libraries.
Donated money.
Unbelievable.
There aren't so many weeks.
There
aren't so many Kilborn public
Mike, we got to leave it there.
Thank you for joining us.
And that's going to do it for us.
Stephanie Miller's next.
Tomorrow we've got more Peter Frampton tickets to give away.
We'll talk to Busted Pencils about the state of education.
Hope you have a great day.
All right.
Well, yeah, same to you.
Right back at you.
All right.
So long.
as we were saying.
Let the sun shine.
Is the John and Courtney show.
