ShowsJohn & GordyDay-OTranscript
Day-O

Transcript

Day-O

John & Gordy · Wed Apr 16, 2025

Kathryn Lake

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and staff.

Well, that's pretty clear.

Yeah,

I

think so.

It covers it all.

WMDX 92.7.

This is John and Gordy in the morning.

It's quite a...

Nice morning out there.

It's actually pretty bright.

What happened?

It's usually dark, right?

I mean this time of the morning

They finally remembered to flip the switch today.

Yeah Lights are finally on outside.

This

is

kind

of

crazy.

It's never been this light This early in the morning What happened in my

My hallucinating

turn on the cloud machine.

Yes, the

cloud machine has been on for the last week

or so.

Spring days are getting

longer

still.

You know, days are getting longer.

Mm hmm.

What song is that?

I don't remember

that.

Whispers getting long.

OK.

Yeah.

Whispers getting louder, I think was the name of the song.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

It's really a cool song.

Whispers getting louder.

Do you have that cute up?

I'm getting

it.

I've never heard of this song or the guy who sang Jackie Wilson.

Oh Jackie

Wilson, okay.

Quite the

legend.

Oh, yeah.

Go ahead.

Let's hear a little bit of that, okay?

Sure.

It starts off with that.

Is this it?

Yep.

Oh, yeah.

There it

is.

Yeah, it's cool.

Jackie Wilson.

Great stuff.

All right.

All right.

It is eight minutes past the hour.

It's clear, clear outside.

It is kind of chilly 30 degrees, but it's too cold.

Yeah, it really is.

What do you think the afternoon high?

What is your Samsung WMDX watch say about?

afternoon high I

you know I don't know if I was right yesterday well we'll get to the

yeah what did

I predict it correctly 42 degrees did it make it up a 42 thank you

I don't recall.

I don't know.

Well, we don't

know.

I'm asking somebody my age.

That's not gonna work.

Okay.

All right.

High today of 57 degrees according to this WMDX official Samsung watch.

All right.

Well, let's check the WMDX bar dice.

All right.

Let's see what that does for us.

Okay.

31, currently it says right here.

And double nickels, 55 for a high.

Well, you know, either way you look at it mid, mid to upper fifties for today.

Well, it says here, 613 is sunrise.

Yeah, it's starting to come up.

Yeah, that's pretty bright.

Okay, 742 sunset this afternoon.

Yeah.

So be prepared for that.

Okay.

Very good.

And you know, today they're bringing out the plan

your parties around that.

Okay.

Today's a big day on the UW campus.

It is.

They're bringing out the terrace chairs.

Yes.

2,000 sunburst terrace chairs.

Yeah.

Are probably already on their way and to being set up.

They'll set them up around eight o'clock.

Remember when you stole that one and do you still have that?

Shh, don't tell

anybody.

Nobody holds a garage like the Wisconsin Union.

They really hate it.

If you stole a chair, even like 30 years ago, they're coming to get you.

That's

my image.

They're after Gordy now.

They'll be camped out by his house by the gazebo.

Yeah, I took it a long time ago.

I think it's in Indiana somewhere.

I left it behind.

Yeah, they're pretty tough on that stuff.

Right, yeah.

But it's a big debt, you know, and this is a huge, it's become this thing now.

You know, El Salvador is your

next trip, man.

That's a serious charge.

Okay.

I think even Trump will get on that

one.

Okay.

All right, anyway.

I

have to go undercover, I guess.

Yeah, so that happens today.

And, you know, Wednesday here, Mike McCabe will join us a little bit later on, and Liz Johnson.

who couldn't make it in yesterday because the door was locked in the building.

Had it all planned out and everything

was working well.

I swear it was open before the show started.

Sure it was.

Somebody must have come in and chased the

lock.

Okay, yeah, that sounds like it's feasible, sure.

So

she'll be here in a little while.

If she get in the door, we'll talk to her.

Okay.

Yeah, she couldn't make it in yet.

Our door was locked.

Well, we tried to treat our guests very nicely, you know, you offer them some water, you know, they could sit on the couch for a few minutes.

But, you know, if you can't get in the door, you know, that's a problem.

It makes it really tough at that point.

I know that happened once, I think,

with

Mike McKay, I believe.

Did it really?

Yeah, I think so.

Now, wait a minute.

Did we tell her to come in?

Yes, in the back.

We told her to come in the parking lot door,

huh?

Today we did, yes.

And she's got my phone number now.

She didn't have anybody's phone number.

She was standing out there for like 15 minutes.

Yeah.

Man.

All right, well.

Hope it goes well today.

All right, let's get to the national day calendar.

We'll see what's happening for today.

The 16th day of April.

Everybody get their taxes in on time?

I hope so.

Is it national pathway day?

National banana day?

Okay.

National bean counter day?

National orchid day?

Is it that or is it national eggs benedict day?

Eggs benedict day?

Or national wear your pajamas to work day?

Or is it national bicycle with a friend day?

Which day does not belong, John?

You don't bicycle with a friend.

No?

Bang.

Well, you are correct for a change.

You got a shiny new die.

I'm doing pretty well here.

Yeah, you've been on a roll lately.

Well, now that you can see all of the gays.

No, I'm not looking.

I went over here

because you looked at me like, oh, is he looking at my monitor?

No, I'm not.

I'm not

looking at it.

That's what you say.

You know, John, back home at my parents' house, I've got a tandem bike.

We could bicycle with friends.

Yes.

You and your

stuff.

You have the biggest pile of stuff.

What's your latest project you're working on?

Well, I was going to try and tell you before we came on the air today, but John kept running his trap.

I found yesterday, like the holy grail of vintage radios.

I was going to show you a picture of it.

Oh, really?

Really?

Yeah, for it.

It's the Philco Model 90.

It's like the cathedral shape.

It's way bigger than I expected it to be, but I was going to show you a picture.

Where'd you get

that?

It was over in Middleton.

Only $35.

Wow.

A steal.

At what?

Where?

I don't know.

Private owner?

No, no, no, just like somebody's house.

Oh,

yeah.

Wow, you actually went into somebody's house saying,

yes, love to buy your radio and you bought it for $35.

They had it listed online and

yeah.

Okay, oh, you went and searched it out?

Sure.

Because

you don't have enough dead tubes around your

house, right?

Yeah, because I have plenty of space in my single bedroom that I have to myself here in Madison.

I don't know how you do.

You have roommates, an apartment.

The radio isn't reasonably good.

I mean, is it working at all?

Yeah.

I mean, I haven't tried to plug it in.

I don't know if I want to, but... Really?

Oh, I don't want to make it start on fire or anything.

Well, does it have a

rat's nest

inside of it or something?

No, there's nothing living in it.

And there was nothing living in it.

So that's a good sign.

It's in good shape

on the outside.

I mean, in

reasonably good shape.

It probably needs to be refinished, but it's all there.

Yeah,

sometimes they're in houses,

they're

abandoned, and then they kind of get old.

kind of this you know the they separate the wood veneers separate

well you should take a picture of it yeah put it on facebook you know we'll have a before and after picture after you get it done

you know though you know the like tough thing about it though what the tuner only goes from 500 to 1500 it doesn't even receive our frequency

That's right.

They

widened the

frequency.

They did.

Sometime in the 70s.

70s, I

think.

Yeah.

Well, this radio's from 1931.

Well, that's why.

It's a little before the 70s.

That's

why.

All right.

But, you know, not even I can get this station.

I swear we don't have an AM station,

but I don't know.

They keep telling me we do.

That's good that we're on FM, right?

Yeah.

Let's get back to the National Day calendar here just for a moment.

He's begging us now.

I'll skip through a couple of these.

Let's highlight a couple.

Okay, well, no, get to all of them.

And then we'll skip it very quickly if it's, you know, something we don't want to talk about.

Okay.

You want to find out about National Pathway Day?

Nope.

Okay, then I'll just skip through it.

I just clicked it.

All right, National Banana Day.

Oh, we like our bananas are a good source of.

what protein and potassium I think

we covered this didn't we where the bananas are supposedly in short supply the

that's right yeah we

might run out of

banana trees don't know about that but it's a it's a low calorie snack that offers a boost of fiber

potassium

and vitamins with B6 and vitamin C leading the way and also provides a healthy gram of protein too.

Add a banana to your morning cereal or grab one with your granola.

You know, it does taste

great

with

cereal.

Yes, absolutely.

Cheerios, I would suggest with Cheerios

or

unsweetened shredded wheat, mini

shredded.

Well, actually, I don't know if this is true or not, but my favorite, let's call it a fact about the potassium in bananas.

There's a radioactive isotope of potassium.

Found in like trace amounts and bananas, and if you had like a dump truck full of bananas, there would be enough like radiation surrounding that to trip like a detector if you were going through like a security checkpoint Wow,

I wonder if it becomes even more active as the bananas age Because you know, I you know, I feel like there was some kind of

Presence every time you go by the banana department in woodmines because

you just feel certain energy

There's

a certain

energy level.

Oh, give me a

break.

There's so many bananas in there

and there's so

many old

Now I know it's radiation Okay, okay

That's a myth

All right, then it is.

If I didn't mention it before, I'll mention it now.

It's National Bean Counter Day.

Oh,

yeah, because bean counters

are accountants.

That's true.

That's true.

So salute your accountant today, okay?

It's probably something to do with Tax Day being yesterday.

Tax Day, I would assume.

So they're all tired today.

Yep.

National Orchid Day.

Anybody raise any orchids?

No

one cares about orchids.

Okay.

National Healthcare Decisions Day.

So, you know, decide about things.

National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day.

Does anybody

do

this?

That's dumb.

That's really stupid.

Shows a picture of a guy dressed as, well, he's got a suit jacket on.

But his gym.

Yeah, he's wearing.

Pajama bottoms?

Yeah, that's dumb.

Okay.

And one more here at National Eggs Benedict.

Oh, I like eggs Benedict.

That's good stuff.

Oh, I know.

It's good stuff.

Okay, we will get to opening the history books, right?

Gonna do that, Sam?

Do you have any history to share

with us today?

Sure,

I've got a couple things.

Okay, and also in our

seven o'clock

hour, Milwaukee Film Fest tickets.

Is it dead?

Okay.

We'll continue with John and Gordy in the morning.

Grab your banana and join us.

Is it dead?

Is it

dead?

Is it

dead?

Is it dead?

Is it dead?

You're

Kathryn Lake

listening to Civic Media.

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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

3.7, John and Gordy in the morning, just a little bit later on we're going to be talking about Trump closing down around 30 embassies around the world.

We're going to talk about it because Earl Ingram had an interview with former Mayor Tom Barrett, who was an ambassador, and he's going to talk about his impressions of closing down an embassy anywhere in the world.

Yeah,

interesting point of view.

Yeah, why would anybody

do that?

How many embassies can there be?

How many countries are there in the world?

30 seems like a lot.

Well, no, 30 doesn't seem like enough.

I mean,

that's

just the beginning.

30 embassies.

They're

closing.

Yeah, 30.

They're closing

down.

Anyway, that's the rumor so far.

And we've got Tom Barrett's opinion of that, his appearance on Earl Ingram's show.

OK, we'll find out more about that.

622.

30 degrees currently, highs today in the mid 50s.

It's time now for producer Sam to step up to the microphone and tell us exactly what happened on this date in history.

Feel like opening the book, or are you gonna

go with the

electronic?

Okay, open the book.

Oh God, that's

ridiculous.

That's just ridiculous.

So

smoky in here, it's stupid.

This is just

dumb.

Smoky?

Are you telling me that the book is like self?

Igniting now?

I don't know.

Look, gravy.

It's

moldy.

That book is

moldy.

A lot

of history gets recorded in this book.

Yeah, I know.

Well, like what?

What do you got?

Yeah.

Well, today in 1943, LSD, LSD's hallucinogenic properties were discovered.

It was first synthesized like five years earlier, I believe.

And there was a researcher.

What?

Turn your, turn your speaker

off on your

mic.

laptop thing.

You're not paying attention at all, are you, John?

He was

hallucinating on his own.

It was truly important, you know.

Okay, so somebody invented LSD and they discovered

it?

Well, they first made it like five years before.

Nobody had the idea to taste it until 1943, though.

I just got to read this journal entry.

Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable

restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness.

At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.

In a dream-like state with eyes closed, I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring.

I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes, and intense kaleidoscopic play of

colors.

In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hoffman.

That was guys name.

Albert Hoffman.

Swiss chemist.

For me, it sounded a little musical.

I mean, you could actually take some of what he wrote there and put it to music.

Really nice LSD song.

So that was way back in 1943.

That's a lot earlier than I thought.

I didn't think they started messing around with that till the early 60s.

Well.

Timothy

Leary.

Not for fun, I suppose.

Not until everybody marketed it in the 60s, it was very popular.

It was originally being investigated for medicinal stuff and similar chemicals to it.

So that's how it started out.

I thought it was a military thing that you would use on

the enemy.

Brainwashing?

Well, try to get information from your enemies if you captured them, and if they were prisoners, you'd give them this stuff, and they'd like a truth serum, almost.

But I could be wrong.

OK, back to you, Sam.

Sounds like a good spy thriller to

me.

Let's

do

it.

Right.

What else?

Let's see.

Today, 1962, Walter Cronkite became the.

CBS Evening News Anchor.

It's the way it is.

He held that post for a long time.

Almost 20 years, I think 1981, he retired.

Yeah.

Long time.

He was great.

He was

great.

Well, he had a history show.

Remember, it was a

half-hour history program.

After his retirement from being evening anchors.

I

don't know.

I think so.

I think that's what happened, right?

Yeah, he had something.

And you

were there, remember?

You were there.

You were there.

Yeah, that's the way it was.

Yeah.

Well, I

have no memory of him being alive.

Today in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, he wrote his letter from a Birmingham jail.

One of his most famous writings.

There's not a lot else to say about

that.

We

don't have too much to add to that.

Any birthdays for today?

We do have some birthdays.

OK, let's get to

that.

You didn't know

what to say, did

you?

No,

I really didn't.

It was historic in that it got a lot of airplay and it started to, yes, it really, it brought the civil rights movement into the public awareness, I think.

Yeah.

OK.

You were 11.

Yeah.

10 or 11.

Yeah.

I know, it's amazing as

well.

Yeah.

Anyway, birthdays.

It's Wilbur Wright's birthday.

Oh, Wilbur Wright.

Charlie Chaplin has a birthday today and also Karim Abdul-Jabbar.

Karim has written, what, 20 books or something?

Is it that many?

Yeah, quite a lot.

He's

really... But he's got these email...

political statements he sends out

every day.

Like a newsletter?

Yeah, a newsletter.

Like 10 points he always makes.

10 things he's interested in.

And

he's a huge jazz fan.

He has an amazing collection of jazz.

And thankfully he's liberal.

Center

for the birthdays?

That's all we got.

There's

so many people that are sending us pictures of orchids.

Orchids

because it's

Day

to celebrate Marcus

Middleton is sending us

stuff

and beautiful pictures and sherry.

Where are you?

Catherine says Peterson is in a weird mood

today You won't even believe what I got coming up next.

Okay, I mean we're talking

about

bananas

and

and you played the deos song I'm getting it ready

and

that's

what I was doing

here.

I was gonna ask, are you like, you had some tooth work done yesterday, are you still loopy from whatever they gave you?

No, actually, it's shocking.

You know, you normally give you shots to work on your teeth, didn't have to do it.

I had the, you know, just the nitrous oxide, the placement of the crown, the fake crown, until they got the good one in, and they just popped it off my tooth, they put the new one in,

No shots, no nothing.

Are you

kidding me?

It was amazing.

Completely painless?

Yes.

That's amazing.

Yes.

Well, good for you, buddy.

Maybe it wasn't even attached in the first

place.

629, coming up next, Idiocracy.

A little bit later, we'll talk to Liz Johnston from Serenity Spies, Pet Spies.

OK, coming up on John and

Gordy.

As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point, a dumbing down, until humanity was incapable of solving even its most basic problems.

Just doing my civic duties, son.

No!

You dense, irritating miniature beast of burden!

We can duck and cover.

There's a ball of shelter right there.

There's no way to survive this, you

idiot!

Idiocracy!

For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.

We're just doing our civic duty here.

I like the addition that's kind of

nice.

635 and 30 degrees highs today in the mid 50s.

This portion of John and Gordy in the morning along with producer Sam is brought to you by Virlo Mattress of Madison.

Wake up.

and sleep better on a Verlo mattress.

A lot's changed, John, since 1958.

You

know

that.

Well, yeah.

But some things have remained constant throughout Verlo's history.

They're still direct to consumer and provide superior products at unbeatable prices.

Verlo mattress, two Madison locations, east and west.

And you can find out more by going to Verlo.com.

Should we play this thing?

You found this, this is your dog, right?

This

is my first big border collie.

He was gigantic.

He was like 70 pounds.

They don't get that big.

But each of my border collies have found a song that they sing to.

Our new Border Collie is two years old.

She hasn't picked a song out yet.

We haven't played enough music,

I

guess.

But my second Border Collie used to sing to the TV theme of Batman.

What was

the name?

The

TV theme.

What was the name

of the movie?

That

was Speed.

Speed, okay.

I named him after

Speed Racer.

And the first one, Mickey, loved...

the banana boat song and if we could just I gotta play this banana day and he and believe me he is listening to every lyric and that's so here it is okay

I know, but he

loves it.

Sure, he loves

it.

Just goes on and on the whole song.

He actually goes the whole song.

And just when there's a pause, and he goes, day, is it day, is it day?

When that happens, he pauses.

And he waits for that to happen,

and

then he chimes

in.

He just loved that song.

That's crazy stuff, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

Well, it's National Banana Day, so it fits right in.

Perfect.

Well, he was singing right along.

Thanks for sharing that.

Well, yeah, sure.

It's something.

OK, it's an idiocracy time.

Oh, it is an idiocracy time, yeah.

That's a great way to introduce it.

Got it dosed off there for a second, didn't ya?

I'm thinking about that dog and the bananas.

Well, you know, it's so sunny.

I'm just basking in the, in the warmth of the sun here.

So

nice,

isn't it?

It is.

All

right.

I have a kind of a bone to pick with Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house.

You know, he just

says really horrible things and he says it in a very calm, peaceful, religious way.

And that's what bothers me more than anything.

You know, he's brutal.

Cold ruthless and yet, you know, he's very religious and I guess he's carrying out God's will here But anyway, Mike Johnson claims wrongly that 51 billion dollars is lost in fraud and abuse Okay, so this is cut 124.

Let's listen to what Mike Johnson has to say

No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid to anyone who's duly owed.

What we've talked about is returning work requirements.

So for example, you don't have able-bodied young men on a program that's designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled.

They're draining resources from people who are actually do that.

So if you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games.

All right.

I just want to pause here because

Medicaid wasn't designed as a work program.

It was designed to provide healthcare.

And Republicans tried to do this before, but it was determined by a court that it wasn't the purpose of Medicaid.

So they couldn't do it.

They couldn't add a work requirement to it.

Now they're going to try again to do this, and hopefully it'll get stopped in the courts because that's not why the program was developed.

Okay, all right, let's continue.

We have a lot of fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid.

Just one tiny example.

The estimate is $51 billion a year and Medicaid is lost to fraud.

That's unconscionable.

We now have with the doge efforts and with new algorithms and with new oversight responsibilities and opportunities, we have the ability to carve that out.

We have a responsibility to do it.

That estimate by some people, some estimates say that is very low.

It's actually much higher than

that.

No, it isn't really.

Let's get into a little bit of the history here.

A while back, the GAO, the government accountability office, issued its report on federal agency's improper payments estimates for physical year 2024, very current, and identified $162 billion in payment errors.

Errors.

That's errors.

Keep in mind that it's not improper payments.

Just errors.

It's just errors and that's what the fraud and abuse is.

For example, of the 2024 Medicaid improper payments, 79% were the result of insufficient documentation.

It's not fraud, it's not abuse.

Where a state or provider missed an administrative step and does not necessarily

indicate fraud or abuse.

So they're twisting this into some kind of pretzel to sell it to make these cuts, then require a work requirement.

It is not a program requiring work.

And that is, uh, that's a basic and I'm really driving this thing home.

I guess so.

Yeah.

So anyway, that's, uh,

Just to make it clear.

Yes.

Just to clear that up.

Again, you know, if they always replace fraud and abuse with programs they don't like.

If they don't like it, it's fraud and abuse.

And that's what Elon is very, very, very guilty of.

Well, we haven't heard much from him lately.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes.

After Wisconsin, uh, suddenly they

kind of

put him in the

back of the room.

He's kind

of disappeared.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And told him not to wear the black hat.

or that black jacket anymore.

And it's all a show, isn't it?

I mean, that's what it's all about.

Don't do this, don't wear that.

Unbelievable.

The optics.

The policy is getting so messed up and screwed up.

Now, let's get to Keesey.

She's a reporter.

She's very good.

She anchors her own program.

I think she's fantastic.

And she got into it with Peter Navarro.

advisor for the president.

And he loves tariffs.

He just loves those things.

And Casey Hunt got very, very frustrated with him and his answers.

So let's get to let's get to this little back and forth.

So we've got a graphic that shows other recent trade deal negotiations.

We can put it up for viewers.

With Central America, 16 months.

The USMCA, 15 months.

South Korea, 14 months.

Australia,

14 months.

We tried to do it with the UK.

Our strongest

allies were paused after three years and seven months.

How can you do any single one of these in 90 days, let alone all of

them?

Hang on, you're missing the whole point.

Let me explain the kind of deals like the renegotiation and NAFTA and all of that That's governed by a by a set of rules and laws that will make take time to do that what we're gonna do is We have the ability to come up with a deal

Jameson Greer, Howard Lutnick, Scott Bestow, whoever's sitting in the room with Japan or South Korea,

the

boss is going to be the lead negotiator, and we can get that done.

And one of the things we're going to do is you're seeing all those law firms that are giving us like $100 million at a crack of free legal advice.

We're going to hopefully have them very much involved in all of this, and we do stuff in Trump time, which is to say as quickly as possible.

So do you think we can get it?

deal done?

Yes, we're going to get those things done very quickly.

Wow, Trump time.

I didn't know there was Trump.

There is Trump time now.

There's enough.

They got rid of deal like saving time, central standard time.

It's all Trump time now,

right?

That's

what it's all about.

It's a new one.

Isn't that amazing?

Yeah, we have these separate deals going on.

They're not under any specific, specific agreement.

So, you know, we could, you know,

Certainly cut through all of it.

Mm-hmm cut through the red tape.

Yeah,

sure

Anyway, it was a great confrontation now.

Let's

get to

Mike Johnson again.

Okay, this is I'm we're gonna get to a web wisdom here.

Okay This is about Mike Johnson trying to pass the most insane absolutely insane way to pay tax bills and everything else Let's let's listen to this little rant here from the web

you mind telling me

which one 125

125 all right good okay

now let's go through the details first part is just extending the existing trump tax cuts that will cost 3.8 trillion over the next 10 years and they add an additional 20 extra years of tax cuts totaling 17 trillion on top of those they have another 1.5 trillion in tax cuts yet to be allocated

Now, this is where things get crazy.

In the old bill that they were working on, they had two trillion in spending cuts.

Those are the Medicaid cuts you heard so much about.

They actually just removed all of those because they realized those were politically toxic.

So while that might be great, they're not planning on gutting Medicaid right now, it means they're about to explode the debt even more.

And if that wasn't enough, they actually increased spending

from the 300 level before in the last bill to 521, mainly for defense and border security, of course.

In total, the new house resolution that they're trying to get through has a $7 trillion increase in the debt over the next 10 years.

They're saving money there.

About double the size of their previous version in February.

Now this bill is currently struggling to get through the house.

There are some

Republican holdouts who want to guarantee more spending cuts in the bill, but they are dead set on ramming this insane debt laden tax cut, of course, mainly benefiting the wealthy.

All while, of course, they're raising taxes on the lower and middle class with their regressive tariffs.

So less money for the poor, more money for the rich.

Yeah, that's huge.

That's a web wisdom.

Yeah, that's a web wisdom.

And he's right on with the money.

And, you know,

We heard Mike Johnson cut just recently here, and he seems to think there's some kind of magical thing going on with algorithms.

Why is he throwing that into

the next slide?

He's got those algorithms.

He must be right.

He's right there on the spot with his algorithms.

But here, we've got a Republican saying, gee, this is really adding a lot to the national debt, which we're supposed to be paying down, right?

So let's listen to this.

Cut 126.

This is a framework for financial collapse of our country is what this is.

This is a

framework for the biggest deficit increase in the history of Congress.

That's

what this

framework is.

There could have been promises to cut spending, but there were not.

You believe that the Republican Party in its first hundred days has set themselves up, yes, not only to lose majorities, but also

to frankly enrich themselves in the process.

I don't even know if they want to keep their majorities next year more than they are here to enrich themselves.

The full America First agenda is not just cutting taxes and other pro-growth policies like unleashing American energy production.

It's not just simply giving the president more resources for border security and strengthening our defense.

I would say most importantly

it's putting our nation on a path to balance because if we bankrupt this country, nothing else matters.

That's right.

You heard from mega representative Thomas, Thomas Massey.

Now, and then you heard AOC and I can't remember the other persons.

I think it's a guy, Jody Errington.

Anyway, they all had these comments about the budget.

Now, there's also something to keep in mind.

Not only does it raise and

pretty much bankrupt the country.

There is language in it that says that the House cannot vote to terminate any of Trump's emergency declarations to impose tariffs.

It can't do anything.

It can't touch the tariffs.

It's their job to do something with tariffs, but they're going to give that up to the president.

Yes.

Yeah.

And they're not going to solve that anytime soon.

No, they're not going to try and solve anything.

Give it to...

It's your Trump.

649, coming up right around the corner we'll talk to Liz Johnston from Serenity Pet Spa and Salon next on John and Gordy in the

Kathryn Lake

Morning.

WMPX, John and Gordy in the morning enjoying a little popcorn with our coffee.

Weather's gonna look nice today.

It's a little chilly this morning around 30 degrees, but we'll see highs this afternoon about 55 seeing early morning sunshine.

It's gonna cloud up a little bit later on.

And time now for us to welcome Liz Johnston into the studio from Serenity Pet Spa and Salon.

Liz, great to have you here.

We had a little trouble getting you in yesterday.

Well, snafu, let me out in the cold.

It's all right.

It's all right.

Well, we have such high security here.

Fields

character.

Yes.

Sam let somebody in the building who brushed his teeth and...

What?

Where are you getting this?

Are you talking about that time that you were, I just found you out on the street?

Yes, exactly.

He still works here.

Can't get rid of him.

So,

first of all, tell us a little bit about Serenity Pet Spa and so on.

You have a couple of locations, but this is really like a world-class thing that you do.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

Tell us about your business.

Yeah, so I, yes, we currently have two locations.

We have an East and a West.

I have about, I don't even know.

10, 15 total employees.

I

can't keep track from one day to the next.

We have an ever-growing team.

We have some new people this week.

But no, I started Serenity a little over 10 years ago.

Uh, and I started competing in grooming competitions about 12 to 15 years ago.

I lose track,

you know,

when you get older.

Um,

so,

um,

but yeah, so it all started, um, just with a passion for obviously the dogs and kind of fell into grooming and from there, um, just realizing that, you know, there's that lack of training in grooming salons and things.

And so I started my own.

And then I started bringing people in and people just kept coming wanting to learn from me.

and I do still compete all over the country and the world in grooming competitions and I teach people and then they get to go compete and I teach seminars and things like that all over the place.

There's a lot involved in this.

You're teaching individuals how to do this.

What is it that you're teaching them to do?

This is a really specialized.

Surface that you have tell us what you're teaching them what they have to know

Yeah, so I mean the biggest thing is what I guess is the most overlooked is like a good 80 to 90% of dog grooming is being able to understand the animal being able to actually

understand what they need both physically and mentally to feel comfortable getting, you know, weird parts of the body touched by a stranger,

you

know, you know, we agree to go get a haircut or a dentist or something like that.

These dogs are like, my mom just dropped me off here and I don't know you.

So

we really try to like focus on like the first thing I'm teaching my people is like bathing basics and which is kind of the easier part.

Obviously, everyone can wash a dog, you

know, can

they wash it to different degrees of well, yes, I teach them to do it very.

well.

But they're learning the dog behavior.

They're learning like how to speak the dog, how to tell when the dog is stressed, how when they need a break, how one may they're getting a little excited or getting a little aggressive or feeling uncomfortable.

And that's that first step because that's what creates safety in the grooming salon.

So when they become a groomer, they can understand what that dog needs and when it's getting pushed too far.

And when that can be that dangerous time that accidents do happen, dogs do get injured and groomers get injured.

Also, like people kind of forget that.

like groomers can injure too.

We've all gotten sent to the hospital once or twice.

So sometimes it's kind of, it takes some time, right, to acclimate the dog to be in there alone.

The owner is not there, they're not present.

So that's kind of an amazing thing.

Yeah,

that's why we focus on kennel free.

So when a dog comes in, we never do dogs like straight through, unless it's absolutely some dogs absolutely want that.

Most of them want to acclimate for a second.

We let them hang out with the other dogs.

We let them meet the other people, sort of just kind of walk around, get there because dogs are such a scent activated animal.

They walk around, they get all the scents of the salon in, and then they start getting in the bath.

Then, you know, we kind of do things in stages, so nothing.

like go, go, go, go, go, especially with these dogs that aren't used to it.

And we're just pushing them through thing after thing after thing that they don't understand.

And it can

be really stressful.

So that's why we do like all the dogs are there for a couple hours.

They have relaxed time.

They have play time.

They make messes.

They get dirty.

They have fun.

They act ridiculous.

So it's like, it also, you know, it keeps my groomers up a little bit too because I mean.

We do this because we like dogs.

So we could actually see them having a little bit of fun and playing around and just being goofy.

So can they interact with the other dogs?

You encourage that.

Oh, yeah.

It's kind of like a little mini doggy daycare at the salon.

So yes, there are some dogs that are like, I want nothing to do with this.

And we usually

find like little corners in the salon where we have little beds and they just kind of hang out there.

And, and like my groomers are always there and they're kind of underfoot.

And that's another step of that behavioral learning is that my groomers understand pack behavior in that kind of daycare type settings.

So they can watch for dogs that are getting a little bit too, you know, carried away a little too excited and the dogs that want their space so that they can give it to them.

You have a lot of regular customers.

Oh

yeah.

Yeah.

All of our dogs are on regular rotation.

So we try to also make it busy or easy for that busy people.

Like I'm too busy to remember to make appointments for my own head.

So everything's just on rotation.

It's like, oh, your dog needs to come every four weeks, six weeks, you know, what day and time works for you.

We just auto book it and then they don't have to worry about it.

And they just show up.

and the text message tells them to

show up with the dog again.

So yeah, yeah, keeps the dogs looking good.

I think you mentioned in our discussions that sometimes, you know, it just doesn't work out, you know, where you don't get to actually, you know.

give them a bath or trim them, they're just getting acclimated.

And then they come back again another time in order to acclimate themselves even more or familiarize themselves with the surroundings.

Is that right?

Oh, absolutely.

We actually have a full behavioral rehab program, especially with your rescue dogs.

I think I was just talking to one last night.

She booked a couple of weeks out, but she's going to be coming in next week just to let her dog acclimate.

Because she doesn't know the history on this dog.

She doesn't know if it's ever been to a groomer.

She doesn't know if that groomer was a good trained groomer.

or if it was one that maybe traumatized them.

So, yeah.

Liz, we're out of time here, but we're going to have you back again and maybe come back on a regular basis and talk about some ideas as far as dog grooming and other things.

We appreciate you coming in.

If people want to find out more, then go to your website, which is.

It's serenitypetspaMadison.com.

Thank you very much.

Liz Johnston.

Appreciate it.

We'll see you again soon.

Coming up in our 7 o'clock hour Milwaukee Film Festival tickets and Mike McCabe on John

and Gordy.

Kathryn Lake

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