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trying to see how the John and Sam show goes.
you.
Yeah, I took like a two and a half hour nap yesterday.
It was great.
Well, anyway, it takes a lot for a radio veteran not to come in simply because in the old days, we didn't have people to fill in.
We didn't hire people to just, you know, pop in and take over a show in case somebody was sick.
We came in anyway, you know, came in absolutely sick and spreading that disease throughout the radio station that was just part of the job.
Anyway, so here we are and Gordy is not feeling well enough to make it in today and so we will push on.
All right, we will push it.
It's not like we don't have enough stuff to get to here.
Let's see.
I've been
saying we got to bust out the paper shredder to just like put you out of your misery and take your take the stories that you worked so hard to put together even though they're far out of date.
We just got to get rid of them in some way.
Yeah, yeah.
But luckily,
shouldn't say luckily, but today Gordy's gone.
So
can you can have a dumpster fire Friday on a Wednesday.
Yeah, we might actually resort to getting a lot a lot to those those old stories that we haven't gotten to make them sound current, you know.
But we do have a load of stuff for idiocracy this morning.
We're jam packed as you can see by the outline this morning.
It's crazy stuff.
Absolutely crazy stuff.
So we're ready.
In fact, I kind of packed it up just in case Gordy couldn't make it
in.
Did you lower the font size so you could fit more stories on here, John?
I wouldn't put it past
Yeah.
right.
I've got a bone to pick with Google.
Well, there's so many things that I don't like about Google, but you just have to use them for
That's how your kids feel about iPhones and Apple.
and
happen to one of you guys?
that's sort of me.
to back up your phones.
Forever?
That's a hot take.
or Grapes as their company name and company logo, Pear or Grapes or strawberries, that would have been a little better.
yeah, they've always
Let's take a look at the weather.
I can't see your WMDX thermometer in there, but luckily I have one just like it in my window here in the producer's WMDX window.
Current temperature I'm seeing is 46 degrees outside.
It's a little cloudy looking out the window.
Looks like we're gonna have blue skies today.
Do you have the WMDX Samsung watch ready?
rain today, isn't it also I
know.
Well,
we'll have to talk to Brittany.
We're
to wait till Brittany gets in here.
Yeah, we're going to force people to listen to the show to get their weather update
Without any weather, they won't know what to do.
Exactly.
Bumble in the walls.
I don't know what they're going to do.
But it's cloudy out there right now.
So by the way, I just want to mention too that it's a competition.
Gordy tells you what the high temperature is going to be for the day.
I predicted the high temperature and it was exactly that yesterday No,
no,
You can go up on the roof, put his arms in the air, and then have divine inspiration about what the high temperature is going to be.
Did you do this in his presence, like when
you on the show?
Well, yeah, we kind of did it as well when he was on the show at 92 out in the cornfield in St.
Prairie.
That was kind of fun.
And he loved it.
He didn't like all the gimmicks.
So we're kind of real people here, right?
Alright, well, anyway, we've got to get to the National Day Calendar.
You do have to get to the National Day Calendar.
We do.
Are you
me fake you out?
Well, I pulled all the pages up.
might have the
thought the picture was funny.
It's got a dog with like his little hobo sack, a bandana on
of his earthly possessions.
just a sucker for cute little dogs, aren't you?
They should be treated like human beings.
All right, National Administrative Professionals Day.
Wow, what a day that is.
National Cherry Cheesecake Day.
I hate cheesecake, so we could skip that one.
Cherries, I love them.
Okay, National Take a Chance Day.
That's kind of like today, and we're taking a chance without Gordy being here.
We're seeing if we can go ahead and do the show without him forever now.
I haven't read enough Shakespeare to know how to talk like him.
starting to speak in rhyme or
Was that in an effort to...
like romance somebody to talk
flowery, poetic
I had this weird ability to be like Zeleg.
Do you ever see the movie Zeleg?
No, I haven't.
Woody Allen movie where he plays this guy, Zeleg, and whoever he is near, he takes on their profession.
their idiosyncrasies, their personality, their look.
So I mean, it was funny because it eventually got to the point where he was near Adolf Hitler.
And he started acting like Hitler.
Yes, exactly.
Oh, wow.
It's a fun movie.
It really is.
It's fantastic.
But I always refer to Zelling as that point where you take on some of the characteristics of the people that you admire most or that you watch most.
And that is one of them.
You know, Shakespeare.
The other we were required to read in school was Edgar Allen Poe.
And then, yes, I would talk like Edgar Allen.
Start acting like an angsty,
dark teenager.
I didn't have goth back then, but yeah.
Right.
But yeah, I just, I still love it.
You know, I used to buy the paperbacks and then I'd cut cardboard out and I'd glue it to the covers, inside some of the covers.
So it felt like a hard cover.
Yeah.
I'd have my own library of hardcover books.
Yeah, it was pretty bad, you know.
But that's what we did in Milwaukee way back when.
Okay, so should we get to National Take a Chance Day?
It says just do it.
What are we taking a chance on?
Yeah, most of us have unaccomplished goals or dreams.
What if this was the day to take the chance to make them happen?
Even if it's just a first step toward that goal, it will be one step closer than before.
What if Gordy's taking the day off so he can take a chance at interviewing at another radio station?
Yeah, that's that's what he's doing It's like it's like we wouldn't notice so come on Gordy National picnic day.
All right, this is There are a variety of ways to take part in a picnic.
This is really
This meal harkens back to mid-18th century.
El Fresco French dining went all out.
All you needed was a bottle of wine, some bread, cheese, fruit, and you have a party.
Boy, that does sound like a party.
John
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do you think we just want to listen to the song don't you yeah It's great
Orbison
Look didn't saw that he's on our on our history list today.
No, that was the first song that came to mind.
Yeah, that's that that's one of his best We have a few texts here Matt on Middleton says enjoying watching Musk fall apart couldn't happen to a nicer guy Yeah, a lot of things are happening with that guy.
They're trying to get him out
Retire him early.
We all would love to see that happen.
Yes And I guess one of the big CEOs at Tesla is saying we want you out You know once once Elon starts losing the businesses that he has invested in he's not gonna be happy so obviously You want to get out of the government business and we want to see him go very quickly Matt writes funny how people
who line up with Trump, the fraud, tend to lose badly, like America probably will as well.
And Doug in St.
Francis says the fact that Gordy is sick and not on the air is proof that you have not been replaced by AI.
That was in our promo, you know.
We were gonna prove that we were not AI professionals
here.
I guess everyone listening to us knows now that
in fact real.
We're creating artificial listeners with the use of AI now.
And they're so kind as to write us a summary of what they heard whenever they listen to the show.
And are you going to read,
hate AI for certain uses, for creative uses.
To an extent, including writing, I don't love it.
I don't love it for this, even though it makes my life, my job easier, because I don't have to write
right, yeah.
Yours look pretty much like this.
like it's
the time I forget things.
There we go.
John and Gordy tackle the chaotic world of current events, starting with the controversial deportation of two German teens from Hawaii for lack of hotel bookings, sparking tourism concerns.
The conversation shifts to the Supreme Court's mixed decisions, including a surprising defense of Obamacare and a troubling stance on gun rights for youths.
The show also covers Trump's bizarre gold obsession, as discussed on The Daily Show,
and a comedic take on the authoritarian aesthetics.
We love comedic takes on authoritarianism.
Guest Jim Santel weighs in on legal challenges facing the Trump administration and the importance of due process.
A lively mix of legal insights, comedic banter, and a sprinkle of absurdity.
There you go.
It's there.
That's the AI summary.
I'm sure there's a collection of AI.
If this is your first
time ever listening to the John and Gordy show,
and you can go check out our two of yesterday's show.
learns, and so what if it's learning from itself?
Can that happen?
I think so.
I think so.
We'll find out.
And that's from Catherine.
We'll we'll find out how that sounds.
OK, I this this this I just thought was really outrageous.
And there was a story that I just ran across just before the show started.
And I just thought this was unusual.
Trump says that there's no time for trials.
People are worried, you know, he's going to start deporting
American citizens, right?
But, you know, it's bad enough doing it to immigrants who are here legally.
But this...
this this comment no time for trials
well wouldn't be the first time in american history that habeas corpus has been suspended
Oh, yeah, it's time for a look in the
book.
Oh boy, let's let's dial up the digital version today.
I don't want to
Gordy's out sick.
I might be getting sick.
I don't want to have to deal with the dust Yeah, I like the digital version anyway.
All right.
All right 1635 the Boston Grammar School opened up It was the very first public school in the would be United States.
Wow.
Yeah, it's set up the very first taxpayer funded
like public school model.
Public schools had sort of existed before that in a couple places, but this one set the model for funding it based off of property taxes, which pretty much every school across the country uses now.
Okay.
I thought this was funny.
Today in 1937, Richard Nixon was rejected from an FBI job that he had applied to.
And J. Edgar Hoover, he later said that, quote, the FBI's loss ultimately became the country's gain.
What?
That's
Exactly.
Today in 1985, New Coke was introduced.
Did you ever have New Coke back in the day?
No.
No, you didn't?
around just to try it, because I've heard about it plenty of times.
Never stops production on their original recipe later that week and there was such outcry that They had to reintroduce it about three months later.
think they sweetened it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't I don't know for sure
I would try it then.
I'd give it a
We'll be back in just a little bit with some more idiocracy.
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.
Idiocracy.
For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.
And I always say that.
But it's... it's dumbness.
back-to-back wall-to-wall Constantly it is every day is opposite day in this world that we know as Trump world All right, so but we we left off one birthday and a little tip of the hat Goes to a guy that everybody loves who is watch TV over the many years Lee majors.
Let's listen to a song he sang this is him singing
the fall
guy.
good stuff
see this is this is why it's great to work with two guys in their 70s because I've never heard of Lee majors before but now I
movie
He appears at the end of the movie, Fall Guy.
And it's really a great surprise police officer taking the actual Fall Guy in.
It's good stuff.
And Lee Majors has made these cameos all over the damn place.
He's always a grandfather or a father.
And it's just very surprising there was one time where he
He appeared in Ash versus the Evil Dead.
I don't know if you ever watched that.
It was a series on one of the streaming channels.
And Bruce Campbell was the star, of course, but Bruce Campbell had a dad and it was Lee Majors, right?
And Lee Majors was like very momentarily in the series.
He steps out of a building and he gets run over by a car.
And they show this, you know, and he gets run over by the car and the back wheel crushes his head.
So it was stunning stuff.
Didn't expect that.
But anyway, you know, Lee is a great guy.
He makes fun of himself constantly.
And he did go out with Farrah Flossett.
As I mentioned to you, he was a Farrah Flossett appendage for a while.
More people knew about
that I've heard of, but never really seen.
Yeah.
So how old does that make him?
right?
Yeah, 86.
I have to say that this show, the John and Gordy show, has been brought to you by Verlo Mattress of Madison and one thing that remains constant since 1958 when Verlo Mattress was founded is that they are still direct to consumer and provide superior products at unbeatable prices and you can find Verlo Mattresses at two locations in Madison on the east side and west side or online at Verlo.com.
for idiocracy.
right.
Why do you
to like live in a hospital bed?
Are you just training yourself for when your kids put you in a home?
and
Why get a moveable mattress like that when you can just sleep in a recliner?
A lazy boy.
I know I used to kind of fall asleep that way and then go to bed, but ever since I got this job, I can't do that anymore.
Because you'll stay there the whole night.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
Let's get to the first big story here.
This is Trump's big idea.
is to re-energize manufacturing in the US.
And this was a huge idea, by the way.
Scott Walker wanted to do this in Wisconsin.
He wanted to bring back basically a renaissance of manufacturing in Wisconsin.
Never, never happened.
And that's because of NAFTA.
Everybody moved out of the country to get cheap labor.
And that's why...
That's why I hate corporations most is they don't have any allegiance to the localities that they're in and the people that work at their factories and their businesses.
They just don't care.
They just up and left and abandoned people.
And we're supposedly supposed to admire corporations.
I don't think so.
Anyway, this is a great explainer on how economically impractical it is to shift.
the U.S.
economy to large-scale manufacturing.
And this is from Nathan Jung.
He's a philosophy professor.
Let's check out what he has to say about it.
Cut 56.
By now, we all understand that the tariffs are meant to bring back domestic manufacturing to the United States.
In the long run, this is a good thing, but it definitely negatively impacts the lower and middle class.
First off, manufacturing in the United States is very expensive, and we also don't have any manufacturing facilities in the United States to cover all of the companies that currently use overseas manufacturing to produce in the United States.
Let's take a look at Tesla, who built a Gigafactory in Texas.
It took them two years to be able to build that.
In addition to it taking Tesla two years, they also received over $1.1 billion in tax incentives from Texas and local municipalities.
Today, over 3,000 U.S.
companies use international manufacturing and import their goods.
We don't have the land.
We don't have the facilities.
We don't have the materials.
We don't have the machinery.
And we definitely do not have the labor or do we?
And this segues into the dismantling of the Department of Education.
It has been a political agenda of Republicans to prevent white students from going to college for almost 30 years now.
Why?
Well, white voters tend to vote for Democrats at almost a 22-point margin.
So they try very, very hard to prevent white Americans from going to college.
With the removal of federal funding that goes to public schools to be able to cover the percentage they need to be able to keep their schools open, this will directly impact poorer states who receive a higher percentage of the federal funding.
So what does that have to do with domestic manufacturing?
Well, currently it's estimated that undocumented immigrants currently make up anywhere between 39 to 61 percent of all blue collar workers working in manufacturing, agricultural and construction.
We also have enough data from Brexit to know that if you prevent undocumented immigrants from being able to work blue collar jobs, you will not be able to replace them.
I think you get where I'm going with this by now.
The solution is going to be teenage and young adult labor.
Let's take a look at Louisiana that just received a $21 billion commitment to invest in the building of an electric steel manufacturing facility.
First off, they received this investment from Hyundai.
Now, Louisiana also ranks 40th in our country in education.
They're one of the worst.
So why would a company like Hyundai choose Louisiana to build their factories?
We all know the answer.
First off, Louisiana permits 16-year-olds to drop out of high school and work full-time hours.
Second, Louisiana abides by the national minimum wage rate, which is $7.25 per hour.
Third, and here is the clincher, Louisiana does not require that employers pay full-time workers who are minors, health care benefits or other benefits.
Education suppression equals child labor.
But let's circle back to the dismantling of health care, social security and Medicaid, which makes up the third part of Trump's three deathly halos.
To build manufacturing facilities to cover 99 out of the top 100 industrial companies in our country, it's going to require either insane amount of local rebates, but it's also going to require federal government support.
For example, Tesla received federal grants from our tax dollars to be able to build their first factories.
There's no way around it that the federal government would have to provide grants or insane rebates in order to build more manufacturing in the U.S.
But where is this money going to come from?
That's where these cuts come in.
Currently, Social Security, Medicaid, health care comprise about 50 percent of our entire federal budget.
If the U.S.
wants to pay for domestic manufacturing and be able to provide incentives to do it, they're going to have to cut somewhere, and this is where they're going to cut.
So what does that mean for people who currently survive on Medicaid, Social Security and need health care?
You can do that deductive reasoning in your head.
You might think that I am sensationalizing things and creating conspiracies.
I personally believe that I am somebody who believes in deductive reasoning and critical thinking.
And all I can see is the actions that are happening and try to come to conclusions about what this all means.
It does to me feel like in order to make America great again, Trump simply has to reduce the number of Americans that he has to make it great for.
Where's it?
Do you know where he's
He says, wait, wait, wait, the fact that Gordy is he well, he said before that.
that Gordy is gone is proof that we're
AI.
wait, wait.
The fact that Gordy is sick and not on the air is proof that at least Gordy has not been replaced by AI.
So we could both be fake, but Gordy could be real, and that's the reason that he's not here.
He refused to have his voice cloned or something.
you know I'm waiting for Gordy to come in with his his Beatles book that it's not even a Beatles book that he oh
can explain it better when he's back but yeah he bought this book that was he bought it on Amazon it was supposed to be about
John and Paul of the Beatles.
right?
Yeah, and he found like the cheapest copy he could on Amazon It had the right cover, but inside the book was a completely different
Yeah, it was like a novel
there and part of me just is thinking that like the AI had to be in use in some way in this like Your wife has run into AI written novels on Amazon before somebody could just do that slap a different cover of the book on there and
make some cash on Amazon.
It's not even their novel then.
Well, they don't care because they're making money.
They're, you know, suckering some people into buying it.
Although, you know, you really have to advertise books heavily in order to get some kind of sales figure of some sort.
Yeah.
So it's not that easy.
But yeah.
AI is troublesome.
It's very troublesome.
And now we're finding out it's even more troublesome now that Elon has planted AI in every server, every, every part of the government in order to surveil the employees and find out who's loyal and who isn't.
It's just that you know and again I've mentioned yesterday and I realized it yesterday by the way that because I worked for the Commerce Department and and and Howard Ludnick They're probably trying to find out hey, what's this guy doing?
Why is he working for us at the census?
So, you know, it might bounce me out every once in a while.
I don't know.
Maybe.
Maybe soon.
They're keeping an eye on you.
we got a call.
Well, I hope Gordy is better soon.
And if we need to airlift some chicken noodle soup to the guy, then let's get the chopper going.
Headed up there, poor guy.
And I hope he doesn't infect all of you.
He'll be in empty morning if that's the case.
And anyway, I was calling in reference to Mr. Trump and, of course, the policies on manufacturing.
And I just wanted to mention this had been around for a while, and I always thought it was just kind of brain dead.
Here are two competing pieces of information, which is that
Up until recently, the GOP and Trump have been all about offshoring manufacturing to other countries.
And in fact, there was a law that was initiated in 2017 that gave clear incentives for American based corporations to move overseas.
So you got.
tax break to move your operations and jobs overseas.
They had a 0% tax rate on many profits generated offshore.
So now they're saying, whoa, we got to bring it back.
And I would point out that this isn't as of February 5th, 2025, the Dems have introduced the bill to eliminate Trump's outsourcing of tax breaks that are up for renewal.
It seems before you would.
you know, bust up the economy with all these tariffs that the very first thing that you would do is say, we aren't going to give you a break because you moved your business overseas.
I mean, I'm stunned that this sort of has to be explained, but this is, you know, Republican chicanery at its finest, but encourage people to just give a call to what's described as the bill is described as.
Getting rid of outsourcing tax breaks.
Okay.
That's all we're saying is I don't you know, you don't get a tax break for taking the business overseas Wouldn't it seem to be like a nice first step rather than blowing up the economy?
So in any way my two cents you can check it out the person who was Sheldon White House was the sponsor of the bill.
in the morning.
Gordy's out today.
And Sam, the producer is filling in.
We're talking about idiocracy right now.
And before we get to what is happening in trade, we kind of got a little taste of it with Joe.
But I want to mention that we have new schedules going on here at the station.
at Civic Media.
Wow, a little bit.
I don't know if anybody would
notice.
talking, you're talking the, okay, this is my producer brain talking.
You're talking the new
not the clock change, yes.
and if they try to replace us, then we'll hack into the system and make sure that we go on the air instead.
Yes.
From 11 to two.
Yeah, I'm gonna be producing him.
He'll
weeks.
We tied up the execs there in the back closet right now.
Okay, let's get back to the economy and tariffs and what all of this is going to do for trade deficits.
Jeffrey Sachs,
influential economists and a guy from Columbia University.
He's a professor, okay, mentioned that.
Anyway, he didn't hold back when he talked about Trump's trade policies.
He said, Mickey Mouse is smarter than him.
Let's listen to Jeffrey Sachs on trade here.
If you take your credit card and you go shopping and you run up a large credit card debt, you're running a trade deficit.
with all those shops Now it would be pretty strange if you then blamed all the shop owners for having sold you all those things You're ripping me off.
You're ripping me off.
You're ripping me off.
I'm running a trade deficit That is the level of understanding of the president of the United States The trade deficit does not represent at all trade
policies, it represents spending relative to production or earnings.
We call that an identity.
I teach it in the second day of my course in international monetary economics.
Trump never made it to the second day.
So he says...
You're running a trade deficit.
Look, they're all cheating me.
But all that's happening is the United States is outspending its national income.
We have a big credit card in the United States.
It's called the national government.
stuff.
Like dumb do you need to be to not understand income minus expenses equals profit and you can have negative profit Which is the situation we're in right now.
I learned that in I'm sure I learned it before that but I first took an economics class in 9th or 10th grade It's pretty simple stuff Donald Trump.
by the board.
You got to have money to make money, and you got to have money to lose money.
He's done the latter.
Well, you know the press secretary for him.
You know, she's walking back all the time.
I think there's one easy thing she should just say every time she comes out.
The president didn't mean what he really said.
And if he did, uh, he didn't say it.
she?
It's gotten to be ridiculous and that he didn't, he didn't mean this.
And then now all of a sudden he's walking back everything with, uh, the Chinese.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, that's what he said.
So I asked Ben what's going on here this investigative journalist Naomi Klein Calls it disaster capitalism and it's a disaster.
All right
Ben Chuckled.
It's the oldest racket in town.
It takes me back to the glory days of the old robber barons.
They wrote the playbook, Real Visionaries.
Old Baron Von Rothschild, the banker, he used to tell me, when the streets run red with blood, I buy.
Or take Collis Huntington, the railroad baron.
You know his motto?
Anything that's not nailed down is mine, and anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.
There's your basic corporate mission statement.
Yes All right good stuff again, I don't know who said it, but I just love the comment itself So I think it stands on its own next hour.
We're gonna be talking about RFK jr.
Some of the crazy things he has put into motion We'll get to that right here on John and Courtney in the morning.
Also got our Wednesday appearance Mike McCabe That's right.
Mike McCabe is coming up as well.
So we'll find out what he has to talk about.
All right.
Take care
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