You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
Please stand by for the John and Gordy morning show.
Phone lines are open right now.
Call or text 608-879-8255 or use the free Civic Media app.
And now, live from the Civic Media headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, here are John and Gordy.
We're truly sorry.
Sure.
It's seven minutes past six, top of the morning to you.
Rise and shine, shake a leg up an atom.
Let's go.
Well, I know you're feeling pretty good because you took care of the weeds in your yard.
I did.
Yeah.
I did a lot of gardening.
Yeah.
Took care of things.
You actually stopped by.
I did.
I was driving by on
They're going to tear up Highland Avenue for like six weeks.
So I don't think I'll be able to get in or out of my garage.
And there's an apartment building right next to that.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
I don't know what's going to happen.
30 or 40 apartments in there.
They can't.
There's a garage under their apartment.
I think
Nothing near us,
had a big
we'll
Really?
Yeah.
Oh boy.
And right now, you know, they're saying it's clear skies, maybe at the airport, but there's some clouds around here.
Yeah, it looks a little easy on State Street.
It's currently 53 degrees.
Let's check the afternoon high.
Let's get the weather wheel spin.
And see what's happening here.
You ready for this?
Yeah.
Yeah,
Hi.
Black 77 77 today.
That's outrageous.
It's going to be hot.
It's going to be humid.
Yeah.
Let's check the WMDX Samsung watch.
Oh, yeah.
See if that mentions high 81.
Oh, okay.
So there you go.
Yeah.
It's going to be very warm and humid and maybe some strong thunderstorms this evening and tonight.
keep a close eye on things, but yeah, it could be pretty windy later on today.
Well, it's not good.
Well, it's not good.
It's what we have.
Get ready for it.
You got no place else to go, Peterson.
Batten down the hatches.
Producer Sam, did you have a good weekend?
I had a pretty good weekend, yeah.
voice is a little strange.
Yeah, I'm surprised how bad my voice sounds this morning.
On Saturday, I was at a training weekend for the summer camp that I'll be working at again that I've worked at a few years in the past.
And I guess I overused my voice.
You were yelling as a
that.
Yeah, I know.
It's crazy.
Like most of my normal life, like here and...
with friends and stuff and Madison is completely different from how I act around these crazy camp people.
Yeah, I have never gotten allergies before.
I don't know what it is, but my eyes are watering like crazy and they're like really puffy.
That was why we were like 10 seconds late to getting on the air this morning because I like my eyes are a little blurry and I miss red witch channel.
Music was playing on
we were
so you do pay attention to the clock can jump.
Yes
Yeah, that's right after after this training day on Saturday spent the night at a friend's house down in Stevens Point also who works at the camp he was having his birthday party and
Late at night, after we all had had a few, we decided to go out for pizza and then...
Some of them decide to walk back to the house and I thought I was following them, but I guess I wasn't You lost sight of them They
So I was wandering the streets of Stevens Point Eventually wound up back at my car and I just decided to try and fall asleep there until I drove back to Madison in the morning in the
back?
Oh, you know
If you lay down in the back seat, you only have to squish your legs up a little bit in order to fit.
That doesn't work at all.
Well, good thing I'm not 30, 40, 50, 60.
Well, I know.
I'm young and strong.
Live it up in your 20s.
I don't know.
Let's
It's not that I was that drunk, Sean.
I just don't know what happened to the people I was with.
Well, good for you for not driving.
There you go.
Yeah, I would never have driven home that night.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Did you have more
Global Pay It Forward Day.
Is it that?
Is it National Superhero Day?
How about National Blueberry Pie Day?
Or National Great Poetry Day?
Or National French Toast Day?
Which day is it?
Not French Toast Day.
You're right, John.
Right out of the box.
First one of the week.
You got it right.
frying.
As it's cooking, right.
or YouTube.
I think that you should bring a griddle in here and we should make it on the air someday.
Oh, what a great idea.
You
Yeah
junk.
Doug from St.
Francis piped up already.
Hey, guys, just want to follow up.
I reached out to Vicki McKenna about participating in the John and Gordy Show Taser Challenge.
You know, Doug's out there working the show.
And he says, is there any chance Sage can kick in some cash prizes or maybe a new car?
I'll let you know when Vicki gets back to us.
Oh, yeah.
So it's good that he's reaching out to Vicki.
And I think a taser challenge.
no.
And they
What?
What did he have against the marching band?
And he
Oh, I mean, Lord.
That's incredible.
Well, let's see he's in charge here Let's see let's today national day of global pay it forward day This encourages people around the world to engage in small acts of kindness.
It's a day to respond to someone's kindness toward you
by being kind to somebody else.
John, I know you do that just about every day.
Every day I think about it.
Yeah, you do.
Good for you.
Thank you.
Okay, let's move on.
I'll take credit for that.
Okay.
It's national superhero day now.
This is a day that you know all about, right?
I
Well, you know, you look up to people like Batman, Superman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man.
These are just a few of the superheroes.
The list goes on and on.
There must be 40 or 50 superheroes by now.
Even though they're fictional, superheroes provide role models for our children.
Absolutely.
Says here.
Yeah, that's it.
You think so?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
They serve and protect while fighting evil.
You know, it's not use some superheroes in Washington.
It's not
Yeah,
him
You ready for this?
All right, let's find out.
Take your
So can you get in touch with a superhero and take him to lunch?
I don't know.
Draw your version of a superhero.
These are for kids, I think.
If you have one superpower, what would it be?
What would it be then?
That's a good idea.
Let's ask people.
Yeah.
I thought you had an answer for that, Sam.
You're just giving me a time queue.
He's giving you the time queue.
Okay.
It's also a National Blueberry Pie Day.
Oh, like Blueberry Pie.
And did I read this one?
National Great Poetry Reading Day?
No.
Didn't we just have a poetry thing last week?
Shakespeare.
Speak.
Oh, that's right.
Speak.
Speak.
Speak.
The
She's
Total report of
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
the
Hello fellas, how are we doing on a Monday?
Oh, yeah.
like I said to you guys off the air I had to come back to work to get some rest I was up in Green Bay last week basically we got into town on Monday because we had people that were arriving from long distances starting that week and then got an invitation to the taste of the draft which is something that is normally held during the Super Bowl giving the
you know, community a chance to kind of highlight some of their flavors.
Well, they decided to try it in Green Bay and it was a resounding success.
It was organized by Gen Youth, which is a nonprofit that was organized by dairy farmers of America all across the country's tide and the NFL.
And really what it's designed to do is draw attention to
food insecurity that a lot of people face.
And I'll tell you what, they had former Packers there.
Literally, it was at Shriver Foods World Headquarters in downtown Green Bay.
And they'd never done anything like this in their facility.
So that was interesting.
Then you've got supper clubs from all across Wisconsin.
I want to say they ended up with at least 12, could have been more, that had one piece, one item off their menu that they featured.
Paul Bartolato from Milwaukee, for example, had beef stroganoff.
There were little sandwiches.
There was everything imaginable from appetizers through to dessert.
And then there were packer alum stationed at each one of these as well.
So while I was doing my interviews with the folks from the Dairy Management Incorporated Group, I geeked out a little bit and grabbed a picture and an autograph with Mason Crosby.
Nick Barnett, Antonio Freeman was there and
Chef Andrew Zimmer.
So, you know, it was, it was just one of those deals where it was everything the farm babe had hoped for and then some.
Yeah, it was pretty crazy.
I know.
Yeah.
Well,
many great moments.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, they're, they're just digging it because they're back in the spotlight in Green Bay again.
And like I said, a very, very well received all the way around.
And the other part that I don't want to gloss over is the fact that they were really speaking passionately about food insecurity.
Chef Andrew Zimmer has really made this quite part of his crusade and really definitely was very focused on, don't just enjoy this food, but think about people that
are questioning where their next meal comes from and they have some fantastic silent auction items that were used to raise money for say let's say food school equipment and some of those kinds of things nonprofits have provided meals for others so that's the way it kicked off on Wednesday night for me and then from there on out and one of the things that was highlighted at the taste of the draft was
cheese carvings.
So a friend of mine that used to be a dairy farmer of Wisconsin is now a cheese carver herself.
Vicki Janich is her name.
She's from DeForest and you can follow her on Instagram as Artistic Agriculturist and she was charged with using a hooks cheddar cheese from mineral point blocks.
and turning it into the Lombardi trophy.
So I was talking to Vicki, it was a warm venue.
The weather in
Bay for that Wednesday event was great, but it was warm and both Vicki and I
are notorious for being hot in subzero weather.
So she was, she was working away on that cheddar cheese.
It looked just beautiful.
And it was just a really cool story that kind of brings it back to, you know, Wisconsin's love of cheese.
And I don't know if you saw any of the, any of the draft or that, but it seemed like cheese curds were kind of front and center in front of everybody.
I was watching all the sports shows that were broadcasting from Lambeau Field and not a one of them got away from
cheese curds, or cheese, or brats.
So it really was about Wisconsin agriculture, Wisconsin food, Wisconsin celebrations.
there.
Yeah, literally, if you were walking down to the Draft Theater, you couldn't miss the Guernsey girls.
These are dairy farm gals up by Freedom that have started their own cheese marketing from their Guernsey dairy herd.
and I was talking to them and they said they had 40,000 pounds of cheese.
caught them Saturday late afternoon.
They said the NFL had asked them to please stay longer because people were so happy with their product.
Well, yeah, but then when they're sad and they're Saturday afternoon, it's about ready to head to the draft theater and then Brad Paisley and the girls were like
We have 40,000 pounds of cheese, Pam.
Can you help us promote it on social media?
Because we got
to the store and freedom.
So there was definitely big volumes, but not necessarily the volumes that Summit planned for.
Literally.
You couldn't find a table anywhere from the Draft Theater to the war rooms.
Everybody was always offered cheese curds, and most of them were deep fried in one way, shape, or form.
Oh, sure.
What
had a great time.
Well, think about it.
Think about it.
Where else in the world do you get 600,000 people together and end up with one arrest in the court
three days?
Oh, my gosh, really?
Wow, that's it.
600,000 people won a rest.
Yeah.
So like I said, I was, I would, like I said, growing up just north of Green Bay, I was exceptionally proud of the way the community handled it all the way around.
It was beautiful visually.
I'm just glad I was a part of it.
A little sliver of it, boys.
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.
This is grade A weapons
Idiocracy.
For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.
It was clear overnight.
We've got some clouds moving in now.
And those clouds are going to be followed by some wind a little bit later on.
And it's going to get really humid and hot later on today.
Right now, 53 degrees could be in for some strong to severe thunderstorms later on this evening and tonight.
So just keep an eye.
the sky in the air right here.
Wow.
Okay.
And we'll get the inside on the outside, whether we like it or not.
Brittany Merlot, our chief meteorologist for WMDX a little bit later on.
Open the door to all those cliches.
I just love them.
By the way, this portion of the show, John, is brought to you by our friends at furlough mattress of Madison.
One thing that remains constant since they opened the doors back in 1958, while they are still direct to consumer.
and provide superior products at unbeatable prices.
That's what I've been saying.
I know, you always say that.
And they have two locations right here in Madison.
One's on the east side of Madison, you
know,
You'll love it.
And sometimes if you lay flat, you're kind of stretched out and you're having a hard time breathing, perhaps, you know, all you have to do is just raise up.
Is that what you do?
Does it you raise it up?
Maybe an inch
maybe at the most really just it just makes that much of a difference What happens if you do it the opposite way where you raise your feet like an inch you can do that sure head Down lower.
Idiocracy now.
Yeah.
Okay, let's get to one here.
You know, the makers have a hard time figuring out what authoritarianism is.
And if you bring it up to them, they accuse Biden of being an authoritarian.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Everything is the opposite.
in their world, and Laura Ingram had a guest on, a Democratic Congresswoman, and the Congresswoman was getting at this authoritarianism, and also mentioning a few other things, but Laura did not want any of that message getting out to her listeners.
So let's listen to cut 229 and what happened.
Okay.
I'm not here to really advocate for one person.
That needs to happen in court.
No evidence has actually ever been presented in court.
You went to El Salvador.
Now you're saying it's not about him.
To advocate for DuPros.
You went to El Salvador for a political stunt.
And now you're saying it's not about him.
It is about this
case.
Laura, it is about the rule of law.
This is a bipartisan issue.
It transcends partisan politics.
That's why a conservative, leaning Supreme Court has said that Donald Trump must facilitate the return of this individual.
This is very dangerous.
We are turning into an authoritarian country.
And there are Americans from all across the political spectrum who are deeply concerned about this.
Again, my office has not received more calls about any other issues since I have been a congresswoman
this one.
Tariffs being the second one and the lack of real
policy.
But the issue of due process.
No,
when
we
them
all the other night, this is the
issue.
But you know, when the Democrats do it, you never want to see that happen.
You know, take advantage of the situation.
Oh, God.
All right.
Now let's
Let's, uh, this wasn't mentioned very often, you know, the, the pope passed away and, uh, and, and Marjorie Taylor Greene had a reaction, uh, to the pope's passing.
Really?
I
I'm not speaking of Pope Francis.
No, I'm speaking about Marjorie Taylor Greene.
who, in response to the death of Pope Francis, tweeted, Listen, I got lots of issues with Catholic Church, definitely.
But one thing you can say about Pope Francis was he tried to do something better.
He was very progressive.
He's someone who, what we would call in Christianity, tried to live his life Christ-like in that he showed love and compassion and empathy to people of all walks of life, to people of different faiths, to people who had maybe different ideas about sexuality or their gender, all of these things.
He was someone
who defaulted to empathy and kindness.
Unlike Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had the nerve to say that his death was evil being defeated by God.
It's just this is just an amazing thing, you know, they made a big deal in Wisconsin when we were debating should we take Medicaid expansion or not
and the state didn't want to do it.
You know why they didn't want to do it?
Because even if we took it, and the split was the federal government paying 90%, and the state paying just 10%, they kept warning us, that's not written in stone, it could change, those damn Democrats could change it and throw everything off balance.
Well, guess who's throwing everything off balance?
The Republicans.
The Megas in the House at a town hall in Texas when discussing Elon Musk and ways to fix Social Security and expansion of Medicaid.
Let's listen to Representative Pat Fallon, his idea in order to get people off that important program called Social Security in this particular instance.
Let's listen.
No one has said that they're cutting so securely.
Or he won is not setting calls.
And I don't
think he said
it.
I never heard him say it.
I have not heard him say it
a lot.
Social security is the biggest policy scheme of all time.
So it's just, anyway,
so the way we
fix
social
security, one of the ways is to tell young people you're going to get a different deal.
So you give them 40 or 50 years notice so they can, you know, they can get a second job.
You caught the end of that, right?
Get a second job.
Not like we're already doing
This thing where they're going to tell the youth of America today, you're going to have a special deal.
Oh, sure.
We're going to cut it way back and you're going to have a tough time later in life when you want to retire.
You're not going to have the money.
It's not going to be there, but it will be in Wall Street and they would have made a lot of money off of you.
but just simply get that second job.
That's as easy as you can make
it.
Oh my God.
This sounds like just like the debate between Herbert Hoover and FDR in 1932.
Hoover said people deserve a square deal.
Doesn't matter.
They deserve what's fair.
What's
fair to them.
And we
get
to decide what's fair.
And FDR, well.
We don't get to decide what's fair.
You get to decide what's fair.
You get to decide what your new deal should be.
And that's where you got the term new deal.
We shouldn't have Elon telling us that we got to get a second job.
Social security is going away.
And that's
Yes.
I mean, everybody's kind of
So
that
show up
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
Man.
We know that.
If only they could read that, though.
They can't read that.
Yeah, we could read that.
Because it was too small.
That's
And Mark had a comment here.
We were talking about, you know, get on Social Security.
Well, just get a second job if that's not enough money.
Republicans want.
Right.
Mark says they think you should work till the day you die, then the corporation should get your body to convert it to Soylent Green.
Remember that movie, Soylent Green?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Yeah, well, you gotta wonder, you know, they're making a lot of cuts in the government here and a lot of the Republicans are going along with it.
They don't care.
You know, it's it's a lot and blame him.
And and they're not paying attention to what's going on all the cuts.
And CNN host Breanna Keeler asked Senator Jim Banks about the Trump administration's changes to the VA.
And you'll notice he's completely unaware of the details.
on the large bureaucracy distraction that he likes to repeat over and over, so let's listen to this cut.
Does it put veterans first to cut people who work on their benefits or who provide them health care?
I'm just not convinced that that's happening.
I'm not convinced that that's happening.
It is.
Are you talking to your constituents?
I hear from my constituents every day.
They want the VA to be less bureaucratic and more focused on the veteran.
I am a
That's
President Trump is focused on.
That's what I'm focused on as well.
The talking points of the VA cutting necessary employees who are focused on veterans is bogus.
It's not provable.
The fact is that Doge, President Trump, myself, Republicans in the Senate and the Congress, we're going to make sure that this VA works better for veterans than ever before.
I guarantee it.
They're aware they cut people from the hotline, right?
And then reinstated them.
But that there are still a number of key support staff on that hotline who have not been rehired, the silent monitors and other folks.
I mean, are you tracking that?
I'm tracking that
the
VA is a large bureaucracy and there are ways to make it more efficient to work better for veterans.
That's direct care to veterans who are utilizing.
There are no signs that the
VA is
There are no signs that the VA is working less for our veterans today than what it was 45 days ago.
President Trump is focused on our veterans, delivering
care to our
veterans, and we're going to do that and we're going to make it, we're going to do it even more efficiently than ever before.
So you endorse the cuts to key support staff on the veteran hotline.
That's something that... There have not
been cuts to key support
staff at the VA.
The VA is going to work more efficiently
and Doge is going
to recommend and
find
ways to do
that.
And Congress...
It is true.
The 45 days into this administration.
President Trump is focused.
I'm focused.
Republicans are focused on making the VA work better.
I mean, the fact is what President Trump did in his first term to provide more community care and better options
whether
it's at a VA hospital or at a private private hospital.
He did
historic and great
things for the
VA in his first term.
He's going to do even more and
greater
things
for the VA in his second term.
I'm not changing the subject.
You can't prove that the VA is less equipped to care for veterans today than what it was 45 days ago.
The fact is, President Trump's going to make the VA work better than ever before.
He
Morning, guys.
Why are we such a stupid country?
I don't understand it.
Like, you have European nations that have figured out certain things that work a lot better, but we're too proud and ignorant to learn from other countries.
I've only had one economics course in a technical college, and I can even figure out that our two big problems is...
Our tax system is extremely cruel.
The poor in the middle seem to pay a higher percentage of our income and we're taxing off a lot with you know mandatory insurance premiums and all these things like the internet's gotten a lot more expensive and we need it.
While France like you made it a utility and people in France pay a lot less for internet
like it's
all these simple answers.
or too stupid and controlled by the billionaires who don't pay taxes, who cheat the system, they get into government and then they put the slave system on the rest of us.
And I just want to ask, can I get a pitchfork that has Wi-Fi so I can listen to my Spotify while I'm
Give
Okay.
Very good.
Very good points.
Matt, thank you for that, Paul.
It is 6.59.
News is next.
Coming up in our next hour, Amy Horak from David J. Frank with the Horticultural Report.
We've got to change the name of that.
Brittany Merlot also with an update on stormy weather.
It's all coming up.
I'm John and
news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
