Media Muzzles and FCC Power Plays (Hour 2)

Please stand by for the John and Gordy morning show.

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And now, live from the Civic Media headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, here are John and Gordy.

We're truly sorry.

92.7, it's John and Gordy, at least as long as they allow us to be on the air, we'll see.

Good morning.

We'll see.

Might be today, might be tomorrow, you never know.

The FCC Gestapo's coming out to take us away.

All right, all right.

Coming in hot, huh?

Good morning, John

Peterson.

Hi, everybody.

Hi.

Good morning, Dominic Lee.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How are you doing?

I'm doing well.

Good.

I'm

doing well.

I'm not at all.

I'm at which end.

I'm frustrated.

I'm done with this.

And I think a lot of people might be.

I'm going to hold back.

OK.

Well, just hang on for a minute here.

I will.

I'll wait even

longer than that.

OK.

Got cloudy skies out there this morning, 60 degrees highs today in the 80s, low 80s, low to mid 80s.

And coming up a little bit in just a little while, Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils will join us at about 635.

And then in our next hour, Jim Santel, former U.S.

attorney will join us around 735.

So.

Here

we are we're going to are we gonna carry live the the the sainthood The ceremonies for would never

buy good you know the thing here is

I you know

I just don't want to go off on the deep end here.

You know,

I know

I'm going to do it.

I know it's going to happen.

I'm just bottled.

I bottled everything up last night.

Oh, man, you know, the family, I apologize.

Really?

What were you out of control?

I just, well, both Ann and I were just freaking out completely.

I mean, we had just just about had it.

And I asked Dom this morning if he watched TV.

And I have an Altaria Moda for doing that.

I watched TV all my life.

I saw life through TV.

Got the biggest news stories of history through TV.

And I appreciate what it has done for my generation, 50s, 60s, and 70s.

And I'm looking at Gen Z here.

I'm looking at my sons.

20-somethings, and they don't watch TV.

They don't give a damn

about TV.

Yeah, same with my daughter who's 37 years old.

Yeah.

And my son as well, who's 41, 42.

And

I've got my fingers crossed on this that there are so many Gen Zers out there who don't give a damn about television.

Yeah, they don't.

They'll give it up and just...

Leave these people dry.

They have their little streaming networks.

That's fine.

Let them do what they're going to do.

But as far as all these network shows, forget it.

Man, you know, you can leave them in the dust, get rid of them.

I'm done with it.

I'm all over TV at this point.

You are.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, two thirds of people don't watch local television anymore.

They get their news, at least for news, they get their news off of the internet,

you

know, off of streaming services, things like that.

So that's just where we are now.

You know, it used to be a habit to watch the evening news.

Sure.

ABC, CBS, NBC in the evening, you know, with Walter Gronkite.

Yeah.

You know, Huntley Brinkley, the report, all of that.

And then your local news, you know, either at six o'clock or watch the evening news at 10 o'clock.

And they do,

they do great coverage of the local

area.

Yeah, they do.

They do.

But you know, with the stripped down staffs that they have now, most of these TV stations are chains, and they have taken a lot of people out.

Remember, they almost got rid of all the weather people.

Almost.

Yeah.

And then they had to put them back because two people need weather.

People watch the weather more than anything else.

They have to be warned if there's something wrong outside.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they made a big mistake there.

But here's the thing, and this is where I'm going.

for the next two hours anyway, is drop the networks.

You know, I have Hulu+, and I get all of the TV shows, all of the networks, and I'm dropping plus.

I'm getting rid of it.

I'm not gonna watch TV.

I'm not gonna get the networks anymore.

NBC, ABC, CBS.

I'm dumping them all.

They're gone.

They have sold us all out.

These are oligarch billionaires who own all of this stuff now they own tiktok on top of that now they're making a purchase of Warner Brothers So they'll own CNN and then they'll get rid of whatever CNN is doing maybe they'll just put out on business others, you know Fox News you got that

I'm done with the networks, and I'm asking everybody out there to dump the networks, get rid of them.

Now

you can get over-the-air local television on antennas, and I understand they're very, very effective, very, very good.

Now you have to find a way to connect that in to your TV.

It's easy.

I've got one.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Goes

right into your coax.

Oh, it is.

Yeah, it's just

like cable, actually.

Okay, an HDMI, straight out.

Yeah, you can do that.

as

well as well

either way but yes

so so it works well so do that and get rid of the networks do not subscribe to these people they have sold you and they've sold me out i am done with them and uh you know the thing is uh they've left us high and dry you know they don't care about us

They're censoring everything now.

This government has taken over the FCC, and I didn't think that Brendan Carr would be this dangerous as chair of the FCC, but he is this dangerous.

The FCC usually just sits back and lets things happen and, you know, gives their advice from time to time.

He is proactive.

This guy is going after everybody and threatening them.

yeah with court or with uh with uh being completely taken off the air so yeah you would never have expected the FCC chair to do something like this but he is on board with the Trump administration

well we're gonna talk about all that and what Jimmy Kimmel said that

got them fired, apparently, and

getting the weeds on

all

of that.

Yeah, we're going to do that a little after seven o'clock because at six thirty five, we've got Tim Slecker from busted pencils in here.

Mm

hmm.

Let's check WMDXradio.com.

The poll numbers are in, John, for today, for this morning, anyway.

All right.

This will be on one more day, actually.

What part of the belt line is the worst traffic when it gets really busy?

What do you think?

Do you think Gammon

Mineral point old sock road that area or midvale Verona road Todd drive and fish hatch.

How about that

area?

That's

the big one.

That is the big one That's at 56% that gets yeah, that's the one that really gets clogged up when it gets busy The other ones John Nolan drive to the interstate just 12% same thing for the entire belt line sucks when it's busy Yeah, 12% you can get in on that as well

Hey, we want to remind you the Alzheimer's walk is coming up by the way.

Let me just go to my information here it is and This is happening on October Well, where's the you know one

of the things you got to keep in mind too that you know, they're trying to make Stoughton Road into a slow lane a neighborhood road Yeah, I mean it's one of the only major arterials without going on

the express way to make it from one side of town to the next.

And they want to make it into a boulevard, which it may, may not be a bad idea.

You can even have higher speed limits with that.

Um, but they might want to, you know, slow it down dramatically so people can cross the street.

Well, a lot of people cross the stone road.

Wow.

Yeah.

A lot of people are doing that.

Yeah.

Well.

Not really.

They're going to have to work on that.

Back to the Alzheimer's Walk here.

It's Sunday, October 5th.

And that is happening.

And we'd like to have you involved.

You can either walk with us, join our team, or donate to the team.

And you can do that by going to our website, wmdxradio.com.

Just click on the banner.

In the fight against Alzheimer's.

All

right.

OK.

Let's go up to, oh, no, go up.

Let's go to, I'm looking up at the screen.

Let's go to Matt from Middleton.

Matt, what do you got for us today?

Good morning, Matt.

Good morning,

guys.

Yeah, it's a tough time in America, but kind of big reason that we got to this fascism we're suffering through is one of the big parts that leads to that is the consolidation of companies, media, all these

things that have been consolidated and both parties have caused this you know bill clinton i think did something in the 90s that affected the fcc or whatever and the broadcasting and now we have such consolidation in so many areas of the economy and it affects housing with the private equity firm so

Without Trump, maybe it would have taken longer, but we probably still would have been in some kind of fascistic light kind of system eventually But I don't know how we get out of it other than a mass boycott of some kind but I I fear that there's so many young people that have been brainwashed by the far-right propaganda And their isolation their loneliness their insecurity has fed that

in them.

So I fear that we don't have the young people we did back when we fought for civil rights in the 60s.

It's not the same people.

Yeah, you're not wrong.

So I think it's going to take longer to steer the ship back and there's going to be a lot of pain and hurt in the process.

And we just saw the other day that homeless people are getting shot at now because of what Brian Kilmeade said on the air about euthanizing homeless people.

and he's still out here.

And I called in to Todd's Albus show yesterday just asking like, so many people, a lot of conservatives, traditional conservatives, they cannot see Trump for what he is.

They cannot recognize that he is the viper that he said he was when he read that poem at the Maggar rally.

The snake, yeah.

The snake and the rabbit, right, or whatever it was.

So yeah, it's going to be a while, but I'm afraid that we have to have a lot of pain and hurt before.

before people wake up.

Well,

let's hope that if the Democrats take over Congress in the midterms, they can stop all of this from happening.

All of

it.

I don't think we're going to make it that far.

Well, I know,

I know.

It's it's it's hard to believe that the total media collapse has taken place as we're watching this all happen in like three or four months.

It's done.

Yeah.

And they're declaring sainthood for Charlie Kirk now.

This is just an amazing

thing.

The only way I have to get news is YouTube.

Like what if they go after Google then we have

nothing.

Well, that's true.

I don't trust Google.

I don't trust Facebook.

I don't trust any of them anymore.

They're all billionaires and they're all on the Trump train.

Matt, thank you for your call.

Yeah, thanks for helping us work through this.

Phone lines are open, 608-879-8255.

Coming up, we will get into, would you rather?

What would you rather do?

What would you rather do?

Mark

says they're putting up a statue of Charlie Kirk in either Texas or Florida.

He's not sure.

Yeah.

OK, we'll get to more of that and your calls and your texts.

Unbelievable.

It's all happening here.

John Peterson, Gordy Young, Lo and Dominic Lee coming right back.

WMDX 92.7

Broadcasting from Madison, Wisconsin.

Overlooking states read a block away from the Capitol.

John and Gordy in the morning, Dahmer engineer and feel free to check us out on the Civic Media app.

Choose WMDX and then text us or voice notice as well or just give us a call.

We'd like to hear from you.

Number 608-879-8255.

Warm temperatures today, low to mid 80s right now 60 degrees.

Madison Night Market takes place tonight.

Right across the street, our WMDX booth will be set up there.

And that happens from five to nine tonight.

The theme this evening is Hispanic Heritage Month.

So stop on by and say hello.

And it should be a good turnout tonight.

Should be nice weather.

Yeah.

Should we get to would you rather?

Let's lighten

the load

here just for a moment.

Just a what?

Well, you know, everybody's

disappointed now

that South Park has to put their show off for a week.

Well, they said it was on them.

Yeah, it was on them.

Yeah, they do everything.

No, no, they just do everything up to the last minute to make them very relevant.

And this is one of those times where they just didn't finish it.

So I believe them.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, all right.

Let's do would you rather.

Okay.

Let's do that.

All right.

Let's do it.

Let's do that

then.

Glad that has a long intro.

Builds the tension.

All right.

First question.

Would you rather?

get a free travel ticket for anywhere in the world, or summon an Amazon item with just the wave of your hand once a day.

It could be any Amazon, maybe not any Amazon item, not like a house.

Maybe like just something, you know, something that you need.

The wave

of your hand.

Just the wave of your hand, or a free travel ticket for anywhere in the world.

Well, does that,

okay, if you do the Amazon thing, that's,

Just one time only?

One time?

Well, it's every day, but you can only- Oh, every day?

It's only one item a day.

So you can't just keep waving your hand and stuff flies out of your- Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

John, what do you think?

I don't know.

Waving the hand.

I think I would do the same.

I think I would do Amazon.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'd go with anywhere in the world.

Really?

Yeah, I think that'd be cool.

Okay.

Yeah, I like Amazon items, so I think that's what I would do.

I think I bought like four things yesterday, so I gotta really chill out.

Yeah.

I know I know It's easy to do.

It is.

Yes.

I bought a toothpick All right.

Wait wait what it's like a it's like a it's a water pick.

It's not an actual Oh, yeah, no, those are great.

Those things are amazing.

Yeah, they're good to have I just broke mine recently.

Okay.

All right second question Would you rather have 750 thousand dollars right now?

Or have one year to hit a hole in one in golf for 90 million

You get a whole year to do it.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

The first one.

I hate golf so much.

Yeah, give me the cash now.

You hate golf really?

Yes.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of me either.

Yeah, I don't like it.

I think I would do 750 right now.

Now let me ask you, what happened to the other water pick that you had?

How do you break that?

It just stopped working.

I kept charging it and charging it and charging it.

I've had it for years and years.

Oh, you have

a handheld one?

It's a handheld one,

yes.

Some are little tubs.

It's you have a handheld.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean that one.

I mean it's really good for me though I don't I don't I don't it's the only way I floss I

just I just bought one of those handhelds.

Yeah, I think it's my smile.

I think that's the one I purchased but They're a little messy, I think But but the tub type is kind of a nice one and if you get the water pick you can replace the tub when that goes you can replace the whole

the hose part, you can replace that, but the machine just keeps going.

So it's something that maybe you should think about.

I know it costs a little bit more than some of the other brands out there, which I haven't tried, but because you can replace so many parts through Waterpick.

Yeah,

rather than buying a whole new one like I did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You wouldn't have to do that.

But yours is handheld.

So,

and they're

very inexpensive.

The handhelds.

What, 18, 20?

They're

about 25.

25 bucks.

Yeah.

We got a text in here from Doug.

We haven't heard from Doug in a while.

Just asked John.

I'm

sorry about that.

Yeah, Doug.

Doug from St.

Francis.

He

says, Marjorie Taylor Greene wants a national divorce.

You know, she has been talking about that.

Uh, a bunch of splitting up the United

States.

Who would get custody of John and Gordy?

I don't know.

I,

you know, I

know who I

want to have custody with.

Go with the blue, but you know, that's maybe just me.

Well, they'll ship us off to, uh, who knows, you know, some locations, somewhere they're not going to tell anybody.

People disappear in this country now and that's just fine.

Isn't it amazing?

Isn't it amazing that we're not talking about that anymore, right?

I know.

I mean, we lose all our freedoms, like in three days, and we've forgotten about immigration and everybody disappearing, including... And the upstream files.

American citizens.

Yeah,

all that.

Well, you know, Donald Trump is over in England, you know.

Yeah, that's right.

Charlie Old

England and...

Rubber

shoulders with the... The king.

King, yeah.

Yeah, and they're kissing up to him, you know, because they want a better tax deal, a tariff deal.

So they had that big to do at Windsor Castle this time around.

He has a big state dinner thing.

Yeah.

All dressed up.

Tuxedo fits a little better than it did a few years ago.

Not

much.

Well, it's, you know, he could be in bad health and he's losing weight.

And Melania was wearing like a UFO on her head.

It was like one of those hats that she has.

She's brutal.

She's crazy.

He is really brutal.

That's a crazy world we lived in.

It is.

Crazy mixed up.

Okay.

It's a crazy dangerous world now.

We don't even have a United States anymore.

Oh, hang on.

It ain't over yet.

29 past the hour.

We're just getting going on this Thursday morning.

And after we hear a few...

We have Tim Flecker coming out from

Busted Pencils.

And later on, it'll be Jim Santel.

Stay with us.

Welcome to the age of stupid.

Stupid.

Welcome to the age of stupid.

It's that.

Why?

All right.

Being crushed by the age of stupid.

John and Gordy in the morning in WMDX 92.7 on those old radio dials.

You can also listen to us on your phone or

On the internet somehow, go to the Civic Media app, pick our station, WMDX, and then listen to us or text us or voice notice and

give us a call.

Phone lines are open, 608-879-8255, weather for today, no problems, warm temperatures again, low to mid-80s this afternoon, right now 60 degrees and partly cloudy skies.

I'll be ceiling up the deck today.

Are you going to seal it finally?

Because it needs a sunlight at least one day to seal up the sealer.

So I have to do it early this morning.

That's one of the first things I'm going to do today.

Did you take care of the stairs?

I did.

Yes.

Yes.

We power washed

them and they're dried out.

Now I just have to apply apply the sealer and see what happens

from there.

Thank goodness.

Keep us posted.

All right.

I'll keep you

updated on that.

Just ask John again.

Thank you.

Let's

Welcome in Dr. Tim Slacker from Busted Pencils, the education podcast that you can hear on Civic Media Radio Network.

And just go to the civicmedia.us and find it there.

We're all kind of reeling from this very fast transition into fascism.

And you had a program on fascism over the weekend.

And just tell us about that.

This is a fascinating coincidence anyway.

Well, yeah.

I mean, we interviewed the president of AFT, one of the largest teachers and health care unions in the country, Randy Weingarten, the president of that.

And she had just released a book that's coming out.

You know, she's going on a book tour.

Yes.

And the title of her book was Why Fascists Fear Teachers.

There you go.

You know, and despite the provocative title when you get into the book, it's more a reminder of why

We teach and what it's what we're supposed to do.

We're we're supposed to create welcoming spaces for people with differences We're supposed to engage in uncomfortable conversations We're supposed to You know provide for the ability for Everybody to have an opportunity to thrive

Um, and then situates that as to saying Now who would be against that?

Right, right.

Yeah, right.

Well

Yeah,

historically and she points this out and particularly, you know the rise of Germany in in the 30s and 40s in the takeover particularly in Norway that um, you know

that brand of totalitarianism that historians have labeled fascism was, well, guess who they targeted in Norway?

Teachers.

You know, they targeted teachers.

And her premise in the book is that because of those things that I laid out was is that they were

promoting the acceptance of people with differences.

They were welcoming critical thought into the classroom.

They were creating opportunities for all.

And that didn't sit right.

And so, you know, so the teachers were, they were attempted to be suppressed.

And the teachers though kind of revolted.

And again, how?

Um, just with a simple paper clip on their, um, you know, lapels or everything to show their solidarity against this, um, imposition of teaching.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that, that's what the, you know, and so, yeah, it's, it's interesting as the, you know,

Really, the horrible events that have happened since then is to now look at the title of the book and potentially wonder if, you know, she herself may be in some form of targeting just for the fact that releasing the book.

But, you know, again, it's really just a nice historical look at teachers and then a sense of

you know, kind of grounding about saying, you know, isn't isn't this what we want our teachers to do?

Yeah.

You know, and so I don't think there's anything provocative about imagining that teachers create spaces that are welcoming for all because

We live in communities where there are people who have all kinds of differences.

And in a school classroom, in a school building, which we want to and attempt to create spaces that say for that moment, your differences are welcome

here.

brought back our protests here in Wisconsin with Act 10, how many children showed up with the teachers and supported the teachers during those protests, and the children back then who wore the paperclips to support their teachers too.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, but as you point out though, it's, you know, how it's truly within

You know, that show actually was released Saturday.

We had recorded that show before, you know, the horrendous assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And all of now then, you know, the just the what's happening because of that.

And so.

You know, it's it's even me.

I'm Frank, you know, I kind of look at that show differently because I Just I have a sense that it that potentially that It's may sound to somebody it's something like I don't know it's it's you know, but it's it's a talk and again, it's Randy's

You know, it's a book, it's a book tour and she's out on a book tour.

So, you

know.

The fun thing is that Randy Onekarten is very, very energized.

What she's talking about this on your program, at least on Saturday, people can still check that out, of course, on a podcast.

But it is very interesting stuff.

And your reactions and Johnny's reaction as well was very informative.

I enjoyed that program an awful lot.

So.

Definitely people should check that one out.

And again, you know, you can say nothing.

Just really talking about good teaching and learning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

That's really what

it's all about.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're talking about good teaching and learning.

And, you know, and that's really what we've been all about with busted pencils is really, you know, talking about what it is that energizes and powers.

Learning because you know as society benefits when people have the opportunity to Learn deeply about all kinds of things You know and so you know I'd encourage people though too for this Saturday show because we're interviewing a What what we would typically call a principal but head of schools from the alpha

high school in Austin, Texas, and that's the two-hour learning, the AI school, where they spend, well, in the high school, he reminds, he'd let us know Chris Lock is the head, they spend three hours of AI individualized instruction, and then the rest of the day engaged in working with

They don't call them teachers.

They're guides on enrichment activities, engagement activities, digging deep into creating businesses.

And we wanted to put that show on so that people could look at and say, wow, that's powerful stuff.

AI, it's like, okay, some people are debating, should we or shouldn't we?

And here you have a school, the Alpha School.

And again, we're talking Mackenzie Price, the founder of this idea of what to our learning in the Alpha School is, she addresses a problem that everybody knows in education, which is sadly for every year you spend in a classroom after second grade, your engagement with school

declines.

Because school has become largely, you know, for the past 120 years, it hasn't really changed a lot.

You sit and you hear and then you are asked to spit back.

Yeah.

And guess what?

That ain't real attractive to humans.

You know, and we said you enter school in kindergarten.

bursting with, oh my God, I want to know everything.

First grade, you keep going second, and then all of a sudden by third grade, kids start to go, what's going on here?

Well, it's

so methodical.

I mean, you have to start from the beginning and move

through to the end.

Wait a minute.

I woke up in the morning with all kinds of questions and I came into this place and you told me to sit down, shut up and stop

thinking.

You know and and so that they move in a direction at the office school that that says you know what?

Yeah, there there is knowledge and We need to learn to read we need to learn to do math and we need to learn to do all these other things But if we will really want to get to the depth of and I don't even say what Randy was talking about in her book, which is engaged deep critical learning then we have to have that space there and you know and a

Freedom

yeah

freedom to explore and engage the questions that that we have and So I think it's a nice positioning to you know to go from the interview with Randy about her book about You know what it is that we as teachers do and then to listen Saturday to you know a movement maybe people are calling what they're doing with the office schools, but

really taking seriously that sense of saying in these spaces we're going to do everything we can to engage students to engage our teachers in our guides in this community effort this whole thing about deeply learning and continuing to be engaged and motivated and and you know tap into that what it is about

Most humans which is curiosity.

Yeah, you know

you kind of brought up the idea of maybe groups group learning That's what they do in the schools now to get everybody involved So you're not waiting for a teacher to ask the question and then pick a student out in the classroom Everybody gets to answer the question all at once in these groups And I think that's probably the idea behind group learning in in the schools currently is that it

Yeah.

I mean, part of that is, and some of the idea of group learning, too, is that, yeah, within a group, there are differences, learning style differences.

And those learning could be something as simple as, well, this person doesn't know as much, and this one does, and so they learn off of each other.

But again, what is the purpose?

And I think that's what we're kind of getting at.

What is the purpose of education?

It's to gain knowledge.

but it's also to engage the

world.

Exactly.

We're talking with Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils.

We'll continue our conversation in just a moment here on

WMDX.

I'm not like everybody else.

This is where it's

at.

WMDX, Johnny Gordy, in the morning.

that's it 653 we're seeing some sunshine breaking through the clouds we'll see a mix of both sun and clouds today highs in the low to mid 80s talking with dr tim slecker from busted pencils tim today is the day that dr jill underly the wisconsin state superintendent will give an address on wisconsin public education students and educators and more and uh and uh that's happening

Today, the state of education, that's kind of what your program is all about every week.

Yeah.

Wow.

And the

thing is, Tim, they don't fund education here in the state anymore.

I think the

last budget didn't have any money at all for public schools.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, starving.

um pushes you into a survival mode and in that survival mode sometimes you can accomplish great things.

Yeah.

So so maybe you know that's the lever they're trying here is to go you know what we're gonna motivate people by making them not have what they need which will make them

Dig deeper than ever.

I am just nice right now with me here.

Come on.

Nice nice try Tim.

It didn't work Okay, all

right, we'll just talk about some of the cuts the Department of Education which doesn't exist but still we're referring to it Is cutting funding for all educational programs in some cases the funding is only like 20% of the actual funding that they're cutting

But those that 20% is probably the major funders or the major Colleges that need the funding see yeah Yeah, they try to soften the wall.

I said well 80% is still going out there and funding all these programs But maybe the big ones the big programs are the 20%

penalizing a lot of the colleges out there from getting the research grants that they need.

So a lot of these things are happening.

And so now everybody's in, again, survival mode, trying to figure out what they're going to do next in all of this.

Well, yeah, you know, that way the.

the real priorities will come to the surface.

And we won't have any waste in excess.

I know.

We have to portray a more positive image of the country in math, in English, in science.

Right?

Well, I mean, maybe we can...

or defund the releasing of negative math and reading scores.

There we go.

which would then make the math and reading score crisis go away.

It seems to be the theory

with a lot of

things.

There are some significant cuts that are going through.

One I'm looking at this morning, and this goes back to K-12 van colleges, is that money that was allocated for

grants to enhance civics education um has been you know radically cut

um which is crazy isn't it because the republicans were hot on this for about 10 or 15 years requiring it for graduation in these

high

schools now they've cut it

and this is you know it has become um the idea that civics is partisan

Yeah, right.

Yeah, it's like like how yeah, how did how did that that happen and Well, it's happened.

Yes, it does.

Yeah, you know because while this Cutting to those programs is happening You know just well ten hours ago on NPR US Education Department Unites conservative groups to create

quote patriotic civics content oh thank goodness

thank goodness

um you know there's a difference i don't know well but that's it you know and so it's it's civics and so it's patriotic civics

I guess going back to Randy Weingarten, is there fascist civics?

Is there communist civics?

You know, or were we talking about, you know, core democratic values, right?

Because if we're now putting, you know, some form of patriotism as

quote, quote, civics, right?

And Johnny always points us out on the show.

Yes, patriotism is a core value of democracy.

But within that, though, too, is the respect for diversity, doing what is good for the commons.

And you put all that together, right?

And so labeling civics as patriotic

It pushes it into and now, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna call this and and say well that is in intentionally Moving it away from what we would say wanting to install core Democratic values because it is lifting up one sense of what civics means here and so labeling it patriotic city civics Yeah, well then

everything, I guess you could say, is that then we could label it and then we lift it up and now we own it.

And I think that's a violation of, again, trying to say we want to invite people with differences to talk about things that are crucial.

That's right.

That's it.

And

at the same

time, they say they want differences.

Then we got to leave it there.

That's Dr. Tim Slecker.

Check out the podcast, Busted Pencils.

I

refuse

to

go sad and negative with you guys.

Thank you.

You have done

that.

We appreciate that.

Very good.

We'll talk to you next Thursday.

Yep.

Yep.

We will be back with more of John and Gordy for this Thursday morning after a timeout here for news and weather and updates and stuff.

Yeah.

Just stuff.

Big stories coming up next.

Have a cup of coffee.

Sit back and relax.

It's time for John and Gordie on

WMDX.

Hey.

Yeah.

That's us.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's all right

there in the song.

Yeah.

That's it.

Good morning, Madison.

That's it.

John Peterson along with Gordy Young and Dominic Lee in the producer chair.

We've got partly sunny skies now and 60 degrees highs this afternoon in the low to mid 80s.

Maybe a passing shower along the way.

Suppose you expect me to blow up again just like I did initially at the beginning of this show.

Well, that's kind of what you do.

I mean, that's kind of your thing.

That's what you've been known for over the years.

Shortening my life, Gordy.

I

don't want to go through this very often.

You've been doing it 30 or 40 years, White.

Stop now.

Maybe it just energizes me.

Keeps me going.

Looking forward to the next day.

Okay.

Coming up a

little

while,

we'll

talk to former

U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel.

Well, you know, we were talking about how the media completely capitulated to this administration.

Completely.

It is done.

It is all over.

Fold up the tents.

It's done.

is all over our free media that we had at one time is done.

They went after the major networks, the networks over the air networks, using the public airwaves.

They've gone after 60 minutes.

They've gone after ABC and Disney before, and now they're doing it again, Jimmy Kimmel, off the air, at least for the time being.

Probably forever probably but we don't really know that

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I think we're pretty assured that it'll probably be a long long long longer time well, and then any of that ABC just Did this Immediately quickly without any when he without any forethought we played the clip yesterday.

Well, let's play it a clip that got Jimmy Kimmel

fired right right let's let's play it right here

we had some new lows over the weekend with the maggot gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered charlie kurt is anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it in between the finger pointing there was a grieving on friday the white house flew the flags at half staff which got some criticism but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this

He's

at the

fourth stage of grief construction demolition

Construction.

This is not how an adult greaves the murder of someone he called a friend.

This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.

Yeah, so

that's it.

Yeah.

So did anybody hear any lies in there that Jimmy Kimmel told?

I mean that was the whole point of the disagreement over Kimmel's show right there.

Mega pundit Benny Johnson

thought there were a lot of untruths in all of that.

And in fact, checking it ourselves this morning, just a few moments ago, I didn't hear any lies or anything horrific in it whatsoever.

But ABC said, pull that guy.

So anyway, Benny Johnson then reached out to FCC chair Brendan Carr for a comment.

Well, he got more than a comment.

So let's listen to cut 126.

Get some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to... That's what we just

heard, hang on.

Oh.

Let's see here.

You got it there, Tom?

Okay.

All right.

Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel.

Or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC.

Again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters.

And frankly,

I think that it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt.

We are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we licensed broadcaster are running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.

So

that's Brendan Carr.

The chair of the FCC, an activist, essentially.

The FCC normally just sits back and lets things happen.

They give their advice, but they don't necessarily go out there and threaten the networks like this.

Well, and part of that is there's a deal on the table.

between Next Star Media Group and to acquire Tegna, which is another big media group.

Next Star owns a ton of ABC stations, local stations, and that deal has to be approved by the FCC.

So that deal's on the table and they say, well, hold on a second, you know, we're not going to approve this until you maybe even let's put the pressure on ABC to get rid of Kimmel.

And that's that deal has yet to been approved.

So

What can you do for us, ABC, before we approve

this next R deal?

And a lot of the affiliates of ABC refuse now to play Kimmel, to have them on their network in their local markets, which is really, really odd for something like this.

So we're just kind of watching the media fold their tents before our very eyes.

Should we play Mark Marin's comment?

Yes, Mark Marin took the words right out of my mouth.

Let me just say that this is exactly what I was going to say.

Again,

you know, he's in

our age group and he has the same perspective.

So let's listen.

It's

happening.

Jimmy Kimmel has been muzzled and taken off the air by his network ABC who are buckling to and trying to appease the next our media conglomerate.

who have a lot of affiliates and they threaten to preempt him at the suggestion of the SEC chair.

This is government censorship.

This is the Trump administration coming

after people who speak

out against him.

This is the end of it.

If you have any concern or belief in real freedom or the Constitution,

And free speech, this is it.

This is the deciding moment.

This is what authoritarianism looks like right now.

In this country, it's happening.

So if you're a free speech warrior or you really talk the talk about protecting free speech, this isn't about saying the R word or the T word or any of that.

This is government censorship.

This isn't fucking Twitter.

This isn't people getting canceled because of a cultural pile on.

This is the United States government.

silencing voices that they disagree with.

FCC chair Carr put this out.

This is his directive.

This is the US government.

Look, if they can come for Kimmel, they can come for anybody.

This is happening.

It's time to act, figure it out, find a way, come together, push back.

Because if this goes, it's over.

It's over.

And I'm Mark Marin.

Yeah, Mark Marin a comedian podcast podcaster as well and I said this morning that I'm disconnecting My networks, you know, you get like a Hulu plus or YouTube TV at all all of all the stations I'm cutting the cord on this one.

This is it.

I'm done.

I'm not going to play into this I'm not gonna give them the money

Yeah, when they go after the comedians like they went after Colbert and now Kimmel and you know, who's next Jimmy Jimmy Fallon in the worksite as You know, where does this end now?

Yeah, gonna go after NBC and Saturday Night Live and you know when you go after the comedians who are there just to provide satire and You know really poke fun, but also more people are getting their news from like the Daily Show

Boy, it would

be

interesting to hear

what they have to say about it.

What will happen to them?

Tim from DeForest says, I love listening to you guys in the morning, but you need to get rid of ABC National News Feed at the top of the hour.

Hashtag boycott ABC.

I'm boycotting them all.

I'm cutting the cord.

That's what I think everybody should do when it comes to this.

You want to go to Catherine?

Yeah, let's, Catherine Lake is on the line here.

Catherine?

Good

morning.

I almost hung up.

I almost hung up.

I don't I don't know what to say I can't believe this is happening, right?

And I here's my concern when you say boycott ABC when our listeners has boycott ABC and we have ABC on our Station and I get why he's saying that of course an NBC capitulating for on Colbert You know CBS to the chair first while ago.

Yeah, I I don't blame you

But there are other voices on those networks still doing the good work, right?

There must be.

So cutting them off.

you know, despite our own faces, that's my concern.

Well, yeah, I think you've got a really good point.

I mean, these are news people still dedicated to news.

And I don't see any influence or any problem with, of course, we know for a fact that most of these newscasts do reign in it a little bit.

They don't want to say anything too controversial.

But all the networks are doing that now because of Trump.

So, you know, we can't, we got to have somebody to go to, you know, so.

Right.

Well, we have us.

We have to the media.

Thanks.

The goodness.

Yeah.

But heart of me when I heard the cut that got him fired.

Yeah.

There's

nothing in there.

Our station.

There's nothing there.

So now I want to ask you guys to say whatever words are said that are getting people to take it off the air.

We should start saying those words.

We should repeat it.

We should play Jimmy Kimmel.

Every morning until they figure out what the flip is going on.

Well,

not a bad idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, we should do that week.

We okay

All right, we've got a protest in

some

way.

I'm just going to cut the cord and I ran it by my kids.

They don't watch TV.

They don't watch much TV anyway.

And you can watch some of the streaming services where a lot of the free stuff is on there, maybe with a few ads.

That's cool.

But, you know, just get rid of the major networks.

They're done for

me.

Let's go back to the phones.

Mark is on the line.

608-879-8255.

Mark, we got a couple of minutes here.

What do

you got?

I heard Kimmel's comment, and I've heard it before, that I can't remember where I heard it, but hearing it here and again, I hear nothing in that to indicate any disparagement of Charlie Kirk or minimizing what happened.

What it does show to me is the complete heartlessness of the completely uncaringness of Donald Trump, the complete self-absorption of the man saying, oh, and I'm going, he didn't even address Charlie Kirk's slaying.

He said, oh, look at my big old...

beautiful dance floor here where he paved over the rose garden for the love of God.

I mean, oh, we've wanted this dance floor for 150 years.

I mean, it is just the callousness and, and maybe it's not even callousness on Donald Trump.

He is just completely unaware that other people actually exist other than to serve him and to service him.

Yeah, it's very thin

skin to any satire or humor.

I mean, that was just directed at him.

It was just amazing that he didn't.

spending any time reflecting on on Kirk at all.

None.

And he can't even call it satire because it was just reporting and reporting what he actually said.

I mean, he made a satirical comment at the end.

I mean, we'll look at this.

I

mean, the man simply does not care about even his allies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark, thank you for that call.

We've got

we're in agreement on that.

Yeah.

We're going to continue here.

Brittany Merlot is right around the corner.

We'll get a weather update.

And also in our next half hour, we'll talk to attorney Jim Santel.

It's all coming up on John and Gordy on WMDX.

WMDX 92.7.

It's

John and Gordy in the morning.

22 past the hour.

The Wisconsin Book Festival is happening in Madison, October 23rd to the 26th.

It's bringing together authors and readers of all ages and interests.

Don't miss out on New York Times bestsellers.

Jane.

Hamilton or Mary Roach alongside dozens of others as they gather for readings and conversations about their writing this fall.

Again, the Wisconsin Book Festival, October 23rd to the 26th.

You can find out more at WMDXradio.com.

Let's check in on weather and with that, our WMDX meteorologist, Brittany Merlo.

Good morning, Brittany.

Hi.

Good morning.

How are you guys doing?

We're

doing good.

Weather wise, it's looking good out there this morning.

Sunshine

here.

We've got a few clouds.

How is it in Warsaw?

It is mostly cloudy.

It's not looking that pretty, but all right.

No rain here at the moment.

Got scattered showers far up north, so it's nice to be dodging that.

You guys get to stay beautiful and pretty all day.

Yeah,

you don't think any of that rain's gonna reach us.

I really don't.

Maybe overnight, possibly.

But then again, I think maybe early tomorrow morning, you could see a sprinkle or two, and then it really starts to ramp up tomorrow night.

And of course, into the weekend, unfortunately, it's going to be a lot.

So what's the

matter, John?

How sure are

you

about rain in the morning tomorrow?

Why?

Why do you have something going on?

Well, yeah, I'm recording

the

deck.

Oh, you're doing the deck?

I've got

to

seal up the

deck

early this morning so I get some

sunlight on.

a tiny chance.

So don't worry.