When the chips are down and democracy's back is up against the wall, two radio veterans step up to the microphone to right the wrongs, standing for truth, justice, and hey, are they ready to go yet?
It's The John and Gordy Show on 92.7 WMDX.
Yeah, what can you do?
It's like if there's a way we could play a game of pickup sticks with all the stories that we have.
Yeah.
Or 52
pickup.
Yeah.
Remember that?
Yeah, 52 pickups.
Yeah.
Throw the papers up in the air and
see what happens.
I think maybe that's closer to what we should do here this morning.
Yeah.
We've got a lot of stuff to get to.
A lot of insane
Idiocracy coming up as well.
So yeah.
So happy Wednesday.
It's a happy Wednesday.
And well, you know, we've had showers rolling through the area for the last five or six hours.
It's been pretty nightmarish and huge, huge ponds and flooding is going on right now.
What are you talking about?
Well, no, not really.
I'm just kidding.
Slightly damp out there.
Slightly damp.
Not to be exaggerating.
Strizzling just a little bit.
Just a little.
Here and there.
Yeah.
My automatic windshield wipers are detecting some kind of moisture in the air.
The space car.
Yes, the space car.
You have radar in the space car?
It knows.
Well, you know, it's like 360 cameras, you know.
I can see everything all the time.
It's wild, except when it rains and then it.
has water on the lenses and you can't see anything
at all.
They should have little windshield wipers in
front of the lenses, little tiny windshield wipers.
What the hell, you know?
You know, they're they're little balls, you know, they're little half balls.
And of course, you know, it has that the droplets on it and everything.
I'm trying to see it and I rolled on the window and I wiped it off, you know, on the rear rear mirror on the outside and it didn't do any good.
But it's it's cool, you know, it's cool.
It's a space car.
What do you expect?
Yeah.
So I don't have rain
in space.
I guess not.
Yeah, it's cool this morning.
49 degrees high is just 57 today.
Yeah, that's it.
And we'll have some scattered showers during the morning and some spotty rain here and there.
But for the most part, just kind of cloudy spotty rain, you know, it's hard to get off.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
What do you do?
I'd much rather just have, you know, water as opposed to spotty
rain.
Okay.
Okay.
Anyway, you know, there's a few other things going on in the world.
And the Brewers
lost last
night.
The
Brewers lost.
Five to one was the final score.
So their own two
against the Dodgers.
They're getting killed.
They got today off and then they'll be in LA tomorrow.
Anybody who likes the Dodgers, no one likes the Dodgers.
Everybody hates the Dodgers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a money team for something.
It's a money team.
Yeah.
You know, they just spend big money, like 500 million bucks,
you
know, every year.
I know.
And I think they win every single year too.
It
seems like they're always in it.
Yeah.
You know, we were talking off the air about the Brewers and Cubs games and my wife just loves...
the Cubs and she was listening to the radio broadcasts play by play and during the breaks they had these promos of previous Cub highlights which they played forever and ever and all the time three or four times per break and my wife knew every word and every one of them and and you know you're saying she's obsessed she
She, you know, repeated everything exactly as they were saying it in these promos.
And, you know, I'm a casual person listening to this stuff.
You're
pretty relaxed at home.
Yes.
Yes.
I'm very relaxed.
You're not as
uptight as you are here.
Putting together this show.
I'm a coiled spring.
You know, and, and, and I'm just trying to put everything together and I have to listen to these cuts seven or eight times in a roll because she starts, you know, talking about these promos again.
And I'm just like, oh, I can't stand it anymore.
Anyway, and I'm glad that that's all over.
Yeah.
The Cubs are out of it.
So you don't have to hurry that, hear that anymore.
But, but you know, it was fun, you know, having somebody in the house and so energized about her team.
It's great to see.
Does your kids like the Cubs or do they like the Brewers?
They don't do any sports.
Really?
Not at all.
Nope.
I know, and they don't do any alcohol of any sort, beer, anything.
Nothing.
Nothing.
No coffee?
You know, I've failed as a father, I guess.
What the hell?
I pushed coffee like crazy on this show.
You do.
We've created a city of addicts.
Coffee.
We haven't really pushed coffee very much lately, have we?
No, we haven't.
Where's the coffee guy
when
we... Oh,
there he is.
Oh,
well, there he is.
Who wants coffee?
I just made a fresh pot of coffee.
Does anybody want
coffee?
Yeah, over
here.
Who wants coffee?
Does anybody want coffee?
Right over here.
Who
wants coffee?
Oh, there he
goes.
Do you
want coffee?
Well, there... Okay.
Yeah.
They're mobbing him now.
You know, he never gives them any coffee.
I think it's the same body he's had all week.
So, yeah.
So, anyway, Dom, how are you doing this morning?
Pretty good.
Well,
I got
another, I moved, I was, I'm still moving, you know, from one side
of town to the other.
You are,
I thought,
but
now you got the piano moved.
No, no, the piano is the last thing to move.
That's next Tuesday.
Oh.
Oh, okay.
That's the piano.
That's my phone.
My
phone's going off, but you know, it's weird.
That's kind of early
weird 12 minutes after six.
Yeah, no, it's I don't know who that was okay some odd call
But you anyway everything I had to move I did yesterday because you know I have I had movers yesterday,
but
And I won't say who it was, but as a local mover, they say, yeah, we can do all that stuff except we don't do pianos.
And in fact, that's the case with a lot of movers.
They won't do pianos because pianos are a special move.
They are.
You know,
and you gotta be
insured.
You gotta be, you know, there's a lot involved
in
moving a piano.
Heavy.
Yeah, they're heavy.
No, like 400 pounds.
Yeah.
So I had to call a special place that does piano moving.
Yeah.
And
they can't do it till next Tuesday.
Okay.
So.
But everything else got moved.
All the big stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Hey, I'm putting in my
charging station.
Oh, yeah.
How's that going?
That was supposed to go
completely in yesterday.
This was the phone call that you were getting
constantly
during the last half hour of the show.
They called like 17 times.
Turn on the
volume of the ringer and I guess it didn't turn it down all the way.
And whatever was remaining of the volume was just as loud as the
full
volume.
I did not get that.
But anyway, yes, they had trouble getting in because my wife didn't open the door for me.
Because she was asleep?
Yeah, probably.
OK.
But here's the thing, you know, when you install one of these things, it's like a plug-in and outlet that you have in the wall for a stove.
So
it has
those big prongs on it.
But you can't use just any one of those kind of outlets for a car charger because it's on for about eight or nine hours.
It's
constant streaming of electricity.
It becomes hot, can deteriorate the plug, the outlet very quickly.
So you have to get a special one that is made specifically for EV charging.
And they had that, but it was larger than the normal outlets for
stove that you normally have in the wall and and and and it's larger and they have a
box that they put these outlets in, protected from the weather.
Outside, because it's outside, so you have to have a cover on it.
So they get it all done?
No, because the cover was too small for this EV outlet.
Oh, that's a shame.
So I'm waiting for a new cover.
Everything else
done?
Yes, everything is done.
It's fantastic.
I thought for sure this wasn't going to go in.
because you have concrete all over the house.
Yeah, it's like a bunker.
I mean, it is a bunker, you know, the walls and ceiling of the basement are all poured concrete.
It's kind of an unusual setup.
Yes, yes, it makes it really hard
to rewire anything or do anything at all, period.
So in your basement, is it just purely storage or do you have actual, is there like a living situation down there?
Oh yeah, we've got an apartment down there.
One of my
sons lives down there and my other son lives on the upper.
Up flat.
So yeah, yeah, two apartments.
Yes.
Yes.
Plus your, your place.
My place and we're ready place.
I don't know how that happened.
I feel, feel like I'm getting ripped off.
I got to talk to the landlord about that.
Okay.
All right.
Um, let's see.
Coming up a little bit later on, Mike McCabe will be joining us in our seven o'clock hour.
He's got a new sub stack article, 735.
Yep.
to be exact.
That's right.
Not only that, it'll be like another episode of busted pencils.
He's talking about education in this particular episode.
So we'll find out more about that and get his take on the latest happenings in the news, idiocracy.
Sure.
And you know, tomorrow night is the last
night
market of the season.
It is.
Yes.
So that happens tomorrow evening downtown right across the street from us at the overture center.
That's where our booth will be.
Of course, the booths go up and down.
State Street around yes, they do around the square.
We're all
dressed up.
We're all dressed
up.
Yeah, we are.
I mean, I am.
A theme is that the deal?
I think so.
Well, that's I
don't know about
that.
What are you gonna?
Are you gonna wear a badger?
I'm wearing my badgers onesie.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, I'm ready for a onesie.
Yeah, it's a whole it's a whole onesie and I already washed it yesterday, so I'm ready to go.
Where'd he go you stole that from the UW?
No, I make it yourself.
No, I bought it on Amazon You could you could buy it right now if you want to just check it out Bucky Badger onesie and there really yep.
Wow, it's not even expensive I
went to a comic con Spider-man in a onesie
the
pajama onesie that that was my costume really
that's gonna be the same It's gonna be the same attire.
Yeah, excellent.
Yep.
All right, okay
Badgers are not having a great season.
I don't know if you've noticed or not.
The
word is out.
You know, they're not showing up.
Students aren't in the student section anymore.
You know, they gave up.
You know, I don't know why you're supposed to go to the games just to have fun.
You don't care if they win or lose.
You don't even pay attention to that.
Yeah, they're
fickle.
Yeah.
So is the
coach.
Hello.
Well,
hello.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's too bad.
Yeah.
And this, uh, I think this Saturday, they're taking on Ohio State, which is up on what now?
Look at this.
Who is that?
I don't know.
It doesn't say it doesn't say seven,
eight, seven area.
I don't know what that is.
That's weird.
Yeah.
Um,
all right.
I'm
turning.
We have a, uh, we have a text here.
Yeah.
I lost interest in baseball back in the late nineties when the Yankees were the highest paid team and they kept winning.
Hmm.
and lost interest in you.
That's what happens, right?
Exactly, yes.
Dodgers are the second highest salary team.
Now they're winning a lot, so yeah.
Get the money out of it and make it all fair, but that's not gonna happen.
Okay.
Yeah, good.
Well, that's a good observation.
You can call us, you can text us, get the Civic Media app fired up.
You can send us a voice note.
Our phone number is 608-879-8255.
Okay.
You
know you're dressing up for this is for the night market pretty much now.
I don't care about the night market Dressing up for it.
I love
the night market.
I think it's fantastic.
I mean
it really is a great event down here It is what I want to get to is the no Kings protests.
Oh, that's Saturday.
Yes, and my wife wants to
Us to dress up for the no Kings thing and I am not well.
I don't want to go to this It's enough just to get me to go to any protest, you
know,
I asked everybody
you
think protests in a little out You know, they've not they've learned how to game the system with protests now They don't have the National Guard here to game that system But I don't know I don't want to go as you know a superhero or act like we're the Avengers and we're gonna save the city and save the country
All right.
But
Anne
wants
to do that.
Does she really?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, all right.
It is 19 minutes past the hour.
We'll be back with more of Johnny Gordy in the morning right here on WMDX.
You can ask me what's
trending What's trending You can ask me what's trending
Everybody's asking, what is trending?
We have a few things trending here.
John and Gordy in the morning.
We've got Dom at the controls and it is a slightly damp morning.
Yes, it is.
Are we expecting any more
rain there, Mr. Weatherman?
Well, a couple of spots of showers, but not much.
It's moving out and then we'll just be left with cloud cover and highs around 57 today.
Ah, a
little
bit
on the chilly side.
Right now 49 degrees.
Do we have the sunrise and sunset?
at times from your WMDX.
We actually do.
I mean, it is here and it is ready to go.
Just as the weather window is always ready to look out and check out the real weather as it's happening.
Sunrise is at 7-eleven.
I'm
sorry.
That weather window gets a workout.
That weather window, man.
I'm telling
you.
It's really something.
Window in and it never shows anywhere.
That's another big It's
amazing
Let me see 614 sunset time.
Okay.
Yeah, be ready for it starts getting darker much much earlier Okay, we have just read a text that we thought was just a text, but it's a voice note instead so
We never play these we never get them so Let's hear how John and Gordy mangled
our
reading of
this
particular text from the actual person who sent this voice note in let's listen, okay
Yeah, I lost interest in baseball back in the late 90s when the Yankees were the highest-paying team and they kept winning I lost interest Finally got interest again when the Brewers were doing good
Turns out Dodgers are the second highest salaried team.
And now they're winning a lot.
So yeah, get the money out of it, make it all fair.
But yeah, that's not going to happen.
Yeah.
And that's mad out in Middleton.
Yeah, that's who that is.
And now that session closed out.
I wonder, did this close out because we played a voice note?
Maybe.
The screen is closed out now.
And now you got to come over here.
All
right.
Just give me the.
Uh, password
please.
Okay.
All right,
we'll wait on that
then.
Yeah, please.
Well, you can come in here and do
it.
I will.
Put it on
automatic in here.
Yeah, because I'm gonna put, I'm just gonna, you know, bring up a story here that's trending at this point.
Okay.
Uh, this is a funny story because, um, the Texas National Guard had a few fat members.
It did.
Yeah, they a little overweight.
Yes, they are, actually.
And, you know, they're camped out just outside of Chicago, waiting to go in, but a judge stopped them from going in.
But the pictures of these heavy set National Guard unit guys from Texas created a meme on X and all of a sudden, you know,
They were starting to embarrass the great state of Texas.
Oh, that's
sad.
Yeah, that sparked an online furor and the Texas military department benched some of these National Guard troops.
Send back to Texas?
Yeah, they did.
They actually pulled them out, sent them back to Texas, these heavy said guys.
Wow.
Oh, that's, that's not good.
That's gotta be embarrassing.
Just that is a bad luck, right?
Yeah, I guess.
Geez.
You know, Pete Hanks says, wants everybody to be, you know, in top condition.
Fit and trim.
Yes.
Gee, I bet they were disappointed.
They didn't get to go have some Chicago pizza, some deep Dutch pizza while they were in the city.
Or at least, you know, being a cleanup crew, picking up some of the litter on the streets in the great city of Chicago.
Yeah.
So it's too bad for them.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he was sending the elite Texas National Guard to Chicago.
Okay.
And
it
took back a few of the heavy set ones.
And it's, boy, that's body shaming, isn't it?
You don't want to see body shaming in the military.
That's not terrible.
It's not good at all.
It's too
bad.
And then of course,
This is a horrible repercussion that's taken place because our orange blob that sits in the White House, watching Fox News all day, decided that he doesn't like green energy.
He doesn't like alternative energy.
He doesn't like the windmills.
He doesn't like those.
The windmills.
Yeah, the ones that, you know, grind up grain.
Kill all the birds.
Into flour.
Those windmills.
He hates them.
Anyway, so all of these other companies, major companies throughout the country have invested in the future of green energy.
They
spent billions and billions of dollars.
five-year plans to carry out this green energy, General Motors being one of them, they took $1.6 billion in investment and shelved it.
They made a U-turn because, you know, we're giving up on EVs because the great orange one doesn't believe that they should be there.
Remember when he said all of the above for energy options, right?
All of the above.
Well,
not exactly equal all of the above so he's phasing out the EV factor and all of the charging stations being installed all across the country and General Motors is taking it in the shorts 1.6 billion dollars forwarded the same thing
This is, this is a devastation for the auto industry.
Now they have to go back on it and start churning out gas engines again.
Well,
I don't understand.
I mean, when he was buddy, buddy with Elon Musk, he had EVs out on the White House lawn.
Yes.
He was selling
them.
Like a used car sale.
That's right.
He
was the general manager and
Elon
was out there.
Hocking him.
Hocking
him.
Yes.
Oh, well, what happened to that?
Yeah.
So, uh, this is, this is really bad news.
And it, you know, again, it is a cost for all of these major corporations.
Yeah.
What are they going to do now?
Pull back.
Yeah, they're going to slow down the rollout of EVs.
I say they should have EV demonstration stations all over the country for people to try an EV.
See if they like them.
They will change their minds instantly when you get behind the wheel of an EV.
Drive it, it's a fantastic start.
When I
drove your space car, man, that was cool.
It
was very
cool.
All right, it is 6.29.
Straight ahead, the Midwest Food and Farm Report will be back with Idiocracy for Wednesday morning.
John Peterson and Gordy Young, along with Dom Lee.
Stay
with us.
Watch, be
careful
Human evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence with no natural predators to thin the earth.
Oh my god!
There is a place without boundaries.
A place without planets.
Welcome
to Costco.
I love
you.
A place that is about to be violated.
Idiocracy.
For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.
Well, we've uh...
We've plumbed the depths of dumbness and we have a few more stories to pass along to you.
This is WMDX 92.7, John and Gordy
in the morning.
We'll get to idiocracy in just a moment.
It is 6.35.
We have clouds.
We have some rain moving through downtown Madison at the moment on State Street.
It is looking pretty wet, but this should move along and then we'll just be left with clouds and highs just 57 for today right now 49 degrees.
I had, right before we went to the break and you spilled the coffee all over the place, you know, on your laptop.
I did, right across the keyboard.
Is it working?
Laptop working okay now?
You know, it seems to be.
Yeah, it's nice and
clean.
Yeah, I've been meaning to
do that.
I actually have been meaning to do that and I think coffee is a great cleaner
at this point.
It is.
It really
helps.
It's the option that wasn't necessarily planning on.
But it works.
It still works.
Well, good.
So what's happening?
It's an amazing computer.
Idiocracy
today.
Oh, well, you know, I'm looking at the radar here.
Oh, yeah.
We got some, uh, oh, some storm action coming in in our direction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Should be here fairly soon.
Pretty heavy showers.
A little bit more showers.
Nothing heavy.
Okay.
This is something I saved.
Now you're fighting with the mic stand.
Everything okay over there?
What the heck happened to the mic?
Okay.
You gotta tighten that elbow over
there.
I'm not gonna do anything at this point.
I'm gonna leave it.
Just let it be all loose
and goosey.
I didn't get to the story last week, but this was something I thought worth mentioning.
The Oregon Republican Party is facing a backlash after it shared a social media post about a planned military deployment in Portland using, get this, a fabricated image composed of photographs
from South America.
Well, that's what I always think of when I want to have an actual picture of Portland.
I go to South America to get pictures from there.
The Guardian found this story.
They reported how the Oregon Republican Party used these photographs as evidence supporting Trump's claim that Portland's protests were out of control.
So out of control protest in South America to prove their point.
Showing a line of riot police in a crowd with flares creating red smoke.
However, the image was a digital composite of two unrelated photographs from different South American countries.
They didn't even go to just one country, they went to two with a clear indication of its non-US origin in the pictures.
Really?
Yeah, an officer's shield marked Policia.
kind of gave that all away.
And that is a Getty image from 2008.
Nice.
Well,
well, you know, you get what you can, I guess.
Yeah, I guess, you
know, AI should
have been
a little bit more particular in creating that image.
When a journalist pointed out the image is inauthenticity, the Oregon Republican Party responded on social media with a cavalier admission.
We're not reporters.
Just bad memers.
Well, that's great.
It's good to... Wow.
It's good to at least confess to making a big mistake.
They came right away.
Yes.
Good for
them.
Oh, man.
All right.
How about that insane logic around COVID?
This is an interesting, bizarre story.
Omega posted this.
25% of people who got the COVID shot regret it.
The others are dead.
So 25% regret the COVID shot.
The others are dead.
That was the statement from this poster on X.
So
another one noticed that and said, apparently 75% of those who got the COVID shot are dead and the other 25% regret they got it.
Anyone out there who has had the COVID vaccine is not dead yet and does not regret it.
please respond.
And he says, I'll start me.
That's good.
That's
good stuff.
See,
it
wasn't a, the story didn't end prematurely.
That, uh, that was a good follow up.
Oh, we go to the phones.
Yes.
Uh, in fact, it's good to hear from Mark this morning because I was going to read your post on, uh, Putrid Pete, as you call him.
Yeah, Mark.
Good morning.
Yeah.
Good morning.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll let you read the post separately, but do you just switch ears a little bit on with, uh,
Scott Walker did the same thing back in 2011 when Fox News and Fox News did the same thing back in 2011 during the Act 10 protests when they're picturing protests from Tunisia trying to claim they're from Madison, Wisconsin.
I remember that, yes.
Absolutely.
And what occurred to me yesterday and the meme that's been running through my mind is that Donald Trump is a lot like Anne Rand's here, superhero, William
you know, the guy who kidnapped a girl and chopped her up and took her hostage.
I mean, that's precisely what Trump is doing to the United States.
I mean, he's taken the nation hostage, chopping it up and saying, you know, that that's okay.
I mean, that he's trying to destroy the United States democracy.
And it's all about Donald Trump and Donald and the guy's superhero statement was, is what is good for me is right.
And that's what Donald Trump believes.
What is good for him is right at it.
Damn, to be the rest of the rest of the world, if as long as it's right for him.
That's right.
The family gathering wealth.
I mean, maybe it's a little, you know, it is.
I think that Trump is equally as twisted as William Hickman.
He might not have actually, you know, kidnapped, kidnapped a little girl and murdered her, but he certainly has tried to try to destroy our democracy.
Absolutely.
Well, he doesn't, yeah, he doesn't have to care about what is proper, what isn't, because, you know, for him, it's just take it all down and create it in his image, which is crazy, isn't it?
I mean, the guy failed it.
Yeah.
He failed at, uh, at, uh, uh, gambling casinos.
How do you feel at that?
Yeah.
I don't know, but, but Peter Pete really, really is, yeah.
Yeah.
All
right, thanks a lot
mark.
I appreciate it You know we talked to the other day about some of the protests in these cities, you know Portland is doing it the right way They're dressing people up in costumes, you know big animal costumes a frog and in fact the frog thing is taken off in mean form on X they have but
really
AI created animations, you know like George Washington
Okay, and it was just it's just fun stuff.
But anyway, what happened is they had a protest the other day and It was the nude bike protest
and
that took place in the rain.
I understand they're getting quite quite rainy out there But at this other this is this was just incredible.
I saw this video and it was a takeoff on the nude bike protest.
It was a nude Diane
So they covered this entire, it looked like a bridge, but the entire bridge was just covered with people just lying there.
A lot of them naked.
You know, we had, you know, the costume people, we had a half clothed Santa Claus laying out there and a few naked people, but it was covered with people just.
performing a protest, a Diane protest on a bridge out there in Portland.
They know how to do it right.
Wow.
And those guys are good, right?
That's interesting.
I mean, they all just laid on the bridge.
They did.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, it's some dead.
Some did not ever.
They were not all naked.
But maybe we should start doing that all over the country.
Maybe that
would be a way to counter.
you know, ice in the National Guard, pushing people around, wrestling to the ground.
I would like to see them wrestle to the ground a bear or a frog
or a
bunny rabbit or maybe a cow with an udder.
You know, I just
want to see
them, you know, tackle these.
Animated characters and just in time for Halloween you get you get a double use out of your Halloween costume that way
Exactly wouldn't that be the best way to protest right?
Okay.
I like it.
All right.
Well, I'm glad you I'm Working on it though.
We're working
on
it.
Okay.
Um, I want to get to this this is kind of a odd story if the FBI is very serious about going after Antifa
You know, they want to break up the Antifa network, which no one ever heard of until just recently.
Doesn't really exist.
No, no.
And it kind of piggybacks with the John and Gordy Antifa after school, which is something we're trying to bring to each and every school in the country.
I mean, if they can put Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA in the schools, which is a purely political.
organization and plop it in the schools
with
conservative thinking.
I think that maybe the ANTIFA after-school program is just what we need to counter that, right?
Yes.
Okay, so anyway, the FBI is very serious about going after it.
Antifa members and now we're gonna have to start looking over our shoulders because of our after-school program, Gordon.
But
anyway, the FBI showed up at Glenn Beck's home and they started interviewing him about his expose on Antifa and they wanted to get the word out and who best to talk to than Glenn Beck to get a little propaganda on the airwaves.
So Glenn Beck was good at it.
Let's listen to what he
said.
But if I were in that imaginary group of Antifa, which by the way has imaginary leaders Leaving the country to go maybe to imaginary countries
outside of the
US I would be very concerned if I were part of anything that was Sending money their way or assistance their way.
I don't know.
I might be a little concerned because the FBI is dead-ass serious
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Donald Trump, Kash Patel, and all of the agents at the FBI.
Yes, they're going after... Yes, they're certainly going after the Antifa Organization Network, whatever you want to call it.
Now here, the brewer, the owner of Manawa Brewing, posted his sign, Wisconsin's next governor needs to be Antifa.
Oh,
really?
Yeah.
And that piqued the interest of our governor candidate, Tom Tiffany.
This is a disastrous campaign.
It was almost as bad as some of the other ones that we've talked about.
But Tom Tiffany is on this thing like flies on, you know what, every petty
Comment every rumor every sideshow every random opinion every obvious lie Tom Tiffany is going to jump on board and this is what he said more discussing the rhetoric from a Democrat leader in our state and Tifa is a violent domestic terrorist organization the media should ask every Wisconsin Democrat governor candidate if they support and Tifa again and Tifa is anti
Fascist.
Yes.
So do we support anyone who's against fascism?
Well, that's an easy question to answer.
Yeah.
Oh, this Tom Tiffany is a disaster.
I don't think he even knows what Antifa, you know, the thing is they come up with acronyms, you know, they really hate acronyms.
And it makes it very simple for them to make their point.
They don't even have to think about what the acronym means, what the words are.
And in Antifa is like an acronym.
They just say it now and everything is the Antifa protesters,
right?
I mean,
they're they're preceding protesters with Antifa now.
Yeah, this is really, I mean, you know, you just want to show your stupidity, go ahead, please.
For the rest of the world to see, we
encourage it.
Okay.
It is 648, 49 degrees, rain showers in Madison this morning.
We'll be back with more of Idiocracy with John and Gordy on WMDX.
From the war against disorder from sirens night and day from the fires of the homeless from the ashes of the gay democracy is coming
to the USA Johnny Gordy in the morning WMDX 92.7 check us out on the civic media app check
our station and then text us or voice notice or give us a call
as well.
What is that phone number, Gordy?
That number, John, is 608-879-8255.
I actually don't know it.
608-879-8255.
All right.
879 Talk.
Hey, we got a call already, don't we?
We do.
All right.
CJ is on the phone this morning.
All right, CJ.
Good morning, CJ.
How are you?
Good.
Good morning gentlemen.
How are you?
Not bad.
How was your adventure yesterday waving the flag up at the state Capitol?
We saw you outside our window.
You called us in and and we posted it, right?
We got it on our 92.7 website.
Yes.
How'd I look?
Did I look dapper?
You did.
You were all dressed up in a suit and tie.
Yeah.
pulled it out of the mothballs, just for you guys.
Did you get a lot of good reaction up at the Capitol?
I talked about those little ninja people, Antifa, as they run around the country.
Yes, the Antifa in quotes.
If we follow them as much as you think, they aren't quite as smart as the Black Lives Matter.
leaders who had people send in millions of dollars, whatever happened to those leaders, they bought themselves mansions and cars and stuff.
Boy, they really cared about the black lives, didn't they?
Well, you know, somehow along the way, I
think
that's more on the right wing.
That's a talking point there.
I've never heard of that, but go ahead.
Go ahead.
What happened to those Black Lives Matters leaders?
Well, I don't
know.
They don't care about the Black Lives Matter.
They don't care about the money and ranch.
You kind of brought it up here and I'll go a little bit further on that.
Every time they talk about all these big protests, in fact the No Kings protest, they're saying that
Uh, the George Soros paid protesters are turning out for the No Kings protest.
Where is this money?
I, you know, no one, no one, no one's getting paid that I
know of.
They're going to follow the money.
They're going to see where that money went,
kind of
like the Black Lives Matter.
I would love to find out
where... They live in mansions now.
Isn't
that quite amazing
that no
one
cares about that?
I don't know where you're getting that information.
Yeah, we don't know where you're getting that, but okay, now you've said it.
Now now it's fact all right now.
What about the paid protesters?
They keep saying these are paid protesters and we've never ever been able to come up with a paycheck or No, and I know has ever been paid.
Why is
that
sorrows?
Yeah, why is that?
All right, well anyway, that's the big question I have this is this is something I got it I have to pass this along dude.
This is just
This just blew my mind.
This is a Fox TV affiliate up north Winnebago County.
This is just really something else.
Okay.
They covered the story.
The Winnebago County Democratic Party is being criticized for hate speech materials at their farmers market up there in Winnebago County.
what now listen to this story they have absolutely no proof that any of this happened but they're covering the story anyway it blew my mind just check this out this is cut 130 let's listen to this okay
some people in Oshkosh are criticizing the Winnebago county democratic party
it comes after some at this past weekend's farmers market say a party volunteer handed out hate speech materials
it's hate speech i mean it's literally
wishing death on somebody, which isn't appropriate in any scenario.
Katie Newbauer says she and her family were enjoying their Saturday morning at the Oshkosh Farmers Market this past weekend.
But things
took a turn, she says, when her eight-year-old child was handed a bracelet from a member of the Winnebago County Democratic Party's booth.
The guy behind the tent table said, hey, give this to your mom.
She's going to really want this.
And one of the children comes running up, gives us the bracelet, and we're looking at it, and it literally says, is he dead yet on the bracelet?
Newbauer and the Republican Party of Winnebago County assumed this was a hate speech referenced to President Donald Trump.
Fox 11 was unable to get a photo of the bracelets.
We've been
working to get questions answered by the county Democratic Party.
Fox
11 also reached out to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
It declined an interview, but instead the party's communications director Philip Shulman texted us a statement that reads,
Oshkosh Farmers Market tells Fox 11 it received about 10 complaints from customers about the bracelets.
The bracelet.
Market
manager Michelle Schmid Schultz also confirmed it was the Winnebago County Democratic Party's booth handing out the materials.
The organization will be allowed to set up for future markets.
In Oshkosh, Tony Langfellow.
All right, so
here's the thing and there's a follow-up on this they apparently the Democratic Party apparently is not going to be at the farmers market anymore Okay, so they've been bounced out of there been kicked out on a rumor that there's a bracelet
We got a picture yet.
There's nobody sure okay, but there were ten complaints
ten complaints from people who apparently disagree with the
Bracelet, not a number of them.
They didn't distribute a bunch
of them.
There's just one bracelet that
no one has been able to come up with.
I couldn't believe that they actually had this story on their newscast.
There's no proof.
Why would they jump on something like this?
I mean, to this day.
No one has even created an AI rendition of what that bracelet might look like, okay?
And guess what?
Our governor candidate, Tom Tiffany, is on this one, too.
Oh boy.
He wrote this past weekend at the Oshkosh Farm in America, the Winnebago County Democratic Party, gave a kid a bracelet that read, is he dead yet regarding President Trump?
You don't know if it's regarding anybody.
This political hate and violence has no place in Wisconsin.
Well, thank you, Tom, for straightening that one out.
We were questioning that all along.
He's running with it.
Just go with it.
Just wait it.
Oh, man.
Okay.
Oh, wait him.
All right.
Oh, coming up in our seven o'clock hour, Mike McCabe will join us, as he does every Wednesday.
He'll be here about 7.35, and we've got news straight ahead.
We've got a big story, by the way.
Oh, yes, the big story.
The Obama subsidies.
Ah, yes, that's coming up on WMDX.
Transmitted by Wire.
Here is the latest news brought into your own living room.
You'll be hard to satisfy with anything left.
Let's give them some better talk about.
The talk is cheap.
Cab, cab, cab.
Always gossiping.
It's the John and Gordy show.
This is high five plus.
And that's the way it
is.
We'll do it
live.
On 92.7 FM, WMDX.
Take it away, boys.
All right, yeah.
Pass the baton, thank you.
Good morning.
It is 706.
We've got some scattered light rain showers working their way through Madison State Street looking kind of wet from our vantage point here downtown.
Block off the Capitol.
The WMDX Doppler radar is indicating
a few clouds moving our way.
Yes.
It's 49 degrees highs in the mid to upper fifties.
Just just made that up.
Okay.
Tomorrow night is the night market.
We will be in attendance there with
our
booth right across us.
street from our station here and right in front of the overture center at Night Market, last one of the season.
And the theme, at least we're going with the theme of dressing up in
Weird costumes.
Okay.
Yes, that's
the idea.
That is Gordy.
What are you gonna wear?
I have no idea.
You know, I've just moved it.
So everything's in
boxes.
I've
got I can't
find
got any excuse That's what it
sounds like.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know Go
go is the unknown comic.
Oh, that'd
be good with me
You're dressed up as Bucky Badger.
Is that your plan?
Yeah, the Bucky Badger onesie, man.
I'm trying not to say it out loud so many times, but I guess, yeah.
Okay.
And John, what's your deal?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Gonna address the Spider-Man
again?
We're still
arguing
about the No Kings Great Test.
Oh, that's on Saturday.
Turning up as the Avengers.
I don't know.
I just don't know.
Well, anyway, join us for the Madison Night Market tomorrow evening from five until nine.
All right.
This is kind of late breaking news.
I haven't really edited this, this thing up, but I just thought it passed it along.
This is the Chicago Sun Times.
They're reporting on this at the request.
Okay.
Let's just go back a little bit here.
Remember in COVID and, uh, and all the rumors about taking this drug and that drug and trying this and that and, uh, remember, do you remember?
Yes.
Going back in time.
And the administration at the time, Biden said, you know, we really have to stop all of this.
Could you please, he talked to social media.
Could you just please, you know, tamp down all of this because we don't need this misinformation going out there.
These are lies, misinformation.
Please tamp this down.
And then he did.
They took a lot of it off.
Then when Trump came into office, everything just opened up.
The billionaires fell in line with Trump, and they said, we're getting rid of this censorship.
No more of this censorship.
We're going to go full bore.
Sure.
You can post whatever the hell you want.
Right.
You bet.
You guys are open.
All right.
So here we go.
At the request of the Department of Justice...
A Facebook group used by nearly 80,000 people in Chicago to report sightings of federal immigration agents in the area has been taken down by Metta Zuckerberg Facebook parent company.
Yeah, the group called Ice Sighting in Chicago Land has been increasingly used over the last few weeks of Operation Midway Blitz.
But the Trump administration has claimed that its agents, nearly all of them, who wear face coverings, don't wear badges, and at times vehicles without license plates are under attack somehow.
They're being doxxed.
This is according to...
Pam Bondi,
who believes her?
Okay, here, here, this is what she said.
Today, following outreach from the Department of Justice, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to docks and target ICE agents in Chicago.
Don't think so.
We don't know who they are.
They don't have identification.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, so so they took that Facebook
so they
took it down by the request of the administration
Which by the
way during the Biden administration was a huge issue.
They were censoring the right wing.
They were censoring people They couldn't do it anymore and Zuckerberg said yeah, let's go full bore put out whatever you want out there and now they're censoring Facebook site that is just I guess Reporting where the agents are that's all they're not doxing anybody
Okay.
Yeah.
So, uh, so interesting, isn't it?
It's a different start.
You know, they do live under a different set of rules than everybody else, this administration, and especially when you're a dictatorship and a fascist, um,
government.
We got a text here, John, from Martin and Verona.
He says, imagine the mixed feelings of these ice thugs parents.
Talking about ice agents and parents, the shame of raising a hateful man baby with nothing of value to offer this world and the relief of having them have a job that gets them out of the basement.
So mixed feelings.
Now
about CJ,
he has tunnel vision because he views the world through his navel.
It's the only way he can see out of the.
his head shoved so far up his keister.
That's Martin of Rome.
All right, Martin.
Thank you for that comment.
You can text us on the Civic Media app or call us 608-879-8255.
You would think that there would be a little bit more criticism from even Magus, right?
I mean, obviously, we're looking at this administration censoring a group.
Another group, just doing something legal.
They can do this.
They're making observations.
They're just giving people a heads up.
People can go to the site.
They don't have to go to the site.
It's just out there.
They're not lying.
They're not telling lies.
They're not doxying anybody.
They're not doing anything because how do you know who these people are?
So when no one believes this administration anymore at all and judges are making decisions based on the fact that they can't believe what they're being told in court.
That's
it.
Yeah.
So that's what's happening.
Now let's go to the phone lines again.
We've got Charles.
Charles, what do you got for us today?
Good morning, Charles.
I am sitting here crying.
I am so upset that our conservative caller from Stone didn't mention that our president is giving Argentina $20 billion.
So
that story blew up yesterday.
Wow.
Yes.
I am so sad that our Stone friend who's always talking about the
the budget and the money that we're going to, our kids are going to have to pay back.
Didn't seem to have a problem with our country given Argentina $20 billion.
Oh, yeah.
Where is it?
I'll read yet.
Yeah.
And it
really, it really reaches into, uh, you know, uh, rural country that, you know, they, they voted for Trump and now Trump is completely betrayed them.
Uh, you know, Argentina, of course, you know, supplying soybeans now, uh, to China, uh, completely wiping out any sales of soybeans to China from our.
country yeah soybean farmers are suffering here right and then now because of the trade wars we're gonna use tariff money to pay the farmers again and by the way that's my money too yeah and I support the farmers but I don't want to see this happen they don't want to see it happen they've just lost a market partner right I mean they've been you know these are relationships built up over years decades and they just lost it to another country that we're giving
billions of dollars to and we're keeping people from getting health care in this country because the budget is so tight.
I don't think it is.
Crazy.
Yeah,
it's
crazy stuff.
The phones we go.
Dick is on the line.
Good morning, Dick.
Go ahead.
Yeah, and 45 billion for ice.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
Another wonderful thing, don't you think, guys, is now we're not going to get any news from Pentagon.
The networks are all being set off.
I mean, there's nothing going on there anyway, right?
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, except for, you know, keeping track of the fat and heavy set military.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Right.
But yeah, that's a wonderful thing to hear, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's just unbelievable that they could actually go around.
I mean, after all the complaining and did about being censored, they go out and they censor people on Facebook.
Beside myself, okay, you know, I'm kind of burying the big story that I had this afternoon or this morning rather Here this is about Obamacare now a lot of stuff is going on behind the scenes, you know and Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to negotiate any of the
Any of the items that the Democrats are demanding, especially approving the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
All right.
But there is actually something going on behind the scenes.
And there's a menu of options.
They're starting to come up with a compromise that it might actually take place.
Yes.
On the Affordable Care Act tax credits, believe this or not.
No.
Now.
This is the bad news.
There are people on the right that don't get it yet.
They don't actually understand Obamacare.
They really never paid for it.
They never investigated.
They never signed up for it, so they don't know what's involved.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who's never quite gotten ACA, said, about 90% of members of our conference, they feel strongly that Obamacare itself and the subsidies have failed.
Well, as a person who has been on Obamacare and whose family is still on Obamacare, you're wrong.
Completely wrong.
It makes it affordable with the tax credits.
And we do have healthcare now.
And it covers pre-existing conditions.
So you're absolutely wrong.
It hasn't failed at all.
All right, now here are some of the MAGA solutions Except for one.
Okay.
This is this is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
This is cut 131 We're not going to consider this one.
Okay.
This is this is her point of view on the tax credits
Okay, let's take health insurance for for example, I I'm a conservative and I can say we're 37 trillion dollars in debt.
We cannot afford
a socialized health care plan in America.
We literally cannot.
But at the same time, I can say we sent almost $300 billion to Ukraine.
We spent, sent $30 billion to Israel in 2024 alone.
I can say we definitely should extend these, these ACA tax credits and we need to build an off ramp because it'll cost $30 billion a year to do it.
We can build an off ramp and open up a new system that will serve every
American.
No, it's not going to be an off ramp.
You guys don't, you don't have another plan.
No.
Yeah, what's the plan?
There is no plan.
There is no plan.
And when you think about it, because of these tax credits and the added tax credits because of the COVID problem we had, all of that is a tremendous amount of money.
And that money increases as the premiums increase on the Affordable Care Act.
And we're paying a lot of taxpayer money into this system.
Why not just go with universal health care and stop dinking around with this thing?
All right.
Well, anyway, here are some of the other options and parts of the solutions to this.
A one year extension, okay, put it off for another year.
That's one of the
possibilities.
Meg is opening.
open to imposing new income caps, similar to the current credit caps, which is about $200,000, cutting off enhanced tax credits for new enrollees.
So your grandfather didn't.
That's not fair.
That's not good.
And how about this mandate a minimum out of pocket payment to unlock eligibility?
All right.
But that doesn't make any sense either.
Why would you do that?
And
And just a moment, I'm going to tell you why there's a crazy group out there called called Paragon Health Institute.
You know, they've got their little Institute guys running around and it's a small group, but they're influencing the entire Congress when it comes to these tax credits.
The
Paragon
Health Institute.
Yeah.
I
know, stupid name.
All right, we'll be getting to their point of view and what they're doing
to our healthcare system in just a moment.
And coming up in about 15 minutes, Mike McCabe will join us because it's Wednesday and because he's a sub-stack blogger with a new blog.
He'll be telling us about that a little bit about education this
time
around.
It's all coming up on John and Gordy on WMDX.
Welcome to the age of stupid.
Stupid.
Welcome to the age of stupid.
Oh, we've got a story here that we'll, we'll actually point a finger right at how stupid some of these right wing groups are.
I mean, this is just really unbelievable.
WMDX, 92.7, John and Gordon in the morning, Dom had the controls and feel free to text us, voice notice, and also give us a jingle on the phone.
608-879-8255.
All right,
this is utterly stupid.
The small conservative think tank called Paragon Health Institute, which has a lot of influence.
in the Congress at this point, is outraged over millions of phantom enrollees.
I am not kidding you, they are warning Congress that there are phantom enrollees in the ACA, individuals who don't know they've enrolled in a health plan on the Affordable Care Act in the marketplace.
These are enrollees who've been tricked,
They are enrolled.
They're enrolled and they don't know it.
These are called phantom enrollees by this Paragon Health Institute.
Okay.
Well, you got to say, well, what do they mean by phantom enrollees?
Yes.
Well, this is there.
This is how they think of it.
It's where people are on health plans, but don't file any medical claims.
Okay.
It
truly is
the age of stupid, isn't it?
So because you don't have a health event, you
don't
need to go to the doctor, you are now considered a phantom.
On the ACA in the marketplace according to this my head is starting to hurt at this point now Now you know why I curl up in the fetal position like some tile in the middle of the day So if you don't need health care you don't
Take advantage of it.
This is the same argument I had with Medicaid, you know putting people on Medicaid Unless they're worried they got to work or else, you know, they're gonna take advantage of Medicaid But they're not gonna take advantage of Medicaid if they don't need it It's not like a paycheck.
They don't get a paycheck every month.
It's not taxpayer money going to them
Right?
I mean, this is just absolutely mind numbingly stupid.
And get this, on top of that paragon commission to poll, showing a majority of voters want the subsidies to expire?
Wow.
Well, that's in conflict with the September 2025 poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Health Foundation that came up with 78 percent.
of the public wants to extend the enhanced tax credits.
So according to the Paragon Institute, no one wants it extended.
According to the Kaiser Health Foundation, which I think I would believe first, 78% of the public.
And you know, I mean, there is no percentage below 50%.
conservatives, middle of the road people, and decided they all want to extend the tax credits.
And finally, a House Republican aide described the Paragon Health Institute as a conservative brainiac guys in this conservative health institute.
Conservative brainiac guys.
So let me remind you, if you're unfamiliar with brainiac, he is a supervillain in the DC Comics.
So, okay, maybe I'll go along with that comparison.
Let's go to Joe.
Joe's on the line right now.
Good morning, Joe.
Go ahead.
Wow.
Well, gee, this is another escapade and stupid.
It's kind of amazing.
I think, you know, you put Paragon and then you put Institute and I.
I think you guys should go for an institute.
I think you should have the John and Gory Institute.
I think you need a little cut line, maybe like here for you while others are sleeping.
But when you talked about Brainiac, maybe you could be kind of like Brainiac, but not not evil.
Yeah, just work, work it.
And I just, you know, the reason why I'm calling, boy, I don't know if you can top that story that you just had, but I am so
The lying is so intense.
The lying is so, it's like a fire hose of lies.
I
had a friend who just said, you know, that two questions to ask are, what's your evidence and have you looked at a timeline?
And I mean, what's your evidence could take care of like 99% maybe that's a lie of Trump's claims like your child will go into the school and come out transgendered in one day.
Okay, right.
Or no,
protesters are paid to go protest.
Yeah,
sure.
And I never got a check.
I never did either.
And I guess the other question.
So what's your evidence?
And the other one was look at a timeline.
And there was a wonderful one this week from the failed son, Eric Trump, who's written a book.
And apparently it's a book that never went through an editor or fact checker because he claims that Jack Smith planted classified documents.
prior to the raid, FBI raid that took place on August 8th at Mar-a-Lago.
This, in order for this to have happened, Jack Smith would have had to warp the time space continuum because he was not assigned to that case at that point.
It wasn't till three months later.
And in fact, Jack Smith was in Europe, you know, working another job.
And so this notion that he would be there plant, and he said, well, he's planting the Manila folders, you could see.
So, I guess, you know, I really hope that you're the John and Gordy Institute, you know, here for you while others are sleeping.
Maybe there's something you guys can do to keep pushing on this fire hose of lies that we have.
We're definitely
going to spitball at it.
Great
idea, Joe.
Thank you so much.
Great stuff, Joe.
Yeah, we got to workshop that a little bit,
but yeah, that's pretty much a
goal on that one.
I think so, yeah.
I mean, we could add it to our Antifa after.
After school program
a lot to work on never ends, okay 29 past the hour
And we've got the Midwest Food and Farm Report, and then Mike McCabe will join us.
Join us.
He's got a new sub-stack article kind of about the history of education in the United States.
You know, training for one thing.
Yes.
All these classes are training people for certain occupations, and then they just disappear because of technology.
Right.
It's all coming up on John and Gordy,
WMDX.
We know it
Killing us all, I hope we survived this.
We got three and a half more years.
This is Johnny Gordy in the morning as I contemplate this.
We've got our special guest each and every Wednesday morning.
It is Mike McCabe.
our sub-stack author and commentator, and the guy who looks at things in a very positive way, who's going to lift us all up this morning.
It's all on you, Mike.
Good morning.
Well, good morning.
Yeah,
no pressure.
No.
It's kind of a rainy day around Madison.
49 degrees currently, more showers headed our way this morning should clear out this afternoon, high around 57.
So, Mike,
What
do you
think of our weather window, by the way?
Look out the weather window and actually see the weather the way it really is.
I mean, it's a fantastic device that we put together.
It's a window.
Rain's already letting up, I can tell you that, having just walked over here.
Walked in,
yeah.
So anyway, yes, you've got an interesting substack.
This is kind of a busted pencil version of your visit today, and you're talking about education and...
How things quickly change in the environment that we have right now with AI and everything else at stake in place, and how high schools are trying to adjust to that, but maybe not in the right way.
What's your thoughts on that?
Well, you know, our school system has gone from one fad to another, to another, to another over the last...
you know, generation or so and probably goes back longer than that.
You mentioned busted pencils, Tim Slucker.
He can give you a history better than I can, but you know, I used to work in public education for a period of time, and I saw fads come and go then, but then the big one, of course, was the school to work
push where,
you know, let's not just...
you know, you do a standard education, but let's actually use the school system kind of as vocational training, just preparing people for the workplace.
And that failed pretty miserably.
The fad didn't last long.
wasn't particularly effective.
Well,
you
know, it was based on the Republicans really wanted to push this thing that not everybody needs a college education.
In fact, they push it to the point where no one needed a
college education.
Right, and we don't need colleges.
But then, of course, the next revolution was STEM.
which stands for an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math.
So we don't need social studies, we don't need civics, we don't need a broad liberal arts education, we just need to focus on those areas that will prepare people for their profession, for their work life.
Problem is, our economy is changing so rapidly that if you
focus on training for something today, that work will be obsolete tomorrow.
And then you're gonna have to retrain.
And then when you retrain for that, that will then be obsolete in short order.
And now as we enter the age of the dawning of artificial intelligence, and companies are using AI tools,
to even do away with the computer scientists.
I said in the column, there is nothing more STEM than computer science.
That was at the very heart of the STEM revolution.
And so all of these young people were sort of funneled into computer science.
Because there needed to be the software developers and the hardware engineers and the coders.
The animators.
We needed all these people in computer science.
But now AI tools are replacing all of that.
And you've seen all of the high tech jobs that market has cratered.
Silicon Valley, that market has cratered.
And you've seen tens of thousands of layoffs year after year after year.
And those people who trained for that need that big tech had and no longer has because they're using AI instead to replace all that human labor, those people have been left high and dry.
They're just out of luck.
And so what all of this screams is for the need for genuine liberal arts education, where you teach people not
a particular skill that companies need today, but you teach them to think.
You teach them how the world works, how people tick.
You teach them to think analytically and strategically and creatively.
Those are the abilities that will allow people to adapt to an ever-changing
world and an
ever-changing economy.
That's what you really need education to do, is prepare us to be adaptive, to be able to adjust to changing times.
And that's what the classic liberal arts education does do for you.
And we've moved so far away from what we used to have in our education system.
And it's not preparing people for the future.
It's preparing people for today's economic needs.
But it's not preparing people to be citizens in a democracy.
It's not preparing people to more fully participate in society.
And it's not even preparing people for the jobs of tomorrow in our economy.
Because those haven't been invented yet.
Now, does that rely heavily on people being more creative about what kind of occupation they may want to get into or maybe more creative in getting into something they find more interesting and creating a certain avenue?
on their own, of their own, is that because not everybody has this creative ability to be a critical thinker, not everybody has a creative ability to imagine something completely different and go in that direction.
What
happens?
We don't even know really how young people, how much...
capacity young people have for creativity and
for
adaptability because we don't teach for that anymore.
Here's the professional need that businesses have today.
This is what we're going to train you up for.
This is what we're going to focus on and then you're going to be funneled into these jobs.
but then those jobs disappear in short order.
And the companies, then they accuse the schools of not being able to adjust enough to changing times.
And
they accuse
the educators, but they don't take any responsibility for the fact that they've chosen to technologize those jobs out of existence.
And they don't care about what happens to the worker that is displaced, that is put out of work.
And you know, when you think about it, when you think about,
all the CEOs, all the people who are leading companies, all the people who are entrepreneurs and who are creating new businesses.
A lot of them are history majors or philosophy majors or political science majors.
They have classic liberal arts educations themselves, which have permitted them to think analytically and strategically and creatively.
And that's made them successful.
But it's interesting, they don't want that for
for their kids and grandkids.
Or somebody else's kids and grandkids.
They don't want that.
They want worker bees who they can plug into the jobs that they have available today.
And those jobs are vanishing tomorrow.
That's the economy we live in.
So we're talking with Mike McCabe, sub-stack blogger and author.
Do things have to get really, really bad before they get better?
I mean, is
that where we're at?
The AI is just taking over and the die is cast.
Well, what's interesting is that the American public is deeply wary of AI.
The citizenry doesn't want it.
The average person is afraid of
it.
Now, I'm not gonna go so far as to say that AI should be shut down.
AI has some applications that it can do amazing things.
I'll grant you that.
But to me...
We should be using AI to perform tasks that human beings don't want to perform.
I want AI to do the dishes for me or do
the
laundry.
I don't want it to write books.
I
don't want it to take over the space that should be reserved for human creativity.
I don't want it to produce music.
I don't want it to produce art.
Well, Johnny Gordy wanted to apologize.
We're using AI to create our
music jingles.
We go back to, uh,
uh, what?
What's the book that we came up with?
Oh, the age of cursive.
Yeah.
Let's go back to cursive.
That's one book that AI helped us create.
That's true.
And so we apologize.
Yeah.
And I, and I don't, I don't, I don't even feel the need to go back to cursive.
Because I was never any damn good at it anyway.
I could never write cursive to save my life.
My printing, by the way, is
starting to look like cursive.
But what I do want is for human creativity not to be snuffed out.
Yes, you can have AI write a novel for you.
You can actually ask AI to write a novel from a famous author's voice, and it will do that.
But that is what human beings need to reserve for themselves.
They can't farm that out to machines, not unless we are willing to pay an immense price in terms of the loss.
of humanity that will occur in our society if we
do that.
Well, as creative as let's go back to cursive, the book is that we put out.
I always feel a little guilty that it might have borrowed from...
other stories,
other examples.
That's all that AI can do is borrow from things that it grabs off the internet.
So that's why it can write a book like Stephen King novel because it simply goes out and borrows everything Stephen King wrote.
Exactly, borrows a bunch of Stephen King writing and mimics it.
That's all AI can do.
loses is the magic of the human imagination.
If we're willing to surrender that to machines, we're cooked.
We're in deep trouble then.
And to me, all of this screams for that return to the classic liberal arts education that prepares people to both understand the world we live in.
and understand how people tick by studying history, by studying language, by studying human behavior, by learning the scientific method.
All of that prepares us to operate in society.
But it also nurtures and cultivates the human imagination.
And that's what we need now more than ever.
is imagination.
We have to imagine our way out of this mess that we've gotten ourselves into as a society.
Well, as I mentioned off the air before we went on, people are getting retrained about 17 times currently.
Yes.
And that's definitely going to increase.
Now, John and Gordy, we're going to have to go back to writing another book.
I
just got an idea.
Oh,
really?
And we'll get to that in just a few moments.
But I do want to mention that a
lot
of beginning
a lot of the starter jobs are being phased off by AI.
So the executives and the people who are part of these corporations now don't have people going up the ladder.
There's no entry level anymore.
All right, we'll continue our discussion and our conversation with Mike McCabe in just a moment.
It is 748.
John and Gordy on WMDX.
WMDX, John Nagorty, 92.7 on a rainy, rainy morning.
Showers are coming down right now.
Yeah,
it's
picked
up a little bit.
Yeah.
A high today about 57, right now 49 degrees.
Tomorrow on the show we'll have Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils, also at Jim Santel.
former U.S.
Attorney at law.
Right now, we're wrapping up here with Mike McCabe, and we're talking about AI taking over and, you know, it occurs to me that AI, who controls AI?
I mean, is it the Mark Zuckerbergs, the Jeff Bezos, the Elon Musk's, all these powerful, very rich, super rich people are
seem to be, you know, have the president's ear and this administration's ear and they're just letting AI take it, you know,
run with
it.
Yeah, you know, and that's the thing.
They didn't invent it, but right, they claimed ownership of it.
And now they're profiting from it and and it's turning billionaires soon into trillionaires.
Yes.
But
But it's something that they don't want any restrictions placed on it.
They don't want it used in the public interest in any way.
And we've talked about this before.
Every time we had major innovations in the area of human communication or human knowledge acquisition, we've treated it as a public commodity.
And we required it to be used in the public interest.
That's not being done.
with AI at all because billionaires want to become trillionaires.
But it leaves a whole lot of people vulnerable to being rendered irrelevant.
So people train for the hot job.
They go into the hot profession today.
But then business and industry is rapidly figuring out how to replace that human labor with technology tomorrow.
And they and and that makes them even more profitable because they don't have any cost of labor
Well off the air you were talking about your son.
Yeah going into journalism.
Yeah
and how he was concerned about that a little bit because he was hearing, you know, you really ought to go to something that's
more science, technology, engineering.
Because what he wanted to go into is a very tough job and it was losing people and, you know.
And
he had a passion for
it.
But he
had a passion for it.
He had a passion for it.
And I just told.
You got to tune these people out because they're telling you to go into what's considered the hot profession today, but I'll tell you, even if the news business doesn't end up being your cup of tea, you're going to have skills.
You're going to be able to think, you're going to be able to research, you're going to be able to communicate, you're going to be able to write.
When you can do those things, you've got skills that'll make you employable.
and you'll be able to adapt you'll be able to adjust and so yeah he went into the humanities he went into that area that has been kind of ruled irrelevant in our society but the odd thing is is that
What he found once he got out of college is that there's an acute shortage of TV news producers.
So he got immediately right out of college.
He got a job in Portland, Oregon in a big TV market.
Then he decided he wanted to move to Twin Cities and had two job offers in the Twin Cities to do TV news producing.
And so he's gainfully employed.
He's doing fine.
And he's doing something that he's passionate about.
And man, I want to see that kind of story made possible for more kids.
Well, Gordy and I, when we were coming up in the broadcast industry, we had to create rumors about other radio announcers in order to sully their names and take their place.
And here you are.
All these years later, gainfully employed.
Sort of.
Sort of.
Sort of.
Key word there.
What's your son's name and address
up there?
We may have to send some resumes out.
So maybe put in a good word for it.
We were talking about your sub-stack.
I know about, you know, getting trained and retrained.
All that kind of stuff.
Your response was from Ralph Knudsen.
And he said, a population without understanding is and feels vulnerable and easily frightened by change and has few skills to adapt.
And I think that puts everybody on edge.
And
everybody is on edge right now.
And what we're talking about right now may cause people to be on edge.
Oh my gosh, what occupations do we get into?
Because we're not giving people tips right now.
where you should go, but you're saying that if you're not in college, if you can't get into something that can train you currently, it puts a lot of people on that bubble where they're worried about their future.
They're worried about life, where it's going.
That's, I think, the tension that the public
feels right now.
That classic liberal arts education, which can start even before high school.
that focuses on helping us understand the world we live in and understand what makes humans tick and understanding human behavior, all of that, and that stokes imagination and creativity.
That will take that anxiety away.
That helps take the edge off because you have an idea of where the world is headed.
And when you have an idea of where the world is headed, you can develop a strategy for how to
how to carve out a meaningful role for yourself.
But man, if you just train for the job, business, and industry you want to train for today, and then they say, okay, we don't need you anymore because we've got technology that can do it for you, for us, then those people are on edge and rightfully so because
they're vulnerable.
Just got a minute or so left here.
Got a text here from Susan and McFarlane says, good morning, gentlemen.
You always bring a few laughs in the morning.
Thank you for that.
Speaking of AI, I think of the movie, remember the movie
Wally?
Yeah.
And which portrayed people as lazy.
I've always thought we've been headed that way as people want to drive through a restaurant.
Be on their phones.
Be on their
phones and don't enjoy the conversation of others.
Yeah, that's
kind of where we're also good to hear you, Mike.
Yes.
It's good to hear you.
It's what Frank Herbert posited in Dune, thou shalt not build a machine to counterfeit the human mind.
Amen to that.
We're
down to about a minute.
Mike, do you have any appearances coming up?
Anything you want to mention
at this time?
I don't at this very moment.
Okay.
I had a bunch of flurry of them.
You did.
But you've got your Substack blog that people can check
out.
Yeah, mikemacabe.substack.com if anybody's curious.
And an excellent book, Miracles Along County Q.
Mike, thanks for joining us.
I
always love your post, Mike.
Mark, uh, Mike, uh, I'm just going nuts here.
I'm going to look at that.
Whoever you are.
Mark.
Mark sent us into the chat too.
He's always sending stuff.
Thank you, Mike.
Yeah.
It was great conversation.
Yes.
Stephanie Miller is coming up next tomorrow on our show.
Tim Slecker, Jim Santel, and I hope you join us then.
Have a great day.
So long.
Take care,
everybody.
Is the John and Gordy show
