You want smart talk?
You came to the right place.
You want well-behaved hosts?
Yeah, that's not happening.
John and Gordy are back, armed with microphones, coffee, and way too much confidence.
This is The John and Gordy Show on 92.7 WMDX.
Yeah, it sounds like confidence, but it's really a massive amount of insecurity.
That's what it is.
Johnny Gordy in the morning.
This is WMDX 92.7.
Another fantastic looking day.
Oh my gosh, you're on a 65 degrees high temperature.
It's kind of warm and balling out there right now.
We're at
53 currently.
Feels good.
Yeah, feels good.
It's cloudy.
We may see some showers along the way today.
and highs in the mid 60s, 64 for a high.
Tonight the Madison Night Market takes place last
one of the season.
Yeah, it's
very last one.
Oh, it's hard to believe.
I know.
And we'll be out there broadcasting.
Yeah.
Well, not broadcasting.
We're going to be there shaking hands and kissing babies, you know, tapping hands.
Singing songs.
During the age of COVID, we don't kiss babies anymore.
I guess we don't.
Yeah.
No, we gave that
up.
Yeah.
We finally gave that up because of, uh, you know, the Epstein files.
The,
uh, the night
market tonight has a
bad look,
man.
It is a bad look.
Yeah.
You're right.
It's a science theme tonight.
There's a science fair that's going
to take place.
Science.
Up on the square, there'll be some kids with science projects.
That's cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And because it's Halloween, or almost Halloween, a lot of people may be dressed in various costumes.
Dom, I know you're going to be dressed as what?
An eggplant?
What is it?
No,
a
bucky.
A bucky patch.
I got a onesie, so I just watched it.
I'm surprised you're not wearing it this morning.
I I was I was afraid were you thinking about it?
Yeah, I was thinking about it But then I wanted to have it on the couch right now ready to go for later on today.
Okay.
Well, it's good.
Good to have it out ready to
go John you got your you got a spider.
I do I have my Spiderman t-shirt is on today.
That's good.
Yeah
We had we had a great experience coming back from a comic con.
No, didn't you one year?
We came back and it was Halloween downtown and and this was about maybe four years ago or so and I was a doctor strange and We're all dressed up as Avengers and my son my youngest son very tall six four
and he had on a Spider-Man outfit, which is more like the hoodie that Spider-Man wore before he got the costume.
and the mask and everything.
And he was, he looked so much like Spider-Man.
You know, he's tall, thin, six, four.
He's walking down the street on stage three.
We're all walking down the street like the Avengers.
And people are shouting at him.
Hey, Spider-Man, save us.
You can save us, Spider-Man.
It freaked him out, totally freaked him out.
Especially when the drunk guys downtown started yelling at him.
My Spider-Man, we love you!
You know, all this stuff.
So he is a little gunshot.
We're in the Spider-Man outfit again, which we've been asking him to do.
But yesterday, he went out shopping as he does now because he has a car and he's getting used to driving to a store himself.
So he picked up on the mask, the Guy Fulks mask, from V4Fendetta.
And he has two of those masks because they were two in a package.
And now I get a guy
folks
mask.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's cool.
One of the great movies of all time.
If you have to see any movie at all, it truly is V for Vendetta.
It is unbelievably good.
I've not seen it.
And it's just like today with Trump in the White House.
It is just outrageous.
You haven't seen that
one?
No.
Well, I've seen the man the mask looks really cool though that anointing is Matt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Wow,
yeah Anonymous uses that mask.
Yeah for a while.
I haven't seen anonymous
Face-wise in a long time Anonymous was out there like maybe five or six years ago Releasing videos and and I think he was during the first Trump administration Put out videos and they do something with the voice
and
it was scary as hell I mean every once in a while, you know, he'd come out and really rail on the administration in that crazy low voice But yeah, well anyway
Yeah, yeah, well get ready for the night market
tonight tripping down memory lane
sure, you know
watching anonymous on YouTube
Well, you know, we were talking about this a few days ago about how we should bring back Halloween on State
Street.
Yes.
You know, those
were the days.
Those were the days.
It was jam-packed.
I couldn't believe how this city
just hated it.
Well, it was a lot of cleanup to do and some broken windows every year.
Well, that's kind of what happens after a
big celebration.
I mean, what's new with that?
Right.
Come on, every city has like a giant celebration that they have to clean up after.
We had the Halloween celebration of the country.
People would, yes.
Hire buses to come in from other states.
It was crazy.
And come here and just dump down on states.
It was just
unbelievable, really.
I mean, make the lights unclimable, right?
I mean, if you're worried about people climbing up on the street lights.
What are they
going to do?
Grease them up or
something?
That was one of the big problems.
I don't know.
You know, put a little squirrel barrier.
Work for Squirrels, should work for Jimmy
D. Forty on that sucker.
I don't do it.
I
don't think so.
We got a text here from Mark in the sack.
He says, I wonder if it'll be safe to wear my Guy Fawkes mask Saturday for No Kings.
Oh, he's coming
to
No Kings?
That's where I think I'm
going to wear it.
That's where my son
wants to wear his, and he wants to go to thee.
No Kings protest mark says he but he has one of those one of the good ones that he bought for the act 10 protests
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Yeah.
Well, this is just a big event down here all over the place Now if you're going to the no Kings protest, okay, that's a sorry just hold off on cashing your checks from
George Soros, you know, you never know.
You never know.
They might be tracking people around.
So if you wait a little while, you can cash a check anonymously someplace and no one will say, oh, gee, you're one of them.
You're, you're an Antifa.
Paid protester.
George
Soros, writing checks.
You know, I look, this is so hard for me to even comprehend.
I'm serious about this and I should go off on this for the entire damn morning.
How Trump and the administration is trying to turn protesters into Antifa agents who are hired by George Soros.
Come on, you can't make this stuff up.
Oh my God, please
help us.
Crazy, crazy.
A little bit later on, we're going to be talking to Tim Slacker in just about 20 minutes.
He'll be joining us from Busted Pencils, a great podcast talking education.
I heard something really interesting on
public radio.
It is something out of actually a sock prairie, I believe.
I could be wrong on that, but there is a story about how children like one to two to three years old should be kept away from monitors, screens, phones, tablets, probably.
they shouldn't be playing on them at that age yet and it's because Children learn how to talk they they learn how to speak by watching us Formulate the words with our mouth they watch our mouths mm-hmm, and it helps them articulate and become good talkers, so You got to keep them away.
This is what they're finding out and a lot of speech therapists are not being called up
in order to help these children out, especially in SOC for some reason.
But this is happening, so I want to talk to Tim about that.
I think
it's kind of interesting that maybe this is a huge problem.
So we got to watch out for that.
I gave my kids tablets immediately as soon as possible.
It was just when tablets were starting to turn out, they started selling them and they were from Japan and they didn't allow Google
apps on it.
So you had to, there's a PKV or PKG or some kind of software you add on to the tablet in order for it to break down and add a Google app.
So how old
were they when you gave
them the tablets?
Oh, young, six, five.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, you know, it was a big tech thing, you know, and I really want them to be on the cutting edge of tech.
Talking about
when did you
yeah early on to probably around seven or eight?
Yeah, yeah, and then I built my own PC.
I built my own desktop Yeah,
they're rare inexpensive when
you do it
yourself and
still have that
PC.
I don't I don't I had it about eight years ago eight years ago
Well, we still build ours.
In fact, we build all our PC really.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yep
And it was probably my son wanted to build them.
And I thought, really, we're going to build PCs?
I always always thought that each component of the PC was specially crafted for each other, and they had to match, and they don't.
Doesn't matter, right?
Yeah, the manufacturers had us all thinking that way
back
when, you know.
Of course.
your gateway 2000.
Yeah, and
I actually, in my old PC, I had this thing called water cooling.
Yes, oh yeah.
Yeah, and there's like water inside built into the PC.
What?
To keep your, you know, your hardware from not overheating.
Yeah, I've never heard of that.
Did you have RGB?
I did.
I did, yeah.
All around the PC.
Did you?
I
have no idea what you're talking
about.
Well, that's a
light.
Those are LED
lights, colored lights.
Oh, OK.
You can really make it into a special event.
Of course, you never turn them off.
So
it was like strobe lights in my room.
It was
awful.
What was the first popular PC?
Was that Commodore 64?
Was that was that a PC?
I don't know.
I
remember the Atari games.
Yeah.
I don't remember.
All I know is Gateway 2000 was the computer to get.
Because of the cow box.
The cow boxes were
very
popular here in Wisconsin.
Very popular, yes.
Apparently the first PC was the Altar 8800.
The Altar?
Yeah, I have no clue.
That's
a cool name.
Never heard of Altar.
Altari?
Are you sure it's
not Altari?
Not Altari, Altair, Altar.
I don't know.
You know, here's the thing.
This morning, both my boys were up.
And my son is having a problem with the sound card that he has.
He doesn't use the one that comes with the computer.
He has a special one, but it's starting to have problems.
The software, the updates aren't working anymore and it's cutting out.
So he doesn't have that and uses his headphones most of the time anyway.
But yeah, they're both up there.
I mean, eating breakfast and these guys are talking about this stuff.
Really?
And how bugs are going after my youngest son.
They have an attack plan of some sort.
I went out to the mailbox, he has his own mailbox now, and I got his mail out and there was this stink bug on it.
Oh no.
problems with stink bugs in his apartment.
Man, now they're in the mailbox or out to get you.
Is this the upstairs apartment or downstairs?
Yes, he has the upstairs.
The other
one has the downstairs.
Calling the fumigators?
No.
Would they ever
call into the show ever or no?
No, no.
Communicate with the outside world.
Pretty much
in the bunker.
Dad
does
that thing and I don't know what he does.
Okay.
Well, we're just getting started on this Thursday morning.
It's 19 minutes past the hour.
And when we come back, we'll check the WMDX Samsung watch for the sunrise and sunset times.
I can't wait.
And Tim Slecker in about 15 minutes from Busted Pencils.
It's all on John and Gordy on WMDX.
Good morning.
We can dance if we want to We can leave your friends behind Cause your friends don't dance And if they don't dance Well, they're no friends of mine I say we can go where we want to A place where they will never find And we can act like we come from out of this world Leave the real one far behind And we can dance
WMDX 92.7 What group is that?
The Safety Dance
It's a 23
past the hour.
We've got cloudy skies, maybe some rain along the way highs in the mid 60s this
morning.
And we have chances for rain down today and tonight, actually.
All right.
Keep an eye into the sky and an ear right here.
All right.
Got the inside on the outside, whether you like it or not.
I love that.
Okay.
It's sunrise time,
sunrise time, seven, 13, and, uh, and sunset time.
Yeah.
You know, six, 13.
Wow.
That's early.
That is early.
Grab that umbrella before you head outside.
But he even said glasses at home if you're leaving tonight.
We got a text from Doug in St.
Francis.
He says, has Gordy even had a tablet?
No, I have not.
And he's proud of it.
Yeah, I am.
OK.
Project
2025 Agenda 47 is V for Vendetta's authoritarian government.
That's uh, that's mark and mark also said no violence do not respond to any ice jackass probably Provocations,
okay?
Okay, and Mark also says I'm uncomfortable when I see all those toddlers on screens
They're planning our demise.
Yes.
No.
No, it's
a
They don't even need to do anything anymore.
Wow.
Um, yeah.
So anyway, uh, uh, my first day here, I got here on electricity that I.
pumped into that car.
Oh, yeah.
Overnight with my new home charging station.
Everything work okay?
Yeah, it worked beautifully.
Oh my gosh.
The tentacles that this whole thing has, honest to God, I don't know how they tie all this stuff together.
You know, I'm into technology, but I don't know how they're doing half of this stuff because, you know, I have, there's an app for my car.
It's
called Kia Connect.
Okay, and I don't know if other manufacturers have these things, but you can control your car remotely from inside the house and blah blah blah.
So anyway, I am an MG&E customer and because of that they have a special that you can sign up for if you want to charge your car overnight during the lower
electrical rates.
Oh, okay.
And so I thought, well, that's kind of cool.
And I didn't know about that.
And I found out and I signed up yesterday in order to get in on that program, because MG&E uses wind power, by the way, or at least they say they do for these particular chargers.
So here's the thing.
Then they told me, well, you know what?
Sign in to our site with your Kia Connect app.
Login, yeah, and then we will use that in order to sign you up for our mg&e special charging program And then and then do not schedule late night charging on That new charging station you have leave that off because we as mg&e will control your charging times take over okay, isn't that wild?
Yeah.
And then they log into my Kia Connect in order to, I don't know what, turn me into the government someday.
I have
no idea
why there's this connection at all.
But anyway, they charged overnight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And
it's just smooth as hell.
So I have a quite, you don't have a garage.
I don't know.
So is this thing on the outside of the house?
Yes, it is.
We
attach it
to the side of the house.
How does it stay?
Protected from the
weather.
It's it's a it's a waterproof station.
Okay, you know, it's it's very solid and there's a holster and you put the charger in the holster and And that's the only question I have I wonder will ice or whatever get
inside that
holster because that is not protected But anyway, yeah, it's got a 25 foot cord stretch it out to the car and charge it up cool
It's
really cool man.
I'm there
have all kinds of flashing lights on it and stuff It does actually
meters the car has a flashing light a gauge that shows you how much charge is taking place Plus it has lights and gizmos on the
box itself.
You know what they all mean.
You
can see them blinking
RGB Is there a big manual you had
to read?
No, no, they it's all automated
It works off of high Wi-Fi it does it works off of that and you have to kind of connect all the gadgets together
with Wi-Fi So could somebody just I mean when you're away, can you you should get one of your kids to rent it out to other?
You know you now you have a charging station charge from you know people can charge up their car when they
have a Middleton Celebration of some sort they can stop by and charge up their car.
I've heard people do that.
I people are all the time Yeah, they charge people for their chargers charging station
Yeah.
Are they all of one brand?
I mean, they all work with all different cars, electric cars.
Yeah.
The fitting, the holster, what you plug into your car is a standard.
OK.
Type of brand.
Nice.
Except for Tesla, they have a different version.
I don't know.
And there's are, I don't know if they're all high charging or not, but you, these are level two chargers for your home.
There's a level three, which is a fast charger.
Okay.
Level one is just like a plug, the plug into the wall.
You can take it on vacation and at least have something where if there are no chargers any place, you at least have this one.
You can plug into a wall or, you know.
But yours is a
step
up from that.
Oh yeah.
It's a level two.
And, uh, and, but I have a 100 amp system in my home
and you
have to have a special gadget, gizmo, which is what I have, which allows you to charge.
and it keeps track of your amperage in your home so you don't set the house on fire.
Stuff like that.
It didn't take very long for you to get this set up.
What, six weeks, eight weeks?
A couple of months?
It took me way too long.
This is a two-month process of learning.
It's pretty inexpensive, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
$6.29.
Well, thanks.
When we come back, we're going to talk to you of Tim Slacker from Busted Pencils.
Find out the latest on education.
Stay with
us.
They're hiding, just waiting until I'm alone They're lonely
Well,
we can dream it again
Not a free country anymore.
John and Gordy in the morning, we have Dom at the controls and our special guest this morning, of course is Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils.
And we talk about education from an educator.
And I, you know, I don't know how to say how you guys say that stuff.
What's your big slogan?
We're educated educators talking
education.
There you go.
That's it.
That's it.
It's a simple.
as that.
It's 635 53 degrees highs in the mid sixties today.
Maybe some scattered showers along the way.
OK, let's get to
Dr. Tim Slecker.
The big debate, I think even in this in this state, they're worried about, in fact, there's legislation about cell phone use in schools.
And that's a big topic here.
They presented a bill, I guess, to the governor.
So what's going on nationwide?
Yep on this.
I know that you were talking about and one of your on the podcast I believe on Monday you were talking about Denmark being ahead of the curve on this thing Yeah,
I I mean the whole part of that I mean Denmark really is going to the point of you know, it's a full social media age restriction ban, but you know kind of bringing it back to cell phones in school and
You know people were like, ah, you know, what are the kids gonna do if they need to contact home?
I I don't know before cell phones.
What did we do?
We actually didn't contact home and were probably better off because of it and My mom couldn't annoy me during the day when I went to school
um you know where some kids now are going like geez mom stop sending me text messages all day long um you know and so
i mean
come across people were i i've had some people go like you're a you're for the cell phone band and i'm like yeah why i really am because i think about um what's
not happening because of the cell phone usage in schools and It really is an isolating toll and anybody who has particularly, you know the smartphones knows exactly what I'm talking about the ability to lose yourself in the screen is Something that's real and now you imagine the school setting
with you know 25 to 30 others and then during breaks you know with the whole school and the fact that every kid is kind of buried in that isolating screen when the reason one of the biggest reasons we're grouping kids in big groups like this is to give them the socialization opportunities of being in a school building if not
go to a cyber charter school, I guess, right?
Or something like that.
But when you're in there and so just from that point alone.
I say, yeah, you don't need a cell phone while you're in school.
You need to be present with your friends, with the bullies, with the people you're bullying, with the teachers, with the whole experience.
So put that out there.
And then the other part of it is to say, what's happening during the day when you're sitting in class?
and you've got your computer open and you're checking Facebook and you've got your cell phone dinging with these things.
You know, you can't pay attention.
It's a distraction.
But what I like about this is that the uproar and the reaction by the kids and where this is happening and going,
Oh, man, we really like it.
Yeah, the
kids are actually on board with this.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, Gordy, yeah, you're listening and looking.
It's just like, you know, it's all, you know,
all the
parents are like, oh my God, what are they going to do?
Like, you know, I can't, and the kids are like going, it's really kind of nice.
You know, I don't get these distractions.
And then moving into that, you know, what is it that they're looking at, you know,
It is
the
the next step then is into the the social media which has an algorithm to create anxiety stress and sadness because it continues to reinforce those negative stories that the kids are looped into and You put that out there and go like so for six hours a day The kids don't have access to the doom and and fear
and horrendous stories that are coming in.
And guess what?
The kids are starting to say like, I actually enjoy being in school now.
Yeah.
Wow.
So, so, yeah, I'm all for that.
And then moving it to what he said, you know, Denmark and even in Australia, you know, the whole idea of social media and saying like, you know what, we're going to put in place a very strict age limit that says you can't even get onto social media until you're 16.
Yikes.
That's not good.
That is horrible.
It's not a good idea.
Not good.
What?
Socialization nowadays is completely different.
So doing something like that is counter to how young people socialize today.
I'm completely against that concept.
Completely.
Well, I support a band on, you know, 45 to 70 year olds.
Well, that's a self-imposed band.
I have so many friends that don't bother with computers or cell phones or anything crazy like that.
Yeah.
But think about, I mean, there's actually, I mean, the science on this is real.
And if you talk to people who have, you know, voluntarily taking their selves off of the social media piece.
Twitter, Facebook.
There is an elevated bump in their mood of feeling happier.
Yes.
I
believe that.
Well, I can't believe that.
Who can be happy without having a cell phone or some kind of media device hanging on your head?
You need help.
Talk with Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencil.
So let's back up for a second back to the cell phones in the classroom.
So tell me how this actually works.
Do the kids come in
come to school with their phones and then they put them in a locker or something they don't get until the end of the day or do they have them with them and then when they change classes they get their cell phone you know they they give it to the
teacher at the desk and then they get it back at the end of the classes.
How does it logistically work?
It's like
all of the above
there, Gordy.
Is it?
Yeah, I was going to say.
I mean,
actually how the policy is enforced is different across schools.
Well, you know where I'm going with this.
I'll talk about the elephant in the room.
If there's a shooting or there's some sort of activity going on that everybody needs to know about and everybody needs their phone, then what happens?
Yeah.
Well,
I mean I'm just I'm just what about that.
I'm all for this I don't think kids should have cell phones while they're at school or you know While they're
but it's a different
age.
It's a different age
now because of the shootings now We have to take that into consideration.
That's what I'm saying.
That's the problem I have with doing away with cell phones in schools So
well, I mean, okay, so I'm gonna maybe be a little bit unpopular and go
I don't think that having a cell phone does anything to protect ourselves against a crazed shooter that comes into a school.
It
helps
parents.
It's a false sense of security.
And in one way, we're going to spend time debating that.
And then, of course, then we're not going to talk about the fact that the real issue here is gun control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
OK.
So really,
we're going to get uptight about cell phones and say, well, you know, it's the only thing we can do right now is make sure kids have cell phones.
No.
biggest thing we could do right now is make sure people don't have access to guns because they wake up one morning and decide, you know what, I'm going to take out of school today.
I
wonder how I'll do that.
Oh, I'll just call 1-800-GUNS and I'll get going on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Okay.
I mean, no, I get that.
But you know, parents want to know right away, you know, when there's a lockdown, is there
kids safe are they safe they would get a phone call from the kid a text or something like that so
we do have yeah there there are alert systems at all kids in schools and parents should be involved in that and you get that ability to be informed what's happening in your school that doesn't take that away by having a cell phone ban um you the parent you know are hooked up to all of those lines that the schools are now able to take advantage of multiple technologies to get you the information
that's happening in, thankfully, even though it's more often happening, but still statistically, a mass school shooting is a rare occurrence, thankfully, even though we're getting to the point where maybe it feels like it's not so rare anymore.
You know, I just feel like, you know, with all the technology advancing the way it is that it's
Cell phones are an old device at this point.
They're going on.
They're moving on to different ways of bringing media into the classroom.
Pretty soon we'll be wearing
glasses that are specially equipped with internet connections and screens on
the
A whole different show going on.
But I
have a translator that's taking all of our language and putting it into, you know, kind of,
you know.
See, technology is there, you know, take it away, cell phones is just like a minor bug at this point.
Now we've got all these other things that we're going to have to deal with, right?
I just, I mean, I'm more and more just seeing the whole connectivity connected to what?
is what we need to be asking that question more and more because you know when you say it's needed it then of course the what we do is we bring up some type of doom scenario where you go oh my god yeah the kids need it but the reality another thing that we're not looking at is though but but what is it that they're doing all day long with it when there's not a school shooting or an earthquake they're
Doing things they're engaging and the kids will tell you this themselves,
you know,
they're hooked on social media and look social media was never designed with any intentions to elevate the goodness of people the algorithm rewards pain and suffering and Forces more of that on you.
And so we know this now
The idea that somebody is saying we should, you know, maybe think hard about whether kids themselves should even have access to these things.
When we even know as adults, it's not good for us.
You know, this is not a, you know, a quote, right.
I
guess in a
sense, you know, this is.
Social media has designed right now doesn't mean that there couldn't be another way to design it but it is designed to provide and give you pain and suffering and the more pain and suffering you see the longer you stay on it and so the business model is absolutely built on.
creating pain and suffering.
Okay, let's create a different model and maybe we have a different talk.
All right.
Well, the AIM watch says we have to take a break here.
You stick around, Tim?
Yeah, we have a few more questions.
Yeah,
I'm gonna go into my glasses for a
little bit.
Yeah, do them scroll if you can.
It's
got another show he's watching.
We'll be back with more with Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils.
I'm John and Gordy in the morning.
WMDX, stay with us.
WMDX 92.7.
It's John and Gordy in the Morning Domet.
The controls in our special guest this morning from Busted Pencils.
Dr. Tim Slecker.
And we've been talking about taking the phones away from kids in schools.
Nice.
OK.
All
right.
But you know,
I'm wearing my watch.
It's got an e-sim in it, the e-sim card in it.
And I could, you know, I could scroll and do anything I want.
And my watch there, Tim.
So
there you go.
So people are still going to have access to the internet.
OK.
I just want to mention a story that I heard on the way in on WPR.
They were talking about a school system that is bringing in speech therapists because some of the kids have been kind of growing up on
looking at screens from zero to about three years old.
And the idea is that children learn how to speak.
They form words by watching parents lips form words.
And now they have to bring therapists in in order to teach these kids how to form the words and speak.
Because they're on their cell
phones too much and they
don't get that.
That's right.
Yeah, so
maybe that's a bad idea to have those
kids in that stuff.
I was watching, you know, one-year-olds, you know, scrolling Twitter, it's insane.
Yeah, what they're looking at, it's unbelievable.
You should just, you know, I mean, well, they've, you know, they've got lots of followers and things like that, you know.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean So many other you know thought just like they're not watching their parents form words.
I'm like, well, have you heard some of the things their parents?
You know, they're not learning they're not learning how to say the George Carlin seven dirty words
Yeah,
you know, they're they're coming to school and and
We don't have to yell at them for cursing.
We're bringing in a speech therapist to teach.
You know, we're put we're going to get somebody to do Joe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I am sure I can see this, but I it's too young really can.
Yeah.
I mean, if I I'll admit that I think most of us have seen potentially in
Cracker barrels or restaurants where, you know, the kid is way too young and the parents are like, Jesus, we just want to eat.
Give him the damn phone.
You know, um, yeah, I, well, here's the, you know, but it's a parent again, it's a parenting issue.
I mean, I don't know what the solution is to.
um bad parenting um speech therapists being needed to be brought in i mean here's the other thing you know maybe um you know we're just um denying the fact that um speaking is you know an outdated caveman technology
We're trying to slow down the process of evolution so that we can just, you know, talk to each other by thinking.
That's right.
That's
right.
You
know, used to be a thing in the the Jetsons, I believe, you know, telepathy, but I don't
know.
I
don't know where
we're going to go with this.
I mean, I think there's, you know, back to the ban on social media and take, yeah, there's an issue.
here what we're pointing out is is that um you know we've created this this kind of entertainment um you know attention grabbing series of devices and things like that and the consideration was never thought about from the standpoint of saying and and what is the
content?
What are the topics that are going to make sense?
And in fact, how did we decide what content comes across these?
Well, it's, you know, whatever makes money.
And seriously, and so when you think about that, it's like, are we surprised that
the content that most of the kids are getting is very more either entertainment or hooking types of devices or slogans and things like that.
And so I mean, I think that giving
Geez, one year olds, you know, first of all, it's like, really, can you afford to give your iPhone to a slobbering child?
That's true.
That's true.
You know, I mean, hey, maybe there's an opportunity for us to make, like, toddler cases for iPhones, you know, that are slobber poops.
Yeah,
yeah.
It's a bit, I mean, you know, we really do.
I mean, again, giving, you know,
it's to children.
And you think about saying, you know, what are we, what are we setting them up for?
You know, and maybe, yeah, the device is something that has become this ability, particularly in child, let's just say for all child rearing, I mean, I see a lot of people.
Looking at and going like seriously from the standpoint of going the stresses of the day I just need a moment and it's very easy to give your you know, four or five six year old an iPad that has you know, pretty amazingly interactive types of things that require a kid to push and they get fed a constant reward scenario And you know, why is that happening that?
We are so in need of keeping our kids, quote, entertained so that we can get a break.
I mean, you know, those are really big, deep questions that right now my meta glasses are downloading into an AI.
algorithm so that I can come up with a solution for next time we're together.
OK, well,
those glasses tell you it's time to wrap up too.
My
kids grew up on leapfrog.
I don't know if you remember those little devices and pads.
All right, we got to leave it there.
Dr. Tim Slecher, thank you for joining us.
You can listen to Busted Pencils on civicmedia.us slash shows slash busted pencils and check them out.
They're a great podcast.
Coming back in our next hour, Jim Santel, former U.S.
attorney at law, and much more.
The big story is next.
Yes.
I'm John E. Gordy.
John, I got it on the radio.
92.7 is the place to go.
It's John and Gordy.
John and Gordy.
John and Gordy.
John and Gordy.
In the morning.
In the morning.
In the morning.
In the morning.
It's John and Gordy.
It's John and Gordy.
John and Gordy.
John and Gordy.
At the break of dawn, get your candy on.
Boom, boom, boom.
John, I got it on the radio.
Radio.
92.7 is the place to go.
Let's
go.
We're at, yeah.
Good morning.
Well, I guess it's pretty much it, isn't it?
Yeah.
Rise and shine.
Shake a leg up at Adam, top of the morning to you.
Oh, man.
Oh, man.
It's Thursday.
The
world's falling apart around us as we speak.
Oh, wow.
You know, I mean, you know, they're looking at Venezuela now.
They're sending the CIA into Venezuela.
For some reason, you know, they used to take countries with the CIA.
So it's not good news.
I remember the jackals.
There was
a book, The Jackals, and it talked about how the CIA went into these countries and took out their leaders, killed them.
Yeah.
And they're going after some more boats out there just firing at will yes, you know
And we're supposed to take their word that these are drug smugglers, which no one
is going to believe
anymore I mean look how they lie about the protesters and the confrontations that they're having with them even judges in this country no longer believe the administration when they claim well they're being harassed and doxxed and
There's no proof of it.
There's nothing out there that can prove their point, and the judges are catching on to this, except for the Supreme Court.
They love rolling over for the president.
And over in the Middle East, Trump is telling CNN that...
Israeli forces could resume fighting in Gaza as soon as he gives the word oh Yeah, if Hamas won't uphold the ceasefire deal.
There's already been some skirmishes.
There's already been
so I know I know this was just a ceasefire this wasn't a piece and
that's
why he didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize No matter how many
Plaques he gets no matter how many framed Commitments from other world leaders that he should get the peace prize right what I've never seen anything so stupid It's what's going on now try to to appease this orange muffin that we have in the White House and the shut
down
Oh, yeah, and that's where referring to him now is a blob.
Yeah, and it's day 16 of the shutdown and government is still shut down.
Yep.
So those are some of the headlines just
some but here's the here's the big story and I got this from I don't know how I managed to get on the email list but this is from Liz lens and her email letter is called men yell at me
Okay.
I don't know how I got on this thing.
Maybe I was in a more women's movement at the time.
I don't know.
Just a mood.
But anyway, she's had some interesting, fun stuff to talk about.
And she talked about the way Portland is dealing with ice.
And sometimes she says the best way to counteract a false narrative is to put on a frog costume, get out in the street and dance.
What?
Really?
Wow.
Dance.
That's what
it's
all about.
Why not?
Get out there and dance.
So anyway, in the face of the president's lies, she writes, protesters in Portland have donned inflatable costumes and held dance parties.
It's hard to manipulate images of a person dancing in a puffy unicorn outfit into something fearsome and scary.
Right.
And that's true, isn't it?
It is.
A video on X of a dinosaur, unicorn, raccoon, and bear dancing to a hit song was posted with the caption, let's check in on the war zone in Portland.
Even Fox News had had a problem addressing this issue.
They noted that bear asked bikers were driving through the rain as part of the protest.
So I changed that, right?
And then they had the naked.
Uh, protest as well.
You know,
the, uh, Diane, uh, last week, Kristi Noem was staring down Antifa at the top of a building.
Remember that where
she was
looking down a couple of, uh, reporters out there in the street and a guy in a chicken suit, right?
And she writes here, it was the chicken costume that helped that story go viral to counteract the right wing narrative.
That's perfect.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's the costumes.
I didn't think about this.
You know, France shuts down the economy.
Well, we could just.
wear costumes at our protests, right?
We should open up a costume company.
That's what we should
do.
Jump on this thing.
Antifa costume.
Yes, gotta workshop
that.
We'll send a letter to George Soros.
He's funding all this, I hear.
One of the frog clad protesters told a reporter, I'm out here protesting in a frog costume, especially in a frog costume to show how ridiculous the notion that we are
violent terrorist is.
As one user said, this is a wildly effective form of protest because there is no way you can claim the unicorn suited person to working is a violent revolutionary who needs to be pepper sprayed.
Without looking insane, of course.
The ridiculous contrast between propaganda and reality is harder to ignore.
when animal costumes are involved.
And I think
that is a
true statement from Liz Lenz and her email letter.
Men
yell at me.
That's great.
Hey, let's go to the phones.
608-879-8255.
Mark is on the line.
Mark, you coming to the No Kings protest?
You going to dress up or something?
You got a costume you can wear?
Guy Falks.
What do you
think?
I got my Guy Falks mask on.
I'll be weird.
That I'll be on the bridge there across the Wisconsin River and soxies.
I think last year we had the last time There's 400 people there on the bridge.
Yeah.
Oh
I thought it was only 200, but I heard it was more than that.
Yeah That's the place to do
it there in sock city.
Yeah a reference for view friend for friend data is a revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having Oh, really
that that's from
that's a well, it's it's made by somebody.
I think it was um
A different woman had made that comment during World War II against Hitler.
Wow, okay.
Against fascists, maybe it was in Italy.
Well, it's working
again.
But it was comforting yesterday in some aspects that Malcolm Nance was on, Stephanie Miller, and he described Kristi Nome once again as a puppy killer.
And he says, every type of reference, you just got to call her a puppy killer.
That's kind of what I've been doing because I have I'm a big dog fan and Yeah, that's just nothing you brag about.
I mean that it is just nothing you do and nothing you brag about and that's sick
Yeah, yes, it
is.
I'm
supposed to have deleted here Well,
the whole thing is to you know, I
mean the fact is
she killed her pet That's the kind of person that's in control of a certain aspect of government which we don't want to see
Okay, you know, this is not what we want to see from one of the department heads, somebody who has the ability to do that, conscience free, right?
And I don't think we've ever seen any division she's in charge of.
I don't think we've ever seen the head of that organization heading out and going to all the sites where they're having operations.
I mean, I just, the whole cosplay element of this is just twisted.
Yeah, you don't want to see the homeland security.
Head of Homeland Security dressed in
cosplay constantly right mark.
Thank you for that call again 6 0 8 8 7 9 8 2 5 5
And
Catherine says, I think the quote about dancing was Kevin Bacon and Footloose.
It's possible.
It's possible.
I got another little addition here.
George Soros funded No King's Day.
All right.
More cliches to come here.
Really?
Terrence Williams, a comedian and founder of Cousin's Tea, which I have no idea what that is, wrote this about his beloved orange babbling blob.
Oh, really?
The
blob?
Yes,
that's number one on the John and Gordy hit list as
Terrence William He's a conservative and this is what he wrote 10 million protesters Let's be honest the people planning.
There's no King's protest on October 18th aren't exactly the backbone of America I thought they were These are the same get this here.
We got all the cliches coming up.
These are the same jobless woke lazy
attention-hungry activists who spend more time shouting in the streets than working to make this country better.
Okay.
What about all the people that showed up for these rallies?
Yeah.
Right.
And spent days camping
out at the
rallies.
Yes.
Are they lazy?
Are they jobless?
Are they attention-hungry activists?
I think so.
Hell, they wore diapers.
to support Trump.
My God.
He also writes here, now they're promising 10 million protesters across the nation and all to oppose Donald Trump.
His supporters and anyone who believes in law, order and ice.
Who knew that those were the high points?
Law, order and ice.
Thank you very much.
He says, they call it no kings, but it's really just another anti-Trump tantrum disguised as a movement.
In my opinion, this is another Soros funded stunt designed to divide the country and demonize hardworking Americans who still love their country.
No, we love our country so much, we want to save it from a dictatorship,
from
a fascist.
He also writes, they hate Trump because he exposed how fake
their power really is.
They don't want freedom.
They want control.
And that's why, God, this is so much projection.
And that's why real Americans are standing stronger than ever.
Oh, by the way, I just wanted to throw in here the Terrence Williams.
He's a comedian, doesn't sound very funny.
And he also has a new children's book.
It's called The Little Kid Who Can.
Okay.
You know, I got to, you know, it's odd though, right?
Didn't Kashpatel have children supposed to?
I think so, yeah.
What
is
this preoccupation with children?
Well, right?
It's
always, you know, we got to save the children, uh, uh, child groomers.
Everything is child related.
We got to save the children on the schools.
You want to start the indoctrination program early and nursery school.
And now it's new book, The Little Kid Who Can.
Yeah.
Now how nice.
All right.
Well, are we coming out with the John and Gordy children's library?
Yes,
we should.
Yes.
Got to work
on that.
We'll have that on the shelves soon.
Along with the, let's go back to series of
books.
Let's go back to cursive.
That one's out there.
We've got that out there.
We still have it available on the Facebook page or on the website there.
Yeah, it should still be on the Facebook page.
Yeah, you might want to check that out.
Put it out there again.
There's a storybook there about going back to cursive.
really promoting that.
Yeah.
Well, somebody's got to, you know, we don't want to lose cursive.
Well, I thought we jumped on that bandwagon a little too soon.
It didn't quite catch
on like we thought it would.
It hasn't taken
off.
And neither
has the
book.
So it's got really good illustrations, though.
I mean, that's worth.
It doesn't make us look like heroes, though.
By the way, it's free.
So, you know.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
What do you
want?
Compete.
I would, by the way, you can hear the narrative.
on that.
There's a narrator.
I would go to that.
Go to the low voice one.
It's very dramatic.
He's very dramatic.
Check that out
if you can.
I'll
have to clip some of
that and
put it out here.
We played it once.
I know.
We haven't got requests to play it again for some reason.
We'll get to that.
Phone lines are open.
608-879-8255.
We'll be back with more of John and Gordy for this Thursday morning.
And also joining us about 15 minutes, Jim Santel, former U.S.
attorney at law.
We'll check out what's happening at the Supreme Court and other legal matters here on WMDX.
Michael McDonald, please,
please, please, please retire.
Please.
I just...
I just want to curl up in the corner of the room.
He's
back with the Doobie Brothers full time now.
No, no.
Yeah, they're on tour again.
Oh my god, it can't
be
any one of the original Doobie Brothers.
I hope not.
They've welcomed him back and he's rejoined.
He's with the new tour.
It's 723 cloudy skies, some scattered showers today off and on and highs in the mid sixties right now 53 degrees.
And don't forget Madison Night Market.
The last one of the season takes place tonight begins at five o'clock goes until nine o'clock.
So you might want to bring your umbrella just in case.
Just in case, yeah.
Just a reminder, Mike on McDonald appeared on every recorded song in history.
And we're tired of his voice.
In the 70s.
We just can't stand it.
And Dave Thomas on Second City TV did a great
impression.
Oh, God, that was so funny.
It's good
stuff.
Yeah.
Uh, okay.
Let's get to, uh, Corellidville, uh, or, or as I like to call her, Pam Bondi.
Um, anyway, she's come out, you know, she's coming out swinging against Antifa.
She's going to
take
down that network and the funding for that network,
which
doesn't exist.
It's never existed before.
And now all of a sudden this.
This is a Trump administration creation, a high priority that they really have to take care of.
So let's listen to cut 138 and this is a Pam Bondi going at Antifa.
Well, sure, and that's one of the things about Antifa.
You've heard President Trump say multiple times, they are organized, they are a criminal organization, and they're very organized.
You're seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought.
Pre-put together.
They're organized and someone is funding it.
We're going to get to the funding of Antifa.
We're going to get to the root of Antifa.
Could you find that?
And we're going to find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos in Portland and all these other cities across our country.
Talk to all the influencers who have been threatened and beat up and their lives threatened from Antifa members.
It's going to stop under Donald
Trump.
Okay.
Yeah, like, you know, we haven't been threatened by the right wing at all.
All right.
I mean, we saw January 6th that happened as much as they'd like to deny it and just say it was just a vacation trip for most of them.
Right.
It wasn't.
Now, you know, the big thing that hit the fan, I thought more than anything really exemplifies the future of the Republican Party.
Now we know that Charlie Kirk liked to go to those colleges and influence those young lines out there.
We know that Scott Walker also does the same exact thing.
They love the kids.
just to influence them propaganda works real well on these young moldable minds.
Well anyway, political obtained months of exchanges from a telegram conversation between the leaders and members of the Young Republican National Federation and some of its affiliates in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont.
The chat included racist language, jokes about rape,
and flipping commentary on gas chambers.
So this is the direction of the young Republican party.
We thought Gen Z, there was some kind of hope.
Well, there's a section of that that isn't very hopeful.
But you know what, J.D.
Vance came out and he had to say something about that.
Obviously, you know, he certainly doesn't like to have something like this happen on his watch, but
Yes, he did defend them.
Let's listen to cut 139.
This is mind boggling.
If you can imagine, just go for
it.
Let's listen by focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat.
Grow up.
I'm sorry.
Focus on the real issues.
Don't focus on what kids say in group chats, but there's another angle to this that I just have to be honest about.
Yeah.
I
mean, I'm like an old guy.
You're
never one
years old.
I have three kids.
Uh, you know, we, I grew up in a different world, right?
We're not most of what I, the stupid things that I did when I was a teenager and a young.
they're not on the internet.
Like I'm gonna tell my kids, especially my boys, don't put things on the internet.
Like be careful with what you post.
If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is gonna leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.
But the reality is that kids do stupid things.
Especially young boys, they tell edgy offensive jokes.
Like that's what kids do.
And I really don't
want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke
joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke, is caused to ruin their lives.
And at some point, we're all going to have to say, enough of this BS.
We're not going to allow the worst moment in a 21-year-old's group chat to ruin a kid's life for the rest of time.
That's just not OK.
Like, we live in a digital world.
This stuff is now etched in stone online.
We're all going to have to say, you know what?
No, no, no, we're not doing this.
We're not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat.
And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with.
Well, that is a fantastic message.
Why don't we go back
to the vice president?
Let's go back about a month where J.D.
Vance said this.
This is cut 140.
Cut 140.
This is what J.D.
Vance said about that.
What he just talked about.
When you see
someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell.
Call their employer.
We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.
Oh, I see.
And there is
no civility in the celebration of political assassination.
Get involved.
But you just
said, don't do that.
These are just young kids.
Just, you know,
just saying things that they really,
you know, things will change.
Yeah.
These are these are not young kids, by the way.
They're 18 to 40 years old.
OK.
Their minds are set.
This is what they're talking about.
Rape jokes.
Gas chambers.
Racist language.
That's what it's all about.
Let's go to Charles.
Do we have time for Charles?
We got a minute here.
Can
you do it quick?
Charles, what
do you want, Charles?
I will.
Good morning, guys.
You know, these, I hate to say it, but these idiots like Pam Bondi, when she's talking about these signs that people are all getting the look of like,
she ever looked at a Trump rally?
And they tell on themselves, they're so stupid.
They allow Trump to send them out there looking like idiots.
Yes, absolutely.
Thanks,
Charles.
Sorry, Charles.
We had to
take a break here, but we'll be back with Jim Santel and get the latest on what's going on in our courts.
Yep, and the Midwest Food and Farm Report is next much more straight ahead.
WMDX, John and Gordy in the morning.
In just a few moments, we'll be talking to Jim Santel, Amicus, a law review.
You can listen to that on Saturdays 9 to 11.
We've got cloudy skies out there this morning, 53 degrees currently with a high in the mid sixties.
Look for some spotty showers at times for today and into this evening.
Let's go to Dick.
He's been waiting on the line patiently.
Good morning, Dick.
What do you got for us?
Well, real quickly,
To me, this is like back to the future of the movie only.
The movie was pretty entertaining.
They're trying to take us back to pre-Civil War from what I see of this.
In other words, once white people become the minority race, which is what they claim within 15 years or something like that, they want to make sure that, well, we're still in control of everything.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's a good
point.
That's true.
Thank you for that call.
They keep quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
Not the color of their skin, but their character.
Here's the thing that was aspirational.
It wasn't declaring an end.
to all of that, which is what Republicans are claiming.
Well, he just left that behind.
No, it's aspirational.
We're not there yet.
We're way not there yet.
And we're going to talk about all of that right now with Jim Santel, because the Supreme Court is taking this issue up about the Voting Rights Act.
What do you got for us, Jim?
The latest on this.
Morning, Jim.
Sure.
So good morning.
Good to be with you gentlemen on a morning in the wake of
Another very concerning oral argument yesterday morning.
This is among the about 30 or so cases before the Supreme Court on Stockett right now.
Case for listeners, the name of the case is KLA, C-A-L-L-A-I-S.
I mentioned at the top because this could be one of those names that rings in American history for a long period of time.
put the headline out there and then talk about the details.
This is one in which if the Supreme Court decides to swing broadly at this, this could be the third strike to bring the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to its knees.
There's a portion of it called Section 2, it's the key provision, basically says we do not discriminate.
in voting, we do not engage in bias or prohibitions in voting people of color, people of language, no poll taxes, no literacy taxes, all the things that otherwise would stop people from voting.
And so that's the basic notion, 60 years of tradition under this and forcing that, ensuring that people of color, all people, all people have access to the franchise and we have in Louisiana as we have in Wisconsin.
in every state in the wake of the 2020 census, got line drawing for congressional seats.
Initially, the legislature draws one majority black district there out of about 30% of the population.
The long history here, one of the courts comes back and says, well, in the Voting Rights Act, you need to have two majority black districts.
The legislature does that.
That gets challenged then, that is having two majority black districts in Louisiana by a group that describes themselves as non-African Americans.
And they say that by doing that, by doing that, you're violating the 14th and 15th amendments, voting and equal protection.
And basically they're setting up a dispute, if you will, between the prohibitions, the guarantees of the Voting Rights Act,
and the Constitution, whether or not the Voting Rights Act for all these years has been unconstitutional and therefore needs to be stricken down.
Supreme Court can do a number of different things.
They can make a very narrow decision on whether or not these two districts are properly drawn.
They can send it back to the legislature to do more work on it, all kinds of things, or, and this is the specter.
I think that's the reason why gentlemen you and your listeners want to talk about it this morning.
As things said during the oral argument,
that indicate that the Supreme Court may well be going big on this.
And by that, I don't mean good on this.
I simply mean that this might be the third strike, a couple of previous cases that impinged the capacity to invoke the Voting Rights Act.
This might be the third one.
Maybe, maybe, we'll find out in June, finding the section two is unconstitutional.
If it is, it basically means that the notion of doing
redistricting and line drawing based upon race to ensure that all people, including people of color, have access to the polls, that will no longer be a mandate and that will no longer be required opening up the door to wild candidly or unfettered drawing of lines, maybe even based on race to ensure that people are not given the franchise in the way that they should.
being represented.
A tremendously important issue.
We'll find out in June.
We'll find out in June.
Well, this is kind of one of the most scary moments in our country at this point, simply because not only does it affect minority voting, but it also affects how many people are in the Congress.
Right?
Absolutely.
And what that Congress
This looks like in particular, because if indeed you can go ahead and you can draw lines in a way that are intended to disenfranchise, and by that I mean basically make it impossible for people of color to send people to Congress who are also of color, also their views in terms of representation.
If you do that, then you can draw lines that will establish a variety of white majority populations.
and you're reducing the numbers, you're also politicizing this, there's a whole another aspect of this related to political gerrymandering and that's wound up in this as well in ways that the argument yesterday revealed.
the upshot is gives a lot of legislators around the country the capacity to redraw lines in ways that disenfranchise and also ensure that that frankly republicans have a much stronger majority than what when they have right now.
All right yeah the estimates around 14 to 17 more republicans could go to congress simply by redrawing the lines and getting rid of the Voting Rights Act right?
Right, exactly, exactly.
And the other aspect of this that I think all your listeners, you know about this already, but we've got Brett Kavanaugh who has, again, gone on, he's been out front on this as has the Chief Justice and others, and basically seizing on what the Chief Justice has said in a long prior case called Shelby County.
That was the one in which they said pre-clearance provisions are no longer part of the voting rights act.
and bemoaning the fact that it's been a long time.
He says, 60 years.
He says, we've had a lot of court cases, many contexts, race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes long periods, but they should not be indefinite.
And they should have an end.
And he asks yesterday, what exactly do you think the endpoint should be or how we would know for the intentional use of race to create districts?
Basically he's saying,
60 years is enough and we've had enough focus on race when it comes to these kinds of issues need to bring it to an end and move on.
That is a stunning thing for the Supreme Court shots of the guy.
This is a grown-up.
I mean, you know, I can see somebody who doesn't have a clue, maybe a young person 18, 19 years old would ask that question.
He's a grown-up.
He understands the situation.
When there are a lot of court cases going to the Supreme Court in regards to just this whole effort, it's still an issue.
It's still out there.
You can't make that kind of statement.
It's not true,
right?
Right.
And we've seen it.
We talked about on this show not too long ago.
This is a continuing theme of this Supreme Court.
Recall the case involving the universities and the options that universities used to have in considering race among one of many considerations for the entrance of people into their college classes.
We know well that both in the private and the public sector, the Supreme Court has said
that you cannot use race when it comes to populating your incoming class.
You can do it maybe subtly through some statements that applicants may make, but you can't do that.
Again, why?
Because, well, we're beyond that now.
And we should just be looking.
And again, to your very good point, Sean, at the outset, you're talking about invoking Dr. Martin Luther King, quality of your character.
Let's look at that.
Let's not look at skin color anymore.
This is a continuing theme, and it is one that, again, your listeners should know about.
Hold on, come June.
This is, I think, going to be the most significant opinion of this term.
And I don't think it's hyperbole to say, although all of them are in the running right now for the most important in recent years, this can change dramatically the way in which America lives and works and
breathes.
Okay.
We're talking with former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel.
What about this case in California?
A federal judge in California is he's halted plans.
They've halted plans of layoffs of federal workers during the government shutdown.
What about this case?
Jim.
Right.
So this is this is Susan.
And as you know, your listeners know, Dom knows that I like to identify judges who are doing good things out there, right?
So
this is a district court judge.
Her name is Susan Ilston, I-L-L-S-T-O-N.
And she's got before her a challenge from some unions.
And to this notion that the president's going to lay off about 4,100 federal workers during the government shutdown.
And along the way, she is entertaining
argument from them about the effects of this.
And she is saying basically that we're mixing not apples and oranges, my words, not hers.
But she says, you know, government shutdown basically means we don't have a budget.
And to the extent that the government is still working today, it's on fumes.
We've got accepted employees who've got employees who are in these special categories.
At some point, the checks are going to stop coming fairly soon.
But she says the notion of firing people
is apart from this notion of a shutdown, which is about budget.
And she says that the administration, these are her words, has taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume that all bets are off and the laws don't apply to them anymore.
She says that plan laws are impermissible because they are, here we go again, politically motivated, pointed to some statements during the course of this evidentiary hearing.
by the president himself, that officials and he, the White House, targeting what he calls, and once again he uses the word Democrat, not Democratic, but Democrat targeting programs and agencies favored by Democrats.
She says the politics that infuses what's going on is being trumpeted out loud in this case.
That's impermissible.
That's the motive for laying off 4,100 federal workers.
And she enters a prelim, what's called a preliminary injunction, temporary restraining order.
It's in effect, bars the administration from now, removing ahead with these layoffs from members of the unions who appeared in front of her that sued under their case.
Is this going to go up to the Court of Appeals?
Yes, it will.
The Ninth Circuit probably will affirm her.
Maybe eventually goes up to the Supreme Court.
This could be another emergency docket.
other shadow docket case we don't know.
But at least as of today, as of this morning, as of yesterday, in California, can't lay off, again, based upon what the judges said, can't proceed with the president's plan to lay off workers because of this.
I get it.
It's somewhat related.
But because you don't have a budget, there's not a budget for anybody.
People are
getting
paid right now.
That's borrowed money, if you will.
You've heard me be outraged about this in the past.
I've said on this show, do your job, Congress.
That's the least thing we can expect all of them to do.
Democrats and Republicans, we don't have a budget right now for the most important, biggest country in the face of the planet, which is stunning.
It is stunning, but it also doesn't mean you lay off people who would otherwise be funded if you did your job.
And that's the difference that she's calling to our attention.
All right, Jim, I got a few more questions to ask you.
So hang on.
We got to
take a break right here.
We will continue with former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel.
Just a moment on John and Gordy.
WMDX.
John and Gordy in the morning Dom had the controls and we've got Jim Santel coming up in just a few moments.
Just a reminder we have the No Kings protest coming up this weekend and the John and Gordy nude skateboard protest will take place at the same time.
Just look for us up around the square.
We'll be moving very quickly.
Behind one bush
or another bush, but
we won't be visible to too many people.
I
don't
know why I said that.
Well, anyway, getting back to the issues at hand here, we were talking last break about the Voting Rights Act and how this could add 14, 15, 16, 17 new Republicans to Congress.
but also they, of course, are redoing their districts within a 10-year period, which I think seems like it's unconstitutional.
I'm asking you, Jim, is it constitutional or how are they able to get away with drawing new border lines within a 10-year period?
The Constitution is pretty clear on this, isn't it?
Right, so what the Constitution says is James Madison stuff and contemplated that absolutely and Said that every ten years going to take a nationwide census and the idea was when a redraw Alliance in the wake of that the what was happened here is there's an anticipation that After that period of time states including Wisconsin will do that fairly expeditiously
the new thing that you're bemoaning this morning appropriately is that now we no longer have those kinds of deadlines and those patterns because now we've got things in Texas, for example, maybe California, where, again, mid-decade, we're now revisiting that.
There's nothing necessarily unconstitutional about it, but it's not what was contemplated.
The idea is put things in place for 10 years
give people some solidity about what those districts look like, and then do it again in 10 years.
The problem that you're identifying here is when we do it right now, whether in the wake of this Calais case in the coming years, or if we're doing this based upon what Texas is doing, California, other states, Missouri, Indiana, maybe, what you're doing then is you're sort of upsetting that pattern that was the constitutional design.
You get these things in place
provide certainty about what the future brings.
And again, like everything else, kind of all bets are off.
And you file lawsuits now, we go down this road and we've got disruption in the certainty of what these districts look like.
Right.
And so it could add maybe 25 to 30 new Republicans to Congress, kind of stealing the vote away from everybody else in this country, just by gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act.
Right.
Now here's a question.
I want to ask you again Oh now I want to ask you about about this what we're seeing here is a dramatic difference between the federal courts all the state courts and The Supreme Court is there anybody gonna point that out ever?
That they seem to have a different completely different interpretation of law and an agenda as opposed to all the federal courts all the state courts and the Supreme Courts of every other state
There seems to be, they're on a different page.
There is certainly are different processes and different jurisdictions.
You're absolutely right.
The positive way to look at that is to say, you know, we've got this idea called federalism.
that contemplates that we would have different systems out there.
The concern that I think you're underscoring once again is consistency in basic principles.
There's a thing called the supremacy clause that says that the federal government, the laws that federal government passes in our federal system, they're still the ones that take precedence over this state, but the states also have obligations.
And the result of this is
that we do get state court judges, we get appeals court judges at the state court level that are issuing orders that are not always consistent with what's going on the federal courts.
The idea of our Constitution is that ultimately the Supreme Court would resolve all of these disputes.
That, again, is problematic at a time when the Supreme Court, from my perspective, and I suspect of many of your listeners, is pursuing things from a
a very jaded perspective that is giving the president huge amounts of power and um otherwise doing things voting rights act otherwise
that are contrary to the best interests of the nation and the states.
That's the very convoluted, wonky, lots going on.
They're kind of a response to that.
And I think a lot of people should pay more attention to what the federal courts are saying, their decisions, because they're actually making the argument.
They're looking at the Constitution.
They're the ones explaining why they have decided what they're deciding.
And when we have a docket that doesn't have to explain anything, something is terribly wrong with this system, at least at
the Supreme Court level.
Right.
And I think that's, that's, that's really the point here this morning and always it's once again, it's the shadow docket.
You've got wonder.
federal judges, including Susan Ilston.
We've talked about others, both in Chicago, Portland.
We're doing the good work
and
appeals courts, Ninth Circuit, Seventh Circuit, others doing the right work here.
It gets to the Supreme Court and we get one sentence orders without explanation, without oral argument of the sort that we talked about just a few moments ago, and changing the ways in which the government works, the country works without explanation.
And it gets fascinating that the lower court judges are the ones who should be, regardless of how you feel about their decisions, they're the ones who are writing the orders to explain what they're doing.
The Supreme Court is not.
And that's the concern.
That's the problem concern.
Well, I obviously have a difficult time trying to justify their decisions.
That's
for sure.
Well, Jim, we have to leave it there.
Thank you for joining us.
We appreciate it.
We'll talk to you again next Thursday.
Yeah, I wish it was a positive
message.
It's voting.
It's voting a little more than a year from now, right?
You can change things.
Congress can be changed.
That's an important thing to do.
Very good.
Good
to be with you gentlemen.
Good to be with you.
Thank you, Jim.
You can check out Jim's excellent program, Amicus, A Law Review, every Saturday, 9 to 11 a.m.
on the Civic Media Radio Network.
That's gonna do it for us for today.
Tomorrow we have Rocker in the studio with the Max Ink Preview, lots of great local music, and Savannah Tome Olsen.
And we got a ton of stories we just never get to,
and
we'll have those tomorrow as well.
Kind of a Duster Fire Friday.
Oh yeah, and you gotta show out for the night market.
Madison Night Market tonight, five to nine.
Have a great day, so long.
I'm already sure.
