
As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point, a dumbing down.
until humanity was incapable of solving even its most basic problems.
Idiocracy.
For the smartest guy in the world, you're pretty dumb sometimes.
I
A few other pictures here.
Big, big sow, you know, Faddis Pig Award was given up by that pig, gave it to Trump.
Now, Trump has it.
I like this.
Indiana Jones gave Trump the Ark of the Covenant.
That worked for me, you know.
God, I hope he opens it.
Good one, Aaron.
And Jesus gave up the thorny crown to Trump as well.
He
So and then her, you know, there's another picture of the trophy drop drop off center with these dumpsters.
I know Kim will start of this thing.
And we had a, we had a texture also may have come up with it on his own as well.
But what a great idea.
And, you know, John and Gordy were putting something together, trying to get like, let's send stuff to Trump.
it's a fantastic
I mean, if,
right be rude not to take it.
I know it was such a ridiculous
That's a good way to start the letter.
Where is this going to
Not happy apparently.
He says, I have done more for NATO than any other person since it's fine.
No, he's trying to dissolve it.
He tried to dissolve it the first time he was in office.
Right.
And now NATO should do something for the United States.
The world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland.
Thank you, President DJ T.
This guy is Rutger.
and I think he must be a new multi-billionaire or something like that.
That's who usually ends up at these places.
Take their jets out there, the personal jets.
But anyway, he got up and this was what he said to these individuals all sitting at this desk with him.
Let's listen to cut 163.
Here
This is my first time at Davos and and I find it quite a bewildering experience to be honest.
I mean 1500
private, yes, flown in here to hear Sir David Attenborough speak about, you know, how we're wrecking the planet.
And I mean, I hear people talk in the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency.
But then I mean, almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right?
And of the rich just not paying their fair share.
I mean, it feels like I'm at a firefighter's conference and no one's allowed to speak about water.
Yeah.
Right.
There was there was only one panel, actually.
Well, we've had two.
You're the second
of our panel.
There was only
one panel.
Let's go there.
One panel hidden away in the media center that was actually about tax avoidance.
I was about, I was one of the 15 participants.
So something needs to change here.
I mean, 10 years ago, the World Economic Forum asked the question, what must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash?
The answer is very simple.
Just stop talking about philanthropy.
and start talking about taxes.
Taxes, taxes.
We need to... I mean, just two days ago, there was a billionaire in here, what's his name?
Michael Dell.
And he asked a question like, name me one country where a top marginal tax rate of 70% has actually worked.
And, you know, I'm a historian.
The United States.
That's where it has actually worked.
In the 1950s, during Republican President Eisenhower, you know, the war veteran, the top marginal tax rate in the US was 91% for people like Michael Dell.
You know, the top estate tax for people like Mike Godel was more than 70%.
I mean, this is not rocket science.
I mean, we can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes.
We can divide Bono once more.
Come on, we've got to be talking about taxes.
That's it.
Taxes, taxes, taxes.
All the rest is bullshit, in my opinion.
And the
No, that's not how it works.
It's never worked like that.
I remember this is the way they talked about it back in the 60s for me was that if you don't want that job, there's somebody behind you that will take it.
So if you don't want to work because you
have to pay higher taxes.
There'll be somebody behind you that will do it instead.
That's what that was a philosophy back in the 60s.
I
think
because that makes
a hell of a lot more sense than saying, well, if a person's not going to make a lot of money developing that vaccine, they're not going to try.
You know, it's just, no, they're going to do that because they want to save people's lives.
That's why they come up with vaccines.
It's not all.
Based on money or transactional my god anyway So yeah, this guy has has the right thing and they always say well, it's unfair, you know rich people already pay a lot of money No, they
They're beyond that.
So they can get all these tax write-offs, borrow their own money.
Unbelievable stuff.
You know, if you knew all of this stuff, you wouldn't sit there defending, well, they shouldn't pay those kind of taxes, you know?
No.
They're making the money on a tax system, on a system in this country that we all pay into.
This is the free market system that Gordy and I and Aaron, everybody has paid into out of our paychecks.
We're not seeing the benefits they have.
It's time to pay forward, to give us that chance to move up the ladder into
the
do whatever they
apart.
start
over tax system with universal health care Which will save all of us a tremendous amount of money and take a load off our our minds our schedules I mean this is ridiculous what we have to go through they're keeping us Busy is what they're doing so we can't
protest, we can't really devise a second plan, a better plan.
the John and Gordon plan.
It's already, yes, yes.
And you know, we have a promise here that if we talk to any politician in this program, we are going to ask them why they're not pushing universal healthcare first.
Why they're not funding two thirds funding of our public schools and getting rid of vouchers schools because that is taking money away from our school systems.
And then of course, providing.
at least the services that we need, making sure that PFAS is taken out of our water.
Drill new wells for the people who have those bad tainted wells out there.
We need to just start helping people
And universal base pay, I think that's another one.
Universal basic income, absolutely.
Because it's a different, it's a gig economy now, it's changed completely.
Yeah, forget about the minimum wage.
I mean, that's important fight too, but really universal
basic pay would work out better for everyone.
Yes.
Yes.
Oh, so many good ideas.
We have all the good
We have a major Epstein files update.
The Department of Justice in a late night filing just argued in court saying that
a court has no authority to adjudicate or enforce the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
And they did this super late at night so that the American public wouldn't know about it, but might as such actually caught this court filing as an exclusive.
So here's what happened.
Representative Ro Khanna, Representative Thomas Massey in the past week.
filed a letter with the Southern District of New York, the judge in the Glane Maxwell case, and said, you need to appoint a special master, an independent monitor, to go through and determine whether or not the DOJ is complying with the Episcene Files Transparency Act.
Well, tonight, the DOJ just responded, saying that the federal court lacks the authority to enforce the act and that Conna and Massey don't have standing to essentially recommend an independent monitor.
In short, the Department of Justice's position tonight is that no court can enforce that can or can force them to produce the files.
And everyone needs to know about it.
They did this so that happened while people were asleep.
And they were basically saying, you didn't tell us how to produce this.
You didn't tell us what form, you know, come on.
This is ridiculous.
Paperwork itself is what you produce.
They have the files no matter what they're on, whether they're just digital or paper or wherever.
Turn them over.
I don't think that argument's gonna stand apparently They just
when the Supreme Court comes out against the tariffs I would assume the arguments look like they were gonna come out against it if they do come out, you know that
Trump is not going to follow orders.
No.
And he doesn't really have to.
Well, he should follow orders because he has other alternative ways to still tear off countries, but it's more specific.
It's not general,
and the
I don't think it's a good deal for the American taxpayer.
What we know is that the president in going in and capturing Maduro has now said that Americans are going to need to control the oil and rebuild the oil infrastructure of Venezuela.
We had Darren Woods, the CEO of ExxonMobil, say that Venezuela was uninvestable, his word, uninvestable, which angered the president, absent some sort of major subsidy.
I think the likelihood is very small that these companies are going to want to go on their own volition.
Personally and many of my colleagues do not believe that it's a good use of a hundred billion or two hundred billion dollars.
Yeah.
I'm I'm with you on that.
We're back in our final half hour of John and Gordy.
Jump on the phone line if you want to get in 855-752-4842.
Coming back after this.
It's John and Gordy in the afternoon.
On a Monday kind of cloudy in downtown Madison capital Looking a little overcast today.
We had a lot of sunshine earlier, but clouds have moved in 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 back with John Peterson.
I'm Gordy young along with our producer Aaron Zommers and Let's go to the phones right now.
We have Jean from Eau Claire.
Good afternoon, Jean
Well, good afternoon, guys.
I just want to compliment you guys, John, Gordy, and Erin on the outstanding job that you're doing, keeping us informed, love the music, love some of the lightheartedness once in a while that we all need.
And, you know, this is just my personal biased opinion.
and it is biased because I've been watching it live and it's just sickening watching the war on Americans as Mr. Wonderful thinks that he should have a peace prize.
And it's just, it makes me sick.
I'm sorry to say this, Republicans, but those of you who support this stuff, I have zero respect for any of you that you don't understand how awful this is to all the people in our country.
i think i'm sometimes like you guys can speak to us and sometimes it's hard to find the word because it's just so unbelievable but the main thing is i love that you're going to question people that come running for office and have some really good ones because we've got to elect people to change this crap around and and that guy from up north thinks he's going to run our state he better start running the other way because
Boy, if it wasn't for our governor that we had right now, we would have a Scotty Walker mess just as bad as what our country is.
And when he would, when he tied people's hands behind their, you know, with those coupling or whatever they had, I watched, you know, during the protest.
They had the older women who were singing handcuffs and they behind their back and they could hardly walk.
And I'm in Eau Claire.
So when I've seen that, I didn't know what was going on.
I cried.
I cried.
So we got, we can't have a Scotty Walker regime come back in here because we need to save our state too.
So thank you guys.
Keep up the great work.
Appreciate you guys.
Bye.
Thanks.
Wow.
That's great call.
Um, I'm with her on that, you know, it's, uh, wow.
I mean, we expect, or at least Tom, Tiffany expects us to vote for him when he did absolutely nothing in Congress to stop this mess from happening.
Nothing.
And now he expects to run the state.
Oh man, he's so early mistaken.
Absolutely.
Well, you know, it's a mystery to me why anybody voted him into the house anyway.
But, you know, he didn't show, he's not showing up for debates with the other candidate.
It's just...
One of those things he thinks he can just glide in because he's a congressman.
Well, sorry, you know, you haven't done anything in Congress to really help us out.
In fact, you've taken our health care away.
So we should invite you into the state to be our governor.
I don't think so.
Well, you know, that's one thing about all these candidates that are running on both sides of the aisle.
I mean, if they're not willing to go to town halls or they're not willing to go door to door and talk about their plans or their policies or their ideas or to go on a listening campaign, why would you vote for them?
You don't know what they stand for.
do some homework.
And if they have the same old cliches that are used by a lot of the people on the right then ignore it.
I mean what can you do?
The best thing you can do obviously is a vote for the other candidate and somebody who's going to help us use some of that tax money that is building up four billion dollars in a state surplus
That's something that shouldn't be like that because that is a lot.
That's a lot of money that should have been spent on the state.
It's not excess.
It should have been spent on the state.
And it's like that every every buy in him.
It's like four billion dollars extra.
We're going to give a tax cut out again.
Wow.
This was
And we had the money promised to all of the individuals that wanted to put the charging stations in at their businesses and filling stations in each and every state.
And then that went on hold.
They didn't want to do that anymore.
So I don't believe those charging stations are going to be going in anytime soon.
All right.
And then we have it
from Tom out in Hartford, who by the way, gave me tips on, you know, the charging station that I have installed at my home.
Right.
We've been talking.
Yeah.
I remember you because EVs wishful thinking.
Wow.
Tom, I'm.
What happened, Tom?
I'm, yeah.
You know, I believe that there is a $7,000 or $7,500 rebate.
I think still in new cars, but I'm not
sure.
I
Neal that down, but if you have a chance to drive an EV you I think you'd really love it.
I mean it's just it handles so much better than the power is incredible We have cam again absolutely not Wisconsin is not capable of handling driverless vehicles.
Well, I don't want driverless vehicles I Don't want to see that happen.
All right, let's see.
I know I have another one down here.
Oh Here Tom Tom yeah,
It's I believe it is the salt saline batteries that they've come out with now that you can make anywhere in the world.
You don't need all these special metals or anything like that.
This is really truly a breakthrough.
And it's a Chinese company that makes batteries for it is trying to get them to make the batteries for their vehicles.
So I believe that that is going to be a breakthrough that really we're all going to benefit from.
As far as the cold weather is concerned, true.
I think I lost about 50 to 70
25 miles off my charging because of the cold weather.
And, well, you know, that's the way it is currently.
That's what we have right now.
He said, not saying if someone wants to purchase an EV.
Hang on.
I know.
Just scrolled past now.
Not saying if someone wants to purchase an EV, go ahead.
Just don't ask me to subsidize it.
So, Tom.
Okay, Tom.
Come on, man.
Which side are the...
Yeah.
Bouncing back and forth like a BB in a box car.
No, no, no, I
Hey, good afternoon guys first first.
He's he's burning the world down but but beside that and and he's asking for $1 billion to join his peace plan in Gaza So I wonder what that going his personal accounts also but but anyway on the EV I I Don't have one.
I have a 23 Prius and I love it.
Well, I do too.
I I I driven
Tesla twice a post a post are once and Chevy boat a couple of times and I I love them.
Yeah They they yeah, you hit the pedal and you just you just go
Yeah You just go no more dealing with the oil and gas and all of that stuff and Like I said, yeah, I
I've driven them, so I rented them.
And for Tom, nobody's making you buy one, Tom.
Just like nobody's making a woman get an abortion.
You don't have to get one, Tom, if you don't want one.
I mean, he is butt hurt about the EV vehicle.
Like somebody's going to make him get one.
That's right.
Okay.
You know, there is the goal, of course, and this is what Republicans often complain about.
You know, the goal is to do away with all gas engines by 2035 or something like that.
And the silliness about all of that is that that will be extended if it's not met or meetable.
They will extend it.
They always do.
It's not a big deal.
It's not going to stop anything.
But here's the thing.
This is the thing.
As people buy these EVs, they become used vehicles and then they are available in the used car market
and
Good afternoon guys.
I wanted to point out that
gasoline vehicles and I'm currently driving one now actually.
Lose mileage in the very cold weather too.
The density of the air
significantly greater in weather like this and my mileage has gone down from, I usually get about 33 with my current vehicle.
It's gone down to about 28 at this point.
So it's a significant difference too.
The second thing I wanted to say is we're already subsidizing gasoline vehicles.
Indirectly, we have a welfare tax break for the oil companies that's called a depletion allowance.
Basically, for every gallon of petroleum they pull out of the earth, they get a tax break for it.
We're paying that if we took that income.
The first thing I'm going to say is I own stock, inherited stock in one of the oil companies, and they'll still make billions anyway.
And the second thing is if we took that money and used it to build a charging station in virtually every gas station across the country, and there'd be enough there because there's billions involved, we could have a much more viable EV situation than we do have now.
I'm just trying to help, you know, we have a solution to the problem we have with air pollution and climate change.
But you know what?
When people make that argument with climate change, I always switch the topic because I go to the pollution part of it, not climate change so much.
I mean, we are inhaling a lot of pollutants.
Let's stop doing that because a lot of people die from
preventable deaths because of these diseases that they get because of pollution but we can't point a finger at any one industry and they know it and that is an externality that's what they call externalities and they're not paying for any of that that's why a lot of green people want to actually get out there and have the industry
pay more money in because we're actually suffering out here paying our own bucks.
But anyway, I think that the EV movement should continue.
We know and we just heard about Canada taking Chinese vehicles, EV vehicles.
And
So who knows, you know, they're knocking at the door here and one person suggests D does if we could just figure out a heat pump They heat the EVs that would go a long way They said they moved from Florida and sold theirs mostly because it was a two-wheel drive and in colder days down there would reduce the mileage, you know
My recommendation to is get an all-wheel drive especially in weather like we have up here
I
Okay, all right Um
Yeah, one other thing We did get a message from Tom and Hartford saying it's estimated over 30,000 EV batteries exploded making those fires much worse it is important to note these are not from EVs it was in a factory that caught fire the same thing happens if a
you know, a, let's say a coal plant or something catches fire.
Any kind of facility like that is going to be dangerous when it catches.
All right.
Well,
And didn't we discover that EVs, as far as China goes and selling them to Canada, I mean, China is so far ahead of us in this area.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, that solar wind, they've just, you know, while we're sitting here fighting about it for the last decade or so, they've taken the lead on.
All this new
Don't know that.
It'd be pretty cool.
And especially in a hot car, you know, uh, try living with an EV for a year.
It's always it, it.
year is not always hybrid.
They have a gas engine for reliability.
Most used EVs will be scrapped because of the huge cost of the new EV batteries.
That's not true because they're aftermarket.
EV batteries that you could have replaced the original equipment.
So plus, I think EV technology or battery technology will take off and become a lot less expensive for those batteries and they'll be able to replace them in the vehicles that if you want to replace them.
The Prius battery lasts around 10 years or 15 years, something like that.
The new batteries that are in the EVs will last around 20 to 30 years.
So they last a lot longer.
So replacing them may not be an issue for most people that have EVs.
Okay.
All right, just to let you know, and you Mr. Know it all over here.
Yeah.
have we exhausted
more messages?
More messages here if you would just scroll up every once in a while.
later
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