A Book Report Will Be Expected (Hour 2)

Good, good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and air on air.

Jane Matt and air Greg Bach and Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same 855-752-4842.

That's 855-75 civic.

You can leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream to on Facebook, YouTube.

And what used to be Twitter, we have a really busy show coming up for you today.

Our friend and colleague and host of the wonderful Todd Alba show from two to four across the network, joining us after the 9 30 news.

Just a couple of things we're going to talk about with Todd, including our presidents made a couple of really interesting speeches over the weekend.

Yeah.

One to the West Point graduates and then had a.

Memorial Day message on social media over the weekend to all the haters and losers.

Oh, well, that's what you do on your day off.

You make sure that all of your perceived enemies know their business.

That's coming up after the 9 30 news when Todd joins us.

Next, our Kathy author, Kathy Giorgio is going to be joining us.

Yes, she was on the Waukesha schools stars wall.

North High School.

North High School.

Walk us through North High School.

She was on their wall of fame because she's a very accomplished author.

They don't offer any of her books.

Nope.

So she's asked that this star be removed, that she be removed from that.

So we're going to talk to Kathy Giorgio.

I am curious to find out what is so offensive about her books that they felt that they had to pull them and yet put her on this wall.

Kind of an interesting juxtaposition there.

Beth Highdorn.

Yes.

From the Racine Zoo is going to be joining us in studio after 1030.

They have a new addition.

I know.

They have a new baby zebra.

Yay.

I know.

I'm very excited about that.

I have a

zebra.

And we're going to talk about all things Racine Zoo.

So if you're in the area and you've never checked it out, it's small.

But it's it's really a great little packs a punch.

It does.

It's a great little zoo So and then we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing today It is the now you see it now you don't boom addition There's a video element.

That's you'll go.

Wow.

Yeah So stick around for that did want to start off though with new snap changes.

Yes,

Wisconsin taxpayers lucky us

could be responsible for covering hundreds of millions of dollars in food assistance costs under the sweeping tax bill passed this week by the U.S.

House that pushes a portion of federal food aid programs the costs onto the states.

So under this, Wisconsin will have to come up with anywhere between 175 million to 300 million a year to cover the roughly 700,000 Wisconsinites

who rely on benefits from SNAP, which is another way to call food stamps.

Yeah, which based on that information and how much Madison, the state house, I should say, state house loves funding programs.

Oh, yes.

We can say with cool confidence here at Matt and Aaron air, not going to happen.

Yeah, that's not going to pass.

They won't even

they won't even release money to clean water up.

You think they're going to feed people and

money that's already been approved.

but they're

still sitting on it.

They've

been sitting on that money for two years now.

Two

years now, yep.

That's the tip of the iceberg of money that's been

approved.

That has been approved.

Just that, like there's that.

There's cleaning up the water, education, hospitals in the rural areas.

$4 billion surplus just also sitting there.

A $300 million price tag coming to

the state house under Robin Voss's leadership, not going to happen.

No, period.

Yeah.

No, we're not going to, I'm, I feel fairly confident in saying we will not be picking up that cost.

The other thing that they want to do with these snap changes is restrict what people who get snap can buy.

Yeah.

And more sugary, you know, sugary sodas and candies and things like that.

They want to make a bunch of restrictions on what, what they can buy.

If you think back just a couple of years ago,

let's I wish I wish we had that Little

time machine when Michelle Obama heard of her then the first lady Made an attempt to encourage healthier eating and and healthier kids.

So she started this let's move initiative First ladies normally focus on something

when their husband is in office, this is their standard bearer for what they would like to do.

It might be literacy, it could be something else.

But for Michelle Obama, it was let's move.

And she was crucified by the right for telling people what to feed their kids.

And in reality, what she had done was

made some urban gardening plots, planted some vegetable gardens, some fruit, like some fruit.

You know, not only encouraging healthier options in your eating, but also showing people, hey, do you live in a city?

You can still grow your own food, and it's healthy, it's not free, but it's a lot cheaper.

and just opening people up to the options of what has been there for decades and decades, and people acted like she was coming and saying, hey, do you like the Constitution?

Well, we're burning it today.

And

we're gonna use it as kindling on the fire for, it was just the most insane reaction to the point where they had to totally take out the vegetable aspect of Let's Move and focus mainly on just

some exercise.

Get it on.

It went from let's move, I think to let's play 60, which was encouraging kids to get outside and play 60 minutes a day, which is great.

I would say adults need that too.

But it was, I mean, you only term hair on fire, Jane.

Yes,

I do.

This

was all the hairs on fire.

Every

hair was on fire.

Let's go back to Sarah Palin.

Do we have John McCain's running

mate?

Yes.

Sarah Palin, when she was asked what she thought of Michelle Obama and the whole let's move thing, of course, she had a cookie handout at a school fundraiser.

This was fighting back against the communist Michelle Obama, encouraging more vegetables.

So she was giving a cookie, freedom cookies.

I don't know that she called him that, but she probably should have.

Here's a quote from Sarah Palin talking about Michelle Obama's efforts to encourage kids to eat healthier.

Quote, take her anti-obesity thing that she's on.

She is on this kick, right?

What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families and what we should eat.

Instead of a government thinking they need to take over and make decisions for us, according to some politician or politician's wife, just leave us alone, get off our back.

and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and get our country back on the right track and eat cookies.

Okay, I added

that.

You remember, you know how we like say nowadays, man, things are so bad.

They weren't much better back then when you were railing against a woman just saying, hey, why not put a vegetable on the plate too?

There's no law.

There's no ordinance.

There's no executive order.

There was no mandates.

There was

nothing to that.

It was just, hey, folks, here's some options.

Hope you'd like it.

Enjoy.

Oh, no.

Oh,

God.

She was a communist.

They called the right called Michelle Obama a communist.

They trying to force our children to eat broccoli.

But that's also the M.O.

That's the game plan.

It is every time someone wants to introduce something, call it vegetables or, you know,

Recognizing that trans people are people or kids can read the books.

They want to read here comes that here comes the right and you know, I'm It sounds very you know, I'm generalizing generalizing, but it really is the truth Anytime someone wants to come in and say hey, here's this other option.

Here's something.

That's nice Here's something that you can enjoy anytime it threatens the way of life of those individuals They want to they want to push it over the edge with I mean it is the

the governmental version of fire and brimstone you know this notion of how dare they come into our lives well they're not they're not forcing their way in how dare they tell us what to read no one's forcing you what to read i don't want to talk to these people don't talk to them but they exist and also cut up a cucumber and eat a salad like try it you know it's just this notion of anything that it doesn't even threaten their freedom if it's a perceived threat they use it

to get in the papers, to get on television, to get on podcasts and, and gin up support on that because they don't have anything to offer in return.

They don't have policy that wants to help people.

They want to slash programs.

They want to keep money.

And instead they're saying Michelle Obama is a communist.

Well, I guess what gets me is.

When Michelle Obama wanted to do things to encourage healthier eating among our kids, that was horrible.

That was a threat to our freedom.

That was a threat to us as Americans.

But if Republicans do it, well, then it's fine.

They love our kids.

They're looking out for the health of our children, great buck.

Which

I would mention this before we went on the air, but is there such thing as double standard fatigue?

this thing of always having to say, but wait a minute, but when they were doing it years

ago, you said it was

terrible.

Now you're doing it, and you're saying it's great, and it's even more so, it's God given freedom to do it.

Well, I wanna see how they're going to make businesses, because you know the Republicans love getting in the way of businesses, how they're gonna make them change ingredients, whether it's like, you know,

Removing

dies

and dies and artificial ingredients those it because Robert F Kennedy Jr's plan of making America healthy flies in the face of everything that is Business now of like we do what we want.

We put what we want in the food.

You can't tell us what to do We've paid for your jobs.

So you're gonna vote to make sure we can Put chemicals and food.

So here comes Robert F Kennedy Jr saying let's get rid of that stuff.

I don't Jane I am

I think about this more than I should.

Like, how he can exist doing what he's doing.

And the Republicans are like, yeah, let's do this.

Well, again, we're assuming that any changes will be made.

Yeah.

I mean, lip service is a great thing.

Oh, God, it's.

Yes, Bob Bob Jr.

said this.

So we will be making changes.

Is there going to be anybody to follow up on whether or not they institute these changes?

Pretty much no.

No.

Because we were firing everybody at the FDA.

Yeah.

Yeah,

it's.

I.

I always want to say, like I'm at the point now where I want to say like, but what about the thing?

Cause then I'm like, no, don't do that.

Cause I don't like it when other people make that phrase.

What about, what about isms?

Because no one cares too.

No one cares that there's a double standard.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter in the halls of power.

Like these people want to get rid of certain foods or dies or chemicals.

As you said, why was it basically a crime when Michelle Obama did it?

And now it's like well, this is a great idea.

It's like no one who thought of this idea.

This is a great idea.

Yeah, isn't that interesting?

Oh my gosh.

Yep.

I think we should start giving cookie handouts.

I'll I'll I'll take cookie handouts.

I'll take them.

I'm I don't care what they

could just go on the road Greg and hand out cookies.

Yeah, the Jane and Greg cookie tour,

the freedom cookie,

the freedom cookie.

Well, I mean, I don't know like there might be a chance that

Jane Greg and maybe one of our friends is coming on the road this summer

working on it

There might be an extra component to this which could include Cookies civic media cookies.

Oh Oh my goodness.

Oh my cookie.

You're on to something.

I

have I have the best ideas

ideas.

I

have the best ideas in

the world

Freedom.

Freedom.

Freedom cookies.

Tony says freedom scones.

We could call them freedom cookies.

Freedom scones of peace.

Freedom scones of peace.

Oh, that's a throwback.

We have a break coming up.

When we return, he only pardons all the best people.

Yes.

All the best people.

All the details are on the way.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt near on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Getting to know you.

Getting to know you.

Getting to know

all about you.

Jane McNair, Greg Bach, and Sweet Calbee coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine, where you can always join us, call or text the number is the same, 855-752-4842, or leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

We got some baseball action coming up a little bit later on.

Our baseball broadcast starts tonight at 6.05.

The crew...

hosting the Boston Red Sox.

You can listen to the game.

You do have to listen to Terrestrial Radio to hear the game starting tonight at 6 0 5 and W R C E in Richland Center W I S S in Oshkosh W R J N here in Racine and Kenosha.

WCQM in Park Falls near Butternut.

Butternut.

And WBZH in Hayward, the crew hosting the Red Sox tonight.

The game starts at 6.05.

You can catch it on those civic media radio stations.

We have Todd Alba going to be joining us in just a little bit after the 9.30 news, so stay tuned for that.

But I did want to spend a little time.

Let's get to know some of the very fine people that our president

decides to pardon because he's done quite a few.

Oh,

yeah.

And they just keep on coming.

And they're all such fine people.

Yeah, they're all really, really fine people.

Scott Jenkins served as the sheriff of Culpeper County in Northern Virginia for a decade, but he lost his reelection in 2023 on charges that he was eventually convicted for on bribery.

Convicted, so again, jury of his peers, convicted him of bribery.

He was just about to report to prison to serve his 10-year sentence when Donald Trump pardoned him.

So what did the old sheriff do?

He decided to take more than $70,000 in bribes.

either cash or campaign contributions for more than a half a dozen people and appointed them auxiliary deputy sheriffs making them I mean he gave they got badges they're deputized they're deputized yeah they got badges they got credentials none of them were trained or vetted or working for the sheriff's office let me pay you a couple thousand dollar sheriff deputize me

They also accused Mr. Jenkins of pressuring local officials in the case of one man who had a felony on his record to expunge that so he could get his guns back.

That man and two undercover FBI agents testified against then Sheriff Jenkins.

Jenkins took the stand in his own defense and said the money he got in the badges he gave had absolutely no connection.

What?

Yeah, they just gave me money and somehow I ended up deputizing them, but there's no, there's no, they're there.

See, here's the thing, Jane, is they gave me a lot of money and I thought I was giving them the badges that I give kids, the plastic ones.

Oh no.

I messed up and I accidentally gave them real ones.

That's on me, that's my whoopsie doodles.

I mean, Jane, that makes sense.

It's a crime.

He went through due process.

He was convicted.

Found guilty by a jury of his peers.

And just before that door,

Prison door was gonna open up here comes Donald Trump swooping and say you did nothing wrong.

You're fine It was it was the biden's weaponized department of justice.

Oh my god

when after him

Yeah, and and I just want to put it out there I want to see when the next elections happening and I will bet dollars to donuts.

He will run again

and probably make a nice campaign contribution to somebody.

Among the very fine people that our president has pardoned, including former sheriff Jenkins.

Let's not forget about Michelle Fiore.

She's one of my, honestly, she's one of my favorites.

She's one of my faves.

A former Las Vegas city councilwoman and state lawmaker who was found guilty on six counts of federal wire fraud.

and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, she was accepting donations.

She raised more than 70 grand to erect a statue of a Las Vegas police officer who died in the line of duty.

70 grand, she took in for this statue.

Instead, she spent it on rent, her daughter's wedding.

As you do.

And some plastic surgery.

Cause you gotta look good at the wedding.

Well, right.

And Donald Trump pardoned her too.

Pardoned her.

Absolutely.

This is why Jane, this is one of my favorite ones, because it is a look.

You want to erect a statue to commemorate fallen officer, fallen soldier, someone who's given their life to protect certain things, all arguments aside.

Great.

Go for it.

The moment you take that money away, that phrase back the blue.

The fact that people who don't, that's part of their milieu, a part of their, like, I'm a Republican because I back the blue and law and order.

The moment that happens, the fact that they are not standing up going, she's terrible and what are you doing, President Trump?

Once again, just the hypocrisy is boiling over, Jane.

You can smell it.

Well, and let's not forget about Russ Albright.

Remind me of his greatness.

He had a website called the Silk Road.

It was a dark web.

Oh, yeah.

where it was essentially a clearinghouse for drug dealers.

Essentially.

Yes.

When you start on the dark web, it's not good.

What he did made the dark web look even worse, which is a tall task.

He was accused and convicted of selling more than $200 million worth of drugs.

Donald Trump pardoned him too.

Just like the January 6th attackers.

They all got pardons, too.

Oh, I knew this was going to happen.

And you know what hasn't happened yet?

The plaque honoring the officers, the Capitol police officers who protected our lawmakers on January 6th.

That plaque is still sitting in a drawer in Speaker Mike Johnson's office because they don't want

to put it up.

And we have a commenter talking about Leonard Paltier, which I knew was going to happen.

And it's not the same thing.

It's not the same thing.

It's not the same thing at all.

Nice try, though.

Get the facts straight.

Do your research.

We have news coming up next.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

When I'm with...

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Met and Air on Air.

Jane Met and Air.

Greg Bach.

The Calvinator on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine, where you can join us.

Call or text at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter next hour at this time, a segment we call Audio Sorbet, where we try and lighten things up a little bit.

Oh, a little cleansing for the ears away from politics.

So Beth Hydorn from the Racine Zoo is going to be joining us after the 1030 news.

They'd have a new addition at the zoo.

We're very excited.

So we're going to talk about we have a baby zebra so we're going to talk about that and many other things and then we will wrap up the show in the very last segment as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing today it is the now you see it now you don't boom edition there's a video element to that that you want to stick around for as well right now though he joins us every other week our friend and

colleague and host of the Todd Alba show weekdays across the network from two to four p.m.

Todd Alba is here.

Good morning, my friend.

How was your weekend?

Good morning, Jane, Greg, Kelvin.

It was good.

It was good.

Thanks.

Lots of traveling was up at Eau Claire this weekend.

Get the show from our colleague, Pat Krightlows, the Krightlows manor, the Krightlows state

compound.

I saw Friday.

I was watching.

Yes.

What a beautiful place.

Oh, I

said, if I lived up there, I'd be doing this show in the lake every day.

Yeah,

most and what a gracious host and makes a very mean brandy old fashioned at the end of the show.

Oh, nice.

Well, that's a nice reward at the end of the show.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

So that was Friday and talked a little bit about local James Kelly, our news director from up there, joined us.

So it was fun.

My youngest god, or my youngest god, my youngest niece, Isabelle graduated from Oakley Memorial High School.

So that was all the family was in.

That was a lot of fun over the weekend as well.

And then back in Richland Center on Monday to see mom take her home, actually, was, I will admit, I wanted to go to the Memorial Day

Parade Richland Center, but I was a little tired from all the you put on a lot of miles man It was a lot of miles, but then a Sunday night on Sunday night And I hope people were able to see this you can probably watch the the replay somewhere But PBS every every year does the National Memorial Day service and it's absolutely one of the best Broadcasts of the year for me and they replay it twice and they do it live They replay it on the night before Memorial Day

And it's these amazing stories of people in the military, some of whom have died in service, some were still living, and they get professional actors to come and tell their story in their, in the veteran's words, but they're telling it, you know, as the character.

as the character and then the ones they're living are sitting in the front row and the actor goes down and shakes the hand or hugs the person whose story they've just told.

And it's

remarkable.

It's amazing.

I mean, what difficult stories to tell in some cases, but they do it so well and there's the military orchestra is giving the background music.

They always play all of the service Academy or the branch songs as well.

There's all sorts of veterans in the crowd.

And they've been able to maintain a non-partisan bent to the whole thing over all these years, which that in and of itself is remarkable.

So that was the way that I chose to honor our folks who died in battle over the

weekend.

Very nice.

Very nice.

Did you do anything?

Let's see.

You know how it's like no Mo May.

I accidentally do it every year because I just get way lazy.

Saturday I, Saturday I mowed my lawn and that was an endeavor, but it looks really nice now.

And then Sunday I had to do some stuff, but Monday was my day.

Changed the oil in my car, which usually is a 20 minute endeavor, but because it's a new car, there's new stuff under there.

So

that took an hour.

But for the past years, I've talked about this on the show.

There is

a, there is a play set that was.

in my backyard when we bought the house.

And I was like, oh, cool.

The nieces and the nephews can come over and they can swing.

And then I walked closer and touched it.

I'm like, no child should be anywhere near this death trap.

Death trap.

So I'd been saying for years, I got to go back there and just take it down.

Take it down.

Just take it down.

Get a saw.

Get a saw.

And for years, I was saying that, well, this was the time I grabbed my Milwaukee saws all in my Milwaukee circular saw.

That's not a plug, but I'll take an endorsement.

And I just

destroyed it, took it down to the rivets and it's most of it's gone.

And I was so excited, celebrated by cooking meat on the

grill.

The saws and and grilling what I mean what what could be better than that?

I have never felt more butch in my life

Did you

just destroy anything over the weekend bring out the saws or anything like that?

I

did not I kept it pretty low-key as I tend to do I just You know read my comic books.

I played a board game with the family yesterday.

Nice.

So yeah, just kept it low-key.

All right

Calvin are your board game choices of your family?

Are they a like a monopoly or a sorry or something?

Classic or do you guys go deeper into like all right?

Here's the game and you have to explain the rules and what's what's your choice?

What's the go-to games?

I would say they're modern

True classic game.

So we play ticket to ride is the big one, but we play we broke out settlers of Catan for the first time.

Oh,

that's that's an involvement.

Wow.

Okay.

You can play it in less than an hour If

you played it with me, it'd be three hours or more guaranteed

because

Well, our president had Jane

what what did

you I worked a lot in the garden.

I did a lot of weeding in the garden I'm now I'm I'm at the phase where again It's the beginning of the year where I'm very excited about all my flowers and I go around and I check them religiously and I deadhead things and I sing to them little songs and then in about two months I will want them all to die

It's like, get your own water.

Pull it out of the air.

Come on.

Seriously, step

it

up.

Two things.

That was the one thing I wish I would have done.

Weeding was on the calendar to do.

But by the time I got done with the play set, I am so out of shape that I had to sit on the ground and just like take in life and be like, oh, dear God,

what am I

doing?

But what does deadheading mean?

You have to cut the dead.

You pinch off the dead flowers.

so that they will put the energy into the new growing, to new flowers.

Really?

Yes.

I'm

getting

more and more

interested in this stuff.

Oh my gosh.

And then the other thing that we did yesterday, which I really enjoyed, was we have relatively new neighbors across the street, and they came over for about an hour, and we just sat on the patio and chatted.

And it's one of those things I think in Wisconsin, at least it is in our neighborhood, you don't see anyone for seven months.

You know, you might see him get in the car and that's about it.

But during the winter and during the fall, you just don't see anybody.

So it was lovely to have Amanda and Neil come over and just find out, you know, hi, who are you and all those things.

And I don't know if I'm the only person who does this, but when they first moved in, I had to give them nicknames.

So I would remember what their names were.

So I always refer to her as Amanda Bynes, which is not her name, and Neil Patrick Harris.

So, but it's Amanda and Neil, but I only remembered them because I thought it's Amanda behind Neil Patrick Harris.

I am glad I'm not the only person who does that.

It's just that it worked because I

remembered them, but otherwise it's I'm terrible with names.

I am really, really terrible.

Yeah, I get that.

I always want to remember my, I want to know my neighbors and I don't want to be, I don't want to be best friends with them because I got things to do, but I at least want to be able to wave and have a little conversation.

Hey, how's it going?

What's going on with you?

That kind of thing.

All right, have a good day.

I'll talk to you later.

And that's it.

Well, and then I think it's, it's a, you know, we,

we, we look out for each other.

Yeah.

You look out for each other with, if you know each other a little bit more and it's like that car shouldn't be there.

And my husband again is glad as crap.

It's, that's a whole

new discussion.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

But anyway.

Our president also had a busy weekend, and he spoke at West Point over the weekend.

Yeah.

To the, what, 1200 graduates.

It was an interesting speech.

I guess it's a good time to stop publishing transcripts of President Trump's speeches, because that's what they started to do last week.

Let's not just print them anymore.

He talked about trophy wives.

He talked about the fact that no one enlisted under Joe Biden because Trump has brought the military back.

Of course, all of the people that he was addressing who were graduating enlisted under President Biden, there's just that little disconnect there.

It was loony tunes.

And then, breaking with tradition,

They normally that the president who gives this address at West Point typically stays and shakes the hand of every single graduate Donald Trump didn't do that He left after his speech He left I think this is the way is the first president to do that He of course told them that he had to go deal with Russia and China And then there were photos that showed up later where he was golfing so I'm sure he was

all about world affairs while he was on the fairway.

Nothing to see here.

Nothing to see.

I'm really glad you're talking about this, actually, because I plan on talking about it on our show this afternoon, too.

And I think one of the most disturbing things to me is how many network, you know,

mainstream media use the air quotes are not talking about this people know I am a big fan of CBS just because I grew up on CBS and my first station I worked out was a CBS affiliate so.

I'm a fan watch CBS this morning almost every morning and ever since this and I know you guys have talked about it as well.

this conflict between the owner of Paramount, which owns CBS News, Jerry Redstone, and the Trump administration because they're trying to merge with another company and it's up to FCC approval, which Trump's appointees control.

And Scott Pelley has spoken out about this, about how it's influenced 60 minutes at CBS.

They had people resign because of that.

Wendy McMahon, the CBS News president resigned last week.

And this morning when I watched CBS, I'm gonna do the point chain.

They never mentioned in two hours what you just talked about, not once.

And I mean, for those watching the stream, it's a little wrinkly.

I'm sorry, I didn't have time to iron this discolored because this shirt, this polo is almost 30 years old.

But it says West Point right here on the breast or lapel of the polo shirt embroidered.

Because when I worked for a member of Congress back in the 90s, I had the distinct honor of helping to

Do some recruitment through West Point and and the military Academy appointments.

I've been to West Point I met the people there the men and women who put all the uniform the cadets who are are Dedicated their lives to leadership and I would just add this whole line you guys of I Don't want to say I guess I'll just say there's a whole line for both

left-leaning media and Democrats or progressives, whatever.

Oh, Trump has, look at the dementia, the dementia.

Look at the dementia.

He's saying all these crazy, he's talking about trade trophy wives at West Point graduation.

He has to admit, look, I get it.

It can be funny from a comedy standpoint.

My dad has dementia.

I'm going through this right now.

And I will tell you from, I'm not a doctor.

I don't feel like to diagnose him without it anymore than anybody.

He's not a doctor.

He could diagnose him with it.

I don't see dementia.

he's not free and it's almost worse because he knows what he's doing and it's intentional and the fact that it's intentional and i think he has other mental health issues in terms of narcissism and all those sorts of things i don't believe he has dementia he doesn't sit down with with uh you know world leaders and say did i show you the uh the the Lincoln room and then five minutes later did i show you the Lincoln room that's dementia

What Trump's doing in my opinion is not to mention, it's just narcissistic, and I would simply ask all of your listeners, Jane and Greg, if you served, if you put on the uniform.

what Donald Trump said this weekend, and hopefully we talk about it on the other side, not just at West Point, but other places this Memorial Day weekend.

Does it line up with what you know to be true about your service and about what this country is about?

Or to continue talking with our friend and colleague Todd Alba on the other side.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach.

Doctors, slide on the board.

Coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us.

Call or text the number is the same.

855-752-4842.

Or leave a comment if you're watching on a live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up next hour at this time.

We'll wrap up the show as we always do.

With this shouldn't be a thing, today it's the Now You See It Now You Don't Boom Edition.

There's a great video element involved, so stick around for that.

Also, if you ever have a thing you think should not be, send it in to Greg and me at janesaysatcivicmedia.us, J-A-N-E-S-A-Y-S.

Jane says atcivicmedia.us.

He joins us every other Tuesday, gracious enough to carve out some time for us.

Our friend and colleague, Todd Alba, from the wonderful Todd Alba Show, two to four.

weekdays across the civic media radio network.

Before we went to the break, Todd, we were talking about President Trump addressing West Point graduates over the weekend, also, of course, jumping on Twitter, addressing all the haters and losers and scum, apparently, which is, you know, that's just such a nice, warm, fuzzy way to address the country.

And something that really jumped out at me in, among so many things,

When he was addressing the West Point graduates, this is a quote, the military's job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America and spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun.

Yeah, enormously disturbing.

And again, I did not serve, but I had the distinct honor.

of working with active duty military folks as well as the veterans show up my time working for United States Congressman Scott Klug and I feel very confident in saying that if you ask any legitimate person wearing the uniform in the United States of America that the purpose of the military is to preserve and protect and defend the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic and protect the Constitution of the United States they don't see themselves as going out and

forcing American democracy on anyone, certainly not at gunpoint.

And it's, again, forget about the politics for a second, my opinion.

It is offensive to every person who spent time standing at a grave of a loved one, whether it's an Arlington National Cemetery or Amory, Wisconsin or Richland Center or Milwaukee, who went and took flowers or stood at that headstone and cried yesterday.

That is who it is offensive to and I'm not gonna read the whole thing at that time Obviously, it's not my show, but you're right Jane.

This is what Trump the first line of Trump's Memorial Day tweet happy Memorial Day to all we all know it's really not kosher especially from the president United States to wish anyone a happy Memorial Day, right?

That he says including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds I won't go on This is what former president Barack Obama tweeted out yesterday quote

On Memorial Day, we remember the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform and their families have made to preserve our freedom.

May we always serve to honor them and strengthen our resolve that they've shown for our country.

Unquote.

Kamala Harris had a similar tweet.

And then right before he gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, Trump tweeted out, I will be making a Memorial Day speech today at Arlington National Cemetery 11 AM.

Enjoy.

Enjoy.

i i i know i i saw that too

yes and at that speech mere feet away from the tomb of the unknown soldier he had political attacks against jill biden political attacks against the democratic party in a speech at arlington national cemetery i ask our folks our friends listening who serve does that line up with your values as an american hero because you put on the uniform donald trump did not

i go back to

Imagine any Democrat behaving in the same way.

Any Democrat, former Democratic president behaving in the same way, getting up at Arlington or in front of West Point graduates and using that opportunity to air your personal gripes and how you feel you have been so badly mistreated that the exploding heads would never stop.

I think then I'll just

Take away the speech, take away the location, take away all that stuff.

Just imagine a tweet that said something, not even what Donald Trump tweeted, but like say Barack Obama's tweet, and then he put on their happy memorial day instead of observing and remembering.

He said happy memorial day.

People would have lost

their minds as

a direct respect to all of those soldiers who have given their life to ensure our freedoms.

That's how low the bar is.

Like he can do what.

Ever

yes,

yes, but the moment that the other side slightly mistakenly or just for whatever reason it is all-out warfare to call them a communist a hypocrite a liar anti-american or whatever they want to once again as I said before Direct the attention somewhere else while they are slashing medicare Medicaid snap and doing all these things that he can do

My father served in the Air Force, my uncle was in the Army, served in Vietnam, my great uncle was in World War II.

Those are moments that deserve solemn respect.

And he not only doesn't give it, but the people who don't like what we say have no problem and never speak out against it.

Well, and we brought this up last week, Todd, too, and maybe this is the only, I find this, maybe I'm the only one who finds this concerning.

The fact that they are, the White House has stopped publishing transcripts of his speeches, and they are curating now which videos they show on the official White House page.

That should concern everyone.

It really

should.

should absolutely concern everyone.

And again, very, very concerning to me.

I'm going to talk a little bit about it on our show today.

Scott Pele from 60 Minutes CBS gave a graduation speech, I believe at Wake Forest this weekend.

And never mentioned Trump.

Never mentioned Trump.

Never

mentioned Trump.

But the audio on that is stunning because he calls out starkly what you just said, Jane, is there is an attack on American journalism.

There's attack on American democracy and people need to speak out.

So.

Join Todd all about this afternoon across the network from two to four p.m.

Thank you, my friend.

We will see you in a couple weeks and we're working on getting out on the road.

So we'll see how we will see how that goes.

We have news coming up next.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the vast statewide, countrywide.

You can pick us up in Vienna on the Civic Media app on the Civic Media radio network.

Don't go away.

Good

morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same.

855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up a little bit later on today on the network.

Maggie Dawn from 4-6.

She is going to talk about fusion voting.

And

what that could mean for Wisconsin elections.

So join Maggie today.

In the four o'clock hour, she's going to be joined by our friend, Angela Lang, and law forwards, Jeff Mandel and John Frankie, again, talking about fusion voting later on today with Maggie Dawn from four to six PM.

Right now, we are joined by author Kathy Giorgio.

Good morning, Kathy.

Thanks for joining us.

How are you?

I'm okay.

How are you?

We are wonderful.

Thank you and glad to have you with us.

We wanted to talk to you.

This broke a couple of weeks ago, Kathy, and we just now are able to get to connect with you.

But here is the headline from Fox Six Milwaukee with Brett Lemoine with the byline, Waukesha, Northgrad's books removed.

Author wants name off wall of stars.

So if you wouldn't mind walking us through what happened with with Waukesha on the wall of stars in your books.

Sure, I can.

It's actually been almost a several year process.

I was very actively in the Waukesha Public Schools libraries, particularly Waukesha North High School, where I graduated from in 1978.

My books were in the library from 2012 to 2023.

I was often a presenter in the classrooms.

I was in the creative writing classes.

the literature classes.

I formed a group through the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books called Authors in the Schools in which we sent authors all throughout the area in Wisconsin to visit with students.

In 2020, I received a letter from Waukesha North saying that I had been nominated

excuse me and accepted to the Waukesha North Wall of Stars which is for successful alumni in their fields and who have also given back to the community.

I was thrilled you know to me that that was just a big honor.

It's a huge honor and it's personal you know it's it's someone who knew me when.

So I accepted, of course, and it was during the pandemic, so the awards ceremony was out on the football field so that we could all be safe and masked.

So I was there from 2020 on.

In 2023, I received notice that there was an article in the Waukesha Patch saying that the Waukesha School District had done a sweep of their libraries, removing books that they considered questionable.

It was the only coverage I saw of it.

I didn't see it in any other news source.

And I thought, well, they wouldn't remove me.

I'm on the Wall of Stars.

Right.

So I called and I spoke to two different librarians who knew me and they said, no, your books are removed with everybody else's.

And I finally found out that the books that were removed were sent to an organization that sends books overseas.

So apparently I couldn't be read in Waukesha, but they were more than willing to send me to other countries.

So I, you know, there's really nothing you can do when your books are removed other than complain, which I did.

And I didn't really do anything.

Well, then last December, 2024, I was asked to appear and speak at the Waukesha North 50th anniversary celebration.

And they suggested that I give copies of each of my books.

There are 15 books to the school library as a gift of appreciation.

And I thought, great, something must have softened up somewhere.

This is a way to get me back into the library.

They want me to speak.

Wonderful.

So in January, I did speak at the celebration.

There's photographs of me speaking at the podium with my books next to me and a big screen behind me that showed all the covers of my books.

Two days later, I received a phone call from the principal saying that the books had to go in front of the administration to be accepted.

And I thought,

Uh-oh.

But again, they asked me to do this.

It took four months before I heard from the deputy superintendent of curriculum and learning that they were not going to accept my books because they want books in their library to have protagonists of the same age as their students,

high

school age students.

All right.

My response was I was a student there.

My kids were a student there.

We have kid classes here at my creative writing studio who are from Waukesha, North.

And I know they are reading The Great Gatsby and they're reading Grapes of Wrath and other books that do not have high school protagonists.

Plus 11 out of 15 of my books have high school students in them.

So there was no response to that.

Then a school board member emailed me and said, well, they like to have the books in their library to have a connection to their core curriculum.

And I said, well, from 2012 to 2023, I was your core curriculum.

Your

books were part of their curriculum.

Yes, I was listed and reading lists throughout all of the classes.

Again, no response to that.

And I also asked when I toured the library when I was there in January, there was a big section of Japanese manga and there were romance novels.

So what part of those are connected to the core curriculum?

No answer.

I finally said as a way of compromise, okay, if we don't put the books in the library, what if we put them on display?

You have showcases throughout the school.

They can be behind glass.

Nobody can touch them.

Nobody can open them.

But they can be on display.

And they said they were not in practice of displaying books that are not in the library.

So that's when I asked to be taken down from the Wall of Stars.

Because

to me, it doesn't make sense to have me on this wall saying that I'm there for literature.

and have me be a role model, but not have my books available to the students.

That's astonishing.

That's, that's astonishing.

If you're just joining us, author Kathy Giorgio is our guest, and we are talking about the fact that she's a graduate of Waukesha North High School, was put on their wall of fame, their stars of fame, because she's a very accomplished author, has numerous, numerous titles that were part of the curriculum.

until a couple of years ago, and Kathy, hmm.

Just

give me about it.

Jane, your hair is on fire, your hair is on

fire.

So first of all, let's talk about what is so egregious in your books.

What are your books about?

My books do cover difficult topics, some of them.

Some of them cover the topics of domestic abuse.

Some cover the topic of rape and how we treat women who are raped, and that includes a discussion of abortion.

I've written about grief, I've written about body image, you know, I do tackle some of the more difficult subjects.

But these aren't,

are we just assuming that our kids know nothing about any of these things?

Do we think our kids don't witness violence in their own homes?

That's apparently the thought behind it or we're trying to keep them from knowing about it outside of their homes, but I think it's important that they find literary characters that they can follow and learn from

and You would think Kathy and I would think and I'm I'm gonna speak for Jane in this moment.

I believe she would think this as well in such a developmental time like high school these very heavy and

not light topics, are best introduced, talked about, educated upon in a classroom setting where questions can be asked, where people can have discussions, and people don't have to feel afraid about talking about it.

These books in a classroom setting are the perfect way to educate children on the world around them.

what can happen and what to do in these situations.

But it seems like, and not just in this situation where the books are being banned, it's a group of people who say, nope, nope, we don't need that.

Don't talk about that.

I'll talk about it.

Don't tell parents what to do with their kids.

We'll take care of that, which in most cases, they don't.

They'd rather not talk about these topics and just, I don't know, roll with the punches, hope for the best.

We'll see what happens later.

Well, it just really feels like we are embracing ignorance is bliss.

Right.

I think we are and we aren't looking at the whole picture of what two kids go through during those four years in high school.

When when my books were in the library, I was contacted every semester by at least one, usually more students that were doing reports on my books.

And the most popular one was a short story collection called Enlarged Hearts, which is all on body image.

And the majority of those students then contacting me were girls with body images themselves.

And I mean, we had some fantastic

conversations that open girls eyes to how they were looking at themselves and what they could do to get some help.

I don't understand how that's dangerous, Kathy.

I don't, I don't get it.

I just don't get it.

And the other thing that I've said, since these book bans and these book purges have been going on for the parents who are banning these books, I want to see your book report.

I don't think you should be able

to ban something if you haven't read it yourself and written a little report on it.

Right, exactly.

And we've seen that too.

We've seen parents waving books in the air that are so-called dangerous for their children.

And it's that notion again, as I said before.

encroaching on their rights as a parent to teach their children whatever they want, which, by the way, I've always felt in the past.

I went to school.

My parents sent me to school and trusted the teachers to teach me a curriculum.

But they wave these books in the air and they say, ban these books.

And when someone confronts them, they're like, well, I didn't read it.

The cover just gave me the heebie-jeebies.

They were gay people there.

Right?

So I mean it's and I think the hardest thing for me is that I went to Waukesha North.

I graduated in 1978 and at that time that was my third high school.

I was moved around quite a bit and I loved that school.

Absolutely loved it and I read books per the curriculum like Catcher in the Rye, Dinky Hocker Shoot Smack, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon and incredible books that really shaped who I am and what I write.

Well, and you know it's not there.

Yeah, and you raise such an interesting point, their whole argument that they only want to have books that include a protagonist that is the age of their high school students.

That's absurd.

Then throw out every classic that there is.

I mean, except for The Secret Garden, maybe.

If it's high school, then half the Harry Potter books got to go too.

Those are young, young kids.

I mean, I just, the quote and the quotes are doing the heavy lifting here.

Logic behind all this.

just seems really in the moment, especially since when you ask questions, Kathy, you get no answers.

Right.

Right.

We're

going to get nobody.

Yeah.

Nobody's got the answers.

We're going to continue our conversation with author Kathy Giorgio.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Good

morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Cavitini on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine where you can join us.

Call or text at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment as well if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube,

and what used to be Twitter.

Coming up after the 1030 News, Beth Hydor and from the Racine Zoo is going to be joining us in studio.

So stick around for that.

Right now, though, we are joined by author Kathy Giorgio, a graduate of Waukesha North High School.

She was on their wall of fame.

She's a very accomplished author.

Unfortunately, they have pulled all her books from the curriculum.

because apparently there are things in there we don't want our children to know.

We have a couple of comments on the live stream around the text line, Kathy.

Dan on Wausau says, if my child learns something about uncomfortable situations, are they indoctrinated?

LOL.

And Jack from Merrimack says, it's not about books being dangerous.

It's about further dividing Americans to distract from the things happening that the Republicans are doing.

And I do think to some extent, Jack is right.

We call them squirrels.

We call them squirrels.

All of these things just to distract from the bigger picture, especially when we're talking about the budget and all the cuts that are coming in this budget.

And Kathy, you wrote an article for People Magazine US talking about this and your response.

And the way you

where you framed it.

It was like, hey, they asked me to do this thing.

I was thrilled.

They did this thing.

I was shocked.

It really reads well as a story.

And I guess, and something we touched on at the end of the previous segment, which was, what are kids gonna read now?

What will they read to get enrichment, to grow, to learn, to understand literature, creative writing?

Because you have to, we read in middle school and high school, the greats.

And if the grades are too controversial, who are we ready next?

Exactly.

And there's there's been so much that has been cut from the school curriculum.

I mean, the school, not just Waukesha North, but other schools, there are no more school newspapers.

You know, I was involved in the creative writing magazine.

There was a literary magazine.

Imagine that.

I

mean,

for me, I was in love at this school.

And I am still very good friends with my high school creative writing teacher, even though I'm like three times older than what he was when he taught me.

So it's that kind of connection that really pushed me to do what I wanted to do.

And I worry about the kids who are involved in the arts, who are not getting that kind of push in school anymore.

And that encouragement, yeah, definitely.

Connie from Portage is on the line.

Good morning, Connie.

Thank you so much for joining us.

What did you want to say about this?

Good morning.

This is my first time calling, but I had to share my family's experience with what you're talking about.

I have a college-educated daughter that at the time of my divorce, she was 14.

She went to the church, became very religious.

Well, she got married, had five children.

She went to the school, would tell them what her children could read, what not.

She didn't like that, so she homeschooled them.

So now what has happened?

five children, two of them speak to her.

The wives don't want anything to do with her.

She would not let me have the grandchildren because I thought they should watch, the boys should watch Harry Potter.

Oh my goodness.

Oh, I know.

It was just so sad.

And also an interesting point is she and her husband are both, they both have master's degrees.

They're Trumpers besides.

Now, isn't that interesting?

But I thought it's so sad because her five grandchildren are by the one son who they will not speak to her.

That's tragic.

It is.

It's so tragic.

It just makes me sick.

But anyway, that's what's happened because she tried to control everything they did and everything they saw.

Well, and the thing, then don't let your kids bring out those books.

There are already, it's my understanding that in libraries,

Parents can go to the library and say, my children are not allowed to take out X books instead of taking them out for every kid.

Right, Connie?

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, I have five children and they're all totally the other ones are pretty normal.

Well,

thank

you.

That's a whole nother discussion, Kathy.

We'll have to have you back for when we talk about that.

That's hilarious.

Thank you, Connie.

Really appreciate you checking in.

But that really is a great example of when parents seem to think that a book, which I don't think a book has ever started a war.

Well, nevermind.

That's a totally different discussion.

But when they feel threatened, they do things like this.

They, they go to extremes.

They'll pull their children out of school and that I'm not knocking homeschooling.

It can be a great experience, but.

If their kids aren't learning certain things, they're going to grow up not knowing how to function in the world on a social basis.

You are disadvantaged.

Exactly.

You are disadvantaged.

Don't you think, Kathy?

I agree.

And the thing is, as far as I know, there were no parents that spoke out against my books.

I have not been given any information as to why this happened.

One of the books when they talk about having a high school protagonist is a book of poetry called Olivia in 575 Autism in Haiku.

The whole book is about my daughter who at the time the book came out was a high school student at Waukesha North.

So you can't get any more connection there to having a high school protagonist, not only that age, but at that school.

Seriously.

And the fact to Kathy that they were unable to give you any justifications for this decision essentially tells me that this was pretty arbitrary.

It seems like it.

Yeah.

Well, we were going to include a link to... Do you have a website, Kathy?

Yes, I do.

We will include a link to your website.

I highly encourage you to read all of Kathy's books.

Read them more

than once.

Read them out loud.

Just read

them on your

porch.

Go to North High School and read them in front of the building.

Yeah, we'll see what happens with that.

Author Kathy Giorgio, thank you so very much for your time.

Kathy, really, really appreciate it.

Thank you for having

me.

News is coming up next.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right

back.

If you must be tired, you can sit and be here.

But I need a break, and I wanna be up in the background.

Good

morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on Air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Box, Sweet Calbee on the board.

Coming to you live from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine where you can always join us.

Call or text the number is the same 855.

7524842 you can leave a comment as well on the live stream if you're watching on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter we got baseball coming your way a little bit later on today our broadcast starts at 6 0 5 as the crew hosts the Red Sox you can listen to the game but you do have to listen to terrestrial radio the games do not stream so catch the game tonight starting at 6 0 5 on W R C E and Richland Center W ISS in

W. R. J. N. Here in Racine and Kenosha W. C. Q. M. And Park Falls and W. B. Z. H. In Hayward, the crew hosting the Red Sox tonight.

Our broadcast starts at 6 0 5.

Delighted to have her joining us in studio.

Beth Hydorn is the executive director of the Racine Zoo.

Good morning, Beth.

How are you?

Good morning.

How are you, Jim?

Good weekend?

We had a great weekend.

It was nice.

The weather was perfect, I thought.

It was

beautiful.

Yeah.

I just think it should be like that all the time.

I don't think that's

asking too much.