Dave goes on without me cuz
One o'clock.
That is my theme song on Valentine's Day.
In the end, you know, I'm just a jiggaloo.
Well done, Sam Davidson.
That was fantastic.
It is a great song.
I didn't know about it till you pointed it out to me.
It's a classic.
Now, I don't have my notes in front of me because I filled in for Pac Critlow this morning on Up North News, and he always does a today in history.
And the original, it's Otis, God, if Perry is watching, he can tell me who it is.
The original songwriter for that was an old, like,
There it is.
I think it was.
Well, Lewis Prima did a version.
That wasn't it.
But it was somebody else who did the original version, American version.
And that was based on a European or Austrian song.
And today it went to number one.
I think the Otis, whatever version was the Otis writing was somebody else.
The song went to number one today.
So that's why it was today in history.
But then David, the version you just played is David Lee Roth, which was because it combines the I ain't got nobody.
It fits so well, right?
It
really does.
That's not Sam's problem.
He has he has somebody right, but that's my
everyone has left you behind
though.
But not you, Sam.
God love you for being here.
We appreciate it.
I love that song though.
I can just jam out to that.
Oh, it's a great tune.
All right.
Twenty three past the hour, one o'clock.
We're asking the important questions of the day.
What's worse right now?
We're asking what's worse?
Valentine's Day.
or all the other made up holidays, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.
Brian in Milwaukee, listening via WAUK.
Brian, what's worse, Valentine's Day or all the other made up holidays?
Valentine's Day.
Right out of the gate.
Why do you have a particular reason for your disdain of Valentine's Day?
What?
There's a few.
One.
I'm single so that doesn't help
I get
it to it brings a bad bad memories of taxes
right
with me being LGBT so that's another reason but the other reason is With me being very religious and Catholic there's a lot of historical significance behind the other holiday right like with Halloween you have all hallows Eve and all souls day Christmas is birth of Christ Easter is the resurrection you got st.
Valentine you got st.
Patrick
You know and for me there was big times with the spending time with the family going to the Christmas Parade St.
Patrick's Day Parade, you know big You know, we'd all go to church Easter Sunday Christmas Eve, you know and have these big Meals, you know with family so they have
significance behind it.
Yeah to me
Totally, totally get that.
I appreciate it, Brian.
I get it.
And, you know, I think we call, yesterday was Gallentines and Palantines Day, speaking of made Apollo days, but it focused on friendship.
I've had a couple of friends reach out today and we talked back and forth.
We can still celebrate, I guess, you know, platonic love of friends on this day, but I appreciate the call.
855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, what's worse?
Valentine's Day, or all the other made up holidays.
Off the text line, Data, listening in lacrosse, says, here's a Valentine's tip.
Data says, buy two Valentine cards, write the saying from one into the blank space of the other.
All done.
So Data's saying buy one that has a poem or has something written for you, and then just copy that into the blank one.
Well, you can you can just like open up the cards at the stand.
Can't you?
You could just copy it right off of there and only buy one card.
Right.
Well, you know, a cell phone stuff.
You just take a screenshot
of it or
a photo.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That's genius.
That is really genius.
Also, let's start from one a key or one a key.
Walkie shop says sweetest day is actually worse than Valentine's Day.
I had all the others made up now.
See, I think that's that there's a lot of validity to that.
Do you and your girlfriends celebrate sweetest day?
Can't say that we do.
Yeah, so I think the commercialized people are really trying to get a two for there.
Yeah, you can't you can't expect a card for Valentine's and sweetest day.
They're just trying to invent another holiday.
Exactly.
You're 100 percent right, Sam.
Julie listening on WXCO up in beautiful Warsaw says Valentine's Day is not too bad.
Christmas is the worst.
It's so wasteful just to holiday to get people to buy stuff no one needs.
Jesus wasn't born in December.
Well, there's that as well.
But, you know, I've told the whole story, but the short version is.
My first time going to El Salvador, I spent with my buddy from college and his family.
He went off to visit the local girlfriend.
So I was there with his family.
I didn't know hardly any Spanish at the time.
And, and they had no what we would call a proper Christmas tree.
It was the Arborvita with a string of lights on it.
And they had a very simple, but wonderful meal of turkey and a soda and rice.
And there's this great music.
And of course it was warm and palm trees.
There were no big gifts, no big tree.
It was just spending time and enjoying the company one another.
So I think that any holiday to me that that's what it should be about
Yeah, that sounds like a very nice time.
Yeah, it was it was it was a lot of fun.
So but you're but you're right to Who is there Julie saying that Christmas absolutely gets over commercialized What else we have here Brian?
No, that was a call.
Let's see here.
We have this is fantastic Mark one of our longtime listeners from prayer to stack mark says here's a poem I wrote for a friend quote
Though the stars may grant no wishes, and the gods may answer no prayers, I am glad you are my friend.
And for you, I'll always be there."
Now, how about that?
We have these poets that are our listeners that I had no idea were so talented.
That's great.
What else do we have here?
Mark and Prostak says, my response to the trolls.
Well, okay, we'll just end on that note right there, the nice part of it.
Yeah, there's always gonna be trolls, but that's fine.
I don't care about that.
Sam, what do you think?
Valentine's Day or all the other holidays combined?
I mean, there's so many other made-up holidays, like I think together they outweigh Valentine's Day.
Yeah.
I would say that all the others combined are probably worse than Valentine's.
I think it, like so many of these questions, it depends.
To one of the caller's points, it depends if you're alone, it might be more difficult, or if you have a significant other.
But for all those who celebrate happy Valentine's, that is what's worse.
We appreciate you dialing along.
We'll have all new what's worse coming up on Monday.
Right now, stay tuned a little off news, whether it's sports break back after this on the Civic Media or Ready Network.
it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the title of all show on the Civic Media Network.
34 minutes now past the hour of one o'clock on a TGIF Friday edition, February 14th, 2025.
It is Valentine's Day.
Do something for your significant other, at least unless you're like John in the morning, you know, John Gordy showing his wife is just don't like it.
That's fine.
But if your other person expects something, at least a simple note handwritten, some gesture.
I don't know.
Do something for your other.
I weren't joined today.
Mr. Zomers is on a well deserved vacation day today.
So we have the great Sam Davison.
I like saying your name like that because it reminds me when Brad Davison.
I know it's a little different spelling, I think, right?
What Brad Davison played for Wisconsin Badger basketball team.
The PA announcer, Mike Mankey, when he would introduce him or like three point shot, it was always Brad.
There you go.
So I like to say Sam Davison.
Do people like your name?
I guess I haven't asked them.
I think it's a great name.
It's a strong broadcasting name.
Oh, thank you.
Be that you're a broadcaster.
Yeah.
But you're also a historian.
Yes, I'm actually going to grad school right now to be a history teacher.
That's fine.
What grade do you want to teach?
Middle or high school.
Probably
you're gonna do them.
I'm not making them.
I'm not trying to be funny You're gonna be doing the Lord's work because people regular listeners this show some of my best teachers slash professors were my history professors and my social studies teachers so I had can feed for in Richland Center high school for social studies in a high school in Middle School who I often quote on this program Ken Lewis
And he put history in social studies the way that made it fun.
And so, you know, he would be preparing for quizzes, like, you know, on China or wherever it was.
And so he would play a game called The Wheel of Misfortune.
You would spin it and he'd ask you a question.
And if you are wrong, you know, he'd say, sad, bad, not glad.
So you learn those things stuck with you.
You learn it
then, yeah.
You learn it.
Some of the best things, right?
He would also, we studied China.
And of course, as a teacher, you probably can't say this anymore.
But you're studying Confucius.
Right.
And so he'd give us these little made up things, like a fortune cookie almost.
Confucius say, man who wears fig leaf should not own goat.
random wisdom which is true if you're gonna wear a fig leaf you shouldn't be where you should not be owning a goat
But and then that in college I had Jerry Bauer at the University of Wisconsin Center of Richland who for US history and just really, really great stuff.
And like we were talking about on the show yesterday with Eve Glanter and her great organization, Wisconsin Civics Games, trying to teach high school students across Wisconsin more about civics.
If you're, if people like you Sam, if you're teaching our young people history and civics,
That's going to make them more engaged citizens, certainly more informed citizens throughout the rest of their life.
Absolutely.
That's a big part of what is getting me back into it.
Once upon a time, I was doing my undergrad to become a teacher, went a different route, and graduated with a different degree.
But yeah, the last, well, more than a few years back to 2016 plus have shown me that we got to teach people a little bit better, I think.
I'm really proud of you.
I think you're going to be spectacular and your future students will be lucky to have you.
So, thanks for doing that.
Do you want to teach here in Wisconsin?
Probably, yeah.
I don't know.
Growing up, I didn't love Wisconsin, but I hadn't really been anywhere else and I still haven't been to a ton of different places, but I've grown to like this state more and
more.
You know, I'm not the most traveled person out there, but whatever I come back to Wisconsin from traveling somewhere, I'm never a story to come back.
I'm glad to be home and glad to be back in Wisconsin.
Well, that's great.
So there you go.
We've learned more about Sam today and his love of history.
There you go.
We appreciate you being here today, Sam.
Zomers, as I said, we'll be back on Monday.
So I want to take just a few minutes here.
Today to talk about a couple of these issues that we had talked about prior, at least kind of alluded to in the show, and one of them has to do with the Trump administration.
Overnight, this is reported by CBS's Scott McFarland, a great reporter, U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs.
Confirms it has dismissed more than 1,000 employees McFarlane says a once unthinkable concept for an agency that operates 100 plus major hospitals and many hundreds more clinics and Processes here's the key veterans benefits And again as read Galen was saying earlier today One of the ways I think we should all be looking at these stories that come out of Washington
and the relevancy to our lives in Wisconsin.
You know, we haven't even talked about it.
I think I might have given it all of one minute, but mentioned that Donald Trump now has taken over the Kennedy Center Honors, or the Cultural Center in Washington, the Kennedy Center.
They fired the longtime chairman.
Donald Trump is now the chairman of the Kennedy Center.
They fired people like John Baptiste.
a great musician who was the band leader for Colbert for a long time on The Late Show and has won now a Grammy recently and just he performed the national anthem at this year's Super Bowl, fired a performer like that, fired him off of the, got rid of off the Kennedy Center board.
I find that appalling, but how many people in the state of Wisconsin will ever go there, go to a performance there?
If we try to have discussions with our friends and family,
probably want a lot of response to be like, well, it doesn't affect me.
You know, what does it have to do with me?
I still think it's important.
Don't get me wrong.
But I think stories like this that we're we're bringing to you here about the VA, the Veterans Administration firing more than a thousand employees overnight.
Now, this I'm going to read to you is a press release from the VA.
So remember that contextually because this is being spun by.
the Trump administration.
It says the Department of Veterans Affairs today announced the dismissal of more than a thousand employees.
Those dismissed included non-bargaining unit probationary employees who have served less than a year in competitive service appointments or have served less than two years in an accepted service appointment.
What does that mean in English?
It means that essentially if you're a newer employee,
and you're being deemed non-necessary.
Well, I don't know how many people are being hired at VA that aren't necessary, but by that it means essentially as someone who used to work for the federal government in a congressional liaison role, it means that if you're not there, will people still get the basic needs and care?
What it doesn't take into account is what they're not telling you is that many of these positions, or at least some of them,
are related to people getting their benefits, helping you to process your benefits.
So okay, maybe eventually VA folks will still get their benefit check, but when you have a concern, when you moved and you didn't get it, your new address, why is this not covering my last payment or my last bill, and you wanna talk to a live body, there will now be fewer of those people.
within the Veterans Administration to help you, America's veterans.
Anybody who's listened to this program for any amount of time knows, I and this program stand behind our United States veterans 100%.
We've done on location shows through the graciousness of Wisconsin National Guard, Air Guard, Army National Guard, to promote, talk about and lift up
our men and women in uniform, including our veterans.
I think this action is appalling.
I think that our veterans who put their lives on the line for each of us to enjoy the freedoms we have, deserve our respect, and by God, they deserve their benefits.
It's the very least we could do for these folks.
And to cut over a thousand people in the VA, many of whom
We're helping to process requests, casework, payments for our veterans of America.
I just find it appalling.
Of course, this is all being driven driven by Elon Musk and his made up agency.
Remember that?
Department of government efficiency doge as they call it.
I call it doggy.
If it's made up, it's made up.
There hasn't been, there's been no congressional appropriation.
There's no money for it.
They just made it up.
It has as much influence as if you and your golf buddies for some said, we're going to create us a department.
We're now the department of Wisconsin smart guys and we're going to go and cut a thousand jobs from the VA.
That is how much credence this has.
The only reason it's being done is because it has Trump's blessing.
And we have far too few people in Washington who are afraid to stand up as they noted Donald Trump.
We started the show with some of those people.
We talked about it this morning on Up North News Radio, villain for Pat Critelow.
Eric Adams, a Democratic mayor in New York City, is indicted, some very serious criminal charges in New York.
And now the Trump administration trying to
made a deal with him, a quid pro quo, saying, look, we'll dismiss these charges through the United States Department of Justice, but we're just gonna do what is called without prejudice.
Now, Maggie Dawn comes up after us and she can explain this as an actual attorney.
But in Laban's terms, by dismissing it without prejudice means that they can bring those charges back at a later date if they don't like what Adams is doing.
And you know what the quid pro quo is?
They want Adams to start quote unquote cracking down and helping them on illegal immigration in New York City.
New York City has ordinances laws that protect folks there.
And again, my former party, which I left in 2011, has long said we believe in local control, that people closest to government should make the decisions.
And here you have the new Republican Party under MAGA and Donald Trump.
Going in making a deal with a Democrat who is under indictment on serious charges and making a deal The local I think was a district attorney from Manhattan or a federal attorney Resigned and she was a Trump.
She was a manga person and she said no no I took an oath to protect the law
Rachel Maddow had a bunch of this on on MSNBC last night in total at least six people within New York and Department of Justice in DC resigned yesterday Because they were unwilling to break the law at the order of Pam Bondi Donald Trump's Attorney General So I think we have to ask ourselves as Wisconsinites when things like this happen when they make these so-called cuts and efficiency
Is it really about efficiency in terms of what we pay for our taxes?
Or is it the cruelty, just the point?
To score points.
And how does this relate to our lives in Wisconsin?
As someone who used to help handle Veterans Affairs for former Congressman Scott Kluge, I can tell you there are all kinds of wonderful veterans in Wisconsin who want to get help every day.
They deserve that help.
They served our country.
And now Donald Trump has gotten rid of at least a thousand employees.
And this is going on all across federal government.
We talked about earlier in the show.
Know somebody who in Southwest Wisconsin, whose spouse works for one of the bureau offices for a U.S.
Department of Agriculture fired yesterday.
Headlined in the Associated Press, Trump administration begins sweeping layoffs with probationary workers, warns of larger cuts to come.
Ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary workers who have not yet gained civil service protection, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands.
Say that again, hundreds of thousands of workers.
In addition, workers at some agencies were warned that large workplace cuts would be coming.
Think about how many people in your community.
Their spouse might be a farmer.
Might be a tradesperson might have their own business But their their spouse works for a federal government job because they get their benefits their health care How is that going to affect the community people that have money to buy things from local businesses all across Wisconsin Reagan was right.
There is a trickle-down effect But not in the way that he talked about These cuts these people going unemployed it will trickle down to each of us in the state of Wisconsin
Come on back Sam, Davis and I are going to wrap it up.
This is a little Valentine's Day look that's out of this world.
I'll explain on the Toddleball Show on Pacific Media.
Welcome back to the Tahleball show on the Civic Media Radio Network.
It is nine before the hour of two o'clock at the top of the hour.
News, weather and sports, ABC or CBS News, depending upon your station in the Civic Media Radio Network.
A little sports update from our friend Mike Clemens.
Always doing a great job.
Weather update with Brittany Burlow and the entire weather team.
Remember Wisconsin, all except for Superior, Bayfield, Ashland, all the rest of Wisconsin under a winter weather advisory going into effect about
Now or so expecting several inches across the state of Wisconsin making the evening commute dicey at best So slow down later on today poor Sam has to a drive all the way to Rhinelander tonight Sam.
I'm sorry about that man.
But thanks for being here
I'm
all right very good Sam getting some love by the way Talking about I'm going into being a history teacher here.
He's not going to grad school for that off the off the YouTube Watcher there LA Tom says Sam don't teach it out of textbooks or please teach your class the three and end please teach your class the three branches of government and the difference between public and private
There you go.
All good points.
Little, little love for you.
Also, our own Terry Barr, of course, one of the co-hosts of a Max Ink radio, a big show tomorrow night.
You're not going to want to miss it on Civic Media's radio network.
And she does our announcing.
She's so kind to do that as well.
Terry says, that is terrific, Sam.
My high school history teacher is a dear friend today.
So how about that, Sam?
How about that?
Thank you, guys.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, wrapping things up here.
Talking a little bit before the break about all these firings by Donald Trump and federal agencies, amongst them the Veterans Administration and the USDA, which will impact people here in Wisconsin.
Let's go to the phone lines.
855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
Wisco Paul.
Wisco.
Happy Valentine's Day.
What do you got for us?
Well, thanks
for
taking my call and thank you for the happy Valentine's Day.
I just want to very quickly say I grew up on a farm and my dad used to deal with the USDA Department of Agriculture a couple of three times a year if I remember right on what crops he was put in and I don't remember what all it was but you needed people there and my brother still farms and I know
He deals with the USDA or the Department of Ag.
Several times a year on everything he does, so I don't get this.
I'm a vet.
I don't use the Veterans Administration a lot, but it's going to reach a point here, Tom.
If you call in any of these departments, you're not going to be able to talk to anybody, maybe for a couple, three, four days.
How did Trump get the power to do this?
And
happy Valentine's Day to you.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate it, Wisco.
I'm going to quote the late great Jock Ewing from the old CBS television show, Dallas, who once did the brothers Ewing, not Brady and Brandon, but JR and Bobby were fighting over Ewing oil.
And Bobby was complaining that his big brother, the more evil JR Ewing, had not played fair.
And Jock Ewing, their dad, said, boy.
Power ain't something you earn, power is something you take.
And you know, to Wisco's point, Trump's just taking it.
And nobody seems to have a backbone in DC to stop it.
All right, let's end here on a Valentine's Day.
I have a photo in front of me.
It's not gonna show up that well on the YouTube cameras there on Facebook.
This is from Voyager One, the spacecraft from near the planet Saturn.
3.8 billion miles away from Valentine's Day in 1990.
And about the photo, the great Carl Sagan wrote this.
Look again at that dot.
There it is.
That's home.
That's us.
On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being, whoever ever was, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering thousands of confident religions Ideologies and economic doctrines every hunter and forager every hero and coward every creator and destroyer of civilization Every king and every peasant every young couple in love every mother and father Every hopeful child inventor and explorer every teacher of morals every corrupt politician
every quote-unquote superstar, every quote-unquote supreme leader, every saint and every sinner in the history of our species lived there on a moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Unquote.
Carl Sagan.
That kind of puts it in perspective, Sam.
You know?
Just a pale blue dot.
Just a pale blue dot.
I love that.
You know, we get wrapped up and, you know, did we make our loved one feel good enough today?
Did we buy the right thing?
At the end of the day, we're just traveling through space and we're a dot in time.
It's a drop in the bucket and the time continuum.
My best advice, enjoy today.
Tomorrow's never promised.
Enjoy the people you're with.
Tell me love them and enjoy the day.
Enjoy the weekend.
Badgers have a big game tomorrow.
Here, I believe, taking on Purdue there.
I think the game is at Purdue.
You can hear it on the Civic Media Network and for free on the Civic Media app.
I think game time tip-off is around noon-ish.
Don't quote me on that, but you can find it out on civicmedia.us as well.
Zomers, we'll be back on Monday.
We'll be back, God willing, again on Monday as well with a whole new week for you.
Remember, the primary for state school superintendent is this coming Tuesday.
Make sure to be a voter.
We'll have election night coverage as well as Governor Evers.
on Tuesday evening with Dan Schaefer and others as well.
Sam Davidson, thank you so much my friend for filling in.
Glad to be here.
Always a pleasure, safe travels.
Happy Valentine's Day to you and to each and every one of you.
Thanks for listening.
Whatever you're fighting for, whatever you believe in, do not give up.
Keep banging your drum.
We'll see you Monday.
Maggie Dawn is next.
Stay tuned.