Open Phone Line Friday: Ice Storms, the Legislature, Senate Confirmations

Open Phone Line Friday: Ice Storms, the Legislature, Senate Confirmations

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We still have you know, four or five good weeks generally,

(00:04):
where you know, the temperatures can dip into frigid and
freezing and whatnot. And it just feels like we, like
Omaha has gotten less snow this year than Central Texas,
New Orleans and Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
That's wild. It's a fact.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Like how do you reconcile that and just be like, oh, yeah,
we're just getting no snow this year.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Right, how do you? I don't know, you know, if
if we were ever due, it's it's this winter. We've
never been more due to get a big old snow wallap,
you know, just get seven to fourteen inches.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Don't manifest that because I'm not rooting for it, but
it just feels weird that we haven't gotten any.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
It does feel weird. And I don't know how it's been.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Like it's been like two or three dustings, like it's
really not been anything. Yeah, and by like the next
day it's gone.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
The most white stuff that we've gotten on our road
so far has been the salt.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
For the ice stuff, which, by the way, that ice
event back into that was insane, like that that was
as slippery and as slick and as unsafe feeling as
I think I've ever been in a vehicle and it Again,
I don't want to blame anybody because we've talked about this, right,
that specific event there was it was the wrong temperature, right,

(01:16):
It was just like teetering on like thirty degrees in
the air. It was warm enough for it to come
down as liquid rain. It landed and then immediately froze
because the temperature on the roads, in on the ground
was frigid and freezing, and it was cold enough that
it was freezing it pretty quickly, especially when it landed

(01:37):
on other ice. So you have like all of these
different factors involved. And for the pre treat the road audience,
which it's a good argument we should pretreat the roads,
I don't disagree, but you can't salt the roads properly
when it was raining for like the twenty four hours
preceding the actual event itself. It really was you didn't

(02:00):
really have a window of dry to actually lay down
that pretreat to make sure that things didn't get frozen.
It was just it was a cavalcade and a blender
of things that were destined to create havoc out there.
And I'm just glad that. You know, nobody was seriously injured,
and you know, people were taking their time out there,
but man, that was scary. I slid down a hill

(02:22):
like I was on a sled in my vehicle. I
was lucky it didn't hit anything.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Like you're playing a game of shuffle board. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
You saw the videos on like the Omaha scanner pages
and stuff where people were like spinning in the roadway
trying to avoid contact with other vehicles. Some were lucky,
some were not. And you couldn't be going faster than
like twenty twenty five miles an hour and have any
chance to stop, regardless of which direction you were going.
So I feel like maybe we can justify to Mother

(02:52):
Nature that was the big winter weather event that we
needed to survive this year. This season, let's let's pack
it in. You know, we had a crazy spring. We
had a you know, the big ice thing. Twenty twenty
four had its own, you know, variety of different things
we had to worry about. The Southeast got clobbered by

(03:13):
a couple of hurricanes already this year. You see southern
California and the wildfires, the snow events happening to the south.
I'll be honest, can Omaha just get a pass here?
Can we just get a pass? That's all I'm asking for,
That's all I mean. Phone lines are open four, two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. Brett is on the phone line. Brett,

(03:34):
Welcome to the show. What's on your mind on this Hi.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
I'm going I was just hearing you talking about the
ice I have him. Back in December, I was actually
working at the time. I'm a medical courier and I
had a three ton list van and I was headed
back to work and the cop a cop was blocking
the bridge I needed to take, so I had to
go into a neighborhood and every single intersection was blocked
except for one road, so I took it. I ended

(03:59):
up slamming into this pickup truck that was parked, and
I couldn't stop my vehicle, so I drove into somebody's
yard and I had to drive down three people's front
yards in their grass to get to a level parking
space because I was about almost going backwards down this

(04:19):
hill that's with the frozen ice and everything. So I
didn't want that to happen. But my boss, he had
called out and got a guy to come out and
pick me up, but I had to meet him halfway
up the hill, and so I had to basically leave
my van and you couldn't walk in the ice at all,
So I had to get on my butt and I

(04:40):
had to scooch through three driveways and a full street.
I had to cross, just scooching along with my butt
just to get to this guy. It was crazy.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
See this is why I you know, I'm bless you, Brett,
and blessed the people that are in your line of work,
because we need people like you. But I couldn't imagine
having that important of a job in that kind of
situation and having to deal It's like being a firefighter
in southern California right now, like nobody is envious of
that job. At this point, I had to park a
block and a half away from my house because I

(05:09):
live on a hill in the Examon neighborhood where there's
a lot of hills, and I just getting to like
walking from the car that I had to park down
the hill a couple of blocks away. Trying to walk
up the hill to get to my house was a
complete adventure that I just do not want to relive.
I mean, every step that I took on pavement. It

(05:31):
felt like I was about to fall over. I had
to literally, just like you said, just like hope that
there was a fence or a tree I could just
get my hands on or a sign and just kind
of like pull myself up on my on my hands,
because I couldn't just like slide down the hill.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know, I was having to go.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know, if I if I'm sorry to interrupt, but
if that may real quick. What I did was I
took my car keys, and I took my workman keys
and I put them in between my hand and the
street for friction. H And the last driveway ahead across
was the worst one. And my buddy who became to

(06:07):
pick me up, my coworker, he took off his jacket,
threw me one arm, and he pulled me across on
my knees.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
It was amazing.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, that's like, I've never seen an ice storm like that.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I hope I never have another one.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
But some of the stuff that had to happen because
of how icy it was everywhere, you just you're never
gonna forget those stories, Brett. I appreciate the call man,
thanks for listening to us.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
No problem. Take here.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Bob, Yeah you too. It's two fifteen. A lot of
fun on a Friday. We're not gonna get too serious here.
If there's something seriously you would like us to talk about.
Is how we do it on Fridays. We keep it light,
we keep it fresh, we keep it free, we keep
it happy. But if there is something very specific that
you would like to talk about, I give you a
chance to suggest that you can call in it four

(06:52):
h two five five eight eleven ten. Four h two
five five aight eleven ten. You can also send me
an email, which also works. I can see what you're
up to via email, like Keith sent me an email
and said we were lacking snow last year until the
end of February and got hit with about ten inches.
I do remember a late February snowstorm last year. So
do not put that shovel away, ladies and gentlemen. And
I am not suggesting to do that. I know that

(07:13):
will just make mother Nature angry. So keep keep your
winter weather stuff out and about and ready to go,
just in case you never ever know more on the
way coming up. Oh, by the way, that email address
Emory at kfab dot com. If you're wanting to drop
me a line E M. E. R Y at kfab
dot com. We'll have more for you coming up next
on news radio eleven ten KFAB.

Speaker 5 (07:34):
Andries on NewsRadio eleven ten KFAB.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Six years, seven hundred thousand dollars base salary per year,
annual raises every year of twenty five thousand dollars, So
in two years you'd have been right.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Bonuses.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
What do you think a bonus would be worth if
the Huskers reached the final four?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Mmm? One hundred and twenty five thousand, No, twenty five thousand, No,
fifteen hundred, that'd be ridiculous. A fifty fifty to fifty.
Then my next guest was going to be maybe just
like a fifty dollars gift card to waffle House? Do
we have one of those?

Speaker 4 (08:10):
No?

Speaker 2 (08:11):
That's the problem.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, now see that that's why that wouldn't make sense.
You'd have to go now Louisville, Louisville where she came from.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Very well, could have yeah, very well, very well. Probably does.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
How much do you think it was the bonus is
worth if she wins a national title?

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Okay, so that was fifty to get to the final four.
So I'll just go ahead and say two hundred and
fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, Okay, double it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
And also there's a clause that if they've reached the
final four, there's an automatic year added to the contract.
I mean again, this had to be the easiest negotiation
ever because it was obvious she wanted to be here.
It was obvious they wanted her to be here. It
was just how do we structure it to make it
as fair as possible for both sides. Give her incentives
for you know, doing well while at the same time

(08:57):
having the uh, you know, the program being a position
where you know, yeah, she's gonna end up being a
very highly paid coach for a good reason because of
the last eight years she's put in at Louisville and
also she's got high expectations to do very good things
at Nebraska. But you know, we're talking about seven hundred
thousand dollars base paid to start in six years. At

(09:17):
the end of this contract, she'll be making close to
what John Cook was at the end of his career.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
For whatever it's worth. I think that's fair. Is that
not more than fair?

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Especially in the inflate like with the inflation, right, like
think about the contracts that the you know, coaches in
football are getting. How much more those are from where
they were like six years ago or ten years ago
or twenty years ago. It's not like it's a completely
different sphere. Also, what do you think the bonus is
for winning a Big Ten championship?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Hmmm? Twenty five uh.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Fifty thousand, So so a Big Ten championship And if
this was any other conference, maybe it wouldn't be this,
But that means you're beating Wisconsin, you're beating with Penn State, right,
that means you're beating the teams that are contemporarily, you know,
generally also national championship contenders.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
If that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Right, So you've proven that you're already like a high
level team when you win a Big Ten championship. The
tournament can be a little bit of a crap shoot.
You got to do well there, but you know, just
winning the Big Ten is a season long accomplishment. And
then how how much money do you think the bonus
is if she's the American Volleyball Coaches Association National Coach
of the Year.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Which she has been before at Louisville, We'll say seventeen
five hundred that would be a weird number.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
It's one hundred thousand.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
So, as far as Nebraska is concerned with the way
they outline this contract, her being named the national coach
of the Year is essentially worth the same as winning
a national championship, which is, you know, it's kind of
fascinating just to kind of see that on paper. So
but obviously, as you can tell, there's plenty of additional
incentives if they win a national title. She's named coach

(10:58):
of the year, win the Big Ten champion her first year,
you know how much extra incentive that is because she
also would have gotten paid the fifty thousand dollars for
making the final four, so fifty thousand for the final four,
one hundred thousand four the national tyler's one hundred and
fifty thousand more dollars. She'll get an extra year already
attached to her contract that doesn't even need to be
renegotiated on. She's already guaranteed a twenty five thousand dollar

(11:20):
raise every year as long as she's the head coach
of Nebraska. Under this current deal, she could win up
to one hundred thousand dollars if she's a coach of
the year, and then another fifty thousand dollars if she
wins the Big ten. So all of those bonuses put together, dude,
she would be well over a million dollars plus getting
an extra year added to the contract. Not bad, right,
I mean, I think that's more than fair. From a

(11:43):
Danny Busboom, Danny Busboom Kelly perspective perspective. Phone lines are
open for two, five, five, eight to eleven ten. Gary's
on the line. Gary, welcome to the show today. What
are you thinking about?

Speaker 6 (11:59):
Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to mention that we probably
had more Brian and salt on our streets this winter
than we've actually had precipitation. The fun issue, and then
the legislature meets for only ninety days and they've got

(12:22):
some ridiculous issues on the ballot. Rather than go for
the things that are important, they're debating daylight savings, time
blue dot yep. And also, let's see what was the
other one? I've forgotten the other one anyway.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
To me an email, because I mentioned also that.

Speaker 6 (12:51):
I see that Bubbles is now supporting English saddle opposed
to that regard and with go chiefs.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Okay, all right, Gary, I knew what this call should
have been a bit, I knew what you were setting
me up, Gary, You set me up.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Ow Gary?

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Uh No, I mean the legislature part of that. It's
a it's a good point. I would argue that daylight
savings time, especially on a national level. If if the
national government says, hey, these states have complete freedom to
decide what time of like, what where, what part of
the clock that they want to land on, then I
think it's important to have a plan because it sounds

(13:37):
like something that the federal government's working on. I also
think that it's important if there's any debate about winner
take all in the state of Nebraska, we should have
that debate in our unicameral. I actually think that it
makes sense to do it the way that we're doing
even if that means there's a blue dot. How about
we win more votes in the second congressional district. If
you're a Republican, how about we just win more votes.
It's a blue dot because the Democrats win that district.

(13:59):
Thought mean that Democrats run that district because Don Bacon
keeps getting elected. That's a Republican. If you can find
a way to harness Don Bacon's energy in the second
congressional district with the presidential race, then there's a very
good chance.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I believe that winner.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Take all is the exact same result as doing this,
but you just have to win each district.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
I think that makes every part of Nebraska matter in
the process of the presidential electoral college race. I would
love to see that more states. I would love to
see there being more competitive races in each state based
on the fact that you have to win each district separately.
But it's a good it's good point Gary that you know,
there maybe are some things like property tricks that you know,

(14:42):
you'd like to see some resolutions or solutions come up before,
you know, we get ourselves too far into the weeds
with some of this other stuff that maybe might be
a bit more trivial to other people. Right now, it
is two twenty seven, I'm going to take a break.
Got an interview for you coming up. We need to
talk about one of the most interesting stories in all

(15:04):
of college basketball. No, it's not the Huskers and then
trying to turn around their season. No it's not the
Creighton Blue Jays are on a nice winning streak in
the Big East. No it is those U n O
Mavericks who have won all but one game in conference
play to this point, and they have a massive game
at Backster Arena tomorrow with a very unique promotion going on.

(15:24):
We will explain all of it with their head coach
next on news Radio eleven ten Kfab.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
Emery Sunger on news Radio eleven ten Kfab.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
There's quite a bit of pushback, back and forth situations
as far as this confirmation season is concerned. And apparently
Bill Cassidy, who is the top Republican on the Senate's
Health Committee. He's a Republican from Louisiana, and Bill Cassidy

(15:56):
says it's not a lot that he'll be voting to
confirm Robert F. Kennedy Junior. So he said he was
struggling to confirm Kennedy because of his inability to admit
vaccines are safe and don't cause autism. The quote was
a worthy movement called MAHA, which of course stands for
make America Healthy Again, to improve the health of Americans,

(16:17):
or to undermine it, always asking for more evidence and
never accepting the evidence that is there. That is why
I've been struggling with your nomination. End quote. Now Again,
they don't need Bill Cassidy to hop in here and say, well,
I'm going to try to block him. They need four
Republicans to get under the fifty because if it's a

(16:40):
fifty to fifty tie, then JD. Vance, the Vice President,
is going to have an opportunity to step up and
break the tie, and we would figure he's going to
do whatever Donald Trump wants him to do. That makes sense, right, Well,
this story in and of itself, as far as I

(17:01):
just want us to understand that these are the kind
of political maneuvers that can ostracize you from the greater
part of your caucus. Does that make sense? You'll still
be working together, but you're gonna get that rhino tag
real quick if you stand up and oppose anything that
Donald Trump wants to do, and that includes a vote
against one of his nominations for any of these major

(17:24):
positions in his cabinet or at the federal government level. Again,
that doesn't mean Robert F. Kennedy Junior isn't already also
going to be the guy. Now, let's play ball here
a little bit, Matt, Are you with me? Yeah, let's
pretend so so the KFA B team, right, you got

(17:44):
Gary and Jim and Scott and Lucy and you and
me right like all lot like live bodies in the building.
And let's say we're all voting on where to have
our Christmas party, right, okay, And when we make this vote,
it is well known that Gary, Jim, Scott and Lucy

(18:08):
all want to go to the same place. We already
know that, but you and me may not be fully
on board. Do we raise a stink about this and
try to fight for a different spot, or do we
play along that way we can still be in the
inn club and not upset or ruffle any feathers. Like
that's a choice you have to make. And that's a

(18:28):
fairly innocent example here, But I would imagine in this scenario,
and if we kind of transpose that to what happens
in the government, do you just go along with the
rest of the group, knowing he's already going to be confirmed,
confirm him anyway, vote to confirm him anyway, to ruffle
as few feathers as possible. That may not be the

(18:48):
move with the most integrity, but it could be the
move that has the most that makes the.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Most sense for you.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
If you're going to try to be a part of
the group and have the ability to have your reputation
should stay firm, is legitimate, hardworking, and play along with
everybody else Republican instead of getting this rhino tag that
is kind of undermining the reputation of some of these
people that are Republicans.

Speaker 6 (19:14):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Well, yeah, you know, it seems like the most politically
expedient move. I suppose a ruffle as few feathers as possible,
stay in people's good graces, bhind closed doors or whatnot.
But is it the right move? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
What would you do? Like, if you're a Bill Cassidy,
you're high ranking, you're the top Republican on the Health Committee.
You're interviewing a guy who's supposed to be the leader
of the Health and Human Services. Your voice matters here,
but you're being shot at, essentially verbally, of course, by
fellow Republicans for even like insinuating you may not vote

(19:51):
for RFK Donald Trump's nominee for this position, so your
voice matters. But even if you vote against this guy,
it seems like he pretty clearly has every other Republicans
vote and he's going to get confirmed anyway. Are you
willing to stick your neck out like Murkowski did with
Uh with hag Seth, just refusing to vote for him,
like McConnell did with hag Seth, not voting for him, Right,

(20:13):
are you willing to do that knowing he's still likely
to be confirmed and then having this black mark if
you will, with the rest of your party and maybe
your supporters. Yeah, I mean sorry, but we know what
like like what happened to Don Bacon when he didn't
support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House, Remember that.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Right, Yeah, It's it's a dangerous move for sure. It's
it's a chess move on the board that kind of
you know, puts you behind a lot of pieces you
don't want to be behind, you know. But I I
but if that's where your ideals are, that, if that's
where your heart is, you don't we want politicians to
politic that way.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
We want them to do what we want them to do, right,
Like I guess at the end of the day, but
they want to do what makes the most sense to them,
whether it's politically or otherwise.

Speaker 5 (21:01):
Em Marie Songer on US Radio eleven ten kfab Westley
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