The Rod and Greg Show: Groomed Violence; Victorious Ideas; Is AI Dangerous?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big show for you today. A lot happening. Supreme Court
decision is coming out. Hamas apparently surrendering but not so sure.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
The message say they'll release the hostages. But is that enough.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Yeah, you know, there's some messages. There's some messaging out
there that that Trump is saying, you know, for Gaza
to not be attacked, so that there's they have saved
passage and can get the hostages out. So I don't know,
we'll see if there's peace. President Trump has emphasized this
is more than just about Gaza. This is about peace
and long lasting peace in the Middle East that he's after.

(00:32):
But it is different. There is news breaking from that
part of the world and some good news coming out
of it. I just don't know if it's all that
it's cracked up to be.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, yeah, we'll have to wait and see. But it
is a major announcement that they say they will release
all the hostages. That's right, That is what people have
been wanting for quite some time now.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Great, and I didn't think it would happen. I think
there was tragically. I was thinking there wouldn't be much
to turnover, and so they were resisting that that demand
or that condition. But also we have Antifa just going
more violent, you know, because it's a both sides issue, right,
it's every side has it. But I just can't for
the life, I mean, find the equivalent of Antifa just

(01:11):
just once again as right as on brand destroying Portland,
attacking people, even people defending themselves being arrested by the
Portland police that are defending themselves from being attacked. It's
the one defending himself that gets arrested, not the Antifa mob.
It's just insane.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, speaking of Antifa, and what is going on in Portland,
have you ever been involved in protest?

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, you have been, really Yeah, it was really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
What were you protesting? You remember that?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, I was protesting Ben McAdams voting to impeach Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, that's right, And I would just come to.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
The first time I ever had held a bullhorn in
my hand, and I would just come claim that Republicans
are really bad at protests. We don't dress whether appropriate,
we were freezing, we didn't have any good chance, we
didn't have any good lines to say. And then the
counter protesters outnumbered us like three to one. Yeah, and uh,
and so we started copying their chance. But we'd put
our words into it, trying to do it, but we're

(02:08):
all on a lunch break. We had jobs, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I do remember that that was a bit of a fiasco.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, it wasn't my best out. My heart was in
the right place. I just, you know, I'm just not
really good at protests. It turns out, it turns out,
it turns out. Yeah, I'm not it's not my it's
not my wheelhouse.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, speaking of a protest, there is a community north
of Seattle. It's a neighborhood of Seattle, just north of
Lake Union. I think it's called Fremont. Don't know if
I heard of Fremont. Weird, weird neighborhood. Okay. As a
matter of fact, they have a giant statue of Lennon
in one of their city I'm not talking about John Lennon.
I'm not the Beatle, not the Beetle. Right, And they

(02:46):
hold an event every year and it's called the Naked
Bike Ride.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Oh my gosh, that is disgusting.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
And they do it every year. Okay, they're a little weird. Well,
apparently to protest what is going on in Portland right now,
they are going to have a naked bike ride in
Portland to protest the militarization. So they say, of the
City of Portland naked bike ride.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, if I was ever, if I was ever
had to go to Hell, what it would be is
having to witness a naked liberal naked people riding bicycles.
I mean that those are the two. Put those two together.
That is like the Reese's Pieces of torture. For me,
that is a I mean I could not handle. Ugh.
I just even the mental thought of it is just terrible.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, well, and I didn't know this in Oregon? Did
you know that public nudity is legally considered a former
protest So you can walk around naked in Portland, and.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
If I find out they're going to be naked somewhere,
I'm out.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I'm out.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Whatever you want, you've got, you can take that area over.
I'm not going near there. Can you imagine the smell.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
A sea of naked people on bikes?

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Horrible?

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Why bikes?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Wouldn't it be uncomfortable?

Speaker 1 (04:04):
I thought it. I wasn't going to say it. Do
you get a family show? It's a family show.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Rod.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I don't know how we walked through this idea, but
I did think it I think it seems pretty daunting. Now.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Staying in the Pacific Northwest, we have a comment from
the mayor of Seattle. Yes, his name is Bruce Harrell.
All right, and I think you're going to hear this
theme more and more from Democrats, especially social democrats. But
he talks about people who commit crime. Let's do what
he had to say.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
The criminal system has had a desparate impact on black
and brown communities.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Let me lead with that.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
So when this person is committing six or seven crimes,
I didn't know his or her story. Maybe they were
abused as a child, maybe they're hungry.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
So my.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
Remedy is to find their life story to see how
we could help. First, I have no desire to put
them in jail, but I need.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
To protect you. And that's the embrace and that we
have the no no, wait a minute. So a person
commits a crime and you know, so you don't arrest them.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
You know their life story.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
You sit down with them and have a conversation with
them to find out about their life story. Maybe they
were abused, maybe they were hungry. I don't know. So
that's how we're going to fight crime in America today.
We sit down and talk to the criminals.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Well, let me connect the dots. First off, to assume
that people of color are criminals is racist, and it's
the stereotype. They shouldn't last should should it's not, it's
it's morally wrong, and it's factually it's it's just not.
The color of your skin does not dictate whether you're
going to commit a crime or not. The color of
skin does not decide whether crime is committed.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
The Democrats have already determined. I know that's you're poor
or if your your skin color, and that's you're a criminal.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
And that's the next step. Being poor does not make
you a criminal, and it does not mean that you're
going to you're going to steal or you're going to
commit crimes because you're poor. There's plenty of poor people
and you're looking at one that was growing up. We
didn't commit crimes and we didn't steal because we were
poor and we didn't have anything. So the idea that
because you're poor you're somehow a criminal, that's another immoral thought,

(06:10):
unethical thought, and it's actually incorrect. Lastly, that monster, the
animal that killed that poor woman on that subway, Okay,
that's a guy that got let out. That's a guy
that under that mentality of we get to know his story.
He know he's mentally ill, we can't keep him in jail.
That's why that monster was on that subway and was
able to kill that poor woman because of the things

(06:31):
that you just heard that Seattle Mayre say, that's the
consequence is what happened to her, And I'm and it's
not just that one time. That is what's happening in
this country, in Metropolitana is because of this false, unethical,
immoral mentality that we don't want to put people in jail.
We want to understand their story, you know, the victim,
he says, But then there's the protecting you, and that's

(06:53):
the calibration. Well, your calibration is failing, yes, mister Mayor,
it fails. It absolutely fails under the conditions that you've
artificially put on our legal justice system. Public safety is
about the jail is about the best thing to keep
that person from committing more crimes. You know what, you
know what you know how crimes are committed. They get
away with it. Yeah, you know why you know why

(07:13):
I see more crime?

Speaker 2 (07:14):
They get with it.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
They get away. They can get more of what you tolerate,
and that mayor is saying, I don't want to put
anyone in jail. I want, okay, see what you get
with that.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
I want to see that mayor sit down with the
parents of that young girl who was stabbed. Yeah, okay
in Charlotte and it's fifteen mug shots and where he
got released. Let me let me tell you the story
of this man who killed your daughter. He was a
poor black man, yes, at mental issues, that's why he
stabbed and killed your daughter. I just thought you want
to hear that side of the story. How ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I want to know that story. So there's your sob story.
What do you feel now he's loose. Fifteen mug shots
the guy has and he's there, that monster kills that
poor woman. And does that make you feel better, mister Mayor,
that you know his story and you didn't put him
in jail because you didn't want to put him in jail.
I'm telling you, these are the types of conversations we
have to have broadly, and we have to call out
this faux sympathy, this faux compassion that's not real. It

(08:08):
isn't real. It's actually going to lead to and has
led to more violence and more victims. And it's the
opposite of compassion, is what it is.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
New York, get ready for this because Mandanie, when he
is elected mayor of New York, this is what you're
going to see. I want to play this sound by
back again. I just want you to sit and listen
to what this mayor is saying.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
The criminal system has had a disparate impact on black
and brown communities.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Let me lead with that.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
So when this person's committing six or seven crimes, I
didn't know his or her story. Maybe they were abused
as a child, maybe they're hungry.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
So my.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
Remedy is to find their life story to see how
we can help. First, I have no desire to put
them in jail, but I need to protect you. And
that's the calibration that we have.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
The critic, I mean, it's just amazing.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Me tell you what you're doing. You're adding to the
calibration things that are irrelevant. If you've committed a crime.
The whole story, mister Mayor, that you need to hear
is how the crime was committed. Who commit It doesn't
matter the backstory, No, we all have backstory. The crime
American three and thirty million people in this country. We
all have backstories, mister Mayor, You're never going to know

(09:18):
them all, but you'll know what the crime is. You'll
know if there was a weapon use, you'll know if
someone was assaulted or killed. You'll know what the damage is.
And that's what you base it on. You don't base
it on some story or some background, because everyone's got it.
Everyone's got one, and that is that. That is just
an insane way to approach public safety. What that marriage
is said, Well, that's what they want around the country.

(09:39):
And if the socialist continued to take over our large cities,
that's what you're going to see. And then you know
what you get, war crime, war crime.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
All right, We've got a lot to get to today.
Great to be with you on this Friday afternoon. It
is the Rod and Greg Show right here on Utah's
Talk Radio one oh five nine KNRS. Came across a
very interesting story on the Blaze written by our next guest.
She's talking about the connection between transgenderism and furries. And
you know this whole furry thing is just bizarre. Greg, Yes,

(10:08):
and you've witnessed it. I've heard stories about it. It
is just bizarre. But she's making a connection now between
you know, transgenderism, furries and are these people being groomed
for violence? A lot of people are talking about that now.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
It's and I'm telling you many of our listeners have
probably had family members or have been in circumstances where
they know firsthand that this is a real problem. It's
really emerging amongst our young kids in schools, and so
I think it's it's really relevant right now.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, and and people, you know, people just kind of
want to brush it off, say, oh, it's just a fad,
they'll grow out of it. I'm not sure. Let's check
in with Courtney Wheel while she is the Blades News
senior edity. She wrote about this, Courtney, you've dug into this.
What have you found out?

Speaker 5 (10:51):
Well, I've been on the furry beat for well over
a year now. It sounds weird to say that out loud.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
But.

Speaker 5 (11:01):
It is a growing problem. And of course the horrific
assassination of Charlie Kirk brought that to the forefront because
the suspect is tied to furris, he is tied to transgenderism,
and he's not an isolated case. It turns out this
is actually a widespread issue and if we don't turn

(11:23):
our attention to it, it could grow into a greater problem,
including at our public schools.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, let me help confirm that for you, bit because
these stories you tell I as if I'm reading that,
I would think a lot of Americans reading your story
about in your examples of where youth are being turned
into being influenced by this furry trend. Whatsever is going
on where they're barking like acting like animals, how that
has a link to LGBT community and transgender issues. It

(11:52):
might shock a reader to hear, to see, to read
your examples, I've seen these examples. I've seen the students
going to school with ears and acting like animals that
are going to the high school near my home. I
have a nephew who lives in and around the same
area but a different school, confronting the same issues with
students acting that way. And I can't imagine that the

(12:13):
only times it's ever happened are the times that I'm
personally aware. So I think this is far more pervasive
then people may realize. If it's not, if it hasn't
been to a school near you, it may be coming.
Given that, and given that you've been tracking that so close,
where do we go from here? It's you know, what
do we do with the information we have? Because I
can tell you that everything that you're writing about I

(12:34):
have seen, and all I can do is shrug my shoulders.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
Yeah, either we're the unluckiest people in the world who
just happen to keep encountering this stuff, or it's a
much bigger problem than the media would like to admit.

Speaker 6 (12:49):
Where do we go?

Speaker 5 (12:50):
I think what we have to do is we have
to cut this off. At the past, we have been far.
We have been conditioned to tolerate the intolerable. It's not
okay that people are walking around in animal costumes and
demanding that we just accept them into society. That's not
normal behavior, and we don't have to accept it. We

(13:11):
have to cut it off, and we have to demand
that our schools be very transparent about what they're doing
when a problem manifests.

Speaker 7 (13:19):
In their school.

Speaker 5 (13:21):
We have to be talking to our teachers, talking to
our principles. Otherwise it goes unnoticed until it's almost too late.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Courtney, what's the connection between the furries and the LGBTQ community.
Which you write a lot about. What is the connection there?
What have you found.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
Anecdotally? I remember first hearing about furries twenty years ago
because I am that old, and it was joked about.
It was like, there are these people and they go
to conventions and they hook up wearing these costumes, and
it sounded so bizarre. But it turns out anytime, it's

(14:02):
like these people talk out of both sides of their mouths.
On the one hand, say oh, yeah, we're we're LGBTQ,
and we we this is our form of expression. But
then when they're called out on it, saying well, wait
a second, that sounds like a problem to me, then
they act like, well, no, you can't make an association
between sexuality and furries when it's right there in front

(14:24):
of our faces. Everybody knows it, and to deny it
really as a form of gas lighting.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
So it goes to this, you know, I don't believe
I see the silver bullet fly by. You know, it's
it never happens. It's anecdotal, but I'm lucky enough to
keep seeing it. I'm just that you know that fortune
of a person. So I think what you're saying is
exactly right. If you go to southern Utah in Washington County,
we have now multiple examples of people that are transitioning
or part of that process and tethered too this furry

(14:52):
fixation that you talk about where they've killed their own
parents or they've been assassins. And so Southern Utah is
not a giant metropolitan area. It's a larger county, but
it's not considered. It would never be mistaken for a
large city in America if it's happening in Washington County,
in southern Utah. There has to be a way to

(15:16):
look at the analytics and see how common violence stems
from certain lifestyles or embracing certain things. Well we see that.
Can we see an honest aggregate or some kind of AI.
I don't know what it would take to show the correlation,
because it must be there.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
I'm so glad you brought up Washington County, Utah, because,
as some of your listeners probably know, the suspect in
the Kirk shooting, Tyler Robinson, graduated from high school there
and back in June twenty twenty four. A transgender, a
man who identifies as a woman, allegedly, but we all

(16:01):
know he walked into his home and he murdered both
of his parents and would have murdered his brother if
he could have. This is and again Washington City, and
it is a major problem. And I can tell you
that we have begun investigating to see how much the
Washington County School District knows about furrys and how far

(16:22):
back they've been aware of the problem, and they are
giving us quite a difficult time about it. I can
tell you that Blaze News is not going to drop this,
that we are going to keep putting the pressure on
because I've been through Washington County. It's a beautiful area
and I think it's gorgeous, and I think most of America,

(16:46):
you know, I'm I'm I spent eight years in Las Vegas,
like current, but I'm a Michigander. I bet you can't
tell by the accent.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Oh no, not at all.

Speaker 5 (16:58):
But we you know, around the country, we think of
Utah and we think of this wholesome, family value, kind
of traditional community, this red state, and it's a very
major problem there. If it's a major problem in Utah,
it's a major problem elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Ford meanwhile, from the Blade joining us on our any
our Newsmaker line talking about being groomed for violence, real
concerns about the links between the LGBTQ community and furries.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, it's a it's a problem, it really is, and
it's one that we have to understand better because I
think we're in the front of this wave. I think
that with what they've been able to do to children,
uh for years without it being stopped, that we have
we have consequences that we're just starting to see the
beginning of.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
You just you know, Mike, my answer to all this,
Greg is just stop it. Put us stop to it.
Just say enough. No, we aren't going to accept it.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Would be such an easy concept to just say we're
protecting care.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
We're done.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
We're gonna let kids be kids. When they're adults, they
can go do what they want.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
They want adults. Furry Outfit eighteen, you do.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
It, you bu. But let's protect these kids and let's
all agree without party affiliation, that we protect kids and
Keith Medison.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
All right, Mark, coming up. It is the Friday edition
of the Rod and Greg Show right here on Utah's
Talk Radio one oh five nine k NRS.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
I'm citizen Greg Hughes. You know, I want to say
with all the stuff that's breaking and all the things happening.
I mean, the news cycles are just so quick. And
you got the Supreme Court decision that you know that
goes Trump's way, You've got you've got this potential peace
agreement with you know, with Hamas surrendering, You've got you

(18:34):
got the violence of Antifa. This Nick Sorder, he's a
he's one of these you know online I don't know
if you call him a journals, but he's certainly an
opinion leader, has a huge following. They arrested him as
he was defending himself against these Antifa thugs. There's so
much going on. But I do think the discussion we'd
just that we're going to have right now, Rod is

(18:55):
important to have because we've got to figure out and
make sure that we are winning not just you know,
the intellectual battle of the leftists, the elitists, and how
they don't care about everyday Americans or Utahs and why
we're on the right side of this, but we've got
to win on policy. We've got to we've got to
make sure that this country's protected, and so victory's got

(19:16):
to mean more than just you know, being right.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, Well, and that's the question where you think about this.
The President has issued so many orders against universities in
this country and they have all basically thumbed their nose
on him that we are going to do it's right. Well,
we don't care.

Speaker 8 (19:30):
Court.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
We find they find to work around all the time.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, let's talk more about that. He is a columnist
with the Las Vegas Review. Always great to have Victor
on the show. We're talking about Victor Jakes. Victor, thanks
for joining us tonight. Let's talk about victories and what
do victories really mean anymore?

Speaker 6 (19:46):
Victor, Well, I think some of it stems from a
couple of ideas. I mean, first, there is this idea
that we're engaged in the war of ideas, and implicit
in that is the best idea will win. And there
is certainly truth to that. I mean, you look at
things like reading instruction. You know, even California is now

(20:06):
copying when it comes to phonics because ponyx works surprise surprise,
which you know some of us new for decades.

Speaker 7 (20:14):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (20:15):
And then the second thing is, you know, as conservatives,
we want a small government. We don't want the government
to be involved in a lot of things. I think
that's good and healthy instinct. But the problem is is
that for a lot of elected officials that means they
don't want to be involved in the governments supposed to

(20:35):
involved in. But what we believe as conservatives is not
that conservatives shouldn't govern. It's that there's areas where we
should be involved in it all. But if there's an
area where the government is supposed to be involved, then
when the voters elect you as a Republicans, a conservative,
you need to go in there and actually govern it.

(20:56):
And not just for instance, with higher education, not just
let the institution run am up and say, well, we
can't do anything, we're conservatives. No, you've been elected to governing.
The federal government is giving tens of billions of dollars
to these education institutions. Go in there and govern them.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
So and you bring up a point in your article
that we can win in our ideas prevail. We have
Supreme Court rulings and even within states like California that
reject and say that affirmative action is not constitutional, you
can't do it. And yet institutions of higher learning find
workarounds to continue their path and do whatever they is
they want, even if the people aren't on their side.

(21:37):
Is there anything similar to that on the right where
the courts have ruled and the Republicans have found workarounds.
I feel like we're honest brokers, or maybe I'm deceiving myself,
but I don't see the workarounds where the left just
does whatever it simply wants. Whether it's free speech, well
you can't have it the right. Free speech means you
get to hear what we have to say, and that's
the beginning and.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
End of it.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Is there any is there to be fair? Is there
any workaround that you see that the Republicans do or
the people do that trying to get around the courts?

Speaker 6 (22:08):
Well, I think that's such a good point. And you know,
the parallel that I see and actually not a parallel,
a contrast is with abortion. You know, here's an issue
where the right feels passionately where the Supreme Court invents
a constitutional right and the Republicans, the right and conservatives,
Prolian activists, you know, buy and laws, do not go

(22:29):
out and riot, do not break things, do not disinvite
liberal speakers from campuses. They go out there and they
win the hearts and minds of people. And that is
an example of winning the war of ideas, But it
only was one because, you know, if they elected a
president Donald Trump who was willing to put people on
the Supreme Court to reverse it. So, to answer your question,

(22:52):
I really don't see that happening a lot on the right.
I think there is a respect for things like the
rule of law. There's a respect for the Supreme Court,
even when the Supreme Court does something that you know,
I think a lot of us feel is blatantly unconstitutional.
You look at gay marriage as another example. There's no
right to gay marriage in the US constitutions. It does

(23:13):
not exist. And yet here we are, and conservatives are
back to the war of ideas, back to trying and
convincing people. And I don't think you see this kind
of institutional disrespect from conservatives in the same way.

Speaker 8 (23:29):
You do from leftists.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Is this institutional disrespect? Is it because it's coming from
Donald Trump and those on the left just don't like
this guy, and they are and going to do whatever
he tells him to do. Is that where it's really
coming from, do you think, Victor?

Speaker 6 (23:45):
You know, I think it goes actually beyond Trump. I
think the reason that there's a fury for Trump is
that he is actually willing to govern. So many Republicans
for so many decades had political power, and they basically
just sat on hands and lets the bureaucracy, let the
education establishment run am up under this idea of oh, well,

(24:06):
we're conservatives, you know, we shouldn't be actually governing. No,
we should be governing. We should be doing what Ron
DeSantis did in Florida, which is, you know, using the
levers of power in the scope that there is governmental
the right place for government to be, and then using
it aggressively. But I think the fundamental difference is the

(24:27):
left doesn't like the Constitution, it doesn't like the principles
of free enterprise, limited government, and so it doesn't have
the same respect for the institutions that as conservatives we have,
and so they have no problem hollowing out the institutions
and then trading basically on the former credibility of the
institution to push there, to push their agenda and expand

(24:50):
their power.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
So what we have is we have a powerful example
of governing from President Trump, and then we have to
buttress that Supreme Court rulings that have said no, the
executive branches get to govern. This way, and they get
to withhold funds and they get to do these things,
and so you have a lot. We have a lot
going for us now that we didn't have before this
second term. I think of President Trump, do we is

(25:11):
that the example and is that the muscle memory needed
for the next for other Republicans to lead? I mean,
are we learning from what we're seeing from Donald Trump
and the rulings that are coming out of the Supreme Court.

Speaker 6 (25:24):
Well, I think he certainly pave the trail. I think
there is certainly an example to follow, an example that
should be followed. I really think what Ron De Santis
did in Florida is another example. You know, too many
Republicans are happy simply to get elected. Too many Republican
consultants are happy to just not do anything, thinking that

(25:46):
that's the path to victory. And I mean, first of all,
I think that's simply wrong, because the voters elected you
to do something to advance certain ideas, and you have
an obligation to do them. But I also think it
makes it it's its political folly. I mean, you look
at President Trump winning for our second term with a

(26:07):
larger number of people voting for him than in twenty sixteen,
and he didn't become more liberal, he didn't drift to
the left. In fact, he engaged on those cultural issues
that so many consultants, Republicans supposedly consultants, urge their candidates
to stay away from. You look at Ron DeSantis. They
passed a very substantive abortion ban and he still has

(26:30):
remade the state for Republicans. Republicans can win, That's the
amazing thing. We look around it and it's like, for
so long we've basically been told, well, we just have
to lose as slowly as possible. No, we can win.
We have the ideas that are victorious ideas through the
scope of history. But to get back to the original point,
the ideas are not going to win themselves. We have

(26:51):
to have people who are elected and who use government
power to champion those ideas in the correct spheres where
government is actually supposed to it to be involved.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
And I think Greg that the thank you victory for
joining as Victor Jake, the columnist at the Las Vegas Review,
that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing. He's using the
power of his office to get these ideas through and
that's what the American people wanted and that's what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
And you know he's doing it the way it should
be done, but you know it's hard, it creates controversy.
You have regime media waiting to beach up for doing it.
But what what is good about the way he's doing
it is there's an immediate lawsuit file to try and
stop him, and then the court's ultimately the Supreme Court
ultimately prevails. And so the next leader up that needs
to address this doesn't have that have that that court

(27:36):
case that they have to get around those that work
has already been done by Prisident Trump and his leadership.
So we should be able to implement these and go
and catch them in their workarounds and you know, enforce
the law and the court rulings.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
And he had another victory today the Supreme Court on
the Venzo Whalen.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yes, it was not his presidency where they did the
mobile app asylum scam where they could just hit an
app and say yes, I'm as I'm secret and see
an in court int five years. They can end that
because it was a scam to start with and didn't
it shouldn't be law today, and the.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Supreme Court agreed with them today all right, we've got
a lot more to come here on the Wednesday, the
Friday edition, Friday edition of the Rotting Gray Show, right
here on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine k NRS.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
I'm citizen Hughes. It's maybe it's not. I'm not to
thank for Friday, but you certainly are. We well, thank
you for Friday. Thanks, you're welcome. It's undeserved, but thanks anyway.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Guess what has happened? What surpride? Surprise? You're ready for this?
Results of a new poll? Who's to blame for the shutdown?
Don't say anything? Okay, don't say anything yet, because in
the five o'clock hour we'll let you hear the latest
results of this poll. And it should surprise absolutely no one. Okay,
So all I'll say it's called a tease foreshadowing. Well,

(28:52):
last Sunday, of course, we had the tragedy of that church,
that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, Ward
meeting House there in ran Blank, Michigan. And now police
have now released the bodycam footage of the two officers
who approached the gunman and took him down. And we
thought you'd like to hear it it's not very long,
but I think it gives you a good idea of

(29:14):
the professionalism and the quick action of these two police officers.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
South end of the building, south end of the building.

Speaker 9 (29:29):
I got your back back here many stay there, shoot him,
you're back, get back, dropped the gun, drop back.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Frightening. Here's something like that, Greig and here in law
enforcement off.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Yeah, they're disturbing, but it's and it shows how it
gives you just a little glimpse of how dangerous that
moment was and what that how dangerous that job is.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
How those officers responded, remain calm, did what they were,
you know, trying to get this guy down, warning in him,
drop it, drop it, drop it. He wouldn't, and they
return fire. And that's exactly what they're trained to do.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, and it's the just for those the poor families,
the people that were in there and their kids that
were trying to survive in that in that moment, it's
just it's hard to think about. But you know, I
watched someone a friend of mine sent me a clip
of someone talking about it, and they weren't they not,
they weren't part of it, but they were just describing
their emotions and yeah, the person was remarking that for

(30:49):
members of the church is Christ Lowry sayings to raise
funds for the widow of that monster and then the
people that were killed. Was was unbelievable and of pray
worthy more.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Than two hundred thousand dollars so far more coming up
our number two on its way now.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
We're watching some of the scenes of this Antifa riot.
By the way, let's just let's just say what we
all know. But I'm just gonna say it out loud.
I'm gonna keep saying it. The Left is a party
of violence. They are, okay, And if you don't know
those folks, you or I don't know what There is
no equivalent to Antifa what they're doing in Portland right now.
There's no in there's no equivalent to this guy that
wanted to not only assassinate Justice Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh,

(31:27):
but had two others in mind as well. It's only
four years.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
I thought it was it eight or four. I thought
maybe it's maybe it's eight. I thought it was four,
but eight years. Still, come on, he wanted to take
out three of the US Supreme.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Court eight years that that is a twenty four year sentence.
And I'm going to tell you, if you had a
Proud Boy doing Proud Boys member of the Proud Boys
looking at Obama appointed Supreme Court justices, they would get
to twenty four years for attempted assassination. But anyway, point
is this, they are the party of violence. And I'm
not going to entertain any notion. I keep hearing that

(32:01):
there's statistics out there that show that the right's more
violent than the left. You know, this is why we've
been given the sense of you know, sight of hearing,
of you know, smell and taste, and I'm and feeling.
I mean, we've got our five senses, use them. Don't
let anyone tell you and give you a statistic that
says anything different than what you're witnessing rolling out right now.
It's all violence. It is violence on the left. That's

(32:22):
all they know. That's that's there. They want to compel behavior,
they don't they're not interested in conversations, they're not interested
in winning the hearts and minds. It's violence. That's all
they're about. And and and so I just I'm watching
this on the you know, on the feed right here,
and I'm going you got to be kidding me. You know,
it's just it's and and nobody wants to talk about

(32:43):
the left and the regime media do not want to
talk about. This is their go to plan to just
be violent, too harm, to hurt.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Chaos, create chaos, because with chaos, people will demand that
somebody steps in, most likely the government, and that's what
they want. This is another step to what the socialist
and the leftists want in this country, and that is
total government control of every every aspect of our lives.
And for them to deny it, folks, wake up, please

(33:11):
wake up and see what's going on.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's just nuts. Yeah, there's too
much evidence out there to show that this is not
a both sides issue. And it's to me when they
say we know there's violence on the right, it's probably
a bad analogy, but that's like cutting your grass once
a week and the full time landscaper who does it
for a living. I'm telling you that there are examples,
I guess out there, But have you ever met a

(33:35):
Have you ever met one of these q andon's or
white supremacist If we had a scavenger hunt and I
had to meet one and take a selfie to win
the game. Heaven help me, I can never do it. Yeah,
you can find these loons anywhere. Yeah, you just go
to the capitol right now, State Capitol. I'll bet you
they're wandering around up there yelling right now. But they're
a party of peace and love then, Yeah, that's what

(33:55):
they claim they have. All right, let's move on the Senate.
Surprise surprise today, Greg, two votes again today, both failed
in passing a resolution c R to continue government funding. Yeah,
both ten failed today. Yeah, we're going through the weekend
with government shutdown.

Speaker 7 (34:12):
This.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
I'm wondering if this could be a long one. I
think that, I think Greg, the Democrats have boxed themselves
into a corner. I don't know if there's a way
to get out of it.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
There's only one way, yeah, and that is if the
American people, in some strong sentiment we're starting to blame that.
There's no lack of trying on the left of the
regime media to make this all the Republicans fault, even
though you know they all I mean, they're not the
ones shutting it down. It's the Democrats. But if somehow
the American people thought this was all the fault of
the Republicans, which they've done in pass shutdowns. Then maybe

(34:44):
you get some you know, freight o'conn republicans, these weak,
leaderless Republicans that want to cave and do something that
the Democrats want to do, so they'll keep the you know,
open up the government again. But I don't think they should.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Well, they're doing it again though. The American people again
are blaming the report Republicans in this in Congress right
now for shutting down. CNN's Harry Enton, who we know
and love.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yep, we love his polls. We usually celebrate and listen
to this poll.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
This is the latest poll on right now, the latest
from the American people on who is getting blamed for
the shutdown?

Speaker 10 (35:15):
Blame more for the twenty twenty five shutdown? Who to
Americans blame more? They blame Republicans The New York Times
by seven points. They blame Republicans and Congress and Donald Trump.
E Maris, look at that, blame Trump and Republicans by
twelve points. How about Washington Post by a seventeen point margin.
When you look at the data, what you're actually seeing
is that more Americans are blaming Republicans than Democrats, which

(35:37):
I think really goes against the conventional wisdom because a
lot of folks are saying, hey, Democrats are so divided,
but at this particular point, Americans are placing the blame
on the Republicans shoulders, at least the plurality of them.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Are greg Where on earth is that coming from? It's
so much you don't understand that?

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, I don't. It doesn't feel this way either. I
feel like the American people were watching the Democrats right now,
and they know they're the ones that close this thing
that the Republicans don't. This continued resolution is just holding.
It's not bringing a new budget, it's keeping everything as
it was. They're the ones that wanted to change that
and want to shut down the government to do it. Yeah,
so I don't know how this could be the Republican's fault.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Well, Harry also gave a historical perspective on all of this.

Speaker 10 (36:18):
Yeah, this is what I think is so notable here
is we can go back over time and this is
actually a pretty familiar story.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
What are we talking about here?

Speaker 10 (36:24):
Blame more at the start of shutdowns ninety five ninety six,
they blame the Republicans more by sixteen points twenty thirteen
blame the Republicans more by ten points, twenty eighteen, twenty
nineteen blame the Republicans more by fourteen points. And right now,
on the average poll, you see that the American public
are blaming Republicans more by twelve points than Democrats. So
this actually lines up with what we see in historically

(36:45):
when the government goes in the shutdown, at least in
prior occasions, and in this one, what we see is
that more Americans are likely to blame Republicans than Democrats,
which again is why the polling right now doesn't exactly
strike me as surprising, despite the fact that Democrats might
be met say Republicans are the ones who are getting
more plain because that is what has happened, at least historically,
speaking to.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Every shutdown we've had.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
I know, everyone, this is the one where I thought,
this is what I thought was breaking that trend. This
is one where I thought people were really seeing and
I think I actually think I don't know about the poll,
but I do sense that that people do see the
Democrats are the ones that have shut because they have
shut the government down and it's not being hid very well.
And so you know, look, I think that, and there's
been a lot of threatened to shut downs where the

(37:30):
Republicans continued to cave and give more pork barrel spending
and continue the deficit spending because they didn't want to
shut the government down. Because this poll, if Harry Enton's
poll was right, it's always the Republican's fault. So they
act out of fear. They go ahead and capitulate, and
it's a trajectory the nation can't stay on. So what
do you do? I think this is the most defensible,

(37:50):
strongest position Republicans have been in in terms of not
opening the government by giving giving up or giving away
more spending, more reckless agenda, you know, laced items that
the Democrats are demanding. They're the ones that are contradicting
their own words about shutting down the government over policy
differences which they said they didn't like, and you shouldn't
do hold them to their words. I wouldn't. I wouldn't

(38:13):
budge an engine. I hope they don't.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Well, I'd love today. And you know, the theme that
we've heard the last couple of days from the Democrats
is that the Republicans are lying, lying about this aid
medicaid that would go to people who are in this
country illegally. Today, Johnson and Thune came out and said,
we're going to show you what's in their Democratic proposal, right,

(38:36):
and this is exactly it. JD. Vance, the Vice President,
last night, I asked you to listen to this closely
because he lays out I think in very simple terms
the issues that the Democrats want approve to. The Republicans
are saying no.

Speaker 11 (38:49):
There are two Biden era programs that explicitly gave the
taxpayer healthcare money to illegal aliens that we turned off
when President Trump took over in January. Program number one
is there's a lot of emergency healthcare at hospitals that
are provided to illegal aliens that was funded by the
federal government. We turned off that funding because, of course,

(39:11):
we want American citizens to benefit from those hospital services,
not to be tax and then to have those hospital services.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Go to illegal aliens.

Speaker 11 (39:19):
The second of which is the Biden administration gave mass
parole to millions upon millions of illegal aliens, and then
they simultaneously made those.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Parole LEAs eligible for healthcare.

Speaker 11 (39:31):
Benefits funded by taxpayers. In the One Big Beautiful Bill,
President Trump and Congressional Republicans turned off that money to
healthcare funding for illegal aliens. The Democrats want to turn
it back on.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Pretty well, laid it out, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, it does. They wanted to turn it back on,
and I'm confused. I actually tried to research this last night.
I know that you can't turn away anyone at an
emergency room. I know this, and I know that that's
always been the case. When I was a public servant,
I was hearing from health care providers that that was
a drain on their you know, their their finances and
everything else because there was no one paying. People were

(40:07):
using the emergency room as as a doctor's office. It
wasn't really emergency care, and they were passing those costs
onto the insured, the people that do pay for their
health care, and that that wasn't right. Well, you know this,
I know that the Biden. I know there were recent
payments where the federal government authorized I think it was
under Biden, and maybe it was earlier than that. Maybe

(40:27):
it was Obama where they paid for this emergency care,
emergency room care in hospitals for illegal immigrants. Well, our
premiums have only gone up since they passed Obamacare. We're
eighty percent pay more than we ever did before. So
we're not seeing any relief from our premiums and our
health care costs because somehow they're getting paid in the

(40:48):
emergency room for undocumented and then in this just even recently,
I've heard I mean, I've been out of office for
eight years, but it's never been said to me that
this was all this care was covered by Medicaid for
those that were coming into these emergency rooms. I've never
heard this before. And so people that say that this
has always been the case, you know what nobody was
saying it was the case. I cannot find where that happened.

(41:11):
I know that it was required, and it came back
to Regan, I think in eighty six where you got
to help And it makes sense, man, you got an
automobile accient, what are you going to do check someone
that it's been in a car accident and say you
can't come in. Of course, you got to help people
in emergencies. But this thing's gotten so far out of hand,
and I think the definition of emergency is a farce.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, no it is. Now, well, well we'll talk about that.
The new chairman of the Utah Democratic Party recently elected.
Former state Representative Brian King is telling Democrats who registered
as Republicans to please come home. Yes, we'll talk about
that when we come back here on the Friday edition

(41:49):
of the Rod and Greg Show on Utah's Talk Radio
one oh five nine o ky NRS Monday, the governor
has called lawmakers into a special session. Greg, and this
is all about for the most part, isn't it redistorting?
It is they'll vote on the maps, I guess. I
guess the chairman of the Republican Party is urging people
to vote for maps C. I'm taking a close look
of the maps yet, but apparently that could be the

(42:10):
one most favorable to the Republicans.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Let me tell you, I haven't looked at them, and
I haven't looked on purpose because I think that you know,
this mandated is a judicial mandate to have to redraw
these maps and to do what's going on here is
an absolute assault on the legislative branch in the state,
and it's sponsored by and fueled by Democrats to try
and get a seat out of Utah in a red state.

(42:33):
And so I've just I know they're doing it under duress.
I know they don't have a choice. But I'm just
I just I'm not even going to take any of
it serious. I'm just go I know it's happening, but
I just haven't followed the details. Well, it all offends me.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Well, this judge should offend everybody. I don't know where
she's coming from on this. You know, I really want
to take a look at the organization she has made
political donations to, because my guess is Better Boundaries is
one of them. Yes, that'd be my guess. I'm just speculating,
but I bet she has.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
And just know this whatever map on Monday that the
legislature votes on, okay, it's subject to her approval. Yeah,
they have to go on bended knee into that courtroom
as a legislative branch and say that asked the judiciary,
will this work? Would you accept this work from us?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
More food? Please?

Speaker 1 (43:19):
You know, it's a separate and equal branch of government.
The fact that the legislative branch has to come to
this judge and ask if there and have them check
their work, it offends me beyond belief. And so I've
just I've turned it off. I mean, I I think, folks,
I think that there needs to be some serious ballot
measures in the next election to absolutely establish the separate
equal powers of the judiciary versus not versus, but the

(43:41):
judiciary and the executive branch and the legislative branch. And
this ain't it. What we've got going right now is
that you go look at Texas and what they're doing.
They don't have to go bend a need to a judge.
Go look at Florida. They're not having to do that.
Ohio's not doing that, Missouri's not doing that. Not even
California is doing that. We somehow have to ask permission
from the judas Sherry to have congressional maps here. It's

(44:03):
it is beyond the pale for me.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
What is it about the state? We always give deference
to the Democrats? I mean, what is it about this
state on this whole issue?

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Greg?

Speaker 2 (44:15):
I mean, Democrats win an election fairly, that's all you
have to do. You want representation, put first of all,
put some good candidates out there, which they have not
done for a while. Get some good candidates out there,
and and you know, I don't know what it is, Greg,
but they they just seem to get their way in
this state. And I do not understand why.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Before someone says, well, if you drew maps that were fair,
maybe the Democrats could win. Just know this, Burgess Owens
beat Democrat Ben McAdams, incumbent Congressman Ben McAdams and the
before these maps were drawn in the last redistricting. So
he won the maps, or he won that race under
the last redistricting. Okay, and so this wasn't you know.
And Democrats have won in Utah before, it's not unheard.

(45:00):
But they want they are they are trying to get
seats that they can't win through a duly elected process
where the legislative branch decides these maps. They can't get
enough of a foothold there, and so they want to
create this so called independent Does anybody have an does
anyone not have an opinion? There's no such thing as
an independent commission. There's no such thing as someone who

(45:20):
has some blank slate in their head, who has no
preference about anything, who's going to somehow fairly draw a map.
It is a it's fiction.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Can say, can I go back to question you may
have been involved in this. I'm not sure when why
on earth did we have to send up a set
up an independent commission? Anyways? Well, why did we have
to do that.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Well, it was a ballot measure funded by the left,
just as they've done in all these other states, and
it passed by less than a percentage point on the
way to Salt Lake County and where Democrats are. But
it put it made a law that you had to
have this process. Well, it's a lot like any other law,
and most of it was followed. They did amend that
law because they weren't going to let them have the
finals say the changes on it. But they they adhered

(46:03):
to most of it. But what happened is they sued
that that that their ballot measure had been amended at all.
Here's what you need to know about a law that
is passed by a ballot measure versus a law passed
in a general session. Their laws. And unless it's a
constitutional amendment, all laws or subject to what to amendments
to I mean, and that's that's that's the law that

(46:24):
you passed that you felt so good about that you
see unintended consequences and you come to the next session
and you have to have some amendments all laws. Somehow,
our state Supreme Court decided, no, these are special laws
that you're not allowed to amend these laws. Let me
tell you what's going to happen with that little decision.
There will never be these special interest groups that will
ever go to the legislative body and go through the
normal process to pass the law. Again, they're going to

(46:46):
know they go to a ballot measure, they can they
can deem it a super law that has the effect
of a constitutional amendment that can never have an amendment
from a legislative branch. Give me a break. So I
think there's some I think that this this state has
there's some decisions that have really taken our legislative branch
and really neutered it. And I mean, having been a

(47:08):
member of it, it feels pretty personal that they are
just not this separate and equal. They don't have equal
powers right now at all.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
And I think one judge is ruling this state right now.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, well,
the legislature is under my skin, What judge did you
ever vote for that you knew anything about? Because those
retention elections have zero information in them. There's no judge
that you know that you know any background on that
you have any confidence in. You're just hoping okay, but
that's depending on the governor that appointed them, what their
background is. And let me tell you there's some nightmare

(47:39):
judges out there. I mean, that's how we get these
bad decisions in the first place.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
This case right now, talk about a bad judge.

Speaker 4 (47:45):
You have.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
The people have less of a hand in this. This
judiciary that gets to run the show. That's not going
to work. That's not going to work in Utah, and
that that's what we have. And so yeah, Monday, they
got to go under duress, under protest, but they got
to go right draw new maps. And here's the funny
part that independent commission, you know the map they came
up with, It divided thirteen cities and counties in their map,

(48:09):
and the whole thing was based on Salt Lake City
being divided up. And that was the grounds for their
their lawsuit. When they came up with their own, this
independent slash Democrat commission, they split up thirteen cities and
counties in their map, which was one of their own
provisions that you couldn't divide up.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Doing that.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
They did it because you know what it made for
Democrat seats. So that's why they can do it. And
I'm sure I'm sure the judge will probably love that
map versus the one that the legislator will passed. We'll
see how that plays out Monday. But of the maps
are considering, all of it's bad to me. I think
there just has to be some further discussion on whether

(48:46):
we want a legislative branch in Utah or not not if.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
That wacko judge as your way. All right, more coming
up on the Rod and Greg show here on Utah's
Talk Radio one oh five nine knrs.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
And it's October, So it's that time.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
It's October already.

Speaker 11 (48:59):
I know you know.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
That's what I have mentioned today. I just want you
to guess on that what.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
If you don't bring it up, you can't give me
any more crap about it. How does that sound?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
There is there a Taylor Swift story that where you
found Now you wake up, there is a Taylor Swift today. See,
so you don't mock you because I don't follow her
like you. I wouldn't even know she.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Had a new album. Is that our job to stay
on top of the news, not her.

Speaker 7 (49:31):
She's not.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
It has nothing to do with us. Part of the
news ship, part of your.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
News well, I'm just saying it's part of the news.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
I wouldn't know that that's something you haven't brought up
because I don't pay attention to her. But then you
have to say, I'm surprised you haven't given me grief.
And there's only one like obsession you have, and that's.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Been a swiftsession with her. I'm just saying, how is
her concert years ago?

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:53):
So long? I can't remember that.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, well she's not all that old, so
it was it had to be in recent times. So yeah, No,
I didn't know she had a new album, Rod and
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I was going to get you a copy of it today.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I know you can.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
I'm not going to down.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
I'm not sure there's still you know, there's no grand
daughters in your life. You can give that album too.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Oh yeah. Having parties already over this one, I guarantee
you all right. Brian King, who's the new head of
the Utah Democratic Warm, is asking for a little love.
He's appealing to Democrats who have registered as Republicans in
this state. I don't know why to come back to
the Democratic Party.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Well I know why, and it's not for the best
of intention. You know, there was not a battle of
ideas at diversity of thought where all the Democrats said,
you know what, I don't want to be a Democrat.
I want to be a Republican. I've read that public
Republican platform and I love it.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
I kind of agree with it.

Speaker 12 (50:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
No, I kind of lived through this election cycle where
this mass exodus into the Republican party occurred. It was
in twenty twenty, and it was it was thought up
from former state senator and former Democrat party Jim Tobaccus.
He came out in May of that year, before the
June Republican primary and said, you know, this whole general

(51:08):
election in November, Democrats have no chance. Now he's a Democrat,
He's basically throwing up the white flag in May saying
there will be no competitive race for governor when it's
the Democrat nominee versus the Republican. So here's what you do.
Jim de Baccus himself at the time, again a state
senator and a former state party chair, said I am

(51:29):
changing my party affiliation to Republican. Now that's not because
he believes one thing in the Republican Republican platform, he said,
because that will be the election that decides who the
governor is. And we as Democrats, need all register as
Republicans so that we have us say and who that
candidate or who that nominee will be.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Because he knew the Democrats didn't have a chance.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
He knew they didn't have a chance. Now that's a
great way to party build by the way, to just
throw up the white flag in the spring of an
election year. But he was It's what the Democrats have
done quietly in the past. It used to be the unsaid.
They didn't just say it. They were I'm reading it
and I pulled up I just did the archives of
the Suli Tribune, des Ret News. They were screaming it
from the rooftops. Everybody, come join the Republican Party like

(52:14):
I did, because that's where the that's where the action's at.
But that has the effect of doing is diluting the
Republican Party and putting a bunch of Democrats inside the
Republican Party. But now, the reason why I think Brian King,
who's now the party chair is uh would like people
to leave the Republican Party, of which they never really
intellectually believed in it. It was just they were trying to,

(52:36):
you know, fix the race the way they wanted to go.
It's because they have such a small number of registered Democrats.
And when you talk about redistricting and you say, well,
when you look at the maps, you know Republicans outnumber
the registered Democrats by four times, So why do you
think you have any additional standing. So now they're losing
the redistricting argument because they have such a small number

(52:58):
of registered Democrats. So he's now asking for me to
come back. But that's a long explanation to say this.
Now that Brian King, former minority leader in the House
and now party chair, is asking for all those Democrats
that are in the Republican Party to come over and
become a Democrat again, who do you think folks that
are currently Republicans fit that mold? They fit the mold

(53:23):
of actually being a Democrat. They say they're a Republican Democrats.
We kind of agree with Brian King. We think that
if you are a Republican but you look like act
like a Democrat, it's like a duck. If it walks
like a sounds like a duck, swims like a duck,
it's a duck. If you look like a Democrat. Sound
like a Democrat, walk like a Democrat. You're a Democrat

(53:46):
who in the Republican party ranks comes to mind that
you would like to help escort over there to the
Democrat party so they can do some party building over there.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
You know, I bet there are some people here would
even help the certain Republicans who will We'll get your
comments on this, would help them fill out whatever registration
form they're supposed to.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Wouldn't it be refreshing? I think it would be.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
I think have very honest you are claiming, mister Hughes, Yes,
that there are some Republicans in this state who really
have a more democratic view of things. Yes, and with
Brian King's invitation, it is now time to invite them
to go back to the democratic time. Hi time. And
who would those people be?

Speaker 1 (54:28):
You know what, I have a list in my head,
but I would like to know who are listeners. I
know it's a Friday, you have little bit if when
we are sharing this with you, some Republicans came to mind.
You're welcome to share those thoughts with us on the
show eight eight eight five seven zero eight zero one zero.
If you have someone that you'd like to nominate as
a Republican that needs to go over to the party

(54:49):
that they are closest to, their ideology and their their
platform most resembles the Democrat Party. You'd like to help
them along. By the way, three hundred and eighteen thousand
votes in the twenty eighteen Republican primary. It was the
highest number of voters in a Republican primary. In twenty twenty,
after Jim Deback is in many prominent Democrats argued for

(55:10):
Democrats to join the Republican Party. That had five hundred
thousand yeah votes. So if three hundred and eighteen was
the record never seen before, that went up to five
hundred thousand. A lot of Democrats voted, and that really okay,
So now it's time to go join. Brian King. Brian
King's asking you to come back. Who are they?

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Who are they? Eight eight eight five seven eight zero
one zero triple eight five seven o eight zero one
zero On your cell phone, you can call us. Just
dial pound two to fifteen and say hey Rod or
leave it. Come in on our talkback line by downloading
the iHeartRadio app and search for caannrest dot com. Love
to hear your thoughts on this. That's coming up on
the Rod and Greg show in Utah's talk radio one
O five nine knrs. Yeah, we're taking your calls right now.

(55:51):
The head of the Utah Democratic Party is asking for
Democrats who are registered as Republicans to come home. They're lonely.
So Greg came up with this rather interesting idea, yes, which.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
I want to I just want to be helpful. If
we have a lot of Democrats who, for purposes of,
you know, trying to get their way or manipulate an
election outcome, registered as Republicans, but they're really in their
heart of hearts democrats, I want to help them leave
the Republican Party, released that affiliation that you didn't really

(56:26):
believe in in the first place, and get with the
get with your crew, get with your tribe, your people,
the Democrats. Who would those people be? I have a
list in my head. I'm wondering if our listeners have
one in theirs. Let's go to Leslie, who's in Sandy. Leslie,
do you are there any Democrats out there that are
Republicans that you might want to help lead back to
their fold, to their you know, to their their base,

(56:49):
so to speak.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Well, I think that if Spencer talks. Was ever a Democrat?

Speaker 8 (56:59):
You should go back because he sounds a lot like
more democratic than republic.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Came to me, Yes, that was That's a name. That's
a name that I think, Thank you, Leslie. I think
that it's a one that I think comes to mind
when we ask this question to our audience. We've had
a lot of comments about the governor, but that might
be one that needs to stare at that party affiliation
a little closer. He says, he's not running for re election,
So what's the.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Home not re electionbody's running for something else.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
You think, Yeah, we'll see, he's getting a lot of
national exposure.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
He's not doing this just just for fun. There's a
plan in there somewhere.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
You think, Yeah, there might be. Who else?

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Got my fear? I pure speculation. Yeah, I won't speculate.
I have I Yeah, I think I've shared my ideas
with you. Yeah, well, look who else I met Romney?

Speaker 1 (57:52):
I think the moment he left the Senate supposedly representing Utah,
he just he's not even here to ask to reaffiliate
with THEO.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
He could be, he could be a Democrat to be
he's not.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
He doesn't even live in the state. I don't know
if he ever lived in the state, to be honest
with you, now, I don't.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
I thought he did.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
I think he has a place here, but I don't
think he's a he's here all the time at all.
I'd be surprised if he is. But if he is here,
you know, I think before what ninety two, he was
a he was either unaffiliated. He only registered for the
first time in his life as a Republican in ninety two.
I believe when he's running. He decided to run first
Senate in Massachusetts against Ted Kennedy and job.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Initially a lot of people were thinking, maybe this guy's
going Kenny.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Well, he registered as a Republican in that cycle in
that year to run against Ted Kennedy, and that started
him on that journey. But I think he might feel
a little more comfortable in the Democrat Party, you know,
might well guessing just thinking out loud.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Yeah, I'm wondering about some other people who may feel
more comfortable in the Democratic Party than they would in
the Republican Party.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, there's a few. Look, numbers don't lie. If you're
If your highest Republican Mary turn out with three hundred
and eighteen twenty eighteen and twenty twenty, after the Democrats
made this huge pitch and pushed to register as a Republican.
It was five hundred thousand. You got a lot of
people that weren't gravitating naturally to the Republican Party that

(59:15):
are registered Republicans in Yust. So with that said, you know,
I think Brian King's call should be.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Heated heated, Yes, yes, yeah, Brian needs a little love.
He's getting kind of lonely.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
When the rest in this state can fit in a closet,
he'd like a little bit bigger closet.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. They can hold their convention
in a phone booth if you kids know what those are. No,
but the thing is that it's what makes it hard
for them to argue that redistricting is so unfair when
they don't have a high voter registration for their own party.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Yeah, before we go, I have one thing I did
want to bring up to you. Do you consider yourself
now middle aged?

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (59:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Right, Well look it's all you have to do is math, right.
I don't think however old I am. If I doubled it,
I'm still breathing. I don't think I'm above ground, so
I'm on the back nine of life.

Speaker 8 (01:00:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Well, if you're on the back nine of life, here's
something that will help you, okay, make you feel better.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
A new study, I love these studies, indicates that overall
functioning of the human brain reaches its zenith between the
ages of fifty five and sixty. Oh, you are a
peak brain power?

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
This study says that's that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Where'd you get that study? I always have to ask
your sources for your information?

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Where did you go?

Speaker 8 (01:00:34):
Where do you go?

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
I've got study. It is a it's called from the Times.
It's an article on some science study, some science nder.
They say you reach your peak brain power between fifty
five and sixty.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
You know, I feel that way. I told you. It's
like you I've done. I might just watch out, spend
a bunch of decades, you pick up some things along way,
you think you know? So, I think i've I think
you combined the experience with the uh with the brain power,
and boom, there we here we are.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Yeah. Well, apparently between fifty five and sixty and you're
right there. Yeah everything I thought you have reached peak
brain power. Now, the other part of that is after
sixty you downhill. Really, I'm there, baby.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Well you seem to doing fine to me, boss, you
seem to be right on things. Just fine.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Yeah, I like that stroke. Thank you. All Right, We've
got another hour coming up. It is the Rod and
Greg Show right here on Utah's Talk Radio one oh
five nine. Heyrest stay with us. Well, we've got another
busy hour coming your way. We'll talk to you about
a brand new survey that is out. It's asking people

(01:01:50):
Greg if they are afraid of artificial intelligence. And every
time you, you know, you and I talk about this,
all I can do is think about Terminator.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Of course, that's all you have to think about. Of
course we are afraid because we've seen the movie. We
don't want to live it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I'm not yes, yeah, yeah, So we'll talk about that
or listen back. Friday segments coming your way as well.
But we start off this hour talking more about the
family and the legacy of Charlie Kirk, who left a
very pro family legacy out there, and how do we
take what he has been talking about and putting it
into action. I don't know what it's going to take, legislation,
tax benefits, but to help Americans realize that it's nice

(01:02:27):
to have a family.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Yeah, I think it's you know, you can't socially engineer
people's lives. That's kind of the point of a democratically
elected Republican freedom of choice and decisions. But I do
think that there are tax structures, there's things that happen
that I think should make it easier for people to
have families, to get married, have families, and we should
get government right out of their way as much as
we can.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Yeah. Well, joining us on our Newsmaker line or any
our Newsmaker line is Lyman Stone. He's with the Institute
for Family Studies. He wrote about this, Lyman, thanks for
joining us this SCEE evening. All right, where is this
discussion of being pro family getting things done for the
family going? In your opinion?

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Well, it's always hard to make a prediction, but I
certainly hope that where this goes is that a lot
of lawmakers, particularly conservatives, get a sense of the serious
importance of doing something for American families, that it's not
enough to try and tackle these big macro issues, whether
it's immigration or tariffs or whatever, that people actually want

(01:03:24):
something to be done to tackle the fact that they
see around them in their community's marriage is not happening. Happening,
maybe he's not being born an ultimately American family life
in a rough spot.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
So maybe you can describe the landscape for us. I
know that we've had laws that were encouraging families and
the deductions and you know, all of it married versus
single income. Have we retreated? It's one thing to find
more pro family legislation out there that really does look

(01:03:56):
to the family, But have we lost ground in those
areas of tax structure and things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
You know, the US has a handful of things that
do support family life in our tax code, whether it's
child tax credit or some provisions related to marriage, but recently,
I would say we have lost ground. For example, in
twenty seventeen Tax Cuts and Jobs Act raise the child
tax credits to two thousand dollars. Given how much inflation

(01:04:27):
there's been since twenty seventeen, I think we've all felt
that that would be equivalent of about twenty six hundred
dollars today, and yet the child tax credit in the
One Big Beautiful Bill was only raised to twenty two hundred,
meaning we are effectively five hundred dollars Blair below where
we were just a few hundred years, just a few

(01:04:48):
years ago. In terms of the child tax credit. There's
a lot of examples like this throughout our laws, but
I think that's a particularly clear cut one, because I
don't think anybody intended that when the tax credit was
raised in twenty seventeen that should immediately be, you know,
have twenty percent of its value eroded by inflation. But
that's what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
Well, I mean, of course, Charlie Kirk's message was primarily
to young people talking about the importance of getting married
and having a family. Too early to tell, but do
you what do you see with the future of that
message to young people. Do you think are you hoping
that young people will respond and understand the importance of
getting married, the importance of having a family.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
I think that there's definitely a lot of young people
who are interested in family life. There's definitely a growing
conversation about this. You talk to young people, want of
them have a sense that while they really love to
get married and have kids, but it seems unobtainable whether

(01:05:48):
there will actually be a big change, I think depends
on economic factors, social factors, technological factors, policy factors. It's
not just a question of how much young people want it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Yeah, I'll give you a statistic. In a suburb in
Salt Lake County, Riverton, the average age of from eighteen
years old to how whatever age someone passes away. The
average age of the forty sixty thousand people that live
in this suburb this town is the age of thirty.

(01:06:21):
The average age of a voter in that city of
Riverton is sixty two, so thin, so you have this disconnect.
You have an average age of thirty of voting age
adults that live in that city, but the average age
of those that actually vote are sixty two. And if
you look at the laws, they seem to reflect a
sixty two year old voting class because of what they

(01:06:43):
look at for property taxes or things like that. How
do we how do we capture the youth? How do
we how do to get law I would imagine to
get the laws that are pro family that you're talking about,
we have to start paying attention and they themselves have
to start voting. How do you do that? How do
you get them engaged so that we can get some
pro family issues that will directly help them you know,

(01:07:04):
and impact them personally, that wouldn't impact the average age
of a voter currently of sixty two.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Well, it is true that there are a lot of
the there's a significant political divide across the generations. When
you look at most pro family policy, young people tend
to support it, whether it's a bigger child tax credit
or addressing marriage FAILTI welfare code or something like that,
and older people tend to be more opposed to pro
family policy. And one of the reasons is a lot

(01:07:31):
of older people are staring down the barrel of about
to get a lot of public benefits right, whether Medicaid, medicare,
so security, all this, whereas young people have a lot
longer to go between now and there. And I think
most people realize that on some level, it's very difficult
to imagine a world where we put a lot more

(01:07:51):
money into young people and into children and into families
and it doesn't have any budgetary impact on something like
social security. I think it's likely that these are competing
interests and I'm not sure the best way to help
older people understand that they may be able to collect
theirs are scaredy check, but there will be nowhere to

(01:08:12):
visit them if we don't do more to help young
family formation. But in some level that's the conversation that
has to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Well, I mean, you write about the fact that a
lot of the policies that are talked about in Washington
and in Congress, basically I think the term you used,
we're tinkering around the edges and not really getting to
some of the core issues. If there were one or
two really good, solid core issues that you think could
really help families, what would they be.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Huge range of marriage penalties and our means tested programs
that yank benefits away from people when they get married. Second,
we really have to tackle housing. Housing for young families
is way too expensive and frankly often just doesn't exist
to dollars. Regulatory barriers for that, there's institutional norms in
the real estate industry. They're barriers that there's all kinds

(01:09:00):
of challenges, and we've written about that a lot of ifs.
Just recently published a report this week on how to
get more family friendly apartments. Maybe apartments aren't ideal, but
there are a lot of them nice if they are
a little family friendlier that I think we should be
talking about a bigger child tax cript, bigger cash transfers
to families, maybe something like paid family leave. But then

(01:09:22):
in the long run, I think there probably does need
to be a conversation about about retirement programs, about whether
it makes sense to have pension programs that are only
that are only rewarding people for the market labor that
they did when they were young, and are not taking
into account whether they contributed to the next generation in
terms of having raising children. And I think we need

(01:09:44):
we should really be thinking about whether that's an appropriate
way to calculate things like social security.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
From the Institute for Family Studies, Limonstone joining us here
on the Rotten Greg Show, we're talking about pro family
and what we do in light of the assassination of
Charlie Kirk. All Right, we'll talk about the danger of
AI boo. Be careful, where's Arnold when we need?

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
You know, we need that bumper music.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
That's coming up next right here on the Rod and
Greg Show and Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine KNRS.
I wonder how many Americans, Greg really know what artificial
intelligence is, and the fact that it already exists in
our lives. We probably don't even know it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
No, it does. I mean it is out there, it's coming,
but not coming. It's here, but it's going to grow.
It's going to become a bigger part of our lives,
whether we like it or not.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
I think, yeah, Well, what do Americans think of artificial intelligence?
Joining us on our Newsmaker line to talk about a
brand new study that they did is Terry Jones, Editor
of Issues and Insides. Terry, what are Americans telling you
about AI?

Speaker 7 (01:10:41):
Well, we were asking people about a number of things.
One is something that's at the top of many people's concerns,
and that is will AI, artificial intelligence take away jobs?
And what we found that was at a very large
hundreds of people, fifty four percent majority believe it will

(01:11:05):
take away jobs. It will not create jobs. Only seventeen
percent of the people said it would create jobs. So
it's a huge gap there, and people are deeply pessimistic
about its impact on jobs. And it comes at a
time when job growth seems to have slowed. So it's
a very gloomy opinion out there about how AI is

(01:11:28):
going to impact the jobs market.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Go ahead, Well, I was going to say that I
probably share all those sentiments that are being pulled. I
saw the movie Terminator and all the other sequels. Okay,
I know what's going on here. I've seen the movie. Kay,
I know. So I have all the apprehension that anybody
who's like me would have, But it's been framed as
we can't be a country that gets behind the AI race,

(01:11:55):
and by that, if you let that technology pass you
by and other countries get it, we are at a
disadvantage not maybe not just even economically, but even maybe
national security wise. So it seems inevitable whether we like
it or not. It's on its way. So what do
we do with polls that have where you have so
much apprehension. But I don't think that's going to slow
down the prevalence of AI in our society in the

(01:12:18):
years coming forward. So what should we do?

Speaker 7 (01:12:20):
It doesn't seem to be moving that way, does it.
I mean I don't think. I don't think it's going
to stop. I don't think they're going to stop in
their tracks and say, oh, well, maybe we shouldn't do this.
And I would say I discussed this a little bit
in the piece that I remember quite well in the
late seventies and early eighties that people were concerned about

(01:12:43):
the personal computer revolution, where personal computer is going to
cost me my job? Were they going to be able
to do the job of many people and then we
would have people who don't have enough work. And it
didn't turn out that way. And I think economists are
very usually very optimistic about this kind of thing because

(01:13:04):
they think it will create different types of jobs that
we haven't even yet imagined. And so we'll have to see.
But I know that if you're talking to average Americans,
they don't see it that way, and they are very
very gloomy. And and you know, we we even ask
them about energy costs because right now we have a

(01:13:25):
very high cost energy as it is, because we've gone
to all these so called renewables and they're much more
expensive than our current you know, are our old grid was.
And the energy use of these AI server farms is
just immense, I mean, it's extraordinary. They just suck up

(01:13:47):
the energy. So people, we ask people about this, and
they think it's going to you know, people think this
is going to be a serious problem going forward. How
do we satisfy all this energy need? You know, we
have a growing energy you need as it is. How
are you going to supply it, how are we going
to pay for it? So these are these are very
very big questions on people's minds, and and you know,

(01:14:10):
it's very hard to see anything stopping from this. It's like,
you know, it's like it feels like it feels like
a technological title wave coming in in our way. We're
just gonna, yeah, we're gonna have to get off our
surfboards and turn them over and hope the wave passes over,
I guess, or maybe right the way.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
Maybe I don't know, Terry Darry. Do people realize how
much AI has already impacted our lives? Do you think
because it has? I don't think we even realize it.

Speaker 7 (01:14:39):
No, I don't think they do. And I think a
lot of people are getting it, you know, hop into
their browser and think they're just doing a standard UH
search and they don't realize they're actually doing an AI search,
that their their browser has hooked them up to AI,
and they don't you know, they don't know that that
the you know, the AI revolution is really what it's

(01:15:00):
doing is it's compacting everything that's online into a sort
of servable bytes for people who want to use it.
And the problem one of the big problems I think
we're going to have is some of the same problems
that we have with you know, different websites that have

(01:15:24):
shown a good deal of political bias. Is that a
AI software isn't only as good as the software creators.
And so if you have software creators who are all
left wing and progressive, the the AI searches are going
to basically find those things, you know. So that's a

(01:15:47):
big concern. It's sort of the wikimedia curse, you know,
And I think that's a very that's a very big
issue because if everything you search comes up with, you know,
just one answer, I'm not sure that's really a huge advance.
It might be a huge advance for certain things that
don't have any ideological component, like science, physics, medicine, things

(01:16:11):
of that sort, but for people who just want, you know,
like some perspective on a debate or on an issue,
it may not be very very good.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
So you know, what I've actually found. I know we're
in the early stages of AI, but to your point,
we use it already. I have found the AI app
that I have to be as verifiably wrong in its answer.
I asked it about a picture of photograph and I
knew or I was told where this photograph came from,
but I didn't ask, didn't give any of that background.
I said, is this photograph real? The answer back was,

(01:16:47):
this is an AI generated photograph that's used oftentimes to
reflect the Hamas or the you know, the the Gaza conflict.
And I said, well, what about from this date from
It's an icest picture from this date from Afghanistan. And
immediately it says, oh, yeah, that's a Reuter's picture and
here's the name of the photographer that took the picture.
I mean, and we're talking within seconds of each other.

(01:17:07):
It was an AI generated photo too. It's an absolute
it's an authentic photo from this time, in this place
and for Reuters. And so I I am worried about,
you know, original content or source source material for things
like that, versus assuming that AI is just going to
have the answer on its own. I don't know that
that's dependable. Will it ever get dependable? Or should we

(01:17:31):
always be cautious about asking it for analysis versus maybe process?

Speaker 7 (01:17:37):
You know, I think I think we should always be
cautious when we take our hands off the steering wheel.
That's why that's a good I don't trust cars that
are not driven by human beings. I know they're statistically
you can say they're safer, but they seem to do
weird things periodically that just scare me. And I'd rather

(01:17:57):
have my hands on the steering wheel than machines. But
that said, we did ask a question, you know, we
asked people, you know, okay, what is your general feeling
about AI, and a plurality, a solid plurality of forty
five percent said they thought it was dangerous and its

(01:18:19):
risks are being down played.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Terry Jones talking about artificial intelligence and the fact that
forty five percent of Americans greg say it is dangerous.
And here's what's really scary. Fifty four percent of Americans
expect to lose their jobs because of AI.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
Well, I said, as I said in the interview and
before the interview, I've seen the movie, so I know
why we're all afraid. But I did like his take
about when we saw computers in the early age starting
to emerge, a lot of people thought that was the
end of gainful employment, and it was not change. It
just changed the structure of our job market. And what
we did. I think I would like to take his
optimism on that and say they'll be work to be due.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
Yeah, will it do Yeah, will adapt to it, I think,
And well, you know, he will have some drawbacks, but
it will have a lot of benefits as well. So
we'll keep up with that of course. All right when
we come back our list Back Friday segments right here
on the Rod and Greg Show and Talk Radio one
oh five nine knrs. You know, we were talking with
Victor Jakes earlier and Victor was telling us his thoughts
on on Donald Trump that we finally have a politician

(01:19:19):
who is getting things done, and he talked comparing him
to Rondassentives and everything they've done.

Speaker 8 (01:19:24):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
One thing I think Donald Trump and people haven't realized
this is his success in the courts. He's on a
winning street.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
He sure is, and powerful precedent because of the cases
they've been brought before the Supreme Court and the decisions
they've made some of you thought were intuitive, now they're official.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Yeah. We spoke earlier this week with Michael Thielen, he
is President executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
As part of our Listen Back Friday segment, we thought
you'd like to hear that interview again. You may have
missed it, but he talked about the fact that Donald
Trump when it comes to the courts, is really on
a roll.

Speaker 8 (01:19:56):
No, it's been a long term effort, and it's a payoff.
I've been doing for twenty five years, and it's a
payoff of that effort. It all started when President Obama
did not really pay attention to the court. He had
other priorities. And in his first term, President Trump came
in and made the Supreme Court a top priority and
he pushed through. We got three three nominees through on

(01:20:18):
the Supreme Court itself, and we also redid the circuit
course the district courts to a great extent. So it
was a long time coming in a conservative battle and
a conservative win.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
You mentioned all these wins that we're seeing Supreme Court,
but even going further into the circuit course and things
like that, is the number of decisions that are being
made that I would argue our basic common sense is
it because the judiciaries in some court is making crazier
decisions like some of these owe Harvard money and it
doesn't You can't decide whether you're going to appropriate it

(01:20:49):
or not. You have to give it to them. I mean,
are they just teeing it up for the courts to
bat down these bad rulings? Have they always been this
bad and we just have a good, good judiciary now
or is it is? But we've got some real activist
judges going on, you know, decisions going on right now,
a little both.

Speaker 8 (01:21:05):
I can make an argument that Biden's judicial appointments for
some of the worst ever, for example, Kbjkes and John C.
Brown Jackson. Unlike let's say Kagan is a liberal. Kagan
is a reasonable liberal. I disagree with her philosophy, but
she has a philosophy. KBJ seems to more like be
AOC in Rhodes. She seems to do policy decisions and

(01:21:27):
toxic a politician. And Justice Sodamayor and Justice Kagan both
blasted last time.

Speaker 6 (01:21:32):
So that's part of it.

Speaker 8 (01:21:33):
Part of it is you forum shop, which basically means
you're not going to try your liberal wackadoo idea in Utah.
You're going to try it in crazy California, in Massachusetts
in front of a judge you know that will likely
decide or be more sympathetic to your cause. So that
means early on in the first few months, Trump was
losing all these decisions in the court as they went

(01:21:53):
up through the pellet system, and we had more reasonable judges,
both on the left and the right, and especially in
the Supreme Court than Trump wins. Now, it's a combination
of factors. One, the left is cherry picking. Two the
left has gone more extreme on their lower court appointees.
And three Trump did a great job of confirming good
conservative justices and judges at the circuit level.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
I don't know about you, Michael, but we're a little
scared about Utah right now. So when you bring up Utah,
we've had some judges here making some really interesting decisions
of late. Michael, I want to go back to a
comment that you had because as we approach Halloween, this
is a scary thought. What if Hillary had won in
twenty sixteen, what would that court look like today?

Speaker 8 (01:22:34):
Yeah, that's a great point. Right now, the government's shut
down because the Democrats don't have any other options. They
fail to stop things or to get their policy agenda done. Previously,
you know, twenty years ago, they thought the courts could
do that. Some of the untopular items that they know
could never be voted on successfully or never happened in
a straight up and down voter, they didn't even want
to talk about. They relied on the courts to ultimately do.

(01:22:57):
They don't have that option anymore. And obviously, if He'll
would have won in sixteen, she would have had three
Supreme Court picks, So that would have been turning to
court for generation to the left, and they would still
get those kind of liberal crazy wins in the Court
that they used to get years ago. So it was
a big deal. It was huge, and a lot of
kudos go to former leader mccammall who kept that seat

(01:23:19):
open for ten months when Justice Scalia died, that ultimately
went to Gorsic. So those things do you make a
big difference. And I think one of the things we
forget is forget Hillary for a second, because Trump appointed
those three Supreme Court justices. He was winning when Brydon
was in office. In other words, the Dobbs decision on
abortion came down in twenty two when Biden was in office.

(01:23:42):
The Affirmative Action decision came down in twenty three when
Biden was in office, and that was all because of
the Trump Supreme Court that he set up sixteen through
twenty so.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
You point to some of the appointments he's made in
this his second term, what's the pace look like for that?
I mean, we're enjoying the fruits of a good, healthy
first term. In the second term, is he going to
see Are we going to see the same kind of
a production out of the courts and the appointments that
we did in the first term here in the second You.

Speaker 8 (01:24:07):
Hit on one of the reasons why I wrote this
off at It wasn't just you know, say, point out
how good Trump's doing. But we have a number of
judges who could retire or take senior status on the
appellate level, and what that means is basically their seat
could be replaced by somebody younger who's going to be
there for many years. Obviously, the Democrats are going to
have with the White House again at some point, and
we want to have the judges there and the courts

(01:24:29):
there so they can take winning winning God forbid President
AOC in twenty nine or something like that. Really right,
But we were keep in mind, we were winning in
twenty two and twenty three and twenty four in the courts,
which is a huge deal, and that was because of
what Trump did so we need these judges who are
older to take that senior status or retire and let

(01:24:51):
them be replaced by younger conservatives. And of course the
left doesn't want to have that happen. That's one of
the reasons why they're attacking the legitimacies of the Court.
And there's someone un fortunately on the right, Hughes still
don't trust President Trump, who I think's record on the
Court has been second to nine for conservatives. It's better
than Reagan, It's better than either Bush or Eisenhower. And
I don't care how far you want to go back,

(01:25:11):
you have to go back a long lace to find
a president who's had a better impact on the judiciary
than President Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
With Donald Trump in office at least for three more years, Michael,
any concern about the future of the Supreme Court if
someone unfortunately may pass on or decide to retire, any
concern there about the makeup of the court, knowing that
Donald Trump is still in the White House for another three.

Speaker 8 (01:25:32):
Years, not in the makeup on the court. But you know,
it goes to nether thing. I mean, I don't want
to Justice Thomas has been incredible, obviously, but he's getting
up there in years, there'll be rumors about Justice Alito retiring.
I mean, they need if they're going to retire, and
you know five years they shouldn't do that. They should
retire in three. Why you know Trump is still president.

(01:25:52):
I go even father, It's always tough in a midterm year,
and I hope the Republicans do great this twenty six
and gain a seat. But historyley, you lose this theater
two in the Senate, even though the map is very
favorable to us. And obviously a fifty one Senate or
a fifty to fifty cent is not as conservative as
a fifty three seat Senate that we have right now.

(01:26:13):
So yeah, I think our justices should think about retiring
who are older, especially if they think they're not going
to be there for another ten years or so. And
you know, that's their decision. I'm not trying to put
pressure on anybody or anything like that or implying that
like I am with the Circuit Court judges who I
do think who can take shingerstaff should But you know,
it's something to consider. But as far as if something did,

(01:26:33):
I think this would be a great time for the
retire We're in a great spot to confirm a much
younger conservative. You know that said Justice Alito. I don't
think it's enough credit. He's been an amazing justice, and
Justice Thomas, of course is a legend of the conservative movement.
So it's impossible to replace those guys. But on the
other hand, we don't want to have happened to the left,
what happened to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. You know, we don't

(01:26:54):
want to die when there's a president in the other party.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Michael Feelin with the Republican National Alwars Association, talking about
Donald Trump's victories in court. He's been classified as maybe
the most successful president in the court.

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
I mean a lot of this is from the first term. Well,
we got three more years. We got to see the
fruits of the labor, we got to see a lot
more confirmed.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
Three more years. All right, more coming up on the
Roddy and Greg show. You and I, you know, we're
big readers. I mean we have to read. I mean
it's part of our job each and every day. But
I don't do enjoyable reading as much as I used to.
Novels and interesting books. I just haven't got time.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
Yeah, I'm somewhere in between not doing it. And doing
it a lot. I try, yeah, and then every once
in a while. So I have a lot of unfinished books.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
So I've got to stack this this tall in my house. Well,
when it comes to reading, there's some new studies that
came out. We got the nation's report card. Bad news
when it comes to reading. Our reading scores are down significantly.
I blame part of that on COVID and shutting down
the schools. But let's talk more about that right now.
Joining us on our Newsmaker line is Kelsey Piper. She

(01:27:58):
is a contributor to the Argument magazine. She talked about illiteracy,
she says is a policy choice, and as part of
our Listen Back Friday segments, we thought we'd bring that
interview back to you that to give it a listen
to and talk about what is going on when it
comes to reading in America today.

Speaker 12 (01:28:14):
Yeah. So we've known for a long time that we
need to do phonics, that is, teaching kids how to
sound out words to teach them to read. But some
states have been dragging their feet on actually making this
happen as a statewide program because it is not as
easy as just saying to teachers, hey, teach phonics. But
Mississippi really got this right. They paid for curricula that

(01:28:34):
are rich in phonics. They taught teachers how to get
the most out of that curricula. A lot of teacher
training is a waste of time, but they taught them
how to use these tools most effectively with your students.
They sent coaches into schools that were behind. And then
they said, if you can't read at the end of
third grade, you can't go to fourth grade. And that's
not a popular policy, but it makes it impossible for

(01:28:56):
later grades to do right by students if some of
their students just don't have the basic skills. And the
surprising thing they discovered was kids who work a lot
harder if they knew that they need to master reading
to go on to the next grade. They didn't even
end up having to hold that many kids back because
kids and teachers and parents all got it together, and
so almost all the Mississippi third graders would pass the

(01:29:17):
reading tests at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Yeah, we used to call that flunking, you know, and
the kids are flunked. They flunked second, fourth, third grade,
fourth grade.

Speaker 12 (01:29:25):
You know, a lot of people decided to stop flunking kids.
But it turns out you need at least the threat
of that to get everybody to really buckle down and
learn to reader.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
I think it's why I got through. I think it
might have been the fire under me as a kid
to make sure I didn't flunk and miss out on
my friends and everyone moving upward and onward. Kelsey, let
me ask you this question. I love phonics. They taught
how to got people in there to help teach, and
you know, to teach that curriculum. Interesting description is that

(01:29:57):
there's clear accountability measures describing me. What what clear accountability
measures do you have for teachers, instructors as well as students.
That really struck home because I'm interested in the teachers
side of it. How do you know when the teachers
doing it and it's not the kid's fault that they're
not learning it.

Speaker 12 (01:30:15):
Yeah, So nobody likes accountability because it means standardized tests,
and it means people coming into your classroom to evaluate
how well you're teaching. It means publishing records that you
know parents are going to be asking questions about and
stuff like that. And of course it's not fair to
a teacher who maybe gets a bunch of kids who
are behind and is expected to do miracles with them.

(01:30:36):
But if you base the accountability on how much you
advance a student from the beginning of the year to
the end of the year, and how while you are
delivering the stuff that is your job to deliver, then
it's just a way of making sure expectations for teachers
are clear, they're fair, and then we recognize the teachers
who are succeeding, and we bring in a coach to
help out the teachers who are failing. So I think
there is a way to do tests and evaluation that's

(01:30:59):
not about trying to make teachers responsible for the impossible,
but just about are they delivering in the classroom what
needs to get taught to the kids?

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
Kelsey, why did we get away from using phonics? I
think Greg and I were both taught to read by phonics.
I mean, he's a few years younger than I am,
but I know ill we were taught that. How did
we get away or why did we get away from
teaching phonics?

Speaker 8 (01:31:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:31:23):
So I think this is a catastrophic mistake with good intentions,
some kids will learn to read no matter how you
teach them. It's about half a kid's I want to say,
And it's a lot of you know, people like me
who are journalists who are like highly wordzy, you know,
learn to read on their own three or four, whether
they teach us or not. The people who are designing

(01:31:45):
education policy were also like that, and they were like,
do we really have to like sit all these kids
in a schoolhouse drilling them, like we're still the Puritans?
Can't We give them exciting reading material that is about
stuff that interest them and teach them just how to
like figure out unfamiliar words from context. And this does

(01:32:06):
work on some kids, so if you do a test
of it, it's not going to fail immediately because some
kids it will totally work for. But some kids need
the sort of systematic instruction that phonics offers, and so
as you move away from that, and especially as you
get teachers who don't even know how to deliver a
good phonics education, then those kids really really start to

(01:32:26):
fall behind. So our reading scores nationwide went down as
people adopted this whole language or whole word approach, which
was taught in the ED schools and which was intended
as a way to make reading connect with kids and
make them love it more and get away from those drills.
But it turns out you need the grills. You can't
love reading if you don't know how to read, and
some kids aren't going to learn how to read without

(01:32:47):
the girls.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
So what really resonates with me is that third grade
is really a really important moment because if you're not
reading I'm told, if you're not reading at a grade
level at third grade, once you get to fourth grade
and fourward, you're not reading to learn, which puts you
in maybe an individual education plan for the rest of
your time in school. So it's a really important timing
in terms of curriculum. So I love hearing that. My

(01:33:11):
question is if you're showing if there's data out there
showing that this these reforms in Mississippi have taken them
from forty ninth to what thirty second or whatever? Whatever
the progress is. Hush my mouse, see I must have
been bad at mass See I didn't. They should have
flunked me. I know, But what the kind of progress
you're seeing? What is the debate? Why is this not

(01:33:33):
just being embraced by everyone? If if it is that
clear and Mississippi has its challenges in terms of household income, everything.
Why on earth would this not be all the rage
at every school in every state.

Speaker 12 (01:33:45):
There are a couple of states that have started in
imitating Mississippi and are seeing benefits, but I do think
it's outrageous that there are other states that aren't. You know,
if you see a state that is spending half as
much on its kids as you're spending and they're getting
better results, you should stop the hall whatever you're doing.
You need to change what you're doing. I think a
lot of the time in education, you have these apparent miracles,

(01:34:08):
it turns out it's a statistical mirage. So a lot
of people have gotten very cynical and jaded and they're like, oh,
it's probably not going to last. But we've seen ten
years in a row now in Mississippi of these games.
They're quite consistent, and we are seeing other states excebsolutely
replicate parts of it. So I don't think it's a
statistical mirage. But I think that's part of it. People
are cynical, and I think the other part of it

(01:34:28):
is it's embarrassing. They don't want to be beaten out
by Mississippi. There's a lot of people who are like,
you're not really saying Mississippi is doing it. You just
got to keep telling them Mississippi is doing better than you. Yeah,
you should be ashamed of that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
You can tax it on our newsmaker line. Kelsey Piper
with the magazine, The Argument magazine talking about Illiteracyting.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
Is fundamental and we can't let Mississippi beat us. It's
a state.

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
Come on, Yeah, everyone goes Mississippi. They've done some good things.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
They have, they really have amnic But again, I never
left the fun camp. I just thought that was kind
of the way we learned how to read. I never
really understood why anyone would leave that. But I think
this the test scores are showing it's the it's the
best practice.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
Well, my age, we read off stone tablets.

Speaker 1 (01:35:13):
I know hieroglyphics.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
For you to bring that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):
You've never actually exercise your hieroglyphics literacy with the audience.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
We haven't. Well that does it for us tonight, as
we say each and every night, head up, shoulders back, man,
God bless you and your family, this great country you
have ours. Be safe this weekend. We'll be back on
Monday and talk to you. Then, have a good weekend.