The Rod and Greg Show: Should Utah Elect a Secretary of State? Dangers of Marijuana

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, that's the guy with the ski mask in the
Friday the thirteenth movies, Right, old Jason.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yeah, he likes it, loves Fridays.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Don't know what you were born on the thirteenth. I
was born on the on February thirteenth. October thirteenth, right October.
Good memory, Huh. I was born on the thirteen thirteenth. Wow?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
What are you born on?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Eighteenth?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Eighteenth? That was cool as the thirteen.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Wow you had a sister fifteen? Who What famous person
was born on your day?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Margaret Thatcher, Okay, Harry Osmond, Sammy Hagar for e Ray
Really Jammy Hagar's on my birthday? On your Yeah, he
knows that that's on my birthday.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Mine is Paul McCartney.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
My uncle Danny. He's famous in certain circles. My uncle
Denny's quite famous. Yes, yes he is.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
It is so good to be with you on this
Friday afternoon as we all get ready to head into
the three day weekend, well most of us, there are
going to be people working on Monday, and we appreciate
you doing that. But we've got a great show lined
up for you today. We're going to be talking about
housing affordability. We'll be talking about a bill and we've
talked about this on the show before, and state lawmakers
who's introducing it is going to be joining us in

(01:12):
studio as a matter of fact, about the creation of
a Secretary of State office here in the state of Utah.
Guess primary purpose to what oversea elections?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's right to oversee Utah's elections, and right now that
that duty is reserved for the lieutenant governor. But we'll
hear from the representative why and it used to be
by the way, originally it was I did not know
that it was moved to.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
The lieutenant governor's office. I did not know that. So
we'll talk about that. We'll talk about this confession from
the New York Times. They have now admitted legalizing marijuana
in the United States in certain states and states what
are there thirty four to thirty eight states now that
allow for recreational use of marijuana? It was a mistake,

(01:58):
you think, Yeah, some.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Of this just does not come as a surprise to
New York Times now rethinking it.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
All right, So we've got a lot to get to today.
By the way, Greg, another indication today that the Trump
economy is starting to kick in. Inflation cooled in January.
Prices are great news for it's just great great news.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, it is great news for the consumer and for
you know, the inflation's cooling down. We're seeing again personally
comes rising. More private sector jobs are being increased, the
government taxpayer sucking jobs are going away. Lowest rate of
federal employees per workforce in the country since nineteen sixty six.

(02:38):
These are all all good stats. Waiting for the go
ahead nod from Queen Bee to tell me that she
thinks things are getting okay. Now, I don't think prices
ever shrink. You know, we talk inflation. It's always what
we're adding by way of waiting. But you got your
income's got to go gro faster, and you know, so anyway,
I think that I think these I'm hoping the tax
returns that people will see because of the big beautiful

(03:01):
bill will also yeah, make people feel like, hey, we've
got a couple of quarters rub together, let's uh, let's
spend well.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
The one thing I mentioned to you, I think it
was last week or two weeks ago, Greg the price
of beef. Right. I was in the store and saw
a couple of stakes and they were like eighteen dollars
a peeks yep, And people are saying when are beat
price is going to come down? Get ready, folks. I
saw a story today and write a story about this
today and didn't realize this. Beef prices are not going
to come down anytime soon. Do you know why why

(03:28):
the herds are the smallest they've ever been. Yeah, around
the country, cattle herds are down and it's going to
take a couple of years to build them up and
to get the cattle ready to go to market. So
the herds, the size of cattle herds all around the
country are at I think someone said their lowest level,
like in seventy five years. So if you're expecting beef
prices to go down anytime soon, I wouldn't count that it.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's too bad. I think a lot of people are
counting on that.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, yeah, that could be one of the issues. All right.
You know, we always we love it when we see
the libs go just bonkers, right, Yes, and we have
a couple of cases today, but this may be the
craziest one. I want you to listen to this exchange
as we begin the show today between a unhinged lady
now she has his students at Seven Oaks Elementary School

(04:16):
in Washington State. She decided that she was going to
approach and harass a sheriff's deputy who was parked at
the school, claiming he was scaring families by being there.
He's just parked outside the school, and she said, you're
scaring families. I mean, listen to this exchange. It's a
little lengthy, but give a listen to this because it's
pretty amazing.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
What are you doing?

Speaker 5 (04:37):
What am I doing here?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Why are you here?

Speaker 5 (04:40):
I was just doing a collision report.

Speaker 6 (04:42):
Man.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
Okay, okay, are you guys going to be here much
longer until I'm done doing my job?

Speaker 7 (04:49):
Because one of the tea shirts when I dropped off
over there, said, y'all been circling since about.

Speaker 5 (04:53):
Eight Okay, well, I'm just doing my job, so quick.

Speaker 7 (04:56):
Your job at the elementary school since about eight am.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
I wasn't here.

Speaker 7 (05:01):
There was a collision here at the elementary school.

Speaker 5 (05:04):
You have a good day. I'm gonna continue to do.

Speaker 7 (05:06):
My talk for us, and you're scaring these families. You
should probably go do your job where your job lives,
because I don't see that it needs to be right here.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Almore.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
I'm gonna explain something.

Speaker 6 (05:18):
M hm.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
The person that I was just working with left approximately
five minutes ago. This was a collision report for them.
I'm doing my job.

Speaker 7 (05:26):
Can you maybe, like for a second acknowledge that you
could be a really upsetting site for people right now?

Speaker 5 (05:37):
Your grandm just doing my job.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
I get it, I do.

Speaker 7 (05:40):
I get it, But like for us to be able
to collaborate with you all at all going forward.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
You're gonna have to show us some humanity.

Speaker 7 (05:47):
You're gonna have to show us that you understand the
circumstances and the feelings that you evoke, because, like, it
would be so rad to if you like you're here
for us, it would be so rad I feel like
you guys get it and understand that you are actually
the defending line between us and the fascism. But until
like that's overt, until that's avert that you're part of

(06:09):
our community, then I don't think you should be lingering.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
Absolutely all due respect, I'm not going to continue to
go back and forth. I'm going to try to finish
my job as fast as possible. Okay, keep in mind
that you are cussing.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
We are in front of the school so please, I'll
give you that.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
That's fair.

Speaker 5 (06:24):
Okay, So the quicker I get this done, I can leave.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (06:26):
Yeah, I'm not really really.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Not trying to really be thinking about these kids and
these models.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
You know what moms are going through right now?

Speaker 5 (06:32):
Right, I do understand that. But let me just please,
I'll get this out of the way and I'll.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Be out of everyone's would appreciate.

Speaker 5 (06:38):
That you have a good rest of your day.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
I have one word for this woman.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I have a few. But what word would you say?

Speaker 9 (06:44):
Ding?

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Bad?

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I know you, I don't know. This is a family.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, I tell you what what is she doing?

Speaker 2 (06:55):
That is in an ice agent, that was a that's
a police officer, that's law enforcement there to protect and serve,
And it's really, do you know what you're putting these
mothers through? You do? Tell? What would he says? I know,
I know, I don't know. I have no idea what
she's talking about, the idea that that law enforcement being
present around a school would upset parents and kids. So

(07:18):
what would you like to see? I mean, if I
don't think if there was something going wrong, they would
be upset to see them arrive there was an emergency
so I don't know. I find the whole conversation to
be at I just think they've lost their minds to
walk up to that police And by the way, folks,
that exchange that you heard wasn't the officer recording his exchange.

(07:39):
This is this loan of a woman who comes up
with a camera, recording that conversation then posting it. Is
if what she did was okay, is if what she
said was normal? It's insane. It is absolutely insane.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Can we say something that that police officer man talk
about a cool cucumber?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Oh? He way more patience? I mean, you know, and recorded,
But I mean, my goodness, I was just I just
wouldn't entertain a conversation. It's just I don't I can't
remember the name of the movie. But Jack Nicholson says,
go sell crazy somewhere else. We're all filled up here.
That's I honestly would I don't know that I could
even be that silver or have a conversation, right, I

(08:17):
just rolled the window up and keep doing what I'm doing.
And if she starts hitting your car, I don't think
they're allowed to do that. I mean, I just.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
She's what a weird time she obviously, is trying to
provoke him into doing something or saying something that she
could record and then go after that officer. The only
thing I think he said what was hilarious after she
dropped the F bomb? Okay he said, you know you're
cussing outside of a school. Well, okay, I'll give you that.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, she has her morals, you know, she she you know,
dropping F bombs. But you're right, I'm in front of school.
I'll give you that.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Like you were saying, Greg, what if there was a
tragedy at that school maybe and we don't wish this
upon it, but like unfortunately a shooting there and police
weren't there. In a second, she would be the first
one in line yelling where were the police when this happened?
That's right, that's where that's the chemical woman.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
There is certain crimes against children that you that we
all don't want to see happen, but sadly do happen.
Some children that are abducted. There's all kinds of things
that can happen. I don't know one downside of having
a uniformed officer in his car in a police or
in a parking lot of a school. That would be
anything but a chilling effect for bad things to happen.
I think bad things are less likely to happen if

(09:31):
you have a police officer in that parking lot. That
should not be bad news. That shouldn't be something scary
or traumatic for parents or teachers or kids. That should
be a good thing. Yeah, I mean, last time I
kept scoring, it was a good thing.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Who's scaring the children about police?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Not police them, It's that parents in that crazy late.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
We have several examples of this today. We have time
to show them or let you hear them, but there
are several examples out there around the country today of
people approaching nights, crazy ladies, approaching knights or police. It's
just nuts.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
It is all right, they lost it.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
It is thank rodding. Greg gets Friday on Utah's Talk
Radio one o five Dying Can or us when we
come back housing affordability. The problem is it politics or policy?
That's next on Talk Radio one o five Dying Knrs.
Let's talk about housing affordability a big issue here in
the state of Utah and really around the country, and
people are trying to figure out what exactly Greg is going.
You're a builder, you have some insight on this. You

(10:31):
know what's happening out there.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
I did some of my day. I'm not how to
build it currently, but I know that I didn't know.
I've watched Utah grow as a state, and I've watched
this climate of being able to build homes and how
difficult it is. And look, Utah's been a growing state.
The real estate there's you know, they say, the man
upstairs not making any more land. Yeah, okay, so it
gets it gets a little more scarce. The bigger, you know,
the more popular ad you get. And we're feeling that.

(10:54):
So joining us on the program, we want to talk
to somebody that has a big brain about the affordability
of houses and all the different variables that may be impacting.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
His name is JT.

Speaker 6 (11:04):
Young.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
He's an author, a contributor a town hall. He's taking
a look at this issue. JT. Thanks for joining us tonight.
Your article seems to indicate it is an issue of
policy versus politics. More on that if you will.

Speaker 6 (11:15):
Well, the first thing is I find the irony that
is it's being made of political issues by the party
that caused the problem. And I think what we need
to remember is this is really a political problem, not
an economic problem. The economy has responded largely to the

(11:39):
stimulus that has been put into it over the previous
four years. And I think that's what you're seeing with
the problem is housing affordability right now.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
So one of the things that you point out, and
I think it's true, the regulatory climate to build homes
and to make them affordable and really at a especially
for those emerging into the market looking to be first
time home buyers, which I would call it's a working housing,
not not low income housing, but workforce housing. Some of
those zones, some of the processes that you have to

(12:13):
go through if you're building these homes, the length of
time everything just gets more expensive, or has has been
our record. What can be done? I mean, nobody wants
to see local control taken away, but you get into
some of these planning commissions, city council meetings, you have
people that would rather have an empty field than have
homes there for their own personal preference. How do you

(12:34):
overcome some of the burdens of regulation, zoning, things like
that that seem to stemy of houses, affordable houses being built.

Speaker 6 (12:42):
Well, you're so right that you noticed that this is well,
obviously we've had a national issue of inflation, and we
can talk about that later in the call. But you
have what you just identified very local problems, and it
is dramatic how different it is in red states versus

(13:03):
Blue states. Uh. And you were just mentioning, you know
what can be done. I think some of it is
being done, and sadly it's being done by people who
are moving from blue states into Red states.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Oh no, oh, no.

Speaker 6 (13:21):
I forgot that. I forgot your audience. I'm sorry about that.
Y'all are just too efficient. I mean, uh, you know,
people from California are fleeing. They're going to be fleeing
for some of these other areas, whether it's you know,
I was just noticing, Uh, you know, Denver has enormous

(13:43):
uh a cost there. You see places like New York City,
and these regulations can obviously they can be environmental, they
can be land used, they can be they can be
in regards to apply it, sufficiency and things like that.
All of these add costs, and as you well know,

(14:08):
that has an effect on affordability of a house in
a particular area. And I think people are seeing more
and more of this and they are moving to states
that have a more reasonable regulatory climate, and those are
red states.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Who can you point your finger at or can you
point your finger at one group that is causing the
problem or is it a myriad of problems, a myriad
of people getting involved in all of this, And that's
what makes it even more confusing for people. JT.

Speaker 6 (14:40):
I think it's I think it's a combination. Again. We
you know, we're just starting to talk about inflation. That's
a national problem and it's hit everybody. You know. We
just had inflation numbers come out today. They were three
tens to percent better than what had been anticipate. But

(15:00):
we have to remember it wasn't four years ago when
inflation was running at nine point one percent. We came
in at two point four today, so almost a quarter
of what it was. That it's worst. And inflation is
a lot like eating and if you were gaining a

(15:21):
pound a week over the course of the year, and
suddenly you have a week where you don't gain a pound,
that's great, but it doesn't mean you lose all the
weight you'd put on before. So that's a national problem
and that's something that we all have to work through.
And that was done, you know, at the federal level

(15:44):
with the Federal Reserve and heavy spending coming through the
Biden administration. And then you have the regulatory issues those
are local, which then compound on top of it. And
that can come from environmentalists, it can come from people
who just you know, they think they're trying to do

(16:04):
something for lower income people, and so they put mandates
on what has to be included in the house, what
can be you know, can live up to code and
things like that. But when they're doing it, they're adding costs,
and you know, they're actually working counter to what they're

(16:25):
trying to achieve.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
So let me ask you this Donald Trump's leadership. President
Trump's leadership is he's been pretty critical of the FED.
He's ready to change it from uh Powell to a
to a new fair chair of the Fed. But interest rates,
I got to tell you, I mean, there's times in
my life I remember it's seven and a quarter, seven
seven and eighth. Right now it seems like it's five

(16:48):
points something on our mortgage rates. How low do you
think interest rates could go? Because certainly that has a
that can spur homeowner, you know, more affordability for homes
if your interest rates are lower. But I don't though
that we'll ever see those one point seven percent interest
rates or how low they got. Do you Is there
a sweet spot that you see JT where you'd like
to see interest rates go that you think will spur

(17:10):
some good activity on home ownership.

Speaker 6 (17:14):
I think what you really have to do is you
have to ring out the inflation premium that's embedded. You know,
the markets are not convinced yet that inflation's dead, and
rightfully so. We have to remember they lived through four years. Again,
they peaked at nine point one percent in June twenty

(17:36):
twenty two, but that doesn't mean they just went back
to normal. So they've been living under a prolonged period
where they have now built into their costs and their
interest rates an inflation premium. They have to be convinced
that the era of inflation is truly over. We'll see

(18:00):
that then melt away, And to your point, I don't
know where that point will drop. Two. But if we
do see the FED lower rates, which I think what
we saw today with this inflation report was very positive.
If we see the Fed lower rates, if we see

(18:21):
the markets get a sense that inflation has been beaten
and that inflation premium starts to melt away.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
JT.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Thank you j T. Young on our news micro line
of contributor to town Hall talking about housing affordability here
in the country. All right, A lot more to come
right here on the Roden greg Show and Utahs Talk
Radio one oh five nine knrs.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Majority leader soon has to agree to what they call
what a verbal or.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
A talking philip versus the zombie filibuster. There's got to
be a talking filibuster.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
From what so, and then they would just have to
outlast the Democrats and talking until they can finally get
to a vote. But I I so anyway, I would
hope that you wouldn't get this far to say no,
I hope that I didn't you tell me that the
president is asked to talk to the majority leader soon.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Well, I understand there may be a conversation's aching place.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
And if you're a betting man, what would you say?
You think? Don you think Trump's has a way a.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Pretty good persuader?

Speaker 2 (19:17):
I think I think I think it does that.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Well, let's talk about what's going on in the Utah legislature.
We have a very interesting bill being proposed that would
create a Secretary of State position here in the State
of Utah. Apparently, Greg, this is something we've had before.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
That's right, I think longer in Utah's history, we've had
a Secretary of State until I guess in nineteen eighty
or something like that. But this would require an amendment
to our constitution. So this path, how does this bill
become a law? H JR. Twenty five Proposal to Amend
our Utah Constitution? Secretary of State joining US Representative Lisa Shepherd,

(19:52):
thank you for joining us on the show.

Speaker 9 (19:54):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
So tell our listeners what is it. Secretaries, maybe describe
what position you're looking to put in our constitution. I'm
assuming for people to vote for absolutely yes.

Speaker 9 (20:05):
So we'll have to have a constitutional note obviously, and
then it has to have majority of the voters, and
we'll have to have fifty votes in the House and
twenty votes in the Senate to get it to a ballot,
and that would be hopefully this coming November that we
would get it there. So I'm looking to take basically
the current duties that are statutorily given to the lieutenant
governor and pick those right up and put them into

(20:27):
a Secretary of State where they used to be once
upon a time prior to nineteen eighty. And the reason
I want to do that is, first of all, I
would love to free up lieutenant governor to be that
ambassador for the governor's agenda, to be the person that
is going out and speaking. I have heard several lieutenant
governors speak, and I actually heard this lieutenant governor we
currently have. I've heard her speak on energy and she's

(20:49):
fabulous on speaking on energy, and I was like, that
is exactly what I'm looking for, an enhancement to the
elections to the i'm sorry, elections to the governor's office,
to have that person free and also free from the
muck and controversy of elections. I think if we have
someone that is directly elected by the people to do

(21:09):
these elections and all the other duties that go along
with that, and also if they are directly elected and
accountable to the people, and that's something that we have
been missing in this little portion here with lieutenant governor
because it's a shared ticket and I don't know anyone
that's elected as a governor because they thought that the

(21:31):
lieutenant governor was going to be just so amazing at elections.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
I was going to ask you you partially answered it already.
But if you take the election duties away from the
lieutenant governor, what does she have to do or he
have to do? I mean, what do they do? They
just run around and give speeches.

Speaker 9 (21:49):
Well they could, they could do that, but there are
very many duties that are currently there beside what the
statutorial duties are that I'm describing. There's committees that they
sit on, committees chair and also anything that the governor
would ask them to do. And interesting, when I was
speaking with some members of the Senate, one of them
said that they wanted me to put in to make

(22:10):
sure that any foreign dignities, now it should be more
than just foreign dignities, it should be dignities that come
to the state that they would definitely not be greeted
by the Secretary of State like you would on a
national but by the executive and so that would be
the governor and lieutenant governor tully agree, And as I
gave that information to the drafting attorney, they said, that's
not even anywhere in there, but we put it in there.

(22:34):
We put it in there. So I've collaborated with many
people on this one. I think one of the most
interesting points about this particular, it's twenty five number twenty five.
Resolution number twenty five is that it will be elected
in the midterm years. That'll be the normal cycle. Which
is such an asset and such a benefit to all

(22:54):
the other candidates and to the voters as a whole,
is that you know, you have that secretary of state,
that is folks seeing one hundred percent on the race
and not having to be a candidate at the same
time that you have all the other constitutional officers.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
I think that's huge. Yeah, I agree. Now, represent help
me understand. So when our Utah Constitution used to have
a statewide elected secretary of State, when and why was
that office ever removed?

Speaker 9 (23:20):
Well, I've gone through every piece of information that I can,
and I've gone through every recording, and I had another
one of my helpers helped me with listening to all
of the recordings as well as me to find out
what was the motivation, what was going on there. And
they really wanted to streamline the executive They also wanted
to have that companion ticket, like I mentioned, I guess

(23:42):
that's called the joint ticket. They had the joint ticket.
They really wanted that. They got that. I think that
is smart. We need to keep that with the succession plan.
For the governor needs to be lieutenant governor and they
need to be able to step in at any moment,
and when that lieutenant governor steps in at any moment
or perhaps maybe runs for governor, the I could say,
stinch all of the controversy that surrounds elections, right. I

(24:12):
think when they were to answer that question more fully,
when they were making a making taken from a secretary
or estate and going there, they were really just looking
to modernize, is what the word is. And and to me,
we need to modernize back because at that point in time,
we had one third amount of voters, one third of
the amount of voters that voted on Constitution amendment compared

(24:32):
to the last time we had one that voted. You know,
people voted on the amendment. We also didn't have social media.
We didn't have you know, all all of the mail
in ballots, all the the controversy that is surrounding And
I want our lieutenant governor to be free from that,
and I would love for a secretary of State to
take that on right and they and they will be

(24:55):
accountable to the people directly.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Can you hate hang for a few minutes. We've got
to pay commercials, so we his high salary. Could you
hang for a second, a few more questions? All right,
mar coming up. It is the Rodd and Greg Show
right here on Utah and Stock Radio one oh five nine.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Canteris we have Representative Lisa Shephard with us talking about
your constitutional moment to create the office of secretary of State.
During the commercial break, we were talking about what happened
in nineteen eighty when that was actually changed from a
secretary of state to the lieutenant governor holding those election duties.
Let's just dive into that real quickly. Is there a

(25:29):
conflict of interest?

Speaker 8 (25:30):
There?

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Was it a clean handoff? What does that look like?

Speaker 9 (25:34):
Well, I think that we created an inherent structurally conflict
of interest, and I think going back to a secretary
of state actually restored that separation of powers that we need.
Like they didn't think about that at that point. I
don't think they did, or they wouldn't have done it

(25:54):
well represented. So let's go from there.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
That's a good idea, I'd say when I was I
don't know why we didn't talk about it when I
was serving during my time, but why not like why
now versus ten years ago or ten years from now.
Why is why do you see now is an important
time to do it?

Speaker 9 (26:09):
Well, right now our governor has stated he's not running again,
therefore they will be open seats. And if we're going
to make a change for a secretary of state, now
is the time. So when candidates are running for a
secretary of state or the running for a lieutenant governor
and governor joint ticket, they know what they're running for.
I think it would be a little unusual if we

(26:30):
have to do it. We have to do it if
we can't get through this year, but be a little
unusual to have them come in start serving and then
we just change it in the middle of a cycle.
So I think this is the perfect time to do it.
It is time, It is a perfect time.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Would there be safeguards on this because I know a
current situation where I've heard that lieutenant governor not only
overseas elections but actually can make some campaign contributions to
candidates in the state. And I've heard that. Is that true?
And would this prevent that from happening?

Speaker 9 (26:56):
I've not set up anything along that way yet. I
have not Maybe we can do that next year.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
What about a circumstance, So we if we think that
the lieutenant governor running state elections when they're on at
the top of the ticket, which I agree, but you
still have a statewide election for the secretary of State.
So who runs that election that year if the secretary
of state's running, because again they're in charge of the elections,
but they themselves will have an election, so you might
have the same challenge in terms of separation of powers.

Speaker 9 (27:24):
I have thought through that, and you must have read
my mind because I have that in my bill. I
wanted to make sure that if we have this right
now conflict of interests, we're not just going to be
moving it to another office. So we put in the
bill it's actually in the constitution that there'll be over elections.
We want to make sure it's in the constitution that
secretary of State so over elections, so a future legislature
wouldn't move that around. So we put it in there

(27:47):
that if the lieutenant governor, if the sorry go back
to secretary of State, is a candidate for any office,
then lieutenant governor, if they don't have a conflict of interest,
will be over that particular race, and if Lieutenant Governor
and the Secretary State both happen to be a candidate,
then it'll go to the Board of Canvassers to select
which state official it will be.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Okay, where do you stand? Where does the bill stand now?
In its part?

Speaker 9 (28:13):
Yeah, I'm hoping to take it out. I'll request to
have a come out. I haven't requested it yet to
come out. We just got our fiscal notes, but it's
in rules. Hoping to get it out maybe Monday or
Tuesday and start in the process. And one thing that's
really important to know, this Secretary of State bill and
Constitution amendment is not about a person. It's not about
a party. It's not about politics, and it's not about personalities.

(28:34):
It's about structure and like I said earlier, recreating that
structure where we do not have that inherent conflict of
interest and the person can run and be directly elected
and accountable to the people.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Representative. I think Greg and I are both behind this.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
We love it.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
We like this idea because we've talked about it on
the show. Good luck with this, Thank you all right.
Representative State Representative Lisa Shephard joining us on The Rodden
Greg show right here, on Utah's Talk Radio one five
nine Canners. I like the idea, Greg, I just find
it weird that the lieutenant governors over elections and she's
running for election.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Makes no sense, and she's not the front or not
not she or here the lieutenant governor as a position
is really not the focus of that election when they're
running on a ticket with the governor. So I think
having the person that would run the elections, having voters
look them in the eye, asked the hard questions and
vote for or against that candidate specifically, I think Utahn's
win in that process.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yes, I do too. All right, our number two coming
your way here on the Rowden Greg Show. The chairman
of the Utah Republican Party will be joining us. Role
Axon will join us. We'll talk about a big weekend
for the GOP, and we'll talk Did you know that
Utah has a Utah Marriage Commission? I never knew that.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Do we need one? I mean, I thought we were
good at it. We had Breedham Young University down south.
I didn't think we needed a commission on this? Is
it a Maybe the young ones don't know how to
do it, Maybe they need.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
A little help. They need some help. We'll tell guidance.
It's Valentine's Day, perfect time to talk about the Utah
Marriage Commission. Good as me out, stay with it. You're
on Utah's Talk Radio one oh five nine can arrests
our number two is on its way. All right, big

(30:14):
weekend for the Utah Republican Party, Greg in this effort
against Proposition four.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, this is the this is all the chips are in.
This is the week I think this weekends you know,
you or die. You gotta get all in.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Got to get the signatures in, be able to get
it on the ballot, and we certainly are behind that effort.
Joining us on our newsmaker line to talk about that
is the chairman of the Utah Republican Party, Rob Ackson. Rob,
how are you welcome back to the Rod and Greg Show.
Thanks for joining us, Rob.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Hey guys, always going to be with you and Happy Friday.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Happy Friday. You know he's done big time? Oh yeah,
Rob has He was on with Glenn Beck this morning.
I mean, Glenn's got five more listeners than we do.
But you know he considered himself big time.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
I don't know, I think we're his biggest.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
No, Rod we're closing the day off with you guys.

Speaker 10 (31:00):
This is where we need to talk to Utons. You
guys are the ones that have the listeners across this state.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
It's true, Rob, I don't know if you know. We
did a live broadcast in Orum and we had so
many great listeners show up to the We are at
Minky Couture and at their store there and so many
great listeners. We do have the smartest listening audience and
all the land. So I think you are smart. You're
a wise man to be on the show with us
on this Friday, I think, and you have an important

(31:25):
message to share.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Why is this so important this weekend? Why is it
so important?

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Rob?

Speaker 10 (31:30):
So here's the closing pitch that I would make to Utons.
Our deadline is Sunday, so it's set in statute, so
we will abide by the deadline that we have five
pm on Sunday, which means I've got just under two
days left to get signatures. And I'm sure you've had
a lot of your listeners who think, oh yeah, Prop
four is not good. I care about constitutional government, I

(31:52):
care about representative being a representative republic, and I need
to sign that. But I just haven't had the time
to do that. Now's the time. I need you to
step up. I need you to get off the couch.
I need you to come on out and go and sign.
You can go anybody across the state, but especially here
on the Lost Edge Front, where most of our citizens are.
You can go to UFRG dot org forward slash Calendar

(32:17):
and that lays out locations where you can come and sign.
The reason it's important to get these signatures is that's
the threshold that we have to cross, and we have
to preserve that threshold, even with the left spending what
looks to be about four million dollars so far in
opposition and recision efforts to get us off the ballot
because they're afraid of the people of Utah making the choice.

(32:37):
On the other hand, we believe Utons should be the
ones to make this choice. The chaos of Prop four
over the last six years has kind of spoken for itself.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Let's let Utans decide do.

Speaker 10 (32:47):
You want to have that continued kind of confusion or
do you want to repeal it and get back to
a place where we respect representative government.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
You know, it's just driven us crazy, and I think
our listeners share in this frustration that better Boundaries was
sold and passed by a razor thin margin. We're really
over a million dollars spent promoting what turns out to
be a lie, while the other there was no real
money on the other side of that campaign back in
twenty eighteen when they ran it. But this is the lie.

(33:17):
This was supposed to be recommendations made to the legislative
body that, by our state constitution draws these congressional maps.
They are the people that they are elected by the people.
What we got is nothing like that. This was a
map drawn or approved by a judge and drawn by
a left of center special interest group with zero process

(33:38):
or public input whatsoever. And it's a plus twenty four
percent Kamalahara district in Utah. If it was I've never
seen worse jerrymandering. So my question is when people are
signing this up, there's some lies out there saying don't
sign the sature, you're going to reintroduce jerrymandering into the state.
You couldn't have more jerrymandering than we have right now. Rob,

(33:59):
How are you, as the party chair really clarifying these
misrepresentations by the other side trying to confuse the public
into not signing your proposition.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
You just laid it out exactly right.

Speaker 10 (34:12):
What we were sold in twenty eighteen is not what
we are receiving right now. And I believe that Utons
believe in representative government. They believe in following the Constitution,
both of our nation that guarantees us a republican form
of government as well as our state, which in Article nine,
as you laid out, says specifically it's the legislature that
drafts these maps. This idea that fair maps only come

(34:34):
through this independent redistricting commission turned into a Frankenstein project
by this judge is ridiculous. The reality is fairness comes
through accountability. Our elected representatives have accountability, and where there's
confusion I would say for anybody on the fence that
they just don't know. All we're asking for right now
is help us qualify for the ballot. We will then

(34:55):
have a year of Uton's deciding, weighing in on this,
learning about it, and they'll be able to decide in
November when it's on the ballot. I put my trust
in the people of Utah, and if it goes the
way I prefer to go, fantastic. If it doesn't, I
can still respect that. I don't, however, respect an unaccountable
judge unilaterally flipping her nose at the people of Utah

(35:17):
by ignoring our constitution and claiming to defend a provision
of fair maps by implementing the most gerrymannered, manipulated map
that Utah will have ever seen.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Rob, Not only are you fighting against the ruling of
Dirty Diana, you're fighting against the Democrats, You're fighting against
better boundaries, legal women on the Women for eth Mormon
Women for Ethical Government, whatever that organization is. But I
also think you're fighting against the media. And let me
explain why there have been petition drives in this state
ever since I've been here. But I've never seen so

(35:49):
many reports out there questioning the validity of the petition gatherers,
and they have, and then I have also never seen
this effort on their part, with this effort to show
look how many people have asked to unsign the petition.
I've never seen stories like that. So I think not
only are we fighting against the people I just mentioned,
but also the media in this town who apparently want this.

(36:11):
In my opinion, yeah, no, you're exactly right.

Speaker 10 (36:14):
I had to call out KSL today and I'll do
it again. They had garbage recording, they had a headline
that was soilicious and slanderous, and it's pathetic. The people
of Utah and in this country should respect and appreciate open dialogue,
and the media has a role in providing that. They
fell short of that today at KSL, and they have

(36:35):
fallen short a number of reports over the last couple
of weeks, especially these last three weeks, because what you
said is exactly right. For whatever reason, they've decided to
put their thumb on the scale. So to your listeners,
if you haven't signed, we need your signature. If you
have signed, I need you to call your friends. I
need five friends, ten friends, especially on the wastatche Front,

(36:56):
especially here in Salt Lake County. Get them to come
out and add their v this. Let's not let media
preferences from a couple of reporters or an unaccountable private
organization or an unaccountable judge making decisions for the people
of Utah. I trust my fellow Utahs, even if they
disagree with me politically. I trust that process. Let's give

(37:17):
it back to the people of Utah. So where do
they go. Our listeners are listening and they're ready to sign.
Tell us where our listeners can go to sign this
and fill it out to make sure you get enough signatures.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yep.

Speaker 10 (37:31):
The place that you need to go is u f
RG dot org forward slash Calendar so u f RG
dot org and that stands for utons for representative Government.
You don't have to be a Republican, you don't have
to be affiliated with any political party. You just have
to be a registered voter here in the state of Utah.
And really this isn't a partisan issue. This is an

(37:53):
issue of do you believe in the constitution, Do you
believe in the principles of a representative government? And do
you believe that the people not be your crafts, not judges,
not private organizations.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
The people.

Speaker 10 (38:03):
Are they where the power comes from? Are they the sovereigns?
That's what I believe. So that's where you need to
go UFRG dot org. You'll find locations where you can
come to sign. If you think that you signed because
you type something in online, you haven't. By law, it
has to be a physical, wet signature done in a
physical location. You have to either do it at your
doorstep or when you run into a signature gather or

(38:26):
at one of these locations. So please come out to
sign make sure your friends and family have done the same.
Let's not let outside groups tell us the way that
our state's going to be. Let's not outside influence and
dollars intimidate or bully people. And to those who have signed,
be proud of your signature. You're engaged in the process.
Don't let anybody intimidate you to pull your signature off.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Rob, good luck to you. I know it's going to
be a crazy weekend. Keep us up todate and good
luck in this effort. We'll do all we can to
get the word out. Thanks Rob, Thank you guys. All right,
Rob Axsen, he's chairman of the Utah Republican Party, here
on the Rod and Greg Show last weekend to get
those signatures, to get this question on the ballot before
you again. It is u f RG dot org forward
slash calendar. If you're looking for a location to serve

(39:11):
that you're you know this a weekend. It's gonna be
nice tomorrow, I think for the most part, by the
sounds of it. The weather forecast on Sunday. Look for
a place and we can only encourage you. I don't
know how more we can encourage people than what we're
doing right now, Greg, to get them out there and
to sign that petition.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
That's right. And I just I just looked up the website.
They give the window of time if you put your
name and there's a place to put your name in address,
it'll actually direct you to the closest the closes.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Good, good, good, all right, more coming up the Rod
and Gregg Show with you on this thank Rod and
Greg gets Friday on Utah's Talk Radio one O five
nine knrs. Again, here's the address. If you want to
find location, it's u f RG dot org u f
RG dot org forard slash calendar. You can go on
there and put your put your name in your location

(39:57):
where you live and see they're signing up. They've got
a tall task to reach by Sunday. That's going to
be really if you if you are concerned about the
direction of this state, you need to be able to
get out find a way to sign that petition.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
That's right. You know democrats in the media that are
complaining about how that process works, or who's a paid
signature gather or not. There's not been one leftist citizen
initiative in the state like Obamacare that we in the
legislature killed on my watch. But they they went and
paid millions to get that put on the ballot. They've
that's how they've always done it. And then for them
to turn around and say, wow, you might be paying

(40:33):
signature gatherers when that's all they've ever done to get
these leftist you know, issues in front of voters and
the like better Boundaries or the original one or Obamacare expansion,
and then they package it as if it's nothing like
what it really is. And so it's a bit of
hypocrisy in terms of its criticism of this effort to

(40:53):
revisit this bad deal that was missed. You know what
they sold us, it's not what we ended up with.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
But do you think greg in this state, Okay, this
is a state that there are people out there who
may oppose this or kind of oppose it a little bit. Okay,
the and are saying to this, well, we do need
to be fair and if there are people in this
state who don't feel they're being properly represented, maybe we
should just give an area where they feel they're properly represented.

(41:25):
I mean, this is what drives me crazy, Greg, is
that what is that thirteen percent of the registered voters
in this state are Democrats? Yes, why do they need
their own district?

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Four?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Statewide?

Speaker 1 (41:37):
You get four sid so we all can feel good.
We can say, well, we're a fair state and we
consider both sides of the issue. Do they not understand
where the Democratic Party today is taking this country?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
That's one issue. Here's another one. Go ahead and jam
every Democrat you can find, as they have into this
plus twenty four percent Kamalhara district of one of the
four you've disenfranchised, you've now made seventy percent Republican districts
out of the three. So if you're a Democrat in
any of those other districts, you you really don't have

(42:10):
a voice. Now, those ratios were a lot closer the
way the legislature drew them versus the way this judge
had this left of centered.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Dirty Diana what was your name again.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Dirty Diana Gibson?

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Thanks. She has a drawn a map that is more
gerrymannered than anything the legislature has ever come up with
in terms of highly highly Republican districts three of them
and then one obnoxiously plus twenty four percent Democrat district,
and it doesn't represent the state. That's not the makeup
of our state. It was much better when you took

(42:42):
urban suburban and urban suburban and rural, and because you
only have four districts and you had constituencies from all
three of those areas for each of four of the
members of Congress, and those again Democrats were represented higher
in those four districts that way, Then whatever it is
that judge in this left of center group crew.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Are we really as this goes on depending on what
happens here, But let's say if it stays the way
it is, and we only can hope not, but you
have to be a realist on this as well. Are
we going to see the real Ben mccadams come out
in this election? Now? Ben mccadams serves what one or
two terms in Congress? Right, he served one term in Congress.
One term in Congress. I guess you you know we
I guess you could call him fairly moderate as to

(43:26):
run for that disc But now he's running for this district,
and I wonder how moderate Ben McAdams is going to
be on this one. I mean, when it comes to
boys and girls, bathrooms, an expanded Supreme Court, you know,
let's see Porter all these issues. Would he vote in
favor of impeaching Donald Trump? Again? Of course they're going
to go after him.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
We all, he's going to be a flamethrower. He has
to be here. He's not going to win that district,
that district, that district, Bernie Sanders will probably pick the NOMINEECOC.
Think about that, How how skewed or how wrong that
is in Utah with our makeup exactly as it is,
that a Bernie Sanders or AOC could be the king

(44:08):
maker for one of our four congressional districts, king or
queen maker, I should say, But yeah, I just think
that it's an absolute farce.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, well, I'm and I'm wondering too, Greg. Ben McAdams,
are you in favor of eliminading nice if we keep pip.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
That district? That's a quick answer. He'll say, absolutely yes.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
We may really get to the real Ben mccadams in
this race, because you're right, Greg, he's going to have
to drift so far left, yeah, to win this seat
that we may see his real.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Colors right, No, it's yeah, it's it's an island, and
it's it's going to have it's going to be as
extreme as you get. They're going to be identifying with
the leftist from the northeast of the United States or
these blue states. That's what are what this one will
look like if it were to hold. I think that's
why we really need to see this come out. And
again if they're also convincing people to take their name

(45:00):
off that signature because they're advertising the better boundaries. People
trying to stave this off by saying, if you signed that,
you're going to reintroduce jerrymandering into our process. Did you
hear the percentages I've just shared with you about the
four districts that is the most jerrymandered four congressional districts
this state has ever seen and coincidentally not drawn by

(45:21):
the legislative branch as per our state constitution. There's never
been the pendulum that swings so wildly to the left
for this one and so wildly to the right for
the other three. You know, look, as a lawmaker, I
can tell you in my redistricting time, we asked should
we just relegate as many of these Democrats into their
own little district and just to have the rest be

(45:41):
bulletproof Republicans. And we concluded that it wasn't fair that
they should have the different constituencies of rural, suburban, and
urban so that they can hear the perspective because our
state doesn't have that many representatives. We only have four. Anyway,
that's jerrymandering, is what we have want right now, that's
what you got, oh amen, under the banner of we

(46:01):
won't have any political or partisan considerations partisan, we won't
have partisan can we won't have partisan considerations translated by
what we see that was drawn Republican considerations. No Republican considerations.
This is certainly partisan at the highest level.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well, maybe we should send dirty Diana a box of
coloring color colors all blue. Yes, yes, here, you just
outline it in the blue, because that's what you want.
Dirty Diana.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yep, she has made an absolute mess of this. I again,
if you a plane reading of our state constitution, I
don't know how you get to where we are right now.
There's a legislative branch that didn't have anything to do
with these maps. My hail Mary here is that there's
a federal lawsuits underway, and I think I think this
our US Supreme Court would make scent, would would end

(46:48):
this farce immediately if given a chance. So I'm hoping
that that happened.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Well, it was the BRAINI Acts at Mormon Women for
Ethical Government and League of Women Voters, the BRAINI Acts
that run those organizations that developed a very fair play.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah, and those maps they went through cities, they went,
they didn't keep on traditional boundaries of cities or counties.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
And then she had to go back at home, she
had to go back to whoops, gotta fix this one.
Gotta fix this one. All right, more coming up the
Rod and Greg Show with you on this thank Rod
and Greg gets Friday and Utah's Talk Radio one oh
five nine k n R S. I'm ready to are you? Yeah,
I'm all set? Really yeah, I've got one little thing

(47:27):
to do.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Okay, all right, okay, But you sound under the weather.
If you were planning to go out, I think you
know you had the very white itis going on right now.
Your voice sounds very, very whitish.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
It does, yes, it does. I didn't think it is.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, it's very it's deeper than normal. Had a voice
very White Kermit radio voice, the Kurmit the Frog slash
Joe Pesci voice doesn't get that even when ill.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Even when I well tomorrow being Valentine's stay, I never
knew this until I got a call earlier from our
next guest. There is such a thing as a Utah
Marriage Commission here in the state of Utah. Did you
know that?

Speaker 2 (48:04):
I didn't. I got to tell you. I think these
younglings don't know what they're doing. I think there needs
to be a commission to kind of walk them through
the whole thing. They're just lost. They're walking into walls.
They don't know how to talk to each other. I
think there needs to be a commission to tell them.
You know, this is how holy matrimony works.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Did you know what you were doing when you get married?

Speaker 2 (48:20):
No? No, I was a feral human. I was I
was plucked from the wild and domesticated by by Queen Bee.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Same here, same here. Well, joining us on our newsmaker
line is the president or chairman. I think he's the
chairman of the Utah Marriage Commission. And name many of
you know, Bruce Hoff. Bruce, How are you welcome to
the Rod and Greg Show?

Speaker 6 (48:40):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Thank you? There you go.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
You heard his very white boys, Bruce, you know a
long time. Oh yeah, a long time. We go, we go,
we go, we go way back. I learned this one
of our visitors, think.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
We go back?

Speaker 8 (48:58):
Is it fifty years Bruce? I think it is, well,
nineteen seventy five.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, well, you know added up at one dred years
old that you are. Oh my god.

Speaker 8 (49:09):
You didn't have to say you didn't have to actually
bring up the time, lingth Oh, I'm.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Sorry, I'm sorry, all right, what exactly is I mean?
We're a day away from Valentine's Day? What is the
purpose of the Utah Marriage Commission.

Speaker 8 (49:23):
Well, first of all, just to show you how out
of touch you really are, Rod. This was established in
nineteen ninety eight by Jackie Levitt, the first Lady of
the state, with the governor Governor Mike Levitt. But it's
kind of, you know, it's sort of had it's sort
of ups and downs over the years. The last couple
of years we have had a very special focus on

(49:46):
creating content so that people can get relationship help.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
And it really is.

Speaker 8 (49:54):
The utih Marriage Commission is founded to support the idea
of how does a marriage relationship actually affects society, and
all of the literature, all of the evidence, all of
the science points very clearly that if you are in
a strong relationship, one that is prospering emotionally in every

(50:16):
other way, that you will prosper financially, you'll stay out
of poverty, more likely your kids will grow up to
be better citizens and more productive citizens. And so the
idea you mentioned holy matrimony Gray and some people really
believe that, right, and that's a wonderful religious and philosophy

(50:37):
to have. But ours is not moralizing. It's not religious,
it's evidence. What does the evidence say about strong relationships,
including the marriage relationship, and it is leading to a
happier life, a more financially prosperous life, and kids who
basically conduct themselves in a way that better society. So

(50:59):
it's it's a very important aspect of it. And so
what we've done over the last couple of years is
developed free online resources for everyone from literally high school
and dating to courtships. I'm thinking about getting married, I'm
getting married, I am married, I am in a step family,
I am in my later years, but I want to

(51:21):
put more spark into my marriage. All those things are
subjects of online resources that are are professionally produced PhD levels,
science and evidence supported and available through Stronger Marriage dot org.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
So that's all I was going to ask, because I
didn't know, I didn't access any of this. I went
through trial and error and error and error and error. Okay,
that's how I did it all. Whereas give me that,
they give us the website address. Again, I think this
is important. Yeah, it's stronger Marriage dot Org.

Speaker 8 (51:58):
And it's called you know, it's all about marriage because
that relationship is so important. But look, I've been a
single dad. I understand that people are not always in
that ideal. So we have lots of relationship programming and
content available for people who are not in that perfect situation.
We have one that's called divorce Ready, which sounds kind

(52:19):
of weird to talk about it Valentine's Day. Yeah, that's
a bummer people, if people, but if people are contemplating it,
we have a resource that helps them think through the
rationale for that. And look, there are people who are
in abusive relationships. They shouldn't stay right, they need to
get the right help to do that. We can point
them in the right directions. You know, Greg, you having

(52:40):
been Speaker of the House. You know that sometimes the
legislature provides interesting opportunities for all of us. They last
year they actually did an unfunded mandate to say we
want this success sequence and every high school health class.
The success sequence is part of this relationship, right or
it's like finished school, get a job, get married, have children,

(53:05):
that's the sequence. If you will do that, then by
the time you hit your thirties, you have a ninety
seven percent less chance of being in poverty.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
I mean, that's just that is an amazing statistic. I've
heard that before. So do you help promote them? Do
you help you help that become me understood?

Speaker 1 (53:21):
So exactly.

Speaker 8 (53:23):
So so here the legislature did this last year, and
we immediately said, oh, we'd have resources that can actually
teach that. So we we put a little spin on
it so it was appropriate for high school juniors and
seniors and health classes. And the USAW State Board of
Education has approved our programming. It's now going to be

(53:43):
in every high school in the state. And it's also
in the in the financial literacy course if you can
get it there as well as a health class. That's great,
and it's and it's one of the things that we do.
And by the way, we do this without tax funding.
We do this through fees. If you're getting mayor read
there is an option if you're doing it online, if
you're getting your marriage license online, you can opt to

(54:06):
take one of our courses and get a twenty dollars
credit and pay less for your marriage license. If you
don't take the course, our commission gets the twenty dollars
and it's sort of a reverse incentive, and that it's large,
and we take and we take the twenty dollars and
we promote it and we say, hey, look, this is

(54:28):
a way that you can enter into a marriage with
the right tools. This is a way that you can
start off right, or this is a way that you
can get better at what you're already doing, or oh,
you find yourself in a new circumstance and a new relationship,
here's a way. We have one hundred plus ten to
fifteen minute mini e courses available, all free to Utahon's

(54:49):
and we have about ten two hour to six hour
full length courses you can take independently or with your
spouse or with a partner or a couple. You can
you can take it and you know the marriage and
family counselors, many of them in this state refer their
potential clients to our content and say, hey, before you

(55:12):
come in and sit down on the couch, maybe think
about getting some of this resources and it may actually
solve some of your problems, or it may just prepare
you better for our discussions on relationships. Lots of material
and here's one last thing. I got to just put
this in. So it's been National Marriage Week this week

(55:33):
and we're leading up to Valentine's Day tomorrow, which is
you know, the this is very white.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
It's a love love.

Speaker 8 (55:40):
And the thing that's great is that we have tonight
we're going to choose out of all the nominations that
have come in online, and you still have time.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
To get these in.

Speaker 8 (55:53):
If you have it of the longest lasting marriage in
the state of Utah, and you can go to strong
marriage dot org and there's a there's a button right
there on that page and if you can nominate somebody
that you think has the longest lasting marriage, we're gonna
choose that person. We've gotten dozens and dozens and dozens
of nominations and we're going to choose them, and the

(56:13):
winner is going to receive a thirty minute life documentary
that will be produced by Planted Media to kind of
help them celebrate that beautiful relationship over those many many years.
So that's a fun thing that we're doing. Coming right up.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
I nominate Bruce Huff and Rod are kept for the
longest radio relationship that is now fifty plus years. I
think that's why. I think that's just beautiful.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Hey, Bruce, thank you man a great idea and good luck.
We appreciate your time. Thanks guy, you bet take care
bye bye. All right, Bruce Huff with the Utah Marriage.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Stronger Marriage Dot Org.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Yeah, checking out, Yes, good idea. More coming up the
Rod and Greg Show and Utah's Talk Radio one oh
five nine knrs. We were just talking with Bruce Reid's
Bruce Huff about the Utah Marriage Commission. Yes, remember your
first fight after you got married?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Yes, so do you. I'm not bringing that up.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Oh I don't mind bringing that up.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
I know you don't.

Speaker 6 (57:14):
No.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
She now she claims she didn't. I claim she did.
She threw a chair at me. What you're not your yea?
My wife did?

Speaker 2 (57:22):
I thought you're gonna bust me on my first Yes,
you do yes, you do.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Do you remember yours first one?

Speaker 6 (57:29):
He read?

Speaker 1 (57:31):
I know, I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
She threw a chair California.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
I'm not married Rod, so no, I don't remember that.
She my wife. She claims she didn't do it. She
shoved his chair toward it because I don't believe in
balancing the checkbook.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
My wife gonna kill me.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, I don't don't tell it. You remember, well, I
knew one of the things you did on your honeymoon,
which is bizarre.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
It wasn't totally I thought it was totally cool.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
I can't believe you put your sweet wife through this.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Now we have to, but people want to know you.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Did she agree to do it?

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Well? I thought because I was going I was new
with the whole marriage thing. I really didn't clear it.
I just thought she would think it was as cool
as I did. I. Yeah, you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Because I don't want. I don't want to get mad.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
It was even a good sport until the TV camera
wanted to interview us. Sure why we were there, and
then that's when I said, okay, let's interview, and then
she got really mad at me.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
I'm not asking you to reveal that was all the details,
but it was it is maybe the most bizarre, but.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I always thought that bizarre. It's actually a really exciting moment.
It was a very exciting moment.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
No, it's bizarre on your honeymoon.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, I was just curious. I was just it was just,
you know, it was a world event happening or a
national event happening right where we were honeymoon, and I
was just curious to see what was going on. And
I didn't really check the you know it with a
queen bee whether that's what she wanted to do on
our honeymoon. And so then obvious wanted to interview us
because they weren't expecting to see us standing there. That's

(58:58):
when we had our first fight.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
But did she did? She quickly get over it.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I I quickly looked to get us over I became
very viable.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Yeah I was. I got I believe you did it.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
She sent me straight pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, well she should have on that one. That's as
romantic as.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
I can't believe you maybe even mentioned that.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
Well I didn't. You didn't explain all the details. So
you're still saying, all right, all right, Hour number three,
Rod and Gregg coming your way on Talk Radio one
O five nine canter s, I don't know if I
can count anymore the number of pills I take every
day just to keep going, you know what I mean.
I take them just to deal with you. It's not
for my own health.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
You wouldn't be the first there's I think there's a
support group for people like yourself. I can I can
refer you.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
No, well, thank you. Well, we've got a lot to
get to this hour, including a our listen back Friday
seconds coming your way at the bottom of the hour.
Speaking of drugs, were we speaking of drugs, Yes, we were.
Let's talk about marijuana. After years and years, Yeah, after
years and years. The New York Times, of course been
pushing marijuana, legalize it, blah blah blah. Right, well, now

(01:00:08):
we saw this headline in the New York Times editorial page.
It's time for America to admit that it has a
marijuana problem. Surprise, surprise.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
After they want everybody to, you know, go Rastafarian on us,
and now they're going to say, well, it looks like
we oops oops they wanted just to title at oops.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, the Times says that the US has
recently gone too far in accepting and even promoting marijuana
youth well. Joining us on our newsmaker line to talk
about that is Anne Schleffley, chairman of course, that the
Ego Forum, and thanks for joining us. Surprise, surprise, And
The New York Times says, whoops, we went a little
too far.

Speaker 11 (01:00:47):
Very much so, because just a few years ago they
were on the bandwagon to legalize it everywhere, saying it
was a problem of equity, that that poor people were
disproportionately hurt by stiff marijuana laws. The result, they've legalized
it and now everybody's hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
So you know, a lot of us see these problems
coming from a mile away, whether it's this, whether it
was the kicking kids out of school during COVID, We
knew this would hurt harm kids year over year progress,
but no one wanted to listen. And then all of
a sudden, everyone has an aha moment and says, well,
you know you're right. The part I never hear is
the accountability. Who who's accountable for? The false narratives are
dangerous arguments that are made that really end up with

(01:01:29):
people suffering and in big ways. How did how do
it's nice that The New York Times gets to gets
to do that. But where where's the where's the accountability?

Speaker 11 (01:01:40):
I agree with you, but you have to look. You
have to follow the money in all situations. And big
marijuana has made a heap of money, just the way
big tobacco made heap of money, Uh, selling a product
that they knew was dangerous. Everybody knows that marijuana has
problems and marijuana causes people to get incredibly sick, and

(01:02:02):
yet they their greed overtook everything else. And the states
that voted for legal marijuana, it was a political vote,
it wasn't a medical vote. My state of Missouri was
flooded with outside money to push this through on a
state referendum that has led to incredible harms.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And did anyone bother to take a look at the
fact that in the sixties and seventies the amount of
THCHC in marijuana was about nine percent, today, I understand,
is closer to ninety percent. Did anybody ever think to
go back and take a look at things as to
how they were and what they are today.

Speaker 11 (01:02:41):
No, nobody's done it because they're too busy trying to
sell it. And the weird thing about people who want
marijuana is they go for the highest high. And that's
very different from say alcohol, where you don't choose your
alcohol based on what's going to get you slammed fastest.
You choose it on flot, flavor and taste and style. Well,

(01:03:02):
that's not what marijuana is. It's how fast can you
get intoxicated?

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
So where do we go from? I mean, you have
this this may call, Well you have in New York
Times saying okay, oops, we were wrong. Sorry, we're seeing
that the evidence coming in now that it's been legalized,
we have data that you can really measure. So what
is with the crystal ball? What do you think happens
next in these states that have legalized recreational marijuana.

Speaker 11 (01:03:29):
Well, we need social pressure, and let's look at the
tobacco example. Again, tobacco was used by fifty percent of
the population back in the nineteen sixties. But it was
social pressure, shaming of tobacco users, and very importantly, the
black box warnings of the dangers of tobacco when used

(01:03:52):
while you're pregnant or nursing, or the dangers for children.
We must advertise these dangers and insists that marijuana producers
put these labels, these warning labels on their product, because
everybody knows the dangers, particularly if you use marijuana under
the age of twenty five, you will have loss of

(01:04:14):
IQ and you may very well develop schizophrenia, which is
then you have a lifetime injury based on smoking some joints.
But you know, one of the things that happened with
alcohol in the nineteen eighties was the push to raise
the alcohol age from eighteen to twenty one across the

(01:04:35):
country because of the dangers of alcohol, and of course
that puts out to the public that this is a
risky beverage that people need to be aware of and
not let their children use. That's what we need with
marijuana because right now a lot of people think that
marijuana is a safer alternative than these other drugs that

(01:04:55):
have the labeling.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
And are we talking enough to young people? Is the message?
Do we have the right message first of all? And
are we making enough of an effort to get it
through to a younger population that now realizes marijuana is
legal to use in most states in this country.

Speaker 11 (01:05:10):
We're not getting it to the We're not effectively because
I think it's somewhere between twenty and twenty five percent
of eighteen to twenty five year olds have used marijuana
in the last month, so that we are not effective
on advertising that now, and that's the message we need
to get across. So, I mean, the Surgeon General a

(01:05:30):
couple of years ago came out with the statement that
no level of marijuana is safe for any child, and
that needs to be put out there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
So what about you know, product there is product liability,
there's there are things that harm people that we were
told would be safe and turns out it wasn't. And
there seems to be some recourse and the courts if
that occurs. Do you see an angle that way where
you may have a class action lawsuit or some kind
of lawsuit. I mean, I think tobacco went through this
where they went after them for the health consequences of smoking.

(01:06:02):
Do you see a legal angle in terms of legalized marijuana.

Speaker 11 (01:06:06):
I'm sure there is, But the problem is the legal
angle takes so long to happen. Now, what we can't
What did result from the legal angle was the prevention
or the settlement that the tobacco companies went into was
to stop the advertising. And if you remember, tobacco used
to advertise with Joe Camel and at one point, the

(01:06:29):
kids were more familiar with Joe Camel than they were
Mickey Mouse because the advertising was so effective. Now in
my community, the advertising is everywhere, and it's catchy. The
names are catchy. The products they're making with THHC are
very catchy. They're sugary and salty snacks. This a kind

(01:06:51):
of advertising must be stopped.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
From the Eagle Forum. It's chairman Ann Schleffley joining us
on the Rod and Greg Show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
Yeah, actually, yeah, no, no surprise here. A lot of
us were calling the shock but yeah, it's but the
pervasiveness of it is for the recreational Marijuana's pretty scared.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Yeah, that is all right. More to come the Rodd
and Greg Show Friday with you on Utah's talk radio
one oh five, Die Cannis.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
It is absolutely amazing a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
The amount of money that we spend on education, then
what are we getting in return? Every time we get
a new report down it shows that students are failing.
Yet we keep on having people say, if you just
give us more money. You heard that on the hill.
For how many hears great from.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Educators in the States, Session.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Sixteen straight sessions of we need more money, we need
more money. Well, Our next guest has done a real
interesting analysis of this. His name is William Henson Bill Henson.
He's president emeritus at a Brooklyn High school, also a
former senior investment banker. Bill, thanks for joining us on
the show tonight. You've taken a look at the cost
of education, what we're spending, what we're getting in return.

(01:07:54):
What are some of your initial thoughts.

Speaker 12 (01:07:56):
I can't think of you almost any other walk of
life where you make a commitment, you make an investment,
and you are unable or unwilling maybe even to assess
what the actual outcome is relative to what your inputs were.
And you know, my involvement in education, in inner city

(01:08:22):
education was sort of a you know, professional second act
for me. I spent the first thirty years of my
career in corporate finance, investment banking, et cetera. And so
when I encounter this, not necessarily with the institution where
I was working for, more broadly in the world of
case with twelve education, it really, it really, you know,

(01:08:45):
struck me as a as a huge disconnect that you
cannot you know, you cannot tell how well your particular
organization or institution is doing. It's like I said, I
think maybe in the in the piece, you know, imagining

(01:09:06):
if you're a financial advisor or an investment manager and
you want to determine should I invest in this in
this company for myself or my client, and the only
thing you assess is the cost. You don't look at
the top line in terms of you don't look at
the bottom line. And that's basically what I found, in

(01:09:30):
particular in the world of public education in the two
in the cave twelve world, that per pupils spending is
a number that one can get out of. Though, as
I found out over the last several months doing this project,
you kind of got a dig because they might publish
direct operating costs, but then they don't have all the

(01:09:51):
indirect costs. You got to go somewhere else for that
to find out capital expenditures or benefits or debt servicing.
And so when you add it all up, it's even
more than you think looking at it at first. Blush.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
You know, Bill, we have a in Utah, we have
what we call the weighted pupil Unit, and we have
our legislative session that's in session right now, and they
do measure and as you pointed out, there's many other
fund funding mechanisms and sources for public education than just
the weighted pupil unit that the legislature funds for our
public schools. But we've seen that number increase in terms

(01:10:28):
of the money going to education as a portion of
the state budget in Utah has increased mightily over the
last decade. But we just saw a report that came
out that said forty eight percent of K through four students,
so kindergarten through fourth grade, forty eight percent are not
reading at grade level. So you talk about return on investment,
I can't imagine a worse ratio than that forty eight percent,

(01:10:52):
because I don't think those kids are all in special education.
But you can't get much past third grade if you're
not reading it a grade.

Speaker 12 (01:10:57):
You guys got to come to the East. You got
to get back to New York for a while and
check out the numbers here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
And that sounds good to you. Okay, I won't be
selfish then, but let me ask you this. You talk
about an educational return on investment framework, Share with us
what that frame, What are you comparing? Tell us what
you expect out of return on investment for dollars invested
in our public education system.

Speaker 12 (01:11:25):
So what this framework attempts to do, and I think
does do that is to assess the outcomes, the results,
the success or lack thereof, relative to the inputs, meaning
the cost. So, for example, if it costs, let's just

(01:11:49):
say simple numbers, a million dollars over the course of
thirteen years from kindergarten through twelfth grade to educate ten kids.
So if I'm doing my math right, what's at one
hundred thousand dollars per pupils spending if only two of
those ten kids ultimately graduate from college and college and

(01:12:13):
college graduation, I understand that's the be all and end all.
That's one key outcomes, and that's something if we have
the time, we want to talk about a little bit
more of love to because there's so many other metrics
and indicators of success that one should assess. But if
only two of those ten kids ultimately graduate from college,
then what is that school or system spend to get

(01:12:33):
two college graduates half a million dollars each compared to
one hundred thousand dollars per student. So when you look
at that and you say that Jesus, you know that's
a big difference that's five times, and multiple five times
to achieve what probably all ten of those students, all

(01:12:53):
ten of their families thought, hope expected when they sent
their kids off, you know, to elementary and secondary school
in the first place. And so that's what I'm trying
to do. And I think what this framework does is
give some context so you can have a situation like
I experienced, you know in my in my in my

(01:13:16):
work in the education world, where you can deliver the
product for actually you know, less funding, less spending, less expense,
and get better results. And what this framework does is,
hopefully in a very straightforward, simple way, is allow you
to dimention that and understand that, and then use it

(01:13:38):
as a frame for reference, not only on a standalone basis,
but relative to other alternatives.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
William Henson, a former senior investment banker also a former educator,
talking about if you can't measure it, can you improve it?
I don't know if you can.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
The concept of return on investment is is a is
a really good way to frame it and look at
it to really evaluate what we're doing, because the how
are we doing terrible? Why we need more money? Here's
some more money.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
How are we doing terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Why need more money? That's a that's a circular argument
you never get in front of, and that's the one
that seems to carry the day nowadays.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Yeah it does. All right, We've got more to come.
Our list back Friday segments coming your way. Next, don
Utah's Talk Rady go one oh five nine o KNRS
one that you and I have expressed concern about for
a long long time. A lot of people moving into
states like Utah, Arizona, Idaho, you know, from California, and
our concern is you're more than welcome here. Just don't

(01:14:31):
bring your crazy California ideas with you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
You're here, right, Yeah, that's that should be the rule. Yeah,
check them at the state border. You should get the
highery patrol out there, right, give them. We got to
give them a civics test, as we understand, and see
if they can pass.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Yeah, what do you stand for? If you fail, you
have to go back?

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
Is government the answer for everything? Yes or no? They
say yes you have to turn around go bam. Yeah,
so you need to turn around. This isn't a place
for you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Well, earlier this week, we had a chance to talk
with Linda Deno and associate dean of Academic Affairs and
Administration at the University of Arizona. She wrote an article
about voters leaving California are turning red states into blue.
We asked her, Linda, what are you talking about?

Speaker 13 (01:15:12):
Well, you know, I am seeing quite a bit that
makes me nervous. On the one hand, it looks like
everybody who's leaving California should be a Republican. The numbers
say they're Republicans by large amounts.

Speaker 4 (01:15:25):
Really it's crazy.

Speaker 13 (01:15:26):
But I do think that what happens in many cases
is that when they come here, they might bring a
Republican leaning, a party identification.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
Maybe.

Speaker 13 (01:15:36):
But let me give you an example of something that happened.
In twenty twenty four. Donald Trump won the state by
about fifty two point two percent of the vote, as
I recall something around that. But on the same ballot
in Arizona was a constitutional amendment protecting abortion the right
to abortion, and it won by almost two to one,

(01:15:57):
same election, same electorate. So what you have are I
think social issues, sometimes environmental issues that the supposited Republicans
are bringing with them from California, and they may be
against the worst excesses of newsom gruesome, but they're still
bringing their liberal politics here. I think that's a big concern,

(01:16:20):
and I imagine it's probably going to be the case
for other Mountain states like Utah and Idaho and so forth.
That's my thought. Now we'll see, but.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
Now I think there's something to that. I think that
we saw in the mid two thousands, Colorado was a
dependably red state and they had a red Republican governor,
to Republican US senators anyway, the majority in their state
house and senative Republicans, and that is a solidly blue
state now. And a lot of people pointed to the
end the in migration from California other places changing Colorado.

(01:16:55):
So it looks like there are states that are vulnerable
to that where people are moving. But is it a
state by state maybe question, because Florida doesn't seem to
be suffering from this population growth and becoming more of
a swing state. They were a swing state and they
seemed to be more solidly on the red side than before.
I don't know about Texas. I don't know if that's

(01:17:15):
becoming more conservative, but I would imagine so. But then
I think states like Arizona, Colorado has already happened, and
even Utah might be susceptible to liberals or people that
are more progressive. Moving here, do you see a trend
by state and what states would be attractive to people
wanting to get away from California?

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
I see, here's the trend. I see week leadership.

Speaker 13 (01:17:37):
I think that Florida, especially under Ron Desantus, is just
not tolerating liberal policies becoming part of state law or
even in many cases local law. Whereas it's interesting if
you look at the twenty twenty two election in Arizona,
where they just swept all the top statewide offices.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
Democrats did, but.

Speaker 13 (01:17:58):
Most of them were by Tom Margins. I mean, the
governor won by seventeen thousand votes. The attorney general, who's
just a nightmare. Sorry, I don't know how else to
say it. She said, you said that ice agents. Will
you know that they should be careful coming here because
we have a constitutional carry and they'll get shot in
the face.

Speaker 4 (01:18:17):
I'm paraphrasing a bit.

Speaker 13 (01:18:19):
But she only won by two hundred and eighty votes,
and there were massive allegations. I'm just going to say
it like that, a voter fraud throughout Maricopa county that
you know, certainly could make the difference even in the
twenty twenty election where Trump won here.

Speaker 4 (01:18:35):
But we can leave that aside. The lack of leadership.

Speaker 13 (01:18:41):
Or what maybe another way to put it is, there's
no pushback anymore on liberal policies, and without that, there's
no strong Republicans that really stand out in the state
right now. I think there's some up and comers, but Utah,
I'm not as familiar with Utah politics.

Speaker 4 (01:18:57):
I'd like to think that somebody.

Speaker 13 (01:18:59):
Wouldn't into Utah and be able to pass a you know,
a pro abortion constitutional amendment. But yeah, you know, things
do change quickly. California was once a relatively conservative state.

Speaker 4 (01:19:11):
I lived there.

Speaker 13 (01:19:12):
Then, you know, it's a tough call to say what's
the difference. I mean, Texas right now is also standing
very firm. They just it's such a big place that
you're going to have so many different pockets of things
going on there. I just I think that in the
case of Arizona, it's a it's a short drive. Again,

(01:19:34):
you can be in Arizona and quickly get back to
family or even business interests. Back in California. You can
have cheaper housing, you can have lovely weather all the time,
but you don't have to have crime and the other
things that make California so miserable right now in the
high taxes, high housing costs.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
I don't know about the states farther away.

Speaker 13 (01:19:57):
I think you have to be more purposeful about it
to move to Texas.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
Linda, is it fair to say that the conservatives coming
out of California and maybe moving to see these other
states are fiscally conservative but liberal when it comes to
social issues.

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
I think that's exactly the point. In many cases.

Speaker 13 (01:20:13):
Yes, And again it doesn't make sense to me why
you would do that, because it's those liberal on social
issues that's causing the problem in California, right, I mean, okay,
never mind the fiscal problems. I get that, but California
has always been so wealthy. It's only been recently that
the fiscal problems have been problematic. I mean, you know

(01:20:34):
what I'm saying. I mean, with Silicon Valley and those
other things. California could get away with being entirely fiscally
irresponsible until recently. But it's the policies about crime, the
policies about homelessness, the policies about DEI all of those
things that have caused the real living problems in California.

(01:20:54):
The housing costs are because of environmental craziness and so on.
So it'll drive you a little crazy if you think
about it too much. Why are you leaving there to
just bring those stupid policies here?

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
You're here, so let me ask you this. Donald Trump
won every swing state in this last election, which suggests
that even in some of these blue states or even
swing states that look like they might be becoming blue,
there is a chance. And then maybe even some blue
states that were giving like Pennsylvania, giving Trump a chance
where they had been solidly Republican a Democrat for so long.

(01:21:29):
It's fine if you move somewhere and you want to
advance some of these liberal policies, but does it catch
up with you. Does a state have a chance to
self correct and maybe come back after a couple of
cycles of a Democrat leadership or lack of I.

Speaker 13 (01:21:45):
Think Arizona does, I really do. I think Arizona does,
because there's still a lot of good, solid people in Arizona.

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
You know Trump.

Speaker 13 (01:21:53):
It's a little bit unfair to make too many generalizations
based off Trump's electoral victories because we have yet to
see how Trump's coalition is going to carry forward in
the Republican Party. But Trump Trump really was able to
cross a lot of lines. You know, you could talk
about fiscal conservatism versus social conservatism, and or you can

(01:22:14):
just talk about elites versus the average Joe and lo
and behold, some billionaire real estate guy is the one
who reaches out and understands what bothers the average Joe.
And so I don't know how that coalition is put
back together. Maybe JD. Vans can do it, maybe Marco
Rubio can do it. They're both, you know, turning out

(01:22:35):
to be pretty good choices, but neither one of them.

Speaker 4 (01:22:40):
Is Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
On our Newsmaker line Linda Deno, as we're talking about
voters leaving California are turning red states into blue, we
hope not.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yeah, there's some examples where the migration has been conservative,
but I can think of in Washington County in Utah particularly,
there's a lot of conservative political refugees from West in
states that have gone to Washington County, in Saint George
and then Florida. I think has become and I think
she was on the mark. She says leadership counts and
that helps bring people along as well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
It does. All right, We've got more to come another
segment of our listen back Friday right here on Utah's
Talk Radio one O five Dine Canterists. Did the NFL
hook us in? Did we play the game that they
wanted us to play?

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Well? I would say no, but I think our next
guest is going to say that we might have played
right into their hands. I don't know that I agree,
but I think it's good to talk to Ian. He's
always fun to speak with.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Yeah, we spoke with Ian Howarth earlier this week about that,
and he said, Bad Bunny and the outrage machine it
worked perfectly for the NFL. And we asked Ian basically,
what happened?

Speaker 14 (01:23:42):
Well, i'd expect you not to agree. That's usually the
the reason I'm dragged on for a course of humiliate.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
Now I'm getting the reason.

Speaker 6 (01:23:49):
I wrote it is.

Speaker 14 (01:23:50):
I think it's to try and make that kind of
the more subtle point that I think it's fine to
think it was a terrible performance because it was terrible.
Before this, I didn't even know who Bad Bunny was.
Don't particularly enjoy his music. If you can call it
that I think having a performance all in Spanish is
not exactly the most pro American direction we can take
in the culture war. I think all of those things

(01:24:12):
are perfectly fair to say. I think my problem is
is that you can understand why the NFL are doing it,
and I think the direction the right is taking with
this huge I think disproportional level of outrage only makes
it kind of more profitable to the NFL because more
people are seeing it because the Right is so annoyed.

(01:24:33):
I think there are things we can do to impact this.
I think we can elevate people we would rather see
on that kind of stage and things like that. But
going to Twitter and talking endlessley about the halftime show
rather than say the football at a football event, I
think it kind of makes it very easy to repeat
this over and over again. We saw the same thing
with the Barbie movie, for example. Conservative commentators put out

(01:24:55):
so much anti Barbie content that it's just millions upon
millions of dollars in free avatar for these movies. That's
only going to help them keep making those same kind
of movies. And so I think sometimes it's okay to
be against it. I certainly didn't enjoy it, but I
think how you do that also matters.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
So it's not that I completely disagree, but I think
you're just biased because we call football football and you
you actually call it American gridiron. So that's that's where
we start with our differences.

Speaker 14 (01:25:24):
Oh, I'm going to that false right fully assimilated soccer
is not football football football.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
Yeah, you're the best. I love it, Okay, So but
let's go to this. I actually I had no desire
to go online and to opine about about that show.
But I was actually grateful that there was this kid
rock All American halftime show because leading up to the
halftime show, and I had never heard of Bad Bunny
until they announced that he would be performing. I I

(01:25:52):
saw the dresses, and I saw the If you want
to understand what I'm saying, you better learn Spanish. I
heard the the diatribe at the Grammys about Ice. I
just felt as if I was going to be exposed
to more politics and during the super Bowl than I wanted.
So I liked having an alternative, And I think that's
okay to your point, I don't think we have to

(01:26:14):
spend a whole lot of time online opining about it.
But I do think there should be an alternative to that.
But one of the things that you said in your
article is that there's nothing to gain. There's nothing to
gain to make your base of those that already love
the Super Bowl happy, But there's everything to gain if
you're able to reach out to a broader audience in
campaigns and elections. The opposite is true. They say you

(01:26:34):
got to start with your mom and workout, aren't Isn't
there something to be lost if you do alienate your
base of everyday American football fans in an attempt to
reach out internationally and maybe pull in a larger audience.
I think taking your base for granted, even if it's
the NFL, I think there's a lot you could lose
that in that instance where am I off.

Speaker 6 (01:26:57):
Yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker 14 (01:26:58):
I think the NFL is constantly engage age in this
kind of tightrope game of trying to be as controversial
as possible, as quote unquote diverse as possible with this
kind of stuff, but also while trying not to completely
alienate people. So, for example, during the you know, Black
Lives Matter era, I think they went too far. I
think they did alienate a lot of people, and in

(01:27:19):
some instances they did lose viewership, if not viewership support.
And so I think with this kind of thing, with
the halftime show, it's kind of more separated from the game.
You know, people will still watch the game. It's not
like bad Bunny as pranto around during third down and
screaming out in Spanish. You know, if you're going to
watch the football, you can watch the football, and you
can do what football fans do do in the halftime,

(01:27:40):
which is go get a drink, go to the bathroom,
you know, get walk around a little bit. And so
I think that's what they're trying to do. Is I
think they know that full well, and I think they're
trying to walk that tightrope. Whether or not they do
it successfully is really a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
Ian, what do we have been talking more about this
if it would have been a better game, And let's
be honest, the game was horrible. You have anything to
talk about except the halftime.

Speaker 14 (01:28:03):
So all of this is the Seahawks and the Patriots
follow and I'm happy to blame both of those teams.
But most of my problems in my life, and I
think this might actually be reliable.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
Ian, did we play right into the NFL hands in
a way. They knew this was going to be controversy.
So did we play into their hands by really focusing maybe,
as you say, a little too much on the halftime show? Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:28:23):
Absolutely, I think again, as I wrote in the article,
I think it's fine to have a pins on things,
but sometimes you've got to know kind of what your opponents,
or your enemies, or however you want to frame it,
what they want from you. And I think sometimes falling
into their hands every single time with our.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
Very predictable outrage.

Speaker 14 (01:28:40):
You know, a lot of this is marketing. It's not
like bad Bunny out of nowhere started telling people to
learn Spanish. You know, all of this comes from pre
planned meetings. It's all scripted, like we live in a
reality TV show twenty four to seven. None of this
is kind of off the cuff. And so I think
a big part of this is how do we get
free advertising from all of the people on the right
wing line space who do nothing but.

Speaker 6 (01:29:01):
Tweet all day?

Speaker 14 (01:29:02):
And I think sometimes we could really surprise them by
just ignoring it. Perhaps, And of course it's still going
to be a problem, we still have to address it.
It won't go away by ignoring it, but we won't
be rewarding it in the way that I do think
we're rewarding it by giving it so much airtime.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
So I let me ask you, what about that alternative
halftime show? Does that cut into a market share? Do
advertisers worry about that? There were you can count streamers,
so there were five million sources where that performance was
being watched. Nielsen does like forty two thousand homes they
do one hundred thousand they call devices, so five millions

(01:29:37):
more than what Nielsen uses to try and measure their audience.
Is there a substance Do you think there's a substantial
audience that actually left because they it wasn't they didn't
think it'd be entertaining going somewhere else. That could actually
impact advertisers' decision whether to advertise on the halftime show
or not.

Speaker 14 (01:29:56):
Yeah, I think it was definitely an impact. I don't
know how significant it was, just because the scale of
the Super Bowl is so insane. There's really nothing like
it in the world, and so it's hard to know
with each change on a year on year what the
actual impact was. But it certainly had a impact. I
think it demonstrated that there's an audience out there for
different kinds of music. I'm not necessarily going to cheer

(01:30:17):
on kid Rock because not a fan of his music
much either, but just the idea that there are other
styles of music out there that certainly has been ignored
by the NFL in recent years. Just for example, country music.
I think a country music halftime show, given that country
music still one of the growing areas of the music industry,
would be amazing and bring a lot of people back

(01:30:38):
to the screen who may not have been watching otherwise.
But I think an alternative is always good, if anything,
because it creates competition and it reminds people that there
are other options out there, whether it be at the
super Bowl or other events too.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
On our newsmaker line, Ian Howarth. He's an author political
commentator talking about the bad Bunny in the Outrage Machine.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
And he's hilarious guy. So the fact that he could
he could disavow the word football with soccer, he says, Nah,
that is fake news. I'm gonna fact check you out.
Football is our football that goes along long way with me.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
Well be safe this weekend. Enjoy the break.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
I sure will.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
We'll enjoy the break as well. We hope you do
as well. We'll be back on Tuesday. As we say
each and every night, head off, shoulders back. Thank God
B left you and your family and this great country
of ours. Thanks for joining us. Will talk to you Tuesday.
It's Tuesday, right, we'll talk to you Tuesday. Afore, have
a good weekend, everybody,

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