3.13: Hole in the Ground - Hour 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Friday, Welcome in six oh six here news ready
eight forty whas coffee and company with you. We are
fueled by Thornton's Iamdia Coffee the company man John all
in alongside today as we wrap up the week here,
and we're gonna have a windy day today, in fact,
gonna be warm as far as temperature gonna get up
to sixty I believe sixty to sixty four is the

(00:20):
high depending on where you look. But we look at
wk why of course, so sixty four doesn't sound bad
if that's what we get to. But the wind and
the lack of sunshine, that's gonna make it cold at
least feel colder out there, So be prepared. Tomorrow should
be nice, especially if you're gonna be going to that
Saint Patrick's Day parade. I don't remember, of course, what
the weather's been like in recent years, but I know
I've been to the parade many times over the years,

(00:41):
and there's been some days where the weather couldn't be better,
and man, there's been days where it couldn't be worse.
So it looks as if tomorrow's gonna be one of
the good days. And then when we get to Monday,
that's when we're talking about temperatures in the thirties and
potential snow. So again, that's just what you get this
time of year. You really never know. And uh, that's
me to really take advantage and try to really appreciate

(01:03):
the days where we get the good weather. And that's
certainly going to be the case tomorrow. All right. So
I'm sure many of you listening back in twenty twenty
unfortunately had to file for unemployment given what the pandemic
did to your job status. And I'm sure many of
you never even got a response because that's just how

(01:24):
big of a nightmare it was. And I want to
ask your question on this, John, because you're a pretty
fair and balanced guy. I think that's safe to say.
I know you well enough to think that you're fair
among many things. You're a fair man. Doesn't there isn't
there somewhat of a deserving past to know that your

(01:44):
state's unemployment situation went through something you could never realistically
stress test ahead of time, something that you could really
never know if you're going to be built to handle
what a global pandemic can do like it was. I mean,
in fact, you talked to people within the state tell
you it was an even bigger mess than than what
people know. And that's awful, right, that's the state, you know,

(02:06):
letting down its residence to an extent. But I do
think if you're honest with yourself like this is, they
would have never known if they were ever going to
be able to handle that, and they would have never
known what was needed to handle the amount of people
flooding the unemployment I mean the unemployment applications.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, there there were so many people back during that
time that filed for unemployment that probably never thought they
would have been in any sort of position, even something
like a pandemic where they would have felt like they
needed to do something like filing for the unemployment checks
that they maybe did or didn't receive. So yeah, I
think I agree with you not really having you know,

(02:42):
any sort of trial run or an ability to test
what would work. I think that does kind of, you know,
deserve a bit of a mulligan in some way.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, And I will admit that it's easier for me
to say when I know I wasn't one that was impacted.
So it's it's a tough situation. Certainly, blame does go
towards whoever's responsible. And again, at the end of the day,
it's the governor, it's it's the leader of the state,
and the system in place just wasn't built to handle it.
And I think accounter to what we're both saying is that, yeah,

(03:12):
you know, it's unfortunate. They should have been better, but
I'm not really sure they could have ever ever been
prepared for something they never knew possible. But other states
didn't have the same issues that we did, and that
I think that's a fair counter to that. And going
to what's making it worse is though some people never
received any help that required it, there's now people that
are getting letters saying you didn't qualify or you were overpaid,

(03:35):
and now we're taking that money back. You're not getting
a tax return. I mean that's so this is a
WDRB investigation. So this is where I've got the information.
Then I did a little bit more digging on elsewhere
just to kind of find the facts and find different
examples of what's going on. But thousands of Kentuckians have
been getting letters saying they owe the state money for

(03:55):
unemployment benefits that they received during COVID, even though those
payments were approved at that time. So when COVID shut
down the economy, I mean, as you know, our unemployment system,
it was built on old software that couldn't keep up,
and that led to a real big issue. They decided

(04:18):
to essentially turn on an emergency auto pay system to
try to keep up because they were just getting flooded, bombarded,
and that approved claims with very limited eligibility checks. So
they later found out through an audit more than six
hundred million dollars in benefits were paid through that automatic process.
Auditors also discovered that the unemployment office archived hundreds of

(04:41):
thousands of claimant emails without reviewing them, meaning many eligible
questions were never really even addressed as far as who
should get it and who shouldn't. So the state reviewed
those payments made during the pandemic for unemployment and more
than thirty eight thousand people in Kentucky received overpayment letters
saying they must repay benefits. So according to state data,

(05:04):
it shows over thirty four thousand cases have already been
waived as not at fault. So this is where it's
it's tricky. Some repayment notices say that over payment was
caused by a departmental error and the debt was forgiven.
Others demand repayment and are being warned of leans or
tax refund seizures. So just reading that that this is

(05:28):
a guest here trying to put the puzzle pieces together, John,
I think that tells me that there were people that
received it by error and it was truly like a
legitimate we got to look at your situation pretty extensively
to see if you qualify us. And there may have
been other people who never lost a job that take

(05:49):
advantage of the system. Yeah, and they just kind of
knew it. I let me just see what happens here.
I mean I remember talking to some people that did
in fact have a hey, legitimate argument, you know about unemployment,
but like they received way more money than they thought
they were going to get, which means they probably weren't
receiving the actual amount they were supposed to get. They
were probably receiving more. So I just can't imagine being

(06:10):
told I got to pay money back. There is one
woman who says that she now owes sixty five hundred
dollars roughly for unemployment benefits that she received, and even
though she says the state initially told you know, told
her that she was good, that you know, she was
good to go. She's already had her tax refund taken
and she's now paying the state seventy five dollars a

(06:31):
month still trying to get answers. So that departmental error,
that's I think an important distinction as far as what
that means, because if some people are getting let off
the hook because it was truly just an error on
their end, but then also at the end of the day,
it's all an error on the other end, I guess
what they're trying to claim is, hey, you took advantage
of our system because we couldn't do our job, and

(06:53):
you just tried to see if maybe I mean, I
wonder how many people might have gotten on employment that
never lost a.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Job, even if you were on it and you lost
a job, but then you kept getting payments after you
got a job back. I don't know if it's necessarily
the recipient's responsibility to just, you know, call the unemployment
office and say, hey, I got this extra check, or
maybe multiple extra checks. They just maybe thought that they were,
you know, I don't know, getting bonus checks, or maybe

(07:18):
it was a mistake like no one's going to willingly
return the money if they don't have to, if they're
getting extra, right, I would assume most people wouldn't know.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
And I mean I I mean, if they're going to
start taking it out of your tax return, I don't
there's nothing you're gonna be able to do about it.
But I do think that's a little I mean, I
think it's an interesting conversation regard because it can happen
in a variety of ways. If you're overpaid something, yeah,
and it's not noticed till way later, and there's a
legitimate scenario where you wouldn't really know what it is

(07:46):
you're supposed to be paid, right, I mean.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
I just can't believe that it's taken in this long
to figure out that this is a problem.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
It's silly.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Twenty six So this reminds me. I have a friend
who this was I believe two years ago around this time,
so twenty twenty twenty four, early start of the year,
he had a situation where he and I know this guy,
So it's not like this is just some I mean,
it looks bad now that I think about it, and
we're discussing it, and I'm just looking at this old,

(08:13):
this big picture of the unemployment disaster that we had.
So he had two jobs, two part time jobs, and
he was furloughed for one, meaning he would qualify for unemployment.
But he also still had another job that he didn't
get that didn't get impacted. So he and I mean
it just pure ignorance heard that because of the job

(08:35):
that he any younger guy, it's not like this is
something again, still you should know this kind of stuff.
But he filed for unemployment because he lost his other
way to make a living. He basically had two part
time jobs that made a full time job. He lost
one of them, applied for unemployment without knowing, And I
believe him. He didn't realize that you can't have a
legitimate part time job working and not be impacted by

(08:57):
this and then still claim that you qualify for unemployment benefits.
That kind of seems like a no brain to do
a lot of people, But you know, he didn't realize it.
And again keep in mind, this was six years ago.
So he ended up getting unemployment, and I'm pretty sure
he got more than he was supposed to. He got
it for a while and then it went away, and
then he got hit a couple of years later, three
years later, that he needed to pay he needed to

(09:19):
pay all that money back, and so they took his
tax refund and he had to you know, he had
to make payments, and he ended up getting he ended
up being able to pay it off right away, but
obviously that's a big chunk of money. And I remember
having a conversation with him thinking, Okay, I mean, yeah, like, bro,
you can't, you can't. You can't apply for unemployment if
you have a job. You're literally you're clearly not unemployed

(09:41):
if you were if you're working, which again, now that
I'm revisiting the conversation, it's pretty it's pretty bad that,
you know, you wouldn't know that. But my worry for
him was, all right, are you gonna get like are
you are they gonna are you gonna are you gonna
be given the benefit of the doubt that you just
made a mistake, or are they going to try to
like say that you fraudulently took advantage of the system,

(10:02):
or or regardless if you did that or not, is
it's still their fault for not being able to, you know,
realize that you were employed and they gave you unemployment
I mean, again, you shouldn't do that, and I don't
think that if people are out here trying to scam
the government and yet they still fall below I guess
the burden of you know, committing a crime and being

(10:24):
held accountable. Still you should be in a position where
you vet that stuff thoroughly and you don't have it happen.
But again, there's always going to be that excuse that's
valid that they didn't. They didn't you know, if there's
anything that they could be criticized of as having the
ancient old software that clearly couldn't handle it. But again,

(10:45):
handling it. You never thought you'd be in a situation
you wouldn't be able to stress test your technology to
handle the flooding of unemployment applications that came in during
you know, a global pandemic, something that happens once every
one hundred years. All right, stick around, We've got tracking
whether dates on the way, sports updates coming up too,
So don't go anywhere. Keep it in luck with US
news Radio eight forty whas Nick coffee with you here

(11:10):
at news Radio eight forty whas it is Coffee and Company,
and we are fueled by Thornton's appreciate you hanging out
with us. We've got Leland Conway joining us and Leland.
You've seen social media and what it can do for
folks in a lot of ways, even in what it
is that we do in this industry. Right, we can
spread our reach, let people know that we're here or
on news radio eight forty whas. So it's a useful

(11:32):
tool for a lot of folks. But it also can
work against you when you do really stupid things. And
that's what happened in Woodford County as a teacher expressed
some really disgusting thoughts about President Trump and that has
led to her being suspended without pay. And who's going
to be shocked if, in fact, she ends up without
a job. Like other times when this happens, my first
question shifts to how do you think that this wouldn't

(11:55):
have some level of consequence? How do you think you
could do this and not end up getting some pushback
and you know, maybe losing your job and your career.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, I think we just live in a narcissistic world, right.
I think that's what social media has done to us.
And when you think about how somebody who's extraordinarily self centered,
they think that their opinion is the most important thing
in the world and there could never be any consequences
for it. I mean, that's what leads people to this
place where they feel like they can just say whatever
they want and there's not going to be any pushback.

(12:26):
There's also a false idea that everybody agrees with me.
And then the third thing in that world is that
when you're talking about social media, it's very similar to
like road rage. You know, we have this sense of
anonymity that doesn't really exist, and there's a weird, weird
sort of dichotomy there where I'm going on social media

(12:46):
to be popular, right, to get likes, to have other
people see the stuff, but I also feel like I'm
anonymous in doing so, so I don't feel like there's
any real connection to my actual life based on what
I say that out there and actually ends up being
very public. And that's all one side of it. The
other side of it, Nick, is that to me, there's

(13:07):
a staggering number of people, especially centered on the left,
and people on the right to it too, but especially
centered on the left, and scarily centered in the world
of education, nonprofit, in the world of government, in the
world of NGOs that seem to think that we're still
living in the paradigm from the last president where woke

(13:28):
is the way of the world that you can say
whatever you want if you're on that side of the aisle,
but there's no consequences unless you're on the right side
of the aisle. There's still living in that world where
only people on the right get canceled. But that's not
the way it is anymore, and people are kind of
pushing back, so we have freedom of speech. She has
the right to go on there and say those things,
although I think she stepped over the line close to

(13:50):
close to a threat of assassination. We know she was
being somewhat hyperbolic with that. But you can say what
you want, but there's going to be consequences. The right
has kind of woken up to the fact that they
can bring consequences to people on the left when they
say those things. And then there's a second site issue
Nick that really concerns me about. That's just the sheer

(14:11):
number of people in quote unquote service jobs, teachers, nurses.
If you remember after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there
were a lot of healthcare workers, a lot of teachers,
a lot of administrators in schools that came out and
did videos celebrating his death. That is something that I

(14:32):
think if I were on the left, and I have
a lot of friends on the left, and I remember
sitting around having coffee with them, and a lot of
their their demeanor was towards love and peace, I'd have
to be really soul searching who it is I'm associating
myself with politically, when you have somebody that's a teacher
of children who feels like it's okay to.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
All right topologies. They were having some technical issues on
our end. Let's get to a quick time out. We
will come back reset our conversation with Leland Conway. Not
sure what what dropped off there? Stick with U right here,
it's news RADI to wait forty whas. So we were
able to reconnect with Leland Conway there, do get the
gut check. But we're going to revisit that conversation. Try
to do that again, not, of course, you know, start

(15:15):
it all over. But obviously we cut out and didn't
get to finish the conversation with leand so we'll do
that a little bit later on. And we've also got
weather and traffic updates that are coming your way here
in just a moment. I do want to let you
know that if you see the high today of sixty
two degrees, that's legit, meaning that's the expectation as far
as temperature sixty two to sixty four degrees. But it
won't feel like that because we're not going to get

(15:37):
much sunshine at all, and we're going to get a
lot of wind, in fact, wind up to forty miles
per hour. So be advised don't let the hot temperature
today think you won't need a jacket of some sort.
So again, we'll get you the details of that forecast
coming up soon with Morose. Also, we'll get you caught
up on traffic that's all coming your way, and we'll
get back into sports, says, Another loaded day of college

(15:59):
basketball can con tinues for louisvilley're running the ACC Tournament
came to an end yesterday, but Kentucky they're back at
it today against a team that some people think might
be the hottest team in the country, and that is
the Florida Gators. So we'll get you caught up on everything.
That's what we do here. Also, Dwight Mitche LEAVELLMPD with
us in studio to get the seven o'clock hour started. Hangout,
It's news Radio eight forty whas