The Festive Independence Day Edition of Nebraska's Morning News

Well, "Independende Day Eve," but no less festive!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And we're here, and we're live, and we have more
people than we thought we would.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
This is Nebraska's Morning News. I'm Scott Vorhees, Craig Evans
here providing some news updates throughout the morning. We are
officially in holiday mode. And here's what that means. It
means that Jim Rose is here because Jim said, well,
I have to be here to deliver the Rosie to
Genozie two hundred and fiftieth edition for America's two fifty

(00:30):
and I said, well, you know you could. You could
record that in advance, but that's not the same. It's
not the same. So you very dedicated. You're here, and
Courtney Donahoe not here. Markets are closed today and we
tried to give, as we mentioned yesterday, Lucy Chapman the
day off. But I look to my left, I see

(00:53):
Lucy Chapman.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
You thought you were going to be here alone all
day and then here we are. No.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
I thought it was just going to be and Jim
and occasionally Craig. You know, the holiday mode means that
Craig doesn't do four newscasts an hour. He does one
really really good one. And if there's breaking, right, if
there's break. No, usually it would be a switch, Lucy.
Usually he does four really really good ones. But k

(01:21):
now he's dedicating his energies as an effort into one
unless there's breaking news and they'll come in here and
tell us about it. Now, we have removed all those
little sound effects that to indicate that there's a needs
to be a traffic update. And Lucy, if we need
to have a traffic update, you just need to tell
me that.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Have I ever not? No, you haven't always listened.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
No, So I'm just there will be people with an
expectation like, will you guys always do this at about
this time? And now you're not doing it. And the
reason for that is we are technically here on vacation.
I don't know if you guys heard, but tomorrow's the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Independence Day.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I read something two hundred and fiftieth.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Anniversary of our nation's birth, two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of this really daring experiment. This would be something that
has been emulated time and time and time again. But
I'm not talking about other nations. I'm talking about the
spirit that we celebrate here, the spirit that every time

(02:30):
someone is sitting there at work, Lucy, don't go getting
any ideas someone's sitting there at work looking at what
their bosses are doing. Their bosses are terrible. Their bosses
never even come over to where your little satellite office
is half a world away, and they're just throwing stupid
dictates at you, like you've got to tax all the

(02:52):
tea you know, or whatever it is that they're telling
you to do, and you're like, I don't want to
do that.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
You know what I'm gonna do. I'm breakaway.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I'm gonna start my own business, all right right there
is can do American spirit. Anytime someone decides that they're
in a relationship, they say, I don't want to be
in this relationship anymore. I'm going to break away from
this relationship and I'm going to start a new life.

(03:24):
That's the kind of innovation. That's the kind of scary decision,
because just stay in there is the easiest thing. It's
not always the best thing. It's just sometimes the easiest
thing to do, and we're pretty much wired to do
the easiest thing to do. I'll just stay here and

(03:45):
keep working, I'll just stay in this relationship. I'll just
stay here under the rule of Great Britain, even though
the King couldn't find America on a map, even though
we really don't have any maps. The maps we have
are weird day like pictures of dry wiggins out in
the ocean. I don't know what was going on back then,
but you know that's that's what we celebrate here, is

(04:08):
deciding to move forward in a new and sometimes pretty
scary way. So happy two hundred and fiftieth. For whatever
reason that you're celebrating today and this weekend, I hope
that you're doing it now. The first thing I need
to figure out this morning is how the celebrations went
last night, because the last thing I heard as I

(04:28):
went to bed is Dad, where's that lighter that you
use when you're shooting off fireworks? He's talking about my
grill lighter, you know those long clicky things there.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Where's that?

Speaker 1 (04:40):
It was in the drawer on the islands on the
right side, top right drawer. Thanks, And then this morning
I see it, you know, laying there on the washer
and dryer. I guess my son and his buddies went
and got some fireworks, which is amazing because none of
them have any money and fireworks do cost money. Somebody
had something and also they're idiots. Maybe he's got a

(05:01):
side gear. Yeah, these are sixteen year old boys. So
I don't know did anything burned.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Down last night in your neighborhood, because I don't know
that they went and bought fireworks. Like I said, they
don't have money for fireworks, but they burned something last
night because they took the fire starter.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Maybe they made their own. They could have made their own. Dad,
where's the gunpowder?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, gotta be there's gotta be something here that'll blow
up a little lighter fluid. Maybe some ajax throwing some
you know, aquavelva and away we go.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Or that ISIS or al Qaeda thing. They had a
manual that they were giving out to would be terrorists
and the translation from terrorists to English was how to
build a bomb with things you find in the kitchen
of your mom. I think my son has that manual. Well,

(05:57):
we got lots of speeches today. The President of the
United States is at Mount Rushmore.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's cool. He's he's in our.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Neck of the woods and we're excited to have him
at Mount Rushmore. And for the first time in a
long time, they're going to fire off fireworks at Mount Rushmore.
It's been kind of dry up there and they really
didn't want to start a fire at Custer State Park,
so we're going to be apparently they've mitigated the threat
and they're going to fire off fireworks. And our good
friend Mam Dami the Kamie, will be delivering a speech today.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, he's got his own two fiftieth speech.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
He has a different version of America's two hundred and
fiftieth birthday. He'll be speaking from a George Washington's desk.
The little history note, New York was the first actual
capital of the United States, and George Washington had a
desk in the Federal Building in New York City. And
mister Momdami, thirty four year old American Hayden, mayor of

(06:51):
New York, will be delivering his speech from George Washington's desk,
which I really would find quite revolting.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
And he'll be talking about.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
How this is a nation that has destroyed Indian tribes
and enslaved black people and has been really one of
the worst defenders of human rights of all time.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, they should stop doing that in New York. He's
the mayor there, he can stop doing all of that.
They should stop doing that.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
It would be nice if they would recognize that this
was the first country to actually end slavery. But now
see that doesn't match that, that is not in line
with the narrative of you got to hate the country,
especially if you're not from here. If you're not from here,
and you come here either legally or illegally, or by
virtue of the fact that you were born here. And

(07:37):
yet you're welcome to hate the country. And we really
like for you to show that how much you hated here.
Wouldn't you love it?

Speaker 1 (07:43):
If George Washington could sit down with Mayor Zorn Mom Donnie,
I say, all right, let's talk about some of your ideas. Yeah,
we've heard some of these concepts before. You might remember
two hundred and fifty years ago. This is the kind
of thing we were trying to avoid, and now we're
celebrating it here, just in time for our quarter centennial

(08:04):
court double quarter centenial, whatever.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
They call this quasi centennials, double that, this double centennial,
double doo and a half gainer centennial. Well, if George
Washington was in the same room with zoron Mondami, he
box his ears.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
That would be fun to watch, and it'd be tough
to do that back to George because he's got that
we gun.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, but no Mondami would be on the ground crying,
asking for his mom.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Maybe we should do some forecast updates for Custer, South Dakota.
Since Jim Rose just said that Mount Rushmore is in
our neck of the woods, I'm not disagreeing with you
on that. By the way, I also feel that it's
pretty cool that the president here on the eve of
Independence Day is up in South Dakota. I mean that's

(08:49):
just that's right down the road from us here. That's
practically a hop skip, a lot closer Hatteras half a
jump Cape Hatteras it is, thank you.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
It's a lot closer than the Grand Canyon. When's the
President speaking today? I don't know, is it today?

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Is it the same?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
I don't think he's talking tonight. I think he's speaking
tonight and then they'll have a big event. I was
actually think he's talking tonight. You think he's speaking well,
I mean he's speaking during the day and then I'll
get on that brand new airplane that the cutter gave us, And.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, that's cool. I'd like to see that plane. I
bet that's really cool they're doing.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Oh he posted a really great video of it on
his truth social But they're doing like a flyover of
the new Air Force one and a bunch of fireworks
and all that. As you said, you're not generally allowed
to do anything that might start a fire around that
National Forest and the monument area. But they said, we've
got we've got things in place here to identify and

(09:46):
quickly prevent any potential fires. So don't worry about a thing.
By the way, the forecast up there around Mount Rushmore
today absolutely perfect. I was at Mount Rushmore for the
bi centennial, were you, Yes, Yeah, I did President Ford
go speak up there. President Ford did not speak, but
it was pretty cool up there. That was before the

(10:06):
big renovation of the big Visitors Center. Was a lot
more quaint back then, did not have to I mean,
there were always crowds in the summertime at Mount Rushmore,
but not like now. But I remember I was just
a teenager and we weren't up there for the vice centennial.
My grandfather lived up there at the time. My mom
is from that area. I got up there about seven
or eight years later and that's I remember. It was

(10:27):
really really hot and I got one of those little
gas station bow and arrows. Yeah, the ones with the
suction cups at the end, and no one was safe
on the rest of that trip. Now you give a
seven year old boy a bow and arrow and a
little sister and Hi Jenks and soup. Fantastic trip eleven

(10:47):
ten kfab certified transmission Sports brief now with Jim Rows.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
All right, now that the country is all about soccer,
Scott Boar, He's what happened to the World Cup yesterday? Well,
Spain knocks out Austria, Portugal knocks out Croatia, and c
and eliminates Algeria. Today and tonight Australia versus Egypt, Argentina
versus Cape Verde, and Columbia meets Ghana in Kansas City.
No word of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will be

(11:12):
an honorary coach for Ghana. Do you know where Cape
Verde is? A lot of people don't. Cape Verde is
a tiny, tiny sequence of islands just to the left
of Africa.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
It has a.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Grand total of fifteen hundred square miles of territory. Now
put that in perspective. The state of Nebraska has seventy
seven thousand square miles. But the guys from Cape Verde
are in the knockout round for the World Cup Soccer Championships,
and that is super cool. Wimbledon tennis yesterday afternoon and

(11:45):
last night continued Thursday, Men's and women's singles and doubles
on displays of aerev Alex Demannauer and Taylor fritztole the
spotlight straight set victories. The American Francis TFO also advances
to the third round, and the men's doubles Robert cash
aj Tracy representing the Americans, they moved on to Round two.
Baseball games, the Tampa Bay Rays sweep the Royals five

(12:08):
to two, a win yesterday in Kansas City. Ian Seymour
gave up just one run three hits over six innings.
Cedric Mullins crushed a two run shot for Tampa Bay,
which has now won eight consecutive games. The Royals, on
the other hand, have dropped seven of their last eight.
On the scoreboard, Cleveland over the White Sox six to five,
Texas over Detroit ten to four, Seattle beat the Angels

(12:29):
one nothing or I'll tell you what In honor of
the World Cup Soccer Championships until the World Cup Soccer
Championships are completed. On this program, on this sports broadcast,
every morning, we will refer to a shutout in baseball
as nil. So Seattle defeated the Los Angeles Angels won nil.
Last night Pittsburgh Cincinnati, Colorado, the Cards and Dodgers all

(12:51):
one games in the National League. In case you missed it, Seawn,
I course, the quote I had to evaluate where Iowa
was unquote vanquished ad at Nebras after an utterly forgettable
four and a half years where our teams were remarkably mediocre,
is now the ad at Wisconsin. He remembers his days
in Lincoln differently than the rest of us by any measure.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
Over a period of time. I think we were very
innovative in the way in which we were doing things.
We were very innovative in we're in which we were
taking care of our kids. We were pretty successful competitively
as well.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Now we really weren't anyway.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
We're all entitled to our own opinions, but not our
own set of facts. In reality, Sean was hired by
Harvey Proman, then Chancellor, for one reason to blow out
bo Polini and to get rid of as many tom
Osborne loyalists in the department as possible. Now, ESPN has
done an interesting poll, and this is the time of
year when poles are done. They have the top one

(13:48):
hundred college football players of all time, not ranked in
order of their ability, but ranked by number. Okay, so
who was the greatest player to ever wear these numbers?
The Huskers have four on this list. Rozier the greatest
to ever wear number thirty, Bob Brown the greatest to
ever win wear number sixty four, Richie Glover the greatest

(14:10):
to ever wear number seventy nine, and in Dominicansue the
greatest to ever wear number ninety three. I largely have
no problem with this list except for two. Dick Buckus
wears number fifty. Dick Buckus did not change the play
of the middle linebacker by.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
His success on the field.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
He was a very, very good player in college football,
but he didn't change the game. Dave Remington changed the
game at center, all right, so he should be fifty
and number twenty goes to Earl Campbell. Earl Campbell was
a really good running back. He had a spectacular nineteen
seventy seven and he went on to his star career

(14:50):
in the NFL. Johnny Rodgers changed the position at number twenty.
If you change and transform the position by your play,
you win. So these people are clearly screwed in the
head when it comes to choosing these up FeAs folks.
Now Tim Tebow's number fifteen one two Heisman trophies, Sorry, Tommy,
he trumps that. Sports his News, by the way, just

(15:11):
one Michigan Wolverine and one Iowa Hawkeye Nile Kinnick twenty four.
Gail Sayers comes in as the best ever to wear
number forty eight. Sports his News on Nebraska's news, weather
and traffic station.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
This is Nebraska's morning news news Radio eleven ten KFABS.
We get the special holiday edition of our program here
on this Independence Day Eve, and we now have another
great American back on the program here in Nebraska. Third
District Representative Adrian Smith, Congressman.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Happy fourth of July.

Speaker 5 (15:41):
Well, happy for the July to you. I tell you what,
it's great to always great to be back in Nebraska
direct from d C. On my way though to get
to spend some time in Nebraska for several days.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
I want to close on some of your thoughts on
this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. But first let's talk
first anniversaries. We talked about this early this week. It
was a year ago when Senator Chris Murphy, upon the
signing of the Big Beautiful Bill, posted on social media
and said, one single GOP senator could have stopped this abomination.

(16:15):
Saved millions of parents from watching their child go hungry,
save the lives destroyed when Medicaid disappears. They will all
live forever with the horror of this bill. It's been
a year. Did he have any idea what he was
talking about. What's your assessment of how the last year
went under the BBB.

Speaker 5 (16:34):
Well, when you look at the priorities for families in
the tax bill, we passed the Working Families Tax Cuts,
Big Beautiful Bill, it had said multiple names. The facts
are that it helps the working class. I mean, look
at the tax you know, tax relief for overtime for

(16:55):
tip earners, and we're finding out that that has been
a special actually beneficial to workers. Number one, it rewards them,
rewards them for working. My Democratic colleagues, their approach is
much different than what ours is. And so when you
look at what it has done in terms of expensing

(17:15):
and increasing productivity in the economy starting with twenty seventeen,
and now we made permanent so much of what we
passed in twenty seventeen. You know, it's interesting when the
Democrats are now criticizing that bill for part of it
being temporary, like the tax really for overtime in Social
Security earners for example, and tip earners. So they won't

(17:39):
really criticize the policy themselves. They just don't last long
enough there, so then make it permanent, right, Yeah, with
their help, we could have made it permanent.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Kind of hard to talk about the political landscape without
referencing the President of the United States, Iran and everything
that's been going on here. What's your assessment of what
we've been doing with the run and the impact it's
had here at home?

Speaker 5 (18:00):
You know, respect from other countries for a bold step
that the President took, and I realize there's various few
points here. I respect diverse view points here. I also
know that, as has been pointed out, what are we
on forty seven years of problems with Iran and not

(18:21):
really much being done about it? So President Trumps has
been more bold in his action, and I think other
countries have appreciated it. I mean, they many have spoken up.
You know, some of the likely characters, they're backing up
and you know, kind of saying, oh, don't do that.
I think that can be expected, especially from certain countries.

(18:44):
But when you look at how other countries view us,
especially in contrast to when Joe Biden was president, I
definitely think that we are in a better spot with
more respect around the world.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Here today in your district is the corn Husker Clink.
Immigration and immigration reform has been a big topic the
past year and a half or so, and here in
Nebraska having a detention center where the Omaha World Herald
this past weekend had a big story. Talked to some
people who were there, and they said the conditions were
just terrible.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Dirty water.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
They didn't have internet access anytime they wanted, and at
one point they lost their soccer ball. The conditions out
there at the corn Husker Clink.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
What are you hearing?

Speaker 1 (19:31):
What are your thoughts on even the mere presence of
that location.

Speaker 5 (19:35):
But you know, ultimately the governor worked with the federal
government to locate that facility. The fact of the matter
is sounds like the numbers are lower than anticipated that's
because the numbers at the border are lower than what
we were seeing not very long ago. But when simple
change in presidency and a change in rhetoric and expectations

(20:02):
has bought us so much more security. Because when you
have illegal border crossings down more than ninety percent, that
tells us a lot of what was happening before Donald
Trump took back the White House. And now it's interesting
to listen to Democrats even say that Joe Biden had

(20:23):
bad policy at the border. Yeah, and you know, we're
still paying for a lot of that. But I like
to remind folks that when we have illegal border crossings
down more than ninety percent, I think that allows us
to really look at our immigration policy. I've long said
a law abiding individual wishing to pursue the American dream
shouldn't have to wait for a lottery system, hire a lawyer,

(20:46):
spend several thousands of dollars, you know, overcoming these barriers
that you know, I think we let's look at our
policy how we can help our own country with immigration.
That's kind of been our history as well. Keep it say, though,
keep our country safe. Sometimes that means barriers at the border.
Sometimes that means more technology, less bureaucracy. But the expectation

(21:08):
being legal immigration and abiding by the law.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
And not having as many border crossings does help. On
the Supreme Court issue where they said, yeah, we do
still have birthright citizenship in this country. The president's executive
order does not stand, and he said, that's fine. We
needed Congress to solve this problem. So you're in Congress.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
That's reason.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Adrian Smith, though your thoughts on that and also that
other thing he's been pushing, the Save Act.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
Yes, well, there are a lot of things brewing here
on the immigration component, birthright citizenship, Congress needing to take action.
I think that's reasonable, that is appropriate. I think we
can visit this and in a broader immigration issue too,
on some issues that need to be addressed. I think
back to you know, Barack Obama making executive taking executive

(21:59):
action on immigration and doc and opening up things that
were never intended right in the run up to an
election incidentally as well, but courts have stepped in here.
I think it's we can work with this within this
framework the Save Act. Certainly, I Save America Act. It

(22:20):
is very reasonable to expect our elections across America to
be limited to citizens and the voter ID. That was
a journey in Nebraska that lasted longer than it really
needed to. I first introduced voter ID when I was
a state senator in the wake of Bush v. Gore

(22:40):
in Florida in two thousand. So I was glad that
the legislature and the ballot major ultimately got it done.
It's reasonable, and so many states have this, and I
think it can help, you know, establish the expectations of
what voters have of our system and the integrity that's associated.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
And finally, Congressman, as we're spending just another minute or
two here with third District Representative Adrian Smith, the dynamics
in your district are a little different than in New
York or la or even Denver. But you're not terribly
far from Denver, but the politics of Denver a little
different than the politics of Halsey, for example. The rise
of democratic socialism in this country here on the eve

(23:24):
of our two hundred and fiftieth Independence Day, your thoughts on,
especially young people moving towards that form of government, especially
when we're celebrating the experiment that has proved to be
so successful for so many generations of Americans. In the
past and as we look to the future if we
can keep it so your thoughts on socialism versus our

(23:48):
celebration of American independence and how long we can hold
on to it?

Speaker 5 (23:51):
Yeah, this socialism issue is one that should get our attention.
I have the privilege of serving with some Cuban Americans.
I have to represent well a good portion of Florida.
I love talking to them. They've seen it up close
what Cuba has been trying to do. It's failed. It
failed even before the most recent conditions have existed. But

(24:17):
in the broader sense, for the life of me, I
don't know why some people are pursuing these policies when
there's example after example after example around the world where
it has failed. And when you see here we are
two hundred and fifty years into this experiment that you
and I get to experience and benefit from. And has

(24:39):
it been perfect? No, I don't think anyone claims that
it's been perfect all two hundred and fifty years. Well, boy,
it's better than anything else in the existence of the world.
And you know, a colleague of mine a while back said,
you know, anything that might be wrong with our country
can be fixed with what is right about our country,

(25:00):
and yes, Congress and the drama that oftentimes exists, and
sometimes the partisanship that isn't about accountability, which is important,
but it's about bickering, sadly, but overall, and sometimes we
think that right now is the most challenging time in
our country's history. Oh man, I can think of some

(25:21):
other moments in our country's history that have been more challenging.
And the resilience of our country has proven but it's
not by accident, and it's not automatic. Much goes into this. Certainly.
I salute our men and women in uniform, so many
folks who have made sacrifices along the way, both in
uniform and otherwise. You know, we study history for a reason,

(25:43):
so we don't relive perhaps some mistakes of the past,
but we can look to the future. I hope, and
I work every day to provide a better future for
my own children, but for folks across America as well.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
And I know you're heading on your way to go
have an Independence Day holiday with your family. Thank you
so much for stopping by here and saying hi to
us in Nebraska's second District. I won't tell Don Bacon
you were here We'll let you get in and get out.
But Nebraska third District Congressman Adrian Smith always welcome. Great
message here on this Independence Day holiday weekend. Enjoy it
with your family. Thank you so much for stopping by.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
Thank you come guy.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Sean Callahan with the Hoscar Buzz Extra joins Jim Rose
with that. Next here on Nebraska's Morning News. Very hot
week heading into a very hot weekend. There are only
two people who are not affected by the heat. One
the coldest Crawford.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
I'm always the codest.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
The other one Sean Callahan, who is joining us here
for a special edition of the Hoscar Buzz and the
eleven to ten KFAB Certified Transmission Sports Brief.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
With the incredibly hot Jim Rose, here we go.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
You can only hope to contain shato even on holidays.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
All right.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
The big news out of Husker sports this week's shadow
was the reemergence of Sean Ikhurst, athletics director at Nebraska
for an utterly forgettable four and a half years between
twenty what fourteen and twenty seventeen, something like that twenty thirteen,
twenty seventeen, and he's now the ad ed Wisconsin seemed
to be revising history. Shano says, everything was great when

(27:11):
I was at Nebraska.

Speaker 6 (27:15):
Yeah, it when you look at all this, it's just
it's interesting. I mean, Shawn, my course of his career
has proven to be a good number two AD at
places like Wisconsin, South Carolina, and Texas. But his two
stints as the AD Miami and Nebraska didn't go well.
I mean, I can tell you Miami people when he
was there, he wasn't a fit there obviously, and then

(27:37):
he went to Nebraska and we know how it ended here.
But you know, I look at this Wisconsin situation. They
have an interim chancellor and an interim president there right
now that both took their jobs in June, and Chris
mcintoge resigned from his role in April. So my biggest
question still who's calling the shots in Madison? And when

(28:00):
you have interim leadership in place right now, and then
you have a football coach and Luke Fitkl obviously on
a big contract. Some of what we're looking at at Nebraska,
but it's gone two consecutive years without making a Bowl game.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, this is a very very interesting construct in American business,
you would never let an interim leader make major hires.
You would never let someone who is not permanently the
person in the job to make a major hire. The
same thing happened here Nebraska was in between presidents and

(28:34):
almost in between chancellors, and they hired an athletic director
by an interim president. And the same thing's happening at Wisconsin,
which typically leads to not favorable results. But if we
look back on the shawn I course tenure, here's Seano.
It seems to me the most the obvious thing that
was never admitted.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
But it's true.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
He was hired for one reason by Harvey Perlman, and
that was to fire Bowl Polini. Harvey fell out out
of love with bol Polini and knew that coach Osburne
wouldn't do it, so he had to move Osburne, so
he forced him into retirement, did not do any interviews
with anybody else except Sean Ichors and in he comes,
and it took a couple of years, but he got
it done. After that went over Iowa in twenty fourteen.

Speaker 6 (29:19):
Yeah, that moment in time when because Osburne was led
to believe he was going to actually be involved in
the process, and you know there are multiple candidates internally
that were told they would get an interview for the job.
So it was an awkward moment because Osburne was big
obviously in bailing out Harvey Peerlman during the Steve Peterson debacle,

(29:41):
then played a vital role in getting Nebraska to the
Big Ten, which you could argue was as big of
a play as Osborne called in his career, because if
Nebraska's not in the Big Ten right now, it's a
whole different deal. And he was huge in that process
with Jim Delaney and Barry Alvarez back then, you know then, Ike, Yeah,

(30:02):
that was the part about when I Course came here,
it just felt clunky because Osbourne wasn't behind it. He
wasn't at the press conference when they announced him. I mean,
it just didn't have a very good feel. And this
situation with I Course at Wisconsin, to my knowledge, we
have not heard a word from Barry Alvarez of all people.
And it was very Alpharetz who recommended I Course the
Perlman when Nebraska hired him.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
And some people believe that Barry did that as a
means to keep Nebraska from becoming overly competitive in sports
because he was the ad at Wisconsin at the time.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
All right.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Another note is we come to the beginning of July,
which is really not a super active recruiting period.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
June really is.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
And a lot of rankings are coming out now about
big ten recruiting halls. For the class of twenty twenty seven.
Nebraska is in the five to six to seven range
according to most polls. And in your view, how acrid
are these polls, given that these guys aren't signed, they
can leave this class at any time, conceivably they could
be offered bigger money by some else to change, how

(31:01):
accrid are these polls after the month of June.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
Well, yeah, he Generally the number of four stars in
your class, the blue chip recruits and five stars is
drive the number. And I think Nebraska we have him
at seven, you know, to be squarely in the top fifteen.
Those teams might have nine or ten. So I mean
that's a good barometer to measure the level of guys
you have. And then you know, when you have four

(31:24):
and five star players, those are the recruits you're paying
or you're going to pay. And there's still a pretty
big one that's going to announce here in the next
day or two Khalil Taylor, a wide receiver out of
Pittsburgh and Nebraska, is you know, a four star. They're
they're they're the favorite right now in that one. He's
a top one hundred players. So they're not done. But yeah,

(31:44):
it's a dead period until September fifth, so you can't
host a recruit in Lincoln until that home opener, so
there's not going to be a lot of activity and
movement happening and recruiting, and then the regular season starts
and the coaches can only you on the road, you know,
for a few days during the season, So a lot

(32:05):
of recruiting is done really at this point because there's
no December recruiting anymore, and these kids sign in early December.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
All right, that's kaf it be Husker Info strong man
Sean Callahan, Thanks buddy.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Enjoyed the fourth of July. Happy third of July to
you Independence Day Eve. We are here live with you
on this Friday morning on Nebraska's morning News. This is
News Radio eleven ten KFAB. I'm Scott Forhees here with
Craig Evans. Lucy Chapman is here and even though we
tried to give her the day off, Jim Rose right there.
We're all here with you on news radio eleven ten

(32:37):
KFAB have an answer to the question we asked in
the last hour, going what is the president doing up
at Mount Rushmore and when is he doing it today?
The answer, he is doing the evening presentation at Mount
Rushmore tonight, so he'll start speaking between like nine and
nine thirty, and then they'll do the big fireworks show.

(33:01):
You have to time all of this to where you
can still see the president with a little bit of
dusk and twilight there and the flyover of Air Force
one and whatever else they're doing, and then the president
speaks until it's dark and then you can do the fireworks.
I don't think the President's going to have a problem
speaking until it's dark, even if he starts at noon today.

(33:22):
But the remarks are scheduled for about nine o'clock nine thirty,
and I mean, I imagine they'll be carried on Fox News. Yes,
I don't know that the networks are going to break
into whatever it is they're doing and to say, here's
the president of Mount Rushmore on Independence Day Eve ahead
of America's two fiftieth Chris emails via the Zonker's custom

(33:44):
woods inbox. Scott atkfab dot com says, after living in
Nebraska for close to thirty five years, I can't believe
I've never been to Mount Rushmore what he says. My
wife and I, however, are planning a trip there in
a few weeks. I'm so excited. My thoughts on Trump
being there this weekend as I wonder if he's just

(34:06):
scoping it out to see where he can fit his
head on the mountain. Yes, that is sarcasm, not to everyone.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Chris.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Thanks a lot for the email, and let me know
when you're heading up there. I might be there at
the same time we are. We've decided on the destination
for the Vorhees twenty twenty sixth summer family vacation. Wow,
we're gonna get in the family truckster and we are
heading to two great Americana spots in this month of
America's two fiftieth The Arts. We're going to No, we're

(34:36):
going to Mount Rushmore and on to Old Faithful.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Good, Well, that's a long it's a bit of a
drive from Mount Rushmore to Old Faithful, but that's okay.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
We have time.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
I think we're gonna do. There's a good chance we're
gonna because Fort Robinson's one of my favorite places in
the world. I gotta find out where the fire is
on Fort Robinson. But then to Mount Rushmore, and then
we're gonna visit the new Theatodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and
Museum in Madora, North Dakota. I think the Boston and
I are going to load it up and head up
there sometime this summer.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, that'd be good. I don't know. Teddy's not there right.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
No, he's not there, but apparently this and I was
listening to Doug Bergham yesterday. He's the Interior Secretary and
the former governor of North Dakota who was instrumental in
getting it there because Roosevelt often said of Madora and
the bad lands of North Dakota, this is where my
life was reborn. After he lost his mom and his wife,

(35:31):
he sort of retreated from public life, and he went
on this great excursion to the Great American West and
found his soul here, and Madora capitalized on that. It's
a town of about three hundred people. But this library
and Presidential retreat is apparently right there on the great
Plains and I've seen two big stories, national stories on it,

(35:53):
first on CBS Sunday morning, and I thought, that's the
place I got a visit because it's high tech, it's interactive,
and I guess he does come alive in there, but yeah,
me might swing by the faces on the way up there.
But you know, I was lucky. My mom was from
the Black Hills, and so when I was growing up,
we'd go there every summer, and my grandfather still lived

(36:14):
up there, and we got to have fun, kind of
got off the tourist trail and got to see Custer
State Park and Bluebell Lodge and some of the other
cool stuff up there.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I kind of freaked Fish Canyon.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I tuned in to news radio eleven ten kfab it's
this radio station a few days ago, a couple days ago,
and I missed the first ten or fifteen seconds of
the top of the hour Fox News Report, and I
just came in when President Trump was talking about he
was a great America and great American America is better
off having had him here, and I'm thinking, oh, my gosh,

(36:46):
who died talking about Teddy Roosevelt, And I realized he
was up at Teddy Roosevelt's Museum, talking about President Theodore Roosevelt,
who has been dead for us quite some time. Yeah,
it's a cool part that you've lived here all those
years and haven't had a chance to visit it. Well,
that's that's the email ten hours. I've been there twice
and I'm gonna I'm looking forward to going back up there.

(37:09):
My kids are older now. They my son barely remembers
being up there. Well, he'll have a good night.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
When we were up there before, we had the best
spot for little kids. We stayed at a hotel right
across the street from the bedrock village up there, the
Flintstones they have, they have a town of bedrock there,
and so you you'd open up the curtains of your
hotel room and there's dino. There's Flintstone Village, like a

(37:37):
fifteen foot dino waving at you every morning.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Yeah, I think it's gone now. I don't think I
think it is. I think Flintstone Village is gone now.
That's so it's as sad they go to bring it back,
something we enjoyed doing. We had some friends that were
kind of had a little ranch in Pringle, South Dakota.
These are friends of my mom's when she was grown up,
and so we got to ride horses on their ranch
and that was really fun. And the hot spring evans

(38:00):
plunged the cool indoor outdoor swimming pool with the naturally
hot springs from the earth that bubbles up and makes
for a natural pool.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
That's really cool. You got to go there there. I'll
make a list.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
There's a lot of great stuff, a lot of stuff
you want to see that's a little bit off the
beaten track up there. That makes for a really fun
family vacation. But you know, spend it a lot of
time in Custer State Parking that good. That Bedrock City
has been gone for somewhere between five and eleven years.
I got one report says twenty fifteen. This one says

(38:35):
twenty nineteen. But the licensing and just stuff falling into
disrepair over there. Yeah, you know what happened to all
those statues?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Seasonal deal?

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Are they at the Children's museum next to the old
Richmond Gordman stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Gota visit the I gotta visit the Custer County Museum.
It's in the old courthouse. My grandfather pretty much got
behind that before he passed away.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Really.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yeah, that's neat if he did it after he Passedah,
make sure you take the eighteen eighty train. That's fun,
although it's not as fun as it was when it
was going through Keystone. But then they had that flood
there about fifty years ago wiped out the tracks. So
now it goes stead from Hill City to Keystone and
goes from Custard Hille City.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
There's a lot of great stuff up there. You know.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
My wife's favorite place is up there, the Purple Pie Place,
a little little restaurant cafe, and it's called the Purple
Pie Place. There's a lot of stuff you can eat
purple pie, and the building itself is purple.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Right. The good friends are carving away at at that
Crazy Horse Mountain, one chip at a time for a reason.
The Juwelkowskis have a reason to keep that thing stretched out.
They've been carving on that mountain for eighty five years.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
I saw it when I was a little kid, and
then I saw it again ten or so years ago.
Has not changed one bit.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Well, they got the face up, they got crazy horses face,
But I mean the rest of it. If they would
just let the real folks come in and hammer away
at this. It'd get done in five to ten years.
But no way, they're not going to do it.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
That was my big That was my big proclamation, the
last thing I ever said to my good friends Ty
and Terry Schenzel. They ran the Hope Center, and they
were saying, oh, you were leaving next week, We're going
up to Mount Rushmore in that area, and I grabbed
them with all of the passion of thinking, like, this
is the most important thing I.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Can possibly say to you.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
I said, don't pay to get closer to Crazy Horse now,
because they're going to charge you like thirty dollars for
the car to get two hundred yards closer to a
mile away from the monument. Anything you can see from
Crazy Horse, you can see from the road. Do not
tell me you won't pay to go see Crazy Horse.
They're like, okay, we won't do it now. Had I known,
because they died in a car accident on their way

(40:44):
up there, had I known, that would be the last
thing I'd say to them, it might have been a
bit more important. But I don't know. Maybe it wasn't,
because that's pretty important. Don't pay well to go see
Crazy Horse. If you can't get any closer to it
unless you start hiking and walking, and even then you
can't get very close.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
And they really don't want anybody other than Indians walking
around there. Look that old bastard, Cordjock Jolkowski. I met
him when I was a kind of that guy. That's
a scary best And you know, he had like fifteen kids,
and they're all grown up and some of them are
in their seventies now, maybe maybe even older than that,
and they just refuse to make this a big deal

(41:25):
relative to the carving of the mountain. Now they've made
a lot of money on the visitors center. They've sort of,
you know, of gotten into bed with the Indian tribes
up there because it's their mountain, and he convinced them
that will do a monument to the Great General Crazy
Horse and it will be beautiful. But there are politics

(41:46):
involved in this that make you wonder, did they ever
really seriously want to get this mountain done and build
the great village for the Indian to see Indian tribe
that they had promised back in the nineteen forties.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
I didn't know there are that many people from India
going up there. But you know it's fantastic. I hope
they're enjoying themselves. I'm Scott Vorhees, Craig Evans is here,
We've got Jim Rose here, and we've got Lucy Chapman here.
Even though Lucy Chapman is essentially you ever see the

(42:21):
film Sixteen Candles, That's right, I'm gonna work in an
eighties movie reference here in this segment of the radio program.
There's a scene in sixteen Candles where this geek his
parents have taken him to the high school dance and
they pushed him through the double doors and they're bracing
the double doors on the other side of the gym,
forcing him to stay there and have a good time.

(42:43):
And he's banging on the doors, going no, I want
to stay home with you.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
That's you this morning, Lucy. I told you here, the
geek who's being forced to like you want to leave
ecept in this case it's a little bit turned around
because I've given you the day off, so where you're
supposed to be is at home, but you've come to work.

(43:10):
You've insisted on being here. Now I understand you have
more responsibilities than to sit here and give me that look.
But I keep telling you, like, get your stuff done
and get out of here. It's a vacation day. It's
an official company vacation day.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Well, here's the deal.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Though, I really needed another dose of being completely and
totally ignored, and so I thought the best place to
get it, so.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Jim I was talking about earlier. Thank you, Craig. I'm
very glad you're.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Here, are you though?

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yes, well, I try to give you a day off.
It's got someone explain to me why the city of
Omaha cannot get a parks director. What in the heck
is going on here? He paid a search firm fifty
thousand dollars go find as a parks director. All right,
First question, why when the city of Omaha needs someone

(44:09):
to do something, whether it's for a contract or a
position with city government, why do we hire a firm
and pay them fifty thousand dollars to go find this person?

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Because that way, Because that way, if it doesn't work out,
nobody gets blamed for it. You blame the search firm.
This is the new era of American corporate behavior. Rather
than have a chief executive take responsibility, they hire search firms.
I've never understood why you would spend money on a
search firm like the University of Nebraska spending hundreds of

(44:39):
thousands of dollars to find Ted Carter and they didn't
find out that he liked to mess around with friends
on the side. This is this is unfortunate, but it's
our new culture. It used to be we had strong
leadership in American corporate in the corporate community, you had
a guy or a gal at the top that said,
I'm in charge. I'm being paid to make big decisions.
And the first big decision I'm gonna make is the

(45:00):
hiring of this person. Okay, and if it doesn't work out,
it's on me, right, Okay, Well, guess what I'm gonna
make sure it works out?

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Well, don't I mean?

Speaker 1 (45:09):
I guess if the idea is is we're too busy
doing all of our jobs.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
We don't have time to this the resume possibility.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
We don't have time to pour through resumes, try and
find out do interviews with every single person applies, and
so we have this person come with this group to
do it.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
But I don't know if you ever listen to KFAB radio,
I do.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
We have a bunch of commercials on here saying that
if you're looking for the needle in the haystack, indeed.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
It's gonna try it for me.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Look, the bottom line is this. This is the mayor's hire.
This is why we have a mayor. He is the
chief executive, or she would be the chief executive of
the community. This is a department head parks. Yeah, this
is a department head. They answer to the mayor. They
report to the mayor. The mayor should hire this person.
And you know, John, this is one of the perks

(45:58):
that you get for the elect You get to make
decisions on staff. So we shouldn't be spending money on
a search firm. He should be calling around asking people
for recommendations on a parks director. Get a few, bring
them in for an interview, find out if they know
what they're doing, if they have a record of achievement,
that they understand how to mow grass and plant flowers

(46:21):
and pull weeds from medians, which is something that ain't
getting done around here never and never will. Just find
out if they're capable of their job offered to them.
If they say yes, great, If they say no, go
to number two.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
I don't know that the parks department has purview over
the medians. I believe they do really well. What we
have here is two hundred and fifty nine city parks,
three indoor pools, eight golf courses, twelve community centers and
thirteen outdoor cool big job. It's a big job, and
you get paid up to two hundred thousand dollars a year.

(46:53):
We paid a search firm to go find a person.
They found the person, and then they got to the
point where it was time to all right, great, when
can you start? And that person decided I don't want
to come here, and wouldn't it then go to is
is there a number two that you could defer.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
To on this one?

Speaker 3 (47:09):
All right?

Speaker 2 (47:09):
So then what happened to that person? Was it?

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Really there is one good candidate? There were fifty seven
terrible candidates, and now we have to start from scratch
with the same salary, the same job that didn't lure
the right candidate before the same search firm they're supposed
to go find that person is now tasked with doing
it again. In the meantime, Mayor Ewing has taken the

(47:31):
person who was the previous park planning and Development manager,
who was then elevated to interim director of the parks.
His name's Jake Linder. Last summer the mayor appointed him
to be Intrim Parks director and he already worked in
that world. Well he's now going back to that job.
And Mayor Ewing is putting in there someone who's worked

(47:52):
for the city in not at all a park's department role,
Jacqueline Morrison. She was and has been director of Transformation
and Strategic Partnerships. And the mayor says, that's what we need.
We need millions of dollars to go towards upkeeping of
the parks. And since she's really good at raising funds
and doing all this stuff, she's going to be great

(48:14):
in this job. So maybe maybe she will. Maybe this
will be a permanent thing for her. Maybe she wants it,
maybe she doesn't. Maybe it's just next man up. But
I don't know why it's so hard to find someone
to say, Yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
What do we do here? We got pools.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Let's put water in them and open them from Memorial
Day through Labor Day. Golf courses, mow the greens, make
sure that the rough is about a half inch, and
let's try not to have the fairways be too brown
and the garbage great garbage sacks. Break the traps, community centers.
I say we open them up and have good nets

(48:51):
on the basketball hoops.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
I think that they've already been opened up two hundred
and fifty nine parks mo them once in a while.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
If if there's a slide that is.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
You know, one of those big like tall slides, and
somewhere in the middle of it there's a big hole
the kids are falling through, Let's put a new slide there.
All right, I'm going on break. Isn't that pretty much
what the parks director does. I'll do it. I'll do
it as a part time job.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
You paid.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Take whatever you're gonna pay. The next parks director, I'll
take half. We have a truth social post from the
President of the United States. Get ready to clutch those pearls.
How bad is this gonna be? What's he gonna do? Well,
who's he gonna say? Is he gonna work in making
fun of crooked Hillary Clinton or Rosie O'Donnell in this one?

(49:39):
Oh boy, here we go, he says. Two hundred and
fifty years ago, on the eve of America's momentous vote
for independence, Caesar Rodney received word that he was urgently
needed to break a deadlock among the delegates to the
Second Continental Congress. Although he suffered from asthma and facial cancer,

(50:03):
Rodney immediately set forth on an eighty mile overnight journey
by horseback from Dover, Delaware, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and enduring
a raging thunderstorm, he arrived two hundred and fifty years
ago yesterday, July second, seventeen seventy six, to cast his

(50:23):
decisive vote and secure America's glorious destiny of freedom and independence.
An equestrian statue honoring Rodney's key contribution now anchors Spirit
of seventy six at Freedom Plaza, a new exhibition in Washington,
d C. Honoring the heroes and martyrs of the American Revolution.

(50:43):
Go and see there's a little picture of Caesar Rodney
horseback riding through the night to get to Philadelphia to
bring about this experiment we celebrate for the two hundred
and fiftieth Independence Day. And you wonder how long it'll
be before someone decides that's a statue of an old

(51:04):
white guy and a horse that needs to go, needs
to go. But it's up there now in d C.
I'm getting emails from people this morning gym, saying, we're
going to Washington, DC this summer. Just feel like we
have to be there, you know. I I hope you'll.
You'll make sure you got a gun.

Speaker 6 (51:21):
Now.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
They've they've got the National Guard out there. It's pretty
cleaned up.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Pretty dangerous town anyway, but go ahead.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
They President Trump's been saying it's great. Everyone says, he says,
even the Democratic mayor says, it's a very safety Well.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
President Trump is surrounded by an army of security agents.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, but I have not heard of any problems. It's
not as bad. That's good. That's true. It's not as
bad because of the National Guard. It's not as bad.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
I hope that you'll accept my excuse why I don't
remember some of the fanfare around the bi centennial year
of nineteen seventy six. And my excuse was I didn't
show up until November of that year, So did President Ford,
did America. I mean, I've always heard that the by
centennial year was pretty big, but it was was it

(52:06):
like this It seems like Trump has Really it wasn't
like this. There were celebrations all over the country. Probably
the most memorable was the parade of tall ships that
came into New York Harbor and Boston Harbor that day.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
From all over the.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
World they sailed into and it made you think that
this was seventeen seventy six. But yeah, there were celebrations everywhere.
It was a very, very big deal and President Ford
was locked in a very very competitive race for the
Republican nomination with Ronald Reagan and Governor of California. In fact,
they both entered the convention in August with not enough

(52:43):
delegates to get the nomination on the first ballot, and
as it turns out, it was very contentious and it
came down to the very very end, and President Ford prevailed.
Then invited Ronald Reagan down on the stage, which was
his biggest mistake because Reagan made one of the great
political speeches in convention history and had everybody in the

(53:03):
house thinking we nominated the wrong guy. Anyway, Yeah, he
was really busy battling Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter had locked
up the nomination in New York City, and so he
was rocking and rolling on the way to the wind.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
But yeah, it was a fun time.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
It was the July fourth, I believe, was a Sunday
morning in nineteen seventy six. I remember because I delivered
newspapers and that morning to the neighborhood around my house,
and that was a big addition of the Lincoln Journal Star.
I kind of promise you that was a fat paper
in those days. And think I'm a weightlifter. It was

(53:38):
a Sunday, yeah, and it was a beautiful day in
Lincoln that day, as it was all over the country.
But yeah, you know, I mean, I hope, I hope Scott,
and this is some of what I'm going to talk
about in the Rosi de Genozie in an hour.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
But I hope that at least for.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Some part of today and tomorrow and maybe through the weekend,
Americans stopped for just a minute, get on their phone
and research. Just not for a whole day, and you
don't have to become a scholar, but just research and
look up what happened and how it happened, and the
Declaration of Independence and its origin and the remarkable courage

(54:16):
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. We know
now it worked out, Okay, two hundred and fifty years later,
you know we're okay, right, But I can promise you
anybody who's read any history on the founding of the
country and the nation and how Britain was truly the

(54:38):
world's dominant military force at the time. For us to
have won that war which later came, but for us
to declare our independence and become a nation as it
is today was extraordinarily against the odds. There was just
very little chance that it could happen. The infinitesenal odds that.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
It would work.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Perfect song for this two hundred and fiftieth at the
World Cup, going on, people coming to America, loving it
in Americas.

Speaker 7 (55:14):
Coming to America, never looking back again, coming to America.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
The beautiful song and that little that downbeat where he
takes it back down there musically, very very fascinating stuff,
Neil Diamond. Great tune there America and.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Are we are we?

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Following the saga of Freddy. This is the guy from
Germany who's been documenting his time here in America and
then he was invited to the White House and he
just goes on his social media like Hey, I'm going
to the White House, and immediately people started to turn
on German Freddie the soccer fan, because as he was

(56:00):
accepting the invitation from the President of the United States
to go to the White House.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Now, think about this.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
You are a big baseball fan, and they decide to
have the World Series in Ireland. You're going to have
to suspend a little disbelief to think about that. But
or how about this. It's the first football game of
the Nebraska Cornhuskers season and they're playing in Ireland. Okay,

(56:27):
that sounds more familiar, and we win the game. We
had a brilliant idea to do an on sidekick. We
recovered it and never looked back. If if we're going
to do you have to bring that out. If we're
going to provide you a fanciful scenario, I want it
done my way. So you're there, finally gotten that out
of my head. No, we never will. So you're there

(56:49):
in Dublin. You're having a great time. You're celebrating American football.
You're documenting it for your freight. Your Facebook friends, your
aunt likes it every single time you post something. And
then you're like, all right, whore, I got thirty seven
likes on this post?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
This is great?

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Anyway, The leader of Ireland sees it and says, hey,
we really love that you're enjoying your time here. From
Dublin to Belfast, all across the Emerald Isle. We'd love
for you to come to the Greenhouse or whatever it
is they've got there, to be the Irish version of
the White House and spend some time here, and we

(57:27):
just want to really celebrate you. You'd go, right, you'd have
to go. You wouldn't even know who the you know,
I don't even know what Ireland has. Is it a president,
is it a czar, is it a general manager, is
it a prime minister?

Speaker 2 (57:40):
What do they have over here? You don't know? You
just go.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
And so this guy, Freddie gets the invitation to go
to the White House, and suddenly the anti trumpers are
piling on this guy. How dare you go to the
White House? There was a post here from the United
States Tourism Minister Nick Adams that says I arranged a
visit to the White House for Freddie, the viral FIFA

(58:04):
World Cup tourists from Germany to cap off what had
been an epic FIFA World Cup visit to the United States.
Despite the hateful and angry radical left's vicious attempts to
dox Freddie, launched personal attacks and intimidate him into submission
ultimately forcing him to delete his social media accounts to
protect his peace and safety. The West Wing visit will

(58:27):
still take place. Freddie's only crime was loving America and
documenting his travels in a completely nonpartisan way.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
This is what they do.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
They try and scare in silence anyone who doesn't conform.
As the Special Presidential Envoy for Tourism, I am proud
that Freddie enjoyed his trip here. I refuse to let
the radical left turn something positive for our country and
do another victory for their politics of hate. In the
true spirit of two point fifty, I lifted Freddie up
and made sure their mob tactics would not win. The

(58:58):
visit will go ahead as planned. America remains open for
business and open to visitors who simply want to experience
the greatest country on Earth. We will never let the
mob dictate who gets to enjoy it. Signed Presidential Envoy
Nick Adams. Now that's certainly a partisan message on this

(59:18):
America two fifty, but I like it.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Well.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Look, anybody who's listened to KFAB for the last five
years knows that I had no taste for Joe Biden.
I thought the guy was I don't think that he
got eighty million votes, or however many he supposedly received
in the twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Elections, popular presidential contender of all time. I look at
all those I don't believe that for one second. But
the chance to meet the President of the United States
would have been the most humbling experience to me, even
if it was him or Barack Obama or any of
these others for whom I have not a lot of
respect for their policies. But this is the President the

(01:00:00):
United States, and the opportunity to meet the President of
the United States, shake their hands and say thank you
for your service to our country is something that is
a genuine blessing bestowed on any American for that chance.
And to devalue it by suggesting, well, I just don't
like the guy makes you a bad person. I mean,

(01:00:22):
there's no better description. That just makes you a very
disturbed individual to say, I am not going to shake
the hand of Donald J.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Trump because I don't like his lifestyle, or he has
a preponderance of nose hair, or he has the audacity
to ask NATO to pay for its share of defending Europe,
or if you're here illegally, we're going to find you
and run you out. Come on, now, this is the
president of the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
I sat in a hot gym in Kansas City when
Al Gore was running for president as vice President of America,
and I was really impressed by not exactly what he
was saying, but you know, just his ability to be
very personable. And even though it was hot and it
was getting around dinner time, and he could sense that
people are kind of shifting in their chairs ready to

(01:01:10):
get out of there. He said, I'll tell you what
I know. You guys have a lot of questions, things
you want to say. I'm gonna hang around here for
a while. I don't have anything to do the rest
of the evening, and I'll talk to every single person
wants to talk to me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
And I thought, oh, come on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
About an hour and a half later, he was still there,
and I thought I gotta go say something, So I
went down there. I shook his hand and said, I
admit I came here not exactly being a big fan
of your politics. I tend to be more on the
right side of the spectrum. But I'm impressed by you
this evening, and I think you genuinely loved this country
and for that I wanted to shake your hand, and

(01:01:43):
he goes, thank you, Scott, I appreciate that, and it
was a humbling experience.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Well, I had the same kind of experience with Bob
Dole when I worked in Solana, Kansas. We had a
big radio station down there that reached a lot of
farmers and ranchers in north central Kansas. And Bob Dole
was the Senator from Kansas at the time. Senator from Kansas,
and he was actually the Senate Minority leader, if I'm
not mistaken, But he would come through the building and

(01:02:07):
you think, Okay, this guy, this guy had his shoulder
blown off in World War Two, this guy made his
way back to public service and is willing to come
through small radio stations to talk to people who count. Okay,
farmers and ranchers in Kansas count And yeah, now was

(01:02:29):
he the most the warmest human being in the world.
Not necessarily at the time, KU and k State weren't
very good football. Nebraska was to do it. Well, he
gave me a hard time. He goes, he goes, yeah,
you're from Nebraska, that's right, Senator. He goes, he says,
we'll get you in basketball. I go, yeah, said you've
been getting us in basketball for a long time. He
smiled and kept moving. I'm thinking that guy could be

(01:02:51):
president of the United States someday. And he ultimately ran
and lost to Bill Clinton. But those are people that
deserve our respect.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah. Are they big deals yet? Do they think they're
big deals yet? Do they get a lot of perch? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Is there corruption galore in DC? Yeah, but look the
chance out of three hundred and thirty million people, the
chance to get that close to the president or potential president.
I was in the same room with President Ford years
after he had retired or been retired by the American people.
My favorite American of all time is George HW.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Bush.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
You know, I hope someday I get it to meet him.
Is not going to be in this life, maybe in
the next one. But there is no greater American life
in my view than George HW. Bush and anybody who
has the chance to be I would be purely in
awe of being in the same room with President Bush
because of what he accomplished in life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
I'd love to be a fly on the wall and
have you sit there and talk to President Trump for
an hour.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
We'd have fun to see.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
How that goes. I'm Scott Vorhees. There's Jim Rose, Lucy Chapman,
Craig Evans here as well. This is News Radio eleven
ten kfa B. A couple of weeks ago, you're doing
that little party over there at Lanski's, which was a
lot of fun. I'm playing piano and singing, and this
lady comes up to me with this crumpled up piece
of paper. Name is Jula, and she said, you play

(01:04:14):
piano and sing. I'm like, okay, people around just actually
you're very good. Laughed like, yeah, he tries for somebody
who's never actually had lessons, you're very good. She said,
I wrote this poem salute to America, and I thought
it would be a great song. And I looked at
it and I thought, well, I don't know that I'm
going to be able to do anything in song.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
But I tell you what.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
You give me this piece of paper and I'll record
with some patriotic music your poem. We might even play
it on the radio. She said, would you, And I
said sure. Happy Birthday America. You're two hundred fifty years old.

(01:04:57):
You've given us a heritage more value and gold. You've
given us a dream, to live a land of good
and plenty. You've taught us how to fight for right
in interest for so many. You've given us a trust
in God. Democracy is our cry. We are a Christian
nation and a strong and good ally. You've given us

(01:05:19):
the freedom that some men never find of press, assembly, religion,
and the right to speak our mind. It can be
said each nation has contributed to you the best of
their great cultures. For the Red, white, and Blue, there
is so much we're grateful for. We want you to know, America,

(01:05:39):
we salute you, and our love will ever grow there
you go, Jula, thank you so much for providing that.
Poem is called Salute to America by Julay Thomassek And
I was very happy to do that and send it
to her, and then she said I still want it

(01:05:59):
as a well. Then called Lionel Richie. He's a good songwriter.
Maybe he can do something with it. Called Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift's a little busy this weekend, but maybe she
can get to it now.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
It's just it's too bad that when Taylor Swift appeared
in the Listener Lounge, which is just about twenty feet
from here in the decrepit, kfab building. It's just too
bad we didn't know at the time that this would
become the global superstar that she is, because we could
have all gotten cool pictures with her. This is when
she was a nobody. You know, she was the opening

(01:06:32):
acted bars. But we've had some pretty cool people through
the old listener. She strummed her guitar right up there
in front of about twenty people. Yeah, Taylor Swift here,
Lady Gaga right outside my office, and we had jewel Yeah,
John Rich a big and rich. And I was once
sitting in my office and I heard this great song

(01:06:54):
coming from the listener lounge because a lot of times
I'm just in there working and like, I don't know
what the who these people are.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
And I heard song. I thought, that's a pretty good tune.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
It was about a quarter after one I'm a little
drunk and I Need You Now, and then like three
days later, suddenly Need You Now by Lady Antebellum was
one of the biggest songs in America.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
So yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
We we should always take our picture with these people
because you never know who might pressed someday.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
And you know, like I she was probably performing while
I was sitting in my office because it's right adjacent
to the listener lounge, and and I'm sure she was good,
but I was probably working on some you know, common
conspirac common conspiracy theory to share on the radio the
next day. And here's this nice gal singing away, strumming
on her guitar. And they were, like I said, twenty

(01:07:42):
twenty people listening, just listeners, cat listeners, And I don't
did she sign the wall?

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
We do have a wall where you can sign your name.
Did she sign the name that I was put here?
I think I have before that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
But it was it was really terrific for her to
have such a great start here. And when she performed
as an opening act that the old I think I
don't know if it was the Chi Center it might
have been, or it might have been the Rawston Arena,
I don't know, but anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Neither of those were here when this was out.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Okay, So here's this gal that really remembers Omaha, and
she's very close actually believe it or not, strikingly close
to the cat One of three program director has Michaels,
who's you know, big.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
We love this guy around.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
Here, and he's never ever brags about his relationships with
these super country music stars, but he is on a
first name basis with some of the biggest names in
country music.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
And I don't know if he's invited to the wedding
this weekend. But here's what's happening tonight. You talk about musicians,
PBS will televise the Salute to America show on the
US Capitol's West Lawn in DC tonight. It's featuring Patty Leabelle.
So you'll have to cancel Patty LaBelle. That's okay, she
got a new Attitude. That's one of her songs. Alan

(01:08:55):
Jackson is performing there tonight. Cool in the Gang, the
National Symphony Orchestra there tonight, and Chicago. As a big
Chicago fan, Jim, you will know that Saturday in the
Park must have been the fourth of July. Will be
perfect for Chicago this year because tomorrow is Saturday, and
if you're in the park, it will be the fourth
of July.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
So Chicago is very happy with that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
They found some musicians who decided, like we were talking
about earlier, I don't know that everyone and Cool in
the Gang is a big fan of President Trump, but
it doesn't matter. America has given the opportunity to give
us great songs like Celebration and Misled and Joanna and
Cherish and Ladies' Night and do I need to go

(01:09:40):
through more of the catalog, and they celebrate.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
This nation and the people in it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
If these artists would just just stop with the political positions,
their popularity would soar. Oh, I don't care if these
people have got to shut up and sing. Just for
the love of God, shut up up and sing. I
don't want to hear you sing. Can you imagine how

(01:10:05):
much more wildly popular Barber Streisand would be if she
just would have stopped with the political commentary?

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
I think did okay? Entertainers.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Entertainers have such a special place in the American heart
because music is so evocative, all right, If they would
just appreciate that and stop with the commentary, just get
up there and say I love all of you, thank
you for being here, and now off we go.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
My two of my favorite artists are Elton John and
he is certainly on the left when it comes to politics,
but he also played Rush Limbaugh's funeral, and people gave
him a lot of grief for that. Sorry, not his funeral,
his wedding amount of money.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
When he got married, he played Rush Limbaugh's wedding and
people gave him a lot of grief for that, and
he said, I had a great time. It was his
wife is a big fan who made it work out.
And the best way to try and get people together
is not to ignore each other. It's to talk to
each other and try to build these bridges. So I

(01:11:10):
appreciate that. And then and there were several zeros might yeah,
and they also paid them a lot of money. But
the other big artist I like is weird Al Yankovic.
And the only political thing I've ever heard him say
in a concert is he once said, do you guys
in this town? Do you like the police and people?

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Mixed response, And he said, I thought some of Sting's
solo work is kind of pretentious, but I really liked
their early work, so even that was a joke. Are
you one of those who if your favorite musician suddenly
starts sliding into and I'll tell you the other thing
about this terrible president, you know? Are you like I'm
done with that?

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
No, I'm not done with them, but it changes my
approach to them, and it changes my affinity for them.
I personally think barbar Streisand is the greatest female voice
of my generation and probably the generation or two before her.
And I can listen to this remarkable talent and just

(01:12:08):
really enjoy her music. But if she would just have
stopped with this really aggressive anti conservative movement in our
country and it was not just confined to Donald Trump,
I mean, she's raised ire against everybody from Richard Nixon
to Ronald Reagan to the Bush family and everybody in between.
I'm still going to listen to her records. She's in

(01:12:31):
her eighties now, I think so. I don't think she
travels and tours much, but yeah, you know, I still
enjoy listening to her voice. So the answer is not
quite but it's not the same Bet Miller. I almost
walked out of a concert involving Bet Midler in Omaha
because she teed off on Limbaugh. Okay, Bet Midler is

(01:12:52):
a crazy lefty. You can be a crazy lefty all
you want when you're not singing, just in your school
of friends. Feel free to be that. But when you're
on stage, we just want to hear you sing, sweetie.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
That's it. We just want to hear you sing. Doesn't
bother me one bit. Johnny Carson.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Van Middler has never signed any executive She's never passed
away just like that. She doesn't sit on the Supreme Court.
But you know, Johnny Carson had any right, the Rose right.
This was, by the way. No, he was interviewed by
Mike Wallace. You know, why don't you talk about Richard Nixon?
Why don't I talk about Richard Nixon, said Johnny Carson.
This is at the height of Watergate and his remarkable

(01:13:36):
fall from grace. He said, nobody is tuning in at
ten thirty at night to have me talk politics. Nobody
is the last thing people want before they fall asleep
is some guy teeing off on a president or a
senator or a foreign leader. Now, Johnny Carson only had
twenty some million viewers a night, that's all. When people

(01:13:58):
could have turned the television off and gone to sleep instead,
they wait, they stayed up.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
To watch him. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
It's it's so simple today. And why these contemporary comedians
and contemporary artists don't follow that pathway, I don't know,
But it's up to them.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
It's their call.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Even on a holiday like Independence Day Eve, we still
got our favorite country boy here booms the country from
Nebraska game in Parks. He is He is Greg Wagner,
and he's here on news radio eleven to ten kfa B.

(01:14:43):
What's going on there, Greg? It's busy out there. Yeah,
we might have a few storms causing people to maybe
get out.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Of tense tonight. We'll see how that goes.

Speaker 8 (01:14:54):
Be weather aware, geez, why do we have to say that,
stay right here to KFAB Be weather aware? Know what
county where you're camping.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
That's a big thing.

Speaker 8 (01:15:04):
Sometimes you'll lose cell phone access and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
But just be whether aware. Have a plan. I mean,
just watch that radar. Let's look at a plan.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Let's say you want to go someplace, you want to
be around a lot of people, and you want that experience.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
So where what's that look like?

Speaker 6 (01:15:22):
Here?

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
Go to the water. Yeah, that's where all the people are.

Speaker 8 (01:15:25):
County us to be on in or near the water.
Calambus yep, calm. Jimmy loves Calambus. But Calamus reservoir branch
choked reservoirs will be busy. They're a little on the
low side, some of them are, but still our water
based recreation areas are going to be very busy, you
want to get away from the crowds, you need to
go to a place like Indian Cave. Maybe that doesn't

(01:15:47):
have the water you have seed it doesn't have the water,
And maybe you're gonna go up to Ponka State Park
where we have lots of woods.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
What can you do in terms of providing your own
fireworks looking at someone else's fireworks?

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
What? What are some of the restrictions on all of that.

Speaker 8 (01:16:02):
Basically, fireworks are prohibited in our Nebraska State park system,
except we have three areas around Lincoln. We have Branched
Oak Ponty Lake Beach one, and then wagon Train Lake
where we're going to allow legal Nebraska fireworks to be
touched off tomorrow eight to midnight and folks can pull
up their chairs and watch. One of the things I

(01:16:22):
tell people is, wherever you're camping at anywhere seventy six areas,
talk to the staff there. Find out if there's a
local fireworks display in some of these communities. Some have
kabash there is, like in the Panhandle because it's extremely dry,
But just ask around because chances are there's probably a
fireworks display pretty close.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Yeah, and you know, people get together for a holiday
like this, they're drinking. You can't drink all day unless
you start in the morning. But you know that you
gotta stay hydrated. You got to stay sure you're not
getting all burned up from the sun. And you don't
need anyone either regretting their dec on Sunday or getting
really sick.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
And we're gonna have a watch out. We'll have a
big presence on the water. Uh it's operation dry Water.

Speaker 8 (01:17:08):
With buy boating into the influence, we're gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Really be catching down on them. Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
So let's say you want to go out there and
you want to responsibly do some fishing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
There's some opportunity to do that this weekend, to go
early and late.

Speaker 8 (01:17:22):
And you might say, well, you're going to get into
the fireworks wags, but you can go a little bit
earlier than that. The first hour and a half a light,
the last hour and a half a light. That's your
fishing times as we have the heat on. Now we're
in summer. These are summer patterns, and speed up your
retrieves with your lures. Fish or cold blooded. They adapt
to the environment they're in, so there swimming ability kind

(01:17:45):
of picks up and they're they're a little more kind of.

Speaker 5 (01:17:49):
You know, quicker.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
Yeah, so it takes something, all right, So do that.
What's going on in the outdoor bulletin board, Greg, you.

Speaker 8 (01:17:55):
Want to celebrate America's two hundred and fiftieth living history
this weekend Fort Atkinson State Historical Park Saturday and Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Greg Wagner from Nebraska Game and Parks have a wonderful
Independence Day weekend. And thank you so much, thank you
coming in here today.