Hello everybody, Welcome, here we go. It is that time again,
Matt Connerton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H
five point three FM, the Glorious Downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, also on
Comcast ninety seven. If you're in Manchester. Hello to all of our online
listeners across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my website
Matt Connerton dot com for all of your live streaming options, social media links,
contact info, show archives, etc. Etc. Today is it is
the first of the month. Hence the little Bone Thugs and Harmony to open
up today's show first of the month, as that's become kind of an unofficial
tradition here when I remember, I'll be the first to admit I've not been
consistent with it. There have been first of the month where well, for
one thing, sometimes it falls on a weekend, but there have been first
of the month where I have not thought to play that song. So I
haven't so you can't say that I've overdone it, but but I try to
remember I always I always loved that song. The two massive hits from that
album that Bone Thugs had where that and Crossroads and Crossroads is the one everyone
remembers, and First of the Month has always been kind of secondary to that.
But First of the Month has always been my favorite. So and I
played doesn't have to end this way, the remastered version from the band Stand
Up Audio. We had two of the guys, Joe Pero and Joe Cadrette
in with us in studio yesterday on the couch and had a great conversation and
we were sharing some of their new music. But and this was completely my
own fault. I had misunderstood something and I the version of that song that
I played was the older version. They have a new remastered version. So
I told the guys, I said, well, you know what, I'll
play the remastered one today at the top of the show. And it does
sound better. And I thought the original sounded great too, but yeah,
you can really hear some of the dynamics, especially you know, sitting here
with headphones on. The dynamics really come out in the remastered version. It's
it just sounds fantastic. And about that, I have two tickets to give
away to see Stand Up Audio this Saturday night at the Rex Theater right downtown
here, right around the corner on Amhurst Street, said Jenny, dis message
being said, don't forget the ticket giveaway. Yes, yes, thank you.
They will be here right around the corner, like I said, at
the Rex and UH an evening with a stand up audio. They're the only
band playing. Oh she said OI and unsent the message. No, I
appreciate I appreciate it. Uh, I appreciate it, Jenny. No,
it's good to remind me because I do forget things. Um, but yeah,
we're looking forward to that. Jenny and I will be there, So
come see the band and UH and then UH come say hello to us as
well. So I will offer these and by the way, you don't have
to pick up physical tickets or anything. I will just give you or I'm
sorry, I will give them your name and they will put you on the
list. So you'll be on the guest list, you and UH and A
plus one and UH. So I will offer that to whoever wants it,
whoever is the first caller. Just if if you if you call to claim
again, they're not really tickets, you'll just you'll be on the list.
You'll be you'll be comped, as we say. But if you do call
in to claim them, just please don't don't be like, oh, what
the heck, you know, alcohol, and you know, maybe I'll go,
maybe I won't. Please only claim these uh these tickets if you're definitely
going to go, because I don't be uh. You know, on radio
they call it a prize pig people who we've had this conversation with EZG before.
We won't rehash all of that, but you know, people who just
like to win prizes, whether they actually are interested in the prize or not.
Don't, don't don't be a prize pig. But if you're actually interested
in going, and you should be interested in going because they're such a great
band. We're really looking forward to seeing them Saturday night at the Rex Theater.
So it was kind of funny if you heard yesterday's show. The guys
were here, Joe Perow and Joe Cadrette to the guys from stant Up Audio,
and we were at the end of the show and one of them said,
oh, by the way, Matt, we wanted to, um,
it might be a little late now, but we wanted to give away a
couple of tickets. Uh, you know, if you have listeners who want
to go. And it was like literally like five minutes at the end of
the show, I said, well, I could do that tomorrow, a
little late to do it today. That was kind of funny, but yeah,
give me a call six zo three two five six seven six Z three
two five six zero seven, first come, first serve. We'll get you
on the list, and then we will see you Saturday night at the Rex
Theater. So that's gonna be cool. I have not been inside the Rex
Theater in I don't even know how long it's been. I've I've been,
I've been there before, but I've not been inside that building in a very
long time. So I'm really looking forward to it, and Jenny and I
are looking forward to going to see the band live and going to see you
there as well. Whoever you are who calls in to claim that six three
two five six seven, you can also text me at six one seven nine
one seven four four seven six. You have to call to get the tickets.
I'm just saying if you want to interact on the show, you can
text me at six one seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm
on social media at Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt at Matt Connerton
dot com and of course, you can interact Undo Pine in the Facebook live
chat and we will say hello everybody in there in a moment. But the
best thing to do so that we can here and enjoy your dulcet tones is
to give us a call at six ZO three two five six seven six ZO
three two five O six Z seven. Coming up today on the show,
we do have a guest skyping in in the second hour, Kevin Hammer from
the Great State of New York. He is he's going to be skyping in.
I think I think he was on with us maybe five or six weeks
ago, and we had a pretty interesting conversation and I kind of felt like
we just barely scratched the surface. So I said to Jenny, you know,
Jenny does all the she books all the guests for the show, and
and she's just been doing a fantastic job, so many great guests and keeping
the schedule nice and full, which is wonderful. And I said to Jenny,
I said, you know, I feel like this so much more I
could talk to him about. So anyway, he'll be uh, he will
be skyping in in the second hour New Merrow Dose here on Matt Connerton Unleashed
Uh let's see a few other things going on. So it is a Thursday.
I keep having to remind myself what date is because we had a Monday
holiday. Uh, it is Thursday, right, Yes, today is Thursday,
which means tonight is Trivia Night at the Hop. Not Broderick Lange host
it now every Thursday night starting at seven pm. If you are going to
participate, I suggest that you call ahead or communicate with Kenny at the Hop,
not via social media. But the smartest thing to call, I mean,
the smartest thing to do is to just call and reserve a spot because
those spots do fill up very very quickly, and they've got a lot of
big events going on for you know, they've got a lot planned for Pride
Month, of course, Happy Pride Month. It is June first, after
all, also to Juneteenth will be coming up to and you know they always
do something big for that too, So there's a lot going on at the
Hop, not this month, so we will keep you a Pride. We
had to get Kenny back in here on a usually usually Monday is the one
day of the week that he can actually make it in. I don't know
if he's ever been on the show on a different day of the week Monday
and Tuesday is their their weekend. Yeah, so lots going on at the
hop knot m Also, I want to make sure everyone knows Jenny just had
another article published in The Mighty at the Mighty dot com. This one is
titled when access to medication and treatment is a matter of life and death.
So we've been sharing that out and of course you can find it on her
social media, but also if you go to the Mighty dot com, it
is there as well, so make sure you check that out. That just
that just went up today actually just a little bit before the show, that
was published, So very very good. Um. Also, U DJ Reckless
is back from his h little mini tour there to Nashville and he is going
to be I wanted to mention this. He's going to be at the six
o three Bar and Grill tonight and it's it's open decks and it's interesting.
So I've never heard of this concept until he mentioned it one day that he
was on the show. It's kind of like open Mic Night, but with
turntables and your DJ. So open decks are back tonight. Sign ups at
eight forty five. There will be oh okay, there will be a Rev
seven and SRT one thousand here, so come through whether you want to dance,
DJ or just drink. So that is tonight, turn Thursday. Open
decks every week at the six o three Barn Grill. The flyers says start
sign ups start at eight thirty and the party starts at nine. Well,
anyway, go see DJ Reckless tonight if you get a chance at you know,
you could go to the hop Knot. You know what you could do.
This is what you should do. Men tell you what you should do,
and I have no right to be your social planner, but I'm gonna
do it. Anyway. You should go to the hop Knot for trivia night,
and then when you get done at the hop Knot you should go to
the six o three Barn Grill and DJ Reckless. Just a suggestion, all
right. I want to uh, we'll say hello to everybody in the Facebook
live chat, and then we've got to get updated on the debt limit.
We are down to the wire, my friends. It passed the House,
but it might actually get stuck in this. I can't believe it might actually
get stuck in the Senate. We'll see, but we'll talk about it.
In a minute, but let me give the contact info one more time if
you'd like to join us on the show today six O three two five six
seven six three two five O six ZO seven. First caller who would like
them gets uh two spots on the guest list for stand up audio Saturday night
at the Rex Theater. Six three two five O six O seven. I'll
play another one of their songs too. Later in the show, at the
top of the hour, when we're going to bring in our guest, Kevin
Hammer, I'll play I'll play another one of their songs. A lot of
great feedback on yesterday's show. People really like that band. You can text
me at six one seven nine one seven four four seven six. You can
interact an opine in the Facebook live chat, hit me on social media at
Matt Connerton or email me Matt at Matt Connerton dot com. Let's see who
we have in the Facebook live chat. Jay fed joins us from the great
state of Vermont says, good afternoon everyone. Ronda Favero says California in the
house. Hello, Rhonda. Jenny of course is in the chat and says
shalom peeps. Isaac Banks, soho if I remember correctly is from Greensboro,
North Carolina. Says hello, hashtag Matt good afternoon, Good afternoon, Michael
Broadhurst, what's up? And have you been busy? Now? I don't
know who this Michael Broadhurst person is. I'm not aware of them, but
apparently Isaac Banks is using the Facebook live chat as a conduit to communicate with
this person, which is fine. Melanie Liberty from the Great State of Vermont
joins us in the chat room. Hello, Melanie, Melanie says, who's
Jenny scheduled to yell at today? Just kidding kind of? No? No,
no, uh no, one's no one's getting yelled at. Uh No.
I assume Melanie's referring to Monday's show. We had Steve laughy here and
that the conversation did get animated, but nobody was yelling and it was no.
I thought it was a great discussion. I like Steve a lot.
I would probably never in a million years actually vote for him because you know,
he's he's pretty conservative and I'm not, so we just disagree on too
many things. But um, but but I do like him, and you
know, he's very open to um having dialogue. He's he's you know,
he's not everyone is in the sense that, um, most people, and
I think social media has done a lot to reinforce this. Unfortunately, most
people can't really have mature dialogue and discussion where they disagree about things without you
know, without resort to insults, and you see what goes on on social
media. So I love being able to have guests on whom I disagree with
about things and see things differently, but we can still have a you know,
a high level dialogue about it. And um, yeah, I was
really I was very happy with Monday's show. And Steve had a great time
too. He really liked it. He's already chomping at the bit to come
back, so which is nice. I mean, he doesn't have a chance
in hell of winning the nomination, obviously, but uh, but but he
is a Republican candidate for the presidency. Uh. Let's see, Shannon is
on the line. High Shannon, Oh yeah, what's up? I said,
olmahla miyamo mateo. Uh uh como a stas or something. I took
three years of Spanish, Shannon, I remember very little of it. Well,
hey, but you get you d Olah, that's a good start.
Well, yeah, because you kind of need to know. Good morning,
good afternoon, and good evening when when you're like in Mexico. Huh,
and it's not hard too, you know. Bueno no dress startists no,
Yeah, yeah yeah, buenose stuff yeah, Bueno deals four on Retrospectrum Radio.
Yes, yes, Okay, should I wait for this CARLTI party,
I'll call you. Uh, you don't have to, Okay, you got
an answer. The song played and you said it was I don't was it
simple minds? Do you remember the answer or I can't. I don't know,
Shannon. I I have no idea, no clue either, all right,
Shannon. The weird thing about it was the first chords of it.
The first nine chords of the song sound exactly like another song. And now
I can't remember that either. So good night, good evening, sweet tums,
everybody, all right, Shannon, thank you for the call. All
right? Bye bye? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know,
all right. Six laughing at I can't read that comment on the air,
but Melanie said something funny. Six three two five six seven is the number
six O three two five oz six O seven if you'd like to join us.
Somebody was just hovering around in the hallway and looking in the window,
and uh, I think, uh, I think they're on the wrong floor
and they were just like, oh a radio station. H. Jay Fed
says, Shannon gets the tickets. No, well, she could have them
if she wanted them, and she was definitely going to go, but she
did not express any interests in the tickets. But that does open up the
line for you. Six zo three two five six seven. Jay Fed says,
Ron can take her. Oh. Isaac Banks says, Michael Broadhurst is
a singer dancer and he is in the singing group called I Plus Michael's Law.
Ah. Yes, uh, let's see. Um yeah, Jenny said,
no, I did not yell in any way. No, no,
no, I mean the conversation did get animated. But that was good.
I thought, I thought it was very good. I really I enjoyed Monday's
show. Like I said, I like, I like talking with people with
whom I disagree. Uh and uh, you know, and we can disagree
but but still have a really good conversation. So um, I want to
um, I'm frustrated about this. Uh. So you know, obviously we've
been talking a lot about the debt limit for a couple of weeks now,
and we are so close, so close, you know. Uh, they
got a deal, of course, over the course of last weekend. I
know it's already Thursday, but last weekend, Kevin McCarthy and UH President Biden
they came to an agreement on the debt limit or I guess I should say
they're negotiators did and they did get it through the House. Now it's going
to be very interesting to see what happens going forward. Chip Roy, for
example, Congressman Hip Roy of I believe he's from Texas. He's furious,
he would have loved to have defaulted, I guess, and others. There
are some of the House who are very upset and they're they're openly talking about
they're going to try to oust McCarthy. That will be interesting to see.
I don't think they're going to be able to oust McCarthy because then what happens,
you know, then who do they replace him with. Here's what I'm
frustrated about. So I've been I was very relieved to see this finally,
because it looked like there was a possibility it wouldn't even get out of the
Rules Committee in the House, which would be scary. But it did,
and I think I don't remember the numbers. I'm bad at remembering numbers,
but I think it more votes in the House total than was expected. So
then onto the Senate, Onto the Senate. But now we've got a problem
in the Senate. The problem well, first of all, the first inklings
of a problem with remember Tim Kaine, Senator Tim Kaine. We don't really
hear about him that much, but we heard about him a lot. Of
course in twenty sixteen. He was Hillary Clinton's running mate. He was a
potential perspective vice president, and then of course they lost to Trump and Pence.
But apparently he's upset over the pipeline that Joe Mansion got put into the
bill, which was necessary to get get everybody on board. It was part
of the deal. So he was threatening to try to have an amendment tacked
onto this, onto this bill for the to raise the debt the debt limit.
And we don't have time for that, dude, I'm not kidding.
We don't have time. It's the first of the month. Default happens.
Janet Yellen said June fifth, that's the x state. Now, it could
move, It's moved before. Obviously, you don't always know exactly from one
day to the next in terms of revenue coming in, in terms of money
going out, that can change. It's a bit fluid. So you know,
at one point it was June first, and then it was revised to
June fifth. So it could be revised again a little bit further out,
or it could be revised a little closer, because that's what usually ends up
happening. Usually, when Janet Yellen tells us, well, we have a
new X state in terms of when we will be out of money, usually
it gets revised forward and it's like, oh, we're even more out of
time than we thought that we were. We are really close to the edge
here. That's what usually happens. Now we have this I just saw pop
up on the Hill dot com. Senate Defensehawks hold up debt ceiling bill in
protest of cuts and lack of Ukraine money. Um, it looks like this
may have a harder time getting through the Senate than it did getting through the
House. And this is not acceptable because here's what could potentially happen. And
so we're look, I I know, I was very pessimistic for a while.
I thought Biden was going to have to try to invoke the UH the
fourteenth Amendment. Then I became I started the week off cautiously optimistic because they
did arrive at a deal over the weekend, and Kevin McCarthy seemed pretty confident
that he would be able to get it through the House, and he did,
and you know, good on him. I know I've I've been very
critical of him, and I have a lot of criticisms of him, but
you know, he got it. He got it done, and both he
and the President did did pretty well in some ways here and both want a
little bit more respect for me, to be honest with you, McCarthy,
because he delivered on what he said that he would and he did get it
through the House. And I was skeptical that he could do it, but
he did it. And as far as Biden and Steve Rochetti, who I
believe was the chief negotiator for the Democrats, you know, they didn't get
anything. They didn't gain anything through this deal necessarily. I mean, they
kind of did if you really want to get into the weeds, which I
don't want to right now because we have a larger problem here, but but
they they did better than I thought they would at protecting a lot of the
legislative agenda that the President had gotten through or that the Democrats had gotten through
and the Biden signed signed into law. I thought they were going to have
to let a lot of that go, and I was surprised, actually,
to be honest with you, that they were able to protect as much as
they did. So I think that, um, I think it's kind of
a to the extent that there are any winners here, I think that it's
kind of a win for both of them. I think both. I think
you could argue that both House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden and his negotiators,
I think they both in some ways outperformed expectations. You know, I
was saying last week that I thought Biden was in way over his head and
that I thought McCarthy was too weak and powerless as a House Speaker because he
had to give away so much just to get that job. Both of them,
to me, in my eyes, outperformed my very low and very pessimistic
expectations of them. So I will say that, but now we got a
problem. So here's what's happening right now with this again. This is from
the Hill dot Com. Senate Defensehawks hold up debt ceiling bill in protest of
cuts and lack of Ukraine money. It says here a group of Senate Republican
defensehawks are holding up a passage of legislation to raise the debt ceiling in protest
of a one percent across the board spending cut that would go into effective.
Congress doesn't pass it's spending bill on time, and the pressure Senate leaders who
agree to move a funding measure for the Ukraine war later this year. Only
a few hours after the debt limit deal crafted by President Biden and Speaker McCarthy
passed the House with more than three hundred votes, which again was a higher
number than was expected. Defense minded Republican senators are threatening to hold up the
bill to protect the Pentagon. A Republican senator familiar with floor discussions said there
are quote people who are willing unquote to hold up the bill unless leaders commit
to moving a defense supplemental later this year. But the source added, there's
quote a pathway to getting this done by midnight. Unte Now there's more to
this, but listen, whether you're these Republicans who want to amend something in
the bill, or whether you're a Senate Democrat who maybe you're on the progressive
end of things and you're not happy with this bill and you want something changed,
or you're Tim Caine who's mad about a pipeline that you don't think should
have been in there. Suck it up. We don't have time for this.
I cannot put this in any starker terms than that. I'm sorry for
anyone whose feelings are hurt, who don't feel comfortable voting for this in its
present form. But we don't have time to fool around on this because if
you start, if you hold this up and you start attaching amendments to this
in the Senate, here's what happens. The bill gets amended in the Senate,
and then it has to go back to the House, and then the
amended version has to pass the House. We don't have time. The X
state is June five. Today is June one. We don't have time for
this anymore. This has to be done today. That's it. I just
I want this done. And let me tell you something. Anybody who gets
in the way of this getting done today, of this being voted on by
midnight tonight in past so it can go to the President's desk anyone who stands
in the way of that needs to be at the earliest possible opportunity. In
other words, their next election, they need to be primaried, and they
need to be out. They need to be out of office as soon as
possible. I don't care if if they've done other great things. I don't
care if there's someone I respect, not that I respect many of these people
in Congress, to be honest, I mean there's a few, but and
I'm not necessarily Look, I understand there's some people who are going to vote
against it on principle because there are some people who are trying to have it
both ways, and they kind of can't have it both ways. Senators who
are saying, well, just like there was some in the House, we're
saying, well, I can't in good conscience vote for this because I don't
agree with it. But I also know that we can't default. But there's
enough people who are going to vote for it that I can vote against it
out of protests for the things in the bill that I don't agree with,
and it's still going to pass regardless of how I vote. So I can
make a stand, a principled stand without necessarily causing the United States to default
on our full faith and credit it for the first time in American history.
Okay, I will accept that. But what is unacceptable is if anyone actually
manages to attach an amendment to this forcing it to be sent back to the
House. That is not acceptable because that you know, we're all ready It
shouldn't have gone this far to begin with. Okay, we shouldn't be this
close to default to begin with. But you pushed this back to the House.
Oh, we do not have time for this, it says here again.
This is from the Hill dot com. The ink on the agreement is
barely dry, but some GOP senators are already looking for a way to get
around the cap on defense spending, which falls well short of what they think
is needed, by moving a supplemental spending bill to provide more military aid to
Ukraine. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of made, the ranking member on the
Appropriations Committee and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said quote, we are exchanging language,
and I certainly hope that we can get there with a commitment to bring the
Appropriations bill to the Senate floor so that we're never in a situation where we
trigger the automatic one percent across the board indiscriminate cut. Quote. The debt
Limit Bill would implement and across the board one percent cut on discretionary spending if
Congress fails to pass the annual spending bills by the end of the calendar year,
which some Republicans worry that Democrats could use as leverage in future negotiations since
many social welfare programs are funded by mandatory spending, and while the defense budget
will otherwise be capped below the rate of inflation. Collins said she and her
allies also want Senate Majority Leader Mitch I'm sorry, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
to promise to move a defense up lemental spending package to ensure continued military support
for Ukraine, she said. Quote. The second part would be a commitment
for a defense supplemental an emergency defense supplemental unquote. Collins said she wants Schumer
to make these commitments in a quote, how do you say, colleaguey,
colleague, I don't know that word, uh something cll O guy, or
I'm sorry, Q collogue, I don't know that word. Or to make
a statement on the floor, she said, I'll have to look up that
word after or maybe some if somebody wants to look that up for me in
the chat room. I don't know that term. I love learning new words.
Republican senators, including Collins and Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton Oh his
name, came upon the show Monday and Dan Sullivan, took to the Senate
floor today to vent their concerns about the defense spending caps in the bill.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell yesterday called the defense caps said the defense caps are
the worst part of the deal. Graham fumed that there is quote not a
penny in this bill to help Ukraine defeat Putin unquote. I think that's all
separate. Though he noted that Ukrainian forces are about to launch an offensive to
push back Russian troops and declared, quote, we need to send a clear
message to Putin that when it comes to your invasion of Ukraine, we're going
to support the Ukrainians to ensure your loss. If we don't do that,
then we're going to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory unquote. Cotton
said, under the spending caps negotiated by Biden and McCarthy, the defense budget
will grow only half as fast as the rate of inflation, quote, causing
even more real cuts to defense unquote. He also argued, though one percent
cut to penalize lawmakers for not passing spending bills on time, quote means defense
spending will go down if the sequester kicks in. If the sequester takes effect,
Democrats will get more welfare spending while defense gets cut unquote. Cotton also
said, quote the bill poses immortal risk to our national security by cutting our
defense budget, which I cannot support, as grave dangers gather on the horizon
unquote. So to these folks, I would say this, can you even
begin to comprehend the grave danger that is posed if we don't get this taken
care of right now and we end up defaulting. So if you want to,
you know, Susan Collins, she wants Chuck Schumer to make a commitment.
If it's a separate bill, fine, but you cannot. You cannot
attach amendments to this. We don't have time for it. And I cannot
believe that we could be in a situation where and I'm going to try to
remain cautiously optimistic, but I cannot believe that we could be in a situation
where this got through the House, thank goodness, but now it might actually
get caught up in the Senate and we just don't have time, don't have
time for it. And I'm trying to look to see just quickly if there's
any anything else on this that we need to be worried about. I mean,
I still think, I still think this is going to get done.
I do, But yeah, c NBC is reporting defense spending levels threatened to
delay Senate plan to fast track debt ceiling bill. Yeah, that's not good.
Six three two five six seven is the number. If you'd like to
chime in, six zo three two five six seven. I'll just remind you
too. We've got two tickets for stand up audio at the Rex Theater this
Saturday. If you're interested in going, give me a call at six zero
three two five six seven six zero three two five six seven. Come see
the band and come say hello to Jenny and I who will be there.
That evening show starts at seven thirty. It's an evening with a stand up
audio, and I think it is going to be a really good time.
Also, coming up at the top of the hour, we're gonna be joined
by we're gonna be joined by Sorry, I just got distracted by something I
saw Kevin Hammer. Um, this is a little bit. Uh yeah,
we'll look at this quickly. I just I think this is interesting media.
It's reporting that Trump turns on the term woke and says half the people can't
define it. That's an interesting observation because he's right. People do have a
difficult time defining it, says you're former president Donald Trump, who has long
bemoaned woke culture and complained about it at length, does not like the term
woke anymore, as he explained during his appearance on the campaign trail in Iowa,
Trump, who spoke at the West Side Conservative Club, stated quote,
I don't like the term woke because I hear the term woke, woke,
woke, and it's just a term they use. Half the people can't define
it, they don't know what it is. Unquote. Well, that's true.
Some of you might have seen there's a viral video of conservative who wrote
a book about wokeism, who went asked in an interview to define it.
She couldn't even define it, but she wrote a book about it. It's
baffling. It says here, after taking a question from a recent high school
grat asking about current school policies and attacks on censorship. Trump responded with a
position in agreement with what is outlined in the Don't Say Gay Law. The
so called Don't Say Gay Law spearheaded by Florida governor and fellow presidential hopeful Ronda
Santis. Despite his recent souring on the term, Trump has used it on
several occasions to criticize corporate executives, among others, including DeSantis. While Trump
claims that the term woke may be overused and rendered meaningless, DeSantis has decided
to campaign on it all but declaring war on it, embracing it as a
catch all term for liberal opinions, policies, and activism. Trump's change of
opinion might have more to do with his dislike of DeSantis more than anything,
and he's clearly moved on to more articulate ways to set himself apart from his
GOP rival. By the way, you know what, nobody ever mentions about
this so that term. Sometimes these words they enter the American lexicon and then
the meaning changes. Sometimes it'll start out meaning one thing to a certain group
of people, and then another group of people were take we'll take a term
like that and sort of co opt it, and then it becomes a completely
different thing. Because when I first started, I don't know how many years
ago. Now that the word has been around for a while, it might
seem like it's really new because now we just hear it's so much, But
the term actually has been around for a while. I remember, I think
the first time, who does that song? There's a song called stay woke?
Is that childish Gambino? I think that was the first time I ever
heard that song. I mean that that term stay woke. And then the
next time stay Okay, I think that's yeah, childish gambino. Um,
where did that come out? Oh it's actually the song is called Redbone,
but it's childish Gambino. Yeah, that came out in twenty seventeen. So
that was the first time I ever heard that stay woke. Um. But
then I started hearing it. So this this will show you, if you
don't realize this, how much the meaning of the term has changed. The
next time I saw that term applied was I found a political song parody.
You know I love a good political song parody. There's there's one on YouTube
that I found around that time called Alex Jones is so woke, and I
started seeing that term being used as woke to describe sort of conspiracy theorist people
whom they were being called woke because they they had woken up to what's really
happening in the world and these conspiracies that they believe in. So that was
considered woke. But then the meaning of the term began to drastically change.
And I think when somebody like Ron de Santis uses it, Governor Ron de
Santis of Florida, he seems to be using it, you know, he
talks about defeating wokeism and whatnot. He seems to be using it to mean
I guess anyone who has who's you know, someone like well, someone like
myself who you know, I consider myself an LGBTQ plus ally, so I'm
sure he would consider me to be woke. Or someone who believes in not
just being uh not racist, but anti racist. Someone who who believes that
we still have some problems in that area, I guess would be considered woke.
I mean, the terms mean different things to different people. I remember
a discussion one day in the chat room about it. So even now,
the term means different things to different people, but I but it is difficult
to define even for people who use the term consistently. But I had another
thought about about Governor DeSantis, who I think is actually in New Hampshire today
and campaigning. He was in Iowa, I believe right now he is in
the great state of New Hampshire and h He's welcome to come see me on
the show, but I'm probably to woke for him, but he's I'd be
fascinating if he were to visit our wonderful sponsor, the Hopknot, but he
might not be comfortable there either. But I I really I haven't heard anyone
point this out. I'm kind of fascinated at and I don't know if this
necessarily started with Trump or not, but but De Santis seems to be really
all in on this the way the Republican Party has changed. And I'm gonna
probably ask our guest, Kevin Hammer, He's going to be joining us at
the top of the hour. He's a Republican. He'll be skyping in from
the state of New York. I'll be asking him how he feels about this.
But I've noticed that you sear the term big tent. You sear people
in the Republican Party talking about wanting to have a big tent Republican party.
And if you haven't heard that, if you don't know that term, it's
probably because no one ever uses it anymore. But what big tent used to
mean was the idea that you can have a Republican party where you've got a
lot of ideas and a lot of different attitudes within it. You agree on
a lot of the big stuff, but you can have some disagreement on some
issues too. But as long as you agree on the big stuff, you
know, fiscal conservatism and i don't know, strong defense, you know things
that traditional conservatives really care about before they got hyper fixated on some of the
things that Ronda Santis seems to be, you know, pro business and all
that. As long as you believe in the big stuff, you can have
all kinds of disagreements on the not so big stuff and you're still welcome because
you want a party that's dynamic and a lot of different ideas. But de
Santis, to me, what he consistently does, and he did this long
before there was even an inkling that he might run for president. This has
always been his thing. But now he just keeps ramping it up and ramping
it up. Now that he's a presidential candidate, he doesn't seem to want
a big tent. He wants a small tent. Because there was a time
when there were a lot of Republicans who would talk about wanting to bring more
people into the party and wanting to you know, wanting to get Democrats to
come over and either switch parties or to support them. You know, we
used to hear about the Reagan Democrats, for example, Democrats who decided to
vote for Ronald Reagan, um and uh. And there used to be that
kind of attitude of you know, we've we've got room for a lot of
different kinds of people as long as you believe in the same as long as
we agree on the big stuff, come join us, or if you're not
going to join the party, at least at least vote for us some of
the time, you know, and almost a welcoming in that sense. It
was it was a wanting to grow the party and have a big tent.
And now it's like and it's not just a santis. I feel like the
I feel like there's a lot of um. I feel like there's a lot
of it in the party. It's not only a Ronda Santis thing, but
de Santis seems to be the most intense about it. Where you know,
most Republicans running for office, if you if you say to them, if
you have a conversation, maybe you're in an elevator with them, and they
give you the elevator pitch or that's what you're looking for, and you say,
listen, I'm a Democrat or I'm a left leaning independent, or I'm
a Republican. But the party kind of pushed me away. That's where I
am. Why should I vote for you? And then they give you the
pitch, well, here's why you should vote for me. I believe in
this, this, this, and this, and we can probably agree on
this, and here's why I think. I think I should have your vote,
and I would ask for your vote, right, and kind of a
friendly kind of you know, because politics is a lot of it's just salesmanship,
right, So they're going to try to sell them sell themselves to you.
You approach them, you say why should I vote for you? And
then they tell you why they think you should vote for them, and you
know, come, come, come vote for me, Come support me.
But I feel like like if I were trapped in and trapped I feel like
if I found myself in an elevator with Ron de Santis and I said to
him governor, respectfully, UM, why why do you think I should Why
do you think I should support you? You know, I don't. I'm
not into the transphobia and all the anti LGBTQ stuff and you know, uh,
so you know, we certainly disagree on that. Um and uh.
And I'm not into this what you've been doing in Florida with uh. It's
almost like you're seems like you're trying to erase black history. I don't.
I don't understand all of that. I don't get it. So so we
we have some fundamental disagreements. But why why do you think I should vote
for you? You know, in spite of that, maybe there's maybe there's
other reasons why I should vote for you. Anyway, I feel like Ron
De Santis would look at me and say, well, I don't want your
vote. Get away from me. You're you're you're woke, You're like,
uh, you're like some some liberal, woke person. I don't want your
vote. You're not a real American you're you're a terrible person. Get get
the hell away from me. I don't I don't want your vote. That's
what I feel like. I mean, I'm sure he wouldn't literally say that,
but that would be the vibe. And that's something that I think has
changed about the Republican Party in a broad sense. I think the days of
the welcoming, big tent, let's bring people in, I think that's kind
of gone. I think now it's it's more of an abrasive sort of you're
either with us or you're against us, and if you're against us, it's
because you're an American and you actually like trans people and you're just a terrible
person, and we hate you and don't vote for us, and we'll just
have enough people who do like us and we don't need you. I feel
like that's what it's kind of turned into, and I think De Santis is
really the epitome of that. By the way, there are, to be
fair, there are many Republicans who are not like what I just described I'm
talking about. I'm talking about my impression of the Republican Party in a broader
sense. But you know, there are certainly Republicans. There are Republican candidates
for the presidency who are not like that, okay, or prospective candidates like
our governor here in New Hampshire, Chris Sunu. He's not like that.
He reminds me. People wonder why cling to Sinunu. I'll tell you why,
because he reminds me of when the Republican Party really was a big tent
party, because he wants a lot of people in his tent. You know,
I don't feel like if I had a conversation with Governor sun and I
said to him, Hey, I really disagreed with you on this and this
and this, why should I vote for you? I feel like he would
actually say, well, Matt, here's why I think you should vote for
me. Whereas, again, I feel like if I had the exact same
interaction with Ronda Santis, I think he would look at me and say,
well, you're some woke liberal get away from me. I hate you,
basically, and I think that's too bad. And by the way, if
you take Trump out of the equation that that attitude does make him unfortunately,
it would make to Santis again, if Trump weren't in his way, it
would make to Santis a very strong nominee. I think well as a strong
candidate for the nomination in the sense of getting through the primaries, because I
do feel like the overall vibe of the Republican Party has changed kind of to
what he is. You know, very lots of grievance, lots of anger,
lots of resentment towards people who aren't with them. I again, unfortunately,
I feel like there's more of the party that feels that way than has
the old school, big tent attitude. And knowing that, I do think
he'd I do think he'd sail to the nomination if Trump were not in his
way. But I also think it would make him a terrible general election candidate
because again, once you're in the general election, if you're the Republican nominee,
you want to try to peel off some Democrats, You want to get
as many independents as you can. The Republicans are going to vote for you
no matter what, but you also want to try to peel off people who
made it maybe you don't agree with you on everything, and I don't think
Ron de Santis is interested in doing that. I think Ron de Santis,
as a general election candidate, would say, well, we got to turn
out as much of our base as possible because the people who don't agree with
me, I'm not interested in convincing them because I hate them. I genuinely
I just hate them. That's what I think would be his Again, he
wouldn't literally say that, but that would be the vibe. That would definitely
be the vibe he'd be putting out. All right, Oh, let's do
this. We're gonna take a quick break. I'm gonna play another song from
the band Stand Up Audio. They were our guests here yesterday in studio,
but they're gonna be playing Saturday night at the Rex, and they've got two
tickets to give away, so if you call in you can have those tickets.
Jenny and I are going to be there, so you can come say
hi to us and see the band, and it's gonna be a lot of
fun. But I'm gonna play another song from Stand Up Audio. And then
when we come back from break, we're gonna have Kevin Hammer. He's gonna
be skyping in from the Great State of New York. He as a Republican
candidate and he's been on the show before and looking forward to chatting with him
again and I'm gonna ask him about what I was just talking about, because
I'm curious he had his opinion, especially whereas he's in an interesting space because
he's a former Democrat. He crossed over to the Republicans, but doesn't seem
particularly conservative. He strikes me as kind of moderate, so which makes sense
because he hasn't always been a Republican, I suppose. So I'm curious he
had his opinion on all this, and see who he likes and the presidential
race as far as a prospective nominee and so forth. So we'll be talking
with him, but let's listen to this, and then we're gonna show some
love to our amazing sponsors. But this is called Dracula Eastwood from the band
Stand Up Audio. Welcome back everybody, as we cruise an hour number two
numerowed dose of Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we are live from the studios of
w m n H ninety five point three FM in glorious downtown Manchester, New
Hampshire. It's hot, but it's glorious. Also on Comcast ninety seven if
you're in Manchester. Certain Hello to all of our online listeners across a nation
and around the globe. You can go to my website Matt Connerton dot com
for all of your live streaming options, social media links, contact info,
show archives, etcetera, etcetera. Today is Thursday, June one, two
thousand, twenty three, and joining us a via Skype. Kevin Hammer is
with us. Kevin, are you there? Yes? Hello, how are
you doing? Good? Welcome back. It's nice here from you. It's
a pleasure to be back. Um and uh if you have if you have
any questions for Kevin or anything that we discuss, the phone line, the
studio line is open six zo three two five six zo seven six zo three
two five oh six oz seven. You can also text me at six one
seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm on social media at Matt
Connerton. You can email me Matt and Matt Connerton dot com. And of
course you can interact endo pine in the Facebook live chat. But the best
thing to do so that we can hear and enjoy your Dulca tones is to
give us a call at six zo three two five six seven. So Kevin,
of course you are in New York State. Did you have a good
Memorial Day weekend? Yes? Absolutely, spent the weekend with family, which
was amazing. I hadn't had the opportunity to do that in a while.
So yeah, it was great, beautiful weather, and yeah it was it
was great, very good, very good. Now refresh our our memories or
explain for newer listeners who might not have heard your previous appearance. I think
it was about what six weeks ago? You are? You're still currently a
candidate? Is that correct? Yes? I am currently a candidate for Schenectady
City Council. Okay, very good, very good. And I forget had
you held public office before or or would this be your first? No,
I have not held public office before. Um, this isn't my first run
for office. However, I did run for council in UM twenty twenty one.
Okay, right right now, where are you are? Do you get
to see? Do presidential candidates ever come through there? I mean, I
know New York is pretty much a blue state as far as the presidency goes,
so I wouldn't imagine. Well, then again, maybe for the primaries
you get you get visited there. I mean, do you see anybody coming
through there? Probably not this early? Ould imagine. Um, no,
not that i've personally attended any events. But I do know that candidates have
come through before. The closest place that we would see that if they were
to come through, would probably be Albany, the capital of New York State.
I'm not that far from there. Yeah, so I do know in
the past the presidential candidates have made a stop in Albany, New York.
Okay, okay, is there anybody? I mean, the field is getting
crowded for the Republicans as far as the nomination, and it's about to get
even more crowded. I think Chris Christie is about to announce, Mike Pence
is about to announce. I mean, it's it's I still think Trump is
going to be the nominee. But is there anybody that you like in that
field as a Republican? Is there anybody that you're you're looking at as and
as a potential? Uh? I mean, I know it's early, but
anybody got your attention? Yeah, it's it is very early. Um,
for for sure. Obviously we have some familiar faces who have you know,
thrown their hats into the wing. Yeah. Um. So what I'm doing
now is, you know, as people declare, I sort through I read
up on them. Um, learn more about them. Uh recently, for
example, I've been um reading up on and I know it's common and I,
uh it's a vic I believe uh Lamaswame. Yes, yes, Um,
Now that's not any kind of like he's the way I'm going by any
means. It's just he's one of the more unknown. So I have been
learning a bit more about him. I am completely open to be honest.
Um, I might have some leanings here and there personally, but I'm not
someone who puts any specific political figure on a pedestal. Yeah, and you
know that's just that's just not who I am. I vote my values over
a specific individual. Yeah, the vek Ramaswamy. My dad is a big
fan of his, really likes him. Um, I don't. I don't
know too too much about him. But Monday on the show, we had
a gentleman here, Steve Laughey, who is also a candidate who you know,
I mean, he's he's done some appearances on news Max and he was
talking to Tony Shanella from Patch here in nh And so he's getting a little
bit of media attention, but not much. And I you know, he
has no no chance obviously, but but interesting guy. So he was with
us on Monday, but we had an off air conversation. He was talking
to Jenny and I about he would love to for us to get the veak
Ramaswami on the show and have the two of them debate, which we might
be able to pull that off. I don't know that would be that would
be pretty interesting. But now so you're obviously you're in New York State,
but you're are you not a not a Trump guy? It's not so much
about um not being a Trump guy or being a Trump guy. Um.
You know, I did vote Trump in twenty twenty over Biden, which I
admit I would absolutely do again. More and more as I observe what's happening
with Biden, it's not even about party. It's about the fact that we
are we have a leader on the world stage who is continuing to decline,
both physically and mentally. And we see this very clearly. Compare how he
speaks today to how he was even speaking ten years ago. And this concerns
me more than party affiliation, more than anything. UM. So, if
it's if personally, if it is uh, you know, Trump versus Biden,
definitely Trump. Um as far as the primary itself, like I said,
I am learning everything I can about about the candidates. Obviously, Um,
when it comes to Trump, one of the most one of the big
things is is that he would be entering in as pretty much well would be
considered a lame up. Um. You know that's something to be you know,
something to be considered. But at the moment, like I said,
I'm just putting out there, I like a lot that Rohn de Santis has
said and done, um in regards to Florida, and I'm continuing to like
what I hear a little bit more about Ramaswame and other candidates as well.
Now let me ask you, Kevin, and I think this. I'm particularly
interested to get your perspective on this because I know that you're you're someone who
you know, you you were a Democrat, you you crossed over and became
a Republican, so you've it's not you're You're not someone who's been you know,
a Republican for a super long time or anything. So I just I'm
curious, um, if you if you have any any perspective on this.
I was saying before the break, I was talking about DeSantis, and I
feel like, um, uh, you know, and I'm older than you
are, so I might be drawing from something that um that that you haven't
really observed. But I I feel like the Republican Party I was talking earlier
about how it used to be more of a big tent party where there was
this idea that they wanted to bring more people in. So, for example,
in a general election, of course, you know, if you're a
Republican candidate, Republicans are going to vote for you, but you want to
uh, whatever the office is, you want to bring in. You know,
if you can peel off some Democrats or maybe if you're running for president,
maybe you hope in the general you can peel off some disaffect to Biden
voters even and you want to grab the independence. Of course, that's where
elections are really won, and loss is among the independence and um. But
I feel like DeSantis is really his whole vibe is not. I don't feel
like he's interested in having a big tent or trying to bring people in.
I think he pushes people away because he's constantly talking about defeating leftism, defeating
liberalism, defeating wokeism. He's not. He's not. There's no there's nothing
welcoming there. It's all just to me. It comes across as you either
agree with me on all of this stuff already or or I just don't want
anything to do with you and I don't want your vote. Do you understand
what I'm saying? And again, I you know, you're younger than I
am, so you might not have seen what I've seen. But I just
feel like in terms of what the Republican Party used to be now, because
I think there's a large swath of the party that's like that. I think
De Santis is just kind of that, but on steroids. I mean,
he's just really he's the most extreme example of it where it's just like,
you know, if you're not already with me, Bob, forget you.
I don't want your vote. Does that make sense? I mean I understand
m Yeah, it makes sense, And I understand your perception in regards to
that. Absolutely. I personally don't feel that way at the moment right now,
you know, as I observed to santists, I actually so one of
obviously one of the one of the most common things that you know, we
like to say in regards to politicians is tell us about tell us what you're
for, not necessarily what you're against, right, you know, we need
to hear both of those things. However, when it comes to the santists,
I think he is focusing on issues that do concern people, and I
actually know a number of Democrats who feel just as concerned. For example,
where we have seen from the leftists over sexualization when it comes to children,
I personally no, I don't. I personally do not support you know,
like ragtime story hours for kids, children partaking in drag. As someone who's
attended many drag shows in his life, trust me, I've never in my
life seen one that was appropriate for children. I don't want. I don't
think that small children should be learning about sex. I have obviously when it
gets to a certain point, they learn about the physical changes in their body.
Absolutely, But to actually, some of these books that are being found
in schools can't even be read at board meetings. And we've seen that time
and time again, not just examples here, and they're scattered of where a
parent or a community member will get up and start to read one of these
books that can be found in a local school library and the school board will
shut them down once they start reading the content of the book. DeSantis has
phoned in on this, and I think that it's something that people across the
board actually care about, because when I leave party out of it, and
I talk to even Democrats about, hey, this is a book that has
been found in schools throughout the country and it talks about anal sex, anal
play. I think all this stuff and it's the graphic detail. And this
is found even in some middle schools. I don't even think it should be
in high schools. They are like wow, and I'll have and I've sent
the videos for them to listen to where parents will go and you know,
read it to the school board and they'll get shut down by the school board
for reading it. And also there was one example where there was a drag
performance at a school and the mother showed up to the school board meeting wearing
the exact same outfit as the drag queen and they considered that inappropriate attire.
So it's interesting that it was inappropriate for her to wear that to a school
board, but it was not inappropriate for this drag queen to perform in on
school property. So I actually I don't think that Ron DeSantis is off the
Mark. I think people feel that way because maybe how he comes at it
and how aggressive it also how it's being how it's being approached by the mainstream
media. But I really don't think he's that far off the Mark. I
don't. Yeah, I just don't see. Um, I think you know
the examples you're giving. Look, I'm sure that I'm sure there are things
that go on that not all of us would approve of. But I think
I strongly suspect that what tends to happen is people take very specific things and
then blow them up and offer an impression that well, this is what's always
going on, and that schools are sexualizing children in this and that. Um.
I think that if if that wasn't being exaggerated and kind of exploited.
Because I'm not a as you can tell, I'm not a big culture war
guy. UM, I think that, Uh, I think there'd be a
lot more Republicans, uh, really upset about that. Whereas you've got mainstream
Republican candidates like you know, we had Steve Laughy on the show on Monday,
and he, you know, he's not really interested in talking about drag
queens and drag shows and everything. It's not not his thing. He's just
you know, he doesn't have much um yeah, I mean he did express
it. He's very pro life and you know he's as a Christian and so
forth. But um, but he doesn't really have much interest in talking about
the culture war stuff in a broader sense. It's just he seems to think
it's kind of a solution in search of a problem. Melanie in the chat
room has a question. She says, what about beauty pageants with toddlers and
young kids? Do you think that sexualizes kids? I get that question all
the time, and it's a very common response, So I can say that
I consider myself, you know, one to be very logically consistent. Absolutely,
I think that beauty pageants for children should be outlawed. I think they
should absolutely, one hundred percent be illegal. I don't understand why they're not
already, given the history of beauty pageants for children, what we've seen going
back decades, the abuse that we've seen, I really don't understand how they
can still be legal. I would absolutely support making them illegal. To be
honest, I don't even think that children should be allowed to in a Hudo's
restaurant. When I say that, I am conservative in that regard. I
absolutely am, and I am consistent in that logic. Yeah, I understand.
I mean, well, you're certainly consistent, I would say, I
mean, this is the libertarian in me speaking, But I don't want Look,
I have the luxury of being able to speak from a position of not
having any children. I don't have any kids on my own. But if
I did, I don't think i'd I'd be thrilled about the government telling me
whether I could bring my child into udors or to a drag show or whatever
I'd want to be. I'd want to have the freedom freedom an important word,
to make those choices myself. So do you think this should this is
an attack? I'm just curious. Do you think then a parents should have
freedom to bring their child into other things like a burlesque show or a strip
show, which, by the way, some of these stuff when these beauty
pageants, these girls are wearing some items that strippers wear in drag shows as
well. So I mean, do you think that then that parents should have
that right to expose their child to a strip club or tom or like I
said, to a burlesque show or something in that of that nature. So
what I would say, is this, I don't think. I don't think
that's appropriate. I don't I don't think a parents should be bringing their their
kid too. And by the way, I think I think child beauty pageants
are creepy too. I I agree, Um, uh no, I don't
think. Uh. I mean that certainly wouldn't be a choice that I would
make as a parent if I had children to to do that. Um.
But what I would also say is, and again this is kind of the
libertarian in me speaking a bit um more more more libertarian than my liberal side.
I think maybe maybe both. However you want to look at it.
But but uh no, but I but I think I would want the freedom
to make those choices myself. Now, if I thought, if you could
show me evidence that there was some sort of say, for example, you
said, well, Matt, there's data and statistics that show that this is
going on constantly. You have you have adults bringing their their little children to
strip clubs and exposing them to that, and this is going on everywhere.
And you know, look, I understand Florida is a little bit of a
different world, but in no offense any Floridians listening. But if you if
you could show me that this was some sort of a national issue, then
I might say, well, jeez, well maybe we do need a law
for that if this is out of control. But but I'm very something that
I'm so let me let me just finish this one one thought. Something that
I've always been really consistent about is uh, when it comes to making laws
about anything, UM, I always have two questions. One is are we
making a law about a legitimate issue or is this just something to placate the
the fears or concerns of a small minority over something that isn't actually really happening
much. Um. That's that's the other question. And of course another question
I always have is, um, is this going to actually solve anything?
Um? But it is it enforceable? I should say more precisely, but
um, So again, if you if you see prior sort of pre I
don't want to say pre culture wars, that's always been a thing, but
prior to all this um stuff about drag shows and whatnot, I don't remember
hearing a lot about parents bringing their kids to drag shows to begin with.
Um, except for of course things like uh, you know, the story
time type events, which again, if if I were a parent, I
might not partake in that, but I don't. I'm not a fan of
making laws about it either, because one thing I would want to do if
I was a parent, I would want to raise my kid to be accepting
and respectful of people who are different than they are. That would be very
important to me. But I went on a little longer than I intended to.
I apologize, Scott in true in true libertarian fashion. No, actually,
I enjoy I enjoy my libertarian friends. I really do. Um.
They I what I appreciate having in my life. Um, even though I'm
I'm firmly conservative and you know, like where my values are. I do
enjoy my libertarian friends espec. Because they will challenge me the most. And
I will say this on like many on the left, when the libertarian challenges
me, they still manage to remain respectful. So I enjoy that. I
enjoy having them in my life to keep me honest and keep me consistent.
So I let me let me start there. I have a to you that
are trying to get there, like we'll make you a libertarian eventually. I'm
like, well, I've yet, I've yet to see a room full of
libertarians agree on more than two things. Basically, what is it guns in
marijuana? Um? But so I guess that question for you is, um,
why do you need something to be a national issue for it to be
illegal? For example, if if sexual abuse of children was statistically incredibly rare,
um, you know, overall, I still think it should be illegal.
I would still think of rape statistically being there, I would still want
it to be illegal. To me, agree, I don't need something to
be an overwhelming occurrence in society to look at it and say this is wrong
and it should be illegal. We shoul should have laws against it. So
that, I guess is my response to a position when people do say that
to me is I don't see it as a national issue. I don't see
it happening every day statistically, I don't see it as relevant. I was
like, well, I don't need something to necessarily be happening, you know,
on a large scale for me to say, hey, this should be
illegal because it is damaging. And in regards to stats, because I want
to touch on that quick. So I actually have moved away from saying statistics
prove statistics show. I actually have moved more towards stats imply or suggest.
And the reason why is when you look at where we get all these stats
from, whether it repolls specific scientific research, generally, you're always going to
find a flaw. First of all, has it been repeated, has has
it been peer reviewed? How what size, what demographics were focused on?
What was the sample size? There's always some kind of flaw and stuff.
So I believe that's why I believe they suggest and they can point us in
a good direction. And I reference stats myself. Don't get me wrong,
but I've been trying to move in a in a direction away from statistics show
and statistics prove to the statistics suggest more more more in that, Yeah,
I under I understand what you're saying, Um are you? Um? It's
interesting to me that so I might have my perception of you might have been
a little a little off, I thought, because you were talking about being,
uh, consistently conservative, and my perception of you from our last conversation
was you were a little bit more moderate. But what was I wrong?
Or I mean, have you become working No? No, no, no,
okay, So my roots, um on, a lot of my values
are consistently conservative. Um. In in specifically, I guess in origins to
you, you know, rooted in more in more of a conservative um approach.
Yeah, um, but that doesn't you know, that doesn't mean what
I am, what I most assuredly am is open to two discussions. Yeah.
Um. You know, we all have issues probably that we'd be moderate
on, regardless if we're on the left or the right. Even if you
consider ourselves the most liberal, the most conservative, there's probably an issue out
there that you know that compared to someone else, there's someone even more to
the right of us, so we'd be considered moderate compared to them, or
more to the left, so you'd be considered, you know, moderate compared
to them. I know, I know a few Democrats that compared to a
lot of the people on the left today, well, the loudest voices,
they might as well be conservative, right and so so it really one of
my one of my good friends who in college was very much soap soap fox
feminists, still still my best friend to this day. It's funny because when
I talk to her about a lot of the discussions and a lot of stuff
happening um with those that identify as as feminists today, she's like, I
feel, in some ways conservative comparatively, and she most assuredly it's not so.
So I guess it's a matter of gauging that. It's it's where you're
it's where you're standing and looking at it from, because I do. I
have friends who are conservative who say to me, oh, I consider you
moderate. Then I have friends that have said, oh, no, you're
a hardline conservative in the number of ways. So it's a matter of perspective.
I guess, oh absolutely. I mean, politics is so much more
complex and people are so much more complex than than the labels that we use
to put on them, and that's that's part of what makes it also fascinating.
One obvious thing of course too, you know, uh, you are
married to a man, so obviously, I mean, if you were really,
you know, totally conservative. You know, a lot of conservatives oppose
same sex marriage. I've I've always uh, you know, I think we
might have talked about that last time you were on in New Hampshire. We
were touch on it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, we were ahead
of the curve on that here in New Hampshire. We were one of the
states that legalized same sex marriage before the Supreme Court ruling that legalized it nationally
so, um, which you know I'm proud of. I always say I
was pro marriage equality before it was cool to be pro marriage equality. Um.
I remember, I actually remember having a conversation with my mother, and
my mom's very liberal, but I remember having a conversation with her when I
was a kid about just asking her, you know, how come how come
to two guys or two women couldn't get married? And she's kind of like,
well, you know, someday, someday maybe they will, uh and
uh, you know, and then we did get there. I don't recall
having that conversation with my father, and I think he might have had a
different response if I had that conversation with him, But I didn't remember having
that conversation with my mom. Um. By the way, I think Jenny
agreed with you on something here. Jenny said, I think, oh,
regarding kids and strip clubs. Strip clubs, she said, no, it
shouldn't be allowed. I was brought to one at the age of nine.
I can still tell you every detail. Uh it was my birth mother.
Give me the law trauma overload. I think though whether or not there's a
law about that specifically, though, I would imagine that I mean obviously there's
laws against child abuse and neglecting things like that, and reckless endangerment. You
know, I'm sure that that that would fall under one of under one of
those if someone had uh. You know, keep in mind, we we
historically, we have a long history, not just in this not just in
this country, um, but around the world. We've we've generally for a
long time, we've been consistent in the fact that, yes, when it
comes to children, we are we do tend to be more strict in our
laws, and we're willing to apply the law more, um, regardless of
political affiliation. UM often because we acknowledge, you know, children do not
fully develop. It's our job to protect them. It's our job to nurture
them in the best way possible, to not expose them to potentially harmful stuff,
to try to not expose them, um, I'll permit them to be
exposed to it. So I think that's another thing when I discussed this,
especially with my libertarian friends, is I always highlight the fact that we always
approach uh children, uh, issues with children differently um by law than we
do with issues with adults. Yeah, most, I mean, you know,
I'm sort of I always say I'm center left, but with a dose
of libertarian, a pretty heavy dose in some ways, but most most full
on libertarians. I know they don't want any laws for they don't even want
to have to send their kids to school, you know, they want they
want to be able to do whatever. Um, which is which is interesting.
Where are you on public education? By the way, That's something I
don't think we touched on at all. Uh last time we talked. I
mean, are you no, we didn't well, I mean in the general,
I mean I really I actually do support um school choice. I will
admit um. You know, It's just it's something that I've more recently started
to delve in a bit more. I myself, I do not have children.
We do have a godson, though. Yeah, he is five years
old. He's going to turn six in September. He's basically one of the
biggest blessings in our lives. And since then, I've started to think about
education more, you know, more recently, you know, him being five,
he just entered school last year, you know, this this past year,
so he's going on six years old, and so I've thought about education
more and more when I talked with it, when I talked to his mother
and talked to her about what's going on in school. And obviously, you
know, he's in a public school, as most children are, and so
I'm hearing those concerns and I'm thinking about it more than I ever did before.
I at this point when I look at it, I support school choice.
Um parents want to home school, I absolutely support that. I think
when it comes to public schools, the problem is is that we're seeing just
more and more of the public schools failed children. And you know, they
keep saying funding, funding, but there's been a lot of funding over the
years. You know, maybe not where it should have been at times.
But the thing is is like, I don't know if something keeps failing,
you know, it's that it's that definition of insanity, right, trying the
same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And that's honestly sometimes
how it feels when it comes to public education. So I guess where I'll
leave that is it's something that I continue to educate myself on and your different
opinions, you're you know, your different stories, and look at the stats
as they come out. I know a big discussion has been you know,
common Core was that something that really helped. At the end of the day,
what schools are exposing children too. The fact that we do see children
and we even had Biden very much say, you know, you're very much
you know put that on that that opinion that we're seeing in schools more that
these aren't your children, they are our children kind of mindset that terrifies me
more than anything. The if we get to a point where government, government
funded schools are telling parents very openly, and we've seen teachers in school board
meetings say this MONDI, yes, you're going to point out that you've been
sprinkled through that things tend to grow. Fringe becomes the center eventually if it's
not addressed. Is this idea that your children are not your children, they're
more our children, the society's children. That is terrifying to me. When
I hear that even suggested, it really terrifies me. Somebody's Melanie is asking
in the chat room although did I don't know, did you I didn't hear
you address did you mention homeschooling specifically if you support that? I did I
say that, I said that I do support the homeschooling option. However,
it's how it's done there are. Actually, So there are a few things
I think are important when it comes to public school that I think where children
do benefit from. For example, one of the big things of socialization,
right, children do need to be exposed to environments outside of their families.
They need to be able to interact with children there aren't even their siblings.
I feel that that is essential to the healthy development of a child. That's
why. Actually, and I know a few families in my area, a
few parents who are homeschooling, and what they are doing is us. I
believe they're saying schooling pods is the term. So I've heard I've heard a
little bit about I'm sorry, Kevin, I was just gonna say I've heard
a little bit about that, but I don't know much about it. Yeah,
so their rotate that you know, this is numbers of parents, not
just two or three bit, you know a number of different families coming together
and saying we want to homeschool children. So they rotate what house the children
learn from, teaching, the interaction with the other kids. So this is
I actually support that if you When when um I became aware of this approach
to homeschooling, I actually was like, yeah, I actually support that.
Plus they're having their kids involved in community activities, um you know still you
know, clubs, summer programs, all that stuff. So they they are
socializing their children from the parents that I know who are homeschooling. So in
that way, in that fashion, I absolutely am supportive of homeschooling. Now,
if you think about the stereotypical old school view of homeschooling, where you
know, they're just kept in a house all day and you know, you
know that kind of that kind of view, that no, I wouldn't consider
that healthy for a child's development. But that's not That's not what I'm seeing
on the rise. What I'm seeing on the rise is this idea of homeschooling
communities coming together. Well, the thing is with with homeschooling, and uh,
I certainly don't oppose it. I have the same Actually, the my
biggest concern um has always been the same thing that you you talked about,
the soization or a potential lack thereof. But I think with homeschooling it's it's
it's just like with public education, You're going to have very different outcomes depending
on depending on who is um, who is doing the teaching and so forth
and um and when it comes so, yeah, go ahead. Well,
no, I was gonna say, interesting enough, what I what I do
support with the public education system is I really would like to see less of,
you know, a grip by the federal government when it comes to the
education system, UM, on a state level. I think obviously one of
the best things too, if we really are having more of a focus on
the education system being run by the states, as well as with the idea
of homeschooling, is that if something is failing, so when you have people
coming at something from many different angles, you're going to have people who are
more successful in what they're doing and more in people who are not as successful.
What's great about this is when you have that diversity of approach is that
those who are not it's successful, if they really want to fix the issue,
they can look at those who have been more successful and try to take
away from that. That's why I actually like the idea of you know,
our education system or public education system being more um, state based than you
know, a federal stranglehold on that. Yeah, I actually uh that we
have some agreement there. UM. I've I've always been a big fan of
local control. UM. But uh, by the way, Charles Richardson,
who who actually is from Florida, the under the governorship of Rhonda Santis.
Charles said in the chat room, I think the wording of these are our
children is meaning that these are our next generation of people in the workforce,
and we need to teach them correctly. I think that's a good insight that
Charles makes. I never, I've never found that. I don't. I
don't find that nefarious either. I agree with Charles when I when I hear
that, I don't. I don't think there's anything going on there where the
government. But I don't. I don't believe in and and maybe you do,
but I don't believe in the whole you know, all the government wants
to indoctrinate your kids and all that. I've never I've never bought into that.
I mean that certainly. I never. I certainly never felt that way
going to public school. Uh, And I don't. I don't. I
don't believe that that's that's really the state of things. But but again,
in public education, I was just gonna say, in public education too,
A lot of it has to do with geography, I feel, because you've
got even within an individual state. Like here in New Hampshire, we have
I grew up and conquered great school system. From what I hear, it
still is. UM. I've heard some wonderful success stories here in Manchester,
especially from one of the guys who also hosts a show here. But you're
also going to have school systems that don't have a lot of money, that
don't have a lot of resources, that are going to fail and uh and
you see that throughout the country. So I don't think it's a one size
fits all thing. But that actually is part of why I tend to be
in favor of local control, because I think locally you can figure out better
how to allocate those limited resources that you have. But I think there's great,
cool systems. I think there's terrible school systems and a million shades of
gray in between. Oh. Absolutely. And that's the thing is Like,
it's interesting because I'm I'm someone in who I consider myself very resistant to UM,
you know, the whole conspiracy theory, or at least I very much
try to be. Let's face it, we all look at things in wonder
in our head. Are these are these you know coincidences? Is the connection
there? But the difference between a person who just thinks that in a two
conspiracy, you know, someone who believes in conspiracies is you don't let it.
You don't let it control you. You make an observation and you see
if anything eventually supports that rum. So I really I you know, And
that's how I've always been, UM how I've always tried to approach things where
I see some patterns out there? But am I really seeing a pattern?
So I step back and I wait to have supporting evidence there UM when it
comes to that. What's interesting to me, and I'm not in any way
trying to um apply motive or belief to the individual who commented there is I
found that interesting of the future workforce, that that was the first thing in
mind, the workforce. Um. It made me think a little bit about
our our next generation of drones that would just uh, you know, continue
a certain process. I guess that's not how I personally, and like I
said, maybe that is my personal bias. When I think about educating the
children, UM, I'm thinking not about specific careers or even the word workforce
per se. And don't get me wrong, that's part of it. I'm
thinking about the next generation of leaders in all aspects. Um. True,
in the workforce, but also philosophically, culturally, you know, all the
stuff. That's what I'm thinking about, Um, those that will lead our
nation in several different ways, not just a job performance. Sure, sure,
I don't know that that's exactly how he meant it, but I but
I I teyeah, yeah, And that's that's why I said, I'm not
I'm not trying to assign you know, any any motive on his part,
most assuredly not. Um, It's just I've heard that wording a lot um
a focus on the future workforce, and I've heard it so much that it's
got I've started to think about it a bit more. Yeah, And whether
intentional or unintentional, it's it's just something I've found I have found very curious.
Yeah, Yeah, I get, I get what you're saying. Um,
Kevin, it's uh, it's we're getting close to quarter of and I
know your time is limited because you have somewhere to be. You're a you're
a busy man. But I enjoy the always enjoy the conversation. I mean,
you know, we have some sharp disagreements on on things, and and
some common ground as well. But I really enjoy the discussion and uh it's
uh, well, we'll do this again, I know. And it's it's
interesting for me right now because one of the things that uh and I one
of the things has been keeping me busy, uh so is obviously Prime Months
starting today, Yes, and that has certainly gotten a lot of discussions going
in my circles, which personally, I admittedly I find myself to be an
individual who has very much disconnected himself from Pride Month and to be honest,
in many ways, the quote unquote community in general h to be Honestum.
Yeah, I find myself very concerned about the focuses of the current community and
the issues that they seem to be taking up in defense of that. That
actually concerns me a great deal. Oh interesting, Well, well we'll have
to have Like I said, I know your time is limited, but if
if you'd like to come back, I'd love to talk to you more about
and maybe we can get into that. I'm really curious SERI your thoughts.
Oh absolutely, I'd love to come back on It's been it's both times I've
been on this time last time, it's been a true pleasure speaking with you.
Um, I can actually just give some information of where people can learn
more about me, my campaign and also like also some personal information as well.
Yeah please, yeah, go for it. All right. So regarding
the city council campaign, we have a website Schenectady GOP City Council twenty twenty
three dot com. Our Facebook is your GOP candidates for Schenectady City Council.
Our Twitter handle is gop sche Council and it also will just be your GOP
candidates for Schenecty City Council on Twitter. Our website also has a link to
our mayoral candidate, Matt Nelligan, who is an amazing man. And as
far as my personal information I can. I have a Facebook page from when
I last ran for city council that I converted into more of a blogging page,
which is Schenectady Dash the Conservative Perspective, and then on YouTube it's the
Issues from left to right. The two is the number two, not the
word too. That was actually more of a suggestion of a friend, and
that's where people can learn more about me, but also learn more about the
campaign I'm currently in and my amazing running mates. All right, very good.
Kevin Hammer from the Great State of New York. Thank you for joining
us, and yes we will. We'll talk to you and we'll do this
again soon and have a great rest of your day you too. I look
forward to it, all right, man, take care, bye bye.
All right. That was Kevin Hammer, and uh, yep, I I
like talking with him. I mean again, we very much disagree on some
things, but uh, but I do enjoy the conversation and uh, let's
see you know. And we met him actually through our friend Billy Painter from
Outlaw Radio, who when Billy approached us about Kevin said, you know,
he's someone who really likes to try to get out of the whole echo chamber
and talk with people who he not only agrees with but also disagrees with on
some things and have some some real conversation which I enjoy as well. It's
a big part of why I do this show. So very good, very
good, let's do this. We're gonna play one more song, well,
not necessarily one more. I'll probably play one at the end of the show,
but we still have two tickets to give away to stand Up Audio at
the Rex Theater on Saturday night. I'm gonna play one more of their songs
here. This is called Ain't with Me, a great song from these guys,
and then you'll have a few minutes after the song to call in grab
those tickets. Jenny and I are going to be there, so there's all
the reason you need, really, but no, check out this band.
They're awesome. So this is called Ain't with Me from the band Stand Up
Audio. Ain't with Me from Stand Up Audio. Give us a call six
zo three two five O six zoh seven Come join us Saturday night at the
Rex Theater right around the corner on Amhurst Street. It's gonna be a good
time. Six three two six seven, and Saturn in the chat room says,
we say this is nice music, We said hashtag Matt Yes, yes,
absolutely absolutely. By the way, just a quick update here. Who's
we've been. I know, it seems like it's all we talk about lately.
Not all we talk about, obviously, but the debt ceiling. This
is an update from the Hill dot com Debt Ceiling live updates Senate scrambles with
default deadline looming. It says here the deal to raise the debt ceiling is
in the hands of the Senate after passing the House by a wide and bipartisan
margin. Last night, Treasury Secretary Jannet Yellen said the US could run out
of money to pay its bills on June five if Congress doesn't act, which
leaves the famously slow moving Upper Chamber a little time to approve the increase.
While the measure is expected to pass the Senate lawmakers today, we're ironing out,
ironing out an agreement to allow the bill to be passed in time.
Kane. Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, and Joe Mansion, Democrat
of West Virginia, were spotted chatting after Kane gave a speech on the Senate
floor this afternoon, and I mentioned that earlier in the show, Tim Kaine
last night was on cable news talking about how, you know, he was
very upset about this pipeline that Joe Mansion was able to get kind of dropped
into the debt ceiling agreement, and Tim Kaine's very upset and wanted to attach
an amendment. It was his intention to attach an amendment to this bill because
nobody asked him, apparently, and you know, he said he's protecting the
people of Virginia. And but the problem again, as I mentioned, earlier
with attaching an amendment to this. Now is it would have to go back
to the House, and we don't have time. We don't have time for
this. We've got to get this pass so we can avoid default. It
says here Kane is pushing for an amendment to strip, a provision that would
speed approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that would run
through West Virginia and Virginia. The pipeline has been a key ask of Mansion.
Mansion told reporters after his own floor speech and support of the pipeline,
quote, we have a common ground to agree to disagree, but he's my
dear friend and we move on. Unquote. Schumer vows to keep Senate in
session until debt ceiling bill passes send a majority. Leader Chuck Schumer told colleagues
this morning he will excuse me. He will keep the Senate in session for
as long as it takes to pass legislation to raise the debt ceiling and send
it to President Biden's desk. Warning the x state when the nation faces default
is less than four days away, he said, quote, we will keep
working until the job is done. Time is a luxury the and it does
not have at this point. Any needless delay or any last minute hold ups
would be an unnecessary and even dangerous risk. And any change to this bill
that forces us to send it back to the House would be entirely unacceptable.
Unquote. I agree. Um, you know, and we talked earlier about
oh, there's the sirens. Happens once a show. I don't think the
mics pick it up. Sounds like a fire somewhere, the fire trucks.
But yeah, I've really, really hope that tomorrow when I come on the
air, this is my hope for all of us, for all of us.
I hope that I can come on the air and talk about how the
Senate passed the debt ceiling bill and now it's going to the President's desk and
at least we can put this behind us and there won't be another fight over
the debt ceiling for two years. Because that was one of the things that
Biden was able to get the Steve Rochetti, who is negotiating on behalf of
the President and the Democrats, we're able to get in the bill two years
instead of one in terms of raising the debt ceiling. So we don't have
to have this fight again for two years, which is good. But what
I would prefer to see is the debt limit go away all together. And
Saturn in the chat room says, we say, hashtag Matt, you have
a good evening and we will be watching you tomorrow afternoon. Hi hashtag Jenny
coffee. We said, well, very good, well, and a good
evening to you too, and Saturn, I say to you from us all
right before we go, don't forget tonight is trivia night, because it is
Thursday Trivia Night at the Hop Knot hosted by Broderick Lange, So you can
check that out, although I do suggest calling ahead because those spots do fill
up very quickly for trivia. I don't forget Jenny as a brand new article
up in The Mighty That one up today at the Mighty dot com, so
be sure to give that a read. She does a great job with those.
And DJ Reckless it's open decks tonight right up the street here at the
six zero three Bar and Grill. I believe that starts at nine pm.
Open decks meaning it's like it's like an open mic night, but open decks.
You can go and you can go and DJ so very good. Oh,
by the way, and I didn't say it because I was waiting for
the page to load. Oh. Jenny also posted the link in the chat
room, but the article is called when access to medication and treatment is a
matter of life and death. Brand new article posted today at The Mighty dot
com. And that's gonna do it for us for now. If you are
listening live on Thursday. Coming up next is Through the Stage Door hosted by
the Great Rob Dieon and don't forget to be back bright and early tomorrow morning,
seven am for the Morning Show with Peter White. And if you miss
any part of today's show it we'll be up in just a little bit at
WMH radio dot org and on my website Matt Connerton dot com. And thank
you again to Kevin Hammer for joining us today on the program. And we'll
leave you with one more Uh. Well, we didn't give away the tickets
today, so we'll try again tomorrow. But somebody's got to grab these tickets.
Man, you got to see this band. We'll leave you with one
more track. Uh. This is Hazel Eyes from Stand Up Audio. To
close out today is Matt Connerton Unleashed right here at WMH ninety five point three
FFM, good night, everybody,