Speaker 1: Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. The Kamala Catastrophe is coming
Speaker 1: today at noon on fifty five KRC the Talk Station,
Speaker 1: and now Kevin Golden filling in for Brian Thomas on
Speaker 1: fifty five KOs the Talk Station. I'll right.
Speaker 2: Five five in the morning. I hope your Monday morning
Speaker 2: is going as well as mine is. Not only do
Speaker 2: I get to sit in the chair today for Brian
Speaker 2: and do the show, but it is an absolute gorgeous
Speaker 2: morning out there. Nice Chris on the chili side but
Speaker 2: not too bad. And the drive up here was fantastic.
Speaker 2: I had a great weekend. I hope you did too.
Speaker 2: We had some family come in unexpectedly for the weekend.
Speaker 2: I was we were going to go up Now this
Speaker 2: it's weird. I there is, you know, the fall festivals
Speaker 2: and stuff all around the area. In the summertime, there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of local festivals that we usually go to,
Speaker 2: and those are more local, but when it comes to
Speaker 2: the fall, there's these fall festivals that are in different
Speaker 2: parts of the area and so on. Down in Augusta
Speaker 2: they have the Turning of the Leaves festival and then
Speaker 2: they have the Wolf Festival down in Falmouth, Kentucky and
Speaker 2: Sauerkraut festival up in Waynesville, and there's a little farm
Speaker 2: over in central Indiana. Take about two don't about two
Speaker 2: hours to get there. It's if I can get this.
Speaker 2: Steam Cliff Farms supposedly one of the oldest farms in Indiana.
Speaker 2: And I had a fall festival and so on, and
Speaker 2: it's great to go to these and it's always interesting,
Speaker 2: and I looked at it from the standpoint of number one,
Speaker 2: it's fun. But as I've talked about numerous times on
Speaker 2: the air, is that when you're doing talk shows and
Speaker 2: of course doing America's Truck and Network like I've been doing,
Speaker 2: and maybe aware of that, but if you're not, I
Speaker 2: am Tuesday through Friday twelve am to one am, and
Speaker 2: so either you're on the air or you're doing show
Speaker 2: prep and you're always looking around for something that's going
Speaker 2: to give you an idea or something, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of some sort of a trend that you're picking up
Speaker 2: on when you go to a restaurant or something. All
Speaker 2: kinds of show topics out there, just you got to
Speaker 2: pay attention. And one of the things that I saw
Speaker 2: as a result of going to some of these festivals
Speaker 2: was kind of a getting an idea on the economy. Now,
Speaker 2: this past weekend we were going to go up to Circleville,
Speaker 2: Ohio to the Pumpkin Festival up there. Now this is
Speaker 2: odd because I have not been to the Pumpkin Festival,
Speaker 2: I want to say, in at least fifty years. So
Speaker 2: almost every year I say, you know, we're gonna go,
Speaker 2: We're gonna go, We're gonna go, but something happens. And
Speaker 2: this year we said, all right, we're gonna go up
Speaker 2: and this is what's going to happen. Well, we got
Speaker 2: a phone call on Thursday and family was coming in
Speaker 2: and said, okay, you know, all right, so we'll put
Speaker 2: that off. But the weekend got kind of weird and
Speaker 2: so not weird, but we just couldn't get up there.
Speaker 2: But in going up to Waynesville and the Wolf Festival
Speaker 2: and some of these other festivals, it's interesting talking to
Speaker 2: the vendors and hearing what they have to say. And
Speaker 2: in several instances in talking to these vendors, it was
Speaker 2: this is probably one of the worst years I've ever
Speaker 2: had at filling the Blank Festival. And I said, is
Speaker 2: there a particular reason? Is there? What do you think,
Speaker 2: and he goes, and he she whatever. Any of the
Speaker 2: vendors would say, it's the economy. People just do not
Speaker 2: have that extra money. And that extra money is what
Speaker 2: they call discretionary income. You know, after you get your paycheck,
Speaker 2: after you've paid your bills, after you've done all the
Speaker 2: different obligations and so on, it's the money that's left
Speaker 2: over that you have for recreational use. Now the economy,
Speaker 2: since the pandemic, people were shut in, they were doing
Speaker 2: a lot of home improvement. They were doing a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff around the house, which, on the bright side,
Speaker 2: if you want to look for a silver lining, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people have much more appreciation for
Speaker 2: their homes. But they had to set aside a certain
Speaker 2: area for them to work because they're working from home.
Speaker 2: And then of course, having you know, you can't do
Speaker 2: anything else. So I guess I'll go work on the yard,
Speaker 2: I'll you know, build a deck, or I'll do something
Speaker 2: along those lines. And we saw the home improvement business
Speaker 2: and the big box stores and so on doing very well.
Speaker 2: But because a lot of people either appliance wise or
Speaker 2: took some of that stimulus money and said, oh well,
Speaker 2: I've got an income interest rates are low. I not
Speaker 2: only have an income, but I have this, I have
Speaker 2: these stimulus checks. I'm going to upgrade a house and
Speaker 2: move to a new house. And so when they did that,
Speaker 2: of course you've got to buy new equipment. You've got
Speaker 2: to buy new furniture fixtures, some new appliances, and so on.
Speaker 2: So a lot of that has been front loaded into
Speaker 2: that twenty twenty one ish, twenty twenty two and so on.
Speaker 2: And then of course with the supply chain issues and
Speaker 2: so on, people were having issues as far as some
Speaker 2: of the things they wanted to buy. We saw what
Speaker 2: happened to use car prices. Of course, in the trucking industry,
Speaker 2: the truck used truck prices went out of sight because
Speaker 2: of the factories being shut down and so on. And so,
Speaker 2: once the plandemic ended and things started getting back to normal,
Speaker 2: people said, all right, we're gonna start enjoying ourselves. We're
Speaker 2: gonna get out. We're gonna go to restaurants, we're gonna bars,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go to football games. We're gonna go to
Speaker 2: baseball games. We're gonna go to plays, we're gonna go
Speaker 2: to movies. We're gonna travel, We're going to do, you know,
Speaker 2: all the fun stuff that we haven't been able to
Speaker 2: do for the last couple of years. And so you've
Speaker 2: seen throughout the economic numbers where people's spending habits have
Speaker 2: kind of shifted more from the goods, the items, tangible items,
Speaker 2: to more fun items, which in tangible eating out and
Speaker 2: that type of thing. And in talking to these vendors,
Speaker 2: they say that, you know, a lot of people are
Speaker 2: maxed out, and we've seen this in the economy. We've
Speaker 2: seen this in the numbers. People are maxed out as
Speaker 2: far as their credit cards are concerned. Their interest rates
Speaker 2: are higher if they've got credit card debt, then the
Speaker 2: interest rate on that with the higher interest rates that
Speaker 2: we've been experiencing record high, well at least the highest
Speaker 2: interest rates in the last twenty years or so. And
Speaker 2: then we're seeing inflation. Back in June of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: we saw inflation hit nine point one percent and now
Speaker 2: inflation is down around two percent, two point four to
Speaker 2: two point five thereabouts. But what people forget or you know,
Speaker 2: it's the well, when you hear the spoon fed regurgitators
Speaker 2: in the mainstream media talk about it, it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: inflation is down. Inflation, you know, from the inflation from
Speaker 2: last month to this month is level. There was no inflation. Well,
Speaker 2: that forgets the fact that when you have inflation one
Speaker 2: month that goes up to four percent, the following month
Speaker 2: goes up to five percent, when it goes up to
Speaker 2: five percent, it didn't drop down to zero and then
Speaker 2: hit five percent that month. It was four percent and
Speaker 2: five percent on top of that. So when you have
Speaker 2: the cumulative effect of those inflationary pressures over the last
Speaker 2: three and a half years, all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 2: looking at stuff like eggs at forty seven percent higher,
Speaker 2: most grocery items at twenty one percent or more, and
Speaker 2: depending upon what you buy. As far as GRoWES are concerned,
Speaker 2: those are extremely high. When you look at the cost
Speaker 2: of eating out up twenty five percent and in some
Speaker 2: cases forty percent. And these numbers that we're seeing from
Speaker 2: the federal government or when they do these issues in
Speaker 2: terms of what the inflation rate is, where the inflation is,
Speaker 2: and what certain items in that inflation have gone up, down,
Speaker 2: or whatever, I'm not so sure that those are one
Speaker 2: hundred percent accurate because when you go into the store
Speaker 2: and if I don't know if you're like me, but
Speaker 2: I being a numbers guy, recovering accountant and all I
Speaker 2: pay attention to grocery items. I mentioned on this program
Speaker 2: before that my father was a food broker, which was
Speaker 2: a manufacturer's representative. He represented different companies and he'd go
Speaker 2: to these buyers at Kroger IgA and you know, the
Speaker 2: different wholesale distributors, and would pitch the products that he
Speaker 2: was representing to get placement on their shelves. And he
Speaker 2: always did the grocery shopping, and so on Saturday, he'd
Speaker 2: go up to the Kroger store and just you know,
Speaker 2: not only do the grocery shopping, but also kind of
Speaker 2: pay attention to where his products were shelf placement or whatever,
Speaker 2: so that he could then talk to the wholesale people
Speaker 2: and see if he couldn't get either more facings or
Speaker 2: more better placement on the shelves, maybe eye level or
Speaker 2: something which is the best. And so I used to
Speaker 2: go to the I used to go grocery shopping with him,
Speaker 2: and we talk about things, and we'd talk about, you know,
Speaker 2: how to look for lettuce and all those sort of things,
Speaker 2: which you know helps me out now. But I love
Speaker 2: grocery shopping. I think I'm one of the few guys
Speaker 2: and few people that love grocery shopping. I love seeing
Speaker 2: the stuff. And then of course I pay attention to
Speaker 2: the prices. When we go to the grocery store. We're
Speaker 2: always trying to find the deals that are on sale.
Speaker 2: We'll try to you know, where we live. We can
Speaker 2: hit we can hit Aldi, we can hit Meyer, we
Speaker 2: can hit Walmart, we can hit Kroger, we can I
Speaker 2: think I Remke and a couple of others. So we've
Speaker 2: got a myriad of different places we can shop at.
Speaker 2: And depending upon where we're heading, if we're heading north, south, east,
Speaker 2: or west, we put together our list and okase, if
Speaker 2: we're going to be down in that neighborhood, will stop
Speaker 2: in the grocery store and pick up these four or
Speaker 2: five items that are on sale. And then if we're
Speaker 2: at another location, we'll do that. And so when I
Speaker 2: look at what we save, and of course I pay
Speaker 2: attention to the prices and stuff. I mean when you
Speaker 2: look at just I'll just pull out an item Helman's mayonnaise.
Speaker 2: Helman's mayonnaise. You used to be able to get that one.
Speaker 2: It was on sale for two ninety nine now that
Speaker 2: is on sale now it is three ninety nine, So
Speaker 2: that's gone up at least twenty five percent. But when
Speaker 2: you look at the normal retail price that used to
Speaker 2: be around three forty nine threes and it's up to
Speaker 2: six bucks for one of those things my coffee I
Speaker 2: drink folder's black silk that used to be around at
Speaker 2: nine dollars at one point, then it got up to
Speaker 2: eleven ninety nine, and I'd wait till it go on
Speaker 2: sale at six ninety nine and stock up. Now that
Speaker 2: number instead of eleven ninety nine is up to thirteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine the everyday price. And so those prices, and
Speaker 2: depending upon what you're buying at the grocery store, may
Speaker 2: have gone up. Instead of the twenty one percent overall
Speaker 2: average that they're looking at, your prices, the items that
Speaker 2: you buy on a regular basis maybe twenty five thirty
Speaker 2: percent higher than what they are. And of course this
Speaker 2: is what why this election is so important, and one
Speaker 2: of the things that they talk about how do you
Speaker 2: get inflation down? And one of the things that I've
Speaker 2: been paying attention to on America's Truck and Network is
Speaker 2: the fact of energy prices and we'll talk about that
Speaker 2: coming up. Phone number seven four nine fifty five hundred one,
Speaker 2: eight hundred eight two three Talk one eight hundred eight
Speaker 2: two three eight two five five pound five point fifty
Speaker 2: AT and T wireless phone. Kevin Gordon in for Brian
Speaker 2: tom Mus fifty five KR. See the talk station who
Speaker 2: voted five point twenty in the morning. Kevin Gordon in
Speaker 2: for Brian Thomas fifty five KR. See the talk station.
Speaker 2: Phone number is seven five one three, seven four nine
Speaker 2: fifty five hundred one eight hundred eight two three talk
Speaker 2: one eight hundred eight two three eight two five five
Speaker 2: pound five point fifty on your AT and T wireless phone.
Speaker 2: I was so excited about talking about the weekend and
Speaker 2: what's been going on and getting into the show, I
Speaker 2: neglected to tell you what we have on tap today,
Speaker 2: you know, cart before the horse here. As you know,
Speaker 2: every time I'm on I usually put on Facebook what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have in terms of guess wise and so on,
Speaker 2: and today is no different. And uh, pretty much between
Speaker 2: now and six twenty five, it's going to be you,
Speaker 2: me and the phones. Uh what I like to refer
Speaker 2: to as news and views, And you know, I may
Speaker 2: offer an opinion or two depending upon the situation and
Speaker 2: so on. And so at six point thirty, I've got
Speaker 2: Phil Flynn. He is a senior market analyst with Price
Speaker 2: Futures Group, author of the Energy Report, and contributor to
Speaker 2: Fox Business Network. We'll discuss a wide range of political
Speaker 2: and energy issues. This guy, I got to tell you
Speaker 2: his Energy Report on a daily basis. I refer to
Speaker 2: that on america'struck A Network. And it is amazing that
Speaker 2: you know, when you read something and you realize that, hey,
Speaker 2: this guy and I we think alike. And so I
Speaker 2: just picked up the phone and called him. And he's
Speaker 2: been a guest several times. But it's not just the
Speaker 2: energy markets. It's just not commodities. It's his insight into
Speaker 2: political things in terms of what's going on as far
Speaker 2: as the energy sector, but of course what's going on
Speaker 2: in the Middle East and so on. So we'll be
Speaker 2: talking about that in the seven at seven to twelve,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be having a Christopher Smitherman with the smither
Speaker 2: Vent at eight twenty or eight h five. Rather, we're
Speaker 2: gonna be talking with Attorney Stephen Doane. We're gonna be
Speaker 2: he's an attorney and then also a Kentucky state representative.
Speaker 2: We'll discuss the Kentucky's Constitutional Amendment too. Now, I understand
Speaker 2: Brian talked about that with Jim Waters on Thursday of
Speaker 2: last week, but I think Steve may have. And hopefully
Speaker 2: we'll come up with a couple of things, because in
Speaker 2: the people that I've talked to, there seems to be
Speaker 2: people that I would have thought that would have been
Speaker 2: for this. They're raising questions that I hadn't heard brought
Speaker 2: up before, and I think Brian covered a lot of
Speaker 2: those on Thursday. But there's a couple of things I
Speaker 2: need to ask this attorney, and of course he's a
Speaker 2: state representative, so he'd be aware of that. And then
Speaker 2: of course at eight p forty we'll have somebody from
Speaker 2: the Cincinnati VA. So we've got all that on tap
Speaker 2: here now. In the previous segment I was talking about
Speaker 2: I was talking about the inflation and so on, and
Speaker 2: you know, you see these numbers and they see the
Speaker 2: inflation rate and they tell you what the inflation rate is.
Speaker 2: And that's done using on a monthly basis and at
Speaker 2: the end of the month, and then the quarterly basis
Speaker 2: and so on, and then they revise those numbers and
Speaker 2: come up with the number, and of course the Federal
Speaker 2: Reserve looks at that, and of course they not only
Speaker 2: look at the consumer price index, but they also look
Speaker 2: at the personal consumption expenditures, which is more in line
Speaker 2: of the gauge that they look at to determine where
Speaker 2: inflation is. And you have you know, you've heard these
Speaker 2: terms before. You've heard a consumer price index, and you've
Speaker 2: heard core consumer price index and generally just kind of
Speaker 2: give you a brief idea there. The core is if
Speaker 2: you pull out energy and food out of that inflation
Speaker 2: number to come up with inflation. Because in terms of
Speaker 2: the way accountants look at things, they want to see
Speaker 2: things on an even keel. They want to have a
Speaker 2: comparison from one month to another, one year to another,
Speaker 2: one quarter to another, and anything that's volatile in between.
Speaker 2: You have to explain that in your financial statements and reporting.
Speaker 2: And so you want to keep all the extraordinary items
Speaker 2: to a minimum, but if they happen, you report those
Speaker 2: separately so that you can see a straight line or
Speaker 2: a little bit of increase here and there. As far
Speaker 2: as your income, your revenue, and then your expenses. You
Speaker 2: don't want to see them get out of whack and
Speaker 2: so on. So when you look at those and the
Speaker 2: trend there, but because energy and gas prices are always
Speaker 2: volatile that and food is volatile depending upon the season,
Speaker 2: they pull those out and so you look at both
Speaker 2: of those numbers to see what's going on. Generally, what
Speaker 2: happens in the normal times, you will see the core
Speaker 2: inflation number be down, and because you throw back in
Speaker 2: energy and food, that pushes that inflation rate up. Now,
Speaker 2: with energy kind of coming down and food prices leveling out,
Speaker 2: the other items are up. And when you look at
Speaker 2: the overall inflation number, when you strip out and get
Speaker 2: to the core, that number actually comes and goes up
Speaker 2: because of taking out the energy, because energy has been falling.
Speaker 2: And so the personal consumption expenditures is what the FED
Speaker 2: usually looks at, which kind of puts more in line
Speaker 2: of what you spend your money on on a daily basis,
Speaker 2: weekly basis, and so on. Because you don't always go
Speaker 2: out and buy a refrigerator, you don't always go out
Speaker 2: and buy a computer. You're generally buying food. You're generally
Speaker 2: putting gas in your car or diesel in your truck,
Speaker 2: or clothing and normal staples. So when they look at
Speaker 2: what people are spending their money on, that's when they
Speaker 2: look at those numbers and say, all right, based on
Speaker 2: the personal consumption expend here's what that inflation number is.
Speaker 2: And getting back to what I was talking about, as
Speaker 2: far as the individuals at these stores at these festivals
Speaker 2: are concerned, they're telling me that people just do not
Speaker 2: have that kind of disposable income anymore. They were talking
Speaker 2: about how you know, if you look at the food
Speaker 2: vendors there, they were, I mean a lot of places
Speaker 2: were selling out of the food that they had. People
Speaker 2: were enjoying that. If you had certain of like a
Speaker 2: honey booth, or you had small items and that type
Speaker 2: of the little craft things, those were doing well. But
Speaker 2: anything that would what you would consider what I would consider,
Speaker 2: because you know, anything over one hundred bucks to me
Speaker 2: is kind of a luxury item if you're you know,
Speaker 2: buying an accessory or you're buying like an artwork thing
Speaker 2: at one of these festivals. I'm not talking about overall
Speaker 2: art work, but something at one of these festivals. Any
Speaker 2: time you spend more than one hundred bucks, to me,
Speaker 2: that is a luxury item. And so a lot of
Speaker 2: the item that will quote luxury items that I will
Speaker 2: stop off their booth. Their sales were horrendous, So that
Speaker 2: kind of gives you a microcosm what's going on in
Speaker 2: this in the economy right now, and what is going
Speaker 2: on and why this election is so important, and of
Speaker 2: course we'll talk about that coming up. Phone number seven
Speaker 2: four five one three seven four nine fifty five hundred one,
Speaker 2: eight hundred eighty two three talk one eight hundred eighty
Speaker 2: two three eight two five five pound, five point fifty
Speaker 2: AT and T wireless phone. Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas,
Speaker 2: fifty five k see the Talk station. Five point thirty
Speaker 2: one in the morning. Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas,
Speaker 2: fifty five carosee the talk station. Let's look at some
Speaker 2: of the local headlines that we're following for you this morning.
Speaker 2: Since Hey. Police responded to a Walnut Hills High School
Speaker 2: Sunday evening following reports of shots fired during a pee
Speaker 2: wee football game. Are you serious? According to police on scene,
Speaker 2: two adult men got into an argument after the children's
Speaker 2: football game had ended. Police said that the two men
Speaker 2: began to fight before one man pulled out a gun
Speaker 2: and started shooting. Police said that two adults were shot.
Speaker 2: One victim is in serious condition, while the other suffered
Speaker 2: a non life threatening injury. No children were harmed as
Speaker 2: a result of the shooting. Police are still searching for
Speaker 2: a suspect at this time. Well, I guess this guy
Speaker 2: won't be invited back. And what are we going to do?
Speaker 2: Install metal detectors at pee wee football games? Now for
Speaker 2: crying out loud, let's see. Water main break collapse is
Speaker 2: part of s spring Grove Avenue. That's not gonna that's
Speaker 2: gonna leave a mark. Water main break on spring Grove
Speaker 2: Avenue in Camp Washington caused part of the roadway to
Speaker 2: collapse in on itself. According to the Police Department. The
Speaker 2: water main break happened around two am in the twenty
Speaker 2: four hundred block of Spring Grove Avenue at the intersection
Speaker 2: of Draper Street. The water main break collapse part of
Speaker 2: the street and partially shut down traffic to the Western
Speaker 2: Hills Viaduct. As of Sunday afternoon, Cruise was still out
Speaker 2: working on the water main break. Traffic had been slowed
Speaker 2: to one lane in each direction on Spring Grove Avenue.
Speaker 2: So hopefully they'll get that fixed pretty soon, and of
Speaker 2: course they've been following this. Over the weekend, there was
Speaker 2: Indiana State Police shot and killed of somebody at the
Speaker 2: Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg. One man was shot and killed
Speaker 2: by a police officer early Saturday morning in the Hollywood
Speaker 2: Casino in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Indiana State Police said Lawrenceburg Police
Speaker 2: Department responded to the casino around one am for reports
Speaker 2: of a man threatening and chasing another person with a
Speaker 2: knife on the fourth floor of the casino hotel. I
Speaker 2: thought P. Diddy was in jail. I didn't think he
Speaker 2: got work release or anything. Three let's see. The three
Speaker 2: officers then learned that the man had begun firing a
Speaker 2: gun on the fourth floor, and they located the man
Speaker 2: in the hallway in the na State Police said the
Speaker 2: officer told the man to drop the handgun, but the
Speaker 2: suspect began shooting instead. Officers returned fire and the suspect
Speaker 2: was struck at least once. The suspect died at the scene.
Speaker 2: His identity has not been revealed yet. One person the
Speaker 2: suspect confronted with a knife sustained minor injuries before the
Speaker 2: officers arrived. All three officers involved in the shooting have
Speaker 2: been placed on administrative leave per Lawrenceburg Police protocol. ISP
Speaker 2: said the identities of the officers are being withheld at
Speaker 2: this time. ISP said its investigation is ongoing. ISP has
Speaker 2: been assisted by the Lawrenceburg Fire Department or Police Department,
Speaker 2: Dearborn and Ohio County Prosecutor's Office, Dearborn County Corners Office,
Speaker 2: and Hollywood Casino Hotel and staff. Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: sure that a lot of these items, well, the shootings especially,
Speaker 2: I would guess that the Hollywood Casino, there are probably
Speaker 2: some little bit of alcohol involved there. So anyway, coming up,
Speaker 2: we're going to be talking a little bit more about
Speaker 2: this inflation number and what's going on as far as
Speaker 2: the economy. Your phone calls take those as well. Eric
Speaker 2: Eric code five one three, seven four nine fifty five
Speaker 2: hundred one, eight hundred eighty two three talk one eight
Speaker 2: hundred eighty two three eight two five five pound, five
Speaker 2: point fifty AT and T wireless phone. Kevin Gordon in
Speaker 2: for Brian Thomas, fifty five KR see the talk station.
Speaker 1: Cybersecurity Awareness Month is still good.
Speaker 2: Five thirty nine in the morning, Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas, fifty five KR. See the talk station phone
Speaker 2: number is five one three seven four nine fifty five
Speaker 2: hundred one eight hundred eight two three talk one eight
Speaker 2: hundred eight two three eight two five five pound five
Speaker 2: point fifty AT and T wireless phone. You know, we're
Speaker 2: talking a little bit about inflation and so on, what's
Speaker 2: causing that? And you know, if you watch the debates,
Speaker 2: if you watch the vice presidential debates, and if you
Speaker 2: watch the presidential debate, or if you listen to any
Speaker 2: of the word salad interviews that Kamala Harris has had,
Speaker 2: one of the questions is is you know, what are
Speaker 2: you going to do about inflation? What are you going
Speaker 2: to do about this? And all we hear about is
Speaker 2: price gouging, or price gauging as she calls it, which
Speaker 2: is BS because you may recall years ago when the
Speaker 2: Biden administration came into office and gas prices started going up,
Speaker 2: oil prices started going up, and they started talking about, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the oil companies last year made record profits and so on,
Speaker 2: and we're going to do a congressional investigation into that,
Speaker 2: because I'm sure that there is price fixing and gouging
Speaker 2: and so on every time the US government does that.
Speaker 2: Every time a governmental agency looks at that, well, I'd
Speaker 2: say mostly ninety percent of the time or more. There
Speaker 2: is no price gouging. It's just a headline grabber to
Speaker 2: make the people think that you've got their back and
Speaker 2: that you're looking into something. And what came out immediately
Speaker 2: the oil companies fired back and said, hey, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: we made record profits last year because of the rise
Speaker 2: in oil prices, but did you look at our bottom
Speaker 2: line the previous two years when we lost that billions
Speaker 2: and billions of dollars and that when you look at
Speaker 2: that over a three year period of time, we're actually
Speaker 2: up only, like you know, less than ten percent in
Speaker 2: terms of not up ten percent, but our profit is
Speaker 2: ten percent of what our sales are. And when you
Speaker 2: look at a company and you think of the investor
Speaker 2: investing in that, Okay, let's say you've got a pile
Speaker 2: of money and you can do whatever you want with that,
Speaker 2: and you think, oh, I think I'll go start a business.
Speaker 2: If you're going to go out and start a business,
Speaker 2: would you start a business with all the headaches, all
Speaker 2: the brick and mortar, the employee expenditures, the cost of
Speaker 2: the inventory, or whatever the business is, and get a
Speaker 2: seven percent bottom line, a seven percent profit. You could
Speaker 2: take that money and put it in the stock market
Speaker 2: or a mutual fund, or buy real estate or do
Speaker 2: something that is less of a headache if you're only
Speaker 2: going to get a seven percent return on your investment.
Speaker 2: And so what you generally do if you're going to
Speaker 2: start a business, you're looking for something that is going
Speaker 2: to bring you a fairly decent return on your investment,
Speaker 2: and most people are looking for something in the minimum
Speaker 2: of ten percent. A lot of people go in in
Speaker 2: these high risk certain things and go for maybe a
Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty five percent investment, but then a lot
Speaker 2: of times they'll lose money as well. But to go
Speaker 2: through all the headaches, when you look at the grocery stores,
Speaker 2: their bottom line is one point two to one point
Speaker 2: six percent margin that they're working on. Who's going to
Speaker 2: go into a business like that. Now, granted, you make
Speaker 2: up a lot of that in volume and stuff, because
Speaker 2: one point six percent profit on this particular item or thereabouts.
Speaker 2: When somebody goes in there and buys ten, fifteen, twenty items,
Speaker 2: those numbers add up. But it's all based on a
Speaker 2: volume basis. Type of situation and not an individual item.
Speaker 2: And so this price gauging that the Kama keeps talking
Speaker 2: about is nuts. Where you need to do is start
Speaker 2: looking at the oil prices and the energy prices. And
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. Let's go to the phones here
Speaker 2: real quick, and let's talk to Dirk. Dirk fifty five.
Speaker 2: K see Dick. I'm sorry, Dick. How are you this morning?
Speaker 3: Morning?
Speaker 4: Kevin?
Speaker 2: It's you. I did not oh Dick from date and
Speaker 2: I didn't have the I guess I should put my
Speaker 2: glasses on so I can read the fine print here. Okay,
Speaker 2: how the heck are you this morning?
Speaker 4: Okay, how are you? I'm good After that Bengals victory.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, I'm about that. You know, go out and
Speaker 2: buy your Super Bowl tickets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they've they've done pretty good the last couple games.
Speaker 4: But boy, it's gonna be a big test Sunday for him.
Speaker 2: Thought, Oh, yeah, for sure, absolutely, I'm sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I've just been going to school, taking some classes
Speaker 4: and play a little music, you know. You know, I've
Speaker 4: been retired three years and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a nice you know, you earned it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the interesting thing that you're doing is
Speaker 2: that you're doing stuff that's fun stuff that you've wanted
Speaker 2: to do, I'm sure for a number of years. And
Speaker 2: when you have the flexibility to be able to do
Speaker 2: that and the wherewithal to do that, that's that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Now are you are you these classes you're taking are
Speaker 2: they do you have to? Are you paying tuition for that?
Speaker 2: Or you just auditing?
Speaker 4: It's I go, I audit the classes. It's a credit
Speaker 4: for lifelong running. They're very interesting classes. Yeah, this one
Speaker 4: class I'm taking his accounting. Now it's kind of hard,
Speaker 4: but I like the terms he gives, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: like he was talking and I've been in that program
Speaker 4: and I get to go free. So it's kind of
Speaker 4: neat to build up.
Speaker 2: Your edge, you know, absolutely, And you know this should
Speaker 2: be kind of a model, if you will, for other people.
Speaker 2: You know, I hear so many people that talk about,
Speaker 2: oh gosh, I don't know if I could retire, I'd
Speaker 2: be bored. I don't know what I'd do with my
Speaker 2: time and all this sort of stuff. But you're kind
Speaker 2: of proving what you need to do or kind of
Speaker 2: an example what needs to be do. Expand your horizon
Speaker 2: as you're doing your concentrating on your music. You're going
Speaker 2: and getting auditing classes and getting education credits and so on,
Speaker 2: and learning different things. I mean, for crying out loud,
Speaker 2: go to a park, read a book for crying out loud.
Speaker 2: Don't be anybody. I'll tell you what. Anybody that says
Speaker 2: they're going to be bored in retirement is probably a
Speaker 2: boring person to begin with, because so many people that
Speaker 2: I know of have retired and they tell me after
Speaker 2: a couple of months or so on, to go. I
Speaker 2: don't know how I was able to work with all
Speaker 2: the stuff that I've been doing now and all this
Speaker 2: stuff I'm doing, I couldn't have. I couldn't work because
Speaker 2: I'm too busy, which.
Speaker 4: Is cool A pleasure, all right, Dick.
Speaker 2: You take care, be safe out there. Phone numbers five one, three, seven,
Speaker 2: four nine, fifty, five hundred one, eight hundred eight two
Speaker 2: three talk one eight hundred eight two three eight two
Speaker 2: five five pound, five point fifty AT and T wireless phone.
Speaker 2: Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five kr SE
Speaker 2: DE talk station.
Speaker 6: What's the best place to reach new customer?
Speaker 2: Hey nine First warning weather forecast UH during the morning
Speaker 2: rush hour, look for clear skies, patchy fog is possible
Speaker 2: and a low of forty six.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Let's see this morning going into later on in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: we're gonna have a sunshine bit warmer, high of seventy six. Tonight,
Speaker 2: we're gonna have clear skies, cool in a lower forty
Speaker 2: eight Tuesday, mostly sunny. It's mostly clear. I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: warm again. High of seventy seven and lovel fifty five
Speaker 2: right now forty five degrees fifty five krs de talk
Speaker 2: station Chuck has our traffic.
Speaker 7: Probably you see f Triumphings Center. When it comes to stroke,
Speaker 7: every second counts. That's why you you see comprehensive stroke centers,
Speaker 7: your clear choice for rapid by saving treatment.
Speaker 2: Learn more.
Speaker 8: Ed.
Speaker 7: You see how dot Com highways are doing fine early
Speaker 7: on this Monday morning. No recks to deal with, No
Speaker 7: overnight work crews in your way. South Bend seventy five
Speaker 7: under twenty minutes from above Union Center through downtown Chuck
Speaker 7: Ingram and fifty five kre See the talk.
Speaker 2: Station five fifty in the morning. Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas, fifty five care see the talk station. Phone
Speaker 2: numbers five one, three, seven, four nine, fifty five hundred
Speaker 2: one eight hundred eight two three talk one eight hundred
Speaker 2: eighty two three eight two five five pound five point
Speaker 2: fifty on that at and T wireless phone. Now, well,
Speaker 2: we're talking about inflation, and when we're talking about that,
Speaker 2: I talked about going to these UH fall festivals and
Speaker 2: talking to some of the merchants, some of the people
Speaker 2: that run the boosts and UH items in these boosts
Speaker 2: that would go for say one hundred dollars or so,
Speaker 2: those were suffering. Anybody was selling what I would consider
Speaker 2: high end stuff. Now, one of the things I was
Speaker 2: looking at is I love, you know, you see these pens,
Speaker 2: these wooden pens that people will make. They'll do all
Speaker 2: these exotic woods and make them into a pan. My
Speaker 2: particular pen I've got I bought years ago at the
Speaker 2: Appalachian Festival was actually two cartridges too, bullet casings that
Speaker 2: they made into a pen. And the unique materials that
Speaker 2: they're using for pens. Now, so I'm always attracted to
Speaker 2: those booths. One I saw at let me see, we
Speaker 2: were over in Indiana at one of the festivals over there,
Speaker 2: and this one vendor had a pen and it had
Speaker 2: kind of a you know, I like a wider pan
Speaker 2: or a thicker pin type of thing. I'd give you
Speaker 2: an idea pretty much along the side of one of
Speaker 2: those pen sharpies, kind of like that thickness. And they
Speaker 2: had these pens that actually had a cigar band around it.
Speaker 2: So they take this cigar band and put it around
Speaker 2: the thing to make it look like, you know, basically
Speaker 2: well the cigar band. And I was checking to see
Speaker 2: if they had one of the brands of cigars that
Speaker 2: I smoke, and they didn't, so I gave them my
Speaker 2: card and information and so on. But you know, I
Speaker 2: love these kinds of pens. I love these unique pens.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the vendors I talked to. In
Speaker 2: these pens, they will some of them will retell or
Speaker 2: they'll sell them for you know, in the seventy five
Speaker 2: to ninety dollars, but if you want something interesting like that,
Speaker 2: it can be as high as one hundred and sixty.
Speaker 2: And that always makes me pause for a moment and say, gosh,
Speaker 2: how bad do I really want that? And a lot
Speaker 2: of times it's like, Okay, walk away, go look at
Speaker 2: some other things, Go eat a funnel cake, or go
Speaker 2: eat especially if you're the sauerkrawd festival, eat one of
Speaker 2: their what they call them ruben rolls or something like
Speaker 2: that up there. So you go, have you know, some food,
Speaker 2: and walk around a little bit and make determination where
Speaker 2: you're gonna. I didn't go back and buy it. I
Speaker 2: did give him my card and I said, I'll probably
Speaker 2: check with him sometime around Christmas if I think But anyway,
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where I always think twice
Speaker 2: about whether I'm going to buy something. And when we
Speaker 2: look at inflation, and when you're talking about how to
Speaker 2: cut inflation, the first place you have to start is
Speaker 2: with energy. You don't come into office like the Biden
Speaker 2: administration did and stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline,
Speaker 2: which threw up to ten thousand people or more out
Speaker 2: of work on that pipeline, many of those blue collar
Speaker 2: and union members constructing that pipeline. You don't cut off
Speaker 2: selling or drilling for oil in an war the Alaska
Speaker 2: National Wildlife Refuge. You don't stop drilling on federal lands.
Speaker 2: You don't start You don't stop selling leases, which is
Speaker 2: by law which you're supposed to do, and you don't
Speaker 2: stop drilling in the golf. Now, since that time, yes,
Speaker 2: we are drilling more oil, and we are a pumping
Speaker 2: record amount of oil, but we're also importing a lot
Speaker 2: more oil to the point where we are not technically
Speaker 2: energy independent. We were energy independent in twenty twenty for
Speaker 2: the first time since nineteen forty nine under the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: the first time since nineteen forty nine. A barrel of
Speaker 2: oil at that time was at fifty dollars a barrel
Speaker 2: or lower, and today, as of Friday, what that business closed,
Speaker 2: then oil was selling for around seventy dollars West Texas Intermediate,
Speaker 2: which is one of the gauges, and Brent we're selling
Speaker 2: at seventy dollars and seventy seventy four dollars, respectively. When
Speaker 2: you have a twenty five percent increase like that, when
Speaker 2: you have the raw materials that go into these refineries
Speaker 2: and then they pump out the gasoline. Although national average
Speaker 2: for gasoline as of Monday was three dollars and twenty cents,
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty, gasoline was at two dollars and
Speaker 2: twenty four cents, so that is forty percent higher. So
Speaker 2: if you want to know where inflation starts, it starts
Speaker 2: with energy. Because energy goes across all sectors. We use
Speaker 2: energy here at the station, the electric for the lights,
Speaker 2: the power for everything around, and so if our energy
Speaker 2: prices are up, it's going to cost more. We'll pick
Speaker 2: this up. We'll talk about some other things at the
Speaker 2: top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, seven hundred seven
Speaker 2: fifty five KRC, the talk station.
Speaker 1: Your campaign pitstock on the road to November.
Speaker 6: It's a circus.
Speaker 1: There's always something new happening in fifty five krs the
Speaker 1: talk station.
Speaker 8: Are you receiving letters from I'm.
Speaker 2: Right five minutes after six o'clock. Hope your Monday morning
Speaker 2: is going as well as mine? No, trap well, actually
Speaker 2: right now, there's no traffic accident. So according to Chuck
Speaker 2: Ingram's see if we can keep it that way, See
Speaker 2: if we can go accident free all morning. What do
Speaker 2: you think is that a goal for the day. Beautiful
Speaker 2: weather out there, nice, crisp and cool, forty five degrees
Speaker 2: not too cold, not too hot, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: So looking forward to that, and of course behind the microphone,
Speaker 2: it doesn't get any better for me if you went
Speaker 2: to my Facebook page. As you know, generally, not generally,
Speaker 2: every time I come in and I fill in, I
Speaker 2: always post on the Internet or post on my Facebook
Speaker 2: page who we have as guests, and today is no
Speaker 2: different from that. Coming up in six started, we're going
Speaker 2: to be talking to Phil Flynn. Here's a senior market
Speaker 2: analyst prices for the Price Futures Group, author of the
Speaker 2: Energy Report and contributed to Fox News Network. We will
Speaker 2: be discussing a wide range of political and energy issues.
Speaker 2: Coming up at seven twenty, we'll be talking to Christopher
Speaker 2: Smitherman in the smither Event. Eight to five, we'll be
Speaker 2: talking Attorney Steve Don't and Kentucky. He's also a Kentucky
Speaker 2: state representative. We'll discuss Kentucky Constitutional Amendment too. Now you
Speaker 2: may recall on Thursday Brian talked to Jim Waters from
Speaker 2: the Bluegrass Institute about that and a lot of good
Speaker 2: topics were brought up in a lot of good information,
Speaker 2: But in talking to a lot of people that I know,
Speaker 2: people that I thought or was a shoe in in
Speaker 2: terms of voting for this, have given me some information
Speaker 2: or objections to this that I really didn't expect. And
Speaker 2: quite honestly, I think a little bit of misinterpretation of
Speaker 2: what this all is going to do or what is
Speaker 2: going to happen as a result of this constitutional amendment.
Speaker 2: So we'll try to clear up some of that as well.
Speaker 2: And then at eight forty we're going to be talking
Speaker 2: to the Cincinnati VA. So all that coming up for
Speaker 2: your listening pleasure now when we're talking about inflation and
Speaker 2: we're talking about the stakes of this election and so on.
Speaker 2: I've mentioned in the past that energy goes across all
Speaker 2: sectors of the economy. I don't care if you work
Speaker 2: in a factory, if you drive a truck, are a
Speaker 2: salesman out on the road and driving from customer to customer,
Speaker 2: you're an attorney, whatever you are. Energy goes across every
Speaker 2: segment of our economy. It affects your house, It affects
Speaker 2: everything that you do. And if your energy prices are up,
Speaker 2: you just look at your gas and electric bill on
Speaker 2: what that's done. If you're like me and you try
Speaker 2: to kind of pay attention to what is going on
Speaker 2: from what you spent one month to another, or just
Speaker 2: go back on your bank statements if you can, and
Speaker 2: look at what you were paying Duke Energy or whomever
Speaker 2: going back in twenty twenty versus what you're paying today.
Speaker 2: Look at your sanitation bill, look at your water bill,
Speaker 2: look at all this stuff. You see what the prices
Speaker 2: are in the grocery store, and you know that there's
Speaker 2: inflation in the when you are paying forty right now, okay,
Speaker 2: right now, we are paying about something like ninety six
Speaker 2: cents more for a gallon of gasoline than we were
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty. That's a forty two percent increase
Speaker 2: now that compared to even a year ago, we were
Speaker 2: paying three sixty. So gas has come down forty forty
Speaker 2: cents a gallon, and it's still ninety six cents higher
Speaker 2: than what it was in twenty twenty, when, by the way,
Speaker 2: we were energy independent for the first time since nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nine under the Trump administration. Diesel prices a year
Speaker 2: ago were four forty six. Yeah, they're now down to
Speaker 2: three sixty a gallon, but they are still fifty two
Speaker 2: percent higher than what they were back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: And let's not forget back in June of June. As
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, June the fourteenth of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: regular unleaded gas hit a record high of national average
Speaker 2: of five dollars and two cents a gallon. Diesel hit
Speaker 2: a record on June the sixteenth of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: of five dollars and eighty two cents a gallon. And
Speaker 2: when you start pulling those numbers, and every day, every
Speaker 2: time you fill up your gas your car or your truck,
Speaker 2: and you're using diesel or using gas, ninety six cents
Speaker 2: more per gallon on your car. Now, if you're like me,
Speaker 2: if you have a car that can go, it has
Speaker 2: eighteen gallons whatever you fill up. For every gallon that
Speaker 2: you're putting in that, if it's ten dollars, you're spending
Speaker 2: nine dollars and sixty more cents than you did four
Speaker 2: years ago. And when you go into the grocery store.
Speaker 2: And like I said, as a recovering accountant, I pay
Speaker 2: attention to things. And one of the things I've done
Speaker 2: over the years, when my wife and I first got
Speaker 2: together and we started doing Thanksgiving at our home, I
Speaker 2: started looking at, okay, all the stuff that we were doing,
Speaker 2: as far as what we were buying and so on,
Speaker 2: and I kept the receipts and I said, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: the price of the turkey, the price of the cranberries,
Speaker 2: the price of the sugar, all on down the road.
Speaker 2: The jello, all the stuff for the stuffing, and it
Speaker 2: is stuffing. It's not dressing, because we definitely put it
Speaker 2: in the bird. It tastes better, trust me. So I
Speaker 2: look at the spices, the ingredients and all the other stuff,
Speaker 2: and so I started doing a list in terms of
Speaker 2: what we went into that meal, and then I'd write
Speaker 2: down what the prices of that were that year. And
Speaker 2: when you do that over the year and see how
Speaker 2: things have increased, it is phenomenal in terms of when
Speaker 2: you look at just the difference in the last four
Speaker 2: years what those prices have been. Now. Granted, around Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: those prices come down. A lot of stuff goes on sale,
Speaker 2: and if you hit things at the right price, you
Speaker 2: can save a lot of money. But if you need
Speaker 2: that particular item right now, right here, right now, and
Speaker 2: that's not available or you can't wait for it, you
Speaker 2: have to have it. And if that item is not
Speaker 2: on sale, you're going to pay significantly more for that
Speaker 2: than you did before. In the past. I would pride
Speaker 2: ourselves on just the two of us basically compared to
Speaker 2: how I eat and what I eat. We are basically
Speaker 2: about a family of three and a half. Because I
Speaker 2: have a big appetite and I eat a lot. So
Speaker 2: when you consider where we are and what we spend
Speaker 2: money on as far as our groceries are concerned, I
Speaker 2: always wanted to try to keep it to where we
Speaker 2: are saving about one hundred dollars a month in terms
Speaker 2: of our groceries and during the year I look at that.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously in the month of September, you want
Speaker 2: to be able to save about nine hundred dollars or thereabouts.
Speaker 2: The way we have been shopping and the way that
Speaker 2: we make sure that we buy our groceries when things
Speaker 2: are on sale. So far this year, I'm proud to
Speaker 2: say that we have saved over sixteen hundred dollars in
Speaker 2: groceries simply by hitting things when they're on sale now.
Speaker 2: In the past, if you know what we're seeing in
Speaker 2: the marketplace now, if somebody is used to buying hinds
Speaker 2: and that prices are, you know, for Ketchup or French
Speaker 2: As or whatever name brand you are are looking for.
Speaker 2: If those prices are fairly high, sometimes you go to
Speaker 2: a lesser brand, or you go to the store brand.
Speaker 2: And in past, just to kind of compare and whatever
Speaker 2: I have purchased store brand stuff which quite honestly in
Speaker 2: some instances is actually has less crappy ingredients in it,
Speaker 2: artificial colors and that type of thing, or food dyes
Speaker 2: and so on. So sometimes the store brands, if you
Speaker 2: look at the label, are actually better than the main
Speaker 2: products sold and the taste is darned near good or
Speaker 2: even better. In fact, we prefer Kroger brand peanut butter
Speaker 2: just as an example to any of the other ones
Speaker 2: out there. And so, but you can cut that way.
Speaker 2: But even if you're buying the name brand items and
Speaker 2: you wait till they go on sale and you buy
Speaker 2: those we, like I said, we've managed to save almost
Speaker 2: well over sixteen hundred dollars just and we're not even
Speaker 2: through the end of October. So you can do these things,
Speaker 2: and you have to scale back. You see where people
Speaker 2: are trying to pinch pennies and they're doing certain things
Speaker 2: that may be downgrading where they're going to dinner at
Speaker 2: night or and used to be that you could, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're on a budget or you're trying to you know,
Speaker 2: you know, if you go out to eat a number
Speaker 2: of times during the week and instead of maybe going
Speaker 2: to an Applebee's or a Longhorn Steakhouse or something along
Speaker 2: those line, or Charlie's or something, and you say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we'll kind of scale back and maybe go
Speaker 2: to a Fish's or if we you know, if we're
Speaker 2: going to fishes a lot of times, maybe we'll kind
Speaker 2: of augment that and go to maybe McDonald's or something
Speaker 2: once during the week or something along those lines. But
Speaker 2: even that has become extremely expensive. You can't get out
Speaker 2: of their cheap anymore either, and so it's been a
Speaker 2: struggle and you look at where you're you know, the
Speaker 2: old saying that my paycheck is is shorter than the month,
Speaker 2: which means that you know, obviously there's more bills and
Speaker 2: more things to pay for by the end of the
Speaker 2: month because your dollar's not stretching as much. And so
Speaker 2: when you look at the economic numbers and you look
Speaker 2: at the way this economy is going and the fact
Speaker 2: that it was changed, it was changed by this administration
Speaker 2: because of their energy policy. And then when you take
Speaker 2: into consideration some of the other things that they've been
Speaker 2: trying to push as far as ev mandates and some
Speaker 2: of these other government regulations that when you have government regulations,
Speaker 2: those boost up the cost of certain items because companies
Speaker 2: have to comply with that. It is time for a change,
Speaker 2: and yes, we need to turn the page. We need
Speaker 2: to turn the page back to an administration that knows
Speaker 2: what the hell they're doing. Phone numbers seven five, one, three,
Speaker 2: seven four nine, fifty, five hundred one, eight hundred eight
Speaker 2: two three talk one eight hundred eight two three eight
Speaker 2: two five five pound five point fifty AT and T
Speaker 2: wireless phone. Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five
Speaker 2: KRC the talk station only six twenty one in the morning.
Speaker 2: Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five K see
Speaker 2: the talk stations. Phone numbers five one, three, seven four, nine, fifty,
Speaker 2: five hundred one, eight hundred eighty two three talk one
Speaker 2: eight hundred eight two three eight two five five pound
Speaker 2: five point fifty on that AT and T wireless phone.
Speaker 2: I've been telling you a lot about, you know, inflation
Speaker 2: and stuff and what I've been experiencing and talking to
Speaker 2: vendors at these various UH Fall festivals that we've been
Speaker 2: going to. And remember, this is the administration that kept
Speaker 2: telling us that inflation was transitory, which meant that it
Speaker 2: was just a blip on the screen. And that it
Speaker 2: was going to come down, which it didn't. And we
Speaker 2: see that on an ongoing basis, we had the Federal Reserve,
Speaker 2: which had been talking about that, oh well, we're going
Speaker 2: to raise interest rates, and they raised interest rates eleven
Speaker 2: times from what was it, March of twenty two until
Speaker 2: July of twenty twenty three, eleven times. Now, when you
Speaker 2: raise interest rates or lower interest rates, I always thought
Speaker 2: that it would take oh maybe four or five six
Speaker 2: months before it would wind its way through the economy
Speaker 2: and that you'd really see the effect of that. But
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years, as this has happened,
Speaker 2: I've been reading a lot more about that, and a
Speaker 2: lot of economists will tell you that it takes up
Speaker 2: to two years for an interest rate increase or an
Speaker 2: interest rate cut to find its way through the economy.
Speaker 2: And so when we are seeing the bankruptcies that we've
Speaker 2: been seeing this year in twenty twenty four, when we
Speaker 2: start seeing you know, when you see these strikes and
Speaker 2: you see companies laying people off, and you see the
Speaker 2: unemployment rate kind of creeping up a little bit here
Speaker 2: and there, and when you see, well, go back to
Speaker 2: the individual bankruptcies, the number of companies, the number of
Speaker 2: people that are underwater, and so on. This is two
Speaker 2: years now after the first interest rate increase, and we
Speaker 2: still have several more over that period of time, from
Speaker 2: March of twenty two, twenty two until July of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three when those were stopped, and all during this
Speaker 2: period of time, we've heard the FED tell us that, well,
Speaker 2: we're battling inflation. We've got to get inflation down. Inflation
Speaker 2: until inflation gets down to two percent, we're not going
Speaker 2: to be comfortable with that. And so when you had
Speaker 2: inflation up to nine point one percent in June of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two and then it came down to six
Speaker 2: percent four percent, they kept calling, you know, doing victory
Speaker 2: laps and saying, oh, you know, our economy is working
Speaker 2: and so on. And then at the first of the year.
Speaker 2: I remember back in December they were talking about at
Speaker 2: their last FED meeting that we could possibly do four
Speaker 2: rate cuts during the year, and I said at the time,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think
Speaker 2: if you'd listen to what the Fed has to say.
Speaker 2: The fact that they want interest rates, they want inflation
Speaker 2: down around two percent and they need a cup of
Speaker 2: steady and definitive sustained growth down heading down to that
Speaker 2: two percent range, and it wasn't happening. They needed a
Speaker 2: couple of months worth of data. Well in December, you're
Speaker 2: not gonna if you're a couple of months worth of
Speaker 2: data ain't gonna get you to March. When everybody was saying, oh,
Speaker 2: interest rates are going to be cut in March, I
Speaker 2: said in March, before March, it ain't gonna happen in March.
Speaker 2: And I said it ain't going to happen in June,
Speaker 2: and in fact, by August, I was saying, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to happen at all this year. And
Speaker 2: then lo and behold, we get this number from the
Speaker 2: Labor Department, where we knew this number. I talked about
Speaker 2: this several times, where they had overinflated the jobs numbers
Speaker 2: from last year to the tune of about eight hundred
Speaker 2: thousand jobs. And then they finally released the report in August,
Speaker 2: and the crap hit the fan. The market took a downturn,
Speaker 2: and they were saying, oh, the Federal Reserve needs to
Speaker 2: have an emergency meeting and cut interest rates immediately, because oh,
Speaker 2: the economy's going and a hell in a handbasket. And
Speaker 2: then after about oh five six days the dust settled
Speaker 2: on that. But when the Federal Reserve went in September
Speaker 2: and met, there was no reason based on their criteria
Speaker 2: of lower lower inflation rate down to two percent, it's
Speaker 2: still up around two point four. Then they shifted and
Speaker 2: said we want a strong Our two missions is lower
Speaker 2: interest or lower inflation rate, but also a strong job market.
Speaker 2: And they were talking about the strong job market, that
Speaker 2: the market had seen a little bit of softening, and
Speaker 2: when they made that cut of a half a percentage point,
Speaker 2: I said at the time, and I still believe this,
Speaker 2: this was political a month before, two months before an election,
Speaker 2: because nothing had changed from what had been the prior month,
Speaker 2: the month before that, the month before that. If they
Speaker 2: thought that the job market was soft back then, then
Speaker 2: they should have made that cut. But this close to
Speaker 2: an election was political, and it was nothing to do
Speaker 2: with finance. It was a It was just absolutely political.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that I've seen is that
Speaker 2: this interest rate cut hasn't quite done what they expected
Speaker 2: it to do. Coming up to the bottom of the hour,
Speaker 2: we were talking to Phil Flynn, He is a senior
Speaker 2: account executive and author of the Energy Report with Price
Speaker 2: Futures Group. I'm Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas fifty
Speaker 2: five krs the Talk station. I have a hard time recognizing.
Speaker 2: I want to welcome back to the program. Phil Flynn.
Speaker 2: He is a senior market analyst with Price Futures Group,
Speaker 2: author of the Energy Report, and contributed to Fox Business Network.
Speaker 2: He is one of the world's leading energy market analysts
Speaker 2: and a guy with a tremendous amount of common sense
Speaker 2: in terms of what the heck is going on in
Speaker 2: the Middle East and in our political climate right now. Phil,
Speaker 2: welcome back to the program.
Speaker 5: Good morning, Kevin. It's great to be back on with
Speaker 5: you again. You know, but I don't know it's so
Speaker 5: great for your gasoline price, says I'm afraid they're creeping
Speaker 5: up as we speak.
Speaker 2: Yes they are, Yes they are. Well. Of course, the
Speaker 2: oil prices have been fluctuating tremendously depending upon what week
Speaker 2: it is or what day it is, with what's going
Speaker 2: on in the Middle East, whether or not there's going
Speaker 2: to be an oil flow problem, If the Red Sea
Speaker 2: there's going to be more shifts attacked and sunk and
Speaker 2: of course, whether they're going to Ran, is going to
Speaker 2: start attacking other oil fields in the region.
Speaker 5: Correct, That's absolutely correct.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 5: In fact, over the weekend, the odds that Israel will
Speaker 5: attack Iranian oil fields just went back up in a
Speaker 5: big way. You know, oil prices it pulled back last week,
Speaker 5: you know, because of reports that President Biden begged Israel,
Speaker 5: don't attack the oil fields, will send you some missile systems,
Speaker 5: will do this then and the other thing. But then
Speaker 5: a report over the weekend that the Unit Its States
Speaker 5: is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that basically
Speaker 5: talks about Israel's plans to attack Iran. So these plans
Speaker 5: have been leaked by someone, and that's terrible, and that
Speaker 5: means from Israel's point of view, they're going to have
Speaker 5: to go back to the drawing board to plan the
Speaker 5: attack all over again, because their plans have been out
Speaker 5: there and Iran knows what they are. So now, you know,
Speaker 5: I think, you know, the gloves are coming off, you know,
Speaker 5: especially after they attacked Prime Minister Benjamin nennan Yahoo's home
Speaker 5: over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's interesting because you know, I kind of
Speaker 2: wonder though, if you know because net Yahoo and Israel
Speaker 2: is not stupid. And they were being told by the
Speaker 2: Biden administration number one not to go into Ramala, which
Speaker 2: was obviously they didn't follow that advice and it paid
Speaker 2: off for them. But I wonder if when Biden administration
Speaker 2: was saying don't attack the oil fields, and we got
Speaker 2: those reports last week that Israel was not going to
Speaker 2: attack the oil fields or the nuclear structure or their
Speaker 2: infrastructure that and then whatever battle plans they had, I
Speaker 2: wonder if they gave them the right battle plans just
Speaker 2: to test them to see if they were going to
Speaker 2: be leaked.
Speaker 5: That would be double secret spy stuff. I mean, that
Speaker 5: would be very interesting.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't surprise me because true, you know.
Speaker 5: I would hope so, because I mean, this is a
Speaker 5: big embarrassment to the United States. Yeah, right, if this
Speaker 5: was leaked from the Biden administration, I mean, it's almost
Speaker 5: treating us, right, I mean the way yeah, and if
Speaker 5: you look at the way that you know, Israel has
Speaker 5: executed this war professionally intelligently, you know, the way that
Speaker 5: they've handled Hamas and hansme Law. You know, it's really
Speaker 5: been almost like reading a novel about a way to
Speaker 5: carry out a war. And on the flip side, if
Speaker 5: we have the United States leaking the battle plans of
Speaker 5: our allies to its enemies, I mean, that's a sad
Speaker 5: day for American history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a sad day because again, when you
Speaker 2: look at just what is going on over there, the
Speaker 2: fact that the well, when we start seeing these casualty
Speaker 2: numbers and they start talking about well, according to Hamas
Speaker 2: and according to the Palestinian authority in the Gaza, that
Speaker 2: there's been forty six thousand civilians killed, which is interesting
Speaker 2: because we don't know that's true. We don't know if
Speaker 2: those numbers have been verified. We don't know, there's no
Speaker 2: independent source for that, and that could just be a
Speaker 2: lot of an awful lot of propaganda.
Speaker 5: It could be you know, and listen, I know Israel,
Speaker 5: you know, does not want to kill civilian populations. The
Speaker 5: problem is is that when you get into Gaza, the
Speaker 5: leadership wants to use the civilian population as human shields, right,
Speaker 5: because they're cowards. Right, That's what cowards do, right, you know,
Speaker 5: put your you know, your old people and your children
Speaker 5: to protect you. You know. So you know, it's hard
Speaker 5: to know what is true, you know, But I mean,
Speaker 5: when you look at the situation here, you know, as
Speaker 5: Benjamin Nettiyahu said yesterday, all you have to do is
Speaker 5: lay down your arms, release the hostages, and this war
Speaker 5: could be over tomorrow. But you know, the leadership of
Speaker 5: hamas you know, refuses to do that well.
Speaker 2: And we've seen in the past every time that there's
Speaker 2: been something put on the table, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the Palestinians say no. And whether or not whatever is
Speaker 2: put in front of them, no matter how good it
Speaker 2: is for them and good for the region, they turn
Speaker 2: it down. So we know where that's going taking up.
Speaker 2: I'm going taking a different tact here going into this election.
Speaker 2: You have been very upfront talking about how this administration
Speaker 2: has absolutely raped and depleted that Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and
Speaker 2: I don't think people understand just exactly how dangerous that
Speaker 2: is given what's going on in the Middle East. If
Speaker 2: we do experience any type of disruption in terms of
Speaker 2: oil flow and whatever, can you kind of shed some
Speaker 2: light on that for us?
Speaker 5: Sure, you know, when you look at what's happened, Kevin,
Speaker 5: and you've been We've been talking about this for a
Speaker 5: long time. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is like a you know,
Speaker 5: a fire alarm, Right, you're supposed to tap it in
Speaker 5: case of emergency.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: President Biden decided to tap this strategic petroleum reserve to
Speaker 5: influence the outcome of an election. He did it to
Speaker 5: try to send Saudi Arabia message. And you know, while
Speaker 5: he says, oh, we had to tap the reserve because
Speaker 5: of the war in Ukraine, the truth is he tapped
Speaker 5: it ahead of time. So President Biden, who has been
Speaker 5: the most anti fossil fuel president in the history of
Speaker 5: the country, try to cover up for his bad policies.
Speaker 5: It caused prices to go higher by trying to tap
Speaker 5: the reserve to keep prices lower, so that would mask
Speaker 5: the fact that his policies are going to create longer
Speaker 5: term shortages in the United States. And in the plan,
Speaker 5: you know, you and I Kevin know, they want to
Speaker 5: force everybody off of, you know, the internal combustion engine,
Speaker 5: and they want to take away or stole because they
Speaker 5: don't want a natural gas to you know, and this
Speaker 5: is radical thing in this energy transition, and it's all
Speaker 5: smoke and mirrors because everything that they're doing has not
Speaker 5: done anything to add to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact,
Speaker 5: if you look at to build an electric car takes
Speaker 5: three times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and it
Speaker 5: does to produce another car. We're using more coal in
Speaker 5: this country than ever before and around the world, you know,
Speaker 5: So this is really just more about trying to control
Speaker 5: people than it is about saving the environment exactly.
Speaker 2: It's more like climbingism as we've talked about in the past.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what can we can we keep you
Speaker 2: for another segment if you got time, you bet, because
Speaker 2: I want to. I want to. I want to delve
Speaker 2: into more of this green news steel and what that
Speaker 2: is trying to cause and what they are trying to
Speaker 2: force down our throats. Because you bring up a very
Speaker 2: good point, because it's not as we've talked about before.
Speaker 2: It's not about saving the planet. It's about control. And
Speaker 2: so we'll pick this up. My guest is Phil Flynn,
Speaker 2: Price Futures Group, author of the Energy Report. You gotta
Speaker 2: go online. You got to read this every day because
Speaker 2: there is such insights in there. It's fantastic. Coming up,
Speaker 2: we'll keep our conversation with Phil Flynn. Continuing our conversation
Speaker 2: with Phil Flynn fifty five care see the talk station
Speaker 2: My guest again is Phil Flynn. He is as an
Speaker 2: account executive, author of the Energy Report, and a frequent
Speaker 2: contributor to Fox Business News. Is one of the world's
Speaker 2: leading energy market analysts and just an all around great
Speaker 2: guy and a tremendous amount of common sense. Phil, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for hanging with us through the break.
Speaker 2: Certainly appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, now my head's getting too big.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the truth is the truth, my friend.
Speaker 2: We we were talking about the Green News, steel and
Speaker 2: everything that's going on, and you brought up a very
Speaker 2: great point about the fact that how much energy we
Speaker 2: are consuming, how much more electricity, and how we're using
Speaker 2: more coal. Well, what people don't realize, and you've pointed
Speaker 2: this out in your Energy reports several times that number one,
Speaker 2: the green energy electric cars, solar and wind are not
Speaker 2: ready for prime time. And with the amount of money
Speaker 2: or the amount of energy that's being soaked up by
Speaker 2: this artificial intelligence and these information collection areas is just
Speaker 2: a major consumption of energy.
Speaker 5: It is, and people have to realize. You know, the
Speaker 5: economy is continuing to evolve, and what we're seeing is
Speaker 5: that the future is in these data centers and artificial intelligence,
Speaker 5: and in the country that controls the ability to power
Speaker 5: you know power, the power, power of the electric carried,
Speaker 5: you know, empower. The economy of the future is going
Speaker 5: to be the economy that creates jobs in the future
Speaker 5: for your children and your grandchildren. And we've taken a
Speaker 5: huge step back under the Biden administration, you know, by
Speaker 5: spending billions of dollars on trying to build car chargers,
Speaker 5: for example, for cars that nobody wants to buy. And
Speaker 5: by the way, I think they've built three of them.
Speaker 5: So with all those billions, you know, and trying to
Speaker 5: pick winners and losers, you know, based on your green aspirations,
Speaker 5: it's like, okay, you're a green energy company, We're going
Speaker 5: to give you billions of dollars, you know, to to
Speaker 5: to take a gamble. In the meantime, the rest of
Speaker 5: the world's getting prepared for what's coming here, you know.
Speaker 5: I thought it was interesting that companies like Google and Amazon,
Speaker 5: you know, they're already moving towards nuclear little nuclear power
Speaker 5: stations to try to power you know, their economy because
Speaker 5: they see what's coming.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: The problem is here in the United States, we don't,
Speaker 5: so we really have to change, you know, course right away,
Speaker 5: otherwise our economy is going to fall, you know, back
Speaker 5: to second place around other companies that get.
Speaker 2: It, and so Flynn that is, that is one of
Speaker 2: the technologies that I think is so cool, these many
Speaker 2: little nuclear reactors that can be used for electrical generation
Speaker 2: as opposed to these big you know, what we're used
Speaker 2: to seeing is in terms of like you know, three
Speaker 2: Mile Island and the nuclear facilities and stuff. But these
Speaker 2: nuclear little reactors seem to be that and I think,
Speaker 2: what is it hydrogen power or something like that for
Speaker 2: cars and stuff. Seems to be areas that are being overlooked,
Speaker 2: which tells me that somebody, some lobbyists and whatever are
Speaker 2: pushing this green news steel and making a boatload of
Speaker 2: money at that and not trying to solve a problem.
Speaker 5: That's exactly correct, right, if they wanted to solve the problem,
Speaker 5: you know, the Paris Climate Core twenty years ago would
Speaker 5: have been talking about uh building nuclear power plants all
Speaker 5: over the globe because, as you know, Kevin, uh, nuclear
Speaker 5: power is the only non greenhouse gas emitting way to
Speaker 5: provide power. You know, you say, well what about wind
Speaker 5: and solar, Well, it takes a lot of energy to uh,
Speaker 5: you know build those wind turbines, and it takes a
Speaker 5: lot of energy right to to build you know, these
Speaker 5: solar panels and a lot of you know electric you know,
Speaker 5: rare earth minerals that you have to mind for and
Speaker 5: things like that. The key and the key number and
Speaker 5: key problem because when they're done, you got to throw
Speaker 5: them away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the key phraser is rare earth minerals, right,
Speaker 2: I don't you don't hear rare oil or rare fossil fuel.
Speaker 2: You know, they keep you pointed this out in your
Speaker 2: energy reports several times that what how many times are
Speaker 2: we what since uh what nineteen forty or something like
Speaker 2: that we have hit peak or we're supposed to hit
Speaker 2: peak energy? How many times since there? Which means that
Speaker 2: you've used the most oil that you're going to be
Speaker 2: using at that point and that from that point on
Speaker 2: it it drops off. How many times we hit supposedly
Speaker 2: going to hit peak oil?
Speaker 5: You know, many many times over the last couple of years,
Speaker 5: and they keep pushing the date out further and further
Speaker 5: and further. You know, in fact, you know, we're seeing
Speaker 5: a big retreat you know from you know, car companies
Speaker 5: that we're going to go all electric like Volkswagen. You know,
Speaker 5: we're seeing a big pushback from other governments saying, you
Speaker 5: know what, you know, there's no way we can meet
Speaker 5: these targets, you know, with renewable energy. So you know,
Speaker 5: on paper it's it might sound good, but people think
Speaker 5: these things out, really have to know, so you have
Speaker 5: to wonder, you know, the question becomes, you know, are
Speaker 5: the you know, are these global elites that are pushing
Speaker 5: this agenda. Are they just not smart and they don't
Speaker 5: think these things out? Or is there something more sinister
Speaker 5: behind it? And that's a question I'll leave up to
Speaker 5: the listeners.
Speaker 2: Right right, Well, you know my opinion on that is,
Speaker 2: you know you talked about before, it's all about control.
Speaker 2: You know, where you work, how you work, where you work,
Speaker 2: where you live, how you live, how you eat your home,
Speaker 2: what you eat, when you eat, how you cook your food,
Speaker 2: and so on. And as I mentioned before, that has
Speaker 2: more to do with communism than it does environmentalism. And
Speaker 2: of course I mashed the two together, as we've talked
Speaker 2: about before, I just call it climmunism. And you brought
Speaker 2: up a great point about how in terms of this
Speaker 2: this energy cycle and where this is going when you
Speaker 2: look at what you brought up, the Paris Accord, Okay,
Speaker 2: And I had to laugh my butt off during the
Speaker 2: Olympics that here you have the Paris Accords and the
Speaker 2: par you know, you know, oh, you know everything, Paris, Paris, Paris.
Speaker 2: And then we come to find out that for the
Speaker 2: last hundred years you're not allowed to swim in the
Speaker 2: same river. And they had to go through all billions
Speaker 2: of dollars to try to clean that up, and they
Speaker 2: still didn't do it. And a number of our athletes
Speaker 2: or a number of the athletes around the world got
Speaker 2: sick swimming in that. And here you have the Paris
Speaker 2: of course, and they can't even clean up their own mess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but they're going to change the climate for ye't
Speaker 5: worry about that. Rivers are one thing, But changing the
Speaker 5: climate of the Earth that has been changing for billions
Speaker 5: of years. I mean, they could do that. It's just
Speaker 5: those rivers are really tough.
Speaker 2: I'm just so silly fell that I apologize. I can't
Speaker 2: help myself, but you know, and then what we're seeing
Speaker 2: is that everything we're doing here in the United States
Speaker 2: to cut back on carbon emissions and whatever is more
Speaker 2: than offset what's going on in China and India and
Speaker 2: these other so called developing countries. I mean, how do
Speaker 2: you have China that's a super power with a nuke
Speaker 2: still being a developing country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's just ludicrous. In the whole premise
Speaker 5: of what they're trying to accomplish is ludicrous. And even
Speaker 5: if you look at their own data, you know, the
Speaker 5: amount they're supposedly going to try to change the temperature
Speaker 5: by is minuscule. Okay, so you know it's not based
Speaker 5: in reality. It's based in help and there's better ways
Speaker 5: to do it, you know. I'll tell you this. The
Speaker 5: United States has become the cleanest energy producer in the world,
Speaker 5: and it has been in a large part by the
Speaker 5: private enterprise. It hasn't been the government, you know, putting
Speaker 5: a gun to their head picking winners and losers.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, Phil. I can't thank you enough for spending time
Speaker 2: with us. And it's like I said, I recommend highly
Speaker 2: people check out your energy report on a how people
Speaker 2: get in touch with you or how do people check
Speaker 2: in on your energy report?
Speaker 5: It's really easy. You can call me at eight eight
Speaker 5: eight two six four five six sixty five, or you
Speaker 5: can just email me at p Flynn at pricegroup dot com.
Speaker 2: Phil, thank you so much for being with us. I
Speaker 2: certainly appreciate it. You have a great day, you too,
Speaker 2: have a great take O give them. Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 2: Coming up on six minutes after seven o'clock. I hope
Speaker 2: your morning is going as well as mine. I'm behind
Speaker 2: the microphone. It doesn't get any better than that for me. Plus,
Speaker 2: we've got a lot of stuff to talk about. And
Speaker 2: of course, if you have looked at my Facebook page,
Speaker 2: because I always put on Facebook, what guests I have
Speaker 2: Coming up seven twenty and a few minutes, we're going
Speaker 2: to be talking to Christopher Smitherman, the smither vent And
Speaker 2: then eight o'clock or eight oh five, we're going to
Speaker 2: be talking to an attorney in state Kentucky State Representative
Speaker 2: Steve Don Steven Don't when we talking about the Kentucky
Speaker 2: Constitutional Amendment number two. And again I know Brian had
Speaker 2: Jim Waters from Bluegrass Institute on Thursday and a lot
Speaker 2: of great information in that. If you haven't heard that,
Speaker 2: you might want to check that podcast out. But there
Speaker 2: were some unanswered questions, or at least some of the
Speaker 2: people that I've talked to. They've raised some concerns about this,
Speaker 2: which I was surprised that they brought up. But we'll
Speaker 2: try to cover some of those in an eight forty
Speaker 2: were when we're talking with folks from the Cincinntia v A.
Speaker 2: I saw this story the other day. Usually when I
Speaker 2: go into a convenience store here locally, and once in
Speaker 2: a while, when the jackpot gets up there and you know,
Speaker 2: start my my dream weaving and type of thing as
Speaker 2: far as lottery winnings and so on, I'll go and
Speaker 2: buy a lottery ticket or something. When the jackpot gets
Speaker 2: up there pretty high. And this convenience store down the
Speaker 2: street from where we live, and right as you walk
Speaker 2: in the door, you got the Cincinni Inquirer there, And yeah,
Speaker 2: my goodness, I you know, I hadn't seen a you know,
Speaker 2: I've done the online version and been able to get
Speaker 2: that over the last few years and so on. But boy,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I never I did not. I mean,
Speaker 2: the last time I think I bought it since an Inquirer,
Speaker 2: it got up to like seventy five cents a copy
Speaker 2: three forty nine or thereabouts for the newspaper. Now are
Speaker 2: they insane. But anyway, there's generally a stack of newspapers
Speaker 2: earon when I walk in. I'll look over and glance
Speaker 2: at the headlines to see if there's anything going on,
Speaker 2: because I still I still enjoy reading a newspaper. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to pay that much for it, but I
Speaker 2: would much prefer to have and get my fingers dirty,
Speaker 2: because if you're going through a newspaper, there are so
Speaker 2: many other stories. As a matter of fact, I used
Speaker 2: to start off with the Inquirer or the Post when
Speaker 2: it was around, and sometimes start from the back and
Speaker 2: work my way forward because sometimes some of the key
Speaker 2: stories are buried on you know, the the page fifteen
Speaker 2: or something like that, where it's more impactful than what
Speaker 2: they're throwing on the front page. But anyway, I looked
Speaker 2: over at the headlines and they were talking about lawsuit
Speaker 2: demands more study at brent spnz Bridge, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: dear God, I mean, anybody is listening to this program
Speaker 2: and know what I'm on. In the past, I've talked
Speaker 2: a lot about being part of the group. Back in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve when they were talking about that this no
Speaker 2: I'm sorry it was it twenty thirteen. I think it
Speaker 2: was twenty thirty. Anyway, it was one of the legislative sessions,
Speaker 2: which was their short session because they do the anyway
Speaker 2: in the state of Kentucky. They were pushing this public
Speaker 2: private partnership and the Chamber of Commerce and all these
Speaker 2: people were saying, this has got to be done now,
Speaker 2: We've got to do this here, the Brnce Benz Bridge.
Speaker 2: It can't wait another day. It is so important that
Speaker 2: we build this bridge, and we got to do it
Speaker 2: right here, right now. You know, it's too expense, you know,
Speaker 2: we got to do it. It's an emergency. And so on. Well,
Speaker 2: as soon as they started talking about tolling and a
Speaker 2: group of us got together, we were not going, you know,
Speaker 2: tolls or taxes in our opinion, and as you know,
Speaker 2: I was part of the group that we got that stopped.
Speaker 2: Well with this infrastructure bill, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: money that was put aside and grant was passed or
Speaker 2: was applied for and honored, and that the brent S
Speaker 2: Benz Bridge or the companion to the brent S Benz
Speaker 2: Bridge was going to be built, maybe a little downsized
Speaker 2: from what it was done. As a result of our
Speaker 2: efforts with this group anyway. I won't go into the
Speaker 2: whole history of that, but we were told that, you know,
Speaker 2: it had to be done right here, right now. And
Speaker 2: when that infrastructure bill was passed, they said that the
Speaker 2: that the construction phase could start by that November. That
Speaker 2: November came and went. Last November came and went, and
Speaker 2: we are going into another November that is going to
Speaker 2: come and go and not a shovel turn because the
Speaker 2: City of Cincinnati, just like they did years ago, can't
Speaker 2: figure out where the footprint's going to be over there,
Speaker 2: where they're going to do their entrance ramp. Can they
Speaker 2: reconfigure this so we developed we've got more vacant space
Speaker 2: over there for development so that they can build more
Speaker 2: buildings and gouge and get more property taxes and so on,
Speaker 2: and so that's being held up. And then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, these environmental groups and all these people are saying, well,
Speaker 2: we want to take a look at this, and we
Speaker 2: want to study this and whatever. Well, there was an
Speaker 2: environmental impact study done back in twenty twelve. And let
Speaker 2: me tell you, you know, the game, the fish, the
Speaker 2: air quality and all that sort of thing. I would
Speaker 2: be willing to guess that if the birds and the
Speaker 2: fish and the animals living down there could tolerate what
Speaker 2: was going on back in twenty twelve, they sure as
Speaker 2: hell can tolerate that. Now they're down there trying to
Speaker 2: find some exotic bird or insect that is an endangered
Speaker 2: species so that they can stop this project. But where
Speaker 2: are the people, Where is the chamber of commerce? Where
Speaker 2: is this intensity? Quite honestly, I thought that the Brent
Speaker 2: Spnce Bridge, if you again reconfigure some things. If one
Speaker 2: of the things, you know, the fact that that bridge
Speaker 2: is only congested at rush hour in the morning and
Speaker 2: the afternoon, if you do certain things in terms of
Speaker 2: maybe forcing trucks off of that and onto the outer belt,
Speaker 2: that would alleviate things. But according to their study, if
Speaker 2: you take trucks off, that's only one vehicle. And how
Speaker 2: stupid is that anybody that's ever been on the road
Speaker 2: when you are we see trucks in traffic, and you
Speaker 2: see the gap because they it takes them a while
Speaker 2: to start or to speed up, and a time to stop,
Speaker 2: and so there's generally four or five car links between
Speaker 2: them and the next the car. The length of the
Speaker 2: truck at itself is about four to five vehicles. And
Speaker 2: the estimates are that for every truck you take off
Speaker 2: a highway, it's the equivalent of taking anywhere from seven
Speaker 2: to ten cars off the freeway. So these studies where
Speaker 2: they say, well, you know, would only take you know,
Speaker 2: a thousand, one thousand vehicles off the Brent Spence Bridge
Speaker 2: every every day, Well, no, that's more like the equivalent
Speaker 2: of ten thousand vehicles off of that because of the
Speaker 2: size of the truck and the impact and how far
Speaker 2: the distance between the starting and stopping is. But of course,
Speaker 2: you know, don't let facts get in the way. But
Speaker 2: now all of a sudden, there's this group that are
Speaker 2: now suing to force another environmental impact. You know, is
Speaker 2: is this ever going to get built down there? Is
Speaker 2: there ever going to be this emergency that they were
Speaker 2: talking about. And the things that I learned as a
Speaker 2: result of digging into the numbers, digging into the traffic counts,
Speaker 2: how they came up with them and their forecast what
Speaker 2: you know, because when they first came out with their
Speaker 2: forecasters saying, you know, one hundred and seventy six thousand
Speaker 2: vehicles come across that bridge every day and by the
Speaker 2: year what twenty twenty five or whatever, there was going
Speaker 2: to be two hundred and thirty some thousand going across
Speaker 2: that bridge. Well we're still at about one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty six thousand vehicles going across that bridge on a
Speaker 2: daily basis. So the traffic counts that they came up
Speaker 2: with are false and didn't come true. But this business
Speaker 2: of a city of Cincinnati and this coalition is that
Speaker 2: the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for Transit and Sustainable Development, backed
Speaker 2: by the Davoo Good Project, Cincinnati Civic, Cincinnati Ride and
Speaker 2: coming to Queen City bike groups and all this sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. For crying out loud, either this project or
Speaker 2: is important for this area or not. Quite Honestly, I
Speaker 2: would have preferred for them to do. What we talked
Speaker 2: about back then was the since Eastern Bypass, which was
Speaker 2: another bypass out and around taking traffic off of the
Speaker 2: brin Spence Bridge. But amazing that you know, even you
Speaker 2: know I talked about this before that back in the day.
Speaker 2: If any of you are old enough to remember Jim Bunning,
Speaker 2: Jim Bunning was a professional baseball player, Hall of Famer
Speaker 2: and so on. He became a congressman and then became
Speaker 2: a Senator from the state of Kentucky when he was
Speaker 2: a congressman back in the early nineties or so before
Speaker 2: he went to the Senate, when they had ear marks.
Speaker 2: He got an ear mark for the construction of a
Speaker 2: new bridge down there next to the Brinspenz Bridge or
Speaker 2: a replacement for the Brn Spence Bridge. Cincinnati could not
Speaker 2: get their act together in terms of where the landfall
Speaker 2: of that where the footprint of that bridge was going
Speaker 2: to come over into Cincinnati because they were concerned about
Speaker 2: they had plans for the banks, so they had plans
Speaker 2: for Paul Brown Stadium or a stadium or riverfront stand.
Speaker 2: They couldn't figure out where that footprint was going to be,
Speaker 2: and those ear marks were going to be running out
Speaker 2: that bridge that we were supposed to get, and the
Speaker 2: money for this region was taken then down to Aberdeen
Speaker 2: and down to not Augusta, whatever the city is down
Speaker 2: there where they built a new bridge down there, And
Speaker 2: so what we were supposed to get here is now
Speaker 2: further down the road in Maysville, Kentucky, a brand new
Speaker 2: bridge there, a smaller version, but still the money that
Speaker 2: was earmarked for Cincinnati was bypassed. Then now we are
Speaker 2: three years or what two and a half years into
Speaker 2: this this infrastructure bill, and we still have not turned
Speaker 2: a shovel bird of a bit of dirt. Unbelievable, this
Speaker 2: thing that was so so important immediately had to build
Speaker 2: our new bridge now and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it's like delayed, delayed, delayed, del Phone numbers five one, three, seven,
Speaker 2: four nine, fifty eight hundred eight two three talk one
Speaker 2: eight hundred day two three eight two fivey five. Coming up,
Speaker 2: We've got Chris Smitherman, Christopher Smitherman with the uh smither Event.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five KR.
Speaker 2: See the talk station.
Speaker 6: What's the best place to reach new.
Speaker 2: Seven twenty one in the morning. Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas, fifty five KR. See the talk station. When
Speaker 2: I talked to our friend Christopher Smitherman, former Cincinnati Vice mayor. Hey,
Speaker 2: welcome to the program. Glad to talk to you again,
Speaker 2: my friend.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, my friend, Thanks for having me on
Speaker 3: this morning. I still appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Oh are you doing?
Speaker 2: It's my public behind the microphone. It doesn't get any
Speaker 2: better than this for me, you know, it's just I'm
Speaker 2: telling you, but yeah, so, yeah, everything's going fine with me.
Speaker 2: It can't complain a bit. How about you? Everything going well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything is going great. You know, I saw something
Speaker 3: and i'll you know, I'll talk about you know during
Speaker 3: my screen bent. Here this showmanship from President former president
Speaker 3: Donald Trump at the McDonald's. Now I talk about politics.
Speaker 3: I talk about politics like people talk about sports. And
Speaker 3: if people that's right, if people miss the fastball about
Speaker 3: what really happened, right, they'll not understand what he did.
Speaker 3: So on the surface, he was highlighting the fact that
Speaker 3: Vice President Kamala Harris had said, Hey, I worked out
Speaker 3: of McDonald's in my life, and I'm connected to the
Speaker 3: working people. McDonald's has not confirmed that she ever worked
Speaker 3: at a McDonald's. She hasn't been able to show any
Speaker 3: pictures or images that she worked at a McDonald's. And
Speaker 3: so what President former president Donald Trump has done here,
Speaker 3: he says, Listen, I'm gonna go I'm going to work
Speaker 3: the friars. I'm going to spend fifteen minutes more than
Speaker 3: she's here, and I'm going to force her to say
Speaker 3: whether she was telling the truth about that. Now, that's
Speaker 3: that's on the surface. But the other side of this
Speaker 3: is right, The millions and millions of employees right right
Speaker 3: that have been connected to that to what McDonald's in
Speaker 3: their lifetime, meaning you as a kid who worked at
Speaker 3: the McDonald's, or somebody who's still working at McDonald's like
Speaker 3: my son, my oldest son in Wisconsin, Milwaukee, he works
Speaker 3: for corporate McDonald's. My point is that there are lots
Speaker 3: of people that are connected to this brand and it's
Speaker 3: made them who they are. They're they're independents who owned locations.
Speaker 3: Corporate owns locations. They're one of the biggest land owners
Speaker 3: in the United States of America as far as owner.
Speaker 3: So he was touching on so many different points, the
Speaker 3: brand of McDonald's, whether the vice president had been telling
Speaker 3: the truth, the working class man or woman who might
Speaker 3: have to work two or three jobs at McDonald's is
Speaker 3: one of those jobs that they have to work on
Speaker 3: and she's saying I worked here, but she really didn't
Speaker 3: work there. I'm sharing with you. He hit on so
Speaker 3: many different points as a showman that if people just
Speaker 3: look at it, like oh man, he showed up and
Speaker 3: made some pride, they're really missing what happened yesterday.
Speaker 2: Oh they're missing the they're missing the total story there.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's been so many stories about Donald
Speaker 2: Trump what they call the blue collar billionaire, because he
Speaker 2: connects so well with people. I mean, even when he
Speaker 2: was being prosecuted in New York and every day he
Speaker 2: would go to a bodega, or he'd go out to
Speaker 2: a construction site and talk to the construction workers. He
Speaker 2: seems to feel as comfort well, he's one of those guys.
Speaker 2: And I kind of pride myself on this too. I
Speaker 2: feel like I could be plopped down in any environment
Speaker 2: and connect with just about anybody. And either you have
Speaker 2: that ability or not. If you're not comfortable in your
Speaker 2: own skin, if you think that certain people are below
Speaker 2: you or above you, or intimidated and all this sort
Speaker 2: of stuff, then you're not going to fit in. But
Speaker 2: if you go in there and you are a person
Speaker 2: of the people, if you talk to people and ask
Speaker 2: them what their concerns are and get to know the people,
Speaker 2: that is where you can fit into almost any environment.
Speaker 2: And I think Donald Trump does that tremendously.
Speaker 3: And what I'm saying to you, Kevin, is there's so
Speaker 3: many people out here right now, because of inflation, are
Speaker 3: having to work two jobs and pick up even a
Speaker 3: third job. They're thinking about, Oh, man, I've got to
Speaker 3: work somewhere for the holidays in order for me to
Speaker 3: make my rent, or for me to make Christmas like
Speaker 3: it was three or four years ago, or to pay
Speaker 3: for my Thanksgiving, my Thanksgiving dinner. We do not understand
Speaker 3: right oftentimes. And that's what you see former President Trump
Speaker 3: doing right here. He's saying I understand you, like you're saying, Kevin,
Speaker 3: I'm connected to you. I understand your plight. And if
Speaker 3: there's somebody out there mocking you, if there's somebody out
Speaker 3: there playing like, hey, I understand you. But they really
Speaker 3: didn't do this, They really didn't work at a McDonald's.
Speaker 3: They really aren't. I'm the middle class. It's a major blow.
Speaker 3: And I'm looking to see if the vice president's campaign
Speaker 3: respond to this, because all of those videos have gone viral.
Speaker 3: It'll be out on social media. They're everywhere. And I
Speaker 3: just want to highlight that for the public that it's
Speaker 3: not just that he went there and did those frides.
Speaker 3: It's the message he was sending about the economy, the corporation,
Speaker 3: the working class person, and whether Kamala Harris herself had
Speaker 3: been telling the truth all.
Speaker 2: Right, we'll pick this up on the other side of
Speaker 2: the break. But you know what's interesting. I was listening
Speaker 2: to Donald Trump Junior talking and he was talking about
Speaker 2: the economy. He goes, When Donald Trump Junior thinks twice
Speaker 2: about spending the amount of money it takes to take
Speaker 2: my three kids to a McDonald's, you know, the economy
Speaker 2: is bad. So I thought that was great. We'll pick
Speaker 2: this up Christopher Smitherman on the other side of the break,
Speaker 2: former vice mayor, and we'll be talking to the Smithers
Speaker 2: the smither Event coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas fifty five care see the talk station.
Speaker 6: A Minute of Hope is brought to you by the
Speaker 6: Linder Center of Hope. Linders Center of.
Speaker 2: Coming up on seven thirty one in the morning. Kevin
Speaker 2: Gordon in for Brian Thomas fifty five KRC the Talk station.
Speaker 2: Continue our conversation with former Vice mayor Christopher Smitherman in
Speaker 2: the smither Event. Welcome and thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being with us this morning.
Speaker 1: Christopher, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Look, Kevin, well, before you get started, I've gotta cut
Speaker 2: you off. Gotta cut you off. I'm sorry I did
Speaker 2: do a little bit of homework. Heireen. I gotta say
Speaker 2: right off the bat, thank you to your son for
Speaker 2: his service to our country. And number two, congratulations, I'm
Speaker 2: becoming a grandfather, so.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you. I appreciate that on both of those points.
Speaker 3: Let me say that what's happening in North Carolina, Florida
Speaker 3: and Georgia, particularly North Carolina hard hit by the hurricane.
Speaker 3: They're still over thirty people. I think the number might
Speaker 3: be thirty nine people that are still missing. And what
Speaker 3: is amazing about North Carolina for me as a person
Speaker 3: who follows politics is their desire to vote. Meaning the
Speaker 3: lines this weekend were long. People were climbing. I'm going
Speaker 3: to like over mud coming from the hills of North
Speaker 3: Carolina to cast their votes. Now, if they can get
Speaker 3: out and vote. If they can get out and vote,
Speaker 3: my question is why can't other areas in our country
Speaker 3: do the same with that kind of vigor and so
Speaker 3: my hearts go out like yours, Kevin, to those people
Speaker 3: who lost everything, their house, some of them lost their
Speaker 3: family members, they lost their pets. They don't know how
Speaker 3: they're going to rebuild. Some of them don't even have power.
Speaker 3: It's my understanding that the former president is going to
Speaker 3: be visiting North Carolina today again trying to show support
Speaker 3: and connect with the people of North Carolina. But I
Speaker 3: have just be amazed by watching how they are enthusiastic
Speaker 3: and making sure and FEMA, no matter what they say
Speaker 3: about misinformation, failed North Carolina, failed Georgia, and failed Florida. Kevin,
Speaker 3: that FEMA wasn't there. They weren't the ones leading the
Speaker 3: charge organizing the relief. And if you're listening to my
Speaker 3: voice right now, right and you think that I'm exaggerating, right,
Speaker 3: you weren't there. You don't understand maybe what it feels
Speaker 3: like to have your house washed away and all your belongings,
Speaker 3: or you lose your grandparents or your child, or your wife,
Speaker 3: or your spouse or your pet. I'm telling you you
Speaker 3: don't have a heart. FEMA should have been the one
Speaker 3: leading it. And in the background, we're giving millions and
Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars away to other countries. And
Speaker 3: so the backdrop I think of what you're going to
Speaker 3: see in that voting, Kevin, is that people are going
Speaker 3: to come out and send a very strong message in
Speaker 3: North Carolina and in Georgia and in Florida. Thing that
Speaker 3: the poles are not going to pick up of people
Speaker 3: being frustrated with how the White House treated them when
Speaker 3: they needed them the most, while they were sending hundreds
Speaker 3: of millions of dollars overseas.
Speaker 2: I sure as hell hope so. And you know, all
Speaker 2: you have to do is drive around the city of Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: northern Kentucky and so on. And every time we get
Speaker 2: in the car and we're driving along on these roads
Speaker 2: and stuff, my wife the first thing from her is
Speaker 2: with our it's like riding on the wagon train, all
Speaker 2: the ruts and the potholes and uneven pavement and stuff,
Speaker 2: and it's like, we are living like this, and yet
Speaker 2: we're sending billions and trillions of dollars overseas.
Speaker 3: Are you nuts that that is what Americans are thinking.
Speaker 3: I think out there that are saying, it's time to
Speaker 3: put our country first. It's time to put the people first.
Speaker 3: And what the hurricane has done, it has emphasized, or
Speaker 3: it has highlighted for the public and the world that
Speaker 3: FEMA wasn't ready, The government wasn't ready, not only financially,
Speaker 3: but they also were not ready to mobilize and help
Speaker 3: their own people. How can you help the people in
Speaker 3: Ukraine or help the people in Lebanon, And you can't
Speaker 3: help the people in the United States of America North Carolina,
Speaker 3: Georgia or Florida.
Speaker 2: Now, And how can you give all this money and
Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff, Christopher Smitherman to all of
Speaker 2: these these cities and the illegal aliens that are in
Speaker 2: this illegal immigrants that are in this country. And you
Speaker 2: know this is not anti immigrant, this is coming into
Speaker 2: the You want people to come into your country legally
Speaker 2: and according to the law, not break the law, and
Speaker 2: accommodate them and assimilate into the population as opposed to
Speaker 2: this invasion that we've been seeing that okay, the borders
Speaker 2: secure for the last three and a half years, when
Speaker 2: we know it hasn't been.
Speaker 3: Look, first, I agree with you, and again that underscores Kevin,
Speaker 3: what the country is saying as they get out and vote.
Speaker 3: We're in the middle of an election, so people are
Speaker 3: early voting all over the place. They're listening to you
Speaker 3: and I talk, and they're trying to decide what candidates,
Speaker 3: not just national candidates, but what local candidates they're going
Speaker 3: to support. And so when they feel like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: we all knew the hurricane was coming, but they couldn't
Speaker 3: even mobilize the National Guard, or they could not mobilize
Speaker 3: federal assets, helicopters, whatever they needed to get supplies into
Speaker 3: the hills of North Carolina. As one of many examples,
Speaker 3: they're going to say, why would I promote you to
Speaker 3: the next level? These are just basic things that Americans
Speaker 3: are talking about. I want to pivot because I know
Speaker 3: I don't have a lot of time, and I want
Speaker 3: to talk about the Catholic vote. Let me be clear,
Speaker 3: I am Catholic, my family Catholic.
Speaker 2: Hey, can we put.
Speaker 1: The Catholic Christopher?
Speaker 2: Can we pick this up on the other side of
Speaker 2: the break. We'll do that and atle pivot to that.
Speaker 2: My guest is Christopher Smitherman and the smither Vent And
Speaker 2: of course you're also talking to a person that spent
Speaker 2: two years in the seminary, so we've got a little
Speaker 2: bit of common there. We'll pick this up on the
Speaker 2: other side of the break. I'm Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas fifty five KR see the talk station.
Speaker 6: What's the best place to reach new customers for your business?
Speaker 2: Seven in the morning. Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas
Speaker 2: fifty five k R see the talk station. Continue our
Speaker 2: conversation with former Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman and the smither event. Well,
Speaker 2: when you took a break, we talked about the being
Speaker 2: a Catholic and a Roman Catholic and how I want
Speaker 2: to talk to the Catholics out there, And of course
Speaker 2: I mentioned that I spent two years in seminary, so
Speaker 2: I know exactly what you're talking about. And I've got
Speaker 2: seventeen years of Catholic education, So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I just think that when you the Al Smith
Speaker 3: event this past weekend in New York, they raised nine
Speaker 3: million dollars for Catholic charity. You know, historically presidential candidates
Speaker 3: went there. It was the time to kind of cool
Speaker 3: the engines, have some fun, laid back. I thought it
Speaker 3: was a mistake for the Harris campaign not to show up.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: But but when you layer on what happened with the
Speaker 3: with Governor Whitmer in in uh in Michigan, with the
Speaker 3: Dorrito and the ladies kneeling down like she was taking
Speaker 3: her first communion. When you layer those things on, you
Speaker 3: layer these two young men in in Wisconsin this weekend.
Speaker 3: So We're not talking about twenty years ago. Just this
Speaker 3: past weekend, who said Jesus is more and the vice president,
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris said, hey, you're at the wrong place. You
Speaker 3: need to go somewhere else. This is you know, when
Speaker 3: they're when they're when they're literally shouting out the name
Speaker 3: of Jesus these and then when they did that, Kevin,
Speaker 3: the audience turned on those two young men, push them out,
Speaker 3: put their hands on them. I thought that was an
Speaker 3: assault on them. But my point is that there just
Speaker 3: seems to be this drum beat about Catholics, and I
Speaker 3: think it is a major mistake for this campaign alienating
Speaker 3: Catholic voters. Now they're going to be Catholic voters, as
Speaker 3: you know, Kevin, who are going to vote for vote
Speaker 3: for Democrats, they're going to vote for Independents, they're going
Speaker 3: to vote for Republicans. I'm just saying they're giving a
Speaker 3: reason for Catholics, meaning my family were Catholic, to say
Speaker 3: no to them based on how they're showing respect or
Speaker 3: no respect for the Catholic faith.
Speaker 2: Well they have. I mean, you can go back years
Speaker 2: ago where they had what somebody was doing some sort
Speaker 2: of fake sexual act and pew during one of the
Speaker 2: services at Saint Patrick Church. You've had disruptions, services and
Speaker 2: so on. You would never ever, ever, ever see any
Speaker 2: of these so called brave souls do anything to desecrate
Speaker 2: the Quran or to say anything against the Muslim or religion.
Speaker 2: But it seems like the Jewish faith and the Catholic faith,
Speaker 2: it's open season no matter what time of day it is,
Speaker 2: what time of the year it is, and that should
Speaker 2: give some pause to people in both religions to say,
Speaker 2: just exactly who do we support and why do we
Speaker 2: support them?
Speaker 3: That is well said, absolutely well said. And I know
Speaker 3: we don't have a lot of time. I just want
Speaker 3: to say we have an election. As obvious, early voting
Speaker 3: is happening here in most states across the United States
Speaker 3: of America. I want the public to know that Melissa
Speaker 3: Powers is at the top of my radar. She's the
Speaker 3: Hamilton County prosecutor. I'm supporting Sheriff Jim Neil Adam Koehler
Speaker 3: who's running for county commissioner. These are just some examples.
Speaker 3: Orlando's Fonza is in a tough race. There are some
Speaker 3: really big races out there. Is my point that I
Speaker 3: think people should really hone in on. And one of
Speaker 3: the mistakes that people make, Kevin, is they go in
Speaker 3: and they vote for the president only and then walk
Speaker 3: out they vote down the entire ticket. And so I
Speaker 3: bring this up saying, there are a lot of good
Speaker 3: people that are out here running for office. Please don't
Speaker 3: make the mistake of going in and just voting for
Speaker 3: the national ticket whoever you're supporting, and then not voting
Speaker 3: down the rest of the great Americans who are running
Speaker 3: for office in your area. Because bottom line, Kevin, as
Speaker 3: you know, politics are local. Don't miss those big elections.
Speaker 3: They affect your life on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You make a great point there. They're the
Speaker 2: ones that affect your life every day. Now, you got
Speaker 2: the people in Washington and so on the control it
Speaker 2: on a national basis, but everything is local. And as
Speaker 2: I've said before, is that as these people show up
Speaker 2: to your house or you go to and and I
Speaker 2: suggest that everybody go to as many of these campaign
Speaker 2: rallies or or talk to as many candidates as possible.
Speaker 2: They are doing a one to one interview. They are
Speaker 2: coming to you and asking you for one of the
Speaker 2: most precious things that you have and that's your vote.
Speaker 2: And what you should do is go in with the
Speaker 2: idea of Okay, here is what's important to me. Here
Speaker 2: are the top two or three or four issues. And
Speaker 2: when you talk to that candidate, you ask them where
Speaker 2: do you stand on this issue? Where do you stand
Speaker 2: on this issue? And where do you stand on this issue?
Speaker 2: And it depending upon those answers. That is who you
Speaker 2: give your vote to, not necessarily the party, but the
Speaker 2: person that is going to stand up for you with
Speaker 2: the values that you have.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. You know, when I go out and I talk
Speaker 3: to voters, and I'm doing that now on an active
Speaker 3: basis of you know, restaurant, sometimes door to door, sometimes neighbors.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of energy out there for people who
Speaker 3: are wanting to participate. But when you vote early, what happens, Kevin.
Speaker 3: You know this. You bank your vote and it allows
Speaker 3: the campaign that you're interested in winning to focus on
Speaker 3: those unlikely voters. So you get yourself out of the
Speaker 3: way so that they already know you voted, they can
Speaker 3: go knock on those doors and get those people out
Speaker 3: that haven't voting. The voting early is just a part
Speaker 3: of the game now, I meaning people are saying, man,
Speaker 3: I'm a traditionalist. I'm only going to vote on election day.
Speaker 3: Look the game and the rules that change, you've got
Speaker 3: to change with it. And by voting early, it allows
Speaker 3: those campaigns to go to those houses where people have
Speaker 3: not shown up and spend their money on getting those
Speaker 3: voters out and not you because you've already banked your vote.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've never been a big fan of early voting,
Speaker 2: but I have kind of changed since last election, and
Speaker 2: I'm kind of seeing more of the benefits of it,
Speaker 2: just as you just mentioned in terms of banking your
Speaker 2: vote so they can spend their resources on the people
Speaker 2: that they need to target in those particular and then again,
Speaker 2: you never know what the heck happens. You never know
Speaker 2: what's going to happen on election day, and you want
Speaker 2: to make sure that you don't leave anything the chance.
Speaker 3: That is so that is so true, Kevin. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for having me on. And you know, I
Speaker 3: always love coming on on Mondays and and and talking
Speaker 3: about the I think pertinent issues that people should be
Speaker 3: focusing on as they go through this week. And I
Speaker 3: just encourage people to not fall into the trap that
Speaker 3: my vote doesn't count exactly your vote does count. You
Speaker 3: matter in this country. And my ex account or Twitter account,
Speaker 3: whatever people call it, is at vote Smitherman and that's
Speaker 3: where people can follow me until next time on Monday.
Speaker 2: All right, Former Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for spending time with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: You take care, have a great week. So many pertinent
Speaker 2: points there. And you know we are not in a situation.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know when he talked about the people
Speaker 2: in North Carolina, you know, crawling through mud in order
Speaker 2: to do this. You know your vote is the most
Speaker 2: important thing. And don't get well, it's too late to
Speaker 2: register now, but a lot of people say they don't
Speaker 2: register or they don't vote because they don't want to
Speaker 2: get on the radar screen for jury duty. If you've
Speaker 2: got a driver's license, if you pay property taxes, if
Speaker 2: you pay income taxes, if you have any connection with
Speaker 2: any type of governmental agency anyway, you are on that
Speaker 2: list as far as potential jurors. So uh, don't let
Speaker 2: your don't let the idea of voting stand in your
Speaker 2: way of expressing your opinion. And this is your government,
Speaker 2: this is what you want, and it's up to you
Speaker 2: to express that phone numbers five one, three, seven, four nine,
Speaker 2: fifty five, hundred one, eight hundred eighty two three talk
Speaker 2: one eight hundred eight two three eight two five five pound,
Speaker 2: five fifty AT and T wireless phone. Kevin Gordon in
Speaker 2: for Brian Thomas, fifty five five K. See the talk
Speaker 2: station Man B nine. First warning weather forecast Today in
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Speaker 2: Seven fifty two in the morning. Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas, fifty five krc DE talk station. Coming up
Speaker 2: to the top of the hour, We're going to be
Speaker 2: talking to Stephen Doane. He is a attorney and also
Speaker 2: Kentucky State representative. We're going to be talking about Constitutional
Speaker 2: Issue Amendment number two over there in the state of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: And I know Brian talked to Jim Waters about that
Speaker 2: on Thursday. But there's a couple of other things questions
Speaker 2: that I have and some of the things that people
Speaker 2: have been bringing up to me. So we'll be talking
Speaker 2: about that one thing. A quick story here about some
Speaker 2: things that I'm seeing. I talked about the economy earlier
Speaker 2: where people are kind of pulling back and so on. Well,
Speaker 2: this story last week saw, you know, when it doesn't
Speaker 2: absolutely positively have to get there tomorrow. More people are
Speaker 2: switching to slower delivery options to save money and profits.
Speaker 2: At FedEx Corp. And ups are starting to get squeezed
Speaker 2: as a result of that, because you know, people instead
Speaker 2: of getting this next day delivery where you're paying extra
Speaker 2: money for that, people are backing off of that and saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I really don't need it tomorrow. I don't
Speaker 2: need it. You know, we'll just do whatever the normal
Speaker 2: process is. And what I've noticed is that, especially online
Speaker 2: shopping and stuff, sometimes if you just go the regular way,
Speaker 2: it gets there just as fast as if you ordered
Speaker 2: it overnight. And so a way of economizing people pulling back.
Speaker 2: These are kind of some of the extras that people
Speaker 2: when they start squeezing their own bottom line when they
Speaker 2: look at their paycheck, when they see that their paycheck
Speaker 2: isn't lasting as long as the month is, this is
Speaker 2: where those some of those areas where you economize. We've
Speaker 2: talked about how other things, and that would be whoo
Speaker 2: of you to kind of take a look at where
Speaker 2: you're spending your money. You know, is this really all
Speaker 2: that necessary? Do I really need that defensive cup of coffee?
Speaker 2: Why don't I try something, you know, a regular brew
Speaker 2: or something that you like that looks interesting at home?
Speaker 2: The cost of brewing your own coffee at home is
Speaker 2: a heck of a lot cheaper than going to one
Speaker 2: of these overpriced stores. And you know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: And when you start looking at that in terms of
Speaker 2: where you can spend your money and how you can
Speaker 2: squeeze a dollar here and there, goes a long way
Speaker 2: to extend that paycheck of yours. So just a little
Speaker 2: bit of stuff there, it's kind of I found that interesting.
Speaker 2: People actually starting to save Gosh, do I really need
Speaker 2: this tomorrow? Maybe not coming up again. We've got Stephen
Speaker 2: Dunnan when we talk about Constitutional Amendment number two. I'm
Speaker 2: Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas. Fifty five KRC, the
Speaker 2: talk station.
Speaker 1: Your campaign fitstop on the roads in November helps me
Speaker 1: make an informed choice this November. I will call it
Speaker 1: fifty five KRC the talk Station.
Speaker 2: This report is paid for eight oh five in the morning.
Speaker 2: Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five k R
Speaker 2: see the talk station. Joining me as attorney Stephen Doane.
Speaker 2: He is a also a Kentucky state representative. We're gonna
Speaker 2: be talking about this Constitution of Kentucky Constitutional Amendment too.
Speaker 2: And I'm well, Steven, where do we stand with this?
Speaker 2: And should we talk about the actual the wording of
Speaker 2: the amendment first, or what it purports to do or
Speaker 2: what where do you want to go here?
Speaker 8: You know, I think we can probably talk about the
Speaker 8: language on on the ballot measure. And so, you know
Speaker 8: what the ballot What the ballot measure essentially says is
Speaker 8: there's a question, and it says, are you in favor
Speaker 8: of allowing, you know, tax dollars public tax dollars to
Speaker 8: flow outside of the system of common schools? And so
Speaker 8: what we're looking at here, what we're trying to accomplish
Speaker 8: here is to have a conversation down in Frankfurt to
Speaker 8: see if we can get some of these educational choice
Speaker 8: opportunities throughout our commonwealth.
Speaker 2: Now, as far as the language of the bill, it
Speaker 2: says to give parents choice and educational opportunities for their children.
Speaker 2: Are you in favor of enabling the General Assembly to
Speaker 2: provide financial support for the education costs of students in
Speaker 2: kindergarten through twelfth grade who are outside the system of
Speaker 2: common in Princess public schools by amending the Constitution of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: As Stata below, it is proposed that the new section
Speaker 2: be added to the Constitution General Assembly may provide financial support
Speaker 2: for the education of students outside the system of common schools.
Speaker 2: General Assembly may exercise this authority by law, and then
Speaker 2: they indicate the individual sections of the Constitution that have
Speaker 2: to be changed by that. So basically it says that
Speaker 2: you know, I guess more than anything else, it's an
Speaker 2: opportunity of school choice. Now I have heard some people
Speaker 2: selling this as well. Originally this is for people who
Speaker 2: are of a lower means as an opportunity for them
Speaker 2: to get their kids into public schools. There's really no
Speaker 2: plan right now, or there's no format for this as
Speaker 2: to how the money or how this is going to
Speaker 2: be done or implemented. At this point. It's just giving
Speaker 2: the state legislature and the ability to put something into place. Correct,
Speaker 2: So there's.
Speaker 8: No trigger law in place, so you know, once this
Speaker 8: ballot measure passes, nothing's going to happen, nothing's going to change.
Speaker 8: What is going to change is the ability for the
Speaker 8: state legislature to come in and to open up the
Speaker 8: door to some of these programs. So, you know, one
Speaker 8: of the things on the other side, the opposite is
Speaker 8: saying that you know, it's going to be a voucher system.
Speaker 8: Or it's going to be something. Honestly, we don't know yet.
Speaker 8: We have to have a further conversation among the you know,
Speaker 8: folks in rural Kentucky where they have a lot of
Speaker 8: power and say over this issue. What you can do, though,
Speaker 8: is you can look at the past. You can look
Speaker 8: at some of the things we've done in the past
Speaker 8: and how we got here. There were educational opportunity accounts,
Speaker 8: which were basically just tax credits that you could use
Speaker 8: sending your child to a private institution or just any
Speaker 8: institution outside of the common schools, and you would just
Speaker 8: get money back on your taxes. You get your tax
Speaker 8: dollars back to go towards your child's education. And what
Speaker 8: happened was the Supreme Court found that to be unconstitutional
Speaker 8: based on some of those sections that are mentioned there
Speaker 8: and that ballot proposal. And so what we've got to
Speaker 8: do now is if we want to have these types
Speaker 8: of programs in Kentucky, which you know, forty eight states
Speaker 8: have these types of programs, It's not like it's a
Speaker 8: novel thing. We've got to have this constitutional amendment now.
Speaker 2: Stephen Done, state Representative's my guest, I'm looking at some
Speaker 2: of the literatures, and the other side is talking about
Speaker 2: that it's defunding our public schools, where ninety percent of
Speaker 2: our kids attend. Many of our public schools are already underfunded,
Speaker 2: forcing public schools to close, failing to address a teacher
Speaker 2: shortage or improve our public schools. I think those, quite honestly,
Speaker 2: are probably some scare tactics, because this does nothing at
Speaker 2: this point other than opening the door to allow some
Speaker 2: sort of format of school choice.
Speaker 8: Sure, so you know, I'm also a family law attorney,
Speaker 8: and one of the things that happens in a divorce
Speaker 8: or in a custody battle is, you know, people got
Speaker 8: to decide where their kids go to school. And in
Speaker 8: northern Kentucky, a lot of folks send their kids to
Speaker 8: private school, and so I know what the private school's
Speaker 8: up your charge? Some of them are, you know, six
Speaker 8: thousand a semester or you know, six thousand a year
Speaker 8: in some cases, and then they offer scholarships as well
Speaker 8: to some of these folks. When you look at on
Speaker 8: average public school funding in Kentucky, we spend about eighteen
Speaker 8: thousand dollars per student, and so you're seeing you're seeing
Speaker 8: outcomes in the private sector that you're not seeing in
Speaker 8: the public sector much better outcomes in the private sector
Speaker 8: than the public And you know, the scare tactics of
Speaker 8: not having money in our schools is kind of and
Speaker 8: it's exactly what it is, the scare tactic. The private
Speaker 8: schools are outperforming the public schools and they have far
Speaker 8: less money.
Speaker 2: Let's pause here, let's pause here for a moment. Let
Speaker 2: something sink in. You mentioned the cost per student, or
Speaker 2: the money spent in the state of Kentucky per student.
Speaker 8: Is eighteen thousand dollars on average.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't within the last day. It was
Speaker 2: not more than a decade ago that eighteen thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a year was about the price of some of these
Speaker 2: colleges and universities around And now we're talking about this
Speaker 2: just for k through twelve and so on. The expensive
Speaker 2: have gotten so out of whack. And what is interesting is,
Speaker 2: and I've read some things where not only in the
Speaker 2: state of Ohio, but in the state of Kentucky that
Speaker 2: the amount of administrators versus teachers did. I read that
Speaker 2: the increase in the number of money spent towards administrators, principles,
Speaker 2: et cetera in these schools has jumped by ninety three
Speaker 2: percent in the last few years, and yet the amount
Speaker 2: of teachers and so on has only increased by like
Speaker 2: forty I don't know if that number is accurate or whatever.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 8: Well, I don't know the exact numbers on that. It
Speaker 8: doesn't sound too far off from reality. But our superintendents
Speaker 8: here in northern Kentucky, the public school superintendents gave a
Speaker 8: press conference, and during the press conference, they decided that
Speaker 8: if the General Assembly did a Florida type voucher system,
Speaker 8: which again was not necessarily what we're going to do.
Speaker 8: We don't know what we're going to do yet, it
Speaker 8: would cost the public schools one point one nine billion
Speaker 8: dollars and as a result, they said they would have
Speaker 8: to cut nine thousand, eight hundred and sixty nine jobs.
Speaker 8: When you do the math, that's one hundred and twenty
Speaker 8: thousand dollars per job. They're not talking about teachers, frontline
Speaker 8: teachers that they're going to have to cut. They're talking
Speaker 8: about those high price school administrators that they're going to
Speaker 8: have to cut.
Speaker 1: Would National wear all the money.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's where all the bloat is. The
Speaker 8: money's not necessarily going directly to the students. It's going
Speaker 8: to go fund systems. And that's what one of the
Speaker 8: catch phrases you'll hear is, we're trying to fund students,
Speaker 8: not systems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I can remember, you know, the point where
Speaker 2: my grandkids are now in grades well they're out of
Speaker 2: grade school now, but going to the parent the grandparents'
Speaker 2: day and this sort of thing, and going into the
Speaker 2: schools and seeing that, Okay, the desks look like they've
Speaker 2: been there for forty years, the ceiling tiles look like
Speaker 2: they haven't been replaced in twenty twenty five years, the fixtures,
Speaker 2: and you're looking at the books and so on that
Speaker 2: haven't been updated. And you realize that the number of
Speaker 2: students in that classroom at twenty twenty two or whatever
Speaker 2: time is the amount of money per student. You're like,
Speaker 2: where in the hell is this money going to. It's
Speaker 2: certainly not going to the infrastructure. It's not going to
Speaker 2: the obviously the teachers. It's going someplace. And then going
Speaker 2: to the books and so on, you got to figure
Speaker 2: it's going to the administrators and so on, and it's appalling,
Speaker 2: especially when you look at the test scores and proficiency
Speaker 2: and so on. It's just a mind boggling.
Speaker 8: Absolutely. And one of the things, you know, and I
Speaker 8: do want to get to this point on the money side,
Speaker 8: forty eight percent of our state budget in Kentucky goes
Speaker 8: to public education, and so we're already spending you know,
Speaker 8: money hand over fist in order to fund these these
Speaker 8: systems and these schools. And we also already allow public
Speaker 8: money to go to private institutions. So you know, if
Speaker 8: you're a high school student and you attend class and
Speaker 8: you make good grades, you'll get Keys money. We have
Speaker 8: Keys money, and you can take that Keys money to
Speaker 8: any Kentucky university and we'll literally pay you to go
Speaker 8: to school, and you can take that money to private university.
Speaker 8: So it's not like it's a novel thing that we're
Speaker 8: doing or allowing folks to take money out of their
Speaker 8: system to go to, you know, a more efficient school
Speaker 8: school district.
Speaker 2: And Stephen Doane, I guess we when I'm looking at
Speaker 2: some of the things that they're talking about, and this
Speaker 2: would almost I've read something where they were going to
Speaker 2: possibly if there was going to be something funded by this,
Speaker 2: that it would be funded by private institutions or by
Speaker 2: what was the thing in terms of that it would
Speaker 2: be a separate set of funds set up, that it
Speaker 2: wouldn't take money directly out of the current education system,
Speaker 2: that this would be a separate pot of money. Is
Speaker 2: that accurate.
Speaker 8: I'm school funding is very difficult to understand, and it
Speaker 8: takes you know, I'm on the Education committee and it
Speaker 8: took me a while to figure out how it works.
Speaker 8: We've got what's called the Sikh formula. And so what
Speaker 8: the Sikh formula does is it allocates essentially how much
Speaker 8: state money can come in and how much local money
Speaker 8: comes in, and then you do a balancing based on
Speaker 8: income and based on you know, property tax rates and
Speaker 8: based on home values within a district. And it's a
Speaker 8: complicated formula, and you know, you spit out a number.
Speaker 8: And basically we had raised to seek formula in the
Speaker 8: last legislative session, and I think it's about forty two
Speaker 8: hundred dollars per student that the state kicks in. The
Speaker 8: rest of that money I mentioned that eighteen thousand dollars
Speaker 8: number earlier. The rest of that is your local property
Speaker 8: tax money coming in and funding the school districts. And
Speaker 8: so one of the proposals that's out there is to
Speaker 8: just allow that seek money to follow the student. So
Speaker 8: we're talking about forty two hundred dollars, which would leave
Speaker 8: there about you know, fourteen fifteen thousand dollars in those
Speaker 8: public schools with no student mind you, you know that
Speaker 8: money would flow out and so you could actually do
Speaker 8: things like pay teachers more, or you know, fit to
Speaker 8: the broken tiles you were talking about, or you know,
Speaker 8: update the desks with that extra money.
Speaker 2: And I think the important component of this is competition.
Speaker 2: If the public schools are so great, if they're so
Speaker 2: wonderful and they do such a great job, they wouldn't
Speaker 2: have to worry about the competition from other schools siphoning
Speaker 2: that money off. And so when you are if you
Speaker 2: don't think that you're providing the best system possible, then
Speaker 2: of course you're going to want to protect that against
Speaker 2: anything that would try to improve that. And that almost
Speaker 2: seems like where the opposition to this is coming from.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and you never saw greater competition than when we
Speaker 8: went through the COVID lockdowns with respective public schools. A
Speaker 8: number of parents were fed up with the way that
Speaker 8: they were doing things, and you saw significant decree is
Speaker 8: an enrollment in public schools and folks just went out
Speaker 8: and amazing decided that, yeah, that they were going to
Speaker 8: homeschool their kids or take them out of that system,
Speaker 8: put them somewhere else where they could actually get an
Speaker 8: education that wasn't on a computer.
Speaker 2: All this does is all this Mment two does is
Speaker 2: allow the basis for to come up with a funding
Speaker 2: program or how to implement this. There is nothing set
Speaker 2: in stone currently, whether it's not encouraging vouchers, although that
Speaker 2: could be part of it, but nothing is set at
Speaker 2: this time, just to allow to have the conversation.
Speaker 8: Basically, that's absolutely right, and we had just the makeup
Speaker 8: of Kentucky, there's a you know, everybody thinks it's Republican
Speaker 8: versus Democrat. One of the biggest fights is actually urban
Speaker 8: versus rural in Kentucky. And so the rural folks are
Speaker 8: really pro school. You know, they've got probably the biggest
Speaker 8: employer most of the counties of the public school district.
Speaker 8: And so if you even look at how some of
Speaker 8: the gout down their vote, they vote against an amendment
Speaker 8: like this, despite them being some of the more conservative members.
Speaker 8: And so that fight is still yet to be had.
Speaker 8: You know, we've got to make sure that we are
Speaker 8: still protecting our public schools and making sure that they
Speaker 8: run efficiently and do good, but at the same time
Speaker 8: allow people an opportunity that want to get out of
Speaker 8: that system and can't otherwise get out because they just
Speaker 8: don't have the finances for it, to take their tax
Speaker 8: dollars somewhere else and go get that education they want
Speaker 8: for their children.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Well, this is something that people need to read
Speaker 2: up on. They need to know where they stand on this,
Speaker 2: and in my opinion, I think a yes on Amendment
Speaker 2: too is necessary. Attorney Stephen Doane and Kentucky also a
Speaker 2: state representative, thank you so much for spending time with
Speaker 2: us and adding some clarity to this. We'll hope for
Speaker 2: the best on November the fifth.
Speaker 8: Not a problem, my friend.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. All right, Stephen, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Certainly appreciate it. Phone numbers five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifty,
Speaker 2: five hundred one, eight hundred eight two three talk one
Speaker 2: eight hundred eighty two three eighteen five pound, five point
Speaker 2: fifty AT and T wireless phone. Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas fifty five KR see the talk station Hey
Speaker 2: You eight twenty four In the morning, Kevin Gordon in
Speaker 2: for Brian Thomas fifty five KR or see the talk station.
Speaker 2: I appreciate Stephen done. He's an attorney, a family law
Speaker 2: attorney in northern Kentucky and also a state representative giving
Speaker 2: us some clarity and some talking about this constitutional amendment.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of the stuff that is being
Speaker 2: said about this is not You got to do your
Speaker 2: own homework. You've got to do a little bit of investigation.
Speaker 2: You've got to look at some of the pros and
Speaker 2: cons and make your own determination. I got to tell
Speaker 2: you in the Gordon household, initially, when it comes to
Speaker 2: school choice and what I see as far as the
Speaker 2: education system, I'm all for school choice and letting parents
Speaker 2: decide where they want to send their children, and I
Speaker 2: believe that the money should follow the children. My wife,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, said, well, I don't know about this.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that I like that because it's going
Speaker 2: to be pulling money away from the public schools and
Speaker 2: could create problems there. Well, you know, basically, if you
Speaker 2: look at the public schools right now, for any parent
Speaker 2: that is sending their kids to a private school, they
Speaker 2: are basically I mean, let's face it, if you're paying
Speaker 2: property taxes and you're not using the system, the system
Speaker 2: is kind of freeloading off of you, and for you
Speaker 2: to be able to take some of that money and
Speaker 2: send your kids where you want to send them to
Speaker 2: get the best possible education. I see this more as
Speaker 2: a competition type of thing more than anything else. And
Speaker 2: if the public schools are so great and so wonderful,
Speaker 2: and again this is not a knock against the teachers,
Speaker 2: I think the teachers are kind of up against it
Speaker 2: in terms of the administrators and some of the curriculum
Speaker 2: that these school boards allow. And so when you are
Speaker 2: handcuffed that way, I'm not so sure that they have
Speaker 2: as much flexibility and freedom, because you know, it's kind
Speaker 2: of like one of those things where you talk about
Speaker 2: your state representative. They say, well, why, you know, overall
Speaker 2: Congress is hated and Congress isn't liked and all this
Speaker 2: sort of stuff, But everybody seems to like their own congressman.
Speaker 2: And so I think teachers overall get a bad rap. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously there are good teachers, there are great teachers, and
Speaker 2: then there are really bad teachers. But overall, teachers are
Speaker 2: an important component of the education system. And I think
Speaker 2: a healthy competition there. As far as the education and
Speaker 2: what's available to the parents is great. Now in terms
Speaker 2: of pulling money away from the public schools and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, that is yet to be determined. They don't
Speaker 2: know about this, And I think more than anything else,
Speaker 2: the thing that I would hang my hat on and
Speaker 2: the most is the fact that this allows a certain
Speaker 2: amount of competition, and competition is always good. So anyway,
Speaker 2: I've got to do your own homework on this and
Speaker 2: kind of come up with your own decision. Coming up, Well,
Speaker 2: we'll do some headlines to the bottom of the AAR.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five krs
Speaker 2: the Talk station.
Speaker 7: What if you could get the best healthcare without waiting
Speaker 7: for an appointment?
Speaker 2: Eight thirty one in the morning, Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas, fifty five krs the Talk station. So local
Speaker 2: headlines were covering for you this morning, said out of Carrollton, Kentucky,
Speaker 2: a fourth victim was recovered from a house fire in Carrollton.
Speaker 2: The police call a multiple fatality event. This was reported
Speaker 2: yesterday and was just so sad. Detective Dave Roberts of
Speaker 2: the Carrollton Police Department said Saturday afternoon that recovery efforts
Speaker 2: had finished in the fourth and believed to be the
Speaker 2: final victim, has been recovered from the residence remnants. Police
Speaker 2: have not identified any of the four victims pulled out
Speaker 2: of the home later identified to the Kentucky Medical Examiner's Office.
Speaker 2: They did say that a three year old child standing
Speaker 2: near the homes back door was rescued and was in
Speaker 2: the hospital and recovering. Yeah two people are hospitalized after
Speaker 2: an overnight bar shooting. Newport Police say that the shooting
Speaker 2: took place at the bar Sunday morning. It happened approximately
Speaker 2: one seven am in the area the West eighth Street
Speaker 2: and Isabella Street. Police say to the group of individuals
Speaker 2: leaving a bar near the intersection were involved in an
Speaker 2: altercation which led to a suspect firing a gun and
Speaker 2: hitting two people. The business that the incident is alleged
Speaker 2: to have taken place at was not named by the police. However,
Speaker 2: the only commercial business of any located in the immediate
Speaker 2: vicinity is Sena's Cafe, which advertises itself as a bar
Speaker 2: online and it's listing on Google Maps. Now, you know
Speaker 2: this is interesting because a lot of times the liquor
Speaker 2: license is determined by this, and sometimes when an altercation
Speaker 2: or something happens near a bar or near a facility,
Speaker 2: that is the location that is tagged with this. Whether
Speaker 2: or not those patrons were or those people were at
Speaker 2: the bar to begin with, it'll be interesting. But they
Speaker 2: do say in here that people were leaving the bar,
Speaker 2: so again you can imagine that probably alcohol was involved.
Speaker 2: Injuries sustained by the two victims are reported, but again
Speaker 2: this is not a reflection sometimes the bar itself. It's
Speaker 2: just more of a reflection again the individual responsibility of
Speaker 2: the people involved and that would actually get involved here.
Speaker 2: The injury sustained by the two victims are reported by
Speaker 2: police being non life threatening. Police said the suspect fled
Speaker 2: the scene prior to officers arrival and remains at large.
Speaker 2: Police department says the incident is believed to be an
Speaker 2: isolated case and that further danger is not believed to
Speaker 2: remain imminent to the community by the suspect. Those with
Speaker 2: information about the shooting are encouraged to call Newport Police
Speaker 2: at eight five nine two six ' one eight four
Speaker 2: seven seven. Police department said that those seeking to remain
Speaker 2: anonymous are permitted to do so, and that is certainly good.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you and I can't emphasize enough
Speaker 2: that when you have an incident at a particular location,
Speaker 2: because there have been times when I know that in
Speaker 2: Newport where a fight will start one place and then
Speaker 2: the people are go down the road, down the street
Speaker 2: about you know, maybe a block or so, and then
Speaker 2: get into a bigger altercation in front of another business,
Speaker 2: and then that business gets tagged with that incident happening
Speaker 2: at their premises, whereas the incident actually happened up the
Speaker 2: street at another location. And so to make sure or
Speaker 2: to be fair to these bars and restaurants that they
Speaker 2: don't get tagged with a bad reputation, they need to
Speaker 2: make clarity as to what is involved in who these
Speaker 2: people were, where they were patronizing, and whether or not
Speaker 2: this occurred inside the building and just spilled out into
Speaker 2: the street. So that's just my two cents worth of it.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we're going to be talking to VA and
Speaker 2: talking about some of the stuff that they've got going on.
Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon in for Brian. My guess will be
Speaker 2: Carrie Hagen from a Fisher House I'm Kevin Gordon in
Speaker 2: for Brian Thomas, fifty five krs, the talk station, the
Speaker 2: Socialists who want to move Height thirty nine in the morning.
Speaker 2: Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas, fifty five krs the
Speaker 2: Talk Station. It's my pleasure to introduced since a VA
Speaker 2: Fisher House manager Carrie Hagen. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 9: Carrie, thank you so much, Good morning.
Speaker 2: My pleasure. What is Fisher House?
Speaker 9: The Fisher House program was established in nineteen ninety by
Speaker 9: Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher in response to the recognized need
Speaker 9: for housing from military families while the loved ones were hospitalized.
Speaker 9: In nineteen ninety one, the first Fisher House what was
Speaker 9: inaugurated at the National Naval Medical Center now Walter Reed
Speaker 9: in Bethesda, Maryland, with the presence of President George Bush
Speaker 9: Senior during a dedication ceremony. The Fishers entered into a
Speaker 9: public private partnership with the government, allowing Fisher House to
Speaker 9: construct these homes on government owned land. Subsequently, these homes
Speaker 9: were gifted to the military or the VA to operate.
Speaker 9: Their aim is to provide families with a home away
Speaker 9: from home, enabling to be part of the healing process.
Speaker 9: While their loved ones admitted. The Cincinnati Via Fisher House
Speaker 9: opened up in two thousand and one and is located
Speaker 9: on the VIA premises. The house is beautifully decorated. It
Speaker 9: has sixteen private suites, completely a common kitchen, laundry facilities,
Speaker 9: spacious dining room, and living room area for families to
Speaker 9: gather and offer each other support and friendship while their
Speaker 9: loved ones are receiving treatment at the Cincinnati BA Medical Center.
Speaker 9: It's a wonderful place.
Speaker 2: Well, that sounds wonderful, a fantastic idea, of course, can't
Speaker 2: do enough for our veterans and their families. So who
Speaker 2: can stay at Fisher House?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 9: The Cincinnati Via Fisher House welcomes guests to one have
Speaker 9: a loved one receiving care at the Cincinnati VIA Medical
Speaker 9: Center or receiving care at a local hospital that is
Speaker 9: authorized by the v A Health Administration. They must live
Speaker 9: at least forty to fifty miles or more away from
Speaker 9: the medical center or the treating facilities that they're going to,
Speaker 9: able to stay in a non medical, unsupervised setting, and
Speaker 9: they have to follow all the rules of the house.
Speaker 9: You know, in respect of our other fellow guests that
Speaker 9: are in the house and the veterans may stay as
Speaker 9: long as they have a caregiver that can accompany them
Speaker 9: at all times. While at the Fisher House.
Speaker 2: Now this, uh, now, when when I'm thinking house, I'm
Speaker 2: thinking house. This is probably what is this? Is it
Speaker 2: a house or is it a building that has different
Speaker 2: suites like an a kind of like an apartment complex
Speaker 2: type of thing, or.
Speaker 9: Well, yeah, yeah, it's eleven thousand square foot facility that
Speaker 9: actually looks like a house, and inside it has the
Speaker 9: sixteen suites. There's a common living room, dining room, and
Speaker 9: everything for people to join in, but they have their
Speaker 9: little private area, their private room which has the bathroom,
Speaker 9: and their bed facilities. Everything else is located on the
Speaker 9: first floor as a common facility.
Speaker 2: That is cool. That really sounds fantastic. Yeah. Is there
Speaker 2: a cost to stay there?
Speaker 9: No, absolutely not. There's no cost at all for any
Speaker 9: of the family members to stay here while their loved
Speaker 9: ones admitted.
Speaker 2: Is there a time limit or anything along those lines.
Speaker 9: We know, we don't have a time limit. There's no
Speaker 9: minimum amount of stay. It could be one day or
Speaker 9: it could be up to two weeks, and you know,
Speaker 9: depending on the patient's care, what they're receiving at the
Speaker 9: VA and what kind of how long term nurse day is.
Speaker 9: That's what we go by as the manager.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as I said before, there's two. There is
Speaker 2: nothing that we can't do more. I mean we can do.
Speaker 2: We can't do enough for our veterans and veterans, and
Speaker 2: this is one of those things that would is great,
Speaker 2: especially for the families. I do know that you know,
Speaker 2: there are senior care facilities where somebody is in a
Speaker 2: especially in your rural areas, where somebody is at a
Speaker 2: particular hospital. And then of course, as you said, some
Speaker 2: of these people live forty to fifty miles away and
Speaker 2: it's very difficult for them to be there and to
Speaker 2: be with their loved one who's in the medical facility.
Speaker 2: And so an opportunity like this, especially with our veterans,
Speaker 2: to be able to either have their family nearby, because
Speaker 2: again I think one of the big points is is
Speaker 2: that if you know your loved ones are there and
Speaker 2: they are there as a support to you, that can't hurt.
Speaker 2: I mean, that has to help tremendously the healing process.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, You're absolutely correct. It does help the healing process.
Speaker 9: And you know, and the families they take pictures of
Speaker 9: the house to take them over to the loved one
Speaker 9: to show them where they're staying at. So then they
Speaker 9: admitted veteran feels more at ease, more comfortable with receiving
Speaker 9: the care, and known their loved one is going to
Speaker 9: be their next room during their entire time of their mission.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to assume that most of these people
Speaker 2: that are veterans that they are probably a kind of
Speaker 2: take charge person and a protector person. So as they're
Speaker 2: in the hospital, as they're receiving care, part of their
Speaker 2: concern is how's my family doing. Are they being taken
Speaker 2: care of? Are they okay? Which should be probably the
Speaker 2: last thing on their mind. But because of how they
Speaker 2: are built, how they are constructed, and the type of
Speaker 2: personality they have, they are concerned about their family members
Speaker 2: and to be able to have this facility for their
Speaker 2: families should be a big sign of comfort for them.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, I see it daily. Absolutely, you are correct.
Speaker 9: With the veterans, they're very you know, in their ways
Speaker 9: and want to make sure their loved one is taken
Speaker 9: care of, even above their own needs. So when they
Speaker 9: realize that you know, they're going to be staying their
Speaker 9: family members is going to be staying at the Cincinnati
Speaker 9: Via Fisher House, and they see the comforts and they
Speaker 9: see everything. They you know, meet us as the staffing here.
Speaker 9: They are very comfortable and that's when they can go
Speaker 9: over and you know, enjoy take care of their healing
Speaker 9: process to make them get better and well to go home.
Speaker 9: Absolutely very good.
Speaker 2: Can you hang with us through the break? We got
Speaker 2: to take a quick break here and we'll come back
Speaker 2: and pick this up because there's a lot more things
Speaker 2: I want to find out about this for our listeners
Speaker 2: and for the people certainly appreciate it. My guest is
Speaker 2: since Ava Fisher House Manager Kerrie Hagen. I'm Kevin Gordon
Speaker 2: in for Brian Thomas fifty five CARE see the talk station.
Speaker 1: Cybersecurity Awareness a month they're still going straight.
Speaker 2: Eight forty nine in the morning. Kevin Gordon in for
Speaker 2: Brian Thomas fifty five KR see the talk station. Continue
Speaker 2: our conversation with Cincinnati VA Fisher House Manager Kerrie Hagen.
Speaker 2: And during the break, I pulled up this website and
Speaker 2: that is one attractive house that is really attractive, a
Speaker 2: nice layout and looks like a very comfortable facility.
Speaker 9: Yes, it is. It's very beautiful, you know, and each
Speaker 9: year we go through and update make sure it all
Speaker 9: has all the comforts of home for the families that
Speaker 9: are here in the veterans.
Speaker 2: That is fantastic. Now, in terms of this, how do
Speaker 2: veterans and how do they make arrangements for this or
Speaker 2: are the what's the process there?
Speaker 9: These are the families that they're needing Fisher House lodging.
Speaker 9: They're usually referred vi a consult by a member of
Speaker 9: their their husband, their sorry, their caregivers, healthcare team meaning physician, nurse,
Speaker 9: social worker, and then it's kind of the results come
Speaker 9: over to me, and it's kind of based on eligibility
Speaker 9: and room availability. They're often assigned on you know, first
Speaker 9: come first or basis, so that there's no there's no guarantee,
Speaker 9: but we strive to accommodate all requests for lodging. We
Speaker 9: have the sixteen room, so each family is allowed one
Speaker 9: private guest suite to share with a maximum occupancy of
Speaker 9: three people.
Speaker 2: And again going back to the type of people that
Speaker 2: are involved in the military, that their loved ones are
Speaker 2: in the hospital and so on, I would say that
Speaker 2: these people are as a whole somewhat rugged individualists and
Speaker 2: kind of would is there some people will think, oh gosh,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't take charity and we're just you know,
Speaker 2: we're not that way. This is something that you've earned.
Speaker 2: This is something that your family member have earned by
Speaker 2: putting their life on the line for this country, and
Speaker 2: it's the least we can do and to provide this.
Speaker 2: So don't feel as though that you're taking something that
Speaker 2: would you know, push somebody else out. This is to
Speaker 2: make sure that your loved one gets the best care
Speaker 2: possible and that you can provide the support for them.
Speaker 2: Is that a thing that has to be overcome or
Speaker 2: do you see that at all?
Speaker 9: Or I see that quite frequently here. There'll be a
Speaker 9: lot of them that don't feel that they deserve, you know,
Speaker 9: to even be lodging because it might be a simple
Speaker 9: procedure or something. You know, maybe maybe someone else needs
Speaker 9: it more than they do. That's not how we work here.
Speaker 9: You know, if you if you are that one hundred
Speaker 9: and fifty miles away and you need to be here
Speaker 9: early at six am for a surgery, we're going to
Speaker 9: help you. You know, We're going to get you in
Speaker 9: this house. And you know, not only that because of donations,
Speaker 9: I'm able to if I'm fool here, I'm able to
Speaker 9: lodge at a local hotel. So we we've got them covered,
Speaker 9: you know, as long as they meet the eligibility and
Speaker 9: we take care of them completely so that they're here
Speaker 9: one hundred percent for their loved ones.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Now, how much what kind of statistics do.
Speaker 1: You have or well?
Speaker 9: Currently, right now, there's ninety eight houses in operation in
Speaker 9: the United States. Those are on vas and DODS military installation.
Speaker 9: As of todate, there's over five hundred thousand families that
Speaker 9: have been served, six hundred and ten millions in savings
Speaker 9: for the families, and over twelve million days of lodging
Speaker 9: provided to families. So those are amazing.
Speaker 2: Those are astounding statistics. Yes, yes, oh my goodness. And
Speaker 2: if because our listeners and because the American public are
Speaker 2: so generous with their for people of groups that they support,
Speaker 2: how can somebody help or work or how can they
Speaker 2: help out or where can they donate?
Speaker 9: Oh definitely the SINS and I've a medical center, Fisherhouse.
Speaker 9: We operate on donated funds and rely on support from individuals.
Speaker 9: And groups to provide the ongoing daily needs of the
Speaker 9: Fisher House and also enhance the stay of the Fisher
Speaker 9: House and expand our program and those things such as
Speaker 9: fresh flowers, daily newspaper magazines, food in the house, things
Speaker 9: like that. We have a wish list that we can provide.
Speaker 9: Or to find out how you can support the military
Speaker 9: and veterans families of the Cincinnai Fisherhouse, you can call
Speaker 9: us at five one three four seven five six five
Speaker 9: seven one and we'll be happy to help you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fantastic. Now, with the economy being as it is,
Speaker 2: how is how are your donations doing? Is there a critic? Well,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's always the need, but in compared to
Speaker 2: other years and.
Speaker 9: So on, Uh, there's always a need, but it's surprisingly good.
Speaker 9: There is still a lot of you know, outreach as
Speaker 9: far as what is a Fisher House. There's quite a
Speaker 9: few people that don't know what a Fisher House is
Speaker 9: and theonomi I think it's a builder, but these.
Speaker 2: Are exactly locally here.
Speaker 9: Getting this out is wonderful, you know, to bring awareness
Speaker 9: and even bring in more donations and more activity here
Speaker 9: at the house for the families.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic. I mean, it looks like an amazing facility
Speaker 2: and I can just imagine the good that is done.
Speaker 2: And as for the patient that's in the VA facility,
Speaker 2: how much of a comfort that gives to them and
Speaker 2: then of course to their families. So hats off to
Speaker 2: here and all the best and appreciation coming on the program.
Speaker 2: Certainly appreciate.
Speaker 9: Thank you so much for having me on here to
Speaker 9: discuss the house. That's when the families are served.
Speaker 2: Thank you. We're there and we're here for you. If
Speaker 2: you need something to make sure, you give us a
Speaker 2: call and we'll get the word out. I think, thanks Carrie,
Speaker 2: I certainly appreciate it. VA since a VA Fisher House
Speaker 2: Manager Carrie Hagen, Well, folks, we're up against the clock here.
Speaker 2: Time for me to get out of here has been
Speaker 2: a I can't believe we've gone through four hours already,
Speaker 2: but I could do another four if you want. Have
Speaker 2: a great day. Kevin Gordon in for Brian Thomas. Fifty
Speaker 2: five KRC the Talk Station.
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