Latest / Tony Katz | Popcorn Moment / Chicago Public Schools spent $7.7 million of taxpayer money on travel last year

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Chicago Public Schools spent $7.7 million of taxpayer money on travel last year · Tony Katz | Popcorn Moment

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  Speaker 1: Tony Kats The Morning News ninety three WIBC. My name
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  Speaker 1: is Craig Collins, filling in, thrilled to be with you.
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  Speaker 1: Let's do a popcorn moment brought to you by Boo
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  Speaker 1: or Homer modeling topcore called expense that much share this
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  Speaker 1: time comes from CPS Chicago Public School and a report
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  Speaker 1: from ABC seven News saying that CPS teachers staff spent
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  Speaker 1: a crap ton I almost said a different word. I
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  Speaker 1: almost got in a lot of trouble, a crap ton
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  Speaker 1: of money on travel, like a ridiculous amount, like millions
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  Speaker 1: of dollars, and it actually doubled in costs from last
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  Speaker 1: year to this year. And where did they go? All
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  Speaker 1: kinds of exotic places? Where did they stay fancy fancy hotels.
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  Speaker 1: Let's play a little bit of ABC seven News's coverage
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  Speaker 1: on this, because this is just insane.
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  Speaker 2: After the Office of Inspector General found CPS travel expenditures
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  Speaker 2: surged to seven point seven million dollars last year. That's
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  Speaker 2: more than double what the district spent five years before
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  Speaker 2: the pandemic. The report states CPS staffers repeatedly exceeded spending limits,
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  Speaker 2: spends trip set activities without approval, including a professional development
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  Speaker 2: conference in Las Vegas that more than six hundred employees
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  Speaker 2: attended between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four, spending
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  Speaker 2: more than a one and a half million in district
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  Speaker 2: dollars one and.
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  Speaker 1: A half million dollars to go to Vegas for a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of CPS employees. I would have had so much
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  Speaker 1: fun on that Vegas trip myself, with the government paying
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  Speaker 1: the money and the taxpayers paying the money. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: kidding as I say this because of how horrible it
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  Speaker 1: is to misuse funds that way, But I'm just envisioning
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  Speaker 1: what one point five million dollars get you in Vegas.
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  Speaker 1: And I know it's a lot of really bad things.
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  Speaker 1: I know it's a lot of things that probably are
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  Speaker 1: not well. They're probably the stuff you have to confess
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  Speaker 1: to here a pastor during confession if you're Catholic like
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  Speaker 1: I am. But anyway, this is just one of the
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  Speaker 1: things CPS won a bunch of other places. I think
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  Speaker 1: they traveled to Dubai at some point, and I love
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  Speaker 1: even trying to validate that to someone being like, well,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a Chicago public school teacher. Aren't part of their
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  Speaker 1: staff obviously I need to go to Dubai to do
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  Speaker 1: a better job in educating the children here in Chicago.
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  Speaker 3: This is insane.
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  Speaker 1: Every part of this is nuts and crazy. And they
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  Speaker 1: got caught, which is great that they get caught. I
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  Speaker 1: love that more and more people in all these different
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  Speaker 1: places that misuse government dollars are getting caught with Trump
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  Speaker 1: in office. I know Trump might not specifically be tied
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  Speaker 1: to the Chicago public school thing. You can't help, but
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  Speaker 1: notice that this is something that came out that seems
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  Speaker 1: to be uniquely damaging of a Chicago, Illinois, which is
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  Speaker 1: just as corrupt as places get to begin with. But
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  Speaker 1: just it's surreal to me. They talked about all different
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  Speaker 1: kinds of spending in that the fancy hotels that everybody
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  Speaker 1: stayed at, the amount of staff, and of course you
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  Speaker 1: also assume there might be embezzlement there. Maybe there's a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of things that they paid for and didn't actually
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  Speaker 1: do but just got submitted that way, and then the
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  Speaker 1: millions of dollars went into other people's pockets. But that
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  Speaker 1: that to me was kind of amazing. And I guess
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  Speaker 1: I'll bring in Matt Bear for a second, if he
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  Speaker 1: wants to jump in on this. What would you do
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  Speaker 1: with one point five million dollars and a weekend in Vegas?
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  Speaker 1: Cause I imagine it would be a pretty fun time.
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  Speaker 3: Have you ever seen Nick Cage and leaving Las Vegas?
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  Speaker 3: I happy? Okay, No, No, I wouldn't do that. Maybe
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  Speaker 3: about a decade ago. What I would do is I
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  Speaker 3: would go to the roulette wheel and just bet on
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  Speaker 3: zero one point five million dollars and that would.
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  Speaker 1: One point five mil on double zero.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that would be double zero because if it hits,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm
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  Speaker 3: never gonna have one point five million dollars. So somebody
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  Speaker 3: gave me the money and I'm not putting it in savings account.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to gamble it away like a responsible forty
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  Speaker 3: seven year old middle aged man. That's what I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if it hits, that would be amazing
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  Speaker 1: that it got to be a talk of the town.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 1: The odds of it hitting are horrible, as you know,
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  Speaker 1: and as everybody knows listening. But that doesn't matter. Do
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  Speaker 1: you Are you guys playing the power ball right now
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  Speaker 1: or whatever? One is over a billion, which one's over
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  Speaker 1: a billion.
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  Speaker 3: I it'd have to be a powerball, just powerball, right,
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  Speaker 3: not the HOO'SI Lotto or anything. Yeah. Not Who's that's
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  Speaker 3: billion dollars for their fancy one? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: Are you guys playing it? Are you buying the tickets
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  Speaker 1: when it goes over a billion bucks? No?
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  Speaker 3: No, no, I'm not going to do it because I'm
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  Speaker 3: not going to win, because I have a better chance
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  Speaker 3: of waking up on Mars tomorrow, a much better chance.
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  Speaker 3: I don't understand. And listen, it's fun when I get
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  Speaker 3: a lottery ticket, like when I get them for my
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  Speaker 3: birthday or something like a scratch off ticket. Everybody can
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  Speaker 3: get involved. We're like woo. And maybe with power ball numbers,
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  Speaker 3: you can gather around the TV and be like, oh
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  Speaker 3: look I got one of six numbers. Hey I got thirteen.
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  Speaker 3: That's fun. I picked that one. We're not going to win, guys,
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  Speaker 3: And that's all there is to it. Nobody here in
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  Speaker 3: this room or listening right now is going to win
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  Speaker 3: the power ball, all right. So therefore somebody who's on
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  Speaker 3: a bunchet, I can't go out and be spending powerball
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  Speaker 3: ticket money. You know, I don't have that way.
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  Speaker 1: Real quick. I made that mistake. It is the Mega millions.
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  Speaker 1: It's over a billion dollars. Someone just sent me a
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  Speaker 1: message on social media at Radio Craig Z if you
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  Speaker 1: do want to follow me, I'm happy that WIBC people
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  Speaker 1: follow me on my social media pages. And to Mega
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  Speaker 1: millions is over a million bucks as of a couple
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  Speaker 1: of days ago, over a billion, over a billion. Sorry,
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  Speaker 1: so thank you, Carl. Fixing it again. I will say
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  Speaker 1: this though, and this is kind of crazy, Matt. If
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  Speaker 1: you're willing to throw one point five million on double
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  Speaker 1: zero and you're not willing to buy a dollar lottery ticket,
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  Speaker 1: that seems like a disparity. That doesn't make any sense
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  Speaker 1: to me.
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  Speaker 3: But that dollar is his dollar, not the seats from
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  Speaker 3: the cheap seats.
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  Speaker 1: Well done. I think we all go in on one.
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  Speaker 1: Let's buy a ticket together, the three of us, and
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  Speaker 1: if we win, we'll do something outrageous with the money.
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  Speaker 3: If we win, I'm taking the ticket. You'll never see
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  Speaker 3: me again. That's what's happening there.
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  Speaker 1: Listen, it's cool money from Carl and I.
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  Speaker 3: No, I'm just going to put the money into our podcast. Actually, okay, good,
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  Speaker 3: it's listen. Mega million, it's powerball. I really don't know
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  Speaker 3: the difference in shame on me, because I probably should.
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  Speaker 3: And if that's somebody's thing, more power to you. I
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  Speaker 3: just know when you start that. Listen, the house always wins, man,
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  Speaker 3: The power ball is always going to win. The blackjack
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  Speaker 3: dealers always going to win. They're always going to get
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  Speaker 3: your money. If not today tomorrow, they are eventually going
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  Speaker 3: to get your money. And I just can't justify the payment.
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  Speaker 3: I can't justify that money coming out of my pocket
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  Speaker 3: when it should be going to IPL. It's not even
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  Speaker 3: IPL anymore. Who is it? That's downtown that takes all
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  Speaker 3: our money? AES, AES the electric company that is getting
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  Speaker 3: ready to raise their raids. You know I need money
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  Speaker 3: for that right now. That's just where my priorities are.
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  Speaker 3: And if you have money to throw away on gambling,
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  Speaker 3: good on you.
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  Speaker 1: That's true, that's fair.
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  Speaker 3: I get that.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to throw away any money on gambling
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  Speaker 1: myself either, But I'm definitely buying a powerball ticket because
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  Speaker 1: darn it, or a Mega million ticket because darn it.
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  Speaker 3: Why not? Right? Get in No, I love that attitude.
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  Speaker 1: I really I want to split it with you guys too.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, because I think that the show and
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  Speaker 1: we have to do one show. We're not allowed to
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  Speaker 1: quit our jobs. We all have to do one show
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  Speaker 1: after we win the Mega Millions or Powerball together, and
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  Speaker 1: then we can do whatever you want. But that's my requirement.
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  Speaker 1: If we go in on the ticket, we have to
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  Speaker 1: have the day after Ray radio show as proof that
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  Speaker 1: we're all now billionaire.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, when we're doing our last show in Monaco, everybody
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  Speaker 3: will know where you hit the pop feel like this.
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  Speaker 1: Is fun for you to be awesome.
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  Speaker 3: I think it'd be fantastic. WYBC just paid for a
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  Speaker 3: y for us to go do a podcast at Monaco
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  Speaker 3: then because here we go. It'd be amazing that