Latest / The Bluegrass Blues Podcast / The Bluegrass Blues Podcast: Episode 5

Transcript

The Bluegrass Blues Podcast: Episode 5 · The Bluegrass Blues Podcast

0:01
Hello, welcome to the Bluegrass Blues podcast.
0:04
I'm Amy and I'm Jesse. We've got a lot to talk
0:13
about this week. You know, we have this big,
0:16
beautiful batch of bullshit bill that's going
0:19
around and we also have a bunch of, you know,
0:23
billionaires. talking, well, actually yelling
0:26
at each other. So before we get into that part
0:29
of it, Amy, what's in this bill? Because I know
0:32
that a lot of our listeners probably don't know
0:35
what's going on with it, but it's worth knowing
0:38
what's in it before we can criticize it. Well,
0:42
by and large, this big bullshit bill is about
0:46
concentrating wealth with billionaires. hurting
0:51
the rest of us, particularly those of us who
0:54
have health care with Medicaid and are on food
0:58
stamps with SNAP or any of the other programs
1:01
that keep us fed and healthy. According to the
1:08
Congressional Budget Office, the big bullshit
1:10
bill would increase the deficit by $2 .4 trillion.
1:16
Also, by 2034, across the country, nearly 11
1:22
million more people would be uninsured due to
1:25
its historic cuts to Medicaid. And, you know,
1:28
this hits Kentucky particularly hard, Jesse.
1:32
The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy said
1:35
Kentucky would see the second largest cut to
1:40
a state's Medicaid program of all states and
1:43
the fifth largest. coverage coverage loss and
1:47
the thing too is that you know so many people
1:49
in this state rely on medicaid because this is
1:51
a poor state right and we are dealing with people
1:54
in very poor rural counties where they were they
1:59
were getting any kind of medical treatment before
2:01
Obamacare existed and the idea that they Republicans
2:06
are finding that it's easy to cut these expenses
2:10
for taking care of people should be appalling
2:14
to every person in Kentucky who votes. Which raises
2:17
the question of why they keep voting for Republicans.
2:20
But go on on these other things. So, you know,
2:23
as we've discussed, more than a third of all
2:26
Kentuckians are on Medicaid for their health
2:28
insurance. Most children, you know, the highest
2:31
number of children are on Medicaid. And in some
2:34
rural counties, more than half of the people
2:36
are on Medicaid. This bullshit bill would translate
2:41
to an estimated $1 .7 billion cut to Kentucky's
2:46
Medicaid program, terminating coverage for as
2:49
many people as 345 ,000 people across Kentucky.
2:54
And this is according to the Kentucky policy
2:56
advocates. Governor Beshear says that the bill
3:00
will lead to more Kentuckians without health
3:02
care access, lack of funds for hospitals. You're
3:05
going to see all kinds of clinics like family
3:07
health centers and stuff shuttering because they're
3:10
not going to have sufficient funds. And kids
3:12
and seniors are going to go hungry. Those are
3:15
some of the things. You know, it's interesting.
3:19
Rand Paul is not a fan of the bill. It's not
3:22
for humanitarian reasons, though. Right. It's
3:25
because of, I guess, deficits. And that's what
3:27
he cares about. But it's also Tom Massey. Was
3:32
he Western Kentucky? I forget where he represents,
3:34
but he was the only Republican in the House to
3:38
vote against the bill. And the interesting thing
3:41
about this bill is that I've seen various clips
3:45
on YouTube and other places where Republicans
3:49
are being confronted by their constituents and
3:52
saying, the bill has this in it. Why did you
3:55
support it? And the Republicans are saying. Well,
3:57
I didn't know that was in the bill. I just saw
3:59
today that Marjorie Taylor Greene had this post,
4:03
I think, on Twitter where one of the provisions
4:06
of the bill is that there's no state regulation
4:09
of AI for 10 years. And she's like very adamant
4:14
that she says, if I had known this was in the
4:17
bill, I wouldn't have voted for it, which begs
4:19
the question. Do they even read the stuff that
4:22
goes in front of them before they vote on it?
4:24
They obviously have staffers who are supposed
4:26
to do this. And a lot of the things that are
4:28
introduced in the bill are happening in the middle
4:31
of the night when no one is aware of what's going
4:34
on. Trump has told the Republicans, look, you
4:37
have to support this or I'm going to come at
4:39
you. what, how do you call this, catfight between
4:45
Trump and Musk. Musk was talking about the importance
4:48
of cutting back these costs and all these other
4:51
things. And one of the things about Musk is now
4:54
he's against the bill. Do you want to know why?
4:57
Oh, I have a feeling I know why. Okay. Is it
5:00
about money? Is it about Musk's money? It's about
5:02
Musk's money because two provisions in the bill
5:05
say that you are... They're going to take away
5:10
the tax credit for buying electric vehicles.
5:13
And they're also taking away or trying to stop
5:16
the building of these clean energy facilities,
5:19
which will build batteries. And Musk, you know,
5:23
Tesla relies on batteries. And the other thing
5:25
about Tesla is that it would not be as successful
5:31
as it has been without these tax cuts. for buyers
5:36
of Teslas. And he knows, like he's in trouble
5:39
because he screwed up royally by even joining
5:43
the Trump administration and killing jobs, taking
5:49
away people's livelihoods and getting these...
5:52
ending these programs that were actually saving
5:54
lives. But, you know, he doesn't care because
5:56
it wasn't affecting him. And we find with all
6:01
of these votes and with all these Republican
6:03
activities that people will vote against their
6:06
own interest until they find out, oh, it's going
6:09
to hit me. And Musk has realized, oh, it's going
6:13
to hit me. And I've lost money with Tesla ever
6:15
since joining the administration because people
6:18
realize what a scum... Yeah, I was going to say
6:21
scumbag, but douchebag works just as well. But
6:24
people are seeing that he's that kind of person.
6:28
And if people have been reading our blog, they
6:30
know that I refer to Musk as a ketamine -addicted
6:33
drug addict, South African space Nazi, illegal
6:37
alien. Maybe they read it as a joke, but it's
6:41
all true. I mean, he is a drug user. I know that
6:45
because when I was working in San Francisco,
6:47
he was constantly in the news about these Ketamine
6:52
parties that he was throwing into how his associates
6:55
were involved in Ketamine. And, you know, the
6:57
idea that this whole space Nazi thing, he's talking
7:01
about going to another planet, which I hope he
7:04
goes to soon because we don't need him here anymore.
7:07
I'm just concerned that he's going to destroy
7:08
our planet and then just, you know, have all
7:11
of us spawn, you know, start a new race on Mars.
7:15
That's his intention to destroy this planet.
7:17
And, you know, that's why he's doing these things
7:19
in the government. where he's ending jobs. He's
7:23
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands
7:26
of people, and people don't seem to understand
7:28
that all the stuff he's cut have been essential
7:32
services, and they are not only in the United
7:36
States, they affect people worldwide. But he
7:39
doesn't care because it's more money for him
7:41
and for all the people who are part of his little...
7:45
coterie of um of what's the word they're um just
7:51
evil people it's like Elon Musk, it's a cult
7:55
and he's a Bond villain. If you go to any James
7:58
Bond movie and look at the evil guy in it, just
8:01
put Elon Musk in that and that's where we are.
8:04
But anyway, you were saying? Yeah, I just wanted
8:06
to mention that, you know, thousands of Kentucky
8:09
jobs are at stake regarding this clean energy
8:13
part of what they want to cut. And this is according
8:17
to the Columbus Dispatch. In Kentucky, more than
8:20
11 ,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic
8:24
development hang in the balance as Congress considers
8:27
axing clean energy tax credits approved in the
8:30
Biden -era Inflation Reduction Act. One of the
8:33
reasons that Kentucky gets so much of this is
8:36
that we've... been a coal state right and we're
8:40
trying to stimulate economic development around
8:42
clean energy and the Republicans have been making
8:45
these unjustified promises that we're going to
8:48
bring back coal and that's not going to happen
8:51
you know the coal miners may think that that's
8:54
what's going to happen but you can get coal cheaper
8:56
from places like India or from other countries
9:01
and there's not the honestly in other countries
9:05
they don't care about the health of people like
9:08
uh here i get the feeling that there's more of
9:11
a slave labor attitude like you know the reason
9:15
that a lot of companies have outsourced their
9:18
business to other countries is because it's cheap
9:22
labor Plus, you mentioned that around the coal
9:26
thing. So you come back to coal, and then you
9:29
have more miners mining coal, and you have more
9:32
deaths because we're not going to have proper
9:34
health care. Right, because we're cutting Medicare
9:37
and Medicaid, which most of them are relying
9:39
on. And again, it goes back to this idea of remember
9:43
when everybody was criticizing Obamacare. Not
9:47
because... It was a bad program because it was
9:52
actually a Republican program, but essentially
9:55
it was because it was a black guy who introduced
9:57
it. And there's, I have to say, there's like
10:00
this element of racism throughout this whole,
10:02
that whole anti -Obama era and the anti -Obamacare
10:06
era where they were telling lies that, you know,
10:09
if this legislation passes, your grandmother
10:12
is going to die. Now, Trump is passing all this
10:16
legislation and people are actually dying. But
10:19
where are the complaints? Where are the outraged
10:24
editorials about this? I just don't know. Yeah,
10:27
and in terms of jobs around this clean energy
10:30
stuff in Kentucky, we have more operational jobs
10:33
at stake in these clean energy investments than
10:37
almost any other state. That just blew my mind.
10:41
And we're tied for the largest of any state east
10:45
of the Mississippi River in terms of these investments.
10:48
So this is real economic development. It's jobs.
10:52
It's good for our air. It's good for our water.
10:55
It's good for the planet. for everybody and we're
10:57
going to lose out right and it's all being cut
11:00
because we keep electing Republicans to these
11:03
positions in the federal government and i don't
11:07
know if i've raised this before but The fact
11:10
that all these bills are passing and the Republicans
11:12
aren't even looking at them, it just amazes me.
11:16
I've been watching a bunch of clips, either on
11:19
YouTube or on the news, where constituents are
11:22
yelling at their Republican candidates or Republican
11:25
representatives who are actually holding these
11:30
town hall meetings. And they're saying things
11:33
like, you know, in this big batch of bullshit
11:37
bill, There are these provisions that say that
11:41
we're going to do this and this. And why do you
11:44
support something like that? And the congressman
11:46
will say, well, I didn't know it was in the bill.
11:48
I read this thing today where Marjorie Taylor
11:51
Greene, who is like one of the evilest people
11:54
in the planet, she wrote on Twitter that there's
11:59
this thing in the bill that says that you. States
12:02
cannot regulate AI companies for 10 years. And
12:06
she puts in big capital letters. If I had known
12:08
this was in the bill, I wouldn't have voted for
12:10
it. And, you know, okay, so if she wouldn't have
12:14
voted for it, if other Republican Congress people
12:16
would not have voted for it, this bill wouldn't
12:18
be in this discussion. We wouldn't be talking
12:21
about it now. Instead, we're talking about how
12:25
much it's going to hurt people. which they knew
12:29
it was going to do, which the Trump administration
12:31
knew it was going to do. We haven't even gotten
12:33
to the point about, because of this bill, more
12:37
tax cuts are going to billionaires, and that
12:40
means less money is going to people who actually
12:42
need the money. What's a billionaire going to
12:45
do with his tax cut? Buy another yacht. What
12:48
are people going to do with their tax cut? Have
12:51
food. Like maybe shelter? Well, not only, yeah.
12:55
Maybe transportation? Right. Health care? Right.
12:56
This is just this list of things where things
12:59
are better for society in general, but the bill
13:05
has made it so things are better for people who
13:08
are already rich, who already don't know what
13:10
to do with the money they've got, and who are
13:13
just squandering these fortunes. It's repulsive.
13:19
And I just want to mention one other thing that
13:21
really hits home for all of us is that FEMA,
13:25
if we lower what we're investing in FEMA, just
13:30
think about we're in Tornado Alley now. We see
13:34
that it's moved eastward, and we're like Kansas
13:37
now in Kentucky historically. And Rand Paul,
13:42
of course, he thinks debt is the real problem
13:44
because with this bullshit bill, we're going
13:48
to have an interest payment of a trillion dollars.
13:51
And that's going to push out expenses like FEMA,
13:54
which most people agree needs to be there during
13:56
times of disaster. Did you see in the news this
13:59
week that the head of FEMA didn't know that there
14:02
was a hurricane season? I'm amazed that all these
14:08
people that Trump has bought into his little
14:10
coterie of misfits. don't know what their jobs
14:14
are. They have no idea what they're dealing with.
14:16
So Miami is right on the path of every hurricane.
14:20
South Florida is going to get wiped out, or the
14:23
Gulf Coast is going to be hit. And we've seen
14:27
already that when these disasters happen, FEMA
14:32
isn't there anymore. When Joe Biden was president,
14:36
you saw Joe Biden go to these places the second
14:39
the disaster happened and Kamala Harris was right
14:41
behind him. Trump hasn't been to any of these
14:44
disasters. FEMA's not going to any of these disasters.
14:47
So again, why do people keep voting for these
14:51
guys? I just don't get it. Yeah, and I just want
14:55
to go a little bit back to the health care part,
14:58
the disastrous health care part. nearly half
15:02
of Kentucky women rely on Medicaid to cover the
15:05
cost of childbirth, right? So in 2023, 44 % of
15:10
all childbirths in Kentucky were paid for by
15:13
Medicaid, higher than the national average. So
15:16
again, low -income women, children, you know,
15:21
this is who's going to be affected by this disastrous
15:24
bullshit bill. And what I want to say before
15:28
we get off this topic is It is time. If you haven't
15:32
called or emailed our senators, McConnell's information
15:37
is very easy to find, as is Rand Paul's. I actually
15:42
did get a form letter back from McConnell about
15:45
continuing to fund. public broadcasting, because
15:48
I'm a Louisville public media member and have
15:51
been for a long time, love KET. That would be
15:55
a horrible thing for our country to lose out
15:58
on that funding. So I did get a response from
16:00
him, and I have gotten responses from Rand Paul's
16:03
office also. But that's what we need to do, Kentuckians.
16:06
We need to make sure that McConnell and Paul
16:08
do not vote for this disastrous legislation.
16:11
I get the feeling Rand Paul will not vote for
16:14
it because he is a contrarian. you know i i will
16:18
always say bad things about Rand Paul, but he's
16:21
doing the right thing not for the right reasons
16:23
but he's doing the right thing he is saying that
16:26
this bill is irresponsible and it is so what
16:31
what also gets me is that um there are i i keep
16:36
raising this issue but there are Republicans
16:39
who keep doing these things. And what shocked
16:43
me this week was that there's a state senator
16:46
in Eastern Kentucky, I think. Robin Webb. Robin
16:48
Webb, yeah. And this week she announced that
16:52
she's leaving the Democratic Party to go to the
16:55
Republican Party because the Republican Party
16:58
better represents the values of Eastern Kentucky.
17:02
What are the values of Eastern Kentucky? Do we
17:04
need health care in Eastern Kentucky? Do we need
17:05
food? Do we want clean air? Do we have children
17:10
that we want fed? Or educated? Do we want to
17:15
deal with the disasters that are coming? As you
17:18
said, the tornadoes are now more prevalent in
17:21
Kentucky than they've been in recent years. And
17:24
she's decided to... i guess she's decided to
17:27
be the latest clown in this Republican circus
17:29
and you know the circus just keeps going on and
17:32
on and i i don't know if this is a good time
17:36
to make this transition but the circus is even
17:38
more prominent now that musk and trump are fighting
17:41
i i don't know if you've seen what's going on
17:43
there but you know Musk is saying things like
17:46
um Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files which
17:50
oh well like we didn't know that? We've seen pictures
17:53
of him with Jeffrey Epstein Plus, you know, he
17:56
is a convicted felon over 34 times and, you know,
18:00
rapist. Yeah, just what he does. And, you know,
18:04
Musk isn't any better. But it's good to see like
18:08
this little catfight between the two billionaires.
18:13
Just because there are things that I wonder about
18:16
this situation. If Trump is intending to be a
18:21
real dictator, is he going to be like Vladimir
18:23
Putin was? Because a billionaire pissed off Vladimir
18:27
Putin years ago, and he took away his fortune.
18:32
He just took it away, put the guy in jail in
18:35
Siberia. And the guy's name was Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
18:41
But that's what dictators do. So we have to see
18:46
what Trump is going to do involving Elon Musk.
18:51
You know, Steve Bannon has been pointing out
18:53
that Musk came into the country illegally. And
19:00
I've been looking at a lot of clips of people
19:02
who are... who come to the country legally and
19:06
are being, not exported, just extradited out.
19:09
They're sending people to places that... Deported.
19:12
Yeah, they're deporting people to places that
19:15
they don't even know about. I've seen that they've
19:17
been sending people from Haiti and South America
19:20
to Africa. Right. Sudan. You're right, South
19:24
Sudan, which is... Just a country that's in really
19:28
horrible straits. Right. And we've banned, you
19:30
know, we've banned now, what, 19 countries? People
19:33
from 19 countries from coming in? I think that
19:35
happened this week, too. Right. And a half million
19:37
people from, what's it, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti,
19:41
and Colombia were banned by Trump, which, okay,
19:47
now takes me into the Cuban support of Trump.
19:51
Like Cubans have always been supporting Republicans.
19:54
We know that. But I've seen these clips. They're
19:58
constantly running about where this Cuban band
20:01
is playing this song called "I Will Vote for Donald
20:05
Trump." And then five seconds later, you have
20:07
a bunch of Cubans saying, oh, no, they're going
20:10
to throw me out of the country. And I've been
20:11
here and I came in legally. I did all the right
20:13
things. In a sense, the people who came in illegally
20:18
and didn't do the right things have a better
20:20
chance of staying in the country because the
20:23
government has the addresses of the people who
20:25
did the right thing. And it's easier to track
20:28
them down than to actually look for the alleged
20:30
criminals and rapists and murderers. Well, they
20:34
used a legal process called asylum. Right, right.
20:38
And now they are being carted away because...
20:43
their communities voted for Donald Trump. And
20:46
I don't understand. Well, it's not like people
20:52
had not been warned. Everybody was saying, this
20:55
is going to happen. And that was written off
20:58
as, oh, you liberals. You just hate Trump. You
21:01
have this Trump derangement syndrome. And he's
21:05
going to... bring down the cost of groceries
21:08
which have increased during his tenure he's going
21:12
to do all these wonderful things and none of
21:14
these wonderful things are happening this this
21:16
terrible bill will increase will raise inflation
21:20
right it has raised inflation it's so we have
21:24
tariffs that that are part of his administration
21:26
tariffs are increasing the cost of uh products
21:30
that people buy from places like Walmart and Amazon.
21:35
Well Amazon at one time was placing on its uh
21:38
website what the tariffs are costing for each
21:41
thing you buy until Trump yelled at Jeff Bezos
21:44
and Jeff Bezos like a coward ran away and had
21:47
to take him off so it's just not we are not in
21:52
a good situation and i guess that will lead us
21:56
to this idea of Trump wanted to be a dictator
22:01
Trump wants to be a king. And on, what, June
22:04
14th, on Flag Day, they're going to have this...
22:08
A nationwide day of defiance all over the country.
22:13
And in Kentucky, we have a lot of opportunities
22:17
to show Donald Trump that there are no thrones,
22:21
no crowns, no kings on June 14th. And I just
22:26
want to go through a list of the cities that
22:29
I have information for. And, you know, just be
22:32
sure you can Google 50501 Kentucky, 50501 Kentucky.
22:40
They've got a great Facebook page. What's the significance of that number?
22:43
It's 50 states, 50 protests, one movement. And
22:48
this has been really effective, although of course
22:50
we've discussed that the mainstream media really
22:53
is underreporting these protests. Paducah,
22:58
on June 14th, 1 p .m. Hopkinsville, noon. Todd
23:03
County, 11 a .m. Madisonville. 11 a .m Owensboro
23:09
11 a .m Elizabethtown 3 30 p .m Franklin 11 a
23:16
.m Bowling Green, 1130 a .m. Louisville, noon.
23:21
Danville, 10 a .m. Lexington, noon. Moorhead,
23:25
noon. Hazard, noon. And for those folks near
23:28
the border, Northwest Tennessee, noon. And Cincinnati,
23:31
11 a .m. You know, one of the things I'm really
23:34
heartened by, Jesse, is, you know, you don't
23:37
see a hotbed of like... progressive activity
23:40
typically right in i don't know Madisonville
23:44
or Hopkinsville or E-town and people are showing
23:48
up because they're they're getting wise to the
23:51
fact that this uh administration is destroying
23:55
our democracy and destroying our lives. Right.
23:59
And we should also point out that the reason
24:01
these protests are happening is because Trump
24:04
has decided for his birthday, which happens to
24:07
fall on Flag Day, that he's going to have this
24:09
huge like military parade down the streets of
24:12
Washington where they get to show off the troops
24:15
and the weaponry. Kind of like, you know, like
24:18
being in North Korea. Yeah, it's it's just. He
24:22
admires dictators. He likes the idea of showing
24:27
power because he's an ineffectual person. And
24:31
he's putting us through this sort of decimation
24:38
of democracy. And as you noted on this, I actually
24:42
have a big poster that says, No Kings. And we're
24:46
going to put that out in front of our house on
24:48
the 14th. So many things are happening and it
24:54
really is difficult to watch this happen and
25:00
not be appalled by what's going on. But again,
25:03
there are so many people who are still in their
25:07
little bubbles and don't realize all the bad
25:10
things that are going to happen to them. I don't
25:14
understand why that's happening. So I've got
25:16
a segue to pitch to you, and that is about the
25:21
national pastime, one of the greatest sports
25:25
in the country, and lifting up Louisville, particularly
25:29
University of Louisville. Well, today, for people
25:34
who know college sports, we're now in the season
25:37
of baseball, and it's time for the baseball playoffs.
25:41
There will be a College World Series in Omaha,
25:44
Nebraska in a week or two. But right now we're
25:48
in the Super Regionals and amazingly Louisville
25:52
is in the Super Regionals starting today. There
25:54
is a game at three o 'clock at Jim Patterson
25:57
Stadium. It's right next to the football stadium
25:59
and they're going to play Miami. The weird thing
26:03
about this is that Louisville shouldn't be playing
26:05
a home game in this whole series because they
26:08
weren't even one of the ranked teams. There were
26:11
like, I think, 16 ranked teams. Louisville happened
26:14
to beat the number one team in the earlier rounds.
26:17
Other teams beat the other ranked teams. And
26:21
the result is that Louisville is now hosting
26:24
the best of three series. It's going to happen
26:26
today, tomorrow, and Sunday. First game's at
26:29
three o 'clock. Are you going? I'm going to walk
26:34
by the stadium to see if there are any tickets.
26:36
And I've written about this before on the blog,
26:40
but during the season, Louisville baseball had
26:44
free games. It's like you could just walk into
26:47
the stadium. I remember walking by one day, and
26:50
I saw that there was a game going on, and so
26:52
I went up and I asked, how much are tickets?
26:55
And they said, oh, it's free. And so I went in
26:58
and I enjoyed the game. I think they were playing
27:01
Wake Forest or someone like that. And then there
27:05
are very few games that cost anything in terms
27:09
of Louisville baseball. And I'm going to have
27:13
to do an examination of this because it makes
27:16
me question the role of the University of Louisville
27:19
in general. And I've raised this before that
27:22
it's... You know, when you talk about going to
27:26
college, people are looking for the college with
27:29
the best, like, science program or the best medical
27:33
programs or the best social studies programs,
27:36
Harvard for, you know, just law or Stanford and
27:42
MIT for science. And Louisville doesn't really
27:46
rank in those areas, but in terms of sports,
27:49
Louisville is one of the best. college sports
27:53
schools in the country. The men's and women's
27:57
basketball teams, they've both been in the NCAA
27:59
tournament. They've both gone far in the NCAA
28:02
tournament. The men's have won national championships.
28:05
The women's have been in final fours. The volleyball
28:08
team last year was in the finals. They lost to
28:11
Pittsburgh. But again, that puts them at like
28:14
the number two team in the country. The swim
28:17
team, it's got Olympic athletes on it. And now
28:21
you have the baseball team going into this, possibly
28:24
going to the College World Series. So I just
28:28
wonder why Louisville doesn't like... take this
28:31
approach and point out that look we're one of
28:34
the best schools to go to if you're a student
28:36
athlete like they can arrange their curriculum
28:40
to do things like not only have them playing
28:44
sports but you know coaching Louisville has good
28:47
coaches so why not teach these athletes the the
28:51
advantages of being coaches or the the strategies
28:54
of being coaches their business team or their
28:58
business side could do things related to how
29:01
do you operate a sports franchise. Their legal
29:07
people can do things in terms of contracts, laws,
29:11
you know, contracts for athletes. So there just
29:16
seems to be so much of an opportunity to rebrand
29:19
the school as one of the better student -athlete
29:23
schools in the country. And I would think that
29:25
that would be a draw for people to come to Louisville,
29:29
especially if they realize the weight sports
29:34
puts on the school. You can tell that the school
29:37
is more focused on sports because you just go
29:40
to the campus and you look at all the stuff they
29:42
built for all the student athletes. There are
29:45
fields for every sports. The soccer team has
29:48
its own stadium. The football team has a huge
29:49
stadium. The baseball team has a stadium. The
29:52
volleyball team and basketball teams play at
29:55
the YUM Center. And they built a facility for
29:58
basketball across the street from a new dorm
30:01
that they built for student athletes. If you
30:04
look at the new buildings that have gone up on
30:06
the Louisville campus, most of them have been
30:09
sports, and now they're putting up a new building
30:11
for engineering. And the reason they're doing
30:13
that is because the money from sports is bringing
30:16
all this revenue, and they're able to build new
30:19
things for other students. So that's just my
30:23
little... talk for the advantages of being a
30:29
sports school and not pretending to be anything
30:32
else. Yeah, fair enough. Thanks for lifting that
30:35
up. Anything else about sports that you want
30:37
to bring up? Yeah, I'm going to the game this
30:39
afternoon. Yay. I hope so. I hope you get a ticket.
30:42
I did see, I checked on, what do you call it,
30:46
on the Ticketmaster, and they were selling tickets
30:50
for $31. So we'll see if that's still the case.
30:54
Right. And that's like not free, but it's not
30:59
expensive if you're thinking, well, this is like
31:02
a major sports event. And it's nothing like what
31:05
you would pay to go for a basketball game or
31:08
a basketball tournament. I have gone to I went
31:12
to the. the tournament the year the men won the
31:16
uh the national champion championship for basketball
31:19
that was i think 2013 that was in Atlanta the
31:23
tickets were astronomical i went to the women's
31:26
tournament in Columbus Ohio when they made the
31:29
final four and the tickets were really expensive
31:34
I didn't even bother to look at volleyball tickets
31:36
because they're just so expensive. But I had
31:38
gone to the volleyball tournament several years
31:40
ago when they made it into the final four. And
31:43
that was reasonable, but it was like going to
31:47
a professional game, spending like if you're
31:50
going to a Cincinnati game for baseball or an
31:55
Indianapolis game for football. But in general
31:58
the prices are very reasonable except for men's
32:01
men's basketball because basketball is like God
32:03
here in Kentucky and It's stuff that you can
32:07
take your kids to and since we've been talking
32:09
about the expense of things, you know if a sport
32:14
is free you can take your kids to this the
32:17
baseball stadium has a nice field there's a playground
32:20
for kids they have they bring in like this bouncy
32:23
thing like this bouncy castle that the kids can
32:25
use so you know that's free i've sat and watched
32:29
softball games the women's softball games and
32:32
you just sit outside the stadium or go in the
32:34
stadium because it's free and just watch some
32:37
good athletes playing. The field hockey team,
32:40
I watch them play. There's a lacrosse team. I
32:42
haven't been to the soccer stadium yet, so maybe
32:45
next year. But going to those games are cheaper
32:51
than going to the professional soccer games here
32:55
or going to the minor league baseball games here.
33:00
They're just more expensive. If you're on a budget,
33:05
take advantage of using college sports because
33:09
they are reasonable. Even the football games,
33:13
you know, if you're going to like a professional
33:15
football game, you're going to spend hundreds
33:17
of dollars. If you go to a Louisville football
33:19
game, you can get into the stadium for maybe
33:21
$20 to $30. And Louisville football this year,
33:25
oh great, the football team's really good and
33:28
they have a good chance of making like the playoffs.
33:32
for college football so there are so many opportunities
33:35
here and that's why i'm saying that if you're
33:40
an administrator if you're the president of the
33:42
university of louisville just think about rebranding
33:46
yourself because being honest yeah sports is
33:50
really important here i'm sure sports are important
33:52
at the university of kentucky as well but louisville
33:55
has a really good sports situation and the city
33:59
is bigger so there are more people who can avail
34:03
themselves of the inexpensiveness of these various
34:06
things. So that's my little lecture on sports
34:10
for now. And I'll probably put something together
34:12
in a blog post, just fleshing this out even more.
34:17
Yeah, maybe give us some dates of some upcoming
34:19
things that are happening that we can go to.
34:21
Well, today. Today at 3. And tomorrow at noon.
34:24
And if each win a game, then the final game is
34:29
Sunday. In the afternoons. And we haven't said
34:31
what date it is. What date it is? Today. Oh,
34:34
today, right. Yeah. This weekend is it for the
34:38
Super Regionals. Today is June 6th, by the way.
34:41
Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to segue.
34:44
I promoted Voces Noves concerts, choral concerts
34:49
called A Stop at the Underground Railroad. And
34:53
we sang to two... sold out audiences in the Old
34:58
Town Clock Church, which is now Second Baptist
35:02
Church at 300 East Main Street in New Albany.
35:06
We had these concerts last weekend, and Jesse,
35:08
you and your wife got to come. It was really
35:12
uplifting for a lot of reasons. First of all,
35:15
just having a full... That's amazing. And we
35:20
sang so beautifully. I mean, so beautifully.
35:24
And these were primarily spirituals, right? And
35:27
then we learned about the history of this church
35:31
on the Underground Railroad and its significance.
35:35
Underneath us were tunnels and places where enslaved
35:41
people fleeing slavery were fed and housed and
35:46
clothed. and provided provisions for going further
35:50
up north. So it seemed like a real act of resistance
35:55
to me, actually, Jesse, to celebrate our history
36:00
while it's being whitewashed, while slavery in
36:03
the history books, who knows if they want to
36:05
even just take that out because it's so DEI.
36:08
But it was really a beautiful weekend. Well,
36:11
a couple of things I would point out in this,
36:13
and I think there is... this idea that they can
36:18
reinstitute slavery here. It's unfortunate, but
36:23
if you remember back at the campaign, Trump was
36:26
talking about how he's going to get all the immigrants
36:28
out of the country because they were taking away
36:30
black jobs. you know a lot of people were saying
36:34
oh what's a black job but yeah Obama said what's
36:37
a black job and i know what it is and i know
36:39
in Trump's mind what he thought it was and it's
36:42
that oh the immigrants are going to go and you're
36:44
going to have black people out in the fields
36:46
like picking as he would say like they were supposed
36:48
to be doing or picking grapes in 110 degree heat
36:52
or and getting paid like less than minimum wage
36:56
to work more than 40 hours a week and work every
37:00
day of the week. Right. You're a black person
37:02
with him who had, like, pretty major jobs. Yeah,
37:05
but I know that in his mind, I should be out
37:10
in the fields picking cotton. And the reality
37:14
is my family was out in the fields picking cotton
37:17
back in the pre -Civil War days and probably
37:20
after that as sharecroppers. This approach to
37:26
the Underground Railroad really meant a lot to
37:29
me as a black person because I know in my family
37:33
history that the Underground Railroad was crucial
37:36
to freedom for some of my ancestors on my father's
37:43
side. I've told this story before where my third
37:48
great -grandmother was supposed to be released
37:52
from slavery because Her quote -unquote owner
37:56
was actually the person who had children with
37:59
her. And when he died, he freed his slaves. But
38:05
he was essentially freeing his family. And she
38:09
knew that the guy's family was going to contest
38:12
the will, so she ran away. And she went with
38:16
six children. One of her sons was 16 years old.
38:21
The slave catchers caught up to them, and she
38:25
went back with five of the children and told
38:27
the older son to use the Underground Railroad
38:30
to get out of there and keep running. And he
38:35
used the Underground Railroad to get from Virginia
38:39
to Pennsylvania, used that to get from Pennsylvania
38:42
to Ohio, and used that to get from Ohio to Canada.
38:48
The Underground Railroad really means a lot to
38:50
my family's history and Louisville was not only
38:56
a point at which people were but they were leaving
39:01
from Louisville to go across the river to Indiana,
39:04
which is what this church's function was. Right,
39:08
and thousands of people went through this church
39:10
in New Albany. It kind of gave me chills, Jesse.
39:14
I was driving over the bridge, the I -64 West
39:17
Bridge from Louisville over into Indiana, and
39:20
you can see the church. It's up on a bluff there
39:23
by the river, and you see the white steeple,
39:26
and it just made such an impact on me. me that
39:29
people could see that steeple and knew where
39:32
to go to cross the river. And in the winter if
39:35
I remember correctly people were actually walking
39:37
across the ice from Kentucky to Indiana. I also
39:41
paid attention to the fact that the river is
39:44
narrower right there so it just you know it really
39:47
had a lot going for it in terms of being able
39:50
to cross the mighty Ohio. Right and if you're
39:53
aware of just the geography of this region There's
39:57
also an underground, there's an underground railroad
39:59
museum next to the church, which I saw. At the
40:02
Carnegie Museum. Right. There's a really good
40:05
exhibit there. And there's, if you go east of
40:09
here to Cincinnati, there's a huge underground
40:11
railroad museum there next to the sports facilities.
40:15
Right. So my kids there on field trips. Excellent.
40:18
Yeah, so there's a deep history on just the slavery
40:22
days and the... protest against slavery. There
40:28
were a lot of abolitionists in this region. One
40:30
of the stories that I learned from the concert
40:32
was that there was a conductor on a real train
40:35
who wouldn't let people go on the train to arrest
40:39
suspected escaped slaves, which that's just the
40:44
bravery it took to do things like that, just
40:47
to defy the authorities, which sort of should
40:52
be an inspiration to us today. Because we are
40:55
in an authoritarian situation. And in history,
41:00
the United States has always been an authoritarian
41:03
government for a certain group of people, for
41:06
black people. Indigenous people. Indigenous people
41:11
were murdered. Black people were enslaved. And
41:17
when the slavery was over, they introduced these
41:19
new laws to make sure that black people would
41:23
remain in a state of servitude, which is also
41:27
what concerns me today because I think about
41:30
this old concept of Trump saying black jobs and
41:34
knowing what he meant. But if you think about
41:37
it, there's also this, the thing, there are a
41:41
lot of owners of for -profit prisons. and they
41:45
get a lot of money from the federal government.
41:47
So there is an incentive to put more people in
41:53
jail, to just take away the rights of people
41:56
for just souped -up charges, which people say,
42:00
oh, that doesn't happen, but it does, and everyone
42:02
knows it does. And it happens disproportionately
42:04
to black men. Right, so you put more people in
42:09
these for -profit jails. What are they going
42:13
to do with the people who are in the jails? They're
42:14
going to put them out in the fields. It's like
42:16
Cool Hand Luke, just being on a chain gang, doing
42:20
all this menial labor that people don't want
42:23
to do and paying nothing for it. This is institutional
42:28
slavery being reintroduced. So thinking about
42:32
the stories of the Underground Railroad and realizing
42:36
that the approach to democracy... is very fragile
42:42
these days and we have that's why we're talking
42:46
about the the no kings um observations that are
42:50
going to take place on flag day a day that's
42:52
supposed to be representative of American history
42:56
because it's the celebration of the flag but
42:59
instead it's become this well Trump is trying
43:02
to make it a celebration of himself yeah and
43:05
this is a person who wants to be a dictator who
43:10
just has a fragile ego who's a bad person all
43:14
around and you know the the fact that he and
43:17
Elon Musk are fighting is just it's a pleasure
43:20
to watch and we don't know how it's all going
43:23
to end up but the the idea that these billionaires
43:29
are fighting it out because one wants to be the
43:33
king of the world And, you know, Trump wants
43:36
to be king of the world. That's why he's saying
43:38
things like, let's make Canada a 51st state.
43:42
And I'm sure the Canadians hate that idea. I've
43:45
seen recently that Florida is thinking about
43:47
seceding from the union because you got Ron DeSantis,
43:51
who's like a little like pocket dictator. It's
43:55
just ridiculous. And I keep thinking, you know,
43:59
why doesn't Canada just respond by saying, you
44:03
know. Trump is an idiot. And if there are states
44:06
that want to join Canada, we'll do that. We'll
44:08
take that instead. So I guess this is a sad way
44:14
of saying that we're in a very fragile situation
44:17
these days in this country. And if people, again,
44:22
keep reelecting the people who are putting us
44:24
in these troubles, we are in big, we're doomed.
44:28
We just have a... I have a bad feeling about
44:32
this, as they said in the Star Wars movies. I
44:35
think it would be really powerful if on July
44:38
4th, if on Independence Day, we had die -ins
44:42
all over the country and people dress in black
44:45
and put a sign on them like... children starved
44:51
due to lack of health care, or I died of a botched
44:56
abortion, or I'm brain dead and they're keeping
45:01
me alive because I'm pregnant. That's happening.
45:03
Or they took away my Medicare, or they took away
45:05
my Medicaid. They complained about Obama allegedly
45:12
killing grandma during the Obamacare days, which
45:16
was a lie the whole time. But these people are
45:19
really literally killing grandma now. And the
45:22
outrage isn't there. Which brings me to one,
45:26
I guess, last point, and that's just the media
45:28
coverage of this has been horrendous. I keep
45:31
reading these things where... it's not about
45:35
the policy it's about the uh the sport of it
45:38
you know we're on this side they're on that side
45:42
they won this round it's like why don't you just
45:45
like ping pong yeah just do a bracket you know
45:48
it's like oh here's a sports bracket here's the
45:50
atrocity here's what the democrats are doing
45:53
let's see who's winning this round and i it makes
45:57
me reflect on something that i heard that the
46:00
um I think it was the head of NPR said several
46:03
months ago during the course of the demonstrations.
46:10
NPR didn't cover them. Or was it? Yeah, it was
46:13
NPR didn't cover them. And the woman who ran
46:16
NPR said that she went out to see the demonstrations
46:19
and she didn't see anything in it that made it
46:25
worth covering, even though there were thousands
46:27
of people there. What she was really saying was,
46:31
and I've seen this in other places, there were
46:34
no black people there, there were no police there,
46:36
that means that heads weren't going to be cracked.
46:40
And this is the truth. If you have an all -white
46:43
demonstration, the police presence is going to
46:45
be completely different than if there is an all
46:48
-black demonstration. And I'm not going to make
46:50
as much money. Right. It's not clickbait. Yeah,
46:53
but it's also, you know, the idea that... Black
46:58
people are there to be sacrificed. And that's
47:01
a bad liberal thought, that I'm not going to
47:06
this demonstration because there are no black
47:08
people. They just want to see black people get
47:11
their heads cracked. And this is what happened
47:13
during the Breonna Taylor and the George Floyd
47:16
protests when black people were out in the streets.
47:18
And police were there with military vehicles,
47:22
with tanks, and with heavy artillery. But when
47:27
white people protest, you don't see that at all.
47:30
And the thing that was most egregious during
47:34
the time was that when black people were protesting
47:36
peacefully, there were young white people who
47:40
were breaking windows. And they thought that
47:43
that was okay. And black people had to tell them
47:45
to stop doing it because... We know what's going
47:48
to happen in these demonstrations. They're not
47:50
going to go after the white people. They're going
47:52
after the black people. And that's what they
47:54
did in Louisville. That's what they did in the
47:56
George Floyd protest in Minneapolis. That's what
47:59
they did in St. Louis when the protests were
48:03
happening there. So just this coverage has been
48:08
just atrocious. And there are certain political
48:12
commentators who are now... wringing their hands
48:16
saying how horrible this all is when they were
48:19
actually taking this middle -of -the -road approach
48:22
to the whole Trump candidacy and Trump presidency.
48:26
And it's like their messages are essentially,
48:30
well, I didn't vote for this. Well, we didn't
48:33
vote for it either, but you guys probably voted
48:36
for Trump. And thinking that he was going to
48:38
do all these things that he lied about, that
48:41
he was going to reduce prices. He was going to
48:43
end the war in Ukraine. In one day. In one day.
48:47
And what I think today I saw headlines saying,
48:50
he said, well, maybe we should just let them
48:52
fight it out. Right. You know, it is really frustrating.
48:58
And having been in journalism, and, you know,
49:02
I did my part to try to get these messages out.
49:06
I would say things like, Let's look at Elon Musk,
49:11
for example. When we were covering him in San
49:15
Francisco, I would say things like, you know,
49:18
when you write about him, you should say that
49:21
he's an illegal immigrant, he's a drug user,
49:24
and he's not a good person. And he's from South
49:30
Africa. He was raised in South Africa during
49:33
apartheid, which means... That's what his thoughts
49:37
are about black people. So I would not be surprised
49:40
if he was the one who went to Trump and said,
49:42
you know, white farmers in South Africa are being
49:45
slaughtered by black people, which was a total
49:48
lie. And if it wasn't Elon Musk, it was probably
49:50
Peter Thiel, who's another South African billionaire
49:53
who's still in the government. He took over Doge.
49:57
after Musk left. And he owns PayPal, so he's
50:01
got a lot of information that he's gathering
50:03
on all of us. And Elon Musk gathered a lot of
50:06
information on us when he sent his little incel
50:09
minions into various agencies and got access
50:12
to people's personal records. You know, we just
50:17
have to be very careful now, and we have to look
50:19
at history. That's the other flaw that I see
50:22
in this country. People don't reflect on what
50:25
history has already shown us, and there's nothing
50:28
happening now that didn't happen before. So,
50:32
you know, if you go back into the 50s and you
50:34
look at the civil rights protests from the 40s
50:37
onward, if you look at history in terms of just
50:40
reconstruction and how once black people were
50:44
liberated, the new laws came in that made sure
50:49
their liberation wasn't going to last. These
50:52
are things that people have to be aware of. But
50:54
again. The Republicans are cutting funds to education.
50:58
The Republicans are cutting funds for DEI programs.
51:02
And DEI wasn't being taught in the schools to
51:05
begin with. That was a lie. It's just a consistent
51:08
batch of lies that they were telling their...
51:12
Base. Well, I have to say gullible base. So,
51:16
okay, I think I better get off my soapbox now
51:21
because I'm going a little overboard with this.
51:24
But anyway. So, what else do we have? I think
51:29
that's it for me. Okay. Well, I'd like to thank
51:32
everybody who's been listening to us. One note,
51:35
just if you haven't gone to our website, go to
51:38
it now because we had a really good day on the
51:41
site this week. On Monday, we had 200 views,
51:44
which for us is a lot. So, I'd like to thank
51:49
the people who did that. I hope that more people
51:52
will come. It's the bluegrassbluespodcast .com.
51:55
It's free. We don't intend to start charging
52:00
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52:03
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share our messages and hope you would share it
52:34
too. So with that, I think we're out. Goodbye.
52:38
Goodbye, folks. Our closing music is by John
52:44
Chamberlain. Thank you.