Full Show — w/ Guest Host Jacob Morrison - 4-27-26

And it's only on News Talk 770 a.m. 925 FM WVNN. Depend on it. That's right, this is the Dale Jackson show. But I'm not Dale Jackson. I'm Jacob Morrison. I am a co-host of The Valley Labor Report, the largest union talk radio program in the South, now also airing up across the Mason-Dixon line in Yankee land in Chicago and Minneapolis, if you can believe it. Enjoy hanging out with y'all on Tuesday mornings, and I'm hanging out with y'all all morning today. So hope you have fun. 866494-9-866 is the phone number. You're listening to 770 a.m. 92-5 FM, WVNN. We got a bunch to talk about today, but would love to talk about whatever you want to talk about. So give us a call. Send us a text. Same number, 844-899. I'm sorry, I almost gave you my show's phone number. It's 866-494-9-866 is WVN's number. Give us a call, send us a text. We'll love to talk about whatever you wanted to talk about. The first thing that I saw on the news yesterday that I was interested in talking about was this, you know, y'all talk about 1819 news pretty regularly on Dale's program. And I actually, I go to 1819 all the time. Because I think that they do, they do real interesting journalism and they like, you know, unlike so many other kind of right-wing media organizations that just do commentary and analysis and stuff like that. 1819 News puts in the work and does real reporting. It's interesting. And so, but they had an article yesterday where. You know, their leader, the Dawson guy and Fogel, they're talking about education in the last session. And the way that they talk about education in Alabama is so, it feels to me. disconnected from reality. Now, I know it's been a while since I have graduated from high school, I suppose. It's been, you know, over a decade at this point. But I feel like it can't have changed that much. But they're talking about how Alabamians are, the other side is using Alabama's schools to catechize children into a godless Marxist worldview. So, you know, I mean, I went to public school in Alabama, and my public school education, my Alabama public school education is not the reason that I have the politics that I do today. I very much have the politics that I do today, despite my public school education in the state of Alabama.

I actually know multiple of my teachers, some of my favorite teachers. I know them to be conservative. I think most of them, Christian, like literally go to church, church-going Christians. So it's just so strange seeing the way that people talk about. Seeing the way that people talk about Alabama's schools. You know, I hear some other people on like national media talking about how, oh, you know, the schools are godless indoctrination camps and liberal and woke. And, you know, I don't pretend to have any special insight into what goes on in New York City public schools. Although it would surprise me if it goes on exactly as reported, even there. But certainly in Alabama, you know, I mean, we really, it just seems not, it does not seem to track with reality to me. And so they're talking about the importance of the Ten Commandments and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I feel like we've always done that. in Alabama, the Pledge of Allegiance. And I just don't think that posting the Ten Commandments is going to have much of an impact on people, you know, really one way or another. You know, we can, I think that some people on the kind of freedom from religion side can get a little bit overly, overly exercised about, you know, the Ten Commandments. But... It's not going to, I don't see how it, you know, I don't know what good it's going to do either. And, you know, the prayer and school stuff is something that always is, again, something that's so kind of disconnected from reality because, you know, I was much more religious in high school than I am now. I prayed in school. And I did not get, you know, I didn't get taken out back and shown what for. So. It really is sort of surprising how they talk about public schools in the state of Alabama just does not track with the way that they actually operate in my experience. So interested in if you have any, you know, do you agree that somehow Alabama's public schools are catechizing children into a godless Marxist worldview 866-494-9-866 is the phone number. But in my opinion, all of this is really, there's this attempt to gin up all of this culture war stuff for the purpose of destroying public education, for the purpose of, you know, pushing quote unquote school choice and hurting, you know, public schools and making, destroying the, I mean, the real. Great thing that we've done in this country with public education and trying to funnel that money into kind of actually genuinely right-wing catechesis projects. So that's where I think that it comes from. And contra what some people want to say.

School choice is not actually something that benefits people educationally. There have been multiple studies on this, and it's actually intuitive when you think about it and you realize what school choice actually does. There's no reason to believe that, quote unquote, school choice, that allowing people to go to private school with public dollars increases educational outcomes. And the reason for that is that the really, really good schools, the ones that people think of when you think private school, those are already full up and they're not going to invest that much more money to get more seats. They might be have one or two or three or four or something like that, right? But they're not going to invest that much money in getting more seats. The people, they're already full up. with kind of the fancy pants and the higher quote-unquote higher echelons of society. And they're not going to make that much more room for new people. And so what happens is that you create this market of basically free money, especially in Alabama, there are almost no strings attached. You create this market of basically free money that incentivizes people that are not going to actually create good schools to go and create schools. And you end up with a bunch of small... terrible educational institutions like Bubba's Bible School or something, taking these public dollars without any accountability, without any oversight, and then people actually performing worse. There's been a scandal in Florida where people who are connected to the Ron DeSantis administration have been doing this, and some of these schools are still going bankrupt, and then giving people, giving children terrible educations, right? It doesn't actually even do kind of the thing that it purports to do makes educational outcomes worse while hampering public schools. and just giving basically, just giving basically a subsidy to people who are already rich, people who are already sending their kids to private school. So I'm going to talk a, I got a little bit more to say about this quote-unquote school choice stuff on the other side of the break. 866494-9-866 is the phone number. Give us a call. Be right back. It's the Dale Jackson Show.

7.70 a.m. 925 FM, WVNN. This is the Dale Jackson show. My name is not. Dale Jackson, my name is Jacob Morris, and I'm a co-host of the Valley Labor Report, the largest union talk radio program in the South, also now broadcasting in Yankee land. Filling in for Dale this morning. I hope y'all had a good weekend. I've been talking about... Been talking about school choice and some of this, some of this culture war stuff that is used to try to gen up interest in school choice and in pulling people out of public schools. And the, the Choose Act. is has been expanding and and as it is now there is there's either a limited number of of spaces or there's an income cap or something if there's a limited number of spaces then it's it's prioritized by income so lower income people get first dibs at the choose act stuff And so as it is now, you know, schools are still kind of, you know, I don't think that any really super hard budgetary decisions had to have been made at the local level, although it is definitely, it's diverting funds. And we've talked to some Huntsville City School Board members about that on our program about how it is diverting funds from local schools. But ultimately, this is so far, it's nothing that hasn't been able to be handled. And by doing that, you are able to sidestep the question of, are we just subsidizing, you know, education for the richest people in Alabama to get their children away from us normies, you know, the rest of us who went to public school? But they want to not only expand the Choose Act, they want to make it universal. And if they do make it universal, that will be just that will be terrible on. the budget that will increase this this incentive to create lots of low road bubba's bible school type institutions that can take choose act money while not giving a good education to the children And we have seen things like that happen in places like Arizona, just totally blew open the budget. And there's lots of problems happening right now in Arizona because of their quote unquote school choice programs. And, you know, because it's universal in Arizona.

You can tell that the vast, vast, vast majority of people who get that funding are some of the wealthiest people in the state who were already sending their children to private school and are now just getting that private education subsidized by the rest of us. That's not something that – it's not good for – it's not good for most children who are – were in public school and we're going to be – and then we're taken out of – public school because they go to these kind of lower road institutions, right? Because the high road private schools, they're already full and they're not going to make room for a whole bunch of people to come in. And they're not going to make room for a whole bunch of people to come in. And because of those, you know, because of the $7,000 vouchers when the tuition is $20,000 a year or something, right? It's just not worth it to them because there's not going to be enough kind of low income people to justify that who are willing to pay the additional $10,000, $13,000. to pay the full tuition. So it's, you know, not good for the children, not good for the state, not good for the budget. And it's just bad to subsidize... the private fancy smancy education of rich people. It's no good. We did get a text. It does divert money from our public schools on purpose. Yeah, I mean, that's what I think. It is, it, it's almost like an intentional political sabotage of our education system. And instead, you know, I mean, what we should be doing is trying to make our educational system better not the you know not talking about the um you know, the culture war stuff. I mean, that's just, that's not some, that is not the thing that is, um, that's really that prevalent in Alabama. You know, uh, you know, I mean, like I said, I grew up in Alabama. I went to Alabama public schools and, you know, they are not, uh, they're not indoctrinating people into godless Marxist communism. That's just not something that's happening in Alabama's public schools. We do have a caller on the line. Mike from Decatur wants to talk about the Choose Act. Mike, what's on your mind? Well, I don't know. I'm having a hard time to determine how you feel about the Choose Act, whether you're for it or against it. But, you know, the reason that most people are for that is because...

The school districts realign their, they realign their districts. And what they do, and my mother, she's a retired school teacher for the state of Alabama. And so they realign their school districts. And what they're doing is they're pushing in their schools that have, if they don't close the school completely and just reassign students. to the other schools. They're bringing in the students that are in those districts, and most of those districts that they're when they're realigning is because they're failing the state examination test. The reason they're failing state examination test is because most of them behave delinquently, and they don't take their academic studies seriously. And teachers have a hard time maintaining discipline in their classrooms. so on and so forth. And so when they realign the districts, and now you've pushed all these misbehaving children into a school that is primarily successful, it brings that school down. And now you're exposing other kids to this kind of behavior, and they're suffering, or I should say suffering, that's a little strong, but they're having to deal with the chaos that they create. And as a parent, I personally would like the idea of saying, you know something, I don't want my kid in an environment like that. I would rather pay for my child to go to school in a more structured environment, one of the safer, and they can graduate, and their diploma from that school is no different than their diploma from a state-run high school. Does that make sense? that it does make sense and it would make sense if that were kind of the way that it the way that it works out in reality but I mean you know I mean I'm very much against it just to be clear and we're going to be coming up on a break and if you'd like we can we can keep you over the break and we can keep talking to you but The, you know, what happens actually when you have these universal school choice programs, quote unquote, is that rather than the really good private schools accepting a lot more people, they're basically already full, right? And so they're not going to, and also their tuition is higher than the school choice vouchers. And so instead of those schools opening up a lot more spots, you get these low road fly by nine. contractor type institutions that open up that take advantage of people that want to get out of those situations and want the best for their children and they get taken advantage of and actually what we've seen is that the children who were in public school prior to the implementation of these quote unquote school choice bills and then go into private schools subsequent to that their scores either stay the same or get worse we do not actually see a an increase in educational attainment from people who were in public schools and then go to private schools because of that because of that dynamic and then

So instead of actually improving the educational outcomes of normal people, the children of working Alabamians, working Americans, what it ends up just being is a subsidy for rich parents who are already sending their children to private school instead of something that most of us want, which is the children of working Alabamaans normal people to have better educational outcomes. And we want them... We want them to have better educational outcomes. And so what we need to do, instead of running away from the public education system, we need to focus on how can we make it better. I think that's really the answer. We're coming up on a break. We'll be right back. 866-494-9-866. If you want to get where Mike is. Jim Rome takes on sports. I will always have a complicated relationship with this game. But people evolve. So do sports. Do not make me regret this. Do not make me devolve. Back to that guy that so many clones wish that I still was. And do not embarrass the entire country. Now, I can go back. I can get there fast. Lose tonight. And you got a real problem. Do not blow it. The Jim Rome Show podcast. You've been warned. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

770 a.m. 9.2.5 FM. WVNN. How'd you like my Dale impression? This is Jacob Morrison. Filling in for Dale on the Dale Jackson show. You might recognize my voice. I co-host the Valley Labor Report. Saturday mornings 932.11 right here on WVN. And also a bunch of other places. We've been talking about school choice and Mike from Decatur hung out with us over the break. So Mike, as we were... As we were wrapping up, you know, I was talking about kind of the, the, what happens as a result of these school choice programs sort of in reality as opposed to what we would, you know, kind of how they're sold. And so I'm curious what you make of that. Well, I'd like to respond to a couple of things that you said prior to the break. There is. Alabama is a technology hub for the United States, along with Silicon Valley. Absolutely. And really quick, if you don't mind me just putting a point on that, you know, I mean, I'm president of the Labor Council in North Alabama. That's the regional federation of unions. And I was looking at our last council meeting where we had, you know, we have at our meetings, we have representatives from a bunch of different unions, Half of the unions there had some sort of touchpoint to the Artemis launch. You know, either they helped do some of the programs, they helped, they built some of the stuff, you know, ULA and Decatur. They did some of the admin work for, you know, some of the NASA people who do admin work for the program. So it was really cool having so many people that were involved directly in that project. But yeah, I mean, Alabama definitely, Technology Hub, lots of really cool stuff happening here. Continue. Absolutely. And, you know, Alabama is a very becoming a very popular state. We're growing very fast. And so I have to disagree just a little bit with you on the culture aspect of it because there is a little bit of a culture issue because we have so many, like, for example, my neighbors are from California. I've never had neighbors from California. You know, I was like, well, welcome to the United States, you know. And they're nice people. Thank goodness didn't bring California politics with someone that came. But as a growing state, with people coming into our state from up north and from out west, it does create a there is cultural differences there. My children, I have two daughters that attended public school until the school started getting more troubled teens in the school. And so my wife and I, we moved them to private school setting. Now, we're not rich. Okay, I'm a law enforcement officer. My wife's a nurse. We're not rich by any standard. One of my daughters is a junior in high school. My other daughter is a freshman. I've got a, you know, my daughter's taking calculus now as one of her classes. And then my youngest daughter and as a freshman is have pre-cowl. They're both doing very well. You know, in fact, in fact, one of my daughters is actually tutoring a kid that was a friend of hers in the public school setting.

to help her to catch up. Well, I get, I mean, my... You know, I mean, I'm super glad that it's, you know, made a positive impact in your kid's life. But, I mean, I went to public school in the county, right? Buckhorn High School, you know, I guess I'll docks myself. I don't know if that, but I went to Buckhorn High School. And I think I took pre-Cal, either as a freshman or as a sophomore. I took Calculus as a junior. Lots of my friends took Cal BC as a senior and got to skip calculus totally in college. So, I mean, you know, that. it doesn't it doesn't have to be that way um and that and this was 10 years ago right i graduated in 2015 so um you know so i guess i you know it just doesn't I think that the focus should be much more on the, you know, improving the institutions that we have. Because there's also, you know, you mentioned the culture, you mentioned that there are cultural differences. And I think that's primarily, you know, among the, you know, among the students potentially, rather than the teachers pushing, you know, godless Marxism or whatever, right? I mean, that, at least that wasn't happening when I was in high school. But, uh, You know, I think that there's value in people being mixed together with other types of folks, people who grew up on different sides of town, different income levels, different cultures, so that you're ready for the world when you go, you know. So, I mean, there's a good sort of culture socialization aspect to school even above and beyond the kind of can you do calculus or not, right? Right. So how do you fix the problem? Because Alabama and the school systems, right, they've been having trouble. And like I said, you know, my mother, she's a retired school teacher. And she talks constantly throughout her career about the Montgomery politics that gets involved within the school systems. And, you know, the politicians and they seem to get in the way of progress. And their solution to everything is, well, let's throw more money at it. we're going to have the teachers raises and we're going to do this and we're going to do that. But yet still every school in Alabama has to continue to have fundraisers and fund drives. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go and buy cookies from the school so that they can afford toilet paper. And I'm thinking, what's going on with a taxpayer's dollar? You know, they haven't held not one fundraiser this year at the private school. And, you know, the kids are doing well. So the question is, actually, How do you fix this problem that's been ongoing since the time that I was a kid, and I'm now in my early 50s, and we still have the same problems? How do you fix it? What is the solution? Because doing more of the same is not working. Right.

I think that, you know, education policy experts are going to have better ideas about that. I just know that I do not believe that, quote unquote, school choice, these voucher programs are the answer because it doesn't seem like it's worked in other parts of the country. And, you know, you mentioned... Oh, shoot, there was something else that I wanted to talk about. You mentioned that reminded me of my high school experience. But I will say that I think that Mississippi, interestingly enough, has been doing some really interesting things in education policy outside of, quote unquote, school choice. Oh, it was that you mentioned that teachers have felt for a long time that politics have been too prevalent in. school and not like politics republican democrat or culture war stuff but but you know infighting and and people gunning for different leadership positions and things like this and and people having kind of ideas about how they want the schools run uh when i was in college i considered going into uh teaching and and my my favorite teacher actually the person that i respected the most and really appreciated and thought he did a great job he advised me against it. He said that if he could have it, if he could do it over again, he wouldn't do it because there's so much, so much kind of comes from above and he's just not able to teach, right? And so I think, I mean, I think that a big part of it is ultimately listening to educators about best practices and how to make things, how to make things work well and allowing teachers to teach and kind of, you know, getting politicians a little bit. to be maybe just a bit more hands off. But I mean, I don't know. What do you make of that? Well, I agree with everything that you just said in the aspects of, you know, when it comes to the politics of the schools, it's absolutely, it's Alabama. In Alabama, the public school systems try and implement policy and, I guess, academic rule in the same way that other states, let's just say, for example, a northern state, like let's take Boston, for example, a much more liberal state, but it gets all this big media attention. So Alabama tries to now, okay, well, we're going to implement this in our own school. And therefore, by implementing that, that you're creating a problem that wasn't there in the first place. And so it's those kind of political things that are happening. You know, I'll say this, everybody, if you turn on the news, it's always, especially if you turn on a station like CNN. It's always everything is a race issue with these guys. And the one way, I think Morgan Freeman said it best, if you want to kill racism, quit talking about it. And this is the problem that we're having is we're creating our, we in Montgomery are creating problems for our children in the classroom level because we're creating policies.

That may be, maybe that might work in a northern state where they've got an issue. But that's not happening down here. What policies? We go ahead and put it in and it leaves it. Yeah, what do you talk? I guess I'm not, I'm not picking up what you're putting down on the policies that we've tried to enact from Boston. Okay. Take a look at like the transgender policies. I don't, you know, since this whole thing come out with transgender. My daughter was telling me constantly about how kids that she has known since elementary school now don't know if they're gay or not. They don't know if they're bisexual or not. They don't know if they're pansexual, transsexual, if they want to be transsexual. Those are issues that are going on in a completely different state that's not have anything to do with what's going on here per se. with policies, but they're taking, they see it on the news, and then they go, well, you know what, I'm going to be proactive and I'm going to implement a policy here within this school. I guess I'm not aware of, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just not aware of any public schools in Alabama implementing a policy of the forcing or encouraging children to be trans or gay. It was one of the Huntsville schools. One of the Huntsville schools had a policy of telling kids they had to be gay or trans? No, no, no, no, no. They created bathrooms. They created bathrooms for transgender. And then it went from that to if you identify as transgender, you can go into whatever bathroom you feel the most comfortable. And that's not, that created chaos. So what I'm saying is the politics that is picked up in Alabama and tried to be implemented in our school systems is ruining the school systems. Let kids be kids, let the teachers teach their curriculums, and I think you'll have a better success rate. I don't know who decided it wasn't a good idea to punish kids anymore for, you know, look, a child has a right to defend their self. Yeah, Mike, we're coming up and watch your head. Mike, I really appreciate your call. I've enjoyed the conversation. We've got to go to a break now, and we'll go ahead and let you go. Thanks for calling in, Mike, and I'll respond to some of that on the other side of this break. You're listening to The Dale Jackson Show.

are his constituents would be unhappy to hear that he thinks social security is a scam and so if he thinks it's a scam the obvious the kind of next question to that is that what does he want to do with it right and one of the things that people always want to do with social security is uh raising the retirement age quote unquote And raising the retirement age for people who are not kind of in the know on this issue is just an across-the-board cut, right? Because we have a quote-unquote full retirement age of 67 or whatever. But the reality is that as it relates to Social Security, we have like 70 retirement ages. Because you can retire and start collecting Social Security as early as 62, but you take a reduced amount, right? You get a penalty for... starting to take Social Security early. And similarly, if you start taking your Social Security after 67, you get a premium monthly benefit, right? You get a certain amount if you retire when you're 67, and you get a certain amount plus 10% if you retire at 67 and six months. And so what, quote unquote, raising the retirement age does is it just institute if you raise it to 70, which is one of the things that's proposed pretty frequently. If you raise it to 70, then it is just an across-the-board cut on all retirement ages of about 20%. And there's no reason to do that. You don't have to do that. You could just raise taxes on rich people. And specifically, the Social Security tax, because a lot of people don't know this, the Social Security tax. is capped at $170,000 a year or something. You do not pay taxes towards Social Security after $170,000 or $180,000. That means that the union electrician who is working six, seven days a week, and he just hits $170,000 in a year, he pays exactly the same amount into Social Security that somebody who made $500 million or a billion that year did. That seems crazy to me. This is The Dale Jackson Show. It's the Dale Jackson Show. Jim Rome takes on sports. I will always have a complicated relationship with this game. But people evolve. So do sports. Do not make me regret this. Do not make me devolve. Back to that guy that so many clones wish that I still was. And do not embarrass the entire country. Now, I can go back. I can get there fast. Lose tonight. And you got a real problem. Do not blow it. The Jim Rome Show podcast. You've been warned. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

925 FMWVNN. 770 a.m. 92 5 FM, WVNN. You're listening to the Dale Jackson Show. My name is Jacob Morrison. I'm co-host of the Valley Labor Report, the largest union talk radio program in the southern United States. Appreciate everybody. Hang it in. Mike Texts says... Look, you seem to have a problem with families with money or those that would prioritize their children over their money. Move on, fellow, you're on the wrong station for people to agree with you on this one. I don't have a problem with, um... with families with money. I just disagree that working people should subsidize millionaires to send their, you know, to send their children to fancy smancy private schools. John from Huntsville called back has some kids in schools here locally. John, what's on your mind? Yeah, hey. So on the Choice Act, there is a cap limit that if you make X amount of dollars, you're not eligible for that. So the rich people don't get the funds. It's mainly designed for criteria under certain income cuts. That's correct. In Alabama. And that's only right now. They want to increase the limit in the next session. And ultimately, the goal is that they make it universal. Right. And you're against the universal. You're not so much against the Choice Act itself, are you? It sounds like you are. Yeah, I would probably, I don't think that I would have supported the Choose Act at all, but I have much less of a problem with the Choose Act that has, with a Choose Act that has an income limit than I do with a Choose Act that is universal. Right. Well, there is an income limit. I put three, five kids, three through public. Two through private, and I'm a blue-collar worker, and I definitely don't make a lot of money. And the reason we did that was because the three that went through public school would tell us about what was going on. And this is 2000, and they graduated. And 60%, and this is a city school, 60% of the kids would drop out between freshmen and senior. And my boys would ask them and say, what are you going to do? And they're welfare kids, basically. And so the system creates an attitude with people, children, that they don't have to try. And those that want to try or want to succeed are handcuffed, basically because the system is having to deal with disciplinary problems.

In the school system, a lot of that comes from the home, broken homes, homes that are teaching kids to take advantage of systems. And it is unfortunate that kids have to go to school in that environment. I will agree to the state that we do have too much politics. I have multiple family members that are teaching, some in county, some in city schools. And they tell us that the policies, their hands are tied also as far as teaching. They have to teach certain curriculum. And that's a nationwide thing. And I think parents are getting tired of that, being told that their children have to be indoctrinated into certain cultures and lifestyles. And it's opposite of what the families are bringing their children up in. So it's conflicting feelings with children. So people want to get the kids out of public schools. I was in schools in the 80s, and the testing has gone downhill. It was going downhill back in the 80s. And I've seen it. I've seen the test. You said you graduated in 2013? 15. 15? And I wonder if anybody that has taken any of the testing, and I don't know for sure, but I'd like to compare the actual test from, say, the 70s to the 2000 and look at how hard it is or easy it is, you know, the requirements on it. But, you know, I've always heard that they're dumbing down the test to get people to pass. But anyway, I just want to make that point because you're kind of hammering the rich people and you're talking about millionaires. And there is a, there is a, there is that income cap. And a lot of people don't apply that would like to. to be able to get their kids in public or private school. Yeah, and I mean, I had mentioned the, you know, I think it was towards the beginning, but I did mention that the Choose Act in Alabama does have an income cap. I'm not sure what it is. But, you know, I still, I do think that even with the income cap, there remains the problems of does it actually, does it actually improve? You know, the performance of people. Does it actually improve educational outcomes? You know, I think that there are still those problems. But yeah, I have mentioned that. And, you know, I definitely much, much, much more opposed to a universal Choose Act than I am to one with an income cap. And that's, you know, I think that that's very, very, very clearly where we're going. John from Huntsville, appreciate you, Colin. We got a text in. So an electrician is rich now? Just say it, Mr. You want people to be dependent on government programs in order to get by. A blue collar job will never make you rich unless you're digging for oil and get lucky. I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean. When I mentioned an electrician, I was talking about Social Security and how Tommy Tuberville said Social Security is a scam.

And now there's all this fear mongering around Social Security going bankrupt, despite the fact that lots of people... or that there are actually kind of relatively few people who make a lot of money that do not pay into Social Security as much as the rest of us. And when I mentioned an electrician, I mentioned that a union electrician who maybe works six, seven days a week and just hit $170,000, which is the cap beyond which you are no longer taxed for Social Security. Somebody in that position pays exactly the same amount into Social Security as somebody who made millions and millions or a billion dollars. And that's not fair. We should eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes. And then if we did that, Social Security would be solvent for the next century. For the next century. But they don't, you know, Tuberville doesn't want to tell you that. If we just put a flat tax on everybody, you know, everybody up to $170,000 already has a flat tax. We have to pay into Social Security. If everybody paid that same amount as a percentage of your income into Social Security, it would be solvent for a century. A century, but they don't want to tell you that. We got a couple other folks on the phone. William, what's on your mind? I'm hearing the word culture. William, I'm sorry. William, can you take your radio down? Yeah, yeah, William, you're echoing super bad. I'm hearing the word culture used on this show a whole lot. And to me, the education problems and what's going on is not really in the school. I mean, you could take the rich people and put them all together if you want to. You're still going to have some bad apples in there because everybody's household is different. Everything is different. You can have a rich child come to school, and he can kill everybody that's in school. The same way you can have it in a bad neighborhood. Everything starts at the house, at the home. It's like me. I was a single parent raising my son. I mean, he went to Davis Hills Elementary and went to Davis Hills and graduated with all straight A's from Davis Hills. Then he went to New Century and graduated at the top of his class. And then he went to U.I.H and graduated to Coolellan some Lottie. And right now he's living a good life, makes over seven figures, owns a couple of houses and everything. But it all starts at the house. To me, the only way the government has a hand in it, they disturb the house sometimes. They give aid. Like, if you give out full stamps and everything, I believe that the child at the house should make a certain grade. You should have a certain average. You know, the parents should pay more attention to what's going on because if you're getting assisted from the government, it's not just y'all no more. It's everybody combined in your future.

So you want your child to reach the best future as can, so it means you need to concentrate on what's going on in your house. To me, it all starts at the house. I'm sorry. That way the teachers can have a better time and do their job better, and everything will be accomplishing like it should be. Without the house and without everything getting started in the household, you're going to have more issues. I mean, that's the same way with the transgender issue. You know, all that starts in the house. Everything starts in the house. So, well, you know, that's- Yeah, William. When everybody keeps saying culture, I mean, it's like they're, it's like they're grouping people together for a certain way. And to me, it's not right. William, I appreciate the call. And, you know, I agree. So, so much important stuff happens at the house. You know, I don't know how, I don't think I agree with the, with maybe people should, you know, get their food stamps taken away if their children don't make good enough grades. I think maybe we can do something else there. But, William, I appreciate your call. Let's go to Robert from Athens. Hello. Yes, Robert from Athens. What's on your mind? Yeah, man. Well, I tell you, you know. I've been listening, and, you know, the school's, school choice, the money paid out. There's a lot of parents out there that just wanted to rip their kids out of school, take them out of that situation altogether. Now, I homeschooled, me and my wife, homeschooled our sons. Got two sons. Back before it was popular, back before, you know, the teachers and the educators are saying, you can't do it. You can't do that. They was always saying, you can't do it. So we did it. And there's a lot of this money floating around. I don't know. I'm going to see. The last time I heard it was $6 billion in the school treasury. So, you know, there's people out there that want to take their kids out of that situation on account of the way they're teaching the child. And, of course, I'm old. My kids are grown already. But, you know, all you have to do, and I had an aunt that was a schoolteacher. And she went to college up in Tennessee. It was an old woman's college. It was a, oh, I never. I thought I would forget that name of that college. But, you know, I've got books back when I was growing up. And you can compare those books to the ones nowadays, and you would think you is in a totally different world. They've changed the way kids are educated. They've changed the thought principle in the education system. And I'm all for it. If a person wants to pull their child out of school and teach them, you know, the way they should be taught, I think, you know, reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus history, science, all this, it all goes together. But, man, there's just too much put in on children nowadays.

They're just, they're, and I think most of the teachers, the way I hear teachers speak, I think they need to go back to school. And since you're young and I'm old, you will get you some age on you. You'll, you'll find out how things change. All right. Robert from Athens, appreciate the call. Thank you. Yeah, I am, you know, I guess I'm not, I don't have a problem with people taking their kids out of public school. Well, actually. I'm not going to, I do have a problem with it, actually. I think that it's bad. Generally speaking, there are always exceptions, but generally speaking, I do think that it's bad to take your children out of public school and either homeschool them or put them in private school. I think putting them in private school kind of isolates them, and it, you know, it doesn't, in some ways, you know, ironically enough, it doesn't prepare them for kind of the real world. And then homeschooling them in different ways, you know, kind of the opposite way, doesn't prepare them for the real world, generally speaking. The people that I knew that homeschooled that I went to church with, they did not get as a fact. They did not get as good in education as I did going to the county public school. That is just the truth. They got a terrible, terrible, terrible education. Their parents did not know, or didn't really know what they were doing, didn't really care that much about kind of what happened. They just didn't. They just didn't. They didn't get as good in education as I did. And so, you know, so I think, you know, there are exceptions, but generally it's not a good idea. I got Dwayne on the line. We're going to take him on the other side of the break. Dwayne, thanks for calling in. We'll be right back. Dale Jackson. We've been talking a bunch about schools and Social Security. We got a text from Jonathan saying Social Security is a scam. You're wrong, Jonathan. I'm sorry to say you're just wrong. Social Security is one of the most successful programs in the history of the United States. Keeps lots of seniors out of poverty every year. I mean, just huge, huge benefits for people. Social Security is super important, and it could be solvent forever if everybody paid taxes. Just eliminate the income tax on income cap. on social security and bada bing bada boom it's fine duane my buddy calling in uh what's on your mind

I was just wanting to say, I've never said it on your program before, but I think that quantum physics should be a part of a curriculum from K-212, not the mass, but like wave particle duality, entanglement, things like that, and that you would actually, especially in the Huntsville area, you would actually give persons things that have to do with modern times and in the future and where we're headed to look forward to as students. Do you get what I'm trying to say there? Yeah, I think that there are some, I mean, I imagine that there are some people in high school that are doing that now, especially like at the Alabama High School for Cyber Technology and Science or whatever it's called. They've got to be doing something like that there, right? Yeah, but I'm actually saying, I'm actually saying K through 12. So you begin with non-mass basics. that give us structuring toward going to that. Then you have young people that are actually well developed in the whole area, especially as we're heading into an AI-type quantum computer, you know, future. And furthermore, boy, wouldn't Tommy Tuberville have to pay a whole lot if he had the taxation like you're talking about with all the money he gets? I know. He's paying several people could have their, you know, social security paid for by him if we were doing it your way there. Anyway, have a great day. Glad you're on the show. All right, Duane. Appreciate you calling in. Thanks. Red from Tony. What's up? Hey, what's up, man? What's on your mind? I was homeschooled through seventh grade. I went to a private school for three years, and then I went to public school for my junior and senior year. I got a better, literally the last two years of high school, I would sit in my class and wouldn't open up a textbook and pass the class because it was so easy. I... I solely believe that people with homeschool education have a better education than kids that go to public school. You think on average, generally speaking, that's the case. Yes. Yes, generally speaking. Yeah, I guess I must. Because you also got to think about the amount of hours that I spent on, like I would spend an hour or two a day in school while you'd spend, these days are spending six hours a day in school. And we're coming out, even if we were coming out with the same education after those 12 years, mine would have been more efficient because I spent way less time learning. Well, I have to say your argument that you got a better education because you spent less time learning is not immediately persuasive to me, Red, I must say. I mean, I don't know. The number of the stats show that public education has wholly failed. As a whole it's failed. So, just scroll.

Test scores are going down, and like that one car said, they're lowering standards to allow people to pass. And that's not really passing. Yeah, I mean, getting worse is different than wholly failing, right? So, yeah, I mean, if they shovel money at public education, and test scores continue to fall. They decrease. So. Well, read from Tony, appreciate your call. Thank you very much. I mean, it's possible that, you know, maybe the people that you homeschooled with were really just on the ball. That was not, it was just not my experience with the people that I knew that homeschooled. The people that I knew that homeschooled literally would brag to me when we would go to church about how they didn't do anything. And then they passed all their classes. And so, you know, I mean, I'm sure there are people. And I do know people. who do it well. There was another set of people that I went to church with that also homeschooled. And this person I'm thinking of right now, you know, she graduated high school early and then she graduated college really early. And so she did it well. And she probably got a better education than many people in public school. But guess what? Her mom was a public school teacher. Her mom was literally actually a professional educator then educating her at home, right? So it's different than kind of just random people educating their children. So 866-49-49-866 is the phone number. Send us a text or call us and we'll take your calls. I got a bunch more stuff to talk about. I want to talk about Huntsville Hospital. You know, the CEO spoke to the city council last week. Interested in y'all's thoughts on that. What do you think about them buying Crestwood? Is it going to be better or worse for Huntsville? Let me know. I'll let you know what I think. We'll be right back.

You're listening to the Dale Jackson Show. Find scout pest control.com. And remember, folks, when you talk to my friends over there at Scout Pest Control, make sure you tell him Dale Jackson sent you. 7.70 a.m. 925 FM, WVNN. You're listening to The Dale Jackson Show. My name is Jacob Morris, and I am the co-host of the Valley Labor Report, the largest union talk radio program in the southern United States on seven stations in five states. And you can hear it here on WVNN, 932.11 a.m. on Saturdays. Appreciate everybody talking to us on the text line. Chris says, Jacob, I don't agree with you on much, but I will agree the Social Security cap should be eliminated. I agree. Jeff from Indiana says, Jacob, if you want to take the Social Security cap off of millionaires, then would you take the cap off of how much money they can make when they retire? Currently, the cap is a little over $5,000 if you paid in the maximum for 35 years. So should they... be able to draw potentially millions of dollars a month if they paid in that amount. I would not be opposed to raising the cap on benefits. I don't know what that should be, but yeah, I mean, I don't think that it's not, you know, it's not, that wouldn't be a problem for me. Dale must have thought putting Jacob on as a fill in his job security by using Jacob to promote awareness of the Communist Party in Alabama. Indeed. I'm not pro-union as the union did nothing to help me. My union brothers were very helpful after a workplace injury, not the union. But because Huntsville Hospital is now a monopoly, I would support the nurses creating a temporary union to force HHS to correct the issues to eliminate DEI and the pay gaps. Wow. I'm not familiar with the DEI going on in Huntsville Hospital, but the pay gaps versus other states are crazy. Our ends in Huntsville. uh make less than all other metro areas in the united states except for nine and six of those nine metro areas where rns make less than they do in huntsville are in porto rico so you know i mean not Not doing super great here in Huntsville. We have on the line, Jay Town. Jay Town is an attorney, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. He hangs out with Dale on Monday mornings, and Dale didn't tell him that he was going to be out this week. So he's hanging out with me today. And Jay did tell me that he's okay with that. So Jay, thank you for being fine with hanging out with us this morning. Appreciate your time. Anytime. Glad to be here. Glad to have you. And I am actually glad to have you because I have been trying to, you know, I don't, you know, my program is a union talk radio program. So most generally I focus on contract negotiations, legislation or policy that deals like kind of more directly with, you know, working conditions and stuff like that. We've been talking, you know, this week is Workers Memorial Week. So I've been talking a lot about that.

And so I haven't, you know, I haven't spent too much time on this SPLC stuff, but, but I've seen some of it. And... It is striking how different the narratives are about this, depending on where you go. And some of them, which I'm sure that you would agree with, are taking it to completely, beyond even what the indictment alleges, saying that, you know, the SPLC is funding all of these right-wing groups and funded Charlottesville. And, you know, the indictment doesn't even allege some of the stuff that's going around on Twitter. But, you know, you've got some people saying that the... Department of Justice has the SPLC debt to rights and then others who were like this really doesn't seem like a super kind of a super strong indictment so I'm curious kind of facially what do you make of the indictment I thought it was a very strong indictment. I thought that Todd Blanche and Kash Patel's press conference about it was spot on. I think that it speaks for itself. I think in particular, the false statement to banks charges are slam dunks. They are purely fictitious companies. And it's absolutely, according to the indictment, there is a... SPLC employee that said they were the sole proprietor of those companies. When they later, the SPLC later admitted that they were completely directed known by the SPLC after the bank got suspicious and ran an audit on all four companies and all four accounts. So if you lie on bank forms, you've committed a federal crime. And as far as what's material or not, that'll be as quoted in the USA today over the weekend. That'll be up to the jury whether or not it's material that they left out. And they did omit. It's a material omission in this case that they were giving money to at least individuals in very far right wing groups. And that did include one of the organizers of Charlottesville. So I think that, I mean, well, specifically what the indictment says about the Charlottesville person was that this was a guy who was in a quote unquote leadership group chat and the planning Charlottesville like. Yeah, he was in, he was a member of the group chat that planned Charlottesville. And then this person arranged transportation for, quote, several people. So, you know, it sounds like between like six and nine people. It doesn't sound like, you know, this is a butt, even a but for a person or, you know, somebody that was even, you know, super, you know, I mean, it sounds like an informant.

doesn't sound like an informant to me at all. Having spent my career in law enforcement as a prosecutor at a fairly high level, that's not how informants work. And what information did they gain from it other than tripling their fundraising immediately after Charlottesville? So, I mean, look, this will all be taken to court. The SPLC will get all the process that it is due. And the DOJ has a high burden of proof. It's incredibly difficult to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, but I come back to the bank charges. I just don't see a way around those, especially since the CEO and a board member after the bank did an audit admitted. that the information on those bank forms was false. That's according to the indictment. Right, right. Yeah, so Andrew Weissman is somebody who wrote up something, and I'm not, I only am familiar with him after having read this blog on just security. He had some sort of, he was the chief of the fraud section of the Department of Justice. So this is kind of like squarely within his, within what, where he was. And he said that, you know, the. The wire fraud charges in particular seemed pretty flimsy that having people, that it just didn't seem like there was much more than the assertions and the allegations. Yeah, I just disagree with Andrew just completely. So, I mean, you know, look, he is a liberal talking head. This is to be expected from him. We were talking during the break about the bank charges, and he mentions them in the article, but he doesn't make any analysis of them. And he fails to address the fact that there was an internal audit and the CEO and the... a board member, according to the indictment, admitted that those were not, that was not a sole proprietorship, and those were fake companies, and they were completely directed and owned by the SPLC. That's just, that's all the elements of those four counts right there. But he doesn't go through that. He just says, well, we don't really know what it means because it's a speaking indictment and it doesn't give us a lot of information. Well, you know what? Indignments don't have to give a lot of information. They just don't. You could just simply say they violated the statute on four different occasions and they can do a bill of a tanger to find out what the heck the government's talking about. Or we can just give them discovery. So it's, you know.

He's an MSNBC legal analyst. He was on Mueller's special counsel team, which failed to find anything. This is the guy who made his chops at DOJ, by the way, in the Enron prosecution and the Arthur Anderson prosecution, which was overturned 9-0 by the Supreme Court because of the fictitious theory that Andrew Weissman made up. Didn't matter that it cost 40,000 American jobs and 100,000 worldwide. The company shut down because of Andrew Weissman and the prosecution. But, you know, hey, win some lose some, right, Andy? So maybe have you ever, you do not like Andrew Weissman, it sounds like. I can't think of one sort of quality about him that I would like. You know, you mentioned the, you've come back a couple of times to the bank fraud charges and there he does, you know, the thing, the reason that he keeps coming back to that this is supposed to be a speaking indictment. It seems to me, I mean, you know, not a legal analyst, but it seems that he's expecting speaking indictments to have more information beyond just the allegations and the assertions and things like that. But it seems like the bank fraud charges are where he gives the most credence to like, Maybe, you know, maybe there's something here. And I think he says somewhere that, you know, if they did make false statements and you can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt to the bank, then that would be a violation of the law. But the fraud charges, he seems much more skeptical of because the theory of the case has to be that. that basically donors would have been misled and would be kind of surprised to know that their money went to went to informants and that's and well you're calling them informants you're the only one doing that the indictment certainly doesn't refer to them as informants well that's what the spelc would say is that they were informants Well, maybe I don't know. I'm not on their defense team, but there's nothing that Andrew Weissman knows that suggests that they're informants either. Now, what is material, and this is a material omission, is going to be up to a jury, but I do think the indictments crafted very well. This is like a Jewish charity funding anti-Semitic rallies at Columbia University and then raising money to stop the anti-Semitic rallies at Columbia University. I think if I was giving to a Jewish charity, it would be important for me to know that they're funding the activities that I'm hoping that they will stop and funding the people in them. I mean, $3 million is a lot of money over this relatively short period of time, and that's what we know about. So I don't know. I mean, look, SPLC has had a lot of problems for the last 10 years. They've had a lot of changeover in leadership. I think they're on their third or fourth CEO right now. I'm sure this is embarrassing to them. There was a time where probably the SPLC was a, I mean, suing the KKK. That's great work. I mean, it is. Nobody can argue with that. But they're not that organization anymore. They're not. And find a liberal group on their hate map. Find one.

But turning moms for liberty, you know, Charlie Kirk, Dr. Ben Carson was on their hate map, right? It's not a serious organization anymore. It's a fundraising organization. Yeah, I have. You know, unfortunately not been a not been a big fan of the SPLC for for quite a while, even being somebody on the left. There's a good article about the kind of the problems with them from a left-wing perspective in current affairs. I think the Southern Poverty Law Center is everything that's wrong with liberalism is a pretty good piece. But, you know, I do think that's different than something being illegal. And I think that something above and beyond the indictment itself is the question is that. you know, this Department of Justice is really, a lot of its attempts at kind of prosecuting people who are, who are Trump's political enemies? Are they prosecuting them because they're Trump's political enemies? Is the question. But there have been a lot of attempts to prosecute people who would be in that camp that have kind of fallen and just not succeeded because at least the judges say, you know, or the people who are kind of stopping these cases say it, because they're not. kind of robust enough. Does that, you know, does that not give you pause about this indictment, that pattern of behavior? So, so you're telling me that are you talking about Letitia James and James Comey? Are you talking about those two cases as an example of political enemies? Okay, no judge said those cases weren't robust enough. They said that the, the, the, uh, in the James Comey case and the Letitia James case, they said, well, uh, that's not a real U.S. attorney. and dismiss the cases based on a technicality that's being appealed. Now, I will agree with you that there's some grand juries that have disagreed with the robustness of the case. That is a fact and very disappointing. But that's the system. You just got to live with it. There's still a grand jury going on in Miami. We've been told that in the month of May there's going to be indictments. So we'll see. I will, you know, I'll admit that. I did think that, you know, Pam Bondi didn't do a great job handling the James Comey case and the Letitia James case. You know, as a career guy, I can tell you that, you know, you had everything in a box and a high-profile case like that. You better have beyond a reasonable doubt to present to a grand jury. And I don't know that she did. It just felt sort of rushed and put together at the last minute. And it's unfortunate because I think those. charges actually were pretty had a lot of merit but uh i don't know that we'll ever see those two as defendants does that make sense yeah yeah i think so all right j town thanks for hanging out with us thanks man we're going to head to a break we'll be right back you're listening to the dale jackson show it's the dale jackson show

the Dale Jackson Show. My name is Jacob Morrison here on News Talk, 770 AM, 925 FM, WVNN. Appreciate everybody hanging out with us this morning. Looking, 866494-9-866 is the phone number. You can give us a text, give us a call right there at that number. Don't forget the Choose Act also lets you potentially go to another public school, not just private. That's true. That is true. It seems to me the difference between Jacob's experience and Red's experience shows the need for something like the Chews Act. If your public school is good like Jacobs, then you don't want to change. If it's not, like Reds, then you do. Yeah, I mean, you know, the... I just think that there's so much more to be gained by focusing on actually improving the public school system than kind of undermining it. The problem with Social Security is as much the amount of income taxed as it is the IOU. The federal government has promised to repay for the trust fund used for non-related budget expenditures. I think it's much more about the amount of income tax paid. I think that's a bigger part of the problem that we're having with this. So Huntsville Hospital has acquired Crestwood Medical Center now. And they, the CEO addressed the city council last week. I was in the audience and I tried to pay attention. And, you know, unfortunately. There was just not enough there for me to be... satisfied with the state of things as they are now. You know, he talked about how, you know, basically it was just kind of an infomercial for Huntsville Hospital as a system, talking about the good things about Huntsville Hospital. And, you know, I mean, that's fine. And there are good things about Huntsville Hospital. Huntsville Hospital is where I go generally. And I will say one thing that I don't think is appreciated enough by the critics of this move. is the value that can be gotten by Huntsville Hospital having Crestwood within the system because I do think that there is value. I think that there are economies of scale. And I think that there's something cool about what would have been profits leaving the state, staying inside of the Huntsville Hospital nonprofit system. You know, and there was one person in particular that was trying to criticize Huntsville Hospital for spending the $450 million acquiring Crestwood instead of using that $450 million to improve the infrastructure of the existing Huntsville Hospital system rather than getting new stuff. But...

You know, buying Crestwood sets Huntsville Hospital up to, in perpetuity, be the recipient of the profits that Crestwood Medical Center would have generated and would have sent out of state. So, you know, especially if you are looking at the long term, which is, I think, one of the values of public not-for-profit institutions like Huntsville Hospital or the Tennessee Valley Authority. I think that one of the values of those is that you can have the long-term horizon and you don't just have to be thinking about what is going to be the best thing for the next quarter or what's going to generate profits over the next three quarters. You can be thinking about what's good for this system and for the community for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years out, right? And when you're looking at it on that time scale, Having the profits that Crestwood generates going into the Huntsville Hospital system instead of going to shareholders outside of the state, I think there is clear value there. There's clear value there. And that shouldn't be, you know, we shouldn't hand-wave that away, right? I think that there's a lot of value there. But. The concerns that exist around pay and working conditions for people within that system, for the prices, and for the quality of care, I just do not think were adequately addressed, because on none of those issues were forward-looking commitments made in clear and unambiguous detail. So on the wage issue, I mentioned earlier in the program how registered nurses in Huntsville, not at Huntsville Hospital, but in the Huntsville metro area. Registered nurses in the Huntsville metro area make, on average, less than registered nurses in every other metro area besides... Except for nine in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks like 391 metro areas in the country. Every single one of them has a higher median pay for registered nurses, except for nine, and six of those nine are in Puerto Rico. So there's a very clear problem with RNPAY in Huntsville, in the city of Huntsville. And the majority of nurses in the city of Huntsville work for hospitals. And so those being Crestwood or Huntsville. And then many of them that don't work for physicians, work for physician offices that are also owned by Huntsville. My family physician, general physician, it's a Huntsville Hospital owned physician's office, right? So Huntsville Hospital very clearly has a lot of input over the wages of RNs in Huntsville, and they just did not say that we're going to ensure that things stay at least the same. They're not going to get worse. They would not make that commitment.

There's a lot of other stuff going to get to it on the other side of this break. Stay tuned. 866494-9-866 if you want to call it. This is the Dale Jackson Show. Scrolling with Haley. I'm Haley Karenia. I scroll with the homies here in the live chat because there's a lot to scroll through on X, on Instagram, on TikTok. Cutting through the clutter, one hot take at a time. Love seeing you all in the chat before the show. I tried to jump in just a few minutes before to say hello. I love the chat interaction. Thank you for helping. But I do it to get all of the videos and all of the content that you won't find anywhere else. Scrolling with Haley. Just search that up and I will be there. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. It's live, it's local. It's the Dale Jackson Show. And it's only on News Talk 770 a.m. 92 5 FM, WVNN.

5 FM WVNN. This is the Dale Jackson show. My name is Jacob Morrison, not Dale Jackson. It's Monday morning. Appreciate everybody hanging out with us today. We've got a lot to talk about today. We've been talking about Huntsville Hospital. Huntsville Hospital, the CEO, spoke to... the city council last week. I was there. And, you know, there was just not enough. There was, you know, what I would like to see and what I think would really sort of alleviate concerns among the community is real commitments being made specific to the concerns. And so we've been talking about the concerns about, you know, workers within the system being taken advantage of because of their... Monopoly status, right? Basically, if you want to be an RN and work at a hospital in Huntsville now, you got to work for this hospital system. And so they have what is called, we're going to do a little bit of education. We've been talking about schools. So here's a vocabulary term for everybody. Monopsony. Monopony. Everybody knows about monopoly. Monopoly is where there's one place from which to buy things. If there's only one seller of... you know, bananas in an area, then that place has a banana monopoly. Well, what if I am a banana seller? What if I grow bananas and I need to sell them to somewhere? And what if there's only one person, one type of person who is willing to buy bananas? Well, that person has a banana monopsony. And so Huntsville Hospital has a monopsony over health care labor in Huntsville. That gives them enhanced bargaining power over the workers, over and above how much the employer already has. The employer already has more bargaining table than an individual worker at the table. Anyway, in any situation. Now, since they're the only hospital in the area, they're going to have even more. And they just did not directly address that concern, right? They did not commit to ensuring that wages and working conditions for workers at Huntsville and Crestwood would not fall below what they are right now when you account for inflation over any period of time, you know, much less three, five or ten years, right? And so I think that that remains a concern. and as well as the prices. And their rebuttal to the concern about prices was basically, you know, little Huntsville Hospital can't do much. And I'm not going to, you know, there's some logical, you know, there's some sense that they made. And so the case that they made there was we are, as Huntsville Hospital, hemmed in on all sides. A huge portion of our income comes from the government, Medicare and Medicaid, and we just have to accept the rates that the government provides. We don't negotiate with the government. They tell us what they're going to pay, and then we have to accept it. So we can't do anything about that. And then we've got some 10% of people that self-pay.

And it's, and a lot of those can't pay. And so we can't even collect anything from that. And so we can't raise prices there. And then we have some part of the market that comes from health insurance. And Alabama, and this is a new fact that I learned over the last few weeks, Alabama has actually the most consolidated health care market in the country. Of all of the other states, of all of the other states that in the country, Alabama's is the most consolidated when it comes to health insurance. 90% of all private health insurance. Havers have Blue Cross Blue Shield. And so when Huntsville Hospital comes to the table, even though within the Huntsville metro area in North Alabama, generally they're a huge player, when they come to the table with Blue Cross, Huntsville is the smaller player. And so they don't have enough leverage to be able to dictate prices to Blue Cross. And so their argument is basically... Don't worry about it because we can't actually. We can't actually raise prices because we're hemmed in on all sides. And so don't worry about it. But my question then is, well, if it's true that there's nothing to worry about, why don't you just make that as an affirmative commitment? And they did not make that as an affirmative commitment. They refused to do that. And so, you know, given the fact... that in other places, when hospitals consolidate, prices do actually go up over and above places where hospitals did not consolidate. By a not insignificant amount, it's up to like 60% price increases over and above what they would have increased by normally. And so given that this is such a prevalent issue nationwide, I think that it would go really far for Huntsville Hospital to just come out and say publicly, we will not raise prices over and above cost and inflation over the next five years, over the next 10 years. I think that would go a really long way, but they didn't do that. Another thing that they talked about was care, you know, care quality. They have some disputes with some of the, some of the methodologies that people use. But, you know, the fact remains that, you know, maternal and infant care quality has actually decreased in Madison County over the last year or over the last two years from 24 to 25. It has decreased. That doesn't seem like a good thing. So. And on that, also, there were not forward-looking commitments beyond, you know, their hiring consultants to fill out the leapfrog survey so that they get a better score on that next year. But, you know, they didn't commit to increased transparency or, you know, any particular goals around care quality. And so in my mind, it was just not enough to...

to respond appropriately to the backlash from the community. And it was really, you know, it just was not enough, I don't think. And so, you know, I hope that people keep putting some pressure on them because I think that's what needs to happen is they need to make forward-looking commitments, and they're just not. They're just not. And I don't think that's right. And it's also worth pointing out that the CEO, we don't know how much the CEO makes. His salary is not public. And I think that it should, especially since Huntsville Hospital is a public entity. So lots of problems with Huntsville Hospital interested in your thoughts. 866494-9-866. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. It's the Dale Jackson Show. 770 a.m. 925 FMWBN. This is the Dale Jackson Show. My name is Jacob Morse, and I co-host the Valley Labor Report, the largest union talk radio program in the South. Appreciate everybody hanging out with us. Got a couple of texts. How can you make an affirmative commitment if you have no control, speaking about Huntsville Hospital? And the you can, the lack of control that they allege they have. would hem them in, right, rather than allow them to make prices higher. So you can definitely constrain yourself even over and above the constraints that are placed on you from outside forces, right? I don't think anybody would dispute that. And actually, one of the things that they said was that one of the reasons we don't want to make such a commitment. is because if we can get more money out of Blue Cross Blue Shield and then to be able to fund, you know, some of the other work that we do, then we're going to do it. And we want to do that, actually. So, you know. Yeah, they could make a commitment to not raise prices over and above inflation. They have that control. They don't want to exercise that control. Another text, Jacob, the key phrase is, in your mind. Why should they allow you to box them in by forcing them to make promises about futures they cannot predict? Well, it's not about me, it's about the community. It's about the community that gives them the authority to operate, that allows them to operate without profits, that gives the CEO his salary. They actually, you know, the Huntsville being a public not-for-profit corporation, right? is it gets it's it derives its authority from the state of alabama and so i don't think it is out of the it's crazy to say that you should make commitments to the community and you should do things in the interest of the community and i think some of those things would be ensuring that workers wages and compensation and working conditions stay the same or even get better

and ensuring that prices don't increase. Another one says the real concern in health care isn't the cost. Huntsville Hospital was correct in their assessment that they have almost no control over health care costs. Insurance dictates costs for both Huntsville Hospital and all health care providers. providers the real concern is that there is no incentive for health care providers to get good at what they do bad health care earns the same amount as good health care so why invest in excellence if there's no return on investment um i i i mean i i i agree that there there was not enough there was not enough commitment shown to like care quality excellence i think that there there could have been more there could have been more there and there just wasn't unfortunately i don't think so Appreciate the... Appreciate the responses. 866494-9-866 if anybody else wants to call in or text about the Huntsville Hospital stuff. But moving on from that, as we're winding down, coming up on, you know, I'll be done at the top of the hour at 9 o'clock. Our time will have come to an end. So I hope you all have enjoyed it. I wanted to spend some of the last bit talking about the union on Redstone Arsenal. It was early in April, April 9th, the Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum directing all components of the Department of Defense to immediately terminate all collective bargaining agreements except those agreements covering components exempted by a prior determination of the secretary or subject to a court order specifically in joining their termination. So that memo from the Secretary of Defense was following an executive order that came last year about this time, which is itself in contention. And it had not been enforced yet because the courts had not finished, you know, they have not finished. determining the legality of that executive order. The executive order purported to exclude basically all federal employees from the federal labor management relations programs, which was a law passed by Congress that gave federal workers the right to organize, the right to have unions. and gave the executive branch the authority to bind itself in collective bargaining agreements with said unions. And the executive order signed by Trump last year purported to exempt. basically all federal employees from that law utilizing the, a portion in that law that said that certain categories of workers can be exempted from this if there is a direct relation to national defense or security or something like that, right? And so that is how they make this exemption. And it is just difficult to...

believe that the framers intent, the people who, the people who framed this law, the federal labor management, uh, the, uh, the federal labor management relations programs, the people who framed that, it is difficult to believe that those people. that Congress would have been fine with the vast majority of federal employees being exempt from this, considering that immediately following that, and for decades subsequent to the passage of that law, federal employees had the ability to unionize. And so I think that if the Supreme Court were to look at this in a textualist, originalist sort of way, that they would probably... strike it down they would probably strike it down but um i'm not sure that that's what they're going to do but anyway so even though that executive order is still being held up in the courts the secretary of defense is trying to um is trying to implement it now and including here on redstone arsenal uh so i've had a lot of federal employees tell me that they've gotten memos from their supervisors, alerting them to the fact that their collective bargaining agreement is null and void, that their union doesn't exist, et cetera, et cetera. And the position of the union is that that is not true. The position of the union is that the collective bargaining agreement is in full effect, that they contest that it is, that the government has the legal authority to void the collective bargaining agreements. And the union is maintaining that position through court cases. Additionally, and so the union will be looking for damages if they win this court case, like they have won other court cases. Actually, in the first Trump administration, they tried to implement similar policies at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and ultimately, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to settle with the union, and the union was able to receive damages and stuff because of the government, because of the Trump administration's violations of the law. And so that is that is the union's position with respect to the law. But above and beyond the law. unions, the existence of a union does not depend on the recognition of the employer. A union exists when two or more people say that they're a union and that they want to do what they can to make their workplace better for themselves and for their co-workers.

A union is a whole lot more than just winning an election and getting recognition. It's about people coming together and collectively trying to make their workplace better. And so you don't have to have recognition. And in fact, AFGE, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employees union existed for decades before they got legal recognition. AFTE was founded in the 30s. They did not get legal recognition until the 70s. Even right here in Huntsville. The Huntsville local was founded in 1958. Decades before they got recognition. So you don't have to have recognition. There's a lot of stuff you can do without it. We're going to talk more about that on the other side. Stay tuned. Jackson. Scrolling with Haley. I'm Haley Karinea. I scroll with the homies here in the live chat because there's a lot to scroll through on X, on Instagram, on TikTok. Cutting through the clutter, one hot take at a time. Love seeing you all in the chat before the show. I tried to jump in just a few minutes before to say hello. I love the chat interaction. Thank you for helping. But I do it to get all of the videos and all of the content that you won't find anywhere else. Scrolling with Haley. Just search that up and I will be there. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. News time. 770 a.m. 925 FM WBN. This is the Dale Jackson Show. My name is Jacob Morrison. Not.

The Department of Defense has the Secretary issued a memo directing management to eliminate collective bargaining agreements with unions in the Department of Defense. That has been happening across the arsenal, is my understanding. I've been getting several federal workers talking to me about this and asking kind of what they should do. And I've been telling them this, that one, The union does not agree that the collective bargaining agreements are eliminated. The union's position is that these executive orders and these memorandums purporting to eliminate collective bargaining agreements are illegal, and they are violations of federal labor management relations statutes. Because those statutes by the Congress give the executive branch the authority to negotiate and bind itself to contracts negotiated with these unions. And do not give the executive branch the authority to opt itself out of collective bargaining with most federal employees. So one. The union position is that these are illegal, and that they'll win in court. But secondly, the union's position is that we do not even need collective bargaining agreements. We do not even need recognition from the employer to be a union. The power of the union has never been limited to one contract or recognition or anything like that. The power of the union comes from people being in the union and participating and organizing collectively. So the unions organize in the workplace. They support their members facing discipline. They provide legal and legislative resources, which even under the current legal framework, which says these collective bargaining agreements are null and void, the union can still represent employees in regular civil service protection cases at the MSPB, at the Merit Systems Protection's Board. They can still represent employees at the EEO and, you know, those sorts of things. provide independent private legal resources. And AFGE also is able to serve as an independent voice that answers to workers, not management, that can inform our legislators of issues relevant to federal workers. Right? So, you know, I mean, management can go and talk to, you know, these agencies can go and talk to, uh, congressmen and talk about what they feel like they need from a management perspective and from a, you know, from those sorts of things. But Congress also deserves to hear and what federal workers deserve to have heard.

issues that affect them as workers? What is it like to work as a GS-7, GS-6 security guard on Redstone Arsenal? What is it like to work as a GS-7 administrative assistant on the arsenal? What changes would they benefit from? Congress deserves to hear those stories and federal workers deserve to have those stories heard by Congress. And without the union, without an organized voice for federal workers, Congress does not hear those stories. And so it's very, very important for people to stay in their union. You can do that. And if you're not a member of a union of your federal employee, you're not a member of AFGE, you can go to afge.org slash join. If you have questions about it, you can reach out to my program directly and it'll come to my email address, tvlr.fm slash contact. You can send me a written note and I'll respond to it.tvlr.fm slash contact, right? TVLR as in the Valley Labor Report.fm slash contact. And I also know the local leadership for all of the federal employee unions on the arsenal. There are three. There's the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1858. There's the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 27. And there's the National Federation of Federal Employees. Local 1332. I know the leadership of all those unions, and depending on what agency you work at, I can get you in touch with the right one. And you can also go to afge.org slash join. And you should do that because of the fact that, you know, these unions need resources to be able to fight for federal workers in court and at Congress. I mean, a big reason that federal workers have gotten the raises that they have prior to the Trump administration is because of the lobbying efforts by AFGE and IFPTE and NFTE in FFE. And so it's really important to participate and be a member of these unions, but also, you know, There are things that these unions can do and that you can do through these unions kind of, I was going to say above and below, above and beyond, but you can even say kind of below the level of Congress and legislation and contracts if you just get a bunch of people coming together and saying that they want this one thing changed. There's a really good article in Labor Notes. um about some workers at the core of engineers who were able to defend parental leave with direct action so this was published last year it's in labor notes labor notes dot org so if you google labor notes army corps of engineers defend paid parental leave you'll be able to read this article it's really really cool and they talk about how

They talk about how the doctor of this employee recommended at least 18 weeks to recover from childbirth, but the employee was only entitled to 12 weeks under the Federal Employee Payed Leave Act. And she requested for advanced sick leave to cover the other six weeks, but her request was denied. And... You know, there's no contractual nor policy obligation on the part of management to acquiesce to that demand, but it was within their purview. They could do it. They were allowed to give her advanced sick leave, and yet they didn't. The Army Corps said her work was too important for her to be gone that long. She asked to discuss a solution, and management suggested filing a grievance and declined to discuss it any further. The union who's writing this article, the president of the union, was writing this article, said that, you know, a grievance process can take months, and this employee was already 38 weeks pregnant when she got this recommendation, right? And so the union, on short notice, called an emergency meeting, filled a conference room with members, and the members decided to spread the word to the rest of the office, and presented management with a signed petition the same afternoon. Members came together in the workplace on behalf of this employee and delivered a petition the following morning management entered a meeting and emerged with a decision, entered a meeting with the union and emerged with a decision to grant the employee a combined 18 weeks of postpartum leave just what the doctor ordered. that is the kind of thing that you get with it that you can get at least that you can get with a union that you're not going to get without one now you know look i mean that requires effort that requires people not only paying dues but participating in the union but that's but everybody deserves that and everybody uh you know i mean it is that's the kind of thing that You are not going to, that you're not going to get without the union. So if you do not, if you're not a member of the union, go ahead and join. And if you are a member of the union, then make sure that you stay a member of the union. Because if you leave, it's going to be that much more difficult to stand up for your coworkers, to stand up for yourself. And the union is going to be starved of the resources that it requires to be able to fight these court cases and communicate to Congress the needs of working people, of the people who serve the taxpayers. We'll be right back. 866494-9-866. This is the Dale Jackson Show.

News Talk 770am, 92 5 FM, WBNM. This is The Dale Jackson Show. What's that? It's not Dale Jackson, it's Jacob Morrison, co-host of the Valley Labor Report 930-211, right here on WVNN on Saturday mornings. Guest hosting for Dale. Speaking of Dale, Dale from Arab says federal workers are overpaid for the workday they do and should not get raised. It's actually fake news. Federal workers make something like 20% less than similarly situated private sector counterparts. I can also say as somebody who was a project manager for the federal government, for the Corps of Engineers specifically for a long time, when I would go on site visits and I would talk to project managers for private. contractors or private utilities, I realized that they were making almost, uh, almost twice as much as I was. So, uh, not true. Not true actually that federal workers are overpaid. Uh, they are underpaid. They should get more and they should certainly. have union rights. Yaffy, S-O-S, says Mike from Huntsville. I must have hurt his feelings. But that's okay. You'll have people to, you know, to cuddle you and tell you everything's okay and not disagree with you after this is over. Good luck with your socialism, Jacob. Luckily, people like me and Dale are fighting your goals. Well, we'll see. We'll see. You know, um... The history of Alabama is actually interesting as it relates to kind of left-wing politics. There have been periods in Alabama's history where populism have been sort of the dominant political or a dominant political force. You even actually look at the governor that we had just before George Wallace. You look at... You look at Jim Folsom. I mean, that was a real populist kind of left-wing governor of the state of Alabama. And then George Wallace took over and, you know, things kind of went downhill. But so, but, you know, back to the, you know, as we're rounding out with the union thing, the reason that I am so convinced of the value of unions is that. Unions are just the people that... Unions are just... the workers that make them up right unions are not some like kind of outside entity unions are the workers um and so when you are talking to people about unionizing or about um you know about the value there you're not asking them to trust in some kind of outside third party you're asking them to trust in themselves and their co-workers you're asking them to cooperate and work together to make their lives better

And that's something that a lot of people can really get behind. And actually, you know, I mean, we've talked to lots of conservative union members on our program. And they talk about how, you know, sometimes they disagree with their union's politics. I mean, I disagree with my union's politics sometimes, right? But guess what? The union is a democracy. The union is a democracy and workers are able to choose the political direction of their union. You know, I mean, you look at the teamsters. The teamsters, you know, they've got a guy who's the president of the international who's more right wing right now. So there you go, right? I mean, unions can decide the members get to decide the political direction of their union. But ultimately, the political direction of their union is much less important than what happens. At the lower level. The political direction of the union is much less important and takes up much less time and resources of the union than negotiating contracts, filing grievances, defending workers. things like that organizing new workers i mean you look at i mean you can actually go and look up the revenue of the unions and you can look up how much of it is spent on politics on political and lobbying stuff it's very very little of it most of it is the vast majority of it is the nuts and bolts bread and butter unionism and so i i was actually in volkswagen In Chattanooga, I had on some folks who were part of the volunteer organizing committee who helped organize the union there. And both of them, both of them got, were big, big conservative people politically. One of them actually had, you know, we have a YouTube and Facebook portion of the program that's visual. One of them actually had a big Trump flag in the background, right? And so, you know, you can be conservative and be a unionist and support your union. You know, it just so happens that... Lots of Republicans, politicians want to destroy unions. And so it's very difficult for unions to be sort of, you know, to be sort of supportive of Republicans. Because Republicans want to destroy unions. Because ultimately, I think that Republicans do not like having to answer to a power base of normal working people rather than a power base of... politically well-connected, wealthy business owners, right? It's much easier to kind of cater to that. It's much easier for them to cater to that constituency than it is for them to cater to a broad-based constituency of working people. So that's really the reason that they don't like unions is because

When unions have power, that kind of forces politicians to reckon with the power of working people and to kind of govern on that basis, to govern on the behalf of, or at least with an eye towards working people rather than rich people. They don't like having to do that. And so we'll see what happens with this case. You know, like I said, AFGE and the other federal unions are contesting it. They think it's illegal. I think it's illegal. I think that the Supreme Court is likely to disagree with us because the Supreme Court is kind of, you know, in many ways, functions as a rubber stamp for whatever the political party appointed them to the Supreme Court. So we'll see. But I mean, a plain reading of the text and the intention of the Congress clearly did not anticipate the president exempting the majority of federal workers from this law. That was just not in their vision. And so we'll see what happens, you know, if these things take a long time to, these things take a long time to work, to work through the system. And I think that's a detriment of the system. I think that's, I think it should be much quicker. But we will see. We'll see. But yeah, afge.org slash join if you want to join the union, afge.org slash join. Somebody said, well, Jacob, you're discussing the Corps of Engineers federally funded organizations. What about government organizations that are not funded by Congress? And actually, interestingly enough, the Corps of Engineers is not funded generally by Congress. The Corps of Engineers is funded by its customers, which are other federal entities generally? But the Corps of Engineers, most of the work that the Corps of Engineers does doesn't come from a line item. It comes from its customers, which are like defense installations and stuff like that, military installations. Unions are just scam artists, says this fellow. Well. I don't think so. And actually, a lot of people wish that they were able to be in unions. Something like 60% of workers would be in a union if they had the opportunity to be. And so actually, if you're in that situation and you're not in the federal government, you're interested in being in a union, you can look up the emergency workplace organizing committee, worker organizing.org. And there will be some people that can help you form your union. And the last text that we'll read today, and then I'll leave you be, why is this clown on our radio on a Monday? Bad enough, he's on Saturdays. Well.

You're back to your regularly scheduled program net programming now, but you can tune in again at 9.30 a.m. on this Saturday, and hear me again. We'll see you then. This is The Dale Jackson Show. Hey, I'm Chris Van Fleet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Mr. Sandman. All I ever wanted to be was a pro wrestler. So I got to live my life and make people really happy. The heartbreak kid himself, Sean Michaels. Do you think there's anybody better than you were? I think I was great at what I did. And I think other people were great at what they did as well. Greatness is more of mindset, I think, than anything else. Mindset, motivation, insight with Chris Van Fleet. Follow and listen on your favorite plot. platform.