Full Show 6-22-26: Paying teachers, understanding diabetes, Senate battles, and more

It's gonna be hot. I guess you already knew that, huh? So it's going to be like if you cut grass over the weekend like I did, you know how hot and miserably humid it is. Highs of 92 today, 93 tomorrow, 92 on Wednesday. No chance for showers, really, they're saying through the week, although I don't know that you can ever rule out a chance for a pop-up shower here there during the summertime. Robert Hogan joins us now, Professor Department Chair of Political Science at LSU. Talk about the senatorial race between... Pardon me about that, doctor, between Julia Letlow and John Fleming. How are you doing, Professor? I'm doing well this morning. What's the race looking like so far? Well, it looks right now, the polls that, the most recent polls that we have access to suggest that the election for the campaign is a very tight race. Polls have come out in the last few days show Lutlow and Fleming both at about 40%, and you've got about 20% of people who are undecided. So it's neck and neck, and the Secretary of State's Office estimates based on the early vote already that the total turnout is not going to be very high. In fact, turnout wasn't very high in the first round of elections. You only had about 28%. of registered voters turning out to vote. It's probably going to be a lot less than that for this runoff. So while it's a tight and competitive race, a lot of money has been spent as people who watch TV news and listen to news on the radio probably hear counts in campaign commercials. funded both by the campaigns and by these outside groups. A lot of money is being poured into it, and the race is neck and neck. But voters aren't that engaged. I think it's fair to say. And I think there are several reasons for that. One is that this is really an inter-party nomination contest. The only people participating are people who are registered Republicans or non-partisan voters. And of those nonpartisan voters, actually, if you voted for a Democrat in the last... In the first round, you can't participate in this round. In fact, turnout of non-party voters in the last round was not all that high. So it's really an inter-party contest that is within the party. And so that's, I think, one of the reasons people aren't as engaged as they normally are when anybody can participate. I think that's one of the things that's going on. The other thing, of course, bigger issue, I think, is that

Voters recognize that both of these candidates inhabit of a similar place on the ideological spectrum. There's a lot of sniping between the campaigns on certain issues like immigration and about D,I, and other sort of hot-button issues. But in reality, if you look at their records, both of these candidates are very similar. So this is a question on the ballot. voters are going to replace a pretty conservative senator, Bill Cassidy, with a pretty conservative senator in either Fleming or Letlow. Of course, there's also a Democratic race going on at the same time for the U.S. Senate, the nominee there, but given that this is a red state, it's highly unlikely in November that the electorate will go for a Democrat. So this is really about who the Republican is going to be that replaces Bill Cassidy. So, you know, one of the reasons to sum that up is to say that you don't have candidates who provide that much variation in terms of issues or ideology for the voters. Yeah, along those lines, it amuses me to see Bill Cassidy, see Letlow and Fleming try to paint each other as liberal. Who thought that there was cheese at the end of that tunnel? That confuses me. Yeah, I mean, I think that that is, I think if you look at the ads, a lot of them are very exaggerated. It's kind to say to their exaggeration. You could say they're outright, you know, fabrications by the other candidate. That Letlow, for example, is a DEI candidate. Yes, she was in academics and had shown some support for some aspects of that. But if you ask her where she falls on this issue today, I think he would be very much in line with the Republican perspective. Same way with Fleming. If you look at, you know, he's being accused of being soft on immigration. If you ask him and you, you know, look at where he stands on the issue of immigration, he is very much in favor of the Trump hardline approach. So both candidates are very similar, and they're trying to find little things in their past to point out to voters as being, you know, important, but in fact, they are very much similar. It would seem to me the 10,000 pound weight in this if we're having a scale would be President Trump's endorsement. And I don't know why they don't just, why Letlow doesn't just focus on that. It's like, look, President Trump handpicked me. Case closed. That's it. That's done. Yeah, and I think, well, I think her ads oftentimes are pointing that out. You're right. That is, and she's gotten lots of endorsements too from Republicans within the state. She's racked up the endorsements. She's racked up the, and what that means indirectly for her campaign is it means she's racked up the dollars as well. And lots of people have been contributing to her. It's, it's, in some perspective, it, you know, she is, she should be. a lot further ahead in the polls, as it suggests, that then the polls suggest. And, I mean, Fleming is coming at this with a lot less money, with a lot less endorsements, and doesn't have the golden endorsement from Donald Trump. Therefore, he is trying to claim that he has, you know, Trump's support in the past, his campaign advertisements emphasized the fact that he was...

one of the prominent members of his first administration. Here in Baton Rouge is a big billboard that shows him and Donald Trump standing side by side as you approach the capital or get close to the capital. They're holding up the thumbs up sign. It sort of visualizes an endorsement that actually isn't really there. So they're both trying to capitalize on that. But I think it's fair to say that Fleming is the is the underdog in this in terms of endorsements and funding. And I think it's going to come down to turnout, as most elections always do. But when you have a low turnout election, who is able to get their supporters to the polls? This is not a race where I think Fleming can be counted out. I think that I think his... supporters are very much engaged. And I think if he can get them to the polls, I mean, he has a real shot at this. He's been using, at least in his rhetoric, that the governor has been sort of putting a thumb on the scale or is trying to help Letlow out. And that's something that sort of, I think, makes people, might give people some pause for Letlo. So we'll just have to see how it plays out. But a lot of it's going to be down to how much he can, you know, personally connect with the voters and Lettlo as well. Can they get their core group of supporters out to vote? Because that kind of effort means a lot when you have just a very, you know, small number of people participating overall. Thumb on the scale was getting ready to come out of my mouth because it would seem as though with all of those thumbs on the scale for Letlow, Fleming wouldn't even be closed, but he is. And we'll continue to talk about that. And we come back. We're talking to Dr. Robert Hogan, Professor in Department Chair of Political Science at LSU. About the Letlow Fleming race, the Democrats are also in it as well. They're in the race. We'll talk about the chances of them winning as well. Right now, it's time for WWL traffic. 628, Tommy Tucker Carlson, WWO, back with Robert Hogan, Professor Department Chair of Political Science at LSU, talking about the senatorial race between Julia Letlow and John Fleming. There are some Democrats in it as well. Do we know, Professor, like numbers of votes? I guess there would be totals of votes as far as who got what in the primary, right? Yeah, primary. In the, you mean in terms of the Democrat? Yeah, I guess what I'm wondering is how many people voted Democrat? Because you could look at raw votes on a Republican side and on a Democratic side, and if they're just like a handful of Democratic votes, that could almost be an indicator of what's going to happen?

Well, the Republican vote was, it was 400 and something thousand, and the Democratic vote was really right, not far behind it there. Yeah, it was much higher than a lot of people had thought. And one of the reasons was that there was a lot of Democrats who were brought out to vote. on the constitutional amendment issue that was on ballot. And so you had a much higher Democratic vote than a lot of people had thought there would be. And those were, and many people view that as a way of Democrats sending a signal that they were disapproved of the governor's positions on these constitutional amendments. But it does stir hope among Democrats that when they organize and when they get together, they can have an influence on the election. And there is indeed, as I said earlier, there's going to be a nomination. There is a nomination battle in the Democratic Party for U.S. Senate between Gary Jasmine Crockett and Mr. Davis and, I'm sorry, Gary Jasmine Crockett and Jamie Davis. And Jamie Davis is the Democratic Party endorsed candidate, the farmer from northwestern, Louisiana, who's getting a lot of attention. And it seems like he has the upper hand in this election. But the Republicans sing kumbaya after the 27th, right? I think so. I think it's very – I mean, this is a ruby-red Republican state at the state level, and it's very difficult for Democrats to win at that level, and it seems much more likely that the Republican nominee will prevail. Thank you, Professor. Appreciate your time. We'll take a break. Come back. Talk to Barry Irwin, Chief Policy Officer for Leaders for a Better Louisiana, about the Minimum Foundation. Project. What is that? And how does it going to affect the raises for teachers and so forth right now? It's time for WW First News. For that, we go to Ian O'Sand. 645 quarter till 7. Tommy Tucker Carlson, WWL on this Monday morning, June 22nd, talking to Barry Irwin, chief policy officer for leaders for a better Louisiana. How you doing, Barry? Good morning. Great. How are you? I'm okay, sir. Do you have a nice father's day? I did. It was very nice. How about yourself? I did. It was hot, but you know what? It usually is on June 21st or 20th. So what are you going to do? Matter of fact, I was trying to remember yesterday. Remember that chilly Father's Day that we had way back? And wait, it never happened. Tell me about the minimum foundation program. What is that? We usually call it the MFP for short, but what it basically is is the formula that's in the Constitution that the state uses to fund public education. So every year the legislature, where the Bessie really develops an MFP, a formula, gives it to the legislature, and they can either fund it as it is or reject it and keep funding as the way it was in the past. But basically, that's the way we allocate dollars.

to public schools in Louisiana. Allocate whose dollars to what schools? That's state dollars. The taxes that you and I paid for income tax, sales tax, whatever it is, all goes into the hopper for the state. So these are the state dollars that go to the public school districts, all, you know, 69 districts and all the charter schools. It's about $4 billion total. So it is a large amount of money, a huge part of our state general fund budget. But those are the regular tax dollars that are then sent. The bulk of that, 70% has to be used for instructional purposes by mandate. The rest can be used for, you know, other reasons. But all of that is in the Constitution, and we've had that place for quite a number of years. Who decides how that money spent? Well, ultimately, first and foremost, Bessie develops the formula and then uses basically the demographics of districts. It's a little complicated in a lot of ways, but you have richer districts, poor districts, and by that I mean districts that have greater taxing authority and ones that don't. And then you have students that have different needs. So a special ed student would have greater needs and would be having a higher allocation. Bessie figures all of that out and then sends... after you get the demographics and the school headcount, all of that, the legislature appropriates it and sends it to the districts. At that point, the districts have the authority to spend it pretty much as they want. But again, 70% of that state allocation has to be on instructional purposes or in the classroom, more or less. And then the other part can be used for other things. And, of course, local governments raise money on their own. So they also have local tax dollars. you know, this supplement what the state sends. Let's talk about buckets of money because inevitably I'm going to get this text and nobody wants to hear anything anybody has to say until we hear the answer to this. I always hear that gambling money, lottery money was supposed to go toward education. What happened to that? Thoughts? It does. It does go there. 100% of it does. I don't know the exact amount, but it's $100-something million or whatever, a pretty good chunk. But out of $4 billion, it is not funding all of public education. So it is a significant amount. It is dedicated there. But really, you know, most of the funding for education is coming from all of our other tax dollars. So what is the governor signed an executive order saying what, Barry? Yeah, I mean, it goes back. We've had this conversation a couple of times in the state where we're trying to do teacher pay raises. Teachers have been getting sort of a year-to-year stipend for the last three years, what's not permanent of like $2,000. So we had an amendment on the ballot in the fall, just like, I mean, in the spring, like we did last year in a more complicated way, that if it had passed by voters.

it would have paid off a lot of debt in the teacher retirement system and use the savings to make the pay raise permanent and actually bump it up a little bit. That got rejected. So what happened is we've been given this pay stipend for three years. There was no money that the legislature had to really continue that. The session ended and that stipend was not refunded. So it would have meant basically a cut for teachers. So the governor's executive order comes in and says what we're going to do instead. We're going to make a cut to the MSP, that funding formula. We're going to cut it. Take those dollars, put it in a fund at the state, and then redistribute those back to the local school districts so that they can give a pay raise out of those dollars. It's kind of complicated. It's unprecedented, and it's certainly unorthodox, but that is kind of what the plan is. You're talking about a whole lot of money here, so let me take a break. We'll pick it up. We come back talking to Barry Irwin, Chief Policy Officer for... Leaders for a Better Louisiana. It's about giving teachers a pay raise and dabbling or fooling with the minimum foundation program, which is a complicated equation unto itself to figure out how that's determined. And then what kind of changes would they do with that? I presume they would leave the 70% alone, and the teacher raise would come from the other 30%, but who would make that decision? We'll pick it up when we come back. 651 now, 9-7, traffic WWO. 6.56, Tommy Tucker Carlson, WWO, quickly back to Barry Irwin, Chief Policy Officer for the Leaders for a Better Louisiana. So dealing with the MFP would be something new, uncharted completely, right? In a fashion like this of actually making a cut, yes. And, you know, as you point out, the case was brought in court last week, and a judge has issued a temporary restraining order on this while they sort this out at a hearing, you know, next week. So, yeah, all uncharted territory here. So ultimately... The goal would be what? If you take it, there's only so much money to go around. So if you take it from one place to give it to somebody else, then who's going to do without under this situation with the MFP? Well, that's the situation. Essentially what they're doing is taking part of the allocation the state would give or seeking to do that, $168 million total, taking that back from the school systems, and then really kind of making them reallocated to go to a teacher's stipend or teacher pay raise, I should say, as opposed to where it would have gone. Now, I think the argument that's been made on the other side is that school districts have a lot of fund balances that most school districts could afford it. You know, certainly there's been pushback. You know about reserves now, Barry? What you're saying? Reserves is what they have? Yes, balances reserves. There are things that they have saved up for whatever reasons, for hurricane prevention. I mean, response afterwards for capital expenditures, building new buildings, whatever they may be. You know, like any business, you try and keep a certain amount in reserve for emergencies. So that's what they're saying that they should use some of that money poor. So if they do, what happens if...

he said before or the quote before I told you who said it. And that's why I think it's important that we try to retain some objectivity when it comes to evaluating what's going on here. Let's talk about Iranians, Iran rather, stockpile of enriched uranium. Let's start there, I guess. Darrell, what do they have? Well, this war has not affected Iran's nuclear capacity. It has closed a strait of Hormuz, and it has created a situation which... President Trump to end the war has had to make some difficult concessions to Iran. So we're back to where we were before February 28 when the bombing started. And so the concerns we have are 440 kilograms, about 900 plus pounds of... highly enriched uranium, which could be enriched further to bomb grade. That's buried somewhere near two of their former uranium enrichment plants. That has to be neutralized. We also have to be concerned about future uranium enrichments. Now, they don't have... industrial capacity, large-scale capacity, uranium enrichment capacity right now, but they could reconstitute it because they have the knowledge and the technology to do that. And then the third thing I think is important in the nuclear negotiations that are just getting started again in Geneva is to get the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back in Iran to figure out, okay, where is this program? What is the baseline? They have not been there in over a year. We need to understand the locations of the material, the quantities in order to verify whatever additional restrictions the U.S. and Iran agree to. And then finally... You know, what does Iran? What are they allowed to do in the future with respect to uranium enrichment? They are going to argue that we have a right to do this at some point in the future. If we have a demonstrated need, today they don't have a demonstrated need. They really don't even have the capacity. So they're likely going to compromise on a multi-year as in 5, 10, 15-year prohibition on all enrichment. And then it can be resumed at some later point if Iran can demonstrate the need. So those are the tough nuclear issues that the two sides have to negotiate. And they only have 60 days. And there are a lot of ways in which.

this, you know, ceasefire deal. Essentially, that's what has been concluded. A lot of ways it could fall apart, particularly, you know, Israel does not want to stop bombing in Lebanon, where they're trying to seek out Hezbollah. militants. So that could scuttle this whole thing. That is part of the broader ceasefire agreement, and Iran is likely not going to continue the nuclear talks if Trump cannot constrain D.Benjamin Netanyahu from those attacks of Lebanon. So let me ask this. How is Iran weaker now than before we started bombing? What can we hang our hat on? What can we say, okay, it didn't change with the nuclear material, but they can't do this anymore like they could before we started bombing? Well, their military capacity has been degraded, but it's not been eliminated. Yes, their naval forces, which were not that substantial to begin with, those are basically gone. An estimated quarter or so of their ballistic missile inventory has been destroyed, but they still have a substantial ballistic missile and drone. stockpiles that they could use. And they have gained advantage in the sense that they've demonstrated that they can effectively shut down the Strait of Formuz and strangle the international economy. So what I'd say, Tommy, is that, you know, there's a difference between degrading the military capabilities of Iran and eliminating the strategic threat that they have in that Persian Gulf region, which is really a result of the geography. I mean, they live there, they sit there. They have the ability, even with limited military capacity, to shut down the strait of Hamos. So you're the executive director of the Arms Control Association. You've studied this for your life's work. And what we can hang our hat on, in your opinion, I'm just making sure I got this right, is that we have degraded their military capacity and destroyed a fourth of their ballistic missile and drone capability, accurate or not? Yeah, that's a rough description of what the, you know, the war has accomplished militarily. But it is also, and I think the war has been a major mistake because it did not address the major threat, the nuclear, the potential of Iran's nuclear program, and it has given Iran.

the realization, oh, we can close the Strait of Hormuz, which is perhaps an even greater asset to them. And so we're back to square one where we were before this conflict began in trying to negotiate a durable, effective, verifiable nuclear deal that blocks their pathways to nuclear weapons. And the other thing, I think, you know, the other setback, frankly, Tommy, is that We have, by attacking Iran twice in the last year, we have given the hardliners, and most Iranian leaders are hardliners to begin with. reason to argue that, well, we're getting attacked. Maybe we should get the bomb in order to deter future attacks. So it has perhaps changed the calculus inside the country about whether to go for nuclear weapons, the decision that was not made before. In fact, you know, Iranians have said we don't want to pursue the bomb. But now there are some in Iran who may want to do this. If this... ceasefire and these talks fall apart. For those who would say we accomplished regime change, you would say what? Well, the same people fundamentally are still in power. We have not changed the government in the sense that there is a different ideology, a group of people who... believe in democracy, believe in openness. These are the same theocratic hardliners that were there before. In fact, the Ayatollah is the son of the previous. Ayatollah. So, yes, some of the personnel have been changed, but it's fundamentally the same type of government, the same revolutionary guards that were there before. Let me take a break and answer this. When we come back, have we empowered anyone that could institute regime change from within the country? And then we'll talk about the IAEA and the enriched material. What we know and what we don't know and moving forward here, what happens to it. We're talking to Darrell Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. He's been a leading expert on nuclear nonproliferation issues for some 30 years. And what I would do it, I would ask you to leave President Trump out of this and just look at it as President X, and this is the policy and this is what happened. And is it good policy? Is it good results or not? 722, Traffic Now, WWL. 727, Tommy Tucker Carlson, WWL, talking to Darrell Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, a leading expert on nuclear nonproliferation issues for some 30 years. So has anything we've done empowered people inside of Iran to institute regime change?

Well, I think the war has had a negative effect on that because there were protests prior to the February, March, launch of the war. Those people literally had to hunker down as the bombs fell, and the regime was even tougher on anyone who was expressing opposition to the government. So, you know, we have not fundamentally... empowered anybody inside Iran. I mean, one of the problems with the situation in Iran is there is no clear center of alternative power. There is no resistance leader who has emerged from inside Iran. There are people from the outside who were part of the regime of the Shah of Iran prior to 1979, but they don't have strong support inside the country. That is not something that has been improved since the war started. I'm going to give them some alphabet word salad here, but unfettered verification is everything I'm reading here when it comes to the IAEA and the enriched uranium. So compare and contrast what needs to be done as opposed to what was happening under the JPORA. So the JCPOA, the joint company plan of action, yeah, that's the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Well, look, comparisons between these two things are tricky because Iran's nuclear program a decade ago is different from the program it has today. But one thing that is important for any effective agreement is you've got to have the international inspectors visiting all of Iran's nuclear sites, the ones that are declared and then the ones that they haven't declared to make sure Iran is doing what they're not supposed to be doing, to make sure that the agreement is being complied with. So we need to get those inspectors back in there. They're professionals. And without that, we don't have eyes on the ground to make sure that Iran is meeting the terms of its whatever commitments are negotiated. So the JCPOA, as it was before and the inspections that were taken place, do we really know what was going on or don't we? We do. I mean, Iran was complying with all of the terms of the agreements up until 2018 when President Trump withdrew. And then in 2019, Iran began to... The Second World War is the largest event in human history. A 20-part series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched. No life unchanged. Experience the ultimate account of World War II. Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are.

Listen to World War II with Tom Hanks on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We constitute its uranium enrichment capacity, which had been pushed back as a result of that deal. And as a result, that's where we are today. I mean, for instance, Iran was not supposed to produce any highly enriched uranium under the 2015 Iran deal, the JCPOA. They now have 440 kilograms. So it was working until the point at which Trump decided to withdraw and to seek a better deal. The verification process was working, Darrell, under the JCP OA? Yes, it was. And that is according to the head of the International Economic Energy Agency himself. All right. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time. We'll talk you again. Darrell Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association. We'll take a break. We come back. It's time for count on it. Bank on it, financial insight you can count on with Jason Shield, CEO of Gulf Coast Bank and Trust. Right now, time for WWO First News with Ian Ozan. 744-16 till 8 Tommy Tucker Carlson, WWL. That's the time of the week where we have bank on and financial insights you can count on with Jason Shield, Chief Operating Officer, with Golf Coast Bank and Trust Company. Hide on Jason Shields. I'm doing good, Tommy. Summer's here. Yeah, buddy, I'm telling you what, it is, and it's going to be hot, hot, hot, highs in the lower 90s today, and not much of a chance for showers. But you know what, as we had into the 4th of July, I can't really remember a cool and arid one. Can you? Not that I could remember. So what are we talking about today, Jason? Yeah, so today I thought we'd have a little bit of an interesting topic. The backdoor that hackers have in your living room. So this is a little off of our straight financial talk, but it does tie into financial. stories in some way. So this is one of those stories that everyone's going to hear and they're going to think it sounds like science fiction. It's actually very real. So basically, last week the Wall Street Journal put a story out that caught my attention. And it's something I've known about for a while, but the Wall Street Journal really put it in perspective, which was... Microsoft had contacted Comcast. Comcast is a big internet provider very similar to, you know, Cox or Spectrum or any of those things, about some suspicious activity they had on a couple of IP addresses. And IP addresses are basically like they're just like their address you have at your house just for the internet, right? It's a series of numbers that points to you. And then...

What happened was when Comcast sealed us back with Microsoft, they uncovered a much bigger network involving consumer devices like streaming boxes and digital picture frames, ultimately resulting in over 750,000 home-based IP addresses. Wow. So you'll have backed a little bit, right? So in essence, that meant that all of those homes had some type of malicious activity coming out of it, unbeknownst. to the homeowners or the internet users, right, or the you and me or whoever was using it. And so... Basically, your home internet can actually look on someone else's disguise. And what they do is they use something that's called a residential proxy. And it sounds really technical, but it basically uses this. It's a middleman for internet traffic. So instead of a hacker connecting to whatever it is that they want to do some malicious activity or something, but what they do is they route that traffic through someone else's device. In this instance, that device was 750,000 unknowing home internet subscribers, right? So, and... This is becoming a much, much bigger thing, right? The FBI describes residential processes as a way cyber criminals route traffic through home and small business internet networks so they can hide their true identity. That doesn't mean that the hacker lives in your house. It just means that they're hijacking your internet connection and using it for malicious things, right? So, you know, and this freaks are really important assumption in a lot of things that we do, both banking and everything else, right? If that request, that phone request, that internet request comes from that IP address that you said was good, then that's generally that SIFTash, right? Like that's, so all of a sudden, when that IP address that we used to use, that was absolutely valid, this is coming from Tommy, this is coming from Jason, starts to come in question. It doesn't mean the whole system breaks down, but it does definitely, you know, break one of those layers that we typically used. So how does this happen, right? I've peeled this back a whole lot last week because it was interesting to me. It doesn't mean that every smart TV or streaming box that you hook into your house becomes this proxy for the hackers. What it is a lot of times is the risk is that a device or app that you don't really understand is actually acting as a box. So one of the big ones right now are there is these pirated streaming boxes, right, which is basically they sell you this box for. $50, $100, and they say, you'll get every streaming service known to man, right? And seems really appealing, right? Because Netflix keeps going up, Disney Plus. There's about 27 different streaming services you have to subscribe to these days. So 50 bucks sounds great. Well, you buy the stocks and you plug it in, not thinking anything else, you get your free shows and you don't really care. But the back end of this...

is actually, it's hijacking your internet, right? So it goes back to the old thing, right, Tommy. Free's never free. No. And, you know, these boxes are becoming incredibly popular, especially as, you know, you have to, there's paywalls behind all of these NFL games, right? You have to be on 12 different services to see them all. And so this is something that people don't really think about, right? We always just choose that path of least resistance. It's also other things, right? But someone that offers you a free VPN, right? Those virtual private networks to hide your thing or those free movie apps. Applications are another huge right. And again, these apps seem perfectly fine. You download them and then they sit on the back of your phone or on your system in your house. And then basically, their back doors to your whole internet connection. And so why would someone want to do that, Tommy? Well, it's relatively easy, right? If something's coming from your local network, it seems trustworthy, right? If someone was going to try to, I don't know, hack something domestically, there's different layers of security you have for, say, an IP that comes from China or Korea, as opposed to something that comes from the U.S., a domestic-based IP, especially a residential one that comes in a certain level of trust. And that's kind of what you're seeing. Right? These types of attacks, they're actually taking these things and they're using them to do various things, right? Google recently broke up an entire network of these devices that they found out there that had over, during a one-week period. In January, it observed over 550 threat groups using this network from China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia. But this sounds fake, Tommy. It really does. I dug into this incredibly deep over the weekend. This is real. They were using basically everyone's home internet as their own private network to hide their malicious activities. You know, I thought of something that I could say to relate this to something that people would understand, you know, and this is in essence someone stealing your car from your driveway and going to do a bunch of crimes, right? And the first thing that the police are going to do, obviously, is they're going to try to track that plate. They're going to go to you and me and say, hey, your car was used in a crime, and then we have to deal with the burden of actually proving that it wasn't us. That's the exact same thing. We're using our internet to do all these malicious things. It's an incredibly interesting thing that seems to be happening out there. So to bring it back to banking and fraud, right? So how does this connect to someone's money? Right. So first, if the criminals make their traffic look local, account takers are much harder at a spot. It doesn't mean that banks are helpless, but it does kind of like a touch on make it so that they get through that first door a whole lot easier. I can just tell you. Internet Security 101 for domestic companies is to block things from certain countries, right? Certain countries, we just don't allow that traffic to come in, right? You just close that door. But they've managed to get through that first door. And then if they were able to get your stolen password or do anything else that gets them through their second and third doors, it comes from a domestic IP. It looks legitimate, right? So...

The other thing is passwords and multi-factor authentication matter. So, again, if they stole your username and a password, I've talked about this plenty of times on the show, Tommy. Never use your online banking password anywhere else. It should be unique to what you do in online banking because the first thing these groups do, when they hack that random app that you use the same password that you use for your online banking, they go out there and try every bank in the country. Just give it a shot, see what happens, right? Dude a shot, and they don't even know where you bank. They just have bots that go out there and hit every single bet, right? I can show you the logs. It happens on an insane basis, right? And so make sure you do that, right? So what should you actually do as a listener, right? Like, okay, Jason, that sounds great, and it sounds really scary. You know, the... First thing is you should be careful of devices that promise too much, right? Those streaming boxes that say they give you everything. Just, you know, stick with trusted sources, do your research before you put something on your network. Avoid those pirated streaming apps. And then, again, make sure you use the same password on your online banking that you use nowhere else, right? That's the other thing that you want to do. Well, I got to tell you, how would we recognize the streaming service offers or would come as an app or what? Yeah, you know, Tommy, they're going to stick out because it's going to be obvious, right? If it's not some well-known company that you're doing this from, it's something that promises you, hey, you can see this UFC fight for free, you don't have to pay the pay-per-view, or, hey, you can see these NFL games, nothing's free, right? And if you're getting it from some random company, their website looks like it was done 10 years ago, these are not things that you should be doing. And look, the same thing with these boxes. Before you put some of these boxes in your house that you buy up Amazon or whatever, do you research, right? When you plug something into your network at home, they have access to everything on the inside. And so, you know, we've gotten, as a society, pretty used to just bringing things into our house and connecting it to the internet, whether it be light bulbs, light switches, you know, smart garage door openers, whatever those things are. And all of those come with their own interest and security concerns. I'm going to lie down in a fetal position now. Thank you, Jason. Thanks, Tommy. And again, I'm not trying to scare everyone. No, I understand. It's just one of those things. Think before you pluck, man. It's all, you know. It's ubiquitous. It really is. Thank you. Jason Shield, Chief Operating Office for Gulf Coast Bank and Trust Bank on it. Financial Insights you can count on. We do it every Monday morning. And if you missed any of it, use the Odyssey app, download it or use the rewind feature. You can go back and listen and pick up anything you might have missed. 754, 6 till 8. Traffic now, WWL. Miserably hot, but not really a chance for showers that they're mentioning. Always a chance, though, for a pop-up. shower here there during the summertime in New Orleans. You know that highs in the lower 90s. It's 815. We're joined by Dr. Tanya De Silva, an endocrinologist with LSU Health, New Orleans. Good morning, doctor. How are you? Good morning. Thank you for having me this morning. Thank you for taking the time with this very important subject. Louisiana third in the nation, I think, when it comes to rates of diabetes. 14.5% of the people in Louisiana have diabetes, and that's not taking into account pre-diabetes, is it?

That's right. And so I agree with you. This is a really important health issue for us to make sure the people of our state are aware of. I lost about 80 pounds, I guess it is, maybe 90, and I managed to keep it off. And I know I was on the road to diabetes. There is no doubt in my mind. I was pre-diabetic. Let's talk about that before we get to the disease itself. Is... Everybody that's morbidly obese, and that's what I was, I'll admit it, on the road to, and, you know, I carried it. Well, you wouldn't think that to look at me, but maybe not sociologically, but physically I was, medically I was, is everybody that's overweight by 80 pounds pre-diabetic? In medicine, there's never 100%. I wouldn't say everybody, but certainly we definitely know that in terms of risk factors for developing diabetes, having obesity or being overweight, those two certainly increase the risk. Because what happens is there is a relative lack, there's an insufficiency of the hormone insulin for the... that person's needs, and that puts them at risk of developing diabetes. Which brings us to type 1 and type 2, I guess, or gestational diabetes. Tell me about that. Sure. So in terms of, you know, one of the big... breakdowns that we talk about is type 1 versus type 2. In type 1 diabetes, that is an absolute lack of insulin. And most of those cases, 90% are greater. It's an autoimmune condition that attacks the cells in the pancreas, the beta cells that produce insulin and produces that absolute lack of insulin. On the other hand, type 2 diabetes, which is actually the type that is most common in our state, in our country, as well as worldwide, that is where there is insufficient or not enough insulin for what the body needs. So is one genetically, the result of genetics and the other a result of diet? So generally when we talk about genetics and genetic risk of developing diabetes, we see that more in patients with type 2 diabetes. But it's usually, honestly, multifactoral is how we say. So someone may have a genetic predisposition. So for example, in my family, my father had type 2 diabetes. My sister has it. And I'm at increased risk because we share common genes. On the other hand, there is a... component where, as you said, if people can do things to reduce their risk by, you know, reducing sort of the environmental factors such as excessive weight, they can reduce their risk also. So it's a combination of different factors that can lead to the development of the disease state. So is there one that will go away and one that won't?

Typically, type 1 diabetes at this point at least, we're always, you know, there's lots of new research being done, but type 1 diabetes tends to be incurable or that it's permanent. Whereas type 2 diabetes, I don't say that it's cured, so to speak, but... The way I think about it is you can put it in remission, say, by significant changes. So there are different ways and means of, for example, losing weight, which is one of the things that can cause that relative lack of insulin. Surgical means, medication, lifestyle of losing weight that can help put it in remission. Yeah, I was trying to dance delicately around that lifestyle choices, perhaps we could say, when it comes to type 2 or type 1. Well, we use it for both, actually. And the main thing I would like patients to hear people out is that... you know, we really don't believe in that people should be blamed, so to speak, for the development of diabetes. You know, there can be a lot of judgment placed against people, and we want to be part of the process that reduces that. When I talk about lifestyle, I do like to empower my patients that there are steps that they can take to help. So certainly there are a lot of diets. If people can lose 5%, 10%, we know that helps their metabolism, even if it's even if they remain overweight or obese, it helps certain measures of blood sugar control, blood pressure, et cetera, to lose, you know, even a small amount of weight with lifestyle. And when we talk about lifestyle, it's predominantly diet and exercise. Are we making any inroads as it relates to treating diabetes or preventing it? Oh, you know, there's an amazing new development. I feel very hopeful for my patients with diabetes. In terms of new inroads, there are some new classes of medications that are being developed and more and more every day, actually, in the pipeline to help people lose weights. You may have heard of the Incretin drugs that, or GLP1 receptor agonists, which are gut, hormones that are produced by our gut naturally. And they can help reduce appetite, flow emptying of the gut, and help people really reduce their weight, reduce their appetite, reduce their hemoglobin A1C, which is a marker of average blood sugar control. There are other ones that, called SGLLT2 inhibitors, for example, that help us the body dump pretty much glucose into the urine and also, again, reduce. blood sugar, both those classes of medications, what I'm really excited about is they also protect people's heart and kidneys, which are some of the organs that can be affected when patients have diabetes. So those are some newer advances. We also have wonderful advances in diabetes technology with new continuous glucose monitors that many patients may be using insulin pumps that talk to the continuous glucose monitors.

So really lots to think about that are very hopeful for our patients. Let me take a break. We'll pick it up. We come back. Very interesting conversation and very important conversation with Dr. Tanya De Silva and endocrinologist with LSU Health, New Orleans. Louisiana third in the nation when it comes to rate of diabetes. We'll talk about how it impacts us, how we treat it, and how to prevent it if you can. 822, Traffic Now, WWL. 8.26 and a half, Tommy Tucker Carlson, WWL, on this Monday morning back with Dr. Tanya De Silva and endocrinologist with LSU Health, New Orleans, talking about diabetes. Louisiana, third highest in the state when it comes to people with diabetes, about 14.5% of the population. What are some of the symptoms, doctors, some of the warning signs that people need to look for when it comes to diabetes? Some of the symptoms patients can develop are increased thirst. or increased urination. But I will say one important thing for people to know is sometimes, especially with type 2 diabetes, it can be silent. So I really encourage patient people to work with their primary care physicians to go in through the routine screenings that can help catch this disease early so that, you know, as I mentioned, there are lots of really great new. therapeutics and lifestyle can be very effective. So it is important to work with your doctor to get diagnosed early because there's a lot of things you can do. How dangerous can it be if it's left untreated? So unfortunately, there are a lot of... disease manifestations that can occur. So, for example, the small blood vessels can be affected by having this abnormal glucose regulation, and it can lead to retinopathy, where the eyes get affected, and it's one of the leading causes of blindness. It can lead to nephropathy, which is where the kidney is affected, that can lead to end-stage renal disease and need for dialysis. the leading cause of non-traumatic need for amputation because of development of the vessels that supply our nerves, the neuropathy. So those are some small vessel complications in terms of it can also affect the bigger vessels and lead to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. So that is why, you know, I would encourage people really. There are a lot of things that can be done, so there's a lot of hope, but it is important to take control of this disease rather than letting it take control of you. Is there a way to be screened for this, doctor? Yes, absolutely. There are different ways. It's, you know, laboratory testing with, there's one test called a hemoglobin A1C, which gives us a three-month average blood sugar in many patients that can be an accurate test. Use of fasting blood glucose is another common one that doctors use, and there are others as well. Any final thoughts for us?

Just that, again, I don't, I think it's an important disease for people to be aware of and to work with their doctors about, but also there's a lot of encouraging things that are being developed by scientists to help treat it. I want people that have hope. Is it a big life shortener? It can be if it is not treated well, but again, there are a lot of things that we can do to have people with diabetes live healthier and longer lives if they, you know, again, work with their physicians and, you know, think about it proactively without blaming themselves. They shouldn't do that. Eat healthy exercise be the best thing you can do to take a first step, I guess, right? It is. It is a really important first step that can be taken. Thank you, Doc. Appreciate it. Dr. Tanya De Silva and endocrinologist with LSU Health, New Orleans. We'll take a break. Come back. Talk with Arne Filco about groundbreaking going to happen today. And we'll also talk with Stephen Ray, local writer, author of Finn McCool's Football Club, about Team USA. Another big win at the World Cup. Right now, time for WWO First News. And for that, we go to E&OZN. Thank you. And to Arnie Foccoe we go, the chairman of the Ninth Ward Stadium. Good morning, Arnie. How are you? Good morning, Tommy. Nice to be with you. How you been? I have been great. Very excited about the announcement this morning and the groundbreaking. It's been a long time coming. So really great news for our whole community. Tell me about the genesis of this whole thing and what it's going to mean for the community. Well, this project goes back almost 20 years. It's had some ups and downs, but I kind of got involved in 2019, and we formed a new board and nonprofit corporation, got approval from the school board to pursue this, and we started fundraising. I thought we would need $5 million, and then it became $10 million and more. And as of this morning, I'm very proud we've raised almost $16 million for the stadium. It will break ground today. It'll be open a year from now next summer. And we're already starting to work on fundraising because we want to build a track and field venue next to the stadium. So that's our big next project over at the site. Where is this going to be, Arnie? It is in the Upper 9th Ward Desire Community. It's just to the south, excuse me, to the north of Carver High School. And... You know, we have a lot of land over there. You know, I would say that area has probably been the least developed since Hurricane Katrina. And, you know, not only is this going to be a great athletic venue for all of the youth, but I really believe it's going to be an economic catalyst for that area. And the community is incredibly excited. They've waited a long time for this. And, you know, today's a big milestone. Who's going to be using the facility?

Yeah, I think that's one of the most important things. The facility is going to be open to all New Orleans public schools, both high school and middle schools. It will be the home field for Carver High School, so they'll have a little bit of scheduling priority. But we wanted to make this stadium available to every school in the parish. And, you know, I think that's important. We don't have many venues. We haven't built new venues in a long time. So it's much needed. And once we get an operator on board and we see what the demand is, you know, it might be available to some of the private schools here as well to rent out for games. You know, we're going to do some community things over at the stadium. We have a couple really unique programs. One, I'm excited about we're going to do a marker program honoring great figures from the ninth ward that will be rotated every few years. So, you know, a lot to look forward to. Contractors have been hired. They're starting to work already. And, you know, we hope, you know, 12 months from now that we'll be opening the stadium. Congratulations, Arnie. You deserve it, man, because I know you worked hard on this. Thank you, Tommy. I appreciate it. It's been a laborer of love, and I'm just so excited for the kids. Just one last point, when we started this, you know, some of these youth are now in their 30s with kids of their own, and we're going to create a venue that they could be very proud of. Outstanding. Thank you, sir. Arnie Foco, Chairman of the Ninth Ward Stadium, Inc. Groundbreaking. Scheduled later on this morning. We'll take a break. Come back. Talk to Stephen Ray about the World Cup here on WWL. 847, 848, call it 12 before 9. Stephen Ray, our friend joins his local writer, author of Finn McCool's Football Club. He's our go-to guy for the World Cup. How you doing, Stephen? I'm good. I'm good. How are you? I'm okay, sir. Let's talk about the USA's win. First of all, it's interesting that in each game, they had an own goal, which... maybe means it's a good time for the US? Maybe a harbinger of things to come? Well, yeah, if the other team's scoring for them, then that's always a good sign for sure. Yeah, own goals are the kind of saying in soccer is if you haven't scored an own goal, you haven't defended enough. You know, it seems on the surface that's a stupid thing when the team scores against itself, but often... it's due to the pressure of the attacking team. I mean, and on both games so far, the states have had a lot of high pressure, high energy, and they've basically forced those mistakes from the opposition. So it's symptomatic, I feel, of how the states are playing more so than, I hope you're right. I hope it is some divine providence, but I guess we'll find out. Yeah, tell me, so now about, tell me what's going on in Group D. Yeah, so with the states, they really couldn't have had anything better, really. They've won their first two games, which means the way this sort of a round-robin format plays out, they are guaranteed to finish top of their group. So it's kind of like an NFL team winning the division early, and then they're in a really great position at the next game, which in paper should have been the hardest game. Turkey are a good team.

And they're well ranked. And that should have been the hardest game. But in effect, it means absolutely nothing. The states have already won their group. And I wouldn't be surprised if he plays, like, the reserves effectively plays the second team, the B team, because they could lose this third game, you know, 26-0. And it actually wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to what's following. And there would be some things they could risk, like yellow cards and those kind of things, right? Exactly. Explain that if you would, Stephen? Yeah, yeah. So if you get, they've made a change for this tournament. It's like a cumulative thing. A yellow card is a warning. It basically, if you get a yellow card in the game, it's basically, hey, stop doing that. This is your warning. If you do it again, you're going to get sent off. You're going to get thrown out of the game. And what would happen is once you've got two of those. you would then miss the following game, even if you got them in separate games. You've got one yellow card in your first game. You've got one yellow card in your second game. You'd then miss the third game. Well, what they've changed this time is that after the end of the group stage, after your first three games, all the yellow cards get wiped out, so you start from zero again. But you're right in that the third game, this is a marathon, not a sprint. You know, there's still lots of games to go. And so if the states do play their starters. And, of course, there is also the view that you don't want them to get rusty and you want to keep it. If you've got a good rhythm, you want to keep it going. But you're right in that if the states play their starters and then one of them, how they get sent off. means he would miss the next game or, of course, you always run the risk of injury as well. So personally, if I was in charge of America, I would be playing my second team this week. What's going on on the other groups? Well, I mean, there's been a lot, so far this World Cup, it's kind of been what we would call back home, the Minos, the underdogs. I mean, Cape Verdi, who actually were going to see in Houston next weekend, we're flying to Houston to watch that game. And again, at the start of the tournament, that was just such a crazy game. Cape Verde against Saudi Arabia, that's a game that, you know, you'd identify as just being a bit strange with those teams. In fact, Cape Verde are the way they're lining up. They could actually even win that group. You also have the Dior Congo. Those are two sort of lesser teams, if you like. Even the Saudis did well in their first game. So so far, there's been a couple of big teams, Belgium and Portugal, who many thought might go, well, they were expected to go deep in this tournament. There's no doubt. They've both struggled. and some of the smaller countries have really shown so far.

So when it comes to the next meaningful game for the United States, do we know who they'd be playing yet? No, we don't, but it's – because they've won the group, again, it's kind of like a bracket, almost like a seated type thing. They will play one of the weakest teams that are left. They're going to play one of the teams who finish third in their group. It might well be someone like Bosnia. It might be someone like Qatar. The point is it's going to be down to 32 teams. You know, you've got FIFA has something like 212 members, and we're down to 32. So you really are down, you know, to the top 32 nations in the world, arguably. And so it's never going to be easy. But it's going to be as easy as could be reasonably expected, I feel. And is it single elimination now? You lose your eye. Exactly. Yeah, that's it. It'll go down to 32. And they're really, like we're saying, in the old days, you... turn up at the World Cup and teams would win 9-0 and 7-0 and that kind of thing. And although those results do happen occasionally now, it's just the whole of world soccer has contracted so much that even those smaller nations have got top class coaches, they've got players playing in the top European leagues. And so it will be one game. And if the scores are still tied after 90 minutes, it will go with 30 minutes extra time. And if it's still tied after that, then it's a penalty shootout. So this is really the last 32, like you said, single elimination. It's really where the knockout stage and all the drama starts. There are dramatic moments in sports that penalty kick situation to decide who wins. It's pretty dramatic. Thank you, Stephen. I appreciate your time. No worries. Thank you. Talk to you again. Stephen Ray, local writer author of Finn McCool's Football Club, giving us a Team USA and a World Cup Update, 854. Traffic Now, WWL. Into the 9 o'clock hour, we go, joined by our friend Matt Brown, publisher, the Extra Points Newsletter. Talk about the bill that could reshape college athletics, or maybe not. How you doing it, Matt? I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me on again today. Appreciate the time, as always. Tell me about the Extra Points Newsletter. The Extra Points newsletter publishes four days a week. It is run by me, a longtime college sports reporter Matt Brown, and it covers business, policy, and off-the-field stories that shape the college sports industry, from the largest schools in the SEC down to Division III. I'm reading a piece that you wrote Civics Lessons from the College Sports Protection Act, and I love it. Talk about that, if you will, please, as a jumping off point. Sure. I wrote this because I was getting a lot of feedback for my readers. And the readers can include folks that are just regular old fans to people that are athletic directors or conference commissioners, people that work in this industry. One of the bits of feedback that I have gotten quite a bit over the course of this bill being part of the public consciousness here is.

Why are we hearing so much from guys like Randy Levine and Cody Campbell? Because they're not actually lawmakers. They're not elected officials. They're not people that even necessarily have deep specific college sports experience. And I think it's just a useful reminder of how almost all of our bills get written, which is often from the influence of people that are politically connected and or have lots and lots of money. There are things that are discussed and addressed in this bill that the NCAA has asked for for a long time, that both power and mid-major conferences have asked for a long time. And there's a bunch of stuff that has very little to do with athlete compensation at all because a handful of very rich people wanted it that way and because some of the lawmakers have personal beef. And that's how the sausage gets made from everything from college sports to AI to energy bills to almost everything in Congress. That's not the way it said on School House of Rock. It was I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill, and it doesn't always work that way, does it? No, unfortunately, it does not. Let's talk about the act itself. What was this? Is Ted Cruz's bill now or not? This is Ted Cruz's bill, but it's not Ted Cruz's bill by himself, unlike almost every other major college sports bill that has been proposed in the House or the Senate, like the Score Act that you and I have talked about on the show several times. The Protect College Sports Act is bipartisan. It was written by Ted Cruz, Republican from Texas, and Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from the great state of Washington and has co-sponsors from both parties. Cruz. because he is the committee chairman here, Republicans are in control, has taken the lead on this bill, but it's very much a Democrat and Republican-authored legislation. So. What is in the bill? What are they trying to do? What's the goal behind this? Well, this is actually a really good question, Tommy, because there's a lot of things that are in the bill. You and I have talked about this a lot, and this has come up in lots of conversations in this industry over the last year. There's a lot of frustration among coaches and among administrators that the NCAA is not really in charge. And you can create your own regulations about how much athletes can be paid or when they can be paid or whether you can be banned from the sport for a year if you gamble on your own team, you know, those kind of things. And if you don't, if you're a player and you don't like it, you can just sue because the NCAA doesn't really have the legal authority anymore to. actually enforce many of the rules that it set. So one of the things that the Protect College Sports Act does that major conferences have been asking for is give the NCAA limited antitrust exemption to enforce the house settlement terms and to enforce some of the rules that it has about eligibility and athlete compensation. So those things could not be sued in federal court.

It's not the only thing. There's a bunch of other stuff in here that's really more related to trying to prevent conference realignment, to prevent a Super League, to prevent a perceived power takeover from the SEC and the Big Ten. And there's also stuff here about Olympic sports sponsorship and women's sports. But I think for fans... The most immediate potential change here is a federal law that basically codifies House and says, hey, athletes, you can transfer once without penalty. And if you transfer a second time, you're going to have to set out a year just like you did in the olden days. You know, we got to do this every time because although it's on your plate, it's not on everybody's plate, when you say it codifies House. Take us back to what that is, House. Sure. So the House Settlement, which is not the U.S. House, but is named after former Arizona State Swimmer Grant House, is a massive legal settlement between the NCAA and major conferences and all the mid-major conferences and athletes that were previously prohibited from taking advantage of their NIL rights. And as part of that settlement, in addition to having to pay a whole lot of money as back pay to athletes over the last decade, it created this framework for schools to directly pay athletes for the first time. You may have heard, if you're a fan, about a 20.5 or 21.2 million dollar salary cap and what schools can pay directly. That comes from the House settlement. And the whole framework here where athletes have to have deals approved by this clearinghouse, if they're doing something with the collective or Marco Rubio brand or anything else, that comes from that settlement too. Right now, we have rules about how much athletes can be paid and when they can be paid. But without the antitrust exemption, none of them are being enforced. So there's a salary cap right now on paper that absolutely nobody in college sports is paying attention to. Go back and say that again and explain that, because without the antitrust exemption, take me through that? Sure. So the way that the rules are currently written right now is if you're an SEC program, say LSU, you are allowed to set aside 20.5 million. You know, this coming year, it'll be a little over 21 million, to directly pay your athletes from football to men's basketball, to baseball to anything else. And where did this number come from? This number comes from a negotiated settlement between anti- The recap show is an inside look for fans into the world of global soccer, women's sports, and all things, gal culture. From the inside perspective of two World Cup champions and Olympians. Follow and listen to the recap show wherever you get your podcasts. Trust attorneys and these schools as an average of all of the money that- Schools are paying to athletes and scholarships and athletic-related aid, you know, that's subtracted from 50% of revenues. It's this weird math, and they take it as an average from everybody, and they end up with 21.2. It wasn't, the players didn't really negotiate it. But you have that figure, and then if an athlete wants to do a deal with a small business or a large business or a collective or any kind of marketing deal, it's submitted to a clearinghouse called the CSC.

which determines whether that was for fair market value. If I am going to pay an athlete a couple hundred dollars to promote the extra points newsletter, that would be approved. If I'm a left tackle with seven Instagram followers and somebody wants to pay me $900,000 to go, you know, send one Instagram posts, but it's really a way just to pay a salary, that might probably not be approved. That format might make sense in a legal settlement here for back pay. But you can't have a salary cap in any industry unless it's been a part of a collective bargaining agreement without it breaking the law. And that's what ends up happening here. And that's why the CSC hasn't actually really put any meaningful penalties on anyone for breaking the cap. So who's deciding? How much the schools are paying the athletes? The schools? Or did they agree to play nice together or what? It's the schools, but there's no real incentive to follow the law, not the law, the kind of salary cap here, if nobody else is. And I think a good example would be if, you know, you're driving on Route 10 or something, and the speed limits, I don't know, 70 million, 70 miles an hour, right? And you're going 80, and everybody else is flying past you. you're going to feel like you should be speeding too. And if you don't see any cop cars and nobody ever gets pulled over and the flow of traffic is well north at 80 miles an hour, you're not going to stick at 70 or 80. You're going to keep driving too. And that's essentially what's happened here. There's no police. The police aren't actually able to pull anybody over. So everybody feels the need to just drive faster and faster. All right. So let's keep that analogy going. Who would the police be? Well, the police would be, as the settlement and everything is currently set up, would be the College Sports Commission. which is this third party that the NCAA created that's run by Deloitte and a couple of investigators from Major League Baseball who study all of these deals and they put them through a computer to see if they line up to what a reasonable compensation would be. Then if they disprove a deal, then there would be penalties, which might include an athlete giving some of his money back. It might include schools losing scholarships or players being deemed ineligible. Right now, they're not allowed to enforce any of those rules. To zoom back here, if the Protect College Sports Act is passed into law, then those rules can be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. They can be enforced by the federal government or at the blessing of the federal government. So you would essentially then have real police. So the College Sports Commission is about NIL, only not how much the colleges are paying the players?

That's right. It's just about income that is not coming from the universities themselves. The universities themselves are paying up to this previously negotiated salary cap figure, which if the act is passed, if the cruise bill is passed, that goes into law then too. And that amount was agreed upon. No, that's all right. I'm trying to follow here. That amount was agreed upon by what school, you say these schools, who are these schools? These schools would be everybody in the Power 4. And if you're not in the Power 4, you can opt into the framework for that settlement. And you can pay that if you'd like. You can't pay more than that, but you're not obligated to pay it. What ends up happening in practice, if you're in the Southland Conference or the Ohio Valley or the Big Sky or something, you generally opt in so you are then allowed to pay athletes something. But, you know, southeastern Louisiana doesn't have $20.5 million to pay athletes. So they might be paying them too. they might be paying them one and a half. But LSU and Arkansas and Auburn, they're all paying the max. And when you say Power 4, you are referring to... I'm referring to schools in the Big Ten Conference, Southeastern Conference, ACC, and Big 12. And we're not only... Go ahead. Yeah. The largest 60-ish or so athletic departments in the country with football. And we're not talking about just football, though, right? We're not. We're talking about direct athlete payments for else sports. So if you're a women's soccer player, there's not very many of them that are getting money directly from the school because there's not a lot of schools that care so much about winning women's soccer championships that they're going to allocate some money here for that. But for college baseball, which is very popular throughout the southeast, lots of college baseball players are getting some money. Lots of women's basketball players are getting some money. And schools that don't have football. but still play in Division 1, like the Big East or Gonzaga, they're paying their athletes too, and they just might be giving more money to basketball than they might be for other sports. When it comes to the cap, are schools adhering to that cap or not? Not really. So what ends up happening? We'll use another hypothetical example here. We'll pick on Oklahoma. So the agreement says Oklahoma, you can only directly pay your players up to $20.5 million. And that's true. That is happening. Oklahoma is not putting out a check that comes directly from Oklahoma's athletic department in excess of that. But what they would do then, because you can't have a payroll of just $20 million across your entire athletic department and be competitive in the SEC, as Oklahoma might, and again, this is a hypothetical. Don't yell at me, Oklahoma. They might call up one of their multimedia rights partners, a company that helps them sell sponsorship ads like a Learfield or a Playfly to say, hey, we've got to pay these guys more money. Can you help facilitate some deal? to make up the difference even if it's not a real deal. Or they might go to some donors, so they might go to a booster and try to facilitate something else.

So in practice, the school is helping to make sure that somebody is paying an excess of the salary cap, even if that extra money does not come from the university itself. It's not exactly money laundering, but it's not not money laundering. That's a phrase I thought of as soon as you said it. I thought that's money laundering is what that is. Yeah, maybe the best way to think about it would be how a lot of political campaign financing works. Right. There are laws that say, okay, you can only donate X amount to a candidate. And there's a lot of rules about how much the official candidates, you know, pool can be. But you can set up super PACs. You can set up dark money. You can, you can make some phone calls and have somebody else make, you know, cut the checks that may be directed by the campaign, but not officially coming from the campaign. And that's a lot about how big time college football payroll is working right now. You say these guys that's primarily men are getting paid? Over overwhelmingly. Not exclusively. There are definitely women's basketball players, especially at really high-profile programs like South Carolina and Yukon, where the young women are getting sometimes in excess of a million dollars. We have some examples of softball players who are getting significant checks from schools. But overwhelmingly, the money coming not just from the schools themselves, but kind of from these money laundered third-party deals, is overwhelmingly going to men. That's in addition to scholarships. That is in addition to scholarships, room and board, training table insurance, everything else that's traditionally part of the scholarship package. So where does the IRS weigh in on scholarships and room and board? Do they consider that taxable income? So as of right now, scholarships and room and board are not considered taxable income, but the cash that you get in excess of that, including the money that comes from this revenue sharing, that is. and money that you would get from another marketing deal. That is taxable income. You do have to report that to the IRS. And this was actually more of an issue, I think, in the very early days of NIL, when things were a little bit less sophisticated. And a lot of athletes learn the hard way that if a car dealership gives you a free truck... Brother, that truck's not totally free. Like, even if you don't get any cash, that's still taxable income and comes back up. You're not reading about waves of athletes getting into tax trouble, though, because as folks who are listening here who have maybe dealt with the IRS before, there's not that many IRS agents, and these things tend to kind of lag a couple of years after the fact. Take a break. We'll pick it up here. We come back. My Lord and heaven, every time we talk to you, I'm telling you, every time, every time. Matt Brown's our guest, he's the publisher of the Extra Points newsletter. You've got any questions and comments, 504-260-1870. I'm getting a lot of texts about Brendan Suresby. You can talk about that saga when we come back with Texas Tech, and we'll talk more about the Sports Protection Act. Is that what it's called? College Sports Protection Act. College Sports Protection Act. All right. 924, taking a break, WWL.

930 now talking to Matt Brown, publisher of the Extra Points newsletter about the, and I'm saying it referred to both ways, it's the College Sports Act, protect college sports act? I believe it's the Protect College Sports Act. Okay. So somebody wants to know if they get paid in addition to the scholarships. Yes, they do, right? Correct. They can be, right? It depends on the athlete and depends on the school and the deal. I would say that if you are an SEC college football player, you are almost certainly being paid in excess of your scholarship. If you are a tennis player, probably not. You have the ability and the capacity to be paid in excess of your scholarship, but it depends on how badly the school wants you. So from the IRS's standpoint, it would seem to me, and I don't mean to get off on this tangent, but unless it's financial aid because you're under a certain income level, if you're getting compensated to pay, to play for me, then you're being compensated. And it would seem as though that tuition would be taxable income. No. The way that it's set up, and this is, you know, I'm obviously not a tax attorney, but this is the way it's been explained to me from the schools. is that you have two separate buckets here. You have your scholarship package, which includes your room and board, your food, the tuition, books, everything else. And that's in, you know, in one kind of check. And then you would look at the money that you're being paid to play your sports, which is the way the contracts are set up, it's technically for marketing and promotional work. It would be just like if you're going to school somewhere and also working a work-study job or a campus job on the side. When I was in college, I had an athletic scholarship, but I also would work in the catering department and cook. And the $10.25 an hour that I got from working in the kitchen, that was taxable income. And you're just like any other job, whether it had been for the school or Burger King. And that's what this looks like for the money that's being paid in excess of your scholarship. The tax rules could always change. There are certainly people that believe that if you're going to get paid $2 million to play college football, we should tax your scholarship, too. But that's not what the law currently is set up right now. Okay. But there's nobody that's getting paid that isn't on scholarship, right? They don't say, we're going to pay you, but you've got to pay your tuition. I'm not aware of any situation like that. I guess that could theoretically happen, but I don't, I think everybody would rather take the tuition. Right, exactly. Absolutely, yeah, because that's not costing anything. So let's talk about Brendan Sorsby. Sure. Tell us a story.

So Brendan Sorsby was one of the most highly recruited and anticipated transfer football players over the last offseason. Former quarterback at Indiana when they were terrible, then Cincinnati when they weren't, and reportedly signed a deal for around $5 million to play for Texas Tech. Turned down LSU, turned down a couple of other programs. and was expected to be the starting quarterback to help Texas Tech compete for not just a big 12th title, but a national title, somebody who's good enough to play in the NFL. Unfortunately, Sorsby also reportedly has a gambling addiction and was placing thousands and thousands of bets on professional sports, which is in current violation of NCAA rules, and more importantly, bet on Indiana football while he was a member of Indiana football, which... is something that is very much against NCAA rules, just like it's against every professional sports collective bargaining agreement. The NCAA said, all right, young man, you're ineligible this year. Sorosby sued. Got a local judge in Texas to give him a temporary injunction. And then the Big 12 counter sued. There was a big kind of national story about this. And then he has eventually, I believe, last week, decided I'm going to try to go. playing the NFL. I'm going to go declare for the supplemental draft and forego the rest of my college. But it was a very, very sore spot within the college sports industry. It's something that I think infuriated ADs. at a level that I have not seen in the 14 years I've been doing this job about where Texas Tech would say, we're going to play this guy anyway, and we were able to get a judge to offer, give us an injunction to allow us to do it. It's not going to happen, but there's going to be some hurt feelings that are going to take a long time, I think, to heal. So when it comes to baseball, let's talk about college baseball since they got the championship game tonight. Sure. It seems like kids used to leave to play minor league baseball so they could get paid, but now they're saying because they could make more in college than they could play in minor league baseball? Yeah, that's certainly part of it, right? If I remember correctly, and forgive me if I get one of these details wrong, because I am from the north where college baseball barely exists. But there would be, if you were a really good baseball player coming out of high school, you could get drafted and you could decide, all right, do I accept this guarantee and the sixth round draft pick and join the Houston Astros system? Or do I decide to go to college and try to play, you know, to improve my draft stock and make more money? And then, but if you typically, if you went to college, you typically stay there for a little bit and then you go into the pros. A couple of things have changed. over the last couple of years. You have the minor league system shrinking. Many professional baseball minor league clubs have closed or moved or become defunct. So there's fewer of those opportunities available. And then you have this system now where schools can pay athletes directly or illegally pay, have companies pay them directly. And that is very much a calculation where there are some players that will make more money.

especially if they're older players, more experienced players, will make more money in the SEC or the ACC than they would as minor league ball players. We see this trend even more, I think, in basketball, but it is certainly becoming a thing in baseball. And it's hard to blame anybody because, you know, shoot, you can be the number one overall pick in baseball and not have much of a major league career. There's a lot of uncertainty. Someone's going to pay you $300,000 to go pitch for Old Miss for one more season. I can see why a lot of people would decide to take it. Well, it seems like, too, there's another side of this, which is like a single-A ball player. You have any idea how much they were making or get paid? Well, if you weren't a high draft choice and you're playing single-A baseball, you're making a lot less money than either of us are. Right. So the point of the point of... How much, Tim? 26,000 a season in the way, yeah. So if that's the case, a lot of guys are either putting off their life or chasing dreams that are not going to exist because the farm teams need players to play with the real prospects. So while these guys, and I know a guy played minor league baseball, told me this years ago, that they had no, he decided to get out of it and get on with his life because he realized he wasn't going anywhere. They were just paying him basically to...

field. Round out the team. Exactly. To round out the team. That's exactly right. So is the end result of this maybe more kids staying in college longer or not? I think that's certainly possible, right? You know, baseball is a unique sport where college baseball is not the only place where there's a talent pool. If good college baseball players decide to stay in college a year or two longer and get paid a little more, I don't think they're necessarily destabilizes the minor leagues. It might mean that minor league teams or major league teams have to spend a little bit more time and effort on international recruiting or trying to build pipelines outside of college. This is something that's being discussed in the next major league baseball collective bargaining agreement. But that is something to consider. If you are someone who's not like a Steven Strausberg type prospect where you're going to go number one overall and everybody can see that you're amazing. and you're an important part of an SEC or an ACC or, you know, UCLA-type college baseball team, you'd certainly want to stick around. And we have multiple years now of data to suggest that that happens in the NBA and the NFL. You can be a really good college basketball player and be somebody who's two inches too short or one year too old to have much of an NBA career. And you're contemplating, all right, so I want to take $800,000 and go play for Will Wade? or do I want to make $95,000 and go play in Croatia, and someone's going to throw a road flare on the court? Like, she's like a pretty easy decision. I'll stay in America, and that leads to college basketball teams getting older. Let me take a break. We'll pick it up. We come back talking to Matt Brown, publishing the extra points newsletter, 504-260-1870. You got any questions? I'm getting some text about agent regulations and certification. I know you've been looking at that. We'll talk with Matt about that when we come back. 940, 20-10, traffic, WWO.

946, 14 till 10, always stirring everybody up when we talked to Matt Brown, publisher, the Extra Points newsletter. Keep in mind, he's just the messenger. Tell me about college, about agents and representation and regulation, certifications, et cetera. Anything being done as far as that goes? Sure. That's actually also one of the priorities of the Protect College Sports Act, because here's how agent regulation mostly works right now. If you want to be a sports agent and you want to represent folks in the NFL, NBA, NHL, most major professional sports leagues, you have to be certified by that sports union. That certification process may require you to have a law degree or a graduate degree, pass an ethics exam, demonstrate some baseline level of professional competence. That doesn't exist in college because there's no college athlete union. There's no mechanism to create any of those requirements. A few states have some very basic registration or certification rules, but there aren't really mechanisms to enforce those. They're considered to be pretty weak. So what ends up happening in practice is that there's a lot of people who are representing college athletes. who are at best incompetence, if not unethical. You know, you and I, once we're done with this segment, if we so wanted to, could change our LinkedIn profiles and say that we are now also college athlete agents. And this is a major issue in college athletics, right? Because if you're a 16, 17-year-old elite high school athletes... you might not have anybody in your network that knows how to find an agent, right? You might not know anybody who's an attorney. You don't really know what kind of questions to ask. You don't know who to trust. And it can be a really predatory world. And that's true. And the pros and for musicians and lots of other entities as well. So the Protect College Sports Act seeks to address this by making, by giving the NCAA the power to. create baselines for agents and you have to register with them and there's some kind of public directory. It's not a perfect one-to-one. It would be like the NBA certifying agents instead of the players union. But there is a hope that that would increase the baseline standards. The other quick thing I'll add about the bill that is important in the agent world is about how much they can charge. Because... If you're a pro-agent, you typically only get a commission of between three and four percent for negotiating a salary. And then for a marketing deal, you might get anywhere from 15 to 20 percent because that requires a lot more work from the agents. What's happening in college is because these are all technical marketing deals. You all have agents that charge 15, 20, sometimes more than 25 percent on a deal, and the Protect College Sports Act would cap that at 5 percent. which could limit some of the predatory agents, or it could also mean that some of the really well-qualified agents will simply exit the business, leaving more room for the guys who suck. So we'll have to see what happens. So a year ago, about a year ago, we were talking about the score act. What happened to that, or how does that fit into this?

It's score act is dead, my friends. One of the big differences between score and the Protect College Sports Act, score originated in the House. And it was written and distributed and promoted exclusively by Republicans. It was a more NCAA-friendly bill than the one currently in the Senate. It would have prohibited college athletes from becoming employees. That is not mentioned or discussed at all in the Senate bill. It would have given the NCAA a larger antitrust exemption than it got in the Senate legislation. Score never passed. It didn't pass in part because Democrats whipped against it. Every single Democrat decided to vote against it. But you guys know the Republican majority in the House is very small. And there were a handful of other Republicans that didn't want to sign on either because they didn't want to give the NCAA more power. A few people thought it went too far. And it was never able to advance. And so if the Senate bill that Cruz and Kent will have created ends up getting 60 votes, which is an open question, it will have to go back to the House. And then there will have to be some horse trading to see if this can get over the line. Do you see, what's the time frame on this? Well, extremely expedited. What the Senate leaders are trying to do is get this thing signed in a perfect world before the end of August. And part of that is because they want this to maybe go into effect before the next academic school year starts. But more importantly, is the legislative calendar. The U.S. Senate goes into recess for most of August. And as I'm sure you guys are all aware, there's allegedly going to be some midterm elections in November. And lawmakers typically don't do a whole lot of legislating right before those elections because they're busy traveling and campaigning. So if you want to get a bill done with this current configuration of the House and Senate, after the midterms, it's likely it's going to look very different one way or the other, potentially with Democrats getting control of one or both of those bodies and then control of the committee chairmanships. You've got to get this done very quickly, which is hard to do even if everybody agrees, and everybody right now does not agree. Somebody wants to know, how is the fan experience going to change if the College Sports Protection Act becomes law? It's a good question, and I actually don't think the fan experience changes that much with the possible exception about roster continuity. You know, one frustrating, one fan frustration that I hear a lot about, Especially in basketball, but also in football, it's hard to get to know my team because it turns over 40 or 50% every off season, which wasn't the way things used to be in college sports. If this bill has passed, you have some significant limits on athlete transferring. You get one free transfer. You can get a second free transfer if you graduate from undergrad or your coaches fired or leave. Other than that, if you want to transfer again, you have to sit out a year like you used to have to do. And the thought is that that's going to mean that instead of having 50 guys hit the portal or 40 guys hit the portal every year, you might have 15 or 20. And if that improves your fan experience, you know, great. I think the things that are most likely to impact the change of the fan experience, how much things cost, when games kick off, who are we playing? Those are not really under the purview of this bill.

But the continuity, I think, is important in that it would put a little bit of a control on a transfer portal, right? Unquestionably, it would be a significant, I think, restrictor on the transfer portal. And because of that, I think it would also be a significant restrictor on athlete compensation. You know, just like for any of us, one of the best ways to get a raise is to get a job offer from somebody else. Right. You've got to have someone else. Exactly. Yep. And that's easier to do when you're a free agent every 10 months. If you only have that opportunity once, it's harder for the athletes to get as much leverage, and I would anticipate salaries to go down or, you know, marketing payments. I'm making the air quotes of my hands here to also go down if this bill is passed and enforced. Tell me again real quick, Matt. How do people get the Extra Points Newsletter? You can find the newsletter and the including analysis for free on this bill at extra points mb.com. All right. Thank you a lot. Pleasure is always, Matt Brown. You bet. Newell is next, and he's back. So we'll find out what he's got when we return on WWL.