Maduro Decommits from Venezuela

Well, what a day yesterday. I don't know which was the more arrogant situation. Either the now former, former leader of Venezuela, and I think it's important to call him that because he, I guess, won an election there once upon a time. And then they had another one, and he lost, and he said, I'm not leaving. He pulled a wolf of Wall Street. I'm not leaving. And just stayed the leader of Venezuela. And the people down there were like, oh, okay, I guess. I guess Maduro is still in charge. He's not leaving. Why did we bother to have the election where 70% of us said we didn't want him in charge anymore? And he's like, yeah, it's new math. And it turns out I won. And so he just stayed in power down there. And then he was obviously still leading the military, the various... gangs and gun runners and drug traffickers and human traffickers and all that fun stuff. And then Trump said, all right, go get him. And then we brought him up here to New York. And he saw a courtroom yesterday. And they're like, what do you have to say about all these charges of all the guns and the drugs and all that he's like, yeah, I did all that stuff. But I'm not guilty of it. Because this is what we do. These are in my job responsibilities. As the leader of a South American nation, I believe I am charged with the tasks of drug trafficking and gun running and leading the gang members. So, and I do all this, of course I did all this stuff, but I'm not guilty of it. This is just what's expected of me. None of the stuff he actually said yesterday, but this is essentially what this trial is going to be about. So he pleads not guilty. And his wife is like, I'm with stupid. And so she pled, she had the shirt on. What was she wearing this? Yeah, she had the shirt on. So I'm was stupid. And she's so dumb. She had it on the wrong side. The arrow was pointing at their attorney. And so he goes down there and pleads not guilty. And that was incredibly arrogant. But then. We have a quarterback who commits to Nebraska, leaves Notre Dame, commits to Nebraska. Like, hey, this is going to be a wonderful partnership. I can't wait to. Don the Scarlet and Cream run out of that tunnel with my Husker brethren and lead this Nebraska football team to victory. And then he's like, oh, wait a second. Hey, hey. Nebraska. Hey, Kenny. Just a second. Kentucky's on the phone. Hold on. I want to talk to you. Oh, really? All right. Wow. All right. Well, I'm not going to Nebraska anymore. And he switches his commit from Nebraska to Kentucky. And I, you know what? I almost got emotionally attached to this. This is why you don't name them. You know, you bring these commits home. The transfer portal madness is underway. And you bring these guys in and you're like, hey, we got a new quarterback. He comes from Notre Dame. His name is Kenny. And you're like, oh, Kenny, you know, quarterback Kenny. That has a nice ring to it. I think I could get used to Kenny. And then suddenly Kenny goes bounding off towards Kentucky.

So is it official? He's not coming? No, he's going to Kentucky. Yeah, he's not coming. He's signed with Kentucky. He could change his mind and go four or five other places before coming back to Nebraska. Anything's possible. He's got two weeks for a school starts. So, Jim, when you and Sean Callahan will join us here in about a half an hour for more of the Husker Buzz action here. When you guys are talking about these commits. I would prefer if you didn't name them because it gets personal when you name them. Just don't name them. I was laughing at some of the members of the news media going off on Kenny Minci this weekend. In fact, I gave one of them a text that said, go easy on this guy. Number one, he's never visited here. He's never talked to a single coach. And you've got him winning a couple of Heisman trophies already. And I got the text from the last night, Rosie, I'll never, I'll ask you before I ever write another story. I go, well, that'd be wise because you look like a doofus when you go off on how great this guy's going to be in the Nebraska offense and he flips. But that's the name. But journalism is far less lucrative than optimism. So we know that. That's what we do. This is the nature of our transfer portal era. And it's frustrating. It's a wild ride. And guys switch. If we thought that high school kids switch their commitments in the olden days with the letter of intent day, watch this because agents are involved here. And this is the one thing that will drive coaches out of the business. You're not even dealing with the kid. You're not dealing with his family. You're not dealing with even an uncle. You're not even dealing with Uncle Rudy. You're dealing with some guy who's going to get 20% of the hall. Before you just had to get to mom. You get mom on your side and you get the kid. Pretty much. In the case of one basketball coach, to get a top five player, he was actually having sex with the mom. And in my book, I'll tell you who that is. But the bottom line, I won't say it on KFAB because it's fairly local. Look, if it's anyone on this Nebraska basketball team, I hope Hoyberg is just ready to go to work and keep these guys happy because they're making the fan base very happy. We've got more with Sports Brief coming up. Get ready. This ride for the transfer portal is going to go on another 10 days. Traffic weather, news, and then Jim Rose with a rough voice this morning, but in good spirits here. This is big stuff. Nebraska's morning news. Transfer portal can't be staying home for this. Big game. All right, Scott Forehisa. How about yesterday in the market? Man, up a point in a half. Dow Jay Jones Industrial Average was up a point in a half. So everybody did better yesterday. If you're in the market, if you're not in the market, you've got to ask yourself why. Because if you're stuffing it in the mattress, at last report, the mattress does not generate any interest. But this is how you build wealth if you are smart and strategic. Now, if you just go out there buying stocks here and there in a video, I got to have crypto, I got to have, you know, that's probably not the way to go. But if you've got somebody like Bill Sam Altman at the prepare group who can put together a strategic plan for you based on age, based on your risk of tolerance, and based on all of the things that are important to you, you're going to find at the end of the year, things are looking pretty good. And then when you're ready to tap into it, you're going to be very happy.

So let's make an appointment. Go online, bigohmoney.com. That's bigohmoney.com and see you there. Chancellor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln decided I don't want this job anymore. And the president of the NU system, Dr. Jeffrey Gold, former Chancellor at UNMC, spoke out about this proposed merger between the Board of Regents and the Nebraska Medicine Group. after Clarkson is pulling their partnership from Nebraska Medicine. And Dr. Gold said, look, I understand that some of these guys at Nebraska Medicine are concerned about the Board of Regents and then the university system taking over in Nebraska Medicine. But if you actually read the contract, it says right here. If Clarkson pulls their money, their partnership, it defaults to the Board of Regents. So thanks for... letting us know your thoughts on this. But this is already something that has been agreed to. So it sounds like this is all happening. The Regents meet Friday. And the University of Nebraska at Lincoln is looking for a new chancellor because the guy who's only been there for a cup of coffee. And then had the faculty senate say, we don't have any confidence in this guy. They had a vote of confidence. And it turned out they had a vote of no confidence. and their chancellor, they said, he's never around. We can't communicate with him. We never see him on campus. He's difficult then, obviously, to work with. And then they went asking him for his thoughts on things, and they couldn't find him. I don't know that he knows where Lincoln, Nebraska is. Well, you know, he got off to a rough start. If you'll recall, his college transcripts made social media when he was hired, and he flunked business typing. And he was not what you would call an academic stalwart as an undergrad. And that got him off to a really negative start because you know how college professors are. The thing that it's disappointing is they paid this guy a lot of money to be here. He's not here very long. He presided over some major budget cuts. Yeah. Not his fault. That's the way it goes. They're going to pay him half of his $700,000 deal for this year, and they're going to give him a goodbye gift of $1.1 million. I wonder if... And I don't really understand why that is. Right. If he had left a week ago before now we get into 2026, does that not guarantee him as much money as if he gets in the new calendar? I wonder if there was some issue with the timing here. But... You know, at least he's not like the superintendent of the Des Moines School District where he's an illegal immigrant running from the cops with guns in his car or something like this. But it does look like those who have been doing the hiring for some of these jobs are more interested in checking some boxes other than...

other boxes and it's sad to point some of this stuff out. I don't know. Richard emails and says, what the heck? We already lost the portal. Thank you for that. Richard, nowhere for Ryola. Yeah. He can come back here. He could change his mind. I was kind of hoping. I don't know. I was kind of, yeah. Notre Dame needs a backup. I was kind of hoping he'd go to Texas Tech. That way he can fully express himself through Patrick Mahomes with no judgments. He went to Texas Tech. Then he can act like Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech like he did up here. He can do little Patrick Mahomes things like he did here that started to kind of wear people out. They can both have off years. They can both have extremely off years, although in the case of Patrick Mahomes, it had to do with offensive linemen and receivers. I thought Texas Tech would be a great spot, but they got Brandon Sorsby, who was my favorite quarterback that Nebraska played last year. Oh, Texas, Cincinnati. The Cincinnati quarterback's going to tech. Great. So who's Nebraska going to get? Well, Sean Callahan will tell us in 10 minutes. Maybe when you get Cincinnati's third stringer. Here's an actual conversation I had with the guy yesterday. Uh-oh. We were chatting. We were chatting about this and that. I said, what do you think about this Maduro situation? He goes, I don't know. I mean, if he was good enough to suit up for Notre Dame, I said, no, no. This isn't the quarterback. This is the former leader of Venezuela. Oh, I don't know. So these are the quality of people with whom I hang on a daily basis. Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked the news. The Trump administration thanked some news organizations yesterday. Because apparently, even though they didn't tell Congress, about the planned extraction of Maduro and his wife. They did tell some members of the media and thanked them because they could have leaked it and because the operational security of the mission and the military members involved was paramount. Marco Rubio said, frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it. They didn't... report it, we thank them for doing that, or lives could have been lost. American lives could have been lost. So the New York Times and the Washington Post knew about it, but Chuck Schumer didn't. Because if you tell Chuck Schumer or other members of Congress, Democrat members of Congress, then next thing you know, they're like, hey, someone tells Sean Penn to let Nicholas Maduro know we're coming for him and he goes into hiding or whatever. They would leak it. The members of Congress would leak it. These are, of course, members of Congress who told members of the military, hey, you don't have to follow any instructions from our commander-in-chief or our department of war. One of those members of Congress is firing back a little bit. Senator Mark Kelly is speaking back after the war chief Pete Hegseth, President Trump.

That's where I stay. If I'm just... Oh, I've heard about some of the places you stay. If I... You stay lower budget, too. I, honest of goodness, went to check into a hotel room as people were leaving and demanding their money back for that hotel, the only room available in the entire area. And I said, I'll take it. He goes, do you want to take a look at the room first? So a budget hotel room, that's where I stay when I'm traveling by myself. When I'm traveling with my family, especially my wife, we go upper budget. You know that's right. Yeah, I think that's your Hampton, and that's an upper budget hotel. Scott, don't you ever stay in a nice hotel? Why? At no point have I ever been on vacation going, yeah, we're going to get a great hotel and stay there the entire time we're on vacation. No, a hotel room is just a clean place, and that's my wife's only criteria. I want a clean place. I don't want to come out of there teeming with bedbugs. It'd be great if there were zero bedbugs, but I certainly don't want to be teeming with them. I want to come out of there in a clean room. Be nice if the towels in the bathroom didn't have weird phantom brown stains on them. That'd be good. And that's both true when we check in and when we check out of the room. What are you people doing in hotel anyway? Upper budget. Hampton Inn. So ICE decides to stay at the Hampton Inn. Twin Cities suburb up in Minneapolis, St. Paul. And that's when the staff, once they realized the bookings came from DHS, Department of Homeland Security email addresses, and they were using government rates. Oh, there's a government rate for staying in a home. I didn't realize that. It's higher. Well, apparently their money is no good at the Hampton Inn, one of the Hampton Inns up around Minneapolis. because they were told, ICE agents were told, sorry, you're not welcome here. If I had a dollar. Every time you were told you're not welcome. Yep. Is that as you check in, they recognize you or as you're leaving, like you will not be allowed. It's happened both. No more will you be allowed to stay at Wyndham. So ICE officers who have been deployed to Minnesota amid the fact that it's a city in America, therefore has an immigration problem that the Trump administration is looking to fix. This is not everyone's assessment of the situation. It is mine for what it's worth. So these guys are staying in there, and then the staff said, uh-oh, we got ICE staying here. No thanks. And they told them, you're not welcome here. And they said, hey, that's our company policy. The Hilton company policy is not allowing any ICE agents to stay at our properties. That was news to Hilton's corporate offices.

who quickly distance itself from the move of this particular hotel, spokesperson saying Hilton hotels, are meant to be open to all guests and stress that the property is independently owned and operated. This was a decision made by local management and not of the Hilton brand. The company said they're investigating. The hotel has apologized. For what? Hey, thanks for letting us know. This is your decision. You've decided you would rather like some of the hotels here in Omaha who've decided to be hotbeds for gang and human trafficking activity where you've got people coming all hours of the day and night and not your normal travelers looking to stay here in Omaha and catch the zoo or the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting or whatever it is that they're doing in town. Instead, these are people in there just using some of these hotels, some pretty historically decent hotels, as operational points for gang and trafficking activity, drug activity and the like. These hotel owners apparently decided we would rather be used as home base for gang members. then for the law enforcement officials who are coming into our communities to root out criminals. And so, hey, thanks for letting us know. They told ICE, you're not welcome here. The affected ICE personnel are being contacted to make sure that they know that they're welcome at any of these other hotels. Hilton says we don't tolerate any form of discrimination. Now, the hotel in question is owned by a group called Ever Peak Hospitality. They're also apologizing. They said the decision was inconsistent with its policies, and they said, we acted quickly to address the situation. Oh, who got fired? Let me check the story. Nobody. So when you say you acted quickly to address the situation, what does that mean? Well, once we realize we got caught and this might be a PR nightmare, we apologize to the guests who are told, you're not welcome here. Members of law enforcement, not welcome here. The hotel's Google Review site filled with sharply divided comments, some slamming the move, others praising the refusal to host ICE. A DHS assistant secretary tells Fox News the hotel was citing with murderers and rapists when they canceled the reservations. I wonder who they call. I wonder who the hotel calls when they've got people that are causing some problems in their hotel. Well, I'm sure that you... I bet they call somebody like a psychiatrist. They reach out to Governor Tim Walz and say, we need some money. We've got some problems here, and I understand you're just throwing money around. In announcing yesterday that he would not be running for re-election, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

who was almost the vice president of the United States of America. Let's pause and reflect on that possibility for just a sec. So Somalia would have been real happy with that. Just think all of America could have been... Across our fruited plain, the same issue they're having in Minnesota, where Somalians are taking up refuge and not getting any of the taxpayer money assigned for taking care of the Somali refugees. Instead, that money is going to a bunch of liars, thieves, cheats, and in some instances, back to Somalia where it's funding terrorists. So this is what is under investigation up there. This is why Tim Walz says he's not running for re-election, but that's not what Governor Walls said. He says he's not running for reelection because Republicans have tainted this process. All right. So there is apparent fraud and abuse that Walls either was or was not aware of. That's not the issue. And he's dropping out of the race. And it's Republicans' fault for pointing it out and therefore tainting his governorship. Is that what's going on here? Apparently so. I got an email yesterday from Kevin sent via the Zonkers Custom Woods inbox, Scott at kfab.com. It says, Scott, I guarantee that Tim Walz is running around wearing a tuxedo with giant letters, G-O-V on the back, and playing with one of those paddles with a string and a ball on it, saying, this thing is warped. Why do I always get the warped ones? That's a blazing saddles reference. And thank you for that. 70s movie reference for this segment of the radio program. Kevin, very nicely done. All he needs to be is cross-eyed, and you've got Governor Lepetamane. No, it's so sad. It's sad for the people of Minnesota. It's got to be infuriating for them. And this was a political decision. Not only was he going to lose, but he was going to drag down a whole lot of Democrats with him, including potentially a Senate candidate up there. And the state of Minnesota hasn't elected a... a member of the United States Senate from the Republican Party since the year 2000. So this situation is pretty acute. And it seems to me... that you have tremendous stress and pressure now on all of the overseers and the oversight of all of this money, not just in Minnesota, but across the country. Because, look, California, just by sheer numbers, is far worse than Minnesota. California probably has significantly more waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid system than Minnesota does. But I got to tell you, if you went on the website, the Minnesota website, the state website, it's pretty easy to get stuff. I mean, it's really easy to get stuff. Well, let's get stuff. We need, Lucy needs a new computer. Well, they pulled money from snuffaloopagus and the rest of the Sesame Street gang, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, announced that their board of directors voted to dissolve the organization following a loss of federal funding.

This is the slush fund, I mean, the ability for the government to set aside money for public broadcasting on radio, that is NPR, on television, that is PBS, and they give it to this board of directors, and then they designate the funds to NPR and PBS. But Congress, as you know, polled those taxpayer dollars from the public broadcasters last summer. And now the Corporation for Public Broadcasting says, well, I guess our group here is done. 58-year-old organization. The senator from Louisiana, John Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said good riddance. He said this organization funneled your tax dollars to NPR and PBS to call birds, roads, and country music racist. I would like to hear any one of those reports. I could see where some people, I can make an imaginative leap to an assertion that country music is racist, not because I think it is, but I can get there. As far as roads, yeah, I guess if they're building or maintaining in some areas, but not a, how are birds, why are we calling birds racist? Did NPR call birds racist? Swans. Doves? Well, you know, the corporation for public broadcasting was the clearinghouse for federal funds to public broadcasting stations across the country. that dates back to 1967 when they created the Public Broadcasting Act, which brought to us Mr. Rogers' neighborhood and all the other good stuff. And when you funnel money to that organization, because theoretically, Congresspeople don't know whether the PBS station in Keikuk, Iowa deserves $100,000, whereas the one in Snohomish, Washington gets $250. They let the corporation for public broadcasting do that. Right. But they were cut loose from all of their funding. with that big beautiful bill that slashed a billion dollars out. Now, NPR... which is the big network, NPR, they have their own money, and they were getting their own donations. They're fine. It's like Nebraska public media. Fine. Those guys have lots of money. They had $50 million in the bank in Nebraska as of this springtime, just squirled away money for a rainy day, which was wise. They also get $13 million a year from the state of Nebraska, and they get all of the other stuff. But they were probably getting something from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, too. So that'll be a hit. And this will dissolve. And maybe if a Democrat becomes president again and a Democrat Congress decides that we got to have PBS back, maybe the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will continue. What I've maintained from the beginning is I think there's quality stuff on PBS. I watch PBS. I watch Nebraska Public Media.

But get out into the street and sell your soup, man. Do just like the rest of us. Go out there, get sponsorships, tell a value story. But to rely on tax-supported funding for your operation is, to me, anti-American. Yeah, there's nothing out there that says that this programming can't exist. Yeah. Whether it's Sesame Street, and that's kind of a separate deal now because they've gone into streaming. But whether it's some of the good programming and reports on NPR. Click and Clack. Backyard Farmer. Even though that show has not produced new episodes for several years because one of those guys died, but that's fantastic stuff. And that which you might see on PBS, I'll flip around channels and I'll see like, oh, here's a concert from several years ago that they're airing here. And it's good stuff. I did find the NPR report on racist birds, by the way. It has to do with how some birds are named. for old white people. And because we're talking about old white people, obviously they are racist. And so you've got, according to this report here, Nuttalls Woodpecker. Casson's Viero, Verio, Casson's Ocklett, Boteri's Sparrow, Bachman Sparrow. I didn't realize that members of BTO had been naming birds, but they said, well, this guy was a very, very racist person, and his theories supported efforts to justify slavery. So once we started naming birds for these people, these birds' names need to be more inclusive, then more black people will want to get into bird watching. I don't know that anyone. Outside of the true bird watching experts, realize that we had racist birds out there, but that's part of where NPR use your tax dollars to let us know that. And if you like that kind of thing, they are available for you. If you like us, we're here for you too. In the Zonkers Customwoods inbox, Scott at kfab.com. Dave emails and says, from what I've experienced driving around I-80 in Omaha, I'm surprised there's not an accident every mile every day. Bunch of morons. Couldn't deal with that every day. And by the way, not as big as your fair city, but we here in Beatrice have a fair number of people who probably also should not be behind the wheel. Signed Dave in Beatrice. I don't disagree with Dave and Beatrice. Beatrice is... Man, that's treacherous down there, especially at drive time. You're going to want to watch out for him Beatrice. Please tell me the city town community where everyone says, you know, the drivers here are actually pretty good. Where would that be? Yeah. Not Saigon. Yeah, not Ho Chi Minh City. Wasn't expecting the Saigon reference. Not losing on Switzerland, not Paris. Maybe things are better in Greenland. We had the leader of the leader of Denmark says, President Trump's going to come and take Greenland over our dead bodies. I mean, everyone. It was so funny, they had the UN meeting yesterday and everyone, when I say everyone.

I mean a very specific group of nations, including China and Russia, who spoke out against the taking into custody of Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro. So China and Russia are upset about that, and they had to get together and let us know. But then they also had the prime minister of Denmark saying Trump is not going to take Greenland. This is after Trump said... And he's like, yeah, we're looking at it. But if we want to take Greenland, what's Denmark going to do about it? They've added one dog sled to their military up there. There's nothing they can do. Now, people are like, is Trump going to go to war with Denmark over Greenland? Is Trump going to go to war with Venezuela? There's two things that you should really look at here with both Venezuela and Greenland. And Trump has said both of these things out loud. Whether it's Venezuela with their ties to Russia and China or in Greenland, Trump said that the island is full of Chinese and Russian military and ships. Now, he's looking at some of these strategic areas. Venezuela and Greenland are strategic areas for Russia and China, and America is trying to box out. This is a defensive... strategy more than it is an offensive one by the president of the United States to stop what they're doing. And as many people are like, Trump's going to go to war over Greenland. China and Russia know exactly what he's doing. And they don't like it. We should maybe pay a bit more attention here. Not sure he's completely wrong on this one. That ain't going to happen. Do we have any details as to whether that guy who left Notre Dame to play for Nebraska never visited here and probably never will? Then he switches his commit to Kentucky. Is he still a Kentucky Wildcat at this point in the morning? Or is he like my wife trying to place an order at a restaurant? You know, here's what I'll have. Which do you think is better? Nebraska or Kentucky? I heard that perhaps the Nebraska might be better. Okay, Kentucky, I'll have that. Is there any dairy in the Kentucky? If so, I don't want that. And you know what? I changed my mind. Can I look at the menu again? You know, you say stuff about your wife that isn't true. I've been around your wife. She's not flighty like that. No, it's not flighty. She's just... She's not indecisive. She's thoughtful. That's the difference. She... The only times I've ever seen my wife be very decisive when placing an order. That's always followed up with. You? No, she's regretted that decision every day since. No one blames her. No, she hasn't. A few times I've seen her be incredibly decisive. She'd get the menu. She's like, I want this. And then the server comes over. What do you guys want? And says, I'll have this. And then the person leaves. And within a minute. My wife is suddenly like, well, hang on. If you can see our server again, let them know I want to change my mind. Jeez, okay. Well, that can be problematic, which explains why you're not invited to a lot of restaurants around the time. I just imagine it's difficult to take this minchi guy's sandwich order when they're ordering for the team. No, I want the Rubin. No, I want the French dip. No, I'll just go with the salad. Is it too late to change my mind? Well, this is the nature of the transfer portal. And as Sean told us back in the 6.

o'clock hour, agents run this now, which is just dreadful to me. Look, I'm all about representation. I've never had one. People have offered to be my agent through the years, and I've said, I negotiate my own deals. I don't put my deal in somebody else's hands. So I've always negotiated my own deals, which also might explain why I never. Let's take a look at your deal. My track record ain't great. It is a great deal for us. Barely paying you. Exactly. Like I said, as long as I keep bringing my own money, it's great. You know, now, because we have a structure in college sports where each program, the player personnel decisions used to be almost solely the purview of the head coach. Now you have a staff of what they call player personnel people. led by a general manager, just like you have in the NFL or Major League Baseball. And this guy's job, and Patrick Stewart is the general manager, Nebraska. From Star Trek? Different Patrick Stewart. This guy's responsibility is to literally filter through all of the candidates who might be in the transfer portal and then who are in the transfer portal through their representation. See, it's illegal. for Nebraska to reach out to Kenny Minchie while he's at Notre Dame. We can't talk to Kenny while he's there. Now, once he enters the transfer portal, we can do anything we want. But that's how you skirt around the contact rule. You have the Nebraska people talking to other people who are close to the athlete. And it's the same way in basketball. Well, the challenge is you can't trust these people because they have one motive in mind, and that's money, okay? We all saw Jerry Maguire, okay? This is a very clear depiction of the agent culture. My job is to get the most money for my guy because then I get more. It's pure capitalism. An agent like Jerry McGuire is working with a player who... people have heard of and want. Who's the agent for a backup quarterback who can't make up his mind as to where he wants to play? Well, it's Uncle Rudy or cousin Ned who just closed his tire store on Leavenworth. This is the other challenge. You have guys who are close to a really good athlete who's in high school or college. They might have been like a de facto dad growing up or some sort of a mentor. This is the person the kid trusts more than anybody. Well, they may have no more competency to execute a smart transaction for their kid than I have of performing an appendectomy. It's just on the phone with various teams going, show me the money. Hang on. I'm getting another call. Hang on. You show me the money. I love black people. That was a good line. That's such a good movie. I love black people. Cuba Gooding Jr. is getting his agent to scream things at him. Tell me you love black people. I love black people. That is such a great movie. Speaking of money, by the way, and black people, actually. Here's the latest thing the Trump administration is doing. The tick everybody off. America is marking the, let's say if I can remember this term here, it's not the bicentennial.

It is the semi-Quincennial, 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation, and we are doing so with some new coins, Jim. Now, previous administrations had come up with some designs on these new coins, honoring Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, civil rights icon, Ruby Bridges. The women's suffrage movement, which doesn't have to do with women's suffering, no more than Lucy does every day. Suffrage is the right to vote. So it was, all right, we're going to have some coins, and we need to make sure that every single demographic box is checked. Do you know how this works? Well, the Trump administration has come out now. Are any of those people, lesbians, or gays, or trans? Well, I see, I don't, I don't know. Frederick Douglass might have been a lesbian. I don't know. I didn't know him. But now we've got the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. which I don't know who these people are. I suspect, though, with this administration, it's the same handpick group deciding, hey, guess who's playing the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center tonight? It's Lee Greenwood again. And Kid Rock. And Kid Rock is playing on Friday. And Nugent. Followed by Ted Nugent. Ted Nugent. And the carpenters. They're all playing there. Well, this group came out, and they've rejected all these previous designs from previous administrations. And... This is the president installed here during the semi-Quincennial celebration. And so we're getting some new coins. They're actually already starting in circulation. And they don't really show anything. It's... You know, hands together. It's some, you know, scenes from the heartland, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address. No, it's, so these are the coins that began circulating this week. And these designs honor these important things throughout our nation's history. Are they quarters? Well, we've got a half dollar. Nobody uses those. A dime, a nickel. And even the penny, even though we stop making pennies, there are some special pennies that have these designs. Like the bicentennial coins that said 1776 and 1976, these will say 1776 and 2026. What we don't know. is whether they're going to do, and this was a fascinating conversation the other day on the Glenn Beck Show, Justin Barclay was filling in for him over the holidays. And they were talking to the Secretary of the Treasury. And they said, yeah, we're going to do some special dollar coins bearing the image of President Trump.

And people are like, he can't put his likeness on money. We can't put president's faces on money until they've passed away. And George Washington said, I'm not going to have my portrait on coins. We are done with kings. Well, that just goes to show those protesters are right. Trump wants to be a king. He wants to put his face on money. You know why he wants to do this, right? It's to promote Trump. To tick you off. Yeah. So you don't like the coin? Give it to me. Give it to Jim. He needs money more than anybody. Nobody uses a half dollar anymore. No one uses actual money anymore. Now, yesterday it's Rosie and Genozy had to do with the, the 26 elections and the fact the Nebraska legislature is getting underway tomorrow is their first day. We have a new voting... A special interest group that just fired up in Nebraska. They call themselves Respect Nebraska voters. And they say that the reason why they're forming, and it's a special interest group, they're raising money and supporting candidates and lobbying the legislature and all the rest, the reason why they say they're getting started here is to push. for the things that Nebraska voters already approved that they say the legislature or the governor's office or the state of Nebraska have not fully implemented. Like medical marijuana? Like medical marijuana is one, but they also point out paid sick leave and minimum wage. Now, these things have been implemented, but they changed some of the parameters, did the Nebraska legislature say, well, wait a second. We don't need to give a living wage, so to speak, to... 15-year-old, you know, baggers at a grocery store, a lot of small businesses who rely on trying to bring up young workers in their community and employ them. You know, we're not trying to give these guys the ability to support a family of four. This is going to cripple a lot of small businesses across the area. So they did change some of that. Same with the paid sick leave in terms of which businesses with how many employees have to provide so much time. Well, this group says, no, no. The people of Nebraska spoke. We voted. And now you guys got to do the stuff we told you. You got to do. Yes, but the people of Nebraska were wrong. Many of the people in Nebraska, they are not small business owners. I suspect that the people involved with the Respect Nebraska Voters Special Interest Group are not small business owners. I also expect that many of them are really just trying to hang their hat on medical marijuana, which they want to turn into recreational marijuana. They started talking about this yesterday. And then the governor's office said, Our Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission just approved a new round of some new regulations last night. We're moving in the right direction. It's going to be fine. And this group is like, we told you a year ago, over a year ago to start medical marijuana. Where's all of our medical marijuana? It's in the vape pins in your kids' middle school bathroom. I don't know if it's in the vape pens, but it's getting out. It's in a lot of them. I don't necessarily agree with these guys. I don't believe necessarily that their whole objective.

is to convert medical marijuana into recreational marijuana. I think there is a faction of those people that would like to do it. They're capitalists. They see vast, vast arrays of money coming in like Colorado and Washington. But this is a point well taken. It seems to me that the administration is dragging its feet on this because it doesn't want medical marijuana. No, of course they don't. I'm one of these people that believes that a physician has the capacity to decide whether this person is suffering from terminal cancer. would benefit from having legal marijuana prescribed for their specific condition, that it won't just be a free fall of people rolling joints on the street corner and then selling them for a buck apiece. Which is what we have now, by the way. Not only do we have it now, if anyone wants to go buy some recreational marijuana, you can get it. It's not hard. You want to be out there smoking it. Apparently, no one's going to bother you, whether you're at the park. You're at church, you're at a rock concert. Apparently, no one's going to bother you because we see this all the time. And it's not just a guy smoking a big old fatty. It's people with these vape pins. You don't always know. that they're getting stoned with their vape pin. And if it's not that, it's some of the synthetic stuff that you can buy in so many gas stations. That to me is much more dangerous. Oh, my gosh. I had no idea. I was talking to someone probably just over a year ago about some of that stuff you can buy in the gas stations. Very, very scary. And I said, you can't really get high off that stuff. He's like, oh, yeah, you can. And you can die, actually. I've known teenagers that have gone into shock with that stuff. You've got to watch that carefully. And we're not talking about the little chocolate donuts. Grandma's cookies or beef jerky. Some of the stuff that they sell is a plastic marijuana. Synthetic marijuana comes into a lot of different names. You know, the challenge, of course, is enforcement. And everybody wants to pass laws to create this whole new industry that needs to be regulated. Regulated by who? Enforced by who? Who's going to pay for the investigators and the enforcers? You're going to turn it over to the State Patrol? Again, we got 77,000 square miles. That's a lot of space to cover to go find some meth lab or some vape shack in Fedford and ascertain whether they're breaking the law. When we provide for this, we don't have the infrastructure to support it. And that's a frustration for me as a taxpayer because I believe there is a lot of fraud and abuse and waste there. But if you can't uncover it, what happens? Nothing. I saw a billboard this morning. at about 78th and Dodge-ish. And it promoted, hey, if you're coming to Missouri, stop in Rockport, we got everything you need. It was a cannabis dispensary. Hey, just about an hour away. Come on down to Rock. Now, I remember going to Rockport to get illegal fireworks. Fireworks back in the day.

Maybe you can get fireworks too. Maybe it's a fireworks and marijuana stand. You know, that's not a bad idea. Stop and Watson. You can get M80s. And you can use the Roman candle to light your joint. That's right. You can get a punk and you can light your joint and your silver salute and your bottle rockets. And we'll do all that. It's, look, people, there are certainly some people who are using medical marijuana as an excuse for recreational. And there are some people who live with a loved one, be it a parent, a spouse, a kid who suffer from everything from seizures to glaucoma that could be helped through medical marijuana. And I would prefer that doctors be the ones to be able to prescribe that which might be able to provide these people some. relief. But even in those instances, we're not talking about grandma sitting there hooked up to an oxygen tank smoking a joint. We're talking about various lotions and pills and things like that you can take. And I don't know why those things are not available now. Again, in part because we don't really have the enforcement infrastructure. I mean, if it's under the Bureau of Examining Boards, which typically has disciplined doctors. They probably have three or four or five investigators for the entire state of Nebraska. Are you kidding me? I think it's funny that we've got this group that is formed now called Respect Nebraska Voters, and they're going to push to get the legislature to adopt the things that the voters told them in the popular vote that we wanted them to do. Well, we also got something else in those votes. This legislature, if you don't like them... Vote for a new lawmaker to go in there and do the things in the way that you want them to be done. Hold them accountable. I don't know what you tell these guys. It's like, all right, we're getting together signatures to tell you people to do the stuff that we voted on to you to do. Well, you voted for them too. You don't like it. Then vote for a new person. We've got elections coming up for that, too. We didn't really talk about it yesterday. But there is momentum for these ballot initiatives to bring about. what is commonly referred to as a, you know, a consumption tax, which would eliminate all the other taxes. And this is something that has been brewing for the last three or four years. It's getting more momentum because people who make promises before election day don't keep them after election day. And there is a property tax crisis in Nebraska. And nobody wants to address it head on and risk losing an election by doing something that might be politically very challenging. They'll stop me if you heard this before. Governor Pillen says that property taxes are a priority in this legislative session. They have been for four years. Hey, it is Ryan Sechrest here. If you love great games and a little extra excitement to your day, I got something fun for you. Shumba Casino and I have teamed up to create an exclusive online social casino game. It's called Ryan Seacrest. 10K ways. It's fun and free to play just like all your favorites from Chumba Casino and every spin brings 10,000 ways to keep the good times going. Check it out and play for free today at Chumbacasino.com. No purchase necessary. VGW Group, voidware prohibited by law. CTs and Cs 21 Plus sponsored by Chumba Casino.