The Truth About Pregnancies and the COVID Vax

Thanks for listening to Chicago's Morning Answer podcast sponsored by Signature, a division of Esquire Bank. Signature takes pride in helping customers grow their business and provide unmatched banking expertise, custom financial solutions, and the industry's best technology. So whether your business is looking for a deposit relationship or needs a ready source of financing, Signature has the solutions for you. Call today at 773-467, 5600 to hear how signature can help your business grow and thrive. Esquire Bank, member FDIC. equal housing lenders. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Profft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proff, here. So a good deal of Vax Talk today. The combination of Anthony Fauci's text messages and the Trump announcement yesterday as to the recommended new vaccine schedule down from 72 to 11. Here's what the president had to say. Separate visits for vaccines rather than giving them all in the same day. Very importantly, vaccinations to hepatitis B, COVID-19, and influence among others, are no longer recommended for all children. In addition, this executive order directs the Attorney General to advance legal challenges against states that violate children's rights to religious or medical vaccination. exemptions for the exemptions of the countries. And the key watchwords from the conversations I saw, the combination of the president had to say from the Oval Office, as well as what NIH director, Jay Batacharya, had to say on Will Kane's program, transparency and parental autonomy. Transparency and parental autonomy. The nice thing about talking facts today, at least in part, is the compare and contrast between a Dr. Jay Batacharya and a Dr. Anthony Fauci, that sad little man. Because, you know, one brings humility to the table in his professional capacity. And, of course, the sad little man did not. Dr. Jay. When you have a new product like the COVID vaccine was back then, you should be careful with pregnant women. And it's shocking to me that he was sharing private thoughts and that when he was out on public and he was not in public a lot, he didn't share those private thoughts with the American public. I mean, to me, the big problem now is really how do you restore trust in public health? How do you restore trust in science? And that's what I've been working toward the NIH to really shift toward a transparent regime where there's scientific debate science discussion, no debates off limits. And I fully expect that people that disagree with me. And when I learned that I'm wrong, I'm going to tell the American public that I'm wrong. I'd like to turn the page from that. Yeah, turn the page from declarations of I am science. It's probably a good idea. We'll get to the part he mentioned per what Anthony Fauci was communicating with Walensky and others privately about the potential Vax danger for...

pregnant women versus what he was saying publicly. He and Wolenski and others saying publicly. We'll get to that. But that latter piece is what's important. It's sort of the tone setting on this topic that was done yesterday by both the president and his team with, yeah, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. But I thought Dr. Jay was sort of the best at providing the contrast from what we're still pouring over. six years plus removed from the onset of COVID. Dr. Jay had this to say about the vaccine schedule and, you know, some of the criticisms that are coming, suggesting Trump raised the specter of autism and looking for a connection or correlation, perhaps even causation between some of the vaccines and the higher incidence of autism. And Badachari again here struck the right note, perfect note. It's like we have, we're doing what we were supposed to do, which is to fund research into these topics with no preordained outcome expected or desired. We're just trying to. Follow the scientific method to advance the cause of science and our understanding of the world and hopefully improve people's lives in the process and address ailments in furtherance of improving people's lives. And again, transparency. parental autonomy. This is why at the NIH we funded science at the request of the president, after request of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to try to identify the cause. We funded a dozen or more major scientific teams to look at the question with no holds barred about what the answer is going to be. It's very likely something complicated because autism shows up there's lots of different things. You have a lot of some very severe cases and much less severe. The biology is going to be complicated, but now we're a lot to add the answer to that question. That's one thing. The other thing it did is that it restored parental autonomy over decision-making writing what happens with their kids. We're going to provide the very best evidence, and now we're aligning the vaccine recommendations more aligned with what happens in Europe. There's no reason or science that says that the European recommendations are worse than our recommendations, what our recommendations have been. And so I think the key thing is let's tell parents what the best evidence we have, and let parents have a lot of autonomy over those decisions. And a novel approach. Signature, a division of Esquire Bank, offers Chicago businesses' relationship-first banking. Signature knows your name and your story because personalized banking still matters. I'm Dan Proft, and I know this because Signature is where I do my business banking. Hi, I'm Phil Silverman, CFO of Chicago Atlantic, and a client of Signature. We provide capital solutions in markets where risk is often fundamentally misprice and traditional financing can be limited. Ahead of an important and complex transaction closing, Signature promptly assisted us in addressing a wire issue through their monitoring and verbal verification process, helping us administer the closing on time while maintaining best-in-class control oversight. That kind of hands-on attention is hard to find, and that's why we value our relationship with Signature. Signature helps local businesses succeed.

Want to learn how Signature can help turn your business vision into reality? Call Signature, a division of Esquire Bank, at 773-467-5600, or visit Signature.com. Esquire Bank, member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. If you're looking for the latest news, insights into what it means, and the sharpest of penny, there's only one station in Chicago where you can turn, and it's this one. We're AM-560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proptuier. So it's another primary election day, most notably in Wisconsin, that governor's race between Congressman Tom Tiffany and whoever the DSA decides to nominate. It looks like it's going to be Francesca Hong. She enters today with a pretty significant double-digit lead. Now, the polling could be off as it was in Michigan. The race could end up being closer in that DSA primary. that the polling indicates, but it seems pretty clear. That's where the energy is. That's where the attention is. That's where the center of gravity in that party is. The DSA party? DSA candidates. Francesca Hong. Tom Tiffany already sort of making overtures to the center left. the same way that you're seeing from Mike Rogers in the Senate race in Wisconsin. Tiffany offering this recently on Hong. You look at the debates two weeks ago, none of them, none of the Democrat candidates would take on Ms. Hong and the crazy stuff that she says like abolished prisons, abolish police. None of them would take it on. So you know that ultimately the leadership of the Democrat Party in Wisconsin, they are all in for this big government socialism. And we have to be the firewall here in Wisconsin that stops it right here in the heartland from spreading across America. And that's what we're doing every day is delivering that message. And it is resonating across Wisconsin. Wisconsinites are deeply concerned about what they're hearing. Yeah. And, you know, you've seen some MOS interviews. You've probably seen some online as well that where some Dems are a little jumpy about Hong and her electoral viability. And the polling has changed in the race and the potential general election matchup with Tiffany holding a lead, not outside the margin of error, but a slight lead. And the, you know, the odds makers putting the race at a 50-50 where when we entered this cycle. And before Hong was as well known as she is now, there was a decided advantage for the Dems in Wisconsin, as you would expect, a swing state like that in a presidential year with the energy, the enthusiasm, slightly advantaging the party out of power. In this case, I think Tiffany and Rogers are right. to attempt to make this a referendum on their opponents and basically the warm, embrace of collectivism, to borrow a phrase generally. But there does need to be a little bit more layering to that. So it's got to be, you know, we have to reject these neo-Bolsheviks and their desires, as stated by Hong and others, to...

knock over this government, this form of government, and come up with something new. I mean, this is really what they want to do. This is how far afield they are. So that's the first thing you need to recognize. And don't be wooed by the siren song of free stuff as the means to address the very real economic security concerns that you have. And then they're, so that's where the texturing comes in. Say, look, this is how we get. middle-income families feeling better about their economic security and their upward mobility and going through the tried and true policies in support of free enterprise that provide that better security those upward mobility opportunities. So it's getting there. And, of course, Francesca Hong is helping. She is attempting to do the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Whoa, one was crazy, dude, remember? That was crazy. What were we thinking? Right. She's attempting to do that. She's, I mean, not that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is particularly skilled at it, even with the assistance of a giggling Jonathan Carl over the weekend, as we discussed yesterday. But she's still better than Frances Hong, or Francesca Hong. whose explanation for her surfeite of idiotic statements over her time in public office and public life is explained away thusly. You know, she wanted to be a sports journalist. Oh, okay. And I was actually trying to become a sports journalist when I first went to college. So I learned then you have some hot takes, sometimes bad takes on Twitter. And I let my feelings out into the world. So you support abolishing prisons. That's just a hot take. Where you got, your feelings got a little bit ahead of you. Your membership in the DSA, your defund the police, your opposition to Thanksgiving. Statements like this where you're asked questions in real time in this campaign about not a surprising issue, not out of left field in terms of an issue that might come up if you're going to run for governor in these times, which is the... sanctity and privacy of female spaces. You think maybe something that would be of interest to her as a female. She was asked about that at this town hall gathering of apparatchiks. And if you can make sense of this answer, then you're doing better than me. The girls in New Richmond and across the state are being required to share bathrooms, locker rooms, and private spaces with people with male genitalia. What is your message to those young women and their parents who are concerned that the feelings of young males are taking priority over the rights of their bodies? Boom. Boom.

One person booing. The sound of one person booing. I wonder why male reporters get access to women's locker rooms. Why we're more concerned about how people are identifying over the fact that we're not funding our schools enough or protecting our girls from domestic abuse, from sexual abuse, that we are in a best place. make sure that WNBA players are getting a fair contract and pays as much as their male counterparts. I want to make sure that girls sports all across the state have the investment in our competitive and our places where they feel safe. These are things that we can invest in making sure that everyone feel safe in our schools. I'm interested in making sure that people feel safe always, but it's going to take It's going to take actually fixing this systemic issues when it comes to funding our schools and our local government and people having the services and the things that they need, and that's what we focus on. So should men be allowed in women's spaces and boys be allowed in girls' spaces in the schools, locker room, bathroom, sports teams? And her response is, why are male reporters allowed into female locker rooms? Is that the same thing? Is that the same thing as being in a state of undress with...

as opposed to a male reporter who comes in when he is cleared to ask, say, a WNBA player, a question about the game that just happened, and she's in uniform, and then he leaves, and then she can change, he goes, shower. I mean, do we really need to explain? So male reporters, why are male reporters in female locker rooms? That's her response. or non-response. And then it's about funding schools and why are we not doing more about domestic violence and everyone should be safe. And this is the quality of thinking you're getting with Francesca Hong. But, you know, frankly, that's an improvement, I guess. over what we've been used to when she was giving her hot takes. I learned as a sports, as somebody aspiring to be a sports journalist, that your hot takes are often going to be wrong, which is why after I graduated from college and when I was in the General Assembly currently, in Wisconsin, I decided to give my hot takes and all kinds of things from holidays to the DSA. platform to hanging out with old white people at Culver's. She nearly had an anxiety attack at a Culver's restaurant because of, quote, old white people, unquote. That's how I was feeling and tweeting about a feeling. And she should feel her feelings. That happened years ago. It doesn't mean that it's how I view all people. That was a silly tweet. Kids being silly. We're familiar with the concept in Chicago. Silly kid. And look at her now. All grown up. and talking about her proximity to whiteness in her household. I wasn't always aware of the struggles of other communities of color because for me, a simulation always kind of took over. And so I did marry. Honky. And proximity to whiteness continues, right? My son is biracial. He's half white and half Korean. And I think navigating what his identity is and how people perceive him is always. the back of my mind as well. I don't know what that means. Who refers to their kid as proximity to their race? And by the way, she's putting together quite the cast of characters just like Zohran Mamdani did in New York City. Among them, a former child star and only fans model named Renee Olsted is her deputy campaign manager. And she's not just an only fan's model. She's also a policy advocate. She founded the Coalition for American Sex Workers, CASW Local 304, which advocates for decriminalization and other policy changes affecting sex workers. The brothels coming to rural Wisconsin should be popular.

I mean, it may fly in Dane in Milwaukee counties. I'm not sure about the rest of the state. The parts of the state that Tom Tiffany will do well, he's going to do really well as this stuff circulates about Ms. Hong and her concerns about whiteness and promotion of lawlessness and the sex working industry as the pathway to a... safer, stronger, better Wisconsin to continue borrowing the BLM Brandon rhetoric, since everybody seems to be on that side. Bill on the northwest side, you're on Chicago's morning answer. Yeah, someone needs to inform us hung that reporters are not in locker rooms anymore. After the game, the reporters are in a press room. The players are brought into that press room, and then the reporters ask questions at that point. So I don't know where she's getting her information, but she's wrong. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a good point, too. But, I mean, even if they were, it's not the same thing as just sort of willy-nilly saying. First of all, it's a simple question. And it's a question, as I've referenced before, properly posed by Veronica Kay Ivey, who's a dude pretending to be a woman who was beating women in cycling. And now she's taking up golf, I read the other day. And she's taking women out in golf. Okay. Maybe I'll pull a... and his canter freedom and do the same thing. Royce White doesn't look great in a wig, though. I saw him the other day, too. I appreciate the demonstration of absurdity, but we can just address this straight away. Anyway, Veronica Kay Ivey's question. Very simple. This is on the Daily Show years ago. It's just the question we should continue asking, and people should ask Francesca Hong and Tom Tiffany, compare and contrast their answers. is a trans woman the same thing as a woman. That's the question she posed, impressed. That's a question everybody should have to answer. And I, well, she's he, Veronica Kay Ivey, but, you know, her she persona. I agree with him. I agree with Veronica Kay Ivey. That's the question. And if you say yes, that has certain implications. And if you say no, that has a certain tinge of sanity. And it's very clarifying. It's really simple. Really boils it all down. George in Naperville. Yes, Dan, I used to feel a real proximity to whiteness when I used to watch the Brady bunch. Sure, yeah. And that was before Oliver, even. Yeah. This is some of the stuff that's starting to seep out with the prospect that it's going to be Tiffany v. Hong in Wisconsin. From Democrats. I am now unequivocally, I am now unequivocally likely are on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. And the reason? Because, you know, oh, by the way, she doesn't just have positions and she can't just chalk it up to woke one. She has a legislative record. Don't forget about that. Yeah, she's a state legislator. No, seriously. She was one of seven.

I think it was, no, yeah, I think it was one of seven legislators in the state house in Wisconsin, who voted against a bill to make it illegal for teachers to groom their students for sex. She voted against that. I don't think, again, that's going to set well outside of small enclaves in Looney Tunes Madison and willfully blind Milwaukee. I really don't. And there's some examples here. A 30-year-old teacher messaged a 13-year-old student every day for six months and talked about how he wanted them to be together, how she had a nice body. He was jealous when she talked to other boys. He sent her pictures of himself lying shirtless in bed. So not exactly a close call, in other words. The cops arrested him, but when they went to charge him, they revealed he actually did nothing illegal in Wisconsin. because there was no sexual contact, no pictures of exchange that were explicit enough to qualify for a criminal violation in Wisconsin, even though he was actively trying to rape a 13-year-old girl. So this story came to the attention of legislators who said, maybe we should do something about that gap in the law, and they did, proposing legislation that would address such situations.

Making it a felony to engage in any course of conduct clearly and obviously intended to seduce or lure a child into engaging in sex acts or exchanging illicit images. Seems pretty straightforward. Pass 100, I should, only six legislators. Pass 193 to 6 and signed into law by Evers, the DSA governor, Teachers Union, TOTI. Four months later, the first person was charged under law. He was a 36-year-old man who met a developmentally disabled 16-year-old in a public park when she was 13 and spent the next three years trying to manipulate her into running away from home so he could make her his live-in sex slave. That year was the year Francisong was one of six people to vote against a bill that made it illegal to take affirmative action designed. to lure a minor into sex acts. He said this person writes about Hong. I've never seen a Democratic candidate this bad. Hmm. It doesn't bode well. Bob in Buffalo Grove. Good morning, Dan. Always good talking to you. Let me go over the deep end and ask you to shave, put on a wig, and join the LPGA. Yes. I don't need to shave, apparently from what I'm seeing from Royce White and others who are... Again, I guess they're who are in the process of trying out for the Nashville balls if they are an expansion team of the WNBA, because I think that's probably, Clay Travis is probably the only one with the stones, if you will, to draft an S. Cantor Freedom or a Royce White or a Rodman. It's like a hot, steaming cup of information to start your day. It's Chicago's morning answer on AM 560. The answer. Signature, a division of Esquire Bank, offers Chicago businesses relationship first banking. Signature knows your name and your story because personalized banking still matters. I'm Dan Proft, and I know this because Signature is where I do my business banking. That's Phil Silverman, CFO of Chicago Atlantic, and a client of signature. We provide capital solutions in markets where risk is often fundamentally misprice and traditional financing can be limited. Ahead of an important and complex transaction closing, signature promptly assisted us in addressing a wire issue through their monitoring and verbal verification process, helping us administer the closing on time while maintaining best-in-class control oversight. That kind of hands-on attention is hard to find, and that's why we value our relationship with signature. Signature helps local businesses succeed. Want to learn how Signature can help turn your business vision into reality? Call Signature, a division of Esquire Bank, at 773-467-5600, or visit Signature.orgate.com. Esquire Bank, member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. AM 560. The answer.

Standing is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electric. Yeah, she's moved away from a lot of that. Right, she's moved away from it. And I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy. Loak one was crazy. Okay, that's true. And I think that what's important is that. Yeah, woke one was crazy. Not going to fly. They're going to try, but it's not going to fly if Republicans do their job. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Profft here. A really good piece in the Atlantic that is circulating and should be. As Rostov said, New York Times wrote in response to this piece from Tyler Austin Harper, a former professor at Bates College in Maine, this piece may be remembered as the signature piece to describe a particular period in higher education. The Identitarian The Identitarian period. The period that, in which Identitarianism spilled out from the campuses into the, to our broader politics and culture, leading Andrew Dan Sullivan to comment, we all live on a college campus now. And this is a perfect setup to another story I wanted to get to. I've been wanting to get to for the last 10 days or so, which is the story of Jason Arday out of Cambridge. academic fraud, all race-related. Identitarian-related is really the way to say it, but race being the identity issue, du jour. He talks about leaving NYU to go to Bates College at the outset of the piece, Tyler, Austin Harper. Why I Quit the Tenure Track. I went straight from my bachelor's degree at Haverford to a fully funded PhD program in a comparative lid at NYU. Five years later, I won a tenure track position at Bates in Lewiston, Maine, teaching interdisciplinary humanities courses in the school's environmental studies program. And by the way, it's worth noting at the outset, as he notes once you get into the piece, he has been a socialist since his early 20s. So this is not, you know, sort of an enemy inside the perimeter story. Mm-mm. He had no idea. Well, this is 2020. He had, he really, despite being in academia, fully funded Ph.G program and comparative lit at NU. Now he gets this tenure track position at Bates College. He had no appreciation. for the anti-racism, quote-unquote, fervor that was rampaging through college campuses and the rest of society. Really interesting to take note of how oblivious he was.

He writes, every effort was made to push New York City with its money lust and vogueish pop-ups and puffy vested financiers and pandemic chaos far from our minds. He and his wife, who's white, he's black, she's white, talking about transitioning from New York to Lewiston, Maine. We studiously applied ourselves to the task of becoming, if not true Mainers, that requires being born there, at least credibly Maine-ish. I believed in American higher education with the dewy fervor of a young missionary, he writes. I came from a long line of people possessed by the unshakable faith that college was a ticket to a better life. A home on our street was occupied by a college administrator who was passionate about DEI issues, a woman of color whom I will call Ava. Eva was big-hearted and fiery and seemed to feel some combination of neighborly obligation and professional duty to make sure that her new black colleague and his nice white wife felt welcome in Maine. These overtures mostly took the form of evening drinks at her house. Chair set at a COVID safe six feet apart, of course. Please keep that on the idiot circle. And a bottle of Chardinay on the porch between us. As I got to know, Ava, I was surprised to discover that she viewed Central Maine as a Stephen King hellscape, a place where ancient prejudices and violence lay just beneath the friendly college town facade. She regaled my wife and me with stories of alleged racial offenses, both major and minor, and generally made it clear that she thought Lewiston, an island of diversity in an otherwise famously homogenous, if not notably reactionary state. try Portland, which I just got back from. But anyway, she thought Lewiston was a hub of white supremacy. I mean, she confessed to me that when she drove to town and she spied the local crackers, as she called them, sitting on their porches, not unlike the very porch we were sitting on, she sometimes thought to herself that these townies would probably like to kill her. Everywhere I turn, I see enemies. My proximity to whiteness. Tyler Austin Harper writes, I didn't know what to make of Ava's views. I won't pretend that my sensibilities were inflamed by the word Cracker, but the epithet also didn't seem like one that a college administrator should be using. You think? I also had a difficult time taking seriously the idea that I had moved to a place with would-be Klansman to run every corner. I grew up outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Lewiston felt familiar to me. The people I met were nice, hardworking. They might do their own business. I don't think it ever occurred to Ava that I could have come from a similar place and similar people. Didn't occur to her, and it doesn't much matter. She's gone. There is no brain there. There is just... Identitarian can't. My comments, not his. I've never had a great enthusiasm for identity politics, he writes. I've been a socialist since my early 20s. And it had generally been my experience that liberals were as eager to talk about race as they were uneager to talk about class. Hmm. Right. So they have to...

you know, play act like you're seeing now with these downwardly mobile honkeys driving the DSA. Again, my comment. Yet I also assume that conservative complaints about quote unquote, wokeness, a term just coming into vogue as a pejorative, were essentially Fox News hysteria. Until I got debates, I had little, I had little reason to suspect they held any merit. This is 26 years ago. What are people talking about? These conservatives, Fox News hysteria, people getting canceled and so forth. No idea. No appreciation for what was happening. The sand shifting under his feet. And I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. We live in these cloistered environments. And people just don't pay attention until it's visited to their doorstep. We say this all the time because it's universally applicable. That's why when Ava gave me anti-racist reading recommendations that first summer in Maine, I read them with an open mind. So remember the popular books just five minutes ago. And the popular celebrated propagandists, Robin DiAngelo, Ibram Kendi, white fragility, how to be an anti-racist. Here's a... his view about these radio recommendations, and you can be sure those books that I just mentioned were on the list. When I found them disquietingly flimsy, politically bizarre, and in their naked essentializing, even sort of racist, I assume that I must be the problem. As a like-skinned black eye who doesn't speak African-American English, I had rarely been subjected to acute prejudice in my life. I thought perhaps I simply wasn't black enough, authentically black enough. to understand the kind of racial pessimism that had become so mainstream. Ava was hardly the only pessimist among my new coworkers. Around the start of the semester, I attended an informal orientation event for early career black faculty, where I assumed we would talk about our research interests and simply get to know one another. Isn't he cute? The naivete is astounding. Instead, to no one who listens to this show, shock, the gathering felt more like a combined therapy session and HR seminar. At one point, someone casually rattled off a series of local establishments to steer clear of, vaguely implying that they were filled with bigots. Alarmed by the notion that race relations were so bad in Lewiston that there were places I should avoid eating, I asked. Why one restaurant in particular had earned a reputation for intolerance? My colleague said that a student of color had worked there and not liked it very much. Case closed! It has to be racist. The source of the most intense racial monomania on campus I came to realize was the school's senior leadership. In one of my first encounters with the man who was the dean of the faculty, I mentioned how excited I was to be joining one of the few American colleges founded by abolitionists, like Hillsdale, for example. But that's a school that promotes sanity. American colleges, one of the few American colleges founded by abolitionists. It's true about Bates.

But the dean of the faculty was not looking at the glass as half full. He quickly informed Tyler Austin Harper. By the way, the dean is a white biologist and an expert on sponges. I bet he is. The dean frowned as though my rosy view of the school's anti-slavery history physically pained him. This is really, I mean, I would expect a comparative lit guy to be able to write, but this is really good, and it just, it rings so true. He conceded that sure it had been founded by the abolitionist minister, Oren Burbank Cheney, but he pointed out that Benjamin Netanyahu Bates, the textile tycoon who had funded the college, had processed slave pick cotton in his mills. processed slave, he didn't have slaves, but he processed slave. And that obviously was a permanent stain on Bates College and one for which self-flagellation from now into perpetuity is required. Again, my comments, I'm adding a little hyperbolic color to this. Anyway. I had come into debates rather smitten with the idea that I was a black academic joining the ranks of a faculty whose predecessors had agitated for black freedom. But the deem seemed to feel that this was actually something to be fairly embarrassed of a history that was best mentioned, if at all, only after layering on an array of caveats. Right. Hate your town, hate your school, hate your country. You lead with hate the list of grievances. There's nothing redeeming here. They're just apologies that have to be perpetually offered. He goes on, does Professor Harper. I found this kind of endemic self-flagellation to be eye-rollworthy. But the charged atmosphere Bates didn't feel out of step with that of the country as a whole, at least initially. The first year I kept my head down and let small oddities I noticed pass by without much reflection between teaching, grading, student advising, Zoom faculty meetings, twice weekly COVID testing. I didn't have much time to fret about the colleges or the country's cultural eccentricities. Then a couple weeks into June of 2021, I was asked, would I co-chair the task force that organized the college's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration? The committee explained that my academic work and the environmental humanities would make me a good fit to lead the MLK Day celebration. You have to be blanking me, I thought. I texted a friend and a fellow academic and a huff. Say no, he shot back. Or better say who? It was obvious to anyone with eyes that I'd been picked because I was one of a handful of Bates faculty members who didn't need to wear SPF50 sunscreen. I mean, I admired King as much as the next person, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that I was getting saddled with black guy work for which I had no real qualifications. All I knew about MLK, I had learned at my Pennsylvania Public High School a decade earlier, which is to say not much.

I'd like to tell you that I responded indignantly. Instead, I said yes, because I didn't want to develop a reputation as being difficult. And then, you know, this sort of as the inflection point. A month after being asked to co-chair that MLK Day Celebration Committee, I received an email that let me further discomforted. This one from a concerned faculty member said that a white student of mine, let's call him Mason, had tried to lynch a black student. I read the email with my mouth agape. The professor who had written it was someone whose academic work I thought highly of. Surely she would make such an extreme accusation if it had no basis in reality. But I was rather certain that Mason, a crunchy granola environmentalist type, outspoken about his progressive politics, was not a virulent racist. He had taken my climate fiction course and written a paper critiquing the, quote, Western colonial empire depicted in a feminist science fiction novel I had assigned. So I thought, how exactly had he attempted a lynching?

Mason and several other white students had apparently gotten into a dispute with a black friend they lived with. The white students had asked their black housemate to leave and had said they would call the Lewiston police and say he was threatening him if he tried to get his things. According to my colleague, so that's the facts, according to my colleague, Mason and his... friends had conspired to, quote, weaponized state power to terrorize or kill their black classmate. It is not an exaggeration to say their actions weren't attempted lynching. The professor also accused several students who were evidently brought to tears during the unfolding drama of intentionally leveraging their, quote, white womanhood, unquote, by crying. The email concluded by demanding Mason and the other white students face serious consequences that demanded professors of color be provided protection from Mason and the girls. If any of the students involved in this white supremacist incident enrolled in their courses. I mean, this is not like a parody. This is not, you know, satirizing a college campus. This is just a college campus. From the viewpoint of a black socialist environmental studies professor. Someone mentioned that college might be investigating the incident, but if such an investigation happened, to my knowledge, nothing ever came of it. Even so, the email stuck with me. Whatever it happened among those students and who had ever been at fault, I was sure the conflict was not driven by racial hatred. It was also troubled by the evidence-free assumption that it encountered between a black liberal arts college student and the police was so likely to end in death that calling 911 was tacitly homicidal. I came to understand the Mason affair as emblematic of the kind of politics that dominated at Bates, a place where current and future elites paid or were paid for the privilege of cosplaying as radicals, victims, or both. In this upside-down 133-acre world and, quote-unquote, attempted lynching was a graver threat to black undergrads than student debt and faculty needed protection from their own students. Some of my colleagues had seen were engaged in an Allison Wonderland-style reenactment of civil rights-era struggles in which glancing racial faux paws and willfully misrepresented private encounters were treated with the solemnity of nooses swinging from oak trees. And, you know, he goes on with more examples, but ultimately, he walks.

why I quit the tenure track. Tyler Austin Harper. I'll post it on X, but it's worth reading through for yourself and sharing with friends. I mean, you really want to understand it if you haven't lived through it or you haven't recently had a kid at a college campus who's lived through it. And so now what you're dealing with as it has metastasized? and infected all of our meeting institutions well beyond higher education, as well as taken over one of the two major political parties, right here in this piece. There's only one radio show in Chicago talking about today's biggest stories and telling you what they really mean. That show is this one. Chicago's Morning Answer, an AM-560, The Answer. Sean Fest returns on August 28th at the Western Chicago Northwest in Itasca. Registration is free. Go to 560V-A-A-A-U-N-Fest.com slash S-H-A-U-N-Fest. Top of the morning, Dan Brock here. The Noxious Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy. I announced over the weekend I'm prepared to support a bad deal to end the Iran War. Trump has lost this war. I mean, it's a headline that he wants. It's a position that they seek to help may come true for the purposes of political expediency, but it's rather despicable to be rooting against your country, one might say. I would... I think that's fair. Leading with surrender, the left. It's almost like leading from behind in a bygone era. Trump has lost the war. I'm prepared to support a bad deal. It's interesting because, of course, Trump is accentuating the positive and saying, look. We're watching Iran with its huge inflation. They have no money. They're in very bad shape. They're unable to pay their troops. Scott Bessent is turning the screws tighter every day with economic fury. The blockade is a steel wall. And yet, there are contraindicating headlines like Gulf states are accepting a new normal of Iran's control of the strait. And then, as we discussed a bit yesterday, The Iranian foreign minister, you know, which, of course, nothing he says can be taken at face value. But what he did say is that there's apparent proximity to a deal coming into focus to provide at least a temporary expanded opening of the strait, the Iran-Oman corridor. Is that an off-ramp President Trump can take? What would that look like? If Iran is in the shape that is being described by the administration, then perhaps additional patience is required. If there is not the political willpower slash political support, that's the assessment, to escalate and finish the job, to use another phrase that is being thrown around routinely.

Well, that's sort of the framework for our discussion with Andrew Latham, who joins us now, Senior Washington Fal at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a professor of international relations and political theory at McAllister College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Professor Latham, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Oh, my pleasure. So, as Trump lost the war, as Chris Murphy right, that we should just accept a bad deal, but more or less just saying, you know, whatever Iran is willing to give us, is that really a posture that, forget the politics of it, is in the national security interests of this country, is rational? Well, the underlying national security interests is free transit through the Strait of Formas and other choke points, both in the region and beyond. And surrendering to Iran at this point would severely undermine and compromise that key American national interest. The question really on the table now is how to maximize freedom of passage through that strait. The war, from an American perspective, hasn't gone terribly well in the short to medium term. So now we have to focus on the longer term. And this is now a matter of endurance. Who can stay in the fight longer? Iran, with all its economic and internal political difficulties and tensions, or the United States, with its very different, but nevertheless pressing domestic political pressures. The upcoming midterms complicate the picture enormously on the American side, and we don't have a very clear picture of what's going on on the Iranian side, but it's going to be last man standing wins this. It remains to be seen who will be left standing. Well, the price of oil is stayed around $80 a barrel in part 2 to reportedly 8 million barrels a day of the U.S. is getting out of the straight. So if there is the ability to main that sort of price stability, I mean, it's not where anybody wants gas prices, but if the ability is there to maintain that sort of status, And if the Trump administration's description of Iran's current financial condition is correct, doesn't it suggest that at minimum more patience is the order of the day? Yes. I mean, the endurance boils down to patience, political patience on both sides, who can last the longest. And it's not just economic troubles that are plaguing Iran. There's real severe political tensions. Just before this war broke out, of course, there were a mass movement to end the regime in Iran. That seems to have gone away during this crackdown during this war. But yes, it's a matter who can last longest. The Trump administration is betting that the U.S. can outlast the Iranians in this.

And that, I'm afraid, remains to be seen. That regime in Tehran is not subject to the kind of electoral pressures or media pressures that the Trump administration and the Republican Party is subject to. So all that being said, something else that probably needs to be addressed as the alternatives to shipping oil and gas through hormones, the various pipelines that are being... built that have already been built and are being proposed that would ship oil from the region, not through the Strait of foremost, but more directly to the Mediterranean or to the Red Sea. So that further complicates this. Those are very long-term projects. That's not going to happen tomorrow. But perhaps they, at least in part... remove the leverage that Tehran has around the Strait of Hormuz. What of this near deal that Aragocchi was referencing over the weekend? What do you think that looks like? And is it something that the Trump administration could accept even... you know, as something that is temporary pending further subsequent diplomacy and or kinetic action.

Yes, well, we've had cease virus. We had the memorandum of understanding that lasted for about 30 days, sort of. It was violated all the time. But here's what's been happening recently. Every time Oman and Pakistan and Turkey and other interlocutors... seemed to have got us to the point where there's a deal. The Iranians change the terms. So lately now they've been really insisting on reparations of damage in the war, which has prompted President Trump to insist on reparations suffered as a result of Iranian actions. And so we're almost not quite back to square one, but somewhere near square one again. What we see in these negotiations is, I think, posturing. I think both sides trying to present themselves as being rational and reasonable and willing to come to some kind of agreement and painting the other side as the bad guy. And then at the last minute, there's some plausibly-deniable or apparently reasonable additional, complicating factor that's introduced that means that the deal is off. because both sides are hoping they can outweigh the other side while appearing to be the reasonable good guy actor in all of these negotiations. So there's no, I mean, and you're right in the description of the interplay. We need reparations. No, we're owed reparations and so all the people. His family, sort of the families of all the people you've killed over the last 50 years is essentially what Trump said in response. So the point is to say that all of this is really political theater. This is not going anywhere. We shouldn't expect it to go anywhere because. Well, in part, you don't have a good faith actor on the other side. There's no deal to be made with the Iranians, no real deal to be made, even on a temporary basis with respect to a commerce. They would rather suffer through this waiting game with the naval blockade than provide any sort of even temporary middle way.

I think that's right, and this is a function of the power dynamics in Tehran. Not too long ago, the IRGC, or the more extremist faction, were in competition with more reasonable moderate factions outside the military and on the political side, rather. But that seems to have changed in recent weeks, and the IRGC seems to have consolidated its control, which means the extremists. The maximalists are in power now in Tehran, and they're not inclined to do any deal that fall short of Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz. As a revenue-generating mechanism, they can charge tolls. As a geopolitical mechanism, it gets them leverage over most of the rest of the world, including America's friends and allies in the region. And then for domestic political reasons, it makes them look like they are doing the work of the Almighty, as it were. and prevailing against the Great Satan. So all of that means that, no, I really don't think that Tehran is serious about negotiations unless it gets everything it wants, in which case, of course, it will sign on the bottom line. So the political turmoil that you referenced afflicting the regime in Tehran at present in addition to the economic problems they have, so what is the nature of that turmoil?

Well, as I said, basically, there are a number of factions competing for control. The Ayatollah, as such, nobody has seen him since the first day of this war. We're not sure if he's dead or merely injured to the point where he's incapable of executing the office. And that has created a space within which others have been vying for control of the Iranian state. And as I said, there are the revolutionary maximalists who don't want to see the regime change and want... to maximize its power and wealth, I suppose, in the region. And those who are more accommodating, more moderate, mostly on the civilian side, just this morning, the IRGC has managed to reconstruct. The military command structure sold at the non-IRGC, the regular Iranian military is now more firmly integrated into and subordinated to the IRGC. So we see a consolidation of power, both within the military and across the broader political spectrum on the part of the IRGC leadership, and they don't want to do a deal. They want to get what they want, and they're willing to sacrifice as many Iranians as needed. in order to get what they want. So, I mean, does that, right, I get the dynamic there, but if they're consolidating power, are you suggesting that the regime is more stable? I mean, you know, in the sense of ability to stay in power, more stable today than it was before this, before the hostility started?

From the outside looking at, I'd have to say, yes, I'm not sure stable is quite the right word, but certainly it's consolidated its power, let's maybe put it that way. Yeah. In a way that wasn't the case in the run-up to this world, when the world mass protested in the street, and it looked like the regime was going to collapse. And I think this administration might have hoped initially that with the additional prod of a few American bombs landing here and there, that, in fact, the regime would collapse. But quite the opposite has happened. Having said that... It is the very nature of this kind of politics that things can appear to be stable, to use that word, and appear to be stable, and appear to be stable, and then the wheels come off. Things can change. Things can turn on a dime, as it were. Things can change very quickly. But right now it looks as if the IRGC, the maximalists, the extremists, have really consolidated control. And how sanguine are our erstwhile Gulf state allies about things at present? I mean, I mentioned that Wall Street Journal headline at the outset of our conversation, Gulf states accept a new normal, meaning Iranian control of the strait, which I think is still very much in doubt. But are our Gulf state allies getting shaky with respect to the way the Trump administration is prosecuting the campaign?

I think, yes, I think they're hedging their bets. On the one hand, it looks like the Saudis now are mobilizing forces to attack the Houthis, who are Iranian-backed in Yemen, who control the Bandar another choke point on the Red Sea. So on the one hand, the Saudi seemed to be taking proactive moves. to reduce Iranian influence and to support the U.S. in its efforts, et cetera. On the other hand, perhaps because they lack confidence both in this administration, but perhaps in the American political leadership more broadly, they're hedging their bets. What is in Saudi Arabia's best interests if the United States doesn't prevail? If the Iranians prevail, the Saudis still need to export their oil, even if they have to pay these tolls and fees. a rational actor, and all these actors are at least minimally rational, would be hedging its bet at this point and saying, we hope for A, but if B happens, we've got to be ready. And in Eastern Europe, we talked about this bid yesterday, so the Turks are going to provide American-made weaponry to Ukrainians. The sort of the Volodymyr Zelensky-Trump relationship has been repaired substantially. And yet we read about this intel that suggests that Vladimir Putin may be thinking about attacking a NATO member in the near term. I'm actually a little unclear as like to what ends and what capacity three years in to largely a stalemate in Ukraine does Vladimir Putin have to expand the war into Poland or the Baltics at this juncture?

I think if we consider war to be tanks crossing borders, the kind of war that is being prosecuted in Ukraine at the moment, the likelihood of that is close to nil, I would suggest. Now, having said that, NATO was already under Russian attack, but it's in the so-called gray zone. It's below the threshold of overt warfare, but above the threshold of peace. And it involves things like cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, cutting of oil and data cables, any kind of deniable but still impactful. sub-war measure that can, well, a variety of objectives can inflict. It can test defenses, NATO's defenses. It can impose real costs. When you cut a data cable, you can impose enormous cost on an economy. It can signal Russian capabilities. Don't continue to support Ukraine because we can really hurt you, even if we don't invade Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia. And finally, it can sow discord. Because every time Russia launches one of these deniable attacks that can't be directly attributed to Moscow, various NATO countries react in various ways in different ways. And so the Russians are able to sow discord within the NATO alliance without one Russian troop crossing the border. Now, the American intelligence estimate is that by 2029, that calculus might change a little bit. It wouldn't see a full-scale invasion, but maybe some more armed incursions across borders, maybe around Kalengrad, for example, the Russian... exclave between Poland and Lithuania. But that's not the same as a full-scale invasion. That's not like Poland being subject to Ukraine's, to the attack on Ukraine. That's not going to happen. That's not in Vladimir Putin's best interest. And again, he can make mistakes. He's made many, but he's minimally rational, and he's not going to do something, he's not going to cut off his nose despite his face, as it were. Andrew Latham, senior Washington fell at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, Professor of International Relations and Political Theory at McAllister College in St. Paul, Minnesota as well. Professor Latham, thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it. And he joined us in the Alphwealthgroup.com, Angela. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's morning answer. An AM 560, The Answer.

That sound means it's time for in-depth history with Frank, the history teacher from Arlington Heights, because there's nothing new in this world, just the history you don't know when Frank does. Frank, take it away. Good morning. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises had some pretty good quotes. One of my favorites is, quote, Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism. It is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings, end quote. One reason, of course, for this is the seeming tendency of socialist to push people around. Some New Yorkers are getting to experience this firsthand with mayors Iran-Zohran Mamdani's so-called PA-Data tax on wealthy New Yorkers' second urban homes. The tax itself is bad enough, but the publishing of the affected addresses betrays just how much hatred there is in some quarters to capital and anyone who possesses it. The subversion is not new in the late 80s when the Soviet Union was coming apart, and it was obvious to their so-called leadership that reforms to a market-based economy were necessary. Their pseudo-intelligency got all upset over the mere mentioning of the phrase, private property. It got so bad that Gorbachev's reform team eventually decided that the term individual labor property would be okay, whereas individual capital property would not, as it supposedly indicated an exploitation of man by man. Capital, of course, is a bit too complex of a topic for the Marxist coloring books to convey. But in short, there are three types, physical, which is machinery, equipment, and building, then financial, which is savings from workers and investors, and then intellectual, which is education, skills, and talent, and all are only positive in their effects, because capital of any kind only enhances labor productivity. And per se's law, this now capitalized labor creates much more supply, which in turn creates its own demand. because the workers have to either spend or save their wages. Give Zohran Mamdani some credit, though. It took two seconds for him to backtrack on his AIDS insertion of an ID requirement at his Red Star grocery chain. It took Lenin over two years to switch from more communism to his new economic policy, which allowed just enough markets to save the Bolsheviks. Unfortunately, it took 70 more years for communism to end in Russia. Hopefully four years of this utter nonsense will be enough for Gotham City. One can hope. Hopefully the last eight years of this nonsense will be enough for Chicagoans. One can hope. I don't know. I don't know what the prospects are with the current crop of more aerial candidates. We shall see. Thank you for the Von Mises quote, Frank. And great work as always. We appreciate it. Thank you. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer.

you can sad little man sad little man you don't for me you said Sad little man gonna trap you like a dog Put your head in the net While they eat you raw Don't ask why Just comply Because fear is the drug that the doctor described Sad little man You can watch him on the news Preaching to his choir while they learn the rules Some feel safe And some feel healed But they'll all hold his hand as he makes the kill Sad little man Top of the morning, damn props here. Yeah, that sad little man. We're far from through with Dr. Anthony Fauci. And thanks to 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails recovered by Senators Johnson and Paul. We have more looksie to compare and contrast what Anthony Fauci and others. former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, among them, what they were saying privately versus what they were promoting publicly as we attempt more of a reckoning as to the decisions that were made and the fabrications that were imposed upon the American public. And so a lot of focus over these... newly obtained communications is on what Anthony Fauci and Walensky were saying publicly about the risk that the vaccine posed to pregnant women, or pregnant people, as Wilinski will say, you know, keeping up with the identitarian nomenclature, what they were saying publicly about the risk to pregnant women of the vaccine versus some of the concerns they were expressing privately. I asked around a bit more, and another issue came up that you need to be aware of. Anthony Fauci wrote in January of 2021 in a text exchange with Wollinsky and Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Ramaswamy Murthy. So many people have significant cytokine storm and fewer after the second dose. This theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester. And yet this is what we were hearing about, well, from them, about any potential... dangers pregnant women would have from taking the Vax. Walensky. Is it safe to get vaccinated while you're breastfeeding? It absolutely is safe to get vaccinated. So I would say if you are thinking about getting vaccinated, there is no bad time to get vaccinated. Get vaccinated while you're thinking about having a baby before you're thinking about having a baby while you're pregnant with your baby or after you've delivered your baby. There is no bad time. And even so.

Despite saying that, in the communication with Anthony Fauci on this very topic, Wollinsky said, quote, definitely a good point, especially after dose two, to raise these first trimester issues with respect to the incidents of miscarriage based on the studies that were done, including this much discussed and discussed again. Now, New General England of New General... New Journal Medicine, you know, Journal, New England Journal of Medicine. In just a couple of weeks later, after that communication between Anthony Fauci and Walensky, Anthony Fauci said during a Q&A live stream with JAMA, the journal for the American Medical Association, that the FDA quote found thus far, and we have to be careful, but thus far no red flags about that about pregnant women with respect to the VACs. White House Chief, Anthony Fauci said months later, tens and tens and tens of thousands of women who have been followed by the CDC have been vaccinated when they were pregnant. There's no indication whatsoever that there's any increase of adverse issues in a pregnant woman who is vaccinated compared to a pregnant woman who wasn't vaccinated. It's pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated. But other communications between Anthony Fauci and Walensky and Murthy showed them weighing the risks of vaccination against the risks posed by COVID. Murthy expressing surprise that the WHO, World Health Organization, put out a strong statement they do not recommend the Moderna vaccine for pregnant women. Anthony Fauci telling Walensky. That's a strong statement to make and potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women. Point is to say this. There was not transparency about their concerns. There was not this open discussion. There was just the jingoistic advocacy for the VACs and without qualification. And that was disingenuous based on their private conversations. Robert Redfield, former CDC director. Had this to say about the Anthony Fauci approach? I think there was a concerted effort by some, including Anthony Fauci, that we didn't want any information to be out in the public that would discourage people from being vaccinated. So the whole issue of vaccine side effects or vaccine injury was real or the fact that the vaccine didn't really work in preventing infection because I had a number of patients in the spring of 2020 that were having their second or third episode of COVID. even though they've been vaccinated. You know, Biden was incorrect when he said this is an epidemic of the unvaccinated. We knew that the vaccinated, you know, in fact got infected because the vaccine was non-durable. So very disappointing because I think there was a view that some have, and, you know, I think Tony was in this view, was that he knew better what was right for you.

then you knew better what was right for you. So he'd make his decision for you. Oh, you think? The guy who called himself science? Yeah. I think that came across fairly clearly. Dr. Jabondacharya, who was taken over NIH from said Anthony Fauci, I thought made a good point here in terms of the approach that he's taking. staying in his lane. It regulates products and checks for side effects and so on. The NIH develops the science that produces the new vaccines. There's usually like one lane and another lane. Tony thought you in some sense was out of his lane and then use that power to tell him to one thing when he really thought another. Yeah, stay in your lane. NIH does, funds the studies and the FDA. does the research to green light or not green light, a particular drug or, frankly, medical device. Yeah. But Anthony Fauci assumed both lanes. Of course he did when he wasn't influencing the CIA on top of it. So again, just the timeline here. Anthony Fauci and Wolinsky privately recognized the side effects many people experienced after dose two of the VACs could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester. A pregnant women were not studied in the drug company's tests. This is January of 21. April of 21, three months later, Biden administration urges pregnant women to get the shot. June of 21, CDC study in the New England Journal of Medicine said the vaccine is safe for pregnant women to take, but noted the study arms were not directly comparable and more study was needed. But the medical associations, Big Pharma, Biden, of course, charged ahead. Six months later, January 2020, an OBGYN criticized the New England Journal of Medicine study, saying that excluding women in the third trimester would result in a much higher miscarriage rate. And then in 2023, Tracy Beth Hoag writing before... joining the FDA, know that the Pfizer stopped a study into the matter after enrolling a fraction of the pregnant women had said it would. Even still, Pfizer reported 5.1% of infants of vaccinated moms had adverse events of special interest, while only 1.3% of infants in the control arm of the study did. So there was something that at minimum required further study and... consideration and explanation. For more on this, please be joined back Curtis Hill. He's Senior Advisor with the Free Enterprise Project, Ambassador with Project 21 Black Leadership Network and former Indiana Attorney General. Curtis Hill, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Dan, thanks for having me. Your reaction to these latest revelations of... contained in Anthony Fauci communications. Well, then in one sense, it's shocking, but then in another, it's not really shocking at all. We had example after example of Dr. Anthony Fauci lying to the American people, embracing his own ego to tell us what he believed was the right answer for us, and sticking on message. It's very clear.

that Anthony Fauci's responsibility was to stay on message to push the vaccine, to push the narrative, if you will, of the entire pandemic, going back to the masks. I mean, we have example after example of Anthony Fauci saying one thing and then turning around and saying another thing that was absolutely proof that he was lying about his role, lying about his positions. We looked at this person for confidence. We looked at him for guidance in one of the most devastating events in our lifetime. The COVID experience was once in a century happening, and Americans were really looking for leadership. And what we got were lies. Yeah, and, you know, and it's also the response that we got to legitimate inquiries. And so when you see, for example, in these texts, Biden, Surgeon General, Vivek Ramaswamy Murthy. responding to Anthony Fauci's concern about the COVID vaccine and pregnant women that I just described, he added that, quote, I've been hearing concern about the mRNA causing mutations in the developing fetus as well. Now, you know, I'll give wide birth if there's some humility, which there wasn't, about what we know and what we don't know, what we're trying to figure out. But when people were expressing those very same concerns, particularly pregnant women, but not exclusively. They just got the, you're a vaccine denier, you're a crank, shut up. We have Eric Schmidt, the Attorney General, Missouri. made the point that among the efforts that were made by the Biden administration through social media companies to silence debate was about this issue of the vaccine's impact on pregnant women. One of the many things they tried to tamp down in furtherance of the Anthony Fauci approach of silencing dissent. Yeah, we're not looking at transparency at all. We're looking at a concentrated effort to limit the information that people could make for themselves, make for themselves or make for their children, make for their unborn children. It's very telling of a system that was deteriorated and pouches at the top of the heap. I mean, so, you know, you're hearing, of course, suggestions and now more suggestions after yesterday's revelations, that, yeah, Anthony Fauci has the pardon, but it, of course, doesn't cover state-level offenses, and Florida's Attorney General, among others, future Alabama governor, Tommy Tuberville, currently in the Senate, among them.

are looking at the prospect of criminal investigations into Anthony Fauci at the state level, as a former attorney general yourself, at the state level. I mean, do you see a colorable case under sort of standard criminal law at the state level where Anthony Fauci could be whistled in? It would be very difficult to... bring charges under a state statute. The state criminal law is very specific. You have elements of a crime that's very specific to the commission. And what Anthony Fauci did was he lied to the American people. He misled. It resulted in injuries at the very least to millions, perhaps death to others. We want to hold him criminally accountable, but we have to be able to find the right vehicle to do so. The difficulty becomes... his potential defenses of evolving data, a pandemic experience. But I think the evidence is becoming overwhelming that he was in a role of misleading and lying. The question becomes whether any particular state can attach injuries or deaths in their state to specific particular actions that he took that would link directly to that injury. That's the tricky part in terms of the states actually holding them accountable. The pardon situation, the federal level, is absolutely unfordivable that the president would issue a preemptive pardon to sort of wall out any types of offenses that may have happened. I think that if nothing else comes from this, our Congress should be taking action to limit the aspect of the so-called preliminary or pardons that are presumptive in nature without some indication of actual wrongdoing. Curtisel, Senior Advisor with the Free Enterprise Project, Ambassador with the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, and former Indiana Attorney General. Curtisel, thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it. Thank you, Dan. And Curtisill, join us on the Alphwealthgroup.com answerline. This is Chicago's morning answer. Your show keeps me alive during the week. There's nobody I'd rather listen to between 5 and 9 in the morning than you guys. On AM 560, the answer.

AM 560. The answer. You know, point of order, I keep making the comparison between Anthony Fauci and Dr. J. Badacharya, but they don't have the same jobs. Anthony Fauci wasn't the head of NIH. He was the head of NIAID, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. So he was under Francis Susan Collins, who was the head of NIH in the COVID time. And so it's just interesting to note. I mean, Sabatari is in the Susan Collins position, but effectively, it seems like Susan Collins was cut out of the decision making. It's interesting, and I admit I have not poured through all of the communications. Continue to do that on a rolling basis with help from our friends. But it's interesting the conversations are Anthony Fauci Wollinsky when she was CDC director, but not much Anthony Fauci and Redfield when he was CDC director. No Anthony Fauci and Susan Collins. No Anthony Fauci and Berks. And by the way, those other individuals, Susan Collins, Berks, I think less so Redfield, but he's still in the same camp I'm about to describe. They're in a camp that did not get preemptively pardoned by Joe Biden. So if you can't get to Anthony Fauci, could you get to Berks? Could you get to Murthy, who's in these communications, a surgeon general under Biden? Could you get the songstress, Francis Susan Collins, folks saying are extraordinaire? Hmm. I have to pour over that and poke around a little bit more. But as I said, we're far from done with all of this. Far from done. Insert Democrat Socialist here. Runs the Democratic House for for 30 plus years running. He's promising this and he's stealing that. Where can you get that kind of money? He's using your house like his own piggyback, gang, gang, gang, gang, gang, you ought to know by now. You can pay off your house here in Illinois. You can never keep up with the taxes. Oh, oh, it's always been the plan To have a taxpayer pay, no doubt, not a matter of if any more but when You're moving out. I said when you're moving out. Top of the morning, Dan Proff here, big goings-on in the city this weekend. Bud Billiken parade. Nobody likes the Bud Billiken parade more than Jelly Belly. Jelly Belly and his protege, Christian Mitchell, at the Bud Billiken Parade, providing this authentic enthusiasm. I've been coming to the Bud Billiken Parade for as long as I can remember. Every year, it's a privilege to march down King drive and celebrate everything that makes our community so special. Our history, our pride, and most importantly, how much we love our kids. Marching in the Bud is one of my absolute favorite summer traditions. It's a chance to celebrate Chicago's rich black history and, of course, the bright future of our young people and what they represent. Here's the 97 years of parading and excellence.

and many more to help. Happy Bud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Hey, how many parades, Governor, did you, how many of the Bud Bill can't prices you go to before you were a governor? Because I know it's like one of your favorite activities. He just oozes so many things. And as I said, authenticity, clearly the top of that list. I don't know. Who do you think is? more enthusiastic about the places and the activities they love. J.B. Pritzker or Anderson Cooper? Glory Vanderbilt's kid, remember? Since Haiti's back in the news, with TPS status being removed and enforcement and removal operations underway, and some, including even Republicans, Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio, decrying this development. Remember Anderson Cooper talking about how much he loved Haiti? Jerry Rivers just said sending people back to Haiti is like sending them to hell. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? It's paradise, according to what everybody was saying when Trump was referring to some of these developing countries in less than generous terms, not in accurate terms, just less than generous. Do you think J.J.B. Pritzker enjoys the Bud Billiken parade as much as Anderson Cooper loves vacationing? You know, it probably has a Pieter Tare in Porta Prince. He loves going there on the weekends. And I mean, Haiti is so, you know, yeah, it's the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but it's, you know, a country can be poor economically and rich in culture and rich in the strength of the people and rich in so many different ways. And Haiti is in that way among the richest countries I've ever been to. I mean, the Haitian people are incredibly strong, carry themselves with such dignity. And for generations, you know, have had government which have not paid attention to them, which have stolen from them. And yet... whatever adversity they have faced. They face it head on. And as I said, you know, when you meet them, you know, Haitians look you in the eye. They slap your hand hard when you shake it. And I think you're going to have an unforgettable experience. I've gone back a lot, obviously. We're the first team on the ground after the earthquake. And I go back on vacation. I go there for weekends. I mean, it's an amazing place. It's an incredible place. Vacationing in Haiti. Sure. I believe that. Anderson Cooper weekends in Haiti. It goes down to see an off-Broadway rendition of Hamilton that they'll put on. This is not a commentary on the Haitian people, but the infantilization of black people, using them of mascots, whether they're Americans or Central Americans. That's what's done here. That's what J.J.B. Pritzker is doing. That's what Anderson Cooper is doing. It's disgusting. Oh, really? The Haitians have had a government that hasn't served them well. Well, whose fault is that? Chicagoans have had a government that hasn't served them well. Well, whose fault is that? Chicago has a public school system that doesn't serve them well. Well, whose fault is that? How are things going for all those kids that were at the Bud Billiken parade? I'm sure so happy to have jelly belly there to pat them on the heads. Tell them how much he cares. Celebrate.

Getting back to school, getting back to CPS, where what happens? Spare me. So there's that, and then there's big news on the warm embrace of collectivism front. Gimme Dad bus lines will soon be up and running to make sure that we can import women who want to have abortions in Illinois. One of our big industries. And nobody's a bigger fan of that than little Billy Conway. Little billionaire baby boy, Billy Conway. He has big mayoral aspirations. When is he getting in? Hi folks, I'm Alderman Bill Conway at the 34th Ward. We're going to be having a community meeting on Thursday, August 20th, at 6 p.m. at Chicago School. That's located 400 in South Jefferson. What are we going to be talking about? The city's acquisition of this, the Greyhound Station, that's located 630 West Harrison. The Greyhound Station is a vital part of Chicago's transportation system. It serves about half a million riders a year and is a... Vital access point for those coming to Chicago for reproductive health care. I share the community's concerns regarding public safety, regarding traffic, and regarding the operations of this station. That's why I've convened the Chicago Department of Transportation, Streets and Sanitation, the Chicago Police Department, and they're going to explain to us how the station's going to run better under city ownership. We're going to hear from departments on August 20th at 6 p.m. No, mark your calendar. The city-owned bus terminal, even better for the community. and for riders alike. Please register at the link of my bio. Look forward to seeing you there. Yeah, and you'll laugh and laugh at the PowerPoint, I'll present explaining how the city is going to run the bus station better because the city runs everything better than the private sector, doesn't it? It's great. Looking forward to bussing people in so they can get abortions. What an odd thing to say. What a ghoulish thing to say. Little Billy Conway. Trying to be all grown up. Mark Lennon is the founder of WirePoint. Wirepoints. Wirepoints. All things Illinois policy related. Mark, thanks for joining us, as always. Hey, Dan. Yeah, you know, we get a laugh out of this stuff, but this is what gets votes on the Democratic side with these primaries. And, you know, that's why I continue to think that J.B. Pritzker has as good a shot at the presidential... domination, at least, from the Democrats as anybody. And he's pretty good at this and pretty good at this and he loves talking about these things and people buy it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he's also a flim flammer. I mean, he's a shapeshifter. And the DSA crowd is going to, I mean, they've sussed him out already. There's no way he's going to be their guy, not to mention the fact that he has not.

I mean, he's a Zionist, and I don't say that as a pejorative. He supports Israel. He does. He's not going to say it, but he does, and he's not going to call for, he's not going to call Israel an apartheid state, which you have to do to be a member of the DSA party these days. So he's got all kinds of problems. I mean, in addition to the obvious. Yeah. But so, so let's, I mean, using little Billy Conway and talking about the mayor's race. I mean, is there anything you're seeing from, as the field is starting to populate now? Any ideas or proposals that are encouraging to you? No, I, nothing in terms of concrete proposals. I do. have some hope that will at least start to get an intelligent debate about Chicago's finances coming out of it. By the time the election rolls around, especially things will be worse than they are now because they inevitably will be. And, you know, I think Susanna Mendoza might be one who would... speak about these things with some level of candor. She at least understands the problems. She's going to want to distinguish herself from the rest of the crowd. And Maria Pappas is kind of the same thing. She's conversant in these things. She understands the business world. I'm not endorsing these people. I've got complaints about all of them, but we at least might get a serious conversation going for once in this campaign. There's a lot of fodder like just this week. This is a rather interesting commentary. It's a new one. Mayor BLM Brandon's administration can't get anybody interested in collecting the $90 million in debts that the city is owed. You know, it's debt collection firms. This would seem like a plum deal. You get a percentage of what you collect on behalf of the city for outstanding tickets and so on and so forth. And nobody wants to bid on the job. I mean, you can't even find Rocco and Moose to help people find their wallets. Boy, what an idea fraught with problems. It's not unusual to sell off packages of bad debts, but you can measure the default rates on some of these. It's got to be close to zero, however, with these tickets, and you're stepping into the shoes of the government on these claims are subject to defenses. This idea was doomed from the start. And if the city can't collect these, no private collector is going to. think they can figure out some way to do it more efficiently. It's just shame on the city for not not.

having the capacity to collect these things on their own and coming up with such a foolish idea to try to sell them off. Well, they could have at least gone out to market to see if there was any interest before they made what they expect to receive from outsourcing debt collection part of the way they're going to, quote-unquote, you know, phony baloney balance the budget, but, you know, what constitutes balancing the budget in Chicago. So they built this into the budget, and then they can't get anybody who actually wants to do the work. Frankly, I had not been aware that they built those proceeds into the budget, and that's just another element of what a... sham that budget is and it's not a it with all kinds of things it's not a real budget they haven't they haven't fulfilled their statutory duty to present a a budget or balanced budget and uh nothing's going to be done about it of course with the AG that we have well Ian why why should why should anybody start now I mean as you and I both know we talk about to no particular end and when you don't a budget for uh pension obligations, then it's not a real budget. So J.B. Pritzker runs around touting balanced budgets every year he's been governor, not a single year. We haven't had a balanced budget in the state or the city for as far as I can remember, a real one. And he gets away with it. You know, I get so sick of seeing the press. say when they report these things that the state has made, it's required payments to the pensions. No, whenever you see that, you have to remember they're just paying according to the schedule that the legislature made up has nothing to do with actuarial reality or what's supposed to be done. And speaking of the pensions, this is a fun development. Bally's has stopped construction on its much anticipated casino and casino development. And this was something that was supposed to help fill. the city pension debt. I was supposed to send $200 million a year to prop up city pension funds. That's what this is really about, of course. And the Biales is calling foul on the city for violating the terms of their deal because they're green lighting video poker. Yeah, they probably got a valid complaint about that. I haven't looked through the contract exactly to determine what it says, how much leeway the city has, but you get cannibalized if there's too many gambling sites in the city. Vat valleys is well aware of that, and that's a condition to their project and how much they think they can make from it.

They've got to be having second thoughts about trying to deal with the city of Chicago with so many. so many issues here. This is going to be an ongoing problem. These sites will continue to cannibalize them, and it's not going to turn out well, I think, for the gambling industry or for the city, and the revenue's not going to materialize. Well, and Bally's has some other considerations. Apparently, the companies carrying nearly $5 billion in death, is according to its latest financial report, an amount which, quote, may have important negative consequences. Yeah, in the real world for Bally's, it might. In the fictional world of, well, specifically Illinois and Chicago politics, it's just nothing to see here. Yeah, it's a world of difference when it comes to private sector reporting. They have to do it as a publicly traded company and the city. There's double standards. left and right between what the private sector can do and what the public sector can do on disclosures and honesty with the people you're dealing with is just non-existent for the state government here and the city government. Well, you know, I guess you can always resuscitate one of those... wealth taxes that's being bandied about in places like New York or land seizures or, you know, I mean, I don't know where else we're going to go. You don't really hear anything from these supposedly more moderate DSA candidates in the field like John Kelly or... Allie G. Even Mendoza at this point, I mean, a little bit on public safety side of it, but nobody's talking. They're talking generally about making the city attractive, but so does Brandon Johnson, bigger, better, stronger, whatever his rap is. Nobody's talking specifically about what to do to make the numbers make sense for people to locate and expand here. I haven't heard it. No, there's not a word of serious discussion about seriously addressing these issues, and instead we just posted the umpteenth article from Ralph Markier saying how short-changed are the public schools, our Chicago public schools, he's talking about in a sometimes editorial, because they haven't complied with the supposed evidence-based funding formula. that the state laid down by statute. Well, Ralph Martyr was the primary author of that. They made it up to over-obligate the state's contributions. It's commitments that never could be made, requiring billions more be shoveled into the school districts, and that's their excuse. So they come back and say, well, you haven't contributed.

adequate amounts based on this statutory formula. It was created for just this purpose so that you can come back to the public and claim that the schools are being shortchanged. He's asked to have his, it says to be his 10th article on that subject. Mark Lennon, founder of Wirepoints, Wirepoints.org, all things Illinois policy related. Thanks, Mark. Thank you, Dan. Annie, join us in the Alphwealthgroup.com, answerline. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. Well, despite the intervention by the courts, July was a record month in apprehensions of people in this country illegally, according to DHS. Tom Homan's been out talking about it too. And ICE and Department of Homeland Security are doing as much as they can, trying to get creative, with obtaining specific performance from local officials and sanctuary jurisdictions to make it as safe and efficient for all parties involved, as Tom Homan always says, when it comes to enforcement and removal operations. looking at county sheriffs. Federal authorities sent Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart subpoenas for inmates wanted for civil immigration enforcement, along with letters that threatened criminal charges if Dart's office did not turn over the individuals, if effectively Dart aided and abetted the escape of somebody that federal authorities want, a la Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee. Uh, jail, letters, I should say, from, uh, from ICE been sent to other sheriffs in places similarly situated Koo County, like in Hennepin County, Minnesota, too. Of course, as this is being received as a scare tactic by these, uh, politicians in police uniforms. But I'm going to put them on notice. And if they do cross the line, as we've talked about with Sanctuary City Pauls, just like that case study of that Milwaukee County judge, then they should be made an example of. But if nothing else, it's a way to at least make sure that local sheriffs as well as other local electeds know that ICE is... Number one, paying attention, and number two, continuing on with their business. For more on this and other related matters, please be joined again by Brian Longeran, who is the Director of Strategic Communications and Content at Fair, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. He's also the co-host of the No Border, No Country podcast. Brian, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Dan, good morning. Good morning. So the latest approach to try to rattle the cages of local officials and sanctuary states and counties trying to get law enforcement to behave as like law enforcement.

Yeah, well, you know, we found these sanctuary politicians really don't like enforcement, and they've tried to demonize the people who are brave enough to enforce the laws, and right up to the point of their lives are in danger. They want their masks taken off so they can be doxed online, and there's no limit to the restrictions they want to put on them to execute laws they're on the books. But, I mean, as do you think this is a worthwhile effort, even though it may be, may end up being fruitless to try to pressure at least compliance at the sort of the basic interagency law enforcement level, like we send subpoenas, you know, we expect you to comply with them. Yeah, well, you know, it raises the whole question. Are we talking ICE? You know, you've got federal agents who are supposed to be brought to heal by state and local governments. That's not how it's supposed to work. Yes, there is this matter of the supremacy clause. No, I understand, but this is the sort of purgatory we've been in in the sanctuary jurisdiction era for some time, right? Yeah, and they have a very poor grasp of the supremacy clause. The duties of the state and local government is very clearly defined, and duties of the federal government are clearly defined. But they want to have that underclass of people here illegally that I think they hope someday are going to be granted anesty that they'll now have this new voting block. So they protect them very, very tightly. The rights of the citizens of that community are just secondary. There's been some action on H-1B visas, too. This is a point of much debate, even in conservative circles. There's about a million foreign workers on H-1B visas in the country. Every year, about 120,000 new workers get in. get imported, if you will, by Fortune 500 companies and others, but mainly the bigger companies under H-1B. And DHS has advanced a proposal that would abolish the 60-day grace period for H-1B visa foreign workers to find employment after job loss. Right now, they have a 60-day grace period before their legal status is impacted, and DHS is proposing taking that from 60 to zero. Like if you don't have a H-1B visa, H-1B designation to be here because you're not working anymore, then you have to go back. Well, it seems like the mask has come off the H-1B issue. The corporations told us initially, we need these people because there's nobody here that can do it or wants to do it. And the reality is our colleges are cranking out graduates every year in these fields. They can do it. But the reality is these companies, like a lot of companies, they're addicted to cheap foreign labor. And they're fine with...

are having less opportunities for American citizens as long as their bottom line works out as far as lower labor costs. And it's not a question of there's no one here to do it, qualified. It's not a question of, are there enough people to do it here? They are. But we've got to get off this addiction to foreign cheap labor. Well, I think, too, I mean, even when you're talking about like white-collar jobs, And it still could be cheaper than what you would pay an American or be compelled to to be competitive. So I get that. But the other thing, it seems to me, that we found out as this discussion has unfolded over the last, well, since Trump was reelected. And some of the arguments, like I said, on the right, you know, between those who take your position and those who are more supportive of the program like Vivek Ramaswamy or Elon Musk. Part of what we find, and we found this during Doge, too, is there's just a real oversight. I mean, basically the system is the honor system, and you just sort of defer to the corporations that are the beneficiaries of the H-1B visa program, that what they're doing is complying with the spirit of the H-1B visa. And you start to scratch below the surface that people have, and you start to say, well, wait a second, this is not really what the program was intended to provide. There's, to no one's surprise, but there's gaming of the system here happening. And so at minimum, I think there's consensus that that needs to be tightened up. You can't have people, corporation, self-policing in their self-interest as opposed to complying with the letter as well as the spirit of the H-1B provision. Absolutely. We cannot live on the honor system anymore when it comes to things like that. We also can't have elections that are run with no ID presented by voters. That's another form of the honor system we've been relying on for too long. And if you're going to have these kind of policies, which we're trying to roll back, but if they're here, the honor system doesn't work anymore. Yeah, you wrote about that Jim Crow 2.0 or are we on 3.0 now? The typical argument that's being made by those opposed to voter ID requirements to vote, the SAVE Act, which is that this will somehow... imperil the rights of minorities and women to vote and it's Jim. You know, we've all heard the arguments. The thing that's the most disappointing here again, looking at the Republican Party, as opposed to the race hustlers that, you know, are built into the price of this, is you have the left that's willing to take 20%, 10%, 5% issues in terms of popular support. and try and ram them down the American people's throats. You see that happening right now with DSA candidates all over the country. And you have a Republican Party that can't figure out how to get an 80% plus issue across the finish line, even with majorities. It is maddening, Dan. This is a classic 80-20 issue. It's probably even higher than 80-20. And the people they claim are going to be negatively impacted by it or for it.

So the burden shouldn't be on people who want ID. The burden should be on people who are against it to prove, give concrete reasons why we shouldn't have it. And they can't do it. And all they have is race card playing and demagoguery, which is nothing. It's just scare tactics. I wanted to get your take as well, something we mentioned at the outset, the TPS protections that have been rescinded for particular populations, including the Haitians, where you've had. Pushback from politicians, including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who is very worried about the impact it will have on the health care, health services industry in Ohio and things like that. In addition to the... model and stories you're going to hear on the cable news channels, certain cable news channels about wonderful people who are being returned to a place that they also call wonderful, but somehow is bad news for them. Well, this is another government program that has been weaponized by these anti-borders politicians and turned into a de facto amnesty program. You've got people that came here. 10, 20 years ago after an earthquake in their country, and they're using that as a justification where they can essentially never go home. The crisis, the TPS program is designed if there's a crisis in your country, you can come here temporarily. That's the key word, temporarily. They forget that part. They think it's a permanent stay here forever pass. When the problem is resolved in your homeland, you're supposed to go back. That's the deal that they're told at the outset, but then they're reassured by these sanctuary politicians. No, no, no, don't worry about it. You're here for good. Well, finally, we have people in government who are actually enforcing the law as it's written. It's a temporary thing. The situation has passed. It's now time for you to go home. Yeah, yeah, to the open borders crowd, nothing is so permanent as temporary protected status, right, to sort of paraphrase Friedman. And what's your, specifically because part of the platform, the DSA party's platform is full amnesty for everyone here illegally. What's your level of concern specific to this issue and by extension of our national security and economic vitality, frankly, with respect to the assent of these DSA candidates. We're probably going to see another one elevated to nomination in the Wisconsin governor's race today. Well, their agenda is very seductive to younger people, isn't it? The college crowd, they really buy this idea of fairness and everything, but they really don't understand. It's not a new idea, these concepts they're pushing. They've been tried over and over throughout history. They've failed miserably to result in poverty, death, misery. People should look at those images from Quetta, the Spanish possession that was overrun recently.

That's what it's going to look like in this country very quickly if that kind of agenda is put into place. You're talking madness. And we had it under Biden. We saw it. But just imagine it even more. That's what they want. And we know where it leaves. And it's disastrous. Right. We saw the same images we're seeing in Quetta on the Texas border, Haitians, under that bridge, right? Indelible. And it wasn't a weekend, like in Spain. It was four years of that. And we're still dealing with the bad consequences of it. Yeah. Brian Longgren is the Director of Strategic Communications and Content at Fair, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Also, the co-host of the podcast, No Border, No Country. Brian, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Thanks, Dan. And Brian, join us in the AlphaWealthgroup.com, Ancelain. Hear about the big stories of the day. Then talk about them. Right here on Chicago's morning answer. On AM-560, The Answer.

I mean, it's not the first time this happened, but it's just a terrible story. Crime Against Golf Winghaven in St. Louis during a member member, member event at Winghaven. A young man, I would think, hasn't been disclosed, at least not that I've seen, who is a plus two, so he's a stick. Played college golf at a junior college before having a cup of coffee at Eastern Illinois, he said. There's a hole in one pot at the member member at Winghaven. The golfer in question had the first tea time of the day. Found that out before the round. He tells the group before they tee off that his grandma's been having health issues and expecting a phone call he might have to take. On the third green. He tells the group he got the call from grandma or about grandma. So he's going to run up to the fourth tee box and tee off to keep up pace of play and meet the rest of them on four when he finishes the call. Fourth holes of par three. Meets the group on the tee box. And they asked how his tee shot was. He said he thinned it a little but didn't see where it landed. When they got up to the green, there was a divot on the green. and his ball was in the hole. So the celebration ensues, but no one witnessed the shot. I think you see where this is going. So they went to the superintendent who went and viewed security camp footage from a maintenance shed that's near the fourth green. We live in the era of cameras.

The footage showed this guy driving past the shed early in the morning, because remember he knew he had the first tea time, toward the fourth green well before his tea time, so he knew he was going to be the first group to play for, and putting his ball in the hole. He has since resigned his membership, and because stories like this, and I've got several of them. go around golf community like wildfire, which of course he would know. He called some radio show in St. Louis to apologize in part to for a lot of things. I mean, he should apologize, but in part because he doesn't want his family to suffer the ridicule associated with his idiotic conduct. He said, you do something as dumb as I did, and there are consequences for that. I made a terrible mistake, the lack of moral character. I can take the banter and the chatter and the heat because I deserve that from a golf perspective. What I'm most worried about is my family, breaking trust with the marriage that I've had for five years next month. We have two kids that are under three, and it's not fair to them for me to put them in that situation where they walk through a room and there's a stigma that your dad's a cheater. So questions that they may get asked or be getting asked down the road, that's the worst part. The golf is secondary. Be lucky to save his marriage. I've divorced him immediately if I was providing advice and counsel. And the basis for this, he's a plus two. It's a member member. And also, the basis for this, though, he said is, I was so upset that we were giving a couple shots back to the course, you know, because he's a plus two. And I guess a partner must be a stick, too. But that's no excuse for what I did. I was completely wrong. But, I mean, that even still doesn't quite explain it because, okay, you're upset that you're giving two back to the course, so you're going to ace four, but you're going to shave two shots, or at least at one shot, more likely than not. in a event where there's a pot for a hole in one, I'm not sure that I'm getting the full apology here that maybe there wasn't some financial motivation. I don't know what the prize was, but, you know, some of these members, a hole in one on the right hole is, you know, real cash or a six-month lease and a sweet car. I mean, it's a real prize. Anyway. I mean, you can't just these stories. I got another one. I mean, I can't go to it now, but a guy that was entering in a member member entering the wrong scores on golf genius. You know, the golf genius thing now. So you're entering scores real time. And if you're the guy keeping score, your partners don't know. You just have the guy entering scores. So it's a four ball member member. This guy's entering scores that don't match up with what they're actually getting. The other three in his group don't know anything about it. This happened in Chicagoland. I don't know if I should say the club, but I know the club.

And ultimately he was found out because the other three guys didn't have any part of it. And they looked in the board after the round. They're like, wait, what? And so now this guy's out of that. I mean, I think he's got suspended for a year. You should be kicked out altogether. I mean, it's like, what are you doing for whatever you get at a member member for trophy or a little prize? I don't get it. I don't get it. So many things I don't get, which is why Dan Proft is single, and we'll do that at 838. Now let's take that lines with Mike Scott. It's a nice Jack Nicholas course. It's really, really nice. Winghaven. Never played it. Yeah, about 70,700 yards. That's a guess. And he disgraced a Jack Nicholas course on top of it all. He did. Yeah. Time now for another reason why Dan Proft is single. Top of the morning, Dan Proft here. Do you have a salary requirement in your pursuit of true love? 312644-2-5600 AlphaWealthgroup.com call and text line. If you don't, you're probably a boomer or older. True love comes with a salary requirement. Survey says... The survey data puts that salary requirement at very specific, $106,417 a year. That is the minimum salary you, and I'm assuming that means the dude must enjoy in order to find true love. So that they survey it. I mean, I'll give you the methodology here. 2,000 Americans surveyed. conducted by the Consumer Finance App Current. It looked at money, dating, and where the two overlap. Six figures, the going rate, only one group came in cheaper, baby boomers, the sole generation to peg the salary needed for true love and under six figures. You know, and the average of everybody else was that 106 grand and change number. Eight in ten Gen Z respondents, so, you know, the youngers, said someone's salary will determine whether they can find true love compared to 32% of baby boomers. One in three baby boomers says salary is determinative. Four in five Gen Zers. You can track the cultural trajectory there. Four and five, Gen Z are say, yeah. The VP of Communications for Current, I don't know if she is considered a dating expert like I am. She doesn't call herself one. It's clear from the results that Americans are thinking of love and money together, not as separate entities. But, of course, we generally like to push back on the notion there's a specific salary that allows you to find true love. Of course, the silly hearts out there, those who believe in such antiquated concepts as romance and relationships based on feelings and characteristics as opposed to cold, hard cash, but we know what time it is.

40% of Gen Ziers say finance have, their finances have prevented them from finding true love as compared to 11% of baby boomers. So, you know, I mean, but it's a little bit skewed. I mean, you have to take into account that baby boomers are towards the end of the line and Gen Zers are at the front of the line. And so the sort of average financial position is going to be much different. much less stable down the line as up the line, sort of speak. So that probably colors people's perspectives a little bit. And you have to feel like you have, you feel like you have to go out and, you know, entertain. You know, if you don't have a winning personality like me, you got to show people a good time. You have to go to fancy dinners, the all corant hotspots. The Zach Brown Band concert at Wrigley, you know, the Bears game a couple times a year, a couple times a season maybe. Those hot white socks take her there. You know, those are all, you know, a couple hundred bucks to throw, minimum. And but when you dig into the numbers, some of this has to do with, how you manage what you make. So it's more maybe just about stability than the top line number. Respondents pointed to the constant borrowing of money, cited by one in three, in general irresponsibility with money, cited by one in four, as top reasons, relationships fell apart. And another 23% of women blamed, I'm just assuming, blamed a partner's lack of long-term thinking. That's I'm guessing. Yeah. 60% of men said the affordability crisis, which is, I'm not dismissing it. It's a thing, but it's maybe a little bit overstated. when you actually look at the sort of numbers across the board. Anecdotally, of course it can be, but just in terms of the macro stats. We talked about this a bit yesterday. 60% of men said affordability is affecting their dating compared with 46% of women. Well, yeah, no kidding. This is picking up the check. I mean, come on. And despite this era of non-binary feminist opposition to the oppressive patriarchy, Half of all respondents said the man should pay for a first date. That's got to be down from generations past, but still. A view that men held more often than women, though, surprisingly. Still, four in ten women said, yeah, he's got to pick up the tab. You know, it just continues to shrink the pool. 31% of respondents say they're going out on fewer dates in 2026 than in past years because of the cash crunch. 6 and 10 respondents said there's too much pressure on dating right now, and a big part of that pressure is financial. This is sort of the summary. 106 grand.

312-4-2-2-5600 alpha wealth group.com call and text. I know we've tackled this topic before and got calls from people who said, you know, I've been married for 40 years, never made six figures, and we've got a great marriage and we're copacetic and people on the other end of that to make a lot of money and things fell apart. So it's, you know, obviously it's one thing, but it's not everything. There could be other things. Like, for example, this missive from concerned in Iowa to Dear Abbey. This is the old Dear Abbey, Abigail Van Buren, as compared to Abigail Schreier of a free press, sort of doing a knockoff. I've been with my boyfriend for six years. We're not only 40s. We both work full time. For the past six months, he's had zero interest in showering daily. I see him do it on the weekend occasionally. He drives a semi-locally in his home each night. So shathing shouldn't be a problem, ostensibly. How does one even bring up the matter? Should I be concerned? Do I dare raise the subject? If so, how? Maybe this shouldn't bother me, but it does. I can imagine the stench alone. I don't want to embarrass him or hurt his feelings. I just need your advice. Dear Abby's advice, not everyone showers on a daily basis. Okay. Those are the people you don't want to be around. Any change in a partner's behavior deserves a mention because this is new behavior. So ask him why he's chosen to shower less often. If his hygiene needs improving, if he's not showering daily or weekends occasionally only, I can guarantee it does. If his hygiene needs improving for both your sakes, you can't avoid the subject. No kidding. You call that advice? Here's the advice. Listen. He's given up. He's just riding out the storm. He's just punching a clock. He's just marking days off a calendar. He's quit. He just wants to be left alone for whatever reason. I mean, could the hint be any stronger? You can literally smell it. It's news, opinion, insight. This is Chicago's morning answer. An AM-560, The Answer. AM-560, The Answer. Some commentary on the salary requirement for true love. Deborah in Arlington Heights. Hey, Dan, if these younger generations... that they're the first people facing, like, how are we going to afford this stuff? Right. I got news. You know, I didn't have anything when I got married and I got married young, and we just, you know, found an apartment that was affordable within our budget. We weren't going out all the time. We tried to work harder and move ahead. And we face things like in the early 80s, we were buying a condo, and our interest rate was 18% because of that whole thing that was happening at that time with real estate and interest rate.

We just, like, we faced all these things, but we didn't have an extravagant lifestyle because we were young, and, you know, I ended up having kids, and that was, like, how are we going to afford this? And, you know, you just worked harder, and you did. But I think the big thing nowadays is, like, from what I see when you go out, it's, like, all this spending, like, on luxury, what I thought was luxury when I was a kid or young, like that. Like going out to dinner all the time. And you mentioned sporting events and all. Like, this stuff is expensive. Like, how are you budgeting? Yeah, right. Well said. Thanks for the call. Debra. You have just find someone and you muddle through life and you die. It's just that simple. Keep it simple. Brian and Evansville, Indiana, that is. Yeah, good evening. Thanks for taking my call. I got, I'm going to give me a minute and I hit on both of this subject if he was talking about. The first one you're talking about. Money ain't never brought love. What money have always did was brought tolerance. That's the end of that one. More money, more problems like Biggie Small said, right? Yeah, but if a person got money, you'll deal with the problems longer. There you go. And your second year earlier talk about immigration, about how the guy was saying that companies are dependent on a lot of foreign armed workers. Well, immigration. Students are taking over the university in this country. That's why all this socialism is coming from. Because a lot of these American kids are sitting next to kids who never had American values of grew up pledging allegiance to the United States of America. So that's why most of your socialist candidates, a lot of those are first-generation kids. Because if you look at now... Your non-educated factory worker got more values than somebody coming out of these universities today. But thanks for handy. Thanks for the call, Brian. Yeah, no, that's right. Downwardly mobile overeducated. No question. The Zohran Mamdani M. Domneys of the world, people who've run nothing. And not done much work in the process. Sort of, you know, people on the left of, dare I say, privilege. But that's... usually been the approach with these revolutionary movements. All right. Well, we'll see if the revolutionary movement gets another nomination, Francesca Hong. We'll talk about the Wisconsin Governor's race and other matters tomorrow. Thanks for listening to Chicago's Morning Answer podcast sponsored by Signature, a division of Esquire Bank. Signature takes pride in helping customers grow their business and provide unmatched banking expertise, custom financial solutions, and the industry's best technology. So whether your business is looking for a deposit relationship or needs a ready source of financing, Signature has the solutions for you. Call today at 773. 467, 5600 to hear how signature can help your business grow and thrive. Esquire Bank, member FDIC, equal housing lenders.