KXEL Presents: The Jacobsen Group Podcast - January 7, 2023

Hello, this is John Jacobson and welcome to this podcast of The Jacobson Group.

We're on the radio on News Talk 1540KXEL each weekend and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the podcasts of the program.

Prepare to be informed, entertained, and amazed right after this.

Welcome to a glorious year of our lord 2023 We're better than clay and buck.

This is Jake and Scott with Mike Shane of the controls Welcome to the Jacobson group on kxl the blowtorch caroming across all of the big 10

on that clear channel, 1540 AM, 100.5 FM.

You can always listen to us live at KXEL.com and listen to this podcast on KXEL.com slash Jacobson.

Scotty, welcome back.

Happy New Year.

I was just fraternizing with you last night at a wonderful

12th night party.

Mike Shane, the engineer of all excellence.

Mike, bring in that ringtone, which is inimitably tied to you.

Is this just a great sounder, Scott

Curry?

You gotta love this song.

It is.

It's just amazing.

It's amazing how many people, when you put that out there, they know exactly it's Mike Shane.

It's almost like the, here's Johnny type situation.

It is.

It is.

Let's go out with a jingle here to get the trumpets in here.

Chimes, xylophones, glockenspiels.

What an orchestra.

We love it.

Mike Shane on Deckard.

John Jacobson here with Scott Corey.

We've got a wonderful show lined up for you today.

We're going to have a business segment with our great Barbara Hames Bryant from Hames Homes here in Cedar Rapids.

And we're going to have some medical updates as it's that cold and flu season.

We're going to have doctors Fogarty.

Meyer and Merritt on talking to us.

We've got a wonderful show lined up, but there's so much to cover It's so great to welcome back Barbara Hames Bryant and boy after the weather we've had the inclement Frigid temps is so nice to know that Barbara

Haymes Bryant has got two beautiful neighborhoods that had beautiful, safe, secure, warm homes all during this weather event and the airlines might have been down and traffic may have been snarled but everything was percolating beautifully in Southwest Cedar Rapids in your two communities, Barbara Haymes.

That's right, John.

It was a cold couple of days and I won't say that every home fared perfectly well and stayed warm.

But what I will tell you is that our managers were there and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help residents when they had any kind of plumbing or water or furnace problems.

You've got a country setting.

It's just beautiful.

It really is.

We like to say you're living in the country with all the amenities of living in the city.

We're just minutes away from the Eastern Iowa Airport, from the Amanda Colonies and Whirlpool, just a few minutes away from Kirkwood Community College, from CRST Trucking, and from the Westdale Shops and Restaurants.

That's the thing.

Westdale Mall is right there.

I had a little time arriving early.

I got to stop in a Menards and check out a few things that I needed to follow up on.

It's just, it's really, really...

Just a wonderful place Scott and the infrastructure is all modern and Barbara I can tell

These are families that live in these communities.

I mean, you see swing sets, you've got your parks set up there recreationally for the kids, you've got a food pantry, you've got a lot of green space.

It's wonderful.

It's definitely an all-age neighborhood.

Not only do we have parks and playgrounds for the kids, we also have a dog park for the four-legged friends, and we also have senior activities.

Our seniors do bingo and cards at the Summit View.

community room every week.

People just love living here.

It's a lifestyle.

It really is living in a planned managed community.

It's not for everybody.

Some people want that bigger yard.

Some people need to live out in the country.

But for the folks that live here, they're very satisfied.

Tell us how if we want to take a tour, is there a website we can go to or a phone number we can call to set up a tour to see what's going on in your neighborhoods?

Our website is www.hameshomes.com.

That's H-A-M-E-S-H-O-M-E-S dot com.

You can view all of our beautiful homes, our lovely neighborhoods, and also get in touch with a salesperson who'd be happy to show you around.

It's

always good to see you, Barbara, and my mom gives her best to you too.

She was excited that I got out there.

Oh, please tell her I said hi.

I will.

She's doing well and she gives her best.

Barbara, we'll catch you next week.

Thanks so much for being on again, our Jacobson Group program on KXEL, the blowtorch of Eastern Iowa.

Back here on KXEL, the 50,000 watt clear channel blowtorch coming across the big 10 states.

Happy New Year to everybody.

You're listening to us on 1540 AM as well as 100.5 FM.

Waterloo Cedar Rapids, all of Eastern Iowa and regionally.

And of course on our podcast, KXEL.com slash Jacobson.

Guys, we're back with some tremendous physicians in Iowa.

They've got some great updates for us on what's going on here in our ongoing coverage of the pandemic.

Dr. Brad Meyer, Dr. Lee Merritt and Dr. Ted Fogarty.

And I'm proud to say that this troika are from the western part of the states.

A lot of you are listening to us on the eastern flank of the states and of course,

Dr. David Hartstich will be on with his report from the Quad Cities.

Let's go to Dr. Brad Meyer.

Doc, welcome back.

You're up there at the Aeronautics Clinic with Dr. Fogarty and Spirit Lake.

Talk to us today.

What's the update?

Yeah, we continue to clean up the aftermath of this COVID injection.

the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic with so much spike protein again so many millions of people have been absolutely had their health health and lives changed significantly for months months after they've had these vaccines or quote unquote vaccines and uh and so the the trajectory uh in in the background of that is just to remember

Where we've been and where we're going here because where we've been is I'm a family doc on the front lines I was treating patients early on May of 2020 with ivermectin hydroxychloric when having incredible success When the CDC and the big government was saying no no no you have to do it this way you have to do remdesivir You've got to you've got to use our protocols which were not working.

They were the standard

They were the standard care, and I was working on providing standard of care.

And that meant that I was innovating, along with some of these other great doctors across the plane states.

And that included an acetylcysteine.

We, with our clinic specifically, were using hyperbaric, which there's an NYU study that came out, but phase one actually came out in May of...

of 2020 to start to validate the use of hyperbaric.

Huge academic study.

Yeah.

Huge.

So but so we continue up here to help folks from across the states get themselves back back on their feet again after they've been damaged by this this bio weapon and and so we have to remember we can't just you know close our eyes and say oh well that's in the that's in the distant history right now as the as the data

shows and more and more of our family and friends that have gotten these injections are getting sick and some dying unexpectedly we we really we have to hold those accountable that were saying you know do nothing or you know the injections are the right way to go and and so uh... that's that's the purpose of the people are great citizens of the state the ever midwest is to hold folks accountable that were inhibiting

doctors from like myself and you know doctor hartsich doctor merit doctor poverty to give proper informed consent to patients to say hey this is an emergency use injection that we don't have long-term safety data on so really um the fact that those doctors are the ones that are being persecuted still and come after in light of this data bending strongly in favor of the positions we took

We can't just turn a blind eye to those folks that were telling those doctors to basically shut up.

This is magnificent encapsulization of what's going on.

I am very critical of the Iowa Board of Medicine and I firmly believe heads need to roll and you set it up beautifully.

Dr. Brad Meyer.

Let's go over to Dr. Lee Merritt.

Lee's from north of where Scott and I are originally from there in that Council Bluffs area.

Dr. Merritt, welcome back.

Thank you for your service to our country as a military physician previously.

Chime in on what Brad said and you had offered, talked about a few things that you wanted to visit as well.

Well, I've been looking at a couple things because Dr. Jim Thorpe is a friend of mine.

He's OBGYN.

He's very active in showing the devastation of these vaccines.

And, for example, I mean, he points out this is in the New England Journal of Medicine.

I'm being criticized by the Iowa Medical Board, by the way, for not supporting my statements with medical literature.

So let me just show you the medical literature.

There's an article by Shima Kubiteru et al.

Japanese name.

Anyway, this is from June of 2021.

And what it shows that if you were pregnant and you took this vaccine in the first trimester or second trimester of pregnancy, the so-called vaccines, you had a 90% spontaneous abortion rate.

This is unbelievable.

lost the fetus now

terrible

in mind that r u 486 the abortion after after mourning after pill has somewhere between an 80 to 90 percent efficacy in preventing and terminating the pregnancy so right frankly this vaccine does a better job as an abortion agent

scott this is just this is terrible isn't it scott it sure is

horrible and and here's the point i'm going to make i

looked at the Iowa numbers.

Okay, we have about 3.3 million people

in the state.

I looked at the Iowa numbers last the winter of 21-22 of the, this was just all cause mortality, but it's after we started this vaccine program.

Okay.

And we are, we have an average compared to the previous, like several years going back where you can see, you know, five years going back, we have

300 excess deaths a month, and about 200 to 250 excess spill birth, miscarriages, lost in pregnancy.

So no, it's births.

The births are down by 200 to 250 a month, and the deaths are up by about 300 a month.

Now the question is, I'm not an actuary, but you run those numbers long term.

That is a huge decline in our population coming up, and that's

That's not everything, because here's the problem.

And this is why I'm speaking out right now.

It's not just about the military mandate.

It's still about a mandate for our children going into school.

There's concern by these experts.

I'm not an OBGYN doctor, but there has been a concern for a very long time by these experts, based on the data, based on the scientific evidence, that this is not just rendering adult women sterile

but that it is damaging the ovaries of the female fetus.

In other words, you're pregnant, you have a child in the womb that's a female.

That ovary is, even if you manage to deliver the baby, which is a 10% chance, roughly, this is now, you have a possibility of damaging the ovary in that fetus, so the next generation doesn't reproduce.

What's the number where they can reach you or a website or the address up there if you guys would be so kind again for maybe some of our newer listeners?

Yeah, 712-339-6024 is our phone number.

And if you're interested in just learning about hyperbaric wellness in the home, just say you'd like to have a visit with Dr. Fogarty and they'll schedule it for

us.

and Ted Fogarty, heroic doctors of courageous conscience that have the best curative records in the state through the pandemic.

Thank you all for joining us.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Thank you.

Let's first play that Iowa fight song, Scott.

And let's talk about that wonderful, surprising bowl game.

And I like to frame it in the context of

All the loyalists who stayed to play in that bowl, and some who are coming back, we've gotten a spade of good news.

Kurt now with ten bull wins.

Take it away, Scotty.

No, that's a great point and just can't say enough about how coach Kurt Farrance as well as Phil Parker and LeVar Woods had that program humming along into the Music City Bowl.

It was a great, basically a showcase of Phil Parker's defense.

I mean, unbelievable.

Cooper Dejean was the bowl MVP with the pick six and all his deflections.

But our heart also goes out to Jack Campbell, who lost his grandfather the night before.

He was

up on stage

with

Dolph and literally a couple hours before that.

Yeah, and the family, you know, his grandfather passed away, but his his parents decided not to tell him until after the game and He played lights out.

I think he he pretty much projected himself into a first round linebacker in my opinion Listen is tremendous.

What an emotional Kirk ferris.

I

mean, you

know Kirk gets emotional, but he just couldn't help but

But weep when he was hugging those seniors for a final time and was just...

You know, I've been critical of Coach Farrance, but it's hard not to love the

guy.

It is.

And, you know, a lot of the, I think the acrimony that's surrounding the program just basically has to do with Brian.

Brian did not help himself in any of the interviews leading up to the bowl game.

There was one.

His offense didn't help him that much.

No,

no.

The defense again scored more than the

offense.

Exactly.

And, you know, the defense had two-pick sixes, and Tori Taylor LePunard had a tremendous game as well, and LeVar Woods,

They had a couple of chances for some block punts and they almost pulled that off.

And so there's a lot of optimism surrounding two thirds of the program.

We do have some NIL, you know, portal kids coming in from Michigan.

You know, Kate McNamara is the lead star in that as well as the tight end, last name is Paul.

And we

picked up a big wide receiver just

a couple of days ago too.

So, you know, Kirk has involved.

We have seen it over the last 24 plus years.

You know, I'm jokingly calling it Kirk.

6.0 now, but you know, he is understanding too that Iowa is a hybrid program.

We are not a

Michigan

or

Alabama.

We are a fundamental developmental program, but at the same time Kirk is going in and he's finding players that will fill those needs that he needs to fill.

Now the key to everything will be how he handles this off season and what to do with Brian.

There's a lot of angst amongst the donor

class.

Austin, as you know, and the Patriots fans are really unhappy with their offensive coordinator for the Patriots and they can't get Bill O'Brien back right away.

There's a few contractual problems with bringing him back.

Maybe Brian.

Yeah.

Well, Brian was on Bill Belichick staff for years as a consultant.

And you know, there was also breaking news over the right before the bowl games on New Year's Eve that

Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren is in talks with the Chicago Bears to be their president and CEO.

That's a shame.

And so, you know, I sent a tweet to Kevin saying, hey, you know, if you need an offensive coordinator, take Brian and, you know, what's your old Gary Barton too?

Just as a package deal.

I hope that Mr. Warren does go to the Bears.

I have

not

been happy with him as Big Ten Commissioner.

I think he stepped all over it in bungling the COVID situation.

I'm grateful to Ohio State and Iowa and Nebraska programs.

They're the only reason

that the big 10 was playing football.

In 2020, during that

terrible year.

And it took Gene Smithley, athletic director of Ohio State to basically throw the gauntlet down, but he hit the sport of Iowa Penn State in Nebraska too.

And so, Kevin Warren, he did a nice… He's a

Notre Dame liberal.

I thought Joe Biden would put him on the court.

That's why the only surprise is not that he's

possibly leaving his big ten commish but that he's going to the bears instead of uh... as a district u.s.

district court judge

yeah you know and uh... i'm surprised and i i talked to a good friend of mine his name's chad and he's a he's a hawkeye and he's a bears fan and i said so how do you think to do this he goes uh... you know it's basically a push so he wasn't too excited about that but uh... you know getting back to what happened in in the music city bowl and going into the off season there's a lot of

I would say...

optimism surrounding the team going into much

more so than five, six weeks ago.

Absolutely.

And it is a very manageable schedule moving forward.

They have released the schedule and we do miss Penn State, Ohio State in Michigan in the crossovers.

So we do have some optimism.

Like I said, Kate McNamara, the Big 10 quarterback coming out of Michigan, who won, took Michigan to the Big 10 championship and beat Iowa just a couple years

years ago is coming in.

So it's going to be interesting to see how we do that.

Now there is that big

Kerfuffle will just call it between what happened with the NIL, the Iowa Swarm and Gary Barda.

Recap for our listeners was transpired.

I know a lot of them are clued in, but not all of them are with all the nuances.

Set up the timetable

that's

gone on the last two weeks.

So it was right around Christmas time.

The Iowa NIL, the name, image likeness program is called the Iowa Swarm.

And they were asking for some access to some, you know, basically some databases to help increase their funds so they can bring in

like Cape McNamara and folks like that.

And let's not forget, every other school is doing that now.

This isn't just an Iowa specific.

Nebraska sure is rolling

our next door neighbor.

You talk about Nebraska, they're running radio ads on their stations in Omaha and Lincoln asking people to donate directly to their NIL.

And so Iowa needs to get on this thing.

There was a huge dust up because Barda would not share those lists and social media

media blew up.

Pat Hardy had a couple articles.

Boy,

social media really blew

up.

Yeah.

And I think that's what really brought the pressure in there.

And then about three days after Christmas, I believe it was Kirk actually released a video talking about supporting the NIL and the Iowa Swarm.

And so I encourage everyone, if you're a Hawkeye fan, go and support that as well because that's going to be one of our main building blocks for our program moving forward because it not only helps the football team, Fran McAfrey, the men's basketball

coach Lisa Bluter, Tom Brands, they're all gonna be a part of this.

And so we need to have a strong fundamental program with the Iowa Swarm moving forward.

Well said, Scott Corey.

John Jacobson here with Scott Corey and Mike Shane at the Engineering Controls.

You're listening to the Jacobson Group on KXEL, the Blowtorch 1540 AM 100.5 FM.

Scotty, I was watching and listening and charting out.

those football games, the semifinals, and we can probably put on March to the trenches here, Mike Shane, because we saw Ohio State, Michigan, both marching in the trenches and come out with losses, and I gotta tell ya, of course, I'm always rooting for TCU and my constituent, I am still Iowa State representative for District 22 for about another 72 hours, but in Georgia,

Scotty one of those four teams should have dialed up Phil Parker.

There was almost 200 points scored in those two games

Well, it's you bring up a great point about that because on Saturday night Naomi my wife her and I went into church Did a quick service there about five o'clock

and we came out of the service, I looked at my phone, and there had been 55 points scored in that one hour we were in church in the TCU-Michigan game, and so.

Do defenses win championships?

They do, they do, but you also have to have a strong offense that proved it, and I'm just so happy to see Councilbuff's native, you know, Max Duggan taking TCU against Georgia.

I think it's great for football to have kind of a Cinderella story like TCU, but don't get me wrong,

wrong.

TCU is legitimate.

This is a strong absolutely resilient to us.

They've got the metal in the character.

They never say died.

Exactly.

And the way they handled Michigan.

And I thought it was kind of interesting because I did catch the very first part of the TCU Michigan game.

And Michigan, you know, they had that big run on their first play and then they started doing trick plays and that cost them.

There's a lot of questionable calls that Jim Harbaugh made the head coach of Michigan, but TCU just kept hammering the ball.

Max Duggan, that guy is Superman.

He is tenacious and nice segment on council

bluffs.

I know the majority of this audience here, it tilts probably more to Eastern Iowa, but Scott, you and I spent a lot of time

along the Missouri River and this is a great Iowa story of Blue Collar Town.

Council Bluffs would be like Pittsburgh or Cleveland perhaps in the old NFC and AFC divisions there.

and he has the metal of someone from Council Bluffs.

He sure does and I'd encourage everybody to go to YouTube or even ESPN.

ESPN was the one that produced it.

It was a game day segment talking with Max Duggan's folks and also Max talking about growing up in Council Bluffs in western Iowa and then also his medical condition where he had the blood clots last summer.

and then losing his starting job and then getting the job back during the middle of a game and then making that tremendous run through the nine conference in the big 12 season.

And so to have him do that just really simplifies Midwest grit and I'm so happy for him.

I am too.

That that's coming up next.

So, you know, I

I'm pumped that we've got all these activities going on here at the beginning of the new year.

The weather works against us, but the Hawkeye basketball team

gave us some great hope on Thursday night while Scotty talk about that

boy talk about a tale of two seasons within about 10 days and you know there was a lot of angst and anger around the Iowa program the way they came out were flat against Nebraska and their non-conference loss to against southeast Missouri and then to be down 21 points at halftime to Indiana here at Carver Hawkeye Arena on Thursday night and

You backdrop this with I believe it was it

Connor McCaffrey, one of the McCaffrey kids, I'd have to look it up real quick.

You know, he came out and he said, he's stepping away from the team for Patrick, excuse me, yeah, Patrick.

And he

was the young man, if you remember, who had the cancer scare at 13, had the thyroid cancer, I believe, and went through treatment

there.

Yup, and so, you know, he's stepping away because he has dealing with some mental and anxiety and things like that.

And that's very common, you know, especially at that age.

Yup.

And certainly it sounds like even regulating some of the medicines to compensate for the

lost thyroid or working into that.

And that's a huge issue for a lot of young people today.

And I'm glad that they're addressing that because the key is addressing it.

Exactly.

And you know, just even the so-called stigma around mental illness and things like that has changed, I believe, in society in the last three to four years and people are more willing to talk about it.

So I give the McCaffrey's a lot of credit of being out there.

I know even his mother came to Carver Hawkeye Arena and held a

couple interviews with the reporters and stuff like that.

And the way the team responded and took down Indiana there, I was pretty worried, but council boss native, Josh, Josh Dix made a

couple great

three, three throws and Chris Murray, he is, he's back.

He might not be quite be a hundred percent, but he is doing a lot of a lot of good things.

I'm so happy for him.

And hopefully Fran has this team turned in the right, right course as we go into the heart of the big 10 schedule.

Well,

It's a long season, as we know.

And Scott, one thing that captured the imagination of Americans in a very sad and pensive and worried way was what happened on Monday Night Football.

Deb and I were watching ESPN, and we watched it on our ABC channel.

So it was ESPN coverage, but we actually watched it on our local ABC affiliate.

terrible sight of You know what you tune in and Daymar Hamlin is on the field and you knew Something was terribly wrong there That did not look like any hit any different than any general hit to me Scott obviously as this turns out he had some sort of cardiac event cardiac arrest and you could tell

when those players were forming a protective ring around him that something terrible was going on and it appeared for nine minutes that they were using a combination of CPR and the AED unit and that his heart had stopped beating at some point.

Terrifying, very said, 24 year old man and Scott, I'm a little long in the tooth and you know Shane kinda is there with me but

I thought it interesting and the announcers were doing the best they could.

It was live and there was no script for this, but this did happen at a game that I was watching as a 10 year old in 1971 in a Lions Bears game where Detroit receiver Chuck Hughes came in late in the game, caught a pass, a key pass for the Lions.

Couple plays later.

He basically did not even have the ball on the play and killed and He literally died on the field dick butkus the great Chicago bear Was waving his arms in and rushing for medical people of course was 1971 they didn't quite have the technology back then CBS did not Indicate that he had passed.

I don't know if Chuck Hughes

if his passing was related to the CBS booth or not.

They continued the game after the ambulance left the stadium.

But Chuck Hughes died of kind of like a widow maker.

He had evidently a family history of heart disease was undetected.

And he had a massive blockage in the one artery and it blew on the field.

So they haven't figured out exactly what happened there.

But one thing that we can report is he's improving

He is still in critical condition, but he's evidently respond to responsive They're highly encouraged about the results of some of the neurological tests, which is everything because you worry was there any missing of oxygen to the brain during that period He's responding favorably to the neurological tests and Scott the poignant thing for me after Tim Tebow got penalized

for taking a knee and praying on the field, and the media never wanting to acknowledge the existence of Almighty God.

Scotty, we had media praying and the players taking knees on the field, not to protest any anthems, but in prayer for God to save this young man, and millions of Americans were doing the same, and I do believe in the power of prayer.

When you look at what happened,

It's a miracle already that he is still with us.

If he's got neurological intactness.

That's a double miracle, but there are no atheists in foxholes as they say

Scott Corey You know that's a great point John and I thought it was very interesting too and actually heartwarming that even during one a couple of the ESPN shows that the The anchors actually took a few moments and prayed on literally prayed on air and ESPN is not known for being religious whatsoever.

Oh, they're very secular.

Let's just

put it

that way So for that to happen, I thought that was tremendous and

You know, we cannot kid ourselves.

Football, especially at the pro level, these athletes are just tremendous, and it is a violent sport.

They're the modern day gladiators, really.

They are.

And, you know, we see it even in high school and basketball.

You know, there are different sports, too.

You know, there are times where, you know, during the 1990s, I'd see Nolan Ryan, and it was not intentional.

A ball would get away from him, and he'd plunk somebody, and you'd wonder if he didn't put a hole in them.

Exactly, exactly.

So sports is a violent, violent issue and we must take caution.

There has been a lot of pressure put on college football as well as the NFL to get in front of the CTE or the concussion

syndrome because

I even remember 10 years ago they would say, well, so and so it was got his bell rung, but he's back in the third quarter.

Well, now they have spotters that are trained to monitor the players on the field as well as the sidelines to

to make sure that, you know, these precautions are taking place.

And we've actually seen in several cases, well, they actually aired on the site of caution, especially during some of the chief's players, they took the helmets and they wouldn't let them back in there, even though the player wanted to go back in.

So-

It's been a real evolution

and

thought on this because you're right.

I mean, the cultural milieu was, if you watch the old movie, MASH, or if you watch the original, the longest yard,

Uh, there was always the joke about the guy who got his quote unquote bell rung who didn't know what year it was or what city he was in or who was even, uh, on the field.

We've come a long way there, but we wish the best for Daymar.

Another encouraging thing.

He has a charity for children, a

toy

charity for children, a million dollars overnight floating in that charity solidarity of the American people.

All united with this great young man who is by all accounts, just a great young man, very well beloved.

You know, that brings up a great point too.

And we even see it even in high schools where my wife's son, Nathan, he's a he's a runner.

He does cross country and track.

They even put him through concussion protocols before they start to season so

that

they know what to look for.

So tremendous and cannot say enough about the way the EMTs as well as the trainers for the the bills and the

the other team that was on that, the Cincinnati Bengals, how they basically saved this man's life in front of millions of people.

They did.

Just tremendous.

And that's why we have ambulances and medical personnel at all these sporting events.

Even these high school youths, these local doctors, chiropractors, EMTs that all always rally the physical therapists, we salute them.

Well, God bless.

Damar Hamlin with the recovery may

The Divine Physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, come to his aid.

And in this season of the Christ Child, this young man, we hope he has many good days ahead.

We have hope.

It's the season of hope.

So let's keep what we'll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, Scotty, we're kind of halfway through our little Clay and Buck dialogue here, but it's time to go to

Our McLaughlin group homage here.

We have a couple things to talk about here in the whole panoply of what's going on both nationally and in Des Moines.

And we're at the advent of the convening of our beloved legislatures, both in DC and in Des Moines.

And Scott, we had quite, let's call it a marathon session.

We're going back now to

Civil War era, I believe it was 1859 now since we had that many ballots.

It was precisely a hundred years Since the speaker wasn't elected on the first ballot But now I think once they hit that 11th ballot it goes back to 1859 and I'm gonna call it the good the bad and the ugly there is some good that came out of that There is some bad the whole process was ugly in a way, but in a way it was

riveting.

It was kind of like watching a car crash on Groundhog Day over and over and over.

It seemed like a little bit of Groundhog Day.

I didn't know that C-Span carried movies because I thought they were shown Groundhog Day.

Some of the votes were identical in the afternoon, late to what the votes were identically earlier in the afternoon.

And we literally have a situation where, for our listeners, so we got 435 voting members in the U.S.

House, won 434 living members because the Democrats elected a dead guy in Pennsylvania.

I'm shocked about that.

So we're at 434.

So you need 218 to win.

You have to have a constitutional majority.

So the Republicans are split.

So you've got

Hakeem Jeffries Jeffries from the Democrats who consistently pulls all 211 and

he's a replacement for Pelosi who is stepping down thank you from leadership yes

that's exactly right so he's got all 211 Democrats who have been solidly lined up behind him

But Kevin McCarthy is stuck at 201.

Now that doesn't mean Jeffrey's wins because Jeffrey's is still seven short at 211.

He needs 218.

But the heir apparent, Kevin McCarthy, is stuck at 201.

There is no majority because we've got 21, essentially, that are not voting for McCarthy.

Now,

this all of course got resolved but boy it was fascinating and i'll just go out a limb here scott as ugly as it is i think it's good for america it's supposed to be a deliberative body and to my democratic friends you guys are so unlocksed up with each other we never see any clash they all line up and i thought it was great scott i thought it was healthy to see some independent minded people who truly want change

to flex their muscles and to use the leverage that they had to try to bring about some concessions and they sure got concessions.

They sure did John and this also brings it to a larger point too.

It talks a little bit about Kevin McCarthy as a leader himself because

If you're the leader, you're going to be Speaker of the US House of Representatives.

You are the third in line for the presidency.

And so you it's a very important position.

And you also dictate the chamber on how, you know, what bills are going to be moving forward in chairs and stuff like that.

And for him not to either one of two things either happened, either he was so arrogant and he thought everybody would be in lockstep or two, you know, those 20 some members decided not to vote for him and didn't tell him, you know, there's how can

you not whip your

own votes

exactly that's what I don't understand so

how can you not have a plan for around two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven no one had a strategic exit plan for so long there and what's the plan it truly was like groundhog day it's like neither side had an exit strategy

no and and so this was that's the biggest issue that I have with it because let's just say Kevin McCarthy becomes the speaker over the weekend

How do you trust him to do any negotiations with Senator Chuck Schumer in the Senate when it comes to any budgets?

And how do you trust him to handle President Biden when it comes to anything?

And the thing that bothers me the most, and I said this to you on a text thread, was that we've had 11 plus votes right now for Speaker of the U.S.

House of Representatives.

That's more votes than we've had budgets, actually, in the United States for like 20 years.

That's a mic drop moment, Scotty.

And another mic drop meme that I saw was, if only Kevin McCarthy had worked this hard on anything else, can you imagine if he'd worked this hard and been this obstinate about that poop sandwich that Chuck Schumer sent them with Mitch McConnell's sign off from the Senate the very last day of the year.

Panic, panic, panic.

You know, hundreds of pages in the bill, no one had a time to read it.

It's 1.7 trillion.

It's going to corrupt the currency.

It's going to skyrocket inflation.

a mindless debacle and man if he'd have fought like that then he probably could have sewn up some more votes

you know absolutely and you know the there's a lot of media angst about the so-called 20 members of the house that are kind of holding this up in the freedom caucus well the freedom caucus what they're asking for is to go back the way the house used to operate yeah by doing budgets because the government's been running on continuous resolutions since before clinton which is unconstitutional yes and so you know and then they also want to have some votes up or down

on term limits and things like that.

And some

investigations of corruption that has been literally swept under the rug.

Let's face it.

Yep.

And you know, the biggest issue that I have, and this comes from Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon, he's the Omaha representative.

Him and some of the guys that are surrounding Kevin McCarthy, especially Crenshaw out of Texas, they're calling them the Taliban 20, these holdouts and things like that.

You don't do that to fellow Republicans and fellow members.

your party and the it's been over the top and so I think there's gonna be some huge fallout not only during this session but going into there will be primaries and I predict Don Bacon of Omaha will be primary because they won't put up with that kind of stuff.

Yeah, Bacon is playing a very dangerous game.

I think he's reading.

I think he wants to stay in Congress.

And he's reading that district.

It's kind of turned blue on him and he's going all in with the anti-trump and the establishment Folks there.

It's interesting.

He's really made his choice and of course Ben Sasse has left Nebraska's US Senate to become president at Florida.

My prediction is yours that Governor-elect Pillon Governor Pillon will probably appoint

Former governor his immediate predecessor Pete Ricketts to that Senate seat.

You know, absolutely.

I think that's probably what will happen We'll probably see some movement on that moving forward in the next week But we'd also be remiss to if we didn't say a huge shout out to Cheryl Johnson She is the chief clerk of the US House of Representatives.

She actually graduated from the University of Iowa and so it's funny how everything Always kind of comes back to Iowa even in a non-covid turrets.

Yeah, such a fine job up there.

You know these great eyes

Exactly.

And I did see a funny comment from a good friend of mine the other day that said, you know, because we talked about it being Groundhog Day every day in the House of Representatives, I would have paid a good money to see Bill Murray somewhere in the Capitol at some point reprising his role in Groundhog Day.

It would have been absolutely epic.

You know, they brought in Chris Farley to

entertain the Republicans in 94 when Newt won.

And I really think it takes a lot of courage for those 20 to do what they did.

And I don't expect rookie backbenchers, which essentially Ashley Hinson and Mary Nett Miller Meeks and Randy Feinster and Zach Nunnar, between the four of them, they have a total of

six years of representation so they're very rookie backbenchers right now let's face it I don't expect them to directly take on their leader because they would not have any committee seats but these 20

that really went out on a limb, you know, that's true grit, Scotty.

It really is.

It sure is.

And so it's going to be interesting to see how the house actually moves forward on that.

But you're talking about to grit, John, you know, on Monday, the Iowa legislature convenes as well.

And I made a joke that we're

not safe to leave our homes for the next 90 days, especially with me not there to ride herd over those guys.

Well, you know, you know, on a serious note, you know, John, you are decided not to run.

And you had a great event Thursday night down in Trainer Iowa with your constituents.

They had 150.

Oh, it's so much fun.

And I just want to thank you so much for the service that you did for the Iowa House, especially during flood interdiction on the Mississippi as well as the Missouri Rivers.

You know, you're fighting for medical freedom, things along those lines, the pro-life issue.

And, you know, we'd be remiss on this program.

And I know Jeff Stein has been very happy that you are, you know, continuing your voice, not only, not necessarily in the legislature, but on radio.

the conservative cause so I just want to say a great shout out thank you for your service.

Thanks Scotty we're the new Clay and Buck you know and it was so much fun there were so many kids there we had 150 people there a lot of good food people were looking for a reason to be joyful you know we've been cooped up with this COVID stuff for three years we had people in their 90s and we had young

young babies at that event the other night and I think the homage to Lawrence Welk by bringing in Kathy Gravy with the accordion and singing Christmas Carols it was the twelfth night of the twelfth day of Christmas and those wise men were arcing toward the manger and it was just a wonderful evening and I was able to do some history

of the twelve days of Christmas.

That song itself was an underground catechesis song.

Each of the days had something from the Bible symbolically, like the twelve tribes of Israel, the eleven faithful apostles, the ten commandments, the nine choirs of angels, the eight Beatitudes, the seven sacraments.

You know, all the way down to five is the

first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, four Gospels, the Holy Trinity for three, two, the Old and New Testaments, Turtle Dove, I'm sorry, a Partridge in a Peritree, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and we sang that to the accordion, everyone chimed in, and of course I added that footnote in history that not too many people are aware of, that

You know that you had Casper, Balthazar, and Melchior.

They came to the manger and the first one said to Mary and Joseph, we are bearing gold for the child, for the Christ child.

And they said, well, thank you very much.

And the second wise man said, we are bearing frankincense for the Christ child.

And they said, Mary and Joseph said, thank you very much.

And then the third wise man said, and there's more.

Murr, Murr, there's Murr.

And you know, that joke just went over just like it did right now.

She's laughing, she's laughing.

In the studio, it was like a roll shot.

It was my rim

shot, Shane.

Don't you have a rim shot there somewhere?

I know he's got a rim shot there

somewhere.

But it was funny.

There he goes.

There he

goes.

Oh, and furthermore, while he's on the rim shot, Shane, just in case some of you don't know your history, there were four wise men.

The fourth one is never written about because he brought food cake and was sent away.

Wow.

And so with that kind of joke, our listeners on KXEL, the best part of the night was when actually Mrs. Jacobson, John's wife Deb was actually sad that John's no longer in the legislature because that meant he was away from home for a hundred days a year.

And so having her tell that story, that was probably the highlight of the evening.

And how

about the shift I got there is from her to shut up and sit down and she she made my speech a very short

speech.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She had you on a timer.

That's for sure.

And so

she had a one liner.

brought the house down to, uh, on, on, uh, people wanting me to sit down and, and, and let everybody party.

So it was pretty

good.

Yep.

And so I just want to say thank you again, but there's a lot of great, uh, movement in the Iowa legislature that convenes on Monday.

Uh, there's no

excuses.

I call it the no excuses general assembly, this 90th general assembly, super majorities in both houses and a governor who won a landslide.

If it doesn't get done, there's only one party to lay.

the blame that

you know and I kind of make the comment to you know what two of the big issues that we're facing right now is the pro-life issue in the house because the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court overturn rule versus way to at

least get back to where we were with the heart

exactly

should have done it this summer let's get it done in January you got supermajorities

and then you have the the voucher bill or you know governor Kim Reynolds's education bill where she wants to see more vouchers and parochial schools along those lines and so you're going to see a basically a food fight

between the governor's office, the Senate and the House, and you think there's dysfunction right now in the U.S.

House of Representatives picking a speaker, you know, Speaker Pat Grassley as well as Majority Leader Jack Whitver, they're gonna have to wrangle up some majority votes to try to pass that through to get it there because it died, the Education Bill died in the Iowa House last two years.

Who's the bigger enemy to House and Senate leadership, the Democrats or the other chamber?

The other chamber.

The other chamber, that's for sure.

A good friend of mine, I don't know if I,

I've told this story on air and I'll clean it up because it's a little vulgarity, but when I was in the legislature, he said, now remember the opposing party in the house is your opponent, but those SOBs in the Senate, they're the enemy.

And so that's just kind of how it is.

And so it's going to be interesting to see because when you have 60 plus members of the house and 34 in the Senate,

There's going to be a lot of contention, I think, and it's going to be interesting to see how the three of Governor Reynolds, Jack Whitver and Pat Grassley can handle that.

Well, Scott,

here's the thing, even on the school choice issue, Iowa is not even currently in line with the Constitution.

They have pre-blame, blame laws in the Iowa Constitution, which are violative.

of what the U.S.

Supreme Court ruled in the Espinoza decision from two years ago.

So perhaps we can at least conform

to the United States, settle law at the US Supreme Court.

We're even behind the curveball on that.

That's embarrassing.

It sure is.

And, you know, we talk about the changes that's moving forward in the legislature, but we're also seeing changes on the executive council for the state of Iowa too.

Brenna Byrd was sworn in on Wednesday as the new attorney general for the state of Iowa.

Robbie Smith has been sworn in as the new treasurer.

First time those positions have changed in over 40 years.

So now you have Paul Payne,

your Secretary of State, Mike Nag, your Secretary of Agriculture, and then the lone Democrat on the Executive Council is Rob Sandley, auditor.

So it's going to be a very interesting dynamic because Rob is viewed as a very political person, but at the same time, he is a very shrewd person.

And so he's going to have to basically thread the needle.

And ambitious.

And

ambitious.

And, you know, he was the only he barely eaked out his victory.

He had to spin from his word chest to do it.

The

The thought is he may have to go back into underwear ads to regenerate the coffers, you know.

Wow.

I just that's just quite a vision.

I just don't even think about that.

There are photos.

There are photos.

Yes.

Unfortunately, we've seen them.

And so but our good friend Laura Bell and she likes to keep those hidden.

So she does like

to

bring that up.

But so it's going to be very interesting to see how the entire government apparatus moves forward because there's a lot of important issues in the state of Iowa to move forward.

And you were so grateful for the audience here at KXEL and Jeff Stein giving us this opportunity.

And we're going to have some great interviews moving forward, John.

We're going to have our congressmen, our two U.S.

senators.

You know, we're going to have members from the legislature and the executive branch keeping us updated moving forward.

So there's going to be a lot of important information on KXEL.

Yeah, we've got the ability to bring in a lot of our newsmakers and we're looking forward to it very much.

I just love our listeners.

I love this area of the state and

Permit me to do a bit of a tribute to a man named Walt Cunningham.

I think we'll bring back some Aaron Copeland here, Mr. Shane.

That name may not ring a bell to some of the younger people.

I don't expect that it would because Walt Cunningham was a hero of mine, Scott, particularly in 1968.

I was a seven-year-old in love with America's space program.

The Mercury, the Gemini, the Apollo.

Yes, Captain Kangaroo was on in the morning, followed by Andy Griffith and the Beverly Hillbillies.

They were already running those in syndication in mornings at the time.

I was always watching WMT TV, which is now KGAN.

Out of Cedar Rapids, they're at Broadcast Park, and of course,

Right on the broadcast part, Campus was all of Collins Radio, that great avionics, communications and defense firms started by Art Collins of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

And Scott, everybody's dad that I knew other than my dad, who was the Marian Iowa dentist, was, they worked at Collins Radio.

They were all working toward that vision that John F. Kennedy had of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

and it was 1968, and to just set the backdrop, a year before that there was the terrible fire that burned up our three astronauts on the launch pad, White Grissom and Chaffee, an electrical fire in the command module that burned them to a crisp.

They died, fried, they could not get the hatch open, while they were doing testing on the launch pad, pre-flight.

There was thought at that time that they would not be able to rescue the concept of manned flight to the moon.

The Soviets were arcing toward that, but their idea was unmanned flights, and they were close to doing some orbital moon flights.

Fortunately, we had Werner von Braun, and he was able to help us go from that redstone rocket to the Saturn V. In 1968, they tabbed Don Eisley, Walter Cunningham,

and Wally Chara one of the original seven astronauts who then became Walter Cronkite's partner on the broadcast of all the moon landings Chara the only one to actually go into space both as a Mercury Gemini and Apollo astronaut the goal of Apollo 8 was to see if they could do a safe Apollo launch with no technical problems and with docking

They did some faux docking procedures and to see if they could communicate well if they could land well with the parachutes at the velocity into the water It was a dangerous mission.

It was a mission that I Got to tell you Isley Shirai and Walter Cunningham who just passed this week at age 90 These guys took personal control of the flight.

They watched all these contractors

Putting the command modules together they gave input in the construction and design these astronauts were not only flying these were engineers these were scientists these were Navy pilots That were tweaking this and they they made demands on the defense contractors and of who is going to be helping with the the flight launch with the construction and Shira and Cunningham and Isley really put it to NASA such that

Although the flight was an unmitigated success, a perfect success, uh, all they were blacklisted from flying again because they gave the ground crew so much grief and insisted on safety protocols that, you know, the ground crew had some accelerated time paths and, uh, Shara as captain of that and Cunningham and Isley said, not so fast, Jack.

And this is important because back in the day when I was a kid in Cub Scouts,

You would hear the den mothers and the kids talking about how their dad met these astronauts coming into Collins because Collins did all the radio telecommunications all the gyroscopic everything you know and So basically everybody in Cedar Rapids had such a hand in that successful pivotal flight in 1968 Apollo 7

which resurrected that space program of manned space exploration to the moon paving the way that December then for the Apollo 8 which actually circled the moon and took those beautiful breathtaking photos of our blue globe earth.

And we all sat and we all watched Walder Cronkite in Apollo 7

Doing the lift off, everyone's eyes were glued to our black and white televisions in 1968 of October and Cedar Rapids and across the nation is only Walter Cronkite.

This was the launch, the first successful launch, manned of the Saturn B-1 rocket, the predecessor of the Saturn V, which was able to get them enough boosters into orbit and into space to get to the moon and back.

Let's listen in on Walter

Cronkite.

We'll get ignition of those eight engines in the first stage at the three second mark in the countdown t-minus 21 seconds

on Kate will come in here shortly.

This is the NASA narrator

which now weighs 1.3 million pounds is ready to go coming up on the 10 second mark 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 we have ignition

Lift off.

We have lift off.

Slowly, slowly.

This is launch control.

We have cleared the tower.

on his course.

Got a good view of it there with our long-range camera.

Wally-Sheraw, Don Isley, Walter Cunningham, the latter two making their first space flight.

Wally-Sheraw is third, riding that big spacecraft

full

air.

The voice is now at mission control, change from Jack King to... One more minute, 40 seconds.

They've gone through maximum dynamic pressure.

Flight director asks the flight dynamic self-service likes it, and he says, yes, sir, it looks good.

Look at the flame, 700 gallons of RP-1 and liquid oxidizer burning up there every second.

That thing developing a million... Coming up on two minutes, Mark, two minutes.

Scotty,

that still brings a chill on my spine as a young boy watching that live, not knowing on that rocket what would happen to those men, never before on a Saturn rocket of that magnitude, and rescuing the space program after that tragedy of Apollo 1.

I salute Walter Sherrod, Don Isley, and now the last one, Walt Cunningham passing away at 90,

this week.

These guys were true patriots and the greatest of Americans.

That's a great point, John.

And this also talks a little bit too about the so-called phrase, the right stuff.

These men and the women at the different contracting agencies, they had the right stuff because it wasn't a foregone conclusion.

The United States was going back into space and then we were actually going to win the space race against the Soviets.

And so for them to muster the national attention and national resources to win those

races is so important and ironically you know what they're passing.

It just highlights we are now in another space race against our enemies, including the Communist Chinese as well as the Russians, because they have plans to go back to the moon and they actually put bases on the moon.

And so the United States needs to have a revamped vision of how we're going to handle NASA moving into this new century.

That's a great point.

And even the Arctic, the Russians are taking over most of the Arctic Circle.

It's reminded me of that old movie, Mike.

You remember Ice Station Zebra, ABC.

movie of the week there those Sundays well this has been another wonderful show here Scotty I want to just I'm so glad we closed on that because those of you listening in eastern Iowa so many of your fathers and grandfathers

We're part of the success.

There would have been no Apollo landing on the moon without Collins radio.

Now Rockwell out of Cedar Rapids and the thousands and thousands of people that were employed by them even back in my era in the 1960s as a child growing up.

We need to recapture that imagination and optimism in America.

Scotty has been great being with you today.

It sure has John.

Just want to say everyone I hope you have a wealthy and safe new year as well.

Yes.

Happy, safe, and prosperous.

Mike Shane, beautiful job with the sound clips today.

Guys, till next week, this is John Jacobson with Scott Corey and Mike Shane saying, be safe, be smart, be good, be strong.

Love Jesus Christ in this great new year.

God bless us, everyone.

Bye-bye.

As heard, weekends on the radio on News Talk, 1540 KXEL.

For more about the show, go to kxel.com slash Jacobson, J-A-C-O-B-S-E-N.

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Until next time, bye-bye.