Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to the year-end episode of Broken Potholes. That's right, we've been on the air for one year now, 52 weeks. Well, Chuck and I have been here, one or the other of us, for the last 52 weeks. You all out there in radio listener land, in podcast land, have been there every week, so thank you. You're far more dedicated to this than we are. We have a lot of fun on air.
We're going to have a lot more fun, but I have two guests coming on the program today we're very, very excited to have. And we are continuing last week's program. The final two weeks of the year, we're not doing politics. We're not doing divisiveness. We're talking about people who are making a difference in their community and across this country who are actually getting it done. It's not something we get to talk about a lot on here because we do talk about politics and
Politics doesn't specialize in getting it done. Folks, thank you so much for joining us. With your host, I'm Sam Stone. Chuck Warren is off, off in the deep blue sky today. He is not available. And I have, against their will, dragged the irrepressible Kylie Kipper into the studio. Kylie, welcome. Oh, thank you for having me. It's been a while. Yeah, no, that was really false sounding. And we know how much you don't want to be here on the air right now with us.
I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I can tell. And again, Jamie Kleschuk, another recalcitrant radio host. Can I sound more excited than Kylie? Thank you so much for having me. Oh, you did a nice job. Yeah. No, I almost even bought that. Sure you did. Thank you. No, actually, I didn't. That was really false, too. But you know what? I enjoy torturing the two of you and bringing you on air with me. So that's why you're here. Yeah.
Merry Christmas to us. Yes, indeed. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thank you so much, Sam. Same to you. Oh, absolutely. Before we get going, guys, this has been a lot of fun. And I want to thank you both for helping us out. Folks who don't know, Kylie is our producer. She gets all the lines up all our guests. She does all the background work. If I give you some bad information, it's her fault. I'm sorry about that. Actually, she doesn't. But I mean, I'm just saying it's possible.
And Jamie does all our digital production work and is responsible for putting out the podcast each week. And so thank you, Jamie. Of course. And I want to thank everyone here at the studio. Jeremy Siegel in the producer's booth, production booth here. Thank you so much, Jeremy. You're fantastic. The 960 AM crew has been phenomenal. We've had a lot of fun. We're coming back for another year next year. We've already been booked. I think there are some big things in the future.
But folks, if you're not following us, I do have one. I have one request. Just one little request. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to the show. Follow us on Twitter. Tell us what you want to hear. Tell us what programming you want us to talk about. If there are guests that you want to have on here, we've actually taken some suggestions from listeners about our guests, and they've been fantastic. So if you've got those, we'll reach out to those folks and see about getting them on here, and we'll look forward to talking with them.
And in that vein, today our first guest on the program is going to be Rodney Smith Jr. On Twitter, I am Rodney Smith. He's an entrepreneur, but also the founder of Raising Men and Women Lawn Care Service.
Good morning, good morning. Thank you for having me, man.
Okay, my name is Rodney Smith Jr. I live in Huntsville, Alabama, and I'm the founder of Grazing Men and Raising Women's Lawn Care Service. We're a small nonprofit organization, and we mow free lawns for the elderly, disabled, single parents, and veterans nationwide. We have something called the 50-Yard Challenge, and that's basically kids mowing 50 free lawns in their community for the elderly, disabled, single parents, and veterans. If they accept the 50-Yard Challenge, they make a sign saying, I accept the 50-Yard Challenge.
In return, we send them a white Raising Men or Raising Women t-shirt along with safety glasses and ear protection.
Every 10 lawns they mow, they get a new color shirt by the karate system. So once they mow 10 lawns, we send them an orange shirt, 20 irons of green, 30 a blue shirt, 40 a red shirt. And once they mow 50 lawns, they're on a black shirt. And then when they mow 50, I drive to wherever they are in the United States or fly to international and present them a brand new mower, leading them to go for completing this 50-hour challenge. Oh, wow. That's amazing, Rodney. That's incredible. So you said this is actually now in all 50 states that you're doing this stuff.
Yeah, so we have at least one kid in each state that's independently going out in the community and doing the 50-yard challenge. Texas is the state with the most kids. They have about 300 kids taking part in it right now. And I believe maybe Rhode Island might be the state with the least kids. I guess it's the smallest. I was going to bet Alaska. Oh, yeah, Alaska too. Alaska. Alaska, got a few. Maybe Hawaii got a few. I guess in Alaska we're sending them a snowblower.
Yeah, so it's not just mowing lawns. We also include raking leaves and snow shoveling so kids can do either of the three and even pick out a truck. As a kid, Rodney, who grew up in the far north, I got to tell you, if they're signing up to go out there and shovel snow, they are doing some work. Oh, yeah, shoveling snow is my job. Yeah, no, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you get this idea? How did you get into doing this? Because, I mean, this is incredible. This is the kind of...
people helping people thing that we just love on this program and our listeners love. So tell us a little bit about how you got started doing this.
Yeah, so back in 2015, I was in my senior year of college, getting my bachelor's degree in computer science, and I was leaving school one day, and I came across an elderly man outside mowing his lawn. He looked like he was struggling. So I pulled over and helped him out, and that night I just decided I'll start mowing his free lawn for the elderly, the single parents, and veterans in Huntsville, Alabama. At first, my goal was to mow
40 lawns by the end of winter because at the time I was in my senior year, so I built like almost 40 lawns in between classes. But I moved 40 lawns so quick that I might go to 100. A month and a half later, I reached my 100th lawn, and I forgot the idea of raising men's lawn care service thing about. Because originally it was just for the young men, then we added the raising women, so now it's raising men and women. And, you know, it just started small, and right now we have over 3,000 kids nationwide taking part in the program, and we have kids in eight other different countries.
That's awesome. You know, for the kids, when you do service like this, when you work and try to benefit someone else, they get a lot from that too, don't they? I mean, this is the kind of character building that is really important for kids.
It is. And that's what it's about, building character in kids and teaching them the importance of giving back to their community at a young age. That's a very important lesson to help those in need, especially the veterans. You always want to help the veterans whenever you can. I believe this is a great way to get kids involved and
and getting out there and meeting the veterans especially because they have served this country. So it's only right that we find different ways that we can serve them. And my way of giving back to veterans is knowing they're not for free. So I just encourage kids just to get out there and give back to their community. That's awesome. And how do they connect with you? How do kids get signed up to do this?
Yes, so everything is by social media. So parents will see our posts on social media and then they go to our website and then they just go to the 50-yard challenge page and they sign their kids up for the 50-yard challenge. And once they're signed up and upload the picture with them holding that sign, I go ahead and send them their white t-shirt and along with safety glasses and air protection.
and that gets them started. Now, do you have sponsors who help you with this stuff, who provide like the safety glasses, the ear protection? Because obviously it sounds like there's some money involved that you're having to spend to do this. Yeah. So, you know, luckily we have a great support system. We call them the Raising Men and Women's Long-Term Service Family. So just people across America that just support our organization. We don't have any
No sponsors or anything like that. Just regular people that donate to the organization. And we have an Amazon wish list on our website. And people can go there. They can purchase a lawnmower, a wheelie, a bra. Once they purchase them, they're sent to my house. And then when a kid completes the 50-hour challenge, I take those items and I deliver it to them. And, you know, we put safety glasses on there and people purchase them. And we send those to kids when they first start. So, you know, it's only possible because of the good people around America that are supporting the organization. So that's how we're able to do what we're doing.
I love that, Rodney. I love that. Folks, it is – I am Rodney Smith on Twitter. Rodney, give us the website because, folks, I want you to go there and just like we did last week, both Chuck and I will make a small contribution to each of these organizations we have on the air. But we're encouraging all of you out there listening to do the same. Even if it's just $5 or $10, these contributions will add up and help you.
And you heard it there, too. If you are a business owner and you have a company, this is a great, great program for you to get behind and help sponsor and help make this happen for more people because you're going to be benefiting these seniors. You're going to be benefiting veterans who need some help. And you're also helping out these kids. You're teaching them really important life lessons today.
So I really want you to go on there and help Rodney out, help him make this happen. So Rodney, give us that website address. Yeah, so it's weareraisingmen.com or weareraisingwomen.com or raisingmenandwomen.com and they can see our website. So folks, get on there. Make sure that you make a contribution. Now, Rodney,
I understand you're actually right now going all across the country, traveling to all 50 states, giving gifts to kids with cancer, disabilities, illnesses, and visiting humane societies. So this is all stuff after my own heart. Tell me about it. Yeah, so I recently finished that. That was a Christmas tour. So I've been to all 50 states 12 times. Wow. So 10 of them for my moving tours. I mostly...
50 states moving towards where I pick a cause and move for. So I've done one for breast cancer where I spray paint to do a lot more paint. And I went to all 50 states looking for those who have breast cancer, those who have lost a loved one to breast cancer, those who have survived breast cancer. And I
And I moved the lawn and I interviewed them and asked them just about breast cancer and stuff like that. And then I auctioned that lawnmower off and gave the 100% of those funds to a charity associated with breast cancer. So that lawnmower auctioned off for $5,000. Another one I'd done was called Mowing with Cups, where I spray painted the lawnmower like a police car. I had the light bar on top and everything. And I went to all 50 states and I invited police officers in each state.
city I went through to come out and mow with me. And the idea behind that was to bridge the gap between officers and the community. And another one I done was for veterans. I had a lot more wrapped in camo. I had one painted like the Purple Heart Recipients Medallion. I had one for POWs. I had one painted
Rodney, we only have 30 seconds before we go to break here, but I want to thank you so much for being on the program with us. Tell us again how people can follow you.
Yeah, so they can follow us on Twitter. I am Rodney Smith. And on Instagram and Facebook, Rodney Smith Jr. And Raising Men and Women, you'll find that on Instagram and on Facebook. Perfect. Thank you, Rodney, so much. We really love having you on the program. Folks, get behind this man. He's doing great work helping people across this country. Broken Potholes coming right back.
The political field is all about reputation, so don't let someone squash yours online. Secure your name and political future with a yourname.vote web address from godaddy.com. Your political career depends on it. Welcome back to Broken Potholes, our year-end episode. For our last two episodes, we are not doing politics. Well, we're probably going to finish up with a little politics because we're talking about our predictions for 2022.
Quick recap of 2021. It's hard to avoid politics in this day and age, but that's not our focus this week. I am your host, Sam Stone. Chuck Warren is in the great blue sky on an airplane. I don't envy him that. He's probably masked and very uncomfortable at this moment. I'm happy that's him, not me. But I am very happy to be in the studio here. We just had a fantastic guest talking about helping hands. Pardon me.
I'm all over the place this morning. We just had Rodney Smith on Raising Men and Women in Lawn Care. He's doing some amazing work. Right now, we have another fantastic guest on, Eric Snells with Helping Hands for Freedom. You can connect with them at helpinghandsforfreedom.org. Eric, tell me a little bit about yourself and then tell me about your... Tell me about Helping Hands. Tell me what you do. Okay. First of all, for me, I...
I'm the father of a Marine who was injured in Afghanistan. And, uh, I got involved with the charity, which I'll go into a little bit later about that. But, uh, I got involved because he came back injured in 2012. Um, he had a brain injury. Uh, PTSD was deaf in the ear. And he moved in with me after his wife divorced him because it was PTSD. It was pretty clear. He was a troubled guy. He was only 23 years old at the time. And, uh,
I had three years with him where I realized that PTSD was a lot more than just four letters, that it was a pretty serious condition. At that time, it was becoming a real issue with all the veterans returning from the war. Prior to that, people kind of thought, well, maybe it isn't what they say it is. Well, it is what they say it is. He was suicidal, and I actually took a gun out of his hand at one point in my life.
He was that close. He thought about going to the garage, turning the car on, and just passing away. So I got involved with Healthy Hands for Freedom. I knew about the charity and had known about it since its founder, Patrick Shannon. He founded it in 2008. He was with the Indiana National Guard. After an eight-year career with the Marine Corps, he had joined the National Guard in Indiana, where he and I are both from, ironically. Didn't know it at the time.
And he was in Walter Reed recovering from injuries, and all the veterans kept saying, you know, we're getting help, but our families aren't getting much help. This is 2004 when this happened. He decides, once he returns back to civilian life, I'm going to found this charity that really helps these families. And he said the Wounded Warriors will help a veteran who was with a significant injury. Right. But they don't pay rent or mortgage or insurance or cars or whatever.
He decided to change that for his little charity. And he met a man named Rod Smith. Ironically, Rod's here in Arizona. And Rod's specialty was in fact, um, nonprofit work. They met in the 2008, they formed helping hands for freedom. I was involved in the sense of, I played in a golf event and the fundraiser and whatnot, but 2008 was just prior to the great recession. And for a couple of years, they barely made it. And, uh,
The difference is there was sports camps because Rod had played pro football, played in Nebraska in the 80s, and he had a lot of connections in that world. And they could have kids come out and have a great time with some pro athletes, throw the ball around and all that. Well, as the recession receded, they then decided, excuse me, let's make sure we talk about the financial emergencies these families sometimes face.
Our charter requires you have a family involved, 18 or under, as a child, for example, and their focus primarily is paying rent, mortgage, car payments, utilities, insurance, things of that nature, to keep the family in the home and safe.
Utilities, for example, is a big deal now because all the requirements are overworked. If you didn't pay the utilities fully in the summertime, you have to pay them now. So we've got a lot of requests for people to get utilities paid for, right? Yep. So I got really, really involved when Shane came back, became a board member. I actually had a company, a small company I worked with. And in 2017, the CEO of the charity left the company to go back to Indiana where he was from.
I was the only local board member. So we were in Chicago, Indianapolis, San Diego, and Florida. And he said, hey, can you kind of check things out, tell us what's going on? I said, sure. So I did that. And after about three months of that, I realized that I was 62 at the time. And I thought, you know what? This is a message from God, if you will, to take this over and run it. And so I resigned my position with my company.
And my partners bid me adieu. I took over in 2017, so it's been about five years. And I'm the only employee or lean, mean Marine Corps machine, my son would say. And that's what we do. Every day my big job is to raise funds, obviously. But also I'm the guy who writes the checks to families. A retired general here in town actually runs the committee who reviews all the applications.
We're very thorough about what we do. We require not just your ID, but your DD-214 service record to make sure you're honorably discharged. We look at your most recent bank statements to make sure you're not spending money on someplace else like a casino. And we've discovered things like that before, by the way. We get your income tax returns so we know what you really actually make money-wise.
as opposed to what you maybe tell us, 98% of these people are honest and they hate to ask for help. Military veterans hate to ask for assistance. It's their job to be independent and do their job, right? Absolutely. You are talking about some of the people they base a lot of their identity on, their toughness and individuality and ability to overcome challenges.
on their own, right? And it's really hard for those type of folks to reach out and ask for help from people, especially people they don't know. They're used to their own squad, you know, their own group next to them, right? Yeah. And it's actually pretty difficult. People don't realize how many veterans have a struggle getting back to civilian life because...
Because the elite doesn't really have a team, and they're really used to having a team. Even the guys who don't struggle with injuries have a little bit of issue with that because it's like, hey, where's my backup? Who's got my six? As they always say in the military. Right. And I think one of the things... One of the things I think that a lot of us maybe don't see this in our day-to-day lives as much because, frankly, with...
With our volunteer military, it's a pretty small group of people pulling a lot of weight for the rest of us, right? I mean, these guys are putting in multiple, multiple tours. And then they're coming back with PTSD, with traumatic brain injuries, with all these things. And what you're doing is really critical to helping them survive that transition. Well, it's especially important when you talk about it. A Gold Star family means they've lost someone to the conflict.
I've lost mom, dad, brother, sister, whoever it was. And one story that really got to me, this is back when I first got with the charity, probably in 2012. We have a picnic for Gold Star families in Tempe at the time. And they'd all lost some family member to the war at that point in time. And it's their way to get together and kind of understand they've all been through a very traumatic event. There's a little boy playing down about 60 yards from the group. And he was just playing with his buddy. And we came and said, hey, how you doing? And we're talking about him. And
he's all about his brother all about his brother and rod finally said well where's your brother where's he at he goes oh he's dead they killed him and i really miss him it was like whoa really drove home the impact of service and in that case fatality on a family he's probably 20 years old now but he's maybe 10 at the time when i met him and uh i still have seen him in a couple events it's just you know kind of go like whoo
We talk about a life-changing event for a family. We forget about the kids sometimes and how it affects them. Yeah, absolutely. Eric, pardon me. Let me cut you off here. We have to go to break. We're going to bring you back with us when we come back. Broken Potholes. We'll be back in just one moment.
The 2020 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2021. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.vote domain from GoDaddy. Get yours now. Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Chuck is out of the studio today. I would say I'm flying the ship solo, but I dragged some unwilling co-pilots into the studio with me.
Jamie Kleschek, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper, thank you for being with us today. And on the line with us, a gentleman doing amazing things for veterans, for Gold Star families around this country, Eric Snells with Helping Hands for Freedom. Eric, tell folks how they can get on, how they can support what you're doing.
Well, there's a couple of ways. The first way, the easiest way, is going to the website, helpinghandsforfreedom.org. It's all one big long word. There's a big red donate button at the top right of the site. And once you click on that, it'll give you options to contribute a certain amount of money. Some are predicted, if you will. Here's $50, $100, whatever it might be. I'll just put in a number, hit the click-through button, and it'll take you to the whole credit card checkout system.
and within about maybe a minute, you've donated money to the cause. Within a couple of days, you'll get a letter from me or an email from me thanking you for it, so you receive for whatever tax purposes you might have implications for. That's a big way we get funds. A second way they can do it, they love golf, for example, is on May 2nd at Moondown Country Club here in Phoenix, Arizona. We're going to have an event, a fundraiser event,
144 spots are open. We usually fill about 120 or 130 of those spots. We offer 12 spots always for free to wounded veterans or goals to our family members to participate.
and it's a big fundraiser for us. Moon Valley does a great job with it, and that is a significant part of the year for us. As well, we have things like grant writing we do, which, of course, I have to do myself, and the sports teams in town have all been really, really good to us. So I have to have a couple of corporations. But for you as an individual, the two easier ways are the donor button and also the golf event. If you're not a golfer, you can still contribute
contribute to the cause that day and sponsor a golfer. For example, we have a number of people who will pay to have a Winter Warrior play in one of those quote-unquote free spaces, and they sponsor the golfer for that. And it's a scramble event, so you don't have to be any good. It's a pure scramble. No minimum drives, none of those kind of funny rules. It's just go play golf with your buddies, raise some money, have some good food, and a couple of drinks afterwards, and there's a silent auction going on.
The auction also is online at that time of the year. So you can actually get some trips, for example, to the Caribbean area. That's when you want to fly with what's going on right now. But people seem to want to fly because they seem to buy those trips. A lot of golf and memorabilia will be there and whatnot. And that's all something you can do once you sign up for our newsletter. So, again, go to the website. Perfect. Sign up for the newsletter. You'll get notifications of all these things. And you can contribute to things online.
Not just the auction for golf, but we have online raffles throughout the year periodically where you can also maybe win some money as well as donate. Awesome. Very nice. Look, I'm going to sign Chuck and I up to sponsor one of those golfers, Wounded Warrior Golfer, right now. Chuck, sorry, you have no choice about this. Yeah, he's going to listen to this program and probably kill me later, but you guys are going to get your donation in there first, which is more important.
So, Eric, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on. Give us that website again.
It's helpinghandsforfreedom.org. That's the long, long number. Or you can reach me at 602-369-3642 if you have any questions about anything. And I'll be happy to help you out. My email address is also on the website if you want to contact me via email. And again, Eric, you are the only employee of this organization. This is lean, mean machine right here. You are getting these contributions into the hands of the people that need it.
Yeah, we have a program. We have me in an office. That's basically it. It's a small office on Coronado Road off of 7th Street and McDowell area. So it's about 600 square feet and me. Fantastic. Eric, thank you so much for being on the program with us today. Folks, again, get out there and contribute today.
help out these folks because they are doing such good works. And this is the stuff I think, you know, Chuck and I have talked about a lot on this program that we absolutely love. We love hearing about people who are making a difference in their community and making a difference for folks around the country and around the world. That is why we have our sunshine moment. Typically, Kylie's giving me a big grin because we haven't actually had that in a few weeks. I know, I've been slacking. A little bit.
So, Eric, thank you so much for being on the program. We really appreciate having you. This has been fantastic. And if you go on, folks, if you're following us on Twitter, if you're following Broken Potholes at brokenpotholes.vote, go on there. We're going to have links to all these charities that we've had on the air with us for the last two weeks. And like I said, Chuck and I are each going to make a small contribution to each of these. We encourage you to do the same.
We also encourage you to like, sign up and follow us and download the podcast. Broken Puddles coming back in just a moment. The 2020 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2021. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.vote web domain from godaddy.com. Get yours now.
Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Chuck, obviously not in the studio today. If you've been listening to us, I have tortured two young ladies. I know I'm probably going to get arrested right after I leave this program. Yeah, it didn't sound good, did it? No, not good. No, I'm pretty sure I'm running. In fact, I'm running for office and that clip is probably going to be used at some point.
We'll provide the full context of the clip, though, when it gets cut down. Yeah. Okay. We'll help you out. Very big of you, Kylie. Yeah, I appreciate that. Jamie, not sure. Yeah. In studio with us today, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. We've forced her in front of the microphone. We put headphones on her, and we have done the same to poor Jamie Kleschuk, who usually does our digital production and her absolute best to stay away from the microphone and behind the camera. This is why I got into video editing, so I wouldn't be on this side. Yeah.
You're out of luck. Yeah. I was about to say the SOL version of that. And, you know, I realized that we've been bleeped once on this program in a year, which is actually pretty good. And it was from Chuck. And it was from Chuck, which I'm very proud of, considering that of the two of us, my potty mouth is far, far superior to his. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in, joining us on Broken Potholes. We really appreciate all our listeners out there.
And if you are downloading our podcast, thank you so much for doing that. If I had a New Year's resolution I could ask from each of you, it would be to download our podcast and send it to someone you think would like it so that they subscribe to it also. And honestly, that's a New Year's resolution you can keep. Mm-hmm.
Because you can do it whenever. There's no failing. That's right. There's no failing. It's like two clicks. You can do it on the first day of the new year so you don't forget. That's right. You can even do it on New Year's Eve. Although, I'm going to be honest about this. If you're sitting at home listening to Broken Potholes on New Year's Eve, I'm sorry.
No, I really am because that sounds really boring to me. And this is coming from a guy who watches New Year's Eve at 9 o'clock Arizona time, which is kind of perfect. I can watch the ball drop in New York City and still go to bed at old man time.
Kylie's giving me this look like, are you crazy? But that's because she's 20 years younger than me. Yeah. See, I'm an old lady already, so I fully. I was going to say Jamie's doing that as well. Sounds awesome to me. See, I've worked with Jamie long enough to know that while she is a beautiful young lady in form, that in function, she is an 83-year-old spinster. I have been since I turned about 12. Yes. Yeah. I actually believe that. Yeah.
I wonder what that's like. You know, so we were going to, unfortunately, Chuck couldn't be here today and we wanted to go back over the year. But I do want to thank you, Kylie, in particular, for getting a phenomenal list of guests for this year. Next year is just going to be even better. It is. I'm looking forward to it. Folks, I actually will say Kylie has been doing a magnificent job of getting us
phenomenal guests. We've had a lot of very big name guests from coast to coast, ones who agree with us politically, ones who don't. But that's the best part. That is the best part. It's been a lot of fun. And so thank you so much for that. And to all our guests who appeared on the program this year, thank you so much. We really enjoyed having all of you on. We've had some great conversations. We're looking forward to more great conversations next year. Now, did you have a favorite guest this year? Why would you put me on the spot like that?
I don't know, because you're in front of the microphone. I think this is what it's for. I think this is the moment to do exactly that. But that's a good question I really have to think about. Yeah, I probably should have... They're all so good. I probably should have given you a warning for that. Yeah. Well, I think the best guess was my sunshine moments. There's no question, folks. Those are the runaway winner. You know, I was actually, I think...
Bill Shearer was one of my favorites. He's been on with us a couple of times. I think it was fantastic. But we have had so many great guests, and I'm really appreciative for all of them. And for all of you who work on this program, it's been fantastic. It's been a weird year. It has been. 2021 in review. I think we were all... I came into 2021 hoping for a little bit of normalcy.
Me too. Jamie's laughing. That did not work out well. Are you thinking about that in 2022? Yeah, I still am. Good luck. I'm really at this point willing to take 2020 and 2021 and just wipe them out of existence. We can all pretend they didn't happen. And we can just leap directly from December 31st, 2019 into January 1st, 2022 and
and ignore the nightmare that has been foisted on this country and the world by a disease, but also by our response to it, which has been discombobulated and ridiculous. We've spent the last couple of years with people telling us we were going to get rid of COVID. And yesterday, the president of the United States comes out. And folks, we're taping this a little early. So when I say yesterday, pardon me, it wasn't yesterday for you. But
Yesterday for us on Tuesday of this week, Joe Biden came out and he says, oh, there's no federal solution to COVID. Did not Joe Biden run on I'm going to solve COVID? It's amazing how your tune changes when you're responsible now. It's amazing. And you wouldn't know it, but more people have actually died in this country of COVID in 2021 than in 2020. You would not know it.
No, you would not. The press has been really good at ignoring that. The press has continued to beat up Ron DeSantis. Meanwhile, 45 percent of new covid cases in the country are in New York. Like they have the worst mortality of all 50 states still. New Jersey still number two. I think California is still in the top five.
Like their response has been awful. It has been totally ineffective. And you'd have no clue if you listen to the national media that that's the case. Nope. And I torture myself every morning and I listen. Do you? Let's see what they say. See, I do. And I try. I used to get up and like listen, drive and listen to NPR in the car on the way. I can't do it anymore.
And I'm wondering when I won't be able to do it. I'm just out of patience with it. I just text my mom and I'm like, do you hear what they're saying this morning? Yeah. I just rage about it. I think that's the appropriate response is rage at this point. And, you know, one of the reasons, folks, that Chuck and I started this program, one of the things we really were looking forward to was the opportunity to
to bring on guests from different parts of the political spectrum and have those conversations with them and talk about these things. And I think we've had some really good, honest conversations with our guests, which makes it all the more frustrating because a lot of them are national media folks. And I think they are, by and large, a group that's doing a really good job of presenting the news and being honest. But the industry as a whole is a disaster.
I mean, it is a nightmare at this point. It's sad. It is. So some other facts people probably don't know today. Sweden. Remember Sweden? They got all that press early on because they absolutely refused the Fauci method. It turns out the Fauci method is about as good as most other things that are called method, meaning it doesn't work. Folks, you know what I mean, and I'm not going to say it because this is a Christian family radio station, but we're on the same page. Yeah.
It doesn't work. So they locked down and they got pounded. I mean, they got absolutely pounded. They got told they were murderers, everything else. I think Rhonda Sanis and Kristi Noem can sympathize. And they had slightly, I mean, tiny higher excess mortality in 2020 than did their neighbors who locked down throughout basically all of 2020. Difference was very minimal. Now, this year, again, no one's heard this.
But I was digging through all the data last night, and I'm looking at it, and it is flooring. Sweden's COVID death rate this year is far lower than everyone else. Can't see that. It's almost like this whole natural immunity thing does work. Mm-hmm. Amazing. Amazing. And see, what folks, I think, didn't get was they actually did have protections for senior citizens. They did, by the way, what Florida did, only they were able to be a little bit more effective about it because it's a unified national approach. Mm-hmm.
But this is what Florida did, too. Florida did. It's not like Florida had no COVID measures. They did have some. They had an early lockdown. But then the Sandys just said, this isn't working. We're going to focus our protection on the people who are most vulnerable. Everyone else needs to go out and live and probably get this disease. And I think we've been saying on this program and others that this thing is endemic, which means it's here. It's here to stay. We're never going to get rid of it. Right. Right.
After what variant are people going to realize that? That's it, right? Like here we are. I think we've had Alpha, Delta. Somewhere we missed Bravo. They skipped the one that was going to tie it to G. Omicron is not going to be the last variant. No, it's not. That's just the thing, right? And here's the funny thing about it at this point, right? So Delta comes along in the spring of 2021. Omicron comes along in the fall of 2021. Right.
Folks, what does this sound like to you? Does this perhaps sound like a seasonal virus pattern, you know, where you send your kids to school in the fall and then everyone in the country gets sick and then they go on spring break and everyone in the country gets sick when they come home? Only kids aren't the spreaders this time. The rest of us are. But I mean, it's the same dang pattern, right? Looks like the flu.
Yeah. And fortunately, you know what? Omicron is the flu. When you look at the symptoms. Yeah. No, I mean, look, people aren't generally being hospitalized with this. And then folks, we're not we don't want to say don't take this seriously. We know COVID is real. We know it's it can be serious. But the fact is, fortunately, Omicron is not. It's pretty much the flu. And it's a little bit of a nasty flu. But that's it. So here's here's the thing. And if you're vaccinated, you're
Stop this thing about people who aren't vaccinated are the ones spreading this thing because we have plenty of data now that shows you can still get COVID. You can still spread COVID. What you're doing when you get that vaccine is protecting yourself from severe illness or death, which is a smart thing to do. So we've encouraged people to go do that. Make that risk assessment for yourself. But otherwise, bloody heck, folks.
I saved that one at the last second. Folks, move on. And I'm saying this and not even probably to most of the folks listening to us right now who probably are sitting there agreeing with us and cheering us on. I'm saying this to the Democrats and the people locking down this country, the blue state governors, the ones who are vaccine mandating, passporting, locking down while their kids freeze to death.
sitting on the cold ground, eating a bad lunch in the playground. I got to tell you, as far as like health and sanitation goes, eating outside on a New York playground is not my idea of clean. No, seriously. Your kids are at greater risk from hepatitis C at that point than they are from COVID. I mean, this is where we're at, though, is the society has gone nuts.
At least if you live in a blue state, they've gone insane. Would either of you, I mean, honestly, right now, would either of you move to a blue state? No, no, no, absolutely not. If Erin was in here, she would have a different response. Okay, so Erin, who is also part of our little group for this program here,
Erin is nuts. I think we all need to start with that premise, right? We love her dearly, but yes. We love her dearly, but Erin is insane. To the point where she actually thinks California is going to make a comeback. Yep. She has hope. Yeah. Republican Party takeover of California led by Erin Morris, 2022. When it happens, she'll do it. Actually, she will do it. The scary thing is she might actually pull it off. She's stubborn enough. She'll do it. She is stubborn. It's true.
That's true. You have to be pretty stubborn to do all the things she does. I'd call it something else, too. Like, I'm not adopting pets that I have to shove food down their throat every day, twice a day. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. But she does this. She is a saint, and we are not. That's what this comes down to. She's a big heart. We all do not. No. That is absolutely true. Now, look, when they ask what I'm getting for Christmas, I know I'm getting coal. Mm-hmm.
Jamie's nodding because she's been around me longer than the other folks and she knows that I deserve it. A little bit. Yeah, maybe more than a little bit. Folks, we are we have a little bit less than one minute left on the on the air here. I again want to thank you so much for tuning in. Tune in again next year. We're going to be same time, same place. We're coming back. But also we're going to have a couple of more minutes today on our predictions for 2022.
That'll be on the podcast only segment. So make sure you tune into that. Download a sub stack, Spotify, Apple podcasts, all the good stuff. Happy new year. Broken potholes back next year. It's the new year and time for the new you. You've thought about running for political office, but don't know where to start before you start any planning. You need to secure your name online with a your name dot vote web domain.
This means your constituents will know they are learning about the real you when they surf the web. Secure your domain from GoDaddy.com today. Welcome back to the year-end episode of Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of the studio and off the air today. And I dragged in, if you were listening to us on the radio, I dragged Kylie Kipper in today.
Jamie Kleschek into the studio, much against their will, slapped headphones on the microphones in front of them. They are here and we are going to, this is our little prediction special for 2022. So I'm going to force them to actually make some predictions. But Kylie had something I asked her. I put her on the spot.
I said, who was our favorite guest? Who was your favorite guest? My favorite guest. Yeah. I think it was Burgess Owens. And I just, I say that because I love his background story. And it was something that like, I think people from both sides of the aisle can hear and relate to. And people say, you know, he may not be relatable because he's a professional football player, but post that when he says that he lost everything and was sweeping chimneys and he was not too big after being a professional football player to sweep chimneys to make money to provide for his kids. I just loved that.
That was – and absolutely. Burgess Owens, thank you for coming on the program this year. Yeah, thank you. Because you were absolutely fantastic. And we did have some phenomenal, phenomenal guests. So who's the big get? Who's the whale we're trying to land for next year, Kylie? Who's like at the top of the list? I am going to try to land Vice President Pence. Okay. I'm going to do my best. I've been trying. I'm going to do it. I love it. That's my goal. That's your goal. Instead of a resolution, that's my goal because –
I'm just going to keep going for it. And I do want to say, folks, you don't have to be on our side to be on Broken Potholes. Yeah. In fact, we would love to have some folks from the other side of the aisle come on. I have on numerous occasions offered this up to some of the folks around the city of Phoenix that I would love to debate on the air. Yeah, that's –
I'm giving away why they haven't actually come on right now. Shocker. I know. I probably wouldn't if I were them either. Yeah. But they should. We could have so much fun. I'm going to butcher her name, but how do you... Is it Tulsi Gabbard? Tulsi Gabbard, yeah. Yeah. I would love to have her on the show. She was on Joe Rogan. Well, so Kylie, reach out and let's see if you can make that happen because I love Tulsi Gabbard. I think she is fantastic. You know, look, folks.
I always say this, and actually we were cutting a little bit from my campaign about this today, but I say it all the time. If you're talking to a politician and they're telling you everything you want to hear, you're talking to a liar. They are full of it. And the reason I say that is really simple. Think about the person that you love the most in this world, that loves you the most, that you're closest with, your family, your wife, your husband, your partner, whoever that may be, and then ask yourself if they agree with you 100% of the time.
See, the ladies are laughing. Yeah. No, it doesn't happen, right? Like, let's be honest. There is no such thing. And nobody agrees with anybody 100 percent of the time. But then you run into these politicians and they're like talking to a voter and they're agreeing with everything that voter wants. Do you think that's honest? No, no, it's not. Remember when Biden said we wouldn't have to pay student loans?
Right. Biden has said a lot of stuff this year. He's made a lot of promises that have been COVID, student loans, all this other stuff. It's not working. But so that kind of brings us to our predictions for 2022. Now, we've been predicted to get Mike Pence on the air. That's a pretty big prediction. I'm going to I'm going to fight for it. OK, I love it. Not going to give up. I'm going to I'm going to predict the over under. We have 52 episodes coming up for you next year.
What is the over under on words that we get out of Kylie? Well, I feel like this year you got a lot more words out of me than you should have. So like that's like 200 maybe. Right.
So it's our over-under, like we're going to get four full paragraphs out of you next year? Yeah, maybe a five-paragraph essay. Oh, hey. Folks, big promises. Over-under. All right. Big promise. So let's go over the big stuff. Now, Chuck, if Chuck was here, I was going to do some sports predictions because Chuck and I love sports. I know. Sorry, I can't help you. Kylie does love sports, too. I do, but I'm not as educated as he is. Well, that's because it's not even – educated is the wrong word.
Fanatical. Fanatical. There you go. Chuck and I are very aware of our weakness. We are sports junkies, is what it is. So predictions for this year. Super Bowl winner. Like the most recent one? Who's going to win the Super Bowl? I'm going to go with, let's go Cowboys.
Really? Yeah. Like the one that's coming up right now? Yeah, the one that's coming up. Although I have a lot of beef with Dak right now because he was my fantasy football quarterback and he's been not doing great for fantasy point wise. That's true. I'm going to still stick with the Cowboys. Okay, you are sticking with the Cowboys. I may be wearing my CD Lamb jersey if they make it. Okay. What's your prediction? Okay, you know what? I am going to go with...
The Rams. Okay. I think they're hot at the end of the year. I think they're getting hotter. I think Matthew Stafford is going to have a fantastic finish. And talk about an underrated quarterback. That poor guy. It's like Barry Sanders. All those wasted years in Detroit behind a terrible offensive line with no one to catch the ball. I also have beef with Henderson, the running back. Oh, really? Yeah. Why? He really let me down.
just really let me down at the end of the year when I needed him to come through. So like fantasy playoff time, this guy just fell down for you. Yeah. And then Sony Michelle just comes up and just gets all the points that he needed to get for me to,
to get to the finals and I didn't so okay so so yeah no Henny's out yeah he's out not drafting him next year no absolutely not you gotta get Jonathan Taylor I know how many people won their fantasy league this year because they drafted Jonathan Taylor right it's probably probably if you drafted him you got a 50 50 shot at taking your league yeah the girl who actually got him in my league he she's now fighting for third and fourth so she lost last week or this week I guess
Well, that's terrible for her. She was first place all year long. Oh, how the quick how the top fall. What's the saying? How the mighty fall. The mighty fall. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I wasn't coming up with that either. So that's good. It's painful. OK, that'll be it for the sports predictions, because I think that's really all we got. But I want to do some political predictions here. So I am predicting that Republicans take the House and the Senate.
I think we end up with a 20, I'm predicting, 28-seat majority in the House. Big majority. 28-seat in the House. And I think we end up with 53 Senate seats. What state do you think those are from? I think Arizona is one of them. I think Mark Kelly is on his way to losing his next election. I think so, too. I hope so. And I think we will see another one of those out of Georgia. Mm-hmm.
I think we get something there. I'm not sure about all the rest, but I think what we're seeing around this country right now is a real pushback against some of the stuff that the Democrats are doing. I think there are a lot of people out there who...
You know, maybe Republicans do such a bad job of selling our story and selling our ideas and saying why we should do these things. A lot of times we seem to just be fighting against things. We're always on the defense. Yeah. And the other side's smart. They're always on offense. They're always attacking. They're always trying to move the ball three more yards downfield. Right? Oh, look at you. I know. I threw that in there just for fun. But...
But they are really smart about it. And actually there's a theory in talking about how you overthrow a government or change a country, how fascism or totalitarianism comes to be. And it's really about pushing, pushing, pushing until you get pushback and then you back off a little bit.
And you wait until things quiet down and then you keep pushing. And pretty soon you start out in the middle of the road and pretty soon you realize you're way out there. And I think that's what Democrats have been doing the last few years. And I think it's kind of caught up with them. I mean, talking to people, one thing I like about both of you is you have a lot of people in and around your lives who don't think the way you do about politics, right? What are those folks saying right now?
Are they not saying anything, which is also a clue? Yeah, they're not saying anything. They're trying real hard to pretend nothing is happening politically. Everything's hunky dory because they're not hearing about Trump anymore. No mean tweets. No, no mean tweets. So we got inflation. We've got COVID deaths raging out of control far beyond 2020 numbers. We have rampant crime in all our major cities. We have fentanyl.
deaths are now the number one cause of death for young Americans, which is a staggering thing. I mean, so not a whole lot's going right. But also, I don't think they're hearing about it. That's kind of the problem, right? I mean, if you tune in to MSNBC or CNN or one of these things, you don't get the same picture. I mean, same with Fox, too. I'm not leaving anyone out of this.
I think they're both – which brings us back to a guest we had a couple of weeks ago. Folks, if you're not paying attention and subscribing to the Washington Examiner, you probably ought to start because literally, well, they used to be very, very right-leaning. Who was the guest? I forgot one of their editors. What's that? Quinn Hillier. Quinn Hillier. Yes. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you.
Folks, this is why I keep Jamie around, because I have no memory. I have the memory of an 84-year-old. As do I. Yes. It's pretty bad. Yeah, it's terrible. Thank God she's here. So she brings up Quinn Hilliard, who we had on air a couple of weeks ago. He was fantastic. And he confirmed they're making a real focus in their newsroom. Obviously, they still do conservative opinion. They're making a real focus in their newsroom to just do the news. Mm-hmm.
And you just don't get that many places, right? Like I go and read their stuff and it's just the news. I don't even know where else to find that anymore. I know. So any other predictions for 2020? You guys are, come on. Jamie, what's your prediction? Yeah. Oh, goodness. I don't know. What's your prediction, Kylie? My prediction is that neither of these women will ever come up with a prediction. I came up with a prediction, the Super Bowl winner. Okay, you did. Okay. Now that's sort of fair. Political predictions? Yeah.
Oh, gosh. Jamie, come on.
student loans, all these things. Democrats have some often very nice sounding ideas that don't work terribly well, but sound real good to people. I think on the local level, I think people are sick of it and they are about to revolt. In fact, we have been told by a couple of folks that some of the Democrats who represent the South Phoenix area are actually terrified. Because if you know South Phoenix is heavily, heavily Hispanic,
Hispanics give Joe Biden a lower approval rating right now than Caucasians do. And they're watching that community, that Hispanic community, something we have been talking about, us and others for many years. They are far more like Republicans than they are Democrats.
Right. Hispanics across this country share far, far more in common with Republicans than Democrats. And I think one of the things that I was really excited about in the last few years is seeing Republicans stop talking about deportation, focus on the border, secure the border. Absolutely. Focus on jobs. Focus on protecting families. And what are we seeing? Trump opened the door. Love him or hate him. Trump opened the door to Hispanics in that door swinging wider and wider open to
And Democrats are scared. I think there's going to be some big reversals in some blue districts across this country, like we saw in the Rio Grande Valley last year.
I think Democrats could be in for the rude awakening of a lifetime with the Hispanic population. Well, if you want to see a change, that's your local elections. That's going to be the quickest change in your life than voting for the president. Yeah, absolutely. Your school board, your city council. Yeah, I think we'll see a huge change in the school board. There's no doubt here in Arizona and across the country it's going to be a massive change. Mm-hmm.
Can I tell you how much I appreciate Randy Weingarten this year? Yeah. Like literally, folks, if you've been following this, Randy Weingarten, the head of the Big Teachers Union, she has done more to promote school choice this year than anybody in this country. And I give her the title there over Corey Danglis for a reason who has done a fantastic job promoting it deliberately.
The difference is Randy has tried so hard to stomp school choice down and on the way succeeded in building it up as nobody else in this country could or would have. So thank you. It's like Obama was the best gun salesman we ever had. Oh, he's a fantastic gun salesman.
He is a fantastic gun salesman. Randy Weingarten is a fantastic promoter of school choice. We need more of these Democrat heroes to rise up. Yes, absolutely. Rise up and lead the way, folks. Yeah, no, we big, big ups. Folks, that'll do it for this year. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Be sure to join us again next year. We're coming right back. We are looking to expand what we do on the program a little bit. So if you've got ideas, the content that you like, what you want to hear more of, if you want us to do one guest per show instead of two, if you want us to have Chuck and I going back and forth or me torturing the poor ladies in the studio. I'm sure no one's voting for that one. Please, no one vote for that one. Oh, yes, everyone vote for that one. Folks, get on Twitter right now. Demand it.
But tell us what you want to hear. Tell us what you want to see. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook. We don't do enough with our Facebook page. We got to up that. We will. Jamie's giving me it. Yes, she's trying. 2022 predictions. 2022 prediction is our Facebook page will be managed better. We'll get on that. All right. Folks, thank you so much again. Happy New Year. Enjoy it with your families. Keep your dogs and cats inside. We have too many strays already.
I have spent most of the last week comforting my neighbor's cat who's terrified of every explosion. So folks, before you burn down the valley, put your pet in a like hug jacket or whatever they call those things. The Thunder shirt. Thunder shirt. My dog loves it. Okay, there you go. It works. See, get your dog or cat the Thunder shirt and have a great new year. Really tear it up. Celebrate no masks out with your family, out with your friends.
If you are young and healthy, go party. You're going to get Omicron and you'll be okay. Broken potholes back next year. It's the new year and time for a new you. You've thought about running for political office but don't know where to start. Before you start any planning, you need to secure your name online with a yourname.vote web domain. This means your constituents will know they are learning about the real you when they surf the web. Secure your domain from godaddy.com today.