Rachel Walden on Getting Schools Back to Basics
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Welcome to Broken Potholes with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. In the studio with us today, a lady who's taken on a heck of a fight, Rachel Walden, running for school board in Mesa. Is it Mesa Unified? Yes, Mesa Unified School District. Which is one of the biggest school districts in the state of Arizona. I think it's the biggest school district. Is it now the biggest? The biggest, yes. How many students? 62,000. Wow. It's a small city.

That'd be a mid-sized city. That's a mid-sized city. That is a huge school district. It's just another New Year's Eve party at Kip's house. That's all that is. Get your wristbands now. You're not even counting the people waiting in the driveway to get in. No, no. I mean, it's a tough ticket to get. But anyway, Rachel, thanks for joining us. Sure. Thanks for having me. You know, it's funny you're doing this out in Mesa. So in the 2020 cycle, a project we had was organizing Suburban Moms in Mesa.

And one of the funny comments I kept getting, so we would come and we'd bring like former Congressman Jason Chaffetz and former Congresswoman Mia Love and so forth. They do these meetings in the middle of the day. There'd be 150 women come. I mean, it was impressive. And it wasn't like we were polling them. And then every meeting, they would start complaining about, well, how crappy the school was and how crappy the school board is. And they would say, well, who appoints these people? And I looked at them and said, they're not appointed. They're elected. Well, how do you run?

go file, you know. I wish you had been there to tell them what they could do. They acted like I was talking about Martians had come and invited us over to pre-Thanksgiving dinner or something, and they just were baffled that people could run for these seats and make a real difference. So tell us why you're running for school board of Mesa. Sure. So I'm a Mesa mom. I'm a suburban mom now, but Mesa's my hometown. I'm from Mesa. I came out of the Mesa public school system, graduated from Mesa High,

And I got really politically involved. I come from a political family and we've always talked politics at my house. It's a lot of fun. And I got really involved, especially during 2020, in trying to figure out what in the world's going on, what's happening. I was a precinct committeeman and...

School board was something that I kept thinking about and thinking about because I'm really passionate about education. And it was for me, it was education where I found sort of my skills and my talents. And I came from a family of five kids and a single mom and a lot of

hard times in my, in my household. And it was through education that I found out what my, you know, what I could do in life and what was possible in life. And to sort of break that, that cycle of kids that, that come out of poverty. And I saw what was happening in our schools with the indoctrination, the critical theories that they're teaching. And I, and my daughter just started kindergarten this year. And I thought, who are her friends going to be? The,

These kids are the future voters of America. And what kind of world is she going to inherit when we're teaching kids to hate America and we're teaching them identity politics, but they're not learning the fundamentals, how to read and write and math? The three R's. Right. Seems to be a lost creature like the pyramids or something. Yeah. It's clearly more important to spend half your day on gender pronouns than it is on math, right?

Right. I mean, that's that's the lesson of modern education. Well, yeah, and it's not even that. It seems to be just every other issue, but actually academic studies that will help you get employment. Well, and a lot of it. How old you're oldest? I have two kids. My first baby died. I have a daughter now that's five and she's starting kindergarten this year.

Or she started kindergarten this year, not starting. So you're there to guard that education for her. She's the sentinel. But for everybody, for everybody's kids. What is the question you're asked the most as you talk to people about your candidacy? What is a common question you're asked? The most common is, do we teach critical race theory? So if you went around and talked to 100 people today, you and I went knocking doors, how many people bring that up?

I think it's one of the biggest questions I get asked is that stuff happening in our district?

And it is. And it may not be called critical race theory, but a lot of people think that, well, we banned it in the legislature, so they're not teaching it. We ban certain components of teaching in the legislature. That doesn't mean people aren't going to teach it, but there's other pieces of critical race theory that's going to be taught. Yeah, it seems progressive educators are playing this game like, well, we don't call it critical race theory, so therefore it's not happening. Right.

And it's embedded in every portion of the curriculum starting as young as kindergarten. That's correct. And my daughter at her public school, I had a conversation with the principal because the focus now is shifting to what they're calling social emotional learning. And that leads to transgenderism because it's this focus that

this focus on emotions and your body and they ask kids questions how do you feel about your body are you comfortable with your body things that go beyond the purview of of the public school i mean we have schools in mesa where kids are getting pulled out to talk to counselors i've heard it from multiple parents and the school board may not be aware of this i brought it up at their most recent meeting they don't always know this stuff that's going on because there's a whole bunch of schools and

a whole bunch of kids with principals and superintendents, and they're at the top there as sort of almost like a citizen oversight board. But these day-to-day operations of school, they don't always see that or know that.

Chuck, you and I have seen that almost at every level of government, right? You have elected officials who, depending on how much they engage, may or may not know anything at all about the stuff they're supposed to oversee. No, and I think sometimes when you have anybody in leadership, it's a very American thing to think, you know, for example, you know, Jamie or Kip who are in the studio, you

You know, they could be doing something, you know, they work full time, but I don't know what they do seven and a half hours of the day. I mean, it's ridiculous. And sometimes we do that. And it seems like we've got school boards who just sort of let students

They're not really manning it, right? They're not really managing it. They're just sort of letting these folks have... It's got free... I mean, so for example... You know, for example, school boards handle budgets, and we keep hearing teachers aren't paid enough in Arizona. Well, who controls that? That's the school board. Right. I mean, you know, it seems like teachers...

If they really cared about that issue, would be demanding from the school board that they get the money that the actual legislature has appropriated for it. So I know when Governor Ducey and the legislature probably put, what, three, four, five billion new public education dollars above inflation in? Yeah. So if you add it all up, Arizona schools now get about $14,400 per kid per year.

an average class size of 24, that's $345,000 per classroom. I'm sorry, that should be plenty to pay a teacher a really good salary. Well, it should be half. Yeah. I mean, okay, so if you look at a school, you've got the teacher's salary, textbooks. What are textbooks? $10,000. You've got the upkeep for the school per classroom. So you've got the air, which is a big deal here and so forth.

OK, what do you got? And it seems like it goes to a bunch of things that have nothing to do with what you're talking about, reading, writing, arithmetic. And it's been that way for a long time. The Goldwater Institute did an article. They said that around the 1980s, they found in one year that over 2000 administrator roles were added to the school system. They don't know why. And maybe it's going to be that there has to be administrator roles that get cut.

in order to get that money to the classroom. But we know it's not getting there. It's not getting to the classroom. You know, one of the things that I've said to school superintendents and officials is, look, tell us which of the regulations and reporting requirements are actually valuable and which aren't. And we'll get rid of the ones that aren't. I don't need them to take four different tests a year or anything like that. If they don't think it's necessary, get rid of it. But then you have to fire a bunch of people and they're not, they don't want to do that. No, they don't want to do it at all. So tell us what you'll do on the school board.

So I want to get our focus back to basics. So we need to use curriculum that we know works. And you look at your charter schools around the valley and what are they teaching? And the biggest one, the biggest difference is Spalding Phonics. And that's been around for 70 years. I'm a huge advocate for that program. I'm confident that's what I was taught before we moved to Arizona when I was a kid. I was miles ahead of my peers in Arizona when we moved here. And

it's a program that teaches you to basically write, read, and spell all at the same time. And it's what our blue ribbon in education schools are using. They use that and then they use a more effective math program, usually something like Saxon Math. And it's effective and it's been around for a long time. We know that, but we keep spending a lot of money on curriculum that doesn't have any kind of track record of success. So working with the board to get our focus

into something that works. They have a lot of choices that the teachers do, and we need to find a way to narrow that down and make sure that they're using things that are successful. Would you discuss more about the choice? You said teachers have a lot of choices. Discuss that a little bit more. So I have like an 11-page document of different vendors and programs that the schools are authorized to use.

I don't know the history on how that list got so long and why there's so many options for them. So you can have the school board say, well, here's their curriculum we approve, but here's all these other vendors you can use too. And, and,

And that's for textbooks and so forth? Yeah, textbooks and programs, the materials that teachers get to bring into the classroom and teach the kids. And there's too many choices. There's too many vendors on there. Is this curriculum, these 11 pages, is this online where parents can go look at it? No. No, I only have it because I had somebody send it to me. That's the only reason I have it. I couldn't find it at all. Will you put this on your website?

Sure. I mean, you should. Parents across the country are finding out that this stuff is not readily available. And I don't understand how it isn't. I mean, it's. Well, that's the interesting thing about COVID. That's, you know, COVID's changed our world in many ways. One way is the education. And I've heard this time and again from parents, parents who I would consider, you know, they think they're they're moderate. They think they're pretty, you know, they're cosmopolitan. Right. That's how they view themselves.

And then you hear and you talk to mom and said, you know, I wasn't real, you know, I thought my kids were just getting good education. Then I hear these Zoom classes and I'm like, what the heck are they teaching you? And I think the COVID and the Zoom learning has really people who want education to be education, not indoctrination. Yes. The best thing that's happened for them.

sadly, is COVID and Zoom learning. That was a silver lining in all of it for a lot of parents. And one of the ones that Macy's using, one of the vendors, Cengage is the name of the company, Gale Education. That's one that Heather Rooks has brought a lot of attention to because in the

online learning there's links to pornographic sites that take you out of the material into pornographic sites and gay pornographic sites and she's shed some light on that there was somebody in Colorado that first discovered it and we're actually sharing information across the nation because we're all finding the same problems

everywhere, and they use these giant vendors, and what are we getting out of it? But yet everyone knows that, but it's still in the curriculum. It should have been banned and taken out immediately. Where can people find you? What's a website they can find you at? Electrachelwalden.com, and I'm on Instagram and Facebook. My handle's at Walden Patriot.

I think you should put that up today on your sites, this curriculum, and tell parents to go look at it. Sure. I think an educated electorate is very helpful. Yeah, absolutely. We have just about 45 seconds before we go to break. We're going to come right back here. But, Rachel, what got you – what was the last straw? What got you to do this? I think the last straw was for me – it got a little bit personal because when I was in graduate school –

I was taught in this learning, this identity politics. They called it postmodern theory. I recognized what was being taught. And they tried to indoctrinate me with that same stuff when I was in school. And it didn't work. And so for me, I'm going to keep finding it. And you're here. Broken Potholes will be coming right back. Thank you. Thank you.

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 hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. In the studio with us today, as always, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. Jamie Kleschek, she never says a word.

But she is here, folks. Believe it or not, she even hides from the camera, but she's here. And in studio with us today, a courageous young lady running for school board in Mesa, Rachel Walden. And Rachel, when we went to break, you were talking about what the final straw was. You said you went for your, was it doctoral studies? My postgraduate studies was in a master's program. In a master's program. And you were seeing this critical race theory phenomenon.

critical theory more broadly being pushed into your curriculum. Correct. And as Chuck said right after we went to break, apparently it didn't stick. Yeah, well, I actually completed all of my coursework for my master's degree, and I even got a fellowship to go to England. I got to go to Oxford, the Bodleian Library, all these awesome things to do, yeah, to do research. And so

So I had everything done. I just had to finish my thesis and the school, the teachers got together and they kicked me out. So technically, I didn't get my master's degree. I was working on my thesis. Why did they kick you out? Because I wouldn't embrace this postmodern theory. They wanted me to write everything. And I was doing imperial studies and they wanted to write everything through the lens of race and class. How long ago was that? Let's see, that was early 2000s.

You need to write that up and submit that op-ed to Arizona Republic. Oh, you think so? Okay. I don't think so. I know. I don't know. I didn't ever talk about it. I'm beyond thinking about it. I think you should just do it. I mean, they're not going to print it, but we have other friends who we can get it to who will. Well, we could probably get it in the Washington Times or Wall Street Journal or something. Look, see, that's the problem we're at right now. You're an educated woman who knows these issues.

And you've taken the leap to run for public office, and this is wonderful. You would be a fantastic addition. But with these type of stories, it's these narratives that get people more engaged. And people hearing that type of story, I went through it, I did all the work, but my thesis they wanted to do me under this theory, that's going to mean something to people. And you need to push that.

Well, and I think people don't realize too that this, this we call indoctrination, it's been happening for a long time. And I got it a little bit as an undergraduate, but it went basically whole hog for graduate school. And now we're seeing it at the kindergarten level, all the way, all the way down to the social emotional learning that you said it's embedded in everything they do. That's what my daughter's principal said. She told me it's, you can't opt out because it's embedded into everything we're doing.

A lot of this flows from some really bad childhood theories about childhood development that frankly came along in the 70s and 80s. I remember when I went to school at the start of the 90s, my first year at U of A, I had a roommate who, God bless him, but he was stupid. I mean, the guy tried, but he was dumber than a box of rocks. Did he pay his rent on time, though? I don't know. We were in a dorm, so mom and dad were paying that rent. But yeah.

You know, he was a good basketball player. I'll give him that. But he was dumb as a brick. And when he started failing, he wanted to be an engineer because that's what his dad was. He couldn't possibly hack that. He failed out of two other programs real quick. By his second semester, they stuck him as an education major. And he started getting straight A's. What is the GPA of public school teachers from college? You've told me that stuff before. So, yeah. So public school teachers are education majors broadly.

have the lowest average SAT scores entering college among all college major fields, and they graduate with the highest average GPAs. And, I mean, it was – I think a lot of this stuff has its origins 20, 30, 40 years ago. And there's just been a lot of people sleep at the switch. Yeah. You know, I read a comment the other day on Twitter, and it was from an MSNBC contributor.

And he made a comment. He goes, oh, it's nice to see these parents get involved with public schools now. And he was making a snide comment, but he's right. Right. I mean, he was spot on. I'm like, yeah, I'm like retweeting that. Like, absolutely, you're right. This is parents' fault what we're getting right now. They have fallen asleep at the switch. We definitely need more involvement. And...

What we're seeing too is what happened with school boards, and New York Post wrote about this, is it's the influence of the teacher unions because they take the dues that they get, the money that they get, and they're funding campaigns. And a lot of elections are about name recognition and campaign funding.

And people really do just vote based on a name that they've seen on a road sign on the corner somewhere. And that's where we've sort of lost, or I think, you know, I'm a constitutional conservative where we've kind of lost control of school boards, is that we don't have these organizations behind us giving us money for our campaigns and making sure that we get on the school board. Well, okay, so this is a good example. You're a constitutional conservative. But at the end of the day...

You want kids just to be able to read. Exactly. You want them to be able to do math. Yeah, it's a nonpartisan issue. Yeah. You're not looking to putting your conservative, constitutional conservative ideology on that. Those are those should be ideology less. Right. Just simply can you read when you leave school at a 12th grade level? Can you do math at a 12th grade level? Do you know how to do the basis of chemistry? Do you?

There just seems to me that's not even a political issue. We just want to educate a populace. We want you to learn how to do – you do book reports because we want you to learn how to do research so you can learn for yourself. That's not an ideology. And for some reason, this has all become ideological for the most basic function. We're not asking someone when they go to air conditioning school –

you know, to study optometry, right? You know, just learn how to fix my darn air conditioner. And it seems like that's what we need school board members to be doing again. Yeah, I agree. It is almost a back to basics approach.

back to basics platform that across the country we need to adopt. I think people are ready for that. I went to D.C. with FreedomWorks and they did a retreat with candidates and activists, different people across the country. And that's

that's what's happening right now. It's sort of this awakening to education, but a demand that we are teaching our children these basics. They can be successful later in life. You know, you have all this depression and anxiety and all these problems with kids and then you find out they can't even read. Well, maybe if they could take some

control in their lives and read books and think for themselves, some of those psychological problems they're having would go away. But I think a lot of kids don't even understand the world that they're living in right now. Well, it's like a personal finance classes. We've talked about it. I think personal finance classes should be required a semester at school because you would see a lot more consumer, a lot less consumer debt. You see a lot more less problems on that. I'm telling you right now, there is not a 20 something and we hire a lot of 20 somethings who I brought on who knows how to write a check.

I beg to differ. I know how to write a check. You're one of the few.

Well, it's only because everything is so old school now, like paying all my mortgage and my HOA. This is a bad room to make this claim in because we also got Jamie in here who's like – But most people don't. I mean, literally, I just said – She's a 20-year-old who listens to Dave Ramsey. That's not normal. Well, perfect example. Kip had a canvasser the other day, just didn't even know how to cash a damn check. Yes, very true. I mean, we're releasing people who can't write a check or know how to deposit a check.

That is a problem for society. Yeah. I think there should be a finance class. I agree. Well, you're going to win and you're going to be responsible for part of the curriculum, so we're going to hold you to that. Yeah, absolutely. I hope so. I hope so. You know, when we come back, I want to talk about something I read in the Wall Street Journal I thought was very interesting from a Chinese parent who just came over to the United States, brought his kid, and talking about some of the differences between education here and education in Beijing. Because, folks...

We're in a global conflict and we're getting our butt kicked. Schools have a lot to do with it. Broken potholes coming back in just a moment. 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 with your hosts. I'm Sam Stone. In the studio with me today, Chuck Warren and Rachel Walden, running for Mesa School Board. Rachel, tell us again where people can find you online.

I think they need to get behind you. Thank you. ElectRachelWalden.com. And then for current updates, stuff that's happening in the news you want to read about, go to Instagram or Facebook. And it's at Walden Patriots. My handle, you can find me at Rachel Walden. Now, if they go to your website, is there a sign up where they can stay in touch, get a newsletter or whatever you're doing to keep contact with them? I haven't started a newsletter. Okay.

But you can follow me on social media. I don't know. Maybe I should get that going. Rachel, do you feel we've given you a lot of homework today? Yeah, I think we have. The school board of broken potholes. Right.

You know, as we were going to break, I brought up an article I read yesterday I thought was very interesting from a gentleman named Habi Zhang, who recently moved here from Beijing with his son. And this is what he wrote. I recently registered my son in the third grade at a New Jersey public school. Hattie had recently finished two years of elementary school in Chengdu, China, where he trotted off to school each day with a backpack stuffed with thick textbooks and materials for practice and quizzes.

Here he leaves for school with little in his backpack other than a required, quote, healthy snack. The first day he came home with a sheet of math homework, 35 addition problems. He finished in about a minute. On the second day, he was asked to write 328 in different configurations. I'm not even sure how that's math.

He first wrote down 300 plus 20 plus 8 following the prompt. As he says, my son is not a genius, but he started studying math at an early age. When he was five, I taught him fractions. Two years later, I introduced him to algebra. It is a core belief in Chinese society that talent can be trained. So schools should be tough on children. Chinese students score at the top of international math and science tests. Now, Chuck, you and I have talked about it. We are in...

Whether people want to recognize it or not, a global geopolitical conflict with China. Right? We are. And those kids are in school a lot longer. They don't have summer breaks, fall break. We have all that stuff here. But that's why we have to get out all this other teaching in our schools and do back to basics. And they've got to master the fundamentals. And the schools are too busy teaching them all these other issues. They're teaching them about body positivity and health.

and social-emotional learning and the other stuff we talked about, these critical theories. And there's no time for that. There's no time for that at all because the average child in America has 6,000 waking hours in a year, and only 1,000 of those hours are spent in school. So 80% of their time is not in school. 80% of their time is not devoted to mastering the basics. And I'm not advocating that we need to

put our kids in school all day like they do in China when they're starting kids at three years old. But I'm advocating that we take the time that we have and we focus and we focus on learning the basics and all that other stuff. If they want to learn it, that's fine. They can do it in their own time. It just doesn't have a place in taxpayer funded education. That's a fantastic point.

Are you running against an incumbent or what? Is it open seat? What's going on? That's a good question. So there's actually a school board election every two years when we vote in November. There's two seats and then three seats every two years. This time it's a two seat opening. I don't know if the incumbents are running or not. That hasn't been announced. But I have filed and there's three other people that have filed a statement of interest, which...

isn't relevant until you get your petition signatures that actually get you on the ballot. So I'm still gathering signatures. So how can people sign a signature for you? Well, I post my events online. So you can contact me directly if you want to get a petition and help get signatures. Every signature counts in a race like this. Or you can go to one of my events and sign my petitions. There are not online petitions for school board. And folks, if you want to change every school board in America,

All you literally have to do is get to the end of your ballot because so few people actually vote in those races. You have huge numbers of votes for the top line, the president, the Senate, the big congressional races.

Only about a third actually fill out the bottom. Yeah. So do your family and friends think you're crazy for doing this? My family is so supportive. My husband is so proud of what I'm doing. This was a family decision because at the time when I decided to do this, I filed my statement back in June, but with my daughter starting school soon, I was...

trying to decide am I going to go back to my career, what do I want to do? And so it's a big sacrifice, right? I'm making this my full-time job. It's an unpaid position. But we agreed that this was the right thing to do. So basically people should vote for Rachel because she's going to focus on making sure your kids can read and write.

And do math. Yeah. Well, I think the school board, I think there are probably people in the school board that want to do that, too. But I think it takes courage to turn down some of the other things that are happening. You know, the problem with school boards, too, everybody wants to be liked. That's true. And it's not sexy to say, look, I want you kids to be able to read, write, and do math. And I think most people are going to say, let's make school boring again. Let's just learn. Right. Right.

That's a great tagline. And even though people all want that, too, at the same time, they want all this other stuff taught. And there's just not enough time. Yeah. Yeah. They can go. They can go teach him at home. Back to the basics with Rachel Walden. Broken potholes will be coming back in just a moment. Our final segment on air coming up.

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 Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Rachel Walden, who just left the studio with us, fantastic guest, but boy, what

I mean, the more you get into schools, the more you realize what a mess this is. Well, and the thing that always stood out for me is what people don't think is important. Her story about her thesis is, like, really important, right? And it's a story she should lead with. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's...

I always laugh what people think is important and not important. So if I'm going and I'm meeting Rachel and you start that story, you're going to remember that story because she's lived this personal hell. And as a result, she paid all this money for a graduate degree and doesn't have a piece of paper for it because she refused, based on her consciousness, to enact this and implement this crazy theory they wanted to do. And...

I'm always just amazed at candidates, what they think is important and not important. It is astounding. Yeah, it's like the 11-page curriculum. Post the darn thing. Go look and see what they're teaching your kids. It's 11 pages. Well, and you kept hitting on, which was her central theme, getting back to the basics, right? But, you know, look, we've got, I think it's Baltimore Public School District. They spend $25,000 per kid per year. Last year, they did not have one kid in the entire system proficient in math at grade level.

Not one. You know, I mean, so, you know, I really do believe here and I understand parents being upset. I'm upset about it because we have to employ these people. I really think a winning message is I'm going to make school boring again. I'm just going to make sure that your daughter or son.

have the best opportunity to be reading at a high school graduate level, to be writing that's clear and concise, and that they do math on 12th grade level, that they succeed in whatever field they pursue, whether that's college, a trade school, HVAC repair. It doesn't matter. We just want them to have those skills because then they could be educated members of society. The only time school should be exciting to anyone on the outside of it is when it's a play or a sporting game.

That's what we've lost here. And we... I don't know. It's so frustrating that we just let the most simple task go in a way. It's, you know...

It's really – we have failed as Republicans and conservatives. We've done a great job promoting school choice, and you brought this up before. We just – we get away from the basics, and the basics are what make us grow as a society. I remember years ago talking to a woman. It was a church down in the south, and they were talking a couple weeks in a row about different subjects, and she finally just said –

so are we going to talk about Jesus? I mean, you know, it's a Baptist church. And I just thought, yeah, I mean, that's what she's here for, right? She's here for Jesus. And if you're going to school, you want your kids to be able to have the basics of education so they can be

good, upstanding citizens and have a job. Come to Jesus. And get out of my basement. Come to Jesus and know where to put the comma. All right. So we have a food fight in the city of Phoenix. Sam, why don't you tell us what's going on there? All hell's broken loose. Dogs and cats flying. What's going on here? Yeah. So the city of Phoenix, Phoenix city manager announced a vaccine mandate beginning January and January for all city of Phoenix employees on the basis that because the city of Phoenix takes federal money, that they are a federal contractor.

And they did it without a council vote. Now, I have heard. Is that even legal? I really don't think so. And I spoke to Jack Wilinchak, a local attorney who's working with Attorney General Mark Brnovich on this. I spoke with him yesterday. They are working a number of angles on this because they don't think it is. But also, let's put aside the vaccine for a moment.

When you're claiming that now the city of Phoenix and all its employees are federal contractors, you are placing the city of Phoenix and all its employees for all time to come as

at the will and whim of the federal government. They can include anything. Which is what progressives want. Yeah. They really don't want federalism at all. No. I mean, look, there are Democrats in Congress right now who've talked about federalizing local police, right? Yeah. And federalizing all emergency services and doing all this stuff. And for these local governments, a lot of them, if you're very liberal, that sounds great because you're taking the two biggest areas of cost and

And what they envision is, well, my tax structure doesn't change. So suddenly I have a ton of money to hand to my friends and programs. But, you know, let's let's look at sort of the constitutional to me and the personal medical issues of this. So they're mandating this vaccine for people who, by and large, have been on the front lines from day one of this this crisis. A lot of them have gotten the covid and recovered.

Right. And there's no evidence at all that a vaccine protects you better than having natural immunity. Right. I mean, it's just every claim that's out there that I see is like, oh, well, natural immunity works, but we don't know how long it works. Therefore, you should run out and get a vaccine.

Yeah. And I think it's important for our audience to know I'm vaccinated. So am I. We're vaccinated. I'm not anti-vax at all. And I think the government should push it. I'm anti-mandate. Yeah. I don't think you should mandate it. I think people know their bodies and that's their decision. Yeah. I mean, it absolutely is. But the issues here are are sort of staggering when you think about it, because if they mandate this, where are the limits?

Where are the limits if the federal government can mandate this based on? Oh, it's it. You know, it's truly a domino. Right. Once you start this, what can you start mandating? And it will be shot. It will be more and more and more in more areas. And so, like, for instance, one of the things that they're demanding is that if you want a medical exemption, you have to turn over all your medical history, your medical records, copies of everything to the city. Now, here's here's the thing with that.

The city doesn't actually employ a doctor. We have a COVID, quote, COVID expert who, frankly, is just really good friends with our mayor, who has a Ph.D. in biodefense. And frankly, those two things, I mean, there's some relationship, but it's a ridiculous contract that they have. And so you're telling me this person who's not a doctor is going to get the medical records for everyone who. So are they. So, for example, let's look at Phoenix police. Yeah. Are they saying if you aren't vaccinated, you're off your job?

Yeah. So what they're saying is starting on January 1, there will be escalating penalties up to the point where they will lose their job. So my follow up question then is how many police officers are we short in Phoenix right now? We are short. I mean, depending on who you ask, but even I'm asking you. Well, look, on my my count, we're about twelve hundred short. But the very minimum, even if you listen to the like, you know, the more liberal folks is we're six to eight hundred short.

And by the way, we have a third of our 3,000, less than 3,000 now, but a third of them can retire right now.

They can walk away with their pension and everything else right now. And they are. And they are. I mean, I know Florida, Santa's offering bonuses for cops and they're coming out there and joining. Yeah. I see the post all the time. Oh, look, the minute Phoenix did this, you've got the Pinal County Sheriff and a couple of the local towns here because everyone's short of cops. So let me think of this. If you're 600 cops short, let's say they work 40 hours a week. Right. Over a year. Yeah. That's 1,248,000 working hours a week.

Of law enforcement that's not on the streets. That's right. How much crime is prevented with 1,248,000 extra law enforcement on the streets? A lot. And look around right now, folks. I mean, I like to drive fast. I think we all know I have a lead foot. At least the people in this studio are well aware.

But here's the deal. I talk to people all the time as I'm going around doing my own campaign. I'm talking to people all the time. You know what the number one issue is? It's the behavior of drivers on our streets.

Like, even more than all this other stuff that's going on in society, when you're talking about a city council race, I talk to these folks. What they're concerned about is that you've got people doing 75 in a 45 all over the place. They blow past a police cruiser who doesn't bother with them because they're on their way to their 19th 911 call of the day and they have no time. And that's what's going on right now. And

You're putting at risk having hundreds more walk with this mandate. How about fire? How does this affect fire? Same story there, right? A lot of fire. We don't have quite the same overhang in terms of people ready to retire or eligible to retire. And we do have a full fire department. So we don't have the same lack. But you also have about, again, these guys have all gotten it because they were transporting patients and all this stuff.

You have about 35, 40 percent, from what I understand, who don't want to get the vaccine.

And a lot of them, they can go get hired anywhere else too. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. You're going to have a lot of true red states that just say, come do it. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, look, if I was running in one of these out towns here and around the valley, I would be jumping on it. Yeah, absolutely. I can get some of the best cops in the world. They're perfectly trained and I can have them on my force tomorrow. Where's the Phoenix business community on this?

You know, the Phoenix business community has been oddly silent on this. I mean, like they have been in a lot of things throughout COVID. Well, of course, all they care about is pavement. Right. No, I mean, you know, look, at the end of the day, what they're trying to do, because the fact of the matter is, even though this announcement came from the city manager, I've heard from sources that at an executive session, this was really the will of the mayor and certain council members. Well, she's been melodramatic about COVID. Yeah.

It's probably an understatement. Melodramatic about COVID undersells her pure, pure panic. I mean, she lost it. She does have a Harvard degree. Yeah. You know, there was a study I just read, actually, that showed they did in France a study on long COVID. Yeah. And what they found were two things. Almost nobody who claims long COVID has had COVID. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think there are some people – I have an accountant we deal with on political action committees, and he got hit hard. And that's the thing about this. I think, folks, what you understand, when we're talking about COVID, we don't think it's made up. No. We think it's serious. Yeah. There are precautions you should take that are in the best interest of yourself. Sure.

One thing the government is talking about, you know, working out, eating right, sleeping well, it's going to help you a lot. Yeah. Right. Basic things like that. If you're really worried, by the way, I was just talking to a guy this past week who was a advisor, senior advisor to the head of the FDA on drug safety issues and medical issues. And he said, look, if you're concerned, wear an N95 mask. You can get them now. You can get them in stores. You can get them online. Wear an N95 mask because that's the most effective thing you can do.

You know, but beyond that, with all of this stuff going on, it's time to just let go, folks. The vaccine is there. You have choices. You know how to protect yourself. We know who's vulnerable and who isn't.

I mean, it really is time to just move on with this stuff. You're going to have to learn with it. As our closing minutes here, how much time do we have left on the show? We have about three minutes. Okay. Let's talk about Thanksgiving. When you're listening to this, Thanksgiving's past. What are you thankful for, Sam? I am thankful for all my good friends, including the ones in this studio right here. I am thankful indeed for Kylie Kipper, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. Oh, thank you. That's sweet. Who has gotten our...

This little podcast that, you know, we just started up a year ago. I think we've had about as good a guest list as any radio program in the country this year. Kylie deserves a lot of credit for that. Yes, indeed.

- Thank you, Kylie. - You're very, very welcome. - What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? - I'm thankful for a lot of things. I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for having a job and being employed. I'm thankful for my grandma specifically, who's 96. She turned 96 this month and listens to the show. Hi, Grandma. Very thankful for you. - Shout out, Grandma. - Yeah. What are you thankful for, Chuck? - I'm thankful I don't live in Europe. I'm thankful I don't live in Australia. - Oh, goodness gracious, yes.

I'm thankful for my family. I am a person that walks daily in gratitude. I don't take anything for granted. I'm grateful for not only my family, the folks in the room. I've been blessed abundantly with friends. I'm thankful for my faith. I am thankful for this country. I think, you know, I sometimes wonder, and I like to ask people who are old enough, who went through the 60s, if it's worse than then.

And I think the thing that's that's been coming up time and again is in the 60s and early 70s, they didn't have social media. And we're all we're all of us, even those even those who say they're it's funny. People I talk to say they're not addicted to social media. Sure. Tell me a lot what's on social media. So I think social media keeps building the anxiety.

But we live in an amazing country. I think the world, I remember years ago, I was in Estonia with a former Soviet Union infantryman, and he's now an art professor in Estonia. And we were sitting there in a cafe overlooking the bay. And I said, do you ever worry about the Russians coming across the border? And there was a U.S. destroyer in the bay. And he goes, as long as that's there, no one's coming. And I

It wasn't a snide comment. He just realized it. And I realized at the time, and he made this comment to me. He said, I wish Americans knew that the world's always on the brink of total chaos if those destroyers weren't in a bay somewhere. Amen to that. Folks, Broken Potholes will be back next week. Thank you for tuning in. Happy holidays. Enjoy your turkey. It's the new year and time for the new you.

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