Ken Blackwell on the Equality Act, the 2020 election and the road ahead
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Welcome back to Broken Potholes. I am your host, Sam Stone. In the studio with me today, my co-host, Chuck Warren. We got a great show on tap for you. We are going to have Ken Blackwell, Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.,

African-American mayor of Cincinnati. Former Secretary of State Ohio during the 2004 elections when there were questions about Ohio. And in addition, he was one of the co-chairs of the domestic transition for Donald Trump in 2016. And you said something potentially about the Cincinnati Reds, and I think we're going to have to ask him about that. Yes, we'll have to ask him about his little parlay into Major League Baseball and what his feelings are about it as well.

Good time for that. With that, let's bring on Ken Blackwell. Ken, are you there? Yes, good to be with you guys. Good to hear you, Ken. This is Chuck. Thank you for coming on today. Yeah. Ken, thank you for being here. You have an amazing article that I read in Town Hall a few days ago. The Counterfeit Equality Act, the Left's Assault on Religious Liberty.

And I wanted to open up a little bit and talk about that because I think the left is really good at putting out things that sound wonderful but have some really nasty consequences in the end. And this new Equality Act that they're putting out is really pretty dangerous, isn't it?

It really is dangerous, but it's consistent with the narrative that they have been advancing since the advent of the New York Times 1619 Project, which basically says that America is fundamentally and fatally flawed and must be torn down.

destroyed and built all over again. And as a consequence, anything that fits the model of what we call the 1776 model, where in fact we put a harness on the reach and power of government in recognition that that optimized individual liberty, must be

must be changed. And so whether that is gender definitions, whether it's the institution of marriage, all of these things have to be either reworked or destroyed. And so this Equality Act is a 14-carat fraud. It really flies in the face of the left's professed belief

science. It's just crazy. I mean, it seems like, especially this year, their belief in science coincides entirely with their belief in partisan policy and nothing else. Absolutely. Look, I've been doing for well over a decade now a lot of work at the Family Research Council, and I tend to believe that the family is the incubator of liberty.

And if you follow, as we close out this year's celebration of the contribution of black Americans to American history, you start to look at the family unit and look at it as the incubator of liberty. You begin to understand something that is fundamental.

terribly clear and that is that if you go to the black family in the 50s the 40s uh coming out of the uh

black codes uh post the institution of slavery one of the things that you see that one of the the the institutions that held us together uh pushed us through oppression and depression and recession and regression was what's the black family uh and then with the advent of the great society program

When we started to incentivize the breakdown of the family, we made it where if, in fact, a father stayed with his family, whether he was employed or of low income, that family was destroyed.

was denied relief. And we saw a transformation of the relief programs that were established in the 30s during the Depression to the Great Society program. And what we saw was the beginning of the destruction of

of the family, and we saw an escalation out of wedlock births, we saw fathers out of the home, therefore the whole role modeling that social scientists tell you that it's important to optimize good behavior and independence.

and accountability, it started to vanish. And so now what we have are neighborhoods where the streets raise children, and we see an escalation of violence and destruction, and folks who are talking about safe neighborhoods are all of a sudden...

branded as apologists for police departments and police forces. So it's crazy. It's as though, guys, we've gone through Alice in Wonderland's looking glass. And what is up is down, and what is down is up. It is just crazy. How do we—this is Chuck—how do we reverse it? Or is it possible to reverse what we're seeing? Because you're right, the family has disappeared.

In many areas, it's just not the black community, but it's exacerbated there. If you're poor and under a government program, most people don't realize those programs disincentivize fatherhood, they disincentivize families, and they incentivize single mothers. Absolutely. So how do we reverse it? Well, one of the things that we do is that we push back. And...

The last four years, the last five years have been a good example of how you can reverse it. Even though, you know, the left criticized and castigated Donald Trump as being anti-black, one of the things that he understood, and I think he might have agreed with Justice Jackson on this, that capitalism without capital is

It's just another ism. And so if, in fact, you're going to restore the flow of capital back to black communities, neighborhoods, and our inner cities, our urban areas, you have to create an environment

that is inviting. And as you guys know, capital is a coward. It flees violence. It flees destruction. And so one of the things that Donald Trump did was he said, look, those mothers, those children, those hardworking men in those urban communities deserve

And so he started to talk about restoring safe environment. He focused in on choice. Too many of our public schools are nothing more than dysfunctional systems,

and reservations for inadequacy. And so he began to talk about choice and empowering parents, quality education, safe neighborhoods, and he appreciated the dignity of work and, as a consequence,

You know, he, in fact, got numbers that were greater than any Republican since, you know, the 60s.

out of the African-American community. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things here in Phoenix that I know has had a tremendous impact is his Opportunity Zone program. Right. And all across the country, we have seen that has really been something that's led to a lot of investment in black and minority communities and a lot of new strength. But you hit on something, capital is cowardice. And I think one of the great

The tragedies of our past is if you look at that period from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, a lot of white communities basically left black communities on their own when it came to law enforcement. And then we did it again in the 80s in response to the race riots of the late 70s. And we're doing it again now.

in these events have held back minority communities across our country, at least in my mind, as much as anything else. Yeah, and you sort of touched on something that is not as obvious as I might have thought it was. The

these sort of behaviors, these sort of nonchalant attitudes bleed outside of urban areas, bleed outside of Hispanic and black communities. And all of a sudden, you know, you have suburban moms and dads being faced with this notion of,

of defunding police departments. You know, you have folks who live in suburbs but work in downtown areas all of a sudden start to see their businesses, their workplaces being defined as opportunity zones for criminals and anarchists. And as a consequence, you know, you guys are right. This problem

bleeds outside of the narrow targets of minority communities and starts to erode the foundations of what has made us a distinct and exceptional society.

Constitutional Republic in the last 244, 245 years. Ken, you're very well-versed on history, and I just can't point to anything, anywhere in history, any country, anywhere on this planet, where the erosion of law and order has benefited anybody. Right. It is... Look, I...

As I've crisscrossed not only my state of Ohio, but the country, and as I've worked through different eras of the civil rights movement, the urban revitalization efforts, one of the things that I am always noted about

that I've always noted, and that is that Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, hit upon something.

And he said, those who are whooped easiest are whooped most often. And so it comes to a point where we have to realize that it's time for us to take a stand, to draw a line in the sand and say, enough is enough and we're not going to take it anymore. And we have to stop now.

behaving as if we are 90-pound weaklings. I told somebody the other day, I said, you know, if I hear one more Republican, you know,

talk as if we are the minority party in the United States, you know, I'm just going to pour my hair out. Because the fact of the matter is that we control more state legislative chambers. That is a great point, Ken. I'm sorry to cut you off. We're going to go to break. We're going to bring you on when we come right back and want to talk more about that.

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Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone, Chuck Warren. On the line, Ken Blackwell. Chuck, you had a great point in the break and I want to further on that. Ken, I want to continue further on your comment. The 2020 election, besides the defeat of Donald Trump, which was quite depressing for many conservatives, Republicans, in reality, it was a pretty good election. We were told over and over that

that this was going to be a humongous blue wave. It was no such thing. And we control a number of states, a number of legislatures. Again, this election sort of proved to me this nation is sort of a center-right in many ways. What are your take on that?

Yeah, you're exactly right. This is now a very competitive two-party country. And at the state and local level, particularly in our counties, you know,

The Republicans are fighting hard and winning. You're right. Everybody told us that Nancy Pelosi was going to pick up 15, 20 seats. She lost, what? 11, I believe. 11 seats. We were told we were going to get wiped out of the Senate. That didn't happen. As I was saying before the break, we won...

We hold more governorships. We hold more state legislative chambers. And so we have to stop acting as if we are 90-pound, the equivalent of a political 90-pound weakling.

What we have to do is to fight back and to understand the ring that we're fighting in. And the Democrats are pretty smart. They understand that if they can regularize and centralize what the policies and the practices that work well for them in 2020 under the cover of COVID-19 restrictions,

precautions, they in fact can, and they centralize this and federalize it, they can become the

the dominant federal party, and as a consequence of the tight economic strains that state governments are faced with, they anticipate that more state governments will cede their constitutional power. And as a consequence, they see this as an opportunity to fundamentally transform the nation into a one-party country.

nation, which is pretty commonplace in totalitarian, authoritarian, and big one-party states. Yep. Fascist. Can we use that word? That's right. Absolutely. We can. Yeah. Ken, what do you see the future of the NRA? They're an organization that's protected Second Amendment rights. And Ken, you were on the board of the NRA. Is that right? Yes. Yes.

Where do you see the direction of the NRA going and why on earth were they incorporated in the state of New York for so many years? Well, you know, again, that's where they started. That history really does predate me. We now see just what a hostile environment that is. We're now incorporated in Texas. And look,

The NRA is one of the organizations that understand that what has made us different than any other nation before us in human history, and none at present, is that

It could be found in that second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, where we talk about self-evident truth, that we're endowed by our Creator with rights, not government. So there's not a government on the face of the earth that can give you your fundamental human rights. Governments can only protect it.

And if you believe that, as the framers of our Constitution did and generations of Americans, then you don't see any of those rights to government. And right now, we are in a system

Not in the system, but we're up against a foe, a political force that wants to move us to a status model. And one of the ways that they do that?

is they drive God and faith out of the public square. If it's going to be practiced, they say practice it within the four corners of the church. And they try to destroy the family. Then they lock you out of the church. That's right. So going back, I think that you're seeing the NRA is adjusting. But what gives me great faith is that just as the

The organized church is not going to cower, and neither is the NRA, because they understand, we understand that there's not a government on the face of the earth that can give us our fundamental human rights, and one of the more basic human rights is the right to self-protection. This is Chuck. If you were the chair of the RNC—

What are the three things you would focus on the next two years for the 2022 cycle that you feel would make a real concrete difference in electoral success and non-success? Well, the first thing that we have to do is that we have to mobilize across the country to defeat H.R.1, which is Pelosi and Schumer's campaign.

legislation that would fundamentally transform our country, destroy various voter verification processes and practice, weaken the chain of custody of ballots, and

and federalize our election process, which is now invested in the state. If we don't stop that, the hill gets very, very, very, very, very steep. And so it looks as if that is going to have to be stopped because they have the votes in the House because every House member has voted for it. We're going to have to stop it.

in the Senate. And so that's the first order of business, mobilizing. And that's not next year. That's next month. That's in March. They're going to press that very, very, very, very hard. They're pressing ahead fast with some really radical fundamental changes to this country. Absolutely. So that's one. The other thing is to take inventory of our strength.

And one, we protect state legislatures in terms of elections, but we understand that states are the laboratories for experimentation and policy development. And we, in fact, make sure that the 2020 census, which and now our control with state legislatures, we have map drawing tools.

authority, and we best make sure that we don't turn over the pins to Nancy and Chuck. I think that's a great point, Ken, because you look back at the last redrawing of the census here in Arizona, we really are still a red state. You look at all the down-ballot races, Republican governor, AG, House, Senate,

And yet Democrats have the majority on the U.S. Congress. They have the majority. I mean, you know, obviously they have the two Senate seats, but the way they drew those lines, we would have another few seats at every level if we hadn't seeded that fight last time.

We can't do it. We can't do it. So those, you know, drawing in lines, you know, as a consequence of the 2020 census, stopping H.R. 1 and Senate Bill 1 and actually making sure... And we're going to talk about how to do that, Ken, when we come right back. Broken potholes. We'll be right back. 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 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.

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 Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line, Ken Blackwell. It's been a fantastic interview. We want to get back to the point we were talking about prior to the last break, redrawing these lines and the fight ahead.

Well, yeah, look, guys, stopping H.R. 1, Senate Bill 1, redrawing the lines, and what we have to do

And if I was the chair of the RNC, and I think the present chair gets this, we have to make sure that our troops are focused on 2022, not 2024. Or 2020. Or 2020.

We, in fact, have to win the race that's in front of us, and we can't engage in internet-seeing villages competitions around 2024 before we secure that.

We have a real opportunity to take back the House from Pelosi. We must protect our position in the Senate if we could to get those numbers back. But...

Thank you, Ken. I wanted to before we end the show here, I wanted to just touch on a piece you had in Breitbart that I really enjoyed reading. And thank you. And we're talking about a little bit of history earlier. You're talking about sort of the unknown history of black inventors in America.

Absolutely. Look, I'm an advocate for a lot of inventors who go unrecognized and who had their patents, you know, infringed or stolen. But that was one way, and the articles at Breitbart and Town Hall and several places, and

I wanted to say, look, the genius of America is when it pulls on all of its citizens. You know, great nations are not the product of great governments. Great nations are the product of good people doing great things together and recognizing one another's contributions and human dignity is a way that we can go forward.

And those are some, that's an incredible statement, I think really important for people to hear. But also, I wanted to ask if you had a favorite story among those inventor stories. The one that kind of struck you as the most interesting or amazing. And again, it was self-serving. My Uncle T. Hart Hubbard, who was the first inventor,

black American to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field in an individual event. He did it in 1924. He set the world record in the broad jump. He was supposed to run against Eric Biddle in the 100th, but when he got there, he was told that the 100th was a white-only event, and he didn't run. He came back...

to Ohio started the Cincinnati Tigers and the old Negro baseball league. Uh, and, and, and it was through his creative risk-taking that I began to, to appreciate risk takers. Uh, and his favorite inventor, you know, uh, was, was, was, was, was the, the, what's the, the, a, a big Booker T Washington, uh, and, uh,

He, in fact, it was risk-taking and the creative genius of the human mind. And that's who he was, my hero, because he, in fact, took the risk. He didn't invent a gadget, but he, in fact, was one of the architects of the old Negro Baseball League, which, in fact...

mushroomed into a way of getting black talented ballplayers into the major leagues, into the integration. And I think the greatest pitcher of all time was Satchel Paige. Absolutely. He was. I mean, you look at what he did. Oh, no, he was. And let me just say about Satchel Paige, my uncle used to play in that –

managing that circle with the Tigers and the Indianapolis Cowns. And Satchel Paige had a saying that relates to inventors and our political situation now. Satchel Paige said, it is real difficult to steal second base if you want to keep one foot on first.

It's very true. There has to be a time when you make the break for a second. You know, you have to be willing to take that calculated risk to get down there. Well, briefly here, and what you're seeing right now, I think the one huge difference between the parties, and there's many, is you have one side, the left, they want 100% guarantee on everything. So keep your foot on first base, and you'll create a billionaire, million-dollar company. But...

And then there's the other side saying you've got to take risks. There's no guarantees in life. That's life. That's liberty. That's agency. And that's one big difference that seems to be coming more and more every day now that we didn't even deal with this 10 years ago.

You're absolutely right. And my uncle was always fond of saying that the human condition isn't a spectator sport. Ken, we're wrapping up. Thanks for joining us today. Where can people find you and your writings, my friend? Townhall.com. You can go to FRC.org and punch on my bio and my writing. Thank you, my friend. Appreciate you. Amazing interview. Good to be with you all. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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. The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping, I dreamed I held you in my arms.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes. Fantastic interview with Ken Blackwell. And now we have Mackenzie in the studio with us today for our sunshine moment. So Mackenzie, bring us the good news because we've heard a lot of others. Okay, I've got some good news for you guys. Thanks for having me. I just want to start out by talking about...

how badly the restaurant industry has been hit by COVID-19 and all the good things that people have done in order to support these small restaurants and companies around that have been hit so badly. So with a lot of restaurants having to shut down and a lot of people being laid off,

There has, in fact, been some good. One story that comes to mind that I found is actually two schools in Ohio. So Xavier and University of Cincinnati are currently having a tip-off. So it started as a – I think the first one was –

Xavier tipped $1,000 at a local restaurant and basically said, thanks for everything. So tip off, we're not talking basketball. They're actually going. They're tipping. We're talking money. You know, these restaurants have been hit and these people are stepping up and supporting their local restaurants of the city that they love in Cincinnati. Followed by that, a Cincinnati person did $1,001.

And so ever since then, it's continued on. And they've taken it as a school rivalry. Rivalry. Thank you. So instead of sports or anything like that, it's been supporting their local restaurants. And so far, they are at $34,000.

Mac, when you went to college, you also worked in the restaurant industry as a hostess, I believe, right? I did. And how important are those tips for students, for example, working in the restaurant industry? It's everything. So as a hostess, you're not...

directly receiving these tips so basically at the end of the night you get tipped out by what the actual servers and bartenders are making so you're making just a fraction of that um i mean you got a college kid fighting for a friday night saturday night shift just based off tips and so making three four dollars an hour is just not going to cut it you know your entire uh cuts getting

based off of those tips. And it's a big, big deal. It's a huge thing for some kid working to get through school or a mother working to feed her kid at home. I mean, a thousand dollar tip in that situation is... It's rent. It's rent. Well... It's changing your reality that month. The one thing that's happened with COVID that's concerned me, and we've talked about this, Sam, off air, is there's 11 million people in the United States that work in the restaurant industry. Mm-hmm.

My fear is a third of those jobs are not coming back anytime soon. And so when you've had big things, you know, any big chain think about, they could go to the markets and raise money and sort of wither this, right? But you have a lot of these...

You have a lot of these family-owned restaurants, these independent cafes, which are not only people who work there. This has been their career. But these are also the incubators to help provide and put kids through college, buy homes. And COVID, this is one of the real...

The blots of COVID. Well, and I think a lot of people, Mackenzie, and you probably know this better than we do, but I think a lot of people don't realize that you can make a very good living as a server at a good restaurant or as the maitre d' or ballet or whatever. Yeah. I mean, those are not bad jobs. These are not minimum wage jobs.

These are good livings. They are. One thing I decided based on my charitable giving a couple years ago is that I decided to start tipping more, 25%, 30% most times in restaurants because I want to support people who are out there actually working. It's not an easy job. You're on your feet all the time. You're working weird hours. So it really, for most people, it distinguishes a social life, present company excluded. But we, you know, it's a tough gig. It's a tough gig.

It is a tough gig. And I've done the same thing for a number of years. I really like to kind of over tip by standard at those things. You know, look, if you're serving me and you get 20 percent, it means I'm actually unhappy with the service that I just got. Right. Because I think like you, I think it's important to support people who are working. Yes. And our government, especially Democrats right now, really don't seem to have much consideration for working people.

They want people sitting at home waiting on a check. And that is a soul-crushing experience. I still have not figured out what to tip someone at the buffet, though. Is it really 20%?

Honestly, I kind of did like how many trips did they make over to refill my glass? Exactly. I mean, is it really true? Not that they do buffets anymore. I mean, that's been gone and probably will be gone for a while. I don't think there's golden. I think Golden Corral went out of business and they were the largest chain like that in the country. Have they really gone out of business? Yeah. Oh, I love that place. I know.

I shouldn't admit to loving it, but... They had the buffet because they were based all on buffet. Hey, I like meatloaf and mac and cheese. It is what it is. It's an old person thing, Sam. Let's talk a little bit about Ken here. I've known Ken for quite a while. Besides all the accolades in his bio, he was also chairman of Saver Secret Ballot, which passed here in...

Arizona, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, other states. And he was a huge part of that. He's a very, he's a wonderful man. He's a warm man. What he says is what he, how he lives. It's, it's fascinating someone who's in the game as long as he has what he feels is still important. And I, I think the one ray there I saw that's optimistic is he agrees with you and I that,

2020 was not as bad as our side likes to wallow in. No. It's not reality in a lot of ways. No. And I've talked to a lot of people who have come up to me because, as you know, Chuck and listeners, we're working on a number of projects right now for 2022 here in Arizona and gearing those things up. I run into people every day who talk about, well, this is a blue state.

And I'm sorry, no, it's not. And if you look at everything underneath Donald Trump, we held all those seats this last election against the strongest headwinds imaginable. I look forward to 2022. I think we have an opportunity to reverse some of their past gains. I'll go back to the sunshine moment. Mackenzie, being in the restaurant industry, they're talking about a $15 minimum wage. And I don't know how it affects the restaurant industry, but I've heard

They may just apply it to the restaurant industry, which would obviously change the payment scale in restaurants. How do you feel servers, bartenders at the restaurant you worked at, or those you know who are in that industry – I know you have a good friend that's a bartender at a restaurant that I still laugh about –

Cheesecake Factory, folks. And she makes great money being a bartender at Cheesecake Factory. She doesn't love the Cheesecake Factory. Yeah, there's lots to take on that, but we'll go to that another day. Considering the price of those drinks, I'm not surprised she makes a solid living. So my question is, how would they reply to that if they said, you know, you're getting $15 an hour, but now we're keeping more of the tip? How would these servers, these bartenders, how would they react to that? Because I'm sure, for example, your friend at the Cheesecake or...

I think your brother was a valet, right? Yep. They were making more than $15 an hour. Yep, they were. And I think what's going to happen is that these restaurant owners are going to say, no, no, no, I've got to keep this to cover your cost. I think they're going to end up making $15 an hour because I've talked to some of the restaurateurs around here who have said, look, we're going to have to do what they do in Europe, which is essentially you get rid of tipping, you raise the prices, and you tell diners it's all included. Right.

And you pay a slightly higher wage. But the difference is you don't have a whole lot of restaurant workers in Europe who go out and start up new restaurants. No, you do not. And we do here. And we do here. We do a lot. So how do you feel your friends who are in the industry past or present will respond to that saying, OK, now you can only make max $15 an hour?

I mean, I think anyone would say they want to make as much money as possible. So I think that would possibly bring down maybe even the quality of service. Right. If you've been served in France, I think you're right. Sure. Exactly. There's no incentive to make that extra dollar or two. So I would argue that they would prefer lower hourly rate wage and higher tipping. But that's just me. I guess it depends on where you work. But

I think that would greatly influence the quality of service for sure. I mean, my experience, at least traveling, has been that the service here is very different than you get in most places where it's just very brusque and sort of mechanical. Right. I've traveled quite a bit. McKenzie has as well. And it is. You know, first time I was traveling overseas, I went to Tipton. You can't do that. Right. You can't. You just can't do that. Don't put me in that position, basically, was their recommendation.

So, Sam, what's going on in Phoenix as we get ready to wrap up here? What's interesting and what's going on? Well, Phoenix right now, obviously, we have an election coming up. In fact, the ballots are out right now. Election no one knows about? Yeah, it's a ghost election. I think, in fact,

Judging by the number of returns, our citizenry has ghosted this election. What's the returns at right now? We have less than 30,000 ballots in and they've been out for a couple of weeks, which that first week, 10 days after early ballots go out is when most of the votes in Arizona in any election are cast. We have a city of 1.7 million people.

and two council districts are up for these contests, those council districts alone account for about 400,000, 450,000 people.

And you have 30,000 votes that have been cast. Not even at 10%. Oh, it's embarrassing. Nobody is paying attention to this. And it is really impactful. When is the election? March 9th is the actual election day. But you can go right now to the early voting centers. You can cast your ballot. We do all-mail ballots. So you've gotten one in the mail if you're a City of Phoenix voter. And you need to turn that thing in.

One of the, you know, we have, for instance, a Republican running, Nicole Garcia, running against Deb Stark in District 3. That's kind of north and central Phoenix. Obviously, having another Republican on the city council, and that's a pretty reddish area, would change everything. On the other side of it, you have a kind of standard union Democrat in District 7, Cynthia Stella, running against a woman named Yasemin Ansari, who worked, you know, left, lived in Scottsdale.

Left to go to Stanford, then went to intern for Nancy Pelosi, then went to be a low level staffer at the U.N. Office of Climate Action and then bought a house to run for this race like the day before she announced she was running and says our number one issue is environmental racism. I got to tell you, Phoenix has problems.

I'm not sure if environmental racism is a problem, but if it is, it's probably about number 3,457 on that list. So she's proposing something that doesn't make the city...

be more functional. No. To do the basic things a city should do, repair roads, safety, things like that. Look, your city government, if you're playing these ideological battles that should realistically be playing out in Washington and you're trying to make that what your city's about, you're making a huge mistake because you just hit it, Chuck. It's blocking and tackling. It's the fundamental stuff that we need to do and do really well. And cities that do that thrive and cities that don't die thrive.

Let's ask this question here for a minute. If you go and take out what she's proposing, how much of the issues that come up in the city of Phoenix that actually make a difference in people's lives...

are actually bipartisan issues. Like a road. A road's a bipartisan issue, right? It needs to be paved, no potholes. I mean, how much of that is actually non-ideological? It's basically good government administration. You know, if you watch a city council agenda, a council session in our city, Phoenix, or anyone else, what you're going to see is that 90% of what happens is

is really, really basic stuff that everyone agrees we need to do. We have a consent agenda that takes up about 90% of the votes every week where everyone just says aye and they pass them 50 different items at once because we all agree we've worked behind the scenes, built that up, there is consensus.

There is very little in a city that doesn't have a bipartisan interest and bipartisan consensus. You have these anti-police folks, but even with that, even in our heaviest minority districts, 80, 85 percent of people want more police. They want better roads. They want the potholes filled. All this other garbage is a waste of time.

Well, that's great, Sam. Mac, do you have anything else to share with us on the Sunshine Moment today? Or are you any other tidbits you found out when you're looking around?

Um, nope. But if you did want to follow the Cincinnati tipping war, you just go to Cincinnati.com and they're all over it between Xavier and University of Cincinnati. Well, are they having a competition though? Is there, is there a competition like you see in Utah, for example, BYU University of Utah has a food can drive, right? Every year, the big game. So, I mean, it's like, you know, thousands and thousands of pounds of food. Is there some competition like this and what do they get if they win? Is there anything like that going on?

It's just bragging rights and saying you. Social media bragging rights. How about let's start this up between ASU and U of A. I'm a U of A guy. We're going to get our butts kicked. That's okay. It still sounds like a good idea. Broken potholes. Thank you, Sam. Back next week. Turn my hate darkness go.