Hello and welcome to Let's Pod This. My name is Andy Moore. It's good to be with you again this week. I think every time that I do the intro, part of me is thinking about, I don't know if you're a fan of Red Dirt Music, the boys from Oklahoma and all those bands, right? Cross Canadian and Jason Boland and Stoney and all those guys. If you've ever listened to I think it's Cross Canadians, one of their live albums that was recorded at the Wormy Dog. The guy starts off and says Hello, and welcome to the Wormy Dog, and that's probably a little bit what I'm channeling. Especially on Fridays, especially when it's beautiful weather. Days like today. Although, speaking of the weather, it is a blustery Friday, as I'm sure you already know by the time you're listening to this. And I honestly don't know when you'll be listening to this because I arrived to the office this morning to discover that our podcast is inaccessible on the backend, either due to a payment from our host or inappropriate content, which I'm not sure what that means but I'm not the show owner, so I've got to find out. So hopefully you get to hear this. Before too long. Hopefully I can get that sorted out today and get this episode posted. If so, if you're listening to this, anytime before, I don't know within five days, like between the 14th and the 20th or something, that's reasonable. Great. Great, welcome, we got it sorted out. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we got it sorted out. Today, like most Fridays, I started my morning With breakfast, right? I had some instant oatmeal, apple cinnamon flavor, if you're curious. It's delicious, and a big scoop of peanut butter for some protein, a cup of coffee. I got ready, got my daughter ready, my wife got ready. We left the house. I came to the office, made another cup of coffee. Today, I ate a Miniature Milky Way bar that was left in the break room, which was a welcome surprise. A little sugar pick me up this morning because friends, I'm very excited. This weekend is the Mid South gravel bike race and running races. Anyway, Mid South gravel up in Stillwater. It's a fantastic, fun weekend. The wind today is a little concerning because nothing says a good time like riding your Bicycle on dirt roads when the wind is gusting 50 to 60 miles an hour. So we'll see how that plays out for us throughout the day. Thanks for all the feedback for last week's episode with Leslie Osborne. She is always a delight and certainly one of, I think, our listeners favorite guests. And that means that between her and Representative Andy Fugate the week before, we haven't really discussed what's been going on at the Capitol lately. And so Today I thought we would catch up a little bit, at least with the most recent news from this week. Part of the deal with legislative session, right, is that there is news every week for what's happening with bills, but then at some point, like last week, we get to a deadline. And a lot of those bills, and thus a lot of that news, fades away. So last Thursday was the first deadline, which was like the committee deadline, for bills in their own chambers. And while we started with roughly 3, 000 pieces of possible legislation, we're down to just around 1, 000 now. So two thirds of them are dead, or mostly dead. Which is good news, I think, by and large. It means lots of bad legislation is dead. Of course, it also means that a fair amount of good legislation is also dead. Many of those bills were dead on arrival, to be honest, because they were authored by Democrats and the minority party. And, well, let's be honest. It's real difficult for the minority party to get anything heard when you have a legislature that is as divided along party lines as ours is. Particularly because the Republicans have that, super majority in both chambers. They don't need any Democrats votes to pass anything. Now, this is different than what we see in Congress right now, where both chambers in Congress, right, the U. S. House and the U. S. Senate, are very narrowly divided. Republicans still have a majority in both chambers, but not a super majority. And so, most recently in fact, right now, as they are discussing The potential government shutdown in this budget deal. The House requires only a simple majority, which they managed to scrape together. There's a lot of questions on whether or not the Republicans would be able to do it, even though they do have enough votes. But there are some defectors that usually vote no on some of those budget things. And Speaker Johnson, I guess, was able to get him in line. They passed through the House. Now it goes to the Senate. But remember, the U. S. Senate. And then there's the filibuster, which means that essentially you have to have a 60 vote majority, more than a 60 vote majority to overcome that filibuster, and the Republicans don't, right? It's pretty narrow. I think it's just a vote or two. And so that means they need some Democrats to vote with them on this continuing resolution, right? Which is like a kick in the can down the road with the budget a few months. And it seems like they might get it. It seems like the Democrats, at least Chuck Schumer, who's the leader of the Democrats in the Senate. Is saying like, hey guys, this is not ideal. We didn't get a voice in this whatsoever, I understand. But shutting down the government might be worse because it might give or cede or like allow more power to the president and to Elon Musk, who nobody elected. So we'll see what happens. I know that a lot of folks on the left are upset. They want Democrats to take a stand against the Republicans in Congress and say, nope, this is a bad deal. And it is, it's not a good continual resolution, but as so often happens, Democrats get blamed either way, right? They would get blamed if the government shut down because they didn't give the votes and they will get blamed if it stays open because they did vote for it. You really can't win. It sucks to be in the minority and then still. To lose more because you care about, people having paychecks and keeping the government open, even when that means you've got to, it's not a poison pill, but you really got to vote for something you don't actually support. It's an unwinnable position, which sucks real bad. So. Anyway we'll see what happens. Hopefully, I think, for me personally, I don't know, I would like for the government to stay open because we need one less crisis on our plates right now. Especially federal employees who are dealing with an immense amount of uncertainty. And I do want to just take a moment to say thank you to all of our federal employees and contractors who are public servants by any definition. They are taking jobs that are important to the health and safety of our nation, often making less money than they could make in the private sector. Although there's this misnomer that they could just like go work and do the same job in the private sector. And that is not the case, right? Like the government is, exists and is necessary in a lot of these agencies because they are the best fit for this. We don't want a for profit entity trying to do some of these same services and also turn a profit, like that defeats the purpose of it. And that would mean that our taxpayer dollars are going elsewhere. Like we don't want a for profit fire department or police department, like those, you don't want a for profit. Water treatment facility in your town. Like there are things that the government should do the way they're doing. So to all my friends in the federal government, from health and human services to the national weather service, to USDA to any number of things forestry, there's. I'm sure like you, we have, you have tons of friends who work in or around or impacted by the federal government. They could use a little pat on the back right now and let them know that you value them even if the messages they're receiving from some of the highest offices in the land say otherwise. But they're there for the people, they're there for you and I, and I am grateful that they're there. Okay, so back to the news this week here in Oklahoma I think the top news story across almost every local news outlet comes from yesterday, where the Oklahoma Ethics Commission had a meeting and they were in executive session for like three out of the four hours and they came back and voted to pursue Superintendent Ryan Walters for some ethics, we'll say alleged ethics violations. This, if you remember, he was already in, you know what let's put on our Ryan Walters music here. If you will recall, a couple of years ago, back in 2022, Walters election committee he served as like both the treasurer, um, for his own committee, which is somewhat unusual, and the while the Ethics Commission didn't say exactly what specific violation he's alleged to have committed and they, as of at least yesterday afternoon, had not yet filed anything but that's been going on for a while, this happens this news comes out on the heels of another settlement agreement for another complaint against Walters from last year, from March of 2024 which dealt with some late campaign filings and he I think had like, he had to pay a fine of like 3, 000 for that. And there's another investigation going in. On, around his social media posts that he made last year, in the lead up to the election. He made them from his, like, superintendent Ryan Walter's account, which he says is a private account. Even though it says superintendent in the name. And given the time that it happened and all these, like, suspicions, right? That he's Basically using state resources to endorse a a candidate, excuse me, or oppose a candidate. We did both, right? Supported Donald Trump running for president. Opposed Kamala Harris running for president. Had pretty, like, open statements in support or in opposition to these folks. Which is a violation of campaign finance laws. And I, and more importantly, like, A violation of, I think, state laws and administrative rules. One of the posts also came from the State Department of Education's, like, official Twitter account, showed, quote, migrant children climbing over a wall at the border, which gives the impression. That the State Department of Education does not support Joe Biden's presidency and is advocating in his defeat. The parameters for that social media case are unknown. So this case in particular, I know this is getting confusing because there's like three cases. This one about the social media posts has been agreed to in principle. Nothing has been signed yet, so we don't know the terms of that settlement. But the Ethics Commission Director Leanne Bruce Boone said that she will make that settlement available once it's signed. So maybe today, maybe Monday, we'll see. Provided it gets signed by both parties. So that means he's paid one fine, he is now settled. Something else. We don't know what that looks like. And then there is yet a third investigation that they voted to pursue yesterday. And so, Walters, like, just perpetually in hot water with the Ethics Commission. Now, the Ethics Commission is by the important they were created in response to a rampant corruption in our state government. They're doing exactly what they should do. They don't have enough funding. They're very limited. I think they've got a staff of like six or seven people in their job is to police all of the statewide elected officials plus all the state legislature. I think maybe the county elected, like county commissioners and all the other county wide elected officials too, which is a I mean, literally hundreds or thousands of elected officials and then you multiply it in election years times all the candidates, it's a lot of work that they have to do. And they don't really have like a strong enforcement piece, right? Like they can pursue, it's not really charges, but they can, I guess they can refer it to a district court for investigation or for charges, but then it's still up to the discretion of that prosecutor. Anyway, I think a lot of people I've seen online from all sides of the political spectrum have been celebrating this both quietly and sometimes loudly because it seems like Walters has been pretty flagrant in in his. Not just his speech, but his actions running contrary to not just precedent, but like, pretty black and white rules of like, what you should and shouldn't do. It is ridiculous to me that the superintendent of public instruction is using his official account or the department's official account to say anything about presidential candidates. It's nuts. Walters, of course, is perpetually in the news not just for his own missteps or say, allegedly illegal activity. But for even the way he does his job. So there were some proposed standards brought to the department of education, the board of education by Ryan Walters and. It was, they were quietly added to their academic standards for social studies. And this was like not widely known ahead of time. It happened as the meeting unfolded, everyone was like, hang on, this is a bit of a big deal because it adds to the standards that like basically social studies curricula in Oklahoma should include quote discrepancies in the 2020 elections. So the idea is that like, Oh, well, When high school students are learning about history and social studies and whenever they discuss the 2020 election, which is Just one election. They should, quote, identify discrepancies in 2020 election results, including, quote, sudden halting of ballot counting in select cities and key battleground states, such as batch dumps. I don't know what that is. An unforeseen number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of, quote, bellwether county trends. A lot of this stuff is, like, subjective, and it's almost like Um, insider terminology, right? Like battleground states, I think we all know what that means, but that's also like not exactly a scientific term. It is somewhat probably debatable on which states are battleground states. Walter says that the standards are not set up to either support or negate a specific outcome of the presidential election, which as we all know is done and settled. That was four years ago. We've already had another presidential election. And a lot of that stuff was really just accusations and rumors, but has been proven to be untrue. And so by redesigning our standards to teach students things that are at best contentious and At worst, or most likely, like, false. That is not exactly the curriculum we need. Also, this isn't sowing trust in our election systems and our children. And what's wild to me is that they are, they, these accusations about ballots, as we all know, like, voter fraud is exceedingly rare. Like, one in a billion votes, right, like, might be, have an error. And usually those errors are not fraudulent, they're just like a mistake. Someone who mailed in their ballot, forgot about it, and then went in person and tried to vote again, like those kinds of things it's not malicious in any way. And the thing that gets me time and time again is that a lot of the ballots that they want to throw out, because they allege that there was something Some funny business going on it's only about one race, right? The rest of the ballot somehow was magically okay And that these members of Congress and the Senate who won if you were to throw out that whole ballot Then it would throw the outcome of all these other elections all the way down to local elections would throw those out And no one is talking about those being wrong. Everyone's like, oh no these ballots They got thrown out and yet all these candidates what just doesn't make any sense That's probably because it's not true. So we'll see. The State Board of Education, of course, while they have approved those new standards, they don't, that's not the final say, it goes to the legislature for approval. So they've got 30 days, once they're submitted to the legislature, to adopt a joint resolution on them. So they could approve, they could reject, they could amend. If they do nothing Then the proposal does take effect as it's written. And then governor Stitt would have veto power if the resolution ends up on his desk. So there's like, I think there's like workaround where the legislature could do nothing. And then they just go ahead and take law without the legislature or the governor doing anything about it. So we have checks and balances, but those checks and balances like not participate. That seems like an unfair way to do it. So we'll. See what happens there. I'm reading an article on Oklahoma Voice, and they ask both the pro tem Lonnie Paxton and Speaker Kyle Hilbert, and they both said, Well, I haven't even read it yet. I don't know what it says. Like, well, I'll take a look at it, but I'm not going to say anything until I know what it says. Which is like a politically convenient thing to say. They also ask the Democratic leadership in both chambers, and both Senator Kurt and Leader Munson in the House were both like, Oh, no. And like, had a response. So they clearly had read, or at least been briefed on it, and felt comfortable speaking. And it's just funny when it's like, you ask the four leaders, from each party about this thing, and the two Republicans are like, I don't know, I haven't read it. And the Democrats are like, oh, we definitely read it, and here's our statement. That's politics. I get it. It's just funny when one side doesn't say anything. The other big news story this week is about the state Supreme Court. So, as you may recall last November, voters in Oklahoma elected to not retain a justice Justice Yvonne Cogger. This is the first time in state history that a Supreme Court justice has not been retained on the ballot. And in doing so, it opens up a position on the state Supreme Court for Governor Stitt to appoint somebody. And I think this will be like the fourth or fifth Supreme Court justice he's been able to appoint during his tenure, which is unusual to say the least. The way that Supreme Court justices end up on the bench is that they have to essentially apply to the judicial nominating commission and Then the JNC interviews them and then from that pool they put forth three Candidates and then those three candidates go to the governor and he can choose one of those three, or I think he can decline all of them. And the JNC kind of starts over and, comes up with another three and sends it to him. The JNC, I just will say as a reminder, it was created. Back in the 1960s, I think in 1967, because there was this big Supreme Court bribery case, right, where several justices were implicated in a bribery scheme prior to that, most judges were just elected on partisan ballots, which is crazy that you'd elect a justice that's like Republican or Democrat or whatever. So they did away with elections of justices and created the joint Or the Judicial Nominating Commission that like, provides some space in there. And the way that JNC works is that the Oklahoma Bar Association, they have their six members of the JNC that are elected by the bar association And you have to like apply and submit all this stuff, recommendation letters or nominating nominations from 10 other attorneys. And then the bar association decides who's going to be on the JNC. Which is a, it's like a pretty elaborate deal. And like many problems, right in democracy, it's a simple problem, corruption that requires a bit of a complicated solution to ensure that it doesn't happen, just like gerrymandering, right? Gerrymandering is a very simple problem. Politicians get to draw their own districts. That's clearly problematic. But in order to craft a solution that works well and prevents, partisan gerrymandering, you have to, like, craft a policy that blocks different groups in specific ways. Politicians, lobbyists, family members. You have to make sure that the people drawing the lines are either free from partisan bias. bias, at least balanced across the Venturerous Regential Committee. So, sometimes simple problems require complicated solutions to do them right. So the three nominees that were put forth, by the JNC are Donna Derickson, I think I'm pronouncing that right. She's a district judge from Beckham, Custer, Ellis, Roger Mills, and Ouachita Counties. She was appointed to that position by Governor Stitt last year. She graduated from OCU School of Law and previously served as a associate district judge in Custer County. The second one is Travis Jett, who is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. He's in private practice in Woodward. He is the only one of the three who does not have any judicial experience. However, on his website, he lists several other experiences, including representing the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the Ethics Commission, the Department of Health, and the Department of Education in litigation, as well as the Council of, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, OCPA, which is a highly partisan, right leaning, heritage foundation funded entity. And then the third potential justice or nominated justice is John Parsley. He's a district judge for Texas, Cimarron, Beaver, and Harper counties, which is Basically the panhandle and out that way. He was appointed by former governor Mary Fallin in 2014. And previously he served as the president for, of the Bar Association. Interesting that two of these are way out, from way out west. I guess all three of them are, but I think that's Maybe that's because of Cogger's seat being, anyway so those are the three. Also interesting are the ten who were eliminated during the interview process. It was an associate district judge, former representative Scott Biggs, who if I recall was like, when he was in office, was like the big law and order guy. I think he went to work for the. Trump administration in the first term. I haven't heard that name in a while. A couple other judges, attorneys, former Oklahoma Solicitor General, Mithin Mansonhani, friend of the show, he was on our podcast I forget which episode, but a long time ago, before the pandemic. And so that's just interesting, I'm always interested to see who applies. If there's any other names that I recognize, only two. Not that I'm gonna know all these attorneys. I've heard from attorney friends that all of this is a very interesting drama in the legal world. So, we'll see what happens. Again, this goes to the governor. He might pick one of these three, or he might not. And this may continue. Again, I do think that checks and balances, this is a great example of why we have them in government, and a structural way to ensure that there is less partisanship involved in selecting Supreme Court justices. If all of us, if most people, want the courts to not be Partisan, right? Like, we want the courts to be fair and impartial and not partisan ideologues, then something like the JNC is very important. I will also note that once again, there are bills in the legislature this very session seeking to dismantle the JNC. Now, because it's in the Constitution, they would, those measures would have to be referred to a vote of the people. And so, friends, it could be up to us, right? If we want to keep the Judicial Nominating Commission, we may get a vote on it. We'll find out over the next couple of months if they're going to refer it out to us. Speaking of having a say in how policies are happening at the federal level, there's a lot of conversation around Budgets and how money flows from the federal government into state budgets. In particular, how it affects, let's say Medicaid and like healthcare services, but also education, infrastructural kind of stuff. So as I'm sure, right, president Trump and Elon Musk, like created this doge and the governor here created doge. Okay. And all that uncertainty that has brought for Oklahoma in particular, about 40 percent of our revenue in 2022 came from federal grants. So almost half, a ton of money came from federal grants. And when the federal government starts fiddling with How money is flowing. It can have really huge downstream consequences for states. So there's a lot of conversations around the Department of Education that they might do away with the federal level, the federal department, and then just move to like block grants, which would just be like, here's a big chunk of money to each state, and then let the states decide how to spend it. We'll see if and when that happens. But one of the things that's happened is that the governors across the country are saying, Hey, we should play a role in helping the Trump administration decide when and how to shut off the flow of money into the state's budgets. Obviously, no state wants to shut it off entirely because they need it. As example, Oklahoma needs it. That's like 40 percent of our budget. And so Governor Stitt and I think In like in his role as part of the Governor's Association, he's like co chair or vice chair or something with Colorado Governor Jared Polis right now. And so they've basically got a sign on letter that has said that they're sending to the President saying, Hey Listen guys, like, we would like a seat at the table to help out. And then it's real funny because members of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation, Frank Lucas, Tom Cole, who's chair of appropriations, have replied, essentially, to the governor and said, Well, that makes sense, but This is not your job, right? Frank Lucas said I don't know that they consult with much of anybody before they make decisions, referring to Doge and the president. And then and then representative Cole said. We want your input, but it's not your money, Cole said. And these are federal programs, and sooner or later, we have to right size the federal government. It cannot continue to run this way. And so, regardless of how you feel about this, I mean, there's lots of discussion of scalpel versus sledgehammer and that kind of business. But I think it is interesting when the governor, and not just Governor Stitt, but a bunch of governors, We'll talk about our governor for right now. Governor Stitt's like, Hey if you're going to like cut off our allowance, can we like have a say in that? And essentially Tom Cole, who's chair of appropriations, in, in the house and Frank Lucas are saying no, son, you don't get a say in whether you get an allowance or not. And it's just those like little. I'm not even subtle. It's a pretty clear jab at the governor about money. So we'll see what happens. It's really hard to know. And then, I guess, friends, I'm just like you struggling a bit to keep my head wrapped around what exactly is happening each week. There's elections coming up on April 1st, Oklahoma City Council, a couple of legislative seats, a bunch of other small towns are having elections there's still bills floating around. There was a, there's a bill that would basically ban cell phones. During the school day, everywhere Senator Pugh, Adam Pugh from Edmonds said he'd heard from multiple school officials and teachers that have asked the legislature to, quote, take the hit to implement this policy statewide, which is basically Principals saying, Hey man, we wanna ban phones in our schools, but we don't wanna take the heat from teachers or from parents. Can you just do it like make it a statewide thing? And that way we don't have to be the ones that are to blame. Like we can say, oh, well the legislature did it. Our hands are tied. Which is, I guess if I was a principal, I could probably agree with that. But I think a lot of. Parents I've heard from are also, everyone's like, yeah, we should not have phones in schools except when I need to get a hold of my child in case of emergency or something else, right? Like, everyone says, yeah, we don't need them, but they want exceptions that you can't just, like, create. So, this was a bill that came up last year. We'll see if it comes through again this year. And then I think the other bill that's really caught a lot of headlines this week is House Bill 1362, which would make some changes to a bill that went through session last year around immigration. And essentially what this bill would do is make it a felony that if someone is arrested for so if a person commits any kind of crime, a traffic, they run a stop sign, anything in Oklahoma, and the, our officer determines in their own way that individual is an undocumented immigrant into the United States, then They would be charged with a felony, and they had the option of either, I think, either like serving time or being deported. So I'm sure you can see right away, like, there's lots of problems here. Like, there was questions on the floor of like, well, who determines if they're undocumented, like, if they're here illegally? And they're like, oh, it's up to the officer. And they had to backtrack and say okay, but you know, no one's required, like every jurisdiction will be, it'll be up to them to determine if they want to enforce this or not. I just want to ask, why are we passing laws to make things a felony with the potential for Either prison time or deportation, but then not also expecting law enforcement to enforce it. Like, that tells me that you understand that this might not be legal, might not be constitutional, or might not even be necessary. Now this bill passed the House on party lines, as you might imagine. It is stems from President Trump's policies regarding Immigration, the bill last year that went through did the same thing. I think it was just a misdemeanor, but it referred to, Oh, I forget. It was like impermissible occupation was how they. to phrase like someone being here illegally or without proper documentation. But I think what this will do is will make those individuals, like, I would imagine especially like Latino communities who are here legally, who are documented to be legal immigrants, that they're going to feel like they need to. Rightfully so, like, they need to have their paperwork with them at all times, which is like unreasonable, right? If you have been here for years and you are a lawful resident, you're doing everything right, there's no reason, and you want a stop sign, there's no reason that you should fear for your safety in this country. I have a friend who immigrated here from Australia years ago. He has a, and I don't, I think, I forget where he's from originally, or where, I mean he's from Australia, I forget which town, but he has a pretty strong Australian accent, and he recently got U. S. citizenship precisely because of issues like this. He doesn't live in Oklahoma, but he's worried about the federal level in whatever state he lives in, that while he was here as a legal immigrant, he was worried that he could get arrested for anything, right? Making a U turn, an illegal U turn or something, and that If he didn't have his paperwork with him, they would put him in jail first, and he would have to prove that he was a legal resident. And if he somehow, like, lost the paperwork or any of that stuff, that he could be deported back to Australia. And I know people think that's ridiculous. I will add, he is not a white person. And so I think he is cognizant, certainly, that he might be perceived differently by law enforcement than someone who is of, lighter skin. And he has a lot of mixed feelings about becoming a U. S. citizen, right? Now he was perfectly content not being a citizen, he was, he's been here for years. But I think he felt forced into it, right? And it reminds me, it's like, yeah, I was gonna say it reminds me of people who get married just because they got pregnant, right? And like, that seems like a big step that might not necessarily be based on the best rationale. That's probably, I'm getting into tricky waters there. Okay. I will say. Since I mentioned this at the top of the show, I just got a message that the show issues with publication has been due to a billing error and not due to inappropriate content. So hey, that's exciting. Hopefully we'll get it fixed soon, regardless. All right, so friends, that's all the news. It wasn't that exciting. It's important stuff. The fact that you listen to this show and you care about what's happening in our state. It's important, but my guess is that most of you wake up each day and like somewhat anxiously open a news app or a social media app on your phone and like some part of you is bracing for what news might have happened overnight, right? Or you check your Twitter feed during the day. You listen to NPR on your drive home, and you're like, oh man, did something else bad happen? Have we invaded Greenland? What's this going on with Canada? Why is Russia still fighting? Like, is the government going to shut down? Are there going to be mass layoffs? In fact, yesterday Reduction in force plans were due to the federal government. And so I expect today we might hear some news about their plans to lay off, tens or hundreds of thousands of federal employees. The stock market has been in a bit of a spiral for the last couple of weeks it's lost all the gains. It's down below where it was on Inauguration Day, I think. I don't remember if we're quite down to where it was on Election Day, but there's just a lot of uncertainty. Eggs are expensive and hard to find in many cases. New tariffs seem to be announced almost every day. We, President Trump announces tariffs on some other country. Every day. Announced. Counter tariffs, and now he's announcing counter tariffs. All of this means that stuff is getting more expensive. Trump's apparent like battle with Europe about booze right now. They said they're going to have tariffs on American whiskey. So now Trump is threatening tariffs on European wine. All this stuff just ends up making things more expensive. For all of us, even crypto is down and I'm not like a big crypto guy. But it's something that was, purported to be like a safe haven. That was a, secondary economy is following exactly along with the main stock market. A little more like pronounced. So like the stock market goes down a little bit and crypto tends to go down a lot. The reverse is also true, but just a lot of instability. I know it, it just feels like a lot, right? Most of us are just trying to get through the day. My wife and I were trying to plan out like, Hey, what are we going to eat next week? So we can go grocery shopping or she can go grocery shopping to be fair. And. We're trying to like brainstorm and like, we're starting now to have to like think around, well, some of our, routine, like favorite dishes we might make every week or two, we're having to sub. ingredients or just not make recipes because some of the ingredients are like prohibitively expensive and it just doesn't feel like it's worth it. And it's, 2 here and 3 there, but like, it adds up, right? When you're trying to feed your family every week, like, this stuff is expensive. It just gets hard. I just want you to know you're not alone. And I know I say this every few episodes, and I think it's, I do it on purpose, because I think it's important, right? This week we've been having conversations with folks that work. with farmers and ranchers in Oklahoma and because of some of the cuts at the federal level that are, and money that has been eliminated, and then the court said, no, you got to pay it. And then the federal government still hasn't paid it. It's starting to impact the Pockets of Oklahoma, like farmers and ranchers, many of whom like or are or were staunch supporters of the president And are starting to like realize like hang on like I didn't I thought you're gonna help and like you have actively Undermined my entire livelihood and so we're starting to have conversations around like how can we just like get people together in a room? to share information to share Like, how is this impacting us to share resources and make sure everyone is operating the same page in case there's, access for, I mean, honestly, everything from food pantries to mutual aid to community action agencies, but there's a lot of folks who are going to find them or themselves or their families having to access assistance in ways they never imagined, right? And I'm not saying that we're headed towards like a Great Depression like we did in the 30s. But I'm, it does seem increasingly likely like a recession is perhaps in store for us and if these trade wars don't end, then things could get worse. That is not, ugh, that's not a helpful decision. I'm an elder millennial, we've been through recessions before. Feels like way too often, we keep having these things happen. Makes it really hard to even imagine that someday we might be able to retire. But is everything from, The price of eggs to Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security are potentially on the chopping block. I think we're going to see more and more people that are worried or outright affected by some of these decisions. And I say all this to make a suggestion, I think, right? That I think for a lot of people on the left, when you see people on the right, being negatively impacted by policies from the administration. Maybe they were supporters, right? And now they're being impacted. There's this like, people celebrating, being like, ha, like, you voted for this, and you think it's gonna happen, and now it is. And I, there's no part of my heart that feels like that's the right response. Right? Like, we should not celebrate the struggle of others. I know that this is like a human emotion, and that we, you love to see your enemies. Get hurt, too. I just don't think that spite is a good look. Right? If nothing else, if this happens, when this happens, it is an opportunity for you to align with them, right? For one, be a good neighbor. If you're aware of resources or help, or if this is a path you've traveled yourself, you can share that information with them, but also, like, showing up and being even a little bit concerned and, like, interested and what's going on with them is Very meaningful, right? And if you are someone who is quick to point out how someone else is, a Christian is not acting Christ like, this is an opportunity for you to do the right thing. And I know it's hard, especially if it's someone who's been just hateful, right? Like, we all have those people in our lives or we've seen them online or something. And when those chickens come home to roost. Even if you feel it inside, there's no reason you have to say it out loud, right? I don't want to see anybody go hungry. I don't want to, I don't like to see other people suffer, right? We, as a society, part of living in society is being in this together. And it's hard, and it's messy, and we disagree on some things, sometimes, maybe a lot of the time. But at the end of the day, like, if we are to survive as a country, as a community, as a state, we've got to have each other's back. And so my challenge to you, and to me, honestly, right, is to be more loving, I guess. I've mentioned before on this show that I'm a regular listener to the Freakonomics radio podcast. I think it's a great show. Stephen Dubner's insightful and a good host, and the topics are usually very interesting. And he ends every show by saying, Take care of yourself, and if you can, Someone else, too. And often it has nothing to do with the content of his show. He had a series about whales. Like whale oil and whale hunting. And he ends the show in the same way. And I hear it, every week, and it makes me think, every week, that is the way we should live our lives, right? Take care of yourselves, and if you can, take care of someone else, too. Certainly your family and your friends. But the openness of someone else really leaves that. Open to your interpretation. And I think that's Intentional and important. So, as we wrap up here today, I'm going to say the same thing. Right? We say every week that decisions are made by those who show up. It's also how you show up and for whom you show up. Right? We fight the good fight for good policy because it's the right thing to do because it's the good thing for the most people. We don't celebrate what our enemies lose. Well, if it's policy, we might. But I'm not viewing my neighbors as enemies, right? If someone is hurting, if someone has needs, I want us to find ways to meet them where they're at and try to help. Are you with me? Excellent. Just a few weeks until CivicsCon, go to civicscon. com, get your tickets, only 25 bucks. I'm working on the schedule this morning. Should send it out today or Monday. It's going to be rad. It's going to be so rad. It's going to be tons of fun. Very interesting, very informative. Good kumbaya. A great time to learn, to build, to organize, to fill your cup, which is important when everything else is draining it out. All right. Well, enjoy the wind today. Have a good weekend. We'll see you next week.