My World with Jeff Jarrett takes wrestling fans behind the scenes, along with King of the Mountain, Conrad Thompson. I wanted to ask you about what you know, if anything, on the new WWE ID program where they're apparently going to be working with some independent wrestlers. My encouragement to any independent wrestler out there, build your value and then understand your value, and then you create your own leverage. There's no substitute for hard work and getting over. My World with Jeff Jarrett, wherever you listen.
Well, I was bragging about the miracle of modern communications and, of course, modern communications bit me right in the backside because right in the middle of my brilliant segment a few minutes ago, we lost a signal with the station. So back now on a little bit more basic communication, apologize for that problem. And I want to finish that thought here. Is this Kip Kiefer or here at the top of the eight o'clock hour?
subbing for Richard and Valerie today. And Steve West is trying to keep things afloat as I have some technical problems here at my remote location. But we'll press on and I'll try to finish the thought that I already conveyed because we were talking about
Congress having such a low approval rating, only 13%, which means 87 out of 100 people think they're doing a lousy job. And instead of getting the mandate from the November 5 election, they continue to do the same things that everybody is fed up with and it's tired of seeing them pull off.
This continuing resolution scandal from last week has become the norm in Washington because they don't do their job in terms of, by the fiscal year beginning on October 1st, they're supposed to have 12 separate budget bills to fund all of the aspects of the government. So I think we were still viable in terms of our discussion up to that point. But what they do now just routinely
is come up with this serve all bill at the end of the year right up against christmas time where they know they'll get bipartisan support because all these people want to do is get out of washington and get back home for the holidays so they loaded up this year the all-timer the mother of continuing resolution bills fifteen hundred pages for a bill that only you wound up the one that ultimately passed
was only 118 pages, so an additional basically 1,400 pages that had nothing to do with the continuing resolution on the budget, which should not even be considered this way anyway. It's just kicking the can to march to keep funding the government. And we talked about in the last half hour that they were assuring everybody, even if the government shut down.
that essential employees would still be on the job and still be compensated. And I posed the question to you, if you're running a business, aren't all of your employees essential? Or if they're not, why are they employed? So basically, what they're saying is only about only about 15% of government workers are essential
uh... in in providing security and and safety and on all the things that the federal government is supposed to be providing so if only fifteen or twenty percent of the employees are essential what the hell are the other eighty percent so this bill would emergency fund the government continue the resolution of continue resolution to keep funding it at the same level but just expired back in the end of september
until they can finally do their job at some point and come up with a funding package on a permanent basis. This one was going to kick it to March before they had to even consider that, where we'll get into another fire drill. But this one is very effective because it always passes because, again, every legislator wants to just have some kind of agreement so they can get out of town. So you might ask, okay, if it only took 118 pages,
for the resolution to fund the government. What's the other 1400 pages? Well, let me tell you, it is the ultimate collection of pork and bad policy. Pork in politics, of course, is all kinds of discretionary spending piled onto bills that basically facilitate all the people
who stuff these lawmakers pockets with money throughout the year and campaign support and trips and uh... who knows what else this is how people come out of congress as millionaires and it's pharmaceutical companies it's all the big military complex weapons producing companies like racy on with tanks and planes and and war ammunition and different uh... ornaments
of supersonic missiles etcetera it's the tech companies it's the big media companies if you name it if there's an industry they are uh... they are funding all this influence the teachers unions which have become the modern day uh... you know kind of strong armors of of government officials to get what they want it all these special interests and all their money
And all these pages in this bill that's supposed to fund the government is allocated to instead facilitate and allow these lawmakers to deliver on the promises they've made in exchange for the compensation they're given. That's just the basic facts. That's not Kip Kiefer's speculation. That's exactly what's happening. Not only that, but there's hundreds of pages included in this
fifteen hundred page monstrosity last week that thank god failed and i'll tell you why in a moment in that in that bill there's also was just tons of policy things one of them you'll love it was a pay raise a six percent pay raise for congress for the for the senators and representatives this is a group that is not doing their job as i just uh... outline and as a
87% disapproval ranking amongst the American people and they're trying to vote themselves a raise. That's outrageous enough, but even worse, it also builds in a lot of protections to shield them from what all of us as regular American citizens are vulnerable to, that if there's any kind of investigation, all of your records, your banking records, your communication records, your emails, your texts,
All of that is subject to seizure in terms of facilitating an investigation. But they were building in a protection in this funding bill, hidden deep in the bowels of it, that were going to exempt members of Congress from having to turn over their communications and their records and things. And it was particularly a protection mechanism for the December, I keep saying December.
for the January 6th committee who was investigating the insurrection on our Capitol in January of 2020 on January 6th. Of course, an insurrection usually would mean a hostile attempt to take over the government and you'd think weapons would have been involved and violence. No, it was just like out of the classic movie Animal House. A lot of people who were very upset about the election
But the water was under the bridge at that point. The protest in Washington was appropriate, but the rushing of the halls of Congress was not at the nation's capital dome. And the bottom line is it was like an animal house where what this calls for is a feudal and stupid gesture on somebody's part. And that's what happened that day. But those people were not armed with weapons or clubs or knives or bombs.
They were armed with their cell phones. They basically stupidly were allowed in, which tells you right away that this might have been a coerced activity because the political capital that the left got from this insurrection, this attempt of hostile takeover of the government, which was no such thing. It was a bunch of people that were too charged up and rightfully so.
But, you know, there was no one killed in that event. There was no violence perpetrated on any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate. The only fatality in the situation was one of the protesters, a former Air Force veteran, 35-year-old female who was shot in the back by a Capitol policeman that's never been explained or justified. That was the only fatality. There was another
d.c. police officer that i guess in the excitement of the fracas had a fatal cardiac uh... event but uh... it was not some violent brawling violent uh... attempt that to take over the government it was people that were running around taking selfies and acting stupid inside the capital i'll be the first to admit they should never have been in there but the bottom line is this whole investigation was politically motivated they were
They hired a former ABC producer to bring the hearings to homes in prime time. You don't have congressional hearings in prime time. That was a device to create this perception that there's this white supremacist uprising, conservative movement that's dangerous
That everybody knows that's got a functioning brain. It's just a total myth. And to have that kind of language in there, and that's only a couple of the things. There were all kinds of policy things, exempting members of Congress from different things, giving them pay raises. This was a 1,500 page bill they presented on a Monday and intended to vote on by Wednesday or Thursday. Can you read a 1,500 page document?
in a 24-hour period and be brief enough to know if you support it or not. It's just ridiculous. No wonder Congress has such a bad approval rating and no wonder the country is in disarray because we keep sending the same people up there term after term after term election after election. It's almost like, oh, I'm totally dissatisfied with Congress, but my guy is great. Your guy is not great.
if we keep sending the same people and they keep doing the same thing and this is republicans and democrats this is not directed at the left or the democrats because the whole motivation of this put everything into one giant pork laden bill uh... spending much of money and creating policy to further insulate congress if so they can get the hell out of washington and get home for the holidays that's why they know it'll pass that's why they know it'll have bipartisan support
And this time it was undone because Elon Musk did have enough of the staff and enough resources to read it and say, hold on, this is everything we're trying to defeat here in this inefficient, fraudulent, drunken sailor spending government. And thankfully, he was able to derail it before it got started by getting President Trump to let everybody know on the Republican side
You support this bill, we're going to campaign against you ultimately because this is what we've got to stop. And that's what Musk and Rama Swami's vision and mission is going to be as they start this new Doge government efficiency group. All that being said, very interesting business as usual in Washington. They didn't get your mandate from November 5th.
They were just going to continue to conduct themselves like they always do in their best interest, not in your best interest, the people who are the government of the people by the people for the people. I'm Kip Kiefer subbing for Richard and Valerie. We're going to take a short break back with more in just a moment. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm enjoying the musical interludes between segments today, courtesy of Steve West back at 99.5. I apologize for our
technical difficulties. Hope you can hear me effectively now. We've had some problems back here at the source. If you're just tuning in, Kip Kiefer, I'm sitting in in Las Vegas. Although I'm from Birmingham, still working in Birmingham, still broadcasting on Jock's 94-5 on Saturdays and Sunday mornings, and appearing on our television show, The Starting Lineup.
on ABC 3340, 1030 every Saturday morning, previewing the college football playoffs currently. But the miracle of communications that I was hailing in the first hour have had a little bit of a glitch today, but we're pressing on with the best methods available and we'll try to resuscitate the more sophisticated system here when we get to the top of the next hour.
was talking about uh... all of the things happening in washington in the last week and i know a lot of people to not all year long but i didn't know how many of you were really familiar with the shenanigans that these people that we continue to send to washington as our representatives and senators continue to try to pull off this ridiculous fifteen hundred page bill that they tried to ran through last week so they could leave and go home for christmas
would have just been so much more spending and so much more waste and so much more fraud. And that's why two of the most successful businessmen in our country in the world, Vivek Ramaswami and Elon Musk, have been commissioned by Donald Trump to start this Doge, which ironically is also the name of a cryptocurrency.
that Elon Musk has been very involved in. But Doge, Department of Government Efficiency, with a lot of really inspired, intelligent business people volunteering. They're going to have a lot of great analysts. They're pretty much putting together kind of a dream team to really look at this government. And a lot of people have been sort of falsely led to believe that this is just some other way to look for
ridiculous fraudulent spending like million-dollar studies on does it does it does it does a jellyfish that's been exposed to cocaine change its patterns i mean as ridiculous as that sounds that's probably not an actual one but i've heard so many of these ridiculous expenditures of years and my money uh... for all of these programs and different pet projects
that people that support these legislators that we keep sending the same ones back to Washington. There's so much wasteful spending, but I think people don't really understand what Doge is really going to be looking at. And that's why Washington is in absolute panic mode now because they understand that these guys are going to turn everything upside down. Every department, every agency, since COVID in 2020,
the Social Security Administration, which has a giant operation, tremendous size building that's costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year for rental and maintenance is basically unoccupied because all those people have never come back to work. And if they do come into the office, it's only for an hour or two, maybe once a week, maybe once every other week, that's sort of the private sector development to in a lot of cases. Companies are now saying,
You've got to come back to work. So these people that are clearly not essential employees by the tens of thousands are being paid every week to sit around in their pajama pants and watch Netflix and maybe mail it in a little bit to do whatever it is that functionally that they do for the government, but they're not really working. The whole thing is just ridiculous.
And look at departments that have been around forever that were not in the original constitutional conception. I think you're going to find that Musk and Ramiswamy are really going to try to get back to the constitutional roots of this country and any agency department or bureau that's operating in Washington with all these self-important bureaucrats
who think they're absolutely the key to everything working. And these are the people that, me and you don't vote for, these are people basically with lifetime jobs who make the policies, who write the regulations, who things like the Environmental Protection Agency can impose pretty much anything they want in terms of restrictions on businesses, even if it's totally unreasonable, a lot based in this day and age on climate change.
which we could do a whole four-hour show on the myth that climate change is. But the bottom line is this government needs to be turned inside out. It doesn't just need an audit which has never taken place on the government as a whole. It has taken place for the last nine years at the Pentagon, which is the biggest expenditure of monies, of course, our military and our protection
But in the last nine years, the last nine audits, the Pentagon has failed. They can't account for millions of dollars. They don't know where it's gone. The audit reveals that it's totally mismanaged, but there's no repercussions. Why have an audit if you're not going to clean house and fix it?
uh... it uh... the whole thing even the expenditure for the audit itself if it's not going to yield any results or changes what's the point i mean you you have to go back and and and take your responsibility as a member of this society and this american family you this is your government this is my government this is not the people that we elect and send up there
And it's certainly not the people that get in these appointed positions and really dictate most of the policy. They're not elected by us. They're just government bureaucrat employees. And most of them have been by the government's own definition recently deemed non-essential. So if they're non-essential, why the hell are we paying them and employing them to do what they're not doing, which is going to work and actually
You know, commuting in and going to their office and at least going through the motions of having a real job. It really needs to be turned inside out. It's not an audit that's needed. It's an enema. It's a total clean out of this government. It needs to be happened and in this possible situation with this blue ribbon panel of the most successful and brightest business people
I mean, people always say, well, you know, this guy doesn't have any political experience. Well, political experience is a bad. Well, we're trying to take care of business today here on Talk 99.5. We've had some technical issues. We apologize for that. But I've been talking about the founders and their vision for this country. And I think it's a good theme to develop of exactly what the conception of America was. And recently, my remarkable broadcast partner, Terry Quillion,
And I had a really strong conversation on basically the origins of what's called American exceptionalism. And maybe what people misconstrue about that and how it applies to what our country is supposed to be all about. So let's run that down from the Salem broadcasting.
a podcast that Terry and I did recently American exceptionalism. So Terry, I kind of want to change course just a little bit. I want to throw a term at you and get your reaction. If I say the words American exceptionalism, what comes to mind? Ronald Reagan.
I mean, that's like linked in my head with American exceptionalism is Ronald Reagan because he talked so often about America being the city built on the hell. And I think it's really interesting, because I think
There are different interpretations of American exceptionalism. The people that get really irritated with the term tend to be those who see it as meaning American superiority. Even though so far as Donald Trump talking about how he could see how the term American exceptionalism would be insulting, if he were Chinese, he would believe in Chinese exceptionalism. So he didn't think that was particularly helpful.
And I think that's because as great as he was in many ways, Trump misunderstood, really, the origins of the term American exceptionalism. Because, Kip, you know, it really goes back to John Winthrop, who was one of the original founders back in 1630. He's not even
on the American shore yet. He's on a boat headed to Massachusetts Bay, and he delivered a sermon called the Model of Christian Charity. And in that, he talked about that we must consider that we shall be as a city built upon a hill. The eyes of all the people will be upon us. And I think that's how the American founders really saw themselves. And so,
They saw American exceptionalism, not as American superiority, but more as a case of providential obligation, as it were.
That is so fascinating because it almost changes my entire mindset of that term. It's not a boast or a braggadocious vehicle. This is basically a call to arms for anyone who was embarking on this grand experiment of a
formation of a representative government of the people, by the people, for the people. But it has biblical roots as well. I know, Terry, from Winthrop's discussion on that topic, he cited biblical passages. Matthew 514 to 16. Incredible. You are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hidden.
I mean, again, it changes my whole perception because this was not again a boast. This was a, this was a basic setting of the bar. This was a standard. If we're going to embark on this, we need to be exceptional. This country needs to be exceptional. It's really fascinating that you framed it that way.
Well, the way it was really seen by the founders was that America is a gift from God, and it's up to us to take what he has given us and use it in the right way. And, you know, Kip, in the beginning days of the country, it wasn't just Americans who thought,
of the idea of American exceptionalism. It's really, I'd say Alexis de Tocqueville is one of the people most responsible for spreading this idea because he talked about the position of America being quote, quite exceptional. And de Tocqueville talked in the 1830s about how there were no precedents in history.
for what Americans were embarking upon, the democracy and the republic that Americans were created. And so if you look at it as a providential obligation, that's very different than seeing it as some kind of superiority.
But Kip, I think a lot of the pushback on that has really come from people who don't necessarily misunderstand it, but who hate the original meaning because they can't stand the idea of America being founded on Judeo-Christian principles in the first place. I mean, Politico went so far in, let's see, 2018. They wrote an article about the rebirth of American exceptionalism
And they actually have the nerve to state that the term mainly came into use when used by Joseph Stalin in 1927. I find that ludicrous. Ridiculous. And, you know, Terry, this nation would not still be in existence had people not heeded that call for America to be exceptional. And there are examples
by the bundles that I can cite right here that really emphasize that. And I think the best one I can come up with is what happened to this country. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the few years preceding that the war in Europe was already well underway. Churchill and the British were desperately trying to get the Americans to
kind of end their isolation this period because the World War One experience had been so dreadful and caused so many lives and really kind of set the stage for the economic collapse, the Great Depression that our country was still dealing with.
The parallels of history are so remarkably similar when you hear about our intervention all around the world now and people say, what about our problems at home? That's exactly what we were living in this era. But do you know at the time of the World War II breaking out in Europe, the United States military was so de-emphasized and the economic problems in our country was so bad that our military at that point only ranked 16th in the world as the most powerful force.
There were 15 countries with superior military might than the United States. That's hard to even conceive. And so we had we had very little had few planes, few ships, very small forces at our disposal.
And because of the events that occurred in those five years of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, he basically called America to arms, completely restructured everything we were doing in terms of manufacturing. All the factories got into the war producing business.
of people that all of course all of our young men were dispatched to go and liberate liberal literally an entire continent and and really defeat the greatest fascist movement and the biggest threat to our civilization and way of life and yes,
to our democracy, which is thrown around now like a loose term. But this was literally the saving of our democracy. And the fact that America as a complete collective, women went to work in the factories, which had never happened before, the entire country mobilized. And within just a couple of years, we went from completely ill prepared to the most
to the mightiest war machine in the world, and if American exceptionalism was not at play there, that could not have happened.
You know, and there are so many examples, Kip, that go back to the idea of providential obligation. For example, a lot of people don't realize this. America is absolutely the most generous country in the world. Our charitable giving, the last year I have statistics for is 2021.
But get this, Americans gave $485 billion in charitable giving in 2021. And most of that is not coming from the 1%ers. It's not coming from corporate gifts. It's coming from working people in the United States. Americans on a whole, if you average it out, donate 6% of their income to charity.
which if you don't think it's a big deal, compare it with continental Europeans who like to sneer at Americans all the time. That is seven times what the average continental European gives to charity. And I think whether Americans
or seeing it as such, there is that feeling of providential obligation. It also goes back, kept to America being founded as a religious country, as a Judeo-Christian country. I personally wonder as America's religious belief is on the decline year after year,
what we're going to see in terms of American charitable giving, what we're going to see in terms of decline in American exceptionalism altogether.
It's a fascinating subject. I really, uh, the Europeans sneering at American exceptionalism. Well, they, they make an exception for that when we need to go bail their ass out and, uh, and that's happened several times throughout history, both financially and militarily. So let's just, uh, let's just cap this off by saying folks, America is exceptional, has always been exceptional. And I believe is going to continue to be exceptional deal with it.
How about that? I love it. Perfect. Welcome back, everybody. It is the Morning Show Dixon vining on 99.5. Keep for filling in. We've had some technical issues. I apologize, but we've pressed on here. Hope you enjoyed Terry and I's discussion on the founding of the principle of American exceptionalism. I really found it fascinating when we got into that subject of what that whole
phrase entails because if you hear it, as we talked about in that discussion, you think that it's some kind of braggadocious deal that America is exceptional. America has the bar set to be exceptional.
That is a big difference. It's not arrogance. It's not it's not to being boisterous or again being braggadocious. It is a it is a a target to what this country needs to achieve. It needs to be the shining on the shining city on the hill that all eyes are cast upon as Terry so beautifully relayed. So hope you enjoyed that. That's a
something that I found fascinating and it's just a lot of fun to develop subjects like that and really kind of drive into the core of what this country's founding principles are because a lot of people have lost sight of that and I believe and I think a lot of Americans showed that they are on the same page on the November 5th election
that we need to get back to our founding principles and return to the things that this country was founded upon, because the world needs a strong and secure and stabilizing America. It's an absolute essential in these times we live in. We're going to, at the top of the hour, talk about something that we started the last couple of years filling in on this week on 99.5.
talk about some of the people that we've lost in 2024. The list is pretty amazing. I was just trying to reel off some of them on the top of my head and came up with a number of the notables, but then looked into it a little further and found some names that I didn't even realize had left us. So some of the people on the list this year really hit home for me because
through personal experiences or just relatability from the course of my entire lifetime, some of these people were major mainstays. So it's just a fact of life that every year we lose this illustrious list of people that we've looked up to and admired and been entertained by or inspired by.
So we're going to talk about that, not to dampen the Christmas spirit, but this is a year-end week program. And it really needs to be said that some of the tributes that I personally want to relate to you to some of these folks is important to me on these shows at this time of year. We are pressing on talking about what's happening in Washington
One thing that's interesting that I brought up in the first hour, seemingly a long time ago, back at the six o'clock hour, was that it's amazing in this system that we have that the election is on the very first Tuesday in November, but the inauguration of the new president is not till January 20th. So if you do the math, that's about, let's see, 56 and 76 days.
which is awfully long time if if you ask me uh... the foundation of that principle is interesting because it was even worse uh... in terms of time previously cut from the seventeen nineties when the americans when it when america was established with the drafting of the constitution and all the provisions in the the original constitution called for inauguration day once again the election
the first week of November, but inauguration day and the transference of power wasn't scheduled annually until March the 4th. So that's another, you know, 28 days in February, 4 more 32, 10 more, 42 more days tacked on to the 70 something now. And it was all logistics back then. Just traveling to Washington from wherever you were elected from,
was not an easy process, particularly in the late 1700s. You're still going on wagons and horsebacks and things like that. Of course, trains really changed America in the 1800s, but it was just, it was thought that it was just practical for the previous administration to wrap up all of their business and
clear out for the new administration to come in. So March 4th, for many years until 1933, March 4th was the date of the transferance of power. Now, at noon on January 20th, the 20th Amendment to the Constitution changed the original constitutional provision, and that was when the January 20th date was established.
which i think needs to be revisited again because you look at uh... situation like we have now the american people totally repudiating this current administration and it seems to have thrown them into a frenzy i'm not gonna call at the by the administration because joe biden is not capable of running anything now and have not been in the last at least three and a half almost all four years of his term
uh... it was i was incredulous during the twenty twenty election that joe biden was getting the support he was because anybody paying any attention could see the amazing uh... cognitive and communication decline if you watch tape of biden back when he was sharing senate committees and running for office back in the eighties but and this is a guy once again if you're if you're not aware
Joe Biden has never had a regular job. Joe Biden was elected to Congress at 28 years old. He's been in Washington for better than 50 years in various capacities in government, mostly in Congress, first as a representative and then a longtime senator. Joe Biden has been a Washington mainstay forever and not a guy that was even highly thought of in a lot of circles because
intellectually, not the sharpest tool in the drawer. Let's just put it that way. But Biden's decline was clear if you were paying any attention and the fact that he struggled through this administration with all the faux paws and mistakes and misstatements and different things.
in an investigation of why he had documents in his possession uh... joe biden was found to be guilty but not prosecutable because he was a kindly old man with a bad memory was what the u.s. attorney uh... some eyes but this kindly old man uh... with a bad memory was the chief executive of the united states and in charge of all of our business it is really a shameful period
in american history that this guy was ever installed as president and this again is not partisan this is just pointing out the obvious of what we've endured and what we've uh... seen happen in our country so bottom line is it's time for a change it was time for a change right after the election trump has become the defacto president even in this seventy-six day period making more policy than biden was involved in this government shutdown nonsense
Biden was in Delaware taking another five or six day weekend. It is time to change everything. The calendar year might be a good time to institute new presidents. Maybe we need another constitutional amendment.
to move it up even further because Biden's doing big time damage now and it's not him. It's people putting things in front of him to sign. They have commuted the sentences of some of the most heinous offenders in the history of the country taking them off death row for doing atrocious things and there's been a lot of change over. So anyway, we're getting near to the top of the hour. I'm thinking we were likely to have Tony Curry joining us
My steam partner from television and other media opportunities on his network, TKR. Tony and I last year talked about people that we had lost in the calendar year. And we are going to do that again if we can get him in touch here. I'm going to talk about it in either event. So stay with us. This is the coming up on the final hour of this morning's Dixon and Vining Show here on Talk 99.5.
And we are so glad you're on board. And again, apologize for any technical difficulties that we've had today. My world with Jeff Jarrett takes wrestling fans behind the scenes, along with King of the Mountain, Conrad Thompson. I wanted to ask you about what you know, if anything, on the new WWE ID program where they're apparently going to be working with some independent wrestlers. My encouragement to any independent wrestlers out there.
Build your value and then understand your value and then you create your own leverage. There's no substitute for hard work and getting over. My world with Jeff Jarrett, wherever you listen. My world with Jeff Jarrett takes wrestling fans behind the scenes, along with King of the Mountain, Conrad Thompson.
I wanted to ask you about what you know, if anything, on the new WWE ID program where they're apparently going to be working with some independent wrestlers. My encouragement to any independent wrestler out there, build your value and then understand your value and then you create your own leverage. There's no substitute for hard work and getting over. My world with Jeff Jarrett, wherever you listen.
