Well, a good morning from the Johnson County, Kansas Sheriff's Office. Monday in the morning broadcasting live back to blue. Tour stop number 11 is underway. We are looking forward to sharing the great stories from the Johnson County, Kansas Sheriff's Office with you throughout the morning here on KCMO Talk Radio. Everything from the sheriff down to folks involved with the FIFA preparations, of course, ahead of the World Cup this summer. There is a lot to get to here at the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, and we are very much looking forward to sharing that with you here on the show. We have been doing these now for the better part of three years. We've got the master engineer, Chris Castro, by my side here for what is going to be a fun four hours, and we're going to be talking all about it throughout the morning here on KCMO. I did see, speaking of law enforcement, and then I want to get to a city that's feeling some pressure right now. You had this yesterday, Channel 9. A Kansas City man has been charged after he allegedly stole a bus, causing thousands in damages before he was caught. Preston Arif was charged with stealing, first-degree tampering with a motor vehicle, and first-degree property damage in connection with bus theft. According to Jackson County Prosecutor Melissa Johnson yesterday, Officers with KCPD responded to a Greyhound bus station on Tuesday on reports of a Greyhound being stolen moments prior. Upon arrival, an employee and a witness told the police that the suspect took the bus from the station's back lot at about 1020 at night, and on his way out, the suspect struck a wall, rammed an automatic gate, and struck multiple signs. GPS tracking allowed officers to quickly locate the stolen bus traveling north and I-29 near Northwest 56th Street. Officers attempted a traffic stop using lights and sirens, but the suspect didn't stop. So then you got the Platt County authorities continuing the pursuit, deploying stop sticks near I-29 and Northwest Tiffany Springs Parkway. The suspect pulled over after both front tires were hit, and then Sky Reef was taken into custody, John. You know, there's a couple of our regular callers we haven't heard from. Where are you guys up in Platt County? Someone catch me up on some of the regulars up there because you're right. Oh, my goodness. But this is the kind of stuff. I saw the story last night right before I went to bed, and I thought to myself, we've done these back-to-blue tour stops all across the metro, north, south, east, west. and when I hear stories and read stories like this we get accustomed to just kind of sharing the news and get programmed to be like oh yeah that happened but as dangerous as that must have been for everybody involved when you've got a guy driving a stolen Greyhound bus and he's not stopping and he's flying up I-29 and then you're using stop sticks to try to basically stop that vehicle because he will not allow his vehicle to be basically apprehended without something like stop sticks. I'm like, these guys are doing this and women are doing this every single day in this community and around the country. And it's really why we wanted to start a tour like this, especially in the wake of 2020, when there became this absurd notion that somehow the men and women and law enforcement are, to put it bluntly, not good people doing great work every day. And they are, whether it's Johnson County, Clay County, Gladstone, Olathe, back and forth, both sides of our state line. Now, I do believe the narrative has started to shift over the last, you know, I'd say 18 to 24 months, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. There's no doubt about it. So we're happy to be here and we're looking forward to having the sheriff on who will join us in 25 minutes as we get our Back the Blue Tour stop underway here on KCMO. I got an email last night, and I'm sure many of you did as well. If not, you may have heard about this. We've got this big vote happening in Olathe that's next week where they want $400 million to make capital improvements in Olathe to the school district, and that's combining schools, that's upgrading iPads. It's not for teachers. It's not for pay. It's not for anything like that. It's just capital improvements, and they're calling it a no-tax-increase $400 million bond issue. Well, last night, they sent out an email to anyone who has kids in the district, and the email signals to me they don't feel super confident going into this vote on Tuesday. They write here in this email, Olathe families, as you are aware, registered voters who live within the Olathe Public Schools boundaries have the opportunity to vote in a no tax rate increase $389 million mail-in bond election that would impact all Olathe students and staff. Mail-in ballots are due next Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. Ballots must be received by noon at the Johnson County Election Office on March 3rd. At this time, in order to ensure your ballot arrives on time, you got to drop the ballots off directly at the election office or one of the designated ballot drop box locations. To learn more about the bond and the projects, go to the website Olathe Public Schools. There is no way they're sending out that email a few days prior to the election if they felt really confident in the odds of this thing passing. If they felt great about this thing passing, they would have just kind of been silent about it. They wouldn't have said a word. But to me, this is a last-minute push to say to parents who have kids in the district, now is the time that you have to get out there and make sure that you vote. Because that's always how this goes, right? Like, you know, they perceive it as being for the kids. And if you're not for the kids, well, you know, then what's wrong with you? Shame on you. You can't vote no, you got to vote yes for the kids. That's always how this stuff gets framed. But I'm telling you, there is real angst that I have sensed across Olathe and even the people that are in the political realm are telling me that they think this thing is going to pass just because the odds are always in favor of issues like this passing. But I am getting the sense that based on all the attention there has been on the Olathe School District over the last few weeks in particular. Walkouts from middle schools to high schools on the local news. You got the kid that got jumped last week at Olathe Northwest on a Friday afternoon because he was protesting the anti-ice protest. And I had people coming up to me yesterday in various locations out to eat, stopping at the gym with kids in the district who are just like, we're done. We're voting no. We've never voted no on this stuff before. And that's anecdotal, I acknowledge. I'm not saying that that means it's not going to pass. But having that happen yesterday combined with this, you know, 6 p.m. email that came out last night from the schools. I was like, wow. And it wasn't even from the superintendent. That stood out to me as well. It wasn't the superintendent signing this and lobbying for it. It was just from the communications arm of the Olathe schools, and it was signed Olathe Public Schools. Which, once again, why wouldn't the superintendent's name be on it? Is there a reason for that? Does he not want to be on it right now, given everything going on in Olathe around the schools? Possibly. It's entirely possible. so as we get ready for that vote on Tuesday it's not about micro covering Olathe because there's a bigger picture conversation here that I think applies to any school district on either side of our state line and it's that people like in 2020 are recognizing and coming to a conclusion that as much as I think we all believe teachers in the classroom by and large not all of them but teachers by and large are doing the best that they can. I mean, I can speak for myself. Our kids have had great teachers and they work hard and they want to do the right thing and they care about the kids. Not every teacher's like that, but you know what? Many of them are. At the top, you've got administrators and you've got school board officials who are not doing enough when it comes to some of the chaos and the nonsense that is happening in these schools. and to ask for nearly half a billion dollars right now, given how much attention there is on this school district in particular over the last few weeks and some of the issues that have come out of the school district. You know what? I think people are thinking twice. I do. And I think they're realizing, wait, you want half a billion dollars? Kids are walking out of the classroom anyway. They don't want to be in the classroom. They want to go protest ICE. What are we giving you half a billion dollars for to begin with? What are you doing with that? So they have a nicer hallway to walk down as they leave the building to not learn? Is that what this is for? They have shot themselves in the foot at every single turn. And if this thing goes down on Tuesday, they will have no one to blame at the top than the people staring them back in the mirror. That's it. So it is good to be here. We're at the Johnson County Sheriff's Office this morning for Back the Blue Tour Stop No. 11. The sheriff, Byron Roberson, is going to be here at 635. on KCMO. You know, we don't talk enough about people coming together. We don't talk enough about people agreeing on big issues Well we have an example of that How about Roger Marshall Kansas U Senator and Bernie Sanders Bernie coming together on what I think is one of the most important issues that we talk about it on the show but we could always talk more about it. What is that thing those two guys have come together on? We'll share that with you next right here on KCMO Talk Radio. Hey, when there is agreement, we've got to talk about it here on the show. I think this is fantastic. Bernie Sanders and Roger Marshall here in Kansas. are on the same side of an issue. This is awesome stuff. Good morning. It's great to have you here on KCMO Talk Radio 95.7 FM. We are live from the Johnson County Sheriff's Office as we do our Back the Blue Tour stop number 11. Doing these about three years now every quarter. And last one we did was North Kansas City on the second half of last year. And now it's great to be picking that up as we start 2026. So we've got the sheriff, by the way, coming up in 15 minutes or so. All right. Bernie Sanders sharing this post yesterday came down at six o'clock at night saying, I don't agree with the Trump administration on much, but Dr. Means, his nominee for Surgeon General, is right when she says we should ban TV ads for junk food. Bernie Sanders writing obesity is a national crisis and the corporate food industry is largely responsible let's go Bernie by the way I never thought I'd say that but let's go thank you you're welcome there you're welcome Bernie and Roger Marshall saying thank you Senator Sanders for taking the side of common sense on the issue the health of Americans should be a bipartisan priority I appreciate working alongside you to fight for a healthier America, and I believe that Casey Means will be an excellent partner in the effort. Let's play the audio from Bernie Sanders yesterday. My understanding is you have come out against junk food ads on television. Is that correct? Yes. Can you just take 30 seconds to elaborate that? Would you use your position to ban junk food TV ads? Thank you so much, Senator Sanders, and I agree with you completely. I think there is so much that we agree on on these issues. Just to be clear, the Surgeon General's office does not have the purview to ban this. But you have a voice. Absolutely. And that's a voice I would absolutely lend to talking about the dangers of ultra-processed foods and getting these advertisements off TV. Do I understand your view is you would fight to ban TV ads of junk food? I think you will be frustrated by how much I will be talking about ultra-processed foods. I won't be frustrated. I would delight it. I love that. That is fantastic audio from Bernie and Means and then Marshall getting on board. They're all right. I mean, I know that we want to obsess over the divisions that we have in the country and the ways that we are different and the ways that we view the world differently. But my goodness, man, this is one of those issues that if you've got the right and the left coming together and treating ultra processed foods and junk food in general, The way that we treated cigarettes going back 60 years, which in hindsight, I may make the case that having the occasional cigarette is healthier than putting some of this garbage into your body that we're able to put into our bodies today. And that's not big governments. Okay, I hear some conservatives make this absurd argument. Well, you know, that's getting in the way of the free market. How far do you guys want to take that? Okay, you want to do that with drugs too, because that's getting in the way of the free market? No, when you have information that suggests your population is at risk because of something that is being done, you stop it. You just stop it. I'm a free market guy. I'm a capitalist. I'm all about that. But if we have data and information that shows that the health of our population is at risk when we put these things into our bodies, then why wouldn't you get that out there and why wouldn't you stop it from being advertised or pushed especially on the kids why wouldn't you want to block that like we have laws against drugs for a reason we don't sit here and say well you know what cocaine is fine if you use it once in a while so therefore we should make it legal I mean that drives frankly conservatives crazier than the other side but if we've got an issue here where people come together and say the junk food industry is out of control. We shouldn't have it on television. It's mostly geared towards making our kids sick. We're still trying to figure out what it does to their brains, by the way, when they're developing at young ages, how it creates hyperactivity in kids. Obesity rates are at record highs for children as well. Those are all things that we should want to get under control, that we should want to try to fix, to stem the tide, to turn that ship around, which right now, it is just impacting our kids in a very negative way. They're not exercising enough and they're eating worse than ever. And then you wonder why we have some of the problems that we have in our young people today across the country, including here in Kansas City. So I am such a proponent of what is being pursued here from Bernie Sanders to Roger Marshall to I think a lot of reasonable people in between who are finally coming together on this issue. And I mentioned the documentary that I watched, well, I guess two weekends ago now with Dr. Means and a couple of people from the administration were on there. And it is well worth your time to go out there, watch it, and really understand how we got here and how a lot of the big business and big industry folks that were out there in the cigarette days, the Philip Morris's of the world, the way that they took over the food supply chain in this country will help you understand, help me understand how we got to where we are today. And it's something that I don't think enough people, just in general, because I didn't have a full understanding of it until the last couple of weeks, understanding what the point is of pushing back on the entire industry right now. It's just something that I believe we've got to look at and take a serious, serious focus on. Because if we don't have healthy kids, if we don't have a healthy society, then what's the point of any of this? What's the real purpose of what we're doing every single day? You can argue about tax rates all you want. Who cares? Who cares if you have a society that is getting unhealthier by the year and getting fatter by the year? And no one's willing to have the conversation as to why. I don't care if my tax rates are 38, 36, or 34% if we're killing ourselves here. And the people in charge aren't willing to do anything about it, don't have the backbone to do anything about it. But the conversation's being had. It's why I was an RFK fan from the get-go, and that was not about the crazy ideas that he had or the things that I disagree with him on. If we had somebody who is hyper-focused on the well-being, health, and garbage that we have allowed ourselves to be basically ingested with over the last generation and is only getting worse, then I'm all in. I am absolutely all in. It is great to be here as the sun starts to rise around Kansas City. We've got a nice little setup here at the Johnson County Sheriff's Department. And I'll tell you what, all eyes are on the World Cup. We're obviously going to be talking to some people this morning about preparations for the World Cup as it relates to how the Johnson County Sheriff's Department is helping out. But there are some issues starting to pop up. You just can't deny it. And there are some things that I have been hearing from people in Kansas City area law enforcement now for the last couple of weeks. now this week you may have seen that there were members of the kansas city police department and area departments who were in washington dc and they were there to say hey we need public safety funding we've got to make sure we have that money if we want to keep people safe over a month and a half from all over the world well we've got to make sure we have the bodies and the funding to do it and there's some concern right now that they may not be happening. So we were telling you about this earlier in the week. Kansas City expected to get up to $80 million in federal funding for security and transportation, and this is part of a $600 million congressional package to support World Cup security efforts in the United States. So we've got six games, obviously, here. We've got four nations base camping here in Kansas City, Argentina, the Netherlands, England, and Algeria. They project 600,000 fans coming across the region. That number, whatever you want to do with it, you do with it. I'm not sure I buy 600,000, but we know it's going to be a lot of people. And now what we're seeing is FanFests getting scaled back or eliminated around the country. Not here in Kansas City, but other cities are scaling back what they're doing on the FanFest front. Now, we know that World War I is going to be obviously kind of the hub of the FanFest here in Kansas City, where you're going to go out there, kind of like the NFL draft was a couple of years back, hang out, big scene, TVs, rah-rah, the whole thing, right? Well, in New York and New Jersey, they canceled their FanFest scheduled for Liberty State Park because of costs, and they're instead planning smaller celebrations across New Jersey and New York. In Seattle, they have opted for a similar approach, creating a distributed model with at least four locations throughout the city instead of one big fan fest. So all these things came up this week on Capitol Hill, where you had members of Kansas City area law enforcement out there saying, first off, we got to have the money. Okay, that's a non-starter. You got to fund us And right now you got this partial government shutdown going on that Mark Alford is admitting here in Missouri could affect the funding for the World Cup So we are sitting here for many people on payday And as you get paid today, and many of us get paid today, remember this, TSA received a partial paycheck today. Now they're still showing up to work. They're still going to be there if you're going up to the airport today, but you have people who are going to be grumpy, and I understand why, rightfully so, saying for the second time in a few months now, we're getting caught up in the middle of this government standoff that is completely absurd, and it also could impact us if the World Cup security money is not coming through. So if you care at all about these things, I mean, this government shutdown is impacting all of this, and it's not nearly as bad as the shutdown was obviously a few months ago where you had 40 some odd days and that was a full government shutdown. This is not that. But at the same time, it's like you've got a plan, you've got a budget for all of these things happening in Kansas City. And right now, it's just not there. And on top of that, the KC 2026 organization, according to some of my sources, they're being a little difficult right now. They're supposed to provide some of the public funding monies. And according to people I've talked to high up in Kansas City area law enforcement, they're having a problem getting public safety funding from KC 2026. Now this organization raised all its money privately through big donors and wealthy people around Kansas City. They're still trying to fundraise with a hundred some odd days left. But my sources in Kansas City area law enforcement are saying that KC 2026 is frankly becoming a pain to work with because they're not getting some of the public safety dollars that they have been expected to get and none of this works without people being and feeling safe none of it works and to be clear as much as Kansas City yes did want to be a part of the World Cup a lot of this came from the federal government too right i mean this was decided on during trump's first term in office that's when it was announced the world cup would be coming to north america including you know kansas city being a part of that whole process but that goes back seven eight years at this point that's not some new development over the last couple of years so we're stuck with it so we better make sure that we've got the funding and we've got the safety protocols in place to make sure that this is going to be a safe event and I know that it's a topic here in Johnson County and we'll talk about it more with the folks here on our Back the Blue Tour Stop number 11. That's right we're here we've got a busy final hour and a half on the show. Right now is probably the best time to get in this morning at 913-408-7957 and if you're a parent or a grandparent this story should matter to you and the story dropped This story should matter to any parent or any grandparent. And the story comes from Instagram yesterday. That said it will start alerting parents if their kids repeatedly search for terms clearly associated with suicide or self-harm. The alerts will only go to parents who are enrolled in Instagram's parental supervision program. Now, listen, I still think that these apps should be banned for kids under the age of 18. I know there's been a push. Josh Hawley in Missouri has pushed for 16. Many on both sides of the aisle have pushed for limitations on social media. I don't know if it's ever going to happen because the lobbying arms for these big tech companies are so powerful. and so enormous that I'm not convinced it will ever get done. But if there's ever a time for it to get done, it's sooner rather than later. Because these companies are only going to grow in strength. I mean, it's just inevitable. They're only going to grow in power on Capitol Hill. So the sooner the better. But I'll give them credit when they're at least doing things that are helping mental health of young people. So Instagram now is saying that it already blocks such content from showing up in teen accounts search results and directs people to helplines instead. Okay, that's great. But we always know that kids find a way around this stuff. But this announcement that says Instagram will start alerting parents if their kids repeatedly search for clearly associated terms that involve suicide or self-harm is great. I don't think it should be a repeated search. I would say a one-time search. If a kid one time searches for this stuff, Instagram should be alerting parents if they're enrolled in the Instagram parental supervision program, which I'm not sure why you would not be. I mean, honestly, I don't know why you wouldn't be. Not here to judge you. I just don't get why you would not want to have this supervision program out there for your child if they are on Instagram. And this announcement comes as Meta's in the midst of two trials right now. We've been following these trials. One's going on in California, in Los Angeles. that questions whether Meta's platforms, Meta owns Facebook and owns Instagram, deliberately makes kids addicted. Well, the answer is yes. First off, the answer is yes. Every product in the world, every business in the world, wants you to use more of their product or service. That's common sense. I want you to listen to KCMO Talk Radio more often, whether it's on the air whether it's on the podcast whether it's on our social media platforms that that's my job right to get you to listen to more kcmo talk radio it is the job of meta to get people to stay on facebook and to get people to stay on instagram how do you do that you make it more attractive to them you get them to stay on the platforms whether or not you want to call that an addiction is i guess left up to the eye of the beholder but it's obvious what they're doing. The other lawsuit comes out of New Mexico. In New Mexico, they're seeking to determine whether Meta failed to protect kids from sexual exploitation on its platforms. Thousands of families have sued Meta and other social media companies claiming they deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive and fail to protect kids from content that can lead to depression, eating disorders, and suicide. It's a fine line because I do want to see Congress act on this at the same time there has to be a little bit of a role here for the parents to say you know you got to look out for your own kids here and all this you just you have to all right you've got to look out for your own kids and as much as i think there should be restrictions on this stuff just like we have restrictions on things like you know uh buying cigarettes buying alcohol renting a car I think that social media should have age minimums to them. But we also can't say, well, the government's got to do its job, and we're totally absolved from doing our job as parents. It is a two-way street here and all this stuff. So that's something that has to be recognized. 913-408-7957. That's the text line and the studio line here on KCMO Talk Radio. 95.7 FM, streaming as always on the KCMO Talk Radio app. So we're following both of those lawsuits and trials that are underway right now. But Instagram did not just magically drop this news yesterday because it's just a coincidence. They did it yesterday in the middle of these two trials that they're dealing with in California and in New Mexico as well. So just know that that's not a happy coincidence. but know that it's also out there right now if you're a parent or a grandparent and you do monitor that stuff for your kids or grandkids on uh on instagram so that is something that everyone should be enrolled in now speaking of parents and kids there's a story that dropped this morning in the new york times headlined the plunging birth rate and listen it's out of the new york times so you know what the angle is going to be and i'm going to give a response to the New York Times here coming up in a minute. But they note here the obvious alarming statistic that's been talked about for years, the declining birth rate. The nation's birth rate is down more than 25% since 2007. We are not having enough babies to replace the population in the country. We've known that for a long time, right? You have a falling birth rate, obviously not a good thing. As our population ages, we'll need more workers, taxes that they pay to replace and support retirees because we've got these systems like Medicare and Social Security. Immigration can fill some of those gaps, but obviously it can't replace all of those gaps. So what's the reason for it? Well, there's no doubt that there's a political angle to all of this that I'll get to momentarily. But the New York Times did have a theory here that's not an incorrect theory. I just don't think it's sharing the full scope of what's actually going on. The New York Times notes here that women in their early 30s now have the highest birth rate of any group. And a woman today, in her early 40s, is more likely to give birth than a teenager. Now, we don't know whether or not these pregnancies will be enough to help the U.S. reverse its falling birth rate. It probably won't be. But what the article goes on the note is that basically the teenage birth rates are down so significantly, that's part of the reason that the overall birth rates are down. It's not just because people have decided I'd rather have seven cats instead of two kids And there some truth to that I mean they not wrong to bring that up All right That you know you think about the days of 16 and pregnant on mtv remember that uh mark and i were growing up when that show was hot and popular you remember those days right mark oh yeah 16 and pregnant mtv yeah no i didn like i trust me i wasn a fan of it i wasn't watching it but listen you couldn't avoid the commercials oh yeah that's what i remember the commercials of 16 and pregnant and teen mom and all these different shows that came up, you know, 15, 20 years ago, I guess, at this point. Wow, that's going back. And, you know, it's kind of like a way to get on TV. Yeah, now that's no longer the story. Yeah, exactly. I mean, geez, the teen mom kids are having babies. Oh, my goodness. You're right about that. That made me feel old. Thank you very much for that, Mark. I appreciate it. But you are seeing a birth rate decline dramatically when it comes to teen moms. Now, unmarried teen moms having fewer babies is, I think, generally a very good thing, right? And now if you're married at 19 and you got the world figured out to some extent, you're working, that's a good thing. I mean, that's fine. It doesn't really matter if you're 19 or 29. But unmarried teen moms having fewer babies, I think is good, generally speaking, for society. But I think the New York Times is also just trying to sugarcoat an issue that they don't like. And what I mean by that is that there also is a clear and direct relationship between the political identity of young people and their willingness and wantingness to have kids. In the United States, this is not in the New York Times article, this is different data that I've looked up separately. In the United States, there is a widening gap in birth rates by political affiliation. Residents in red states and those identifying as conservative are having more children than those in blue states or identifying as liberal. Conservative women have a family size of 2.1. That's 2.1 babies per family. Compared to 1.5 for liberal women. So that means conservative women in red states have, think about it, 35% more kids than liberal women. and this was not the case when you go back you know to uh the 1980s the gap was minuscule between you know the political affiliation of people and how many kids they had that's not going on anymore and anecdotally i mean i see this all over my life as someone who's got little kids i mean i've got people who you know are in my not inner circle but people that obviously are peers of mine they won't have kids, whatever the reason is, you know, they figured out a reason to why they don't want to have children. And I'm not judging anybody who makes that decision. But there's a direct correlation, anecdotally, in my life, in my peers, of people saying, I don't want kids who then also lean to the left, and then people on the other side who lean to the right, who are like, I want two, I want three, I want four. And, you know, after that, you know, you just kind of, after that, It's just chaos, I think. But there's an anecdotal example in my life I can point to. I know that's the case for many of you as well. And there's data that points to this as well. And it makes it very clear that the top 20% of counties where Donald Trump had the highest margin of victory had a total birth rate that was 35% to 40% higher than the top 20% of counties that voted for Kamala Harris. in the 2024 election. So there's a political divide. And yes, teenagers are having fewer babies. That's a good thing. But what the New York Times does not want to know in this piece is also the political divide that is happening right now in this country with younger people. And that's, I think, the bigger story here as you look at the birth rate in America and where the country trends over the next 15 to 20 years. All right. I don't care if you're a fan of the Jayhawks. If you're a fan of the Wildcats, the Tigers, it doesn't matter. You should be a fan of this coming up one week from today. Of course, we're live at the Johnson County Sheriff's Department. We'll wrap it up here with the sheriff in just over 10 minutes on KCMO. Yesterday, it was announced that the president is going to be joined by college leaders to tackle issues impacting college sports at a roundtable that's going to happen a week from today at the White House. And the president will be chairing this group. You'll have Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and New York Yankees President Randy Levine, who are going to be the vice chairs. And there's going to be a bunch of people there one week from today. You'll have all the power for commissioners. So if you're a Missouri fan, that's Greg Sankey out of the SEC. If you're a Big 12 fan, KUK State, that's Brett Yourmark out of the Big 12. You'll have locally KU President Douglas Girard is going to be there as well. He's the only local president that I see showing up to that event next week. And then you also have athletic directors. Now, the Iowa State AD, Jamie Pollard, is going to be at this event as well, along with ADs from Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Indiana, and Oklahoma. The only politicians are going to be Ron DeSantis. As I mentioned, he's the vice chair. And then former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. So nothing about this is political. Now, yes, I mean, Trump's got his guys there uh you know tiger woods who by the way is now dating his ex-daughter-in-law if i have that right so clearly i mean no love lost there i guess they're still buddies whatever you make of that bryson de chambeau yeah oh my gosh that's yeah it's it's bizarre but you know it is what it is they're peers though to be fair they're peers you've got tim tebow you've got charlie ward You have business executives. You have the ESPN and Fox Sports presidents. So this is really about trying to solve the issues that exist in college athletics. I'm not convinced that Congress can do it because they really can't. I mean, they can't balance a budget. How are they going to fix college sports? But at least they're coming together and trying to solve this thing. And I think as much as anything else, what this can be about is not about how the government can solve it, but it also can just be simply about getting these people in the same room and then having them figure out a way to solve it on their own. Because there's no doubt that college sports is broken. You can't have the chaos that ensues with name image likeness, the transfer portal, getting up and going whenever you so please. There have to be guardrails. There's no doubt that for decades, college sports was too much anti-athlete, right? There were too many restrictions. There's no doubt about it. But now we've gone too far in the other direction. There's just, there's got to be a happy medium because this model can't exist forever. It's bound to blow up in their faces. It's bound to fail. And what you've got right now is basically, if you have a billionaire donor who's willing to invest in your program, you're going to win. Texas Tech has it with this big oil guy, Cody Campbell. Indiana has it with guys like Mark Cuban. And, you know, Oregon's got that Phil Knight money. So they all have it. Now, some of these people are more prominent than others. We understand that. But if you've got the billionaires who went to your schools in your back pocket, you'll do okay. At least you'll be competitive. If not, you're going to be in an impossible spot. And that's what they've got to figure out. So I'm not looking at this event next week and being like, you know, I really hope that Congress passes a law to fix college sports because they usually make things worse than they already are typically what i hope happens is they go to this meeting they come together and they have a blueprint for how to solve it themselves away from the ncaa by the way because the ncaa doesn't do anything well outside of put on the ncaa tournament that's literally the only reason the ncaa is worth anything anymore so there are 35 people who have received the invitation who are expected to be there for the college sports roundtable one week from today and it's not a it's not a big group but I did see some of this last night where there were people on social media going nuts that you know KU President Douglas Girard is going to this meeting because well he's you know going to the White House with the guy in office now it's so ridiculous this has nothing to do with any of the national politics of the moment it's about fixing college sports now speaking of fixing things yesterday, the NFL Players Association report cards came out, and every team got a grade in about a dozen categories. Here's what it looked like for the Kansas City Chiefs. They got high grades for a home field game, which means Arrowhead Stadium, A-. This was a grade by the players. Nutritionists and dieticians got an A-. Head coach Andy Reid got an A. Steve Spagnuolo got an A. General Manager Brett Veach got a B plus and strength coaches also got a very good grade as well in this report card that was done anonymously by the players NFLPA put it out. Where did the Chiefs struggle? Locker room did not get high marks got an F for the Chiefs locker room and then team travel also got a low grade d minus so let me get this straight you got one of the richest owners in the nfl the locker room stinks the team travels a d minus but now we got to sit here on the kansas side of the state line and wait for future sales tax revenues from the taxpayers to chip in to fix the locker room for a top five wealthy owner in the NFL. That's absurd and ridiculous. And I'm sure they're going to ride this thing out at Arrowhead. They're not going to fix anything there because they know they're leaving now. But what a disservice it is to the guys who have delivered multiple Super Bowls over the last couple of years that they can't get a halfway decent locker room until the taxpayer helps foot the bill coming up in 2031. that's really really embarrassing
