Bring Back the Working Man | Guest Host: Jeff Katz | 2/15/21

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

What you are about to hear is the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

This

is

the Glenn Beck program.

It is indeed the Glenn Beck program.

Jeff Katz in today for Glenn.

Guess what?

Donald Trump is 0-2.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

That's Nancy Pelosi.

We'll We'll chat about it in 60 seconds.

Jeff Katz in for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

The Glenn Beck Program.

All right, it is Jeff Katz in today for Glenn.

It is fascinating how all of the global warming is impacting all of us.

You know,

it's one of those weird things.

Here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I'm right here in central Virginia.

We have had snow, we have had ice, we have had power outages.

And I know the last time I chatted with Glenn, Glenn was telling me about how wonderful Texas was.

It was perfect.

Apparently they got some of the same weather.

And well, anyway, what can I tell you?

So Glenn is out of commission, sort of kind of, with some technical difficulties, but I'm so happy to be able to help out a little bit.

We should talk for a couple of moments about what happened in Washington, D.C.

over the last couple of days.

It was a sham and a scam, and it was painful to watch.

I don't know anybody who was happy with the activities we saw on January the 6th.

In fact, let me go on record as saying that everybody I know looked at what happened on January the 6th and said, that's not America.

That's not what we do.

We don't storm buildings.

We don't take over the House of Representatives or the United States Senate.

That's just not what we do.

That's not what Americans do.

What we as Americans do is contest and compete in the strongest possible ways at election time.

That's what we do.

We look at the

possibilities.

We look at the vision.

We look at the hopes and the dreams that we all have and we say, okay,

what is the best way for us to do all of this stuff?

I mean, that's really what it's all about, isn't it?

At the end of the day, we are all hoping against hope, praying

that the right things happen.

Now, in some cases, the right things don't happen, or at least we don't think they're the right things, right?

We think to ourselves,

it should have gone this way.

It should have gone that way.

And it just didn't.

For whatever reason, it just didn't.

So you tell me, what do we do?

What do we do?

I'll tell you what we do.

What we do is say,

work harder.

What we do is we say,

maybe we didn't do it right the last time.

Maybe...

just maybe

we need to change our approach

maybe

just, maybe

we need to do something a little bit different.

And maybe, just, maybe we make it work at that point.

But what we don't do is storm the building, right?

So we're all in agreement on that.

Now, that being said,

that being said,

what happened over these last couple of days with the latest impeachment circus, and gosh, that's what it was, a scam and a sham of epic proportion.

Just a ridiculous,

ridiculous performance art exhibition.

was also inexcusable.

It was just outrageous.

It was one of those things that as an American, you look at and say, I thought we had other stuff to do.

Now I understand if you are Nancy Pelosi,

you don't really have anything else to do.

That if you are in fact Nancy Pelosi, what you're really trying to do on a on a regular basis is hold on to your power.

Hold on as best you can to this power that you have accumulated over decades

in Washington, D.C.

You are trying as best you can to stay in control, frankly, of

your own party in the House of Representatives because

as as extreme and as left-wing bat crap crazy as most of us think you are

the folks in your own caucus look at you and say wait a minute

she

is not nearly crazy enough for us

she is not nearly left-wing enough for us

Now go ahead.

Let that sink in just

a little bit.

Let us just try and figure out how it is possible.

It is possible

that

we

don't quite understand.

We look at this, and I'm telling you, we look at it and think to ourselves,

hold on a second here.

Just hold on a second.

We want it to be even further

outside the

boundaries.

And apparently the answer was yes.

Just so we are clear, apparently the answer was yes.

Because what happened

was that these House managers

went to the Senate and said,

we're sure this guy is bad.

And you know what's funny?

There are a lot of people up there who said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we agree with you.

Totally bad.

Totally bad.

Bad guy, bad guy, bad guy.

And then they said, and because we don't like him, and there were people going, oh, yeah, we don't like him either.

Oh, you're so right.

You're so completely right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bad guy, bad guy.

We don't like him.

We don't like him.

We don't like him.

But that's not enough, is it no i mean it really isn't that's simply not enough

it's not enough to convict anybody of a crime it's not enough to punish anyone for

well i don't even know what it is that we're trying to punish them for

do you know what we were trying to punish donald trump for

Because I can't figure that one out, gang.

Were we trying to punish him for leading a revolt?

Because he didn't lead a revolt, so far as I can tell.

I mean, four years ago he led a revolt.

But this wasn't the revolt, was it?

He gave a speech.

And he gave a speech that

inspired his supporters, inspired many people, for sure.

but the question was

did it incite them

did it in any way convince his supporters who attended that speech in Washington DC

did it incite them to commit an act of violence

That's the question.

That's what the question has always been.

And the determination here seems to be no.

That should be the end of it, right?

At this point, it would seem to me

most

people say,

all right,

now we move on to something else.

Former President Trump gets to move on to the rest of his life.

Now, I can't tell you what the rest of his life will involve.

It might very well involve more political activity.

It might very well involve less political activity.

It might involve absolutely, positively no political activity.

But whatever it is, that's his choice,

as it ought to be.

Then my question to you becomes:

What about the rest of these folks?

What about the rest of the folks who are involved in this little piece of performance arts?

Now, I know right about now everybody is looking at Mitch McConnell and saying, hold on a second now.

You want it both ways, right?

Just so we're clear, you want it both ways.

You want to stand up and say, Trump is a bad guy who did bad things,

and

you also want to say, but he didn't really do anything that we can deal with.

But, yeah, there's another butt coming, isn't there?

But

some other folks might be in line to go after him.

Well, you've got all your bases covered then, don't you?

You're in favor of him and you're opposed to him.

You support him and you're a detractor.

You like him, you dislike him.

You're a floor wax, you're a dessert topping, whatever it is.

You've got all of your bases covered at that point.

You cannot possibly, possibly go wrong

at that point.

So now what do you do?

And that, quite frankly, is where I am right now.

I don't honestly know

what is next.

I don't honestly know

who or what

we deal with next.

Maybe you do.

Maybe you have actually figured this all out.

Because if you have,

then I will be eternally grateful to you.

If you'll explain it to me.

Because frankly, I don't know.

I really don't I cannot for the life of me figure out

what

happens

next

we'll talk a little bit about it the reason we've got to talk about it again is

we can't move on can we

the folks who were who were the so-called house managers, and again, remember that they're prosecutors, right?

If you went into a courtroom in the same way they did

you would have been laughed out

of that courtroom almost immediately

if a judge would have been hearing that case i mean a real honest to goodness judge in fact in fact had this been a real case

it never would have gotten to the quote jury remember now you had half of the jury members standing up ahead of time and saying he's guilty

that's thankfully not the way it works inside of our criminal justice system

that's not the way it works you can't seat people on a jury when they march into it saying

yes we have already determined that the man or woman who's going to stand behind beside us in front of us on trial

is guilty.

We don't let that happen.

But that's what happened here.

50% of the jury had already determined and in fact announced publicly, yes, he's guilty.

He's guilty.

It's all sin.

And then for the house manager to say, oh, by the way, one more thing.

Excuse us, Your Honor.

One more thing.

Since our case is failing so miserably, since we didn't actually do what we were supposed to do in preparing for this case, would it be okay with you if we changed everything?

Would it be okay with you if

we now

decided

that we want to call witnesses?

Oh, I know, I know we didn't we didn't have any plan to call witnesses before, but we didn't really think that we would need witnesses, but now that it's just not going our way we're going to need witnesses

oh okay

well now what do you do that's the other question I'll tell you what you do you fold your tent and you go back to Sarasota or at least that's what happened used to happen with the circus

the circus would fold up the tents

the circus folks would get back on the trains and they would go back to Sarasota because that was home base for the circus when the circus was not on the road.

But if you are a swamp dweller, a DC person, I guess you

probably go back to Bethesda.

Maybe Fairfax or resting.

But it is time to put this whole circus to rest, isn't it?

That would be.

my sense.

All right, look, we're going to talk about it to be sure.

I can let you know that Glenn is fine.

I know folks are going, hey, wait a minute now.

Where's Glenn, Jeff?

Where's Glenn?

We've got bizarre weather all over the place, it seems, right?

We've got all sorts of things going on.

And Glenn is dealing with some power issues, just the way it is for a lot of us.

We were very fortunate, blessed, I would dare say, here in my neck of the woods.

We lost some some trees in my yard, but no power, which is pretty cool.

All right, I'm going to remind you: it is triple eight seven two seven Beck, eight eight eight seven two seven B E C K.

If you want to send me an email, love to have you do it.

You just visit the website, actually, my website, thejeffcatshow.com, thejeffcatshow.com.

Most important websites for you remain, Glennbeck.com and theblaze.com.

It is Jeff Katz in for Glenn today.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Jeff Katz in for Glenn on the Glenn Beck program.

A couple of things that you and I need to think about.

We're going to have to think about these things seriously.

And

I've mentioned a little bit this,

about the circus.

It's the only way that I can describe it.

And I want to be as nice as possible.

I want to be as polite as possible.

And so that's the way I will describe what we just saw take place in D.C.

It was a circus.

But there are other things that you and I need to be aware of.

Hopefully those things are wrapping up.

Can I ask you to turn your attention for a moment to Minneapolis?

Remember Minneapolis was the big story for a while, right?

George Floyd, you remember that?

George Floyd was the victim

of an absolutely brutal attack.

And it happened at the hands of a couple of police officers, Minneapolis police officers.

And you remember one of those police officers was kneeling on George Floyd's neck for what, eight, nine, ten minutes?

It seemed like an eternity.

If you would have told me it was an hour as I watched the video, I probably would have agreed with you.

I mean, I lost all sense of time with that.

I just couldn't...

Couldn't make heads or tails of it.

I got trying to figure out what's going on and why are you doing this?

Well, the response from that on the local level in Minneapolis was to say

that every police officer in Minneapolis was a bad person.

The Minneapolis City Council said,

we're going to get rid of the cops.

We're just going to get rid of the cops.

Now, this is a great story this morning on The Blaze, theblaze.com.

And I'm reading it.

I'm reading this story.

Minneapolis City Council said, okay,

two weeks after

George Floyd

dies in police custody, killed

by a

police officer,

the city council of Minneapolis says, we've got the solution.

We know what to do.

We're going to dismantle the Minneapolis City Police Department because every one of those police officers is evil.

And the only way to do with this is

we have to dismantle the police department.

Huh.

Okay.

Now there were a lot of people on the sidelines saying, but you do understand if you dismantle the police department, That's the word you want to use.

Dismantle the police department.

You do understand that the bad guys who already don't care about police officers, the bad guys who already do not care about decent society or your children will have a field day.

And the Minneapolis City Council said, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

Whatever.

We don't really care.

We don't care.

We're going to do this and we're going to do this immediately.

Well, guess what happened?

They tried to defund the police,

crime soars, and now they need to quote refund the police.

We'll talk about it.

It is Jeff Katz in for Glenn today.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

This is Jeff Katz in today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

It is Jeff Katz today in for Glenn on the Glenn Beck program.

Glenn is just fine, but

a couple of technical glitches.

There's terrible weather, as I understand it, in Texas, resulting in all sorts of power outages.

And so

happy to be covering for Glenn this morning, doing my best anyway.

Look, it's not going to be the same, obviously, but I promise I will give it 110%.

It's interesting for me because we just came through a terrible, terrible ice storm here in Central Virginia.

I am pleased and proud to be the afternoon host on News Radio WRBA in Central Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

The ice is always a factor.

I was reading these horrible, horrible stories.

And I mean horrible stories telling us this was going to be the worst ice storm since 1998

now I wasn't here in 1998 so all I could do was ask people that were here like oh my god Jeff you know stand we were without power for a week Now I grew up in the city.

You have to understand, you grow up in Philadelphia, in the inner city of Philadelphia.

You're never without power.

This is such a foreign concept.

But then,

this somewhat, well, I don't want to say rural, but there are swatches of where I happen to live now, beautiful Hanover County, Virginia, that are very rural.

And so, this is a very real thing.

And it's fascinating to me to watch someone like me, who's, you know, I'm a city guy through and through.

I hear Glenn talking about his cattle.

And I'm thinking, oh, wait a minute.

I was blissfully unaware, blissfully unaware

that there was a step in between the cattle grazing happily on the plains and, you know,

the shrink wrap in styrofoam

when I got to eat the cattle.

I didn't know there was something in between that step.

I don't want to know about that.

Well, it's a little bit like that with the weather.

It's a little bit like that with power

I'm sitting here in my beautiful broadcast hut my heat is on I've I've got my coffee maker making coffee I've got slippers and sweatpants you know it is Monday so I'm wearing my blue sweatpants that's part of this bizarre situation we all find ourselves in right I don't know about you.

I now work 100% of the time from home, and I'm thrilled about it.

I don't think I will ever ever return to the radio factory.

Certainly not on a full-time basis.

Oh, I'll probably go in here and there, have a meeting, but I don't really even need to do that anymore.

I've got this free standing building

and I love it.

And I'm looking out the window.

And I see trees and I see snow at this point, but there used to be grass right there.

And it never occurred to me that power could be disrupted.

But sure enough,

plenty of folks in our area here

have had their power

disrupted.

So

I'm just the city kid.

You know, I just think everything is supposed to work.

You just turn the switch.

Now, the reason I mention that is I think there are a lot of people like me.

I think there are a lot of city kids, even for folks who are not really city kids, we just assume that when you push the button, something happens.

You flip the switch, something happens.

And it's always the right thing that happens.

It's not a bad thing.

You push the button, something good happens.

You push the button,

the power is where it's supposed to be.

Or you can raise the heat or you lift the faucet and the water's there.

You flip the switch and the lights come on that's just the way it's all supposed to be right we've gotten lazy we've gotten complacent

and I put myself at the head of the list of we

so I'm looking at this now and I see in my backyard I've got a big tree that came down that wasn't hit by anything it was ice something as simple as ice.

Now my wife is a weather

addict.

I don't mean she likes the weather.

I don't mean she's a weather aficionado.

I mean she is a weather

addict.

Gimme, give me, give me more weather, more weather, more weather.

And she grew up in New England.

So the weather she is used to

snow and lots of it.

So she mocks

incessantly, frankly, the snow we get here in Central Virginia.

Because for the most part, we get two inches, three inches, even four inches of snow.

Things are shut down for a week.

And she doesn't understand.

She's like, just give me the keys.

I'm going to the store.

I said, there's no reason to go to the store.

The store will be closed because there are four inches of snow.

It's craziness.

Well, it might be craziness from your perspective.

But

we don't own a lot of snow plows in this area.

The policy, quite frankly, for snow in central Virginia is,

it's going to melt in a day or so.

Because normally we'll have a couple of inches of snow, and then two days later, it's 60 degrees, and it's all gone.

And it's a distant memory.

Well, the other day we got about four inches of snow.

And we actually fired up our snowblower.

Oh, they said don't move it from Massachusetts.

It's been sitting forever.

She said, you know, we haven't used the snowblower in a long time.

I said, well, that's because we don't really get snow.

Right.

Well,

we got snow.

So we decided to fire up the snowblower.

And

after a few pushes of the, you know, the air button and putting a little fresh gas in there and putting a little fresh oil in there and moving the choke back and forth, son of a gun if that thing didn't fire up.

And then we're out front in our driveway.

And it's a lovely driveway.

Really is.

Frankly, the driveway looks better than most of the streets I grew up on in the inner city of Philadelphia.

But there it is.

So we fire up the snowblower.

In like 10 minutes, we've got our driveway cleared.

And Heidi thought, oh, we're going to be the heroes of the neighborhood.

Everybody's going to want to come and talk to us because we've got a snowblower.

In fact,

they just wanted to watch and laugh because they said, don't you know it's all going to melt in a day well we don't care we got the snowblower so we get the snowblower we get it all done but then because Heidi is a weather addict she says Jeff we have ice coming now this is where I kind of checked out I just I'm not a weather addict right I look out the window and I go to myself okay

it's raining

umbrella yeah that's the way that works or I look out the window go huh snow

maybe I should wear something other than flip-flops.

Yeah.

And I can look at the thermometer and go, 36 degrees.

Yeah, I should probably wear the fleece-lined sweatpants.

That's it.

But Heidi says, no, no, Jeff, you don't understand this ice stuff is serious.

Now, we hadn't seen any ice stuff in years.

I've been at News Radio WRVA.

in central Virginia, in Richmond, Virginia, for eight years.

I've never experienced any of this ice stuff like this.

And again, I remind you, they told us, all the forecasters said, hey, it's going to be the worst ice storm, the worst ice situation since 1998.

Well, again, I wasn't here in 1998, so I have no frame of reference.

But Heidi, because she is the weather addict, says, oh, no, Jeff, this is serious stuff.

What are we going to do?

And she's running around.

She's plugging in every battery pack.

Everything is charged.

She says, do you think we can get a generator?

I said,

I don't know.

We might be able to get a generator, but do you know what happens when we get a generator?

She says, well, what do you mean?

I said, well, how does that make things work?

Can I plug the coffee maker into the generator?

She looks at me, I don't know.

You're the guy who likes cars.

I said, well, I like cars.

I don't know what I'm doing with cars.

Nobody would let me fix their car.

They barely let me borrow their their car.

Well, I don't know.

So it's like, well, then why are we going to go try and find a generator?

By the way, closest generator that I was able to find, about three hours away,

ice-covered roads.

I said, just get an extra blanket out.

We'll just get an extra blanket.

We'll all cuddle together.

But we were blessed this weekend, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart.

We had neighbors in our community.

We live in it, you know, it's a, it's a neighborhood.

Best best way to describe it.

It's a neighborhood.

And we've got this little Facebook page that all the neighbors stay in touch with, you know, my son is cutting lawns this summer.

Anybody interested?

Or

we've got an extra whatever.

Would you like it?

I mean, it's really great.

Or my son or my daughter is doing this food drive for our church.

Would you be interested in contributing some canned goods?

Which is, by the way, where we always get rid of like smoked oysters.

I don't know why anybody ever ever decided to smoke oysters.

It's wrong.

But tins of smoked oysters are always, always good to donate.

Now you have to donate something good on top of it because nobody wants the smoked oysters.

Nobody.

Nobody.

It is quite frankly the same as the fruitcake at Christmas.

But Heidi kept telling me, Jeff, this is serious stuff.

And sure enough, we had people

not a half mile, three quarters of a mile down the road that lost power.

So we were blessed this weekend.

Now let me circle back to where this all started.

I know you're thinking, Jeff, this is completely and totally disjointed, and it is.

Except, here's how it ties together.

What did I start with?

I said I'm wearing my blue sweatpants because it's Monday.

Because

that's how I know what day of the week it is now.

It's pathetic, right?

But that's how I know what day of the week it it is.

It's the new blue sweatpants on Monday.

Because everything now happens here.

And I want it not to be the case.

Now, I don't ever want to go back to the office.

I will be brutally honest about that.

I have no interest whatsoever, and I don't plan to.

But for my kids...

My kids need to be back at school.

My kids need to be back in the real

world.

My oldest boy is a sophomore at Stanford.

Amazing accomplishment.

I mean he's wicked smart as we would say in Boston.

Wicked smart.

So smart.

In fact he was the smartest guy ever to go to Stanford and then he got smarter.

Just ask him.

This old man doesn't know anything.

Just ask him that as well.

But he needs to be back amongst

his own people out there at Stanford.

He shouldn't be here in our home.

I mean, this will always be his home, but it shouldn't be his house.

He should be on campus, in class, hanging out with other

crazy, smart people.

And my little guy, my little guy's a sophomore at high school.

But this house was brand new to him.

We had only been in this house, in this community, for about two, maybe three months when the whole zombie apocalypse hit.

So he doesn't have any friends here.

And now for the last year, he too has been in sweatpants every day sitting in front of a laptop in his room, not really learning.

And I feel terrible for him.

And then my middle child, my little Julia.

Julia is severely disabled.

Julia needs to be back in the classroom with those special ed teachers and those therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists and occupational therapists.

It does Julia absolutely no good to sit in front of a laptop for a half an hour with my wife.

We've got to return to the real world, and that's going to demand some honesty.

It's Jeff Katz in today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

This is Jeff Katz in Today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

It is a fascinating day as every day is, right?

I mean, because every day now for each of us is so different than the day before.

You know, yesterday was...

was

all right wait a minute blue sweatpants no yesterday must have been Sunday unless it was a holiday in which case it could be.

Well, it was.

It was Sunday.

Today is Monday.

Fantastic progression, Jeff.

But this is the world in which we're living right now.

And you and I are going to talk a little bit more about it.

I don't want you to worry about Glenn.

Glenn is fine.

A couple of little power things in Texas.

So

happy to...

help out a little bit and sit in for Glenn today on the Glenn Beck program.

Now, I'm just trying to give you a perspective on some of the things that are going on as we speak.

We've just wrapped up this impeachment sham in D.C.

And whether you thought Donald Trump was a great president or a terrible president, if you are to be honest with yourself,

this piece of performance art from San Fran Nan and

Jamie Raskin and the rest of these gang

It was it was a waste of time and it was silly at best.

And we're looking right now at folks in Minneapolis who were sure that the problem with the Minneapolis Police Department was that there was a Minneapolis Police Department.

And their solution, if you recall, about a year or so ago was to defund the police.

We will eliminate,

eliminate the Minneapolis Police Department.

Department.

We will demonstrate to those mean, nasty, evil police officers, we don't support them.

And what happened?

Oh,

what happened?

Crime rose.

Police officers left.

Minneapolis got even more dangerous.

You know what they're about to do?

They're about to refund the police department in Minneapolis, bring it back apparently to a level where those officers can fight crime.

Read more about that story right now at theblaze.com.

It is Jeff Katz in for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck Program.

Exactly when did loving this nation become a bad thing?

We'll answer that question on the Glenn Beck program.

The Glenn Beck Program.

It is Jeff Katz in today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Glenn had a little glitch this morning, a little power thing going on in Texas.

Here I thought,

here I thought that this global warming we all loved, gotten used to, was solving all these problems.

Apparently not.

Nonetheless, Glenn is fine.

For those who have reached out and said, Jeff,

where's Glenn?

No, hey, Jeff, nice to hear you.

Jeff, where's Glenn?

Glenn is fine.

Let me ask you this question:

Did it ever occur to you that being proud of the United States, loving this country, would someday be

a bad thing?

I gotta tell you, it never

ever

in my 50s-some years occurred to me that it would be bad,

evil, nasty,

wrong

to love America.

Let me explain why.

And I want to remind everybody, if you want to reach out, I'm always, always happy to

chat.

888-727-BEC, 888-727-BEC.

If you want to send me an email, the best way to do it, thejeffcatshow.com, thejeffcatshow.com, there's a little contact button there.

The reason that I ask this question,

whether it ever occurred to you

that loving this country would be a bad thing, is that I look back on my own life and I also look at

my little studio here, my broadcast hut.

Now, I think back growing up in the inner city of Philadelphia, everyone was a Democrat.

Everyone was a Democrat.

That wasn't a bad thing.

Everyone was a Democrat.

And there were folks who were certainly further to the left or further to the right, but there was no question about what your political registration would be.

And that's how I grew up, but I just assumed that's the way it was everywhere.

But within our community,

this little section called Oxford Circle, within our community,

everyone loved loved America.

There was never any question about that.

Ever.

And we had folks who had served in the military.

We had people in our neighborhood who worked with their hands.

People who understood how you wired things.

People who knew what it took to dig a ditch.

Quite literally dig a ditch these were people

men

who showered when they got home from work

crazy observation well now why would anybody think about that I'll tell you why

these were men who went to work and worked awfully hard

And it was at the end of the workday that they went to wash the grime off.

at the end of their workday when they got home six seven in the evening

that they'd say

all right before we have dinner I'm gonna go take a shower because if you work all day as a plumber not a new construction plumber but as a plumber

I can guarantee you you have gotten dirty.

And how do I know that?

Because my uncle Paul worked as a plumber.

When my uncle Paul came back to Philadelphia after having served in the Navy

he became a plumber

and he worked really

really hard I mean really

really hard and it was physical backbreaking dirty work

and the reason that I know about it is not because he was complaining about it.

My Uncle Paul was probably the funniest man I ever knew.

The reason I knew about it is that there were times where my Uncle Paul would let me come work with him.

I don't know how old I was, 12, 13, 14, something like that.

And my Uncle Paul had this old BW bus.

And that's where he had all of his tools.

And he had all of the pipe.

Now, what he was lacking was a seat.

Now, I mean, he had a seat up front.

But when I went to go and work with him, he made me sit on a milk crate in the back of this VW bus to hold on to the pipes.

And that was part of my job.

Now, it wasn't...

wasn't comfortable tell you that

it wasn't particularly pleasant

because, amongst other things, my Uncle Paul was, for a period of time, also a smoker.

So it was, I mean, it was nasty.

But I was thrilled about it.

But then I got to see real craftsmen at work, real, real masters of their trade and their craft.

Because it wasn't just my Uncle Paul.

These were guys who

did

stonework, unbelievable masons

and other talented craftsmen.

They did an amazing job, but it was hard,

dirty

work.

And I can remember the first time that I went to

some job with my Uncle Paul.

And he said, hey,

we've got to replace a toilet.

Okay.

Well, it never occurred to me that the toilet had been used for years and might have been one of the reasons it needed to be replaced.

But he went in there and he had shut the water off and he had his tools and he took the toilet off.

And between

him

and me,

we...

We struggled with this toilet down a flight of steps and I was out in a yard.

And he said, all right, now, because we've got to take this toilet and, you know, get rid of it, and the dump didn't want it like that, take the sledgehammer and swing it and break that toilet up into a bunch of little pieces.

And I thought, well, this is fantastic, right?

Now that's fun.

Carrying the big toilet was not particularly fun.

Lugging the tools up a flight of steps was not particularly fun

but swinging the sledgehammer to break the toilet that was fun

and I swung it like I was Greg Luzinski

swinging for the stands at Vet Stadium

and then all right when I was done because I smashed it up boy there wasn't a piece that was left

And then my Uncle Paul came down and with this grin on his face, did I mention he was the funniest man that I ever knew, with this grin on his face that was much more of a smirk.

He said, okay, now

crawl around in the yard and pick up every last one of those pieces that you created.

Because we still got to take it to the dump.

So again, it wasn't fun.

But that's what men in my neighborhood did.

No, not the crawling around part.

Although they did the crawling around part too.

They worked with their hands.

And they decided that their children should not work with their hands.

That their children should work with their heads.

And I think that's where we kind of lost track of stuff.

We kind of went off the rails there.

Because we began as a society to start minimizing and mocking people who worked with their hands.

People who were able to make things.

People who were able to fix things

that's the backbone of this country

small business we always hear that phrase small business I always like to turn that phrase on its head a little bit and I talk about local business because that's what it is

it's the local guy or gal

Those are the people who are doing the things that have kept our economy working those men and those women who figured out working with their hands fed their children provided an education and an opportunity to go and seize the American dream

and along the way as they were realizing their American dream

other people their employees got to realize their American dream

so why have we kicked those folks to the curb?

There are a lot of us, myself included, who are saying, you know, it's wonderful.

The one good thing to come out of the grand zombie apocalypse that happened almost a year ago.

Remember, it's a year ago we were told we needed two weeks to flatten the curve.

We're now coming up on the one-year anniversary of the two weeks to flatten the curve.

But it is people like me

who have said the one good thing to come out of this is that we're all going to be able to work from home.

Well, I am fortunate.

I am blessed in that sense.

Yes, I absolutely have a commute now that's about 90 seconds.

And sometimes it's two minutes if there's a puppy broken down

in the path to my office.

But I've got news for you.

People that make things, people that fix things still have to get up and go to work, and we are in the process of killing their businesses.

I don't know how

decent people

who make things and fix things have even been able to stay

above water

this last year.

But we have got to remember them.

I want to give you just one little example and then I want to bring you into this 888727B

888 727 Beck.

If you in fact are one of those men, one of those women who has to get out,

you can't do everything from your house because you are making something.

You are fixing something.

You've got the restaurant in the community and you're thinking, man, people need to eat.

Then I want to get you in on this because it's your voice I don't think has been heard as much as it needs to

even Even as Glennbeck.com, Glennbeck.com, Glenn has that wonderful GoFundMe activity underway to help some small business owners, some local business operators around America.

So this past weekend, as we're dealing with weather in central Virginia,

Our power stayed on, but our heater stopped working.

Or at least that's what I thought.

Because I don't fix things and I don't make things, so I don't know much.

I only know that I have to call somebody to fix things.

So our thermostat was blank.

And the last time that it was like that, it was because there was some sort of,

I don't even know,

the Johnson rod did this instead of that.

And anyway, then there was a work crew here and then it was all fine

but

my bride who i may have mentioned to you is a weather addict

she watches weather the same way the teenage boy

tries to get through the the cable channels that are not scrambled you know what i mean she's just addicted to it she's sick but She said, Jeff,

my mother said, now right there, I should have known better.

Right there I should have known, stop listening, Jeff.

But she continued and I continued because, you know, it was Valentine's Day weekend and all.

She said, my mother said, we should probably crank the heat up really high so that if we do lose heat,

Because everything around here is on something called a heat pump, which is electric.

If we do lose power and we lose the heat, it'll take longer for the house to cool down.

And I said, oh, okay.

So what do I do?

I crank the heat.

Now,

we are

relocated Yankees.

I mean, I am a southern gentleman by choice, but I can tolerate cold weather a little bit better.

So we never have the heat in our home higher than about 62 degrees.

That's it.

So I cranked it to 75.

I don't think the thermostat had ever been set to 75.

And the next thing I know, I'm sitting in my little chair going, you know, it's getting chilly.

And for 75, it ought not be this chilly.

And then I got up and I looked at the thermostat and it was blank.

Now I knew who was to blame.

My mother-in-law.

Clearly, my mother-in-law was to blame.

But aside from simply reassuring myself that I was right all along, what good was that going to do us?

So what did I do?

First I complained to Heidi.

I said, see?

She said, well, what are we going to do?

I said, I don't know.

I've got to call people.

Got to call people.

She's like, you don't have people.

I said, I got people.

I got guys.

And sure enough, I started calling my guys.

One of the guys I called was not actually directly.

I called the HVAC company that services our unit.

And I got the...

The voicemail because it's the weekend.

And I'm not the weekend that did that terrible halftime show.

I mean the actual weekend.

So I leave a message, hey, it's Jeff Katz.

Would you mind giving me a call back?

That's done, blah, blah, blah.

I get a call back from the owner of that company.

And I said to him, Stefan, what are you doing?

So what do you mean?

I said,

it's the weekend and you're returning a service call.

Why?

And he said, because it's my weekend to do that.

And I said, but you own the the company.

He said, yep.

I said, but you're, he says, I'll be out.

Give me about 40 minutes.

I got to get up there.

And I said, no, seriously, who's really going to cry?

He says, it's me.

It's my company.

And because it's my company, I take every third weekend with the other guys or every fourth weekend, whatever it is, I take the weekend just like all the rest of the guys that work for me.

And in fact, if they've got something to do, if if they've got a special event with their family, I take their weekend.

I'm here to tell you it's men like that we're punishing.

It's men like that

who truly are the personification of the American dream and we're trashing them.

We're taking men that proudly have a

American flag sticker on their pickup truck or on their van.

And we're telling them

they're bad.

10-second pause here for station identification.

It is Jeff Katz in for

Glenn Beck.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Let me grab Danny from Michigan.

Danny, welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

Hey, thank you very much.

I've been enjoying your show on a snowy day.

Yes.

One of the things that is very difficult to get

my arms around about is the change in this economy that's occurred over the last 20 years.

And you look at the companies that are succeeding right now and those that failed.

Kodak, for example, their peak sales was $16 billion

back in the 90s.

And they employed nearly two hundred thousand people

now you look at a company like Facebook their revenue is 158 billion dollars

and they employ fifty thousand people

where did everybody go

where did those hundred thousand people go to get jobs

And this economy, and I agree with your point wholeheartedly, you made one of the greatest points of all where parents like mine didn't want me to work with my hands.

They thought we would give you a better way to live than break your back like I had to do, and I don't want you to do that.

And the intelligence of what is so important to know about fixing things and creating things has disappeared.

And

the only creativity that exists now is through cyber world, the creativity of an idea or something that's not even real that you can get your hands around.

It's all service-based stuff.

And to me, that's the one thing that is the most disturbing.

Yep.

And that's the only point that I wanted to make.

Well, Danny, it's a great point, and I appreciate you calling into the Glenn Beck program.

What a great point.

I mean, you could,

we all are enamored of folks who make these virtual things.

The problem is we're not enamored of people who make actual things.

Danny is in West Virginia.

Denny, welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

Hi, Jeff.

How you doing?

I'm fine, thank you, sir.

I just wanted to talk to you about the

economy for the small business person.

I have two points.

One is: I'm a small business person in a construction business.

We do concrete work.

And the biggest problem we have is hiring people.

We have business that we can't even handle.

And what you're talking about is people have lost their willingness to work with their hands because their parents did tell them that, oh, you don't want to do that.

That's hard work.

Exactly.

Now you can't hire anybody that wants to work hard.

And if you do hire somebody,

they grew up in that mentality and they don't know how to work.

They were never taught.

They were never taught how to work.

Denny, I appreciate the call.

You are so right.

It is Jeff Katz in today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Back program

this is the glenn back program

so

i was thinking about today hauling out my guitar and my harmonica neither of which uh neither of which can i uh can i play um

But I wanted to play.

It's kind of a bluesy thing called sitting in the waiting room at the mechanic shop, kissing my money goodbye

because I didn't get Car shield blues.

Now it's a little wordy.

Yes, a little wordy, but I think you'll like the music if I could play the guitar or the harmonica.

You'd understand.

So let me just say this.

If you've ever had the blues because your check engine light went off and you're like, I'm not going to check my engine light because I know what that's going to cost.

And then it gets worse.

That's the blues.

Okay.

Grab your harmonica or get car shield.

If anything like this happens to you and your car breaks down, you have 24-7 roadside assistants.

They get you a rental car while yours is in the shop.

They pay the mechanic, whether it's the dealership or, you know, your local mechanic, doesn't matter.

They pay them.

They don't pay you, so you're not having to fork out the money.

Get covered now.

Carshield.com, carshield.com, promo code VEC, save 10% right now.

And head over to Blazetv.com/slash Glenn.

The promo code is Glenn.

You're going to save $30 off your subscription to Blaze TV.

This is Jeff Katz in for Glenn today on the Glenn Beck program.

One of the things that I am so grateful for is the fact that I'm here in the United States of America.

I know it sounds trite at this point.

My gosh, Jeff, we don't talk about stuff like that.

Why are you saying that?

Because right at this moment, I'm at theblaze.com.

And if you don't usually stop at theblaze.com, then then

you need to smarten yourself up a little bit.

Theblaze.com and Glennbeck.com,

these are must-read websites for me every single day.

And the top story right now has to do with Jamel Hill.

She says, patriotic symbols have been weaponized.

She talks about empty gestures of patriotism.

The other day,

as everyone was discovering that Mark Cuban

had stopped playing the national anthem before Dallas Mavericks games, people said, well, see, nobody even noticed.

And other folks said, well, Jeff, we don't play the national anthem before

movies

or before

plays, so why would we play it before sporting?

competitions

well it comes from the olympics it's a tradition right?

Whoever it is, that man or woman who has won gold, gets to stand on the platform and their flag is raised.

It is about their pride in being whatever

nation they happen to be representing, an American, a Canadian.

And there's a certain amount of pride, and

it is carried over into our sporting events here.

And particularly when you look at competition say in the NHL when you have an American team and a Canadian team

and each is at least in theory playing for the pride of their nation

and that that piece there about well you know we don't play it before plays

as if that was the reason to ditch it before sporting events and I thought no no no just the opposite that's the reason we ought to play it before plays.

You go into the theater, the first thing that should happen, yeah, is that the national anthem should be played.

You go to see see a movie, yeah, I don't think it's a big deal at all to say, put your popcorn down and stand up, we're going to play our national anthem because it brings people together.

But if you are on the other side of this, if you are one of the uber leftist, if you are getting ready for the great reset, the very thing you don't want is people coming together with any sense of national

pride.

And I'll tell you what carries into national pride, and that is acknowledging people in our communities, whatever community you happen to be in.

Now, I happen to be in this wonderful little part of the country.

This is Hanover County, Virginia.

We're just north of Richmond, and I do the afternoon show at News Radio WRVA in Richmond.

And in our little piece of America right here, we know people.

I go a mile, a mile and a half, and I see my friends Wendy and John.

Now, if you were visiting this area, you might not know Wendy and John.

You would know this great little restaurant with the Jeff Cat sandwich.

How cool is that, right?

Jake's place.

You would know that.

But I know them as Wendy and John.

And when my car needs to be fixed,

I go and I see my friends, Stan and Megan.

Now, God forbid your car broke down in this area.

You wouldn't know Stan and Megan.

You would know their business, certified auto repair that's the way it is where you are as well the ABC company that I would know if I came to your community you know them as as as Bill and Mary because Bill and Mary go to church with you and your kids go and are students together

that's what we need to get back to

the sense of community at every single level And it is men and women who make things and fix things

who truly are the backbone of this nation.

And by God, we've got to provide

some support for them,

some appreciation to them.

888-727-BEC.

888-727-BEC.

888-727-BEC.

If you want to send me an email, the best way to do it is to go through my website, thejeffcatshow.com, thejeffcatshow.com.

Donna is in Georgia.

Donna, welcome to the Glenn Bepp program.

Oh, awesome job, Jeff.

You know, I'm going to combine both last half hour and this one because you're really hitting on what is in my heart.

When we grew up and we had hand workers that did that stuff, my grandfather would walk with his ladder because sometimes he didn't have a car to get to his job.

We knew all of those people.

Us kids knew Mr.

and Mrs.

Jones and Smith and McGillicuddy.

We had ethnicities from all around the world who they came or their parents came.

We knew them.

We had to respect them.

They watched over us and they told our parents if we were bad, if we picked their tomatoes out of their corn or whatever.

They were wonderful.

We felt like we belonged and we had to work in that backyard just like them so we would see them on the weekend if they're pruning their hedges and we were either you know sweeping the sidewalk or whatever our job was to do.

We didn't, they came home in their car or truck and they opened the garage door with their own hands.

They didn't come in with the remote control, drive up to the mailbox and clean it out with their earbars on as I'm yelling over, hi, Mr.

Jones.

They actually heard me and they came over and talked to me.

So we have lost that with our white, also it's the white collar elitism, and we've grown up in that.

We did that.

But we've lost that because now they don't want to dirty their hands.

We had to dirty our hands as kids.

So we, and what you explained about the small town with that, we used to walk to the playgrounds and the ball fields.

Our parents didn't drive us in a giant SUV three miles away to have somebody come from another town and that works.

They work for national and international companies.

It's not their business like your wonderful worker.

So we have lost a huge sense of community and connectiveness and caring about each other.

Donna, you are so spot on and you said it better than I could.

Let me ask you a question.

When you were a kid, did your parents ever make a play date for you and one of your friends?

Of course they didn't.

You know why?

Because there was no such thing.

Because you walked out the door and there were your friends and you played with them.

There was no coordination in the home office.

Well, all right, mom's going to call the other mom and we're going to see how does Tuesday at 3 look for you?

Who cares?

You're a kid.

You don't need Outlook calendar.

You don't need the to the second management.

And we have lost that.

And we are too well coordinated.

And we do have a generation now,

sadly, I think, who has grown up

never knowing anything other than that.

Look.

My wife and I are in a mixed marriage.

I talk about this all the time.

She's from this bucolic little town in Cape Cod.

The doors were never locked.

I grew up in the city.

Now not the inner city as you might describe it, but in the city.

And all of our doors were locked just because.

But we had this in common.

She would leave her home at some point and wander throughout the town and play with her friends as a little girl.

And while my buddies and I were not wandering all of Philadelphia for a five, six block radius,

we just go and see other buddies.

And I don't think anybody's got that anymore, do they?

Mary Lynn is in Tennessee.

Mary Lynn, welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

Good morning, Jeff.

I struck a chord with me when you were speaking of patriotism.

And I do believe there is this intrepid fear of it.

What they're fearful of is the light and the truth.

And what is lacking

is

spirituality and morality.

And

growing up in Chicago, I mean, we had Jewish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, Greek, Hungarian, and everybody was cohesive with each other.

The children would get out, and I have to pare it down as comments because we would not have to have anything organized.

We'd be out there, and it was just a dynamic patch quilt

of how beautiful our nation is.

And personally, affiliated with the military, our immediate family, over a century, my heart swells with patriotism.

And if I see anybody that serves, be it police, firefighter, EMS, whomever, military, I go out of my way to say thank you, Bud, for serving.

It is something that we need to cling to.

with every sinew,

every strength in our body and embrace it, not erase it.

I couldn't possibly agree with you more.

Mary Lynn, thank you so much for calling.

We do need to embrace it

because it embraces us.

You know, we have gotten so self-centered.

We have become so

egomaniacal.

We don't see things outside of us anymore, do we?

And I'd love to tell you that that I'm different but then isn't that the whole thing right well I'm self-centered again it's ego it's egomania I'm gonna tell you how great I am about not being self-centered well how unbelievably disconnected is that

I can tell you

just through the prism of life

There was a time, boy, there was nobody, nobody, who was a bigger Jeff Katz fan than Jeff Katz.

Oh,

man, I could sit and talk to you about me for hours.

And then I would ask you, what do you think about me?

And then, what happens?

In my case, I get married.

But even then,

it's still egotistical.

It just happens to be two egos now, right?

Well, now we're two egos and we can focus on ourselves.

But we're still focused on, yeah, okay.

And then,

and then the kids come along.

And there is no greater wake-up call.

There is no better realization that it is not all about you once you realize there's an obligation to others.

I think we've forgotten that.

And I do believe we're so wrapped up in ourselves, we can't see that

from outside, we are unified by certain actions.

Quickly to Daniel in North Carolina.

Daniel, welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

Hey, thanks, Jeff.

I'm agreeing with everything you've said so far.

Thanks.

I'm a jack of all trades.

I'm a maintenance professional.

And I wear a flag on my hat.

I have a flag on my pickup truck.

And

I am a big believer in hard work.

Whatever you do, whatever you choose to do for a career, you work hard at it.

I do get looked down sometimes because I do have dirt on my clothes, especially, you know, as the day goes on and they get dirtier and dirtier.

I do jobs that nobody else wants to do.

And there are a lot of people who don't understand that people like me are needed out there.

A lot of the kids I talk to don't understand that they can't all be lawyers, doctors, and whatnot.

There are people that are going to have to be skilled trades.

Absolutely.

And Daniel, I thank you so much for for doing what you do.

And it is a reminder that all of these lawyers and doctors and engineers invariably call people like Daniel when something needs to be fixed.

Jeff Katz in Today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck Program.

You are listening to the Glenn Beck Program.

Jeff Katz in Today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck Program.

I want to remind remind you, if you want to shoot me an email, go through the website, thejeffcatshow.com.

I have that great click to contact button there.

I mention it because

all of a sudden I've got folks I grew up with in Oxford Circle that I haven't heard from in years.

Go, Jeff,

listening to you.

You're no Glenn Beck, but I'm still listening to you.

And it sounds like you're no Glenn Beck, but I'm listening to you.

Do you remember me?

I still still do.

Okay.

I am Jeff Katz, ordinarily heard on News Radio WRBA in central Virginia.

I do have somebody calling in from Richmond, so please let me get to Steve, who is in Richmond on the Glenn Beck program.

Steve?

Hello, sir.

How are you today?

I am fine, thank you.

I just was listening in and really agree with what you're saying.

You know, and I actually worked in construction as a plumber and as a HVAC tech as a teenager and then ended up joining the Army and went in the security route later on, but I still know how to do my own work.

And a couple months ago, I was fixing a shower diverter, an old one, and had to go to a specialty store and get the diverters

to get the valves to put in the diverters.

And I got in a great conversation with the guy that lasted about 10 minutes just while I was waiting.

And he said that the thing you're seeing, you're not seeing young guys come into the trade and the old guys are retiring two to one for how many people are entering the trade.

And he said, you give it 10 years, mark my words, and plumbers are going to be making as much as lawyers because nobody wants to do the work.

Yeah.

Well, and good for them.

Good for them.

It is, as you know, tough work.

And I appreciate the call, Steve.

Thank you so much.

It is tough work.

And again, I started all of this by mentioning my Uncle Paul.

I loved my Uncle Paul.

God, did I love my Uncle Paul?

Such a great guy.

And I watched him break his rear end just

working so hard as a plumber.

And I saw up close and personal.

But I also heard from folks in my Uncle Paul's generation, oh, don't work with your hands.

We want you to work with your head, not your hands.

It's easier.

It's easier.

Well, I suppose it is easier until such time as you need somebody who knows how to work work with their hands and then it may it may not be easy and it's certainly not going to be inexpensive nor should it be.

It is Jeff Katz in Today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

This is Jeff Katz in Today for Glenn.

So which is it, Dr.

Fauci?

We should or we shouldn't open schools?

That answers next, the Glenn Beck program.

The Glenn Beck Program.

It is Jeff Katz in today for Glenn, and I want to tell you that at the very, very beginning of this,

my three children are, as we speak, at home.

Now, nobody has school today,

and it's not because of President's Day.

No, no, no.

I mean,

it's various and sundry reasons, but what's weird is even if they would have had school, nobody would have left the house.

My oldest boy is a sophomore at Stanford, and that campus has essentially been closed for, well, the better part of a year, right?

In March, just a couple of weeks from now, you and I will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of two weeks to flatten the curve.

And my oldest boy called me, I'm now realizing last year, and he said, hey, dad,

looks like they're going to be closing the campus for a couple of weeks.

Can you get me a tick?

Can you get me an airline ticket home?

And I thought, wow, for the first time in many, many years, I actually have some power in this relationship.

I could, at least in theory, say no.

No, I guess I couldn't.

I mean, I could.

No, no, no, never mind.

I couldn't.

I couldn't.

All right.

So, so he gets the airplane ticket and he comes home.

Now, what does he have?

He has a carry-on, like a backpack.

And he's got shorts and t-shirts because that's what he was wearing in March out in California.

And he comes back here to Virginia and

shorts and t-shirts

another couple of weeks before we would officially be wearing them, but not too far off the mark.

Well, now

it's a year later,

and no idea, none, when he will be back on campus.

My two other kids

each attend school.

Well, they're enrolled in school.

Nobody's actually attending school, school in person.

My little guy is a sophomore in high school,

but he has been doing the at-home virtual learning.

And I should be very clear on this.

Our county,

Hanover County, which is just north of Richmond, where you will find me on news radio, WRVA,

every afternoon.

Hanover County, since all of this started, has given us the option, given parents the option of sending their children to school, in-person living in an actual school building or virtual education at home on the computer

and then in the middle is my princess well my princess my little girl who is going to be 18 years old in just a couple of weeks

my little girl

not so little anymore as she turns 18 but that's 18 chronologically.

Developmentally,

she's about 18 months old.

And that's where Julia is always going to be, about 18 months old, developmentally.

Because Julia only learned how to walk in the last couple of years.

And Julia does not speak.

Julia doesn't know how to

take care of herself.

You know, she can't get to the bathroom or

give herself a bowl of cereal.

And unfortunately, she also can't tell us those things.

So Julia is always going to be at home with us.

And so I guess in some way this is,

you know, it is what it is.

But the reason I mention all of this is that

each of my three children has a unique educational

need.

My oldest guy needs to be back

on campus with other

brilliant but thoroughly annoying college students.

That's where he should be.

He should not be

living at home.

Nobody who is an adult should be living at home with mom

or dad.

Just no, you need to go out in the world and make your way in the world.

So he should be out there

with him.

And my little guy, again, he's a sophomore in high school.

He needs to be in a classroom.

But here's where the rub is.

And I know, because you're thinking yourself, wait a minute, Jeff, you just said,

you just said that your county, Hanover County, Virginia, since day one, has given you as the parent the option.

That's true.

but the option we chose was the at-home learning because

of the fear that had been instilled in all of us thanks to folks like Dr.

Fauci

right what were we told well this this

coronavirus now remember it started out as every

single

virus

has been named in the past it started out with its point of origin the Wuhan coronavirus all right just like Lyme disease

the Spanish flu I mean that's how things are named in the in the disease world good bad or indifferent just the way it is

but then because of the control of who

World Health Organization by

the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, they were able to exert some influence.

And the next thing you know, instead of being the Wuhan coronavirus or the Chinese coronavirus, all of a sudden it was the novel coronavirus.

And then they said, hey, you know, that's,

people are going to think it's a book.

We need something snappier.

And they went to the division of snappy stuff.

And the snappy folks said, hey, COVID.

See, get it?

Coronavirus.

And what's the D for it?

Well, we haven't figured that out yet.

We got to send that off to the other part.

But COVID-19, yeah, we're going with 19.

Woohoo!

All right, so now there it is, because it's first observed in 2019.

But they scared the living,

you know what, out of us, right?

We were all scared.

Oh, my gosh.

We're going to get it.

We're going to die.

Oh, I don't like the odds on this.

This is not good.

Well, here's what we're going to have to do.

Everybody's got to stay at home.

All we need is two weeks.

Two weeks to, quote, flatten the curve.

Now, here's the deal.

I've been around the block once or twice.

I know how government works.

By the way, my dad retired after 40 plus years as an employee of the federal government.

I know that folks who work for the federal government are actually pretty good people.

But I also know that inside of, quote, government work, nay, sometimes the numbers get a little off.

So when they said we're going to need two weeks to flatten the curve, I thought to myself okay

i'm thinking three

four

you know what let's just err on the side of cost i'm going to say five weeks it's going to take them five weeks for the two-week project and then we'll all be back to uh to good

well

Don't know if you've noticed this.

We are now approaching the one-year anniversary of two weeks to flatten the curve.

And so when our local school division said to us hey

parents

you can send your kids to school or you can have the virtual learning my wife said look

if we send the kids to school meaning my

middle and youngest my

my Julia and my my little guy, if we

send them to school, I am going to worry every single day.

Every single day

as to whether they were exposed to this and especially Julia.

Now I just mentioned to you, Julia is going to turn 18 years old

in a couple of weeks, but developmentally Julia is 18 months old and what do 18 month old kids do what do toddlers do they mouth things anything and everything they can put their hands on goes in their mouth boom

now

you're telling me

that if we send Julia to school

She is somehow going to have such great sanitary precautions that we don't have to worry about that.

Well, no, that's not going to happen.

And it's not because of the teacher.

In fact, Julia's in-class special ed teacher is truly one of the best human beings we've ever met.

Miss Tanya is an amazing teacher.

Incredible.

But do you think that any human being can make sure that each of the kids in this classroom who are at comparable levels are not somehow going to be exposed to this?

The answer is no.

And so Heidi said, look, I just, I don't want to worry every single day.

It's going to be terrible.

And she said, we've just got to do this virtual learning thing.

We'll just do it at home.

You know, it's not going to be that long.

So that's what we did, and that's where we are.

Well.

Look,

Julia needs more than a half an hour seated in front of a laptop laptop because that's what she's getting.

And Heidi's doing her best, I know, to make it school, but

it is what it is.

And

my little guy has got to be back

with other kids his age.

You know, he's got to be involved in social things.

as well as learning.

Now, I raise all of these issues not to preach or get angry or tell you, oh my gosh, feel sorry for me, don't feel sorry for me, but I'm looking at the latest from Dr.

Fauci.

Remember him?

You remember him, right?

Dr.

Fauci said,

and I quote, if you look at the data,

The spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected.

Well,

that was Dr.

Fauci

then.

Then

but now that Dr.

Fauci

is all the rage with

Joe Biden,

Now Dr.

Fauci says, yeah,

we can't open things up until that $2 trillion

COVID package that my boss, the president, wants passes.

Huh.

Quote, schools need more resources.

Obviously, it's not a perfect situation, but it's really important to get the children back to school in the safest way possible.

Well, yeah.

I mean, that's what we all have said, right?

November the 29th,

Dr.

Fauci said, close the bars and keep the schools open.

But now he says,

we, we, we, we can't go back.

Oh, no, not a chance.

Well, how is this going to work?

And if you want to read more on this particular story, do yourself a favor, head on over to theblaze.com.

Theblaze.com.

That's where you're going to find the story.

But how does this work?

If, in fact, we're not going to reopen these schools anytime soon, are we really prepared for a generation that is uneducated

and not capable of working in the future?

Could anybody say the great reset again?

We've got to pause 10 seconds for station identification.

Jeff Gatz in today for Glenn on the Glenn Beck program.

That is my question to you.

What exactly are we ready for?

Are we ready for anything?

Because if my kids are not getting back to school anytime soon and your kids are not getting back to school anytime soon, exactly what happens when they are forced to participate in the real world if in fact they are ever going to be forced to participate in the real world

you hear Glenn talk about it all the time do you not the great reset

I listen to Glenn every single day and I hear him talking about the great reset and what the great reset is truly honestly all about is making people dependent and making sure that people who ought not be dependent are dependent

and what are we going to ask well not much

I mean your complete and total dependency that actually is a big thing to ask it is a big thing to say hey you cannot make any decisions on your own you will not make any decisions on your own but not to worry we'll make sure that you have food what kind of food doesn't matter it's not your choice to make this is the great reset We'll decide what you need, when you need it, how you need it.

We'll decide what you get.

Did it ever occur to you as you look around the world right now, you look at images around the world,

all of these leaders, and yeah, I'm making those annoying air quotes when I say leaders.

All of these politicians, probably a better way to say it.

Whether it is the Prime Minister of New Zealand or Justin Trudeau, the clown prince up in Canada, or our very own Joe Biden.

Standing with signs using the phrase build back better.

Do you think that each of the national political brain trusts just

individually came up with that phrase, well, build back better?

Oh, that sounds good.

What does it mean?

It means hit the button.

It means hit the reset button, hit the great reset button, and everybody becomes dependent.

That is where we're headed right about now.

And that is a huge, huge problem.

I mentioned a couple of moments ago that

men who

work, and I mean really work, I don't mean like me sitting in in front of a a computer screen, yakk into a microphone.

That's that's not really work don't tell my wife that but it's not really work but i mean people who really

work

fixing things making things

i mentioned that this past weekend as we're dealing with weather issues here in central virginia our

our heat pump stopped pumping heat or at least that's what we thought it wasn't really the case

but i I called the guy that owns the HVAC company that services our stuff.

And he answered his phone and he called me.

Yeah.

And I said, well, what are you doing?

What kind of a business owner are you?

Stefan, you own the company.

You're not supposed to be running service calls in the middle of an ice storm on a Saturday.

And he's like, yep, that's what I do because I do own the company.

And I take my service weekends just like everybody who works for me.

And I thought, wow, that's amazing.

And then Paul sends me this note he says Jeff look you started that story can you finish it please what's the deal with your heat pump the deal is we're fine a uh I'm embarrassed to say this do I have to say it I'll say it out loud the

circuit breaker tripped all right let's move on now I know I'm right I should have checked the circuit breaker first but I didn't and so afterwards so that's all it was thank you

But that's why you need somebody who knows how these things work because guys like me who really did listen to my parents when they said, oh, no, no, no, no.

Work with your head, not with your hands.

Work smarter, not harder.

People like me have to call people who know these things and ask them to please come and fix these

things.

Just occurred to me, how many lawyers does it take to install a toilet?

You know what the answer is?

I have no idea because I've never seen a lawyer install a toilet.

Think about that.

So when do we get our kids back to school?

Let me ask you, depending on where you are,

you might be

in a homeschooling situation.

Boy, I hope you are.

And I mean a real homeschooling situation where you are actually educating those kids because my hat is off to you because I could never do it.

And I'm seeing now maybe we should have, but we didn't and I can't.

Are you in a private school where your son, your daughter is actually in a classroom with a teacher learning?

Or

are your kids sitting in front of their laptops pretending?

Because I think there's a lot of pretending.

888-727 Beck.

Triple 8-727-BECK.

If you want to send me an email, go go to my website, thejeffcatshow.com.

Thejeffcatshow.com.

You will find there one of those click to contact buttons.

Click it, contact.

We will talk about it.

And what role do the teachers' unions actually play in all of this?

It is Jeff Katz in Today for Glenn.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

This is the Glenback Program.

American Financing NMLS 182334, www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org.

Anybody else find that frustrating?

Yeah, okay.

Let me ask you something.

The interest rate on your mortgage, what is it at right now?

Do you have to go look it up or do you know it off the top of your head?

Is it over 4%?

Is it over 3%?

Because if it is, you're paying too much.

Did you see what England?

Bank of England came out and said the interest rate will be in negative range in England within the next 45 days.

Oh, geez.

Okay.

Okay.

You want to consider refinancing your mortgage, get a lower payment amount, do it right now.

Give them 10 minutes of your time today.

It's American Financing.

They're really professional, compassionate people that work for you.

American Financing at 800-906-2440.

800-906-2440.

Go to AmericanFinancing.net.

That's AmericanFinancing.net.

Kind of support

important to support free speech?

Yeah, do that by supporting the Blaze using promo code Glenn for $30 off your subscription at Blazetv.com.

Jeff Katz sitting in today for Glenn, this is the Glenn Beck program.

Trying to figure out here if our kids ever actually do make it back to school.

This has been the question.

And I want to share a quick email that came in.

And this is from Mary, Mary Rose out in Idaho.

She says, Jeff, I am listening to you fill in for Glenn today.

Where I live in Idaho, Cordeline, we go to school four days per week.

I am a special ed teacher.

My kids are pre-K,

and we are in school all this school year.

We don't wear masks, although we have the wear mask signs up in restaurants and stores.

I'm always wondering when it will end due to other people driving here just to have the freedom.

Hmm.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I do know, however, she says, that Washington, D.C.

will eventually stop the freedom we in Idaho have.

What a sad thing to think about, but she's probably right.

I mean, what is the latest that we are hearing from Washington these days?

We're hearing now,

hearing now that we, well, you know, we've got to wear two masks.

We had the one mask situation.

And then we heard the other day, well, two masks.

You've got to wear two masks because clearly two masks are better than one.

And using that logic, let's not kid ourselves, three masks are going to be better than two and four masks will be better than three.

And at some point,

how many masks will you and I need

to simply exist in the world?

Will we be allowed to exist in the world?

Far be it for me to tell

any of the scientists, the medical professionals, how many masks are optimal.

But I do know this.

One of the things that I learned over the years, because I haven't always been in the radio business,

I was a police officer.

I trained as an EMT.

I have been a volunteer for years and years and years with various and sundry emergency response teams.

So I've always had a real mask, right?

Because I have legitimately been concerned about

germs.

I've been concerned about particulates in the air.

So when all of this stuff started, and you gotta wear masks, I thought, well, you know what?

Finally, probably for the first time in my life, I'm ahead of the curve on something.

I already have my masks.

I've already got them.

I've already got

the right

kind of mask for a situation like this.

Right?

I already have

the KN95 mask.

I've got a couple of them, as a matter of fact.

But then I started looking at folks who were also quote wearing masks

and I thought to myself, now wait a minute, that's not a mask.

I mean it was it was almost like that

that Australian guy in crocodile Dundee.

That's not a knife.

This is a knife.

And I thought to myself, that's not a mask.

This is a mask.

But then I realized there are a lot of people with those masks and and very few people with the masks that I had

and then even for those people who are quote wearing the mask they're not wearing it properly it is not a headband it doesn't do any good if you've got it up there on your forehead it's not an ascot like your your Thurston Howell III wearing it down around your neck

Well, I'm covering my mouth.

Well, what about your nose?

Well, what about my nose?

Well, your nose is not just a snack dispenser.

You got to cover that puppy up if, in fact, you want the mask to be effective.

All right, I'll cover up my nose.

But now the mouth is undone.

This

smacks of theater,

and please understand something.

I'm not in any way minimizing the risks.

I believe they're very real risks.

I believe they're very real threats.

And I believe that you and I as decent people,

as fellow inhabitants of the United States of America, that we should take steps to mitigate the problems that others might face.

But you can't do it with this

faux situation.

And that's what we're seeing a lot of.

Mary Joe sends a note.

And again, if you want to shoot me an email, you go to my website, thejeffcatshow.com, thejeffcatshow.com, you click on the button that says contact me, and then you contact me.

So Mary Jo says, Jeff, I have sons in parochial school, grade school as well as high school.

They've actually both been in school full-time, face-to-face since August, and there have been no issues.

There have been cases of COVID because of the testing rules issued by the government and sporting officials, but the students are fine, at least physically.

It's sad though, because they are so limited in their social activities outside of school.

There are no movies to go see.

They cannot cheer on their friends at sporting events due to limitations in spectators, etc.

By the way, the faculty members who have tested positive for COVID, they have contracted it outside of school and all of them have recovered it home.

Do you remember when President Trump, back when he used to be president, said,

the cure can't be worse than the illness?

The cure cannot be worse than the disease.

He was right.

And you remember when, oh, what was his name?

It was all the rage for a while had saved so many people in New York State.

Andrew, right?

Andrew Cuomo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

played the part of the governor of New York remember him right and then he had that that that best-selling book that talked first person about what a great guy he was first person well I saved everybody look at what I did I've done an amazing job and I should be strongly considered for any number of national posts because frankly this whole being governor of the Empire State is really getting old

Remember him, right?

Yeah.

And now we see, oh,

wasn't quite how it was presented by Mr.

Cuomo.

It wasn't quite how it was presented by the leftists.

Even as they were trashing

former President Trump.

Why, this guy doesn't know science.

This guy is a blowhard.

This guy is,

insert whatever term you want there, because they just hated him, and they hated him with a passion.

And so whatever he had to say, even when it was something as correct and benign as

the cure cannot be worse than the disease,

they had to trash him.

And they did everything possible to laud

in the most grandiose of ways their guy

their guy Governor Cuomo see Cuomo's all about the science Jeff Cuomo cares

and yet it was President Trump who made sure that the hospital ships traveled to New York to treat victims of the

coronavirus you remember that right

and they sat empty

All the while,

Governor Cuomo was having

people ill with COVID-19

taken to nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

They mocked Janice Dean.

Why, you know,

she's just a weathercaster.

Okay.

She knows more science than I do.

Ah, you can't take anything she says seriously, Jeff.

She doesn't know what she's talking about.

You've got to look to this guy, Governor Cuomo.

He knows what he's doing.

Cuomo's the guy.

He's our.

He's the best guy.

And you just tell that Janice Dean to, you know, go on about her business.

Hmm.

You see who was right all along, right?

You see who had it right all along.

You see who was misleading everyone all along.

Now, what do you think the chances are?

What do you think the chances are

that Joe Biden's Department of Justice looks into any of that stuff in New York State?

I'm thinking

not particularly likely.

It's almost like the

niece of Vice President Harris.

Apparently the Vice President's niece decided she wanted to somehow, I guess, turn her profits on being the vice president's niece.

And I don't know if she had clothing or what it was, but the White House immediately said, Hey, whoa, you can't do that.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not gonna happen.

And I thought to myself, because I gotta be honest with you, I didn't read the whole story.

I just saw the headline.

I thought, well, wait a minute.

Did the vice president's niece forget

to put aside 10% for the big guy?

What if Hunter Biden were on the vice president's niece's company's board would that work then

i don't know

hey i i've got to share very quickly here an email

says jeff the last time you filled in for glenn you shared the story of a young lady in Virginia near you who makes bracelets

Could you share it again?

And I thought, well, I don't have all the time in the world, but you are talking about,

you're talking about Emily Morrissey.

Emily is a young lady in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

She has CP and a couple of other challenges, but she did such amazing work in her in-school therapy with beads.

And she loves making these beautiful bracelets.

I'm wearing one right now because I wear one.

Well, I don't always wear it, but I always wear a bracelet from Emily on any day that ends in y so today's monday so i got one on but yeah uh emily is doing well and if you do want to check her out it's emiliesbracelets.com emiliesbracelets.com so thank you very much that is uh cindy in um

hang on a second is cindy in philadelphia fantastic yeah

yeah

So that if you do want to check it out, you go and you check out what Emily is doing.

I know she's got a whole bunch of stuff coming out.

Thanks so much to Glenn and the gang for letting me sit in again always a pleasure Jeff Katz in for Glenn this is the Glenn Beck program

Jeff Katz in today for Glenn this is the Glenn Beck program

I'm trying to figure out if in fact our kids get back to school.

I keep saying kids and I should be

a little more charitable, I suppose, in that description.

I mean, I say kids, and my immediate vision is kindergartners, right?

All right, not a big deal if the kindergartners are playing at home or playing at school, because we used to think that kindergarten was just playtime.

And then we find out from people who actually are in the business of teaching.

And I don't mean the leaders of teachers' unions, because unfortunately, gosh, this pains me to say it, because I grew up in a union household.

I have been a union member.

I just see teachers' unions who keep moving the line

and saying they do not really want to go back to teach.

I mean, that's really what the message is from so many of the teachers unions now.

Oh, we just don't want to go back.

We'll keep doing this, but you're not educating anybody.

Well, so what?

We don't want to catch COVID.

Got it.

I don't know anybody who does.

So you can be first in line to get the vaccination.

Whoa,

slow your roll down there, buddy.

Why should we get the vaccination?

We don't, look,

it's one or the other.

You want to be back in school helping my kids.

God bless you.

I'm there for you.

But that means you've got to get back in school and actually educate the kids.

Bridget sends a note.

She says, Jeff, my son was a junior, but he begged to be in school.

A very intelligent student, always scoring high on tests.

He and I decided to take him out since he was just spinning his wheels with no passing grades since March of 2020.

because of the school setup.

Well, he dropped out a couple of weeks ago.

He took the pre-test for GED the next day.

He passed with such high scores, he can go on to take the actual test with no further classes.

He's actually excited to start taking welding classes in person at our local community college.

Well, more

power to him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wish him nothing but the best.

I wish him nothing but

the best.

And frankly, I wish the best for the rest of us as well

I wish each of us the opportunity to see our children

attend school learn something sweat the math test I mean seriously be concerned that you haven't studied enough have some degree of dare I say it peer pressure from your fellow students going, man, you really gotta you gotta study this stuff.

It's not easy.

And working together, could you imagine that?

In a study group.

I mean, these are all things that should be easy.

These should be the norm.

This is what each and every one of us

should be expecting.

It should not be a surprise or a shock.

But I guess we'll see which way it goes.

I want to remind you, if you want to stay in touch, thejeffcatshow.com, best way to do that.

Thanks again for the opportunity to fill in.

It is Jeff Cat sitting in today for Glenn Beck.

This is the Glenn Beck program.