Forgotten eggs, shredded evidence, and gutted ed (03-12-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] We are probably not going to hear about egg prices anymore. I know we heard a lot about egg prices, and then we heard nothing about egg prices, and then we heard a lot about egg prices, and now we're not hearing a lot about egg prices. And the reason why is because the egg prices have apparently come down. They have come down. So now I feel pretty stupid having bought all of those egg futures.

[00:00:59] But, you know, so be it. I'll just eat them. So figures released by the US Department of Agriculture show that the average cost of one dozen eggs is now significantly cheaper than in recent days. The Economic Indicator website called Trading Economics shows that a dozen eggs were $5.51 on Tuesday. That is $2 cheaper than the

[00:01:28] than when it was at its all-time high of over $8 at the beginning of the month. $8.17 is what it peaked out at. And now it's at $5.51. So about, you know, $2.50 cheaper, which is good. That's a good thing, especially for people who eat eggs, of which I am one.

[00:01:49] So full disclosure there, not only did I buy the egg futures, which is really just they just crack all the eggs and put them in a carton, and then you can just shake them up and you just get eggs right out of the thing. Anyway, a Gallup poll showed that voters overwhelmingly cited economic pressures as the key reason that they voted for President Donald Trump in November.

[00:02:10] Right? This is the thing that I think a lot of Trump supporters need to keep in mind that it was the economy. People were fed up with the economy. Yes, there are other issues. Yes, there are other things that people were motivated to vote by. Absolutely. We've covered them in depth on the show for years.

[00:02:33] But as James Carville famously said, it's the economy, right? It's the economy. And people wanted relief from Bidenomics. And Donald Trump promised that. So people are going to be willing to put up with a little bit of pain for a short amount of time.

[00:02:51] But if the economic impacts do not soften soon, Donald Trump, I think, is in trouble and the Republicans are in trouble for the midterm election. We are still a good ways away, right? But that's what everybody in D.C. is looking at. This is what they're concerned about is the midterm elections.

[00:03:13] And rightly so. If you don't get these economic indicators tamed, then it's going to spell problems for the Republicans. And that is going to then jeopardize Donald Trump's ability to actually get his agenda implemented because he can only do so much as president.

[00:03:35] There's a lot of the stuff that he wants to do. And we'll talk about the Department of Education here in a bit. But that's going to require congressional action. And you cannot count on Democrats to help because they don't care to help. Right. These are this is a bureaucratic state that that they have empowered so as to empower themselves.

[00:03:57] So they are not interested in dismantling this leviathan that keeps them in power. So you're going to have to win elections. And that becomes way more difficult with bad economic indicators. This is my concern with the tariff and trade wars that Donald Trump is pursuing all over the place, slapping tariffs here and there and pulling them back and do, you know, business does not like uncertainty.

[00:04:27] And I think a lot of people give Donald Trump a lot of leeway on this stuff. And as I have cautioned repeatedly, let's give it a minute. Let's see what happens. So I'm not racing to the, you know, to the window to fling myself out here. I'm just saying this is my concern because I have been told certain things about tariffs by people who study tariffs and they say that tariffs are not so great.

[00:04:55] And when you get into these kinds of tariff wars or trade wars, they can get out of control very quickly and they can raise the price and grind our economy to a halt. I don't know if that's going to happen. I'm just saying that's what I'm worried about. That's what a lot of people are worried about.

[00:05:13] So when I see a story that egg prices have come down, this makes me feel a little bit better. Right. Because I'm old enough to remember when Democrats were hammering away on the price of eggs because Republicans were hammering away on the price of eggs before the election because the price of eggs had gone up and the price of everything had gone up and things were unaffordable and people's cost of living was higher and the inflation was run away.

[00:05:42] And so it was the economy. Right. And so when Biden loses. Oh, sorry. I mean, Kamala Harris. When she loses the election, then immediately you have this pivot within like a week. You have Democrats and media, but I repeat myself saying, what about egg prices? How come you haven't brought the egg prices down? Which is absurd.

[00:06:06] Like the guy's been in office like seven days and you're demanding that what he just like unilaterally set the price of eggs at something. It's it's just nuts. So we knew what the problems with the the egg industry was. Right. You had a lot of the birds that had to be slaughtered because of the bird flu and all of that. And so you had you had these you had these problems in the industry.

[00:06:32] They are now subsiding. Those impacts are now subsiding. Egg prices surged mainly due to the outbreak of the bird flu. And that actually goes back to February of 2022. This is according to Newsweek that the bird flu decimated poultry stocks at farms across the country.

[00:06:57] More than one hundred eleven million birds, mostly egg laying hens, were infected or culled. And in other words, killed, they were slaughtered, which I don't know why you slaughter the ones that don't have the flu. I mean, I understand slaughtering the ones that have the flu. And if there's no cure or whatever, then, yeah, you kill those birds that have the flu so it doesn't spread.

[00:07:22] But if you have birds that don't have the flu, then maybe keep them around, maybe quarantine them separately just, you know, two weeks or so just to, you know, flatten the curve and then find out whether or not they have immunity. And if they have herd immunity or maybe flock immunity, it might be, then you then, you know, like, hey, these birds survived. Let's keep breeding these birds because they're immune to that bird flu strain.

[00:07:49] But I don't I am I am not an agricultural expert here by any means. I'm not a chicken expert or that I do eat a lot of chicken and I eat their offspring. But I don't know about bird flu contagiousness. So I am limited. I'm just a radio host.

[00:08:10] Other problems such as inflation, supply chain issues, transportation costs and new state animal welfare regulations have all contributed to higher prices. Supply chain issues, inflation, transportation costs and animal welfare regulations. Like almost every single one of those is GovCo related. Inflation check.

[00:08:39] Transportation costs check. New regulations check. So, yeah, the cost of eggs hit an all time high after Trump's inauguration in January. He vowed to tackle the price of eggs on day one. He said he was going to crack it. He did not. Actually, I just made that up. But his administration admitted in December that it was a hard thing to do is to bring down these egg prices once they are up. And that is true.

[00:09:08] The drop in prices can be attributed to a fall in demand or a slowdown in the spread of the bird flu. So either way, good news. Good news. Unless, of course, you bought a lot of egg futures. Then you may have. Yeah. Yeah. You may take a loss on that. Now, the consumer price index. Good news here. Inflation in the month of February only rose by 2.8 percent on an annual basis.

[00:09:36] So compared to last year, 2.8 percent. That's slightly lower than economists had forecasted. So that's that's a pretty good sign. The month to month is a 2 percent rate. Again, lower than expected. That's a good sign, too. So just let's just see. Let's give it a minute. We don't have to run around. The sky isn't falling just yet. I mean, I'm watching. I am watching the sky. If it starts falling, I will be sure and let you know.

[00:10:06] All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete.

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[00:11:04] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. I have a Pete tweet here from Eric who says, Pete, we are from the government. We heard you had three sick birds and we are here to help. We're going to murder all 187,240 of your birds for you while raising the cost of supplies to replace them. You're welcome. Yeah, that seems to be the GovCo approach on the bird flu situation.

[00:11:34] Again, not a vet, not a chicken expert, although I do eat a lot of them. Also, here's a tweet from The Urn who says, mainstream media fear porn fails again.

[00:11:47] Yeah, this is why I caution when you read reports from legacy outlets, so much of the quote unquote reporting or journalisming, as I call it, it's all speculative. It's all like this looking ahead and making predictions.

[00:12:11] And it really is the laziest form of, and I don't even want to call it journalism because it isn't really journalism. It's just speculation. And when I went to journalism school and I was a reporter, I reported on things that had occurred, right? Things that happened or were happening in real time, live breaking news, right? This is what is actually going on.

[00:12:40] That's not to say that you can't at some point draw some conclusions or tease out some things like this could have an impact here or there or whatever. But the value of that speculation isn't very great, because if you are incorrect, there's no price to be paid for it. And so over time, we end up now with so much of the media apparatus being geared towards simple predictions and not reporting.

[00:13:09] And again, I just caution that predicting doesn't have a lot of value because so much of it is wrong. And the reporters never come back and tell you that they mispredicted that they got it wrong. They don't ever come back and say, we thought this was going to happen and then it didn't happen. Sorry about that. Right? They never say that. So the only way to know whether somebody should be believed or not is to basically keep a running tally, which is onerous. People aren't going to do it. Okay?

[00:13:40] Regarding the inflation numbers that were reported today by the government, grocery prices, they do continue to rise. Groceries increased 2.6% in February. That's over 2.6% over a year earlier, according to the CPI report. The ongoing rise of food cost is creating a financial pinch for many households. Egg prices were a driver of last month's grocery inflation.

[00:14:09] Okay? So now with the price of eggs coming down, you would expect to see some of those grocery prices dropping too. Coffee also went up 6% on an annual basis. Restaurant meals jumped 3.7% from a year ago. Now, when you look at the chart, though, the massive inflation that we saw was under Joe Biden. Right? And that has never, like, that hasn't gone away. That's the problem with inflation. It's why it's the hidden taxes.

[00:14:39] Once it's in there and everybody is paying the additional costs, it never ratchets back down. It just goes one direction. So, yes, even with inflation growing at only 2%, it's still a 2% cumulative impact on the prior inflationary numbers. And we saw those numbers in the, you know, 9%, 10%, 11% range three or four years ago.

[00:15:03] So, I don't know if the inflation is going to be able to be tamed. But we'll find out. Now, the House has passed a stopgap spending bill. All right. Hey, real quick. If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day, send me an email at Pete at ThePeteCalendarShow.com and ask me about advertising. It's super affordable.

[00:15:32] It's baked into this podcast forever. And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck. Send me a message. Pete at ThePeteCalendarShow.com and I can show you how it works. Run the numbers with you. Again, that's Pete at ThePeteCalendarShow.com. I do have some messages. This from Dennis regarding the egg prices. The producers regulating egg prices may have just been playing a shell game with us Americans.

[00:16:02] That's possible. I see what you did there. John says, two weeks to flatten the curve. LOL. That's why I love you. Keep up the great work. And John wants to know, have any other countries been experiencing an outbreak of chicken flu? Did they slaughter all of the flocks too? Well, I can Google that for you, John.

[00:16:28] And sure enough, according to the United Nations, this was from December of 24. Avian flu reported in 108 countries across five continents. More than 500 bird species infected with at least 70 mammalian species.

[00:16:49] And according to WorldAnimalNews.com, 250 million birds were slaughtered. But that was back in October of 2023. 2023. So I'm guessing it's probably more than that by now. Probably half a billion globally. And yeah, I've got, you know, BBC eight days ago, bird flu outbreak confirmed at a chicken farm.

[00:17:19] So it is, yes, it is happening all over the world. I don't know if this one originated in Wuhan either, but probably. So, no, I don't know that. I'm just saying it's, but yeah, well, I mean, they do tend to originate in that certain part of the globe. Um, Denny says, Pete, maybe we coin the phrase speculative journalism.

[00:17:49] I predict it may catch on. That's there you go. That's yeah. I mean, there's speculative journalism, but I almost feel like I give it too much credit by calling it journalism. But that's probably my own bias towards the term. You know, like journalism to me represents a higher standard. I don't know, like there's reporting and then there's like journalism, like investigative journalism is what I think of in those terms. And I just I don't I don't even know.

[00:18:20] It's just speculation. A lot of the stuff that we see, it's just speculation. All right. Let me jump over here to the Washington Times piece by Alex Miller. Nearly halfway into the fiscal year, House Republicans gave up yesterday and passed an extension of spending primarily at 2024 levels, saying they wanted to turn the page and start on President Trump's agenda.

[00:18:46] By the way, this has gotten Rand Paul to come out against this, saying all you're doing is locking in the spending that was that was put into place by Democrats and Joe Biden. Why do why are we continuing to do that? So that's Rand Paul's position. They cut from a few programs.

[00:19:08] They increased funding for some of their priorities this time around, like immigration enforcement and the military. But this continuing resolution or the CR passed on a 217 to 213 vote. You had one Democrat joining the Republicans in approving it. That was Jared Golden of Maine. And you had one Republican joining all the Democrats in voting against it.

[00:19:37] And that would be Thomas Massey from Kentucky. So Democrats, according to The Washington Times, were eager to try to hang a loss on Mr. Trump. That's why they opposed it, because if you think about it, it does make a bit of sense. If this was, you know, a continuing resolution for funding that they did when they were in control, why wouldn't they keep doing it?

[00:20:07] Why wouldn't they pass a CR? Well, we like everything that we funded. We would like to see the CR pass, and we know the CR will pass, but we would really like Donald Trump to take a loss on something. So we'll try to block it or something. But then, of course, they don't block it. And so I'm not really sure you actually got anything out of that vote.

[00:20:30] The bill marked a retreat for the Speaker, Mike Johnson, who had promised not to accept a continuing resolution. But President Trump came in and backed the CR, and that proved to be the deciding factor in persuading the fiscal hawks, weary of supporting this kind of stopgap spending measure, right? Because they were on a deadline. Friday.

[00:20:58] They had to fund the government before Friday because funding expires from the stopgap measure that they passed in December. And this is how we continuously fund our bloated federal budget is by these stopgap continuing resolutions or the omnibus bills. And they, you know, they set us up with these deadlines that, oh, we got to pass it now. You don't have time to read the 17,000 page bill.

[00:21:26] We just have to pass it or else the whole government shuts down and you'll be blamed for it and everything else. It's just an awful way to govern and to do finances. The lone Republican, Thomas Massey from Kentucky, voted no. Trump threatened to lead the charge to find a candidate to replace him in the 2026 election.

[00:21:47] And Massey shrugged that off, noting that when he was the only Republican to vote against Trump's COVID-19 relief bill in 2020, he got the same threat. And then he went on to win reelection with 81 percent of the vote anyway. So Massey's not worried. In the Republican run Senate, though, because this bill cleared the House, this is now going over to the Senate.

[00:22:10] The bill is going to need Democrat votes if it's going to clear the 60 vote threshold in order to survive. Democrats are going to be under pressure to stop a partial government shutdown. So I would just tell you, here's a little bit of prediction from me. Watch the way that this is covered, right? Watch the way that the media treats this story. Will they be blaming Democrats for a government shutdown if that's what ends up happening?

[00:22:39] Because this continuing resolution is essentially continuation of their spending that they did when they had the power. So why would you vote against it now except to try to hurt Trump? And the only way that you can hurt Trump by you shutting down the government by not passing a CR is if you have a compliant media that tells that story. Here's a great idea.

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[00:24:23] I'm fine. I hope you're well. I am. You seem... Well, good. You seem to have... Okay. When I was listening to you, you seemed to think that animal welfare groups were kind of wackadoodle people. But I'll... But the... But... What did I say that would lead you to believe... What would... What did I say that prompted you to say that?

[00:24:50] You were saying that animal welfare groups... And believe it or not, I could see your eye roll on the radio. Just kidding. I was going to say, because I didn't eye roll at all. And I don't even think I mentioned animal welfare groups. Yes, you did. Yeah, I read the story. Now, what I want... I read a... I have the story. Oh, goodness. Don't be so defensive. I just wanted to make a point. Well, no, here's the...

[00:25:16] No, Jane, Jane, I get defensive when you start attributing things to me that I didn't say. So that's... So just go ahead and make your assertion or state whatever it is you want to say, rather than trying to preface it with, like, this reframing of something you thought I said. Even though I never said anything about animal welfare groups being wackadoodle. No, no, you didn't say that. No, you didn't say that. Now, may I apologize first? I would like to apologize if I impugned your name.

[00:25:46] If I impugned your name... It's fine. Just go ahead and whatever... So what is your comment? Most of these animal welfare groups are after... Are aiming for humane, just humane treatment of farm animals. Now, in the case of the chickens, I used to work on a dairy farm, and my husband and I ran chickens for a while.

[00:26:13] Now, the thing is, is that if you keep...if you let chickens live in a space, and they get out, and they get fresh air, and there's not hundreds of thousands of them, they won't have compromised immune systems. And that's what makes them very much prey.

[00:26:35] And the stress, the stress of it, because it's torture, makes them liable to contract disease and for it to spread very rapidly. That's all I'm saying. So you're saying the humane, certified, free range, which are not the same thing I have learned, that that increases the likelihood that they're going to get sick? No. I'm saying that...

[00:27:04] All I'm saying is, because all of this stuff that gets with certification and blah, blah, blah, is if the fact is, is that if you return a little more to a family farm type scenario, the chickens will have room to get out in fresh air. They won't be stressed. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:26] And they will be more likely to produce eggs and to avoid illness. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. So we always buy certified humane because we learned, because we have farmers in our family, and they have taught us what the difference between certified humane versus free range versus cage-free. Like, all of these things mean different things.

[00:27:53] And the big producers have found ways to kind of brand as, you know, quote-unquote cage-free, even though it's not a humane way to raise the chickens. I have heard, though, that being out in like a pasture setting, that that does expose them to migratory birds that may have the flu. That I didn't know.

[00:28:18] All we knew is that when we let ours roam free is that hawks and coyotes just had the best time ever. Yeah, yeah. No. No, that is true. Yeah, no. It was a cornucopia. Yeah. Yeah. And so, right. So it's just like everything else, right? There are trade-offs to all of this stuff.

[00:28:46] And so I am, I would prefer like an all of the above. So like we prefer to try to support the farmers that raise their animals in humane ways. We buy steak and pork with the same certified humane labeling because that means something. And it means something different than the cage-free or free range, which has, it seems like, and organic as well.

[00:29:11] A lot of this stuff has been gained now by a lot of the big corporate producers. So we just look for the certified humane label. Well, thank you very much for that. And I'll tell you one thing, the factory farms are going to be the end of us. Yeah, they're pretty nasty. They are pretty nasty. Yeah, but I mean, they're going to start fixing prices and everything because they're growing, they're running the little guy out, and it's not going to be good. Yeah. Now, Jane, I appreciate the call. Yes, ma'am. All right, take care. Thank you. I appreciate the call.

[00:29:41] All right. Hey, real quick. If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day, send me an email at Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com and ask me about advertising. It's super affordable. It's baked into this podcast forever. And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck. Send me a message. Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com. And I can show you how it works. Run the numbers with you.

[00:30:08] Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com. Let me go back to the story from the last hour. Jane mentioned animal welfare organizations, and I knew I had not said that. I was reading from the story from Newsweek, and it said new state animal welfare regulations. So laws.

[00:30:34] And then I pointed out inflation, transportation costs, and the regulations are all government mandates. Right. Those that that's that's government policy that's having the impact on the egg prices. That was what I that was what I read from the Newsweek article and what I had commented on. I didn't say anything about any kind of organizations.

[00:31:01] I have a message from Eric on Twitter who says the story mentioned changes in animal welfare laws that increased costs, which is true. Even if some of those laws are worthwhile. Also, PETA is insane and gives them all a bad name. That's yes, that is also true. So, yeah, I just wanted just for for clarification. So and this happens very often.

[00:31:29] I have learned over my 20 years in radio that people hear things and it prompts them to call. And I'm not attacking Jane or anything, but she heard me say animal welfare regulations and she thought I was saying organizations. I did not say that. And so that was the disagreement that we had had regarding the CR spending. The continuing resolution.

[00:31:54] Tim says it seems that when it comes to spending, the unit party never gets off stupid. According to Austrian economics, inflation is caused by government overspending, therefore excessive borrowing. I guess most of Washington never took the class. That is probably accurate as well. I'm not sure how many Austrian economic subscribers we have in Washington, D.C.

[00:32:23] But, yes, that's the way that's that's the Austrian school way of thinking is that you keep borrowing money and that creates the inflation because you're pumping out more and more dollars into the system. And that's why it takes a long time for those, you know, the dollars to come back home basically. Right. It's like a tide.

[00:32:49] And when it comes back in now, you've got too many dollars chasing too few goods. It raises the price of things and the value of the dollar is lowered because you have everybody's got a bunch of dollars because you printed so many of them and you put them out into the system.

[00:33:09] Regarding the continuing resolution, Matt Vespa over at townhall.com, he said the six month CR to prevent the government from closing its doors on March 14th was approved. A government shutdown will stop the deportations, the work from the Department of Government Efficiency and the rebuilding of the military.

[00:33:31] So the real prize is passing the budget reconciliation package and the shutdown would disrupt. That reconciliation process immensely.

[00:33:47] And CBS reports many Democrats have reservations about the six month stopgap measure, this continuing resolution that passed last night, warning that it would give Trump and Doge even more latitude to carry out cost slashing efforts.

[00:34:05] That's because the continuing resolution, unlike regular appropriations bills, lacks a congressional statement of direction on how funds are to be spent by a department or agency. So that's why Democrats were opposed to it as well. Meanwhile, they see it as a way for the Trump administration to keep racking up wins that they want to try to avoid.

[00:34:30] Meanwhile, over at USAID, a senior official told the remaining staff there to convene at their now former headquarters in Washington, D.C. yesterday, where they would do an all day group effort to destroy documents. Which is what you would totally do if you weren't doing anything wrong.

[00:35:01] That's yeah, that's not at all suspicious behavior. It seems a little I don't know. It seems a little problematic. The materials earmarked for destruction include contents of the agency's, quote, classified safes and personnel documents at the Ronald Reagan building. That according to an email that was sent by USAID's acting executive director Erica Carr. And this email was obtained by Politico.

[00:35:28] She wrote, quote, shred as many documents first. Reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or when it needs a break. When you're just shredding so much paper. Right. Right. It needs to cool down a little bit. You just take the take those documents and stuff them into burn bags. She also instructed staff to label the burn bags with the words secret.

[00:35:59] In dark Sharpie, the email did not provide any reason for the destruction of all of the documents. The building is being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted routine document destruction timetables, according to Politico. Customs and Border Protection is actually planning to move into the facility. They've rented just under 400000 square feet of office space in the building last month.

[00:36:26] But I think it's important to understand here that at least according to Politico, the destruction of all of the documents and the burning and the shredding and such. It's Trump's fault. Right. It's it. It's because of Donald Trump.

[00:36:42] The effort underscores the tumultuous way in which the Trump administration is dismantling an agency that once managed a 40 billion dollar annual budget and had more than 10,000 staff around the wall around the world. I am reminded of a line from the documentary Forrest Gump. It's just that S.L.B. Johnson in this war. Right.

[00:37:07] Like, guys, Donald Trump is not forcing you to shred things, you know, to come into the office on a shredded shred day and a burn day. Like that's you guys are doing this. That's your choice to do this stuff. A former USAID staffer. And besides, wouldn't the NSA, don't they have records of all of this stuff anyway, like in triplicate on all of their servers and stuff? Don't they when they have all of that or do they not spy on USAID? Just us.

[00:37:38] A former USAID staffer confirmed the veracity of the email and described the destruction of agency documents as unprecedented. Quote, I have never seen something like this. And mass. Everyone with a safe is supposed to keep it up to date and destroy documents when they no longer need to be stored. Sometimes security will check your safe and tell you if you have to clean out old material.

[00:38:05] This person spoke on the condition of anonymity due to a fear of possible reprisals by the Trump administration. So they're, yeah, they're from slaughtering chickens to slaughtering USAID documents. I'm sure they would not dispose of any kind of incriminating information like that. I'm sure they would not do that.

[00:38:30] Meanwhile, over at the Department of Education, they are cutting their staff by roughly 50 percent. U.S. Department of Education announced yesterday, last night, that it will be cutting its staff by about half as part of a reduction in force or RIF. I have been RIF. I do not celebrate people who have been RIF, or as I was one time labeled, employee dislocation. I got called that one time, too, which kind of sounded painful.

[00:38:59] But then also I thought, well, I could just be relocated, just like pop it right back into place. And that's how I ended up here. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in 1997 in Mint Hill, North Carolina, it was the first company to provide this valuable service,

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[00:39:56] That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life, told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are. Visit createavideo.com. In a press call, a senior department official said that of the 4,133 employees currently at the EDGED, the Education Department, 1,300 of them are going to be subject to the reduction in force.

[00:40:25] Okay? So just over 1,300 firings out of 4,100. That number is on top of the 259 who did the deferred resignation program. There was 313 who took the voluntary separation incentive payment of $25,000. There was another 63 probationary employees who got terminated last month.

[00:40:49] So I added them all up, and that leaves out of 4,133 total employees, there will now be 2,183. So a little bit more than half. As the President and Secretary Linda McMahon have noted repeatedly, what we are doing right now in education is simply not working. 70% of kids cannot read proficiently by the time they reach high school.

[00:41:15] We have spent over a trillion dollars at the federal level since the department was created, and test scores and outcomes have plummeted even before pandemic-related school closures drove down performance even more, said a U.S. Department of Education senior department official. But in the meantime, this is according to thefederalist.com, In the meantime, the bureaucracy has grown, and we have a department now that exists largely to oversee contractors,

[00:41:43] add strains, and in many cases do duplicative efforts across the department. Part of the reduction includes cutting department building leases in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Cleveland. Eventually, the department will consolidate into one building in the nation's capital instead of three.

[00:42:08] Now, part of the problem here is that Trump is going to need Congress to actually do something, okay? Because Trump cannot actually get rid of an entire department that was created by an act of Congress. Back when the Trump administration offered eight months of severance to federal workers, teachers union leaders started a campaign to convince workers that the administration could not be trusted and nobody should take the deal.

[00:42:37] Obviously, that has not worked out, right? Because about 14% of the workforce at the Ed Department did take the deal. But you have to wonder how many of the 1,315 people that are getting laid off wish they had taken that offer when it was made. They were misled by their union leadership.

[00:43:03] This is from John Sexton at HotAir.com. He says, Is there any lower limit on this headcount? At just over 4,100 employees, the Education Department was already the smallest government department. In a matter of days, the headcount will be down to about 2,000. Can the secretary drop that number? Take it down to 200? Maybe 20? Right? It wouldn't technically be abolished, and some future president could revive it and staff it up again,

[00:43:33] but it would effectively be dead until Congress gets around to passing a law to eliminate it completely. Now, the head of the teachers union, one of them, Randy Weingarten, she of the lockdowns that harmed your kids, she has been going around on media stations just flipping out on MSNBC and other legacy outlets. Why? Dwayne Patterson, also at HotAir.com. He says, Vouchers is the reason.

[00:44:03] The death knell of teachers unions. School choice. Since COVID, largely due to how mismanaged the virus was at the national level and the impact it had on schools, along with the woke DEI agenda, invading the curriculum, parents all over the country demanded a way out for their kids and a pathway into charters, religious schools, or private academies. New Hampshire is now going to be added to the list of states that provide school choice.

[00:44:32] You've got Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina. They have all passed more limited school choice bills, or some have longer phase-in language, but really what it amounts to is that half of the United States now have at least some form of school choice options for parents that want to pull their kids out of a failing school. And that child's national funding into the school of their choice can follow.

[00:45:00] So the teachers union, Randy Weingarten, the leader of that union, were very much one of the catalysts that helped to make this state-level education revolution happen a lot faster. So the idea is to block grant the money directly to the states, bypassing the need for a federal agency. Trump signaled he might even be willing to put a little carrot out there and prioritize the distribution of those block grants

[00:45:27] by weighting them more to states that have school choice legislation. That's why Weingarten is flipping out, according to Dwayne Patterson. That if you start weighting the money, so in other words, states that have school choice programs would get larger chunks of the money per child. Right? That's going to incentivize more states to adopt school choice programs.

[00:45:57] Weingarten, you may recall, was paid a little over a half a million dollars in salary at the height of COVID when reopening plans were being discussed. And she was literally writing the CDC rules on the phone with Dr. Walensky several times a week, writing the policy to favor her union's teachers. Right? This is all of their own making, hoisted upon their own petard, as it were.

[00:46:25] All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.