Jim Norton and Ben Shapiro are back with a brand new podcast, and they're joined by special guest and friend of the show, Not Gay Jared Meyers. The guys discuss a variety of current events, including the latest in Cenk Weger's legal troubles, the latest on the NFL, and much, much more.
00:04:18.000Most comedians cannot claim they have two-year-old pills.
00:04:22.000Two-year-old pills that are sitting in there.
00:04:23.000It's like Wolf of Wall Street is going to hit you a little bit.
00:04:25.000It's an accomplishment. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be a fuse.
00:04:27.000Hey, by the way, question of the day is, do you think, we're going to talk about this, obviously, in light of the West Virginia story, do you think public school teachers are woefully underpaid?
00:04:35.000That seems to be the acceptance among society today.
00:06:40.000That's true. I guess it would be... If Trudeau had collected that, someone would be sued.
00:06:44.000By the way, hey, hit the notification bell if you're watching on YouTube because subscribing doesn't mean anything anymore.
00:06:48.000So if you want to be notified of our videos and not have the Google Overlord stop it, you go hit the bell.
00:06:54.000A woman was arrested for attempting...
00:06:57.000Then we're going to talk about public school teachers, but this is a story that's more important.
00:06:59.000A woman was arrested for attempting to trick Albuquerque authorities yesterday when she claimed she had a prescription for medical methamphetamine.
00:07:53.000It was conducted over seven years by a data scientist in Columbia University, and it shows that it's okay to marry your first cousin as long as your children do not marry their first cousins.
00:09:11.000Exactly. It just can't be two generations down.
00:09:14.000He's got a first cousin. I like taking his rights first and due process later.
00:09:17.000Yes, exactly. Due process later for him.
00:09:19.000Grabbed by the Golden Archers. Israel is in the process, by the way, of building a Jewish Disneyland designed by rabbis.
00:09:26.000And it's as fun as it sounds. The American company iTech is planning a theme park based on Jewish values, and it will feature Torah-themed rides, Jewish cultural, cuisine, and a fast-pass lane, actually, for patrons to bitch about rising ticket prices.
00:09:50.000This park is everything that's gone wrong in this world.
00:10:50.000Tweet me. So here's one thing I wanted to talk about today.
00:10:52.000We've talked about it on the show, but haven't really gotten in depth.
00:10:55.000I know I'm going to get some flack for this.
00:10:56.000That's why it's the question of the day. Many people have the idea in their head that public school teachers are severely underpaid public servants.
00:11:04.000Where do they get that? Well, here. Is the fact that teachers are just going to have to keep accepting lower salaries despite the importance of our job, of their job?
00:11:14.000But we as a society have decided, nah, teaching's not that important.
00:11:17.000It's only our job. Yeah, that's right.
00:11:19.000And because we make that decision, we're the taxpayers.
00:11:22.000We're the ones who decide how much the teachers get, and we won't pay them.
00:11:26.000Not only don't we pay teachers what they deserve to be paid, In other countries that have better test scores than ours, you hear about that all the time, actually teachers get paid much more on an even standard with professionals or engineers and in other walks of life.
00:12:22.000You know those ladies that go through that crossover age where it's like, I'm just going to cut it short now and do this sort of flock of seagulls?
00:12:27.000She's always done that. It's like Taco Bell.
00:12:29.000They keep revamping it, but it still just sucks.
00:12:39.000Hold your comments. Let's compare them first to other government workers.
00:12:42.000School jobs, okay? Some of the better paying ones out there.
00:12:45.000See this first chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
00:12:47.000They receive more than two times the benefits of employees in the private sector, by the way.
00:12:51.000The average public school teacher, this comes to us, I think National View, more than double the benefits package received by typical workers in the private sector.
00:12:57.000So when we take the benefits into account, overall compensation is actually higher than private sector teachers, which, listen, shouldn't surprise you, obviously.
00:13:05.000Public dole, they're going to be paid more than private teachers.
00:13:29.000No, it's not. But if we prorate that for working 12 months, not even including the benefits, by the way, instead of nine, teachers will be making $76,000.
00:13:38.000$76,000, well above the average salary, by the way, for workers with a college degree.
00:13:43.000So if we're going to do that, because I don't want to, well, you can't, these people, they go to college, okay, let's not just compare them to a McDonald's worker, five for 15.
00:13:48.000It is higher than the average college degree worker, and in line with the median salary for workers with master's degrees are higher.
00:13:54.000$77,000. By the way, something else, it doesn't matter what your test scores are, it doesn't matter how your students are doing, you're paid that amount, and they're nearly impossible to fire, even if they suck.
00:14:05.000That's You'd have to be given the Kevin Spacey treatment to your students times five for them to even consider getting you out of a rubber room.
00:14:12.000And then it'll take you about a year and a half to two years to go.
00:14:14.000Yes. Yeah. It looked like you were going to say something.
00:14:17.000Yeah, so I think it's just absolutely insane.
00:14:19.000I had never heard that clip, by the way, that you played at the beginning when they were saying that teachers just accept lower and lower pay.
00:14:24.000When's the last time teachers have ever accepted lower pay?
00:14:26.000I just laughed out loud because I'm like, I didn't even know that was out there in the narrative.
00:14:30.000Yeah. The thing is, okay, listen, so here's what's going to happen this year.
00:14:33.000We're not, I know you were expecting a 12% raise.
00:14:36.000We're going to give you a 2.5% raise this year.
00:14:49.000We do nothing but throw money at the problem.
00:14:51.000We spend, what, we're like ranked fifth in the world in spending per student, 40% more than other OECD countries out there, and you're telling me that you need to raise teachers and you still suck?
00:15:21.000This filmmaker was a leftist, by the way.
00:15:23.000It was a liberal. And they jumped all over the filmmakers because it showed kind of the corruption of teachers' unions.
00:15:29.000Yeah. By the way, if you want to talk about money in politics, I always talk about Big Oil, Koch Brothers, not even close to the money being bandied about by public sector unions.
00:15:37.000Teachers are a big one in there. Absolutely.
00:15:39.000Speaking of which, bumper stickers you see all the time.
00:15:41.000I know I've talked about this ad nauseum.
00:15:42.000This idea that we're spending more on the military.
00:15:46.000It's like this paltry sum that's left for them.
00:15:48.000No, actually, our total spending on education is $946 billion annually compared to $835 billion for military, including, by the way, veteran care.
00:15:58.000Okay? Yeah. So it's important to note that just the bumper sticker doesn't necessarily...
00:16:01.000It's not accurate. No, they're skewing the stat because 85% roughly comes from state and local governments and not federal.
00:16:07.000By the way, all of your parents, people watching, they all went to school before there was a National Department of Education.
00:18:24.000I can hear you. Great. Okay, so Jed, so what do you say to the skeptics out there, critics who say the 5% raise was unwarranted considering your state already is 48 for pay but 51st for SAT scores?
00:18:34.000That's huge. That's dead last, Jed, if you were keeping track.
00:18:37.000No, no, no. See, I'm afraid you're mistaken, Stephen.
00:18:39.000If you do the arithmetic now, hold on.
00:18:42.000If you add them together, you got the 48 and divides them by the 51.
00:18:46.000That's not a thing. Jed, I think you're actually missing.
00:18:52.000If you put it in together and you subtract the numbers, you realize the disparity wage gap ain't even a thing, Steve, and I'm afraid you're mistaken.
00:20:33.000at the McFarlane Auditorium, Lada with Crowder will be broadcasting live.
00:20:37.000I know, I know, it's murder asking you to leave your computers and smart devices for a live show in 2018.
00:20:42.000And certainly a show this high energy is no cakewalk.
00:20:45.000Although it shouldn't be too tough to attend for those who live in the Texas area.
00:20:48.000But remember this. All the leftists, social justice warriors, and professional protesters in Texas are already trying to stop this show from happening.
00:20:56.000They tried to run us out in a rail last time at SMU, and now we're offering you a chance to rub it in their face and fill up their whole damn theater with laughter.
00:21:04.000Which is the nicest gift you'll ever get from the nicest live show you'll ever see.
00:21:09.000Oh, and they won't know what to do with themselves.
00:21:12.000Because... What do you do with an Antifa when he won't stop being an Antifa?
00:21:19.000It seems this campus really would enjoy laughing at one and two and three and four small Antifa unemployed.
00:21:35.000So remember now, your objective is SMU, 7 o'clock on March 22nd.
00:21:40.000That's March 22nd at McFarland Auditorium.
00:23:10.000No, no, no. We call him a globalist because he likes free trade.
00:23:14.000And so he's out. There's just total staffing chaos inside the administration, which is not a shock, considering that Sam Nunberg was once part of the Trump campaign.
00:23:23.000The top men seen from Raiders of the Lost Ark was apparently that guy actually did the staffing at the Trump campaign and then did it again at the Trump White House.
00:23:33.000So Gary Cohn being out is actually, it's less about Gary Cohn than about the guy who's replacing him, whose name slips my mind at this point.
00:23:43.000Peter Navarro, who apparently knows nothing about free trade, knows nothing about economics.
00:23:47.000But it's firmly convinced that if we increase the price on every one of basic steel products, that somehow the smelters will come back to Pittsburgh or something.
00:23:55.000This sort of bizarre Idea that what we really need in America is more people in really heavy gear carrying around things like a scene out of Zoolander and having big fiery chasms beneath them.
00:24:23.000Hold on a second. Kevin O'Leary worked for Donald Trump?
00:24:26.000Who knew? Who knew? Him being out, I mean, I've talked to people in the White House.
00:24:30.000I mean, listen, the chaos inside the White House is a very real thing.
00:24:33.000Everybody in the White House basically has a last will and testament written up.
00:24:38.000Everybody knows that they could be gone at any minute, or they're thinking about quitting at any minute, because, let's face it, Trump is not a good person to work for.
00:24:44.000Okay, turnover in this administration is extremely high.
00:24:47.000When you saw Trump the other day doing the Everyone wants to work here.
00:24:52.000Who wants to be communications director?
00:24:55.000Stormy Daniels? I'm sure she'd settle out of court.
00:25:00.000I think Huma's still trying for something.
00:25:02.000Yeah, exactly. I could make you communications director inside of a week.
00:25:05.000We would just book you on Fox& Friends every morning for a week, and you would talk about how awesome Trump is, and you'd become his director, and you'd last for approximately two weeks until you said something halfway intelligent, at which point you'd be out on your ass.
00:25:17.000The only decision would be saline or silicone.
00:25:20.000What would I go for to ensure job security?
00:25:24.000Here's the thing. We talked about this the last time you were on.
00:25:27.000Trump's bite, his bark is worse than his bite.
00:25:30.000His policies were pretty good toward the end of the year, toward the beginning of the year.
00:25:33.000And then the shooting happened, and of course it was like we talked about, 64D underwater backwards backgammon where he was actually pushing for some of this gun control legislation.
00:25:57.000China's number 11 on the list. Yeah, China's number 11 on the list.
00:26:00.000Yes. The notion that we're being screwed by Chinese steel is just not true.
00:26:04.00070% of all steel consumed in the United States is created in the United States.
00:26:08.000The steel industry produced 5% more than they did last year, the year before, meaning that it's actually growing, the steel industry, in the United States.
00:26:15.000The stock price at companies like Nucor was like $10 in 2000.
00:26:20.000Now it's like $62. The United States has been producing approximately the same amount of steel since 1983.
00:26:25.000It's just that only 25% of the same number of employees are required to produce that amount of steel because technology is what's taking away the jobs, not competition from foreign sources.
00:26:34.000So none of this makes any sense. For every job in the steel industry, there are at least 40 jobs that are dependent on products from the steel industry, meaning that if you increase tariffs, which increase prices in the steel industry, you're passing those prices on to a bevy of other industries.
00:26:46.000And I'm sorry, watching billionaire Wilbur Ross on national television holding up a Campbell's soup can to explain to the poor why it is that it doesn't matter that they're paying a little bit more for their canned soup is not real good press.
00:26:56.000Do they use steel? I thought that was tin.
00:27:52.000There's a wildly inconsistent message this week.
00:27:54.000Either the economy is rip-roaring and it's booming and we're doing fantastically and we can't take enough winning, or we're getting screwed by foreign competitors and we need to batten down the hatches.
00:28:05.000It seems like there are some mixed signals.
00:28:07.000For sure. And I think this is one of the problems for Trump is that he doesn't care about the numbers.
00:28:11.000He's not interested in the numbers. And you can see that because the stock market has been down since these announcements about the tariffs.
00:28:16.000The markets have been thrown into turmoil.
00:28:19.000All the good that was done by the tax cuts could easily be taken away through a trade war.
00:28:23.000I think it's more about Trump has this vision in his head of 1956 America when we were just making assembly line trucks.
00:28:30.000And we were making our own steel in Pittsburgh and in Gary, Indiana.
00:28:33.000And never mind the fact that the sky was like purple because of all of the garbage that was being tossed into the air.
00:28:40.000In the production of that steel, never mind the fact that the Pittsburgh unemployment rate today is 4.6%, significantly lower than it was During those days and the air is breathable in Pittsburgh because everybody is now in the healthcare industry or the service industry.
00:28:51.000It's why I think, honestly, there's such a gap in the feelings about Trump between people who are 60 and up and people who are 40 and under.
00:28:58.000People who are 40 and under look at this and they go, what are you even talking about?
00:29:01.000You're talking about the steel industry as though, as the steel industry goes, so goes America.
00:29:06.000I don't know anybody who actually works in the steel industry.
00:29:10.000I know people in the service industry.
00:29:12.000And then there are a bunch of people who are over 60, and they remember working at a plant for 40 years and getting their gold watch for retirement.
00:29:18.000And they're thinking, well, if we could bring back those days, that would actually fix everything.
00:29:21.000That's an interesting point. I'd like to stay on that for a second because I was just watching Driving Miss Daisy the night with my wife.
00:29:25.000It was her grandfather's favorite film.
00:29:27.000Also, by the way, he was an amazing man, Fred Corzon.
00:30:02.000You know, it sounds like bullets going off in this factory, and you see hundreds of people employed.
00:30:07.000I'm going, hold on a second. When people talk about how millennials now, there's less job security than ever, and they feel like the lost generation, they've been abandoned.
00:30:13.000I'm going, how many millennials would spend...
00:30:16.000Nine, ten hours a day in one of those factories.
00:30:19.000Because when we're talking about the good old American days, that's what you're talking about with job security.
00:30:23.000That was Pittsburgh back then with a higher unemployment rate.
00:30:27.000But how many millennials will be willing to do that?
00:30:30.000I think there's a disconnect where when people talk about it, they need to say, this is what job security means.
00:30:35.000This kind of job back then, you'd hear a muddy different tune.
00:30:39.000That's exactly right. The same people who decry the lack of job security are the same people who are with Nancy Pelosi when she says that we should ensure that you don't have job lock, that you shouldn't be forced to actually be in a job in order to have health insurance.
00:30:50.000These are people who want to switch jobs every couple of years, or they want to pursue their dreams of being an artist.
00:30:55.000But the notion that any of them are going to sit there and weld If they want to weld, they could do it right now.
00:31:00.000There are plenty of welding jobs in the United States, but can you imagine any of these gender studies majors actually welding?
00:31:04.000They're talking about the evils of capitalism and the lack of job security, and then they're majoring in gender studies.
00:31:09.000If you cared about job security, maybe you'd go into those industries that are supposedly so hallowed about job security.
00:31:14.000Again, the only reason that those assembly line jobs were considered so awesome in 1930 is because assembly line jobs in 1830 were even worse.
00:31:21.000Meaning that the jobs now are better than the jobs then.
00:31:26.000We laugh at people who are baristas at Starbucks.
00:31:29.000That's a better job. It is better to be a barista at Starbucks than it is to be sitting on an assembly line ensuring that stuff that people are now doing in Vietnam is being done in the United States.
00:32:57.000And you just got to imagine that there's whiskey in it for that to be absolutely hilarious.
00:33:01.000But Aaron Burnett, that was the one that really struck me.
00:33:03.000It was all these other people, like he's calling into Jake Tapper.
00:33:06.000How's Jake supposed to know that this guy is a legitimate loony?
00:33:09.000But if you're sitting across from somebody and you say to them, have you been drinking because I smell alcohol on your breath?
00:33:14.000Then the question becomes, so why is he on your show?
00:33:17.000And you do have to ask yourself why it is—let's say Austin Goolsbee just started showing up randomly to the Obama administration guy.
00:33:26.000He started randomly showing up to TV shows looking drunk off his ass.
00:33:30.000Do you think he makes the air that night?
00:33:32.000Do you think they're just like, you know what, this is going to make great TV? Exactly.
00:33:35.000That's right. Nobody allows him anywhere near a camera.
00:33:38.000But Nunberg is apparently a representative of a rather non-sober administration, so it's okay to do that.
00:33:43.000In the defense of the media, I will say this.
00:33:45.000In defense of Donald Trump, he's a teetotaler.
00:33:46.000I don't think he's ever touched a drop.
00:33:48.000No, that's right. But the attitude, obviously, is less than sober over at the White House, and it was during the campaign.
00:33:56.000And in defense of the media, I will say this.
00:33:57.000It is very difficult to distinguish people who are Crazy like they should be in a loony bin crazy from people who are just crazy in politics.
00:34:06.000If there were a guy who were wandering around trying to get himself booked on morning shows, let's say 2012, claiming that the president of the United States was born in Kenya and firing off tweets to like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, you might think maybe that guy shouldn't be on TV, but then he wouldn't be president of the United States, would he? So it's kind of difficult to...
00:34:24.000Isn't Kirsten sort of lesbian though now?
00:34:26.000So I don't follow that part. I don't follow that at all.
00:34:28.000She's a lesbian now. She likes to keep her options open.
00:34:30.000Oh, really? Did that happen? That's kind of...
00:34:31.000Yeah, but that's got to be rough on Pattinson.
00:34:34.000Robert Pattinson? I think you might be gay, too.
00:34:36.000I don't know. But I saw him in a movie, a film recently.
00:34:39.000It wasn't very good. Wouldn't that be amazing if they had a relationship and now he's gay and she's a lesbian?
00:34:44.000It would be. I'd say a lot about that relationship.
00:34:46.000Yes, it would. It would almost be like Danny Kaye back in the day, or Rock Hudson, where they were all arranged, but secretly they were playing, you know, I'll find a coin with Gomer Pyle.
00:34:56.000I also saw a film recently with Daniel Radcliffe.
00:34:59.000They're trying to get out of their roles.
00:35:01.000Daniel Radcliffe is so embarrassingly bad at doing accents.
00:37:24.000I mean, I'm just shocked the man's alive.
00:37:26.000The liver transplant list has already been set up for Naki Jared.
00:37:30.000He's being held together by double-sided tape and strings from Jim Henson's Creature Shop right now.
00:37:34.000Melted Skittles. He's not at all what you think.
00:37:35.000Let me ask you this. Do you think, as it goes, because last time you said, you know what, Donald Trump, if he continues this, could be a two-termer.
00:37:40.000After this week, do you think he could right the ship?
00:37:44.000This has been a rough week, obviously.
00:41:19.000It's funny, on Twitter, I was looking, I'm sorry to hear about your back, but it's amazing what, like, you're like, yeah, I hurt my back, and people just immediately, hey, try falling off a scaffolding, you fruit!
00:41:30.000Like, their back injuries are legit, and yours is like, you know, you're a little sissy because you hurt your back doing something other than like a man's task.
00:41:57.000Do you mind taking off the weights? And then it's that rush home because you're in the eye of the storm, you know, before it seizes up on you.
00:42:03.000Do you wear like a belt when you lift?
00:42:05.000Because I just watched a video of the guy from Game of Thrones Mountain just broke the deadlift record.
00:42:09.000Yeah. I think he just set a world record lifting like a little over a thousand pounds.
00:43:55.000That's how all the rock stars said it.
00:43:57.000Yeah, that's how you know the kids are into it.
00:43:58.000Yeah. Theater of the Living Arts, and I sold out five shows in a couple of days.
00:44:03.000Wow. So that was the first thing that indicated to me, like, wow, this radio thing really is going to bring in an audience.
00:44:07.000But it's a weird—it's a relief and it's a pressure.
00:44:10.000Like, the relief is, I know I just have to be funny.
00:44:13.000I'm not going to offend them. If they're Opie and Anthony fans and they're there to see me, they're probably there to listen to what I have to say.
00:44:20.000But if I suck, they're going to let me know it because they're Opie and Anthony fans and they paid to see me.
00:44:23.000So I knew I had to be funny, but I knew I didn't have to worry about offending them.
00:44:28.000So it was kind of a pressure and no pressure at the same time.
00:44:30.000That's a good way of describing it because that was the first time for us at Virginia Tech where it was a 550 seat and they were turning hundreds of people away.
00:44:36.000And we were surprised. We actually, you know, because the comedy compression, I talk with these guys about it all the time, you want people packed in.
00:44:41.000If it's a room, you want them packed in as tightly as possible.
00:44:44.000So I had actually roped off the back rows and the side rows because I was like, well, let's put them in this pocket.
00:47:04.000I'm not nervous like, oh no, I'm not funny.
00:47:07.000What I'm nervous about is I hope I don't forget my act.
00:47:10.000I know most of the material will work in front of my audience because I've worked it out enough, but I hope I don't forget my act.
00:47:18.000I panic. I was going through this thing years ago where I was on stage.
00:47:21.000I was on a theater tour and I was getting lightheaded and I thought I was going to vomit on stage.
00:47:26.000And I was at the Orpheum in Boston, and I'm physically holding onto a chair in front of about 2,300 people, and I'm like, I'm gonna collapse, I'm gonna collapse.
00:48:16.000Well, you know what? There you go. You should do like a Jordan Peterson book, 12 Rules for Life with Jim Norton.
00:48:20.000Stage fright. I think a lot of people wouldn't realize that that would help.
00:48:23.000Hey, speaking of which, let me ask you, what do you think about the state of comedy as it relates more so to the entertainment industry?
00:48:28.000We just saw the Oscars. I don't know who you're...
00:48:30.000Obviously, I know you were tight with Jay Leno.
00:48:32.000I don't know who you're friends with in the late night department, so I don't want to get you in trouble, but Kimmel was super, super political there.
00:48:39.000I watched it, and it just seemed so flat, and it occurred to me.
00:48:42.000In 2018... Comedy, certainly as it relates to what you can see on television, thank God for Netflix and YouTube, it's not very fun anymore.
00:48:50.000You know, somebody raised a good point.
00:48:52.000I love Gervais when he hosts the Golden Globes because he kind of sets out to ruin their night.
00:48:56.000And somebody pointed out that you either play to the audience or you play to the people at home.
00:49:00.000Ricky plays to the people at home and Jimmy was playing to the audience.
00:49:04.000I was actually impressed because I was surprised he addressed Harvey Weinstein at all.
00:49:09.000I thought that they were going to totally and just bash Trump.
00:49:12.000And like, you want to bash Trump? That's fine.
00:49:13.000He's the president. But I thought it was just going to be so predictive.
00:49:16.000But I was a little shocked that they went into it.
00:49:20.000It's a tough gig for him too because a lot of those people might be victims in the audience who have had assaults from producers and not know what to do.
00:49:29.000He's probably going to bomb at the Oscars and then ruin the fact that he's never going to get these people on his show.
00:49:33.000Don't forget, he's performing for the people who come on his show.
00:49:38.000That's a good point for the audience at home, because imagine how hard.
00:49:42.000I mean, we would have been pissing ourselves laughing if he made, you know, the Hollywood rape jokes, and it made people in the audience really uncomfortable.
00:49:49.000You know, cut to Jennifer Garner, and she's like, and you're like, ah, she was one of them!
00:49:53.000We would be laughing at home, but you can't, so he has to cater to them.
00:49:57.000It's kind of like a talk about with a debate.
00:50:01.000What you have to do is identify who you're talking with.
00:50:03.000Is it someone whose mind can be changed?
00:50:05.000If so, you try to. And if it's not, if it's like a hardcore leftist who wants to get a span from SMU, what you have to do is go, okay, at this point, I'm talking to them for everyone else watching.
00:50:15.000Sure. Yeah, I've long since given up trying to change people's opinions because...
00:50:50.000Because whenever I mention Trump, I don't, I mean, I make fun of certain parts, but I don't just go up there and kill him, you know, because to me, every comic does that.
00:54:32.000Really? So long as they're not first cousins.
00:54:36.000Uh... Jim Norton, Ben Shapiro, thank you so much.
00:54:40.000And by the way, we were going to be broadcasting live from South by Southwest next week.
00:54:44.000They kicked us out. They revoked our passes.
00:54:47.000Now, me and Nake Jared, when we But we won't be broadcasting live.
00:54:53.000So it's going to be a normal show next Thursday, and then March 22nd, live from SMU, the week after that, Illinois, live broadcasting on campus.
00:54:58.000Who knows what could happen? Nobody knows.
00:55:00.000A little bit different for the last segment today.
00:55:17.000Thanks, Stephen. Thank you for being on the show.
00:55:19.000Now, listen, for people who don't know, this is actually, we wanted to have her on because this is going to be her last day at writing at Lotto's Crowder.
00:55:24.000Today is her last day, and we wanted to see her off.
00:55:27.000Nicole, how long have you been writing at the website?
00:57:51.000And honestly, I didn't know that you were, especially going on campus, I don't want to reveal anything, but wheelchair-bound, that was kind of a surprise.
00:57:57.000When Courtney told me that a while back, I didn't even know.
00:58:00.000And I felt like a real ass for not knowing.
00:58:01.000I should have asked. What is this exactly?
00:58:05.000Because most people are not familiar with it.
00:58:07.000Yeah, so everyone's, you know, familiar with acute Lyme disease, as you said.
00:58:11.000It's something that you can get from a tick bite.
00:58:13.000Also, mosquitoes and spiders can carry it.
00:58:16.000However, if you're not treated right away after you get bitten and infected, it can turn into chronic Lyme or late-stage Lyme.
00:58:25.000And that basically is just these little bacteria.
00:58:29.000They're spiral shaped and they can get into anywhere in your body.
00:58:33.000And so they love the nervous system and attacking the nervous system.
00:58:37.000So mine got into my brain and my spinal fluid.
00:58:40.000And so I have problems with seizures, cognitive difficulties, heart My difficulties just started having thyroid stuff.
01:00:32.000And so there's new tests that have been developed and they picked up on mine from those new tests, new tests, but it took them eight years to find.
01:00:41.000Hey, listen, don't worry about the word flip.
01:00:43.000You're doing better than me right now.
01:00:58.000I'm just a moron. By the way, people, and the reason I wanted to bring you on was because I know it's hard to get in to see specialists and neurologists and people who might know those fields.
01:01:07.000Put it this way. With the people out there, wherever they line up on Lyme disease or chronic Lyme disease or this idea or not, you know, you have these neurological issues.
01:01:13.000I know you need help, and I know that it's been tough.
01:01:16.000You know, there's a long waiting line with specialists.
01:01:18.000So please, anyone out there, if you can help her, email nicole at loudroscreditor.com.
01:01:24.000Nicole with an H. And I wanted to bring you on, too, Nicole, because we've talked about this.
01:01:30.000There are very, very few layoffs in this company.
01:01:34.000And honestly, the only reason the layoffs that have happened have ever happened is because it affected everybody else on the team.
01:01:39.000And you came to us blind with a golden ticket application, and we've always kind of done these sort of employee assessments.
01:01:47.000And Courtney and Jared and I, and specifically Courtney and the website, whenever it came to you, we were like, well, she's particularly got a great attitude.
01:01:54.000Mm-hmm. Such a positive attitude, such a can-do attitude, and you're a student, and you've always been so grateful, and we've been grateful to you, and you've been so consistent, and to the point where I honestly didn't know that your health was as bad as it was, because people wouldn't know it to communicate with you, and you've helped a lot of other people, so I wanted to just do what we can to get you some help here.
01:02:17.000You've been great to us. Thank you so much, Steven.
01:02:31.000Well, it's been a pleasure for us to have you work for us.
01:02:36.000And, of course, if you recover, you always have a welcome spot to come back.
01:02:40.000And, you know, I think it's important for people to see out there.
01:02:41.000A lot of people, they just think, you know, we've talked about this.
01:02:44.000People who work for me are the first people I think of when I get up, often the last people before I go to sleep, outside of my wife.
01:02:48.000Constantly we've been talking about this.
01:02:50.000Constantly we've been thinking about these things.
01:02:51.000And constantly we want to make sure that people are taken care of.
01:02:54.000That's why we have a very closely knit team.
01:02:55.000Now we could just hire day raiders like other companies do and pay them the lowest amount to do clickbait, which we've seen a lot of sites fall by the wayside.
01:03:02.000But I think a big part of it is people like Courtney and Casey and Brodigan and Corey and yourself and of course Jared and everyone who works here.
01:03:08.000I think people can sense a difference.
01:03:10.000And people can sense a difference. A big part of these sweepstakes and a big reason you went through is, like I said, there's an attitude in the way you treat other people, the way you work with other people.
01:03:19.000It's been a real blessing to a lot of us.
01:03:21.000And, you know, we're really sad to see you go.
01:03:24.000But I really hope that someone out there hearing this can give you a hand.
01:03:28.000And hopefully some people also learn. Listen, not all employers, employees, it's not the Scrooge McDuck.