Mary Walter (1:25)

All right. Hour two of the Rob Carson Show. Mary Walter. That's me sitting in for Rob Carson. I will be back with you on Friday as well. My chair stuck. Oh, there we go. Okay. I was rolling over on myself there. You can find me on X at Mary Walter radio. Feel free to just tag me in a post if you can't call in. But I would love to Hear your voice. 800-922-6680. That is my number if you want to jump in on anything. We're talking about gonna go through some news here because this Somali fraud thing is a big, big, big, big. So let's get into to some of this. First of all, let's go to cut 4 first in this. This is the Department of Health and Human Services. The deputy HHS secretary is named Jim o' Neill and he's in this video with somebody else. I don't know who it is. So I'm just going to tell you that I don't know who it is because I was very while watching this video I was just captured and mesmerized by Jim o' Neill because it almost looked like AI if that sounds weird. But he did. He's clearly uncomfortable talking on camera. Clearly. And I'm like, oh, they trotted this poor man out and they're making him do this. And this dude is not having any of it at all. So if you get a chance to watch it, it's. It's interesting. I found it interesting, which is why I did not pay attention to the second guy's name. So that's my bad and somewhat unprofessional. Forgive me. All right, so they're talking about the Department of Health and Human Services announcing yesterday that they have frozen federal child care funding for the entire state of Minnesota. Like, the whole state. We're shutting it down. And so listen to what he has to say here. And then I'm going to go into a little bit about what CBS News, their analysis of all of this. So here he is, Deputy HHS Secretary Jim o'. Neill.

Jim O'Neill (3:36)

Hello, I'm HHS Deputy Secretary Jim o'.

Mary Walter (3:38)

Neill.

Jim O'Neill (3:39)

I'm here with Assistant Secretary Alex Adams. Alex oversees the Administration for Children and Families. Intrepid journalists have made shocking and credible allegations of extensive fraud in Minnesota's child care programs. We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decades.

Alex Adams (3:58)

My office, ACF, provides Minnesota $185 million in child care funds each year. That money should be helping 19,000American children, including toddlers and infants. Any dollar stolen by fraudsters is stolen from those children. Yesterday, I spoke directly with the director of the Minnesota Child Care Services office. She could not tell me with confidence whether those allegations of fraud are isolated or whether there's fraud stretching statewide.

Jim O'Neill (4:25)

Today, we have taken three direct actions against the blatant fraud that seems to be rampant in Minnesota. First, I have activated our Defend the Spend system for all ACF child care payments across America starting today. We require a justification receipt or photo evidence before we make a payment. Second, I've just signed and sent a demand letter to Governor Walz. I required a full 360 review of these centers. This includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations, and inspections.

Alex Adams (4:56)

And third, we've launched a dedicated fraud reporting hotline and email address@childcare.gov whether you're a parent, a provider, a member of the public, we want to hear from you. Let me be crystal clear. ACF expects every state to uphold the highest standards of oversight, monitoring and accountability for federal dollars.

Jim O'Neill (5:15)

Minnesota is no exception, committed to holding bad actors accountable. Regardless of rank or office, anyone who's involved in perpetrating this fraud against the American people should expect to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Mary Walter (5:30)

So here's the thing. Fullest extent of the law. I'm sure that's gonna happen for some low level guy. I think the Somalis that can flee are gonna flee. They're beaten feet back to. Not Somalia, but wherever they happen to have bought their chalet or lakeside villa or chateau, that's where they're going to go. They're not going. There's somebody boug in Turkey, apparently like a beachfront thing in Turkey, some village villa. So, so that's where they're going there. They are not going beaten feet back to Somalia. But they're out. They're gonna go. They're probably on their way now. So. And by the way, that guy's name is Adams. What is it? I wrote it down. Alex Adams. That's the other, the other guy in the video was. So they're going to turn the spigot off. They're turning off the spigot now. CBS News conducted their own analysis of daycare centers that were all mentioned by Nick Shirley and his psychic Dave, all but to have active licenses, according to state records. And all active locations were visited by state regulators within the last six months. So they're defending this. CBS is now defending this, right? $9 billion in fraud. And just like that, you know, the left is defending fraud. Here we go. The analysis found dozens of citations for safety, cleanliness and other issues. But no recorded evidence of fraud. Well, of course not. Who's doing, who did the auditing of these places? I think that this is a very, very complex web. There were people who blew the whistle who said nobody wanted to hear it. They ignored it. They paid no attention to when they were blowing the whistle years ago about all of this. Some of the daycare centers. According to CBS News, they say some of the daycare centers featured in Shirley's video have pushed back against the fraud allegations. One of the facilities, ABC Learning Cent, shared surveillance videos with CBS News that showed parents dropping off children on the same day as Shirley's visit. And that also those videos are making their like, oh, look, children suddenly showing up. It's a very closed community. So they're like, hey, you got your kids, you got to come down here and drop your kids off. Who knows, maybe they're legit, right? Tim Walsh responded on social media by saying this is Trump's long game We've spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It's a serious issue. But this has been his plan. All politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans. Help Minnesotans what? Buy Lamborghinis? Is that what it's for? All payments, as you heard from hhs Administration for Children and families nationwide will require now a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state. They sent about 185 million in child care funds to Minnesota alone. Alone. All right, so. So we, we got that. Now breaking news. I'm seeing this all over X. One of the Somali daycares in Minnesota, in Minneapolis at the center of the fraud investigation called Nokomis Daycare center is now reporting that there was a break in overnight at the facility and that multiple documents including child records and checkbooks are missing. Here we go. Here we go. And the COVID up has begun in my humble opinion. Yeah. And. And they show it even show like somebody cut a hole in a wall and there. And I'm like, well why would they cut a hole in the wall? How would they know if it was a, if it was a robbery? How would someone know to cut a hole in the wall there to get something out of it? Right. Nokomis Daycare center, he said they received telephone threats of violence and they were broken into last night and vandalized and someone took the checkbooks and parents documents were stolen. Come on. Do you honestly think that that was just a person who is. Is random? No. They knew where everything was. Someone said regarding this, this particular daycare, there's one across the street from me and never once have single person walking through those doors. They do have two vans that never move. A white one and a black one. Every time a loud vehicle drives past, the alarms go off. So someone is watching them. So. All right, there's that. Now let's. I want to talk about this. Okay. So let's talk about the money and the. Let's go to cuts one and two here if we can. Brian. So there's no story with this. This was just a somewhat long video that I found online by Alpha News and a woman called Liz Collins. Liz Collins of Alpha News. And I've seen her around a little bit. She's. She's kind of coming up and she's speaking with a former TSA agent at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. And I want you to listen to what she says about how the Somalis got this money out of the United States. Cut one.

Former TSA Agent (10:37)

I saw suitcases filled with millions of dollars of cash. And the couriers were always Somali men traveling in pairs. And they got through the checkpoint, and it just. It just really, absolutely blew my mind. The first time you open a suitcase and you see millions of dollars of cash. And typically what would happen is LEO or a law enforcement officer would come check their credentials. I don't know what kind of questions they asked them, but. But their IDs were always documented and probably their plane tickets as well, so. So there is a trail of that out there. And I would believe with all the cameras at the airport that if they started there, they could probably find each and every individual that brought money through the checkpoint.

Mary Walter (11:34)

Yeah, suitcases. And she goes on in the video to claim in her five years working at a TSA agent at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport that there had to be at least a billion dollars that passed through that airport in cash alone. It's crazy. Before I get on an airliner, I'm like, taking everything out of my pocketbook because I once accidentally didn't do it on purpose. Okay. It happened twice, but accidentally. And they never caught it, by the way, which makes me a little scared. I had a pink pepper spray thing in my pocketbook, made it through TSA twice with it in there, because I had been in Manhattan, both. I've been in D.C. once. So I had it and went through. Nobody caught it. And they caught it when I was trying to board the plane in Spokane, Washington to head home. They caught it and they're like, is this yours? I'm like, oh, my gosh. Had no idea it was in there. I was in Washington, D.C. i put it in my pocket and it would just went to the bottom, and I truly didn't know it was in there. And then the second time, I'm on the plane going through my pocketbook. I just left. And I'm on the plane going through my pocketbook, and I see it. I'm like, oh. And I show it to my. So I'm like, oh, my gosh. He said. He goes, put it away. And he goes, what is wrong? So now he makes me take everything out of my pocketbook because I take a bigger one, you know, to travel makes me take everything out. And so I'm crazed. But they're taking millions of dollars in cold, hard cash as their carry on. And she said at least a billion dollars went through, but that is not all that she saw go through with Somalis accompanying it. And coming up, you're going to hear the second part of this to something else that she Saw go through and it was allowed to go through, wasn't questioned and they were free to do it. That's coming up on the Rob Carson Show.

Rob Carson (13:34)

The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.

Mary Walter (13:54)

Yeah. Looking back on the year, there were a lot of ups. I have to to admit that President Trump really kept me laughing and kept me on my toes. He has a tendency to do that. This is why I don't think we see Melania much. She's like, she just needs some time away. Like it's like living with a whirlwind, you know? But anyway, all right. So I'm Mary Walter and for Rob Carson, if you Want to comment, 800-922-6680. Hit me up on X if you would like at Mary Walter Radio. Joseph did that. He said how long until some first generation immigrant federal judge whose name sounds like a Star wars villain store the funding to all of these programs that they said that they are pausing. Mm. It's probably exactly what's going to happen. So let's go back to our TSA agent. This woman was a TSA agent for five years at the Minnesota Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. And she we heard her talk about at least a billion dollars in cash left, always accompanied by two Somali men. And in her five years, at least a billion dollars that she saw. So imagine how much ex country in cash and they were always given the green light, always cleared through. Now something else left. Listen here to what she said. There was some other things that also left the airport and she was shocked, but they were allowed to go through.

Former TSA Agent (15:15)

There was another instance again, a Somali man that had a carry on luggage filled with brand new passports and he was allowed to get through the checkpoint. So where he went with those passports is anybody's guess.

Mary Walter (15:31)

Brand new passports. Who's allowed to take a suitcase full of brand new passports? Now, she did not say we that they were American passports or foreign passports or whatever. But my hunches, they were probably American passports. They take them back, I guess to Somalia. Takes him back to his workshop like the Grinch, and he fills them out and then brings them back to the who so he enjoy who ville. This is all very, very disturbing. And how did he keep getting through with that? It doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, to say that the TSA cops are in on this. I don't know. Like, I realize A lot of money disappeared. But the more people involved in a cover up, the more likely the COVID up is to not be, not be covered up very long. You know, it's like you tell one person, they would say, if you tell someone a secret, it's no longer a secret because you told somebody. So now if they tell someone and the next thing you know, everybody knows, right? So. So I find it hard to believe that all of these people are in on unless they were just told, this is what's going to happen, this is how you do it, and that's that. And maybe that's why whistleblower started coming through, coming, coming forward back in the day, not that probably five years or so ago, with Tim Walls telling him, hey, this is happening, and telling their supervisors this is happening. And being told to be quiet, keep your head down, and just keep doing what you're supposed to do. And they want to keep their job, right? You don't want lose your job. You want to be able to feed your family. You don't want the power of the state coming down on you because that's super scary. We've seen what happens when that happens. And so there you go. So it continues. And I'm not saying that the TSA officers, law enforcement officers, the LEOs, as she calls them, we're doing anything purposely nefarious, but if they said they just put their head down and did what they were supposed to do and they were told, yeah, anything these people bring through or certain people bring through, they get to bring it through. And they get to, you know, be feet and leave the country with it. Whether it is a million dollars in cash or $500,000 in cash or it's a suitcase full of brandy, new passports, you're. And because who wants the power of the state coming down on them? You got to feed your kid. Look what happened during COVID when you, when you don't think that the, you know, the power of the state's going to come down with you. Tim Walls had, what was it, National Guard in the streets. I could be wrong. It could have just been the police. Correct me, please feel free. It could have just been. But if you were sitting on your front porch during COVID you and your family sitting on your front porch during COVID They, they were authorized to shoot you with paintballs, which by the way, hurt if you dared to sit outside on your front porch. You want to talk about how authoritarianism very easily spreads where like, oh, the cops would never do that. Our police officers would never do that, you know, they're on our side. They're just like, we are really, really. Remember having to carry your papers around to prove that, you know, you had been vaccinated and that if you hadn't been, they had the power and proved that they would take away your ability to feed your family. And how many people were cheering them on saying that you didn't belong in proper society? How many people were saying that you shouldn't be allowed to fly on an airplane? They cheered when you were thrown out of a restaurant if you didn't have your papers. So when I hear something like this, I'm like, yeah, I can see how this happens very easily where you have this type of widespread fraud and be like, how did it go this long? Because people who stuck their heads up from behind the cubicle in the cubicle farm, you know, they're the one, they're the meerkat and stuck their head up, usually got it shot off. So they kept their head down and said, look, I got kids to feed. I want to retire. I don't want, I don't want to get fired. I don't want to have a ton of legal bills. So I'm just going to keep my head down and wait till this is over and I'm, and then I'm out. Some brave ones did blow the whistle thinking that, you know, oh, I'm doing the right thing, and they blow the whistle and I'm going to, you know, I'm doing the right thing here. This is going to be good. I'm doing the right thing for my country and what I know is morally right. And they luckily, if they were lucky, they were just told to go back, sit down and shut up and do your job. And if they were unlucky, they wound up being the victim of harassment. So coming up, Doug Burns is going to be joining us. He is a former federal prosecutor. We're going to talk about some of these things. We're also going to talk about Charlie, kill Charlie Kirk's killer, alleged killer in court, and the pipe bomber confession, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me also a little bit on January 6th as well. So a lot coming up with Doug Burns here on the Rob Carson Show.

Tony Marino (20:46)

Hi, it's Tony Marino, host of the super popular Newsmax Daily podcast. A rundown of the day's top headlines and top highlights of Newsmax shows and interviews you may have missed. Plus some sports, stock markets and even some yucks all packed into about 20 minutes. Search for the Newsmax Daily with me Tony Marino on your favorite podcast platform. And check out our entire lineup of great podcasts, including Greg, Greg Kelly, Rob Carson and Jerry Callahan@Newsmax.com Listen.

Mary Walter (21:36)

And welcome back to THE ROB Carson Show. How are you? I'm Mary Walter here for Rob Carson, and I will be back with you on Friday for Rob as well. All right. Joining me now, Doug Burns. He's a former federal prosecutor. You can find him at Doug Burns Law super easy. DOUG Burns Law on X. Doug, happy New Year. Welcome to the Rob Carson show on the Newsmax hotline. Forgot to say, you're on the Newsmax hotline. That's important. Doug, welcome to the show.

Rob Carson (22:10)

Thank you, Marion, Happy New Year to you.

Mary Walter (22:12)

Thank you so much. There's so much I want to talk to you about. And I know you have a heart out. So let's get to it. Okay, so this guy, Brian Cole, Jr. Nobody knows his name, everybody forgot about this. But this is the guy that U.S. attorney Janine Pirro, I just want to call her Judge Jeanine. She posted on X that he has admitted responsibility for the devices that the pipe bombs that were placed outside the RNC and the DNC on January 5th, five years ago. Coming up on five years just before the January 6th fed direction that happened. And he provided detail, detailed confession, etc. But he basically comes out of this. What we get is he hates both political parties. He didn't have like for one politician or for another or against another or anything along those lines. So what the question that comes to me is, well, then why couldn't the FBI figure this out before? Like, why?

Rob Carson (23:07)

Well, you have the sort of sanitized answer and the real answer. And I think people are going to be very interested to hear the real answer, which is troubling. It really, really is. I mean, the sanitized answer is, you know, there are lots of resources that have to be allocated in federal law enforcement and unfortunately, you know, they weren't able to devote time. That's mostly hogwash. The real reason here, sadly, tragically, really disgustingly, I know I'm being dramatic, but it's warranted, is that the whole J6 thing, you know, nobody needs me to explain, was just an intense and intense shoving of a narrative, forcing a narrative down everybody's throats, not being open minded to anything else that would contradict that narrative. And that narrative, of course, is that MAGA Trump supporters and white supremacists were behind everything. And, you know, then we find out that this particular defendant is African American. And it's just Breathtaking that they didn't make the case.

Mary Walter (24:07)

It's insane to me. So I just don't get it because.

Rob Carson (24:12)

That'S my take on it. And I'll tell you what, let's complete the analysis. Mary. You know, and it pains me to say this, and Martin Luther King himself is turning over in his grave. If this individual were Caucasian and just up the ante times 10 on steroids, if he were a MAGA person, a known, you know, Trump supporter, that could be clearly proven. My thesis is he would have been arrested long, long, long ago.

Mary Walter (24:38)

Exactly, exactly. I agree with you 100%. I agree. So that. That opinion is allowed. But here's the thing. You know, I don't know, it just seemed. It just made them look really super incompetent, I think. Just really, really super incompetent that they couldn't figure this out. Because, you know, I know if you're walking through was your face is your is being taken, the picture constantly, you're constantly being photographed. They know where he got on the metro. They know where he got off the Metro just by swiping the Metro card. So none of it ever really made sense to me at all. And just the fact that.

Rob Carson (25:22)

Sorry to interrupt you, Mary. I couldn't agree more. And the point is, you know, historians play a big role, no joke. You know, you look ahead down the road, could be 50 years, we're going to call it. And let's say some historian gets access to all kinds of documents and information, right? And memos and emails and texts. And I think the history books are going to reflect that this was a combination of incompetence. Exactly what you just said. But also perhaps an intentional desire to not move the case forward.

Mary Walter (25:51)

It's crazy. It is absolutely crazy. Speaking about January 6th, Democrats are going to reconvene a special committee for a hearing to mark the fifth anniversary of. Of the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. capitol. And of course, criticized Trump and his administration for trying to whitewash history. Here's my thing. Keem Jeffries put out a dear colleague letter about all of this dollar dollar store Obama. And they're gonna hold a special hearing to honor first responders, you know, who, many of them died in the line of duty on January 6. And expose the election deniers. Now, how come, since they're. What they're basically doing is celebrating the statute of limitations ending so that anybody involved in the Fed direction is not going to get prosecuted. Now, where is Pam Bondi? What the heck?

Rob Carson (26:40)

Yeah, no, that's a really good point, which I hadn't thought of. You're right. To the extent that there might be prosecutions, should be prosecutions, you know, in the other ideological, political direction, the statute has run out. You're right. I mean, look, J6 without, you know, rehashing it too much. But that was from somebody like me, an expert in federal criminal law and in hundreds and hundreds of cases. I was an Assistant U.S. attorney for nine years in the Department of Justice. The point is, that was just a breathtaking overkill situation, analogous to a professional fishing net. I'm not kidding. Which is supposed to get certain fish, but then takes in other stuff that doesn't belong in the net. And the point is, it was just a breathtaking, overblown political scenario. And that's why I always say politics and law don't mix. I must say, behooves me to say, obviously there were defendants where prosecution was warranted, but there were also defendants who were mere trespassers and they just went way over their ski tips with the whole thing, in my opinion.

Mary Walter (27:40)

I agree. But we do know the Fed. The feds finally admitted that they had agents undercover.

Rob Carson (27:46)

Yeah, yeah.

Mary Walter (27:47)

In the crowd. And one guy, one defendant actually pushed it and got them to admit that the guy who led him into the Capitol was one of those federal agents. He was totally set up. So, I mean, this, this, to me, these convictions should have been thrown out of court. They were not. And someone. We've had five years. Well, really not because. Because the president, pudding pants, wasn't doing anything. But we had. They should have been working in the background, in my humble opinion, to have. To be ready when Trump was sworn in to start with some of these subpoenas and find out who these people were because they, they exceeded the law, they broke with their actions as law enforcement officials, and nothing's happening.

Rob Carson (28:35)

Yeah, no question about it. I mean, we saw, you know, certainly in my career, which now spans 40 years, and I've been around the block, became a lawyer in 1985. But the point is, in my 40 years as a lawyer, I've never seen examples like the lawfare cases, the four cases, and the J6 situation. I've just never seen law weaponized and politicized to those levels. And the message and the moral hopefully coming out of it is that it won't happen again because. Just disgraceful what went on with the whole J6 thing. And to me, what was interesting was a non law point has nothing to do with law. It just has to do with social interaction. And free expression, to me, was the first time in my life, honestly, where I saw people just hysterically canceled and shouted down, like, how dare you raise. Raise any question about what went on that day? You know, just like Covid. How dare you say that. It might have come out of a lab. How dare you question a vaccine? After all, you're denying science. So, again, from 30,000ft, America went through a situation where another point of view became not tolerated. And that really surprised me, I got to be honest with you.

Mary Walter (29:49)

Well, it's fascism silencing the opposition's fascism.

Rob Carson (29:52)

That's exactly what it is. And then, of course, their playbook. Playbook. So thank you for the Segway, because you're so right. The playbook, then, is to just call the other side in reverse fascists. That's an intentional playbook, because what they did with J6 was fascism. What they did with COVID and the vaccine and hysterically canceling anybody who had the audacity, the temerity to raise any question about it. That was clearly fascist behavior. My opinion.

Mary Walter (30:18)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the fact that they're gonna walk away. And you said, you know, hopefully, it'll never happen again. When you. When you're actually going to celebrate it, you know that it's gonna happen again. They did it. It worked. They got away with it. No one was punished. That is a recipe for it happening again the next time they are in power. I guarantee you something similar will happen again where they will break the law purposefully, knowingfully, and they will rub it in your nose, and they will rub it in our faces, knowing full well that they will get away with it time and time and time again. And that's the dangerous part of this. And this is why I think Pam Bondi needs to be replaced, and you should be in her position.

Rob Carson (31:00)

Yeah, well, I appreciate that, but I'll tell you what. First of all, a little personal trivia point. My late father, Arnold Burns, was Deputy Attorney General, number two in the DOJ when Ed Meese was Attorney General. So that's a big point of family pride. But the point is, you're absolutely right. I mean, when there's no accountability, that would certainly breed. Read it. Happening again. But again, the other point I want to make, just lastly, is think about how brilliant the American public was as a jury, so to speak, saw right through it and reelected President Trump.

Mary Walter (31:30)

Yeah. But many, many, many lives were ruined. Let's quickly. There's a lot I want to get to. Charlie Kirk. We have his alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson in the courtroom. They are. It looks like they're going to allow a little bit more transparency than what team would like. Do you want to see cameras in the courtroom?

Rob Carson (31:53)

I personally don't, and I find myself a little bit in the minority. But the reason I mentioned this is that the Simpson trial went on for months and months when it should have been a six week trial. It created a whole cottage industry of quasi celebrities and all of that. Human nature is human nature. So to me, cameras engender a lot of much more mugging for the cameras and all of that. So I'm against it. But I understand the transparency point and that people want to be kept abreast of what's going on. But at the same time, you can have good journalists coming out of the courtroom. I was in court all day, reporting live. Let me recap what happened, that type of thing. I'm more of a fan of that. But back to, ironically, back to this thing about shouting down the other side if somebody expresses an opinion that they want cameras. I'm entirely in favor of hearing that opinion.

Mary Walter (32:39)

Yeah. I just think that he. That the assassin chose a very, very public assassination and knew it would be on television. Some kind of thinking that, you know what? Yeah, well, maybe it should be on tv. I wish I had more time with you because I have so many more questions about like, Hillary Clinton and Minnesota voting and you have to go, so. That's fine, Doug. Leave me. That's okay.

Rob Carson (33:02)

I am very, very sorry. Most apologetic. Everybody can watch me on Newsmax in 10 minutes.

Mary Walter (33:09)

Ah, all right, we'll see you on Newsmax in 10 minutes. Doug. Have a very, very wonderful 2020. Hopefully I get to speak with you again soon. Take care. Thank you so much for joining me on the Newsmax hotline, By the way. Fitting that he has to go for a hit on Newsmax television. See, look at that. Yeah, I wanted to ask him about Hillary Clinton and so many other things, but it is what it is. Coming up in less than an hour. Fred Flights, though, will be joining us. We'll talk about some news with him and also Trump's meetings with Netanyahu and Zelinsky. I've got more coming up, though. Don't go anywhere where you're listening to the Rob Carson Show. And welcome back to the Rob Carson Show. How are you? It's almost 2026, so for those of you like me, who are kind of happy to see 2025 go away, although like I said, some really great things happened in 2025, like my highs were really high and my lows were kind of really, really low. So I think a lot of people feel that way, kind of can. Can see that as well. We lost someone this year. Brigitte Bardot, she passed away at 91 years old. But listen to this fun fact. Billy Joel's song from 1989, you know, we Didn't Start the Fire, which I'm. You put it to music. I can memorize anything. Like, I can memorize anything if you put it to music. And so the big thing when this song came out was memorizing the whole thing. Like, just. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. The song lists 59 people. Only 3 of the people listed in that song are still alive because Harry Truman, Doris Day, singer Johnny Ray, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Marilyn Monroe, the Rosenbergs, Sugar Ray Robinson, Marlon Brando, Dwight Eisenhower, Queen Elizabeth ii, on and on and on and on and on, have all passed away except for, get this, Bob Dylan and Chubby checker. They're both 84 years old. Bob Dylan's 84 years old. Fun Bob Dylan fact. So I live at the. I live at the Jersey Shore in the People's Socialist Republic of New Jersey. And there is a town right near me that is pretty run down. And so they're trying to revitalize it by having a bunch of New Yorkers move into it, which, yay for them, at least it's not my town. And so he was, for whatever reason, at the Jersey Shore. And you could just take the train from New York, and it comes right. And it stops right in this town. So. So he was there and he was wandering around, and a young police officer stopped him because she thought he was an ER do. Well, because of the way Bob Dylan looks. And this was like, this is less than 10 years ago. She had no clue who Bob Dylan was, so she arrested him. She took him to the police department, and it turns out that she brought Bob Dylan in. Like, she didn't arrest him for anything, but she wanted to check him out. So he went peacefully with her. And I'm sure he thought it was quite hilarious, but he's 84 years old right now. And the other person. So Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, you know who the other one is? A lot of people don't know who this person is. Bernie Goetz, member, on the subway in New York, he was defending himself and he shot the kids on the subway. Bernie Getz, subway shooter. That's how he's known his whole life. And Then he kind of like, after all of that in the trial and everything, he kind of like, disappeared into obscurity. Can't blame him. He's 87 years old. Wow. And in a 1994 question and answer session at Oxford University, Billy Joel said the song was inspired by a conversation with which he had with a friend of John Lennon's son, Sean Lennon. He said, I had just turned 40 years old. It was around my birthday. I was in the studio, I was trying to think of ideas for. So. And I met this kid who had just turned 21. And he said the friend told him, it's a terrible time to be 21. And I said, yeah, I remember when I turned 21, I thought it was an awful time. We had Vietnam. There was drug problems, the civil rights problems. Everything seemed awful. And he. And he was talking to this kidney, said, but it was different for you. The kid said, you was different for you because you were a kid in the 50s, and everybody knows that nothing happened in the 50s, right? So Billy Joel's like, wait a minute. It. Have you ever heard of the Korean War? The Suez Canal Crisis? He goes, so I started writing these things out, almost like an exercise. And I got this idea for a song. The song spans 40 years, 1949 until 1989, when he wrote it. And he felt that it had some symmetry to it. And as the dork that I am, when the song came out, I looked up everything that I didn't know so that I understand, I understood exactly what he was talking about. Because thus answering the question why I didn't go to the prom. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and then we're back with more of the Rob Carson Show. All right, so here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. Something, you gotta start drinking more whiskey. Yep. We just went on the Bourbon tour in October. The weather was miserable, absolutely horrifically miserable. But it was a lot of fun. We had a great time. We really. We really enjoyed ourselves. And I went with a group, and you want a professional tour. And you went to, you know, you had two, three distilleries. They won't do more than three, for obvious reasons, at a clip, which I think is a smart thing. And we really. We really enjoyed it. But we're big bourbon people. We love bourbon. And. But apparently a lot of people are not drinking bourbon anymore. The younger generation, see, I blame you people. The Gen Z, serious, could we do something about them? They don't drive. They don't like to talk on the phone. They also are not drinking. They're turning away from booze. And they're all they're heading more towards edibles. There you go. So they're, they're more into the gummy craze, which, by the way, still is not legal on a federal level. So if you have a firearms ID card and you partake, you are violating the law a la Hunter Biden. And you will not get a free pass a la Hunter Biden. You will be held to the letter of the law. I'm pretty sure the sales of American whiskey more than tripled between the early 2000s and the pandemic because there was a cocktail culture. Also Mad Men, the TV show Mad Men, I think had a lot to do with it. But now, and Kentucky alone has 16 million barrels of bourbon currently aging in warehouses, more than triple what it was 15 years ago. And Americans, and this happens, it coincides with Americans buying less alcohol over overall and retailers are now sitting on excess stock. Industry shows American spirits exports fell 9% year over year in the second quarter. Part of it, Canada, they're boycotting us, Damn Canadians. But also fewer shipments to the eu, the UK And Japan. By the way, if you're a bourbon aficionado, Japan gets some great British bottles that we don't get. So. All right. Coming up next hour, Fred Flights and more from you on the Rob Carson Show.