Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #159: Socialist Seattle's Schools are $100 million in the hole.....but only two Democrats in the entire House of Representatives vote to condemn socialism. Tony Romo apologizes and we should accept it. And, Arrowhead "apologizes" for blocking a student from discussing her faith in a graduation slideshow, but is the apology sincere?

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #159: Socialist Seattle's Schools are $100 million in the hole.....but only two Democrats in the entire House of Representatives vote to condemn socialism. Tony Romo apologizes and we should accept it. And, Arrowhead "apologizes" for blocking a student from discussing her faith in a graduation slideshow, but is the apology sincere? · The Mark Belling Podcast

• 0:06
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• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You know, you could actually say it's official right now
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: that the Democrats are fine with socialism. We keep hearing
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: that there's this war within the Democratic Party. The socialists
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: and the traditional Democrats. War. And I keep watching this
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and I don't see a war. I see the socialists
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: taking control of the party and the old bull Democrats
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: pretty much being okay with it. Oh, they'll want to
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: win elections, and they worry that maybe a socialist will
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: lose a seat in the general election. But beyond that,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: they're fine with this. They held a vote yesterday in
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the United States House of Representatives. Admittedly, this was a
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Republican setup. They tried to get the Democrats to take
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the bait, and they did. The resolution in front of
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the House is whether or not you're going to condemn socialism.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: out of the entire House of Representatives, only two voted
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: to do so. The rest voted no. No, we're not
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: going to condemn socialism. Socialism's fine. So now that it's
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: established that you have two major political parties and one
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: of them is perfectly fine with socialism, we now know
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: where we are. Now I'm going to dive into this
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: in a little bit of depth here. Because the problem
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: is both simple and complex at the same time, which...
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Sounds like political speech, but it's actually true. Uline, excuse me,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: wrong script. Second script. Have you ever been offered the
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  Speaker 2: quality shipping supplies, reliable warehouse equipment, or office furniture fast,
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  Speaker 2: contact Uline and get the best service. Because Uline believes
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: service is essential, not an option. Now let's deal with
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: the politics of this first. Let's imagine you're a regular
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: old Democrat. And not one of the, like, dumb ones
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: who doesn't know what to do, like, say, Gwen Moore.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: We don't have any of the regular old Democrats in
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Congress in the state of Wisconsin anymore. You either have
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a radical like Polkan, a backbench, follow the leader like
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Gwen Moore. But let's go and just grab another generic state.
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  Speaker 2: And you have a Democrat. Say Virginia. I'm a Democrat.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a Bill Clinton Democrat. I'm even a Barack Obama Democrat.
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  Speaker 2: But you've never run on socialism. You've denied that you're
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: socialist and you generally believe in your lefty version of capitalism.
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  Speaker 2: So here this resolution comes up. Do you condemn socialism? Again,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: let's imagine you're a regular old Democrat and in your
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: mind at least you don't think you're a socialist. Why
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: wouldn't you vote for this resolution? Here's the answer. They
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: realize that a huge segment of their own voters are socialists.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: They're all worried about being primary. The primaries are pretty
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: much now over for 2026, but they're going to come
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: around again in 2028. Remember that the House members are
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: up every two years. And all over the country, you're
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: seeing incumbent Democrats being knocked out in primaries by socialists.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: They're all afraid of this. It's going to be tested,
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  Speaker 2: I think, in Wisconsin. I suspect in 2028, somebody's going
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: to go after Mark Pocan, as lefty as he is
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: to Madison. A huge segment of the Madison Democrats are
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: to the left of him. They're out and out radical Marxists.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: They're all terrified of doing anything They don't want to
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: poke the bear. If the socialists are the bear, they
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: don't want to poke them. They don't want to do anything. Oh, no, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 2: We're fine with you guys. We're fine with you guys.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: We're fine with you guys. Look at the statement of
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: David Crowley when he was running against Francesca Hong. We
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: pretty much agree on all of the issues. Now, this
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: is when he's trying to tell the voters that she
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: can't be elected governor because she's a socialist, then turns
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: around and from the other side of his mind, I'm
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  Speaker 2: fine with this. He knows that in order to win
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the general election, he needs a socialist to vote for him.
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  Speaker 2: So they're scared to death of them. When you think
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  Speaker 2: about how institutions crumble, it's often this. The institutions themselves
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  Speaker 2: Don't fight back. Now, in our country, we have two
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: political parties. The fighting back is going to have to
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: come from the Republicans because the Democrats have now become socialists.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: For the longest time, you can go back, I would say,
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  Speaker 2: to FDR. Whenever the Democrats tried to expand big government,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Republicans would say, that's socialism. You're a socialist. And forever
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  Speaker 2: the Democrats would deny, no, I'm not a socialist, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: then roll their eyes. After World War II, when it
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: was pretty clear that there were a fair number of
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: communists that had gotten into the government, and remember, communists
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: are good. They helped us win World War II. That
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: was the thinking. but there were people who were very,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: very opposed, obviously, to this Marxist viewpoint of the world.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: We think of Joe McCarthy as the guy who was
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: trying to ferret all the commies out. In fact, it
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: was almost everyone in Congress. They all denied being socialists.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: The Kennedys were among the leaders of this. So they've
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: been moving farther and farther and farther to the left,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: but the thing that's brand new is They no longer
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: deny that they're socialists. And many of them are pretty
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: much fine with the whole thing. So this becomes the
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: fight for the survival of the nation. Are we going
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  Speaker 2: to be a country premised on freedom, free market capitalism,
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  Speaker 2: or Are we going to be a Marxist economy and
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a Marxist society? It's one or the other. You could
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: say we're going to be a hybrid, and maybe that's
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: what you would say that we are right now, because
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  Speaker 2: many of the big cities have governed themselves with socialist policies.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: But in terms of the overall structure, we're going to
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: be one or the other. And the thing of it is,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: once you take that step, it's not like it's that
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: easy to come back and reverse. I'll give you an
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: example of that. During the last presidential administration, during COVID,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Biden and the Democrats, and remember, the Democrats controlled both
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: chambers the first two years of Biden. they decided to
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: inflate the economy. Whether it was simply cover, they used
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: COVID as cover to do it because they wanted to
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: spend a lot of money, or because they sincerely were
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: terrified that the economy was going to crater during COVID.
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  Speaker 2: They carpet bombed the economy with money by handing out fortunes.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Social service agencies, massive amounts to government funds, City of
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  Speaker 2: Milwaukee running around ripping up all the streets. All that
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: came from COVID money. And then the checks that were
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: sent out to individual Americans and businesses. I recall at
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: the time, and those of you who listen to my
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: radio show are aware, this is inflationary. And then, of course,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the inflation started to show up. And we heard from
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Janet Yellen, the famous comment, it's transitory. Then Bernanke with
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  Speaker 2: a beard over there at the Fed. Oh, this is
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: just a temporary phenomenon. And what I tried to tell you,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: and it was an important lesson to give because we
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: didn't really have inflation for about 40 years prior to that,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: is once inflation takes hold, it's very hard to get
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  Speaker 2: rid of. The only way I've seen inflation tamed is
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: to kill the economy with a bad recession. By the way,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: that works. But that pain is brutal, and I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that we're prepared to handle that pain right now.
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  Speaker 2: So anyway, this inflation occurred under Biden. Everything exploded. in price.
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  Speaker 2: Trump is having a devil of a time stopping it.
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  Speaker 2: The inflation rate is not as high as it was
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  Speaker 2: under Biden, but now there's the cumulative effect. When it
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  Speaker 2: pops 8% one year, 5% the next, if it goes
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  Speaker 2: up to 3% to 3.5%, that's still on top of
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  Speaker 2: the earlier. So suddenly the media has discovered this inflation
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: that's going on, and it is causing significant problems for Americans.
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  Speaker 2: The same is going to be true with all of
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  Speaker 2: the crap that comes in with socialism. It's hard to undo.
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  Speaker 2: The inflation that we have was deliberately created by the Democrats.
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  Speaker 2: They came out and said the inflation numbers, which were
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  Speaker 2: running at about 1%, when COVID hit, were too low.
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  Speaker 2: We need to have more growth. We need to have
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  Speaker 2: more money in the economy. We have to do something
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: to grow the money supply. I said at the time,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: it's very, very dangerous to play with that. Once countries
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: start to inflate, It almost never stops without brutal pain.
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  Speaker 2: Here in the United States, the last really bad inflation
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  Speaker 2: we had was late 70s tipping into 1980. Reagan won.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Reagan knew that he could never have the economic growth
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  Speaker 2: that he wanted unless he killed inflation first. Reagan was
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: also smart enough to understand he had a four-year term.
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  Speaker 2: At the time, the head of the Fed was Paul Volcker. Reagan, wink, wink, nod,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: nod to Volcker, tightened the money supply brutally. At the
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: same time, Reagan's tax cuts were enacted. But the tightening
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: of the money supply and the driving interest rates to
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  Speaker 2: the roof caused a recession, which, in fact, worked. It
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  Speaker 2: did its job. The inflation was killed. And by the
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: time the inflation was killed, that's when the tax cuts
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: were starting to have impact. And everything took off. From
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  Speaker 2: late 82, pretty much onward for 40 years, the economy roared.
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  Speaker 2: Inflation was in check the entire time. The stock market
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: had a couple of hiccups, but otherwise monstrous overwhelming growth
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  Speaker 2: in it. Everything was going great. Because inflation was under
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  Speaker 2: control until the Democrats deliberately set this fire. And you
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: can ask the Republicans to try to put this fire up.
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  Speaker 2: But as I say, the only thing that I've ever
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  Speaker 2: seen work is a significant economic turndown where people simply
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: don't have any money. Therefore, they can't buy anything. And
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: that drives down the cost of stuff because there's a
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: glut of it because nobody's buying any. That's what we're
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  Speaker 2: going to face. when socialism kicks in. Let us turn
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  Speaker 2: our attention to Seattle. My side isn't real good at
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  Speaker 2: certain things. And part of the problem is that we
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: don't control the media. And while there are lots of
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: different kinds of media now with the internet kind of
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: displacing traditional media, the regular media still kind of sets
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  Speaker 2: the table. All you really need to do You can
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: use history and point out that throughout the history of
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  Speaker 2: the world, every time a nation goes socialist, it hits ruin.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: But you don't even have to do that because a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people simply can't relate to anything that happened
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: longer ago than a week and a half. All you
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: have to do is look at the communities and states
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  Speaker 2: that have embraced socialism now. Look at, and I'm going
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: to use the example here, Seattle. Seattle's a rat hole.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: It's gone to hell. Remember the Seattle? Everybody says it's beautiful.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: It always seems to me that it's cold. But a
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: lot of these cities that are beautiful, that attract a
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: lot of people who go to them, also tend to
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: attract the kind of people who believe in big government
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: and the welfare state. So they elect first Democratic politicians
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: and then stepped it up and elect socialists. They've elected
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: a socialist mayor who had, I mean, it was their
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: own Francesca Haunt. They spent money like crazy. They're driving
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: businesses out. A lot of the tech companies, you know,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: they altered at Silicon Valley with Seattle. Amazon is up there.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Microsoft is up there. They've moved many of their operations away.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: The employees don't want to live there anymore because the
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: taxation is so high, the crime is so high, the
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: social problems are so high. It's not quite as bad
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: as San Francisco with regard to homelessness, but it's pretty bad.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And they've spent, spent, spent, spent, spent. The public employees
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: make a fortune. And they have an eroding tax base
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: unable to pay for it. This is always the problem
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: with socialism. You run out of other people's money to spend.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: And then you raise taxes so high that the people
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: who pay them, even more of them flee. So the
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: costs keep going up, but the amount of money to
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: pay the costs keeps going down. And you end up
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: with collapse. The Seattle Public Schools superintendent said yesterday the
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: school district is $ 100 million in the hole. They brought
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: this up because the teachers are threatening to go on strike.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So even though they're already paid a fortune and the
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: school district's already massively in debt, they're facing the potential
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: to have to raise pay even more because the unions
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: want more, more, more, more. This is the endless death
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: cycle of socialism. Once everybody's on the dole, people want
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: the dole to get bigger. But the ability to make
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: a bigger dole gets constricted by the fact that there
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: are enough tax dollars to pay for it. Now, when
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: individual states or cities do it, it's especially bad because
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the money can just leave to another city or another state.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: When a country does it, there doesn't become a haven.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Everything goes to hell everywhere. You can seek protection from
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: state taxes by going to a low-tax state, but the
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: federal tax burden becomes so terrible, and in addition to that,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: you start to see the societal dysfunction that always comes
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: with socialism. Socialism can't work. The reason it can't work
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: is the only way to produce capital, money, is by
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: rewarding success. That's what drives people to try to be successful.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: They get a reward. When you tell people that they're
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: going to get rewards without being successful, And you take
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: away as much as you can from those that are successful,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: the motivation to be successful ends. So you end up
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: having a bunch of people who sit on their asses
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and nobody does anything. Which is very, very appealing to
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: people who want to sit on their asses and not
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: do anything. But it doesn't work. The idea gets embraced
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: in short-term political environments like now. Prices are high. Caused
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: by Democrats. Trump can't fix the fact that prices are high.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: So the solution now is going to be socialism, which
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: of course will make prices even higher. Because the cost
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: of creating everything becomes greater. So then we turn around
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and we say, well, don't worry if the prices are
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: high because we're just going to give it to you
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: all for free. With what? Let me turn my attention
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: to Iran. It's hard to go as far as I...
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to say it. I think it's possible.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say Iran is teetering, but I
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: think it's possible. Iran may finally be teetering. You've wondered
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: when Iran would get to the breaking point. Because they're
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: under attack on three fronts. Militarily... and then the part
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: that you don't see internally. Now, Trump always overstates things.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I grant you that. This drives lefties crazy. This has
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: always been Trump. Trump is sometimes hyperbolic. Everything's huge. Everything's
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the greatest thing. Nobody's ever seen anything like this. So
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: there may be a level of overstatement in this, but...
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Let's examine it. This was Trump from yesterday. Iran is
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: officially a failed nation. It is dead. They have no navy.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: They have no air force. They have no currency. They
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: are not paying their soldiers or police. Inflation is at 300%
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: properly representing the country. The only thing they have is
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: fake news of the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: war crimes against humanity and a good line of BS. Now,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: some of those numbers people will question. Is inflation really 300%
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: in Iran? If it is, That means the quality of
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: life for regular Iranians is destroyed. They don't have three
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: times more money, but the prices are going up three
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: times in a year. Actually, four times in a year, 300%. Now,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I suspect those numbers are inflated, but as we dive
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: into this, I'm going to share with you some actual
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: self-reported numbers from Iran that indicates that it may not
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: be 300%. It's really bad. Now, the military part. The
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: attacks that went on earlier in the week. Trump. The
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian targets near
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: in retaliation for the Iranians' failed attempt at adding sea
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: mines to the Strait, which currently has no mines. They
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: have been completely removed or detonated. And the Iranians shooting
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: eight missiles all successfully knocked down at their military bases
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: in Jordan. If the failed nation of Iran retaliates for
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: this very justified attack, they will be hit again at
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: a much higher level, harder and higher level, but it
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: will not be the biggest attack on them that is
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: waiting in the wings. And when it is over, there
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Then,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Scott Besant, the Secretary of Treasury. Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: says the U.S. knows where Iranian regime officials are allegedly
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: hiding their wealth and coming for it. Quote, we know
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: where in the British Virgin Islands. Let me interject. I
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: think it's very interesting that he said the country. Now,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: let's imagine you're one of these Iranians that stashed their
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: assets in a bank account somewhere. Because obviously you can't
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: have your assets stashed in Iran's currency right now because
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: the currency is collapsing with inflation exploding. You've got to
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: put the money somewhere. Now, if a Fed says, we
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: know where your money is, they may say, you don't
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: know where our money is. In fact, hiding money, that
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: can be hard to crack. Some countries have absolute banking secrecy, Switzerland,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Cayman Islands, and so on. So where is the money?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Besant said the British Virgin Islands. Now that's very specific.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: He said we know exactly, meaning he probably knows which
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: banks and may have an indication of which accounts. If
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: we indeed know where the big mullahs and leaders and
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: insiders of Iran have their money stashed and we are successfully,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: are we are able to seize it? That's more than
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: just a blow to the leadership of the country. It
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: means their power is gone. Then all they have left
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: are their Alihu Akbar's, their rantings, their statements. Because once
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: they lose their military and if they don't have their money,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: they're just another few broke guys walking around in the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Middle East. Continuing with the percent. We know where in
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: the British Virgin Islands your accounts are. I should explain.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: There's the United States Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: The British Virgin Islands... are under the realm of Great Britain,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: but still are independent nations. Kind of like Canada, not exactly,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: but close. The United States, Virgin Islands, there's three of them.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: They're territories of the United States. Where your accounts are.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: We know the $ 100 million houses you have around the world.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: We are going to close all that down. Besson says
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the administration will target assets, he says, quote, were stolen
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: from the Iranian people and pursue them for victims of terrorism. Then,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: said Besant, after 47 years, it is over. Now again,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: this seems to be spiking the football before you've scored
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the touchdown. The war with Iran isn't over. Yet Trump's
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: saying they're essentially dead, and Besant's saying we're going to
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: get your money. Now let's look at the actual signs.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: There's a very interesting piece that appeared yesterday on Fox
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: News that quoted a handful of experts who study Iran
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: and the Middle East and so on. Quoting the story,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Iran's own leaders are acknowledging growing economic strain. President Massoud
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Pajashkaya said Iran's exports and imports have fallen nearly 35%.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Because U.S. sanctions and the naval blockade, while annual inflation
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: reached 66% in July, Reuters reported. All right, pause. So
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Iran is acknowledging inflation at 66%. Trump said it's running
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: at 300. Maybe Trump's highballing it. But the Iranian government
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: itself is acknowledging 66%. Well, Trump might be highballing it.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say that Iran is probably
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: lowballing it. We're in the United States freaking out over
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: 4 and 5 percent. 66 percent. And that's in a
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: country where a lot of the jobs have been destroyed
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: because they're not exporting anything. Imagine the quality of life
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: for those millions of people who live in Iran. Continuing.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: The IMF, International Monetary Fund, projects Iran's economy will contract 5.4%
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: this year. That's negative GDP. That's not a recession that's
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: pushing depression. So prices are going way up in Iran
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: while economic activity is badly slowing down. This is the
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: internal port part that I'm talking about. Miad Maleki, senior
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who previously
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: served as associate director of the Treasury Department's Office of
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Global Targeting at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, told
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Fox News that the Islamic Republic may be nearing an
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: economic breaking point. The agency says Malecki previously helped oversee U.S.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: sanctions programs and served as chief and senior sanctions coordinator
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: for Iran and the Middle East. I think where we
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: stand today, it's very clear. We see very clear signs,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: indications of what I would call an economy that is
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: on the verge of collapse if it hasn't already collapsed.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Malecki argued... that the critical pressure point is Iran's ability
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: to turn oil exports into usable revenue. So the whole
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: key for Iran is they have to export oil and
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: turn that into revenue that they can put into the country. Now,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: the point that's being made here is this whole problem
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: at the Strait of Hormuz, which they've started, it may
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: indeed have driven up the price of global oil, but
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: it is really killing Iran because they desperately need money
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: into their economy. He estimated, Tehran needs roughly 1 million
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: barrels of oil exports per day to sustain itself, about
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: 1.5 million to avoid hyperinflation, and approximately 2 million to
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: support development. So in other words, This is what he
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: says Iran's needs are. We have to export a million
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: a day just to stay afloat. But to avoid terrible inflation,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: it's got to be more. It's got to be 1.5 million.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: But actually to have actual economic growth, 2 million barrels
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: a day. So 2 million barrels a day is, okay,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: developing country. 1.5 million, well, we need that much to
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: avoid hyperinflation. One million, close the doors. We don't survive.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: There's no money coming in. Maleki said Iranian exports have
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: fallen dramatically and Tehran is increasingly struggling to repatriate revenue
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: from the oil it can't sell. Kepler data cited by
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Reuters showed Chinese imports of Iranian crude falling from an
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: average of 1.4 million barrels per day in 2025 to
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: a provisional 534,000 per day so far in August. That
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: report from Reuters was August 29th. So they're saying they're
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: only getting out to China now 500,000. Remember, the point
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: of avoiding total collapse was a million barrels a day.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Malecki said Tehran is increasingly relying on money creation. What's
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: money creation? Well, that's what Biden and Bernanke did. Money
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: creation is you simply inflate your money supply. For whatever reason,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: this concept confuses people. When you start explaining, well, how
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: can the Fed increase the money? That's what they do.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: The Fed decides how much money we have. What they'll
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: do is they'll say, okay, we're going to create X
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: number of dollars this day. And then they load it
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: out to their member banks, which load it out to
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: American banks, and that gets the money into the economy.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: So what Iran is doing is increasing the money supply
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: to help pay all of these bills that they have.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Because they have a shortage of money coming in from oil,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: they're inflating their own currency. But what happens when you
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: inflate the amount of currency, the prices of everything goes up.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: This is the thing that the socialists, that they're guaranteed
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: annual income. Let's imagine we gave every American $ 50, 000 every year.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: What would they do with it? They'd all spend it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: So now we'd have shortages and all the prices of
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: everything would simply go up commensurately. So he's saying that
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: that's what Iran is now doing in desperate attempt to
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: keep the economy flowing is they're increasing the printing of
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: their currency. Is I'll start the sentence again. Maleki said
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Tehran is increasingly relying on money creation rather than cutting
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: politically sensitive salaries and pensions. But there are limits, eh?
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Now he's saying, one of the things that you can do,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: and businesses are faced with this all the time, you
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: can start slashing salaries, maybe cut all the government pensions.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Now why wouldn't they do that in Iran? To me,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: that would be an indication that they actually are worried
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: about an internal revolt. So what they're figuring is let's
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: just inflate everything rather than cut the pay. Now Trump
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: in his statement, which he may have been overstating things,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: said they're not paying their police, they're not paying their soldiers.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: This guy Malecki is saying, well, maybe they are still
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: paying them, fearing that if they stop paying the police
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: and stop paying the soldiers, maybe they'd stop supporting the government.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: But again, eventually... If you have no currency at all,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: you rely on outside currencies, and outside currencies right now
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: can't get into Iran. Remember when the Mexican peso blew up?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Nobody was using pesos. They were just using the American
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: dollar as currency down there because their own currency had
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: become so devalued. The same thing happened in South American countries.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Those countries, though, had an out-in that they could use
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the country currencies of other countries. Iran's isolated. Quoting Malecki,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: They can keep printing money, but they can't really print
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: the type of commodities that they need, such as gasoline,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: such as wheat. See what he's saying? They can print
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: all this money, but they need gasoline. They need wheat.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: They need the basic commodities of life. And of course,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: as prices keep going up and up and up, people
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: can't afford to buy this stuff. Iran analyst, Danny Citronowich,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: a fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Middle
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: East Security Initiative. Why do these groups always have names
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: like that? I mean, all these, the names always go out.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Part of it is they have to name them after somebody,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: and then, anyway. Went through his entire, told Fox News.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: that the maritime blockade, wartime issues, and wider economic pressure
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: are hurting Tehran, but argued Washington should not assume economic
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: pain will lead to capitulation.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: No.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: This is the what part of this, the but part
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: of it. Okay, you have all of this. Does this
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: mean that Iran is going to finally cave? This has
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: been the analysis I've been having of this war from
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: the beginning. A sane country right now would surrender. Iran's beaten.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: By every kind of military or economic criteria you would use,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Iran is beaten. There's no army. There's no air force.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: There's no Navy. They don't have any missiles left. They
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: can't defend themselves. Their economy is cratered. That's when countries surrender.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: When you surrender, you concede your own power. But the
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: aid starts flowing to rebuild the nation and all of that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: But what you have here, perhaps more so than any
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: other nation in the world, we don't know about North
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Korea because we don't know how much of that is
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: simply an arm of China. This particular country is led
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: by people who don't seem to care at all about
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: their own peoples. Okay, we have known none of this,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: but we're simply never, ever going to give up. We
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: don't care how badly off our country is. We don't
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: care about our people. We don't care if people are starving.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: We don't care about any of it. All we know
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: is that this is what Allah wants us to do.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: So this guy's saying, okay, all of it's true, but
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: the leadership may try to ride it out.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: He continues.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: He continues. Citrinovich continued, pressure could instead increase Tehran's incentive
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: to escalate if Iranian leaders conclude the status quo is
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: worse than renewed confrontation. He said Iran could attempt to
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: target U.S. economic assets in the Gulf, ports, or U.S.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: vessels involved in enforcing the blockade even as its missile
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: production capabilities have been degraded. Malecki agreed Iran would likely
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: attempt to escalate, but questioned how much leverage Tehran still possesses.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: They're going to try to escalate, Malecki said, pointing to
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: the attacks of the last 24 hours, but he argued
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: that further escalation would increasingly affect Gulf states Iran has
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: relied upon for trade, sanctions evasions, and diplomacy, potentially bringing
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: even greater economic and diplomatic pressure. For example, they tried
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: to lob these missiles at Jordan. well, some of these
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: countries in the Middle East are still providing some economic
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: trade with Iran. What if you hack them off enough
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: that they don't trade with you either? Asked whether Iran
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: was losing its leverage, Maleki responded, absolutely. He argued Tehran
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: has emerged weakened from internal unrest and the external war
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: and is increasingly isolated domestically and internationally. What Malecki is
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: watching next is not necessarily missed government payrolls, but shortages
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: that could trigger another wave of domestic unrest. All right,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: let's imagine the store shelves start getting empty. And the
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: few items that are in there, the prices have exploded. So,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: you know, they have to explode. If there's only five
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: cans of tuna sitting in the store and 15,000 people,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: you got to charge an arm and a leg for
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: those remaining in there or they're all going to be gone.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: At some point, when did the Iranian people, out of
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: sheer survival, starvation, loss of money, say, we're going to
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: go back out of the streets and we're going to
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: try to do something here. The alternative is death, but
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: we're dying anyway. And I think that right now that's
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: what the United States' position is. They are trying to
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: attack them on two fronts, economically via the sanctions, targeting
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: the leaders' money, and continue to respond militarily every time
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: they try to screw with anybody in the strait. At
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: some point, you create a situation in which the situation
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: in Iran is so terrible that it has to leave
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: to internal revolt. Now, my own belief is that that's
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the only way you're ever going to get an endgame here.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: The people of Iran at some point have to take
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: over their own country. And I know they don't have
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: any guns, they don't have any weapons, they don't have
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: much ability to do that. The way that it has
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: happened historically, in fact, it's the way it always happens,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: is It's when the local police and the military turn
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: on the government and side with the people. And you
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: can say they'll never do that. And Iran is a
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: harder case than most because the people in the military
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: and the people in the police, they're among these true
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: believers with their warped vision of Islam that they may
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: be willing to die for the cause themselves. But boy,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I think of all those communist countries in Eastern Europe,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: They were so repressive. They were so brutal. And in
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: each case, all of them fell. Romania's a good one.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: The reason Romania's a good one is it happened like
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: in 72 hours, and there's video of the whole thing.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: You can see it on YouTube. I mean, the other
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: one that was really fast is Cuba, which was a
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: different kind of thing. You know, that happened real fast.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: It was fictionalized in The Godfather 2, but close enough
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: to being accurate. But what happened in Romania is once
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: the soldiers and once the police realized that the masses
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: hated their leadership, they sided with the masses. Now, will
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: any of the Iranian police and military start doing that?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but it doesn't take much for those
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: things to start to crack. You know, there's a lot
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: of cities in Iran outside of Tehran that nobody pays
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: any attention to. There's no cameras there. There's no media.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Nothing comes out of them. For all we know right now,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: some of them may have already gone. And some of
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: the police may have decided to side with the protesters there.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm not saying Iran is teetering, but I'm raising
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the possibility that Iran might be teetering. Next story here.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: This whole thing with the radicals that the Democrats are
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: running for the Senate and the House across the country. El-Sayed,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: the radical who's running for the United States in Michigan.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: You're starting to see some of these cracks now on
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: the left. Van Jones. I don't, would you say he's
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: a socialist? I mean, he's a radical loudmouth and he's
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: been on various, he's been, I think he's been on
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: both MSNBC and CNN, right? Right. I mean, I confused
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: him with a couple of the other guys. I mean,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: there's so many. What? What? You said there's a lot
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: worse guys out there than him. Anyway, Van Jones went
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: on a podcast this week and called El-Sayed's policies on
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Israel and the Middle East insane. El-Sayed also has said
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: that he knows more about foreign policy than Barack Obama. Now,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Van Jones worships Barack Obama. I think he worked for him,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: didn't he? Wasn't he one of the czars of He
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: was in there somewhere. So now you got Van Jones
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: attacking al-Sayed. That's kind of important to watch. Because nobody
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: knows how well this kind of alliance is going on
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: between African-American Democrats and radical Muslim Marxist Democrats. Van Jones
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: would fall into the category of African-American, very liberal Democrats.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: So you actually have, I'd say, as far as the
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: left is concerned, I think they've always paid attention to
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Van Jones. He's saying that El-Sayed's policies are insane. I
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: want to turn my attention to the story of Chuck Edwards,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: who I'll admit I don't think I'd ever heard of before.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: He's a Republican member of Congress, and his scandal kind
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: of happened really fast. The House of Representatives this week
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: voted to censure him for 13 to 2. Do you
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: know who the two were that voted not to censure him? Well,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: you could guess one of them. Edwards himself, he gets
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: to vote. I think that's hilarious. They're voting on whether
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: or not to censure a member of the House. Well,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: he's a member of the House, so he voted. He voted, no,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: I vote not to censure myself. And the other one
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: was the guy who just lost the Senate election in
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: South Carolina. He's probably a little bitter about the whole thing.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: The guy that lost to Darlene Graham, his name is
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Ralph Norman. They're the only two, 413 to two. The
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: reason I bring this up is when you see slime
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: ball Republicans. Deviants. There's another guy in Florida, Corey Mills.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: There's been, I think, a far greater willingness on the
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: part of Republicans to condemn them than there is on
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: the part of Democrats to condemn their perverts, sickos, and weirdos.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Republicans may provide cover for some of these people for
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: a while. But they've had a difficult situation here because
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: their margin in the House right now is almost nonexistent.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: But Edwards isn't finding any support at all other than
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: from Ralph Norman at all. As I said, this scandal
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: occurred really, really fast. Let me get into some of
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: the details here. This came after a report from the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: House Ethics Committee The report, I'll quote here from Fox News,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: the report detailed lavish gifts, trips, and the reading of
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: a poem to one of the staffers, going to a
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: staffer's home to perform chores, late-night personal texts, and taking
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: one of the staffers to a casino, among other interactions.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: He ended his bid for re-election two days after the
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: release of the report. He disputed the report on the
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: House floor after apologizing to the pair of staffers at
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: the center of the Ethics Committee's probe. along with his
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: wife and family, accusing the bipartisan panel of cherry-picking the
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: context of the incident for a specific narrative. Anyway, the
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: guy's been censured. You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: This is the Mark Belling Podcast. It's time to revisit
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the Tony Romo story. He pleaded no contest... to OWI,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: operating while intoxicated, and other charges in Milwaukee County. He
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: got pretty much the same thing that first offenders get
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin. He gets probation, six-month license revocation, and so on.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: For those of you who don't remember the story at all,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: it was only a few weeks ago. Roman was pulled
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: over by a Milwaukee County Sheriff's deputy who, based on
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: the body cam, didn't seem to know who he was.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: for driving apparently erratically enough that she felt the need
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: to stop him while on the high-rise bridge in Milwaukee.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: The high-rise bridge is the big portion of the freeway that,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: depending on which way you're going, is either entering downtown
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee or leaving downtown Milwaukee to the south. He had
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: been playing in the Wisconsin State Amateur Golf Tournament near
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: West Bend earlier in the day, and it sounds like
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: he was headed to see his grandparents in the Burlington area,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: which would mean that would be the route that he
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: was taking. He didn't blow into the breath-o-meter and he
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: didn't perform the drunk test, but they did do a
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: blood draw, which to my knowledge has never been released.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: When I watched the video, the thing that struck me was, well,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: he didn't appear overly intoxicated. He certainly appeared to be
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: in just miserable physical shape. He couldn't even sit down
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: at the back of the squad car. And I said
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: at the time, you remember my discussion that I said,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I strongly think that this guy is on pain pills.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: And anybody who knows anything about pain pills knows that
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: if you drink on top of pain pills, it enhances,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a double effect. You get more drunk
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: off of a couple of drinks if you bike it
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: in you than if you simply took the same couple
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: of drinks. Romo, in his statement of apology, acknowledged he
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: has a significant problem with pain medications. This is what
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: happens to guys who play in the NFL. We talk
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: a lot about the CTE, the brain injuries that so
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: many of them sustain. We talk a lot about the
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: fact that NFL football players, you don't see many of
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: them that live into their 90s and the 80s is
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: pretty rare. But also, I mean, these guys can't walk.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: They're all beaten up. Romo, on the other hand, remains
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: an active guy. He's an awfully good golfer, good enough
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: to compete in the Wisconsin State Amateur. So he gets
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: through all of this by taking pain pills. A lot
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: of people take pain pills. I've had to take pain pills.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: You can't drink with them. If you're able to take
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the pain pills without getting addicted, they can improve your
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: quality of life. But they can give you a buzz.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: And it looks to me like he probably may have
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: been taking more of them than he should have to
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: help control the pain that clearly is real. And again,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: he watched that video in which he was just so
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: hard for him to bend his back. My problems are
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: on the neck, but I know people have lower back problems.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: They all just describe it as incredibly miserable. So he
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: made a mistake. And as I say, I think that
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: the mistake probably was not just the drinking and driving because...
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: He didn't seem to me to show signs of being,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I've seen really smashed people. He appeared to be the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: more kind of in sort of a stupor, slow response
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: kind of thing, rather than the yelling, drunken. I just
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: said I felt it's probably a combination of this and pills.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: He's apologized, and I think he deserves people's support. This
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: is a guy who, to my knowledge, has never done
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: anything else wrong. I don't think we need to end
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: people's lives over first offense drunk driving. People can make mistakes.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: And we can say, well, this probably wasn't the first time.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Who knows? It probably wasn't, especially if he's driving well
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: on the pills. And again, I have not seen, did
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: you see the results? They released the blood test results.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't think that they did because he pleaded no contest.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: So there's no reason to bring anything in court. But
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: my own guess is that his blood alcohol content might
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: not have been all that high. But he was clearly
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: impaired and intoxicated because, you know, the narcotic pills, that
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: affects your ability to drive as well. I mean, I
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: think Tony Romo's a basically good guy. I think the
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: knocks on him that have been coming out of CBS is,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: you know, he's lazier than hell. He doesn't prepare for
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: his games. He was one of these guys for whom
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: being a TV analyst came really easy that first year
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: when he was able to always tell you what play
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: was going to come up before they called it. Now
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: the game's changing on him. He doesn't have that anymore.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: And The old, let's do a lot of preparation. Plus,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: if he does have a problem with the pain pills,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: that can screw up your concentration and preparation. But I mean,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: I think he's a good guy. He made a mistake. Thankfully,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: nobody got hurt in this accident. During the police stop,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: he didn't do any, he never pulled any, you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: none of that. To the point that, as I say,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: he didn't really say it at all in his driver's license.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: I think his name, was it Antonio or Anthony? It
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: is Antonio. When they showed him the body cam when
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: he was actually at the sheriff's department, at the, I
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: forget the name of the place that they take you to.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: It's not the jail. One of the guys said, we
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: know who you are, and so forth and so on.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: But he didn't do any kind of power tripping on this.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: If CBS uses this as an excuse to void his contract,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: I think that's kind of cheesy because I think they're
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: looking to get out of the contract because they don't
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: think he's worth the money anymore rather than having anything
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: to do with this particular conviction. So I think he's
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: certainly humiliated. The YouTube video being seen by 85 trillion people.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: I hope he abides by the not driving for the
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: next six months. And the life lesson that he needs
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: to take from this is Even if you're not drinking,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: if you have to take this much pain medication because
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: you truly are really, really hurting, you're a rich guy, Tony.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: You hire a driver. I get this question all the
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: time from people. Why don't these guys hire a driver?
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Because most of us who don't have that kind of money,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: one of the greatest things in the world would be
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: to have a driver. I mean, who wants to drive
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: everywhere when you can sit in the backseat of a
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: nice car and have somebody else do your driving? David
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Letterman used to drive in. He would always talk about that.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: He would drive in from Connecticut into New York. I
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: just think he's a weird guy, and I think that... Actually,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: why would David Letterman drive in from... Plus, that can
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: be a bad drive. When I used to sit in
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: for Rush, I would always be in the cab. I
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: never drove in New York. Why would you ride a car?
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: The cab takes you around and all that, but it
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: can be like a pain in the ass kind of thing.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Some people just want to have the independence of being
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: able to drive, and for him... It's probably just been
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: his way of life. Well, now he can't drive for
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: six months. I think that suspension is honored by the
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: state of Texas. Secondly, if he gets caught with a
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: second offense, all bets are off. He's ruined. He becomes
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: a joke and a laughingstock. So I hope that he
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: learns here that, yeah, you can drink. You have to
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: have a driver. You got to be careful if you're
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: mixing it with the pills. But the thing with regard
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: to the pain that he's in, I suspect he's in
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: really terrible pain. I mean, Brett Favre, who was addicted
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: to painkillers while he was playing, and I'm sure is
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: still on them now, and when he discusses what his
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: body feels like and so on, it's a toll that
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: these pro football players take on, and it's legitimate, and
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: I think it contributed to that incident. And in this instance,
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not a soft-on-prime guy, but I think he's paid
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: his price, and I hope he's learned his lesson from this.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: He's paid his price on a guy that I think
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: is an overall good guy, and I hope He gets
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: through this in terms of his career. Which brings us
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: to the next story. I didn't cover this when it
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: initially occurred. It was one of those stories in which,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: because somebody had a video, the entire world saw it,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: the tripping incident of the football game. A youth football
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: team from Milwaukee was playing a youth football team from
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Racine County in Mount Pleasant. And I'm sure almost everybody
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: knows the story, so I won't go into the background,
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: but the Milwaukee team's youth football games, to me, are
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: just weird to begin with. Let me get to the
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: end of this, and then I'll get into the guts
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: of the story. I don't know when organized football, at
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: what age it should begin. When I was a kid,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: there was no organized football for seven or eight-year-olds. In
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: the community that I grew up, the first team was
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: like the eighth grade. There was an eighth grade team.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Other than that, if you wanted to play football, you
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: were just kids that would play in the backyard or
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: go together and throw in and have a team, and
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: usually those kids in the back get no equipment or anything.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: I don't... You're a parent. You think that there should be...
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, baseball, Little League and all that stuff, the
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. That's how
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: you learn fundamentals. But football is a hard contact sport.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Do you think that they should have football teams organized
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: for 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds? What do you think it should start?
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Jason said he'd prefer that they play flag for the
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: first few years and then go to fourth or fifth.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: I'm not even sure. Why do they need to have teams?
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Why do they have to have organized teams and organized
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: coaching at that level? Well, no. Jason said, if you're
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: playing full content, you have to need to teach them.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: None of the kids that I had, none of us
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: had that. We were playing in the backyard without any
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: pads on, and guys were damn near killing one another. Now,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: you could say they weren't doing it. I do think
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: the following. I think, I'm adamant on this, actually. The
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: kids protect themselves when they don't have helmets on and
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: pads and so on. And I think that once, especially
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: with these kids, when you put the pads and the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: helmets on, they don't protect themselves. And I think that
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: that can create more danger, especially when you start seeing
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: these kids using the helmet as a weapon. Anyway, I've
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: got a big problem with the over-organization of youth sports.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I just do. I think that when they get overly
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: organized into all of these formal teams at too young
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: of an age, it's being done more for the jackass
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: parent And I didn't say all parents are jackass, but
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: it's being done more for the jackass parent than for
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: the good parents or for the kids. I mean, I've
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: seen this, you know, in the summer. Try staying in
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: a hotel where these traveling hockey or soccer tournaments are
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: going on. You'll have kids where they take the kids
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: to a tournament 80 miles away. I stayed in a
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: few hotels in the Chicago area back in the days
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: in which I went to the racetrack and I would
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: stay down there all weekend. And you'd have like these
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: soccer tournaments or these youth sport tournaments and there'd be
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: kids from all over the place. Do you know how
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: many schools and communities there are in the Illinois suburbs
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: where you can just play a team that's one or
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: two miles away? What do you have to go 80
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: miles away and stay overnight for? I'll tell you why.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Because the parents who have no lives, this is their
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: big party. So the parents are drunk all night. The
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: kids are running up and down the hotel. I have
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: a hang up with this. And then the games themselves.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Some of these parents are nuts. And that's what happened
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: in this particular game. Parents are standing and you can
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: see there's a sideline. In the brief video that I saw,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: there were parents that were kind of stepping onto the
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: field and over the line and yelling about every single
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: play and carry it on. There was more intensity from
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: these parents than you would see at a Packer game.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: The problem as I see it is, if you can't
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: stand to watch your kid play football and being smashed
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: to the ground, don't let your kid play football or
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: don't go to the game. Because playing football, if you're
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: playing tackle, means you're going to get smashed to the ground.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: So what happened with this guy, and by the way,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know why this is, but some media outlets
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: are not naming him. He's been cited in He didn't
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: get a criminal charge. He got a citation, which is
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: like a ticket. His name is Terrence Ryan Bradshaw. Very
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: common name. So I'm using the middle name. He's 41.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: It's in Milwaukee. I ran his record. He does have
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: a criminal record, but it's all misdemeanors, at least as
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: far as I found. He's given some apologies, but other
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: people say he left the event and wasn't apologizing at all.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And he said he felt that You know, the other
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: team was being too rough on his kid's team and
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: so on. So what happens is the guy's all hacked off.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Nine-year-old kid on the other team has the ball and
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: he comes out and he trips.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Him.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: When the sports are going on at that young of
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: an age, I don't think it is healthy for the
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: parents to be so involved in winning or losing and
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: so involved in how their kids are doing. The term
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: age appropriate is referred to for a lot of things. Well,
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: I think that the amount of pressure that we put
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: on kids playing needs to grow. I think high school
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: varsity is where the pressure is supposed to be intense
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: and where it's perfectly fine for the coach to yell
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: at the players. And it's perfectly fine for the player
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: to have to stand there and make a free throw
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: with three seconds left in the game when they're down
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: by a point. If we're developing people and turning them
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: into adults, they have to be ready to be able
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: to handle the pressure of potentially failing and failing badly.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: And that pressure needs to be softened and eased a
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: little bit each year that you go downward. When kids
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: are playing at the 6th and 7th grade, The parents
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: shouldn't much care if the team won or lost. The
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: kids should care. And then it usually rolls off their
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: back two hours later and they're off to something else.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: But for some of these parents who I think have
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: no lives of their own, they vicariously live to their kids.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: And when they get so upset, oh, this team did
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: that or these referees. I see this more in soccer
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: than in football. Everybody knows more than the refs, and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: probably a lot of times the referees aren't any good
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: because there's way too many of these games going on
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: that there are qualified refs out there. Plus, would you
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: want to be a referee in a game like this
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: where you've got parents yelling and screaming? If you've got
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: a dad so screwed up that he goes out and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: trips a kid on the other team when he's running
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: up the field, who wants to be the referee when
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: you have lunatics like that? So they didn't bring criminal
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: charges against the guy, and I probably said that Racine
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: County District Attorney's Office reviewed this. You also had a
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: situation of this was the visiting team, so the authorities
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: had made the arrest from Racine, and the team visiting
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: to you is from Milwaukee. This guy is from Milwaukee.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, tripping a kid when he's running out there,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: is that a crime? The kid wasn't hurt, but it's
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: certainly something. So he got a municipal citation, which calls
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: for paying a fine and so on. He's been kicked
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: out of the league, so forth and so on. All right,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: let's move on to this story. You may recall my
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: discussion from a few months ago of what happened at
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: the graduation ceremony at Arrowhead High School, which is the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: giant high school that covers much of northern Waukesha County.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: The graduates were allowed to prepare a brief slideshow in
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: which they showed things that were relevant to their high
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: school years and so on. One of the students, Sarian Baranja,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: used her slideshow to put up some Bible verses. She
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: submitted this in advance, and they barred her from doing it.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: The district, which is a conservative school board, dug in
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: its heels after I and others criticized them, saying we
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: have rules that you can't bring up anything pertaining to religion.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: And she knew the rules. Well, I believe in following
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: the rules. But I also believe that when someone takes
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: away your rights of free speech and your right of
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: free religion and also is so pig-headed that you can't
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: sincerely point out that God and Jesus are a part
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: of your life, that it is morally imperative that you
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: stand up to adult goon squads like this. There's an
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: update on the story. So their initial response from the superintendent,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Conrad Farner, And from the school board was to say,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: we stand by the superintendent. The superintendent and the principal
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: did the right thing. She was told she couldn't do this.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which is an
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: outstanding legal rights organization, often, not always, represents the interests
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: of conservatives who are abused in areas like this. They
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: also deal with racist governmental policies that give preference to
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: African Americans and other racial minorities and so on. They
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: took up this case, and they clearly threatened to sue
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Arrowhead on behalf of Sarian. The good news is Arrowhead
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: has caved. I'll quote from the statement issued by Will,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty. As part of
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: the settlement, the district has apologized to Sarian and her family,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: acknowledged that her religious message was unfairly denied, agreed to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: a settlement payment, and committed to First Amendment training for
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: district administrators. I would suggest some First Amendment training for
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: the so-called conservative school board members there who couldn't realize
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: that the superintendent, Conrad Farner, was acting like an ass
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: in doing this. There's another point on this, though. They
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: said we consulted legal advice. Now, I thought initially that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: it might be Bulo Vetter, the school, the law firm
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: that represents seemingly every school district in southeastern Wisconsin, who
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: is Basic role seems to be to help school boards
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: do everything they can to avoid the public knowing what's
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: going on in school boards. But in this instance, they
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: claim they contacted an attorney for the Wisconsin Association of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: School Boards who advised them not to allow her to
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: show this. If that's the case, what good is the
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: attorneys for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards if the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: advice that they're giving is contrary to the law? The
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: reason the district backed down is because the Wisconsin Institute
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: of Law and Liberty knew that they had the law
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: on their side, on Sarian's side, and that Arrowhead was
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: in the wrong. So all you school boards that are
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: paying money to the Association of School Boards in your
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: dues payments, even though they're all claiming you're broke, what
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: are you getting for your payment? Will the WASB get
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: rid of its hack lawyers that are handing out this
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: BS advice? I've sent an email to the president of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: the school board Kim Schubert. Okay, I see that this
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: theme has been issued. Are you going to apologize and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that the board was wrong? I want that school
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: board to stand up and say that they were wrong
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: in not understanding the basics of constitutional law and understanding
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: the absolute immorality of telling a student that with her
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: own speech, this isn't government speech, it was her comment,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: She doesn't want to say any damn thing that she
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: wants to say. I've got another story for you. I
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: don't think I've watched Wheel of Fortune the last two
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: or three years. Like, who's the, Sajak's gone now. Who
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: took over? You watched Sajak's last episode. I forget who
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: took it over. Look it up for me. Who's the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: new horse of Wheel of Fortune? Can you look that up?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, Ryan Seacrest. He gets everything, doesn't he? Yeah,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: I was thinking it was probably him, and then I
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: was thinking, that's not right. He does everything else. Ryan
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Seacrest does it. Well, this story doesn't involve him. It
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: involves the announcer. I mean, the announcer, some game shows,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: the announcer used to be a big deal. The announcer
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: is the person who like introduces the contestant. And if
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: there's a prize, we'll read out the prize. And the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: prize is always donated by the company in exchange for
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: like way back in the day, the guy for game
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: show announcing was Johnny Olsen. Are you, are you old
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: enough to Johnny Olsen did like all these shows. He
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: was like, I got all of them. And he had
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: this great voice. I mean, his voice was just naturally loud.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: There are a few others that got pretty big during
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: that and so on. Well, Wheel of Fortune had an
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: announcer for a long time and he died a few years,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: actually about 14, 15 years ago. The guy that's been
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: the announcer in Wheel of Fortune, and again, the announcer
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: is not the host. The announcer is the one who
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: like reads the gifts and pronounce them with consideration and
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: so on. Sometimes they put them on camera and they
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: use them maybe as a tiny sidekick. This guy's name
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: is Jim Thornton. Jim Thornton is in trouble. Apparently, there
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: was an incident on an American Airlines flight in May.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: This story has been dug out by TMZ, naturally. TMZ
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: specializes in stuff like this. Another passenger complained about Thornton's behavior.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: He was met by law enforcement agents at the gate.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: There's YouTube videos of this stuff all the time because
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: the cops now, unless it's Waukesha County Sheriff's deputies, The
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: cops all have body cams, and the passengers are all,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: at the instant something's going on in the plane, the
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: passengers all pull out their phones and start recording this.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: So we don't know what Thornton did, but somebody was
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: complaining about it, and it was enough that the flight
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: attendants and the captain contacted police who met Thornton at
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: the gate. The story said that Thornton was not taken
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: into custody. But we don't know what the behavior was
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: at the plane, but Wheel of Fortune has suspended him. Well.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: the producing company of Wheel of Fortune, which is Sony,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: investigates the allegation. I mean, this could not, when you
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: have a story like this, that's all you know. It
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: could be anything. What you see a lot of these YouTube,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: do you watch airplane YouTube videos? No, like when the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: police are called for trouble at the airport. I mean,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: everybody's watching this. I mean, they're just, for whatever reason,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: I don't fly, I fly enough. I almost never see
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: anything like this. I don't think I've ever had a
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: flight where anybody's ever behaved like they do it. Now,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: I understand there's zillions of flights every day, and there's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: only so many of these videos that are going on,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: but most people trudge around, stand in line, Get on there.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: And then they announced there's a delay and we're going
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: to sit on the tarmac for two minutes and nobody
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: ever does anything. Now, I'm not on spirit, but this
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: guy was on American. So what did he do? Now,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: we know that somebody was complaining. This could be anything.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: What I do see complaining about is people who recline
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: their seats. When somebody reclines their seat in front of me,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: I never complain. I just want to smack them. But
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: I don't do anything. But I have seen people start
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: kicking the back of the seat. I happen to think
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: that reclining your seat is rude and obnoxious. Half the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: people who fly believe that. The other half completely disagree
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: with that. So there's never going to be any resolution
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: of it until the airlines stop allowing seats to recline.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: It could be just that. Or it could be he
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: was drunk, loud, and belligerent to the point that another
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: passenger was very uncomfortable. Or Did he try something with her?
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: Is it a female or, for that matter, a male?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: And did he try something? We don't know any of
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: these things. But if it's enough that they did call
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: the police to meet the guy at the gate, that's significant.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: And when I've seen these videos, usually the police don't
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: do anything unless the guy causes trouble once they start
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: to contact them. So anyway, the announcer wheel of Fort Worth.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Just always think about stuff like this, and the survival
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: mode that I've been in for my entire career. You
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: can't do this. It'll wreck your career. You can't do this.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: It'll wreck your career. So I'm always amazed at the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: people who don't have that thing, like Josh Jacobs with
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: the girlfriend. Now, who's the other one? The wide receiver
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: for the Rams. Pico Nakua. Is that how you say it? Nakua.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: He just signed like a $ 160 million contract. There's allegations
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: that his ex is making about him. They could void
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: his contract. There are advantages to having a dull life.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast. This is the
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: Mark Belling Podcast. First, tomorrow's podcast, the Thursday podcast, will
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: be the first installment this season of our Mark Belling
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: football preview and our football picks. You're going to get
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: a point spread pick from Jason, myself, and Mike Burlett
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: of American Sports Analysts who joins us for the millionth
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: year in a row. We're also going to have some
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: discussion of football because the first weekend, there's no NFL.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: It's going to be entirely college football. We will preview
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: the Badger season and the Badger game against Notre Dame.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: I will tell you that I think Notre Dame is
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: going to beat Wisconsin. I think they're going to beat
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: them decisively. The point spread is very high. It's 20
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: and a half points was the last I saw Notre
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: Dame was favored by. I see these things in the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: interview for saying Wisconsin could pull off an upset. I mean,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: I think Wisconsin is going to be twice as good
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: as they were last year. I also think Notre Dame
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: might be the best team in the country, and they're
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: especially good on defense. I mean, their quarterback is a
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: Heisman candidate. Their defense is outstanding. I don't think Wisconsin's
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: offense is ready for a defense like this. I just
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: hope that if Wisconsin gets killed, it doesn't dispirit the team.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: I know it'll dispirit the fan base because fans always
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: overreact to game one. But the fact of the matter is,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: the Notre Dame game was a non-conference game. Wisconsin needs
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: to show progress and prove that they are a competitive
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: team in the Big Ten. I don't think they have
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: a chance against Notre Dame because I think Notre Dame
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: is as good as anybody. First of all, almost everybody's back.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: They lost the running backs who both went to the NFL,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: but otherwise the whole team is back and their defense
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: is really good. I also think that the Lambeau Field
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: is going to be South Bend North. It's going to
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: be all Notre Dame fans. That's what I think. So
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: we'll discuss more, and we'll get Mike's thoughts on the
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: Badgers and so on, and we'll get football picks against
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: the point spread. Another story for you. A follow-up on
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: the discussion of the story of Milwaukee County Executive David
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: Crowley signing the legislation that gave tablets and laptops to
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: the inmates in the Milwaukee County Jail. This story has
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: blown up on Crowley. after Milwaukee County Judge David Borowski
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: revealed that someone who's accused of a triple murder in
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: his case was using his laptop or tablet, he said iPad,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: which is a form of a tablet, to intimidate the
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: witnesses against him. Now, the obvious question is, why in
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: the world are you giving the inmates in a jail
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: People can make the case that they're proper in a prison.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Prisons are people who are there for the long term.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: They're already all convicted. If you're in prison, you're convicted.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: Jailists are people who have not been convicted yet or
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: for people who have been convicted of lesser offenses for
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: which the punishment is a year or less. You have
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: to manage long term the lifestyle of the inmates and
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: not have them go nuts for people that are in
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: a prison for 25 years. For somebody who's at a jail...
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: For only a few weeks or a few months or
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: awaiting trial, not yet convicted. I don't see the need
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: to give them anything. You know, prisons have big yards
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: and weight rooms and all of that. Jails usually don't
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: have that type of facility. The only reason to do
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: this is if you're a county that has too much money.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: And for David Crowley, who constantly claims his county is broke,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: he was able to go and find the money to
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: give the crooks in the jail a bunch of laptops.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: But the second question on this is, to me, the
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: most important one. Who is monitoring what they're doing? In
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: the jail, phone calls are all monitored. In the jail,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: if they have a visitor, that's monitored and listened to.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: The only exception, I think there's two. I said yesterday
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: when your lawyer comes in, apparently there's an exception for clergy.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: That if clergy comes in, if a priest comes in,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: they're not supposed to monitor that. Other than that, all
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: communications go on and They read your mail. So if
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: they're doing all of that, what kind of a loophole
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: are you creating by allowing them to have a tablet
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: and go on the internet and text or email? Well,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: someone who's been digging into this, I don't know if
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: he wants me to identify himself or not. And since
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know that, I'm just going to say he's
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: a staffer for a member of the state legislature. He's
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: been digging into this situation, and he found documentation that
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee County has hired a firm to monitor these inmate communications.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: It's called IC Solutions, saying IC Solutions position that supports
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: the resident communication system. So is IC Systems supposed to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: be monitoring the emails and what's going on and what
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: the guys are doing with their computers, that they're looking
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: at child porn and all of this stuff? If they are,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: how did this happen? Now, I don't know why you
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: need to contract this kind of thing out, other than
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: if we give all the inmates in the jail, and
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: the jail, I think it's just under 1,000 is the
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: capacity of the jail. There's no way you can look
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: at all of that stuff, right? All the more reason
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: to not give them laptops, tablets, and cell phones. And
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: then you don't need to give $ 100, 000 to a company
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: that's monitoring the communications and obviously not doing much of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: a job of it if somebody's out there doing witness intimidation. Now,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: you might say maybe that's how this was caught. And
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: the judge was not clear on how this was discovered.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: Crowley has so far only babbled, well, I'm going to
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: talk to the sheriff about how these things are being used.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: The bigger question is, why are they being used at all?
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: And the reason they're being used is because you, Crowley,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: signed the legislation to do it. Twice. Again, a reminder,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: we're going to start the football preview and picks. on
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: tomorrow's podcast also. They will be at the very end
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: of the podcast, and that's where we're going to position them.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: It's always going to be the Thursday podcast with the
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: exception of the Packers play, like the Thanksgiving weekend, maybe
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: a couple of other times we'll do it on a Wednesday. Otherwise,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: it'll be the Thursday podcast, and it'll always be at
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: the very, very end of the segment. For those of
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: you who just want to listen to only that because
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: you don't want to hear my right-wing crap, You can
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: just go to it. And for those of you who
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: don't care about football and so on, you won't have to.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: You can just end your listening. But we'll position it
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: at the end of the podcast starting tomorrow. Talk to
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: you then. Bye.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
• 1:18:48
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• 1:19:01
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