Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #178: Jack Smith got records of all MAGA cap buyers! The extremes to which leftist totalitarians will go has no limits and if they get power again, it will be worse. There are now more would-be home sellers than buyers but prices aren't going down; Mark analyzes why. And we've got our weekly football preview and point spread picks. Go Brewers!

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #178: Jack Smith got records of all MAGA cap buyers! The extremes to which leftist totalitarians will go has no limits and if they get power again, it will be worse. There are now more would-be home sellers than buyers but prices aren't going down; Mark analyzes why. And we've got our weekly football preview and point spread picks. Go Brewers! · The Mark Belling Podcast

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Speaker 2: I've got a story here that needs to sink in.
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Speaker 2: So I'm putting it right at the top of the podcast.
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Speaker 2: Jack Smith... the special counsel who supposedly was going to
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Speaker 2: investigate Trump and election interference and then used that mandate
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Speaker 2: to conduct a witch hunt that spread far beyond Trump
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Speaker 2: with seemingly no restraint at all. That Jack Smith. We
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Speaker 2: now learn, thanks to a memo released by Iowa Senator
1:03
Speaker 2: Chuck Grassley, that Smith's investigation was so broad that he
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Speaker 2: got the data on everybody who bought a mega cap.
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2:02
Speaker 2: There's a lot... to discuss with regard to this story.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to bring you, though, to my conclusion and
2:12
Speaker 2: then go back into the story. One of the points
2:15
Speaker 2: that I have made again and again and again, and
2:18
Speaker 2: I sense sometimes it doesn't sink in, is that when
2:26
Speaker 2: Marxists gain control of countries, they always become totalitarian. Cuba
2:34
Speaker 2: is a perfect example of this. when Che Guevara and
2:38
Speaker 2: Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista government, they said they were
2:42
Speaker 2: doing it to liberate the people. And instead, was you
2:48
Speaker 2: got a nearly 70-year brutal totalitarian dictatorship with no free elections,
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Speaker 2: no freedom, no nothing. It happens everywhere in which Marxism
3:01
Speaker 2: gets elected. Why? Because Marxism doesn't work Things fail and
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Speaker 2: it becomes a disaster. But Marxists don't want to give
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Speaker 2: up their power. So they begin repression. Now again, Cuba
3:19
Speaker 2: is the perfect example. They have re-education camps. They have
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Speaker 2: indoctrination camps for the children. There's no free press. There's
3:28
Speaker 2: no free speech. There's not much free religion. And there's
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Speaker 2: certainly no free elections. Because if there were, the Cuban
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Speaker 2: communists know they probably would have been thrown out of office,
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Speaker 2: given the fact that Cuba is an economic disaster and
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Speaker 2: has been ever since they tried communism. You look at
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Speaker 2: communist nations around the world, and they are always the
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Speaker 2: places where individuals who dissent know that they are likely
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Speaker 2: to be killed. Now, I know what you're saying. Yeah, communism.
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Speaker 2: We're talking about the United States. We're not yet at
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Speaker 2: the level of communism and we weren't when Jack Smith
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Speaker 2: was in charge, but we're moving very close. Biden got
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Speaker 2: into office, senile as he was, and the people backing
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Speaker 2: him were much more radical than any Democrats of the past.
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Speaker 2: There's literally been a wave that went from Clinton, who
4:25
Speaker 2: was kind of a crappy president in some areas and
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Speaker 2: not bad in others. which led to Obama, who was radicalized,
4:35
Speaker 2: but could only go so far with regard to his
4:37
Speaker 2: radicalism because the rest of the party in the country
4:39
Speaker 2: weren't there yet. And then after Trump won, the leftists
4:47
Speaker 2: took hold of the party. Remember that the Trump election
4:51
Speaker 2: in 2016, that was the one in which Bernie Sanders
4:54
Speaker 2: probably would have been the Democratic nominee, an out-and-out socialist.
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Speaker 2: The Democrats had really changed. Trump won, now it's 2020.
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Speaker 2: They get him beat. Biden's their figurehead president. They wanted
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Speaker 2: to make sure that Trump could never come back again.
5:17
Speaker 2: Nor could anyone like him come back again. And that's
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Speaker 2: why we saw this extreme reaction of investigations that ran amok.
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Speaker 2: They used January 6th as the excuse to go out
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Speaker 2: and abuse the rights of Americans all over the place.
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Speaker 2: This is reminiscent of the tactic that was used against,
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Speaker 2: I'm going to describe him as the Wisconsin Trump, even
5:49
Speaker 2: though they could just not be more different in terms
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Speaker 2: of style, when Scott Walker won in 2010. He governed
5:59
Speaker 2: in a very different way than any other Republican. He
6:01
Speaker 2: actually went in and busted up the stuff that the
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Speaker 2: leftists loved. In particular, the power of the teachers union.
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Speaker 2: They reacted to Walker almost as insanely as they reacted
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Speaker 2: to Trump. The recall, the blue fist, all that crap.
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Speaker 2: One of the things that they did is they started
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Speaker 2: a grand jury investigation. That's the Wisconsin version, the John
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Speaker 2: Doe investigation. That's the Wisconsin version of a grand jury.
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Speaker 2: John Doe II. John Doe I occurred when Walker was
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Speaker 2: the county executive. John Doe II. And that investigation likewise
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Speaker 2: ran amok. Personal records of just about every conservative operative
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Speaker 2: in all of these independent groups were seized. They were
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Speaker 2: trying to prove that the Walker campaign... Illegally conspired with
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Speaker 2: outside groups. If they had, it wouldn't have been a crime,
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Speaker 2: as was established when a judge shut down the investigation.
7:03
Speaker 2: But once they did this, once they were doing this,
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Speaker 2: they were going after every conservative or every conservative activist
7:09
Speaker 2: or every conservative donor on Wisconsin. They needed to be
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Speaker 2: taught a lesson. You got Scott Walker in, we are
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Speaker 2: going to crush you for doing that. Now to Trump.
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Speaker 2: Totally different style, but Trump represented a different kind of Republican, again,
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Speaker 2: a revolution. He fought back. He was populist. He attracted
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Speaker 2: the votes of a lot of people who traditionally had
7:34
Speaker 2: voted for Democrats. So it wasn't enough to just try
7:40
Speaker 2: to put Trump in jail. They wanted to go after
7:45
Speaker 2: everybody in America who had anything to do with this.
7:48
Speaker 2: Now get back to the story. So Jack Smith's looking
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Speaker 2: into everything. Far beyond January 6th, far beyond election interference. Anything.
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Speaker 2: When he was testifying in front of the Senate a
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Speaker 2: few weeks ago, one Republican senator made a mistake in
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Speaker 2: asking a question, and that was the only thing that
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Speaker 2: the media focused on. And you ended up not getting
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Speaker 2: enough coverage of Republican senators trying to question Smith and
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Speaker 2: all of these abuses about this investigation that was out
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Speaker 2: of control. Well, one of the senators, in fact, the
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Speaker 2: two senators that I think was the Senate Committee on
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Speaker 2: Investigations or Oversight, Senators Johnson and Grassley, Johnson of Wisconsin
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Speaker 2: and Grassley of Iowa, were releasing all of this material. Now,
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Speaker 2: Grassley is the senator who is in charge of the
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Speaker 2: oversight now, and he's been the one who I think
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Speaker 2: ran the hearing that Jack Smith justified under. And we've
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Speaker 2: gotten a hold of all of these investigatory records. And
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Speaker 2: Grassley is now releasing... records of what it was that
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Speaker 2: Jack Smith seized. Now, this didn't get released until after
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Speaker 2: the Senate hearing, so nobody could ask Smith about, why
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Speaker 2: are you out there getting the records of MAGA cap buyers?
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Speaker 2: And of course, you had to buy the MAGA cap
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Speaker 2: from some organization connected to Trump, because all the organizations
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Speaker 2: connected to Trump, any of the MAGA groups or Trump's
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Speaker 2: committee or the Republican Party, all of those were the
9:15
Speaker 2: records that were seized. And they went all the way
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Speaker 2: down to getting mega cap buyers records. Townhall.com is a
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Speaker 2: pretty good story on this today. The time period was
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Speaker 2: between 2021 and 2025. Remember that Jack Smith was named
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Speaker 2: special counsel in 2021, right after Trump left office. Trump
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Speaker 2: was defeated in 2020, January 6th, 2021. Then Biden came
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Speaker 2: in in 2021. That's when Jack Smith was appointed. Quoting
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Speaker 2: from the report, a new animal sheds light on the
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Speaker 2: extraordinarily long arm of the FBI as it investigated President Trump.
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Speaker 2: Donald Trump, showing that the Bureau gobbled up the personal
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Speaker 2: data of at least 639,000 Republican donors, voters, and supporters.
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Speaker 2: Former Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department
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Speaker 2: obtained data, including the names, dates of birth, physical addresses,
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Speaker 2: email addresses, and voter registrations of thousands of everyday Americans
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Speaker 2: who According to the memo released Wednesday, that would be yesterday,
10:24
Speaker 2: I'm doing this podcast now on Thursday, by Senate Judiciary
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Speaker 2: Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, Smith wielded the country's most powerful
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Speaker 2: law enforcement tools to nab data on Trump supporters who
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Speaker 2: purchased MAGA hats, including their shipping addresses. Smith's sweep, though
10:43
Speaker 2: ostensibly focused on the events of January 6, 2020, that
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Speaker 2: date should be 21, but the story's at 20, captured
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Speaker 2: data back to 2005. The document suggests that Smith sought
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Speaker 2: to ensnare the information of thousands of everyday Republicans, effectively
11:03
Speaker 2: treating them like parties to a criminal conspiracy. Now, you
11:10
Speaker 2: might be tempted to say, well, yeah, but Trump won.
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Speaker 2: They got their payback. Do understand that That this is
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Speaker 2: what's next. These are their tactics. If they get control
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Speaker 2: of the House or the Senate, they will use those
11:28
Speaker 2: investigative arms to do the same thing. And if they
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Speaker 2: ever control the White House again, they'll have the FBI,
11:36
Speaker 2: the Treasury Department, and the agencies of the Justice Department
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Speaker 2: to do the same thing. This is what leftists do.
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Speaker 2: It isn't really what traditional Democrats did. There was a
11:51
Speaker 2: time in which the Democrats were bothered by this type
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Speaker 2: of government intrusion. If you go back and follow any
11:57
Speaker 2: of the Watergate stories, it was Nixon. You know, Nixon
12:01
Speaker 2: did a fraction of what we're describing here. They burglarized
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Speaker 2: Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Ellsberg was the guy that leaked
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Speaker 2: the Pentagon Papers. They wanted to get dirt on Ellsberg.
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Speaker 2: So they got into his psychiatrist's office trying to find
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Speaker 2: Ellsberg's medical records. This is among the stuff that occurred
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Speaker 2: in the Nixon administration that was uncovered during Watergate. And people,
12:23
Speaker 2: there was a terrible abuse. And it was. He was
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Speaker 2: one guy. And as I said, there was a time
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Speaker 2: in which the Democrats just were opposed to big government
12:35
Speaker 2: doing these kinds of things. But now if they are
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Speaker 2: big government, things are different. And beyond that, they have
12:42
Speaker 2: a more desperate need than ever to maintain power. All
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Speaker 2: of leftist power comes from government. They control not much
12:51
Speaker 2: of the private sector. Their power comes from government. And
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Speaker 2: it is government rulings and government edicts that allow them
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Speaker 2: to get the radical ideas that they believe in in place.
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Speaker 2: And the way they intend to keep this power is
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Speaker 2: to suppress the rest of us by behaving in this fashion.
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Speaker 2: You could say that this is hyperbole except My retort
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Speaker 2: to that is, it happened. Next chapter of that. We
13:22
Speaker 2: have been hearing in dribs and drabs about the debanking
13:27
Speaker 2: that went on during this same period, the period of Biden,
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Speaker 2: 2021 to 2025. We have a report out now from
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Speaker 2: the Office of Comptroller of the Currency That's a federal agency.
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Speaker 2: The Office of the Controller of the Currency has done
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Speaker 2: a comprehensive investigation into major American banks that closed accounts
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Speaker 2: of individual Americans and conservative groups simply because they had
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Speaker 2: conservative beliefs. None of them did anything wrong. None of
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Speaker 2: them violated any banking laws. None of them even violated
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Speaker 2: any policies of the bank. They were simply groups that
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Speaker 2: were in the crosshairs of the Biden administration because they
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Speaker 2: were conservative. Nick Carter's post that X bombshell report today
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Speaker 2: from the OCC out today confirming what we all suspected
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Speaker 2: between 2020 and 25 based on a review of 100,000 complaints.
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Speaker 2: America's largest banks systematically denied banking to lawful businesses based
14:42
Speaker 2: on political and reputational considerations rather than objective financial risk,
14:48
Speaker 2: effectively appointing themselves as arbiters of which industries deserved access
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Speaker 2: to the financial system digital assets was specifically named as
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Speaker 2: one of the six most affected industries. Lengthy report on
15:06
Speaker 2: this in the New York Post, which has done the
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Speaker 2: most extensive reporting. Miranda Devine, the legendary reporter and columnist there.
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Speaker 2: Major banks closed accounts of MAGA, Pro-Life, and other conservative
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Speaker 2: groups disfavored by Biden administration. Let me quote from her report.
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Speaker 2: Major banks closed accounts and refused credit to MAGA merchants,
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Speaker 2: Pro-Life causes, religious groups, conservative organizations, and sectors disfavored by
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Speaker 2: the Biden administration, such as firearms, oil and gas, Private prisons,
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Speaker 2: a bombshell report from the federal banking regulator is found.
15:39
Speaker 2: The debanking review of the Office of the Comptroller of
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Speaker 2: the Currency investigated 100,000 complaints and scrutinized 50,000 internal bank
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Speaker 2: records to reveal how customers were debanked based purely on
15:50
Speaker 2: their political, social, or religious beliefs. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank,
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Speaker 2: Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and
16:04
Speaker 2: BMO were found to have discriminated against American consumers citing
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Speaker 2: reputation risk as a reason to deny service between 2020
16:12
Speaker 2: and 2025. So the banks justified this. Look, the Biden
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Speaker 2: administration doesn't like these types of people, so we're not
16:18
Speaker 2: going to have any banking relationship with them because this
16:21
Speaker 2: might be a risk to our reputation if we even
16:24
Speaker 2: make loans or have checking accounts of conservative organizations. Do
16:32
Speaker 2: you have any doubt That an even more radicalized left,
16:36
Speaker 2: if it regains power now, won't resume the same thing
16:39
Speaker 2: and worse? Negative press, protests, and criticism from advocacy groups
16:47
Speaker 2: such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and reprisals from
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Speaker 2: regulators or politicians were cited as the reputation risks most
16:54
Speaker 2: feared by the banks. So in other words, the banks
16:56
Speaker 2: were afraid that the lefties would get on them if,
16:58
Speaker 2: let's use a really inflammatory, well, you do the banking
17:01
Speaker 2: of the NRA, we're going to get on you for that.
17:03
Speaker 2: Some banks didn't want any part of that. Except it
17:05
Speaker 2: didn't stop at polarizing groups like the NRA, pro-life organizations,
17:11
Speaker 2: simple conservative advocacy groups, any MAGA-type fundraising arm. I'm a
17:20
Speaker 2: customer of BMO. I'm lucky they didn't apparently close my
17:23
Speaker 2: checking account. We laugh about this, but then you realize
17:27
Speaker 2: this is what they were doing. There's been, of course,
17:34
Speaker 2: a collective yawn from the left and from the media
17:37
Speaker 2: about this because they're not bothered by it. They no
17:41
Speaker 2: longer believe that all Americans should be treated equally. They
17:45
Speaker 2: believe that those of us who are right of center
17:49
Speaker 2: have no right to our beliefs, and therefore any targeting
17:53
Speaker 2: of the government to silence us, oppress us, is legitimate.
17:58
Speaker 2: There is zero difference between that ideology and the ideology
18:03
Speaker 2: of totalitarian regimes. I've laid this out again and again
18:07
Speaker 2: and again. The more left you get, when you gain power,
18:10
Speaker 2: you will do anything to keep it. And they have
18:13
Speaker 2: to do these things because their policies never work. So
18:18
Speaker 2: they run the risk of being thrown out of office.
18:22
Speaker 2: Despite all that they did during this period of 2021
18:25
Speaker 2: to 2025, they did lose in 2024. They made a
18:33
Speaker 2: number of terrible mistakes. They ran a nincompoop as their
18:36
Speaker 2: candidate for president after trying to keep a senile guy
18:39
Speaker 2: on the ticket forever. So they ended up with a
18:42
Speaker 2: bad candidate. They also overplayed their hands, and many people,
18:47
Speaker 2: particularly Republicans, realized what was being done here and rallied
18:51
Speaker 2: around Trump, even those that were bothered by a number
18:54
Speaker 2: of components of Trump. It, however, almost worked. This is
19:08
Speaker 2: what the left now is. And this left has taken
19:15
Speaker 2: over the entire Democrat Party with almost no pushback. Now
19:21
Speaker 2: that this report is out, find all of the Democratic
19:25
Speaker 2: senators and House members and news organizations that condemn what happened.
19:31
Speaker 2: You'll find none. They're all fine with it. Because they
19:36
Speaker 2: believe that the end did justify the means. And the
19:39
Speaker 2: end is we have to keep our radicalism in power.
19:41
Speaker 2: We have to once and for all smack down the right.
19:47
Speaker 2: There's an interesting piece. written by Bill Donahue. He's the
19:54
Speaker 2: leader of the Catholic League. He wrote an essay. And
19:57
Speaker 2: it has to do with why liberals all end up
20:02
Speaker 2: agreeing on the same things. I'm going to share it
20:05
Speaker 2: with you in a moment. but I've commented on how
20:08
Speaker 2: there's almost no dissent on anything in the left. When
20:14
Speaker 2: the radicals in the left decide something that nobody ever
20:18
Speaker 2: believed in before, the move toward everybody adopting that point
20:21
Speaker 2: of view occurs at warp speed, as an example. For
20:27
Speaker 2: almost my entire life, the political movement that seemingly most
20:32
Speaker 2: loudly decried anti-Semitism was the left. All of the major
20:36
Speaker 2: anti-Semitic groups were groups of the left. If anyone was
20:43
Speaker 2: engaging in anything that could be considered bashing of Jews,
20:47
Speaker 2: it was usually the left that most loudly condemned it.
20:54
Speaker 2: Look how quickly we have gone to anti-Semitism showing up
20:58
Speaker 2: on the left to now being almost the unanimous position
21:02
Speaker 2: of the American left. Look how quickly that happened. Without
21:12
Speaker 2: any pushback or consideration by any of the Democrats who
21:15
Speaker 2: used to be opposed to this type of thing. Or,
21:25
Speaker 2: for almost my entire life, when those of us on
21:29
Speaker 2: the right would criticize some stupid cockamamie crackpot liberal idea,
21:33
Speaker 2: we'd say, that's socialism. You're a socialist. I mean, they
21:40
Speaker 2: called Franklin Delano Roosevelt a socialist for starting the New Deal.
21:46
Speaker 2: When Lyndon Johnson put in place the Great Society, those
21:48
Speaker 2: of us on the right would say, that's socialism. And indeed,
21:52
Speaker 2: there were components of socialism in it. But for all
21:56
Speaker 2: of that time, the Democrats would just laugh that I'm
21:59
Speaker 2: not a socialist, I'm a Democrat. some of the strongest
22:06
Speaker 2: anti-communists in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s were Democrats.
22:11
Speaker 2: They didn't like the notion that the communists were going
22:14
Speaker 2: to try to take over their movement. They were Democrats.
22:17
Speaker 2: And they always ridiculed those of us on the right
22:19
Speaker 2: when we would accuse them of socialism. Now, they all
22:26
Speaker 2: say they're socialists. So how did you have a movement,
22:30
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, which in the past had like 4%
22:33
Speaker 2: of its people saying they were socialists, now having the
22:35
Speaker 2: majority saying they're socialists. How did that happen? And the
22:38
Speaker 2: answer is, once again, the extreme left says something, it
22:44
Speaker 2: moves as a wave across the entire Democratic Party with
22:47
Speaker 2: no resistance. And that's because individual members of the left,
22:52
Speaker 2: people who think on the left, I've argued forever, they're stupid.
22:56
Speaker 2: And because they're stupid... They don't trust their own opinions.
23:00
Speaker 2: So if they've been saying, I'm not a socialist, now
23:02
Speaker 2: their other leaders are saying, no, you are a socialist.
23:04
Speaker 2: They go along with that. COVID was a perfect example
23:08
Speaker 2: of that. The number of unbelievably dumb things that we
23:11
Speaker 2: had never done before. We never closed the churches or
23:15
Speaker 2: closed the schools for months on end. We've had all
23:19
Speaker 2: sorts of epidemics going across this country, many far more serious.
23:23
Speaker 2: We never did any of this during polio. But once
23:29
Speaker 2: the leaders of the left said that we were going
23:31
Speaker 2: to do this, they all in lockstep adopted that. I
23:38
Speaker 2: remember back when I was in college. When Thomas Jefferson
23:43
Speaker 2: was president. Just re-watching John Adams, by the way. One
23:48
Speaker 2: of the greatest miniseries ever. About the founding of the country.
23:51
Speaker 3: Anyway.
23:52
Speaker 2: Anyway. One of the things that I noticed when I
23:58
Speaker 2: was in college is professors didn't work very much. They
24:02
Speaker 2: spent all of their time in the student union, which
24:04
Speaker 2: a handful of us kind of were hacked off about.
24:07
Speaker 2: It's the student union. It was funded by student fees,
24:10
Speaker 2: yet the people that were sitting in there all day
24:11
Speaker 2: were the faculty. And they were sitting around at these tables,
24:14
Speaker 2: drinking their coffee, hours and hours and hours on end.
24:17
Speaker 2: And the reason that they were able to do this
24:19
Speaker 2: is because they hardly taught any classes. It's way worse now.
24:26
Speaker 2: But what they would sit and do during that era
24:29
Speaker 2: is discuss and argue and debate and intellectually probe and prod.
24:35
Speaker 2: And in that era, that's what my friends and I did.
24:39
Speaker 2: We would come up with ideas and challenge people's thinking
24:42
Speaker 2: and just poke and prod and prod and prod and
24:44
Speaker 2: challenge and challenge and challenge. That was when people had
24:48
Speaker 2: open minds and used their minds to try to figure
24:53
Speaker 2: out what was the most sensible approach. There was never
24:59
Speaker 2: any particular need to conform to somebody else's opinion, if anything.
25:08
Speaker 2: You felt good if you were a contrarian opinion. There's
25:11
Speaker 2: none of this on the left. I think one of
25:17
Speaker 2: the most fascinating things that has happened in recent years
25:19
Speaker 2: is when Joe Biden had his one debate with Trump
25:23
Speaker 2: back in June of 24, that disastrous debate when Biden
25:28
Speaker 2: fell apart and couldn't answer any questions, that he was
25:31
Speaker 2: muttering and wandered off the subject. There literally were millions
25:35
Speaker 2: of Americans that were shocked at this. There was no
25:38
Speaker 2: conservative that I know that was shocked. We all know
25:40
Speaker 2: that Joe Biden was seen out because we'd been seen
25:42
Speaker 2: him wandering the wrong way off the stage and muttering
25:45
Speaker 2: and speaking incomprehensibly, speaking very softly, all of the stuff
25:49
Speaker 2: that showed up during the debate we'd been seeing for
25:51
Speaker 2: four years. Somehow these lefties didn't say it because their
25:56
Speaker 2: lefty leaders were telling them, no, no, no, Joe is fine.
26:05
Speaker 2: The two married idiots in the morning, Joe. Scarborough and
26:11
Speaker 2: Zbigniew Brzezinski's daughter. Oh, we met Joe, he's sharper than ever.
26:20
Speaker 2: the Democratic citizens of the United States who saw Joe
26:23
Speaker 2: Biden mumbling and shuffling literally did not allow that to
26:27
Speaker 2: register into their brains because their leaders are telling him
26:30
Speaker 2: that he wasn't sadile. They actually seem surprised. And this is,
26:35
Speaker 2: of course, when they pulled the rug out from underneath him.
26:37
Speaker 2: If you're wondering, and again, we discussed this all through 2024,
26:41
Speaker 2: why didn't they pull the rug out from underneath Biden
26:43
Speaker 2: earlier on? Why didn't they have an open primary? Perhaps
26:45
Speaker 2: they would have come up with a candidate better qualified
26:47
Speaker 2: to win than Kamala. And the answer is, is that
26:52
Speaker 2: they didn't know Biden was senile. And they didn't know
26:55
Speaker 2: Biden was senile because, again, they all think alike. They
26:58
Speaker 2: were told he wasn't. Same thing during COVID. All of
27:02
Speaker 2: the things that we observed with our own eyes, we
27:03
Speaker 2: could see that the masks weren't working. We saw early
27:06
Speaker 2: on that people were vaccinated, still got COVID. Yet the
27:12
Speaker 2: people on the left continue to cling to these things
27:14
Speaker 2: that their own eyes were telling them weren't true. I
27:21
Speaker 2: want to share, it's not very long, Bill Donahue's essay
27:24
Speaker 2: on this. Why are liberals prone to groupthink, he writes.
27:28
Speaker 2: In the early 1970s, Pauline Kael, film critic for The
27:31
Speaker 2: New Yorker, was stunned when Richard Nixon won the presidential election.
27:35
Speaker 2: She was famous. They quoted as saying, I can't believe
27:37
Speaker 2: Nixon won. I don't know anyone who voted for him.
27:40
Speaker 2: That was odd. Nixon won 49 states. Kael claimed she
27:43
Speaker 2: was misquoted, but she admits to saying something similar. I
27:47
Speaker 2: live in a rather special world. That's putting it mildly.
27:51
Speaker 2: She lived in an intellectual ghetto where groupthink is commonplace.
27:56
Speaker 2: So do most liberals today. Just walk into the faculty
27:59
Speaker 2: lounge on any college campus to validate this verity. In
28:03
Speaker 2: that same year, 1972, psychologist Irving Janis coined the term groupthink.
28:09
Speaker 2: He meant by that that the uniformity of thought that
28:12
Speaker 2: occurs when members of a group fail to consider alternative views.
28:18
Speaker 2: The gist of what he said was picked up by
28:19
Speaker 2: writers in the late 1940s. That is what Orwell wrote
28:23
Speaker 2: about doublethink in his novel 1984. Harold Rosenberg, a Marxist
28:29
Speaker 2: art critic who moved to the center after the war,
28:32
Speaker 2: wrote an influential essay, The Herd of the Independent Minds,
28:36
Speaker 2: that accurately described the same phenomenon. He said the herd
28:40
Speaker 2: mentality was especially true of New York intellectuals. Why intellectuals?
28:45
Speaker 2: Most of whom are on the left. Let me interject.
28:49
Speaker 2: This is where I think I have pretty good insight
28:52
Speaker 2: to help you people with. You would think that an intellectual,
28:56
Speaker 2: by definition, would be the most open-minded and smart person.
29:01
Speaker 2: If you're really learned and you have all of this knowledge,
29:03
Speaker 2: you know, you're an intellectual, you would think that that
29:06
Speaker 2: would make you a free thinker and the person most
29:08
Speaker 2: likely to question. What I find, however, is that most
29:14
Speaker 2: intellectuals are simply taught by other intellectuals They don't actually
29:21
Speaker 2: know how to do anything. They don't know how anything works.
29:28
Speaker 2: They have no concept of whether or not if you
29:33
Speaker 2: put something in place, it will be successful or fail.
29:36
Speaker 2: This is why they adopt so many things. This is
29:38
Speaker 2: why they thought running a trolley around on the streets
29:40
Speaker 2: of Milwaukee would pack with people. intellectuals, in fact, are
29:49
Speaker 2: extremely closed-minded. All they know, their entire base of knowledge,
29:53
Speaker 2: is what was taught to them by other intellectuals. And
29:56
Speaker 2: most intellectuals have never spent a day in the practical,
29:59
Speaker 2: actual world, so their ideas are never tested. So they
30:02
Speaker 2: have no clue as to what's going to work. So when, say,
30:05
Speaker 2: Fauci gets up and says all these things with regard
30:09
Speaker 2: to COVID, none of them question it. The quacks that
30:13
Speaker 2: work in the public health sector, and I think all
30:15
Speaker 2: of them must be quacks because not one of them
30:17
Speaker 2: In any county that I'm aware of, stood up and said, no,
30:19
Speaker 2: we're not going to mandate masks. We're not going to
30:21
Speaker 2: do this. We're going to buck against this. This is
30:22
Speaker 2: all stupid. Kids don't have to worry about getting COVID.
30:27
Speaker 2: They aren't going to get COVID. If they do, they
30:28
Speaker 2: get a mild case of it. No child is going
30:30
Speaker 2: to die. And any of you parents vaccinating small children
30:33
Speaker 2: against COVID, you're nuts. Nobody did that. Because intellectuals don't
30:38
Speaker 2: question anything because they don't know anything. You find some
30:41
Speaker 2: guy who never even went to college, maybe even barely
30:44
Speaker 2: got out of high school, has run a business, dealt
30:46
Speaker 2: with customers, and has to deal with vendors, has to
30:49
Speaker 2: come up with a business plan that sells products that
30:53
Speaker 2: customers want to buy, has to size up the cost
30:57
Speaker 2: of the things that they buy. That person has to
31:00
Speaker 2: know what's going to work and what doesn't work because
31:01
Speaker 2: if they make decisions about things and they're wrong, they
31:03
Speaker 2: go out of business. You compare the intelligence of that
31:07
Speaker 2: person way greater and the smarts of that person with
31:10
Speaker 2: some egghead who's never done a damn thing. But then
31:14
Speaker 2: those eggheads who've never done a damn thing, they are
31:16
Speaker 2: plagued with this notion of superiority. The dumbest people among
31:21
Speaker 2: us are the ones who think they know the most.
31:23
Speaker 2: Back to Donahue. Rosenberg seized on the tendency of intellectuals
31:28
Speaker 2: to deal with abstract constructions and not real-world experience. This
31:33
Speaker 2: accounts for their lack of independent thinking. Let me interject.
31:36
Speaker 2: For instance, they refuse to accept that socialism doesn't work. socialism,
31:41
Speaker 2: of course, doesn't work is because if you don't reward
31:44
Speaker 2: someone and give them the opportunity to achieve great money
31:47
Speaker 2: and even greater money and greater money and greater money
31:49
Speaker 2: than that by the more and more that they achieve,
31:52
Speaker 2: if you simply take it all from them, nobody's going
31:54
Speaker 2: to make an attempt to achieve anything. Secondly, if you
31:56
Speaker 2: reward people with a very acceptable standard of living for
32:01
Speaker 2: not doing a damn thing, that's good enough for a
32:03
Speaker 2: lot of people. So you end up with nobody doing
32:05
Speaker 2: anything and there become shortages of things and the whole
32:06
Speaker 2: economic economy, it collapses. But theoretically enough, in other words,
32:10
Speaker 2: figure out that You know, that's why it isn't going
32:12
Speaker 2: to work because you understand human nature. The average intellectual
32:15
Speaker 2: is incapable of that. Abstractly, well, if we take to
32:18
Speaker 2: rich and give to the poor, everybody will be well
32:20
Speaker 2: off and the rich will still have enough and they'll
32:22
Speaker 2: be fine. It's why they also don't understand one of
32:25
Speaker 2: the most obvious things going on in the United States
32:27
Speaker 2: right now. People are leaving high-tax states to go to
32:30
Speaker 2: low-tax states. They can't fathom that somebody would leave and
32:33
Speaker 2: go to another state because the taxes are lower elsewhere.
32:35
Speaker 2: They really can't fathom it. Back to Donahue. Writing at
32:40
Speaker 2: the same time was Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Author of
32:44
Speaker 2: many powerful books, he wrote an essay that sought to
32:47
Speaker 2: explain the same worldview. He found that the utopian bent
32:51
Speaker 2: that so many of these writers shared explained their propensity
32:54
Speaker 2: to think in terms of grand ideas dismissing practical concerns.
32:59
Speaker 2: Utopian visions and a proclivity to abstract thinking are hallmarks
33:03
Speaker 2: of liberals, most of whom are Democrats. Their lack of
33:06
Speaker 2: interest in practical real-world experiences is not a virtue indeed.
33:11
Speaker 2: It is a vice. And one other story to share
33:14
Speaker 2: with this segment. The execution of Nadal Hassan will not
33:18
Speaker 2: be live-streamed. I kind of figured this was going to happen.
33:22
Speaker 2: Pete Heggs, the dissent secretary, said, this is the guy
33:25
Speaker 2: who committed the massacre at Fort Hood. We're going to
33:29
Speaker 2: show his execution by firing squad and we're going to
33:31
Speaker 2: live-stream it. Trump is saying, no, no, no, you're not
33:36
Speaker 2: going to do it. He's overridden the decision. First of all,
33:42
Speaker 2: I like the idea just because I knew it would
33:44
Speaker 2: drive people on the left crazy. I don't particularly have
33:46
Speaker 2: an opinion one way or another about whether or not
33:47
Speaker 2: you should show death penalty executions or not. I just
33:50
Speaker 2: love the fact that Hanks did it because I knew
33:52
Speaker 2: it would send the left into the tizzy that it did.
33:55
Speaker 2: I do, however, understand that there are risks with live
34:00
Speaker 2: streaming this particular execution because he was a radical Muslim.
34:05
Speaker 2: We live in a world in which radical Muslims consider
34:12
Speaker 2: people to be heroes if they slaughter non-Muslims. You have
34:17
Speaker 2: all sorts of people in the American left who are
34:19
Speaker 2: perfectly fine with what happened October 7th in Israel. Executing
34:24
Speaker 2: this guy just makes him a martyr and just creates
34:27
Speaker 2: even more reason for Muslims in our own country to
34:30
Speaker 2: go wild and commit mayhem against non-Muslims. And you don't
34:34
Speaker 2: need to add to their zealotry. As long as the
34:40
Speaker 2: guy gets killed, unlike what happened in Tennessee, is fine
34:43
Speaker 2: with me. I'm told that back in the day when
34:46
Speaker 2: they had a firing squad, only one guy had a
34:48
Speaker 2: bullet in the gun and the others just had blanks,
34:51
Speaker 2: but they never knew who it was so that the
34:52
Speaker 2: person who actually fired the fatal shot didn't have that
34:55
Speaker 2: on his conscience. After what happened in Tennessee, I want
34:59
Speaker 2: them all to have live bullets and I want them
35:01
Speaker 2: to have machine guns. I want them to put out
35:02
Speaker 2: 18,000 shots. Riddle this bastard with bullet holes. But if
35:08
Speaker 2: we're not going to see it, we're not going to
35:09
Speaker 2: see it. You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast. This
35:15
Speaker 2: is the Mark Belling Podcast. Interesting story about what's going
35:19
Speaker 2: on in the housing market. For the last couple of years,
35:23
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that home sales weren't very high
35:27
Speaker 2: is nobody was selling. You'd hear stories of these bidding wars.
35:33
Speaker 2: Houses in prime neighborhoods that went on the market would
35:38
Speaker 2: get multiple offers within a day, and there'd be bidding wars.
35:41
Speaker 2: People would be offering above the asking price. So the
35:47
Speaker 2: sales were low just because hardly anybody was selling. And
35:51
Speaker 2: the biggest reason for that, in my opinion, and it's
35:53
Speaker 2: everybody's opinion, so it's not like I have an insight here,
35:56
Speaker 2: is there were so many people who owned homes who
36:00
Speaker 2: bought them at extremely low interest rates that they didn't
36:04
Speaker 2: want to get out of that mortgage. It was a
36:07
Speaker 2: favorable mortgage at, you know, three, three and a half
36:10
Speaker 2: percent lower to go out and then buy a new home.
36:16
Speaker 2: You know, if you flip a home, you usually buy
36:17
Speaker 2: something more expensive, meaning you'd have to go out and
36:19
Speaker 2: get a new, a new loan. And they didn't end
36:21
Speaker 2: up having to borrow more money. So sellers did not
36:23
Speaker 2: want to unload homes in which they still had a
36:25
Speaker 2: mortgage because the mortgage is so favorable. It was a
36:27
Speaker 2: big reason for it. So we had a slow housing market. Now,
36:36
Speaker 2: There's a new report on housing in the last month.
36:39
Speaker 2: The number has finally flipped. There are now way more
36:43
Speaker 2: sellers than buyers. The number of listings available is much
36:50
Speaker 2: higher than the number of would-be buyers making offers. Lengthy
36:55
Speaker 2: story in the Wall Street Journal today on this. Many
36:59
Speaker 2: of the ingredients needed to cause a fall in U.S.
37:01
Speaker 2: housing prices are in place. A wide gap has opened
37:06
Speaker 2: up between the number of sellers and buyers in the
37:09
Speaker 2: housing market. In September, 1.5 million Americans were trying to
37:13
Speaker 2: sell their homes, but only 929,000 people were buying according
37:17
Speaker 2: to Redfin estimates. That surplus of sellers, nearly 600,000, is
37:22
Speaker 2: the largest in Redfin's records going back to 2013. So
37:27
Speaker 2: we now have way more people selling than people who
37:31
Speaker 2: want to buy. But here's what's not happened, and it
37:34
Speaker 2: was the point of this story. Prices have not come down.
37:40
Speaker 2: So what you have here is even though sellers are
37:44
Speaker 2: finding it hard to sell their homes because there aren't
37:46
Speaker 2: enough buyers now, finally, they're refusing to lower, and I'm
37:51
Speaker 2: talking en masse, individuals, maybe lowering, and the people who
37:56
Speaker 2: most desperately need to sell will lower. But collectively, prices
38:00
Speaker 2: have not gone down. So you really have stagnation in sales.
38:05
Speaker 2: You have fewer would-be buyers, which normally would mean a
38:10
Speaker 2: crash or at least a correction in prices. Supply and
38:13
Speaker 2: demand works. But that hasn't occurred yet. My comment. It will.
38:24
Speaker 2: If you have sellers that try and they're sitting there
38:26
Speaker 2: and they can't move their house for 15 months. and
38:29
Speaker 2: they're just determined, I'm not going to sell for more
38:31
Speaker 2: than this. You know, it was assessed at such and
38:33
Speaker 2: such an amount of money, or I paid X for
38:36
Speaker 2: it three years ago. I'm not going to take a loss.
38:38
Speaker 2: Or the guy down the street, he got $ 600, 000 a
38:42
Speaker 2: year ago. I'm not going to sell mine for $ 475, 000. Eventually,
38:46
Speaker 2: when you're sitting there carrying the home for month after
38:49
Speaker 2: month after month after month, and you're getting no offers,
38:51
Speaker 2: you do lower your price. We all know what the
38:56
Speaker 2: major reason is for the dearth of buyers. Interest rates
39:00
Speaker 2: are high. I remember when I first got old enough
39:05
Speaker 2: that you're supposed to think about buying a house. The
39:09
Speaker 2: rule of thumb was anytime mortgage rates get below 10% buy. Remember,
39:13
Speaker 2: I was coming out of the 70s, 80s, and the
39:15
Speaker 2: 90s where interest rates were very, very high. This is
39:19
Speaker 2: before the tremendous economic boom that occurred, starting with Reagan,
39:24
Speaker 2: and then really accelerating in the 21st century where mortgage
39:27
Speaker 2: rates got down to Never mind 10%.
39:29
Speaker 3: 6%, 3%.
39:29
Speaker 2: I had a mortgage at 2.75%, a 15-year mortgage at 2.75%.
39:31
Speaker 2: So much for 10% being a.
39:33
Speaker 3: Deal.
39:33
Speaker 2: Well, you have generations of buyers right now, people under
39:35
Speaker 2: the age of 50, They're not going to borrow at 7%.
39:51
Speaker 2: And indeed, the cost of interest on a large purchase
39:55
Speaker 2: like a home, particularly when you mortgage over 30 years,
39:59
Speaker 2: which is what a lot of people are forced to
40:02
Speaker 2: do because they want to buy in order to have
40:05
Speaker 2: their payment manageable, you're paying such a staggering amount of
40:09
Speaker 2: the payment and interest and you're knocking down the principal
40:11
Speaker 2: so little for the first number of years that the
40:13
Speaker 2: buyers are just saying, I'm not going to do it.
40:19
Speaker 2: Either interest rates will come down. That's a really tough call.
40:27
Speaker 2: Short-term interest rates are controlled by the Fed, but long-term
40:30
Speaker 2: interest rates, which mortgages are based on, are controlled by
40:32
Speaker 2: the market. Or, if they don't, sellers are going to
40:41
Speaker 2: lower their prices, prices are going to come down, in
40:43
Speaker 2: which case, if the price comes down, the buyer's paying
40:46
Speaker 2: the same amount that they would have before. If mortgage
40:49
Speaker 2: rates are 2.5%, or they're 7%, if the price comes
40:53
Speaker 2: down enough, the payment is going to be the same
40:54
Speaker 2: for the individual person. So we've been talking about unaffordability
40:58
Speaker 2: in the housing market. People act as though that's a
41:02
Speaker 2: problem for everyone. It was not a problem for the
41:05
Speaker 2: people who owned their homes. The fact that their value
41:08
Speaker 2: of their homes kept going up was good for them.
41:11
Speaker 2: It's very bad for the people who wanted to crack
41:13
Speaker 2: into the housing market. So I suspect one of these
41:16
Speaker 2: things is going to correct. If there are truly people
41:18
Speaker 2: who want to buy a home, they're going to jump
41:21
Speaker 2: when some sellers start to lower their prices. And this
41:24
Speaker 2: is a collective thing. When some people start to lower
41:28
Speaker 2: their prices, other people will have to lower their prices
41:31
Speaker 2: because now you got a guy that's asking, I'll just
41:32
Speaker 2: take a subdivision. He's asking 425. The guy down the
41:36
Speaker 2: street suddenly goes down to 350 and sells his house.
41:38
Speaker 2: So now I got to lower my price because otherwise
41:41
Speaker 2: it's never going to sell because all my neighbors are
41:43
Speaker 2: actually going for lower than I am. I've talked about
41:52
Speaker 2: a surveying company that most local school districts hire before
41:58
Speaker 2: they try to get a tax increase referendum on the ballot.
42:00
Speaker 2: The company is called School Perceptions. They're based in Slinger.
42:05
Speaker 2: The reason school districts hire them is because they don't
42:08
Speaker 2: do fair surveys. They do propaganda. They are not a
42:14
Speaker 2: legitimate surveying company. What they are is a company, and
42:17
Speaker 2: they even brag about this on their website. is a
42:21
Speaker 2: company that tries to help school districts pass referendums. The
42:25
Speaker 2: Arrowhead School District has been trying to get a tax
42:28
Speaker 2: increase referendum for some time. They had a big one
42:30
Speaker 2: that failed. Arrowhead has declining enrollment, which you would think
42:34
Speaker 2: would mean that they would be able to lower their costs,
42:36
Speaker 2: but they're saying that this is the reason that we
42:38
Speaker 2: have to raise your taxes. They've got two schools. They
42:42
Speaker 2: have a campus with two schools. They want to close
42:44
Speaker 2: one of the schools, renovate the other, et cetera, et cetera,
42:46
Speaker 2: et cetera. So they're now surveying community members. And they
42:53
Speaker 2: hired school perceptions. And as I said, any school district
42:56
Speaker 2: that's honestly trying to survey its members, community residents, does
42:59
Speaker 2: not hire school perceptions. So the Arrowhead School Board is
43:02
Speaker 2: clearly trying to con people that they wouldn't use a
43:06
Speaker 2: firm like school perceptions. And I'm holding in my hand
43:09
Speaker 2: the survey. Now here's how they do it. Before they
43:14
Speaker 2: ask the questions... School of Perceptions prepares this material that
43:18
Speaker 2: is all loaded and biased. They don't present both sides
43:24
Speaker 2: of the issue. Now, I would argue they shouldn't be
43:25
Speaker 2: presenting any information. They should just ask people, do you
43:28
Speaker 2: want to raise your taxes to do this or not?
43:31
Speaker 2: But instead, they give the background material. This is where
43:33
Speaker 2: the bias comes in. I'm not going to read the
43:34
Speaker 2: whole thing, but you're going to feel for it. Dear
43:36
Speaker 2: families and community members, Arrowhead High School is at an
43:39
Speaker 2: important crossroads. As many of you know, two referendum proposals
43:42
Speaker 2: since 2024 failed to win voter support. The first asked
43:45
Speaker 2: the community to consider building a new high school, the
43:47
Speaker 2: second proposal expanding the north campus to serve all Arrowhead
43:50
Speaker 2: students under one roof. Since then, we've heard from community
43:53
Speaker 2: members why these proposals didn't pass. Cost and tax impact
43:57
Speaker 2: were the primary concern. At the same time, Arrowhead is
44:00
Speaker 2: experiencing declining enrollment. And we are not alone. Across Wisconsin, 75%
44:05
Speaker 2: of school districts have fewer students than they did 15
44:07
Speaker 2: years ago. We are at the point where maintaining two
44:10
Speaker 2: separate underutilized buildings is not a good use of taxpayer dollars. Therefore,
44:14
Speaker 2: we developed a revised lower cost plan to update the
44:17
Speaker 2: North Campus. Well, first of all, what the hell is
44:20
Speaker 2: that doing in a survey? That'd be like if you're
44:22
Speaker 2: surveying the candidates for governor and you give, you know,
44:26
Speaker 2: 15 minutes of reasons why Tom Tiffany is a jerk
44:29
Speaker 2: and then ask you to support Crowley or Tiffany. It
44:35
Speaker 2: then goes on. Challenges. Now, again, listen to how loaded
44:40
Speaker 2: this is, which just tells me that the Arrowhead School
44:42
Speaker 2: Board is not interested in surveying people. They use the
44:45
Speaker 2: survey as a means to sell the referendum. Increasing costs
44:50
Speaker 2: and inadequate state funding. We are experiencing increasing costs for utilities, transportation,
44:55
Speaker 2: staff compensation, and insurance. Meanwhile, state funding for public schools
44:59
Speaker 2: has not kept pace with inflation. Most Wisconsin school districts,
45:02
Speaker 2: including Arrowhead, are struggling with these issues. By the way,
45:05
Speaker 2: I will point out that the state school aid formula
45:07
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin has increased more than the rate of inflation.
45:11
Speaker 2: What happens is individual school districts all don't get the
45:13
Speaker 2: same amount under this, and I grant you that school
45:16
Speaker 2: districts like Arrowhead are screwed under the school aid formula,
45:19
Speaker 2: which tends to benefit urbanized districts with lower property valuations
45:23
Speaker 2: in the district. That part is true, but it is
45:26
Speaker 2: not true that we're not putting enough money into state
45:28
Speaker 2: school aid. It has gone up significantly. It would have
45:32
Speaker 2: gone up a lot more, but the Democrats in Wisconsin
45:35
Speaker 2: rejected the deal that Tony Evers cut with the Republicans
45:37
Speaker 2: earlier this year. Back to the piece. To continue balancing
45:42
Speaker 2: our budget, we have already frozen department budgets, reduced bus routes,
45:45
Speaker 2: moved to a self-funded insurance model, and cut staff. These
45:49
Speaker 2: measures are not sufficient to address the structural imbalance over time. Again,
45:54
Speaker 2: that's not I could spin this in the exact opposite
45:58
Speaker 2: direction by saying that they have lost hundreds of students
46:00
Speaker 2: in enrollment, but they have come nowhere near slashing staff
46:04
Speaker 2: at the same percentage. I could also point out that
46:08
Speaker 2: they still have government employees doing building and grounds rather
46:11
Speaker 2: than doing what almost every private employer does, which is
46:14
Speaker 2: hire landscaping companies to do that. But again, that would
46:16
Speaker 2: be me biasing the survey. Continued. Declining enrollment and arrowhead
46:20
Speaker 2: enrollment dropped from over 2,200 students in 2015 to 1,862
46:24
Speaker 2: students last year, a loss of 355 students. This downward
46:27
Speaker 2: trend is projected to continue. This is an issue because
46:29
Speaker 2: the amount of money we receive is based on the
46:31
Speaker 2: number of students that we serve. Aging facilities. Both buildings
46:34
Speaker 2: are aging and in need of significant maintenance. South Campus
46:37
Speaker 2: was constructed in 1955 and North Campus in 1969. The
46:40
Speaker 2: last voter-approved building referendum was more than 25 years ago.
46:43
Speaker 2: Since then, maintenance needs have accumulated across both facilities. Now,
46:46
Speaker 2: I would retort... They've accumulated across these facilities because the
46:52
Speaker 2: huge property taxes that you've been getting over the years
46:55
Speaker 2: you were not using to upkeep your buildings. You were
46:57
Speaker 2: instead using it to hire a massive staff and paying
47:01
Speaker 2: them staggering amounts of money. Furthermore, anyone who would suggest
47:05
Speaker 2: that Arrowhead does not have top-notch facilities is simply lying.
47:09
Speaker 2: This is the school district that has a locker room
47:12
Speaker 2: with a skylight in it. A topic of the last
47:15
Speaker 2: 15 years that we've had a field day with. Then
47:18
Speaker 2: it goes on, two-building configuration explains why they shouldn't have
47:21
Speaker 2: the two buildings. The cost of renovating North Campus was
47:23
Speaker 2: lowered from $ 136 million to $ 79 million, reducing the size
47:28
Speaker 2: of the expansion. As a result, the North Campus would
47:29
Speaker 2: not have the space to serve both residents and non-resident students. Therefore,
47:33
Speaker 2: voters support this plan. The board will need to phase
47:35
Speaker 2: out open enrollment to prioritize Arrowhead resident students. And it
47:39
Speaker 2: goes on and on and on. And after all of this,
47:41
Speaker 2: they then ask the questions. That's not a survey. It's
47:47
Speaker 2: putting out a bunch of spin, a taxpayer expense, sending
47:50
Speaker 2: it out, and then asking the question after you've planted
47:53
Speaker 2: all of these ideas in people's heads as to whether
47:55
Speaker 2: or not you should support doing it. So the questions,
47:58
Speaker 2: if you do not support the revised plan, what are
48:00
Speaker 2: the reasons? The project is still too expensive. The tax
48:03
Speaker 2: impact is still too large. Other entities, town, village, county,
48:06
Speaker 2: technical college are also increasing taxes. A recent property value
48:09
Speaker 2: reassessment will increase my taxes. It doesn't even offer the
48:12
Speaker 2: reason that I would give. You get too damn much
48:15
Speaker 2: money as it is. Your enrollment is declining. Cut your costs.
48:19
Speaker 2: You're spending far more per student than comparable districts in
48:21
Speaker 2: other states. Despite the fact that, and again, Arrowhead is
48:26
Speaker 2: a pretty good school district, but collectively their test scores
48:28
Speaker 2: are declining as they are just about everywhere else. Proposed solutions.
48:32
Speaker 2: Arrowhead should maintain both campuses. I don't believe North Campus
48:35
Speaker 2: needs updates. I don't support changing the open enrollment policy.
48:38
Speaker 2: There are other projects I believe are more important but
48:40
Speaker 2: are not being addressed. And then other. I don't have
48:42
Speaker 2: enough information about the plan being proposed. I don't trust
48:45
Speaker 2: Arrowhead's planning process. I would check that. I will never
48:49
Speaker 2: support any school referendum. I'd check that and then send
48:51
Speaker 2: it in 13 times and hand deliver it and put
48:54
Speaker 2: perfume on the end. All right. It's kind of challenging
49:00
Speaker 2: discussing the Brewer series because they're playing almost every day
49:03
Speaker 2: and people listen to them. In fact, I had to
49:06
Speaker 2: go into the IRS, not an audit agency. Many of
49:09
Speaker 2: you will sympathize with this. The IRS occasionally needs identity
49:12
Speaker 2: verification and you're supposed to call an 800 number. The
49:15
Speaker 2: 800 number is never, ever, ever answered. So I made
49:18
Speaker 2: an appointment to go down to the IRS. and just
49:20
Speaker 2: verify that I am me in person. So anyway, I
49:24
Speaker 2: go in there and they have the security guard working
49:26
Speaker 2: the front desk, not surprisingly. And you know, the security
49:30
Speaker 2: guard is listening to my podcast. He looks up and
49:35
Speaker 2: he does like a double and a triple take. He's
49:37
Speaker 2: got his headphones on. He's got little earpiece, you know,
49:40
Speaker 2: the little thing in the ear. So, which he's listening
49:43
Speaker 2: to when somebody doesn't come up to his desk. And
49:45
Speaker 2: my podcast is on and here I am. I know
49:48
Speaker 2: this because he says, I'm listening to your podcast. Now
49:50
Speaker 2: this was Wednesday, but he was listening to Monday's podcast. See,
49:52
Speaker 2: a lot of people listen two, three days later. So
49:55
Speaker 2: it's hard to discuss the Brewers series. But the Brewers
49:58
Speaker 2: did win game three of their best of seven series
50:00
Speaker 2: with the Dodgers last night. They need to win one
50:04
Speaker 2: of the potential remaining four games in order to advance
50:07
Speaker 2: to the World Series. I'm clearly a worrywart on this.
50:10
Speaker 2: The fact that the Dodgers put out a Cy Young
50:12
Speaker 2: award-winning pitcher in every one of their starts just means
50:15
Speaker 2: it's possible that it would happen. It's only happened once. Unfortunately,
50:21
Speaker 2: the one time it happened, it involved two of the
50:23
Speaker 2: people that are part of the broadcast team for this,
50:27
Speaker 2: or part of the series. Dave Roberts, the manager of
50:29
Speaker 2: the Dodgers, was on the Boston team. that did it.
50:33
Speaker 2: It was the Red Sox that came... Wait. Yeah, the
50:36
Speaker 2: Red Sox came from behind 3-0 to beat the Yankees.
50:38
Speaker 2: It wasn't the other way around, was it? Yeah, the
50:42
Speaker 2: Yankees were up 3-0, and the Red Sox came back
50:44
Speaker 2: and beat them. Well, Dave Roberts, the Dodgers manager, was
50:46
Speaker 2: on that team, and David Ortiz, who's one of the
50:48
Speaker 2: guys that does the pre- and post-game shows, he was
50:51
Speaker 2: on that team as well. So it's a reminder that
50:53
Speaker 2: it can happen. But it's only happened the one time.
50:57
Speaker 2: If it ever was to happen, it would be when
50:59
Speaker 2: a team just has dominant pitchers If the Dodgers, for example,
51:02
Speaker 2: throw four shutouts in a row, they can win. The
51:07
Speaker 2: Dodgers had last night's game won. They had another multi-Sci
51:12
Speaker 2: Young Award. How many times has Blake Snell won the
51:14
Speaker 2: Sci Young Award? I think twice. And the Brewers were
51:17
Speaker 2: doing nothing to him. Andrew Vaughn worked a walk. And
51:21
Speaker 2: then Jake Bauer, for the second game in a row,
51:23
Speaker 2: had an at-bat for the ages. And I'll credit Dave.
51:26
Speaker 2: Some people are criticizing the Fox broadcasters. I mean, I
51:29
Speaker 2: think they've been very complimentary to the Brewers. I mean,
51:31
Speaker 2: David Ortiz said after the game that Jake Bowers' two at-bats,
51:35
Speaker 2: the one in Game 2 and the one in Game 3,
51:36
Speaker 2: were the two greatest at-bats he's ever seen in baseball ever.
51:39
Speaker 2: I think if anything, that's overstating it. In Game 2,
51:44
Speaker 2: Jake Bowers worked Yamamoto, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who has maybe the
51:50
Speaker 2: best control of any starting pitcher in baseball. He has
51:52
Speaker 2: Greg Maddox-like control. Bowers simply would not swing at a
51:58
Speaker 2: bad pitch, and he was fouling off every pitch that
52:01
Speaker 2: was a good pitch, and he finally worked a 12-pitch walk,
52:05
Speaker 2: and it drove up Yamamoto's pitch cone, and he was
52:08
Speaker 2: shot after that. He was taken out of the game
52:11
Speaker 2: a couple of hitters later. Last night, Blake Snell, the
52:15
Speaker 2: Brewers weren't touching him. They weren't doing anything at all.
52:18
Speaker 2: Jackson Shurio hit the first pitch of the game out
52:20
Speaker 2: of the park for a home run, and the Brewers
52:22
Speaker 2: had done nothing since then. Andrew Vaughn drew a walk,
52:26
Speaker 2: and up comes Jake Bowers. And he does the same
52:28
Speaker 2: damn thing again. In addition to that, Snell was in
52:33
Speaker 2: his seventh inning. He had only thrown 81 pitches going
52:35
Speaker 2: into the inning. But because Jake kept fouling pitches off
52:38
Speaker 2: and staying alive, he was now into the 90s. It
52:41
Speaker 2: was an 11 pitch at bat. And the 11th pitch,
52:43
Speaker 2: Jake Bowers hit into the right field stands for a
52:45
Speaker 2: home run to put the Brewers into the lead. It
52:49
Speaker 2: was spectacular at bat. The Brewers are doing things in
52:53
Speaker 2: this series. They're having one great at bat after another,
52:55
Speaker 2: after another, after another. I talked on yesterday's podcast about
52:59
Speaker 2: the problem with over-relying on the bullpen is it takes
53:02
Speaker 2: only one guy to screw up. Somebody finally screwed up
53:05
Speaker 2: last night. Abner Uribe came in and couldn't get anybody out.
53:09
Speaker 2: But the Brewer manager, Pat Murphy, pulled him quickly enough.
53:13
Speaker 2: And D.L. Hall did an incredible escape job getting the
53:16
Speaker 2: next two guys out when two men were on base
53:18
Speaker 2: and the Dodger lead was restricted to one. So as
53:21
Speaker 2: badly as Uribe pitched, only two runs came in because
53:24
Speaker 2: quickly somebody else came in. and closed off the damage.
53:28
Speaker 2: So the Brewers need to win one of the remaining games.
53:31
Speaker 2: The next two are in Los Angeles. Again, the pitching
53:34
Speaker 2: matchups are almost always bad for the Brewers. This one's terrible.
53:39
Speaker 2: The Brewers, as of the time of this podcast, have
53:41
Speaker 2: not stated for certain who's going to pitch, but everybody
53:43
Speaker 2: knows it'll be a combination of several guys. They've got
53:47
Speaker 2: Dustin May. They have Chad Patrick, who's pitched very good,
53:49
Speaker 2: but can only go about three innings. They have Kyle Harrison,
53:52
Speaker 2: who had a great first half of the season, fell apart.
53:55
Speaker 2: but then pitched okay on a couple of spot outings.
53:59
Speaker 2: We don't know. At this point, I don't know which
54:00
Speaker 2: one of them is going to start, but they're probably
54:02
Speaker 2: going to try to use a combination of them, two
54:04
Speaker 2: three-innings from each of them to go forward. I think
54:08
Speaker 2: if one of them gets dinged up, let's suppose the
54:10
Speaker 2: Dodgers score five runs early. I think, and you rarely
54:14
Speaker 2: see this in the postseason where every game is important,
54:16
Speaker 2: I think Pat Murphy will essentially concede defeat. I don't
54:20
Speaker 2: think he will bring in any of the key relievers.
54:23
Speaker 2: When I say key relievers, Ashby, D.L. Hall, Trevor McGill,
54:29
Speaker 2: Jojo Romero. He will save them for game five, yeah,
54:33
Speaker 2: games five, six, and seven. The bullpen has been heavily used.
54:36
Speaker 2: So if they fall behind, he will hope that some
54:38
Speaker 2: of the other pitchers on the roster, they're carrying 13,
54:41
Speaker 2: can grind through the game. But the way the Brewers
54:45
Speaker 2: are going right now, I wouldn't rule out Chad Patrick
54:48
Speaker 2: pitching three shutout innings, Dustin May throwing three shutout innings,
54:52
Speaker 2: and so on. The Dodgers are going with Tyler Glasgow,
54:56
Speaker 2: who is the fourth of their four great pitchers, but
54:59
Speaker 2: he's very, very good. So each of these games, the pitch,
55:02
Speaker 2: the Dodgers have a favorite in every game. And I
55:04
Speaker 2: think they will be favored no matter how long this goes,
55:07
Speaker 2: they'll be favored in every remaining game to come because
55:09
Speaker 2: the betters look at the pitching matchup. I take it back.
55:12
Speaker 2: I think game one, Mizorowski might've been a slight favorite
55:15
Speaker 2: over a school ball who pitched for the Dodgers. It
55:21
Speaker 2: was very, very close. The Brewers are just playing spectacular
55:25
Speaker 2: baseball in their own brand of baseball, and we hope
55:29
Speaker 2: it continues. Now, there's been questions here about this ticketing thing,
55:32
Speaker 2: and I'll try to answer them as best I can.
55:35
Speaker 2: If you bought tickets on the secondary market for games
55:38
Speaker 2: six and seven, and there isn't a game six or seven,
55:41
Speaker 2: you're simply not charged. You're either given a refund on
55:44
Speaker 2: your credit card, or they don't ding the card in
55:46
Speaker 2: the first place. With regard to World Series tickets, same thing.
55:52
Speaker 2: World Series tickets went on sale to the general public.
55:55
Speaker 2: There aren't many of them because season ticket holders grabbed
55:57
Speaker 2: up almost all of them. If the Brewers somehow would
56:01
Speaker 2: not get to the World Series, you're just not going
56:03
Speaker 2: to be charged. The World Series ticket prices, they have
56:07
Speaker 2: shocked a lot of people. Now, I'm a season ticket holder.
56:11
Speaker 2: And one of the advantages of a season ticket holder
56:13
Speaker 2: is your post-season prices are discounted deeply. And it's one
56:19
Speaker 2: of the reasons that you're that you pay for 81
56:21
Speaker 2: games during the course of the year. My own seats
56:26
Speaker 2: for the World Series, if there is one, are $ 900
56:29
Speaker 2: a seat. I have great seats. They're right behind the
56:31
Speaker 2: Brewer dugout. The face value for a ticket in my
56:35
Speaker 2: section is $ 3, 000. So those are going to sell for three.
56:38
Speaker 2: The best seats in the house are in the range
56:40
Speaker 2: of $ 3, 000 face value. The upper deck, the cheapest seats
56:45
Speaker 2: in the house are $ 900. This has blown people away.
56:49
Speaker 2: But they're going to get it. They're going to get it. Now,
56:53
Speaker 2: with regard to season ticket holders, they told you if
56:56
Speaker 2: you bought extra tickets for the World Series and flipped them,
56:59
Speaker 2: they'll take away your tickets. You were not allowed to
57:01
Speaker 2: flip them. And that was one of the advantages of
57:04
Speaker 2: getting a discount and buying the tickets is that you're
57:06
Speaker 2: not allowed to turn around and flip them, and they're
57:09
Speaker 2: monitoring that. So there may be some out there. And
57:12
Speaker 2: once they're all sold, then you can go to SeatGeek
57:15
Speaker 2: as the official reseller and the other reselling places. and
57:18
Speaker 2: try to buy some. But the reason the prices are
57:21
Speaker 2: as high as they are is that's what people are
57:23
Speaker 2: willing to pay. There aren't going to be empty seats
57:25
Speaker 2: in the house if there's a World Series in Milwaukee.
57:31
Speaker 2: In the meantime, I'm convinced the America League Series is
57:33
Speaker 2: going to be won by Tampa. But Tampa and Cleveland
57:36
Speaker 2: are still 1-1. I think they're actually playing game three
57:40
Speaker 2: of that series as I speak, and I don't have
57:42
Speaker 2: a score. But I would hope Cleveland wins that series,
57:45
Speaker 2: even though it means you'll be playing in cold weather
57:47
Speaker 2: because I think Tampa Bay is, they're right there with
57:52
Speaker 2: the Brewers. They do the same thing. They have the
57:54
Speaker 2: same profile of team. Guys who come to Tampa get
57:56
Speaker 2: better than they were in places that they were at.
57:58
Speaker 2: When they leave Tampa, they tend to get worse. They
58:01
Speaker 2: kind of play like the Brewers. They're fundamentally great. They
58:03
Speaker 2: have a great manager and they have an even smaller
58:06
Speaker 2: payroll than the Brewers do. Cleveland is in the playoffs
58:09
Speaker 2: just because somebody had a win. the American League Central,
58:13
Speaker 2: and they did. And then they beat the White Sox
58:14
Speaker 2: because you had two teams that didn't belong in the playoffs,
58:16
Speaker 2: and one of them had a win, and there Cleveland is.
58:19
Speaker 2: But teams that don't deserve to be in there, Washington
58:22
Speaker 2: won it one year in which they were a wildcard team.
58:24
Speaker 2: They're barely about 500. So stranger things have happened. And
58:29
Speaker 2: now this story. Kamala Harris is coming to Wisconsin to
58:34
Speaker 2: campaign with David Crowley. See the story here on GS Online.
58:41
Speaker 2: The campaign visit scheduled for October 26th will come a
58:44
Speaker 2: little over a week before Crowley and his opponent, Republican U.S.
58:47
Speaker 2: House Representative Tom Tiffany, face off in one of the
58:50
Speaker 2: most high-profile Wisconsin races on the ballot on November 3rd.
58:53
Speaker 2: Details about the visit have yet to be released. So
58:55
Speaker 2: this is interesting, given the fact that Kamala's negatives are
58:59
Speaker 2: pretty high. And she lost the election with Trump because
59:02
Speaker 2: she lost all the swing voters. Proof of that? Trump
59:05
Speaker 2: won all seven swing states. Swing states are decided by
59:09
Speaker 2: swing voters. And Trump won all of them. And I
59:13
Speaker 2: think it's pretty clear it wasn't all a pro-Trump vote.
59:16
Speaker 2: It was an anti-Kamala vote. But this does beg a
59:21
Speaker 2: fascinating question. Kamala Harris and David Crowley Here's the question.
59:31
Speaker 2: Who's dumber? I'm serious. You could argue that forever. This
59:41
Speaker 2: isn't like the debate that guys like I had in college,
59:44
Speaker 2: Ginger or Marianne. You're younger than me. You know that
59:48
Speaker 2: argument's been going on. First of all, nobody watched Gilligan's
59:50
Speaker 2: Island when it was first out. More people probably watched
59:53
Speaker 2: it in the 90s and the 00s than watched it
59:55
Speaker 2: in the 60s or the 70s. It just lasted for
59:58
Speaker 2: the ginger or marionette. You liked the glamour, you liked
1:00:01
Speaker 2: the girl next door type. This is not one of those.
1:00:03
Speaker 2: This is a reverse of that. I'm trying to think
1:00:10
Speaker 2: of a Gilligan's Island reference that would be the reverse
1:00:13
Speaker 2: of that, but I don't really.
1:00:15
Speaker 3: I mean.
1:00:17
Speaker 2: Who's more repulsive, Mr. Howell or the skipper? But Mr.
1:00:19
Speaker 2: Howell is rich, so that wouldn't count because women overlook
1:00:22
Speaker 2: all sorts of repulsiveness if you're rich. Crowley and Kamala.
1:00:30
Speaker 2: So you have David Crowley who's just had an inability
1:00:32
Speaker 2: on the campaign trail to say anything that isn't in
1:00:34
Speaker 2: his script and has answered questions idiotically with the most baffled,
1:00:41
Speaker 2: incoherent candidate for president of the United States ever. Now,
1:00:45
Speaker 2: I'm guessing they're having a joint appearance. They're both going
1:00:47
Speaker 2: to be reading off of a thing and taking shots
1:00:50
Speaker 2: at Trump and taking shots at Tiffany and so on.
1:00:53
Speaker 2: But God forbid that they get either of these off script.
1:00:56
Speaker 2: The one thing I do think, though, is this. Remember
1:00:59
Speaker 2: when Kamala would talk and nobody could ever figure out
1:01:01
Speaker 2: what she was saying? They talked about the word salad
1:01:04
Speaker 2: she had. You know, I watch the Brewers games. I
1:01:10
Speaker 2: normally don't watch sports game shows, but I'm watching these.
1:01:12
Speaker 2: It's hard to get to bed. You're not watching this
1:01:15
Speaker 2: at all because you're just embittered that the Cubs are like,
1:01:18
Speaker 2: the bags are packed, Wrigley Field is closed, and the
1:01:22
Speaker 2: mothballs are pouring in as they do every October at
1:01:25
Speaker 2: this time of the year. Yeah, the rats. The rats.
1:01:30
Speaker 2: They still do have that, like, trough that you take
1:01:34
Speaker 2: a leak into, don't they? In some of the facilities.
1:01:38
Speaker 2: The first time I went to Wrigley Field was the
1:01:40
Speaker 2: early 1980s. I was not very worldly about even going
1:01:44
Speaker 2: to Illinois. I didn't know that places didn't have urinals.
1:01:48
Speaker 2: And there's this bathtub that you take a leak into.
1:01:51
Speaker 2: And then I found out, like, you go into the
1:01:53
Speaker 2: bars in Chicago, and they have these bathtubs, and they
1:01:55
Speaker 2: didn't have urinals. It's just a less civilized state. Well,
1:02:01
Speaker 2: I understand if you have a tank. The thing about
1:02:03
Speaker 2: Wrigley Field is it's basically a dump that looks beautiful.
1:02:07
Speaker 2: That's what it is. It's a total dump structurally that
1:02:11
Speaker 2: all the aisles, the seats are cramped. There's no leg room.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: The not, what do you call it? Terraces of the
1:02:17
Speaker 2: areas behind the seats. When you're under the grandstand, there's
1:02:19
Speaker 2: no room for anything. You're banging into people because they
1:02:22
Speaker 2: built it on this small foot, small footprint. But I mean,
1:02:25
Speaker 2: it is gorgeous on TV and you're sitting out there
1:02:28
Speaker 2: and the, the weeds are usually green that are on
1:02:30
Speaker 2: the wall and the whole anyway. Um, What I was
1:02:38
Speaker 2: about to say is I'm watching these postgame shows and
1:02:41
Speaker 2: some of the Latino brewers, they can speak English, but
1:02:45
Speaker 2: they choose to have an interpreter respond for them. And
1:02:48
Speaker 2: I know why this is. For instance, William Contreras can
1:02:51
Speaker 2: speak English. He goes out and he talks to pitchers
1:02:54
Speaker 2: who don't speak Spanish. He's able to communicate to them,
1:02:57
Speaker 2: and he doesn't need to have a translator come out
1:02:59
Speaker 2: when he does it. Jackson Churio can speak English, and
1:03:02
Speaker 2: the reason that I know this is when the person
1:03:03
Speaker 2: is asking the question, they're nodding their heads. They understand
1:03:06
Speaker 2: the question, but I think that they don't have enough
1:03:09
Speaker 2: command of English that they feel comfortable responding to the
1:03:12
Speaker 2: question in English on camera because they don't want to
1:03:15
Speaker 2: look bad. But I think that they can speak, but
1:03:18
Speaker 2: they would rather speak to the interpreter. So they'll ask
1:03:20
Speaker 2: the question, and they have the same one. Churio and
1:03:23
Speaker 2: Contreras have the same. This guy on the Brewer staff
1:03:25
Speaker 2: comes out, and he's a very, very good translator and
1:03:28
Speaker 2: interpreter in answering the question. So when that person asks
1:03:31
Speaker 2: the question, Churio can then understand. He understands what Churio
1:03:34
Speaker 2: is saying and so forth, which leads me to wonder.
1:03:37
Speaker 2: You know, Kamala and the word salads and David Crowley
1:03:39
Speaker 2: talking so stupid. You have two people who are incoherent.
1:03:42
Speaker 2: I bet they can understand one another. I think if
1:03:45
Speaker 2: Kamala says something to Crowley, he goes, yes, I nod.
1:03:47
Speaker 2: I fully get that. When you have two completely addled
1:03:51
Speaker 2: people who have no command of the English language speaking
1:03:53
Speaker 2: to one another, it's like the great question. When birds
1:03:56
Speaker 2: are chirping, do other birds know what they're saying? I mean,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: is there any kind of dialogue, or is it just,
1:04:05
Speaker 2: there's food, I'm chirping, there's food, or is there like
1:04:07
Speaker 2: nuance and stuff? You think they're communicating. Then also, I mean,
1:04:16
Speaker 2: birds that can speak, isn't that like the weirdest thing
1:04:18
Speaker 2: in the animal kingdom? Like parrots and parakeets, and they
1:04:22
Speaker 2: can just speak the English language as clear as can
1:04:24
Speaker 2: possibly be. How come no other animals can do that?
1:04:28
Speaker 2: I mean, a pig can't do that. Yes, if I
1:04:34
Speaker 2: make it up to heaven, I'm going to ask that question.
1:04:36
Speaker 2: Why did you just let the birds be? I thought
1:04:38
Speaker 2: that would amuse you people. And indeed, the birds that
1:04:40
Speaker 2: can speak, I mean, we clip their wings and they're
1:04:42
Speaker 2: all in people's houses. I mean, those birds that are speaking,
1:04:45
Speaker 2: I don't see any of them flying around outside. They're
1:04:47
Speaker 2: all sitting in people's houses or at a zoo somewhere.
1:04:50
Speaker 2: Like if you went out into the jungles where parrots
1:04:52
Speaker 2: are actually native, I mean, they're not speaking, are they?
1:04:55
Speaker 2: Because they learn speaking by mimicking what they hear from people.
1:04:59
Speaker 2: I clearly am. exhausted any content for today's program other
1:05:02
Speaker 2: than our football preview and football picks, which come up
1:05:04
Speaker 2: next on the Mark Belling podcast. This is the Mark
1:05:10
Speaker 2: Belling podcast, and it's time for our weekly football preview
1:05:13
Speaker 2: and some point spread picks. And as we are every week,
1:05:15
Speaker 2: I'm joined by Mike Merlett of American Sports Analysts in Madison, asawins.com.
1:05:22
Speaker 2: And a reminder to everybody that we are doing this, um,
1:05:25
Speaker 2: preview on thursday afternoon before any of the games are
1:05:28
Speaker 2: played so if you're listening later that's our time reference
1:05:31
Speaker 2: uh thursday anything that you'd like to share about activity
1:05:33
Speaker 2: going on this weekend with asa mike.
1:05:36
Speaker 3: Um they can check our website friday as per usual
1:05:38
Speaker 3: not sure exactly what's going on yet we've narrowed some
1:05:41
Speaker 3: college games down some nfl games down i think it's
1:05:44
Speaker 3: going to be a good week for us i had
1:05:46
Speaker 3: a rare bad week in college last week and we
1:05:49
Speaker 3: won in the nfl so It's been kind of a
1:05:51
Speaker 3: strange season. We had a really good college season for
1:05:53
Speaker 3: the most part, and last week was bad. Let's put
1:05:56
Speaker 3: it this way. I had three college games checked for
1:05:58
Speaker 3: the show, and it didn't matter which one I picked.
1:06:00
Speaker 3: I lost them all. So it was one of those weekends,
1:06:02
Speaker 3: so I think we'll bounce back big this weekend.
1:06:04
Speaker 2: Okay. Let's talk about some football games first. We're going
1:06:07
Speaker 2: to start a discussion with college football. There are two
1:06:09
Speaker 2: games that I think are worth discussing, and boy, they're
1:06:12
Speaker 2: obvious games. And the first game is the Badger game,
1:06:14
Speaker 2: which would, if I wasn't even in Wisconsin doing this,
1:06:18
Speaker 2: this might be a game that I would pull out.
1:06:20
Speaker 2: You have, I think here, two programs that have totally
1:06:24
Speaker 2: turned around, Wisconsin and UCLA. UCLA was terrible. They were
1:06:30
Speaker 2: hiring low-budget coaches. They were complaining that even though they
1:06:33
Speaker 2: have tens of thousands of alumni, that they had not
1:06:38
Speaker 2: as much NIL money as other schools. They were having
1:06:41
Speaker 2: a hard time competing with their crosstown rival, USC, who
1:06:44
Speaker 2: has rabid alumni. And their program just appeared to be
1:06:50
Speaker 2: In the abyss. And as I said, they hired a
1:06:52
Speaker 2: couple of failed coaches. Well, they hired a new coach
1:06:54
Speaker 2: in the offseason. They brought in the guy from James Madison,
1:06:57
Speaker 2: which appears to be the formula for winning in college football.
1:06:59
Speaker 2: Just hire a James Madison coach. It worked at Indiana.
1:07:02
Speaker 2: It's worked at UCLA. They put in a lot more
1:07:04
Speaker 2: money in the NIL. They got a lot of transfers.
1:07:06
Speaker 2: And suddenly, UCLA is very good. Last week, they went
1:07:12
Speaker 2: to Oregon on the road. Oregon, who was one of
1:07:16
Speaker 2: the preseason favorites to win the Big Ten. They beat
1:07:19
Speaker 2: them on the road. So UCLA has certainly improved, and
1:07:22
Speaker 2: Wisconsin is very much improved. Wisconsin, two weeks ago before
1:07:27
Speaker 2: its bye, dominated Michigan State after having a tremendous second
1:07:31
Speaker 2: half and coming from behind to beat Penn State. So
1:07:33
Speaker 2: we have two significantly improved programs. The game is in
1:07:37
Speaker 2: the Rose Bowl, a stadium that the Badgers have had
1:07:41
Speaker 2: great success at in the 90s but have not been
1:07:43
Speaker 2: to ever since. The Rose Bowl is UCLA's home stadium.
1:07:47
Speaker 2: Give me your thoughts on Wisconsin-UCLA. UCLA is a narrow
1:07:50
Speaker 2: favorite of that game.
1:07:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, open three. UCLA open is a three-point favorite and
1:07:56
Speaker 3: dropped it two and a half. A lot of that
1:07:58
Speaker 3: has to do with their quarterback situation.
1:08:00
Speaker 2: Yes, UCLA's quarterback is hurt, and they played a backup,
1:08:04
Speaker 2: by the way, for most of the Oregon game, but
1:08:06
Speaker 2: they didn't beat Oregon because of their offense. Oregon could
1:08:09
Speaker 2: not score on UCLA.
1:08:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly what happened there. They brought in the backup.
1:08:14
Speaker 3: So the quarterback looks like he's out for the season.
1:08:16
Speaker 3: They brought in their backup, who was an FCS transfer
1:08:19
Speaker 3: from Cal Poly. He threw six passes the whole game,
1:08:22
Speaker 3: and they still won. And those are the only six
1:08:24
Speaker 3: passes he's thrown this year. He hasn't played before last week,
1:08:26
Speaker 3: so that's a bummer.
1:08:27
Speaker 2: They had an odd situation. They never had named a
1:08:29
Speaker 2: backup prior to the game, and the other guy competing
1:08:32
Speaker 2: for the backup was the brother of the starting– Aya
1:08:34
Speaker 2: Malava or whatever his name is. His brother was battling
1:08:38
Speaker 2: for the backup position, but– The other player whose name
1:08:41
Speaker 2: I don't remember right now, the FCS transfer, is the
1:08:43
Speaker 2: guy who played last week. I mean, I think it's
1:08:46
Speaker 2: possible they might even use both of them now that
1:08:49
Speaker 2: they had a week to prepare against Wisconsin to see
1:08:51
Speaker 2: which one of them is better. Anyway, I interrupted you.
1:08:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't be a surprise, Mark. I mean, Devin
1:08:57
Speaker 3: Bach is the guy from Cal Poly. He's a senior,
1:08:59
Speaker 3: so he's got some experience at the FCS level, but
1:09:02
Speaker 3: I'm sure in practice this week they played both in
1:09:06
Speaker 3: the game. I wouldn't be surprised at all. You mentioned
1:09:08
Speaker 3: USC's defense. Their defense last year was outside the top
1:09:13
Speaker 3: 100 in yards for play allowed, scoring defense, and 75th
1:09:17
Speaker 3: in total defense. This year they're top 25 in all three.
1:09:21
Speaker 3: And their defensive coordinator is Colin Hitchler. He was with
1:09:25
Speaker 3: Fickle at Cincinnati and came to Wisconsin. He coached at
1:09:29
Speaker 3: Wisconsin for one year, then got hired to Alabama, then
1:09:33
Speaker 3: the defensive coordinator at James Madison, then followed him over.
1:09:35
Speaker 3: So there's some recognition there.
1:09:38
Speaker 2: Fickle's original staff has included a lot of guys who
1:09:42
Speaker 2: have gone on to become Pretty good. I mean, the
1:09:45
Speaker 2: one bad hire Fickle made originally was the offensive coordinator, Longo, who,
1:09:50
Speaker 2: after destroying Wisconsin's offenses, destroyed Sam Houston State, where he's
1:09:54
Speaker 2: now the head coach, and not surprisingly, they can't score.
1:09:59
Speaker 2: They can't score either. I don't know if Phil Longo,
1:10:01
Speaker 2: after he left North Carolina, took a stupid pill or not,
1:10:04
Speaker 2: but you're right about Colin Hitchler, who was with Fickle
1:10:07
Speaker 2: at Cincinnati, coached Wisconsin the first year, and he's running
1:10:10
Speaker 2: the defense at UCLA, and they don't give up any points.
1:10:15
Speaker 2: And I just, that's just shocking because, you know, last
1:10:17
Speaker 2: few years, UCLA was giving up 40 and 50 points
1:10:20
Speaker 2: a game.
1:10:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's why this total sitting at like 45 ish,
1:10:24
Speaker 3: which is low for a college total. And it's strength
1:10:27
Speaker 3: on strength. Wisconsin defense is, you know, one of the
1:10:31
Speaker 3: best run defenses in the country and UCLA runs at
1:10:35
Speaker 3: a top 10 clip. So I would guess UCLA is
1:10:37
Speaker 3: going to, heavily run the ball in this game and
1:10:40
Speaker 3: if wisconsin's can slow them down and make one of
1:10:42
Speaker 3: those two inexperienced quarterbacks beat them they got a good
1:10:45
Speaker 3: shot in this game i perfect situation for wisconsin coming
1:10:48
Speaker 3: off a bye and catching ucla after after their biggest
1:10:51
Speaker 3: win good.
1:10:52
Speaker 2: Luck running against wisconsin linebackers yep they have spectacular linebackers
1:10:58
Speaker 2: i mean they they have they have a guy named
1:11:01
Speaker 2: heiberger who doesn't even start who'd start on almost every
1:11:04
Speaker 2: college program I think Wisconsin can win the game. UCLA
1:11:08
Speaker 2: is without a quarterback. The bye came at a pretty
1:11:11
Speaker 2: good time for Wisconsin. And, you know, UCLA is coming off.
1:11:16
Speaker 2: It's been happening all year. A common sense play is
1:11:19
Speaker 2: go against the team that just had a big upset
1:11:23
Speaker 2: the week before. Now, in this instance, UCLA is coming home,
1:11:26
Speaker 2: but the Rose Bowl has very little home field advantage.
1:11:30
Speaker 2: I would think there's going to be 45,000 people there
1:11:32
Speaker 2: and 10,000 will be Badger fans.
1:11:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's one negative for UCLA, trying to turn
1:11:38
Speaker 3: UCLA around. That's a long haul from the UCLA campus
1:11:41
Speaker 3: to the Rose Bowl. And depending on traffic-wise, that's not
1:11:45
Speaker 3: ideal for students whatsoever. So I think, I agree with you.
1:11:50
Speaker 3: I think Wisconsin has a shot to upset UCLA in
1:11:52
Speaker 3: this game.
1:11:54
Speaker 2: Next game. This might be the most, to me, interesting
1:11:58
Speaker 2: game of the year all season because it's still early
1:12:02
Speaker 2: enough in the season that we don't have a full
1:12:04
Speaker 2: read on either team. Ohio State, the traditional powerhouse of
1:12:08
Speaker 2: the Big Ten, plays Indiana, the team that last year
1:12:12
Speaker 2: won the national championship. I don't know if they're the
1:12:15
Speaker 2: top two teams in the country. I don't even know
1:12:17
Speaker 2: if they're the top two teams in the Big Ten
1:12:19
Speaker 2: because it's still too early to figure out where either
1:12:22
Speaker 2: of them are. But this is an incredible matchup. Ohio
1:12:27
Speaker 2: State's favored, I believe, by about three points against Indiana.
1:12:32
Speaker 2: First of all, I'm not sure which team is better.
1:12:34
Speaker 2: It's hard to say that any team coached by Kurt
1:12:37
Speaker 2: Cignetti is going to lose because Indiana never loses anymore.
1:12:40
Speaker 2: But Ohio State loses at most once or twice a season.
1:12:43
Speaker 2: What do you think about this game?
1:12:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ohio State's 5-1 right now, Indiana 6-0. Ohio State's
1:12:49
Speaker 3: played the tougher schedule because they played Texas.
1:12:53
Speaker 2: And they lost by only one point to Texas.
1:12:56
Speaker 3: They lost by one and blew it. I believe they
1:12:58
Speaker 3: were up 20 in the fourth quarter and lost.
1:13:00
Speaker 2: They were.
1:13:01
Speaker 3: And that was at Texas. So Ohio State's played the
1:13:04
Speaker 3: tougher schedule. Last year, these two met once, and it
1:13:07
Speaker 3: was the Big Ten championship game. Indiana was a three-and-a-half-point underdog,
1:13:11
Speaker 3: won 13-10 to win the Big Ten and kept going
1:13:16
Speaker 3: on into undefeated national championship. The last two national champions
1:13:20
Speaker 3: right here, Ohio State two years ago, in Indiana last year.
1:13:23
Speaker 3: But prior, this is interesting, and this is probably commonsensical
1:13:27
Speaker 3: because Indiana's been bad for so long. Prior to last
1:13:30
Speaker 3: year's win, Ohio State had beaten Indiana 30 straight times.
1:13:34
Speaker 3: Last time Ohio State lost to Indiana was 1988 prior
1:13:37
Speaker 3: to last year. So interesting stat there. Last week, Jason Lake, Nebraska,
1:13:43
Speaker 3: against Indiana and got a win there. Indiana won by three,
1:13:47
Speaker 3: unimpressed with Indiana last week. They outgained Indiana. They out-gamed
1:13:53
Speaker 3: Nebraska pretty significantly in the yards for play bases. Nebraska
1:13:56
Speaker 3: ran 40 more offensive snaps in that game and lost,
1:14:00
Speaker 3: which almost never happens. So Indiana I wasn't impressed with,
1:14:04
Speaker 3: but I'm not just not quite sure. I'm kind of
1:14:06
Speaker 3: with you, Mark. We've got a team in Indiana that's
1:14:09
Speaker 3: won 22 straight games, 19-0 at home. Ohio State's won
1:14:13
Speaker 3: 26 of the last 30 games. As I said, the
1:14:15
Speaker 3: last two national champions. Just a great game. I think
1:14:19
Speaker 3: Ohio State's the better team. but we'll find out a
1:14:22
Speaker 3: whole lot more after this game.
1:14:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the quarterback situation, Indiana, they've played two
1:14:29
Speaker 2: close games so far this year. They struggled with Northwestern
1:14:34
Speaker 2: after barely beating Nebraska, but I think both of those
1:14:36
Speaker 2: teams are pretty good. Northwestern's way better than I thought
1:14:40
Speaker 2: they were. I mentioned the two most improved teams in
1:14:42
Speaker 2: the Big Ten, Wisconsin and UCLA. Clearly have to throw
1:14:45
Speaker 2: Northwestern into that and maybe even Nebraska as well. Ohio
1:14:49
Speaker 2: State played Texas and I might be wrong about this.
1:14:52
Speaker 2: I think Texas is going to end the season with
1:14:54
Speaker 2: three losses. I just don't think they're quite as dominant
1:14:57
Speaker 2: as people think. And they have to play a brutal
1:14:59
Speaker 2: schedule in the SEC. So bring up two games that
1:15:03
Speaker 2: are just interesting, but I think both hard calls. Let's
1:15:06
Speaker 2: turn our attention to the NFL. And there's actually only
1:15:09
Speaker 2: one game that's interesting to me. And that's, so we'll
1:15:11
Speaker 2: talk about that game, but then deal with two other
1:15:13
Speaker 2: topics after that. Let's talk about the Packers and the Falcons.
1:15:17
Speaker 2: I did not think the Packers were going to beat
1:15:19
Speaker 2: the Bears. They destroyed the Bears. The Bears looked, albeit
1:15:23
Speaker 2: with two backup quarterbacks, looked terrible. Green Bay's weaknesses appeared
1:15:27
Speaker 2: to go away. They still can't run the ball. The
1:15:29
Speaker 2: offensive line still isn't blocking very well. But in every
1:15:33
Speaker 2: other phase of the game, the Packers look like the
1:15:35
Speaker 2: Packers of the last few years. Atlanta, like everybody in
1:15:39
Speaker 2: the NFC South, has been schizoid. The game, I'm having
1:15:45
Speaker 2: a brain fart. The game's in Green Bay, isn't it? Yeah,
1:15:49
Speaker 2: it's a home game for the Packers. So Atlanta's coming
1:15:52
Speaker 2: into Green Bay for the game. Packers are favored by
1:15:55
Speaker 2: a few points. Thoughts of the Packers and the Falcons?
1:15:58
Speaker 3: That's Dallas. It's Cowboys at Green Bay.
1:16:01
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wrote Falcons down on my thing,
1:16:04
Speaker 2: and I knew it was the Cowboys. I got mixed
1:16:05
Speaker 2: up on that. Yes, it's the Packers and the Cowboys
1:16:07
Speaker 2: that are playing. I'm sorry for the confused. My brain's
1:16:12
Speaker 2: been thrown off by following the Brewers here. I'm mixed up.
1:16:16
Speaker 2: Packers and the Cowboys.
1:16:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, Packers and the Cowboys. You got this. Green Bay
1:16:21
Speaker 3: is a very slight favorite, 1-1.5 in that game, and
1:16:23
Speaker 3: the total is 53. And the interesting thing about the
1:16:25
Speaker 3: total is it's the highest total in Lambeau Field in
1:16:29
Speaker 3: any game since 2021. So that's a high total, but
1:16:33
Speaker 3: it's understandable. Dallas has really good offense and really bad defense.
1:16:39
Speaker 3: And the way these teams have played each other in
1:16:41
Speaker 3: the past, LaFleur has played Dallas four times as the
1:16:45
Speaker 3: coach of Green Bay. 3-0-1 straight up. They tied last
1:16:50
Speaker 3: year 40-40 in a high-scoring game. All four games have
1:16:54
Speaker 3: gone over the total, and Packers have scored at least
1:16:56
Speaker 3: 30 points in all four games. So that's why the
1:16:58
Speaker 3: total is so high in this game. Primetime underdogs, unfortunately
1:17:03
Speaker 3: for Green Bay, not going to say it's going to
1:17:06
Speaker 3: happen here, but they've done really well this year. Primetime underdogs,
1:17:09
Speaker 3: meaning Sunday night games, Monday night games, Thursday night games,
1:17:12
Speaker 3: 12-4 against the spread. For the underdogs, and the underdogs
1:17:16
Speaker 3: have won seven in a row outright. So the underdogs
1:17:20
Speaker 3: have actually won the game seven straight games now. Green Bay,
1:17:24
Speaker 3: I agree with you. By far their best game last
1:17:28
Speaker 3: week against Chicago. Almost average, almost four yards per play
1:17:31
Speaker 3: more than Chicago. Looks like they might have turned the
1:17:34
Speaker 3: corner offensive line.
1:17:35
Speaker 2: They lost another. I mean, Hargrave, they're giving 20 million
1:17:39
Speaker 2: a year or so. Out for the season, I mean,
1:17:42
Speaker 2: their defense is just being decimated by injuries. They lost
1:17:46
Speaker 2: their best linebacker in Edger and Cooper. Now they lost
1:17:49
Speaker 2: maybe their best defensive lineman in Hargrave. The Packers keep
1:17:54
Speaker 2: sustaining these losses. I mean, it's got to have a
1:17:57
Speaker 2: toll on their defense, I would think.
1:17:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think so, too. I mean, you lose
1:18:01
Speaker 3: two of the best defenders they have to season-ending injuries
1:18:04
Speaker 3: back-to-back weeks. That's really tough. I like the way their
1:18:09
Speaker 3: offensive line's been playing. They've given up two sacks and
1:18:11
Speaker 3: seven quarterback hits the last two games. They gave up
1:18:14
Speaker 3: 30 quarterback hits the first three games. The veterans they
1:18:18
Speaker 3: brought in off the scrap heap are better than the
1:18:20
Speaker 3: guys they had.
1:18:22
Speaker 2: I just wonder why didn't anybody else have those guys
1:18:26
Speaker 2: picked up and why the Packers didn't have them? Why
1:18:29
Speaker 2: did they start with the offensive linemen they had? The
1:18:31
Speaker 2: Packers still can't run the ball, however, and maybe it
1:18:33
Speaker 2: isn't the line's fault. Maybe it's because they have bad
1:18:35
Speaker 2: running backs in. Nobody knows if Josh Jacobs is going
1:18:38
Speaker 2: to be back anytime soon. Do you have any ideas
1:18:42
Speaker 2: you want to give us as to who you think
1:18:43
Speaker 2: is going to win the game or is it.
1:18:44
Speaker 3: A toss up? I, I think, I think it's one
1:18:48
Speaker 3: of the tougher games this week. Dallas is in the
1:18:51
Speaker 3: better situation. They're coming off a loss as a home favorite,
1:18:55
Speaker 3: which is always a decent situation to play on those
1:18:57
Speaker 3: types of teams. And they've had 10 days off cause
1:18:59
Speaker 3: that was a Thursday and they catch green Bay off Chicago,
1:19:02
Speaker 3: but it's not a great situation. Um, But Dallas' defense
1:19:05
Speaker 3: is so bad, I just don't have an opinion on
1:19:07
Speaker 3: this game. I really don't, Mark. I think it's going
1:19:09
Speaker 3: to be down-to-the-wire type game.
1:19:12
Speaker 2: Let's talk about a couple of other topics in the NFL.
1:19:18
Speaker 2: Going into the season, everybody made the Rams the favorite
1:19:22
Speaker 2: to win the Super Bowl. If you look at the statistics,
1:19:25
Speaker 2: they're the best team in the league. They rank near
1:19:27
Speaker 2: the top in offense and defense, but they're two and three. And,
1:19:33
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of coaches say, how good are you?
1:19:36
Speaker 2: Your record eventually tells you how good you are. Well,
1:19:39
Speaker 2: the record would say that the Rams aren't very good,
1:19:41
Speaker 2: but the statistics would indicate that they're still an elite team.
1:19:44
Speaker 2: In terms of the eye test, every game that they
1:19:46
Speaker 2: lose looks like a game that they should win. Give
1:19:49
Speaker 2: me your thoughts on the Rams. Are they still a
1:19:51
Speaker 2: team to bet on? Are they still an elite team?
1:19:53
Speaker 2: Are they a Super Bowl contender? Or the fact that
1:19:56
Speaker 2: they keep losing these games here, is this a sign
1:19:58
Speaker 2: that maybe they're not that good?
1:20:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, interesting team. As you mentioned, they're 2-3, and that's
1:20:05
Speaker 3: not good in that division because San Francisco's already 5-0
1:20:08
Speaker 3: in that division, and they're behind Seattle and San Francisco.
1:20:11
Speaker 3: But as you mentioned, they rank number one in total
1:20:13
Speaker 3: offense and number three in total defense in the NFL.
1:20:17
Speaker 3: You said, are they Super Bowl contenders? I think Vegas
1:20:21
Speaker 3: answers that question, and here's what I mean. The Rams
1:20:24
Speaker 3: right now, believe it or not, at 2-3, have the
1:20:27
Speaker 3: second-best odds in the entire NFL to win the Super
1:20:30
Speaker 3: Bowl right now, behind only San Francisco, tied with Buffalo.
1:20:34
Speaker 3: They're 3-1 to win the Super Bowl with a 2-3
1:20:38
Speaker 3: record right now. I think part of that is they've
1:20:40
Speaker 3: played a tough schedule so far. They've had two of
1:20:42
Speaker 3: their three losses, Mark, have come. They've either led or
1:20:45
Speaker 3: been tied with under two minutes to go, so they
1:20:47
Speaker 3: could easily be 4-1. In their next five games, they
1:20:50
Speaker 3: have the Cardinals twice, the Raiders, the Chargers, and Commanders.
1:20:54
Speaker 3: So they're going to probably go from 2-3 to 7-3
1:20:55
Speaker 3: or potentially 7-3 in a hurry, and they'll be right
1:21:00
Speaker 3: back in the race. They are definitely still a Super
1:21:02
Speaker 3: Bowl contender in my opinion.
1:21:04
Speaker 2: And now a contrast team, a team with a great
1:21:08
Speaker 2: record that just doesn't seem that good, and their statistics
1:21:12
Speaker 2: aren't that good. They're okay on defense. Analyze the Vikings.
1:21:15
Speaker 2: They have a two-game lead in the NFC North. Can
1:21:19
Speaker 2: they win the North?
1:21:19
Speaker 3: Yes. Sure, I think they can win the North. They're 5-0.
1:21:25
Speaker 3: But they're, in my opinion, they're kind of the opposite
1:21:29
Speaker 3: of the Rams.
1:21:29
Speaker 2: That's why I brought it up.
1:21:30
Speaker 3: They're 5-0. Yeah, they're 5-0, but their stats don't back
1:21:34
Speaker 3: that record up. They just don't. They have a negative
1:21:38
Speaker 3: yards per play margin. Their defense has been great. Their
1:21:41
Speaker 3: offense stinks. They're 27th in total offense, 28th in yards
1:21:45
Speaker 3: per play offense. Excuse me. They've been pretty fortunate to
1:21:49
Speaker 3: get to this point with some close wins. And the
1:21:52
Speaker 3: last three wins they've had are against teams that are
1:21:54
Speaker 3: combined 2-13 straight up. And the interesting thing here, Mark,
1:21:59
Speaker 3: is the Vikings are 5-0. They're 20-1 right now to
1:22:05
Speaker 3: win the Super Bowl. The Rams are 3-1 at 2-3.
1:22:08
Speaker 3: That speaks volumes. I think the Vikings are vastly overvalued.
1:22:12
Speaker 3: But at 5-0, they could still win the North for sure.
1:22:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean... They're a team that could rattle off
1:22:18
Speaker 2: six losses in a row, and I don't think anybody
1:22:20
Speaker 2: would be surprised because I think everybody's shocked that they're
1:22:23
Speaker 2: up there at 5-0. One other quick question that I
1:22:26
Speaker 2: didn't prep you on. A lot of people have been
1:22:30
Speaker 2: talking about just the incredibly stupid coaching mistakes that are
1:22:33
Speaker 2: being made at ends of games. These teams have so
1:22:36
Speaker 2: many coaches on their staffs. I mean, you've got as
1:22:39
Speaker 2: many as 20 to 25 assistants when you consider the
1:22:42
Speaker 2: quality control guys and so on. And then they talk
1:22:44
Speaker 2: about how they go through simulations and all of these possibilities.
1:22:48
Speaker 2: Yet you have a game like the one involving the
1:22:50
Speaker 2: Commanders in which they've got the ball with 45 seconds left.
1:22:54
Speaker 2: They're in field goal range. They can control exactly how
1:22:58
Speaker 2: much time left on the clock. And instead, Jaden Daniels
1:23:01
Speaker 2: runs the clock all the way down to 15 seconds,
1:23:05
Speaker 2: runs the ball, and they don't have time to spike
1:23:08
Speaker 2: the ball to get the field goal team on the team,
1:23:10
Speaker 2: and the clock just runs out at them. They could
1:23:12
Speaker 2: have run that secondary play whenever they wanted to and
1:23:16
Speaker 2: then still kill the clock with enough time to get
1:23:18
Speaker 2: the field goal unit on. The head coach of the team, Quinn,
1:23:23
Speaker 2: who I've never thought is very smart, in part because
1:23:25
Speaker 2: I think he looks like an idiot with the baseball
1:23:27
Speaker 2: cap on backwards. He's like, oh, this is on me,
1:23:30
Speaker 2: this is on me. How does this happen? And I
1:23:33
Speaker 2: was watching the end of that game. I think they
1:23:35
Speaker 2: put it on at the end of the Packer game
1:23:36
Speaker 2: because I was watching it. And you're watching the clock
1:23:39
Speaker 2: run down before they called the play Prior to it,
1:23:42
Speaker 2: I'm wondering why they're wasting so much time unless they
1:23:45
Speaker 2: were just going to throw a pass to kill the clock.
1:23:48
Speaker 2: I mean, anyone watching on TV could see that they
1:23:50
Speaker 2: were wasting too much time and that they weren't going
1:23:52
Speaker 2: to have enough time to kill the ball and get
1:23:55
Speaker 2: another playoff.
1:23:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was watching it live, and I had no idea.
1:24:02
Speaker 3: I was the same. I'm like, what the heck is
1:24:03
Speaker 3: going on here? It's just normal fans can figure that out.
1:24:08
Speaker 3: And there was another game, Mark, and I don't remember
1:24:11
Speaker 3: off the top of my head. It was last week.
1:24:13
Speaker 3: Not same situation, but you talk about poor coaching situations.
1:24:17
Speaker 3: It was an underdog.
1:24:18
Speaker 2: It was a team that didn't run enough time off
1:24:21
Speaker 2: the clock before they kicked a field goal. And I
1:24:24
Speaker 2: think it was, was it Baltimore that got the ball
1:24:27
Speaker 2: and passed for 40 yards, got into field goal range
1:24:29
Speaker 2: and won the game?
1:24:31
Speaker 3: That was one of them. And I'm talking about even
1:24:34
Speaker 3: a different game where they could have gone up three
1:24:37
Speaker 3: scores with a field goal. and it was midway through
1:24:40
Speaker 3: the fourth quarter, and they went for it. And so
1:24:44
Speaker 3: they were still only up 14 or whatever. I don't
1:24:46
Speaker 3: remember exactly what happened, but I'm like, you're an underdog,
1:24:48
Speaker 3: and you got half the fourth quarter done. You could
1:24:50
Speaker 3: go up three scores. The other team's not even getting
1:24:52
Speaker 3: the ball three times. I don't understand. There's been a
1:24:55
Speaker 3: lot of mistakes like that in the NFL, and you
1:24:57
Speaker 3: mentioned the team that I can't remember who it was
1:25:00
Speaker 3: last week went like, 50 yards and 10 seconds to
1:25:03
Speaker 3: get the field goal and won. And the other team
1:25:05
Speaker 3: should have won the game. I mean, just the poor decision.
1:25:08
Speaker 2: You know, games are, there's a clock and there's time
1:25:10
Speaker 2: going on and all of this, but I look at
1:25:12
Speaker 2: say what's happening with baseball, where teams are just so
1:25:15
Speaker 2: on top of every situation and every component. And you
1:25:20
Speaker 2: see the NFL where it's all these technocrats and so on,
1:25:24
Speaker 2: but game management and timeout decisions and so on seem
1:25:28
Speaker 2: to be lost. Now I know if I was a
1:25:29
Speaker 2: head coach, They've got 90 million things going on. Why
1:25:33
Speaker 2: isn't there an assistant whose job is to make those
1:25:37
Speaker 2: decisions for the head coach? I mean, Quinn's standing there
1:25:40
Speaker 2: with the baseball cap on backwards with a blank look
1:25:43
Speaker 2: on his face the whole time. Jaden Daniels, who's supposed
1:25:45
Speaker 2: to be a smart quarterback, is letting the clock tick off.
1:25:48
Speaker 2: It reminded me, we were talking about Wisconsin and UCLA,
1:25:51
Speaker 2: the first Badger Rose Bowl of the Barry Alvarez era,
1:25:54
Speaker 2: the 94 Rose Bowl. Wisconsin played UCLA, and Wisconsin had
1:25:58
Speaker 2: blown a big fourth quarter lead, and UCLA was driving
1:26:02
Speaker 2: for the go-ahead touchdown. This was not one of the
1:26:05
Speaker 2: great UCLA quarterbacks. I don't remember who it was. He
1:26:07
Speaker 2: didn't go on to the NFL. But they had the
1:26:09
Speaker 2: ball in about the 15-yard line. They didn't have any
1:26:12
Speaker 2: timeouts left, and they run a running play. And the
1:26:15
Speaker 2: quarterback himself scrambled and ran and was tackled with about
1:26:19
Speaker 2: eight seconds left, and they didn't have enough time to
1:26:22
Speaker 2: get up and kill the clock or bring the field
1:26:23
Speaker 2: goal unit on. And Wisconsin won because of a bad
1:26:27
Speaker 2: play called it was 30 years ago. And you've now
1:26:29
Speaker 2: got headphones in the helmets and all of this stuff.
1:26:33
Speaker 2: And it seems to me that the end of game
1:26:35
Speaker 2: decisions are just as bad as they were when there
1:26:38
Speaker 2: was poor communication.
1:26:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I agree. I agree with you a hundred percent.
1:26:42
Speaker 3: They've got these analytics guys on staff at times now
1:26:45
Speaker 3: and on the sidelines and there's, they should have had
1:26:48
Speaker 3: coaches got too much going on at times. They should
1:26:50
Speaker 3: have a guy standing next to him. with time management situations.
1:26:55
Speaker 3: I agree 100% on that. I'm surprised. I assume some do,
1:26:59
Speaker 3: but obviously some must not as well.
1:27:02
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, Mike McCarthy now does because he used
1:27:05
Speaker 2: to be the worst at it. And when he went
1:27:06
Speaker 2: to Dallas, maybe Jones made him do it. He had
1:27:08
Speaker 2: a guy that was always standing next to him. Remember
1:27:11
Speaker 2: how McCarthy would throw the challenge flag at all the
1:27:13
Speaker 2: wrong times? And then when he was in Dallas, I
1:27:15
Speaker 2: don't know if he does at Pittsburgh, there was a
1:27:17
Speaker 2: guy that was standing next to him that was telling
1:27:18
Speaker 2: him when to do that, an analytics guy that was
1:27:20
Speaker 2: in charge of just that.
1:27:22
Speaker 3: Okay. Okay.
1:27:22
Speaker 2: Time to get to some point spread predictions. First of all,
1:27:24
Speaker 2: we'll repeat the results of last week. And Jason keeps winning,
1:27:28
Speaker 2: which is just nauseating to the rest of us. Jason
1:27:30
Speaker 2: took Indiana, seven and a half point underdog against Indiana.
1:27:33
Speaker 2: Indiana won the game, but won by only three. So
1:27:36
Speaker 2: Jason got yet another win. He's five and one. I
1:27:39
Speaker 2: managed to have the weirdest push or tie of the year. I, again,
1:27:44
Speaker 2: went against the Dolphins. I had the Bengals a seven
1:27:46
Speaker 2: point favorite, and they were up by double digits throughout
1:27:50
Speaker 2: the fourth quarter. Miami did what's called a backdoor cover.
1:27:53
Speaker 2: They scored a touchdown with less than a minute left
1:27:56
Speaker 2: in the game and then missed the extra point. So
1:28:00
Speaker 2: instead of Miami winning by only six, which would have
1:28:03
Speaker 2: been a loss for me, they won by seven, which
1:28:06
Speaker 2: was a tie. So on the one hand, I should
1:28:09
Speaker 2: have won the game because Miami drove down again at
1:28:13
Speaker 2: the end of the game to score a meaningless touchdown.
1:28:16
Speaker 2: But then they go and miss the extra point, which
1:28:18
Speaker 2: is just a weird one. And Mike took Northern Illinois
1:28:20
Speaker 2: against Air Force, a 7.5-point underdog, and that didn't work
1:28:23
Speaker 2: out at all. Air Force won the game rather easily.
1:28:26
Speaker 2: All right, that's that, and this is now. Let's go
1:28:29
Speaker 2: to games this weekend. Jason's going to give us, I assume,
1:28:31
Speaker 2: another winning pick. Which game do you want to hear
1:28:33
Speaker 2: the line on? Bears-Falcons. Bears-Falcons. That's why I had Falcons
1:28:41
Speaker 2: on my mind earlier when I said the Packers were
1:28:42
Speaker 2: playing them. Yes, the Bears on the road are favored
1:28:46
Speaker 2: by one and a half points over the Falcons. And
1:28:48
Speaker 2: my comments on the Falcons being a team that's hard
1:28:51
Speaker 2: to figure out. Stan, I guess the Bears are now
1:28:53
Speaker 2: hard to figure out. Brilliant one week and crappy the next.
1:28:55
Speaker 2: Bears favored by one and a half on the road.
1:28:57
Speaker 2: I am going to take Mark. The Bears. He's taking
1:29:00
Speaker 2: the Bears. Taking the Bears. Obviously, they're bouncing back after
1:29:05
Speaker 2: a loss. What else do you like?
1:29:07
Speaker 4: It's not just that Ditka's going to find a way
1:29:09
Speaker 4: to help them.
1:29:10
Speaker 2: I could actually.
1:29:11
Speaker 4: But the reality is the Bears played awful last week.
1:29:15
Speaker 4: They played a lot worse than they are. I actually
1:29:16
Speaker 4: think they're a pretty good team. They're going on the
1:29:18
Speaker 4: road against them.
1:29:19
Speaker 2: Is Caleb Williams back or not?
1:29:20
Speaker 4: He has went through workouts as of yesterday. They expect
1:29:24
Speaker 4: him to play. No official word, but I think he's
1:29:26
Speaker 4: going to play. If he doesn't, I expect they would
1:29:28
Speaker 4: go with Case Keenum, Tyson Bajan, Stinks. So I just
1:29:31
Speaker 4: think the Bears are the better team. You're getting a
1:29:34
Speaker 4: value line here. So give me the Bears minus one
1:29:36
Speaker 4: and a half.
1:29:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think if the Bears hadn't played so
1:29:38
Speaker 2: badly last week, if this game had been played the
1:29:41
Speaker 2: week before, the Bears might have been favored by six
1:29:43
Speaker 2: or seven because the Bears had come off an outstanding win.
1:29:46
Speaker 2: two weeks earlier. That pick makes some sense to me.
1:29:48
Speaker 2: What do you think about it, Mike?
1:29:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that pick. It looks like
1:29:51
Speaker 3: Williams is probably coming back. He practiced full go this week,
1:29:56
Speaker 3: starting yesterday, I believe. So it looks like he'll be
1:29:58
Speaker 3: in there. Pennix, the quarterback for Atlanta, has got some
1:30:02
Speaker 3: banged up ribs. It looks like he's going to play.
1:30:04
Speaker 3: They're coming off an overtime loss on Sunday night.
1:30:06
Speaker 2: And he's been a difference maker. When they inserted him
1:30:08
Speaker 2: at quarterback with Atlanta, the Falcons got better. So his
1:30:11
Speaker 2: health's important for them just as much as Williams is
1:30:13
Speaker 2: for the Bears.
1:30:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree. They won two games right away
1:30:17
Speaker 3: with him. They beat the Packers, and then they beat
1:30:19
Speaker 3: the Saints, and then last week they lost in overtime
1:30:22
Speaker 3: to Baltimore. So they've been playing much better, but I
1:30:24
Speaker 3: would agree the Bears are probably the side in that game.
1:30:27
Speaker 2: Okay, time to get a pick from Mike. Where do
1:30:29
Speaker 2: you want to go?
1:30:30
Speaker 3: Well, I have my worst pick of the season. I've
1:30:32
Speaker 3: had some close losses last weekend. I cannot claim that
1:30:35
Speaker 3: was a close loss. That was a bad pick by me.
1:30:38
Speaker 3: I'm going to switch over to the NFL, I think,
1:30:41
Speaker 3: this week. A game we talked about. What's Arizona Rams' line?
1:30:48
Speaker 2: The Rams are favored by 12.5 at home against Arizona,
1:30:52
Speaker 2: which again would indicate that bettors think that they're going
1:30:55
Speaker 2: to eventually break out and kill somebody, and they're favored
1:30:58
Speaker 2: by a lot here.
1:31:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to take the Rams.
1:31:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, the Rams
1:31:04
Speaker 2: desperately need a win. Arizona's not very good. It's almost
1:31:08
Speaker 2: like they're setting the point spread as high as they
1:31:10
Speaker 2: possibly can set it, knowing that everybody's going to kind
1:31:13
Speaker 2: of think the same thing. But I think you're right.
1:31:15
Speaker 2: Give us your reasons.
1:31:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of the reasons I talked about, but
1:31:19
Speaker 3: a few extra ones. You know, the Cardinals are last
1:31:23
Speaker 3: in the NFL in yards per play margin. They're last
1:31:26
Speaker 3: in the NFL in scoring defense, 33 points a game
1:31:29
Speaker 3: they've allowed. They've allowed 31 points or more in four
1:31:33
Speaker 3: straight games. So the Rams offense, you know, is going
1:31:35
Speaker 3: to have a big day and light them up. I
1:31:38
Speaker 3: would guess the Rams defense, which is third in the NFL,
1:31:42
Speaker 3: they played bad last week. Bills were going up and
1:31:45
Speaker 3: down the field on them, and obviously the bills are
1:31:46
Speaker 3: very good. I would guess the Rams' defense comes in
1:31:49
Speaker 3: with a little chip on their shoulder, too, and they
1:31:52
Speaker 3: will play much better in this game. And since McVay
1:31:55
Speaker 3: took over L.A., they're 15-4 against the spread when playing
1:32:00
Speaker 3: the Cardinals. And we talked about this last week, and
1:32:03
Speaker 3: I've got some stats on this now. So double-digit NFL
1:32:06
Speaker 3: favorites this year are 2-1 against the spread. And, Mark,
1:32:09
Speaker 3: you mentioned they seem to be doing better as of late. Historically,
1:32:13
Speaker 3: they're only 48%, but since 2023, double-digit favorites are 47
1:32:18
Speaker 3: and 36 against the spread in the NFL. I think
1:32:22
Speaker 3: this is just a game where the Rams are going
1:32:23
Speaker 3: to cream someone, and anything under 13, I'm laying, so
1:32:26
Speaker 3: I'll take the Rams.
1:32:28
Speaker 2: I almost took a college game as my pick this week,
1:32:32
Speaker 2: but I didn't do it because I have never been
1:32:35
Speaker 2: right when I've gone against James Madison, including this year
1:32:39
Speaker 2: in the first week of the season. I think I
1:32:41
Speaker 2: took Liberty. against them. Georgia State, which might be the
1:32:44
Speaker 2: most improved team in the whole country, is getting 12.5
1:32:47
Speaker 2: points against James Madison in a game relief for control
1:32:51
Speaker 2: of the Sun Belt. I think Georgia State is as
1:32:53
Speaker 2: good as James Madison, but James Madison never, ever, ever loses.
1:33:00
Speaker 2: They don't lose in the last 10 years, so I'm
1:33:03
Speaker 2: just not going to do it, and I'm not going
1:33:04
Speaker 2: to fight against this trend, but Georgia State has somehow
1:33:07
Speaker 2: gotten much better than they were before. I'm actually going
1:33:11
Speaker 2: to the game tonight, and again, we're speaking on Thursday,
1:33:13
Speaker 2: the NFL game tonight. The Seahawks play the Broncos in Denver.
1:33:18
Speaker 2: The Seahawks on the road are favored by 2.5 over Denver,
1:33:20
Speaker 2: and I'm taking Denver. I think this is a terrible
1:33:23
Speaker 2: spot for Seattle. They not only had a hard-fought divisional
1:33:27
Speaker 2: game with San Francisco last week, game went into overtime,
1:33:30
Speaker 2: and that was just on Sunday. San Francisco won 32-29.
1:33:34
Speaker 2: The game was a war. Now they have to travel
1:33:38
Speaker 2: to Denver, play in altitude, On a short week, it's
1:33:42
Speaker 2: a better situation, I think, for the Broncos. And I
1:33:46
Speaker 2: think that Seattle isn't quite as good as people think.
1:33:50
Speaker 2: They're not the best team in that division. I think
1:33:52
Speaker 2: they're the third best team in the division. The Rams,
1:33:54
Speaker 2: I still think, are better. San Francisco might be better
1:33:56
Speaker 2: than the both of them. It's a very good situation
1:33:59
Speaker 2: for Denver at home. The Broncos have had some problem
1:34:02
Speaker 2: scoring points this year, but I think that this is
1:34:04
Speaker 2: an excellent situation, and I'm getting a home underdog. I
1:34:07
Speaker 2: wish it was three, which it was a little bit
1:34:09
Speaker 2: earlier in the week, I think. But two and a
1:34:10
Speaker 2: half is enough because I think Denver wins the game
1:34:13
Speaker 2: straight up. Any thoughts on that one?
1:34:16
Speaker 3: I just don't like that game either way. I don't
1:34:18
Speaker 3: know how good Denver is. Their offense is really bad
1:34:20
Speaker 3: this year.
1:34:21
Speaker 2: It is bad. And Bo Nix is having a terrible year.
1:34:24
Speaker 3: They are. They're ranked 30th in the NFL in total offense.
1:34:28
Speaker 3: And Peyton took over the play calls last week. And
1:34:31
Speaker 3: they needed a touchdown and two field goals in the
1:34:34
Speaker 3: fourth quarter just to come back and beat the Chargers
1:34:37
Speaker 3: who aren't any good this year. I don't know how
1:34:39
Speaker 3: good they are. I'm a wait-and-see guy on Denver right now,
1:34:43
Speaker 3: so I don't have a good opinion on that game.
1:34:45
Speaker 3: I really don't.
1:34:46
Speaker 2: Okay, recapping everybody's picks. Jason is taking the Bears a
1:34:50
Speaker 2: one-and-a-half point favorite to win by two or more against Atlanta.
1:34:55
Speaker 2: Mike is saying that the Rams are going to win
1:34:57
Speaker 2: by 13 or more over Arizona. And I need Denver
1:35:00
Speaker 2: to either beat Seattle in the Thursday night game or
1:35:02
Speaker 2: lose by two or less. So those are our selections.
1:35:06
Speaker 2: Next podcast will be released on Monday. Talk to you then.
1:35:13
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