Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #167: The flip side of two controversial technologies: the boom in the Wisconsin economy for companies involved in AI, and the number of crimes solved because of Flock cameras. And, Mark goes through the three Constitutional amendment referendum questions on this fall's ballot and why you should vote yes on all of them.
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by Uline. For quality
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- 0:26Speaker 2: I actually never went to radio school and I never
- 0:30Speaker 2: went to broadcasting school. And I don't even know if
- 0:33Speaker 2: there is a podcasting school. There must be because so
- 0:35Speaker 2: many people are doing podcasts. Somebody must be training. somebody
- 0:38Speaker 2: on it, but I never went to that. But I
- 0:40Speaker 2: do know this. When you start a program, be it
- 0:43Speaker 2: radio or podcast, you've got to grab the audience right away.
- 0:48Speaker 2: So if you have a really interesting thought or topic,
- 0:52Speaker 2: hit it with them right from the top. Unfortunately, I'm
- 0:56Speaker 2: breaking that rule today because we're going to open with
- 1:01Speaker 2: the Constitution. I've got the Constitution on all levels. We're
- 1:08Speaker 2: and the United States Constitution. So you're gonna, this is
- 1:11Speaker 2: gonna require a little bit of trust on your part.
- 1:13Speaker 2: Just bear with me here. We're gonna start with the
- 1:15Speaker 2: state constitution first. Uline moves fast so your business doesn't
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- 1:45Speaker 2: here's what we're on the Constitution. Every year right about
- 1:49Speaker 2: this time, folks who are really interested in voting and
- 1:52Speaker 2: being good citizens start looking and seeing what's on their ballot.
- 1:57Speaker 2: And the thing that often flummoxes people are referendum questions,
- 2:01Speaker 2: especially these referendums to amend the state constitution. That's because
- 2:06Speaker 2: they're often worded sort of convoluted and people have a
- 2:12Speaker 2: tendency to think that the question is maybe meant to
- 2:14Speaker 2: trick them. When local communities just put, say, an advisory
- 2:18Speaker 2: referendum or even when school referendums are on the ballot,
- 2:22Speaker 2: the drafters write the question in a way to make
- 2:25Speaker 2: it seem so attractive and people get suspicious over that. Well,
- 2:30Speaker 2: the state constitutional amendments are different. They have to be
- 2:33Speaker 2: drafted in precisely the appropriate way to change the Constitution
- 2:38Speaker 2: to say what you want. There are three questions on
- 2:42Speaker 2: the ballot. The constitutional amendments, no matter where you live
- 2:46Speaker 2: in the state, will be the first three. If, for example,
- 2:50Speaker 2: you live in a community that has a school referendum
- 2:52Speaker 2: or maybe a fire services referendum, those will all be
- 2:56Speaker 2: after this. Everywhere in Wisconsin, the first three questions will
- 3:00Speaker 2: be the constitutional amendments. I can give you the cliff
- 3:03Speaker 2: notes first. Vote yes. on all three. Very easy to remember. Now,
- 3:12Speaker 2: one of the things that happens is as we get
- 3:14Speaker 2: closer to the election, particularly when we get closer to
- 3:17Speaker 2: early voting or even voting on election day, people will
- 3:19Speaker 2: look at these ballot questions and they'll contact me and say,
- 3:22Speaker 2: what should I do? And I want to respond that
- 3:26Speaker 2: I already covered that. Don't you listen to the podcast?
- 3:28Speaker 2: So we'll talk about these again, but this is going
- 3:30Speaker 2: to be the big hit on them. I'm going to
- 3:33Speaker 2: walk kind of briefly, through all three of them and
- 3:37Speaker 2: tell you why they're good ideas. First of all, the background.
- 3:41Speaker 2: The Constitution in the state of Wisconsin is a bigger
- 3:45Speaker 2: deal than state laws. State laws can be changed whenever
- 3:49Speaker 2: you get both houses of the legislature to pass a
- 3:52Speaker 2: bill and the governor signs it. We change laws all
- 3:55Speaker 2: the time. Every time we pass a budget, we put
- 3:57Speaker 2: zillions of provisions in. They're there. They're on the books.
- 4:01Speaker 2: Changing the Constitution is is much harder. The Constitution is
- 4:07Speaker 2: above all of the other laws. All the laws we
- 4:10Speaker 2: pass in Wisconsin have to conform to the Constitution. To
- 4:14Speaker 2: change the Constitution, you have to pass it through both
- 4:17Speaker 2: the State Assembly and Senate, and then wait for the
- 4:22Speaker 2: next two-year cycle of the legislature, take the exact same language,
- 4:27Speaker 2: pass it through the Assembly, pass it through the Senate again.
- 4:32Speaker 2: So it requires passage in two separate two-year sessions of
- 4:36Speaker 2: the legislature and the exact same language each time and
- 4:39Speaker 2: the exact same language in both chambers. And then after
- 4:43Speaker 2: all of that, the voters still have to approve it
- 4:46Speaker 2: in these referendums. It's obviously therefore very hard to do.
- 4:53Speaker 2: And it's meant to be hard to do. We elect
- 4:55Speaker 2: representatives and we elect a governor to change laws when
- 4:57Speaker 2: we feel that that's necessary. But to change the Constitution
- 5:01Speaker 2: requires this multilayered process. The governorship in Wisconsin has been
- 5:06Speaker 2: held by Democrats for eight years. And some of these
- 5:08Speaker 2: issues that we have wanted to advance have just been
- 5:12Speaker 2: blocked by Tony Evers. I'm not going to say that
- 5:16Speaker 2: there's a way to get around that because changing the
- 5:19Speaker 2: Constitution affects our Constitution for all governors to come. The
- 5:23Speaker 2: only way you can change it back is to go
- 5:25Speaker 2: through the same process and undo what you did earlier.
- 5:29Speaker 2: There are three questions on the ballot, and I'm going
- 5:32Speaker 2: to take them in the order that they appear. I'm
- 5:35Speaker 2: going to actually read each question, and I will say
- 5:38Speaker 2: that this year, they've done a better job in making
- 5:40Speaker 2: them clear. They're not as convoluted as they often are.
- 5:43Speaker 2: They used to say, shall such and such be appealed
- 5:45Speaker 2: to do this and that and the other thing. First
- 5:47Speaker 2: one's pretty clear. It deals with the partial veto powers
- 5:52Speaker 2: of the governor. Question one, partial veto. Shall Section 10.1c
- 5:57Speaker 2: of an Article 5 of the Constitution be amended to
- 6:01Speaker 2: prohibit the governor in exercising his or her partial veto
- 6:05Speaker 2: authority from creating or increasing or authorizing the creation or
- 6:11Speaker 2: increase of any tax or fee? Yes or no? The
- 6:16Speaker 2: question is, should the government be able to use his
- 6:19Speaker 2: partial veto powers to raise taxes, create a tax, or
- 6:24Speaker 2: raise a fee? And the answer is yes, we should
- 6:27Speaker 2: pass this to prohibit it. The question is, should this
- 6:31Speaker 2: be prohibited? Should it be barred? Should the governor not
- 6:35Speaker 2: be able to do this? And the answer is yes,
- 6:37Speaker 2: it should be prohibited. This is all in response to
- 6:42Speaker 2: the Tony Evers veto of several years ago, the so-called
- 6:45Speaker 2: 400-year tax increase. What Evers, and we say Evers very loosely,
- 6:50Speaker 2: there's no way that addled old goof figured this out, none.
- 6:54Speaker 2: This was his staff of leftist Machiavellians. I mean, Maggie
- 6:57Speaker 2: Gao's fingerprints are all over this thing. What they did
- 7:01Speaker 2: was they took language in a bill that was passed
- 7:05Speaker 2: by the legislature to address school funding in the coming
- 7:10Speaker 2: two-year budget cycle. And it did provide for an increase
- 7:16Speaker 2: in school funding in that two-year period. What Evers' people
- 7:20Speaker 2: did was use his partial veto power to draw lines
- 7:25Speaker 2: through entire sentences and dates and literally take out digits
- 7:33Speaker 2: to change this from a two-year increase to a 400-year increase.
- 7:39Speaker 2: What he did was essentially took out the numbers in
- 7:43Speaker 2: a year and standards, I think it's 24-24, 24-22. It's
- 7:46Speaker 2: 400 years rather than two. So a veto power that
- 7:53Speaker 2: we've created, given a governor the power to slash out
- 7:57Speaker 2: something that they didn't like. In this case, Evers created
- 8:00Speaker 2: an automatic increase in school spending every year. For the
- 8:05Speaker 2: next 400 years, there will be an increase in property
- 8:09Speaker 2: taxes in Wisconsin for school funding. in property tax funding
- 8:24Speaker 2: goes up if school district chooses tax at the max.
- 8:28Speaker 2: So another year they can raise it again and again
- 8:32Speaker 2: and again, and it will continue unabated for 400 years.
- 8:38Speaker 2: It's probably the most abusive use of veto power by
- 8:43Speaker 2: Wisconsin governor in history. It completely defied the intent of
- 8:48Speaker 2: what the legislature was doing. And it tied the hands
- 8:52Speaker 2: of future governments that were stuck with this thing forever.
- 8:58Speaker 2: The question is whether or not the governor should be
- 9:00Speaker 2: able to do that. The governor of Wisconsin has very
- 9:05Speaker 2: expansive partial veto powers. When the governor has a bill
- 9:09Speaker 2: or spending bill, he can draw lines through a portion
- 9:12Speaker 2: of the bill. You don't have to veto the whole thing.
- 9:15Speaker 2: You can take a bill that says 26 things and
- 9:17Speaker 2: the governor can knock out 21 of them. leave in
- 9:20Speaker 2: the five that he wants, and sign those five into law.
- 9:23Speaker 2: That's very broad power. You don't have to do an
- 9:25Speaker 2: up or down veto of the whole thing. A number
- 9:28Speaker 2: of years ago in Wisconsin, we addressed the so-called Vanna
- 9:32Speaker 2: White veto. Past governors, and I'll grant you, Republicans were
- 9:36Speaker 2: as good at this as Democrats, would go into a
- 9:40Speaker 2: line item or an area of script in the budget,
- 9:44Speaker 2: and they would take out letters. They'd take out punctuation marks.
- 9:48Speaker 2: like semicolons, and move all of these things around to
- 9:52Speaker 2: invent brand new words to do things totally different. It
- 9:56Speaker 2: was called the Vanna White veto because, you know, Vanna
- 9:59Speaker 2: White's flipping the letters on Wheel of Fortune. The voters
- 10:02Speaker 2: in the state of Wisconsin passed an earlier amendment to
- 10:05Speaker 2: the Constitution preventing that. This just takes it a step
- 10:08Speaker 2: farther to stop the governor from using his veto power
- 10:12Speaker 2: to invent or raise attacks. Vetos are there to take
- 10:18Speaker 2: things out. or to reduce things. They shouldn't be able
- 10:22Speaker 2: to be used for a governor. You know, Evers could
- 10:24Speaker 2: have done this, I suppose, if they had been even
- 10:26Speaker 2: more creative and found another number, 600 years, 800 years,
- 10:29Speaker 2: 18 million years. So Democrats seem to be opposed to
- 10:34Speaker 2: this amendment on the ballot, but they're not going to
- 10:38Speaker 2: have Democratic governors forever. There's a good chance Tom Tiffany's
- 10:42Speaker 2: going to get elected this fall. And if he doesn't
- 10:44Speaker 2: get elected in four more years in 2030, maybe a
- 10:47Speaker 2: Republican gets in then. I think it's in the interest
- 10:50Speaker 2: of both political parties to have the powers of the
- 10:53Speaker 2: governor be at least somewhat reasonable. I do think the
- 10:58Speaker 2: governor of a state needs to have broad powers. And
- 11:01Speaker 2: when Scott Walker was governor, he used powers broadly. Evers,
- 11:05Speaker 2: his governor, has done everything in his power to turn
- 11:09Speaker 2: himself into a dictator and often override the wishes of
- 11:12Speaker 2: the legislature. Well, the reelected governor. But there's got to
- 11:15Speaker 2: be some limit. And I think that this is a
- 11:17Speaker 2: reasonable limit. and it only restricts the governor's veto ability
- 11:21Speaker 2: in this one area, you can't use your veto pen
- 11:24Speaker 2: to invent a fee that never existed before, and you
- 11:28Speaker 2: can't use your veto pen to raise or create a tax.
- 11:32Speaker 2: All right, that's question one. Question two, freedom to gather
- 11:36Speaker 2: in places of worship. Now, before I get into it,
- 11:39Speaker 2: this one is also an attempt to correct an abuse
- 11:43Speaker 2: that occurred under Evers. But remember, Under the state constitution,
- 11:47Speaker 2: it will affect all future governors as well. Question two,
- 11:52Speaker 2: freedom to gather in places of worship during an emergency.
- 11:56Speaker 2: Shall section 18 of article one of the constitution, which
- 11:58Speaker 2: deals with religious liberty, be amended to prohibit the state
- 12:03Speaker 2: or a political subdivision of the state from ordering the
- 12:06Speaker 2: closure of or forbidding gathering in places of worship during
- 12:11Speaker 2: in response to a state of emergency, including a public
- 12:14Speaker 2: health emergency. Yes or no? Vote yes. This is obviously
- 12:21Speaker 2: in response to all the bad things that happened during COVID.
- 12:27Speaker 2: I'm of the opinion, closing the schools for lengthy periods
- 12:29Speaker 2: of time, long past when COVID was still a significant issue,
- 12:33Speaker 2: that was terrible. The government not allowing people to go
- 12:40Speaker 2: into places of worship, whether there was a public health
- 12:44Speaker 2: risk or not. This thing was an absolute ban. A
- 12:49Speaker 2: church or a group that uses just a hall or
- 12:52Speaker 2: any kind of a facility for a church, they couldn't
- 12:54Speaker 2: allow one person in at a time. They couldn't open
- 12:57Speaker 2: the doors and space people and limit it to three
- 12:59Speaker 2: people in the entire building. We closed the churches. And
- 13:03Speaker 2: by places of worship, that meant we closed synagogues, we
- 13:06Speaker 2: closed mosques, We closed just meeting halls where independent groups
- 13:10Speaker 2: that don't even have their own church building that get
- 13:12Speaker 2: together in a hall they could not meet. Without regard
- 13:17Speaker 2: to whether or not you felt that we had this
- 13:21Speaker 2: need to lock things down during COVID, and we didn't.
- 13:25Speaker 2: All those lockdowns failed. None of them accomplished anything. COVID
- 13:30Speaker 2: was a very easily transmitted virus. Just about all of
- 13:34Speaker 2: us eventually got it. After we got it, we started
- 13:37Speaker 2: to develop some immunity. The virus itself is going to
- 13:39Speaker 2: be around forever. And locking everything down wasn't going to
- 13:44Speaker 2: do one doggone thing to stop the spread of the virus.
- 13:48Speaker 2: But even if it did, people should have the right
- 13:52Speaker 2: to make the decision on their own if they're going
- 13:55Speaker 2: to go somewhere and pray. Let's extend this further state
- 13:59Speaker 2: of emergency. Let's imagine... We've got a threat of a
- 14:03Speaker 2: nuclear attack. And they tell everybody to stay in your basement. Well,
- 14:07Speaker 2: if somebody would feel more comfortable being in a church
- 14:10Speaker 2: rather than thinking they're going to avoid nuclear annihilation by
- 14:13Speaker 2: going into a basement, do we want to tell them
- 14:16Speaker 2: that they can't go there? I say no. I say
- 14:18Speaker 2: that that's an individual choice. And finally, question three, state
- 14:23Speaker 2: of Wisconsin government entity discrimination prohibited referendum. Question three, government
- 14:27Speaker 2: entity discrimination prohibited. So shall Section 27 of Article 1
- 14:32Speaker 2: of the Constitution be created to prohibit governmental entities in
- 14:35Speaker 2: the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to
- 14:39Speaker 2: any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity,
- 14:44Speaker 2: or national origin in public employment, public education, public contracting,
- 14:49Speaker 2: or public administration? Yes or no? The correct question here
- 14:53Speaker 2: is yes. This sounds like something that was proposed in
- 14:57Speaker 2: the 1960s to stop discrimination against African-Americans. In fact, the
- 15:03Speaker 2: purpose of this now is to stop government from creating
- 15:07Speaker 2: racial preferences that discriminate against groups like white males or
- 15:12Speaker 2: Asians and so on, and to give us a truly
- 15:15Speaker 2: colorblind society and end all discrimination on the basis of genders.
- 15:21Speaker 2: It's not just an attempt to stop DEI. It's an
- 15:23Speaker 2: attempt to stop all of these government programs that say
- 15:27Speaker 2: one group can have a certain number of benefits, but
- 15:29Speaker 2: another group can't. I think the election of President Trump
- 15:33Speaker 2: two years ago was a repudiation of DEI. It was
- 15:36Speaker 2: a repudiation of racial preferences. And we've seen the damage done.
- 15:41Speaker 2: White males are such a small minority right now in
- 15:43Speaker 2: American colleges and universities. Young white males who want to
- 15:47Speaker 2: apply for jobs for police or for firefighters are often
- 15:49Speaker 2: sent to the back of the line because of the
- 15:51Speaker 2: preferences that are created. So this question is another one
- 15:55Speaker 2: in which I think the correct vote is yes. All right,
- 15:58Speaker 2: now the United States Constitution. We have this huge issue
- 16:02Speaker 2: going on at the White House over President Trump's decision
- 16:06Speaker 2: to ban CNN, MSNOW, and Politico and their reporters from
- 16:13Speaker 2: going into the White House to cover the administration. Now,
- 16:17Speaker 2: there are two questions here. The first is, whether or
- 16:20Speaker 2: not this is good public policy. And the second is,
- 16:23Speaker 2: does it violate the Constitution? The news organizations are filing
- 16:28Speaker 2: a lawsuit claiming that this violates the First Amendment of
- 16:32Speaker 2: the United States Constitution. It does not. That doesn't mean
- 16:37Speaker 2: Trump's doing the right thing. Now, let's deal with what
- 16:40Speaker 2: Trump's doing. I know why he's doing this. Trump is
- 16:42Speaker 2: fed up with his press secretaries or him every time
- 16:46Speaker 2: they go in to do a press briefing saying, having
- 16:48Speaker 2: to put up with these three news organizations, just deciding
- 16:52Speaker 2: that they're going to argue with them. They're not asking
- 16:54Speaker 2: questions anymore. Without regard to who it is for either
- 16:57Speaker 2: of these networks, they just get up there and they
- 16:59Speaker 2: want to create an argument and a pissing match with Trump. Now,
- 17:02Speaker 2: I grant you, Trump then gives it back and the
- 17:05Speaker 2: whole thing just degenerates into, well, what it turns out
- 17:08Speaker 2: to be. This didn't happen during Biden. The only guy
- 17:12Speaker 2: who ever did any decent questioning of Biden was the
- 17:14Speaker 2: correspondent for Fox News, Peter Doocy. He'd ask questions of
- 17:18Speaker 2: Biden's various press secretaries. They'd stumble around and not answer.
- 17:22Speaker 2: The questions were pointed, but there were never arguments. As
- 17:25Speaker 2: for Biden himself, he hardly ever held any news conferences
- 17:28Speaker 2: because he was senile, so he didn't have any of
- 17:30Speaker 2: those interchanges. So I think Trump is just fed up
- 17:34Speaker 2: with these three news organizations going in and using these
- 17:38Speaker 2: events as an opportunity to argue with him. Secondly, obviously
- 17:44Speaker 2: there are limits as to who has access to the
- 17:46Speaker 2: White House. Some tiny radio station in mouse breath Iowa
- 17:50Speaker 2: isn't able to get White House access. The White House
- 17:53Speaker 2: determines who gets access and who doesn't. Now, clearly, CNN
- 17:57Speaker 2: is a big enough deal and MSNBC, they now call
- 18:00Speaker 2: it MSNOW and Politico, are big enough deals that they're
- 18:03Speaker 2: at the level at which they ought to be able
- 18:05Speaker 2: to cover the White House. Nonetheless, it is a privilege.
- 18:08Speaker 2: In fact, Brian Stelter on CNN, back when Biden was president,
- 18:14Speaker 2: He had a show on CNN then, and he questioned
- 18:16Speaker 2: whether or not the Biden administration should ban Fox News
- 18:21Speaker 2: from the White House. And Stelter of CNN said, there's
- 18:25Speaker 2: no right to cover the White House. It's a privilege.
- 18:27Speaker 2: And if the privilege is granted, the privilege can be
- 18:29Speaker 2: taken away. Well, now it's Trump in there and suddenly
- 18:32Speaker 2: it's not a privilege anymore. It's constitutional right, according to them. Now, I,
- 18:37Speaker 2: you know, Trump does things like this and he's trying
- 18:39Speaker 2: to make a point and it attracts a lot of attention.
- 18:42Speaker 2: And in the long run, I think the news organizations
- 18:44Speaker 2: are going to be allowed back in, but that's a
- 18:46Speaker 2: separate question here for whether or not the constitution is violated.
- 18:51Speaker 2: The first amendment of the constitution, which is the free
- 18:53Speaker 2: press and free speech amendment to the constitution says Congress
- 18:58Speaker 2: shall pass no law abridging the freedom of the press.
- 19:03Speaker 2: First of all, the white house is in Congress. Secondly,
- 19:08Speaker 2: telling these organizations they can't come into the press room
- 19:11Speaker 2: or the White House isn't a law, it's just a rule.
- 19:15Speaker 2: It's a rule that the White House has created. So
- 19:17Speaker 2: the Constitution prevents the Congress passing a law abridging the
- 19:23Speaker 2: freedom of the press. Trump isn't passing any law here,
- 19:27Speaker 2: and he's not Congress. He's passing a rule that they
- 19:30Speaker 2: may not like, and they have every right to argue
- 19:33Speaker 2: about it, and they have every right to turn this
- 19:34Speaker 2: into a big political issue, and they have every right
- 19:36Speaker 2: to go onto their networks and make us think about it.
- 19:39Speaker 2: But they and the other news organizations, you know, the
- 19:42Speaker 2: head of the White House Correspondents Association is Jackie Hendrick.
- 19:45Speaker 2: She's with Fox News. She put out this statement also
- 19:47Speaker 2: that it's a violation of the First Amendment. It's not
- 19:50Speaker 2: a violation of the First Amendment. People want to keep
- 19:52Speaker 2: saying that the Constitution says things that it doesn't say.
- 19:56Speaker 2: Something could be a stupid idea. It can be obnoxious
- 19:58Speaker 2: and it can even be harmful without violating the Constitution.
- 20:03Speaker 2: So it's not violating the Constitution. What it is is
- 20:06Speaker 2: one more example of Trump being fed up with him
- 20:10Speaker 2: always being under constant attack and siege and responding by
- 20:14Speaker 2: smacking him back just as hard as he's been smacked.
- 20:18Speaker 2: Turning to another story, and I just think it's fascinating
- 20:22Speaker 2: how Trump has the ability to trip the trigger of
- 20:27Speaker 2: the media and the left, and then they move on.
- 20:31Speaker 2: Go back to the very beginning of Trump term number two,
- 20:35Speaker 2: right as he was inaugurated, January 20th of 2025, 20
- 20:39Speaker 2: months ago or whatever it was. One of the first
- 20:42Speaker 2: issues was raised was Trump's suggestion that Greenland become the
- 20:49Speaker 2: 51st American state. And everybody went nuts. Greenland is a
- 20:53Speaker 2: territory of the nation of Denmark. No, no, no, we're
- 20:56Speaker 2: not going to do that. People on the left said
- 20:58Speaker 2: this is a terrible thing. Greenland is, you know, it's
- 21:00Speaker 2: a part of another country. Why in the world does
- 21:02Speaker 2: Trump think that he can just go on and next
- 21:04Speaker 2: something like this? And so on. Now, You may recall,
- 21:08Speaker 2: Jason doesn't recall because he wasn't my producer then. Paul was,
- 21:12Speaker 2: but he won't recall because he doesn't recall anything. But
- 21:15Speaker 2: I recall what I said. I'm one of these people,
- 21:19Speaker 2: like everybody else, that remembers everything I ever said that
- 21:22Speaker 2: was right. Things that turned out to be wrong, they
- 21:24Speaker 2: have the remarkable ability to slip out of my mind. Anyway,
- 21:28Speaker 2: like I was right in my football pick last week.
- 21:31Speaker 2: That one I remember. I don't remember anything else I
- 21:33Speaker 2: did in football picks earlier in the season. Anyway, my
- 21:35Speaker 2: suggestion was that Trump, as is the case with every
- 21:39Speaker 2: negotiation Trump is ever involved in, was he was putting
- 21:44Speaker 2: out the big demand, getting the big attention from it,
- 21:48Speaker 2: therefore putting the issue on the table. What he really
- 21:52Speaker 2: wanted was something far less. Now, this story developed on Friday,
- 21:56Speaker 2: and it didn't get a lot of attention, but it
- 21:58Speaker 2: is a big deal. The United States and Denmark agreed
- 22:02Speaker 2: that that the United States will be responsible for the
- 22:06Speaker 2: protection of Greenland and provide all of its defenses with
- 22:13Speaker 2: the United States expending no money for this. In other words,
- 22:15Speaker 2: we cut a deal in which the United States is
- 22:19Speaker 2: responsible to protect Greenland. Now, obviously, part of that means
- 22:23Speaker 2: the United States now has the ability to set up
- 22:26Speaker 2: bases and equipment there so that it can protect Greenland.
- 22:30Speaker 2: Here's why Trump was on this. You know the term airspace?
- 22:36Speaker 2: This is about space space. We all know that the
- 22:39Speaker 2: next round of warfare that the world is confronting is
- 22:44Speaker 2: attacks from space. We're already at that level. The sending
- 22:48Speaker 2: of ballistic missiles through space that would come from, say,
- 22:51Speaker 2: Russia or anywhere in Europe or that part of the world,
- 22:55Speaker 2: by nature are going to fly over Greenland. Greenland is
- 23:00Speaker 2: the giant body of land that sits in the northern
- 23:05Speaker 2: part of the Atlantic Ocean. And given the way the
- 23:09Speaker 2: missiles would be launched and where they would come from,
- 23:12Speaker 2: Greenland provides the opportunity to intercept incoming missiles. If we
- 23:17Speaker 2: don't control the space over Greenland, we're completely vulnerable and
- 23:22Speaker 2: can't do anything to these missiles until they already get
- 23:25Speaker 2: over North America. When Trump came in, he clearly felt
- 23:29Speaker 2: this was a vulnerability. He obviously had experts who felt
- 23:33Speaker 2: that this was a priority that he had to go after.
- 23:37Speaker 2: So he wasn't going to be able to just get
- 23:39Speaker 2: Greenland to say, hey, we want to put up a
- 23:40Speaker 2: bunch of bases here. So he makes this giant demand.
- 23:44Speaker 2: You're going to be a state. If you're not a state,
- 23:45Speaker 2: we're going to tear off you to death. And after
- 23:48Speaker 2: the initial blow up, you haven't been hearing anything about this.
- 23:52Speaker 2: But behind the scenes, the State Department or whomever else
- 23:55Speaker 2: was doing the negotiation gradually worked with Denmark, which owns Greenland, saying, look,
- 24:01Speaker 2: you're just as vulnerable. Do you want your space space,
- 24:05Speaker 2: the space above your air, to be the place in
- 24:09Speaker 2: which incoming missiles are launched all over? You're sitting there
- 24:12Speaker 2: and you're just as vulnerable. Do you want the Russians,
- 24:15Speaker 2: who certainly... have shown no shyness about trying to take
- 24:19Speaker 2: control of other portions of the world. Do you want
- 24:21Speaker 2: them to take this over? Do you want China to
- 24:23Speaker 2: try to establish something there? You're much better off having
- 24:26Speaker 2: us protecting you. We just need to have the ability
- 24:29Speaker 2: to have bases and equipment and satellite stations and launchers
- 24:33Speaker 2: there in order to protect us, which by proxy protects you.
- 24:39Speaker 2: Greenland has agreed to the deal and we've gotten it done.
- 24:43Speaker 2: For all of the negatives that people have with the
- 24:46Speaker 2: MO of Trump and how he approaches some things, this
- 24:50Speaker 2: was Trump at his best. Find a problem that other
- 24:54Speaker 2: presidents just swept under the table and ignored. Be willing
- 24:57Speaker 2: to address it. Address it by making the big attention-getting
- 25:01Speaker 2: demand by asking for way more than you actually really want.
- 25:06Speaker 2: Force the discussion. Bring the other side to the table
- 25:10Speaker 2: and cut the deal. This is a significant victory and
- 25:14Speaker 2: I think one of the larger accomplishments of the second
- 25:17Speaker 2: term of Trump's administration. You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast.
- 25:24Speaker 2: This is the Mark Belling Podcast. I've got two topics
- 25:28Speaker 2: here in which I want to address the other side
- 25:32Speaker 2: of two very unpopular technologies. One is AI and the
- 25:38Speaker 2: other is the flock cameras. I want to start with AI.
- 25:42Speaker 2: There's an interesting story that I found in the Business
- 25:45Speaker 2: Journal today. It deals with Generac. Generac is the very
- 25:50Speaker 2: large and, I won't say still growing, but it's a
- 25:54Speaker 2: large and important company based in Waukesha. They have a
- 25:57Speaker 2: number of applications, but the bulk of what they do
- 26:00Speaker 2: is power supply, emergency generators, batteries, and creation of devices
- 26:07Speaker 2: that increase the power supply of already existing, say, plants
- 26:11Speaker 2: and operations. Take something that's powering something or another and
- 26:15Speaker 2: add to it, either an emergency backup or a supplement.
- 26:18Speaker 2: That's what Generac does. And they do it everything from
- 26:20Speaker 2: small home generators to big industrial applications. Anyway, I'll read
- 26:24Speaker 2: from the story in the Business Journal. Generac says it's
- 26:27Speaker 2: building capacity to fulfill multi-billion dollar Amazon pact. Amazon is
- 26:34Speaker 2: constructing data centers all over the United States, just as
- 26:37Speaker 2: every other tech company is doing. Generac has a contract
- 26:41Speaker 2: with Amazon to provide supplemental power for Amazon at these
- 26:48Speaker 2: data centers and other facilities that it's building all over
- 26:51Speaker 2: the United States and maybe the world. This is the
- 26:55Speaker 2: supply chain part of of AI. So here's Generac, a
- 26:59Speaker 2: local company with local employment base. They do manufacturing other
- 27:02Speaker 2: places as well. They have a major contract to comply
- 27:07Speaker 2: some of the hardware that deals with AI. While a
- 27:12Speaker 2: lot of people are terrified of AI and they're terrified
- 27:15Speaker 2: of the data centers, and in some cases for legitimate reasons,
- 27:19Speaker 2: the reality is that the build-out of AI is not
- 27:23Speaker 2: just the future of our economy, it is the economy.
- 27:27Speaker 2: This is the new industrial revolution. And while a lot
- 27:31Speaker 2: of people want to look at this, it's okay, here's
- 27:33Speaker 2: this big giant data center. It's taken up all this
- 27:35Speaker 2: space and it's going to require all of this electricity.
- 27:37Speaker 2: All right, in all of that big giant thing, there's
- 27:40Speaker 2: lots of machine parts and there's lots of components and
- 27:42Speaker 2: there's lots of technology. And that stuff's being built all
- 27:45Speaker 2: over the place. This isn't just trickle down. This is
- 27:48Speaker 2: the basis for the future of the world. When you
- 27:52Speaker 2: see companies here in the United States, and Generac is
- 27:55Speaker 2: just one example, in a position to take massive advantage
- 28:01Speaker 2: and get significant investment. This is going to result in
- 28:05Speaker 2: Generac now hiring people, spending money to build the parts
- 28:09Speaker 2: that they're building and build the power capacity that they're
- 28:11Speaker 2: building for Amazon and so on. Turning your nose up
- 28:17Speaker 2: at all data centers, and saying we're going to let
- 28:20Speaker 2: all the technology go to China means that all of
- 28:23Speaker 2: the downstream things that happen with AI are going to
- 28:26Speaker 2: happen in China as well. That's the first one. The second,
- 28:29Speaker 2: the flock cameras. Now, flock cameras have been abused in
- 28:36Speaker 2: some of the communities that they're used in, just as
- 28:41Speaker 2: just about anything can be abused. Guns are abused. What
- 28:46Speaker 2: isn't abused? That doesn't mean the overriding technology is necessarily bad.
- 28:51Speaker 2: The conservative website Wisconsin Right Now is on a mission
- 28:55Speaker 2: here to save the flock cameras. Now, before I get
- 28:58Speaker 2: into this entirely, I don't have any particular interest in
- 29:02Speaker 2: being a cheerleader for flock. They're just one company. Other
- 29:06Speaker 2: companies are trying to build out this technology too of
- 29:09Speaker 2: putting cameras all over a community and then linking them
- 29:12Speaker 2: so that the cameras have readers on them, they can
- 29:14Speaker 2: track license plates, but also just so you have eyes
- 29:18Speaker 2: pretty much everywhere and see what's going on. Anyway, Wisconsin
- 29:21Speaker 2: right now is compiling stories from a number of communities
- 29:25Speaker 2: about the crimes that they've solved because of Flock. And
- 29:30Speaker 2: a few days ago, they went into, for example, West Allis.
- 29:32Speaker 2: They were able to catch a murderer because they saw
- 29:36Speaker 2: the person leaving the house where the murder occurred, because
- 29:39Speaker 2: there was a flocking. nearby. We have a lot of
- 29:44Speaker 2: people who just don't like the notion that government is
- 29:48Speaker 2: watching them. And I'm somebody that's very sensitive to that
- 29:53Speaker 2: issue as well. We saw during the Biden administration and
- 29:57Speaker 2: the Obama administration that the arms of government being abused,
- 30:02Speaker 2: in some cases just to lie about Americans with the Russia, Russia,
- 30:05Speaker 2: Russia investigation into Trump. In the Biden administration, the use
- 30:09Speaker 2: of the IRS to try to clamp down on and
- 30:13Speaker 2: shut down conservative social service and political organizations. We have
- 30:18Speaker 2: had the FBI doctoring evidence. We had the creation of
- 30:22Speaker 2: a totally bogus investigation into Russia collusion, all of this stuff.
- 30:26Speaker 2: There is clearly, a concern with government and the state
- 30:31Speaker 2: getting the authority to abuse and not only trample the
- 30:34Speaker 2: rights of American citizens to lie about them. However, this
- 30:41Speaker 2: argument that government and police don't have the ability to
- 30:45Speaker 2: watch us while in public is wrong. There's a fundamental
- 30:50Speaker 2: question here, and that is, do you have an expectation
- 30:53Speaker 2: of privacy when you're in public? I don't know that
- 30:57Speaker 2: you can answer that yes or no, but I can
- 30:59Speaker 2: come close and I can say, no, I pretty much
- 31:01Speaker 2: think that you don't. If you're in public and someone
- 31:05Speaker 2: else who's in public can see you doing something, you
- 31:09Speaker 2: have no right to say that they don't have a
- 31:11Speaker 2: right to look at you doing what you're doing when
- 31:13Speaker 2: you're in public. They don't have a right to put
- 31:16Speaker 2: a camera inside your house if it's not your camera.
- 31:19Speaker 2: But if you're walking down the street and you're doing
- 31:22Speaker 2: something that you shouldn't do, and I'm on the other
- 31:24Speaker 2: side of the street and I see you, I don't
- 31:26Speaker 2: have any obligation to look away. You're in public, I'm
- 31:29Speaker 2: in public. Well, the camera's the same thing. These cameras
- 31:32Speaker 2: are nowhere that the public doesn't have a right to be. Now,
- 31:38Speaker 2: these cameras that private people put up on their own,
- 31:40Speaker 2: say shopping center parking lots or people put in their
- 31:42Speaker 2: own homes, I don't think anybody's denying that you have
- 31:44Speaker 2: a right to do that. If Walmart wants to put
- 31:46Speaker 2: cameras on their parking lot so Walmart can see who's
- 31:48Speaker 2: doing inappropriate things in their parking lot, they have every
- 31:51Speaker 2: right to do that. This is a question of government
- 31:53Speaker 2: putting these things up on city streets and outside of
- 31:56Speaker 2: stadiums and all the other places that they are. If
- 32:01Speaker 2: there are cameras on the freeway so that we can
- 32:06Speaker 2: see what traffic times are and see where high-speed chases
- 32:10Speaker 2: are going on and we can get recording of things
- 32:13Speaker 2: that didn't go on there, there's certainly no violation of
- 32:16Speaker 2: privacy because that same freeway that I'm on, for all
- 32:19Speaker 2: I know, there's a cop up there taking a look
- 32:21Speaker 2: at me as well. There are also people driving around
- 32:23Speaker 2: in their own cars with dash cams, and they have
- 32:25Speaker 2: the ability to record me. My expectation of privacy is nonexistent.
- 32:30Speaker 2: The problem with these flock cameras is who controls them.
- 32:34Speaker 2: In most cases, they're controlled by police departments. And in
- 32:38Speaker 2: most cases, police departments are controlling them for legitimate reasons.
- 32:42Speaker 2: If somebody sexually assaults someone on the street and we
- 32:46Speaker 2: can get video of that and see that person doing it,
- 32:49Speaker 2: it not only helps you identify them, it can help
- 32:52Speaker 2: you convict them. Obviously, having that technology means individual cops
- 32:58Speaker 2: can go in there and abuse it. One of the
- 33:02Speaker 2: longest abuses that's been out there forever is cops see
- 33:07Speaker 2: somebody driving down the road and wants to find out
- 33:10Speaker 2: who it is. They pull them over and they hit
- 33:12Speaker 2: on the woman. Okay, they get caught doing that, they've
- 33:15Speaker 2: got to stop. So the cop then sees the license plate,
- 33:18Speaker 2: runs the license plate. You're not allowed to do that anymore.
- 33:21Speaker 2: Police officers without probable cause are not allowed to take
- 33:24Speaker 2: down somebody's license plate and run it to identify the individual.
- 33:28Speaker 2: But obviously, we know that it's been done. You know,
- 33:32Speaker 2: in the movies, you'll see mobsters try to bribe a
- 33:36Speaker 2: cop to find out what this person's license plate is
- 33:38Speaker 2: or what they have on somebody over here. It's all
- 33:41Speaker 2: in an attempt to stop that. Well, what's happening now
- 33:43Speaker 2: with the flock cameras is you've got cops who are
- 33:47Speaker 2: jealous about what their girlfriends are doing and they're using
- 33:49Speaker 2: the flock cameras to track the movements of their girlfriend's car.
- 33:54Speaker 2: Or they think that there may be a guy that's
- 33:57Speaker 2: hanging around with their girlfriend and they'll be tracking that
- 33:59Speaker 2: person and tracking their movement by watching what they're doing
- 34:02Speaker 2: with the flock cameras. And there's legitimately concern about that
- 34:07Speaker 2: and people don't like it. But That doesn't mean that
- 34:10Speaker 2: we should get rid of the technology. We're talking here,
- 34:13Speaker 2: to coin a really obnoxious pun, we're throwing the baby
- 34:18Speaker 2: out with the flock. I mean, you can't say that
- 34:21Speaker 2: we don't want to see what's going on in our
- 34:23Speaker 2: communities and reject all uses of technology because somebody may
- 34:27Speaker 2: mess around with it. The appropriate response is to fire
- 34:31Speaker 2: the police officers who are inappropriately using the technology. The
- 34:35Speaker 2: appropriate response is not to say that we're not going
- 34:38Speaker 2: to use one of the most basic advances that we have.
- 34:42Speaker 2: Let's go to one of the biggest crime cases of
- 34:44Speaker 2: the past year, the apparent abduction or whatever happened to
- 34:49Speaker 2: Nancy Guthrie, the elderly woman in Arizona, the mother of
- 34:51Speaker 2: Savannah Guthrie. She lived in a remote area. outside of,
- 34:56Speaker 2: I think, Tucson. She wasn't in a subdivision where the
- 34:59Speaker 2: houses are close together. So there weren't a lot of cameras.
- 35:02Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why nobody knows whatever happened
- 35:05Speaker 2: to Mrs. Guthrie is there weren't like a series of
- 35:09Speaker 2: cameras on the road or the driveway leading up to
- 35:11Speaker 2: her home because she kind of lives in a remote
- 35:13Speaker 2: area and the next house is, you know, several hundred
- 35:16Speaker 2: feet or yards away. It's all brush. There aren't cameras everywhere.
- 35:20Speaker 2: But imagine if there were. Imagine if in that area
- 35:24Speaker 2: of Tucson, they had cameras leading up to, on all
- 35:29Speaker 2: of those roads, we would have been able to perhaps
- 35:31Speaker 2: track whether any individuals came in, saw license plates. That
- 35:35Speaker 2: case could have been solved. And while I think it's
- 35:38Speaker 2: highly unlikely that Mrs. Guthrie ever would have been saved,
- 35:41Speaker 2: my own theory is she was killed inside that house
- 35:43Speaker 2: and they dragged the body out. The inability to have
- 35:46Speaker 2: flock cameras everywhere is one of the biggest reasons why
- 35:51Speaker 2: that crime was not solved. So my suggestion on this is,
- 35:56Speaker 2: if the company flock is designing these things without proper protection,
- 36:00Speaker 2: let somebody else go and create them. But the use
- 36:04Speaker 2: of cameras to monitor illicit and inappropriate activity in our
- 36:09Speaker 2: society is a good thing and not a bad thing.
- 36:13Speaker 2: And if you're concerned with somebody seeing you do something
- 36:17Speaker 2: when you're in public, You probably shouldn't be doing it. Now,
- 36:21Speaker 2: I come at this as somebody who lives one of
- 36:23Speaker 2: the most boring lives possible. And I also am aware
- 36:26Speaker 2: that everybody recognized, not everybody, a lot of people recognize
- 36:29Speaker 2: who I am. I do something stupid in public. People
- 36:31Speaker 2: are going to say, look, Mark Belling just did something
- 36:33Speaker 2: stupid in public. It's a reason not to do something
- 36:36Speaker 2: stupid in public. I think the dumbest thing that we
- 36:43Speaker 2: can do, particularly in high crime urban areas, is to
- 36:49Speaker 2: essentially close the eyes of law enforcement when illegal activity
- 36:56Speaker 2: is going on. I want to turn to another story here.
- 37:03Speaker 2: And this one's going to make some people uncomfortable. But
- 37:08Speaker 2: it needs to be talked about. I've been on this
- 37:12Speaker 2: story for several years and on the buildup to it
- 37:16Speaker 2: for maybe 20 years prior to that. And I've gotten
- 37:20Speaker 2: a lot of blowback on this story, not just some listeners,
- 37:23Speaker 2: but from people I know. Well, I'm doubling or tripling
- 37:27Speaker 2: down here. We have had in the Milwaukee community for
- 37:35Speaker 2: a couple of decades, one of the slimiest, creepiest predators anywhere.
- 37:44Speaker 2: And that guy's been able to get away with, he's
- 37:46Speaker 2: been caught, but he's been able to get away with
- 37:49Speaker 2: repeatedly taking advantage sexually of children. And he's been able
- 37:57Speaker 2: to do it because he's had enablers. He's had enablers
- 38:00Speaker 2: in his family. He's had enablers in his business. And
- 38:05Speaker 2: he's had enablers in customers who patronized his business bankrolling
- 38:12Speaker 2: his slimeball activities. The guy was arrested a couple of
- 38:17Speaker 2: years ago at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida,
- 38:22Speaker 2: with an underage girl and has been held in custody
- 38:27Speaker 2: without bond ever since. He did reach a plea agreement
- 38:31Speaker 2: with federal prosecutors. Fortunately, this case went federal because it
- 38:34Speaker 2: involved interstate trafficking of children, interstate abuse of children, and
- 38:39Speaker 2: so on. And from... I don't have a lot of
- 38:42Speaker 2: insight into what the feds were doing here, but I
- 38:45Speaker 2: have been able to pick up that there was grave
- 38:47Speaker 2: concern that the victims here who became cooperating witnesses could
- 38:54Speaker 2: have had their lives or their safety at jeopardy. And
- 38:56Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons why the guy was being
- 38:58Speaker 2: held without bond until he entered his guilty plea. He's
- 39:01Speaker 2: been sentenced now to 18 years in federal prison, which
- 39:04Speaker 2: is a good deal. His name is Stelio Kalkounis. He
- 39:09Speaker 2: already was a convicted... child predator. More than two decades ago,
- 39:16Speaker 2: he and his family, who owned a steakhouse in Schaumburg, Illinois,
- 39:22Speaker 2: he was arrested and criminally charged by federal prosecutors who
- 39:25Speaker 2: ran a sting operation on him after hearing that he
- 39:29Speaker 2: had a thing for children. They ran a sting on
- 39:33Speaker 2: him and he went across state lines to meet what
- 39:35Speaker 2: he thought was a child for sexual activity and it
- 39:38Speaker 2: turned out to be an undercover agent who put a
- 39:40Speaker 2: sting operation on him because they recognized what activity he
- 39:43Speaker 2: was involved in. He served time for that. During the
- 39:47Speaker 2: time that he was serving time, His family, the family
- 39:51Speaker 2: that ran the steakhouse in Illinois, bought one of the
- 39:54Speaker 2: most famous restaurants in the city of Milwaukee. They bought
- 39:57Speaker 2: Corpor's Five O'Clock Club, which is located at about 24th
- 40:01Speaker 2: and State Street in the city of Milwaukee. Every time
- 40:03Speaker 2: we do this story, I need to point out people
- 40:06Speaker 2: who don't pay close attention to things. There are a
- 40:08Speaker 2: lot of restaurants with the words five o'clock in them,
- 40:11Speaker 2: including another one out there in the suburbs. This is
- 40:14Speaker 2: the Five O'Clock Club that's in the city of Milwaukee.
- 40:16Speaker 2: It was owned by the Corpor family and it was
- 40:18Speaker 2: institution forever and ever and ever. The corpers got out
- 40:21Speaker 2: of the business, 10 corpers sold, and this family from
- 40:23Speaker 2: Illinois bought the place. Everybody knew that the guy who
- 40:28Speaker 2: was the operator of the place was Stelio, who was
- 40:31Speaker 2: freshly getting out of federal prison for this conviction down
- 40:35Speaker 2: in Illinois. They have family members, they're Greek, and other
- 40:38Speaker 2: family members are running the restaurant, but then Stelio gets
- 40:41Speaker 2: out of prison and he takes over the thing. Now,
- 40:44Speaker 2: I started talking about this then. You had... the operator
- 40:50Speaker 2: and manager of a prominent restaurant, which was used for
- 40:54Speaker 2: political fundraisers and everything else, who was a convicted sexual,
- 40:59Speaker 2: child sexual predator. A number of years ago, when Tom
- 41:04Speaker 2: Barrett was mayor, Fox 6 did a story on the
- 41:06Speaker 2: fact that Tom Barrett held a reception at the Five
- 41:10Speaker 2: O'Clock Steakhouse in Milwaukee. And the response that you got
- 41:13Speaker 2: from Barrett's defenders was, well, Tom didn't know this about...
- 41:17Speaker 2: Because everybody's been looking the other way. So the place
- 41:21Speaker 2: has been operating with Stelio Calcunas running it. On the
- 41:25Speaker 2: liquor license on file in the city of Milwaukee, he
- 41:28Speaker 2: listed himself as the sole owner. The place was owned
- 41:31Speaker 2: by a convicted sexual predator. In the meantime, Stelio's in
- 41:36Speaker 2: there all the time. He even had this band. He
- 41:38Speaker 2: did like, believe it or not, religious rock. And he's
- 41:41Speaker 2: entertaining in there, carrying on the man about town. All
- 41:45Speaker 2: the what? That anybody who was paying any attention was
- 41:47Speaker 2: aware that this guy was a convicted child sexual predator.
- 41:54Speaker 2: And I get responses like, well, he did his time.
- 41:56Speaker 2: He served his time. Even though we know that of
- 42:00Speaker 2: all the crimes that we have, about the hardest one
- 42:02Speaker 2: to rehabilitate Are these creeps that have a thing sexually
- 42:07Speaker 2: for kids? I had also, I'll acknowledge, gotten bad vibes
- 42:13Speaker 2: in hearing about the guy. The only time I have
- 42:16Speaker 2: ever been in there since the corpers sold it, which
- 42:19Speaker 2: is again now nearly a quarter century ago, it was
- 42:22Speaker 2: right after it opened when Stelio was in prison and
- 42:25Speaker 2: I was in there once and I just didn't like it.
- 42:29Speaker 2: I didn't like anything about what was going on and
- 42:31Speaker 2: it gave me the creeps. For the last number of years,
- 42:35Speaker 2: it's remained one of the most popular restaurants in Milwaukee.
- 42:38Speaker 2: I have friends who go there, and I've told them
- 42:40Speaker 2: I'm not going. I'm not patronizing a place that's run
- 42:43Speaker 2: by a slime ball like this. Now, on that, you've
- 42:47Speaker 2: got to pick your spots. It's like Bruce Springsteen, I think,
- 42:52Speaker 2: is still on tour. I love Bruce Springsteen, but I
- 42:55Speaker 2: finally had it. I mean, I don't need to hear
- 42:57Speaker 2: his speech bashing Trump. And I don't need to pay
- 43:00Speaker 2: hundreds of dollars to sit there and listen to a plus.
- 43:02Speaker 2: I've seen them enough. On the other hand, I'm not
- 43:04Speaker 2: going to boycott any entertainer who's a lefty because that
- 43:08Speaker 2: would mean I couldn't see anybody. You've got to make
- 43:10Speaker 2: your spot. Choose your decisions here and make which decisions
- 43:13Speaker 2: you want to make. If there's an actor who's a
- 43:16Speaker 2: big time lefty who says obnoxious things, are you not
- 43:18Speaker 2: going to watch their TV shows or movie? Well, that's
- 43:20Speaker 2: up to you. Everybody's got a line somewhere. In this instance,
- 43:24Speaker 2: to me, it was direct. It wasn't just political views.
- 43:28Speaker 2: This is a guy who is making his living running
- 43:31Speaker 2: a restaurant and has a history of molesting children. I
- 43:37Speaker 2: was not comfortable going there, and I also wasn't comfortable.
- 43:42Speaker 2: I also was perfectly fine telling everyone about it. Fast
- 43:45Speaker 2: forward to early 2024, about two and a half years ago.
- 43:50Speaker 2: The feds announced a brand new indictment of Stelio. He
- 43:56Speaker 2: hadn't been rehabilitated at all. This was when he was arrested.
- 43:59Speaker 2: They put out an arrest warrant. My understanding was there
- 44:02Speaker 2: was a nationwide arrest warrant, and he was found at
- 44:06Speaker 2: the casino in Hollywood, Florida, the Hard Rock, and he
- 44:09Speaker 2: was found with an underage girl. He was arrested, taken
- 44:12Speaker 2: into custody, and held without bail ever since. The federal
- 44:16Speaker 2: indictment against him details a multi-year investigation into his activities
- 44:23Speaker 2: in which he was accused of being involved in interstate
- 44:26Speaker 2: trafficking of minors for sex and engaging in sexual activities
- 44:29Speaker 2: with the minors themselves. Interestingly, in the indictment, they're not
- 44:34Speaker 2: listing any crime, at least to my knowledge, involving the
- 44:37Speaker 2: arrest at the casino in Hollywood, Florida, apparently because they
- 44:40Speaker 2: had enough other specific cases to address. I'll read briefly
- 44:45Speaker 2: from the press release that was issued by the United
- 44:47Speaker 2: States Attorney's Office at the tail end of last week.
- 44:50Speaker 2: In 2022, Calconas met a 16-year-old girl online. In 2022
- 44:53Speaker 2: and 2023... Calcunas met the girl at hotels in Racine
- 44:57Speaker 2: County in the Eastern District of Wisconsin and paid her
- 45:00Speaker 2: to engage in sexual activity. In 2023, Calcunas again went
- 45:03Speaker 2: online and met another 16-year-old girl. Although the girl disclosed
- 45:08Speaker 2: that she was a minor almost immediately after meeting him online,
- 45:11Speaker 2: Calcunas went on to solicit and pay for sexually explicit
- 45:14Speaker 2: images and videos from her. Calcunas progressed to meeting her
- 45:18Speaker 2: at hotels in Madison in the Western District of Wisconsin
- 45:21Speaker 2: for commercial sex. This lasted for at least five months.
- 45:25Speaker 2: Calling Calcunas' crime very disturbing, Judge Peterson, and that's United
- 45:29Speaker 2: States Federal Judge James Peterson, and then it goes on
- 45:32Speaker 2: and describes the comments that the judge made prior to sentencing.
- 45:36Speaker 2: Calcunas has now been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
- 45:41Speaker 2: The restaurant... The five o'clock steakhouse, the one in Milwaukee,
- 45:45Speaker 2: not the one in the suburbs, remains open. The explanation
- 45:50Speaker 2: that's been given to the media is that he sold
- 45:52Speaker 2: his interest to other members of the family. So in
- 45:56Speaker 2: other words, the same story that we were given when
- 45:59Speaker 2: he was doing time back in Illinois, 20, by the way,
- 46:01Speaker 2: first I ever heard this guy, this is probably around 2000, zero, 2001, 2002.
- 46:08Speaker 2: I was at Gibson's, which is famous steakhouse in downtown Chicago.
- 46:13Speaker 2: you know, I'm talking to people that I'm hanging around
- 46:15Speaker 2: at the bar and people are talking, you know, they
- 46:19Speaker 2: know that I'm from Milwaukee. And one of the guys
- 46:22Speaker 2: at the bar said, well, you know, we know a
- 46:24Speaker 2: guy that just bought a steakhouse in Milwaukee. He's in
- 46:26Speaker 2: federal prison. He's child molester. I said, really? And then
- 46:30Speaker 2: he told me about Stellion. He told me about the
- 46:31Speaker 2: place that the family owned in Schaumburg, Illinois. So that's
- 46:34Speaker 2: how this all got onto my radar before I was
- 46:38Speaker 2: even aware of who it was that was buying the
- 46:40Speaker 2: five o'clock steakhouse. Anyway, When he was in prison the
- 46:45Speaker 2: first time, when they bought the restaurant initially and other
- 46:48Speaker 2: family members operated it, everyone knew who it was that
- 46:52Speaker 2: was actually buying the restaurant. He gets out of prison,
- 46:55Speaker 2: plops into Milwaukee, immediately takes the thing over. People wander in.
- 47:00Speaker 2: They all say hi to him. My guess is just
- 47:02Speaker 2: about everybody who's gone in there is aware that the
- 47:04Speaker 2: guy is a total slime ball and a child predator.
- 47:08Speaker 2: People are perfectly fine with that. All right. Here we go.
- 47:13Speaker 2: Caught again. Early 2024. Arrested in Florida. Lengthy investigation had
- 47:18Speaker 2: been going on. There were apparently multiple victims that he's
- 47:21Speaker 2: been involved with. For the last two and a half years,
- 47:25Speaker 2: that place has remained open. During the run-up to the
- 47:31Speaker 2: Republican convention in Milwaukee in 2024, Clay and Buck were
- 47:36Speaker 2: talking about their show. They were going to come and
- 47:37Speaker 2: do their show, or at least one of them, or
- 47:38Speaker 2: maybe both of them were going to come to Milwaukee
- 47:40Speaker 2: to do their show at while the Republican Convention was
- 47:42Speaker 2: going on, and they're talking and they're chatting about which
- 47:45Speaker 2: restaurants they ought to go to and one of them,
- 47:46Speaker 2: either Clay or Buck, said, yeah, I hear there's this
- 47:48Speaker 2: place called the Five O'Clock Steakhouse, which is really good. Well,
- 47:51Speaker 2: you may recall that for 18 years, I was a
- 47:54Speaker 2: fill-in on the Rush Limbaugh program, and one of the
- 47:57Speaker 2: producers for Clay and Buck was one of the producers
- 48:01Speaker 2: that I worked with when I worked with Rush, and
- 48:04Speaker 2: I got a hold of her, and I said, Clay
- 48:07Speaker 2: and Buck need to know that this restaurant is owned
- 48:10Speaker 2: by a convicted and now once again accused federal child molester.
- 48:17Speaker 2: And I was told behind the scenes, okay, thanks for
- 48:21Speaker 2: telling us they aren't going to go there. And they didn't. Sadly,
- 48:26Speaker 2: the business has been booming for the last two and
- 48:28Speaker 2: a half years. The city of Milwaukee has made no
- 48:31Speaker 2: efforts to take away the liquor license. And many of
- 48:33Speaker 2: you listening to me were perfectly fine in going there
- 48:38Speaker 2: and patronizing this place. Well, where do you think old
- 48:40Speaker 2: Stelio has had the money to pay children for sex,
- 48:44Speaker 2: to run around to other states and take these children
- 48:47Speaker 2: to casinos, to get involved in paying them for explicit activity,
- 48:51Speaker 2: to do the trafficking that he was accused of being
- 48:54Speaker 2: involved in? He was taking the money that he was
- 48:57Speaker 2: pocketing off of this restaurant and using it to be
- 49:00Speaker 2: a predator, taking advantage of children. Unlike the first case,
- 49:04Speaker 2: where they were aware of his activities and put a
- 49:07Speaker 2: sting on him, in this case, these were actual victims.
- 49:11Speaker 2: And he was caught in Florida, well, in the act.
- 49:14Speaker 2: All right, so now they say he sold his interest. Well,
- 49:17Speaker 2: if indeed his interest was sold, that means... his other
- 49:20Speaker 2: family members have paid him even more money, which is
- 49:23Speaker 2: going into the bank account somewhere. So the sleazebag can
- 49:26Speaker 2: pay his lawyers. If it's a true sale and other
- 49:30Speaker 2: family members are involved, can you hold the family members?
- 49:34Speaker 2: Can you hold a sister responsible for what their greaseball
- 49:37Speaker 2: dirty ass brother has been doing? If they didn't know,
- 49:41Speaker 2: perhaps not. But we know that they did know because
- 49:45Speaker 2: he was convicted 20 years ago of doing the same thing.
- 49:49Speaker 2: Were they looking the other way when he resumed his
- 49:51Speaker 2: activities when he was sitting here in Milwaukee? You know,
- 49:55Speaker 2: say Milwaukee doesn't take away liquor licenses a lot, but
- 49:58Speaker 2: they do take them away. And one of the things
- 50:00Speaker 2: that they take them away for is too many police
- 50:02Speaker 2: contacts or inappropriate activity or if the bar owner was
- 50:04Speaker 2: involved in criminal activity and so on. There are a
- 50:08Speaker 2: lot of places who have lost their liquor licenses for
- 50:11Speaker 2: less than with that dump at 24th and State and
- 50:16Speaker 2: its creepy operator we're getting away with. The good news
- 50:21Speaker 2: on this story is the children of the upper Midwest,
- 50:24Speaker 2: and for that matter, Florida, are safe from Stelio at
- 50:28Speaker 2: least as long as his term runs. Now, it's an
- 50:31Speaker 2: 18-year term. The feds do have probation, but he's going
- 50:34Speaker 2: to serve a good chunk of that. And when he
- 50:36Speaker 2: does eventually get out, he's going to get out as
- 50:38Speaker 2: a twice convicted federal child molester. Again, I know that
- 50:44Speaker 2: not everyone agrees with me on this, but I think
- 50:48Speaker 2: we have some responsibility for our own decisions in who
- 50:53Speaker 2: we patronize. And I do not think it is moral
- 50:58Speaker 2: to patronize that restaurant. Again, I know people disagree with
- 51:02Speaker 2: me and they may turn around and say, well, you know,
- 51:04Speaker 2: somebody over here convicted, committed a crime and you're going
- 51:07Speaker 2: to that. I understand that. And everybody's got their own lines.
- 51:11Speaker 2: I'm just telling you where my line is. And as
- 51:14Speaker 2: somebody who's been following this creep for, you know, a
- 51:18Speaker 2: quarter century right now, it's disappointing to me that given
- 51:23Speaker 2: all of the wonderful restaurants that we have in Milwaukee,
- 51:25Speaker 2: that some people feel the need to go and put
- 51:27Speaker 2: money in that jackass's jackass pervert's pocket. I have another
- 51:34Speaker 2: story for you here. I found this story at the
- 51:37Speaker 2: tail end of last week in the Epoch Times. Many
- 51:40Speaker 2: of you are aware of these so-called betting markets, Kelshi
- 51:45Speaker 2: and Polymarket. They are operating in Wisconsin. The state says
- 51:49Speaker 2: they're not legal, but until a court says they're not legal,
- 51:52Speaker 2: they can continue to operate, but they're operating also just
- 51:54Speaker 2: about everywhere else, including all over the world. I think
- 51:58Speaker 2: it's clearly online gambling. They say that they're futures markets.
- 52:04Speaker 2: What they are is the ability to bet on just
- 52:08Speaker 2: about anything. They'll simply set odds in what the event is,
- 52:11Speaker 2: and it's anything. It can be from betting on sports,
- 52:14Speaker 2: which numerous online operations do, which is still legal in Wisconsin,
- 52:19Speaker 2: only in person at a Native American casino. It's not
- 52:22Speaker 2: legal any other way in the state. You can bet
- 52:24Speaker 2: on sports, but you can bet on anything else. You
- 52:26Speaker 2: can bet on who's going to win the governor's election
- 52:28Speaker 2: in Wisconsin. You can bet on whether or not there's
- 52:30Speaker 2: going to be another rate increase in the Federal Reserve.
- 52:33Speaker 2: You can bet on whether or not there will be
- 52:34Speaker 2: another hurricane and what category it will be in the
- 52:36Speaker 2: next few weeks. This goes on and on and on.
- 52:39Speaker 2: You can bet on whether or not there will be
- 52:41Speaker 2: a peace deal with Iran struck within the next three weeks,
- 52:44Speaker 2: the next three months. You can bet on whether or
- 52:45Speaker 2: not Russia is going to invade Poland. All of these
- 52:48Speaker 2: things are out there, including some extreme long-shot things, and
- 52:51Speaker 2: you can bet on all of them. Anyway, the story
- 52:54Speaker 2: in the Epoch Times deals with The fact that some
- 52:57Speaker 2: of these markets have moved violently right before events occurred,
- 53:03Speaker 2: meaning there were people who had inside information and were
- 53:08Speaker 2: using it and were making wagers or investments, whatever term
- 53:12Speaker 2: you want to apply, on Kelshi or Polymarket. There's been
- 53:16Speaker 2: some suggestion that there were people who had knowledge of
- 53:19Speaker 2: what was going to happen within the Trump administration and
- 53:22Speaker 2: were acting on it. That's bad enough. But this story
- 53:28Speaker 2: deals with the fact that there have been military actions,
- 53:33Speaker 2: say a bombing by the United States or a bombing
- 53:35Speaker 2: by somebody else or a hit on someone or a
- 53:38Speaker 2: sanction or some sort of actual military strategic operation. And
- 53:42Speaker 2: the odds on the event moved significantly before the event.
- 53:47Speaker 2: The odds move when somebody places a large wager, say
- 53:49Speaker 2: that something is going to happen. Kelshi or Polymarket, therefore,
- 53:53Speaker 2: change the odds because they've got this expectation something's going
- 53:56Speaker 2: to happen. Why else did somebody just bet $ 15, 000 or
- 53:58Speaker 2: $ 20, 000 or whatever it is that it would occur? Now,
- 54:02Speaker 2: that part, as I said, is bad enough. The story, though,
- 54:05Speaker 2: in the Epoch Times said that one of the concerns
- 54:09Speaker 2: that our Defense Department has is our enemies are monitoring
- 54:14Speaker 2: the betting markets. For example, if somebody in the military
- 54:18Speaker 2: is has knowledge something's going to happen because they hear
- 54:21Speaker 2: that somebody's being deployed or somebody's being told to get
- 54:24Speaker 2: into the bomber or whatever it is. And our adversaries
- 54:28Speaker 2: are now monitoring the betting markets and they see that
- 54:30Speaker 2: the odds of something are increasing or decreasing. They may
- 54:35Speaker 2: be tipped off simply by seeing the betting markets that
- 54:40Speaker 2: something's going to occur. I mean... I've been around gambling
- 54:44Speaker 2: much of my life. I'm just not comfortable with being
- 54:47Speaker 2: able to bet on all of these outcomes dealing with
- 54:52Speaker 2: public policy. You already have concerns that our elections are
- 54:56Speaker 2: just tampered with with regard to this. Let's imagine, for example,
- 54:59Speaker 2: somebody makes a huge bet that, well, I'll make it
- 55:04Speaker 2: a Republican case that Tom Tiffany's going to win the
- 55:05Speaker 2: governor's race. Make a $ 500, 000 bet on that. Why wouldn't
- 55:08Speaker 2: that person then Donate $ 100, 000 to Tiffany's campaign. Or just
- 55:16Speaker 2: vote for whomever it is that you bet on is
- 55:18Speaker 2: going to win. That's manipulating elections. Now talk about everything
- 55:24Speaker 2: else that's out there. They're betting on who's going to win,
- 55:29Speaker 2: you know, a Tony Award on Broadway for a certain play.
- 55:34Speaker 2: Somebody makes a large bet on that. It's where some
- 55:36Speaker 2: of the voters are. Bribe the voter to vote for
- 55:39Speaker 2: somebody for best actor in a musical. There's very scant
- 55:45Speaker 2: regulation of this. And for all the discussion that Kelsey
- 55:48Speaker 2: and Polymarket have is that they're just futures market. The
- 55:50Speaker 2: futures markets are regulated. When spikes occur in the prices
- 55:54Speaker 2: of coffee or oil or gas, everybody's aware of that.
- 55:58Speaker 2: And when somebody is actually an insider in trading, they're
- 56:02Speaker 2: subject to criminal prosecution. You're not allowed to do it
- 56:05Speaker 2: because those things are heavily regulated. The stuff that Kelsey
- 56:08Speaker 2: and Polymarket are on, when you're getting involved in, Will
- 56:11Speaker 2: there be a military attack on Kuwait by Iran? Odds
- 56:18Speaker 2: are way against it, and suddenly those odds move down
- 56:21Speaker 2: because somebody who knew that it was coming bet on it.
- 56:27Speaker 2: I don't like government regulating a lot of things, but
- 56:31Speaker 2: this is very dangerous. You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast.
- 56:39Speaker 2: This is the Mark Belling podcast. I didn't have an
- 56:41Speaker 2: opportunity to see much of the Packer game. Yesterday, we're
- 56:45Speaker 2: doing the podcast on Monday. I'm in Florida. I didn't
- 56:49Speaker 2: even find out until later that the game was actually
- 56:52Speaker 2: a local television in Florida, but I didn't see the game,
- 56:54Speaker 2: but I was following it kind of over the phone
- 56:56Speaker 2: and over the computer and sort of seeing the play
- 56:57Speaker 2: by play. And I'm aware that the Packers had no
- 57:00Speaker 2: offense whatsoever and managed to Finally, drive together a couple
- 57:05Speaker 2: of drives. Defense is really good. They ended up winning
- 57:07Speaker 2: the game by three points in overtime. And everybody's relieved
- 57:09Speaker 2: because now the Packers are 1-1. It's the same record
- 57:11Speaker 2: as the Bears. I want to look at the big
- 57:14Speaker 2: picture here. I think the Packers are in huge trouble.
- 57:19Speaker 2: And I think that this game is as big a
- 57:22Speaker 2: disaster as you can possibly have while still being a win.
- 57:28Speaker 2: Their best wide receiver is probably Dunn. Now, I haven't
- 57:31Speaker 2: gotten an update lately, but Jaden Reed was, you know,
- 57:36Speaker 2: when somebody's strapped to the stretcher and it takes them
- 57:38Speaker 2: 20 minutes to get off the field and they're focused
- 57:40Speaker 2: on his neck, that's a bad thing. And their only,
- 57:44Speaker 2: I was going to say best, their only defensive offensive lineman,
- 57:48Speaker 2: the former Zach Tom, who changed his name to Zach
- 57:51Speaker 2: something or another, he ripped up his knee. Their offensive
- 57:55Speaker 2: line was terrible before Zach got hurt. The wide receiver core,
- 58:00Speaker 2: which is still very good, was already down a man
- 58:02Speaker 2: because Romeo Dobbs had left. These are two significant injuries,
- 58:07Speaker 2: and in particular on the offensive line. Green Bay has
- 58:10Speaker 2: an elite quarterback. Jordan Love had a subpar game but
- 58:14Speaker 2: delivered in the clutch, and he had a subpar game
- 58:16Speaker 2: because the offensive line is terrible. The running backs aren't
- 58:21Speaker 2: very good, but are they not very good because the
- 58:24Speaker 2: offensive line can't block? They can't pass block. They can't
- 58:27Speaker 2: run block. And now the only decent player on that
- 58:30Speaker 2: line is hurt. In addition to that Banks, who's always hurt,
- 58:33Speaker 2: he went down as well. I just, I don't know
- 58:36Speaker 2: how you can be optimistic about the Packers and their
- 58:39Speaker 2: future when they're staring at playing. What are they through now? 11%
- 58:43Speaker 2: of their season, the remaining nearly 90% of their season
- 58:47Speaker 2: already down one wide receiver and having going into the game,
- 58:52Speaker 2: probably the worst offensive line in the NFL and now
- 58:54Speaker 2: losing the only guy in that line. They can really
- 58:57Speaker 2: play at all. On the flip side, Green Bay's defense
- 59:01Speaker 2: is just elite. The score against Minnesota last week was
- 59:05Speaker 2: very misleading. The defense stopped the Vikings repeatedly. The Jets,
- 59:10Speaker 2: who obviously don't have much of an offense and only
- 59:12Speaker 2: have Geno Smith at quarterback, couldn't do anything against Green Bay.
- 59:16Speaker 2: You have, I think, a defense that's very good, doesn't
- 59:19Speaker 2: appear to have lost a beat with the new coordinator
- 59:21Speaker 2: with Gannon in place. But on the overall picture of
- 59:25Speaker 2: the Packers, I think it's just– not bright. And I
- 59:28Speaker 2: don't want to be overreacting to individual scores. As I
- 59:30Speaker 2: said last week, Week one is the most whistling week
- 59:33Speaker 2: in the National Football League. And the only things that
- 59:36Speaker 2: you look back on that happened in week one that
- 59:37Speaker 2: will make no sense. Well, look at this week. I mean,
- 59:40Speaker 2: what did the Bears do? They scored 59 points in
- 59:42Speaker 2: week one. And what did they score in week two? Three.
- 59:44Speaker 2: I know the quarterback was hurt, but how about the Vikings?
- 59:46Speaker 2: They score 39 points in week one and they score
- 59:49Speaker 2: 12 in week two. There are people who thought there'd
- 59:51Speaker 2: be 65 points of the Bear Viking game. And what
- 59:53Speaker 2: do they end up with? 15 or 12 or eight,
- 59:56Speaker 2: whatever the number is. There are other teams that were
- 59:58Speaker 2: expected to be really good that turned out not to be.
- 1:00:02Speaker 2: You look at a team like Cleveland that was the
- 1:00:04Speaker 2: joke of the league after week one. They go and
- 1:00:06Speaker 2: win in week two. A lot of things happened in
- 1:00:09Speaker 2: week one that aren't explainable. And I thought that the
- 1:00:12Speaker 2: Packers lost to the Vikings was fluky. I'm looking at
- 1:00:14Speaker 2: the big picture here and the injury situation on the
- 1:00:18Speaker 2: offensive side. is dire. Now, they have the advantage of
- 1:00:22Speaker 2: playing on a short week and playing at home with
- 1:00:24Speaker 2: the game on Thursday against Atlanta. And Atlanta has looked
- 1:00:28Speaker 2: terrible so far. But again, we've seen form reversals. If
- 1:00:31Speaker 2: you could pick an opponent other than Miami, who is
- 1:00:35Speaker 2: not the worst team in the league, I think the
- 1:00:36Speaker 2: worst team in the last five years, other than Miami,
- 1:00:39Speaker 2: if you could pick a team to play right now,
- 1:00:40Speaker 2: Atlanta is probably that team. And even with a beaten
- 1:00:43Speaker 2: down team, maybe Green Bay can get by that game
- 1:00:46Speaker 2: and we'll have a extra few days to rest but
- 1:00:49Speaker 2: I just think that the injury situation with the Packers
- 1:00:52Speaker 2: especially on the offensive line is really scary all right
- 1:00:57Speaker 2: that's it for today's podcast again our schedule is Monday
- 1:01:00Speaker 2: Wednesday and Thursday we'll release another podcast on Wednesday talk
- 1:01:02Speaker 2: to you soon.
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
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