Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #148: How super is Trump's endorsing power—-there's a big test in northern Wisconsin with a red hot GOP congressional election. And, Richard Nixon (of ALL people) is suddenly a hero to young conservatives. Mark tells them why he's an awful idol. And the left's "Medicare For All" plan is an awful idea that will cost Americans a fortune and wreck healthcare for seniors.

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #148: How super is Trump's endorsing power—-there's a big test in northern Wisconsin with a red hot GOP congressional election. And, Richard Nixon (of ALL people) is suddenly a hero to young conservatives. Mark tells them why he's an awful idol. And the left's "Medicare For All" plan is an awful idea that will cost Americans a fortune and wreck healthcare for seniors. · The Mark Belling Podcast

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Speaker 2: People have debated forever the importance of endorsements in election campaigns.
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Speaker 2: My own belief is how people react to what I
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Speaker 2: think on a race. The time that I find that
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Speaker 2: most people want me to say who they should vote
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Speaker 2: for is if the race is of a lower profile,
0:51
Speaker 2: for example, a judicial race in Waukershaw County or a
0:59
Speaker 2: judicial primary for the state Court of Appeals. People want
1:03
Speaker 2: to get that vote right, but they often are not
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Speaker 2: very familiar at all with the individual candidates. On the
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Speaker 2: other hand, if it's a major, high profile race, what
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Speaker 2: I have to say maybe interesting, but I don't think
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Speaker 2: it would sway as many votes. An example of that
1:22
Speaker 2: would be, say, the last time we had a Republican
1:24
Speaker 2: primary for governor twenty twenty two, when Tim Michaels ran
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Speaker 2: against Rebecca Clayfish. I did not endorse either of those candidates,
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Speaker 2: but had I done so, I think most people knew
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Speaker 2: enough about both candidates and had a feel for this
1:39
Speaker 2: that they could make up their own minds on this. Likewise,
1:45
Speaker 2: other groups and other organizations. It used to be that
1:51
Speaker 2: in a Democratic primary the endorsement of the State Teachers
1:54
Speaker 2: Union was huge. It also used to be both of
1:59
Speaker 2: these are former, that in a Republican primary, the endorsement
2:02
Speaker 2: of the National Rifle Association was huge. In terms of
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Speaker 2: individual figures endorsing a candidate, never not so much that
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Speaker 2: has changed in the current period that we're in. I
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Speaker 2: can't say that in my lifetime there has ever been
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Speaker 2: someone who has had greater endorsement power than Donald Trump. Also,
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Speaker 2: other than say, some of those groups that I described,
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Speaker 2: the NRA, the Teachers' Union, you know their groups, they're
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Speaker 2: going to endorse in almost every race. There are very
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Speaker 2: few political figures who've gone out and issued endorsements in
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Speaker 2: all manner of other races around the country. And Trump
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Speaker 2: doesn't limit his endorsement to federal positions like the House,
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Speaker 2: in the Senate, Hill endorsement, governors races, and so on.
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Speaker 2: The Trump endorse candidates have not always won, but the
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Speaker 2: vast majority of them have won. Partly, he often will
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Speaker 2: pick the one he thinks is going to win, I'll
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Speaker 2: grant you that, But in many of the races that
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Speaker 2: are more wide open, the Trump endorsement often can elevate
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Speaker 2: in a Republican primary as much as twenty to thirty percent.
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Speaker 2: Now in a statewide in the general election of Trump
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Speaker 2: endorsement might be negative because swing voters may not like Trump,
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Speaker 2: but in a Republican primary, it's Van Golden again. His
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Speaker 2: candidates don't always win, but they always get a boost.
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Speaker 2: This is being tested right now in Wisconsin, the biggest
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Speaker 2: Republican primary in the state, and this year there are
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Speaker 2: I think more Democrat primaries than Republican primaries. There's the
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Speaker 2: weird Democratic race for governor, some of the legislative races
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Speaker 2: in southeast of Wisconsin. It seems to me there are
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Speaker 2: more Democrat primaries than Republican primaries. But the biggest Republican
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Speaker 2: primary in the state is this wide open race for
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Speaker 2: Congress in northern Wisconsin. Trump has weighed in on this
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Speaker 2: and has an endorsement, and I think the whole country
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Speaker 2: is watching to see whether or not his endorsed candidate
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Speaker 2: will win or should he win. We're going to dive
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Speaker 2: into that election in a moment here. When it comes
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Speaker 2: line difference today visit u line dot com. Let's talk
5:12
Speaker 2: about this district. The lines have changed a bit over
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Speaker 2: the years, but not a lot. This northern Wisconsin seat
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Speaker 2: in Congress. First of all, it's such an unusual district.
5:24
Speaker 2: Congressional districts in the United States are all almost the
5:28
Speaker 2: same in terms of population. That's by law. In Wisconsin,
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Speaker 2: we are allotted eight districts. We used to have more,
5:35
Speaker 2: as Wisconsin population growth has not kept up with the
5:37
Speaker 2: rest of the country. You know, way back in the
5:40
Speaker 2: sixties we had ten that it was nine. Now it's
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Speaker 2: down to eight. So the eight congressional districts in the
5:46
Speaker 2: state are even in population, but they are not even
5:49
Speaker 2: in size. On the smallest in size, there's the district
5:53
Speaker 2: when more represents that's centered in. It takes up most
5:59
Speaker 2: of the Way County, but not the far north or
6:02
Speaker 2: far south sides or a chunk of the west. It's
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Speaker 2: a dense because this is the most densely populated area
6:10
Speaker 2: of the state of Wisconsin. Her area. You're able to
6:13
Speaker 2: get up to whatever it is about six hundred thousand
6:15
Speaker 2: population without even leaving Milwaukee County. The other districts are
6:23
Speaker 2: all larger than that, and the differentiation and the largeness
6:27
Speaker 2: is how densely populated it is. Almost all of the
6:31
Speaker 2: districts have one or two at least medium cities of size.
6:36
Speaker 2: The Northern Wisconsin District doesn't have even a single medium city.
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Speaker 2: The closest would be I would say medium to small community.
6:44
Speaker 2: Walsa on Stephen's Point are in there. Otherwise, the northern
6:48
Speaker 2: district called the seventh District. It sprawls all I mean
6:54
Speaker 2: Lakes Superior over to the Upper Peninsula and then dropping
6:57
Speaker 2: way down to Wassaw. For those of you who haven't
6:59
Speaker 2: looked at a matp Wisaw is way south of the
7:03
Speaker 2: north of the border of Northern Wisconsin. It is a
7:06
Speaker 2: spall like massive, huge district and the person elected too
7:15
Speaker 2: it tends to serve forever for forty years it was
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Speaker 2: a Democrat district. There is no district in Wisconsin, by
7:24
Speaker 2: the way, whose politics have changed more than the northern
7:26
Speaker 2: part of the state of Wisconsin. Rural America is now
7:31
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly Republican, and Northern Wisconsin was largely rural and small towns,
7:37
Speaker 2: and rural America used to be Democrat or swing. Northern
7:41
Speaker 2: Wisconsin was represented in Congress for about forty years by
7:44
Speaker 2: David Obi. He was a regular, old traditional garden variety liberal.
7:50
Speaker 2: He was probably more liberal than most then. He would
7:53
Speaker 2: probably now be more moderate than most. He's always are.
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Speaker 2: The Budget Writing Committee isn't there for ever, And even
8:00
Speaker 2: as the district started to move away from being Democratic
8:03
Speaker 2: to more Republican, you just couldn't give ri of Obi.
8:06
Speaker 2: He was finally the politics of the time. It started
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Speaker 2: way back in the eighties with Reagan, but just continuing
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Speaker 2: to continue to continued. As the Democrats became more leftist,
8:17
Speaker 2: Northern Wisconsin's voters started to turn away from them, and
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Speaker 2: Obi didn't run for reelection the year that there was
8:24
Speaker 2: a very good chance he was going to lose. He
8:29
Speaker 2: was replaced by Sean Duffy, who instantly became a Republican superstar.
8:34
Speaker 2: Duffy's background is the kind of background that you usually
8:37
Speaker 2: see from Democrats. He was more famous from his life
8:43
Speaker 2: before politics than after. He was on one of the
8:48
Speaker 2: biggest reality shows of all time. It was an MTV
8:52
Speaker 2: and I believe it was in the first season he
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Speaker 2: and his wife around the program together, so he had
9:03
Speaker 2: extreme name recognition before all of this. Duffy and his wife,
9:11
Speaker 2: Rachel Campo Stuffy were kind of like huge celebrities even
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Speaker 2: before they got to Congress. And then when he's elected.
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Speaker 2: First of all, Sean Duffy immediately stood out the moment
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Speaker 2: he got to Washington. He's way more eloquent and well
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Speaker 2: spoken than the overwhelming majority of members of Congress, and
9:27
Speaker 2: he became somebody who was an activist and a number
9:29
Speaker 2: of issues, and his wife was an extremely eloquent person
9:35
Speaker 2: who started popping up on talk shows like Fox. They
9:40
Speaker 2: have very traditional family values, which is fascinating given the
9:42
Speaker 2: fact that he came out of the MTV world and
9:45
Speaker 2: they've been cranking out children right and left. And they
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Speaker 2: have this huge family, which became the subject of fascination
9:49
Speaker 2: in DC, where most members of Congress have tiny or
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Speaker 2: no families at all. Sean could have held that seat
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Speaker 2: until he died. He gave it up when his youngest child,
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Speaker 2: his newest baby, had issues. They didn't abort the baby,
10:14
Speaker 2: even though the issues were known prior, and he said
10:17
Speaker 2: the great credit that they did not. And Sean has
10:21
Speaker 2: since gone out and initially started making some money. These
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Speaker 2: are two people, as I said, they only worked for
10:29
Speaker 2: the government. They were never rich. Rachel's been doing her
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Speaker 2: thing occasionally on Fox News, and then Sean now has
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Speaker 2: become one of the star members of the Trump cabinet.
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Speaker 2: There's a lot of criticism with a lot of the
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Speaker 2: members of the cabint but Sean Duffy in transportation has
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Speaker 2: simply been a star. But it was during that period
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Speaker 2: that they chose that Sean was not going to stay
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Speaker 2: in Congress after they had the baby, and he needed
10:55
Speaker 2: two parents to take party in dealing with first of all,
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Speaker 2: all the other kids that are running around and a
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Speaker 2: child that was going to present some challenges. The child
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Speaker 2: is older anyway, That was Sean Duffy. When Sean left,
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Speaker 2: there was a battle to see who would succeed him.
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Speaker 2: The district is now overwhelmingly Republican. Tom Tiffany won. Tom
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Speaker 2: was in the state legislature, became a member of Congress,
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Speaker 2: and as they say, Tom Tiffany could have served there
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Speaker 2: until he died. As well. As we all know, Tom
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Speaker 2: Tiffany is running for governor. This is not a swing district.
11:29
Speaker 2: It is a district where, theoretically the Democrats could win
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Speaker 2: if this year is a huge Democrat year. Some districts
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Speaker 2: that are rather safely Republican could swing, but this is
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Speaker 2: the most Republican district in the state, and I think
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Speaker 2: it would be far fetched to think that the Democrats
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Speaker 2: could flip it. So whoever wins the Republican primary is
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Speaker 2: likely to be the next member of Congress. And as
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Speaker 2: I say, the history is, if you win that seat,
11:57
Speaker 2: you can serve until you choose. Will you either die,
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Speaker 2: run for something else, or simply choose to move on.
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Speaker 2: There are five Republican candidates running. From the sources I've
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Speaker 2: spoken to in general and mentioned a wisdom, there are
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Speaker 2: three that have a chance of winning. Trump has weighed
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Speaker 2: in with an endorsement in this race. One of the
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Speaker 2: candidates running is the son in law of Sean and
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Speaker 2: Rachel Campo Stuffy. Obviously, the Duffies are very close to Trump.
12:36
Speaker 2: Rachel Campo Stuffy has made comments in support of Trump
12:39
Speaker 2: during a period on Fox and Trump has said many
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Speaker 2: times how much he adores her, and Sean Duffy is
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Speaker 2: a member of his cabinet that Trump's been impressed with.
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Speaker 2: Is that the single reason that Trump issued the endorsement
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Speaker 2: of Van's We don't know Trump's issued the endorsement, but
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Speaker 2: he's not been pounding the table or anything with regard
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Speaker 2: to it. The thing with Michael Alfonso is he's very young.
13:06
Speaker 2: He's barely old enough to pass the age limit to
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Speaker 2: be a member of the House of Representatives. Again, many
13:12
Speaker 2: people get elected when they're young. Aoc was young, even
13:16
Speaker 2: going back to Obi, he was rather young. But Alfonso's
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Speaker 2: young and he doesn't have a lot of experience in politics.
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Speaker 2: Beyond this, he's starting his political career up, but trying
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Speaker 2: to be a member of Congress. He has the advantage
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Speaker 2: of a Trump endorsement. Will that be enough to put
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Speaker 2: him over the finish line against as they say, as
13:40
Speaker 2: a five candidate race. Two of the other candidates, however,
13:44
Speaker 2: have huge political strengths of their own. Kevin Hermaning has
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Speaker 2: been active in Republican politics in northern Wisconsin, since the seventies.
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Speaker 2: He first came to public attention when he was a
14:06
Speaker 2: hostage nearly a half century ago, but since then that
14:11
Speaker 2: was something that made him somebody the people up there
14:14
Speaker 2: would know about. But then he stayed involved in politics.
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Speaker 2: He's run for political office. I think I've talked about
14:19
Speaker 2: it a couple of times in the past, but he's
14:21
Speaker 2: now gone all in on this race, and he's got
14:24
Speaker 2: a huge network of people who know him because, as
14:26
Speaker 2: they say, he's been involved in politics in northern Wisconsin
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Speaker 2: and business affairs and so on for decades. Jesse Eban
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Speaker 2: formerly ran for Congress in a different district. She's very
14:46
Speaker 2: well known in the area legislative candidate member of the Legislature,
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Speaker 2: and very well known by many of the act of
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Speaker 2: his conservative organizations. Many believe that she's the truest conservative
15:01
Speaker 2: in the race. Hermiting would dispute that now Evans had
15:06
Speaker 2: something of a voting precor to go off of Kevin
15:08
Speaker 2: Herman merely has positions that he's put out there, but
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Speaker 2: a lot of the core conservative groups have endorsed Evan.
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Speaker 2: Eban BB Turning Point USA has weighed into the race.
15:29
Speaker 2: Other well known conservative activist groups are backing Jesse Evan,
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Speaker 2: and I should make a clear Jesse is a female.
15:35
Speaker 2: Jesse JESSI Jesse Evan. I think it's just that I.
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Speaker 2: Among the Republican donors, Alfonso has raised the most money. Again,
15:49
Speaker 2: he starts with the network of Sean Duffy and Rachel
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Speaker 2: Duffy's family and the Trump endorsement. That in and of
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Speaker 2: itself is a big way to raise money when you
16:00
Speaker 2: get a personal appeal from those people, and a lot
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Speaker 2: of Republican donors want to back the candidate who's gonna
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Speaker 2: win Hermaning has pumped some of his own money unto
16:13
Speaker 2: the race. Evan was not in a position to do that,
16:16
Speaker 2: but she has raised a significant chunk of money from
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Speaker 2: important conservative donors. Alfonso has been not as public in
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Speaker 2: campaign appearances, nor has he been as willing to make
16:31
Speaker 2: joint appearances with the other candidates. Some people believe that
16:35
Speaker 2: that's because he knows he's ahead and he has nothing
16:37
Speaker 2: to do but lose if he's in those appearances. Others
16:40
Speaker 2: believe he's not ready for prime time. He's too young,
16:43
Speaker 2: he's not been involved in the give and take. He'd
16:46
Speaker 2: be in over his head. I'm not up in that district.
16:52
Speaker 2: I therefore have not watched all the campaign ads. And well,
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Speaker 2: it's not like I don't have anybody who can explain
16:58
Speaker 2: to me what's going on in Poldia anywhere in the
17:00
Speaker 2: state of Wisconsin. Obviously, if the race was in southeastern Wisconsin,
17:04
Speaker 2: I had more people whispering in my ear and have
17:06
Speaker 2: a greater feel for how the whole thing is playing out,
17:12
Speaker 2: I think any of the big three. And by the way,
17:13
Speaker 2: there are two other candidates running. There's a woman named
17:15
Speaker 2: Nina Baum, who I would describe is a little bit
17:17
Speaker 2: more moderate, and then there's a guy named Marhala who's
17:20
Speaker 2: a contractor. He's done little campaigning and hasn't raised much money.
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Speaker 2: Everyone I've spoken to believes that the winner is going
17:26
Speaker 2: to be of Alfonso Eban and Hermity. If Alfonso had
17:34
Speaker 2: not been endorsed by Trump, I would say he wouldn't
17:36
Speaker 2: have much chance. He'd have a chance, as I say,
17:40
Speaker 2: he's connected to the Duffies, and the Duffies are political
17:44
Speaker 2: royalty in northern Wisconsin. But the Trump endorsement simply elevates him,
17:51
Speaker 2: But does it elevate him enough? My guess is to
17:55
Speaker 2: win this race. I think the winning candidate will have
17:57
Speaker 2: a what forty five percent. There's five running, but there's
18:00
Speaker 2: three big ones. I don't think it's thirty three, thirty three,
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Speaker 2: thirty three. Probably somebody's going to get forty five, somebody's
18:06
Speaker 2: going to get around thirty nine, and somebody's going to
18:08
Speaker 2: get about twenty, which is a guess. We do have
18:19
Speaker 2: a little bit of precedent here. We had an election
18:23
Speaker 2: in northeastern Wisconsin. This is the district that runs just
18:31
Speaker 2: kind of to the south of the up North District
18:34
Speaker 2: and then close to Lake Michigan Green Bay in the
18:36
Speaker 2: Fox Valley and then the surrounding region. There. There were
18:40
Speaker 2: three very strong Republican candidates that ran in that race,
18:45
Speaker 2: including a couple of very prominent Conservatives. There was a candidate, however,
18:52
Speaker 2: who had less name recognition, who simply came out of
18:55
Speaker 2: the business world, Tony Weed. Trump and dorstin Tony Weed
18:58
Speaker 2: beat those other candidates. The Trump endorsement I think clearly
19:03
Speaker 2: got him that seat. This is a different race, it's
19:08
Speaker 2: different candidates, and it's a different year. Also, some might
19:11
Speaker 2: argue that Trump isn't as popular or influential as he
19:14
Speaker 2: was a couple of years ago. Summer squatting about the
19:16
Speaker 2: war with Iran, and Trump is approaching that lame duck
19:20
Speaker 2: status that we see starts to weaken the political pull
19:23
Speaker 2: of candidates. Yet this year, most candidates nationally the Trump
19:25
Speaker 2: has endorsed have won, and his track record in Wisconsin
19:29
Speaker 2: is almost one hundred percent. Going back to that race
19:33
Speaker 2: for governor and Wisconsin in twenty twenty two, Becky Clayfish
19:38
Speaker 2: had been running for four years. She seemed a cinch
19:42
Speaker 2: to win. There are two wings of the Republican Party
19:46
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin, and I've described them as this is an
19:50
Speaker 2: overgeneralation Trump for generalization. It's not as firm as what
19:55
Speaker 2: I'm saying, but it's just shorthand that I'll give you
19:57
Speaker 2: the Walker wing and the Tommy Thompson wing. It's broader
20:00
Speaker 2: than that, and it needs more explanation, but I'll just
20:03
Speaker 2: go with it. Clayfish came from the Walker wing of
20:06
Speaker 2: the party. Obviously, she was Lieutenant governor from Scott Walker
20:08
Speaker 2: at a strong ally and many of Scott's supporters were
20:11
Speaker 2: backing her, and she was the only candidate running for
20:14
Speaker 2: the longest time. There were rumblings in the other wing
20:17
Speaker 2: of the party that they didn't believe that a Clayfish
20:19
Speaker 2: could win or b that she should win. Tommy Thompson
20:22
Speaker 2: thought about getting into the race. Tim Michaels thought about
20:24
Speaker 2: getting into the race. There was an agreement between the
20:27
Speaker 2: two of them that only one of them would run.
20:30
Speaker 2: There were meetings that were held at mar Alago. Influential
20:34
Speaker 2: Republicans were along and part of those meetings, Trump made
20:39
Speaker 2: the decision to back Michaels. Tommy didn't get in, Michaels
20:43
Speaker 2: did get in, got in against Clayfish. Michaels was endorsed
20:46
Speaker 2: by Trump and beat Clayfish, who had been running for
20:49
Speaker 2: four years. I think Tim, and again that was another
20:53
Speaker 2: one of those races. He's just tragedy in Wisconsin. Both
20:55
Speaker 2: of those candidates are nineteen times better than Tony Evers, who,
20:59
Speaker 2: by the way, is nineteen times better than any of
21:01
Speaker 2: the Democrats that are not running to succeed him. But
21:06
Speaker 2: either Clayfish or Michaels would have been tremendous governors. But
21:11
Speaker 2: the winner of the primary was Tim Michaels, and I
21:13
Speaker 2: just think that there's no way he would have won
21:14
Speaker 2: without Trump's endorsement, you know. And Clayfish and her supporters
21:18
Speaker 2: have been fuming ever since about the whole thing and
21:20
Speaker 2: how it played out. So this is going to be
21:26
Speaker 2: tested again. The media every time one of Trump's endorsed
21:31
Speaker 2: candidates says it what a primary, goes on and on
21:33
Speaker 2: and on about it. But they're able to do that
21:35
Speaker 2: because it hardly ever happens. So it's a rather rare occurrence.
21:40
Speaker 2: I don't know who's going to win this race, and
21:43
Speaker 2: there are many people that I know that are very
21:45
Speaker 2: smart and attuned to this. Whof interviewed the candidates have
21:47
Speaker 2: said Alfonso is not the best candidate and in terms
21:53
Speaker 2: of getting in there and getting into Congress and a
21:55
Speaker 2: representing the district and b beginning to make you know
21:59
Speaker 2: your bones on an a level and get involved in
22:01
Speaker 2: national issues, that he's not the best one to do so.
22:11
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. A lot of voters, when they
22:13
Speaker 2: have candidates, and in the case of all of them,
22:15
Speaker 2: of course, none of them that I've ever been in
22:17
Speaker 2: Congress before, and none of them has had a high
22:19
Speaker 2: profile political position, you just don't know is one of
22:23
Speaker 2: them going to turn out to be a rhino. And
22:25
Speaker 2: I think that there's a sense of trust that many
22:27
Speaker 2: voters have that Trump's not going to back a rhino,
22:31
Speaker 2: and certainly if he comes out of the Duffy wing,
22:33
Speaker 2: if we can get somebody else that's just as good
22:35
Speaker 2: as Sean Duffy. That's the strength that Alfonso brings. I
22:39
Speaker 2: do not have a prediction here. I simply don't know
22:41
Speaker 2: who's going to win. It will be very interesting to
22:43
Speaker 2: see though, how this plays out. As I mentioned on
22:50
Speaker 2: the podcast yesterday, I'm going to mention it again, you
22:53
Speaker 2: can't vote in boast primaries. So for those of you
22:57
Speaker 2: who want to meddle around and vote for against frenchesse
23:00
Speaker 2: Kahong in the election on the Democratic side for governor,
23:06
Speaker 2: you wouldn't if you're eleve in Northern Wisconsin be able
23:08
Speaker 2: to vote for your congressman. There is a Democratic primary
23:10
Speaker 2: in that district, but as I say, most people think
23:12
Speaker 2: the Republicans would win. It also means you can't choose
23:16
Speaker 2: the Republican candidate for Lieutenant governor or Secretary of State.
23:19
Speaker 2: I've covered these races once before, but I'm going to
23:21
Speaker 2: do a quick once over again lieutenant governor. They're both
23:25
Speaker 2: good candidates, Will Martin and David Varnum. I think Varnum
23:29
Speaker 2: is more conservative. I think Martin brings more politically to
23:33
Speaker 2: the table. Martin is from Racine, African American, very well spoken,
23:39
Speaker 2: he's done talk shows, he's been active, he's in the
23:41
Speaker 2: business community. And in terms of just fit Tom Tiffany
23:46
Speaker 2: is from northern Wisconsin, rural. Having an African American, more
23:50
Speaker 2: urban Republican as his running mate is good geographical and
23:57
Speaker 2: I think charismatic valance him is very much like Tiffany.
24:02
Speaker 2: He's not from northern Wisconsin, Beasin, small town Wisconcid. He's
24:04
Speaker 2: from Lancaster, reasmen the mayor. He's a core conservative of
24:07
Speaker 2: a mega type guy. Trump has not been an endorsement
24:09
Speaker 2: to my knowledge in this race. Martin is endorsed by
24:12
Speaker 2: the State Republican Party. And then four candidates for Secretary
24:16
Speaker 2: of State. The fact of the matter is that it
24:21
Speaker 2: is a fact. The Democratic candidates are almost all right
24:25
Speaker 2: now weak. They may all win this year because it
24:28
Speaker 2: may be a Democratic year. But you either have loud
24:33
Speaker 2: mouthed Marxist radicals or mainstream Democrat dullards in one form
24:40
Speaker 2: or another. They're all hang or Crowley. Secretary of State's
24:46
Speaker 2: not the most important job of the world. But there
24:48
Speaker 2: are four just tremendous Republicans running here. Cindy Warner is
24:53
Speaker 2: the Milwaukee African American cheese, got deep Republican bona fides.
24:59
Speaker 2: She has been, and let's just be honest about this.
25:03
Speaker 2: To be an African American Republican in Milwaukee requires guts,
25:07
Speaker 2: the crap that you go back to David Clark, the
25:08
Speaker 2: crap that you have to put up for with simply
25:12
Speaker 2: not following the lead of most of your skin color.
25:15
Speaker 2: And Cindy Warner has been an eloquent, outspoken and hardworking
25:18
Speaker 2: conservative forever. The position of Secretary of State doesn't have
25:21
Speaker 2: a lot of duties, so therefore somebody who carries the
25:24
Speaker 2: position well can use the billy pulpit and maybe use
25:26
Speaker 2: it as a platform to run for something else. She's
25:28
Speaker 2: highly qualified for that. Nate Polow was endorsed by the
25:31
Speaker 2: State Republican Party. Again, there are no knocks in this guy.
25:36
Speaker 2: I particularly impressed with a guy named Brayden Meyer. He's
25:40
Speaker 2: a male, but he's backed by Mom's for liberty. He's
25:42
Speaker 2: just been a core conservative young has worked his tail
25:46
Speaker 2: end off. And Jay Schroeder is the candidate who won
25:49
Speaker 2: the Republican nomination four years ago, lost only because the
25:54
Speaker 2: Democrats pulled that scam in which Lafallette ran for the
25:57
Speaker 2: ninety fifth time in a row and then right after
26:00
Speaker 2: he won resigned so that they could give the job
26:02
Speaker 2: to Sarah Goadlowski. Douglas Phallic can't win an election to
26:06
Speaker 2: save his life except for secretary of State. He's run
26:09
Speaker 2: for everything else under the sun. The Democrats not electing
26:11
Speaker 2: to him. He's been unbeatable for secretary of State. I
26:13
Speaker 2: think Srey Schroeder might have won that position had it
26:16
Speaker 2: not been Douglaphalic. So he's going to try again. I'm
26:18
Speaker 2: not going to endorse any of those candidates, but again,
26:20
Speaker 2: if you want to do research, they all have websites,
26:23
Speaker 2: and there are different strengths that the all of them
26:25
Speaker 2: bring to the table. And again, you can either vote
26:29
Speaker 2: for Republicans up and down the ballot or Democrats up
26:32
Speaker 2: and down the ballot. One of the good things about
26:35
Speaker 2: doing a podcast and not having open phone lines is
26:38
Speaker 2: every time I bring it up on the radio show,
26:40
Speaker 2: nine thousand people who call up Paul Off the yearine
26:42
Speaker 2: demand to know why you can't vote. And as for
26:44
Speaker 2: it's the law, it's the law in the state of Wisconsin.
26:48
Speaker 2: Whether you like it or not. It's the law. By
26:50
Speaker 2: the way, in many states we have a firmer law
26:53
Speaker 2: you have to be a registered member of the party
26:56
Speaker 2: to vote in the primary. We do not have that
26:58
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin. People continually claim I'm a registered Democrat or
27:03
Speaker 2: a registered Republican. If you live in Wisconsin, you're not
27:06
Speaker 2: a registered Democrat or registered Republican because you don't register
27:08
Speaker 2: by political parties. Now Jason's from Illinois, they have kind
27:12
Speaker 2: of a hybrid. You have to publicly request a ballot
27:16
Speaker 2: of one party, but you can then just you don't
27:19
Speaker 2: have to change parties in the next election. Let's imagine
27:21
Speaker 2: I want to vote the Democratic primary in Well this
27:25
Speaker 2: year twenty twenty six, and in twenty twenty eight, I
27:27
Speaker 2: want to vote the Republican primary. I just ask for
27:29
Speaker 2: the Republican primary the next time around. In some states
27:33
Speaker 2: you have to change your voter registration in order to
27:35
Speaker 2: do it, and an independent can't vote at all in
27:38
Speaker 2: a Democrat or Republican primary. We have neither of that.
27:41
Speaker 2: You can vote in whichever one you want, you just
27:43
Speaker 2: can't vote in both. That was an interesting thing. By
27:49
Speaker 2: the way, I was a reporter obviously when I worked
27:51
Speaker 2: in Illinois, there were some reporters that I knew who
27:55
Speaker 2: didn't vote in the primaries because this is back in
27:58
Speaker 2: the days in which media members of me, you didn't
28:00
Speaker 2: want to show their biases, so they wouldn't vote in
28:03
Speaker 2: the primary. Because you can look up and see which
28:04
Speaker 2: political party that they're a member of, and I would
28:08
Speaker 2: say it's more than half the states. And now there
28:10
Speaker 2: are all these websites that do databases and so on.
28:13
Speaker 2: In the states in which you register by political party,
28:15
Speaker 2: you can do a background check and find out which
28:17
Speaker 2: party someone is registered as a member of in the
28:20
Speaker 2: state in which you have to register as a member.
28:23
Speaker 2: And we are not, as I said, one of those states.
28:32
Speaker 2: You know, in radio, we used to do teases, here's
28:34
Speaker 2: what's coming up. But it was really important on my
28:36
Speaker 2: own radio show because the commercial breaks are you know,
28:39
Speaker 2: I have to put up with this, Jason. My commercial
28:41
Speaker 2: breaks I think for one hour and forty seven minutes long.
28:45
Speaker 2: My way of doing the show was different than most.
28:47
Speaker 2: I backlogged the commercials. When I did the show, I
28:51
Speaker 2: believed in having long segments and then really long commercial breaks.
28:54
Speaker 2: Rather than talk for nine minutes four minutes of commercials,
28:57
Speaker 2: talk for nine minutes permission from the company to be
29:01
Speaker 2: able to do that, and it was simply a philosophy
29:05
Speaker 2: about what's the best way to get good ratings and
29:08
Speaker 2: so on. Here our breaks, our obviously short in podcasts,
29:10
Speaker 2: will so there's no reason to do a tease, but
29:12
Speaker 2: I want to do it anyway. I'll let you all
29:16
Speaker 2: try to guess and figure out who this is. If
29:18
Speaker 2: you saw the podcast title, you might already know. I'm
29:21
Speaker 2: going to talk about an American political figure who's dead.
29:28
Speaker 2: But if the I won't say recent past, contemporary past,
29:35
Speaker 2: who is suddenly in terms of image, making a comeback,
29:41
Speaker 2: which I think is hello to crap. We'll talk about
29:45
Speaker 2: that in a moment on the Mark Belling podcast. This
29:50
Speaker 2: is the Mark Belling Podcast. There's a thing going on
29:54
Speaker 2: right now. It seems to be coming from male gen
29:59
Speaker 2: Z members who are not leftists and gens. You know,
30:04
Speaker 2: every generation is unusual in that they are different than
30:08
Speaker 2: anyone before them. Gen Z is impossible to characterize politically.
30:14
Speaker 2: They seem to be going in completely opposite directions. There
30:18
Speaker 2: seem to be very few gen Z moderates. There's a
30:21
Speaker 2: ton of gen Z socialists, and there's also a ton
30:25
Speaker 2: of gen Z Republicans, Trump carried the college vote in
30:31
Speaker 2: Wisconsin in twenty twenty four. It's just astonishing to me.
30:36
Speaker 2: I don't think a Republican has carried the college vote ever.
30:41
Speaker 2: The youngest of the gen Z's back Trump. Now, part
30:45
Speaker 2: of it was Commalin made no attempt to appeal the
30:47
Speaker 2: young voters. And Trump was going on all of these podcasts.
30:50
Speaker 2: He was on theovon He's Not a Rogo, which appeals
30:52
Speaker 2: to a little bit old, older audience. But he was
30:54
Speaker 2: on THEO Bonn, he was on Busted with the Boys,
30:56
Speaker 2: and he went out and he campaigned for those votes.
31:02
Speaker 2: This group of gen Zs that are conservative, however, has
31:10
Speaker 2: started to re embrace Richard Nixon. The dominant Republican figure
31:17
Speaker 2: of my lifetime was Ronald Reagan. Of my lifetime, which
31:22
Speaker 2: is a long one, I would say that the three
31:25
Speaker 2: most dominant Republicans have been in This is stating the
31:27
Speaker 2: obvious Nixon, Reagan, and Trump. I don't put W. Bush
31:34
Speaker 2: or H. W. Bush in there. They are both presidents
31:39
Speaker 2: I think transformative nature Republican politics. Neither of them did that,
31:44
Speaker 2: but certainly Nixon, and let's face it, Nixon had an
31:49
Speaker 2: incredibly interesting political career. He was the Eraparan for presidents,
31:53
Speaker 2: the vice president for eight years. Nineteen sixty he lost
31:56
Speaker 2: to Kennedy, an election that many and I would say,
31:58
Speaker 2: the evidence is pretty strong that was stolen. For all
32:01
Speaker 2: these people that say that they're on vote fraud, almost
32:04
Speaker 2: nobody disputes that the election results in Illinois and Texas
32:08
Speaker 2: were simply stolen. But Nixon lost. And then in the
32:13
Speaker 2: decade in which the country transformed itself from quiet moderation
32:19
Speaker 2: to conservatism to extreme radicalism. In the midst of radicalism protests,
32:26
Speaker 2: anti war, civil rights, Nixon goes and gets himself elected
32:30
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight just running counterculture or all of
32:34
Speaker 2: those seeming societal trends. Well, we know what happened to
32:37
Speaker 2: Dixon is forced out after winning a second term carrying
32:42
Speaker 2: forty nine saints, something Reagan also did. He was forced
32:48
Speaker 2: to resign. He was going to be impeached and convicted
32:50
Speaker 2: because of the Watergate scandal. For my lifetime, the transformative
32:56
Speaker 2: figure was Reagan. Reagan was the first president to govern
33:03
Speaker 2: as an actual conservative, and everything he did worked. The
33:12
Speaker 2: Cold War ended, the Soviet Union fell, and communism in
33:18
Speaker 2: Eastern Europe fell. The economy that he inherited was a nightmare,
33:27
Speaker 2: and he said in place a boom that really lasted,
33:30
Speaker 2: I would say for until the dot com bust, which
33:34
Speaker 2: might have just it might have lasted long beyond that,
33:36
Speaker 2: because after the dot com bust ended two years later,
33:39
Speaker 2: we were often roaring again. But it started when Nixon
33:42
Speaker 2: ended the eighty to ninety percent marginal tax rates that
33:47
Speaker 2: were taxing income at the highest level. At that level,
33:49
Speaker 2: meaning that everybody was doing everything that they could to
33:51
Speaker 2: shell to their income and the economy didn't grow. He
33:54
Speaker 2: inherited high inflation, high unemployment, at high interest rates and
33:58
Speaker 2: turned us into a massive pro growth economy many and
34:03
Speaker 2: was an inspiring figure for many of us. He was
34:10
Speaker 2: influential in that many people. You know, his era was
34:14
Speaker 2: the same era as the breakthrough era. Pope John Paul,
34:16
Speaker 2: whose source was served far longer than Reagan, was president,
34:20
Speaker 2: but he came into the late seventies and he was
34:23
Speaker 2: also linked to the fight against the fight in the
34:26
Speaker 2: Cold War and so on, and Pope John Paul inspired
34:28
Speaker 2: many young Catholics, and many Conservatives were inspired by Ronald
34:31
Speaker 2: Reagan because he was the guy who governed as a
34:33
Speaker 2: conservative and proved the conservatism worked. Time has gone by,
34:40
Speaker 2: Republican politics morphed into other things after Reagan, the Bush
34:46
Speaker 2: era and so on, and then Trump turned it on
34:49
Speaker 2: its head and we now have a form of republicanism,
34:53
Speaker 2: mega republicanism. It is a different thing. But what's going
34:59
Speaker 2: on with a lot of young people based on blogs,
35:03
Speaker 2: they write posts, they make as there's been a rethinking
35:07
Speaker 2: of Nixon. One of the few issues that we've had
35:10
Speaker 2: in our society that has united Democrats and Republicans over
35:13
Speaker 2: the last fifty years is that everybody agreed that Nixon
35:16
Speaker 2: was a slug. I mean, Republicans of my era thought
35:20
Speaker 2: that Nixon was a slug. They may have thought that
35:22
Speaker 2: he got a raw deal in water gave, but they
35:23
Speaker 2: thought he was a slug, and Democrats thought he was
35:26
Speaker 2: a slug. Nixon was hated about as much as Reagan
35:29
Speaker 2: when he was in office, and after he left there
35:32
Speaker 2: wasn't a Republican that missed him after he was gone,
35:34
Speaker 2: in part because Reagan was around the corner. There's a term,
35:42
Speaker 2: and I read about this in a piece in The
35:43
Speaker 2: Spectator called Nixon maxing. Nixon maxing, in other words, embracing
35:50
Speaker 2: all things Nixon, the guy who wrote the piece in
35:54
Speaker 2: The Spectator, said he was the original Nixon, Max Or
35:57
Speaker 2: He's been doing this for twenty years. And he writes
36:03
Speaker 2: that the thing that appeals to really young conservatives about Nixon,
36:07
Speaker 2: as opposed to say Reagan, who is the hero for
36:09
Speaker 2: many in my generation, or even contemporarily Trump, is that
36:15
Speaker 2: Nixon was such a throwback. He was the last of
36:19
Speaker 2: the buttoned down conventional Republicans. And this particular wing of
36:29
Speaker 2: gen Z, some of whom are I mean, some of
36:33
Speaker 2: these gen Z guys. They're dressing up all the time.
36:36
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about the white nationalist wing like
36:39
Speaker 2: those Hate Brothers and so on. But they've embraced really
36:42
Speaker 2: traditional stuff, getting married early, having kids and so on.
36:49
Speaker 2: And they've given Nixon a new look. And the reporter
36:51
Speaker 2: for the Spectator Columns for the Spectator, goes on and
36:54
Speaker 2: writes a long piece about this and suggests that it
36:58
Speaker 2: was that type of Nixon, that style that has turned
37:02
Speaker 2: young people onto him. And secondly, after seeing the witch
37:06
Speaker 2: hunting that has been done of Trump, they are now
37:10
Speaker 2: totally open to the notion that Nixon was run out
37:12
Speaker 2: of office by a corrupt media because they've seen that
37:18
Speaker 2: Trump was run out of office by a corrupt media.
37:20
Speaker 2: And Trump Petty has come back because he was able
37:22
Speaker 2: to overcome this because they overplayed their heads. But Nixon
37:26
Speaker 2: was run out office by a corrupt media and a
37:28
Speaker 2: criminal justice system that had been co opted. And they
37:30
Speaker 2: look back and they think, well, Nixon was the first
37:32
Speaker 2: guy that this happened to you. And then they've been
37:35
Speaker 2: evaluating what happened during Watergate and they don't see anything
37:39
Speaker 2: all that bad. And I'll grant you, by the standards
37:43
Speaker 2: of today, Watergate wasn't all that bad. But and there's
37:48
Speaker 2: a butt Watergate wasn't just the Watergate break in. Nixon
37:57
Speaker 2: raised money in a campaign. When I say Nixon, the
37:59
Speaker 2: Nixon campaign raised money in a campaign fund. By the way,
38:03
Speaker 2: there were not the same disclosures that we have now.
38:06
Speaker 2: The campaign finance disclosure laws were far looser than and
38:10
Speaker 2: a lot of donations could be collected anonymously. You only
38:14
Speaker 2: had to declare the really really large ones. Those were
38:17
Speaker 2: still declared, but it was looser. Nonetheless, they raised the
38:20
Speaker 2: campaign fund and a huge portion of it was used
38:24
Speaker 2: to engage in non political, non governmental operations. It was
38:30
Speaker 2: called dirty Tricks. The organization was called the plumbers that
38:34
Speaker 2: would go out and try to find out who was
38:38
Speaker 2: leaking government documents, sometimes themselves leak others and engage in
38:43
Speaker 2: dirty tricks and then the cover up. Nixon clearly talked
38:49
Speaker 2: about paying hush money to the Watergate burglars. And we
38:52
Speaker 2: know this because Nixon was stupid enough to tape his
38:55
Speaker 2: conversations in the white hose and then, by the way,
38:58
Speaker 2: idiotically try to wear RaSE some of the tapes before
39:01
Speaker 2: turning them over to the government, and was so clumsy.
39:03
Speaker 2: I mean seventeen the famous seventeen and a half minute gap,
39:06
Speaker 2: which is right where the incriminating evidence was, and they
39:08
Speaker 2: gave the explanation the secretary somehow bent over and hit
39:12
Speaker 2: the wrong button on the dick to phone, and they're
39:14
Speaker 2: just The thing with Nixon is he was a tremendous politician,
39:19
Speaker 2: but a terrible liar. You know, as a kid watching
39:21
Speaker 2: this and I was really into politics, and that was
39:23
Speaker 2: when we only had, you know, three TV stations plus
39:26
Speaker 2: public TV. Nixon, I'm just telling you, I've always been
39:30
Speaker 2: very good at sensing what I'm being lied to. I'm
39:33
Speaker 2: not foolproof. I do, however, learn from my mistakes. There's
39:37
Speaker 2: a reason I'm a cynic. I'll tell this story again.
39:41
Speaker 2: I've told a million times. When I was about twenty three,
39:46
Speaker 2: like as white as one could be, not only in
39:48
Speaker 2: terms of skin color, but in terms of backroad. I
39:51
Speaker 2: was in Milwaukee and I went to Bradford Beach with
39:53
Speaker 2: some guys. I was hustled on three card MONI something
39:58
Speaker 2: just terrible. I lost at the time more money than
40:01
Speaker 2: I even had, which they didn't need to have to
40:03
Speaker 2: be much because I didn't have any. I mean, those
40:06
Speaker 2: guys are probably still done. They're playing the same thing.
40:11
Speaker 2: It's never happened to be again. I see anybody doing
40:14
Speaker 2: the shell game or anything like, I just assume they
40:16
Speaker 2: know exactly what they're doing and they're cheating. But I
40:18
Speaker 2: didn't know that then naive. But even with that level
40:21
Speaker 2: of naivete, I've always been pretty good at telling when
40:24
Speaker 2: someone was lying. I'm just Nixon was up there on
40:26
Speaker 2: water get actory, I could tell he was lying. I
40:29
Speaker 2: had family that were divided on him. I had a
40:33
Speaker 2: grandmother who couldn't stand him. The other side, grandmother and Graham,
40:38
Speaker 2: they are pro Nixon. Most young people hated Nixon because
40:44
Speaker 2: they hated the war, and Nixon didn't end the war.
40:47
Speaker 2: But I could just tell he was lying about Watergate.
40:49
Speaker 2: The thing that the revisionists are now pointing out is, Okay,
40:52
Speaker 2: let's imagine he did it. They were gonna pay hush
40:55
Speaker 2: money after a break in of the DNC that was caught.
40:58
Speaker 2: They didn't even steal anything. Whooptee do. This doesn't anything
41:07
Speaker 2: at all like what Biden got away with or Obama.
41:14
Speaker 2: And they're coming around and saying that Nixon should be
41:16
Speaker 2: given far more pre credit. A. He ended the war
41:19
Speaker 2: with Vietnam. B he ended America's insular position forward Russia
41:28
Speaker 2: and China. The reason I'm bringing up this topic is
41:33
Speaker 2: anybody who is a young person in gen Z who
41:36
Speaker 2: wants to buy into this, I at least want to
41:37
Speaker 2: expose you to the other side of the story, because
41:40
Speaker 2: Nixon was a terrible president. Now I wasn't a conservative
41:46
Speaker 2: back when Nixon was the president. I am now I
41:49
Speaker 2: am viewing this Nixon through the lens of the views
41:52
Speaker 2: that I have now. Nixon did far more damage to
41:57
Speaker 2: this country than the two the Democrats who preceded him,
42:02
Speaker 2: Kennedy and Johnson, and he was a worse president than
42:06
Speaker 2: the both Johnson sunk also, But I would say Nixon
42:11
Speaker 2: was worse. He wasn't worse than Jimmy Carter, because other
42:14
Speaker 2: than Joe Biden, no one could be worse than him.
42:17
Speaker 2: But historically Nixon's policies were ineffective and morally depraved Vietnam.
42:28
Speaker 2: He didn't start the Vietnam War, he inherited it from Johnson.
42:31
Speaker 2: One of the most idiotic and terribly fought wars in
42:34
Speaker 2: our history. We were fighting a war between two countries
42:38
Speaker 2: with the same name. One had North before it, the
42:40
Speaker 2: other head South. The Communist controlled North Vietnam, and unfortunately
42:45
Speaker 2: many people who lived in South Vietnam were Communists too,
42:47
Speaker 2: and they wanted the North to win. Were involved in
42:51
Speaker 2: both a ground war and a bombing war in which
42:53
Speaker 2: both were just done half assed. So we kept trying
42:57
Speaker 2: to escalate and escalate and escalate in escalate. Militarily we
43:01
Speaker 2: were winning, we weren't winning enough to get the other
43:05
Speaker 2: side to surrender, and we couldn't get to Hanoy and
43:07
Speaker 2: take over the capitol because there wasn't enough of a
43:11
Speaker 2: ground surge. But in the meantime, nearly fifty thousand Americans
43:14
Speaker 2: were killed. There was a draft going on. Unlike the
43:20
Speaker 2: current wars in which everybody who's in the military has
43:22
Speaker 2: chosen to go in. Vietnam was fought almost entirely with
43:26
Speaker 2: people who didn't want to be in the military and
43:28
Speaker 2: didn't want to go to this war and didn't want
43:29
Speaker 2: to die. And nobody could figure out what the vital
43:32
Speaker 2: American interest was. It said, Nixon didn't start it. This idea, Well,
43:37
Speaker 2: that was the domino theory. They do, well, if we
43:39
Speaker 2: allow South Vietnam to fall, then Thailand will fall, and
43:41
Speaker 2: then allows the fall, and then India will fall, in
43:43
Speaker 2: the whole world to fall. Vietnam did ultimately fall, and
43:48
Speaker 2: nothing else ever did. It was just crap. Anyway, Nixon
43:54
Speaker 2: inherited this when he ran for president. He had a
43:58
Speaker 2: secret plan to end the war. You could never get
44:00
Speaker 2: away with saying I have a plan, but I'm not
44:02
Speaker 2: going to tell you what it is. But that's what
44:03
Speaker 2: he did. And he got in and his plan was this.
44:06
Speaker 2: Every few months he drew down the number of troops
44:10
Speaker 2: until eventually he pulled out. He pulled out with a
44:13
Speaker 2: peace deal thinner than anything that Trump was held up
44:15
Speaker 2: in his hands of I ran it was a peace
44:17
Speaker 2: deal that just meant we're going to quit. Everybody knew
44:20
Speaker 2: the moment we left North Vietnam would break it, and
44:23
Speaker 2: they did. Here's my problem with this. Nixon pulled out
44:28
Speaker 2: and we lost, and it took him four years to
44:31
Speaker 2: do it. He could have pulled out in nineteen sixty
44:34
Speaker 2: nine and half the casualties who died in Vietnam would
44:37
Speaker 2: not have died. We had tens of thousands come back
44:43
Speaker 2: maimed and wounded and even more psychologically screwed up by
44:47
Speaker 2: that hellhole of a war, and about fifteen to twenty
44:50
Speaker 2: thousand who died in his watch because he wouldn't simply
44:54
Speaker 2: end the war for the moment that he came in.
44:56
Speaker 2: By pulling out, he kept the war going on, accomplished
45:01
Speaker 2: nothing by doing so. That's one. Two. The reopening of
45:07
Speaker 2: relations with China was an historic disaster still playing out.
45:13
Speaker 2: If Nixon didn't reopen, there was no trade with China.
45:16
Speaker 2: They were walled off. If Nixon didn't open the door
45:20
Speaker 2: to China, we would not be facing the problems with
45:23
Speaker 2: China now. He began a relationship that through its entire
45:27
Speaker 2: period was one sided. China got way more about out
45:30
Speaker 2: of it than the United States did. What the United
45:33
Speaker 2: States did was American corporations were able to outsource their
45:37
Speaker 2: labor where it could be made more cheaply in China.
45:41
Speaker 2: But by contrasts, companies would then set up shop in
45:43
Speaker 2: China and dump products in the United States, destroying our
45:46
Speaker 2: manufacturing base and in the meantime building up the Chinese economy.
45:52
Speaker 2: When Mao Saytong left and Joe and Lai came in place,
45:57
Speaker 2: China began the process of purging itself from Mao Si
46:00
Speaker 2: style communism kind of Haun style communism, the old actual communism,
46:05
Speaker 2: to what they have now. The Chinese approach to communism
46:09
Speaker 2: was still state control, but they allowed private ownership. They
46:13
Speaker 2: didn't allow individual freedoms and rights, but they put in
46:15
Speaker 2: place their version of capitalism where individuals could become extremely
46:20
Speaker 2: wealthy with very little limits on their wealth. They had
46:22
Speaker 2: a playball with the government, and they couldn't be a dissident,
46:24
Speaker 2: and they weren't a free speech or anything. But they
46:27
Speaker 2: embraced a level of not fully open market, but certainly capitalism,
46:32
Speaker 2: and with the United States allowing them to trample all
46:35
Speaker 2: over us on trade, they grew and grew and grew
46:39
Speaker 2: and grew. The only beneficiaries of this were a handful
46:43
Speaker 2: of American companies that were able to cut their labor
46:45
Speaker 2: costs by making stuff overseas in China and help kill
46:48
Speaker 2: off the American middle class. This is Nixxon who did it.
46:53
Speaker 2: Russia Nixon was a nightmare. Nixon went and tried to
47:01
Speaker 2: thaw the Cold War. Brezhnev was the leader of Russia
47:06
Speaker 2: during Nixon. This thawing of the Cold War emboldened Russia
47:14
Speaker 2: to be more despotic than ever. The thawing of the
47:18
Speaker 2: Cold War occurred shortly after Russia went in and crushed
47:22
Speaker 2: the people of Czechoslovakia. There was over a depression of
47:27
Speaker 2: nations that had been independent in Eastern Europe. The United
47:31
Speaker 2: States had a massive defense build up, but we couldn't
47:34
Speaker 2: keep up with the Russians, at part because we had
47:35
Speaker 2: been farting all this money away from Vietnam. In Vietnam
47:40
Speaker 2: and Nixon opened the door to trade with Russia and
47:42
Speaker 2: warmed relationships with Russia at the very time they were
47:45
Speaker 2: behaving the worst. It was the exact opposite of Reagan.
47:49
Speaker 2: Only a few years later, Reagan came in and declared
47:52
Speaker 2: Russia the evil Empire and said We're not having a
47:57
Speaker 2: thaw on the Cold War. We're gonna win the damn thing,
48:00
Speaker 2: and he did. Nixon developed a military initiative, a missile
48:06
Speaker 2: defense system dubbed star Wars that the Russians couldn't match.
48:11
Speaker 2: The Russians knew that they faced the potential of them
48:13
Speaker 2: not being able to nucas, but we could nuke them.
48:17
Speaker 2: They couldn't keep up in this and decided to back
48:20
Speaker 2: off the Cold War themselves. In the meantime, with their
48:22
Speaker 2: economy shrinking, Nixon put on tremendous pressure on them. Communism fell,
48:29
Speaker 2: the Eastern Block fell, All of Eastern Europe was liberated.
48:33
Speaker 2: Some of those countries in Eastern Europe are now the
48:35
Speaker 2: freest places in the world. The individual states of the
48:40
Speaker 2: USSR all of them allowed to break free, some far
48:42
Speaker 2: better off. Others hellholes now because of Reagan. Nixon was wrong.
48:49
Speaker 2: Reagan was right. The economy, I don't use the term
48:54
Speaker 2: more on all the time. I apply a tool lot
48:56
Speaker 2: of leftists. Nixon was a mora economically. The economy that
49:03
Speaker 2: Nixon inherited was very strong. In a weird way. The
49:06
Speaker 2: war helped the economy because you had all of the
49:09
Speaker 2: war machine and the means of production from the war,
49:11
Speaker 2: and we had very low unemployment because we were sending
49:14
Speaker 2: so many young people that have to fight the Vietnam War.
49:18
Speaker 2: But inflation took hold under Nixon and he imposed wage
49:22
Speaker 2: and price controls. Perhaps the most idiotic economic policy there
49:26
Speaker 2: is putting a cap on wages and prices. Simply, it's
49:30
Speaker 2: the same thing Mamdani's trying to do with housing in
49:32
Speaker 2: New York. It means everything goes to hell. If landlords
49:35
Speaker 2: can't raise their rent in New York, that means they're
49:37
Speaker 2: not going to fix the damn thing. They're not going
49:39
Speaker 2: to for the furnished apartments. There's no new furniture going
49:41
Speaker 2: to come in. They're not going to do anything because
49:44
Speaker 2: the revenue that they have coming in is going to
49:46
Speaker 2: stop growing. Likewise, when you put in place price controls
49:49
Speaker 2: in the United States, company simply stopped selling stuff because
49:51
Speaker 2: you're not going to sell something you can't make a
49:53
Speaker 2: profit of. You put in place caps on wages. The
49:59
Speaker 2: thing that the Left foot of hated. You kill any
50:02
Speaker 2: instead of an American worker to get ahead was a disaster.
50:06
Speaker 2: They were dropped years later. And then let's add and
50:09
Speaker 2: the fact that he was corrupt. I grant you, he
50:12
Speaker 2: probably was less corrupt than the Kennedys. He certainly was
50:16
Speaker 2: not as corrupt as Johnson. He never stole any elections.
50:20
Speaker 2: He merely tried to the great tragedy of Watergate was
50:24
Speaker 2: he was trying to rig an election that he went
50:25
Speaker 2: on to win by forty nine states. Anyway, the Democrats
50:27
Speaker 2: nominated half of marxistem in McGovern, which the country wasn't
50:31
Speaker 2: ready for. Then you didn't need to do any of
50:33
Speaker 2: those things. My only point is that Nixon was a
50:35
Speaker 2: terrible president. There was nothing conservative a bought him. And
50:37
Speaker 2: now let's get to the Supreme Court. Nixon's Supreme Court
50:44
Speaker 2: justices he put in that court. A couple turned out
50:46
Speaker 2: to be conservative. Warren Berger was somewhere in between. He
50:49
Speaker 2: put on several lefties. I mean, there were Nixon appointees
50:55
Speaker 2: on that court. When Roe versus Wade past. There was
50:59
Speaker 2: an expansion of big government throughout that Supreme Court, and
51:01
Speaker 2: many of Nixon's appointees were at best moderates and at
51:05
Speaker 2: worst as bad as anything the Clinton put on the court.
51:12
Speaker 2: Nixon was a terrible president, and he was terrible from
51:16
Speaker 2: a conservative perspective. The fact that he was run out
51:18
Speaker 2: of office. I'll tell you who was a great president,
51:22
Speaker 2: and that was Kennedy. Kennedy was a hawk on the
51:26
Speaker 2: Soviet Union. He tried to build up our defenses. No
51:31
Speaker 2: one knows if he would have escalated the Vietnam War,
51:35
Speaker 2: No doubt he started. He sent the first handful of
51:37
Speaker 2: troops and advisors over there, but he might have had
51:39
Speaker 2: the sense not to continue it. Kennedy started the Civil
51:42
Speaker 2: Rights Legislation, all of which it's a good idea. And
51:47
Speaker 2: Kennedy passed one of the largest tax cuts in American history. Kennedy,
51:52
Speaker 2: even it was inept, tried to stop the Castro government.
51:55
Speaker 2: The Bay of Pigs was a terrible operation. He was
52:00
Speaker 2: a better president, so the Conservatives to day one admires.
52:03
Speaker 2: One thing you could say about Nixt. You know, Kennedy
52:05
Speaker 2: was just a sewer, a sewer rat out there. He
52:07
Speaker 2: was screwing every woman incited like every other Kennedy known
52:11
Speaker 2: to man, including I think even RFK Junior. There's just
52:15
Speaker 2: something in the Kennedy bloodlines that makes them incapable of
52:20
Speaker 2: not philandering. Anyway. Nixon was a tremendous family man, two kids,
52:25
Speaker 2: very loyal to his wife pat and lived his personal
52:29
Speaker 2: life in a very moral and upstanding fashion. I'm just
52:31
Speaker 2: saying to the people that are trying to reinvent and
52:34
Speaker 2: re embrace Nixon, you're creating a myth here the actual Nixon.
52:44
Speaker 2: It's somebody who ought to remain consigned to the ash
52:47
Speaker 2: heep of bad president history. Interesting peace in the Wall
52:51
Speaker 2: Street Journal by Alicia Finley, who's taking out one of
52:54
Speaker 2: the mantras that that leftist candidates are running on this
52:57
Speaker 2: wall is Medicare for all. See you know the reason
53:01
Speaker 2: that they're on this Medicare for all is without saying
53:04
Speaker 2: that they're acknowledging that Obamacare has been a nightmare. Like
53:10
Speaker 2: everything else, we can saytives are always being proven, always
53:12
Speaker 2: proven correct. Health premiums under Obamacare and on the exchanges
53:17
Speaker 2: have exploded. The premiums for the people not in Obamacare
53:23
Speaker 2: have exploded because of the cost passing on that has
53:28
Speaker 2: to occur with individuals who are on healthcare because of
53:32
Speaker 2: the mandates under Obamacare. Obamacare was set up never to
53:37
Speaker 2: be able to fund itself. The government subsidies of Obamacare
53:41
Speaker 2: are massive, and the quality of healthcare into Obamacare is terrible.
53:46
Speaker 2: Plans change the doctors and their networks every year. People
53:49
Speaker 2: switch their doctors right and left, there's no quality of care.
53:53
Speaker 2: If you have a different doctor every year. To go
53:56
Speaker 2: to your new doctor has to research your history. There's
53:59
Speaker 2: not a sense of annuity. It's crap, and the left
54:04
Speaker 2: wont acknowledge this. But the fact that they're now pushing
54:06
Speaker 2: a totally different thing. Just take Medicare, which is healthcare
54:09
Speaker 2: for senior citizens and that's what the whole country will be,
54:12
Speaker 2: is an acknowledgment that Obamacare didn't work. Let me tell
54:18
Speaker 2: you something about Medicare. Sad to say, I'm on it,
54:22
Speaker 2: I am of that age. Medicare is great. It's better
54:28
Speaker 2: coverage than I ever had under private insurance, and it's
54:32
Speaker 2: actually administered fairly well, which is just amazing to me.
54:35
Speaker 2: It's about the only thing I can think of that
54:36
Speaker 2: the government does. The Medicare website actually explains things well,
54:45
Speaker 2: and I think most people that are on Medicare kind
54:48
Speaker 2: of like it, especially if you get a Medicare supplement
54:53
Speaker 2: or take Medicare advantage, which covers some of the things
54:56
Speaker 2: that Medicare doesn't cover. Here's the problem with Medicare that
55:00
Speaker 2: the leftists that are pushing Medicare for all don't tell
55:02
Speaker 2: you Medicare is not free. It's very expensive, and if
55:07
Speaker 2: you still have an income, such as I do, and
55:09
Speaker 2: your income is pretty good, your surcharges that you face
55:12
Speaker 2: for Medicare for the premium are extremely high. In addition
55:16
Speaker 2: to that, if you don't buy a supplement, and I
55:21
Speaker 2: have a supplement, it costs a pareawaut of money. Your
55:24
Speaker 2: out of pocket costs are massive. It takes forever to
55:29
Speaker 2: get to your annual cap, and your co payments are incredible.
55:34
Speaker 2: You also have to go out and buy a separate
55:36
Speaker 2: drug plan in order to cover your prescriptions. You can
55:41
Speaker 2: do Medicare advantage, which helps cover some of these costs,
55:44
Speaker 2: but then you face the same problem as Obamacare. Not
55:46
Speaker 2: all of your doctors are in market, it's harder to
55:49
Speaker 2: get the same coverage when you're out of state, and
55:51
Speaker 2: so on. It's not transportable. Medicare works for people who
55:57
Speaker 2: are likely to have health problems. Who's likely to have
56:01
Speaker 2: health problems older people. I should count the number of
56:06
Speaker 2: doctor appointments I've had the last several weeks. I had
56:09
Speaker 2: a cardiac ablation a few weeks ago. KAT even imagine
56:12
Speaker 2: I went Medicare covered it. I don't have to do anything.
56:18
Speaker 2: It makes sense and certainly, it also makes sense that
56:22
Speaker 2: you have to pay a chunk out of pocket for
56:24
Speaker 2: it or pay premiers because you're using the program. But
56:32
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that it works is there's a
56:34
Speaker 2: finite group of people that are in it, senior citizens.
56:41
Speaker 2: You will destroy Medicare if everybody is on it, because
56:48
Speaker 2: the program will now be overwhelmed with users. In addition
56:53
Speaker 2: to that, Medicare's numbers are kind of set up for
56:59
Speaker 2: dealing with than with a client base that is life
57:02
Speaker 2: going to be sick, than one that is not. To
57:06
Speaker 2: expand Medicare for all of you who truly did it
57:08
Speaker 2: to everyone would explode the healthcare costs of younger people
57:13
Speaker 2: who don't get sick as much, while watering down and
57:18
Speaker 2: destroying the entire program. We create Medicare, which has a
57:24
Speaker 2: government subsidy because we came to the recognition that older
57:30
Speaker 2: people should not sit around and die with no way
57:33
Speaker 2: to pay for their health care bills. So we've taxed
57:36
Speaker 2: people during our working lives. Medicare is tax is a
57:38
Speaker 2: payroll tax. Social Security and Medicare are a tax. Is
57:50
Speaker 2: a cap on Social Security. There's not a tax on Medicare,
57:53
Speaker 2: and that goes in and this funds this thing, and
57:56
Speaker 2: the tax is not paid primarily by older people, most
57:58
Speaker 2: of whom I'm not, but most of home are retired,
58:02
Speaker 2: because we made the collector decision to subsidize this program
58:05
Speaker 2: and still put a big Copey cost on the part
58:08
Speaker 2: of the seniors, because we don't think that our older
58:10
Speaker 2: people who've lived in this country forever and ever should
58:12
Speaker 2: have to fend for themselves. To expand this to everyone
58:18
Speaker 2: would mean that you would have to raise the Medicare
58:20
Speaker 2: tax to the extreme, hitting all sorts of young people
58:25
Speaker 2: who will then still have to pay the premiums for Medicare,
58:28
Speaker 2: which are very very high, and their taxes will go
58:31
Speaker 2: way way up for a population that as a group
58:34
Speaker 2: doesn't have to go to the doctor anywhere near as much,
58:37
Speaker 2: not does they have as many healthcare needs. And by
58:41
Speaker 2: putting everyone under government coverage, it will wreck the current
58:47
Speaker 2: level of Medicare and the current system that we have.
58:51
Speaker 2: Nobody who is on Medicare should support this because it
58:55
Speaker 2: will kill the Medicare that you have. And secondly, nobody
58:58
Speaker 2: who isn't on Medicare because the younger should want to
59:00
Speaker 2: go on it, because, as I say, in Medicare is
59:04
Speaker 2: very very costly, particularly to get full coverage, and particularly
59:10
Speaker 2: if you have any degree of income, because the surcharges
59:15
Speaker 2: that they put on place with regard to income are
59:21
Speaker 2: very high. And now this story. I stumbled upon this
59:26
Speaker 2: one in the Wall Street Journal for those of you
59:29
Speaker 2: who don't get around Milwaukee much. For the last several years,
59:33
Speaker 2: Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson has been embarking in this program
59:37
Speaker 2: of ripping up all of the downtown streets. And he's
59:39
Speaker 2: now moving into streets on the south side of the city,
59:44
Speaker 2: near north side of the city, and even a couple
59:47
Speaker 2: of suburbs Glendale shares a portion of Silver Spring with
59:50
Speaker 2: Milwaukee and into Glendale and so on, where the streets
59:54
Speaker 2: are being ripped up, and there are attempts to really
59:58
Speaker 2: slow down the traffic. And they do this by making
1:00:01
Speaker 2: the streets extremely convoluted, with concrete curbs in the middle
1:00:06
Speaker 2: of the road, big bumpers in the turns that require
1:00:09
Speaker 2: you to make big, wide turns, and every block that
1:00:12
Speaker 2: you go the lanes chained so you have to constantly
1:00:15
Speaker 2: change lanes and never more than one lane in each
1:00:18
Speaker 2: direction was sometimes a turning lane in place. In inition
1:00:22
Speaker 2: to that, they have the cars park in the middle
1:00:26
Speaker 2: of the street in what was a traffic lane, behind
1:00:29
Speaker 2: these plastic cones that are up, and then further to
1:00:32
Speaker 2: the curb there is a specific dedicated bike line bike lane.
1:00:36
Speaker 2: So you take up all of this area that was road,
1:00:39
Speaker 2: creates some level of parking behind these little plastic sticks
1:00:43
Speaker 2: that are up in the air, and then you have
1:00:45
Speaker 2: a dedicated bike lane. Now, obviously, if you're a biker,
1:00:49
Speaker 2: this is a great thing. You don't have to go
1:00:50
Speaker 2: on traffic. The people who drive the electric scooters, they're
1:00:53
Speaker 2: running around in that thing as well, which, by the way,
1:00:55
Speaker 2: the bicyclists hide because the bicycles often, unless you have
1:00:59
Speaker 2: an e bike, don't go as fast as the scooters.
1:01:01
Speaker 2: So that's what we're doing and it's total mess. But
1:01:05
Speaker 2: none of the lefties are belly aching about it, because
1:01:07
Speaker 2: that would mean that they would have belly ache about
1:01:09
Speaker 2: something that the leftist did to themselves. There is, however,
1:01:13
Speaker 2: a massive backlash to this where it's going on in
1:01:16
Speaker 2: another part of the country, and I think it's just amazing.
1:01:19
Speaker 2: This is where it's coming from the Wall Street Journal.
1:01:24
Speaker 2: There is a huge backlash in Chicago where they are
1:01:27
Speaker 2: doing the same thing they're doing it mostly on main
1:01:31
Speaker 2: drags in neighborhoods. In other words, the main drags that
1:01:35
Speaker 2: aren't downtown, but the main drags that are in the
1:01:39
Speaker 2: pockets of the city limits outside of downtown. This particular
1:01:43
Speaker 2: story deals with you're from sort of around there. Do
1:01:45
Speaker 2: you know where Archer Avenue is, Jason? Do you know
1:01:49
Speaker 2: where Archer Avenue is? Chicago? He does. Well, they're putting
1:01:53
Speaker 2: it in there because the streets in Chicago aren't that wide.
1:01:57
Speaker 2: But putting in the dedicated bike lanes, they're simple taking
1:02:00
Speaker 2: away the parking, and in Milwaukee the street parking. Even
1:02:03
Speaker 2: with these cones up, they're usually only a few parking
1:02:06
Speaker 2: places per street because they've had to switch out portions
1:02:09
Speaker 2: of the lane for the turns that have occurred by
1:02:10
Speaker 2: taking away so much of the street by the dedicated
1:02:13
Speaker 2: bike lane headline. In Chicago, a bike lane battle spills
1:02:18
Speaker 2: into the streets. There is anger from businesses in Chicago
1:02:23
Speaker 2: that have lost all of the street parking for their clientele,
1:02:28
Speaker 2: which of course has also happened in Milwaukee. If you've
1:02:31
Speaker 2: got a place in downtown Milwaukee, if you want to
1:02:34
Speaker 2: park in front of the place, you better hope you
1:02:35
Speaker 2: get one of the few places that are there because
1:02:37
Speaker 2: many of the places are gone because the bike lanes
1:02:39
Speaker 2: have taken away the ability to have parking. My guess
1:02:45
Speaker 2: is in twenty years all this stuff of Milwaukee would
1:02:47
Speaker 2: be ripped out, just as I predicted, the adventure of
1:02:49
Speaker 2: the trolley will be ripped out. But the opposition now
1:02:51
Speaker 2: has started. I mean, Milwaukee was one of the first
1:02:54
Speaker 2: cities to do this. This was our wingnut idioty idiocy
1:02:57
Speaker 2: that we were sort of a forerunner on. It was
1:03:00
Speaker 2: some of this money that came out during COVID Milwaukee.
1:03:03
Speaker 2: Milwaukee used someone to start ripping up all of these streets,
1:03:05
Speaker 2: and other cities have now copied. You may wonder why
1:03:08
Speaker 2: they do it. Doing this makes a lot of people happy.
1:03:13
Speaker 2: Road the road construction companies make a fortune a ripping
1:03:17
Speaker 2: all of these streets to the ground and then resurfacing them,
1:03:20
Speaker 2: laying the new basein, and then putting in all the
1:03:22
Speaker 2: curbs in the bike lanes. These are massive contracts to
1:03:25
Speaker 2: be able to do so. The big losers, of course,
1:03:28
Speaker 2: are the businesses that have lost their parking or whose
1:03:31
Speaker 2: streets are so impossible to drive on that people choose
1:03:34
Speaker 2: to drive on different streets than the ones that have
1:03:37
Speaker 2: been wrecked by the city. So in Chicago, where they
1:03:41
Speaker 2: have apparently decided to accept rampant crime, one Marxist mayor
1:03:46
Speaker 2: after another total dysfunction, public schools that are just as
1:03:50
Speaker 2: bad as Milwaukee, they have at least seen the light
1:03:54
Speaker 2: on one thing they're against, the dedicated bike lanes. You're
1:03:58
Speaker 2: listening to the Mark Belling podcast. This is the Mark
1:04:04
Speaker 2: Belling Podcast. Time for the first of the year to
1:04:08
Speaker 2: do something what it is? Time for my first Packers preview.
1:04:15
Speaker 2: We're approaching the first preseason game of the year, training
1:04:17
Speaker 2: campus underway. I am here to share with you my
1:04:22
Speaker 2: insights early as it is on the Packers and the
1:04:29
Speaker 2: outlook for the coming season. We'll have a more in
1:04:32
Speaker 2: depth one as we approach the beginning of the season
1:04:34
Speaker 2: and we go to our weekly football preview and analysis,
1:04:38
Speaker 2: which we will be doing again this year. That won't
1:04:40
Speaker 2: be starting until the beginning of the college football season,
1:04:43
Speaker 2: which is still several weeks away. My first thought on
1:04:45
Speaker 2: the Packers is I don't think they did much of
1:04:48
Speaker 2: anything in the off season to improve themselves, and everybody's
1:04:52
Speaker 2: analysis is the same thing. There was no transformative free
1:04:58
Speaker 2: agent signing. We don't know how the draft is going
1:05:02
Speaker 2: to turn out. There wasn't a significant trade. The Packers
1:05:08
Speaker 2: team doesn't seem to be much different than the one
1:05:10
Speaker 2: last year, So to say that the Packers' outlook looks
1:05:20
Speaker 2: brighter than it did last year would be based on
1:05:24
Speaker 2: really nothing, because there's nothing I think that the Packers
1:05:29
Speaker 2: have done that you can say off the bat is
1:05:33
Speaker 2: an obvious immediate improvement. However, every football team exists within
1:05:43
Speaker 2: a division, and as we've seen over the years, some
1:05:46
Speaker 2: divisions think meaning you don't have to be very good
1:05:48
Speaker 2: to win the division. And if you win your division
1:05:51
Speaker 2: and get into the playoffs, so for that matter, even
1:05:52
Speaker 2: get into the playoffs, you have a chance to win
1:05:54
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. Let's size up the other three teams
1:05:58
Speaker 2: in the Packers Division, and the NFC North has been
1:06:02
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years, I think the best
1:06:04
Speaker 2: division in football. The NFC West has been pretty good
1:06:07
Speaker 2: as well. Jason won't like this, but I have a
1:06:11
Speaker 2: prediction that the Bears are going to be worse this
1:06:14
Speaker 2: year than they were last year. And that's simply based
1:06:18
Speaker 2: on the fact that the Bears won so many close games.
1:06:21
Speaker 2: At the end of the game last year they had
1:06:22
Speaker 2: so many breaks, they had such a positive turnover margin.
1:06:26
Speaker 2: Those things tend to even out. Also, it's just a
1:06:30
Speaker 2: natural thing in sports. The teams that are hungry after
1:06:34
Speaker 2: they find a degree of success seem to be less hungry.
1:06:38
Speaker 2: If the Bears can tend for a Super Bowl, I
1:06:40
Speaker 2: think it is likely to be next year than this year.
1:06:43
Speaker 2: They made their major step forward last year. I think
1:06:47
Speaker 2: given the fact that they haven't changed their team all
1:06:53
Speaker 2: that much either, they're likely to step back. I do
1:06:57
Speaker 2: think that the team that will significantly improve is Detroit.
1:07:01
Speaker 2: Detroit is exactly like the Bears, only earlier. The Bears. Rather,
1:07:06
Speaker 2: Detroit's major step forward was the two years prior to
1:07:09
Speaker 2: last year. In particular, two seasons ago twenty four. The
1:07:14
Speaker 2: Lions stepped back last year with a lot of injuries.
1:07:16
Speaker 2: There was the Green Bay held its own. There was
1:07:19
Speaker 2: the emergence of the Bears. The Lions had lost both
1:07:22
Speaker 2: of their coordinators in offense and defense, They had ended
1:07:26
Speaker 2: the twenty four season terrible playoff loss, and they seem
1:07:30
Speaker 2: to have lost their will men him. I think that
1:07:33
Speaker 2: this is the year that Detroit comes back the Vikings
1:07:38
Speaker 2: on its face, I think the Vikings will be improved
1:07:40
Speaker 2: because the Vikings had a terrible quarterback last year at
1:07:43
Speaker 2: JJ McCarthy. They've gone and they signed Arizona. They picked
1:07:46
Speaker 2: up Arizona's quarterback, Kyler Murray. There's a battle in training camp,
1:07:50
Speaker 2: and some people think McCarthy will win that job. If
1:07:53
Speaker 2: McCarthy wins that job, that means that Kyler Murray has
1:07:56
Speaker 2: washed up. Because JJ McCarthy he's never going to be
1:07:59
Speaker 2: anything more than a backup. He never should have been
1:08:01
Speaker 2: picked early in the first round such as the Vikings did.
1:08:04
Speaker 2: I thought he was the weakness on the team last year.
1:08:06
Speaker 2: He's not that good and in NFL, team that doesn't
1:08:10
Speaker 2: have a good quarterback is not going to be good. Now.
1:08:12
Speaker 2: If Murray's their quarterback, who's got strengths and weaknesses to
1:08:15
Speaker 2: his game, he's kind of I think a poor man's
1:08:17
Speaker 2: Caleb Williams, the Bear quarterback, very very mobile, but he's
1:08:20
Speaker 2: been so mobile over the years that he's now got
1:08:22
Speaker 2: a lot of miles on him and he's taken on
1:08:24
Speaker 2: a lot of injuries. That's the problem with a mobile quarterback.
1:08:27
Speaker 2: You can get hurt. I don't think he's as good
1:08:30
Speaker 2: as he was when he was in Arizona, but I
1:08:32
Speaker 2: do think he's better than McCarthy, meaning I think that
1:08:34
Speaker 2: the Vikings could be a little bit better. So in
1:08:36
Speaker 2: that context, I think the Packers have one team in
1:08:40
Speaker 2: the division, the Bears, that are not going to be
1:08:41
Speaker 2: a super team. I think the Bears are over five hundred,
1:08:44
Speaker 2: but I think the Bears are likely to be something
1:08:46
Speaker 2: like nine and eight than something silly like fourteen to three.
1:08:51
Speaker 2: With regard to the Packers, the Packers had a spectacular
1:08:55
Speaker 2: defensive coordinator in Jeff Hafley. Their defense over the last
1:08:59
Speaker 2: couple of years is just outstanding. He's gone, and every
1:09:04
Speaker 2: time you change coordinators, things change and the new guy
1:09:08
Speaker 2: that's coming yet is not going to run anywhere near
1:09:10
Speaker 2: the same scheme, whether it be college football or pro football.
1:09:14
Speaker 2: I think actually it's easier to change schemes now in
1:09:16
Speaker 2: college football because college teams can turn over their roster
1:09:20
Speaker 2: every year. Now with nil and transfers in the NFL,
1:09:23
Speaker 2: your rosters pretty much during you know most of the
1:09:26
Speaker 2: guys who started the year before are going to start
1:09:27
Speaker 2: the following year. The Packers, however, did get in Jonathan Gannon,
1:09:33
Speaker 2: a very high level defensive coordinator. He won a super
1:09:35
Speaker 2: Bowl with the Eagles. He's got head coaching experience. It's
1:09:39
Speaker 2: not like Gannon, I think is less qualified than Halflee.
1:09:42
Speaker 2: But anytime there's a change, best case scenario, Gannon's defense
1:09:45
Speaker 2: will be as good as half Lee. I don't think
1:09:47
Speaker 2: there's any way it's going to be better. On the offense.
1:09:54
Speaker 2: The key to me is always the offensive line keeping
1:09:56
Speaker 2: Jordan Love healthy. The Packers now at least finally have
1:09:59
Speaker 2: a competent backup quarterback. He's about as old as Zion,
1:10:03
Speaker 2: but they do have a backup quarterback who has NFL
1:10:05
Speaker 2: playing experience. I think that's that's a plus. The Malik
1:10:10
Speaker 2: Willis saying he was an outstanding backup quarterback but they
1:10:13
Speaker 2: kind of lucked into him and that he was in experience.
1:10:15
Speaker 2: They have now a veteran backup quarterback that you can
1:10:18
Speaker 2: plug in with confidence. However, let's be honest, Willis was
1:10:22
Speaker 2: a brilliant backup quarterback. The running game. The Josh Jacobs
1:10:29
Speaker 2: thing is still twisting in the ear. And by the way,
1:10:31
Speaker 2: it is time for Brown County's district attorney to decide
1:10:34
Speaker 2: if he's going to be charged or not. This is
1:10:36
Speaker 2: a case of domestic violence. You either have a case
1:10:39
Speaker 2: or you don't, And it sounds to me like the
1:10:42
Speaker 2: witness is not cooperating the woman who is the alleged victim,
1:10:45
Speaker 2: because if she was, he would have been charged by now.
1:10:48
Speaker 2: If she isn't cooperating, which often you know the woman
1:10:51
Speaker 2: doesn't want the guy to go to prison, or some
1:10:53
Speaker 2: sort of settlement financial has been agreed to. They need
1:10:56
Speaker 2: to either charge Jacobs or in this But in the
1:10:58
Speaker 2: meantime he's sitting around facing a potential NFL suspension. He
1:11:02
Speaker 2: has said he hasn't he didn't do it, and right
1:11:05
Speaker 2: now he has not been charged with anything. But there
1:11:09
Speaker 2: is a question of limbo. With regard to the Packers
1:11:11
Speaker 2: and the running back situation. The receivers are very good
1:11:17
Speaker 2: last year. There's no reason to think that they're not
1:11:19
Speaker 2: going to be better this year. One or two guys
1:11:21
Speaker 2: have left the team. Matthew Golden's going to be a
1:11:24
Speaker 2: little bit better. I see the Packers as being talent wise,
1:11:28
Speaker 2: very very similar to what they were last year, and
1:11:32
Speaker 2: I think they will contend to win the NFC North.
1:11:36
Speaker 2: I can't say that that the favor to win it
1:11:38
Speaker 2: if I had to predict right now, And these preseason
1:11:41
Speaker 2: predictions are so silly. It makes much more sense to
1:11:43
Speaker 2: predict after there's been four weeks in the regular season
1:11:45
Speaker 2: where you can see something. But I would say that
1:11:48
Speaker 2: the likeliest team to win the division would be Detroit,
1:11:50
Speaker 2: who I think bounce back from a disappointing year last year.
1:11:59
Speaker 2: You agree or just with all of this, you're gonna
1:12:01
Speaker 2: want to just comment on my thing on the Bears,
1:12:02
Speaker 2: But you've got to admit that the Bears said everything
1:12:05
Speaker 2: go right for them last year, and usually usually a
1:12:08
Speaker 2: team doesn't have everything go right two years in a row.
1:12:12
Speaker 2: The left tackles out for the year, and the left
1:12:14
Speaker 2: tackle is the second most important position on an offense,
1:12:16
Speaker 2: I think, and the Packers saw that during the period
1:12:19
Speaker 2: of time after they lost back to YERI it just
1:12:21
Speaker 2: team wasn't as good. The left tackle is the guy
1:12:23
Speaker 2: who is He's a good portion in your passing offense
1:12:27
Speaker 2: given that he's one of the protectors for the quarterback.
1:12:30
Speaker 2: I just think that the Bears are like I didn't
1:12:32
Speaker 2: think it would be bad. I think they're going to be.
1:12:35
Speaker 2: As I said, if I had a guest nine and
1:12:37
Speaker 2: eight or ten and seven, Jason said, everybody's on Decroit,
1:12:44
Speaker 2: including me. Well, if I didn't even know everybody's on Detroit.
1:12:47
Speaker 2: I'm not listening to these people. If they're all saying
1:12:49
Speaker 2: the same thing as me, then I'm never comfortable with that.
1:12:51
Speaker 2: Because when everybody says something in sports, have they ever
1:12:54
Speaker 2: been right? Ever? Never. It's like the sock market, They've
1:12:58
Speaker 2: never been right. When everybody said to buy all the
1:13:00
Speaker 2: AI socks, that was right at the time. You knew
1:13:03
Speaker 2: that there to be a correction. The time to look
1:13:06
Speaker 2: at the AI socks is going to be after this plateauing,
1:13:08
Speaker 2: after this bottom yard occurs, which may may have already happened.
1:13:13
Speaker 2: I do have one other football comment. I do believe
1:13:18
Speaker 2: I don't know if I want to say the biggest bust,
1:13:21
Speaker 2: but the biggest disappointment in the NFL this year is
1:13:24
Speaker 2: going to be Malik Willis and the Dolphins. I don't
1:13:28
Speaker 2: think he's going to succeed there. Malik Willis, I mean,
1:13:34
Speaker 2: was a backup to the point of being cut in Tennessee,
1:13:37
Speaker 2: a terrible team, and you could say, well, he was
1:13:40
Speaker 2: on a terrible team, but he's now going to a
1:13:43
Speaker 2: terrible team. Everybody knows the drill on the Dolphins. The
1:13:47
Speaker 2: Dolphins were in denial for several years. They had Hairdoo
1:13:51
Speaker 2: as their coach, and in his first year they had
1:13:53
Speaker 2: a pretty good year, and the owner, Stephen Ross, thought
1:13:56
Speaker 2: that he somehow had something, and they were doubling down
1:13:59
Speaker 2: and overplaying players that were over the hill. They suffered
1:14:02
Speaker 2: a number of bad injuries, including Tyreek Hill, and they
1:14:05
Speaker 2: finally gutted the team and they trying to rebuild. Jeff Halfley,
1:14:08
Speaker 2: the Packers' defensive coordinator, is there. The good thing for
1:14:11
Speaker 2: him is everybody knows they're gonna stink, So I don't
1:14:14
Speaker 2: think he's somebody that's going to be fired late in
1:14:16
Speaker 2: the season if, for example, they start three to nine
1:14:19
Speaker 2: or three and ten. But Willis is going to be
1:14:21
Speaker 2: going to I think a terrible team. He's now expected
1:14:24
Speaker 2: to be the leader on the team with far less
1:14:26
Speaker 2: talllent on the offensive line, running back at wide receiver position.
1:14:29
Speaker 2: Then he faced here and he's not proven that he
1:14:31
Speaker 2: can be a starter in the NFL. But I just
1:14:34
Speaker 2: think that the backdrop on the team is that there's
1:14:36
Speaker 2: any team that's clearly in a rebuilding mode. I mean,
1:14:41
Speaker 2: Tennessee's always seeming to be in a rebuilding mode, but
1:14:43
Speaker 2: Cleveland's always in a rebuilding mode. I think that this
1:14:46
Speaker 2: is that for Miami. You know, Willis went there because
1:14:51
Speaker 2: he probably had the best offer and a guarantee that
1:14:53
Speaker 2: he was going to be able to get the starting position.
1:14:55
Speaker 2: But he's moving to a situation that I think is
1:14:59
Speaker 2: very bad. All Right, we're getting to be that time
1:15:01
Speaker 2: of the year. State Fair is underway and football season.
1:15:05
Speaker 2: When is the Hall of Fame game? Is that this
1:15:07
Speaker 2: weekend or next? Yeah? Yeah, the night we're doing the
1:15:11
Speaker 2: podcast today. So the Packers played their first game next weekend?
1:15:15
Speaker 2: Is Zach Reckman? Yeah, so it's uh, it's already here.
1:15:20
Speaker 2: All right. That's it for today's podcast. Talk to you soon.
1:15:29
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