Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #177:  The divergence in the treatment of Kimberly Guilfoyle and Ilhan Omar—--conservatives support accountability for their scoundrels while leftists continue to back their scandalous heroes.  Another media blackout: news organizations refuse to cover bombshell report that David Crowley funneled $65 million to an organization his wife works for.   And, the Brewers may be up 2-0 but there are red flags.

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #177:  The divergence in the treatment of Kimberly Guilfoyle and Ilhan Omar—--conservatives support accountability for their scoundrels while leftists continue to back their scandalous heroes.  Another media blackout: news organizations refuse to cover bombshell report that David Crowley funneled $65 million to an organization his wife works for.   And, the Brewers may be up 2-0 but there are red flags. · The Mark Belling Podcast

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  Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by Uline. For quality
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  Speaker 2: Today's podcast, we have a story of two divas. This
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  Speaker 2: is a tale of two divas, a diva on the
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  Speaker 2: right and a diva on the left. and how the
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  Speaker 2: scandals surrounding those divas are regarded very differently by people
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  Speaker 2: on the right as opposed to people on the left.
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  Speaker 2: We are going to talk about the total difference in
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  Speaker 2: the treatment of Kimberly Guilfoyle and Ilhan Omar. Have you
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  Speaker 2: ever been offered an add-on option for premium or white
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  Speaker 2: glove service? Uline provides only one type of service, the best.
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  Speaker 2: From knowledgeable customer service available 24-7, 365, to keeping every
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  Speaker 2: because Uline believes service is essential, not an option. I
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  Speaker 2: think it's fair to say that Kimberly Guilfoyle has been
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  Speaker 2: something of a mega hero. Certainly one of the highest
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  Speaker 2: profile members of the Trump administration because she worked for
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  Speaker 2: Fox News for, I don't know, forever, really. She was
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  Speaker 2: one of the hosts of The Five, which is a
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  Speaker 2: popular program they run twice a day, four o'clock in
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  Speaker 2: the afternoon, I think, our time. They might have moved it,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. And she was on that show for
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  Speaker 2: the longest time and very attractive, great on TV, built
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  Speaker 2: a significant following. She also had A remarkably interesting background
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  Speaker 2: in that her ex-husband is Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.
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  Speaker 2: They're long since divorced. She'd been working on Fox for
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  Speaker 2: some time. During the time that she was at Fox,
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  Speaker 2: she began dating Donald Trump Jr. It became a long-term
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  Speaker 2: relationship and they were engaged. They were, in fact, engaged
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  Speaker 2: during the time that Trump was running for president in
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  Speaker 2: the 2024 campaign. I've got Dave Michaels producing for me today.
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  Speaker 2: Did you stay up and watch the night that Trump
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  Speaker 2: won when they all came out of the stage and
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  Speaker 2: he gave the victory speech and all of that? In 24.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, were you watching? Did you see the monitor
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  Speaker 2: and so on? Anyway, the body language of Kimberly when
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  Speaker 2: she and Don Jr. walked out, she had the sourest
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  Speaker 2: look on her face. It's since been reported that Don Jr.
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  Speaker 2: 's daughter, Kai, just can't stand Kimberly Guilfoyle and There
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  Speaker 2: was some suggestion that there was kind of a halfway
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  Speaker 2: breakup that went on that night, election night, because Don Jr.
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  Speaker 2: is all excited. His dad's been reelected and Kimberly is
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  Speaker 2: just out there glaring. And indeed, they announced several weeks
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  Speaker 2: later that indeed the marriage was off and that they
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  Speaker 2: were no longer together and a couple. And Don Jr.
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  Speaker 2: has since married somebody else. With Kimberly no longer marrying
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  Speaker 2: Don Jr., she was named ambassador to Greece by President Trump.
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  Speaker 2: There was a lot of griping about this from the left,
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  Speaker 2: but the fact of the matter is that ambassadorships often
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  Speaker 2: go to very, very prominent people who aren't part of
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  Speaker 2: the diplomatic corps. And then they have the entire staff
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  Speaker 2: of the embassy who are the lifers who work within
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  Speaker 2: the State Department and so on. In addition to that,
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  Speaker 2: she's clearly a very qualified person. Smart as a whip.
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  Speaker 2: Prominent lawyer. She was a major prosecutor out in California. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And she showed by, I mean, it had to be
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  Speaker 2: at least 10 years that she was on Fox, that
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  Speaker 2: she's able to handle the give and take of the
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  Speaker 2: issues and so on. So that's her consolation prize. She
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  Speaker 2: doesn't get to marry into the first family of the
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  Speaker 2: United States, but she gets to be an ambassador. And
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  Speaker 2: if you're going to pick a country to be ambassador to,
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  Speaker 2: I'd say Greece is high on the list. Dave, if
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  Speaker 2: you were ever offered an opportunity to be an ambassador,
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  Speaker 2: what country would you choose? Not Luxembourg. Luxembourg is where
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  Speaker 2: we send Tom Barrett. To this day, we don't know
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  Speaker 2: if he's been recalled and he's come back. Is he
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  Speaker 2: still over there or I'm thinking, though, has Trump named
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  Speaker 2: a replacement for Luxembourg? It's probably at the bottom of
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  Speaker 2: his list, right? I mean, I'm thinking Israel and Canada
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  Speaker 2: and Brazil, they're all going to get there before. Trump
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  Speaker 2: might not even know that Luxembourg's a country. In determining
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  Speaker 2: which country you want to be an ambassador to, you
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  Speaker 2: have to decide, first of all, Do you want a really,
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  Speaker 2: really important one where you're at the center of things?
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  Speaker 2: Or do you want to just be a bum and
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  Speaker 2: sit on your butt and not have to do anything,
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  Speaker 2: in which case you would choose, like, French Polynesia, which
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  Speaker 2: is Tahiti or something like that? So if you could
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  Speaker 2: pick a country to be ambassador of, which one would
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  Speaker 2: you take? Aruba. So you're looking at the lazy. Is
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  Speaker 2: Aruba its own country or is it still part– It's like,
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  Speaker 2: I think it's still connected. It was the Dutch Antilles
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  Speaker 2: at one point, I think. Is it still connected to Holland?
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  Speaker 2: But is it its own sovereign nation? Is it like
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  Speaker 2: Canada is with Britain? We just talked about that this week.
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  Speaker 2: So you've said Aruba. All right. I would still probably
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  Speaker 2: want to have some. I think I'd be looking for
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  Speaker 2: the cross between It's relevant in a lot of stuff
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  Speaker 2: going on, but also someplace where the weather is great,
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  Speaker 2: the food is good, and you really want to live.
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  Speaker 2: I think Greece is right near the top of the list.
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  Speaker 2: It's sort of a hotspot because it's on the eastern
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  Speaker 2: edge of Europe. It's approaching the Middle East. The economy
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  Speaker 2: there is kind of a mess, but the food is great.
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  Speaker 2: It's just beautiful over there. So I'm thinking she did
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  Speaker 2: pretty good. I'm clearly going on and on and digressing
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  Speaker 2: about that. But the point is that President Trump took
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  Speaker 2: care of her with a significant job. This is all
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  Speaker 2: blown up. There are first reports, and you don't know
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  Speaker 2: where these things can't come from, but my guess is
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  Speaker 2: that they were leaked by embassy staff. The lifers who
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  Speaker 2: work in the embassy, they never liked the ambassador, and
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  Speaker 2: they probably didn't like Kimberly, and she probably was a diva.
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  Speaker 2: She just has the look of being a diva. And
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  Speaker 2: those reports indicated that She had a guy that was
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  Speaker 2: traveling with her all the time who's much younger than her. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: it's probably a boyfriend, but he had some sort of
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  Speaker 2: relationship that you could have connected to the embassy, and
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  Speaker 2: there was a bad look to it. And then, a
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  Speaker 2: couple of days ago, the Wall Street Journal did a
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  Speaker 2: major hit piece in which they reported on some actions
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  Speaker 2: that Kimberly had in the period between the election and
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  Speaker 2: and taking over as ambassador to Greece, in which she
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  Speaker 2: reached out to a prominent Trump donor from Kentucky and
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  Speaker 2: essentially asked him for a lot of money. She asked
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  Speaker 2: him for $ 100, 000 to pay off a credit card bill,
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  Speaker 2: and she said she would be able to get him
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  Speaker 2: access to the administration. In and of itself, that's not illegal.
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  Speaker 2: She's not yet a government employee because she wasn't the
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  Speaker 2: ambassador yet. And Taking money to get access, that's essentially
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  Speaker 2: what lobbyists do. It may be a seedy game, but
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  Speaker 2: one of the reasons that you pay these government relations
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  Speaker 2: specialists is because they're able to get you access to
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  Speaker 2: a governor or a senator or a president or whomever. But...
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  Speaker 2: She's now been named an ambassador, so she's on the
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  Speaker 2: way into the government, and she's asking for $ 100, 000 from
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  Speaker 2: a guy, and the texts that went back and forth,
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  Speaker 2: which were all leaked, and the guy was cooperating with
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  Speaker 2: the story, used terms like honey and sweetie and so on.
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  Speaker 2: It sure seems to me that she has money issues.
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  Speaker 2: She's probably somebody that spent a lot of money, and
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  Speaker 2: she was living beyond her means when she worked at Fox,
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  Speaker 2: where she probably made a lot of money. Then she
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  Speaker 2: left Fox and was working for a MAGA group and
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  Speaker 2: was probably overspending her income. Then she's with Don Jr.
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  Speaker 2: And she can spend whatever she wants because the Trumps
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  Speaker 2: are loaded. But now she's out of the Trump orbit.
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  Speaker 2: And the spending that she had didn't match the income
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  Speaker 2: that she now was going to have. And the income
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  Speaker 2: that she's going to have as ambassador to Greece is
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  Speaker 2: certainly going to be reduced. So she needs money. So
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  Speaker 2: she's hustling around and looking for ways to make money,
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  Speaker 2: and that intersected with her duties as ambassador. No good.
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  Speaker 2: I think Trump felt a sense of loyalty to Kimberly,
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  Speaker 2: who was a strong supporter of him in term number one,
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  Speaker 2: was close to members of his family, for heaven's sakes,
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  Speaker 2: she was the fiance to Don Jr. for some time,
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  Speaker 2: and was always a prominent supporter and She never turned
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  Speaker 2: a bad public look when the relationship with Don Jr.
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  Speaker 2: broke up, so Trump had a sense of loyalty to her,
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  Speaker 2: but then the stories came out of the Wall Street
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  Speaker 2: Journal that are just bad. It's unclear if there's anything
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  Speaker 2: criminal here, but it's certainly a bad look. And within
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  Speaker 2: 48 hours, Trump got a resignation. She's done. And she
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  Speaker 2: leaves in a cloud of scandal and These boyfriends that
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  Speaker 2: she's hanging around with who seem to be hanging around
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  Speaker 2: with her because she's a big shot and has access
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  Speaker 2: to the high levels of the government, that's all gone.
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  Speaker 2: So Kimberly said, is a mess, but it was her
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  Speaker 2: own doing. Let's contrast this now with Ilhan Omar, a
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  Speaker 2: different kind of diva, but certainly a diva. There hasn't
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  Speaker 2: been a cloud of suspicion hanging around Ilhan Omar. That's
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  Speaker 2: way too mild of a way to put it. There's
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  Speaker 2: a stench of scandal that comes off of her. And
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  Speaker 2: it's been going on for some time. Let's just start
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  Speaker 2: with the fact that she becomes part of this huge
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  Speaker 2: Somali community that all moves to the Minneapolis area. And
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  Speaker 2: after they get there, they use their connections to gain
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  Speaker 2: great power in Minnesota politics and land all sorts of
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  Speaker 2: government contracts. We have since found out that they not
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  Speaker 2: got the government contracts with pure fraud and were not
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  Speaker 2: providing any services. Attempts to look into this by people
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  Speaker 2: within the social services network in Minnesota, were spiked by
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  Speaker 2: the governor, Tim Walz, who was developing this strong relationship
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  Speaker 2: with the Somali community because Somalians who came into the
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  Speaker 2: United States linked up with the Democrats. And Omar was
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  Speaker 2: one of them. So there's that. But for several years,
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  Speaker 2: there have been questions about her marriage to a guy
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  Speaker 2: that certainly seems to be her brother. She married her brother.
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  Speaker 2: I don't actually know what was worse, if she's marrying
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  Speaker 2: her brother because it's some sort of insane, incestual thing,
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  Speaker 2: or is she marrying her brother to break the laws
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  Speaker 2: of the United States and get him into this country
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  Speaker 2: under citizenship? But the second one seems to be the motivation.
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  Speaker 2: And remember this backdrop. Somalians were coming into this country
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  Speaker 2: in massive numbers, and they were using every angle they
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  Speaker 2: could get, some to the front door via visas and
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  Speaker 2: then applying for citizenship, others seeking refugee status. And the
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  Speaker 2: people that were here were doing a very, very good
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  Speaker 2: job getting them to come in right and left. So
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  Speaker 2: here's Omar. She's already in. She wants to get her
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  Speaker 2: brother in. There's a marriage that takes place, and it
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  Speaker 2: appears as though that marriage is what he used to
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  Speaker 2: gain his citizenship. if it was a sham marriage for citizenship,
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  Speaker 2: that's a crime. If the marriage occurred outside the United
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  Speaker 2: States and Somalia, it's probably not a crime in the
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  Speaker 2: United States because that marriage might not be recognized in
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  Speaker 2: the United States anyway. But if it was a backdoor
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  Speaker 2: attempt to exploit a loophole to get the guy into
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  Speaker 2: the country, that's probably criminal behavior. So over the weekend...
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  Speaker 2: Omar's residence in Washington was raided and there's a federal investigation.
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  Speaker 2: The Democrats now rather than taking the approach toward Omar
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  Speaker 2: that I think most Republicans have taken toward Kimberly Guilfoyle.
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  Speaker 2: And let me go back to the Guilfoyle story in
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  Speaker 2: a moment. She not only lost everything and Trump cut
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  Speaker 2: her off and she lost her gig as ambassador. I
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  Speaker 2: don't think that there's anybody in the Republican or MAGA
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  Speaker 2: movement who thinks she got a raw deal. I think
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  Speaker 2: Trump did the right thing when he cut her loose.
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  Speaker 2: I think that this was a simply bad look at it.
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  Speaker 2: It looked as though she was using her ambassador position
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  Speaker 2: for personal gain, which you don't want. But you don't
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  Speaker 2: see on the right anybody rallying up and saying that
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  Speaker 2: Kimberly was getting a raw deal or terrible stuff. But
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  Speaker 2: look at the reaction of the Democrats. So now the
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  Speaker 2: investigation launches to the point where there's a search warrant
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  Speaker 2: executed at Omar's home. The Democrats are all screaming that
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  Speaker 2: this is Trump playing politics in an election year. Why
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  Speaker 2: is that their reaction? Why don't they react the same
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  Speaker 2: way that people on the right reacted to the scandal
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  Speaker 2: involving Kimberly Guilfoyle? Furthermore, the search warrant that was signed
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  Speaker 2: was signed by a D.C. federal judge who was a
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  Speaker 2: Democratic appointee and The investigation into the citizenship questions surrounding
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  Speaker 2: the Omar family began during the Biden administration. So there's
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  Speaker 2: nothing to suggest that this is a political witch hunt.
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  Speaker 2: To get a search warrant signed off on by a judge,
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  Speaker 2: some judges, I will grant you, willy-nilly sign their name
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  Speaker 2: once the cop just raises his hand. Others are sticklers.
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  Speaker 2: At the federal level, they're known to be sticklers. It
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  Speaker 2: may be pretty easy to get a search warrant signed
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  Speaker 2: by a local judge in some county in Wisconsin or whatever,
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  Speaker 2: but it's not that easy to get a federal judge
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  Speaker 2: to sign a search warrant. In this case, it was
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: a Democratic-appointed federal judge. Now, the part that they seem
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  Speaker 2: to be looking at right now may be in addition
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  Speaker 2: to the situation around her brother. is whether Omar herself
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  Speaker 2: lied to get into this country and lied to establish citizenship.
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  Speaker 2: In this instance, the year of her birth is critical.
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  Speaker 2: There's a report now in the New York Post that
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  Speaker 2: Omar's staff, after she became a member of Congress, changed
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  Speaker 2: the date of her birth from 1981 to 1982. Why
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: is this key? When Omar entered the United States with
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: her father, she said she was 17 years old. That's
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: a key that means she's a minor. If you are
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: a minor child of someone from another country who comes
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: into the United States, you have the right to enter
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  Speaker 2: the United States simply because your parent is here. But
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: once you become an adult, you can't do that. Let's
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: just imagine, just come up with a fake name because
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to make the example work with me.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Let's just suppose somebody comes over here from Spain, a
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: 50-year-old guy comes over here from Spain. He's got a
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  Speaker 2: work visa or whatever. He can't bring in his 30-year-old
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: children and claim that they can just come in. So
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: that key on her age is critical. Her staff changed
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: her age on her official biography and documentation after she
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: was in office and changed it from 1981 to 1982, perhaps,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: and I would presume, to link up this story. But
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: if indeed she was not the age that she said
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: she was when she came into the United States, she's
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: not in here legally. She, of course, sends obtained citizenship
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  Speaker 2: and used this coming in with her father as the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: basis for her application to become a United States citizen.
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  Speaker 2: But if she entered the country illegally, there is no
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: pathway to become a citizen. And that's what they're investigating.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: If Omar entered the country illegally and then lied on
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  Speaker 2: her government statements in order to get citizenship, That is
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: certainly worse than what Kimberly Guilfoyle did. So why is
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: the left not demanding that anything be done to her?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: What's the difference? Now, you might say, well, they need
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: that seat in the House of Representatives. No, they don't.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: That is an overwhelmingly Democratic district that she represents. She
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: had a primary opponent. She beat her off. If that
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: seat becomes vacant, they'll hold a special election and the
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Democrats will hold that seat. There's no chance that seat
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: flips to a Republican. It's a very Democratic district in
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: a very blue area of Minneapolis. They don't need Omar
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: just as Trump doesn't need Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Both are replaceable. So you see the distinction here. The
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: lefties always claim to be outraged over some one scandal
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: or another involving the Republicans. They're not outraged by any
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: of this stuff. They don't have any standard for misbehavior
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: at all. They merely use scandal as a tool, as
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: a weapon to target the right to the point that
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: they lie about and make up scandals. Russia collusion being
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: the most blatant example. A total lie that became a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: six-year federal investigation that resulted in people going to prison.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: All based on a story that was never true that
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: they knew wasn't true from the beginning. Yet their outrage
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: over it. Let's imagine it was another country and not
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: a politicized country like Somalia, but let's imagine some prominent
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: American Republican. You could say Cuban refugee. There's a lot
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: of Cuban refugees who are Republicans. That becomes a little
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: bit more difficult because Cubans who come to the United
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: States are given refugee status. Let me pick another country
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: other than Cuba. Let's say the Dominican Republic. And there's
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a businessman from the Dominican who becomes prominent Republican politics
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: and he decides to run for Congress. And it came
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: out that he lied when he came into this country
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: and actually busted in illegally and lied to get citizenship.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think that there'd be many Republicans who would
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: stand up for that guy. But the Democrats have no
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  Speaker 2: standard whatsoever. of being outraged by absolutely abominable behavior by
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: someone on their side. And in the case of Omar,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: it's been behavior that just piles on and piles on.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: And on this point in analyzing it, I frankly don't
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: understand it. Let's imagine you're a Democrat. What do you
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: care about Ilhan Omar? If anybody's replaceable, it's members of
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: the squad. There's no standards for them. Most of them
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: are idiots. I mean, Jasmine Crockett got into the Congress,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: for heaven's sakes. AOC's probably the smartest of them. There's
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: a great question. Who's the smartest member of the squad?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: There's that woman who keeps losing in Missouri, Corey, what's
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: her name? There's Rashida Tlaib. Yeah, I mean, none of
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: these knives are particularly sharp. AOC might actually be their
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: shining light. But if you're a Democrat, okay, so you've
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: got a member of the squad that turns out to
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: be crooked. As long as you're not losing a congressional
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: seat because they're going to be replaced by another Democrat,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: what do you care? And I think that that's the
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: response with regard to most people on the right or
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: most MAGA people with regard to Kimberly Guilfoyle. Maybe they
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: like her because of her appearance on Fox, but she's replaceable,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: so nobody's going to make a fool of themselves trying
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: to defend her behavior when it's not defensible. So why
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: are the lefties defending Ilhan Omar? In the same way
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: they were defending the Somali fraud and they were trying
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: to claim that the Somali fraud did not go on
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: in Minnesota, even though we know it went on in Minnesota.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: It's simply that people on the left will not turn
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: on their own people. They'll turn on a moderate Democrat,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: but they will not turn on their own people without
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: regard to how bad the conduct is. The classic example
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: of this, and I know that people say, why do
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: you keep bringing it up? Because it's perfect. They were
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: perfectly fine with Bill Clinton screwing an intern when it
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: wasn't screwing. I guess I need a different verb. but
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try to make that not be as offensive.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: All right, Bill Clinton getting satisfied while in the Oval
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Office by an intern. That they're fine with. It's his
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: own business. Who cares? But Trump, who was a private
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: citizen at the time, allegedly having an affair, never proven,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: may have happened, with Stormy Daniels. He wasn't in office.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: He wasn't anything. That they perceived as a scandal, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: that they thought was so outrageous. It just shows that
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: their standard and their judgment is to turn on Republicans
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: for anything and feign outrage, but never show any of
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: this outrage toward themselves or their own people. A related story.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: You have right now in the Senate race in Texas,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: two candidates running against one another. They both have baggage.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I'm a Republican. I'm not denying that Ken Paxton is baggage.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Ken Paxton had an affair outside of his marriage. His
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: wife filed for divorce. It happened. Very conservative attorney general
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: of Texas. He's a mega favorite, but he had baggage.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: President Trump supported him in his campaign for the Republican
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: nomination for the Senate in Texas, and he beat the
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: incumbent Republican John Cornyn. Now he's facing a general election.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Now there's another story out in the Wall Street Journal
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: today that Paxton was over in Dubai, cozying up to
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: some nefarious characters. It's just one hit after another, after another,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: after another, after another on Paxton. But in the meantime,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the guy that he's running against appears to be actually nuts.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: James Tallarico disappeared from the campaign trail for two and
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a half weeks. There are strong indications that he had
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: a nervous breakdown and went into a mental institution. The
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal did not do a single story on that.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Nor have they reported on extremely offensive posts and social
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: media commentaries and blog statements made by Tallarico over the years.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: The disparity of treatment. Now, on that race in Texas,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: there's a very unholy alliance here. I hope you didn't
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: miss the point that I dropped about how Paxton got
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: the Senate nominations Cornyn is the incumbent Republican senator from Texas.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Cornyn was one of the senators who voted to impeach Trump.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Trump doesn't forget those kinds of things. And a lot
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: of Republicans in Texas didn't forget it either. And if
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I was a Republican in Texas, I would not have
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: forgotten it either because the impeachment was over. The alleged
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: misconduct of Trump during the problems on January 6th at
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the Capitol, and I don't believe he did anything impeachable there.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: So Paxton runs, as is his right, in the Republican
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: primary against Cornyn, and he wins. Cornyn is an establishment Republican,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: and he's very tight with the most important Republican family
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: in Texas, which is the Bushes. The Bushes and Cornyn
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: are furious that Cornyn lost this Republican primary. They don't
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: want Paxton to be the senator from Texas. These Republicans
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: would rather lose control of the Senate than have one
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: of their own buddies lose a primary to somebody backed
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: by Trump. This is the wing of the Republican Party
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: that I find nauseating. I'll grant you. There are some
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Republicans in the other wing, let's just describe it as MAGA,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: who can be nauseating as well. and just don't have
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the ability to unite in a general election. The Robin
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Voss situation in Racine would be an example of that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: There are some Republicans in Racine County who despise Robin
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Voss so much that they'd rather have had a Democrat
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: in there and have the Democrats take over the assembly.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Equally wrong. There is certainly a time within your own
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: primary to try to oust someone you don't like. But
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: when the general election comes up and you're running against
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: a party that has turned Marxist, to allow your petty
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: grievances get in the way of doing what is best
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: for your state and your country is terrible. We saw
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the problem in Wisconsin in 2022. We had the brutal
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Republican primary for governor between Clayfish and Michaels. And I've
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: always stressed that if it had gone the other way,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the other side would have acted just as badly. But
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of Clayfish supporters from the Walker wing of
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: the party sat on their hands like a bunch of babies,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: upset that Tim Michaels, who came from the MAGA and
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Tommy Thompson wing, won. I will grant you that if
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Clayfish had won, I suspect some of the people from
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: the other wing, the back Michaels, would have been equally bitter.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Because neither side can get past their own egos and
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: unite for the better good. In the meantime, the media
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: knows which side to choose. They're simply going to ignore
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the fact that Tallarico might have had to institutionalize himself
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and still hasn't offered any explanation as to why he
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: disappeared for three weeks. But in the meantime, they're going
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: to find every little pimple that exists in the resume
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: of Ken Paxton and make a huge deal about it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And the consequence of this is whether a party that
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: has gone Marxist is going to control the Senate of
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the United States. And now this story. We've seen this
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: in the past where a news media just goes totally
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: in the bag for one candidate in a major office.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And that's what's happening in the election for governor of Wisconsin. Now, again,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: this is early, so it may well be that my
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: comments are premature. We'll find out. And again, for those
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: of you listening who need a time reference, I'm doing
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: this podcast very early in the afternoon on Wednesday. The
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Daily Caller broke a major story this week. that David Crowley,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: as Milwaukee County Executive, funneled $ 65 million in federal funds
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: to community advocates. Now, federal funds funneled to the county.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: There was a ton of this money that came down
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: through COVID, and just a lot of this money anyway.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: The feds will give money to a local government, which
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: then hands the money out to a nonprofit agency that
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: supplies the services. There's competition for these contracts, and we've
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: had a lot of non-profit agencies in Milwaukee that were
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: out and out corrupt, like SDC, which, by the way,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: is trying to reform. You wonder why these non-profits keep
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: coming back and coming back, and there's a lot of
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: profit to be made in running a non-profit. These contracts
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: are huge, and they pay themselves a lot of money,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: and when they get the contracts, they end up spending
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: the money on vendors who happen to be their pals.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: All right, what's the big deal about Crowley funneling $ 65
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: million to community advocates? That's where his wife works. It
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: on its face is a brazen conflict of interest. How
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: do community advocates get the contract? Did Mrs. Crowley suggest
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: to Mr. Crowley that community advocates is where the money
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: is going to have to go? Or was it not
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: even necessary? How did community advocates come to hire Erica Crowley? Again,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: I want you to imagine the Tom Tiffany well in Congress.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: You know, there's all these grants that Congress approves and
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: members of Congress will put in budgetary amendments and so on.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Imagine Crowley stuck into the federal budget, a $ 65 million
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: appropriation for something or another that went to a business
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: controlled by his wife. There's just zero chance that wouldn't
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: be a scandal. Yet since the Daily Caller reported it,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen it. And again, this is Wednesday I'm
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: doing this. Maybe somebody will finally report it. It's not
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: been on JS Online and I've not seen it in
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the mainstream media. This is the second big one this week.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Last week on Friday, I believe Friday, Wisconsin Right Now
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: reported that at the Milwaukee County House of Correction, inmates
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: are allowed to order delivered food. The House of Correction,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: part of Milwaukee County, run by David Crowley. No one
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: in the mainstream media has picked up on that story.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I've talked again and again and again and again that
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: bias in the media occurs primarily in the determination of
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: what is and what is not news. There are hundreds
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: of thousands, probably millions of Wisconsinites who will never learn
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: either of these stories because it's being suppressed from them. Now,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Tom Tiffany can run ads on them, but a lot
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: of people just disbelieve these ads. Candidates lie in ads.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Is this true? Is it not true? Let me give
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: you the timeline on this. David Crowley becomes county executive. Now,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: as county executive, Milwaukee County, under David Crowley, funnels $ 65
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: million to community advocates. Community advocates then confirms Erica Crowley
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: as a director. Quid pro quo. There's a lot of
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: quid pro quos that go out in Milwaukee, and some
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: are legal and some are illegal, and I know about
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of them. How relevant they are, I guess,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: depends on a lot of things. In this case, it
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: was the county executive who was doing the quid, and
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: he's running for governor. I'm just telling you right now,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Scott Walker was the governor. His wife, Tonette, was involved
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: in a number of groups and associations. Imagine if Scott
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: funneled $ 65 million to something that Tonette was running. Again,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: you'd never hear the end of it. And I'm not
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: sure that a lot of Republicans would have defended it.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: But the Democrats will be unbothered by this and the
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: media is simply not going to tell you about it.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast. This is the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Mark Belling podcast. The two conservative organizations, Americans for Prosperity
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: and Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty, today came out
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: with a policy paper on future energy needs in Wisconsin.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I talk all the time about how just as a society,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: and I just think it's part of human nature, there's
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: just a lot of people who procrastinate on things and
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: refuse to deal with things until after it's way too late.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: There's any number of issues that would point to that. Well,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: one of the issues that we have out there that
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: I think everybody knows is going to be a crisis.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: is we don't have anywhere near enough power generation in America.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: And we are facing drastic shortfalls in Wisconsin. We've had
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: the same number of power plants in the state for
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: now about a decade. Yet the demands for electricity are exploding.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Even if data centers never existed, if they weren't invented,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: they'd be exploding. Cryptocurrencies require massive amounts of electricity just
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: to produce one token or coin. What's the percentage of
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: cars in America that are now electric? What is it, 7%?
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is, that's up from zero. And as gas
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: prices remain high, pretty good indication that electric cars are
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: probably going to increase in number again. In addition to that,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: how many wired devices do people now have that require charging?
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: It used to be that maybe you had a laptop
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: and a phone. Now people have tablets. Their TVs are
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: getting their signals via Wi-Fi. In fact, we don't have
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: enough Wi-Fi in the very studio that I'm sitting in.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I could go on and on about that story, but
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: probably no one would care. Now, the data centers. The
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: data centers are needed because technology is exploding because of AI,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: memory demand, and so on. There needs to be places
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: for storage of all of this data. And the data
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: centers are going to be built. The only debate is
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: where they're going to happen. But obviously, they are going
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: to happen. In fact, they're happening as we speak. There's
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: a massively big one Still arguments of Microsoft as to
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: how big they're ultimately going to make it in southern
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Racine County. Others are going up in other places. We're
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: going to have a tremendous demand for more electricity. People
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: just stare blankly at this. Now, what I have suggested
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: is that we need to encourage non-utilities to build power plants,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: rather than waiting for the regulated utilities like WE Energies,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin Public Service, Madison Gas and Electric, et cetera, et cetera,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: et cetera, Wisconsin Power and Light, Lion Energy, I guess
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: they now call it, rather than wait for them to
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: wake up and realize what's coming and start building, I
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: think we need about eight new power plants to take
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: us through 2050 and probably another 35 before 2100. That's conservative.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: They're just not going to do it on their own
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: because the economics of a utility company are screwed up
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: because they're a regulated monopoly. They essentially are guaranteed a
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: right to have a profit. Their rates, however, are set
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: by a governmental body and the rates set are based
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: on making sure that the company is profitable. From the
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: perspective of the company, they don't want to build power
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: plants before they need them. The problem, of course, is
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: that it takes several years to get a power plant online.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: But until they start selling the electricity, the cost of
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: the power plant is simply a negative for the utility company.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So none of them are pressing to build the power
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: plants that we need, nuclear and otherwise. But what we're
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: seeing in many parts of the country is private companies,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk is usual because he's a genius, is all
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: over this. Private companies are building power plants themselves for
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: the purposes of simply selling the power to the data centers.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Why do the power plants need to be built by
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: our utility? If Dave Michaels and I had enough money, and,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: you know, obviously this is just a no-lose business, I think,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: if we build a power plant and we have a
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: contract in place before it's built to sell every bit
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: of electricity that we generate, you can't lose money. So
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: we need to be encouraging as many companies to simply
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: build power plants right and left in Wisconsin. That's my opinion.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty and Americans for Prosperity
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: have put out a policy paper on this issue of
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: power and generation. I've not read the entire paper, but
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to read the news release that they sent out.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: It just came out today. Wisconsin has lost its lead
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: in affordable energy. In 1990, the state had the third
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: lowest residential electricity rates in the Midwest. Today, Wisconsin ranks
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: second highest with electricity costing the average household roughly $ 1, 400 annually.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: What they're saying here is, let's see, 36 years ago
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: in 1990, Wisconsin had some of the lowest electric rates
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: in the country. We now have some of the highest.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: I've been on this point repeatedly. The utility companies in
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin have too much clout. The Public Service Commission in
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin has not been riding herd on them hard enough.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: And they've continued to pursue a monopoly in which they
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: would own all and have the ability to build every
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: one of the power lines in the state of Wisconsin,
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: which would be terrible public policy. Utilities in Wisconsin are
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: not bad corporate citizens, but they're not good ones either.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: They're neutral. So they shouldn't be given all these sloppy
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: wet kisses because what's happened here is they have underbuilt
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: their electrical generating capacity, and I mean all of them combined,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: while their rates have gone up. So, first part of
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: this paper, what the statement Will makes is clearly factual.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: And the pressure is only growing. Wisconsin's peak electricity demand
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: is projected to rise roughly 40% by 2032. Let that
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: sink in. 40% in six years. And that's about right.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Between all the gadgets, the electric cars, cryptocurrency, and the
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: data centers, data centers, data centers. I didn't even mention
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: the amount of power needed to generate to produce a
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: computer chip. 40% by 2032. At the same time, utilities
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: are planning to retire existing reliable power plants while the
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: regional grid faces growing reliability risks. In other words, what
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: they're pointing out is we're facing brownouts. We're going to
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: have more electricity being consumed than is produced. The decisions
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin makes now will shape electricity bills, grid reliability, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: the state's economic competitiveness for decades to come. Then they
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: quote somebody from Will, Sam Krebs. Families and businesses are
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: paying some of the highest electricity rates and the prices
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: in the Midwest. The status quo is not working. We
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: need more competition and stronger oversight to kill bills down
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: and make sure people have power when they need it.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: The report lays out practical changes to meet Wisconsin's growing
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: energy needs while putting customers first. AFP Wisconsin Legislative Director
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Jerry Pantio said, Wisconsin has a generational opportunity to advance
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: bold reforms and lead the Rust Belt revival. As energy
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: demand grows, states with reliable, affordable power will attract the
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: next wave of jobs and investment. Here's what they suggest.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Here are the recommendations, and these are the bullet points
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: after release. Allow large new energy users to meet their
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: own energy needs. I'm on board with this one. This
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: is the thing that I've been talking about. Let's just
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: use a data center as an example. Dave Michaels and
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I are billionaires who build a data center. Let us
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: just build our own power plant next to the data center.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: We don't have to cut a deal with anybody else.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: We'll just build a power plant. We have our data
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: center here, the power plant next door, the power plant
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: five miles away, and we run by wires. We run
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: the grid to it. In other words, rather than go
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: through the electric companies, as some private company wants to say,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: we'll supply our own power needs, let them do so.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: And if a smaller one could do it with a
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: solar installation, fine, let them do it. So I agree
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: with that. Second, link utility profits to affordability. I'm on this. Now,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of people think that this is a non-capitalistic position,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: but we're talking about a regulated government monopoly. When the
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: government allows a business to operate as a monopoly, the
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: government has a right, and not only a right, but
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: a responsibility to keep that company in line. So rather
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: than allowing the utilities to raise their rates in order
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: to attain higher profitability, why not go the other way around?
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Why not reward their profitability on the basis of whether
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: or not their rates are affordable? Right now, what's the
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: incentive for the Wisconsin utilities to have affordable electric rates?
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: None.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: There's no competition. And B, they get the rate increase
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: request whenever they ask for them. Next point. Build reliable
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: replacement power before retiring existing plants. In other words, they're
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: saying we should not allow the utility companies to retire plants.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Some of the plants that they operate right now are
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: not efficient. But if the plant is retired, that means
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: you get no power from it. This recommendation is before
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: you can retire any plant, you have to have a
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: replacement plant in place. Common sense. Preserve competition for transmission projects.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: This is the point that I was on before. Do not,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: do not, do not, do not, do not do what
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of Republican members of the legislature wanted to
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: do and grant this monopoly to American Transmission Company, which
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: is a consortium of the Wisconsin Utilities, that only they
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: can do construction projects on the electric grid. It is
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: terrible public policy. So what if the company that builds
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: the project isn't from Wisconsin? If they can underbid and
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: undercut the Wisconsin utilities, who obviously are going to charge
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: their own members as much as they want because they
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: have regulated rates, we're clearly going to be paying more.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: So I agree with this recommendation. And then finally, require
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: energy proposals to show their full costs. They have a
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: couple of others. Protect customers from unnecessary financing costs. That's
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: when the utilities put out their borrowing over a number
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: of years in order to lower their short-term borrowing costs,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: which means, of course, long-term increases for the ratepayers because
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: the borrowing costs in the end are higher, and it
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: goes on. On the issue of data centers, I can't
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: reveal my sources of information on this, but I've gotten
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: some fascinating info on what construction workers working on data
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: centers in Wisconsin are getting paid right now. As you
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: probably know, there's a drastic shortage of construction workers who
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: can work on these kinds of projects, and the data centers,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: of course, are massive projects that require zillions of workers.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: I've been in communication with somebody who's involved in this,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: and I can't identify that person beyond that. Fourth-year apprentice.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: And fourth-year apprentice is just that. Somebody's been working in
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: the construction field in their fourth year. They're still an
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: apprentice at four years. Taking home $ 2, 400 per week after taxes.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: First-year apprentices, $ 1, 700 per week after taxes. I'm just telling you,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: if you're 18 years old and you want to work,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: You've got control of your life if you get into
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: construction right now. And Dave asks about the union angle. Well, again,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: some of these jobs may be unionized and some of
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: them may not be unionized, but the construction trade unions
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: are the more acceptable version of unions in my mind
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: because the construction trades don't work directly for a company.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: They work for a group of companies. The construction trade
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: unions have their members only make money when there's construction. Now,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I certainly think that companies, construction companies that hire non-union,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: they should have the ability to compete and there shouldn't
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: be a guarantee that the jobs be given to companies
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: that have a unionized workforce. But the construction trades are
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: trying to recruit workers themselves saying, look, You make a
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: fortune in here. And the reason they make a fortune is, A,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: the construction needs to get done, and B, there aren't
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: enough people that work construction, particularly young. Go and look
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: at some of these construction crews. A young guy is
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: one that's 35. There's still baby boomers retiring themselves out
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: on these things. I've got a million segments on how
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: we shoved way too many people into college. You can
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: make this kind of money. with great benefits, great health care,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: start setting aside and saving the money at a relatively
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: early age, you've got control of your life and you
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: don't have a penny in student loan debt. I have
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: a comparison to make, and I just, again, you've got
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: to be old to know this. Dave Michaels probably isn't
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: old enough to know it. Back when I was getting
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: out of college, for the people who didn't have college degrees,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, this, and just, everybody my age knows one
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: or two guys that did this. It was when they
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: started to build the Alaska Pipeline. Do you know about
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: this story? You don't. Well, there's a lot of oil
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: in Alaska. And this was right when we started to
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: drill for the oil in Alaska. And of course, the
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: oil is, you know, 5,000 miles away from a human being.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: The oil had to be piped. So they had to
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: build the Alaska pipeline, the Trans-Alaska pipeline, and then they
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: built those pipelines and they extended them through North America
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: and so on. But the biggest lines had to be
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: built in Alaska because the oil wasn't going to be
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: trucked or shipped by train. It had to be piped.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: They'd have to run this oil. A lot of it
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: was from the southern coast. I forget what they called that.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: There's a term for that area. And a lot of
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: it was from northern Alaska as well. But anyway, they
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: were building the Alaska pipeline, and guys my age packed
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: up their bags and went to Alaska, usually for like
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: two to three years. The downside? Cold as hell. The
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: work was rather hard. You're digging and drilling into frozen tundra.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: The pay was enormous, and that was in a terrible economy.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: It was a massive boom. More recently, similar, it wasn't
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: as big as that, when the shale thing started in
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: the Dakotas and Pennsylvania. Massive hiring of workers. People who
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: went into that field made a lot of money because
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: it was just drill, drill, drill, drill once they figured
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: out the technology to get the shale oil. I believe
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: the data centers is the new Alaska pipeline. We are
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: going to be seeing a 30 to 40-year boom in construction.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: We are at the tip of the iceberg in terms
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: of the number of data centers that we will need.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: They are going to be the factories of the next century.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Without regard to whether or not people want to live
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: near one, if you're an able-bodied person and, frankly, you're
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: not smart enough to become a brain surgeon or do
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: the handful of other things that a college degree will
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: allow you to make a lot of money, There are
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: worse things you can do with your life than work
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: for a company that trains you on the job, that's
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: what an apprentice program is, and pays you the kind
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: of money that we're going to be seeing here because
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: you're going into a field in which not that many
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: people want to do it and don't want to learn
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: the skills necessary in order to do it. Very briefly,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: a discussion on the diagnosis, sadly, of Pope Leo having
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: lung cancer. Now, I'm not a medical expert, so I
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: don't know how bad this is, but those two words
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: when put together are terrible, lung cancer. One of the questions,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: of course, is has it metastasized? And it sounds like
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: it doesn't. They found a nodule on his lung, and
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: they've gone to work on it. I don't know if
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: they removed it, and I don't know if they're going
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: to do chemo or radiation or what they do. But
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: lung is one of the bad places to get cancer
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: because the lung, it often spreads to the rest of
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: your body because of the way lungs work and so on.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Despite the fact that popes are usually older men, and
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Leo was in his late 60s when he was chosen
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: as pope, they tend to serve for a very, very
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: long time, but not always before the greatest pope of
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: this generation, John Paul II, came in. John Paul I
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: was pope for a month before he died. So the
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Catholic Church, I think that just was, you know, the
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: liberals are very upset with John Paul. They were especially
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: upset with Benedict. They were both conservative. Francis came in,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: was from the complete opposite ideological and theological wing of
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: the religion. Very, very liberal. And there's just been divisiveness.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: And the thing about Leo is I think he has
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: unified all of these factions. I don't think the liberals
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: claim him as one of theirs and the conservatives certainly
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: don't claim him as one of theirs, but they're all
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: pretty much okay with him. What he's done is, unified
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the church, and he's also spoken, you know, his positions
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: are going to be lefty, but some of the comments
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: he's made about artificial intelligence and preserving humanity, very, very poignant.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: So we don't know the long-term diagnosis of this, but
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: if it isn't good, the Roman Catholic Church will be
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: going through the same thing that it did when Leo
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: was chosen with the conclave and the battle over leading
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the church at a time in which The world could
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: not be more fragile. And finally this. The weird alliances
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: of the left. I don't want to be repetitive on
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: this because I've talked about it a lot of times,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: but if you see a lefty at a protest, a
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: week later if there's a protest and some completely different
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: issue but still lefty, you see the same people there.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: There are just some people who just, they just protest everything.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: They're lefties, so every cause that is lefty, they... align
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: themselves with. But this makes for some very weird alliances.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: And I'll give Trump credit because he's making fun of this.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: At one of his rallies a few days ago, he
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: was commenting on this one. The signs that you see
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: at these pro-Palestinian rallies, and the Palestinian rallies, of course,
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: are everywhere. You can always tell the Palestinian rallies because
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: you see the Palestinian flag. They also have a tendency
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: to bang drums when they rally. That's kind of a
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: lefty thing in general when you're marching, bang drums just
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: to bother anybody who may hear it. But all pro-Palestinian rallies,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: somebody's banging a drum. Anyway, there's a sign that's being
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: held at these rallies, and it says, Gays for Palestine.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Dave Michaels says it's an oxymoron. Well, it's certainly moronic.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: But it makes you wonder, is this just lefties are
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: for Palestine, lefties are for gays, just because they're both
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: perceived to be lefty causes? It certainly can't be because
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: there's any ideology. Or is it simply pure ignorance? The
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: gay activists have no idea how much Palestinians hate them.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Fundamentalist Muslims do not believe that gay people should be
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: able to live. You're not allowed to be gay. Here
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: in the United States, Muslims who are gay are ostracized
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: by their own community and remain deeply in the closet.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Many religions consider homosexuality to be a sin, but most
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Muslims don't sweep that sin under the carpet as others do.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: In nations like Iran, which is the big bank roller
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: of the governing body of Palestine, you're killed if they
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: suspect that you're gay. Or you can have seemingly closeted gays,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: like the guy who might be the leader of Iran
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: right now, who many people have suggested is gay. Gays
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: for Palestine. If there is a religion in our world
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: that has been tolerant of gays, it certainly has been
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: the Jewish religion. And if there is a religion on
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: our planet that is intolerant of homosexuality, it is Islam.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: But somehow in the minds of some of these lefties,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: gays for Palestine. Okay, fine. You take your gay movement
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: and take that over to Palestine or take your gender
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: movement and plop yourself down into Gaza and see how
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: well you get along. You'll get the October 7th treatment
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: is what you'll get. You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: This is the Mark Belling podcast. So we've got a
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: time perspective on this. As I said earlier, we're doing
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: this podcast on Wednesday afternoon. Two games of the Dodgers
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Brewers series have been played. As I speak, game three
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: in Los Angeles is tonight. Games three, four, and five
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: are in Los Angeles. If necessary, game six and seven
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: are in Milwaukee. Both would be Sunday night and then
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: game seven would be Monday night if needed. The only
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: way there's a game six, the Brewers are still alive,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: because if the Dodgers sweep all three in Los Angeles,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: they take the lead at 3-2, and there'd be game
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: six here in Milwaukee. It's possible for the Dodgers, though,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: to win in six if they sweep all, so game
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: seven still does not necessarily have to happen. And games
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: five and six may not happen. If the Brewers should
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: somehow sweep games three and four, it's over. I don't
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: think there's any sense of overconfidence on the part of
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Brewer fans. They put World Series tickets on sale for
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: season ticket holders. For the season ticket holders who want
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: to buy extra World Series tickets, they were put on sale,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I think, a couple of days ago. The prices will
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: make your eyeballs pop out of your head. But that happened.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know the date that the general public World
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Series ticket goes on sale. But again, they put them
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: on sale before you even know you're in the World
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Series because timing, you have to get it going. And
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: of course, if there is no World Series, the money
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: is refunded or your card isn't charged or whatever. What
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: do you think, Dave? Do you sense any overconfidence on
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: Brewer fans' part? Dave says a little. See, I think
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: there isn't much, and it's simply because we've only been
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: to one World Series ever. This is not like something
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: that people are accustomed to. The Brewers tend to fall
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: short when it comes to getting to the World Series,
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: and everyone knows that the team that you're playing is
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: the team that won the World Series two years in
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: a row, the Dodgers. I believe there are red flags
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: flying around the Brewers. And I want to share some
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: of them because I don't think that there is any
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: reason for overconfidence. Certainly you can be confident. The team
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: has played very well. They're almost reinventing the sport right
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: now by turning analytics of the last 15 years in
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: their head. The whole money ball thing, Billy Bean, that
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: they made out of the movie, The Brewers have rewritten
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: a new script and they have their own take on
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: analytics and they think that they figured out a better
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: way to do it. Here are my red flags. The
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Brewers are going to be enormous underdogs in games three
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: and four because of the pitching matchups. Now again, the
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: betting odds may be skewed. In games one and two,
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers are favored in both, but very, very slim,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: narrow favorites. The Dodgers are an overwhelming favorite in Game
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: 3 because of the pitching matchup. The Dodgers simply have
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: four great starting pitchers, and the Brewers don't. Robert Gosser
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: is pitching for the Brewers. He wasn't even with the
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: team the first two months of the season and was
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: coming off a massive arm surgery. He's pitched very well
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and pitched very well down the stretch. But the Dodgers
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: have Blake Snell going, and his ERA was under two
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: for the last two months of the season. The Dodgers
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: simply have a more accomplished pitcher. And the Game 4
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: matchup for the Brewers seems to be dire. The Brewers,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: I don't think, have made a formal announcement as to
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: who would pitch Game 4, and they may wait until
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: after Game 3 to do it. But I think the
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: likeliest scenario is that they're going to try to cobble
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: through a game and go to a pitcher who has
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: struggled down the stretch. He did pitch a good inning. He,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: in fact, was part of the five-inning perfect game that
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: the bullpen pitched in game two. His name's running away
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: from me. The guy with the beard that we picked
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: up from the Cardinals. Dustin May, yeah. Dustin May probably
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: pitches game four, which the Brewers would certainly be an
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: enormous underdog on. Now, if the Brewers can get through
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: game three without tapping into their bullpen, it's possible that
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: they may try to use five relievers in game four.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Chad Patrick has not yet pitched. There's a couple of
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: other guys in the bullpen that are completely fresh to
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: the point that you worry that they may be rusty.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: But the guys that haven't pitched so far are basically
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: the guys that the team didn't think was good enough
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: to pitch so far in the bullpen. The point that
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I'm making is I think that the Brewers are expected
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: to lose games three and four, and if that happens, okay,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: now you've got a best of three series. So while
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: you're up 2-0, you need to be up 2-0 because
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: the strength of the Dodgers is they have four great starters.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: That's their strength. Their second strength is they have a
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: good bullpen. The Brewers' strength is they have excellent starting pitching,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: but it gets shaky the farther down you go, and
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: you have a brilliant bullpen. The Brewers score a lot
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: of runs in an unconventional way. The Dodgers, their weakness
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: is they've stopped scoring runs, in part because they've been
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: too stubborn to admit that one of their players doesn't
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: belong in the lineup right now, Otani. That brings me
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: to my next negative. I think the Dodgers are going
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: to bench Otani. That's a bad thing for the Brewers
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: because the Dodgers have had a black hole in their
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: lineup in the cleanup spot, a guy who can't swing
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: the bat right now. They may make their lineup stronger
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: the duration of the series. And my next red flag
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: is simply the strength of the team in the playoffs.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: The Brewers have allowed one earned run out of their
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: bullpen the entire playoffs, San Diego and Dodgers combined. Do
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: we seriously think that's going to continue? You're asking the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: bullpen to continue to pitch at an historically brilliant level.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: The problem with doing a game in which you use
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: five or six pitchers is you need only one guy
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: to screw the whole thing up. And that happens. Reliever
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: comes in and bam, bam, bam, he's given up four
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: runs in an inning. It happened a lot of the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: regular season. It happens a lot in baseball. You can
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: have six guys pitch, one guy has a bad inning,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: and it could be any of them, and the game
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: may be shot. Obviously, if you have a starting pitcher
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: that can go six or seven innings, you're limiting the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: number of other guys that can do this. I don't
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: think the Brewers have anybody who can go beyond five
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: innings right now. I don't think Mizorowski can go to
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: five innings. He struggled, and by the way, he's tipping
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: off his pitches. Have you heard that addressed? I mean,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers were signaling when Mizorowski was pitching. And there's
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: this combination of how they get the signs anymore, in
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: which some of it comes to the earpiece and there's
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: still movements by the catcher and so on. But I
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: think that when there was a guy on second base,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: they were making signals to the batters. And I think
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: they're doing it off of Mizorowski's grip. I don't think
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: he's disguising it because they were tipping off his pitches.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: By the way, the Brewers were doing the same thing
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: to San Diego. People are acting as though it's a scandal.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: It's not against the rules to steal signs by players
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: on the field. It's against the rules to put somebody
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: on the scoreboard with binoculars. But you can, if you're
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: a batter, if you're at second base and you think
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: you see the sign, you can send a signal to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: the hitter. That's why they have sides. Anyway, Miz struggled
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: with his pitch count and gutted his way through game one,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: but I don't think right now, I think that his
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: arm is really tired. I don't think he can get
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: to five innings. I certainly don't think Lillian Henderson can
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: get to five innings. He didn't in game two of
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: the series. I don't think Gosser can certainly go beyond
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: five innings. I have doubts that Dustin May can. That
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: means you're putting heavy reliance on the bullpen, and the
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: more bullpen pitchers you have to use, the likelier somebody
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: will screw up, whereas the Dodgers, I think, for the
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: duration of the series, we did get to both of
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: their starters early. Yamamoto, who's the surest thing to go
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: nine innings in Major League Baseball, couldn't even go three
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: in game two. We catch him again, he'll likely go longer.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Scooball can go long. And the other pitchers can go long.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: So again, I'm not predicting that the Dodgers come back
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: and win this, but I don't. There are red flags
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: on the Brewers. There's been so much that has gone right. Now,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: I'll counter that with a little. The Brewers have not
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: defensively paid their best baseball. They had one game on
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: the San Diego series in which they just were on
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: the field butchering. Game two that they won, They committed two–
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Logan Henderson did his best to throw the ball game away.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: He committed two throwing errors, one of which was cataclysmic.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: They have been a little shaky defensively, and that's been
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: one of their strengths. If the defense gets to normal
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: Brewers season level, I mean, I think the Dodgers would
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: have lost 7-2 on game two, were it not for
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: bad defense by the Brewers. Instead, it was 7-4. The
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: other thing that I think points to the Dodgers is,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: It takes a long time to notice that somebody is old,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: but the Dodgers in games one and two to me
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: seemed old. And they are old. They've got a guy,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: I think, is Freddie Freeman 37? I think he is. Yeah,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: I think Muncy's about 35. Mookie Betts is in the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: range of 35 to 36. They've got guys on their
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: team that are simple. They're not spring chickens. Their starters
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: are pretty much, most of them are in their 30s. The, uh,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: The catcher, Will Smith, he's got to be over 30.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: He's been the catcher for a long, long time. The
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: Dodgers have a lot of guys that are up there
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: in years. Freddie Freeman has simply killed the Brewers in
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: the postseason forever, and, boy, he didn't seem that scary
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: in the first two games of the series. Now, the
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: other concern you have is you're just going, Milwaukee was
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: just so dominant at home this year. The Brewers were
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: great on the road and at home, but they were
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: especially great at home. Their record at home was spectacular.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: It was nearly 75% wins. It was way, way, way
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: up there. Winning at Dodger Stadium is going to be
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: more difficult. If the Brewers do come back, God forbid,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: down 3-2 and have to win two games at home,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: the challenge here is that the Dodgers are simply battle-tested.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers have been in more big postseason games, this
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: current regime of Dodgers, I would say since I was
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: going to say the athletics of the 80s, but I'll
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: go more recent. Joe Torre and the Yankees were in
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: the postseason every year in the 1990s. I mean, I
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: would say that team, even when they didn't win it,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: the team was just so used to playing in those games.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: And the Dodgers, remember before they won the two World
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Series in a row, they'd still been in it like
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: every year. The Braves, was that the 90s with Cox
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: and that Maddox pitching staff and all of that? Yeah,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: that were more early 90s. And was the Torre, Joe
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: Torre Yankees later 90s? Yeah. So teams like that. And
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: I would say that the Dodgers are the team of
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: that era. Now, the Brewers clearly have been in the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: postseason as much as the Dodgers, but we get knocked
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: out of it, so it's not the same thing. So
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going into this with considerable trepidation. I think in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: the American League, as I've said before, it's 1-1. I'll
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: just be stunned if Tampa Bay doesn't win this series.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: And one final point. There has been a debate among
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Brewer fans about And it's being played out in this
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: series as to whether or not the Brewers made an
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: error in not trading for Tariq Skubal, who went to
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers. I have defended the move. To get Skubal,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: you would have had to give up Logan Henderson. Well,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: the reality is Skubal lost Game 1, and Henderson was
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: pitching in Game 2 that the Brewers won. But I'm
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: not going to deny Skubal is better right now than
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: Logan Henderson is. But Skubal will be gone at the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: end of the year. The Brewers have Logan Henderson for
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: the next seven years. I would not have traded Logan Henderson...
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: away for seven years for three months of Tariq's school ball.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: I just would not have done it. And they're either
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: going to be vindicated on this or not. The bigger question,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: I think, is when they did acquire Dustin May, it's
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: because they passed on the other big-time starter that was
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: out there, and that was Freddy Peralta. Freddy was terrible
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: with the Mets. Terrible. His ERA was around five. That
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: trade that the Brewers made with the Mets was completely one-sided,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Like every move that David Stearns has made since he
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: went to the Mets, it just blew up in his face.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: They tweeted for Freddie, and he was just terrible. And
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: the Brewers were scared off, and I think they felt
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: that Freddie had lost it. Since he has been to
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: Tampa Bay, he's been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: In Game 2 last night, he was just lights out.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: The miscalculation on the part of the Brewers was one
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: of the things that the Brewers do is they improve
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: every pitcher who comes there. And the Brewers pitching coaching staff,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: led by Chris Hook, had made Freddy Peralta a great
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: pitcher when they were here. I think they probably would
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: have made him great had he come back here, just
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: as the Brewers and Tampa are the same franchise. Guys
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: go to Tampa, they get better. Tampa drafts players and
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: develops players. The Brewers draft players and develop players. It's
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: the reason these two small markets are both dominant teams.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Rather than question whether or not they should have traded
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: for Scooball, the better question is, should they have traded
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: for Freddy Peralta? Because you would not have had to
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: give up a lot to get Freddy, and Tampa Bay
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: did not give up that much. That was the error.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: And we may end up facing Tampa Bay in the
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: World Series if we get there. And wouldn't that be
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: weird if the number one and number two pitchers for
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: Tampa Bay are both ex-brewers? Drew Rasmussen. Remember Drew Rasmussen?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: Remember who we traded for? Yeah, it was Willie Adamas.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: Willie Adamas went to Tampa for Drew Rasmussen. And yeah,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: I would say Tampa got the better of that trade,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: but Brewer fans didn't complain about it because Adamas is
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: a very good player here, but Drew Rasmussen's been one
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: of the best pitchers in baseball the last six years.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: And the other one would be Freddy Peralta, so the
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: one-two pitchers for Tampa were both Brewers. Now, Rasmussen's been
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: gone a long time, but Freddie was here last year.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: I believe eight o'clock central time is game three, correct?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: What?
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Seven central time. Game three. Again, I think the Brewers
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: are going to lose game three just because of the
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: pitching mashup. If they don't, it will be a pleasant surprise.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: I will be satisfied that this is over when there's
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: a third out in the fourth win that they have
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: in this series. I don't care if they're up 29
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: to nothing with two outs in the ninth inning. I
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: will believe it when it happens. You know, way back
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: when the Brewers beat, I believe it was the Angels
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: to go to the World Series in 1982. That team
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: was so strong, you felt that the franchise had turned
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: a corner and all of that. We've never come that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: close since. We've never gotten to within... a game of
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: the World Series before I don't believe, have we? I, yeah,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: this is the two game at the National, we've been
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: in the National League Championship Series. I don't, what? Was
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: that Divisional Series or Championship Series? I think that was
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: the Divisional Series. I don't believe that they've been, well,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: we know this. Do you know in the history of
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee baseball, the Brewers have never been up 2-0 in
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: in any seven-game series? Well, they haven't. So that's where
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: we are. So again, for those of you who hear
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: this after the fact, this is all moot and irrelevant,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: and you know what's happened. But for those that are
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: listening to this before tonight's game, those are my thoughts.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: I think that the Brewers obviously are in the best
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: shape that you can be. They're 2-0. After two games,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: you can't be better than 2-0. And they've outplayed the Dodgers.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: But as I say, there are still red flags. I
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: think that the Brewers, you talk about a team built
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: for October. The Brewers are built for a five-game series.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: They're not as well built for a seven game series
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: because of these questions. After you get past the first
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: two starters in the rotation and the questions as to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: whether or not you can win seven games, cranking out
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: your bullpen right and left. All right. That's it for
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: today's podcast. We do this on Thursday and that will
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: include our weekly football preview and point spread predictions. Talk
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: to you then. Bye.
• 1:11:26
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• 1:11:30
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