Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #103: It's the weekend Big One. A conservative star says all of the Hollywood movie studios will end production in five years. But, Mark points out Song Sung Blue (the Lightning & Thunder movie) succeeds because it avoids Hollywood's biases and condescension. And, our weekly football preview.

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #103: It's the weekend Big One. A conservative star says all of the Hollywood movie studios will end production in five years. But, Mark points out Song Sung Blue (the Lightning & Thunder movie) succeeds because it avoids Hollywood's biases and condescension. And, our weekly football preview. · The Mark Belling Podcast

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0:26
Speaker 2: I'm going to start by quoting somebody that I've actually
0:31
Speaker 2: quoted on my program before, but I know I've never
0:35
Speaker 2: led with him. This is like the most unusual conservatives,
0:39
Speaker 2: maybe the most unlikely conservative spokesman ever. For those of
0:43
Speaker 2: you who followed his career, like I always thought Rob
0:46
Speaker 2: Schneider was kind of a goof I mean, was what
0:50
Speaker 2: he was in Saturday Night Live? Saturday Night Live? Was
0:54
Speaker 2: he wasn't in Two and a Half Men. He was
0:56
Speaker 2: in one is some of the goofy show that what
0:58
Speaker 2: was it?
1:01
Speaker 3: Yeah?
1:01
Speaker 2: He was in some Adam Sandler movies. I think he
1:04
Speaker 2: was on a TV show like one of those. Doesn't
1:06
Speaker 2: matter anyway. He uh has become one of that handful,
1:14
Speaker 2: it's growing, but handful of celebrities that just came out
1:20
Speaker 2: of the political closet and is conservative. He's, you know,
1:23
Speaker 2: on Guttfeld's program all the time. He does a lot
1:26
Speaker 2: of interviews. He's still a stand up comedian, but he's
1:29
Speaker 2: a conservative and I guess the reason I thought he
1:32
Speaker 2: was an unlikely conservative is he always seemed like playing
1:36
Speaker 2: a goof in all of the comedic roles that he had,
1:38
Speaker 2: But he wouldn't even think that he'd have any political
1:41
Speaker 2: opinions really at all. But he's become not only an
1:46
Speaker 2: outspoken guy and a funny guy, occasionally has significant insight.
1:52
Speaker 2: He gave an interview a couple of days ago that
1:57
Speaker 2: was I thought very provocative. He makes a provocative point.
2:00
Speaker 2: I don't agree with him, but I think he's on
2:03
Speaker 2: the right track, but I think he takes it too far.
2:06
Speaker 2: We're going to start the show by talking about that
2:09
Speaker 2: and use it as sort of a launching off point
2:12
Speaker 2: to discuss the reaction so far to the movie Song
2:18
Speaker 2: Sung Blue, the movie that was based on Lightning and
2:22
Speaker 2: Thunder of Milwaukee that hit the theaters yesterday. Were doing
2:27
Speaker 2: this podcast on Friday, December twenty sixth I forget what
2:30
Speaker 2: name there is for today. In my mind, I started
2:33
Speaker 2: to think that this was Black Friday. Then I realized
2:35
Speaker 2: that that was Thanksgiving. But this is like the day
2:37
Speaker 2: that everybody would return things or whatever. But I don't
2:40
Speaker 2: think that happens much anymore because people buy stuff online.
2:43
Speaker 2: And it's Boxing Day, which is a Canadian holiday that
2:48
Speaker 2: nobody really understands, but we don't honor Boxing Day here
2:51
Speaker 2: in the United States. I thought they used to have
2:53
Speaker 2: a name for the day that you returned things or whatever,
2:55
Speaker 2: but I don't remember what it is anyway. Song Sung
2:59
Speaker 2: Blue so debut on Christmas Day. It is getting a
3:03
Speaker 2: lot of reviews. They tend to be glowing and raves
3:07
Speaker 2: I mentioned that I saw the movie at the Milwaukee
3:10
Speaker 2: premiere a few weeks ago at the Oriental Theater, and
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Speaker 2: there are several things that made the movie I think
3:18
Speaker 2: really work, and one of them is going to relate
3:22
Speaker 2: to what it is that Schneider has to say. So
3:24
Speaker 2: that's enough of a build up for you, and we'll
3:25
Speaker 2: get into that in just a moment. First, when it
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Speaker 2: comes to shipping packaging, industrial supplies, and equipment, many suppliers
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Speaker 2: only carries supplies and equipment they have tested it, tried,
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Speaker 2: and often used in their own business experience. The you
3:54
Speaker 2: line difference today visit you line dot com. Rob Schneider
4:04
Speaker 2: did an interview with Epic TV. The Epic Times is
4:08
Speaker 2: a big conservative website. Occasionally they put on a print newspaper,
4:12
Speaker 2: but they now have delved into TV and everything else.
4:16
Speaker 2: It's major news organization bankrolled by the Chinese opposition, but
4:20
Speaker 2: they cover lots of news in the United States. And
4:24
Speaker 2: Rob Snider in an interview and they were talking to
4:26
Speaker 2: him about not just the issue of leftist bias in entertainment,
4:31
Speaker 2: but why the entertainment industry, the d entertainment industry in
4:35
Speaker 2: the United States is in such decline. And he made
4:41
Speaker 2: a provocative statement, I want to hope from the story.
4:43
Speaker 2: Actor Rob Schneider predicts the big studios in Hollywood will
4:47
Speaker 2: shut down all lots by twenty thirty. Now what does
4:52
Speaker 2: that mean. I've actually never You've never toured any of
4:56
Speaker 2: those lots, have you? Lots of people have. The major
5:01
Speaker 2: movie studios still have their big they call them lots,
5:04
Speaker 2: the big production. They have lots and lots and lots
5:07
Speaker 2: of real estate and that's where the movie sets are.
5:09
Speaker 2: And they have all of these buildings where they shoot
5:11
Speaker 2: the movies and they create the sets and so on,
5:14
Speaker 2: and they're all in the Greater Los Angeles area. He's
5:17
Speaker 2: saying they're going to shut them all down, which makes
5:20
Speaker 2: you wonder, well, how will they produce everything if they
5:24
Speaker 2: shut this stuff down, unless they're going to like just
5:26
Speaker 2: do AI or film on location.
5:28
Speaker 3: And so on.
5:29
Speaker 2: But anyway, that's what he said. Going back to the piece, quote,
5:31
Speaker 2: we are seeing Hollywood completely dismantle himself, Schneider said during
5:37
Speaker 2: a recent interview with Epic TV, and then mentions the
5:40
Speaker 2: show on there and so on. Quote, you will not
5:43
Speaker 2: see these studios, the Sony Lot, the Fox Lot, Warner
5:48
Speaker 2: Brothers Lot, those places in five years will just be
5:52
Speaker 2: real estate. You will not have those stages anymore. And
5:57
Speaker 2: I think it's their own decline. Now let me ENTERGA.
6:02
Speaker 2: One of the reasons to think that he might be
6:04
Speaker 2: onto something is even in the great demise of Los
6:08
Speaker 2: Angeles and particularly in California and general Underdosom, this is
6:13
Speaker 2: still a massive amount of real estate. Those studios, the
6:16
Speaker 2: properties that they have, It's an incredible amount of land
6:20
Speaker 2: that could be developed for something or another. It's one
6:23
Speaker 2: of the issues that we face in horse racing that
6:27
Speaker 2: racetracks in BEG metropolitan areas are endangered because racetracks take
6:32
Speaker 2: up a massive footprint more than a football stadium, because
6:35
Speaker 2: you not only have the track and the grand stand
6:37
Speaker 2: in the parking of all of that, but you need
6:39
Speaker 2: to have this huge area where the stables and everything
6:42
Speaker 2: else are, and the tracks really only make sense if
6:47
Speaker 2: you're in an area that's kind of a dilapidated area
6:50
Speaker 2: of a city, or if you're kind of off in
6:53
Speaker 2: a distance and away from the larger cities. It's the
6:55
Speaker 2: same thing, just too much real estate to justify the
6:58
Speaker 2: money that it throws off. To that extent, Schneider might
7:01
Speaker 2: be onto something that a lot of these lots are really, really,
7:06
Speaker 2: really big. But his larger point, I'm not sure that
7:10
Speaker 2: I agree with. Going back to the piece the Hot
7:14
Speaker 2: Chick leading man, so apparently he was in the Hot Chick.
7:16
Speaker 2: Do you've ever heard of the Hot Chick. There's two
7:19
Speaker 2: of them. Dave Michaels is here, by the way for Paul.
7:22
Speaker 2: By the way, Paul did not send in his football pick.
7:24
Speaker 2: We're going to do our football segment at the end
7:26
Speaker 2: of the podcast, and I had to like text him
7:29
Speaker 2: and remind him. First of all, he's like, not working
7:33
Speaker 2: today today is a company holiday. But my podcast, you know,
7:37
Speaker 2: we do three podcasts a week. It sort of has
7:39
Speaker 2: a schedule under itself. So he's, well, it's a holiday,
7:43
Speaker 2: I'm not coming in. But you know, between this and
7:46
Speaker 2: not setting of the football pick, what if I fired him?
7:49
Speaker 2: I think that would be hilarious for most of you know,
7:52
Speaker 2: because this has been announced, Paul is leaving the show
7:55
Speaker 2: at the end of the year. He's going to still
7:57
Speaker 2: do his weekend programs, but he's leaving full time employment
7:59
Speaker 2: with Eyes Art and WIS Radio and so on, and
8:02
Speaker 2: that's kind of been no so there's only like two
8:06
Speaker 2: more podcasts after this one. You ge would be hilarious
8:09
Speaker 2: if I fired him after thirty five years with me.
8:12
Speaker 2: If I fired him two shows before the end of
8:14
Speaker 2: the thing, well, I think this is growing for firing.
8:17
Speaker 2: First of all, he's too much of a weasel to
8:18
Speaker 2: come in the day after Chris because it's a company holiday.
8:21
Speaker 2: And secondly, he Dave did contact him in he said, well,
8:25
Speaker 2: I was, I'm working on the football pick. It'll be
8:28
Speaker 2: in time for the segment. I think that's bs. I
8:30
Speaker 2: think he forgot. Do you believe him or not? Yes,
8:36
Speaker 2: because he you know, our recording time, we're doing the
8:39
Speaker 2: recording in the morning rather than the afternoon. And he
8:42
Speaker 2: said that, well, he thought it would just be well here,
8:44
Speaker 2: you're right, he didn't know when we would record because
8:46
Speaker 2: he's now working. Anyway, let me get back to Rob Schneider. Here,
8:54
Speaker 2: hot Chick, that's her where the Hot Chick leading man
8:56
Speaker 2: who supported President Donald Trump suggested a series of reasons
9:00
Speaker 2: why Kinseltown will fail, which includes what he said were
9:04
Speaker 2: the year's long effort to blacklist conservative voices. If an
9:08
Speaker 2: actor like me says anything or even questions or dares
9:12
Speaker 2: to question the tribe of Democrats, that's it. You're out.
9:16
Speaker 2: You're out of Hollywood. The three time Emmy nominated Jokester
9:20
Speaker 2: pointed out an awkward interaction with The Irishman star Robert
9:25
Speaker 2: de Niro during the final scene of Saturday in the
9:28
Speaker 2: Elive's fiftieth reunion show, when the cast that alumni went
9:32
Speaker 2: on stage as the credits rolled. I'm right behind de
9:35
Speaker 2: Niro and you know, finally I'm trying to stay away
9:39
Speaker 2: and I bump into him. He turns around and has
9:43
Speaker 2: that particular expression which I think everybody knows I know
9:48
Speaker 2: the expression. By the way, anybody who's a prominent conservative
9:52
Speaker 2: and you bump into anybody this kind of elite and
9:54
Speaker 2: not conservative, they give you the same kind of look.
9:56
Speaker 2: And that's what Rob said is referring to this look.
9:59
Speaker 2: It's just like, like, how can you support that schmuck?
10:03
Speaker 2: He gave me that look, and he was about to
10:06
Speaker 2: really go at me. First of all, you would think
10:12
Speaker 2: that why would Robert de Niro worry about what Rob
10:15
Speaker 2: Schneider thinks? Robert de Niro is as high as you
10:17
Speaker 2: can get it. Rob Schneider's rolling around the level of
10:22
Speaker 2: of Rob Schneider, except we know how unhinged de Niro
10:26
Speaker 2: gets with regard to the subject of Trump. I actually
10:29
Speaker 2: think you could see him worrying about what Rob Schneider thinks,
10:31
Speaker 2: that going off on it because de Niro has just
10:34
Speaker 2: you talk about Trump de arrangement syndrome, which again I
10:36
Speaker 2: just contend he is real and de Niro obviously has it.
10:40
Speaker 2: So I mean, Schneider's telling this anecdote, here's de bumps
10:44
Speaker 2: did at de Niro, and Nero's ready to launch. I mean,
10:46
Speaker 2: there's all these people that Satury Nail every union thing.
10:49
Speaker 2: They had zillions of people there. Schneider's probably the only
10:51
Speaker 2: person on the entire stage that supports Trump, and he
10:55
Speaker 2: bumps in it anyway, So he's telling his story, he continues.
10:59
Speaker 2: Schneider said he de escalated the situation by just saying
11:03
Speaker 2: I love you, which caught the two time Oscar winner
11:06
Speaker 2: off guard. That would catch you know, an egomaniac Hollywood
11:09
Speaker 2: guy like the Niro. He'sit at a launch off and then
11:11
Speaker 2: you say I love you.
11:12
Speaker 4: It just.
11:14
Speaker 2: I mean, the one thing that those people love is
11:17
Speaker 2: being told how wonderful they are, so that probably would
11:20
Speaker 2: disarm him. The political divide isn't the only factor causing
11:25
Speaker 2: the public and conservative members of the industry to turn away,
11:29
Speaker 2: Schneider suggested. The grownups comedian pointed out that long gaps
11:34
Speaker 2: in new content caused by the pandemic and the strike
11:37
Speaker 2: by the Strain Actors Guild and Writers Guild didn't help
11:40
Speaker 2: Hollywood's decline. I thought that was just completely irresponsible and stupid,
11:45
Speaker 2: Schneider said, Well, talking about the historic sag after NWGA
11:49
Speaker 2: strikes in twenty twenty three, and then people realize, hey,
11:53
Speaker 2: we'll find entertainment somewhere else. There'll be more entertainment on Instagram.
11:58
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I think more people watch
12:01
Speaker 2: Instagram and they're like, do this. The actor noted that
12:05
Speaker 2: the same shift happened in the news, calling podcaster Joe
12:10
Speaker 2: Rogan the Walter Cronkite of our time. You're seeing right
12:14
Speaker 2: now a rejection of Hollywood, and you're seeing it. You're
12:19
Speaker 2: seeing an implosion of it. What will replace it? I
12:22
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, I think what replaced the news
12:25
Speaker 2: is individuals, people talking like Joe Rogan, the biggest of
12:29
Speaker 2: those independent media, and everybody else. Now I agree with
12:37
Speaker 2: Snyder's take, I don't go so far as saying that,
12:41
Speaker 2: you know, we're at the end of twenty twenty five,
12:43
Speaker 2: by twenty thirty, these big studios will simply shut down production.
12:47
Speaker 2: I just don't think it's that dire, in part because
12:52
Speaker 2: while he's certainly correct that massive amounts of viewing is
12:57
Speaker 2: moving to Instagram, self create content on YouTube, all the
13:03
Speaker 2: other DApp police videos on YouTube, and you know, completely
13:08
Speaker 2: independent productions like say this podcast that you're listening to.
13:12
Speaker 2: This is all competition that didn't exist before, exist prior,
13:16
Speaker 2: you know, years earlier, to television and the movies and
13:19
Speaker 2: so on. So I think he's certainly right in there
13:22
Speaker 2: in this in the sense that fewer and fewer people
13:27
Speaker 2: are going to be watching movies and watching TV shows
13:31
Speaker 2: because they have all this other stuff that they're able
13:33
Speaker 2: to do. But I think he goes too far. Why
13:37
Speaker 2: one of the things that's happened is the creation of
13:40
Speaker 2: all of these streaming services. There's so many that I
13:44
Speaker 2: don't think they all need content. And the streaming services
13:51
Speaker 2: have incredible value Netflix for example, Paramount Networks, Hulu, and
13:58
Speaker 2: then you have Amazon's Prime Video and Apple which is
14:03
Speaker 2: getting involved in streaming. In order to get somebody to
14:06
Speaker 2: subscribe to your streaming service, you have to have lots
14:10
Speaker 2: of content that they want. So that's going to create
14:14
Speaker 2: demand for somebody to make the movies and the shows
14:16
Speaker 2: and all of that that goes on there. And who
14:18
Speaker 2: else to do that other than the movie studios. Now
14:21
Speaker 2: it might be that somebody will supplant them, that Apple
14:24
Speaker 2: will just say, what do we need this movie company?
14:29
Speaker 2: What do we need somebody to make the movie for
14:31
Speaker 2: We'll just commission it ourselves. In fact, they do fund
14:33
Speaker 2: some of these movies. But still you have to shoot
14:35
Speaker 2: them somewhere, and unless we're just going to turn to
14:39
Speaker 2: everything being AI and virtual reality and nothing being real.
14:44
Speaker 2: I still think that there will be a demand for
14:45
Speaker 2: some content, but he's certainly right in the direction that
14:49
Speaker 2: we're moving toward shrinkage of this. Now, what are the
14:52
Speaker 2: points that he made that by silencing so many concers,
15:00
Speaker 2: privative voices in the media, and an entertainment at least
15:04
Speaker 2: talk in entertainment, much of the entertainment that we have
15:08
Speaker 2: had for decades now you're just overwhelmed with leftist messages.
15:17
Speaker 2: I mean, how many TV shows are on right now
15:20
Speaker 2: that don't at one point or another, jam some leftism
15:24
Speaker 2: down your throat. The same thing with the movies. The
15:27
Speaker 2: subject matter will either be overtly leftist or they'll just
15:31
Speaker 2: work it in. It's overwhelming. This is certainly no secret.
15:40
Speaker 2: You know, I've talked for years that the people who
15:42
Speaker 2: run entertainment, the only people they know are the coastal people.
15:47
Speaker 2: You know, go up and down the California coast and
15:49
Speaker 2: then go up and down the East Coast kind of
15:51
Speaker 2: from Miami to New York. The elitist, the hoity toity,
15:55
Speaker 2: the tody. Those are the people that they know that
15:57
Speaker 2: that's what they programmed to they have no kind a
16:00
Speaker 2: flyover country and flyover countries the rest of us. The
16:05
Speaker 2: guy who mastered flyover country and understood flyover country was Trump.
16:11
Speaker 2: But the people who run Hollywood, the people who run
16:13
Speaker 2: the entertainment isstry have never gotten that. Back in the
16:18
Speaker 2: era in which the late night TV talk shows were
16:23
Speaker 2: really a big deal, as opposed to now where they're
16:25
Speaker 2: just marginal programs, I always thought that it was interesting
16:30
Speaker 2: that almost all of the hosts that became big were
16:33
Speaker 2: from the Midwest. Johnny Carson was to Nebraska. Dick Cavitt,
16:38
Speaker 2: who was his competitor at the time, he was from Nebraska.
16:43
Speaker 2: David Letterman's from Indiana. I don't know where Leno was from.
16:48
Speaker 2: I mean, is Leno from New York. He seems like
16:52
Speaker 2: he's he seems like he's from New York or something.
16:54
Speaker 2: I don't know. But when the talk shows were big,
16:56
Speaker 2: the sensibilities of these hosts. They had the sense of
17:00
Speaker 2: Middle America, and while the shows were all either set
17:04
Speaker 2: in New York or Los Angeles, I thought that they
17:09
Speaker 2: had a sense of being able to program to the
17:11
Speaker 2: middle of the country and those people could relate to that.
17:18
Speaker 2: Take a look at one of the shows that I
17:20
Speaker 2: think just resonated with Middle of America forever, both version
17:25
Speaker 2: one and then years later version two of Roseanne. It
17:30
Speaker 2: was set in the middle of the country and the
17:31
Speaker 2: values of the middle of the country in part because
17:33
Speaker 2: they were driven by the values of Roseanne. Then the
17:36
Speaker 2: second thing comes around and Roseanne shot off her mouth
17:38
Speaker 2: and said something that was racist, commenting on someone's appearance
17:42
Speaker 2: in a racially inappropriate way, and ABC used that as
17:47
Speaker 2: the excuse to dumper and the rebranded the show of
17:50
Speaker 2: the Connors and so on. You know, the character that
17:53
Speaker 2: Roseanne played was based on Roseanne's life. Roseanne in her
17:56
Speaker 2: life became conservative and voted for Trump, and the character
17:59
Speaker 2: Roseanne for Trump. And I just think that's the reason
18:02
Speaker 2: that they, you know, no matter what it was that
18:03
Speaker 2: she said, she that show just who's not going to
18:06
Speaker 2: continue that they couldn't premise it on being set in
18:09
Speaker 2: Middle America unless it was the preachy Middle America preaching
18:13
Speaker 2: at Middle America. It's again and again and again, it's
18:21
Speaker 2: a looking down your nose, not just that people with
18:26
Speaker 2: different beliefs, but who live their lives differently condescension. Now
18:34
Speaker 2: I've known this my entire life and career. There are
18:38
Speaker 2: all sorts of hoity toity and elite people and so
18:40
Speaker 2: on that are very very nice and don't have this,
18:42
Speaker 2: but lots of them are the apposite. Even in Milwaukee,
18:48
Speaker 2: you've got that kind of North Shore elite kind of
18:53
Speaker 2: they'll look at people like me and the views that
18:55
Speaker 2: I have and they just assume that the everybody that's
18:58
Speaker 2: listening to me is an idiot or a moron, or
19:01
Speaker 2: somebody that's missing half their teeth and couldn't figure anything out,
19:05
Speaker 2: and they're just listening or somebody like me because they
19:07
Speaker 2: don't have enough brains to figure anything out. Of Course,
19:11
Speaker 2: they're the people that can't figure anything out, and they're
19:13
Speaker 2: the people that can't do any critical thinking, and they
19:15
Speaker 2: have a completely wrong view of who it is that's
19:18
Speaker 2: in this listening lines. But that's the attitude that they
19:21
Speaker 2: take to this, which brings me to one of the
19:25
Speaker 2: reasons why them will be songs. Have you go on yet?
19:28
Speaker 2: You've not? Are you going to? What do you mean
19:32
Speaker 2: you'd like to? Oh, it's a time now, I understand
19:36
Speaker 2: you have ninety seven jobs, you're it's a time. I
19:40
Speaker 2: always people say I'd like to do something and it's
19:42
Speaker 2: something that's like really easy to do. If you'd like
19:45
Speaker 2: to do it, you actually would. Now admittedly it only
19:47
Speaker 2: opened on Christmas Day and today's December twenty sixth. People say, well,
19:50
Speaker 2: i'd like to do that. If you'd really like to
19:52
Speaker 2: do something, you will have done it. I mean, I'm
19:56
Speaker 2: not talking about well I'd like to go to Dubai
19:59
Speaker 2: or something that's really expensive, but well, yeah, i'd like
20:02
Speaker 2: to I'd like to take up golf. Well, then you
20:06
Speaker 2: would have. If you really would have liked to, you
20:08
Speaker 2: would have taken up golf. It's not that hard to
20:11
Speaker 2: like start doing something anyway. It's one of the things
20:15
Speaker 2: that I do wonder about how successful the movie is
20:18
Speaker 2: going to be, without regard to how great it is,
20:22
Speaker 2: given that I think it's aimed largely at it. You know,
20:25
Speaker 2: Neil Diamond himself is now at all these act The
20:28
Speaker 2: couple involved were the movie was sad, Lightning and Thunder
20:33
Speaker 2: were in their thirties and so on. I you know,
20:36
Speaker 2: the people go to movies are buying large young people
20:40
Speaker 2: and I don't know if they relate to this movie.
20:42
Speaker 2: And I just think older people tend to wait for
20:44
Speaker 2: something to show up on Netflix or whatever streaming service
20:47
Speaker 2: that it's on. So I just don't know if you're
20:50
Speaker 2: going to be able to get the kinds of people
20:51
Speaker 2: who would love songs soun glued to actually go to
20:53
Speaker 2: a theater and watch it. I do know that I've
20:57
Speaker 2: never seen anything like it In terms of the showings
20:59
Speaker 2: in southeastern Wisconsin, every major cineplex that I'm aware of
21:04
Speaker 2: has it, and some of them have like two and
21:07
Speaker 2: three of the you know what do they call them,
21:10
Speaker 2: you know, when there's ten screens, like they have the
21:12
Speaker 2: rooms that you go into it just they call them
21:14
Speaker 2: screens or whatever. Like three or four of them will
21:17
Speaker 2: be devoted to this movie because it's like there's like
21:19
Speaker 2: eighteen choice a day at some of them, so it's
21:22
Speaker 2: all over And I obviously they would expect, because the
21:24
Speaker 2: movie is based on two characters from Milwaukee, that they
21:26
Speaker 2: would expect it to be big in Milwaukee. When it
21:32
Speaker 2: does hit streaming, I think it's going to have a
21:34
Speaker 2: second wave that will be really, really huge because that's
21:37
Speaker 2: how a lot of people that I think that are
21:39
Speaker 2: in the target market would watch. For those of you
21:42
Speaker 2: who don't know what I'm talking about, Song Sung Blue
21:44
Speaker 2: is the story of lightning and thunder for you if
21:46
Speaker 2: you're not from Milwaukee. They just got to be on
21:49
Speaker 2: like a Milwaukee level, really big in a Milwaukee kind
21:55
Speaker 2: of way. You know, people in Milwaukee and some of
21:58
Speaker 2: the cities in Wisconsin heard of them, but nobody else did.
22:01
Speaker 2: And they were the kind of act that really probably
22:03
Speaker 2: would only make it in a city like Milwaukee. They
22:08
Speaker 2: were two kick arounds on the local music scene who
22:13
Speaker 2: met and fell in love, and Mike Sardina loved Neil
22:18
Speaker 2: Diamond and he developed a career as a guy that
22:22
Speaker 2: did Neil Diamond songs. And they put on a show
22:26
Speaker 2: that was I mean, this is where I'm going to
22:29
Speaker 2: get to where I think one of the reasons that
22:31
Speaker 2: the movie works it was you could perceive it as
22:34
Speaker 2: being really schlocky, and people that are elitists and stuck
22:37
Speaker 2: up would look at this and roll their eyes because
22:40
Speaker 2: Mike's dressed up like Neil Diamond. And then when Claire
22:44
Speaker 2: Claire said in his wife, who's sunder joined him as
22:47
Speaker 2: part of the program. She's wearing the glittery gowns and
22:51
Speaker 2: they play on the Neil Diamond music and the band
22:53
Speaker 2: thing is going, and a lot of people would just
22:57
Speaker 2: First of all, they look down their noses at Neil Diamond,
22:59
Speaker 2: even though he's of the great songwriters of all time
23:02
Speaker 2: in addition to performers, and they would look down at
23:05
Speaker 2: this because they look down at the kind of people
23:06
Speaker 2: who fell in love with the whole Lightning and thunder.
23:11
Speaker 2: I think, well, that became a really big deal in
23:14
Speaker 2: Milwaukee in part because they worked their asses off, and
23:18
Speaker 2: Mike in particular was an incredible self promoter, which you
23:23
Speaker 2: just have to be. I mean, I've told the story
23:25
Speaker 2: a couple of times. If if I met Claire, I
23:29
Speaker 2: just forgot it, and I might have because in that
23:32
Speaker 2: period of the nineties, they were everywhere. I remember when
23:35
Speaker 2: I met Mike. What the movie keeps talking about their
23:39
Speaker 2: stuff at the State Fair, but in fact, Summerfest is
23:41
Speaker 2: where they always were, and they got to be a
23:43
Speaker 2: big enough deal that they were playing the side stages
23:45
Speaker 2: at Summerfest, like multiple days during the week of Summerfest.
23:49
Speaker 2: And that's you know, the Summer Fest does all these
23:51
Speaker 2: side stages, and they'd be like the kind of act
23:53
Speaker 2: they will play the afternoon at a side stage, and
23:57
Speaker 2: what Mike would do and I don't know how often
23:59
Speaker 2: he it, but he was doing it the day that
24:02
Speaker 2: I was there. He's standing in the main gate dressed
24:04
Speaker 2: up at his Neil Diamond get up. This was already
24:08
Speaker 2: after Claire had her accident. I won't give away too
24:14
Speaker 2: much because of the movie, but most people know the
24:16
Speaker 2: story here. And Mike standed at the main gate dressed
24:19
Speaker 2: up like Neil Diamond, just talking to anybody who would
24:22
Speaker 2: walk by, just promoting, promoting, promoting, And I don't know
24:26
Speaker 2: how it started, but that's why he talked to me.
24:27
Speaker 2: Maybe he recognized me or whatever, but we talked, and
24:30
Speaker 2: he talked about her accident and what he was gonna.
24:33
Speaker 2: You know, they're gonna whether he was still doing and
24:35
Speaker 2: performing and so what I mean, he just worked it
24:39
Speaker 2: and her thing at this level that she's had, she
24:43
Speaker 2: wanted to be a star, and she never had dreams
24:46
Speaker 2: that she was gonna win a Grammy or anything. She
24:48
Speaker 2: want to be a start like okay, singing a borer club.
24:50
Speaker 2: We're twenty five or thirty. People woul pay attention, and
24:52
Speaker 2: it's just the kind of thing that I think a
24:54
Speaker 2: lot of people would look, Oh my god, that's your life.
24:59
Speaker 2: Who's in that? You're playing a bowling alley in West Alice.
25:05
Speaker 2: The thing that there's several reasons that the movie is
25:08
Speaker 2: really good, but every review that I've read that raves
25:11
Speaker 2: on it makes the same point, and I'm going to
25:14
Speaker 2: make it here. They treated the filmmaker, Craig Brewer, treated
25:21
Speaker 2: those characters with respect. He didn't present them as two
25:26
Speaker 2: goofs with such goofy little dreams and doing such a
25:30
Speaker 2: goofy act. He met them. I dated a woman who
25:35
Speaker 2: was a psychotherapist, and she said, we try to meet
25:38
Speaker 2: people on their own terms, meet them where they are.
25:41
Speaker 2: And that's what I think that the movie did. It
25:43
Speaker 2: never tried to make fun what they were doing. It
25:47
Speaker 2: was it honestly reflected that they were doing exactly what
25:50
Speaker 2: they wanted to do, and that the people who love
25:52
Speaker 2: them loved them because this is exactly what they wanted
25:55
Speaker 2: to see and it was. I just think that almost
25:59
Speaker 2: every other Hollywood treatment of this would have gotten that
26:03
Speaker 2: part wrong, that they wouldn't have had any feel for
26:07
Speaker 2: how a Neil Diamond tribute act of a husband and wife,
26:10
Speaker 2: and the wife isn't even really doing anything that's Neil Diamond.
26:13
Speaker 2: She just a background second, and then it's the show
26:15
Speaker 2: she did her Patsy Klein stuff and so on, how
26:18
Speaker 2: something like this could work and they would look upon
26:21
Speaker 2: it as hoky. Craig Brewer did not do the movie
26:32
Speaker 2: that way. It treats the characters with respect, and it
26:36
Speaker 2: treats the family. It was a blended family. You know,
26:39
Speaker 2: he had his daughter, she had two kids. It might
26:43
Speaker 2: have been a couple of other kids that didn't count
26:44
Speaker 2: included the movie. But anyway, Claire's daughter, who's done a
26:50
Speaker 2: lot of interviews and featured in the movie, and just
26:53
Speaker 2: a tremendous performance by the actress who played her, I
26:57
Speaker 2: think her name is Ella. Anderson daughter, talked about they
27:03
Speaker 2: had this concern about whether or not they trusted this
27:06
Speaker 2: guy to handle their life story and put it on film,
27:10
Speaker 2: or would they make a mockery of them or all
27:15
Speaker 2: the crap that happened. Would it be kind of humiliating
27:19
Speaker 2: and treating them like, you know, a novelty act or
27:21
Speaker 2: a carnival side show. And they developed a level of
27:26
Speaker 2: trust where they felt that he wouldn't do that, and
27:30
Speaker 2: he did treat them with total respect. And I think
27:33
Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons that the movie I think
27:36
Speaker 2: really really works. I'm I'm sure most of you have
27:40
Speaker 2: not yet seen the movie. My review of it is
27:43
Speaker 2: I mentioned this on the podcast a few weeks ago.
27:47
Speaker 2: The performances are off the chart. Kate Hudson in particular
27:50
Speaker 2: is it's just an astonishing performance in her role as Thunder.
27:54
Speaker 2: Hugh Jackman is outstanding. It almost becomes Neil Diamond. But
27:58
Speaker 2: the acting, particularly from the two main stars, is really
28:03
Speaker 2: really good. Secondly, the music is outstanding. They know. My
28:09
Speaker 2: take on Neil Diamond is that eighty percent of the
28:12
Speaker 2: stuff that he did was really really good and twenty
28:15
Speaker 2: percent was atrocious. He's one of these guys that had
28:18
Speaker 2: like no middle ground. He had some stuff that I
28:20
Speaker 2: just thought, really really that whole Jonathan livingson seagull Era
28:24
Speaker 2: that he went into, which some of you don't even
28:26
Speaker 2: know because the music I thought, Bee and these other
28:29
Speaker 2: it just that was awful and he became a character
28:31
Speaker 2: mature of himself. But the rest was really really good.
28:34
Speaker 2: The movie doesn't use any of the bad stuff they owe,
28:37
Speaker 2: even the obscure songs like they make a big deal
28:39
Speaker 2: of the song Solomon, which is a really good song.
28:43
Speaker 2: The music is really really good and the sound is
28:46
Speaker 2: really really good, and the singing which the two actors
28:48
Speaker 2: do their own singing is really really good. It sounds good.
28:52
Speaker 2: The acting is good. And the other thing that I
28:56
Speaker 2: just think makes it work is the way they approached
29:00
Speaker 2: these characters and their life. Now the story the movie,
29:05
Speaker 2: of course, he goes, if it was not based on
29:08
Speaker 2: a true story, people would look at the movie and
29:12
Speaker 2: say that that's implausible and ridiculous. Oh, all this crap happened,
29:16
Speaker 2: and that Neil Diamond and then this and this and
29:19
Speaker 2: this and then all the downsides of after the accident
29:22
Speaker 2: and so on. Who's gonna believe this? It's contrived. They
29:25
Speaker 2: do change up some details on the movie, and some
29:27
Speaker 2: timelines are changed and locations are changed, but the gist
29:31
Speaker 2: of the story is completely accurate, so you can't claim
29:34
Speaker 2: that it's contrived, because this stuff actually did happen. I
29:40
Speaker 2: posted on my account on x which you should all
29:42
Speaker 2: be following, Mark bellin show the review in the New
29:45
Speaker 2: York Times that showed up on Christmas Eve what struck me?
29:49
Speaker 2: And the New York Times reviewer absolutely raved loved the movie.
29:54
Speaker 2: That surprised me because the New York Times is this
29:57
Speaker 2: snooty and you know the nose more than any other
30:00
Speaker 2: publication than you can imagine. Maybe The Guardian would be
30:05
Speaker 2: more and The Guardian Rave two. The Wall Street Journal
30:09
Speaker 2: print edition they don't print on Christmas Day came out today.
30:12
Speaker 2: And Kyle Smith, who's maybe right now the biggest movie
30:16
Speaker 2: you're in America. I'm gonna share his review. This is
30:20
Speaker 2: from The Wall Street Journal Today. A tuneful tribute acts
30:24
Speaker 2: true affection. Song Sung Blue follows a Neil Diamond impersonator
30:28
Speaker 2: and his partner. Here's the review. Song Sung Blue won
30:32
Speaker 2: me over early on when a bar fight breaks out
30:35
Speaker 2: over the remark shouted by a leather clad biker dude
30:39
Speaker 2: Neil Diamond sucks fighting words bordering on heresy. Whether you
30:44
Speaker 2: love Diamonds Diamond ironically or unironically, this oddball music comedy
30:51
Speaker 2: drama is bound to turn on your heart light, though
30:56
Speaker 2: if you're reverse to his tunes, you'd best stay away.
30:59
Speaker 2: Base and a true story that previously inspired a two
31:02
Speaker 2: thousand and eight documentary of the same name, Song Sung
31:05
Speaker 2: Blue is a warm and slightly weird tale of a
31:09
Speaker 2: pair of working class people. Mechanic hairstylist who in the
31:13
Speaker 2: mid nineteen nineties Milwaukee moonlighted as a Neil Diamond impersonator
31:17
Speaker 2: and his backup singer and keyboardist. The joy that they
31:20
Speaker 2: find in this work is infectious, and I loved this
31:25
Speaker 2: movie beyond measure. It wasn't on my annual Top ten
31:29
Speaker 2: list only because I hadn't seen it yet when I
31:33
Speaker 2: wrote that Hollywood types often strike and this is the
31:36
Speaker 2: point I was making. Hollywood types often strike a snarky
31:40
Speaker 2: and condescending tone when they peer down the ladder at
31:44
Speaker 2: the low rungs of show business. An excellent example is
31:48
Speaker 2: the twenty seventeen comedy The Disaster Artist. But as written
31:52
Speaker 2: and directed by Craig Brewer, whose previous credits include Hustle
31:56
Speaker 2: and Flow, the twenty eleven remake of Footloose, and the
31:59
Speaker 2: sequel of Coming to America. Song Sung Blue avoids straying
32:03
Speaker 2: in the mockery of Mike and Claire Sardina, who perform
32:06
Speaker 2: as Lightning and Thunder. Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson are
32:10
Speaker 2: completely enduring as the performers who made it a state
32:13
Speaker 2: who made it a state fair where he caught where
32:16
Speaker 2: he calling himself. Lightning is chafing at doing a tribute
32:20
Speaker 2: to Hawaiian vocalist Don Ho, and she is impersonating Patsy
32:23
Speaker 2: Klein Brewer interviews. Brewer intertwines the movies two registers brilliantly,
32:32
Speaker 2: and then he goes on and I don't want to
32:33
Speaker 2: lay out too much more because I don't want to.
32:36
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people in Milwaukee, there
32:37
Speaker 2: are no spoiler alerts because most people know the story.
32:40
Speaker 2: But it's a rave review, and just about everyone that
32:43
Speaker 2: I've seen from like the hoity twity film critics, is
32:49
Speaker 2: a rave review. So in putting this all in context
32:53
Speaker 2: of what Rob Schnier had to say is the reason
32:56
Speaker 2: I think that everyone is just struck by the fact
32:58
Speaker 2: that they tweeted these characters with respect. Is that's what's
33:01
Speaker 2: so unusual about it, This elitist tone that Hollywood makes,
33:08
Speaker 2: in which they make movies about themselves, and every movie's
33:11
Speaker 2: got to be an alternative lifestyles that people pursuing a
33:14
Speaker 2: leftist thing, and you know, nobody making any movies that
33:17
Speaker 2: anybody in Middle America can relate to. You know, when
33:21
Speaker 2: Mel Gibson made his tremendous movie about the Crucifixion of Christ,
33:24
Speaker 2: he had a self finance it himself because no studio
33:26
Speaker 2: wanted to fund it. Normally, stories like this aren't TV shows,
33:38
Speaker 2: they aren't movies. They're simply not told. And when they
33:41
Speaker 2: are told, the tone is totally wrong. The fact that
33:47
Speaker 2: this guy got it right it is what's so unusual
33:51
Speaker 2: and so remarkable. And that's where getting to Rob Schneider's point.
33:55
Speaker 2: I think that's where he becomes right about what's happened
33:57
Speaker 2: with Hollywood is that the whole point of Hollywood has
34:02
Speaker 2: been to create stuff that lots and lots that the
34:05
Speaker 2: masses want to see. And that's what the movies and
34:07
Speaker 2: TV were. For the longest time. There was no political
34:11
Speaker 2: bias in most of the big TV shows. That what
34:14
Speaker 2: was the political bias of Bonanza one? What was the
34:19
Speaker 2: political bias of It's a Wonderful Wife or Gone with
34:22
Speaker 2: the Wind? I mean was in there? I didn't pick
34:24
Speaker 2: up on it, And I don't want to suggest that
34:27
Speaker 2: Songs and Blue is a conservative movie. What's just remarkable
34:30
Speaker 2: is there's no politics to it at all. I have
34:32
Speaker 2: no idea what Mike and Claire Sardina's politics were, or
34:35
Speaker 2: in case that Claire are, or even if they have any,
34:38
Speaker 2: and none of it got in there, and it shouldn't
34:41
Speaker 2: get in there, because what would that have to do
34:43
Speaker 2: with the story. Nothing. But that's the exception rather than
34:49
Speaker 2: the rule. I want to turn my attention to some
34:52
Speaker 2: comments that President Prout made about all the photos of
34:57
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton in the Epstein files, and interestingly, Trump is
35:01
Speaker 2: coming to Clinton's defense. Now, Trump has been poop pulling
35:05
Speaker 2: this old Epstein's story. Trump's names in the Epstein files,
35:08
Speaker 2: and Trump met Epstein, and there's this photo here and
35:11
Speaker 2: so on. There is no suggestion at all that Trump
35:14
Speaker 2: was ever done at that island bopping around with young
35:16
Speaker 2: But the media is just obsessed with trying to tie
35:19
Speaker 2: Trump's name in to Epstein. And Trump's just frustrated that
35:23
Speaker 2: the Epstein story keeps being covered because he thinks it's
35:26
Speaker 2: detracting from all of the accomplishments that he's had. Nonetheless,
35:29
Speaker 2: he makes a point here about Bill Clinton that's worthy
35:31
Speaker 2: of common Trump said, I like Bill Clinton. I've always
35:35
Speaker 2: gotten along with Bill Clinton. Notice he's talking about Bill
35:38
Speaker 2: and not Hillary. We respect him. I hate to see
35:41
Speaker 2: photos come out of him. Everybody was friendly with this
35:45
Speaker 2: guy he's talking about Epstein. He was all over Palm Beach.
35:49
Speaker 2: Larry Summers was his best friend. Bill Clinton was a friend,
35:52
Speaker 2: but everybody was I threw him out of mar Alago.
35:55
Speaker 2: I don't like the pictures of Bill Clinton being shown.
35:58
Speaker 2: I don't like pictures of other people being shown. You
36:01
Speaker 2: probably have pictures being exposed of others, people that innocently
36:06
Speaker 2: met Jeffrey Epstein many years ago, because of guys like Massy.
36:10
Speaker 2: That's the Republican congressman of Kentucky who's a real lowlife,
36:14
Speaker 2: whose polls I don't know about nine percent in Kentucky.
36:16
Speaker 2: Massy's a loser. He works with the Democrats. Anyway, The
36:19
Speaker 2: point that Trump is making here, in addition to he
36:21
Speaker 2: doesn't like the fact that he's being tired of the
36:23
Speaker 2: whole Epstein thing, is I think fairly legitimate. They just
36:29
Speaker 2: uncovered a million more docums think of us, a million
36:32
Speaker 2: more documents or files with Epstein. See, when you're doing
36:36
Speaker 2: an investigation, you grab up all of this stuff in
36:39
Speaker 2: everything having anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein in his life,
36:43
Speaker 2: And I think what's gonna happen is all of this
36:46
Speaker 2: stuff comes out, We're going to have even less clarity
36:51
Speaker 2: because you're gonna be looking at it, all of this
36:52
Speaker 2: stuff that doesn't have anything to do with anything, and
36:55
Speaker 2: people just looking for what it is that they can
36:57
Speaker 2: use the political purposes. Oh look, here's this with Trump,
37:00
Speaker 2: here's this with this one over here, and so on.
37:02
Speaker 2: The thing I think that most people want to know
37:04
Speaker 2: is who went down to that island and who was
37:08
Speaker 2: messing around with underage girls. Best we can tell, some
37:11
Speaker 2: of the women at the island were of age and
37:15
Speaker 2: others were underage. Some may have been trafficked, some may
37:18
Speaker 2: have been willingly going down there and doing it for money,
37:21
Speaker 2: but there were clearly guys that were going down there
37:22
Speaker 2: and having sex with underaged women, and some of the
37:24
Speaker 2: women were abused, And I think we just want to
37:26
Speaker 2: know who those people are. And all of this other
37:28
Speaker 2: stuff is just noise. And I think the more information
37:32
Speaker 2: we get now, all being presented by people who are
37:35
Speaker 2: trying to look for certain ways to use it, the
37:39
Speaker 2: less we're actually going to know about the whole Epstein thing.
37:45
Speaker 2: Another story. Patrick Byrne, who's been involved in intelligence and
37:50
Speaker 2: law enforcement is an analyst and observer for some time,
37:54
Speaker 2: posted the following a couple of days ago on X
37:58
Speaker 2: This is if true, and again I don't have any
38:01
Speaker 2: reason to think it isn't true. This is one of
38:04
Speaker 2: those like bombshells that people just aren't going to hear about.
38:08
Speaker 2: He said, I gave FBI special Agent Dave Smith a
38:11
Speaker 2: hard drive of Perkins Kooy. Perkins Kooy is the big
38:16
Speaker 2: DC law firm that was the one Perkins Koi cie
38:22
Speaker 2: Perkins Koy. Perkins Koi is the big DC law firm
38:26
Speaker 2: that was behind the Steele dossier that fueled the whole
38:30
Speaker 2: fake Russia collusion thing with regard to Trump. Anyway, he said,
38:36
Speaker 2: I gave special Agent Dave Smith a hard drive proving
38:38
Speaker 2: Perkins Koi access to Ukrainian child porn to plant on
38:44
Speaker 2: Prompt's email server. Also, the VA medical system was penetrated
38:50
Speaker 2: by I Ran Garland, that's Merrick Garland, Attorney General under Biden,
38:55
Speaker 2: ordered Ray FBI Director pack Ray to destroy it in
38:59
Speaker 2: the FBI lab ps DOJ fat ass Todd Blanche ordered
39:04
Speaker 2: the FBI a DOJ to refuse to accept a copy
39:07
Speaker 2: of that hard drive. Now, again, maybe it's not true.
39:13
Speaker 2: Maybe the guy's making this up, but it passes the
39:16
Speaker 2: smell test and certainly seems to be believable if Perkins
39:19
Speaker 2: Koy was involved in funding the Steele dossier, just making
39:23
Speaker 2: up a bunch of stuff, about Trump in an attempt
39:26
Speaker 2: to damage Trump. Why would they stop at that. Why
39:32
Speaker 2: wouldn't there be an attempt to put child pulling on
39:35
Speaker 2: Trump's computer? You know when people think that Trump is
39:38
Speaker 2: paranoid and he's you know, payback for all of his enemies,
39:41
Speaker 2: look at all of the crap that this guy was
39:42
Speaker 2: on the receiving end of. As Nicki Minaj said in
39:47
Speaker 2: her statement at turning Point, very hard to be lied on.
39:52
Speaker 2: Imagine just being light on and light on and light
39:55
Speaker 2: on the people are believing the lies. Interesting piece to
40:01
Speaker 2: share with you on this podcast. It addresses this whole
40:04
Speaker 2: thing of why is Trump going after Venezuela. Some people
40:09
Speaker 2: believe it's because of the oil. Some people believe it's
40:13
Speaker 2: because of the fenool. Some people believe it's because of
40:17
Speaker 2: the enormous Venezuelan community in the United States, exiles who
40:23
Speaker 2: are as obsessed with bringing down the Maduro government as
40:26
Speaker 2: the Cuban exiles were worth bringing down Castro. There's a
40:31
Speaker 2: piece that was written by Michael McNair. It's on Medium.
40:34
Speaker 2: I'm not linking it up, but medium is it's like substack.
40:37
Speaker 2: It's one of those sites that post blogs in which
40:41
Speaker 2: he has a deep analysis here of something that's going
40:45
Speaker 2: on that he thinks that's driving Trump and our government's
40:49
Speaker 2: concern over Venezuela. He writes, the Maduro regime has deep
40:54
Speaker 2: and quiet ties to Moscow dating back to the Cold
40:58
Speaker 2: War networks in Latin America. By the way, that's true,
41:01
Speaker 2: there is a separate report that Putin is getting the
41:05
Speaker 2: Russians that are in Venezuela out right now for fear
41:08
Speaker 2: that the United States is going to have an attack anyway.
41:11
Speaker 2: The minority regime has deep and quietized the Moscow dating
41:14
Speaker 2: back to the Cold War networks in Latin America. This
41:17
Speaker 2: does not require Russian submarines, a locally operated capability enabled
41:22
Speaker 2: by foreign technology advisors in financing that Venezuela can run
41:27
Speaker 2: under its own flag. That model fits Moscow's incentives, It
41:31
Speaker 2: preserves deniability and explains why the administration would keep the
41:36
Speaker 2: public story focused on narcotics while quietly building options for
41:40
Speaker 2: something larger. Now, what's he referring to. He's suggesting that
41:44
Speaker 2: there's a drone operation that Moscow is running, essentially laundering
41:48
Speaker 2: it through Venezuela, and that the purpose of the drones
41:52
Speaker 2: is to attack commerce by ships. In other words, all
41:57
Speaker 2: the international trade that's going on with ships that are
42:01
Speaker 2: sending things around the world, that Russia is developing a
42:05
Speaker 2: drone network capable of knocking them out. If they, of
42:09
Speaker 2: course have that and start doing it, it will give
42:12
Speaker 2: put an incredible leverage. So the point that mcnern is
42:16
Speaker 2: making in his piece is that's the real reason about
42:21
Speaker 2: the focus on Venezuela. In the same way that Russia
42:25
Speaker 2: and Cuba created the Russian Missile crisis when the Russian
42:29
Speaker 2: sent nuclear weapons over to Cuba which would threaten the
42:32
Speaker 2: United States, and Kennedy said, We're simply not going to
42:35
Speaker 2: take it. According to this writer, Crumb's concern with Venezuela
42:39
Speaker 2: is that Venezuela is hiding Russian drones that have been
42:44
Speaker 2: developed for the purposes of taking out international cargo ships,
42:49
Speaker 2: continuing Russia working through the Maduro regime and cartel infrastructure
42:54
Speaker 2: to create leverage against Washington. Our entire globalized trading system
42:59
Speaker 2: rests on a base sick assumption that goods can move
43:01
Speaker 2: freely across the world's oceans. Autonomous underwater vehicles can change
43:07
Speaker 2: that calculus. A dozen of these mobile autonomous minefields positioned
43:13
Speaker 2: in the Florida Straits and the Yucatan Channel could cut
43:16
Speaker 2: off access to the Gulf, referring here to the Gulf
43:19
Speaker 2: of America if you prefer the Gulf of Mexico. Venezuela
43:22
Speaker 2: can also operate these systems under its own flag. Foreign
43:26
Speaker 2: sponsors provide the technology, training, and payloads. Moscow would be
43:31
Speaker 2: doing in the Caribbean what Washington has done in Ukraine,
43:35
Speaker 2: arming a proxy and maintaining just enough distance to complicate escalations.
43:42
Speaker 2: That's a theory offered by him on what it is
43:46
Speaker 2: about Venezuela right now that is causing Trump to act.
43:50
Speaker 2: My quick little ps on this. I think that Venezuela
43:54
Speaker 2: is so destabilized internally. The economy is such a mess
43:58
Speaker 2: that it may not take away war to finally get
44:02
Speaker 2: rid of the Maduro government that's simply hitting them a
44:05
Speaker 2: number of times, maybe enough to embolden the Venezuelans that
44:09
Speaker 2: are still in that country, or what's left of the
44:12
Speaker 2: Venezuelan military that hasn't drank the kool aid of Maduro
44:16
Speaker 2: to simply topple him. You know, Venezuela was a very
44:21
Speaker 2: before the economy cratered when Hugo Chavez came in Venezuela
44:27
Speaker 2: was one of the most modern of South American countries,
44:29
Speaker 2: Lots and lots of high very much like a rand
44:32
Speaker 2: in the Middle East, highly educated people, I culture, great
44:37
Speaker 2: wealth and so on. And there's still a lot of
44:40
Speaker 2: the people who haven't gotten out there, still are a
44:42
Speaker 2: lot of them there. It may well be that if
44:46
Speaker 2: Trump is sending these signals that we're just going to
44:48
Speaker 2: keep hitting Venezuela right and left, that the military in
44:52
Speaker 2: Venezuela will act in the form of a coup and
44:55
Speaker 2: finally get rid of Maduro, which I think if that happened,
44:58
Speaker 2: you would see celebrations in the three of Caracas. He's
45:01
Speaker 2: very much one of those countries in which Maduro through
45:04
Speaker 2: terror has control of that country. And I suspect that
45:08
Speaker 2: a significant number of the populace don't approve of him,
45:11
Speaker 2: which is why they reg elections and so on. This
45:14
Speaker 2: is the Mark Belling podcast. This is the Mark Belling podcast.
45:21
Speaker 2: You know, I have had occasion over the years not
45:26
Speaker 2: only to say I told you so, but there have
45:29
Speaker 2: been several stories in which I was so convinced I
45:33
Speaker 2: was right that I say before the story happened. When
45:36
Speaker 2: the idea is being proposed I said, you know, in
45:39
Speaker 2: a few years, I'm good. This is going to be
45:41
Speaker 2: one of my biggest I told you so. Is ever
45:45
Speaker 2: the trolley was is always going to be number one
45:48
Speaker 2: on that list. The you know, I told you so.
45:51
Speaker 2: I think number two was this idiotic not even the
45:56
Speaker 2: right word. It's more like corrupt. Idiotic idea, corrupt idea
46:01
Speaker 2: for the City of Milwaukee to use direct taxpayer funds
46:05
Speaker 2: to bank rule the very well connected developer Kaylon Heywood's
46:10
Speaker 2: senior and his plans to develop a four star hotel
46:14
Speaker 2: at twenty seventh North, just saying it is ridiculous. And
46:19
Speaker 2: the reason it sounds ridiculous is it is ridiculous. Somebody
46:23
Speaker 2: who wants to stay at a two hundred and fifty
46:25
Speaker 2: dollars a night hotel is not going to stay at
46:27
Speaker 2: twenty seventh in North, no matter how nice it is.
46:31
Speaker 2: The idea was absolutely ridiculous. And I said at the
46:34
Speaker 2: time that the only plausible reason to do this is
46:37
Speaker 2: to get the hand the money in the hands of
46:40
Speaker 2: Heywood and then have him start paying engineers and architects
46:43
Speaker 2: and so on, and start spending the money. But nothing
46:45
Speaker 2: was ever going to happen if it ever opened it
46:48
Speaker 2: would close within six months. Well guess what, nothing happened.
46:56
Speaker 2: They didn't even begin construction. Nothing, And the city keeps
46:59
Speaker 2: asked th King Heywood that paid back the money that
47:02
Speaker 2: they gave him, because it came in the form of
47:03
Speaker 2: a loan. He hadn't paid anything back. So then he
47:07
Speaker 2: came up with a second plan for the site and
47:10
Speaker 2: the city council gave him an extension. Again, I should
47:15
Speaker 2: mention Heywood is very well connected and is a big
47:19
Speaker 2: time donor to just about everybody involved in city government.
47:22
Speaker 2: He's the ultimate inside player. He was also the guy
47:25
Speaker 2: who was the subject of that very controversial investigation into
47:29
Speaker 2: a woman's allegation of sexual assault. It was the investigation
47:35
Speaker 2: in which Heywood's lawyer was present at one of the
47:40
Speaker 2: police interrogations. People questioned whether or not preferential treatment was
47:43
Speaker 2: being given to Heywood. He was never charged in connection
47:47
Speaker 2: with that. Now Tom Dake and reporting on js online.
47:52
Speaker 2: After version one of this plan at twenty seventh and
47:55
Speaker 2: North went nowhere and version two of the plan at
47:58
Speaker 2: twenty seventh and North went nowhere, he would has a
48:01
Speaker 2: new plan. Remember, he hasn't paid anything back. He's had
48:05
Speaker 2: this money for years. Stall development as new plan group
48:10
Speaker 2: seeks to turn city site into housing, which is probably
48:13
Speaker 2: the only thing that it ever would be would have
48:15
Speaker 2: been in the first places to put into some housing.
48:18
Speaker 2: So now he's asking and seeking incentives to go ahead
48:20
Speaker 2: with housing and dragging out paying back the millions that
48:24
Speaker 2: he got. Again, you may wonder, how how has he
48:29
Speaker 2: been able to pull this off? How is he able
48:31
Speaker 2: to get city money for such a ridiculous idea. How
48:35
Speaker 2: has he been able to go years without paying back
48:37
Speaker 2: any of the money? How is it that the property
48:39
Speaker 2: has not been foreclosed upon? How is it that the
48:42
Speaker 2: city has not sued him for the return of the money?
48:45
Speaker 2: He would still has numerous other assets, He's got his
48:47
Speaker 2: finger in all sorts of things going on in Milwaukee.
48:50
Speaker 2: How is this Well, if this was Minnesota, it would
48:55
Speaker 2: make sense, because if this was Minnesota, I would just
48:57
Speaker 2: be convinced that Calen Heywood Senior is amat because that's
49:02
Speaker 2: what this is what the Somalis were doing in Minnesota.
49:05
Speaker 2: Everybody knew was corrupt. The corruption evidence is all over
49:07
Speaker 2: the place. But because the Somalis were a political influence
49:11
Speaker 2: group in the state of Minnesota, the Democrats cap giving
49:13
Speaker 2: them money, but this isn't Minnesota's Wisconsin, and so far
49:16
Speaker 2: as they know, Kaylon Heywood Senior is not a Somali,
49:19
Speaker 2: But if he was a Somalia, it would make sense
49:21
Speaker 2: because they in Minnesota were just allowed to do it.
49:25
Speaker 2: But it is similar. It's the cloud of Haywood that
49:28
Speaker 2: has allowed him to make ridiculous proposals and be given
49:32
Speaker 2: money and then never pay it back and being given
49:35
Speaker 2: forever and ever at ever to try to develop and
49:37
Speaker 2: turn it into something. It's free money. If you can
49:40
Speaker 2: try it into something in which you can make a profit, fine,
49:42
Speaker 2: If you can't, you're still spending the money in the process,
49:45
Speaker 2: doling it out to your friends and peddling your influence
49:49
Speaker 2: with the money that you got. It's a zero risk,
49:52
Speaker 2: all win opportunity for him. And why why not any
49:55
Speaker 2: of the numbers of other people that would love to
49:57
Speaker 2: do something in the unterseity because none of them are
49:59
Speaker 2: Kaelon Heywood's. So, now, okay, he wants to do housing,
50:04
Speaker 2: like there's a lack of housing in the central city. Well,
50:06
Speaker 2: there's a lack of newer housing in the central city,
50:09
Speaker 2: so we may put up a housing project. It may work,
50:11
Speaker 2: it may not work. Certainly people will move into it.
50:13
Speaker 2: Whether or not he'd ever be able to charge the
50:15
Speaker 2: kind of rent to get back the return of the
50:16
Speaker 2: construction very very dubious. But it would allow him to
50:20
Speaker 2: pay contractors and pay other people in exchange for who
50:23
Speaker 2: knows what. What it is is out and out favoritism
50:30
Speaker 2: and corruption. It is a microcosm of what happened with
50:35
Speaker 2: the Somalis in Minnesota. In fact, I've got a quote
50:40
Speaker 2: here from Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff President Trump,
50:46
Speaker 2: who has a remarkal of ability to summarize things so
50:51
Speaker 2: that everybody can understand it and do it in less
50:53
Speaker 2: than two minutes. Here's his quote. Look how powerful the
50:57
Speaker 2: Democrat Party became in Minnesota once they flooded it with
51:01
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand somalions, once the elections were decided by
51:06
Speaker 2: clan rivalries and ethnic feuds. Once that happened, the Democrat
51:11
Speaker 2: Party became permanently powerful in Minnesota. They became permanently powerful
51:16
Speaker 2: of the Twin Cities. When you see the state of Somalia,
51:20
Speaker 2: that's what they want for America because it's easier to
51:24
Speaker 2: rule over an empire of ashes than it is for
51:26
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party to rule over a function in Western
51:30
Speaker 2: high trust society with a strong middle class. That's their
51:34
Speaker 2: model for America, to make the whole country into a
51:38
Speaker 2: version of Somalia. And everything they do gets down to that.
51:48
Speaker 2: And now a comment from James Comer. Not to be
51:50
Speaker 2: confused with James Comy. James Comer is the Republican Congressman.
51:54
Speaker 2: He's the head of the Committee on Investigations. He's one
51:57
Speaker 2: of these guys who's figured out the crap that's been
51:59
Speaker 2: going on on any number of these issues for some time.
52:02
Speaker 2: Him and Tim Waltz in Minnesota. Waltz isn't going to
52:06
Speaker 2: fix any of the Somali fraudy issues in Minnesota because
52:09
Speaker 2: Democrats rely on that population to win power. It's the
52:14
Speaker 2: whole key to the business model of success for the
52:17
Speaker 2: Democratic Party in Minnesota. And staggering numbers of them are
52:21
Speaker 2: on the US taxpayer dole. Quote. The early numbers that
52:25
Speaker 2: I'm getting in on the Somalis in Minnesota is seventy
52:29
Speaker 2: five percent or in full government assistance, full welfare. The
52:34
Speaker 2: lid's I Magic Comra is correct. Twenty five percent of
52:40
Speaker 2: the Somalis get a ton of money to run corrupt
52:44
Speaker 2: government programs at which they're not providing services, and the
52:47
Speaker 2: rest of them are just put on the entire welfare
52:49
Speaker 2: doll Bring one hundred thousand people from another country, call
52:54
Speaker 2: them refugees, bring them in, and then pound them with
52:58
Speaker 2: money in exchange for them giving you all of their votes.
53:01
Speaker 2: In a state like Minnesota, which used to be a swing,
53:04
Speaker 2: Saint Garant king that you start with that pad of
53:06
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand in every election in exchange for allowing
53:11
Speaker 2: the Somalis to pocket all sorts of money, either in
53:14
Speaker 2: the form of welfare or worse, the corruption in terms
53:18
Speaker 2: of the COVID programs and the other programs that they
53:21
Speaker 2: were running that Minnesota officials knew all along were not
53:26
Speaker 2: being spent. They got made of thinking, there do you
53:31
Speaker 2: know about the Nigerian dating scam? See Dave Michaels is married,
53:36
Speaker 2: so he might not know about these things. You know not, Well,
53:39
Speaker 2: there's a website. It's been out there for several years
53:41
Speaker 2: as a husband and wife team that for those of
53:46
Speaker 2: you not aware. Apparently I've been hearing for years that
53:50
Speaker 2: the whole online dating world is just filled with scammers,
53:54
Speaker 2: you know, fake profiles, fake this, fake the other thing,
53:57
Speaker 2: and so on on. That has always been, what's the
54:02
Speaker 2: what's your long term plan for pulling this off? Let's
54:05
Speaker 2: imagine some fat, ugly guy posts a photo of somebody
54:08
Speaker 2: that's thin and skinny and twenty five years younger, and
54:12
Speaker 2: you claim that you're worth all this money and you're not. Well,
54:14
Speaker 2: I mean, what's the end game? Okay? Let's imagine some
54:17
Speaker 2: woman responds to this, attracted to this guy that isn't
54:20
Speaker 2: really who the guy is in the picture and all that.
54:22
Speaker 2: When you show up, what happens?
54:25
Speaker 4: Then?
54:25
Speaker 2: What's your plan? You think you're gonna be able to
54:27
Speaker 2: explain it away? Well, she says, well, where's all your money? Allowed?
54:30
Speaker 2: I okay, I made all of that up because I
54:32
Speaker 2: wanted to meet you and you're really beautiful. Well, how
54:34
Speaker 2: come you're fat and ugly and old and you see
54:36
Speaker 2: in the picture? Was all of this? I just don't
54:38
Speaker 2: understand the endgame of this unless the plan is never
54:43
Speaker 2: to meet the woman at all. I'm trying to think
54:47
Speaker 2: it's one of its catfish. Catfishing is the term for
54:50
Speaker 2: this fake dating thing, fake girlfriends, fake boyfriends, and so on.
54:54
Speaker 2: And there's a husband and wife couple that are on
54:56
Speaker 2: YouTube that expose this and what it is.
54:59
Speaker 3: Is.
54:59
Speaker 2: It'll be like a woman who's I'm just not sure
55:02
Speaker 2: that the guy that I've been communicating with online is real,
55:06
Speaker 2: and there are these guys that he have relationships with women.
55:10
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's the other way around, but it seems to
55:12
Speaker 2: be mostly fake guys having relationships with women. It goes
55:15
Speaker 2: on for years, but they've never met because of course
55:20
Speaker 2: the guy. The guy doesn't want to me because he's
55:22
Speaker 2: a scammer, a stunt. So then they hire this company
55:25
Speaker 2: and it's one of the it's that's very good at
55:27
Speaker 2: doing IP tracking and checking out Internet addresses and they
55:31
Speaker 2: can delve into what it is that you have here
55:33
Speaker 2: in you know, they'll con the person into saying well,
55:36
Speaker 2: and they're sending him money to send them something in
55:38
Speaker 2: which you can get access to their computer. And there's
55:41
Speaker 2: all sorts of scambusters that are out there on the
55:44
Speaker 2: Internet trying to compete with the people that do the scamming.
55:46
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to I can't remember the name of
55:48
Speaker 2: the couple that do this. Some of you will be
55:49
Speaker 2: aware of them. The woman is really hot. They expose
55:54
Speaker 2: these guys that are on these dating sites and it
55:56
Speaker 2: turns out again and again and again and again and
55:59
Speaker 2: again and again. When they track the IP address of
56:01
Speaker 2: this guy that is communicating with the woman, the IP
56:05
Speaker 2: address comes back to Nigeria, I mean Nigerian day I
56:11
Speaker 2: saw that ninety percent of the dating scams are Nigerians.
56:14
Speaker 2: Right now, almost all the welfare fraud scams are Somalians.
56:17
Speaker 2: So it's like people who this is not new. You know,
56:20
Speaker 2: when the Irish criminal gangs came to the United States,
56:22
Speaker 2: there are certain kind of crimes that they specialized in
56:25
Speaker 2: the mafia and the United States was into illegal gambling
56:29
Speaker 2: and garbage contracts and hooking up with the teams. There's
56:33
Speaker 2: various ethnic gangs tend to focus on various ethnic types
56:37
Speaker 2: of crimes. But apparently the you would actually think that
56:42
Speaker 2: somebody sitting in Nigeria would I have a hard time
56:45
Speaker 2: using the lingo. I have some smooth talking American guy.
56:49
Speaker 3: But.
56:50
Speaker 2: Apparently they apparently they do. I want to talk for
56:55
Speaker 2: a second about the Supreme Court ruling. It's a temporary rule.
57:00
Speaker 2: It's not permanent. It's a temporary ruling saying that Trump
57:04
Speaker 2: does not have the authority to send the National Guard
57:06
Speaker 2: to Chicago. The vote was six to three, and when
57:10
Speaker 2: it's sixty's three. It's all gonna be always because John
57:15
Speaker 2: Roberts and Amy Barrett wander over to join the liberals.
57:20
Speaker 2: And that's what this vote was. The four women plus
57:24
Speaker 2: John Roberts voted to form the six. Samuel Alito had
57:27
Speaker 2: a very strong descent. Now, I think that this needs
57:32
Speaker 2: to be examined for just a moment. Here. Does the
57:37
Speaker 2: president have the authority to federalize the National Guard and
57:43
Speaker 2: send them into an American city? It does, I grant
57:47
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court this. It does present significant constitutional questions
57:54
Speaker 2: with regard to federalism, the rights of the state and
57:58
Speaker 2: the rights of the executive. Constitution of the United States
58:02
Speaker 2: limits the role of the federal government and reserves all
58:04
Speaker 2: of the remaining powers of the states. So does a
58:08
Speaker 2: president have a right to take a national guard of
58:11
Speaker 2: a state and federalize it and use it for a
58:14
Speaker 2: local operation when the local state doesn't want it? I
58:19
Speaker 2: grant you It's a legitimate question. However, as Alito's point,
58:25
Speaker 2: as Alito's descend points out, the reason Trump has sent
58:31
Speaker 2: the National Guardian is to protect ice. One area that
58:37
Speaker 2: is undeniably the responsibility of the federal government is immigration
58:41
Speaker 2: and customs enforcement. That's not a state issue. ICE has
58:46
Speaker 2: the right in every one of our states to conduct operations.
58:52
Speaker 2: ICE agents are under attack, it would seem to me
58:58
Speaker 2: that the President has the right to use the National
59:00
Speaker 2: Guard to protect the lives of federal agents who are
59:04
Speaker 2: being attacked and targeted where they're conducting their operations. If
59:11
Speaker 2: Trump was sending in the National Guard for say, disaster relief,
59:16
Speaker 2: when the individual state didn't want the disaster relief, maybe
59:20
Speaker 2: you can make the case that the president doesn't have
59:23
Speaker 2: the authority to do it. But in this case, the
59:27
Speaker 2: President is using the National Guard for the purposes of
59:32
Speaker 2: a legitimate federal rule, which is customs enforcement. If ICE
59:37
Speaker 2: agents are under heavy fire and attack and the local
59:42
Speaker 2: police or the local state will not protect them, all
59:46
Speaker 2: that's left to protect them is other arms of the
59:48
Speaker 2: federal government, which would logically be the National Guard. And
59:52
Speaker 2: that's what Alitos descent said, that the President of the
59:57
Speaker 2: United States has the right to protect federal employees when
1:00:00
Speaker 2: they are doing their duty in the same way that
1:00:03
Speaker 2: you could argue that let's imagine it was the Postal Service.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: It's a quaseg of an agency. Let's come up with
1:00:09
Speaker 2: a better word. The Census Department the Census Department is
1:00:12
Speaker 2: going neighborhood and neighborhood doing information to gather for the census,
1:00:16
Speaker 2: and these people were being attacked right and left. The
1:00:19
Speaker 2: President would have the authority to protect those census workers
1:00:22
Speaker 2: because they were conducting a legitimate federal activity. One of
1:00:29
Speaker 2: the components of Trump derangement syndrome is simply to turn
1:00:32
Speaker 2: Ice into Like in the minds of the left. The
1:00:36
Speaker 2: naziss and the ICE agents have unbelievably dangerous jobs, aside
1:00:41
Speaker 2: from the fact that they're often going to grab extremely violent,
1:00:45
Speaker 2: dangerous criminals who realize that if they are deported, they're
1:00:47
Speaker 2: going to go to prisons in their home countries. So
1:00:50
Speaker 2: a lot of these people are armed themselves. You then
1:00:52
Speaker 2: have people out on the street that are targeting them
1:00:54
Speaker 2: them swell themselves. And while the ICE agents have a
1:00:57
Speaker 2: right to be armed, there's certainly no match for a
1:00:59
Speaker 2: mob of eighty to ninety or one hundred, but a
1:01:02
Speaker 2: well armed n National Guard might be. So it would
1:01:04
Speaker 2: seem to me that this is a legitimate role for
1:01:06
Speaker 2: Trump to be able to take. Now, if the Supreme
1:01:09
Speaker 2: Court ultimately comes down and rules that Trump is the
1:01:11
Speaker 2: right to send them in the problem with that is
1:01:14
Speaker 2: is that it'll be in the next term of the court.
1:01:15
Speaker 2: It's months and months and months away. In the meantime,
1:01:18
Speaker 2: these operations are going on now. I think this does
1:01:23
Speaker 2: constitute an emergency. ICE needs protection, and in the states
1:01:28
Speaker 2: where the governor and the mayors refuse to provide police
1:01:31
Speaker 2: for protection and are allowing ICE agents to simply be
1:01:34
Speaker 2: targets for murder, I believe it is the legitimate right
1:01:39
Speaker 2: of the President to consider that an emergency and act
1:01:43
Speaker 2: to protect them. We're going to do our football preview
1:01:46
Speaker 2: and football analysis coming up next on the Markedelling podcast.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: This is the Marked Beelling Podcast, and it's time for
1:01:56
Speaker 2: a weekly football preview and some point spread analysis. I've
1:01:59
Speaker 2: got my for lot of American sports analysts with us.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: We normally record this podcast on Thursday, but Thursday was yesterday.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: That was Christmas Day, So here we are on Friday.
1:02:07
Speaker 2: And I mentioned that for those of you listening after
1:02:09
Speaker 2: the fact, that we will only be talking about games
1:02:12
Speaker 2: starting this Friday. My next football segment will be New
1:02:16
Speaker 2: Year's Eve Wednesday, not New Year's Day. So when we
1:02:21
Speaker 2: get to our point spread picks any game between those
1:02:25
Speaker 2: to be played this afternoon, which should be December twenty
1:02:28
Speaker 2: sixth through the games of December thirtieth would be fair game.
1:02:32
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some football for the weekend. The college
1:02:36
Speaker 2: football playoffs do not resume them until after our next segment,
1:02:40
Speaker 2: so none of the eight teams involved in a fight
1:02:43
Speaker 2: for the national championship we're playing in this period. So
1:02:45
Speaker 2: there's two other games that I pulled out that I
1:02:47
Speaker 2: thought were of interest to talk to Mike about before
1:02:50
Speaker 2: we get to the pros. And the first is Georgia
1:02:52
Speaker 2: Tech and BYU. I think these are two of the
1:02:55
Speaker 2: best teams that didn't make the playoffs. EYU had a
1:03:01
Speaker 2: very good season except when they played Texas Tech, to
1:03:04
Speaker 2: whom they lost twice. Georgia Tech and the ACC was
1:03:08
Speaker 2: very good team. They gave their arch rival Georgia in
1:03:11
Speaker 2: a non conference game a really good fight. You know,
1:03:14
Speaker 2: in a lot of these ball games, the choices you
1:03:18
Speaker 2: have to look at see it who's opting out and
1:03:20
Speaker 2: which players are not going to play because the NFL
1:03:22
Speaker 2: draft and the running of the transfer portal and so on,
1:03:25
Speaker 2: And you'll see that a lot in this case, though,
1:03:28
Speaker 2: I believe most of the key players for both teams
1:03:30
Speaker 2: are going to be involved. Both coaches are still at
1:03:33
Speaker 2: their schools, so there's a little bit of stability with
1:03:36
Speaker 2: both teams. It's an interesting game. What are your thoughts
1:03:39
Speaker 2: on Georgia Tech and BYU.
1:03:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, two solid teams. Obviously BYU finished the playoff rankings fourteenth,
1:03:47
Speaker 4: so they missed it by a couple spots. And as
1:03:49
Speaker 4: you mentioned, they're only lost this year. Their two losses
1:03:52
Speaker 4: were to Texas Tech. Other than that, they they swept everyone,
1:03:55
Speaker 4: so they had they played a really good schedule and
1:03:58
Speaker 4: had a good season this year in Georgia Tech. Similar
1:04:01
Speaker 4: Georgia Tech had a couple of you know, losses that
1:04:04
Speaker 4: weren't great to NC State and I'm missing the other one,
1:04:08
Speaker 4: but they also lost to George at the end of
1:04:10
Speaker 4: the season, which is their big game. Who comes to
1:04:12
Speaker 4: play in this game?
1:04:13
Speaker 3: As you said, b Yu.
1:04:15
Speaker 4: Are they out to prove It's a tough situation sometimes.
1:04:18
Speaker 4: Are they out to prove that they should have been there?
1:04:21
Speaker 4: Or they flat because they didn't get in the playoffs.
1:04:23
Speaker 4: It seems to me from everything I've heard, and byus
1:04:26
Speaker 4: out to prove a point here. Everyone's gonna play, or
1:04:29
Speaker 4: most guys gonna play. They do lose their running back,
1:04:31
Speaker 4: but most of their key guys are going to play
1:04:34
Speaker 4: in this game. The Georgia Tech similar situation mark, but
1:04:39
Speaker 4: they have they have a little bit of coaching turnover there.
1:04:41
Speaker 4: They lost their offensive coordinator and he took four assistance
1:04:44
Speaker 4: with him, so they have a makeshift offensive staff right now.
1:04:48
Speaker 4: For Georgia Tech, they were very good offensively this year,
1:04:51
Speaker 4: fourteenth in total offense thirty three points per game. Should
1:04:55
Speaker 4: be a really good game. BYU has a much better defense.
1:04:58
Speaker 4: Two good offenses should be a good to watch for sure.
1:05:02
Speaker 2: The next game is involving two teams from major conferences
1:05:07
Speaker 2: that were both just below the top level in their conferences,
1:05:11
Speaker 2: but two schools that I think have most people know
1:05:14
Speaker 2: a fair amount of at and that's the Tennessee and
1:05:16
Speaker 2: Illinois game. Illinois, of course, coach by Brett Beelamo, a
1:05:19
Speaker 2: former Badger coach. Tennessee very good, they have been. There
1:05:23
Speaker 2: were one notch below the very top of the SEC.
1:05:27
Speaker 2: Two very good teams. Maybe you can give us an
1:05:29
Speaker 2: indication of the transfer portal situation and so on. I
1:05:33
Speaker 2: believe Tennessee is favored in the game against Illinois. Illinois
1:05:37
Speaker 2: is one of those teams that I recall earlier in
1:05:39
Speaker 2: the year. I actually thought Illinois was going to beat Indiana.
1:05:42
Speaker 2: That was an early game of the season. That's before
1:05:45
Speaker 2: any of us had any idea that Indiana was. When
1:05:47
Speaker 2: Indiana turned out to be, they beat Illinois by like
1:05:50
Speaker 2: fifty five points, and that was just that blew me away.
1:05:52
Speaker 2: And it's that was my light bulb over the head. Okay,
1:05:55
Speaker 2: Indiana isn't the old Indiana. Indiana is now Ohio State,
1:05:58
Speaker 2: but it's still I think this, I think is a
1:06:00
Speaker 2: pretty good game. Tennessee and Illinois. These are two teams
1:06:03
Speaker 2: that never really were in the hunt for making the playoffs,
1:06:06
Speaker 2: but both had very good seasons. Give us your thoughts
1:06:09
Speaker 2: in this game.
1:06:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, this line opened Tennessee six and a half and
1:06:13
Speaker 4: it's down to two and a half, So let's move
1:06:15
Speaker 4: four points. I think the majority of the reasoning for
1:06:19
Speaker 4: that as Tennessee.
1:06:21
Speaker 3: Does have quite a few opt outs.
1:06:23
Speaker 4: They have at least five or six starters that are
1:06:25
Speaker 4: not going to play in this game, and it's possible
1:06:27
Speaker 4: more will opt out prior to the game.
1:06:30
Speaker 3: It's next Tuesday.
1:06:31
Speaker 4: There's still some up in the air there for Tennessee,
1:06:33
Speaker 4: and I think that's the main reason this line moved
1:06:36
Speaker 4: four points down. They also fired the game.
1:06:38
Speaker 2: And guys opt out for two reasons. Some opt out
1:06:41
Speaker 2: because they're going into the NFL Draft they don't want
1:06:43
Speaker 2: to be hurt. And others are opting out because they're
1:06:45
Speaker 2: planning to transfer and why get hurt before they get
1:06:49
Speaker 2: off to their new school Already they're at the door anyway.
1:06:52
Speaker 2: And I mean when you see in the case of
1:06:54
Speaker 2: like say Mississippi and Lane Kiffin, when you see coaches
1:06:58
Speaker 2: opting out when they're in the contention for the NA Championship,
1:07:01
Speaker 2: it's not surprising players are going to opt out, especially
1:07:04
Speaker 2: when it's just a regular old bowl game, not headed
1:07:07
Speaker 2: to the national Championship.
1:07:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, it happens with all these lower chair bowl games.
1:07:14
Speaker 4: You get guys opting in and out. And the crazy
1:07:16
Speaker 4: part is Mark it's hard to It's really hard to.
1:07:19
Speaker 3: It's hard to handicap these games.
1:07:21
Speaker 4: First of all, because sometimes you have coaches that leave
1:07:25
Speaker 4: and players plan and leaving and then they still play well.
1:07:28
Speaker 4: Take a look at this year Ohio, Toledo, Washington State.
1:07:31
Speaker 3: Their coaches are leaving.
1:07:32
Speaker 4: And they played like they were in the Super Bowl.
1:07:34
Speaker 3: And then you got.
1:07:35
Speaker 4: Teams like South Florida and Memphis, same situation that never
1:07:37
Speaker 4: showed up to play. They didn't want to be there.
1:07:39
Speaker 3: So hard to.
1:07:40
Speaker 4: Handicap this situation.
1:07:42
Speaker 3: Illinois, they're the craziest one.
1:07:46
Speaker 2: Is what's going to happen with Michigan where their coaches
1:07:49
Speaker 2: go on not because he's leaving, because he's in jail.
1:07:54
Speaker 2: You to talk about trying to figure out how a
1:07:56
Speaker 2: team is going to react to that, whether it's an
1:07:58
Speaker 2: emotional higher and emotional gosh, that's the bossing. The Ohio
1:08:01
Speaker 2: situation was similar. He was fired for inappropriate behavior not
1:08:05
Speaker 2: related to what they did on the football field as well.
1:08:07
Speaker 2: But you're right. I mean, one of my standards is
1:08:09
Speaker 2: just if the team loses their coach, go against them
1:08:12
Speaker 2: in the ball game because they don't have stability. But
1:08:13
Speaker 2: you're right. In some of these cases, the team seems
1:08:17
Speaker 2: to rally emotionally around the whole situation, the coach leaving,
1:08:20
Speaker 2: and you're right. In other cases, the team just gets
1:08:23
Speaker 2: crushed because they're metally a wall.
1:08:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's hard to figure that out. I mean,
1:08:28
Speaker 4: it's really hard to pinpoint what's going.
1:08:30
Speaker 3: To happen in those situations.
1:08:32
Speaker 4: It really is bold bull game. I used to enjoy
1:08:35
Speaker 4: handicapping Bowl games, they're really hard. I mean, the one
1:08:38
Speaker 4: stable situation is the college football playoffs for the most part,
1:08:41
Speaker 4: I mean he had Kiff and leaving, But for the
1:08:43
Speaker 4: most part, you have the players that they're playing, the
1:08:44
Speaker 4: coaches are there. You're going to get their best efforts.
1:08:47
Speaker 4: Everyone's in. Those are the best games to handicap these smaller,
1:08:51
Speaker 4: chier games with you know, Tennessee opting out a bunch
1:08:54
Speaker 4: of guys. Illinois has a few guys opted out in
1:08:56
Speaker 4: this game too tough to handicap the line drop, So
1:08:59
Speaker 4: I probably lean in this game, Mark who wants to
1:09:02
Speaker 4: be there. I would guess Illinois more so than Tennessee.
1:09:06
Speaker 4: I would probably lean Illinois in this game, but I
1:09:08
Speaker 4: don't trust Illinois, so it's the game we're probably not
1:09:10
Speaker 4: gonna use.
1:09:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is those games. And you've got
1:09:13
Speaker 2: the people who bet huge amounts of money. They just
1:09:17
Speaker 2: have their ears to the ground because these are opportunities
1:09:20
Speaker 2: if they know something that others don't. And as you say,
1:09:23
Speaker 2: some of these lines have moved violently, so if you
1:09:27
Speaker 2: can get involved and get six or seven points. And
1:09:29
Speaker 2: I think one of the games, I think Connecticut and Army.
1:09:33
Speaker 2: The game open with Connecticut favored, but whether Connecticut might
1:09:37
Speaker 2: have even been favored or Army favored by one or two.
1:09:39
Speaker 2: And I think Army is now favored by nine and
1:09:40
Speaker 2: a half. But imagine if you would have bet Army
1:09:44
Speaker 2: before that line move, but you could now bet the
1:09:47
Speaker 2: other way and win both sides with an eight point
1:09:50
Speaker 2: middle in there. So I'm sure some other reason for
1:09:53
Speaker 2: the big line movement is You've got some people that
1:09:56
Speaker 2: bet a huge amount when they think that they know
1:09:58
Speaker 2: something in games that otherwise don't attract a lot of attention.
1:10:02
Speaker 2: But being the person that knows that stuff, hard to
1:10:05
Speaker 2: know who those people actually are. Let's turn our attention
1:10:08
Speaker 2: to the NFL. Also a unique situation in the NFL.
1:10:11
Speaker 2: In the NFC, almost everything is already decided. The Packers
1:10:16
Speaker 2: are in the playoffs. They clinched thanks to the Lions losing.
1:10:20
Speaker 2: Green Bay's last two Seeds games of the season are
1:10:23
Speaker 2: borderline irrelevant. They can still pass the Bears and win
1:10:27
Speaker 2: the division if they win their last two and the
1:10:29
Speaker 2: Bears lose their last two. I don't think where green
1:10:34
Speaker 2: Bay plays Chicago is going to matter a hoot. I
1:10:36
Speaker 2: don't know that home field matters much in the playoffs,
1:10:39
Speaker 2: but you do have a team in which the game
1:10:41
Speaker 2: is critical. Baltimore Ravens have to win. The Packers play
1:10:45
Speaker 2: the Ravens Saturday night in Green Bay, Green Bay. As
1:10:49
Speaker 2: I say, I guess they would like to win, but
1:10:52
Speaker 2: they don't need to win. They're in the playoffs. The
1:10:54
Speaker 2: Ravens have to win. There's quarterback injuries on both sides.
1:10:58
Speaker 2: Both Packer quarterbacks get banged out. It looks like they're
1:11:01
Speaker 2: both available, and it looks like Lamar Jackson will not
1:11:04
Speaker 2: play for Baltimore. So the Packers are favored, but the
1:11:08
Speaker 2: Ravens are the team that clearly need to win the
1:11:11
Speaker 2: game more than the Packers. How do you size this up?
1:11:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, these games, some of these games late in the
1:11:17
Speaker 4: season NFL, I mean, are similar to the Bowl games.
1:11:20
Speaker 4: Not I don't have a bunch of players opting out,
1:11:22
Speaker 4: but I mean it's hard to handicap some of these games.
1:11:25
Speaker 4: As you mentioned, first of all, in the NFL playoffs,
1:11:28
Speaker 4: there's fourteen teams in the playoffs. Eleven are decided already
1:11:31
Speaker 4: on the only situation we have yet is the AFC
1:11:33
Speaker 4: North with Pittsburg or Baltimore. As you said, Baltimore has
1:11:36
Speaker 4: to win if they lose their out, we've got the
1:11:38
Speaker 4: NFC South Carolina or Tampa Bay is going to be
1:11:41
Speaker 4: in and then there's one wild card left in the
1:11:43
Speaker 4: AFC and it's either're gonna be Houston or in Indianapolis.
1:11:46
Speaker 4: So that's kind of where we sit playoff wise. You
1:11:49
Speaker 4: mentioned Jackson's out in this game, they're going to play
1:11:51
Speaker 4: Tyler Huntly. I kind of agree with you, Mark, I mean,
1:11:55
Speaker 4: the Packers have have so many injuries they be better off.
1:11:59
Speaker 3: Just you know, win or lose this week.
1:12:01
Speaker 4: Just said everyone next week play having a bye game,
1:12:04
Speaker 4: a bye week type of thing for them, because right
1:12:06
Speaker 4: now it's looking like whoever wins the NFC North is
1:12:10
Speaker 4: probably going to be the two seed, not locked into that,
1:12:13
Speaker 4: and whoever loses is going to be the seventh seed.
1:12:15
Speaker 3: They're gonna play each other.
1:12:16
Speaker 4: They're gonna play either in Chicago or in Green Bay.
1:12:18
Speaker 2: I mean, chances are Green Bay is going to be
1:12:20
Speaker 2: the seventh seed, and what they do and e the
1:12:22
Speaker 2: last two games probably wouldn't affect that. And you know,
1:12:27
Speaker 2: Love coming off of a concussion and Hunley being a
1:12:30
Speaker 2: little dinged up and not not Hunley Willis, Malik Willis
1:12:34
Speaker 2: being a little dinged up. It makes you wonder why
1:12:36
Speaker 2: Green Bay would give it this focus. On the other hand,
1:12:38
Speaker 2: I don't think Green Bay wants to go into the
1:12:40
Speaker 2: postseason with three losses in a row, but the injury
1:12:44
Speaker 2: concern is real. It just makes for a really weird game.
1:12:48
Speaker 2: Another game the Bears in the forty nine Ers. Now,
1:12:52
Speaker 2: both of these teams are in the postseason. However, both
1:12:56
Speaker 2: have an opportunity yet to win their division, which would
1:13:00
Speaker 2: mean home field advantage in the first game. The Bears
1:13:03
Speaker 2: just need, without regard to what Green Bay does, win
1:13:06
Speaker 2: one more game. The forty nine Ers are in the
1:13:09
Speaker 2: most amazing division in the NFL. The NFC West has
1:13:13
Speaker 2: three teams that are all not only vying to win
1:13:17
Speaker 2: the division, but are vying to be maybe the best
1:13:19
Speaker 2: team in football. You've got Seattle, the Rams, and the
1:13:24
Speaker 2: forty nine Ers, and they're all outstanding with tremendous records.
1:13:29
Speaker 2: The Bears have to go out to San Francisco to
1:13:31
Speaker 2: play the forty nine Ers. The forty nine Ers are
1:13:33
Speaker 2: favored by three points. Again, we're talking about motivation and
1:13:38
Speaker 2: so on. It would seem to me that this game
1:13:40
Speaker 2: means a lot more to the forty nine Ers but
1:13:43
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean a ton to either because both teams
1:13:46
Speaker 2: for certain are in and the case of the Bears,
1:13:49
Speaker 2: they're likely to be the NFC North winner even if
1:13:53
Speaker 2: they lose this game, and even if they lose next week.
1:13:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, another interesting game. In fact, just if the Packers
1:14:01
Speaker 4: lose on Saturday, the Bears won the division, right, So
1:14:06
Speaker 4: that makes it just just for those of you that
1:14:09
Speaker 4: play these games, if you like San Francisco, I would
1:14:11
Speaker 4: play San Francisco at minus three right now because if
1:14:14
Speaker 4: Green Bay loses that game, that line's going up.
1:14:17
Speaker 3: Man.
1:14:17
Speaker 4: If if it doesn't, it's set right now where it
1:14:19
Speaker 4: should be. So just just an fyiy on that. Yeah,
1:14:24
Speaker 4: interesting game. San Francisco. Actually, mark if they went out,
1:14:28
Speaker 4: they're the number one seed in the NFC.
1:14:30
Speaker 3: So if they win this week and.
1:14:32
Speaker 4: Beat Seattle next week, they're the number one seed in
1:14:35
Speaker 4: the NFC. So they have quite a bit to play for. Still,
1:14:39
Speaker 4: they're they're playing.
1:14:40
Speaker 3: Awfully with their offense. And for those of you who don't.
1:14:42
Speaker 4: Follow this very close, San Francisco hasn't punted since November,
1:14:49
Speaker 4: and I don't.
1:14:50
Speaker 2: Think that that's like a Dan Campbell thing where you're
1:14:52
Speaker 2: just going to go forward and fourth down every play
1:14:54
Speaker 2: they haven't putted because they've not ever gotten to the
1:14:57
Speaker 2: point of fourth down in their own territory. Is that
1:14:59
Speaker 2: what it is?
1:15:01
Speaker 4: They've had eighteen possessions their last two games. They scored
1:15:04
Speaker 4: eighty five points in those games they sit out of
1:15:07
Speaker 4: the eighteen possessions, They've had ten touchdowns, five field goals,
1:15:11
Speaker 4: a miss field goal, an interception, and a fumble.
1:15:15
Speaker 3: That's it. Their last eighteen possessions. They're scoring on everyone.
1:15:17
Speaker 2: In fact, since so their punters only job for the
1:15:20
Speaker 2: last month is to hold for the field goals.
1:15:22
Speaker 4: He means, Yeah, that's pretty much all he's doing since
1:15:26
Speaker 4: Party came back from injury. Mark they're five to zero
1:15:29
Speaker 4: straight up and against the spread, with winning all five
1:15:31
Speaker 4: games by double digits. I think this sets up nicely
1:15:35
Speaker 4: for them, as you said, especially if the Packers lose
1:15:38
Speaker 4: on Saturday Night. I like San Francisco in this game.
1:15:41
Speaker 4: I think they're the better team than Chicago and it's
1:15:45
Speaker 4: a huge game for them at home, and they've been
1:15:47
Speaker 4: rolling on offense.
1:15:48
Speaker 3: I think the Bears have moved the ball because San
1:15:49
Speaker 3: Francisco's defense isn't very good.
1:15:51
Speaker 4: That's why the total set at fifty two and a
1:15:53
Speaker 4: half in this game, high scoring game. But I like
1:15:56
Speaker 4: San Francisco in this game.
1:15:57
Speaker 3: I think they're going to win and cover in that game.
1:15:58
Speaker 2: Okay, some point spread picks. As I mentioned, Paul is
1:16:00
Speaker 2: not with us this week, so he in fact, after prodding,
1:16:04
Speaker 2: he emailed his pick in and we'll share that in
1:16:06
Speaker 2: a moment. Let's recap the picks from last week. I
1:16:10
Speaker 2: had two college games that I absolutely loved. Mike agreed
1:16:15
Speaker 2: with me on one and disagreed with on the other.
1:16:17
Speaker 2: The second game, which unfortunately neither of us used as
1:16:20
Speaker 2: our picks. We both liked Hawaii a lot on the
1:16:23
Speaker 2: Christmas Eve Bowl game, and what a ridiculous game that was.
1:16:27
Speaker 2: Hawaii fell down to California twenty one to nothing in
1:16:30
Speaker 2: the second quarter and one, it came back and they won.
1:16:35
Speaker 2: So we were both right about that. But it trure,
1:16:37
Speaker 2: didn't I mean, from the middle of the second quarter
1:16:39
Speaker 2: on you saw that Hawaii was the much more motivated
1:16:42
Speaker 2: and better team at the beginning of that game was
1:16:44
Speaker 2: a really bad one. The pick that I used on
1:16:46
Speaker 2: the air, though I took Arkansas State over Missouri State.
1:16:49
Speaker 2: They were favored by one. I thought they'd win by three. Touchdowns.
1:16:52
Speaker 2: They didn't. It was a much closer game than that.
1:16:54
Speaker 2: They won by six, But I won on that pick.
1:16:57
Speaker 2: Paul took the Eagles over Washing to win by seven
1:17:02
Speaker 2: or more and they won by eleven. And Mike had
1:17:06
Speaker 2: a wrong pick on the Lions. We need to talk
1:17:08
Speaker 2: with the Lions in a moment. The Lions just had
1:17:12
Speaker 2: a collapse of a season. Detroit not only lost that
1:17:16
Speaker 2: game to Pittsburgh, they then lost on Christmas Day to Minnesota.
1:17:21
Speaker 2: Detroit is out of the playoffs now. The Commanders have
1:17:25
Speaker 2: had the biggest decline of any team in the NFL.
1:17:27
Speaker 2: They went from the NFC Championship Game to being one
1:17:30
Speaker 2: of the worst teams in the NFL. I think Mike
1:17:32
Speaker 2: and I at the beginning of the season both thought
1:17:34
Speaker 2: that Detroit would take a step back after they lost
1:17:37
Speaker 2: both of their both their offensive and defensive coordinators. But
1:17:41
Speaker 2: this is a team Detroit that fell apart down the stretch,
1:17:44
Speaker 2: even though the visually they didn't appear to be playing
1:17:48
Speaker 2: that badly. So not only did did Mike not right
1:17:52
Speaker 2: last week in a game that they simply had to
1:17:54
Speaker 2: win against the Vikings, they couldn't beat them. I mean,
1:17:58
Speaker 2: before we get to our picks. Any quick thoughts on
1:18:00
Speaker 2: Detroit and why don't fill apart on him? Is it
1:18:03
Speaker 2: injuries again or is it Campbell was in over his
1:18:06
Speaker 2: head without his coordinators or do you have any thoughts here?
1:18:10
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, first of all, we had Detroit was in
1:18:13
Speaker 4: a perfect situation in the last couple of weeks, them
1:18:16
Speaker 4: coming off losses, they just win and cover those games,
1:18:19
Speaker 4: and they're just Detroit's not that great this year. I mean,
1:18:22
Speaker 4: I think it shows you Mark. You know, they lost
1:18:25
Speaker 4: their coordinator, Johnson to the Bears. Look at the Bears
1:18:27
Speaker 4: are fight for the number one seed and Detroit's out
1:18:30
Speaker 4: of the playoffs. I think that tells you how important
1:18:32
Speaker 4: he was to that team. And since Campbell took over
1:18:34
Speaker 4: the play calling midway through the season, they just haven't
1:18:38
Speaker 4: been all that great. I think they're and I've heard
1:18:41
Speaker 4: they've got a lot of cap issues now. I think
1:18:43
Speaker 4: they've had their window. I think Detroit's going to keep
1:18:46
Speaker 4: declining start next year.
1:18:48
Speaker 2: Well, I do too, And I think that the whole
1:18:50
Speaker 2: mystique of Campbell is just over whatever the decision is.
1:18:54
Speaker 2: He's just going to do whatever the bold and aggressive
1:18:56
Speaker 2: things is, and the opponents know what and what Mike
1:18:59
Speaker 2: was saying, with regard to coordinators, look at the difference
1:19:02
Speaker 2: Jeff Hafley has made at Green Bay. I mean the coordinator,
1:19:06
Speaker 2: particularly when the coordinator coordinates the area of football that
1:19:10
Speaker 2: the head coach is not part of. You know. For example,
1:19:14
Speaker 2: in Green Bay, Lafleur runs the offense, so Halfley has
1:19:17
Speaker 2: total control over the defense. Okay, let's get two picks
1:19:21
Speaker 2: for this week. Paul Texan his pick here, which emailed
1:19:25
Speaker 2: it in without giving any explanation. Dave Michaels is shaking
1:19:30
Speaker 2: his We know Paul forgot about this. He's claiming he
1:19:34
Speaker 2: just no, no, no, I'll get it into you by noon.
1:19:36
Speaker 2: He's taking the Steelers over the Browns. The Steelers are
1:19:39
Speaker 2: favored in the game. Paul says three. I want to
1:19:41
Speaker 2: look up the line real quickly. I think that's where
1:19:44
Speaker 2: it is. Yeah, this is an interesting game. The Steelers
1:19:48
Speaker 2: are favored by three points over the Browns. The Steelers
1:19:51
Speaker 2: are still fighting to win the AFC North Division. The
1:19:58
Speaker 2: Browns can't seem to be able to beat anybody. The Browns, however,
1:20:02
Speaker 2: have the best defensive player in the NFL, Miles Garrett,
1:20:05
Speaker 2: who's having a freak out of a season, the Lions
1:20:08
Speaker 2: are excuse me, the Steelers are becoming the team now
1:20:11
Speaker 2: that wins all the close games that Aaron Rodgers' magic back.
1:20:14
Speaker 2: It would scream out that the Steelers should win this
1:20:16
Speaker 2: game by fourteen points. But it must be telling us something, Mike,
1:20:19
Speaker 2: that this is such a narrow point spread of only three.
1:20:22
Speaker 2: Is Paul taking a sucker bet here? Or is he
1:20:25
Speaker 2: getting the steal of a lifetime. I'd love to hear
1:20:28
Speaker 2: your thoughts in this game.
1:20:29
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I wouldn't play this game till
1:20:31
Speaker 4: Sunday because if Baltimore loses.
1:20:33
Speaker 3: Pittsburgh's is gonna sit guys, I would guess.
1:20:35
Speaker 4: Because they won the division, that game's over.
1:20:38
Speaker 2: You think that's moly down holding down the line. Baltimore
1:20:41
Speaker 2: is an underdog and the betters realize that if Baltimore
1:20:46
Speaker 2: does lose, Pittsburgh's a bad team to bet on, and
1:20:49
Speaker 2: that's what's holding it down.
1:20:51
Speaker 4: I think that might have something to do with it.
1:20:53
Speaker 2: So if Baltimore won, Pittsburgh's line pointspread might go up
1:20:57
Speaker 2: and they might be fair.
1:20:58
Speaker 4: Might I don't think it's going to go up that much,
1:21:02
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, I think it'll come down
1:21:04
Speaker 4: more if Baltimore loses than the other way around. I
1:21:08
Speaker 4: mean Cleveland. You know, late in the season, bad teams.
1:21:12
Speaker 4: If they're going to get up for a game, it's
1:21:14
Speaker 4: a home game against a division rival, and that's what
1:21:16
Speaker 4: Cleveland's probably going to do in this game. They took
1:21:18
Speaker 4: Buffalo to the wire last week, lost by three at home.
1:21:22
Speaker 4: Their defense at home is phenomenal. Their defensive road splits
1:21:25
Speaker 4: at home and away are ridiculous. They're not good on
1:21:28
Speaker 4: the road, they're great at home.
1:21:31
Speaker 3: It's just a game I would not.
1:21:32
Speaker 4: Play until Sunday morning, and then it's probably too late
1:21:34
Speaker 4: because the line's going.
1:21:35
Speaker 3: To move one way or the other.
1:21:35
Speaker 2: Well maybe that's whereas all right, time to get a
1:21:39
Speaker 2: pick from Mike. Where are we going? We've got NFL
1:21:41
Speaker 2: games and again we're doing this program on Friday, meaning
1:21:45
Speaker 2: the Saturday through Monday games in the NFL, or any
1:21:48
Speaker 2: of the Bowl games through Tuesday night.
1:21:51
Speaker 4: Let's look at well, one of the Bowl games we
1:21:54
Speaker 4: talked about for tomorrow BYU Georgia Tech. What do you
1:21:56
Speaker 4: have on that the line on that game?
1:22:02
Speaker 2: My sheets of lines are all fouled up because of
1:22:06
Speaker 2: all these things are scheduled. But I'll get there. Yeah,
1:22:11
Speaker 2: b YU and Georgia Tech. That I didn't mention. That's
1:22:16
Speaker 2: the Pop Tarts Bowl. I don't know where that one is.
1:22:18
Speaker 2: It's b YU is favored by four. You know where
1:22:21
Speaker 2: that game which you used to be would know where
1:22:23
Speaker 2: the game was being played for the name now with
1:22:25
Speaker 2: just sponsors names on the game could be anywhere. Where
1:22:27
Speaker 2: is the Pop Cards Bowl.
1:22:29
Speaker 3: It's in Orlando, Florida.
1:22:30
Speaker 2: Oh, it's in Orlando, Okay. Georgia Tech and b y U.
1:22:33
Speaker 2: B YU is favored by four in that game, which
1:22:36
Speaker 2: is an afternoon game on Saturday.
1:22:41
Speaker 4: I'm going to take I'm going to take BYU minus four.
1:22:46
Speaker 4: Got a couple more points in that game that I
1:22:49
Speaker 4: didn't mention. What we like looking at in these type
1:22:52
Speaker 4: of games is when you get to the balls, a
1:22:55
Speaker 4: lot of times you like eliminating the bad teams. We
1:22:57
Speaker 4: look at the how these teams to do against other
1:23:00
Speaker 4: Bowl teams, so decent teams.
1:23:03
Speaker 3: So this year.
1:23:03
Speaker 4: BYU played against seven Bowl teams, Texas Tech twice.
1:23:07
Speaker 3: Those are their only losses against Bowl teams.
1:23:10
Speaker 4: Against the other teams if you re moved Texas Tech,
1:23:12
Speaker 4: there were five and zero straight up in against the
1:23:14
Speaker 4: spread and outgained all five teams. If you look at
1:23:17
Speaker 4: Georgia Tech, they played against six. They played six bowl teams.
1:23:21
Speaker 4: One was a playoff team Georgia They were three and
1:23:24
Speaker 4: three in the bowl games. They got out gained in
1:23:26
Speaker 4: all six games. They're lucky to be three and three.
1:23:30
Speaker 4: The other thing I like in this game, I don't
1:23:32
Speaker 4: like the coaching turnover for Georgia Tech. As I mentioned
1:23:37
Speaker 4: the opposite.
1:23:37
Speaker 2: I mean BYU's coach Sataki. He was rumored to be
1:23:41
Speaker 2: up for a lot of jobs and he stayed with
1:23:43
Speaker 2: a big pay. BYU has a lot of money, in
1:23:45
Speaker 2: part because of the Mormon alumni backing and supporting the program.
1:23:49
Speaker 2: Hughge Nil. Their coaches in all sports included football, basketball,
1:23:53
Speaker 2: are well paid. Sataki is staying, so there's total and
1:23:56
Speaker 2: they that's a school that has very few transfer issues. Ever,
1:24:00
Speaker 2: I think there's tremendous stability at BYU on the coaching
1:24:04
Speaker 2: staff and therefore for the game. And maybe you were
1:24:06
Speaker 2: about to say that, but I think that would point
1:24:08
Speaker 2: to BYU.
1:24:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, agree, one hundred percent. I mean again, Georgia Tech's
1:24:12
Speaker 4: lost a bunch of offensive assistants. Everyone's there for BYU.
1:24:15
Speaker 4: They're missing their running back, but pretty much everyone else
1:24:18
Speaker 4: is around. The other thing I like about this game
1:24:21
Speaker 4: is Georgia Tech's biggest game of the year is Georgia.
1:24:24
Speaker 4: Every year, it's the biggest game of the year. It's
1:24:25
Speaker 4: the season finale. They took him to the wire. I
1:24:28
Speaker 4: watched the game. Georgia look completely disinterested because they had
1:24:31
Speaker 4: Alabama next in the SEC championship game.
1:24:34
Speaker 3: They still won the game.
1:24:35
Speaker 4: Georgia did and Georgia Tech when they lose in their
1:24:38
Speaker 4: last game of the season to Georgia and go to
1:24:40
Speaker 4: a bowl game, they're one and.
1:24:42
Speaker 3: Seven the last times they've gone.
1:24:43
Speaker 2: To both ball against.
1:24:44
Speaker 4: And that's a good thought, and so I just think
1:24:47
Speaker 4: BYU's out to prove a point, it's a fairly small line.
1:24:49
Speaker 4: I think they win by more than four in that game.
1:24:52
Speaker 2: I've got the same problem that I have last week,
1:24:55
Speaker 2: in which there are two games that I like a lot,
1:24:58
Speaker 2: and I also know that my probably going to disagree
1:25:01
Speaker 2: with me on one of the two and agree with
1:25:02
Speaker 2: me on the other two. And I've just been wrestling
1:25:04
Speaker 2: which one to take, and this I just have the
1:25:12
Speaker 2: sense that I'm probably going to pick the wrong one
1:25:14
Speaker 2: and be wrong in the game that I'm taking here.
1:25:17
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to decide, all right, I'm going to
1:25:19
Speaker 2: go with a safer pick rather than the one that
1:25:21
Speaker 2: I like a little bit more because there's some risk
1:25:23
Speaker 2: associated with it. The game that I the game that
1:25:26
Speaker 2: I'm not going to take is I like San Diego
1:25:29
Speaker 2: State catching five and a half points against North Texas.
1:25:32
Speaker 2: This is you can't have two more opposite teams. You
1:25:36
Speaker 2: could imagine here. North Texas had one of the best
1:25:38
Speaker 2: offenses in America and San Diego Stated one of the
1:25:40
Speaker 2: worst offenses in America. North Texas defense is terrible and
1:25:45
Speaker 2: San Diego State had a spectacular defense. The difference is
1:25:49
Speaker 2: is that North Texas quarterback is out. North Texas's coach
1:25:52
Speaker 2: has left and go on to Arkansas, and there's going
1:25:55
Speaker 2: to be numerous opt outs on the game. The line
1:25:58
Speaker 2: moved up because San Diegego State's quarterback is injured and
1:26:01
Speaker 2: isn't going to play. But the reality is he isn't
1:26:04
Speaker 2: any good. So no matter who the quarterback is at
1:26:07
Speaker 2: San Diego State, the play wasn't going to be that good.
1:26:09
Speaker 2: I just would lean toward San Diego State's defense and
1:26:11
Speaker 2: the weather's going to be terrible for that game in Albuquerque,
1:26:15
Speaker 2: but I'm not going to take I think you would
1:26:17
Speaker 2: have told me to take North Texas, but I like
1:26:20
Speaker 2: San Diego State, but that's not my game. I don't
1:26:21
Speaker 2: know if you want to give me what your opinion
1:26:23
Speaker 2: was going to be on.
1:26:24
Speaker 3: That, but sure, no, I agree.
1:26:26
Speaker 4: I the one downside in that game for Sandy. I
1:26:29
Speaker 4: agree with the San Diego State really good defense. North
1:26:32
Speaker 4: Texas has way more instability with coaches leaving and such,
1:26:36
Speaker 4: but a really good offense. But the quarterback's gone. As
1:26:38
Speaker 4: you said, the one thing I don't like in that
1:26:40
Speaker 4: game for San Diego State, and this is something we
1:26:43
Speaker 4: like tracking as And before I do this, I'll preface
1:26:47
Speaker 4: really quick. We use Hawaii as a big play as
1:26:50
Speaker 4: one of our top games.
1:26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my second night, second favorite play of
1:26:53
Speaker 2: the year. My first biggest player of the year was
1:26:55
Speaker 2: Arkansas State. So I mean sitting there with my family
1:26:58
Speaker 2: on Christmas Eve, trying not to make it like I
1:27:00
Speaker 2: care what what's going on in a bet on a
1:27:02
Speaker 2: football game, but what a weird and wild.
1:27:04
Speaker 4: Game when that was it was, we were lucky.
1:27:06
Speaker 3: We use it as a six star and we want it.
1:27:09
Speaker 3: The problem I.
1:27:10
Speaker 2: Have thirding quarterback for Hawaii in that game went down
1:27:14
Speaker 2: with fifteen seconds left in the game. They're down by three.
1:27:17
Speaker 2: They could have easily run a running play and kick
1:27:19
Speaker 2: a field goal to take it overtime and stead the
1:27:21
Speaker 2: backup quarterback goes back and makes a pass into tight
1:27:25
Speaker 2: coverage in the end zone and dropped a dime on
1:27:28
Speaker 2: that receiver. It was a great pass and they hit
1:27:30
Speaker 2: it and they won the game. You're talking about a
1:27:32
Speaker 2: thrill for that guy. But most coaches would not take
1:27:34
Speaker 2: a completely cold quarterback pluck him in that situation and
1:27:39
Speaker 2: take that play call. But it worked.
1:27:41
Speaker 3: It was crazy. It was a crazy game.
1:27:43
Speaker 4: The thing I don't like about San Diego State is
1:27:45
Speaker 4: the Mountain West has not been good and look him
1:27:47
Speaker 4: in the playoffs. The two teams that made the Mountain
1:27:49
Speaker 4: West championship UNLV and Boys, he.
1:27:52
Speaker 3: Both got both bowl games.
1:27:54
Speaker 4: Utah State lost big in their bowl game to a
1:27:56
Speaker 4: team that had the.
1:27:58
Speaker 3: Coach was gone.
1:27:59
Speaker 4: A lot of stuff like that and why you got lucky.
1:28:01
Speaker 4: So that's the one thing I don't like about that game.
1:28:03
Speaker 3: But I think i'd lean San Diego State Yon.
1:28:05
Speaker 2: All right, Well, it's not going to be my pick anyway.
1:28:07
Speaker 2: I'm going to the game two higher profile teams. LSU
1:28:10
Speaker 2: is playing Houston. Houston in that game is favored by
1:28:14
Speaker 2: two and a half points, and I'm going to take Houston.
1:28:19
Speaker 2: LSU fired Brian Kelly, the coach early in the season.
1:28:23
Speaker 2: LSU's offense underachieved all year. They're in the ball mostly
1:28:27
Speaker 2: because they won their first four games of the season.
1:28:29
Speaker 2: They went three and five down the stretch. In addition
1:28:32
Speaker 2: to that, Nussmer, their quarterback, who is highly touted when
1:28:35
Speaker 2: he came over there, he's opted out of the game.
1:28:37
Speaker 2: He's not playing. There's opt outs right and left for LSU.
1:28:41
Speaker 2: The LSU is where Lane Kiffin is going to be
1:28:43
Speaker 2: taking over as the head coach. But you've got a
1:28:45
Speaker 2: skeleton staff of holdover some Kelly staff that are coaching
1:28:49
Speaker 2: for the bowl game, numerous players missing. Houston has total stability.
1:28:54
Speaker 2: First of all, Houston has a really good coach in
1:28:56
Speaker 2: Willie Fritz. It's his second year here. He turned around
1:29:00
Speaker 2: a crap program instantly. They went four and eight last
1:29:03
Speaker 2: year in his first year, and this year they went
1:29:05
Speaker 2: nine and three. Really really improved. They have a very
1:29:08
Speaker 2: good qu I won't say great, but very good quarterback
1:29:10
Speaker 2: and Connor Wegman, You've got Houston coming out of the
1:29:13
Speaker 2: Big twelve, LSU coming out of the SEC. Houston has
1:29:17
Speaker 2: a chance for a ten win season. And LSU's players.
1:29:22
Speaker 2: You know, when Kiffin gets there, he's going to bring
1:29:24
Speaker 2: in eighty five guys to the transfer portal. He's going
1:29:26
Speaker 2: to bring in his entire staff, the LSU players. I
1:29:30
Speaker 2: just don't see any sense of motivation. I think it's
1:29:33
Speaker 2: a strong situation for Texas. I think the person in
1:29:36
Speaker 2: LSU would be better, but they're going to have so
1:29:39
Speaker 2: many opt outs. And Houston, as I say, has a
1:29:41
Speaker 2: really good coach. And one other thing I think this matters.
1:29:44
Speaker 2: I like to look up what coaches records in ball
1:29:47
Speaker 2: games are, especially if they've been at multiple schools. And
1:29:50
Speaker 2: Willie Fritz's four and one in ball games and he
1:29:52
Speaker 2: was at a lower division school prior to going to
1:29:55
Speaker 2: Georgia Southern and he had a good record in postseason
1:29:58
Speaker 2: games then too. So I think everything points to Houston.
1:30:00
Speaker 2: It's a so's it's a safer pick, unlike my San
1:30:03
Speaker 2: Diego State pick, where I would be getting points, which
1:30:06
Speaker 2: I just love. In these little profile ball games, I'm
1:30:08
Speaker 2: having to lay two and a half here, but I'm
1:30:09
Speaker 2: taking Houston over LSU, and Mike, You're gonna shock me
1:30:12
Speaker 2: if you tell me I'm wrong.
1:30:14
Speaker 4: No, I agree games in Houston too, so that's correct.
1:30:19
Speaker 2: And again I just think there's motivation for Houston can
1:30:21
Speaker 2: win season kind of playing at home. They weren't in
1:30:24
Speaker 2: a ball game I think for two or three years
1:30:27
Speaker 2: prior to this, and LSU what a train wreck of
1:30:30
Speaker 2: a situation where everything's just waiting for Kiffin in next year.
1:30:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree their coaches, their their interim coach is
1:30:37
Speaker 4: probably not going to be there, so the coaches are
1:30:39
Speaker 4: looking elsewhere. The other thing I like that you didn't mention.
1:30:42
Speaker 4: You mentioned Wegman, their quarterback for Houston's is going to
1:30:45
Speaker 4: play in this game, and he's announced he's coming back
1:30:47
Speaker 4: to Houston next year already, so that that's a big.
1:30:50
Speaker 3: Boost as well.
1:30:51
Speaker 4: I agree there's a reason Houston's favored over LSU in
1:30:54
Speaker 4: that game, so I would agree with you.
1:30:56
Speaker 2: Okay. Our next football preview and points stret Picks will
1:30:59
Speaker 2: be on New Years that's Wednesday of next week, and
1:31:02
Speaker 2: my next podcast will be on Monday. Talk to you soon.
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