Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #157: Leftists are trying to take back the Wisconsin school boards that flipped conservative over the last few years; we'll discuss one outrageous story about an attempt in NE Wisconsin to recall board members opposing the trans agenda. In the meantime, homeschooling is booming in Wisconsin. And Mark says the new Marquette poll showing a five point Crowley lead is actually good news for Tiffany

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #157: Leftists are trying to take back the Wisconsin school boards that flipped conservative over the last few years; we'll discuss one outrageous story about an attempt in NE Wisconsin to recall board members opposing the trans agenda. In the meantime, homeschooling is booming in Wisconsin. And Mark says the new Marquette poll showing a five point Crowley lead is actually good news for Tiffany · The Mark Belling Podcast

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  Speaker 2: One of the things that I think a lot of
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  Speaker 2: conservatives and almost all moderates just don't get is A,
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  Speaker 2: how radicalized the people driving the left have gotten, but secondly,
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  Speaker 2: how obsessed they are with winning and controlling certain things.
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  Speaker 2: The schools may be number one on the list. Local community,
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  Speaker 2: city council election, county board election, school board elections.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not saying.
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  Speaker 2: Lefties don't care if they win a city council election,
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  Speaker 2: and they don't care if they win a county board election,
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  Speaker 2: but of the three, they would much more rather win
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  Speaker 2: the school board election. The schools to them are the
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  Speaker 2: be-all and the end-all. The schools give them the ability
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  Speaker 2: to control people who have no ability to stand up
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  Speaker 2: for themselves.
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  Speaker 3: Kids.
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  Speaker 2: Kids. And we've seen the success that they've had over
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  Speaker 2: the last 20 to 30 years, using the schools to ideologize.
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  Speaker 2: And now lately, using the schools for radical lifestyle, social experimentation.
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  Speaker 2: The whole trans thing is driven within the schools. If
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  Speaker 2: you go back just a handful of years, it would
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  Speaker 2: have been unthinkable that we would be doing gender transitioning
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  Speaker 2: of children who are not old enough to consent. And
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  Speaker 2: aside from the medical portion of it, the treating the
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  Speaker 2: children as being a gender that is other than their
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  Speaker 2: biology and not even telling the parents they're doing it.
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  Speaker 2: You just can't imagine that would have come to that.
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  Speaker 2: But then it has come to that, and they're still
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  Speaker 2: doing it. And here's the thing. All of this extremism
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  Speaker 2: has resulted in a backlash where across the country, in
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  Speaker 2: many communities, conservatives got control of these school boards. The
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  Speaker 2: left can't stand that. Other than the presidency itself, I
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  Speaker 2: think that there's nothing more hell-bent and determined to do
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  Speaker 2: politically than reclaim all of these school boards. For, as
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  Speaker 2: I say, most moderates who don't even pay much attention
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  Speaker 2: to your school board, and most conservatives who just don't
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  Speaker 2: understand why this is such a big.
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  Speaker 3: Deal, you don't grasp.
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  Speaker 2: How radical these people are and how hell-bent they are
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  Speaker 2: at getting control of the schools. Controlling the schools is
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  Speaker 2: different than controlling a city. You put in place a
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  Speaker 2: bunch of rules and restrictions, well, adults are able to
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  Speaker 2: figure them out and can dissent.
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  Speaker 3: The kids can't.
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  Speaker 2: And by eliminating the parents from having any role in
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  Speaker 2: the schools, they're able to control an agenda for people
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  Speaker 2: 18 and under, just about all of them. We've got
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  Speaker 2: an example of this. as we begin today's podcast. First,
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  Speaker 2: as I said, after COVID, a number of these school
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  Speaker 2: boards that had been really lefty flipped. There are a
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  Speaker 2: couple of reasons for that. The first was COVID itself,
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  Speaker 2: where many parents were furious that these schools were closed
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  Speaker 2: and particularly furious that they were being closed, requiring kids
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  Speaker 2: to who had no real concern about getting COVID, wearing masks.
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  Speaker 2: And they realized that all of this was being done
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  Speaker 2: for the teachers. As if somehow being a teacher means
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  Speaker 2: that you're exempt from getting sick. We don't run schools
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  Speaker 2: for the teachers, we run schools for the students. That
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  Speaker 2: was the first.
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  Speaker 4: Thing that set off some of these parents.
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  Speaker 2: The second thing, when so many of these school districts
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  Speaker 2: went to video teaching, remote learning, because they were closing
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  Speaker 2: the schools, Some of the parents started watching the lessons
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  Speaker 2: the teachers were giving, and they were shocked at how
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  Speaker 2: outrageously terrible they were and about the ideologizing that was
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  Speaker 2: going on. And this got people to start showing up
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  Speaker 2: at school board meetings, and it got parents to organize
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  Speaker 2: and put up candidates for the school board. It resulted
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  Speaker 2: in interest groups like Moms for Liberty trying to rise
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  Speaker 2: up and buck this trend of radicalizing the schools.
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  Speaker 3: The left hated that.
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  Speaker 2: And while, as I said, there were victories in some
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  Speaker 2: of these elections, they are obsessed with knocking out all
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  Speaker 2: of these conservative school boards. Take the conservative. There are
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  Speaker 2: some school boards in our area in southeastern Wisconsin that
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  Speaker 2: are conservative. They are under constant fire and attack, and
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  Speaker 2: it's national. The Waukesha school board is an example of it.
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  Speaker 2: They find one or two things they don't like, and
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  Speaker 2: they try to turn it into a huge national issue.
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  Speaker 2: There was an unprofessional hack of a teacher taught kindergarten
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  Speaker 2: in Waukesha. School district put in a rule about you
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  Speaker 2: can't do political stuff in the classroom. This teacher was
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  Speaker 2: determined to sing this rainbow song in front of the class.
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  Speaker 3: The school district said, no, you can't, it's political. Why
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  Speaker 3: this is so important?
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  Speaker 2: It's important because it was part of an agenda that
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  Speaker 2: that teacher had from the very, very beginning. jamming down
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  Speaker 2: a gay and trans ideology in front of kindergartners. It
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  Speaker 2: became a massive national issue. It was clear that the
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  Speaker 2: left didn't care about education. They care about ideologizing. School
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  Speaker 2: choice is another example of this. They hate school choice
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  Speaker 2: because school choice means they're not in charge. School choice
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  Speaker 2: means you got all these different private schools, not controlled
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  Speaker 2: by any school board, where the school can have whatever
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  Speaker 2: ideology and whatever teaching methods that they believe in and
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  Speaker 2: parents can pick.
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  Speaker 3: No control for them. They're very threatened by this.
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  Speaker 2: Even though, use Milwaukee as an example, The majority of
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  Speaker 2: private schools under school choice do a way better job
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  Speaker 2: than the dumps that are the Milwaukee public school system.
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  Speaker 2: They want to get rid of school choice. They'd rather
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  Speaker 2: run bad schools that they control than allow parents to
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  Speaker 2: send their kids to better schools where the ideologizing isn't
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  Speaker 2: going on. This brings us to Winnicott County. A listener
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  Speaker 2: from that community has brought this story to my attention.
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  Speaker 2: Winnicott County is a small to medium-sized community. It's kind
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  Speaker 2: of like west of Neenah, northwest of Oshkosh. The conservatives
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  Speaker 2: took over the school board in that community a few
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  Speaker 2: years ago. It was one of the many examples of
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  Speaker 2: what I cited before, kind of a lefty school board,
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  Speaker 2: lefty school district. Parents got organized, and they got some
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  Speaker 2: school board members who were conservative elected in, I think
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  Speaker 2: it was 2022, and then in 2024, a couple more seats.
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  Speaker 2: So the school board is now controlled by conservatives. The lefties,
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  Speaker 2: even in a community of this size, can't stand that.
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  Speaker 2: They are now trying to recall out of office two
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  Speaker 2: of the conservative board members. In Wisconsin, there's a time
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  Speaker 2: period after election after which you can recall board members.
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  Speaker 2: Somebody can't be recalled within their first year in office.
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  Speaker 2: So they're going after the ones that have crossed that
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  Speaker 2: time threshold. Now, This story, again, the facts are presented
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  Speaker 2: to me by the listener here, and I can't give
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  Speaker 2: you total independent verification of this, but it has the
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  Speaker 2: ring of truth. The story goes that a mother in
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  Speaker 2: the school district contacted one of the school board members
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  Speaker 2: on a Saturday. Schools are closed during the week, so
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  Speaker 2: I'll try to contact a school board member. And she
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  Speaker 2: explained how outraged she was to find out that her
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  Speaker 2: child had their gender changed in the school. The child
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  Speaker 2: decided that they wanted to be referred to... It's not
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  Speaker 2: clear to me whether or not it was a boy
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  Speaker 2: who wanted to be referred to as a girl or
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  Speaker 2: a girl who wanted to be referred to as a boy.
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  Speaker 2: And the child picked a new name. And the parent
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  Speaker 2: was never notified of this. The parent found out when
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  Speaker 2: they saw an assignment come back, and indeed, this child
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  Speaker 2: had a different name than was the kid's name.
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  Speaker 3: The parent was never notified.
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  Speaker 2: So contacted the school board member about it. The school
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  Speaker 2: board members started asking questions and now they're trying to
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  Speaker 2: recall that school board member. How dare you intervene? Even
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  Speaker 2: though it's precisely the job of a school board to
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  Speaker 2: intervene on school issues. See, lefties don't want school boards
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  Speaker 2: involved in anything. They want to allow radical administrators to
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  Speaker 2: put in place radical ideology and have the school board
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  Speaker 2: sit back and do nothing. And I think most school
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  Speaker 2: board members in most communities are lazy slugs who just
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  Speaker 2: as soon would not deal with anything and would rather
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  Speaker 2: have the administration handle the whole thing.
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  Speaker 4: I said most. I didn't say all.
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  Speaker 2: So if you're a lefty, a moderate slacker is fine.
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  Speaker 2: A radical activist is even better because they empower the administrator.
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  Speaker 2: But if the school board just stays out of the
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  Speaker 2: way and lets the radical administrators, you know, change kids'
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  Speaker 2: gender without ever even telling the parent, that's fine with them. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: so there's now a campaign going on, getting enough signatures
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  Speaker 2: on recall petitions to recall two of the conservative school
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  Speaker 2: board members in that community. This kind of thing is
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  Speaker 2: happening all over the country. And as I say, the
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  Speaker 2: reason it's going on with the schools, it's in the
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  Speaker 2: schools that they can present their version of history. It's
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  Speaker 2: in the schools that they can present socialism as a
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  Speaker 2: wonderful thing and not the most failed economic system in
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  Speaker 2: the history of the world. It's in the schools that
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  Speaker 2: they can use American history to trash the legitimacy of
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  Speaker 2: this country rather than celebrate it as the greatest country
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  Speaker 2: in the history of the world. It's in the schools
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  Speaker 2: that they can use science to shove ideology down their throats.
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  Speaker 2: It's in the schools that they can push radical gender.
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  Speaker 2: It's in the schools that they can use human growth
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  Speaker 2: development courses and sex education to mainstream and normalize homosexuality
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  Speaker 2: and anything else.
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  Speaker 4: And they do.
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  Speaker 2: This with a captive audience that can't really stand up
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  Speaker 2: and object and complain about it because it's disturbing the classroom.
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  Speaker 2: They want control of the schools, and they want control
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  Speaker 2: of the schools because of the success that they've had
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  Speaker 2: with the last two generations in terms of, A, badly
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  Speaker 2: educating them, and B, totally ideologizing them. Which brings me
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  Speaker 2: to this story. I actually found this one on JS
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  Speaker 2: Online a few days ago. We've reported over the years
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  Speaker 2: on homeschooling. I was not aware of these numbers. The
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  Speaker 2: number of kids in Wisconsin that are homeschooled is up 52%
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  Speaker 2: in just the last six years. What's striking about that is,
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  Speaker 2: first of all, it's just striking in and of itself,
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  Speaker 2: but also remember, the birth rate's declining, but the raw
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  Speaker 2: numbers are going up. Here are those numbers. In the
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  Speaker 2: 2019-20 school year, there were 21,644 homeschooled students in Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 2: In 25-26, which would have been the school year that
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  Speaker 2: would have ended this past May or June, the number
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  Speaker 2: was up to 32,891. That's a 52% increase. And under
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  Speaker 2: the same backdrop, Wisconsin public school enrollment has plummeted. Two
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  Speaker 2: issues on that, but first, here are the numbers. 2019-2020,
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  Speaker 2: 854,959 students in public school. By 25-26, the number had
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  Speaker 2: dropped to 791,794. So the overall number of kids in
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  Speaker 2: public schools is down 7%, or raw total, 63,000, while
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  Speaker 2: the number of kids that are homeschooled has gone up 52%,
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  Speaker 2: even though, as I say, there are fewer kids. Now, obviously,
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  Speaker 2: the entire drain in public school dropping is not just homeschooling.
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  Speaker 2: There's been an 11,000 increase over the last six years
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  Speaker 2: in homeschooling, but a 63,000 student drop in the number
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  Speaker 2: of kids attending public schools. Some of those kids are
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  Speaker 2: also attending private schools. In the communities that have school choice,
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  Speaker 2: new schools are opening all the time. Use Milwaukee as
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  Speaker 2: an example.
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  Speaker 4: St.
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  Speaker 2: Augustine Prep on the south side, massively huge school, packed.
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  Speaker 2: The Ramirez family then bought the closed Cardinal Stretch University
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  Speaker 2: on the north side and is now opening it as
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: the north side version of St.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Augie's.
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  Speaker 3: And it'll be packed.
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  Speaker 2: So that's certainly contributing to this decline in addition to
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  Speaker 2: the birth rate. I'm going to make it a side
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: point here, aside from the whole, and then get back
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  Speaker 2: to the homeschooling. Even though we've seen, as I said,
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  Speaker 2: that's a tremendous decline, 854,000 to 791 in six years,
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  Speaker 2: we continue to see massive school referendums, so we're spending
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  Speaker 2: more and more and more on public schools that have
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  Speaker 2: fewer and fewer students. People wonder why I'm so opposed
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  Speaker 2: to school referendums. Well, first of all, I'm opposed to
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: any of them have anything to do with facilities because
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: facilities are the least important component of education, least. If
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: you came up with 23 factors that contribute to good
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: quality education, facilities would be right at the bottom. You
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: could convert a warehouse and put up a few cubicles
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: to separate classrooms and have an absolutely fine school.
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  Speaker 3: But secondly, We are.
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  Speaker 2: On a long-term decline in the number of students that
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: are in there, yet we have to continue to spend
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: more and more and more, increase staffing more and more
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: and more, and build more facilities more and more and more,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: even though this number of decline is incredible. Now back
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to the homeschooling component. Why the increasing homeschooling?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I.
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  Speaker 2: Have a relative who homeschooled their kids. One of the
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  Speaker 2: things that happens is there's a snowball effect. If one
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: parent homeschools their kids and their friends and associates see
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  Speaker 2: that those kids are doing really, really well, it leads
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: some of them to say, well, I can do it. Secondly,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: the more parents who homeschool, they then create this networking
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: system in which they share ideas. There are now companies
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that provide educational materials and resources to parents that homeschool.
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  Speaker 2: But the biggest reason that they do it is They
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: want their kids to get a good education and they
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: don't think schools do it. First of all, obviously you
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: have a very low teacher to pupil ratio since it's
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: normally a parent or sometimes both parents that share in
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: the educating of the kids and unless it's one of
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: these kids with 13 kids, maybe you got a mom
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: or a dad with three, four, five, seven kids, whatever
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  Speaker 2: it is, it's there.
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  Speaker 4: But secondly, most of the parents who homeschool.
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  Speaker 2: The entire thing they do is education. They drill them
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  Speaker 2: on math. They drill them on spelling. They drill them
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: on reading. They get a classical exposure to literature. They're
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: not reading multicultural dreck in which we check the box
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: to make sure authors of every possible interest group are included,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: but instead teach the kids on the works that change
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the world. Every year they have that national spelling bee.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: It seems to me that almost every year the kid
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: that wins it is Asian American. Asian American parents are
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: certainly obsessed with making sure that their kids learn. There's
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: nowhere near, and it's a generalization obviously, nowhere near as
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: much time on social media and the internet as that.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: And secondly, they'll talk to the winner invariably also homeschooled.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: For the longest time, the public schools adopted this notion
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: of creative spelling, where they didn't think it was important
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: for the kid to learn how to spell, as long
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: as they used the word correctly and understood what it meant. Well,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: if you've been taught not to worry about how the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: kid's spelling, we're pretty clear that you're not going to
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: do well in a spelling bee. The parents who homeschool
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: are looking for a better education than you're going to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: get from the public schools that are staffed, in some
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: cases by good teachers, In many cases, by average teachers,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: and in quite a few cases, by total incompetent hacks
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: who have their jobs because there's a shortage of teachers
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: and we can't fire them. And in many instances, hacks
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: that get into teaching not because they want to provide
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: education to children, but because they are trying to form
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: ideological radicals. There are downsides to homeschooling. Some say that
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: there isn't the same socialization. Well, there isn't, for better
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and for worse. You go to a school, you got
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: all comers there. You're going to have creepy kids. You're
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: going to have nice kids. You may not learn how
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: to deal with a bully. You may not deal with
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: the social adversity that goes on. Being exposed to bullying
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: isn't a good thing, but at some point you better
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: have to deal with it because the world is filled
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: with bullies. In addition to that, there's the whole extracurricular thing.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Some of the homeschool networks are trying to create sports
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: and other opportunities, and there's been a push. to allow
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: homeschooled kids to play on sports teams of public schools.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: But there's downsides to it.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, there's also the possibility that the
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: parent isn't any good at it, just as a school
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: teacher might not be any good. Maybe the parent that's
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: homeschooling isn't any good at it. Or he's ideologizing themselves.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Or he's going to give their own version of history
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: that isn't true.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: So it's not perfect. But I certainly think this.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I think as a group, the kids, of those 32,000
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: kids that are homeschooled in Wisconsin, I think you're going
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: to get more overachievers and more kids that do better
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: on testing and so on that are going to come
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: out of the universe of those that are schooled. My
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: next story, which deals with education. Here are some numbers
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: for you. We all know that college tuition has been soaring.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: It's been discussed for many years. In the same way
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: that the cost of public education has gone up and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: up and up, in part because voters keep passing these
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: tax increases to send even more money to the schools,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: money that almost invariably does nothing to improve.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: The quality of education. The universities.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: There are so many different theories as to why the
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: cost of college tuition has exploded. Perhaps the biggest is
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: then the expansion of student loans. When you give students
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: loans of 10, 20, 30, in some cases 100, $ 150, 000.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: It makes it a lot easier for you to keep
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: jacking up the tuition because they're able to borrow the
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: money to come up with the ability to pay it.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: It isn't until years later that they realize the education
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I got is not making me employable at a level
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: that I could even come close to paying back this loan.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: But increasing the dollar amount for student loans, and also
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I think one of the big things is when they
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: allowed students to start borrowing more than the cost of tuition.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So the student wasn't being forced to work during the
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: school year, work in the summer, and were borrowing the
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: money and paying for their lifestyle and paying for trips
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: with it and so on. The college tuition was simply
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: one thing that was factored into these blank checks that
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: came in. The second thing that happened was there became
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: this societal demand on young people. You have to go
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to college because you have to go to college. And
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: parents just didn't want their kid not to be a
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: kid that went to college. They were willing to pay
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: whatever college is charged. I made this comment a bunch
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: of years ago, and I never got a good answer
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: for it. Just about everything that I can think of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: in society, there's price competition. The most extreme example would
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: be gas prices. By law, they got to put up
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: a giant sign saying how much.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: They charge at the gas station.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: And anybody who lives in a metro area like Milwaukee
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: is aware that in some neighborhoods, gas is cheaper than others.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: In the area where our radio station is, southwest of
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee County, it seems to me that the gas is
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: about as low as it is anywhere in the metro area.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Part of it is there's a lot of gas stations
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: in this area, and you can't charge a penny more
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: than the guy that's kitty-quarter or two blocks down the street.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: But just about anything, there's price competition. I just can't
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: think of an example of a university that advertises low
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: tuition rates. I actually don't even know whose tuition is higher.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: Carroll? Or Marquette? Or Mount Mary? Or Alverno?
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Or Carthage?
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: I'm running through the list here.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: But clearly one of them is less expensive than some
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of the, there's got to be one that's cheaper. I've
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: never seen one of them that was cheaper, you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: run an ad saying we're less expensive than the other.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: The same thing is true in healthcare because healthcare pretty
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: much works that you have out-of-pocket costs until you hit
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: your annual maximum and then insurance.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: Pays for it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Nobody particularly pays any attention to whether or not your
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: open-heart surgery is going to be less expensive at Freighter
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: than it is at Aurora or vice versa. The only
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: price competition that I see is from the online universities,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: which are getting better and better, and I suspect as
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: AI comes in, will get even better than that and
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: probably pose an existential threat to these large brick-and-mortar universities.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: They'll often.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: compete on price and say, look, the education you get
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: here is going to be 15% of going to a
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: big four-year school. But other than that, there's no price competition.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I suspect that there's a lot of price fixing going on,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: and I don't know that it's deliberate, but it's a wink, wink, nod, nod.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: You don't think that all of these private schools, for example,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: know what the other is charging? Can't go much higher
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: than that because Marquette's at this level, and Marquette is
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the largest private university in the state. Do they set
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the bar for what the tuition is going to be?
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: The state public universities, Madison is packed, and it's been
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: at the expense of of the other public universities in
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: the state. A lot of the young people would just,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I want to go to Madison. I don't want to
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: go to Oshkosh. I don't want to go to Stevens Point.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: If somebody went to one of those state schools, I think,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: depending on the kind of student that you are and
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: the personality that you have, the state schools might be
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: much better experiences. I know that they were for me,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: but I'm talking 50 years ago. I understand that. Did
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I ever find out where you went to college?
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, Northwestern. I think you said that. Say it. Northwestern.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Shut up.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, of course you have your problems, but I mean, it's...
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I don't even think Northwestern people act hoity-toity.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: It's just the hoity-toityness about it, the whole thing.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: No, I know it's not like Harvard, but it's... I mean, but,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you know, if you would have gone to the University
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: of Illinois, nobody would say, ooh, the University of Illinois.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: I mean....
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the kings of the Big Ten academically and nothing else.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I've been arguing forever Northwestern should leave the Big Ten.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: It's tapped the resources of that university to try to
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: compete in sports with schools that have much larger numbers
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: of alumni and financial resources behind them. But Northwestern's digging in.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: They just built a new football stadium and all of that, right? Anyway,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: there's never any price competition. I'm actually surprised at that.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Let me just grab a school off the top of
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: my head, a private school. There's this college in the
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: University of Minnesota called St. Thomas. I don't know what
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: their tuition is. But imagine they made the decision to
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: drop tuition by 20%.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Seems to me that that would be marketable.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Cut some fat out of the budget, eliminate some non-essential
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: department programs, sell off some of the property that they
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: have on the campuses, and go out and compete on price. Anyway,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: None of that happens. So what's been happening with university
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: education is it's outside the realm of what normally happens
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: in a free market capitalistic society. And the end result
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: has been a dramatic explosion in cost. Well, here are
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: some raw numbers. Charlie Bielo presented these on.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: X a few days ago.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Over the last 40 years, college tuition and fees, now
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: they throw in fees. I should explain for those of
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: you who didn't.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Go to college.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Fees are not tuition, but fees have to be paid.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: In the University of Wisconsin system, student fees are not
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: set by the university administrator. They're set by a combination
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: of the student government and the faculty. The fees, for example,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: pay for the athletic program, the student unions.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And so on.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: But these fees are set are things that students have
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to pay so they're using your tuition and fees over
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: the past 40 years college tuition and fees in the
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: United States have increased by 655 percent at the same
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: time the consumer price index is up 204 percent.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: So in 40 years.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: The inflation rate in the United States on a consumer
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: price index is 204%, but the increase in college tuition
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: and fees is 655%. So in other words, tuition has gone.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Up at three times.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: The increase in the other cost of living. Now, I'm
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: glad he mentioned 40 years because that almost, sad to say,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: it doesn't actually take me back to when I was
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: in college, but it gets close. I'll just take the
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: school I went to, UW-La Crosse. I don't think that
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: there's a damn thing they offer now that they didn't
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: offer when I was there. There's a couple of newer
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: buildings and all of that, but we had a sports program.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: We had a football field. In fact, the football field
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: is still the one that they use now of beautiful setting.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: They built a new basketball arena. There's still classrooms. The
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: enrollment's about the same. If anything, I think that they
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: have fewer majors than they did when I was there.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: The tuition was actually a little bit higher when I
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: was there. Remember, I was in the baby boom. What
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: would explain the explosion in cost here other than they
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: hire an incredible, far more people? A lot of the
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: professors barely teach. And if teaching assistants, well, you have
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: to hire the teaching assistants. The bureaucracy and the administration
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: is through the roof. Continuing with Bielo's point, 15 U.S.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: colleges and universities now cost more than $ 100, 000 a year.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I remember when $ 60, 000 was the norm. That was only
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: like five or six years ago. More than $ 100, 000 a year.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: $ 400, 000 for a four-year degree. Now, obviously, many of these
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: universities hand out a lot of scholarships and grants to
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: cut into that cost, but not everybody gets them. I believe,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: and I've been making this point for many, many years now,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: that there is going to be a crash in American
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: colleges and universities. It's not happening as fast as I thought,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: but when Cardinal Stritch went under a couple of years ago,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I said that this is the canary in the coal mine. A,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: we know the birth rate is declining, so there's just
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: fewer students to be able to go. Secondly, There are
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: so many industries that are desperately short of employees and
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: illegal immigration or even visas and immigration can't fill all
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: of these positions. Almost anything that is a skilled trade
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: is short of employees. And some of those jobs, because
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: they are short of employees, are going to have to
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: pay a fortune. In order to be fully staffed up,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: and I think a lot of young people are going
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: to realize, I shouldn't go to college. I should instead
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: go into this field over here where they'll train me,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to have no student loans and have
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: a better quality of life. And if I'm in the
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: industry long enough, I'm going to learn how to start
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: my own business and be way ahead of this person
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: that has this useless major in comparative literature. There's so
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: many majors the universities have that lead only to one
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: career path, and that is to be a teacher.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: All right, let's get to politics.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: The first Marquette University Law School poll, and obviously some
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: people are rolling their eyes when they hear that because
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: the last Marquette University Law School poll in the Democratic
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: primary for governor showed Francesca Hong with a 22-point lead.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: I do not ridicule the Marquette Law poll for that.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I think that at the time they took it, she
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: did have a 22-point lead. But the problem was they
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: didn't take a poll the last week out of the
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: election when everything was changing. They took their poll during
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: the period of time that Sarah Rodriguez was imploding, David
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Crowley was out of the race and back into the race.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: They did it before all of the negative ads came out, well,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: not negative ads, but the negativity toward Francesca Hong and
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: the ads of Tony Evers, she can't win, she can't win,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: she can't win, she can't win. The Marquette Law Poll
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: is generally regarded as pretty good. It was totally wrong
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: in the 2024 election. Almost all polls were totally wrong
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: at the 2024 election. As I on this program said
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: again and again and again, the polls were way off.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: They were oversampling Democrats, and they were not picking up
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: on the trend of Trump tapping into nontraditional voters and
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: many voters that used to be dominant Democrat voting classes,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Latinos and African Americans.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Nonetheless, it is the poll that we have.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: And in the first head-on-head poll that they've taken now,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Crowley leads Tiffany by 5%. They poll likely voters. They
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: also poll registered voters, but the one that people looks
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: at is the likely voters. Interestingly, it's a dead heat
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: among registered voters, but Crowley up by five points with
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: likely voters.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: Some thoughts. First of all, I think that this is
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: a very good poll for Tiffany.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Anybody who's been around Wisconsin for a period of time
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and has been following these polls knows that the polls
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: taken in the summer overwhelmingly biased toward the Democrats.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: I have a theory on that.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: And some people have theories that vacations screw up the
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: polling thing, people at home and so on.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's it.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Until you get into the guts of a campaign, there
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: are no negatives raised on Democratic candidates because the media
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: doesn't raise any of them. But then you get a
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: campaign and you allow Republicans to focus on the negatives
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and run ads on the negatives of the Democrat and
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: so on. And there is a leveling off. You can
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: go back and look at the Scott Walker campaigns for governor.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: You can go back and look at the Michaels campaign
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: for governor. The polls in the summer tend to be very,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: very bad for the Republican candidate. Secondly, Crowley has not
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: been subject to one negative ad at all.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: You could write a book.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: About the implosion of Francesca Hong in the last two
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: weeks of the Democratic primary and how.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: She did everything wrong.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: First of all, she and her.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Communist staff thought they had it won. So Evers goes
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: on TV for two weeks, dragging around Crowley like a
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: little puppy on a leash, saying David can win, the
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: other candidate can't win. Hong's people never responded by attacking Crowley. Then, Evers'
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: campaign people surfaced on Earth, I guess I should say.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: All of these tweets from the past, from Huang, they
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: showed up all over the media. Huang was stupid enough
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: to go on a national television tour and screw things up.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: At no point, however, did they respond by attacking Crowley
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: and there's things to attack. How many voters in Wisconsin
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: are aware that Milwaukee County has a double county sales tax,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: yet the Milwaukee County budget is still a disaster?
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: How many people know that.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: David Crowley went to UWM while he was the county
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: executive double dipping and charged his tuition.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: To the taxpayers? That would have been a pretty good
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: ad for Hong to run.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: But she and her staff were too stupid to run
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: it because, A, they thought they were going to win,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: and they didn't want to hack off Crowley supporters by
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: doing anything that would be considered to be divisive.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: My point on this.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Is, usually after you've emerged from a primary, you're all
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: battered up and wounded. Take these Republican primaries that we've
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: had for governor. Michaels and Clayfish, the most recent one, 2022.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: They attacked one another.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: The boxing match was as brutal as the one that
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Hillary Swank fought in Million Dollar Baby. I mean, they
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: just savaged one another. No matter if Michaels won, but
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: was all beaten up. And if Becky Clayfish had won,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: she was all beaten up. Crowley isn't beaten up because
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: there's been no attacking. And further, Crowley was sitting there
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: so low in the polls for so long that nobody
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: was even bothering exposing his negatives. A whole lot of crap.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Let's go to the one thing that did get out,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: the Dirk McGurk post. You got people all over the
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: place right now that are being embarrassed by the post
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: that they made. They're trying to get rid of the
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: mayor of New Berlin because of social media posts. Look
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: at the runs Crowley posted. At least as offensive as that.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: He used the pseudonym Dirk McGurk and was posting every
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: vulgar thing you could say about women. Borderline racist stuff.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: How many people are aware of that? Also, there's clearly
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: a drag on Republican candidates right now because of Trump.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: The longer the campaign goes on will give Tiffany more
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: of an opportunity to disconnect himself from that. So I
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: think Tiffany being within five points, despite having no real
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: negatives associated to Crowley, is a pretty good sign. One
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: other point on this. Crowley does not have at his
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: disposal the issue that Democrats are going to run on
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: all over the country. All over America, Democrats are going
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: to run, I'm against data centers. Crowley can't do that.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: In fact, it's Tiffany that has Crowley on the defensive
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: on this because Crowley has taken in a fortune from
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: data center developers, including before the election, in part because
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: they've been trying to get some of them in Milwaukee County.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: So they've been trying to buy off the county executive.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: So Crowley's been swimming in data center money. It's going
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: to make it pretty hard for him to try to
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: claim that it's Tiffany that wants to green light all
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: the data centers. I think the issue will be a wash.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Crowley is calling, rather Tiffany is calling Crowley data center Dave.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: That is certainly going to make it hard. It creates
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: an inoculation. So if they try to run the ad
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: that the Democrats are running everywhere in America just claiming
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: the Republicans want to bring us all these terrible data centers,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: that issue gets neutralized.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: Against Tiffany.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast. This is the
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Mark Belling Podcast. Interesting story from Racine. The story deals
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: with criminal charges that are being brought in connection with
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: a terrible hunting accident that occurred in April. We have
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: a program in Wisconsin in which we encourage parents to
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: take their kids hunting.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: It's a good thing.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Having your parent with you in which you're teaching the
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: kids how to safely and effectively hunt is a good thing.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Getting kids into nature is a good thing. Getting kids
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: to understand that man is part of the ecosystem and
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: the food chain is a good thing.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: But what happened here It's just warped.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: It involves a Racine County Sheriff's deputy. His name is
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: James Lehman. He went hunting and according to the criminal complaint,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: he went hunting with his three-year-old daughter and allowed her
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: to pull the trigger. It was a 12 gauge, they
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: always say semi-automatic shotgun. The media throws in semi-automatic because
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: nobody knows what semi-automatic means. People hear semi-automatic and they
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: think automatic. Almost all weapons are semi-automatic. Semi-automatic means you
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: don't have to cock the weapon. Handguns are semi-automatic weapons.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Most shotguns are semi-automatic weapons. Most rifles are semi-automatic weapons.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: The opposite of that would be like a muzzleloader. The
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: people who go hunting, the muzzleloader hunters, they have my
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: respect because I'm talking about hunting with two hands tied
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: behind your back.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: I think that that's about as hard as bow hunting.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Those are also true hunters. Anyway, he has his three-year-old daughter. Now,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: should a three-year-old daughter be shooting a gun? I'm not
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: going to say blanket no. I grew up in a
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: small town, but we were really close to the woods.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Kids had BB guns by the age of about seven.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: BB guns, not stronger guns. And parents would take their
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: kids out and often at a target range, you know,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: pointed the gun, have the gun almost mounted forward so.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: They can get the feel for shooting the gun.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Three?
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: But secondly, We now find out that this guy who
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: was doing this, the deputy, isn't much of a hunter.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: It turns out the two people were struck when this
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: little girl fired the gun. Obviously, you can't blame the
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: three-year-old girl. If dad's taking his three-year-old daughter out and
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: letting her shoot a gun, dad better damn well be
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: sure that there isn't another human being in sight. The
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: accidental shooting happened the afternoon of Sunday, April 12th, this
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: is JS Online, at Cherry Lake Sedge Meadow, part of
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Honey Creek Wildlife Area near Burlington, during.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Wisconsin's youth turkey hunt.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: A two-day hunt, by the way. I encourage any kind
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: of hunt of turkeys. Is there a more obnoxious animal? Yeah,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: there is, the wolf. Turkeys are right up there. How
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: long have you been with us, Jason? When did you
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: start working here?
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: It's out of the year.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: You haven't been here yet in the fall when the
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: turkeys start coming out of the woods. Oh, I mean,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: they are just obnoxious. First of all, they're stupid. Secondly,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: they're so dumb they don't have fear of guys. These turkeys,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: they're almost as bad as the sandhill cranes, which the
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: sandhill cranes are at least majestic. The turkeys are just
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: fat and stupid. The turkey will be on the street,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: and you'll be sitting there, and the turkey will just
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: stare at you. I think once a turkey actually gave
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: me the finger. They're all over the place, and they're mean!
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: So having any kind of a turkey hunt, I'm in
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: favor of that. This was the annual youth turkey hunt,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: a two-day hunt held the weekend before regular hunting season
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: when young hunters aged 15 and younger get to hunt
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: under the supervision of an adult mentor. A 40-year-old man
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: and his 7-year-old son were struck with pellets from a
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun in the incident, according to the Wisconsin DNR.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: The two victims were transported to Freighter Medical Hospital in Milwaukee.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: The man had wounds to his back, lower torso, left
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: hand and arm, and was treated at the emergency room
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: and released later that evening. The child had wounds to
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: his back and hand and head, including multiple pellets in
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: his skull and brain cavity, the complaint said. He underwent
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: surgery two months after the shooting when all pellets were
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: removed except for three in his spinal cord, skull and brain.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: On the day of the shooting, Lehman, that's First name again,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: James Lehman. He's from Union Grove, Sheriff's Deputy, Racine County.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Lehman remained at the scene and spoke to wardens. He
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: informed them that he did not have a hunter safety
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: certificate because he was exempt due to military service. Now,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I think the exemption from hunter safety rule, having to
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: get the hunter safety training if you've been in the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: military makes sense because most people in the.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: Military have handled weapons, but.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: Handling weapons in a hunting situation and the kind of
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: weapons you have in a hunting situation isn't always consistent
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: with military training. So the guy said, okay, I haven't
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: gone to a hunter safety course. The complaint says Lehman
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: also told wardens, quote, he is not a very experienced
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: turkey hunter. And it was one of his first times
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: hunting outside of a group. So this guy is a
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: novice hunter. When he's hunted in the past, it's been
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: apparently with a group of guys. How in the hell
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: can you have a guy go out and take his
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: three-year-old daughter out hunting unless he's an expert and is
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: trained and knowledgeable?
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I haven't hunted in years. Poland, I used to talk,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: just years.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: But I remember all the things that they were taught
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: me when I was a teenager.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: Know the range of your weapon.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Make sure you know everything that's downrange and if the
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: range of the weapon is greater than your visual downrange,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: in other words, if there's heavy trees and so on
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: that block from the range, then you can't fire. Absolutely
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: be certain of your target before you fire.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: All this stuff.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: But this guy has not even gone solo, apparently, by himself,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and he's letting not his 14-year-old kid, the 3-year-old, pull
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: the trigger?
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Rules for the.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: DNR's youth turkey hunt include no minimum age requirement for
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the children.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: It goes on.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: I've said this in the past, and I am, as
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: you know, a major gun rights guy. I not only
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: believe that the Second Amendment guarantees us the right to
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: possess firearms.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I also believe that adult human beings have an absolute
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: right to own a gun with certain restrictions.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: We can exempt certain people, felons, so on.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: And I also think that it's important that kids learn
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: how to use guns and become comfortable with them. But
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: there are also responsibilities. With those rights comes the requirement...
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: that you showed deep respect for your gun. We had
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: a case a couple of years ago of a guy
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: who left a gun in a bathroom.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Just a mistake.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: It was a local public official. I didn't think you
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: should go soft on him. If you're going to carry
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: a gun or possess a gun, it is absolutely critical
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: that you be held to the highest standard of responsibility
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: with regard to it. And I think the criminals, they're
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: bringing criminal charges against the guy in Racine County He's
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: accused of two counts of second-degree reckless injury with use
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: of a dangerous weapon, two counts of injury by negligent
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: use of a weapon. The fact that he's a sheriff's
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: deputy doesn't make it worse or not. It certainly would
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: seem to me to indicate that he ought to know better.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, a child's got pellets in his brain and
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: spinal cord.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Because a three-year-old girl.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Shot his gun and the guy apparently was not aware
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: of where she was pointing or who was downrange or.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: What the cause of this was.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was an accident, but an accident doesn't mean
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: that it isn't criminal. In this case, the level of
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: negligence that was in place I think requires criminal sanction.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Now let's go to Heartland.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Heartland is in the Lake Country.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Northern Waukesha County. A story from Fox 6.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Yesterday, and I'm doing this podcast on Thursday the 27th,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: so this is Wednesday the 26th, we had yet another
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: case of swatting. I don't think I heard of the
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: term before 10 years ago. Swatting is calling 911, and
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: saying something really, really dangerous is going on. And the
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: reason it's called SWATing is the kind of thing that
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: a SWAT team would respond to. In many communities, they
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: don't use the word SWAT anymore. It's the tactical squad.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: And in some cases, the community might not have it.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: It's just a huge emergency response. But it's a generalized term,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: even though SWAT is a specific unit, for putting in
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: a fake call of such a serious nature that you
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: have an overwhelming show of An example of swatting would
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: be a guy at a school has a gut and
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: just making it up. That would be an example of it.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: In this case, according to Fox 6, a 50-year-old Heartland
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: woman called 911 and said she was being held at gunpoint. Now,
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: here's all that happened. And again, my information comes from
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Fox 6's report. The reporter whose name is on the
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: byline is Nick Beversdorf. The Village of Heartland Police Department,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: just before 1 p.m., this is yesterday, Wednesday afternoon, a
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: 50-year-old woman and Heartland resident called the Waukesha County Communications
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Dispatch Center saying she was being held at gunpoint in
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: her apartment near Campus and Scenic. Officers arrived on scene,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: set up a perimeter, and made contact with a caller
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: who said that she was being held captive and at gunpoint.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: So she not only put in the call, now there's
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: this response, and she's sticking to the story. Nearby Lake
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Country Lutheran High School was placed on lockdown. A community notification.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: Was sent out.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming that that's one that comes out via the
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: cell phones. To those in the area, asking them to
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: shelter in place. In other words, there was a huge
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: response here. And probably some people were scared to death.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Guess what? There's nobody holding the woman at gunpoint. She
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: made it up.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Now, the story is unclear because there's not been a
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: criminal complaint yet. She's only been arrested as to why
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: she did it. It was later determined that the caller
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: had been alone inside the residence. There was no indication
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: of what had actually happened. The woman was arrested and
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: will be booked into the Waukesha County Jail for one
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: count of swatting and one count of disorderly conduct. The
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: school lockdown was lifted. What happens in most of these
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: cases is nothing. The person is troubled. Sometimes it's a
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: young person. Sometimes it's somebody who's depressed and distraught. Sometimes
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: it's somebody who has some mental problems. Sometimes they're lonely.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: There's any number of things. Often they're revenge. People will
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: make a swatting call, say, at their ex-girlfriend's house and
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: call or say, my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, and my ex-husband
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: is doing this over in such and such a place
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: and have the police respond to when the guy hasn't
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: done anything at all. We have to stop coddling this
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: There are massive public resources being used. Furthermore, fortunately, this
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: is Heartland.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: And it's a Wednesday afternoon.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: There probably wasn't a lot of crime going on in
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: the area, but a call like this takes priority, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: that means that maybe somebody else who was in need
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: of police services wasn't going to get it for a while. Again,
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: the person, at least as of the time I'm doing
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: the podcast, has not yet been criminally charged, so we
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: don't know what the person's background is. or what the
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: motivation is, I'm tired of dancing around with these people.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Two stories now about local mayors. They're out to get
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: the mayor of New Berlin, Dave Amon. He apparently made
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: some posts on Facebook making fun of Muslims. Everybody's seen
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: these posts. You'll see like a woman with a hijab
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: on and then a mini skirt. These posts are made
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: all over the place and they are an attempt to
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: make fun of the Muslim attitude that women are not
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: supposed to show much of anything in terms of their skin.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: A number of residents of New Berlin are demanding that
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Eamon reside. Should he have made these posts?
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: No.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Should public officials consider never posting anything on Facebook other
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: than a governmental position?
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: But first of all, Eamon is a conservative mayor of
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: New Orleans. That's part of the reason he's being targeted.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: But secondly, let's talk about this for a moment. So
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: he put some posts up that have pictures that are
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: sort of making fun of Muslims and their traditions.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: And the way they dress.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: You compare this to what the mayor of New York
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: has said about Jewish people or what the Democratic candidate
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: for the United States Senate in Michigan, El-Sayed, has said
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: about Jewish people. You have people openly talking about exterminating Jews,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: engaging in the most vile anti-Semitism. Not only does nothing
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: happen to them, they get elected mayors of cities.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: I'll put up against... Whatever it was.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: That Amon posted, I'll compare that to the litany of
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: crap that's come out of the mouth of Mamdani and
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: his supporters.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: I'm a Christian.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: We're mocked and made fun of all the time. When's
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: the last time anybody got in trouble for that? Again,
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not defending what Amon said. and they're going to
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: suggest that he's intolerant. I'll tell you who's intolerant. You
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: have Muslims that are going into European countries and insisting
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: that all of their ways be changed. You've got Muslims
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: going into European countries, engaging in gang rape, and the
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: rest of the society is being told, you just have
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: to deal with it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: This is our culture.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: This is our custom.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people are frosted by it, and
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: One of the ways you respond when you're frosted by
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: it is to post goofy things on social media, telling
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: your jokes. They're all over the place. When you unfortunately
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: do it, if you're a public official, though, the fangs are.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Going to be out for you.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Amon is opposed. Should it be disqualifying from leading his community?
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: No.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: There is a component of Islam that that can't handle
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: any criticism or ribbing at all. Salman Rushdie is still
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: under a death order. They almost killed him once. A
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: cartoonist in the Netherlands was killed. You have Muslims, not all,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: but many, who openly advocate the slaughter of Jews. But
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: nobody's able to make fun of the way they wear
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: their clothing.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: And again, I'm not.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Suggesting it's a good thing to make fun of somebody's
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: religion and the customs that are associated with it. But
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: the only time it ever creates a stir is when
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: the group being made fun of are Muslims. And now
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: to another mayor in a community almost adjacent, pretty much
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: to the north of New Berlin is Brookfield. Steve Ponto,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: the mayor of Brookfield, took a three-month leave of absence.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Apparently he was paid during this time. He said that
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: he needed to deal with personal matters that made it
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: impossible for him to serve as mayor.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: He didn't resign.
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: He took a leave.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: Now he's back on duty. Ponto's a pretty good mayor.
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: Not a great mayor. He's right of center.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: He's not offered an explanation for his absence.
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: I don't know what it is.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know if he was ill. I don't know
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: if there was an addiction problem. I don't know if
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: a relative was going through a crisis.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: But he's an elected official. I think he ought to
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: provide an explanation here. If you're a private sector employee,
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: say at a company like mine, and you ask for
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: a leave of absence because of a family matter that's
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: out there, you have to disclose to your employer what
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: it is so that they know the person. not just
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: making it up. It can then be held confidential by
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: that manager in the company. In the case of an
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: elected official who absconds from his duties for a few months,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: you know, close call as to whether or not he
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: should have resigned.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: But he didn't.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: But I think that there needs to be a fuller
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: explanation for a public elected official. There was a Joe
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: Biden cabinet secretary disappeared for a week and a half
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: for elective surgery.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: Remember that? Who was that? Somebody.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: It was Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary. He had, what
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: was it, some cancer? He had prostate cancer. Well, and
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: he didn't say anything. If you're a public official, you
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: sacrifice certain segments of your privacy if you're not going
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: to be available to do your job.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: And again, maybe it's embarrassing, maybe it's not, but I
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: suspect the public can handle it. And again, I don't know.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Nobody's leaked to me what it is.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: Now that I've done this podcast, maybe somebody at Brookfield
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: who knows, and I'm guessing quite a few people know,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: will tell me. But I've not seen it reported anywhere
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: in the media. I haven't seen anybody in the media
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: try to find out what it is. It could be
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: something from a tragedy in his personal life. It could
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: be anything that would cause this.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: But I think the.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Public has a right to know more about what the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: cause of this absence is than Ponto has so far.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: Been willing to provide.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: And I think that the Common Council in Brookfield needs
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: to be up front and share this information. I can't
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: imagine what it would be that would require such sense
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: of privacy and secrecy embarrassing, personal, or not. So the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: other thing that happens is people's minds run around, is
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: this an addiction problem?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: Or was it a health problem? Is it a problem
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: with one of his children? It could be anything.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: You know, you're not a private citizen. You're a mayor
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: of a city of 45,000 people. I don't think you
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: have to tell every single sort of detail about the
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: nature of why it was that you had to leave.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: ought to be shared. And I suspect after hearing it,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: most people would be understanding of what that reason is,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: unless it's something that you wouldn't think would justify bugging
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: out of your job for three months while being paid.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mark Belling Podcast. This is the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Mark Belling Podcast. All right, now this is one of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: those stories that probably 85% of people don't care about.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: Of the 15% who do, they have strong opinions on this.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: If you've ever watched ESPN, on the bottom of the screen,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: they're always running a crawl in which there's news. They
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: mention the sports news stories of the day, and they
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: run through the scores of the games that are going on.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: On a slow day, you'll be seeing the same score
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: like every 75 seconds, or the same story, because there
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: just aren't that many games. During college football season, it
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: runs on.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: And on and on and on and on.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: ESPN is announcing that during its college football coverage, it
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: is going to take away that ticker strip because they
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: want to have a cleaner.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: Presentation.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: I'm reading a story on this on Fox News.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: They have a shared relationship with OutKick. And the writer
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: for Outkick.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Is appalled by this, that he wants it. No, no, no,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: you got to have the information on there. You got
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: to have the information on there. There's no way that
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: they should take this down. I got a sports guy
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: in here, my producer, Jason. What do you think about
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: taking away that strip that they run on the bottom
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: of the screen with the scores?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: They should leave it. People have adjusted. You say that
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: they should leave it.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: Leave it on there, all right? It's my position.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: Get that thing off of there!
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: I hate all the crap that's running. I'll admit, it's
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: not as bad as, never mind tornado warning. If you
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: have a severe thunderstorm, watch the local TV stations take
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: up a quarter of the screen and put a map
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: up there on that or run the radar through there.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: If I can get the game on any feed other
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: than local station, I'll switch away because it's so damn distracting. Furthermore,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: if there's a warning in Fond du Lac County, why
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: do I in Milwaukee County need to see it on
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: my TV? And who doesn't have a phone that beeps
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: every time that there's a weather advisory in the area?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: Who doesn't have a radar app on their phone? The
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: score is running on the bottom of the screen.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Anybody who wants to check the scores can use their phone.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Do you know how many scores apps there are? I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: think it is annoying, it is distracting, and it's hard
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: to take your eyes off of it. I can't think
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: of the last time I praised ESPN for anything, but
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: I think that this is a good move, and it's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: catching up with the reality of the times. There are
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: any number of things that the media used to have
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: to do because, as an example, back when I was
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: in radio, we used to do the weather forecast three
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: to four times an hour. It got down to, I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: would occasionally mention it, maybe once an hour, but only
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: if the weather was, like, noteworthy. There's no need for
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: a radio station to do the weather anymore because everybody's
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: got a phone that has a forecast app on it.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Who doesn't know what the weather's going to be? Now,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: severe weather is another story. When we were doing radio,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: if there was a tornado warning, severe thunderstorm warning, in effect,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: we would mention it because those are the sorts of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: things people need to know about instantly, especially if you're
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: in your car and you're not watching TV and so on.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: The other thing, radio used to do time checks all
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: the time. Everybody's phone has the time on it right now,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: and most people are holding the phone in their hand.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: When I was doing the old radio show, what did
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: you need me to tell you?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: It was 4.13. Everybody knew what time it was.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: But there was a time in which the only way
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: people would know what the time is if they had
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: a watch on, and not everybody did that. Certain things change,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: and certain information isn't needed anymore. Most newspapers don't run
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: the box scores of baseball games anymore. In part because
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: the newspapers are shrinking. But also, you can get that
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: information all over the internet. There's any number of places that.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: You can get it.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: You don't need the newspaper for it. On a Saturday
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: afternoon with football, take a better night. Say a Wednesday,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: Thursday night like tonight when there's a handful of games
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: that are going on, anybody who wants to know the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: score can grab their phone or grab their tablet or
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: grab their notebook.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: And see what the scores are.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: You don't need to keep one of those things on
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the screen getting in everybody's way. As
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: I said, 85% don't care, 15% do care. You want
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: them to keep it on, I'm glad they're getting rid
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: Here's the other thing.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: It's such a politically correct thing that they have to do.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: They're running scores of like women's college basketball. I know
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: a guy that got thrown off by that all the time.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: He'd be seeing those scores and he'd see something like
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: Harvard beat Notre Dame.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, Harvard beat, that's the women.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: That guy's dead now, so I can make fun of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: him for, it's thrown off about that all the time.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: And whenever I just see an odd score up there
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: that didn't make any sense, I just assume that it's women.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: You know, the WNBA scores are up there more than
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: the major league baseball. It's all a politically correct crap.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: That's on there. I have nothing else. Oh, I do
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: have something else.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: I have been asked by several people who I like
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: in this weekend's Travers. The Travers is my favorite horse
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: race of the year. The Travers is like the Kentucky
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: Derby Preachers and Belmont Stakes in that it's restricted to three-year-olds,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: but I think it's more interesting because.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: It happens in the middle of the summer.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: You have the holdovers from the Triple Crown Series, and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: you also have new horses that have emerged that weren't
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: as early developed that were in there. So you've got
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: an interesting mix of Horses that had already established themselves
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: as being very good. It's by far the most prestigious
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: race for three-year-olds other than those Triple Crown races. And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: it's at Saratoga, which is the treasured track to watch
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: summer racing. It's a big field of 10 horses and
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: very evenly matched race. The horse that won both the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, Golden Tempo, is in there.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: And he might win it again. I didn't think he
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: was going to win the Derby. I didn't think he
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: was going to win the Belmont Stakes. And I don't
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: think he's going to win the Traverse. But I can't
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: give you a pick because, as I said, it's the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: race that I personally really, really want to get right.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: The fields are usually manageable. In this case, 10 horses
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: that you can figure it out. I'm completely conflicted on
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: the race. I can't dismiss the chances of any of
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: them other than maybe Ocelli.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: So he might win. So I can't give you a pick.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: If I come up with anything that I feel strongly
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: enough about, I'll post that on X. But at the moment,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I went through it. I handicapped the races on Tuesday
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: and came up with a horse named Sea Strike. Now
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: I don't like him at all. So I'm in this
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: business of flopping all over the place. And I just
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: can't come down with any confidence or certainty.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: On any of them right now.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: So what you're getting from me on this issue is
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: so far a great big, I don't know. That's it
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: for this week's podcast.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: We'll release another one Monday of next week.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Talk to you soon.
• 1:08:42
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• 1:08:46
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