Jessica McBride fills in for Dan

0:00Good afternoon Wisconsin, this is the Dan O'Donnell show and I am Jessica McBride from Wisconsin So we're having an issue. I'm sure what that means but we'll roll with it. What a great start I have a lot of news for you going to be breaking some news on the program I've got three different things to talk about that are sort of the breaking news of the day breaking into the course of the day types of things. The first one, it's a tragic angle and I know you heard it in the news headlines as well which is the death of Dan Bice, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist. Let's put it this way. I'm not a ghoul. I'm not a ghoul. I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone. He had children. He had a wife. He was only 62 years old. He

1:07died on his birthday of throat cancer. I pray for his family and I pray for his soul. I mean that's kind of the bottom line isn't it? I mean I'm not going to personalize the death of somebody. I'm just not going to do that and you know frankly we should all be better than that and I am old enough to remember the left crashing Charlie Kirk in the wake of his death or doing the other version of it which is well we don't want anyone to die but now we're going to give you this long list of all the terrible things that we think they ever did and on top of it we're going to twist them right? Is that the way the left played played out that tragic death? I'm old enough to remember the glee that liberals, not all of them of course, that a lot of liberals too many showed when Rush Limbaugh died.

2:12died very you know obviously too young. He is still a loss isn't he? There are so many times that I sit here and I think I wish we could hear what Rush Limbaugh had to say about this or what Rush Limbaugh had to say about that. And we don't have the ability to hear his wisdom anymore. It's exceptionally tragic. The left too many of them were ghouls when he died. Absolute ghouls. Scalia, same thing they were ghouls. And let's be honest, Trump was pretty ghoulish when Robert Miller died you know a short time ago. When you're like Trump and you've been really attacked by a person it's difficult when you know when when something tragic happens to them to put those emotions about yourself and what you went through a side like I get that dilemma. I'm choosing to rise above it. So but later on the program I'm going to circle back on

3:17on the death of Mr. Bice because I do think it has an impact on the political dynamic in the state and certainly on the political news space in the state. And so I'm going to give you a little bit of my take on on that later on in in the show. But Dan Bice, dead of throat cancer at age 62 on his birthday. But before I do that I want to go to a guest who I have on the line and I'm going to break another piece of news. I didn't break the news of Bice's passing of course but I'm going to break some news when the next guest comes on. And so let's just go right to her. I want to introduce you to to this person Meg Ellipson. I know some of you know who she is but I'm guessing that a large chunk of the listening audience because we're obviously based in southeastern Wisconsin hasn't been introduced to Meg Ellipson yet. She is a conservative well she was a conservative

4:24talk show host in the Wassa area in Marathon County in northern Wisconsin. And she now is a podcast conservative podcast. She was a tea party activist and I want to tap her wisdom on some breaking news in the seventh congressional district race and stick with me. If you think oh that sounds boring. I live in southeastern Wisconsin. Why do I care what's going on in the seventh CD which is a district congressional district in northern Wisconsin. It's Tom Tiffany's old seat. You know stick with this segment because it is just a fascinating race with an absolutely fascinating cast of crazy characters. So Meg welcome to the show. Good afternoon Jessica. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Well I yeah I'm great and so some of the listeners know this but I used to go on

5:24Meg's show and she you you had a conservative radio show Meg and like I said you've transitioned to a podcast and it's a very good podcast. I encourage people to listen to it. So I'm kind of doing the reverse here where I get to interview you which is kind of fun. I I I don't play the gender card a lot but I do play it sometimes and the way I'm going to play it here is that I have long wanted to hear more female conservative voices in the public square in the political square in the state and we've had conservative politicians you know people like Rebecca Clayfish or Jennifer Doro or Maria Lazar they haven't always been very well treated in the the public square including sometimes by people on the right and certainly people on the left. But when it comes to sort of political commentary I've long wished there were more female voices in that square we have the great Vicki McKenna of course we really don't have that many female voices and I am sick and tired personally of of liberals thinking that they own like women's issues that they speak for all

6:29women so when I see a great conservative female voice like yours Meg I like to amplify that voice that I'm kind of doing that here. So before we get started on our analysis of this crazy congressional race tell people just sort of your your conservative bonafides if you will about you know also the you know the Duffy family you kind of mentioned something to me on the phone about that like just you're working the conservative world all of that. Oh thanks Jessica you know I was just thinking as you were talking you can take the girl out of politics but you can't take the politics out of the girl and you know last summer I decided to step away from it all I was kind of burned out as I think a lot of people do get when they're in politics and particularly my gig on the radio up here in Wasa was five hours a day five days a week and that was just when I was on the air so it got to be kind of a grind and it was an early morning gig and I thought you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna take a step back and do something else for a while and and then come

7:34back doing podcasting on my terms and so that's what I've been doing and just a shameless plug drive north with Meg Ellison is the name of my podcast and I do all kinds of different interviews but anyway so to talk about my conservatism you know I've been and you know I don't know if this lens it lends it well to my story but I I have lived in Wisconsin in the seven congressional district here in Wasa for about 20 years with my husband and we raised our family here and prior to that we lived in the twin cities don't don't judge me but I grew up and was raised in Minnesota and despite the fact that I was raised in Minnesota I emerged as a conservative and brought my conservative values from the twin cities to oh gosh and that doesn't sound good either but too Wisconsin and I remember back in 2009 here in the rumblings of tea parties and decided to well you know initially I thought well I'll go I'll go down the Madison or all I think there

8:38was one planned in Appleton I thought you know what I'm gonna plan one in Wasa instead and so kind of the rest is history I just I got plugged in and didn't know a soul really in the political world here in central Wisconsin when I got started the tea party movement here but quickly got I guess immersed in all that is tea party related in in the state and in the country and got to know candidates that were running for office were public in candidates and I mean you know just to be to be very clear I'm a solid conservative and I often found myself perplexed by you know the different political makeup of the state of Wisconsin based on the different parts of you know of the state and and it's interesting to you know to even note that even here in central Wisconsin there are different pockets of conservatives different pockets of people in on different political

9:41sides but I have likely learned that we needed to step it up here in the in Marathon County in particular back in 2009 when we had only one Republican and elected office in this area that was Jared Petrovsky when former state assemblyman and then also state senator Jared Petrovsky he was the only Republican elected in this area and and then slowly but surely as we got more engaged and involved in really just encouraged people to start thinking for themselves and to realize how critical it was that they be using their brains when they go and vote in elections and so that's when I think a lot of people in this area realize well I'm more conservative than not and my my values my principles my way of life are are more reflective of that of the Republican party and so I think it it was a gradual shift but yeah yeah I want to talk about that for a second

10:47so so when you know like 20 years ago I had a conversation with the conservative who's very prominent everyone the listening audience would know this person's name and and I said to him if we could grow talk radio throughout the state now of course people can listen to podcasts including this show right they can go listen to this show in Ross County or Ashland or whatever through podcasts but back then we didn't have that ability and and I said to this person if we could grow the reach of talk radio or more people were exposed to the Mark Bellings of the world or now the Dan O'Donnells of the world certainly like the Meg Ellison's of the world I said you would flip these areas of the state red because you know back then the 7th congressional district which again is Tom Tiffany's district which he's vacating that was run as a Dave Obey fiefdom for like 41 years he was a Democrat long time Democrat congressman and so if that was a Democratic area and I long felt that the people there had conservative values because I grew up there I grew up in Ross County

11:50in northern Wisconsin and I knew that these were folks who went to church on Sundays who liked their local cops who probably were volunteer firefighters you know doing it on their own time just for the good of their community they they were people with a dairy farmer work ethic you know who worked for everything that they got these are very humble people these are people who don't like elites these are people who are are are religious they they are conservative in values and I just sort of felt like they were maybe historically Democrats in in a lot of cases and they didn't realize yet that they were actually conservative in values and so obviously Donald Trump you know came into play and these areas have now flipped red and so the 7th congressional district where there's this sort of crazy Republican primary going on is now like a plus 27 are a district to show you how much that swing has happened so when I first heard that you were on the air and you know and that your voice had emerged in the conservative square so to speak

12:54I was really excited about that because I know how important that is to that area oh well absolutely and and you know and I think just having been involved for as long as I have and and even just connected with so many people in our community and even having participated in well the volunteer efforts of many of the candidates that have run and gotten elected to office whether it's at the local level or at the state level and even sometimes the federal level too it's it really is it's pretty obvious how red this district is and and how it really the Republican Party is much more representative of the values that the majority of those that live in the 7th congressional district have and and I think I think it's it's critical to to point out

13:58that although we do have sort of a dramatic primary going on we have been well represented since Dave O.B. left office back when former congressman Sean Duffy was first elected to congress I was on the on the waffles city square at our first tea party rally when I met Sean Duffy and that was when he decided to run for congress is I mean that was sort of the the tide was turning and was was very involved in ensuring that we had a Republican elected in the 7th congressional district back in 2010 right and you said something on the phone about you did something in your backyard for Sean Duffy we've been we were well I'll tell you we we got it my husband and I got involved in in the Republican Party I was obviously part of the tea party movement but my husband

15:04also joined the Republican Party and we had all kinds of get together with a number of people in the Republican Party in Marathon County as well as Sean and Rachel Duffy were at our host plenty of times in you know over the course of that campaign and and you know we even oops I think we let's make I don't know where she went but so all right so we'll skip ahead so she's awesome right we'll get her back on the phone in a minute um so so she's awesome and I will tell you that Tom Tiffany okay I think he has a very strong chance of running of of winning the governor's race so don't let you know what happened to Maria Lazar demoralize you into thinking like Tom Tiffany oh he has no chance he's going to lose that is absolutely in my opinion not the case and this is how it links back to what Meg was just saying I think that one of the core reasons for that is because his victory will run through Northern

16:08Wisconsin it's going to be a reassembling of the old Trump coalition well it's not that old right but the Trump coalition where he patches together all of these votes throughout rural Wisconsin throughout Northern Wisconsin down the Mississippi River Valley in in that sort of independent district that Derrick van Orden also flipped by the way from Democrat hands and that's going to help offset the erosion that we've been seeing in the wild counties of wakasha ozaki in Washington counties so I'll say it again the path to victory for Tom Tiffany may very well be paved through the forests of Northern Wisconsin and the people who are in the trenches there like the megal of sense of the world like the county GOP chairs like some of the turning point young people who are getting involved in riverfalls and places like that are incredibly important to that effort okay so we've got Meg back on the line Meg you are back you are back I always joke when my phone kids cut off that you know

17:14back in the day we used to say it was the NSA but you know I'm not really sure yeah and I'm not even sure where I left off you know where where you heard me well let me start we were very involved with yeah the the the first campaign of Sean Duffy right here in in central Wisconsin and very excited and embraced his candidacy and thrilled to have someone that had the qualifications and experience he was a district attorney in up in Ashland and we were thrilled to have someone representing us that wasn't let's face it that wasn't a Democrat in central Wisconsin and was in Davoby for the first time in you know 41 years so I I think it's that's all important for people to understand that background and one reason I'm enjoying speaking with you is I do think Northern Wisconsin and central Wisconsin conservatives need to speak more with southeastern Wisconsin conservatives and vice versa I think sometimes we're a bit too disconnected in you know

18:18our conversations or maybe what we're interested in or the candidates were supporting and everything so I I'm enjoying that element of this conversation so let me break the news I would I touted earlier and then I'm going to take a break and then when we come back Meg if you can hang on we're going to go through this sort of crazy cast of characters in the seventh congressional district and tell people a little bit about that but one of them a man named Paul Washgren this is the news he has announced to them breaking it here he they allowed me to break it here he's suspending his campaign he is getting out of the race Paul Washgren he is a conservative corporate lawyer he is the chairman of the Ashland County GOP for anyone following this race closely this is actually a very big deal because it's this vigorous primary and you have multiple candidates you have former hostage in Iran turn financial advisor Kevin Hermening is in the race you have Michael Fanzo who is the 26 year old son-in-law of Sean Duffy he's in the race we're going to talk about

19:23that with Meg as long when we come back there's a woman named Jesse Eben who is in the race who works for Ashley Furniture she's been getting some money from some big time heavy weights in Wisconsin like Diane Hendrix and Eric Covey and then you have a dog sledder on top of all of this you have a dog sledder named Nina Baum who kind of came out of nowhere and is also in this very vigorous Republican primary which is expected to probably choose the ultimate victor here because it's a plus 27 Republican district okay so Paul Washgren however he was getting some traction in the race and the the statement that he's putting out is this this election has never been about a position or a paycheck for me it is about serving Wisconsin families and creating economic opportunities for our state while I have the resources and messages to win this race and to be a furious advocate

20:24for our district in Congress I recognized a bloody and highly expensive primary will only benefit the Democrats in light of the spring election results I call an all Republican candidates to prioritize the interests of the Republican Party in the state of Wisconsin he said he's going to work hard to help Tom Tiffany and this man again a brilliant corporate lawyer really smart really conservative I spoke to him on the phone for play I don't think it was something like two hours and I really liked him good guy I you know I wouldn't I think one of the wraps on him was he had moved around a lot which isn't really that unusual for Northern Wisconsin where people leave then they kind of come back he had deep roots in the area fifth generation there was a family cheese factory in the Ashland area that went way back and but you know I would actually encourage Paul Washgren to stay involved in the political process to stay in Ashland for a couple of years and get back involved because I really didn't hear anyone say a negative word about him I think he

21:28he brings a lot to the conservative movement Meg what do you think about this news and about Mr. Washgren well you have me on the edge of my seat that's for sure no I you know of course I knew in advance of us going on the air but I had an opportunity a number of times to sit down with Paul Washgren and and and talk with him and I would I would echo what you have said about him he's a wonderful guy obviously very successful and his statement really coincides with what you know my experience in talking with him was that you know this this never was about a position or I mean it was about helping the state of Wisconsin I you know specifically the seventh congressional district but yeah I do also hope that he stays engaged because he clearly had some support in you know in you know obviously in the Ashland area but then beyond because I was talking with these different chairs of the different Colony parties in the seventh and they really liked him

22:31and he he's a very impressive man okay so we're gonna take a break and when we come back Megan I will break down the Michael Elfonso candidacy stay tuned a welcome back to the Dan O'Donnell show Jessica McBride of Wisconsin right now dot com sitting in for Dan O'Donnell before we go back to Meg Ellison my guest I need to give you the nationwide keyword this hour in the spring green cash contest it is cash C-A-S-H cash you have until 55 minutes past the hour to go to news talk 1130 dot com and enter the word cash to enter the contest for this hour right mag thanks for sticking around I wanted to break down with you now the candidates in this congressional race again to replace Tom Tiffany up in the seventh congressional district I'm interested in it because it's

23:33fascinating the cast of characters is crazy so let's talk about Sean Duffy's now 26 year old son-in-law Mike Elfonso you've met many times I believe correct well you know I just met him for the first time a couple of weeks ago at a Lincoln Day dinner and you know I'll say he he seemed like a nice enough kid I guess I guess in my opinion and you know this was my initial reaction my gut reaction I guess when the ad started rolling up here last fall um that he doesn't he doesn't exude leadership qualities or confidence or frankly self awareness I mean I just and in fact well Jessica I I kind of feel sorry for him in a way because I think my impression and especially

24:35based on you know some of the research that you've done into the fund raising that his father-in-law is doing on his behalf it just seems as if perhaps he's I don't know he's he's either a pawn or he's being pushed into it because I mean I've also heard them speak and frankly it's it's as if he is just memorized everything that he's even his delivery is sort of choreographed and it's too bad I think that had he perhaps run for gosh all of the you know all of the offices all of the the local races that we had even in this last spring election cycle we could have used a young a young conservative on the wasa city council we could have used another young

25:38conservative on the marathon county board we could have used another young conservative on the wasa school board and I mean that would have been an ideal way to prove his uh his leadership qualities and his and his ability to to be in elected office and you know and I guess I just I I'm just not buying what this this push this campaign behind him is trying to sell those of us in the south of congressional district well they're trying to sell well I actually I'm not quite sure what they're trying to sell everyone on because you know I started keying into this because it just there was a gap between what they were saying he was and what he actually was and I do think people in northern Wisconsin sniff out that kind of inauthenticity you know pretty quickly and so I'm talking about it's for example there was a legislator I know from your area roughly uh who said that he called him Alfonso called him and said he had a career in

26:45construction now I stipulate I believe he's worked some construction uh but I've also heard I think yeah yeah in between college is not a career summer jobs in college yeah the the legislators said he responded well you're 25 years old you haven't had a career in it in anything like call me when you do and I wouldn't endorse him and I've heard them throw around always work construction for seven years he's work construction for six years and like how does that even compute you have a math degree from medicine and I believe he took a semester off because he dropped out he admitted that another podcast and then came back so he's got a math degree from medicine he worked for about a year roughly as a podcast producer for Dan Bungino his his wife Sean Duffy's daughter was was the managing producer for a time and then had her own podcast for Bungino so they moved to Florida and did that and then most recently he you know an eye question well does he have a current job he's living in Sean Duffy's house in Hayward um I question what is his job and um

27:50they came out and said he works as an accountant for his parish and then it turned out it's part time they won't say whether it's paid or volunteer they won't say how many hours a week he works and yet you have this pack north woods you know future pack based in the shadowy office in Alabama which is running all of this these ads and and and all this direct mail painting him as this construction worker and working class fighter who's gonna take on the swamp in Washington DC and then you go and you turn it turns out that that's actually funded by Sean Duffy's a million dollars from his own campaign committee funneling it through there and then you turn around and you see all of these fundraising invites with the US Secretary of Transportation on it and there's a bunch of lobbyists and then you look at his campaign finance reports and they're riddled with money from transportation industry interests and lobbyists including passenger rail interest delta

28:54airlines and all all of this and then I take a step back and say is this a manufactured candidacy and candidate candidate like who really is Michael Alfonso and why the heck am I supposed to pretend he's qualified for Congress or more qualified than Kevin Hermening who's been in the district 40 years built a successful financial services business and was a hostage in Iran and and served as country as a Marine and like that's where I kind of started saying I'm too old to go along with this and I think you you appreciate this man because you're the same way like we're in this because we care about the state and we want to make a difference in certain issues that we care about and I don't think either one of us cares whether we get uninvited from cocktail parties at the Duffy mansion in New Jersey we aren't after anything from we don't want anything from any of these people and so we're kind of free to just say what we really think

29:54that's ruffled some feathers like we've both been called a lot of names for asking these questions what's your take on all that well and and I mean I guess the bottom line is I live here I work here I raise my family here I pay taxes in the seventh congressional district in fact I pay property taxes on two properties in this in this district and so I I think what is absent from this campaign and whether or not this is this young man this this I call him the Duffy kid whether or not it's him or those behind him we don't have transparency because his resume continues to morph I mean as you said as you pointed out at the very beginning when when the ads started rolling on on TV up here it was he had a construction career and evidently that narrative didn't stick so then it morphed or changed to some job at a church up in the same part of the state where the Duffy's have a cabin

31:04and you know I know that you you attempted to verify some of the information about that particular job but I guess if I were him and I had a child on the way I would be more concerned about how am I going to provide for my family and who I mean how how am I going to provide insurance that will pay for my wife's pregnancy and the care of my infant child when he or she is born and I guess I just my my B.S. meter went off right away when this can is and you and I've always known you Meg you're just you're a person who says like it is you're plain spoken you you you're just going to say it like it is if you can hold on I do have to take another quick break but I want to ask you about Kevin Hermening when we come back stay tuned welcome back to the program Jessica McBride of Wisconsin right now dot com sitting in for Dan O'Donnell I'm speaking with Meg Ellison who is a conservative podcaster and former tea party activist in the Marathon County

32:09area and we're talking about the seventh congressional district race that's the seat that Tom Tiffany currently occupies and there's this vigorous Republican primary up there I agree with Meg's take on Michael Alfonso that's a 26 year old son-in-law of Sean Duffy who's you know running in this race he has the endorsement of Donald Trump I think they're just not doing it right like I think this is an earnest nice young man who could have a really bright future and conservative politics and what I think they should have done is send them into the military like the Bushes and Kennedys do right um you know have them come back in a uniform or like Meg said serve on the the wasa city council serving assembly a school board you know position perhaps and move move up to Hayward and live there you know for a couple years raises young family and and then rise to a position like Congress the way they're doing it it they're turning it into a zero some game for him like in my opinion like he's gonna have to win this or his political careers kind of derailed

33:15for probably quite some time I'm just I just think that's they're just not doing it the right way but let's let's move on and let's talk about some of the other candidates so Meg give me your take on Kevin Herman he's a fascinating story all of his own a former hostage in Iran a successful businessman he was on the school board I believe is president of the school board big on the anti-COVID anti-masking kind of stuff I think back in the day too so tell me what you think about him well I'll just say about Kevin Herman is that he has a lifetime of leadership experience and I think that I mean this is what is most important to note is we have the real deal in this particular candidate and you know I think even in your listening area there's a generation of people that remember Kevin Herman and pray for him when he was a hostage in Iran and you know he didn't that isn't that isn't the only thing and I would I would argue that or he would argue

34:18that that's not the only thing that's defined him is that Kevin has in addition to building a business he has been involved in the GOP trenches as a volunteer up here in Marathon County for 40 years he was the chairman of the Republican Party he was a treasurer he was a door-to-door volunteer for 40 years he hosted and and actually helped bring high profile guests to the Lincoln Day dinners here in Marathon County an example would be Governor Rondis Santis and Governor Kristi Nolm and he and his wife he and his his now late wife opened their home for candidates running for local office including he also was very generous I know to former congressman Sean Duffy so I mean I think that it's important to note that we have

35:19someone who is a is a a born leader in Kevin Herman that can day one if he is elected can hit the ground running and will be a phenomenal representative of the seven congressional district I think there's many conservatives who would have been fine with hermaning would be fine with wascran I heard that a lot I do think Paul wascran this corporate lawyer uh used chairman of the Ashland County GOP suspending his campaign today that's news I broke a few minutes ago I think that helps Kevin Hermaning the most because there were many people I spoke to county party chairs in northern Wisconsin especially who would say to me well I'm for Paul wascran but I'd be okay with Kevin Hermaning too or they'd say that in reverse you know they want in Kevin they're like well I'd be okay with Paul and I heard that a lot so I do think this probably helps Kevin Hermaning and creates a more vigorous primary between him and Alfonso there's another candidate though to

36:19complicate this even more we have Jesse Ebbin what can you tell me about her well you know again I just met her in the last couple of weeks and had a conversation with her she also seems you know like a really nice earnest person you know I think the the greatest problem is that she has moved from one district to another to run for office and you know there's a perception that she you know the term is I guess carpet beggar but just I guess you know I I have to wonder if these there are some people and and I would say that this is not Kevin Hermaning he's very much a resident and a citizen of the seven congressional district but there were you know I would say this about not just Jesse Ebbin but Paul wascran and of Michael Alfonso that they moved into it back into the district to run for the seat and I would imagine that if three of them and now of

37:21course Paul wascran has announced that he's dropped out but I would imagine that both Jesse and and Michael Alfonso would probably not be in the seven congressional district could they not prevail in this August primary well my take on Jesse Ebbin she does seem very earnest I've interviewed her as well conservative earnest she did sign the Walker recall petition she explained she was in college and her her views evolved she also is in a better primary with Derek van and that caused some hard feelings down in that congressional district all right well we have to I have to let you go Meg and so I hope you all stick with me in the top of the hour I've got some really fun audio I want to play we're going to switch gears you know would we come back to the show and I thank Meg Ellison for all the time she spent breaking this race down stay tuned Jessica McBride here welcome back to the show this is Jessica McBride of Wisconsin right now dot com I am sitting in

38:26obviously I guess for the great Dan O'Donnell I'm going to start out with the word so I don't forget to give you the word I'm just going to give you the word at the top of the hour the nationwide keyword this hour in the spring green cash contest is deposit you have until 55 minutes past the hour to go to news talk 1130 dot com and enter the word deposit to enter the contest for this hour and I have now made my producer very happy because he knows I won't forget to give you the word so in the last hour of the show I promised to circle back on the death of Dan Bice it's a big deal it's really big deal when it comes to political journalism in Wisconsin it's just a big deal when it comes to politics in Wisconsin I think it has a significant impact and so yeah I wanted to circle back on it and make a few more comments about the impact of the death of Dan Bice and as I admitted the beginning of the show in the

39:27last hour this isn't an easy topic for me it's it's just not an easy topic for me as anyone knows who's paid attention to the news in the last you know 20 years but death is not the time to relitigate old personal harms or grievances or ideological differences I think it also means that you don't have to guild the lily as they say you don't have an obligation to say things you don't believe about a person in death either or to glorify them or put a saint's halo on them so sometimes it's best to say nothing and I had mentioned the top of the you know the the show it these these these comparatives you know how many people on the left

40:30ghoulishly rushed to relitigate their old ideological beef with Charlie Kirk just not the time you don't like the guy you thought he was this or that you you know he he was executed he was executed on college campuses horrific he had children he has a wife let it rest not the time it disgusted me I mean you had the liberals who were outright cheering his death but you also had many many more who were saying well well we don't want anyone to die but now we're going to give you this whole list of things that we hated about the person it's just disgusting any of Trump Robert Miller I mentioned that last third of the show too you just it's not how I how I live my life so I don't wish cancer on anyone I pray for his soul I pray for his children and for his wife what I wanted to briefly address though would be the impact because I

41:37think it's it's it's a big one I've noticed this big vacuum without damn bites in the world it's just strange I think everybody that pays attention to politics certainly the people in it know exactly what I'm talking about it's strange and you know he announced he had throat cancer I think it was when did he do that like January or something like that it wasn't that long ago and then he really stopped writing and so we noticed the the vacuum then not just now with his death right we've been noticing this vacuum for a couple months it's just weird to not have him in the political space to be blunt it's it's it's it's just it's a loss in the sense of someone that was aggressively a top of this or that no he's writing about politics like you don't have that many people in the state who weigh in on and write about politics and you certainly don't have many people who write about politics with any sense of institutional memory I mean the guy was there

42:41for 33 years and you know I could count on probably one hand the number of people in the state who write about politics on a regular basis obviously you have bloggers you have you know people like me and Wisconsin right now and Jim Pivo Varchek and you have what Dan O'Donnell does and we have all this new media and that's great but the people who are on a daily basis you know for example covering the legislature and sitting in on public hearings and really aggressively covering the political process in a way where they understand all the players like I think I can count those people on one hand and I don't think overall that's a good thing for civic life like I think more information about the political process and political candidates is is is better than then less um of course it depends how you're gonna do it right I mean how do how do you do it matters so I I will say you know people say while he hit both sides right like he is very hard on candidates

43:47and both sides that's true you can come up with examples on both sides I I think it's um harder things uh they're lost in the sense I don't want to really go too far into like oh it's a loss professionally for politicos who cares like the he's it's a loss to its family to his children to his wife but what I'm saying is um I think Democrats I've heard this from some people they they don't know where to go to plant their apple research now right like they would really where do you go with it he had a lot of Republicans also very very hard like where do they go to plant that kind of thing or about each other quite honestly and um I this is kind of interesting but I've I've been getting more Democrats coming to me and trying to leak me information about other Democrats so I'm like okay tell me something about David Crawley or Francesca Hong I'll listen you know I'm gonna try you know maybe not trust and verify I was gonna

44:49say trust and verify not trust you on the front end but I'm gonna go verify it if I can verify it I'll listen I just think it it speaks again to the lack of a lot of people in the political journalistic square really really and you know what it just makes us all take a step back doesn't it when somebody who was so much a player on the scene and always doing this or that we're always talking about him or something he was right and now he's just gone like he's just gone I believe in an afterlife but it's another reminder to all of us to take no day for granted right take no day for granted because it can turn on a dime and then it's just you know our mortal time on earth is over so prayers for his family I think I'll leave it at that did you all hear about this story out of Minnesota this is crazy it was broken by a site called alphanus I would encourage all of you to

45:53follow alphanus if you don't already this is the the conservative site in Minnesota it's kind of the counterpart to Wisconsin right now it did a full blown documentary called the fall of Minneapolis which probably some of you saw which was very well done it was about George Floyd and how the the media got wrong on that well anyway alphanus they broke the story that there are two public schools in Minnesota in a town called Asio but it's not Wisconsin there's an Asio in Wisconsin I drive through it whenever I go home to Lady Smith to see my sister and my mom stills a farm up in Lady Smith and I always got through Asio a different Asio asio Minnesota and so apparently these two public schools public high schools are building a prayer room and construction documents it talks about there it says it you know clear prayer room and they're building a foot washing station

46:54gee I wonder who that's for well a source told alphanus was obviously for Muslim students right there's this big Somali population in communities in Minnesota all right I'm old enough to remember all the controversies about the separation of church and state and God forbid you know some Christian high school student dares to pray before a football game with his coach or whatever and the left goes crazy they're all over that turns out in the words of Congressman Tom Emmer Republican from Minnesota when the woke left says they want religion out of schools they're only talking about Christianity but they're all in on the prayer room for Muslim students or the foot washing station to which I said on social media and I wondered I pondered well will girls be included can they go in the room or we can say oh well we can't be discriminatory so they the

48:01girls can't go in the room while the prayer is going on is that where we're at now in society the school district you know because this is now blowing up nationally and they came back and they said oh the prayer room was mislabeled construction documents so you like how that always happens conveniently mislabeled it's actually supposed to be a multi-purpose room they said and the foot washing station is not specific to any particular religion yeah right remember I was talking about past hour about the gap between what people say and the reality and what's real well here's that gap excuse me school district no Lutheran students are not trying to wash their feet during the middle of the school day so just stop we all get what's going on here we all get what's going on here all right Kamala Harris reared her hat again Kamala

49:07is comeling again listen to this word salad from Kamala Harris the other day I think it's okay for us just to be a bit transactional too and to say I'm gonna get mine also and so don't count on me to be a voter and be the backbone of the Democratic Party because it is my it is my value system and my ethics and my sense of civic duty and responsibility so that you look at me and say oh they're gonna vote it's that gap again between who you really are whether you're pretending to be when she changes her voice depending on the audience it's just cringe Kamala Harris is one person I sincerely did not miss in the public square and she's back I should get like the audio from some horror movie from the 1980s or something she's back

50:13I probably saw she was also opposing in front of a gas station and making no sense there as well like please go away actually no maybe we want her to run again please run again actually I'm changing my stance here please run again Kamala so that JD Vance or Marco Rubio or maybe Ron DeSantis when the presidency when Donald Trump's term is done Kamala is Kamala in again all right we're gonna take our first break we come back I've got some new Sarah Godluski audio stay tuned welcome back Jessica McBride and Wisconsin right now.com sitting in for Dan O'Donnell I've got some new audio of Sarah Godluski for you now I want to apologize in advance for subjecting you to this more screeching Sarah Godluski

51:14audio really it's a video and she's crazier on video by the way so I mean the audio is always crazy because her voice is just cringe but she's always weirder at looking on video just wild-eyed and all these strange hyperactive mannerisms and I'm sure most of you already heard and saw this video she did a inhale just went national it's being a national laughing stock because she freaked out over the hail the other day and tried to tie it to climate change and did this bizarre video well there's a new video it's it's not quite as crazy but let's listen to it happy for 20 Wisconsin Prohibition has never been the Wisconsin way and we cannot wait another year sending jobs revenue and opportunity to other neighboring states Wisconsin needs to legalize marijuana period now I think because I'm female maybe I can get away with saying this maybe a male host couldn't

52:18get away with saying this but imagine being her husband or or Kamala's husband I think Sarah Godluski she's a secretary of state of course pointed by governor Evers she's kind of the Kamala Harris of Wisconsin in that every time she opens her mouth she loses voters and people reach for the ear plugs their husbands must be the kind of guys who turn their garages into mancaves and never come inside the house you know they have the big TV and the chair refrigerator and it's basically like the living room and they don't ever come in the house I mean you imagine every day having to listen to Sarah Godluski let me let me go at her message briefly though because I've been seeing this all over acts all of the Democrat candidates for governor and everything they're all jumping in line behind the marijuana legalization stuff again really hardcore and

53:20I understand politically why they're doing it there's an argument that Scott Walker lost you know the governor's seat because of the marijuana referendums that were strategically put on the ballot by the left I think it's an issue that crosses political lines where I have a right about it on Facebook I get trashed by a lot of conservatives certainly some libertarians who want legalized pot I don't we just talk about medical marijuana medicinal I think that's a different conversation so I'm going to put that aside I'm talking about recreational use I don't want it legalized and I'm going to give you some statistics or just some information to back up why I feel that way because I think this is a narrative that conservatives have been losing in other states Maine Arizona Ohio Massachusetts we are now seeing efforts to repeal marijuana legalization

54:22and establish markets that exist in those states so the trend nationally and you can google this you'll see a lot of stories on it the trend nationally is in the other direction of where these Democrat candidates want to take Wisconsin there are a couple years behind the narrative here okay so they're they're kind of locked into the narrative of you know five years ago which was you know everyone's all four not everyone you know there's this grounds for well we have to have legalized marijuana we have alcohol blah blah blah but studies are now coming out like research is coming out it's finding some really disturbing things there was a huge study and this is actually a story from NPR so it's not a conservative news site they would typically be more pro legalization I would say but it came from the national survey on drug use and research in part well there's actually two studies so the one on the national survey on drug use and and health

55:23actually found that 36% of 12th graders use marijuana and 43% of college students those are staggering numbers and then another study the one in NPR found a link between cannabis use and teens and psychosis there's growing research showing a linkage between bipolar disorder and pot psychotic disorders anxiety disorders depression and marijuana use NPR quoted a psychiatric psychiatric researcher it's a marijuana researcher a guy named Ryan Sultan and he said this is very very very worrying he he he used three varies in that six times more likely to have a heart attack if you're under 50 and you use marijuana regularly the hill another slightly more liberal

56:28publication said the research is documenting serious health risks brain impairment among the young memory loss paranoia the heart attack risk I just described in prenatal exposure owi arrests are up really it's arrests driving under the influence of marijuana and with all of this research public acceptance or support for marijuana legalization is starting to decline down from 70% support to 64% still a sizable majority supporting it but it's declining and if you talk to any cops or any any doctors or anyone who really understands what the drug is they say it's not your father's pot it's not the stuff the boomers were smoking in the 70s or the 60s it's a much much more potent drug and then I haven't even gotten into the you know

57:36possibility it can be laced with fentanyl and all of this and so I feel like these democratic candidates like Sarah Godloosky they're they're trading the health of young people for votes is honestly what they're doing and and and I think it's dangerous it and you know I was seeing you in Jim P. Ravarchek co-editor co-founder of Wisconsin right now and he said name me a place that legalized marijuana where it made it better and I had to stop and think about it and I can't come up with one I know there are stories in the other direction all over the place or you wouldn't have all of these states with these strong efforts now to pull back these established marijuana markets all right just in case you didn't hear the Sarah Godloosky Hale video I know most of you did but hey I wasn't on the radio yet like after it and I I have to talk about

58:36the Hale video a little bit so for those of you who did not uh hear this yet let's let's play that Republican say we don't have climate change but this is golf ball size Hale in my front yard this is not normal and we can't keep ignoring our environment no Sarah you are not normal you are not normal you're not normal and you're wrong you're actually wrong so I'm gonna give you some statistics I think you're gonna find interesting and then I'm gonna give you a twist on Sarah Godloosky she's running for lieutenant governor as a Democrat by the way um that you may not have heard yet all right so the largest Hale storm stone I'm sorry the largest Hale stone in Wisconsin history was 5.7 inches in diameter it's a big chunk of Hale if Felner was saw on drumroll please

59:37May 22nd 1921 there was also so the biggest Hale stone to fall since 1955 was a 5.5 inch diameter stone which fell in wood county in port edwards June 2007 it caused 45 million dollars in damage 41 Wisconsinites were injured by Hale between 1955 and I'm actually not sure or maybe the present um 30 of those were in Manitouac County on May 12 2000 someone informed Sarah Godloosky please that was 26 years ago um so there were two inch diameter Hale falling in that storm in this 2000 storm in Manitouac County where 30 people were injured um there were 100 mile per

1:00:40hour micro burst winds that damaged homes in that storm Wisconsin has on average 20 to 30 days per year with 0.75 inch or larger Hale storms yes you could find some data that shows oh maybe there's a slight increase in Hale storms but we're talking about the tinier Hale not these big golf ball size things but they rely on citizen reports and we all know there's more social media and everyone runs runs to Facebook or whatever and they post a picture of the Hale in their backyard so there's just an increase honestly in citizen reporting you can't really tease that out when it comes to tornadoes by the way I have some data on that is my students you know I teach at UW Milwaukee my opinions are my own they don't represent the institution where I work but you know my students often or oh oh there's all this this big increase in tornadoes and it

1:01:41seems like it it does seem like it I mean my goodness you know what happened the other day it's been happening for days seems crazy I told them journalistically you always want to look at things historically go back as far as you you can go do some what's called longitudinal research because it might seem like there's a lot of tornadoes but compared to what like what was it like 20 years ago 15 30 50 100 I told them I'm old enough to remember barnaveld and there was a tornado I think in the town of Geneseer whales where someone lost their life I remember that Watoma heck ladiesmith I'm from there that town still bears the scars of a tornado that cut through the downtown and took out a bunch of businesses and homes and went right down the river and the flambo river a town still has that damage oak field people are old enough remember these tornadoes terrible storms there have been 1537 tornadoes in Wisconsin since 1844 23 per year

1:02:53and don't tell Sarah Godlowski but the year with the most tornadoes in Wisconsin was 2005 there were 62 there were 62 the least it occurred in 1952 and there was one in 2025 39 in 2024 45 in 2023 21 and the worst tornado in Wisconsin struck in 1899 on June the 12th in a town called new Richmond in St. Croix County which has been back in the news over boys and girls sports recently 117 people died in that tornado and 125 people were injured when it comes to the United States the tornado record was in 2004 with 1817 so her video was absolutely ridiculous not let me tell you

1:03:58something about Sarah Godlowski that you may not know again Democrat secretary of state running for lieutenant governor you may remember she ran in the primary in the Democrat primary to be the candidate to run against Ron Johnson for senate and then they cleared the field on the left and she quit and everyone else quit except Mandela Barnes and then he lost to Ron Johnson so that's Sarah Godlowski well she is married to a man named Max Duckworth in fact they co-founded an investment firm together he was a big wig at a company called constellation energy group now the media in the state if they're fair at all they're not biased they need to start reporting on constellation energy group and what happened there because Sarah Godlowski is running for lieutenant governor and she's been very involved in like I said she co-founded investment firm with her her husband

1:05:00a different one it's not constellation though but anyway according to the Baltimore Sun very very credible source constellation paid to a $245 million fine to resolve allegations of market manipulation with the federal energy regulatory commission the time it was the largest settlement of its kind under the settlement each of the four employees there were four people named could not hold any position involving physical and financial energy trading and constellation a successor company or affiliate and one of the four was her husband Max Duckworth list is managing director of the portfolio manager of trading so a Republican who ran against Sarah unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2018 tried to bring all this up and he pointed out that at the

1:06:04time they owned a string of businesses together in the UK and DC in Colorado Texas New York Florida so there's a lot I think to look at as Sarah Godlowski I'm not alleging that she was involved in the allegations of market manipulation but she's very involved in businesses with her husband and and he and this all relates with him to energy regulation and so it's fairly ironic she's standing there renting and raving about you know climate change and hail and all of this so according to the Baltimore Sun the allegations by the government were that the company intended to manipulate the New York wholesale energy markets by making trades to influence certain energy prices they denied wrongdoing but there was this big fine that's constellation energy group and her husband Max Duckworth again if we had an aggressive political journalism

1:07:12brigade in Wisconsin you'd be you would know the name of this company because this would have been explored in depth by now all right stay tuned welcome back to the show Jessica McBride sitting in for Dan O'Donnell so there was this crazy bill I like to talk about some of the crazy bills the Democrats put forth in the state legislature that don't get through because I mean we need to take a step back sometimes we're really hard on our own side you know conservatives are always so hard on their own leaders and our own side and we take a big step back there's so many crazy bills that don't get through because Robin Voss or Devon Lemahue blocked them you know they don't even come up for votes a lot of the time or most of the time and so the public doesn't learn about all these wacky things that Democrats wanted to do and I think we need to highlight some of these things because quite frankly if if they were to take control the legislature and I'm hopeful

1:08:17they won't but if they were to take control the legislature this kind of stuff is going to get through and it's not all right so it was Senate bill 947 put forth by Chris Larson we all know he's not it held that if a person owns a fire arm that is stolen or missing they must report it to the police within 24 hours and here's the kicker or they would be guilty of a criminal misdemeanor so so let's get this straight the Democrats want to criminalize not reporting your own property laws to police tell the Royce Democrat candidate for governor just got endorsed by we act by the way signed on to this nonsense Chris Larson and Draca Prado some people in in this area too we just make a long list someone needs to make a website all the crazy things that didn't get

1:09:17through because Democrats don't control the legislature it's going to come down to a few seats by the way including one in this area it's a district that spans parts of Waukesha County and parts of Milwaukee County parts of Tosa I think parts of West Dallas I'm Grove Brookfield I think town of Waukesha it's the Senate race in which a conservative and these has crossover appellies a doctor named Mike Roberts is running against state rap name Robin Vining for those of you in that area that's a really important seat that could determine control of the state senate it really could and Mike Roberts is the conservative and Robin Vining pretends to be moderate she is not moderate to give you a sense she is on another crazy video with Sarah Godluski where they were jumping up and down looking crazy in the middle of the street trying to get people to vote for Chris

1:10:18Taylor in the Supreme Court race she's a far left nutball who's trying to masquerade as a moderate don't be fooled if you live in that area all right got some more audio for you this is the MPS school superintendent her name's Dr. Brenda Casselius she took over in March of 2025 she went on the Matt Smith show of front on WISN and she said this what would happen if act 10 went away and the unions could fully bargain again that would be wonderful actually I think I've always been a supporter of unions and labor I think they play a really important part I actually said to the union I'd want to be one of the first ones to have our contract in place you know I think that having a contract sets the expectations sets the working conditions for our teachers treats teachers as professionals and the professionals that they are and really outlines how we established the good

1:11:24working conditions around children's learning his MPS current and its financial reporting obligations to the state yes we are yes and we're actually ahead of the game for FY 26 we already did a push to the state certainly we're not perfect we still get some validation errors and so as we continue to move and implement that new system we meet with the state every week and they give us feedback and we resolve matters and we're really excited about where we're at right now you talk about 2028 and the referendum money ending it is their scenario then we ask for a new referendum in in the coming years well you know I've not ruled that out I've tried to be really honest with the public I have said that I do think there's a point where we need to come to the public for a referendum I think there's also a point to have a conversation with the public around our buildings our the age of our buildings is 85 years they are really getting at the the lifespan of of their use we know that we have to think differently about school over the next decade

1:12:29and that's a conversation I hope to have with the public and everything we just talked about comes back to the students right reading scores math math scores what people look at and how students come out of MPS as you reflect on your on your first year as we look at the budget ahead how would you assess where the district is well I think we are moving most improved maybe give us the most improved award not yet there and very optimistic about the future if we get a successful vote from the board we should be in really good shape for the next school year the next one will be a little bit tougher after that according to the forecast and it gets really tough in five years if we do nothing we could be facing a four hundred million dollar deficit within five years if we do nothing so much ridiculousness unpack there I don't know where to start and I only have a couple minutes but let's let's let's go through the list first on all enough to remember the $252 million referendum that passed in April of 2024 so so that wasn't enough

1:13:36$252 million wasn't enough and did you catch what she said at toward the end $400 million dollar deficit she's predicting if they don't get more money like what what that was a one thousand seven hundred twenty vote margin by the way and I'm also enough to remember that MPS you know along with TPI hid hid their financial meltdown from the public before that referendum they didn't even know what their finances were they didn't even know what they were and they hid that from the public it was outrageous that didn't get as much attention as it deserved secondly act 10 act 10 she's new in this job so let's give her the benefit of the doubt that she hasn't done her homework the McIver Institute did a really good job calculating the savings from act 10 so I think it's time to remind people of this $35 billion dollars in savings as of 2025 according to McIver

1:14:43$35 billion okay so for example act 10 required public employees to pay 12.6 percent of their health insurance and half of their pension costs it it it allowed school districts to prioritize fiscal efficiency and not union contracts and by the way this MPS superintendent is not the only lefty right now who is openly saying oh yeah we want to get rid of act 10 the Democrat candidates for governor are are climbing all over each other to russian say that they're not even hiding it anymore there's outright saying it Mandela Barnes etc they're outright saying it because they're in a protested primary so they they aren't hiding their views they're they're rushing to the far left they're all they're against act 10 so Will Flanders of the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty he also did a very good analysis of the positive impact of act 10 but he also said

1:15:43that if you were to eliminate the employee contribution to retirement it would cost four hundred and twenty two million a year if you were to eliminate the employee contribution to health care costs it would cost five hundred and sixty million dollars a year and so you're telling us going to happen if they get away with this and they will if they win the governor's office and the let and get control legislature like they will do this they will get rid of act 10 if the liberal court doesn't do it first property taxes are going to go up even more even more because liberals never met a property tax apparently that they didn't like and don't even get me into the rest of mps so here's what one observer wrote on an axe but I like how they said it they said let's summarize mps colluded with evers dpi to hide districts the districts financial mismanagement from the public before referendum to take more money from the

1:16:46taxpayers enrollment is steadily declining the tax payers keep paying more not to mention kids were kept out of school for too long during covid and there's all the lead issues that you know sickening students are they're testing for it in their blood i should say um and by the way i'm included with this the union was prevented from asking for more than a two point six three percent living raise because of act 10 imagine what they would ask for if it goes away all right stay too we got a lot more to talk about tonight welcome back to the show jescomic bride here sitting in for dano donnell thanks for sticking with me

1:17:47guess where i'm going everybody i've kind of interesting travel news guess where i'm going let's see my producer can guess where might where you think i'm going on the 25th he said London no it's much more unusual i'm going somewhere unusual that's one no no not going to one more guess no he thinks i'm going on in african safari no i'd like to let me interesting i'm going to greenland i'm going to greenland now i'll come back and tell all of you about it i'm really excited um i run a class of the university of sconsoma walkie it's called emergent journalism where i take journalism students out of the state and we while we have gone out of the country actually we went to um eagle pass taxis and cross the border and went to pagers negris mexico reported on the border issues and immigration we did do that so we have left the country before on this we also went

1:18:50to port arrico but that's a territory um and this class is funded by grants so it's not tax dollars i get grants every year from the mowaki press club endowment very graciously they they help fund these immersion journalism trips which change the lives of our students they really really do they change the lives of our students all kinds of topics um the students pitch ideas they vote on the topics that they want to cover i always throw things in the mix but i don't try to you know put my interests on them and we don't do things through a political lens either we cover every facet we we can think of it's an objective journalism class so this year i said and they agreed i put i put this one in the mix i'm like we had to go to greenland we have really interesting

1:19:51and you know obviously we're gonna get into the trump stuff i wanted i wanted to ask people in greenland what they really think about all that but i think that frame has dominated the media coverage and so we're not we're not going to tell the story of greenland like solely through that frame it obviously it's a piece of it you can't overlook that um we just want to go there in outside the media filter and just see what people think and what it's like and it turns out it's it's largely inuit it's got 56,000 people and they're largely inuit and so that history is interesting the food is interesting they eat seal and walrus and the landscape's interesting the arctic arms race with china and um russia and the us is interesting the the race for the the rare earth metals it really ties into the data centers back into the data centers in ai if you

1:20:52study greenland and it's important when it comes to rare earth metals that are used to power things like ai and military hardware and cell phones and you know it really powers the future so we're getting into that the opening of the shipping lanes you know that the economic impact obviously the relationship with denmark is very interesting the students have been doing a lot of fascinating advance interviews on the national security angle as well the you know the the the russian missile threat um the world war two history of greenland is very interesting as well with the rush with the nazi you boats and it was served as a defense and against them during world war two and so they're looking at all of these facets um i obtained a second grant from a private donor so that we could pull off greenland so the amount i get from the press club wasn't enough it's a tough trip

1:21:53to make um you go through chicago to dc to rakevik iceland to nook greenland is the name of a major city um and so i obtained this donation from a private donor because again we know it's tax dollars this person you know i can't name uh the person said i just want to stay anonymous but i believe in helping students and i've always said are uwm journalism students i would stack them up against anyone any journalism student the country i would stack them up against Harvard and Yale or and they win national awards you know competing against the ivy league they won like first place in the whole country with reporting done out of my class and some other classes and so our our students have grit you know they really do and i do all this pungentry and all this stuff i do but i also teach and i i love that because i like taking sort of the potential in each

1:22:55human being that i meet in class and helping sort of grow that grow their potential helping them figure out what their career goals are and then helping them reach those goals so greenland it is we are going on the 25th and i'll report back to you outside the media filter what is greenland really like and i just got back from new orlands too so three of the students did projects relating to new orlands they didn't want to go on the greenland project that they had these other ideas and to be really honest it's too expensive to fund the whole class but i had three you had these really interesting ideas that relate to new orlands i don't want to take too much more at the time because we have a lot of things to talk about in this hour but uh one of the projects student named Dorothy excellent student um all three of them Charles Donney the other two fantastic writers oh my goodness such good writers very fair just wonderful humans um anyway dorthy's project was

1:23:56looking at hurricane Katrina 20 years later and what's what's it like now and we focused on the lower ninth ward which was the hardest hit in Katrina and um it was a largely black population a very impoverished ward and it was the hardest hit so what's it like 20 years later so dorthy and i i mean yesterday in fact we were driving around the lower ninth ward of new orlands yeah sometimes i stop and i go like how do i get into these situations once again the grant private grants funded it um but anyway it's just shocking that was shocking i mean that was jaw dropping to me with the lower ninth ward looks like 20 years later it's where the a major levy breach occurred it i i'm gonna see how i put this into words um the weeds were up to my chin you do not look like you are in an urban area we are in a major american city you know the

1:24:58heart of new orlands and you feel like you're in the country so one of my students said his family has roots in Mississippi so it looks like rural Mississippi absolute neglect you know lot after lot vacant with just out of control weeds like i i've never seen before and my student interviewed one woman who said i mowed it because she's next door to one of these overgrown lots and she said like i mowed it for a while i was told i couldn't because it's a privately owned lot some of them are owned by the city so city takes them over people don't pay their property taxes and so she was told you can't do this anymore and she said but there's rats and snakes and things in there she had to shoot a possum that came out of this thicket right next to her house again in in like the heart of new orlands is crazy

1:25:59you give her my facebook page and i posted some photos from it like like literally i don't know if i can use it you know i can properly capture this i by jaw sort of dropped um just complete neglect so you know what they're never going to fix the lord i thought they will not fix it it's been 20 years i could understand into our five and we met this pastor who you know graciously talked to us invited us in his home and he moved back and so he was displaced you know i think to houston a lot of people were displaced to houston it's a big cultural impact a lot of the musicians the artists were displaced and he came back and he's trying to make a go of it you know and um the lots next door were overgrown and then we turned down this one street and we were in this neighborhood in the lower ninth ward and we saw these strange houses they looked like shipping

1:27:00containers they were just odd they were these boxy strange houses they were a fair number of them like what are these weird houses and then we saw this faded sign we figured out and the pastor confirmed it they were the bread pit houses do you remember this in katrina bread pit went down there because he had a house there with angelina july and said oh we're building all these homes for people and they built all these weird container kind of homes well turned out they allegedly were rotting and full of mold and using shoddy construction materials and then the people tried to sue and there was a big settlement but they didn't get any of the money and bread pit didn't go back didn't go back and so these people and they they didn't get the houses free they they paid like a hundred fifty thousand dollars for these like now rotting houses so that was interesting and when i took a big step back i thought wow like so much money flooded into new orlands after katrina right like so much money flooded in it reminded me of doge

1:28:05what happened to that what what happened to doge and all this stuff elan mosque where he was like just shocked when he was unearthing and i thought of that because so much it wasn't an issue that they don't have the money it's that it did it get to the places that actually needed to go and there's sort of never any accountability for that grift in some in some cases it's a grift right as you have these folks who sometimes they're living in generational homes and they really can't leave because they don't have the money to go buy a home somewhere else oh but there was one man who told us he said one reason there's all the vacant lots is people got money to rebuild their homes from the government and then they took the money and they moved to like houston or something and they never actually rebuilt the home and then they just abandoned the lots and now they're these crazy weed filled lots it was it was really interesting so that's the kind of work i do

1:29:07i do with students okay so we have to do a word spring green cash contest the nationwide keyword this hour is fun a few and obviously fun i don't need to spoil it i guess you have until 55 minutes past the hour to go to news talk 1130.com and enter the word fun to enter the contest for this hour so i'm going to take a break stay tuned just to come right here for dano donna welcome back to the show speaking of grifts and doge and federal money not getting where it should actually go an interesting audio clip here for you this is secretary of the interior dog burger i'm conservative obviously speaking to congress some components of the fish and wildlife service are proposed for complete elimination that includes the state and tribal wildlife grants is that wrong uh there on there there's a there's a was a review done of the grants on the

1:30:11grant side and that is an area where there's been uh substantiants review we found organizations that were receiving grants from interior where uh 80 to 100 percent of the revenue of that NGO was a grant from the federal government and yet those organizations we were the sole source of their revenue but they would have a CEO making six hundred fifty thousand dollars and four four four hundred thousand dollar lobbyists again where did doge go where did where did go one day just no one talked about it anymore so the left succeeded and just what shutting that down because they threw a temper tantrum because they might not get all their grift money anymore like what happened to it all right let's talk about beagles for a few minutes beagles i love beagles by the way i have a beagle my beagle is named bella so let me just say right away at the front and here beagles are the most

1:31:11gentle creatures to ever walk on god's green earth also had a beagle named stewie i don't pick these and these are picked by children my daughter picked uh the names and i had a beagle growing up called buster buster the beagle they're very energetic creatures but they're very gentle and so i mean stipulating that it's not okay to violate the law and invade private property and all of this obviously i'm having a really hard time not citing with the beagle protesters because i just love beagles and i don't want them injured and i want them cared for i want them to have good lives i want them to run through fields and be loved and and all of that but did you hear that the beagle protesters

1:32:15and this is this ridgeline farms you all know this story i mean we can't miss this story right you all know the background the beagle protesters have now turned on toney evers and josh call josh call your a wall attorney general i'm calling him the a wall a g i said i think on the last show i did here that i was going to issue a statewide silver alert for josh call because he's m-i-a well i'm renewing the silver alert on josh call where is josh call so i think the beagle protesters have a point they have a point they're saying we want governor evers and josh call to say something about this and we want them to do something is happening in their backyards in dane county the the leader co-leader of the coalition to save the dogs said he was hoping evers and call would break their silence and they want josh call to execute a

1:33:19search warrant on the facility and to just do an investigation now josh call of course has time to investigate donald trump's lawyer jim trupas a guy who's been around in legal circles forever and he's respected he's a good guy and and and josh call runs rye get some charged you know for what for dispensing a bad legal theory absolutely ridiculous josh call found time to investigate the mayor of was off removing a box of course eric toney the other day said well it wasn't illegal to move that box he was named the special prosecutor so reason prevailed in the was somewhere but josh call has time to investigate things like that but the beagles nope he's silent no comment no nothing no investigation the dane county sheriff of course did

1:34:25this big crackdown on these beagle protesters but he can't bring himself to honor ice holds on illegal immigrants who are accused of stabbing people in the stomach but he can run down to ridgeline farms and you know authorized tear gas and rubber bullets and all of this apparently there are two thousand dogs there now the approach i prefer so lara trump came out she's involved and she's for the beagles and she said there's a million dollar offer on the table for the dogs i actually like that approach like to someone rich buy these dogs of course then they might go get other beagles i suppose but i would encourage if you're listening and you're a beagle protester i would encourage the beagle protesters to keep out their pressure on evers and call because that's where you're going to start to make a difference and turn up the heat on

1:35:28on on the governor candidates so they were chanting outside tony evers office and it was yesterday they were chanting free the dogs i mean i kind of think evers and call are getting their just desserts on this one now of course the the farm or the research facility denies mistreating animals but according to cbs news it's where the this data is coming from or the this information they agreed in october to give up their state breeding license as of july first this was part of a deal of a deal according to cbs to avoid prosecution on potential animal mistreatment charges a special prosecutor determined that they were performing eye procedures on the dogs that violated allegedly violated state veterinary standards under a settlement region will no

1:36:30longer be able to sell beagles to outside researchers starting july first they paint themselves as a biomedical research facility so what i would like to see happen here is this i think the state should ban research on dogs i'm actually horrified i don't want dogs harmed i don't want research to be done on beagles or dogs now we could talk about banning it on all animals i mean i want to be careful i say here i'm because it's a very it's gets to be a very emotional topic for people but some of the animal research in the state i think it's on fish and things like that i'm gonna be honest i look at research on fish different than research on beagles like i just i just do i mean people fish all the time i i go fishing so i'd be a hypocrite to

1:37:32be horrified by by that um so there was a bill put forth by some Republicans Nate Gustafson was on it barb Dietrich was on it good for them was a bill that would have prohibited educational institutions from using live animals for training students if there um as it was alternate teaching methods available and everything and created a criminal penalty for this and guess what happened to that bill and never never even made it to the floor of the assembly or the senate if i'd like to see that bill revived and it gave me an idea for an investigative project so if they want to prohibit that so how much is that happening you know is is there institutional are there educational institutions in the state that are taxpayer funded using live animals for research or training students are what happens in those situations like there's deeper investigative

1:38:33reporting that could be done but like good for barb Dietrich good for Nate Gustafson a couple of other Republicans on the bill who were really again i had a curve on this kind of thing put forth that fourth months ago so yeah free the beagles do it the right way again i like the Laura Trump million dollar approach but yeah free the two thousand beagles all right stay tuned i want to talk about evers' commutations when we come back welcome back to the show Jessica McBride Wisconsin right now.com a couple other pieces of political news for you one that you'll hear here first Brian Scheming want to vote executive committee vote in last couple days to remain state GOP chairman spend under a lot of fire the wake of the big marial is our loss i guess my i'm not gonna i don't have time to go into end-up analysis of Brian but i will say

1:39:39what i want everyone to do right now is focus on tom tiffany tom tiffany has uniquely united all the factions of of the republican party in the conservative movement i don't know anyone who isn't behind tom tiffany on the right and i think we should all put our focus there we need stability in the state GOP right now a job search at this point in time would be pretty chaotic but i've also written that i think everything needs to be on the table and that included Brian Scheming like he needs to address the financing and the the metrics asked him for some data he said they've raised 13 million dollars since 2025 compared to georgia and pennsylvania's GOP's which is under about two million so there is that but we all know that the money didn't come in for marial is our the losses are not okay

1:40:48so i mean every i think i've argued everything needs to be revisited when the state chairman on down okay i made a list on face i mean i had a list you know i'd like to see the metrics of everybody turning point they haven't been very transparent on their finances or how many doors they knock are they how much are they really in this state because i know they've done this big shift toward new hamster how about the county party chairs now you know people push back they say well they're volunteers yeah i know that they're volunteers it's different Brian Scheming it's a job contract it's a job contract so you've got to answer about the numbers it's just the way it goes but the county chairs some of them their names are floated to replace them and how are their metrics some of the names i heard float being floated are the chairman of counties that have seen great erosion in the percentage of conservative vote total so i think that should be on the table but about the consultants how much they take off the top candidate assessment

1:41:53why did some conservative donors put their money behind dan kelly instead of jennifer douro for example so all of these things need to be on the table and many more things quite honestly and new strategies are obviously needed it is not working i think there should be a retreat hey take a page out of dpi go to the dolls please don't use taxpayer dollars to do it and bring all the brightest minds in conservativism into the same room and figure this out because in the age of trump it's not working because what's happened is there's a quick history lesson under tommy Thompson he won using a strategy that always said 40% of the Milwaukee county vote for a conservative was the magic number 40% and if a conservative could break that they could win statewide and that's how Tommy Thompson would win and then scott walker had a different paradigm a different strategy which was to drive up the turnout in the wild counties the suburban belt counties are on

1:42:57Milwaukee to stratospheric levels stratospheric percentages of the of conservatives and those counties came out to vote for him he did that by sort of ginning up you know debates with the other side he wasn't reaching across the aisle he was doing also very gutsy reforms like act tank like the bargaining reform that was paradigm i worked for years for walker until didn't under trump it's different it's just a different coalition trump won even though the the vote totals in the wild counties continued to erode dane was on fire the left has operationalized the dane county vote um he won frankly by creating this new coalition through rural was conston and the valley you know holding his own in the valley in the recene canocia area going rudder and that's what got trump over i'm actually pretty high on tom typhany because i think he can replicate that trump coalition

1:44:00because of his strengths in northern was conston but the challenge i think has been that republic republicans have traded conservatives have traded some of the frankly college educated affluent suburban voters who voted conservative in the past are open to it many of them women women who i don't quite understand but that's who they are and they traded those voters in the age of trump for more rural disenfranchised type voters some of whom say they're conservative but who aren't going to even say they're republican okay and i've interviewed some of these folks i i i spoke in crofford county to a a man once who was a logger a interview them and he said i voted for two people in my life donald trump and the sheriff who was my neighbor and i said well you didn't vote for walker in 2018 oh no i didn't have time and then i spoke to a mechanic in barren county doing an interview in the same topic once and he he had oil stain still on his

1:45:06hands he came to the bar after work he said i voted for one person in my life donald trump these were people they don't like elites they're very disenfranchised from from the political process and trump brought them into the political process that's a good thing but voters like that don't give a bleep about an esoteric april supreme court race they just don't the governors race is somewhere in between it's somewhere in between it's higher turnout than spring so you don't make the mistake of thinking what happened to lasar is definitely going to happen to tom typhany because it's a different turnout game but it's still less turnout in a midterm than in a presidential and these kinds of voters turn out frankly only for trump many of them too many of them and so i think what conservatives need to do and what brian shimming i would like to see him do is there needs to be new strategies it can't be the same all we're going to go to link in days these chicken to i'd like the link is a great we need to honor the grassroots and still do that but there also needs to be

1:46:11new strategies to find those kinds of disenfranchised voters where they're at where they're at maybe gun shows for example there's a large number of gun owners who don't vote you would think they would go more conservative right you would think that might be an opportunity country country music festivals i'm speaking to a small business owner in a conwalk you can listen to the audio on my facebook page um and she was same thing trump voter in fact goes to swag parties with her friends they have them at their house and they dress in magaswag and trump swag go get she loves trump she will never turn on trump she's like i don't care what they say about him i love trump she's conservative but more of the disenfranchised kind of just busy person and she did not even know the supreme court race was happening she didn't know it was happening she knew the ocanamok mares race was happening because she saw a sign that mat row sick the conservative ended

1:47:14up winning had put up about the rock garden in ocanamok and and there's this ridiculous rock garden and she knew about that but still she didn't go vote i said why not i'm just busy with other things i just don't care i just you know i've other things in my life like she's smart she just cares about other things this is what we're dealing with so we can talk about Brian's shimming all night i'm certainly not saying he shouldn't be scrutinized or criticized or on the table i mean the buck's gonna have to stop with him but it's bigger than that it's bigger than that so i want to see all these great minds to get get together and come up with new strategies and tommy tomson bring him but tell him to not run okay so they're supposed to i saw an expert he's now i don't know if it's him but someone is sending out a poll now testing for tommy tomson i respect him but he's 84 that is too big of a number one of the biggest assets

1:48:14tom tiffin he has here is that he doesn't have a bloody primary please tommy tomson keep it that way we need to tap his brain power and he needs to be part of the solution but he please do not do not run please by the way tom tiffin he i think is running so far a masterful campaign i love his ad where he had his mom and he's like in this wisconsin bar and he's in a dairy farm and his greatest appeal i think is his pure authenticity wisconsin i don't elect super charismatic flashy governors look at tony evers and jim doiel for goodness sake even scott walker with his paper bag and ham sandwich wisconsin it's elect someone who's going to be a steady hand and someone who's not going to rock the boat and so i love tom tiffin he with his mom and she makes pickles and she knits afghans and i'll i mean just such a wisconsin mom was like i'm

1:49:15nominating tom tiffin he's mom to be these state mom wonderful ad um meanwhile the democrats are like wild eyed revolutionaries now the breaking news item today uh ilhan omar indoors francesca haung haung called her one of the bravest voices in politics so don't let by the way francesca haung repaint herself as this economic populace this affordability person for the working person she was endorsed by a socialist group that said they did it because she's for prison and police abolition i want you to think about that for a minute how radical that is abolition abolition of prisons and police which is a good segue to my final topic evers commutations and i would encourage you to go on wisconsin right now dot com to read the stories that we've done on his commutations because i'm not going to have much time to go through it all here but i want to alert you all

1:50:19to what he's doing with these comment commutations so on good friday tony evers issued an executive order that is basically creating a process to do gubernatorial commutations to reduce the sentences of people in state prison for the first time in 25 years he created guidelines on on an application a website executive order and he determined in these guidelines how this is going to work and who qualifies okay now the left came out and said oh it's nothing new governors have the right to commute sentences they've always had that right he's always had that right yes that's true the state constitution gives him the power to do this but i have argued back it's a choice it hasn't happened for 25 years the last governor to do this was Tommy Thompson but he only did seven commutations in 14 years and then he he ushered in truth

1:51:20and sentencing reforms so so there have been seven okay in the last like 39 years evers doesn't have to do this walker didn't do it mccalham didn't do it even evers didn't do it in his first term he's choosing to bring this back number two he is choosing how he's going to do it he created a process and it's disturbing it allows people to qualify uh to seek a commutation if they are serving a life prison term for homicide he did not exempt killers that was a choice he excluded sex offenders and people who physically abuse a child but he left homicide offenders on the table now doesn't mean they're going to get released he still has to agree to do it but he let them try i think that's despicable it is a despicable thing to do to those families some some people who qualify under his new scheme to try cop killers the killer of William

1:52:26Robertson the killer killer of Wendell and Tanner um Stephen Avery actually qualifies I walk through all this and Wisconsin right now.com how I got to that conclusion that Stephen Avery qualifies to seek release okay Maxwell Anderson because it's not just old people Maxwell Anderson who killed Sharday Robinson and then dismembered or put her body parts all over the city Milwaukee recently got a life prison term wasn't supposed to ever see the light of day under either scheme in 20 years or so I think it was 24.5 years I calculated he can seek a commutation he has a chance to get out now maybe Tony Evers says well I'm not going to release Maxwell or I'm not going to release Stephen Avery oh well what would what would a governor honk do with this process what would what what would a Mandela Barnes do with this process and why

1:53:29why would you want to create this uncertainty for families who were told these individuals were going away for life so Evers process allows lifers serving people serving life terms for homicide to seek release after serving 20 years 20 years for all other offenses they only have to serve 50 percent of their sentences and they can seek release some other crazy things it's a 14 member board he created in this executive order held by his legal counsel but embedded in the executive order it reveals that there's a provision allowing the legal counsel to bypass the board completely and put these commutation requests on his desk where he has the ultimate say so they can skip the board the victim notification is only three weeks and DAs and judges are notified by the inmate

1:54:34I'm not making that up that is in the executive order that it's mandated that the inmate tell the DA and the judge oh I'm seeking a commutation he took that away that obligation away from the system and you may remember in the old parole that we wrote about that's different than commutation those are old law inmates before truth and sentencing that qualified for parole you may remember there was a systemic lack of notification in a victims and their families in those cases so and the DA and judge is not determinative they can oppose it but Evers can overrule them so what he's basically doing I'm be honest here in the last minute that I have the show is Tony Evers is gearing up to fast track a wholesale mass release of prison inmates unlike the state has ever seen I'm basing that on what he's already did has a point he did with previous polls where they already released the most heinous people in state history I'm basing it

1:55:39on his pardon binge okay and I'm basing it on the fact that he publicly stated in the past that he wanted to reduce the prison population by 50 percent this is how he is going to get there all signs are this will be an assembly line rushed through he's burning down the house on the way out the door okay and this is based on the myth that prison is full of nonviolent drug offenders but that's not who we're talking about here we're not talking about nonviolent people he included homicide offenders and every violent inmate you can think of except for physical abuse of a child and sex offenders they can qualify now to get out go to Wisconsin right now you can learn all about it to us Stephen Avery all all the people that we think now can secretly Sunday Evers well I've enjoyed speaking with you guys tonight thank you so much for listening this is Jessica McBride sitting in for Dan O'Donnell have a great night