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Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Milwaukee. You're listening to News Talk eleven thirty

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Speaker 1: w ISN The Dan o'donald Show minus Dan O'Donnell. This

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Speaker 1: is Jessica McBride Wisconsin RightNow dot Com, sitting in for Dan.

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Speaker 1: I have so much to talk with all of you

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Speaker 1: about today, so much to rant and rave about. But

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Speaker 1: we're gonna do a mixture today. I actually have some

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Speaker 1: positive news and some really negative news. We're gonna analyze

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Speaker 1: some things that are in the news. In the four

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Speaker 1: o'clock hour. We're gonna talk about two people. One is

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Speaker 1: named Fred Smith and one is named Chad Kadonko. Now,

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Speaker 1: some of you know who I'm talking about because you

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Speaker 1: read my social media, you read Wisconsin right Now. In

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Speaker 1: the case of Chad Kuodonko, this is a story that

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin right Now broke, and now the Journal Sentinel and

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Speaker 1: Door County Newspaper they're all kind of scrambling to follow us.

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Speaker 1: And when it comes to Fred Smith, there's been one

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Speaker 1: other story on this man. These are big stories. I

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Speaker 1: think it's going to really make your blood pressure spike.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about those two stories in

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Speaker 1: the four o'clock hour. You're not going to want to

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Speaker 1: miss that. In the five o'clock hour, I have a

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Speaker 1: very special surprise guest for all of you, So I'm

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Speaker 1: going to kind of tease that. Now, the Fred Smith

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Speaker 1: and Chad Kadonko's stories speak to the importance of the

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Speaker 1: independent media. We're seeing that, of course as well with

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Speaker 1: the reporting on Somali daycare centers. It's going on in

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Speaker 1: Minneapolis right now, and it's being spearheaded not by the

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Speaker 1: tricial media but by Nick Shirley, who is a YouTuber

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Speaker 1: slash podcaster, and his videos where he's been going around

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Speaker 1: and knocking on the doors of Somali daycare centers have

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Speaker 1: had something like one hundred million views. And I saw

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Speaker 1: a post on x by Elon Musk, you know, a

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Speaker 1: few hours ago, where he said that, like, that's more

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Speaker 1: than the combined circulation of like the nation's top newspapers. Well,

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Speaker 1: I have an update on that breaking news. The Homeland

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Speaker 1: Security agents are now on the ground in Minneapolis and

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Speaker 1: they are conducting door to door checks of these daycare

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Speaker 1: centers where this YouTuber went around. I'm sure a lot

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Speaker 1: of you have seen the videos. If you haven't, like,

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Speaker 1: go on YouTube, go on AX, go on Facebook search

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Speaker 1: Nick Shirley. You're not gonna find many mainstream media stories

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Speaker 1: about what he's done, but like, go on social media

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Speaker 1: and watch some of these videos. I am going to

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Speaker 1: deconstruct the whole Nick Shirley thing in probably in the

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Speaker 1: five o'clock hour. I do have that special mysterious guest.

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Speaker 1: I was just teasing at five. Probably go till about

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Speaker 1: five thirty. I has spent kind of the end of

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Speaker 1: the show probably deconstructing the Somali daycare thing. I have

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Speaker 1: sort of a unique take on it, sort of a

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Speaker 1: different take than the talking points driven, sort of cheap

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Speaker 1: take that you're seeing all over social media, and so

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Speaker 1: I want to kind of break that down for you first, though,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to start with something positive with somebody I

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Speaker 1: think who I think is very positive so Wisconsin right now,

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Speaker 1: Jim Pivovarchik and I we published last night our winners

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Speaker 1: of the Year for twenty twenty five, and the man

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Speaker 1: who I have on the phone now is one of

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Speaker 1: our winners. We're going to be doing a loser list,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, I was gonna start it last night.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I'll be up till four in the morning

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Speaker 1: doing the loser list, Like there's a lot of losers

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five. I mean, Hannah Dugan would be

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Speaker 1: number one. Josh Call with his botch crime life. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it just goes on and on and on and on.

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Speaker 1: That will be coming down the pike later in the

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Speaker 1: week from Wisconsin right now, but we're starting with the

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Speaker 1: winners because you know, I don't know if you're like me,

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Speaker 1: we've all had just sort of so much negativity this year.

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Speaker 1: Like it's just been such a dreary year in so

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Speaker 1: many ways, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and so on

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Speaker 1: and so forth, you know, and really, when you take

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Speaker 1: a giant step back, I think what's happened in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five is the left is trying to lash back right.

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Speaker 1: You know, Trump won the White House, Elon Musk changed

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Speaker 1: society by buying action, and now we have a free

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Speaker 1: speech space. I think what you're seeing with like Nick

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Speaker 1: Shirley and so forth, represents a massive shift right now

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Speaker 1: in sort of the full crumb of the media, Like

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Speaker 1: I think the YouTubers, the podcasters, the independent reporters, the

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Speaker 1: social media people, we're shifting the power dramatically when it

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Speaker 1: comes to the media ecosphere. And so I think when

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Speaker 1: you put all that together, what happened in twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: five is the left went crazy, like they jumped off

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Speaker 1: a cliff, like they're lashing back, and unfortunately Charlie Kirk

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Speaker 1: paid for that with his life. And so it's been

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Speaker 1: this very difficult year. You know, people are experiencing their

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Speaker 1: family members, not talking to them, not inviting them to

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Speaker 1: Christmas and everything. So we started with the winners, and

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Speaker 1: I'm starting with the winner here for a reason, because

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Speaker 1: we all need some light and levity, we all need

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Speaker 1: some hope. And you know what, you know, amidst this

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Speaker 1: big backlash, there have been some really courageous new voices,

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Speaker 1: I would say, who have stepped up and who have

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Speaker 1: spoken out, in some cases, you know, causing some peril

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Speaker 1: to themselves. And so my first guest is someone like that.

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Speaker 1: A winner of the year Wisconsin right now. His name

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Speaker 1: is Trevor Tomesh. He is a UW River Falls professor

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Speaker 1: now on LinkedIn. Professor. Tamesh calls himself a Catholic American

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Speaker 1: assistant professor and computer information and data science. So I

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Speaker 1: want you to let that sink in for a minute.

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Speaker 1: He is starting with Catholic and American, and then he's

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Speaker 1: moving on to assistant professor. He is a conservative professor

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Speaker 1: in the UW system. I have been trying for I

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Speaker 1: think a year to highlight and amplify the voices of

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Speaker 1: the conservative professors in the university system who are stepping up,

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Speaker 1: and their voices are being heard, I think more so

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Speaker 1: than ever before. Again, that is somewhat the power of

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Speaker 1: social media. Professor Tamash, thanks for coming on the show.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: Hey, you can you hear me?

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Speaker 1: Yes, I can, loud and clear. Thank you for coming on.

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Speaker 1: So I first became acquainted with you after you posted

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Speaker 1: a comment on the Wisconsin Right Now Facebook page which

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Speaker 1: I thought was so powerful that I sent it viral

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Speaker 1: using all of our social media levers. And then you

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Speaker 1: got attention from other news sites, conservatives and so forth,

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Speaker 1: and you had come out and could you maybe capture

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Speaker 1: in a nutshell for our listeners what you said in

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Speaker 1: that initial comment which brought you to the attention of

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Speaker 1: conservatives in the state.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Sure.

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Speaker 5: Well.

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Speaker 2: First thing is, and I put this on the actual

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Speaker 2: little blurb that I wrote, is that I am speaking

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Speaker 2: on my own behalf as you know and not on

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Speaker 2: behalf of my university. That's one thing that I have

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Speaker 2: to make very clear. But yeah, so I was really

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Speaker 2: negatively affected by Charlie Kirk's assassination. I'm the former Turning

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Speaker 2: Point US, a faculty advisor for our Turning Point club

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Speaker 2: on campus at UWRF, and I was really quite astonished

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Speaker 2: at the fact that despite the fact that previously the

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Speaker 2: universities had made a big to do about saying like

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Speaker 2: the George Floyd, the George Floyd, the death of George Floyd,

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Speaker 2: and other events that are very relevant to our communities,

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Speaker 2: I was very kind of taken aback that there was

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Speaker 2: no comments whatsoever from the university about me Charlie kirk assassination,

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Speaker 2: because this was a murder on a college campus of

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Speaker 2: a man who was doing exactly what it is that

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Speaker 2: we professors are meant to be doing, which is talking

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Speaker 2: to students about difficult topics and having difficult discussions about

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Speaker 2: things like, for example, transgender ideology, or about things like

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Speaker 2: the Second Amendment, or about faith, those sort of things

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Speaker 2: important topics, and so I was very dismayed about it,

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Speaker 2: and it was really kind of a kind of a

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Speaker 2: on a whim thing late at night. I think it

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Speaker 2: was when I wrote it, and as you had asked,

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Speaker 2: You had asked how it is that people were dealing

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Speaker 2: with Charlie Kirk's death, And then I don't even remember

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Speaker 2: really typing much of it. I just kind of sat

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Speaker 2: there and late at night and just like brote my

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Speaker 2: thoughts and feelings and made a few spelling mistakes that

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Speaker 2: my critics were very very happy to point doubt for me.

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Speaker 1: Oh but it was so powerful and that's why I

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Speaker 1: grabbed my attention. Let me read one paragraph from it.

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Speaker 1: You had written the fact that Charlie was killed on

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Speaker 1: a college campus for expressing his opinions and ideas. The

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Speaker 1: one place in society where it's the sole purpose is

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Speaker 1: to express opinions and ideas should be a watershed moment

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Speaker 1: for all universities. Every single member of every single university community, faculty, administrators, staff,

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Speaker 1: and students should be lamenting this as it spells the

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Speaker 1: death of the university. And then you basically you called

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Speaker 1: on the universities to condemn Charlie Kirk's assassination. Then you

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Speaker 1: did join a statement that was put out by a

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Speaker 1: conservative group of professors. There are there's a handful of

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Speaker 1: really courageous conservative professors in Wisconsin, Shale Horowitz, Thatt, u

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Speaker 1: w M, a guy named Robert Fidler, Russell Gonnering, Brian Volkman,

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Speaker 1: Benjamin Witcomb, and they're part of something called the Wisconsin

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Speaker 1: Association of Scholars. I signed this as well, and we

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Speaker 1: put out a statement condemning Charlie's assassination. But like it

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Speaker 1: was a handful of us. Now, Trevor a professor, Tamesh

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Speaker 1: What what happened then? After we kind of sent your

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Speaker 1: comments viral?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean I woke up to just a whole

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Speaker 2: bunch of emails. I was really kind of confused because

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Speaker 2: I didn't know what happened. About three hundred emails from

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Speaker 2: people who had read that and their support for it,

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Speaker 2: and I was kind of taken aback. There was actually

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Speaker 2: very few negative responses from people. The only email I

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Speaker 2: got that was really negative at all was just somebody

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Speaker 2: pointing out somebody pointing out some issues they took with

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Speaker 2: my with my with my little blurb, and I actually

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Speaker 2: kind of agreed with them on a bit of it,

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Speaker 2: and they were very polite about it. But that was

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Speaker 2: really it. And then after that I got like a

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Speaker 2: bunch of like some emails from Fox News and a

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Speaker 2: whole bunch of different media outlets. But I wasn't quite

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Speaker 2: ready for it to speak out because I hadn't expected

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Speaker 2: anything like this.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, you just wrote a comment. You

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Speaker 1: just wrote a comment on our Facebook page. And again

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Speaker 1: it speaks to what I said at the top of

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Speaker 1: the hour where I said there is a real shift

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Speaker 1: going on in sort of the center or the power

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Speaker 1: center of the media right now. And so I mean,

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Speaker 1: you wrote a comment on Wisconsin right now Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: we were able to send it viral. We didn't have

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Speaker 1: that power maybe two years ago. And the reason we

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Speaker 1: did it is actually Facebook was artificially suppressing our distribution,

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Speaker 1: our ability to get reach on social media and Twitter

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Speaker 1: when it was Twitter before as you said the wrong thing,

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Speaker 1: they deleted your page. There was a real censorship regime

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Speaker 1: going on, which I noticed, especially in the last two

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Speaker 1: or three months, has suddenly been lifted. And now we

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Speaker 1: have this great ability to amplify voices that we care about,

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Speaker 1: and you're one of them. And one reason I want

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Speaker 1: to do that is because for so long in this state,

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Speaker 1: liberal professors, often Marxist theorists, have dominated the discussion on

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Speaker 1: the universities. They have spoken for the Universities of Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: Now I teach it UW on my opinions are also

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Speaker 1: my own. They don't represent the institution where I work.

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Speaker 1: We all have to give that disclaimer. But I want

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Speaker 1: to broadened, broaden the type and amount just the voices

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Speaker 1: that are speaking out of the UW. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: about where it went from here. You then wrote a

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Speaker 1: piece in which you urged campus cultures to encourage what

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Speaker 1: you called, of course it's a famous term, the continual

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Speaker 1: sifting and winnowing of ideas, and you said for that

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Speaker 1: to happen, everyone must feel confident presenting their perspectives without fear.

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Speaker 1: You called conservative voices essential to present, irving what is

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Speaker 1: best in our culture. Without them, we lose our center,

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Speaker 1: you wrote, our connection to the past and the firm

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Speaker 1: foundation and which to build. You also said liberal voices

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Speaker 1: are equally critical. They bring new ideas from the margins

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Speaker 1: into the public square to be tested. Without liberal ideas,

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Speaker 1: we stagnate. So you're a conservative professor, but what you

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Speaker 1: are simply calling for is a climate on campus where

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Speaker 1: everyone's ideas can be heard without fear. Can you expand

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Speaker 1: on that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well precisely, that's it. That's what the universities are for.

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Speaker 2: The universities are for. For some reason, we have this

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Speaker 2: idea that the universities are there to train people to

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Speaker 2: get jobs. That's not the idea of the university. That's

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Speaker 2: not where they come from. The universities are I mean,

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Speaker 2: the word university actually means a community of learners and scholars.

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Speaker 2: And the idea is that you bring ideas, no matter

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Speaker 2: how hair brained and crazy they are, and those ideas

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Speaker 2: can be contended against, they can be presented in a

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Speaker 2: lot of way, and they can be pushed back against.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter if you're on the left of

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Speaker 2: the right, it doesn't matter if you've got really really

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Speaker 2: grounded ideas or goofy ideas. Those ideas should be presented

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Speaker 2: no matter what. And if we don't have that at

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Speaker 2: the universities, that's the place that this is the appropriate

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Speaker 2: place for it to happen. If we don't have that

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Speaker 2: at the universities, then we have no universities and there's

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Speaker 2: no point of even opening our doors.

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Speaker 1: So I do want the universities to train people for

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Speaker 1: jobs as well. I want this to be a duality,

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Speaker 1: and I definitely want it to be a place where

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Speaker 1: ideas can be winnowed and sifted and contested and debated

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Speaker 1: without fear in our favor. You had also written that

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Speaker 1: you are working tirelessly to identify opportunities for change so

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Speaker 1: that conservative thought can be heard on campus and the

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Speaker 1: civil dialogue about difficult issues is given a proper platform.

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Speaker 1: I have to take my first break, but when I

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Speaker 1: come back, I want to ask you typically how you're

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Speaker 1: doing that and whether you're getting any pushback from administration.

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Speaker 6: Stay tuned, and I'm excited. My dad passed away at

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Speaker 6: the age of sixty three. It is out of nowhere,

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Speaker 6: had a stroke, super hard, obviously for the whole family.

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Speaker 6: But my dad had life insurance. This is why I

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Speaker 6: have life insurance for my family, for my wife.

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Speaker 1: And form conservative professor is not an oxymoron, at least

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Speaker 1: not where he's concerned. At least not where I'm concerned.

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Speaker 1: Although I'm a faculty member, I'm not technically a professor

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Speaker 1: at uh W Milwaukee, but a professor to Mesh, I

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Speaker 1: asked you be for the break when we came back,

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Speaker 1: if you could speak about the specific sort of changes

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Speaker 1: that you're seeking or working to accomplish so that conservative

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Speaker 1: thought can be heard on college campuses.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So one thing that we have been doing is

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Speaker 2: I've been meeting regularly with members of the administration trying

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Speaker 2: to bring programming to campus that will promote essentially promote

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Speaker 2: the sort of civil dialogues that we want to be

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Speaker 2: able to have on campuses. We're currently working on a

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Speaker 2: grant to be able to bring in speakers, controversial speakers,

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Speaker 2: speakers who have dealt with issues dealing with freedom of speech.

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Speaker 2: There's a professor from Canada that I actually am acquaintanced

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Speaker 2: with that I want to bring down. She's had a

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Speaker 2: lot of issues dealing with some of the some of

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Speaker 2: the some of the stifling of free speech up in Canada.

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Speaker 2: And so that's that's one of the things that we've

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Speaker 2: been doing. A few other things. I want to emphasize

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Speaker 2: the need for neutrality, for neutrality, institutional neutrality, and that

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Speaker 2: institutions should neutral on issues unless, of course it's something

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Speaker 2: that's directly related to the university, and the University Wisconsin

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Speaker 2: system does have an institutional neutrality policy which is really excellent.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to credit Jay Rothman for that

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Speaker 1: he's the president of the UW system Universities of Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: It's called now, and that came about after the University

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Speaker 1: of Wisconsin Milwaukee outrageously, appallingly, in my opinion, called for

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Speaker 1: a cease fire in Gaza. It's just not it should

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Speaker 1: not be the role of a public university to take

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Speaker 1: a position like that. Now, when you were calling for

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Speaker 1: them to take a stance on Charlie's assassination like that,

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Speaker 1: Like that's different, right, Like you weren't calling for them

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Speaker 1: to take a stance on Charlie's ideology, but rather to

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Speaker 1: condemn the brutal assassination of a man on a college

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Speaker 1: campus for peacefully engaging in debate in the discussion of ideas. Correct.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that it's really important that

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Speaker 2: universities make it clear that the sort of violence that

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Speaker 2: we've been seeing escalating on college campuses and the college

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Speaker 2: to violence for example at U to w U Madison

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Speaker 2: that we saw recently with the anti ice stuff, those

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Speaker 2: of the stickers that were posted around those cannot be tolerated.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of violence does not belong at universities.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious how lonely you feel as a conservative on

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Speaker 1: a university campus in Wisconsin. I mean, do you know

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Speaker 1: many other conservatives on campus? I do find a UW

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Speaker 1: Milwaukee that conservative students seek me out. Now, I keep

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Speaker 1: politics completely off campus. I don't talk about my personal

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Speaker 1: opinions on campus. But conservative students somehow, you know, obviously,

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Speaker 1: they figured it out. I'm a public person off campus,

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Speaker 1: and they seek me out. I know they're there, and

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Speaker 1: I know other instructors are there too. They seek me out,

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Speaker 1: and they typically tell me, oh, yeah, we're conservative, we

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Speaker 1: agree with this, or that, we like Wisconsin right now.

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Speaker 1: But they self silence because they're afraid to be identified

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Speaker 1: on campus as a conservative. I guess what's your experience

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Speaker 1: with that.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm lucky at UW or Falls. It's kind of

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Speaker 2: a bit of a heterodox of thought on campuses. There's

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Speaker 2: a number of faculty who have identified themselves to me

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Speaker 2: as conservatives. I'm not going to out them, but there's

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Speaker 2: been at least three or four faculty on my campus

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Speaker 2: that have talked to me. Another thing that's been really

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Speaker 2: good is right after this Charlie Kirk assassination. After the

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Speaker 2: assassination happened, my being, the students reached out to me

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Speaker 2: and said, hey, we know that you're somebody in the

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Speaker 2: community who might be able to that students trust that

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Speaker 2: conservative students trust, and they may come to you asking

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Speaker 2: for help, and here's some resources that you can direct

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Speaker 2: them toward. And so it's actually I don't mind being

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Speaker 2: like the lone vocal conservative on campus. I don't mind

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Speaker 2: it personally, but I think for our student's sake, they

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Speaker 2: need to see that it's okay to have these kind

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Speaker 2: of ideas and to be at university.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean you don't have tenure yet, correct,

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Speaker 1: I do not know? Yeah, we I mean because you're

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Speaker 1: just too early in the process that you go up

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Speaker 1: for it. And we had spoke about that. So I

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Speaker 1: think there was a great measure of courage that, you know,

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Speaker 1: you showed by speaking out, because, like I was told

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Speaker 1: once by someone, until you get tenure, you know, they

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Speaker 1: own you. I'll tell you you w Milwaukee. I'm not

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Speaker 1: a PhD, so I have the equivalent of tenure. It's

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Speaker 1: called definite status. It took me six years and a

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty page binder to get and for

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Speaker 1: the first ten years though, it was an absolute nightmare

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Speaker 1: being a known conservative on campus. I mean, it was

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Speaker 1: a literal nightmare. I'm glad that your experience hasn't really

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Speaker 1: quite been that. And I did tell you on the

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Speaker 1: front end. I think going public provides some measure of protection.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's like harder to go at someone who

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Speaker 1: has a following, who's got people that will fight back

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Speaker 1: for him if he's not treated properly, you know, down

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Speaker 1: the road. I guess I want to give you the

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Speaker 1: final word here. What message do you want to send

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Speaker 1: about this topic about the universities in general, about conservatives

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Speaker 1: and campus like, I'm going to give you the final say.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, wow, So I guess really, my take home

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Speaker 2: is that we need the universities to be a place

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Speaker 2: where all perspectives can be heard. They need be a

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Speaker 2: place where we can see each other not as enemies,

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Speaker 2: but as as colleagues, as people who have different ideas,

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Speaker 2: different approaches to life, but can still get along and

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Speaker 2: can still actually have difficult conversations without having to worry

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Speaker 2: about whether or not we have traits upon the wrong ideology.

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Speaker 2: And I just I'm really really proud of the University

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Speaker 2: of Wisconsin's system for the sifting and winnowing ideology that

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Speaker 2: they've had since its inception. Essentially, I wouldn't be as

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Speaker 2: outspoken if.

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Speaker 3: I were anywhere else.

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Speaker 2: Especially coming from you know, coming from Canada, where I

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Speaker 2: did my grad school, I wouldn't be willing to speak

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Speaker 2: out up there. So I'm just I'm so blessed to

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Speaker 2: be down here, and I'm really happy to finally be

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Speaker 2: able to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Same, I'm curious, just really briefly about the Canadian experience,

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Speaker 1: like why was it so much worse? Obviously because they

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Speaker 1: don't have our constitution, they don't have the First Amendment.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure it's part of it.

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Speaker 2: Canadian universities are basically breeding grounds for activism. They have

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Speaker 2: no sense of institutional neutrality. They also don't have the

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Speaker 2: same protections that we have as far as the sort

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Speaker 2: of civil rights, the affirmative action sort of things. Down here,

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Speaker 2: it's illegal to hire something explicitly because of their race, gender,

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Speaker 2: or sex. Up there, that's actually encouraged to hire people

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Speaker 2: for their race, gender, and sex in order to achieve equity,

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Speaker 2: whatever the hell that means. And yeah, up there in Canada,

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Speaker 2: if you say the wrong thing, because they have, for example,

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Speaker 2: hate speech laws, you say the wrong thing, just being

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Speaker 2: accused of hate speech is enough to silence people, especially

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Speaker 2: because their court system can keep you, keep you in

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Speaker 2: the system for years and years and years. So it's

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Speaker 2: it's a terrifying place to be and I'm so glad

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Speaker 2: that I'm made it out of there.

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Speaker 1: It's an interesting you know, I was telling my investigative

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Speaker 1: journalism students, you always have to say, compared to what right?

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Speaker 1: So we have all these issues in the universities here,

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Speaker 1: you know, and some of the things you cited. I

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Speaker 1: feel like we're happening here and are still happening here

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Speaker 1: where people are afraid to be accused of hate speech

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Speaker 1: and things like that, but still like compared to what

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Speaker 1: right sounds like really horrifying In Canada, Professor Tamash, thank

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Speaker 1: you for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Everybody's

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Speaker 1: stay tuned. We're gonna switch gears. We've got some more

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Speaker 1: interesting conversations to have. Stay tuned.

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Speaker 5: The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show is now the Mark

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Speaker 5: Belling Podcast and it's always on twenty four to seven.

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Speaker 5: I'm on the iHeart app and all the other big

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Speaker 5: podcast platforms. Standing up for Milwaukee and the world.

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Speaker 1: Trying to do I think with conversations like I just

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Speaker 1: had with Professor Trevor Tamash, conservative professor, and on a

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Speaker 1: past show, I had a similar conversation with a conservative

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Speaker 1: UW Milwaukee professor by the name of Shale Horowitz. I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to help shift the power within the universities, like

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Speaker 1: is happening in the media right now, right And I

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Speaker 1: said that at the top of the show. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a big shift what I would call the fulcrumb,

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Speaker 1: the center, the power center of the media right now,

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Speaker 1: and all of these independent podcasters and YouTubers and sites

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Speaker 1: like Wisconsin right now, we're shifting that power away from

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Speaker 1: the traditional and often liberal media. We need that to

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Speaker 1: happen within the universities, and I think one way to

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Speaker 1: facilitate that is to amplify, to use a liberal word,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a liberal word. To amplify voices of conservatives,

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Speaker 1: good conservatives in the UW, in the universities, who say,

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Speaker 1: you know what we are here. We are going to

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Speaker 1: courageously speak out for free speech. We will defend conservative

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Speaker 1: students and conservative speakers when they're mistreated on our campuses.

433
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: And guess what marks as liberal professors? You don't get

434
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 1: to be the only voice for the UW anymore. You

435
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 1: don't get to be the only voice any more, because

436
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: we're here and we're no longer afraid. We're not afraid

437
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: of you, We're not afraid of the administration, and this

438
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: ties together. We're not afraid because we do have a

439
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: free speech space now. We do have the Wisconsin right

440
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: now is of the world. We do have the Nick

441
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: Shirley's of the world. We have Elon Musk and X

442
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: and we are not afraid to exercise our voices anymore.

443
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: And we are not afraid to exist on a college

444
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 1: campus as a conservative anymore. That's what I'm trying to

445
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: do with that, all right, switching gears. So I warned

446
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 1: you at the top of the show that it's gonna

447
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: be a mix today, positive negative, positive negative. That was

448
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: kind of the positive. I don't know if my last

449
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: comments were super positive, but Trevor Tamash is a really positive,

450
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 1: courageous guy. He's a hero. But now I'm gonna go negative.

451
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: Let me explain something someone I would consider a mentor,

452
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: even though I haven't met him for years. Actually, I

453
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: used to go on his show. I used to talk

454
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: to him in the Green Room used to go on

455
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: his TV show, Mark Belling. Here's why I consider him

456
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: a mentor, because I watched over the years how he

457
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: did his job. And one thing I've always respected about Mark,

458
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: greatly respected about Mark, is that he has never been

459
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 1: afraid to question conservatives or Republicans, especially Republican politicians, when

460
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:27,439
Speaker 1: they need questioning. He's not afraid of that. He's not

461
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: a sycophant. He doesn't carry people's water. He doesn't care

462
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: if he gets blown back, and he doesn't care if

463
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 1: he gets uninvited from cocktail parties in Madison or Washington,

464
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 1: DC and gets what. I don't care either. I'm pretty

465
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: sure what I'm about to say, what I've already said

466
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: on social media about it, probably will get me uninvited

467
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: from some cocktail soirees at the Duffy two million dollar

468
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: mansion in New Jersey, not that I was going to

469
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: be invited there anyway, But I don't care. I don't

470
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: care because my allegiance is to you, the audience. My

471
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: allegiance is to you, the voters. And when I see

472
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: questions that I just I think need to be asked,

473
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask them. And I don't intimidate. I'm

474
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: talking about Mike Alfonso. He is the twenty five year

475
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: old son in law of Sean Duffy, who's obviously the

476
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: Secretary of Transportation. He is running for Congress for Duffy's

477
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,199
Speaker 1: old congressional seat, now occupied by Tom Tiffany, in the

478
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 1: seventh Congressional district that is up in north western Wisconsin.

479
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,119
Speaker 1: I am from that area. I grew up in the

480
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: seventh Congressional District in a little town called Ladysmith, and

481
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: for a while a town called Sheldon near it was

482
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: up in the north Woods. It was farming country. I

483
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: had sixty seven people in my high school class. For

484
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: yours and years, this area was led by a Democratic

485
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: congressman by the name of Dave Obie. Dave Obie was

486
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: there for a gazillion years, I mean forty years, something crazy.

487
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a Democratic area. And I remember

488
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: years ago telling a prominent conservative I said, that area

489
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: of the state is culturally an ideologically conservative. They just

490
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: don't know it yet. Okay. They send their kids to

491
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: the military, They sit down for you know, Sunday dinner

492
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: with their families. They have a dairy farm work ethic.

493
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: They go to church, they love their cops. This is

494
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: a conservative area. They just don't know it yet because

495
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: it was like twenty years ago I had that conversation.

496
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: We didn't have the exes, we didn't have barely the internet,

497
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: you know, with podcasting and social media the way it

498
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,959
Speaker 1: is today, and they just weren't getting conservative messages. Well

499
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: guess what now it's flipped. That's in part due to

500
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and it's in part due to redistricting the

501
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: Republicans did in twenty eleven. So Dave Obie sort of

502
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,040
Speaker 1: ran away, retired with his tail between his legs, and

503
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: Sean Duffy was elected to the seat, and after him

504
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: when he went, you know, he quit and he switched

505
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: into what he's doing now, Tom Tiffany, who is now

506
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: obviously stepping down from the seat because he's running for governor.

507
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: Duffy and Tiffany were winning this seat by you know,

508
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: thirty five percent or something, I mean, crazy numbers. This

509
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: is a solid red district. Exactly what I predicted twenty

510
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: years ago came to pass. People in that area were

511
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: able to get countering points of view to the liberal

512
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: media because when I was growing up there, we had

513
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, and we had Tom Broke

514
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: on NBC News. We didn't have cable, we didn't have

515
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: the Internet. It's old, I am, so we didn't get

516
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: countering messages. Now they are able to and this area

517
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: has shifted, it's flipped. So we have this primary going

518
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: on in the seventh congressional district, and really, because it's

519
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: such a Republican district today, whoever wins this primary is

520
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: probably going to win. And I think everybody knows that

521
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: you have this very aggressive primary. Michael Fonso is one

522
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: of several candidates who's running as a Republican. You've also

523
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: got conservative lawyer Paul Waskren. He is a guy that

524
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: I various conservatives I know and respect, like Paul Wasscren.

525
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: I invited him on the show Today's Traveling. I think

526
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: he's in an airplane right now, so he wasn't able

527
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: to go on, but he wants to talk to me

528
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: in the future. There's Jesse Eben. Now she is an

529
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: issue because she signed the Walker recall it was you know,

530
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: years ago in college. She says she's evolved, she's pro Trump, etc.

531
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: She's supported by Club for Growth. She's reached out to

532
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: me I just can't have everyone on it. Once in

533
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: the future, I'll put her on if I guessed host again.

534
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: And then we have Kevin Hermaning, who I have on

535
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: the line actually, so I'm gonna bring him on right now.

536
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: Kevin Hermaning, some of you may remember, was a Ranian hostage,

537
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: but I know he doesn't want to be solely defined

538
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: by that horrific experience. Is a young marine in the

539
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and he's done a lot in the business

540
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: world since, and I want to talk to him about that.

541
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: And then we also have Michael Fonso. Now, before I

542
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: go to Kevin Hermaning, who I have on the line,

543
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: but ask him to wait a second. I wanted to

544
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: say this, so I had posed Mark Belling asked questions

545
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: for Michael Fonso on social media. I just said, you

546
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: know what I said. There were some things that went

547
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 1: sitting right with me about his campaign, and I posed

548
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: them and I got some massive, aggressive, nasty pushback by

549
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: a couple supporters. I don't think they're affiliated officially with

550
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: his campaign, but they're young supporters, got called I don't

551
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: know everything under the butt. One of them called me

552
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: a bitter over the hill female journalist for asking questions

553
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: of Michael Fonso. One of them he's a failed Assembly

554
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:52,719
Speaker 1: candidate is like twenty two. He brought up my physical

555
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: appearance and said, you know, it's just unfair and all

556
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: this stuff. One of them made fun of my expired

557
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 1: press pass, which is my cover photo on Facebook, which

558
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: was my press pass from September eleven, two thousand and one.

559
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: It's expired because it was a press pass I was

560
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: issued by the NYPD to cover the terrorist attacks from

561
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: Lower Manhattan, where I was on September twelve, two thousand

562
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: and one, breathing in the dust of the dead. Like

563
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: one of these Alfonso supporters was like mocking the fact

564
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: this press pass is expired. Whatever. You know what, I

565
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: get a lot of flack and I can take it.

566
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: I don't intimidate, and I'm not going to stop asking questions.

567
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: I pose these questions, I want to read them for you,

568
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: and then I want to go to Kevin hermoning, and

569
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to pit him against Alfonso.

570
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: But I asked Michaelfonso to come on this show to

571
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: answer some of the questions that I think are legitimate,

572
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: and he ignored me. So, you know what, I'm going

573
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,959
Speaker 1: to give that slot to hermonying. I'm going to give

574
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: him five to ten minutes to make his case, all

575
00:33:57,880 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: right about it for himself?

576
00:33:59,520 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 6: All right?

577
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: So I said, why does it make sense for Conservatives

578
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: to dump a million dollars into a primary as they

579
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: have for Alfonso? For Tiffany's congressional district it's a safe

580
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: Republican seat. Wouldn't the money be better spent in vulnerable

581
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 1: districts like Derek van Orden's where a Democrat pack commission

582
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: is about to redraw the maps, since that is for

583
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:25,320
Speaker 1: control of Congress. I am talking about a shadowy pack

584
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:27,919
Speaker 1: that popped up. It's called the north Woods Future Pack,

585
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: and it's already spent over a million dollars in this

586
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: Republican primary on behalf of Alfonso. I did a little

587
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: research into it. It is tied to a small office

588
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: in a little town in Alabama, yet it is calling

589
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: itself itself the north Woods Future Pack. It's impossible to

590
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 1: trace the spending, but it is linked via email on

591
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: a registration form to a Republican law and consulting firm nationally,

592
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: which runs a bunch of packs in other states, including

593
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: Lake Pennsylvania and Sean Duffy's campaign committee, which had about

594
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: two million dollars in it when he left Congress, paid

595
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: it money as recently as September. It uses that same firm. Again,

596
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where the money came from. I said,

597
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: how does a twenty five year old with no political

598
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: or significant work experience get one million dollars? And from whome?

599
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: I said, ads in direct mail from this pack or

600
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: positioning Alfonso as a working class construction worker fighter who

601
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: was going to take on the corrupt Washington politicians? Is

602
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,439
Speaker 1: this accurate advertising? And the only reason we're talking about

603
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: this candidate is because of whom his father in law,

604
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: Shawn Duffy, a Washington politician, is And then I said,

605
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 1: Alfonso worked a short time in construction, well in college

606
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: at E. W. Madison shortly thereafter, and then he was

607
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,439
Speaker 1: a podcast producer for a short time. Is this enough

608
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,959
Speaker 1: experience and accomplishment to be a congressman at age twenty five?

609
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: What are we supposed to use to assess his leadership

610
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: and principle? Except for people's rhetoric? I mean, I am

611
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,399
Speaker 1: fine with young people running for office. In fact, if

612
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: Michael Fonso ran for Assembly or school board, I would

613
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: be calling him the rising star of the year. I'd

614
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: be all for it. I want younger voices out there.

615
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: But I had never heard of this guy and until

616
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: suddenly we're supposed to anoint him for his father in

617
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: law's old congressional seat at age twenty five, and I

618
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: have questions about this massive advertising campaign painting him as

619
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 1: sort of this grizzled construction worker and actually is a

620
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: math degree from UW. Madison and we're construction on the side.

621
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: And then went to be a podcast producer for Dan Bongino.

622
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: The last address as I found were in Florida. It's

623
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:46,320
Speaker 1: actually his wife, Evita, who is this wonderful, very smart

624
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: daughter of the Duffies, who was the managing producer from

625
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,919
Speaker 1: Bongino show. I would just like to see a little

626
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,319
Speaker 1: more life experience before someone runs for Congress, Like I

627
00:36:56,360 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: am questioning what we are supposed to base our opinion

628
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: on about whether he would be able to lead, Like

629
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: what kind of a congressman would he be? Now, I

630
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 1: am not saying someone needs prior government experience. In fact,

631
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking just looking for something else, military experience,

632
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: running it, having run a small business, having created a

633
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: small business. Now, I would tell you that, you know,

634
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: maybe he would have come on this show and so

635
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 1: dazzled me intellectually that I would say, Oh, you're just

636
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: you're this unique person. You don't have any of that.

637
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: You have a little construction work experience while you were

638
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: in college, and then you went and worked with your

639
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: wife on this podcast, and so you don't have any

640
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,720
Speaker 1: of that. But like, you're so brilliant, your your values

641
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: are in the right place, and you're so interesting that

642
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe I'm sold on you, and I'm

643
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: going to tell you. I kind of did that with

644
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 1: Britney Kinser. Remember she ran for DPI. I had questions

645
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,760
Speaker 1: about her too. She had given money recently to Tammy

646
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,839
Speaker 1: Baldwin for goodness sake, was recently a Democrat, and I

647
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: also posed some tough questions. She said, you know what,

648
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: I'll come on your show and I'll answer them. And

649
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 1: she was fourth right. And she actually she went on

650
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: a podcast with me. She was genuine. She did an

651
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: interview and she just said, yeah, I'll answer anything you

652
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: have to ask. And I came away from that saying

653
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,479
Speaker 1: she's great, My questions are answered. Maybe Michael Fonzo would

654
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,399
Speaker 1: be like a Charlie Kirk, so dazzling will just go yes, yes,

655
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: we're for you, but he won't come on the show

656
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:32,280
Speaker 1: like they ignored me. Okay, So all these questions are legitimate,

657
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: and they are now like hanging out there because he's

658
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 1: afraid to talk to me. And I'm gonna tell you

659
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: guys right now, if Michael Fonsu is afraid to talk

660
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: to me, then what the heck is he gonna do

661
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: in Congress? What's gonna happen when he deals with the

662
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: liberal media and the Democrats? For goodness sake? All right, now,

663
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: I just ran to Rave so long. I've still got

664
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: Kevin Hermany on there, but I needed to give you

665
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: that background. So I'm gonna talk to him at the

666
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: top of the four o'clock hour. We're gonna take Kevin

667
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna let him have about five to ten

668
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: minutes to make his his case, all right, Stay.

669
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 7: Tuned from the Lynch Truck Center in Waterford.

670
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 8: Total traffic center eastbound on ninety four heavy with roadworks,

671
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 8: seventy six to Holly westbound delays from the Stadium to

672
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 8: Holly and at thirty fifty got a crash, It's off

673
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 8: to the right shoulder.

674
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 1: Back to the show. This is News Talk eleven thirty WISSN.

675
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: This is Jessica McBride of Wisconsin right now sitting in

676
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: for Dan O'Donnell. So, as I said last half hour

677
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 1: of the show, here's the situation. Michael Fonso, Sean Duffy's

678
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: twenty five year old son in law, apparently thinks that

679
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: we should all simply anoint him to be a congressman

680
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: and his father in law's old seventh Congressional district. Besides

681
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: having almost no experien at anything as far as I

682
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: can tell, a little construction work in college, maybe a

683
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: year of it, after getting a math degree at e. W. Madison,

684
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 1: then working with his wife as a podcast producer from

685
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: Bongino for Maybe Your Addresses in Florida, and now he

686
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: apparently doesn't think he should answer any questions either, including

687
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: about why a shadowy pack in Alabama, of all places,

688
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:31,320
Speaker 1: called the Northwoods Future Pack, but it's in Alabama in

689
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: some little obscure office building is spending one million dollars

690
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: plus to convince folks in the seventh Congressional District in

691
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 1: northwestern Wisconsin that he's a working class hero, a construction

692
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,240
Speaker 1: worker in a listening to talk radio in a work

693
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: truck doesn't want to answer any questions. This is not

694
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: a coronation. Congress is a big deal and it is

695
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:01,280
Speaker 1: something that you have to earn one hundred percent. Okay

696
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: with having younger voices in Congress, that'd be wonderful. But

697
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: I can think of a very long list of other

698
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 1: twenty something conservatives who I have seen doing a lot

699
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: more in the trenches in this state for a lot longer.

700
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: Like I had never heard of this guy before I

701
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 1: posed these questions on Facebook. I reached out. I said,

702
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: come on the show and address some of these questions.

703
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,399
Speaker 1: Completely ignored, called names by his supporters. It doesn't work

704
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: this way. It's not a Cora nation. Where is the

705
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: money coming from? Why wouldn't it be better spent helping

706
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: Derek van Orden? Perhaps Brian's style. Once the rigged Democratic

707
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: Judicial Commission gets done redrawing their very vulnerable districts are

708
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: soon to be very vulnerable districts, all right, But Michael

709
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: Fonsa doesn't think he should answer questions, So I have

710
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: chosen to give his time slot here to another a

711
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: conservative candidate who's willing to come on the and talk

712
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: and that is Kevin Hermoning. Mister hermon Ing, thank you

713
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 1: for coming on the show.

714
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 4: Jess a good thank you for the invitation.

715
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 1: Yes, and I want to switch a positive now because

716
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 1: I don't want to pitch you against Alfonso. I said

717
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: what I said, I raised the questions.

718
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 5: I did.

719
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: What I would like you to do is is pitch yourself.

720
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: Tell the listening audience. And I know they don't get

721
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: a vote. It's not the seventh Congressionals, but this will

722
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: be a podcast. It will go all over the state.

723
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 1: Make the case why should people choose you?

724
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 4: Well, you know I'm not officially in the race yet.

725
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: But you will be all right, you will be.

726
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:44,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yes, Tomorrow, I actually have my document already prepared.

727
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 4: I'll be filing my statement of candidacy tomorrow with the

728
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 4: Federal Election Commission. It's one of the many steps to

729
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 4: getting into a congressional race. And then already on Wednesday,

730
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 4: it's the end of the year campaign finance report. And

731
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 4: I believe that most people who will look at that

732
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 4: report that I will be filing will assuredly understand that

733
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 4: there's a very serious intent to my effort to get

734
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 4: into the race and to win the race. The Primaria

735
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 4: is next August. The general, of course, like all of them,

736
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 4: is in November. But you know, I've spent most of

737
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,760
Speaker 4: my adult life forty years to be exact, in central

738
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:32,280
Speaker 4: and northern Wisconsin, and I've worked as an independent financial

739
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 4: advisor helping middle class families. I was elected to my

740
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 4: local school board. I served sixteen of the last thirty

741
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,240
Speaker 4: two years actually on the school board, including during COVID

742
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 4: I was involved. I have been involved for forty years,

743
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 4: in more than forty years total in GOP politics, helping

744
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 4: elect Republicans to office, which means Republicans in office get

745
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 4: to enact mostly conservative policies, and I'm proud to have

746
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 4: supported that effort for forty plus years. I volunteered for

747
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,240
Speaker 4: a lot of community nonprofits, whether it was Junior Achievement

748
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 4: or the Boys and Girls Club or others. And I

749
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 4: can't even count the number of veterans organizations that I've

750
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 4: been supportive of. So when Congressman Tiffany decided he was

751
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 4: going to run for governor a few months ago, a

752
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 4: lot of my friends and neighbors reached out to me

753
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 4: encouraging me to run. And you know, I'm not I

754
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 4: know that I know that a lot of people want

755
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 4: to cast these primaries as candidates running against others, But

756
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 4: I'm not really looking to run against anyone else. I'm

757
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 4: obviously there's a four year, four way primary, but too

758
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 4: often people want to cast these primaries as being against

759
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 4: I'm not interested in that. I'm running for the seat

760
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 4: and I'm hearing people yearning for real leadership, and that's

761
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 4: what I hope to bring to the seat.

762
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 1: So sorry about that.

763
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 4: There was some need to represent.

764
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was some music that went off out of

765
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: my producer put some music off. I don't know if

766
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: people in the air could hear that, if you could,

767
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. So, you know, Kevin, could you articulate

768
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: your values of your ideology for people your conservative like,

769
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 1: what does that mean for you? And also what do

770
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: you see as the core issues in the seventh Congressional

771
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,760
Speaker 1: district that people are concerned about.

772
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 4: Well, again, I think they're looking for leadership. They're looking

773
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:36,320
Speaker 4: for people who are willing to listen to the concerns

774
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,279
Speaker 4: of the people who live here. I mean, frankly, these

775
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:44,320
Speaker 4: are my friends and neighbors, my coworkers, my clients. Certainly

776
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:49,240
Speaker 4: a lot of people interested in economic security no question

777
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 4: about it. You know my clients and what I do

778
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 4: for a living for almost forty years. People are worried

779
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,800
Speaker 4: about the future of Social Security, They're worried about Medicare,

780
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 4: They're worried about government waste and fraud. They're worried about

781
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 4: the tariffs of how's that affecting the dairy farmers, the

782
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 4: agriculture industry overall, the logging industry, the gencing industry, which

783
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 4: is really popular up here, really a big deal in

784
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 4: Central Wisconsin. And people's jobs and their careers are based

785
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 4: on rules and things that they thought were going to

786
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 4: be an opportunity for them to put at least a

787
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 4: few dollars away for retirement, and then these things change.

788
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 4: But I'm a constitutional conservative. I've lived it. Frankly. I

789
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 4: served thirteen years in the Marine Corps, four years on

790
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 4: active duty, nine years in the reserves. And I would

791
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 4: say during COVID, a very important thing that our school

792
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 4: district did was to lead by example, and we were

793
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:04,280
Speaker 4: as optional for our students and staffed during the entirety

794
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 4: of COVID. And of course we've all been proven right

795
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 4: that it's much better to get our natural immunities built

796
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,399
Speaker 4: up by being exposed to things, and yes, we needed

797
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 4: to be smart and protect against the unknown, but we led,

798
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,839
Speaker 4: and we gained students in our school district from the

799
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 4: surrounding ones that decided to shut down, thinking that that

800
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 4: was the better solution. And now we have a whole

801
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 4: bunch of ten and eleven year olds who were in

802
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:36,800
Speaker 4: kindergarten back then who are struggling with everything from mental

803
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 4: health challenges to being unable to read well and because

804
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 4: they weren't able to see their teachers' mouths articulate words

805
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:47,239
Speaker 4: when they were an a formative part of their life. Right,

806
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 4: I was a Trump elector in twenty sixteen, part of

807
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 4: the electoral College, really exciting opportunity, and I think that

808
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:00,799
Speaker 4: the values that I share are really the values of

809
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 4: or that I have, are the values that I share

810
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 4: with the people of central and northern Wisconsin, where I've

811
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:10,399
Speaker 4: chosen to make home for the last forty years. This

812
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 4: next month.

813
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,439
Speaker 1: So I know you don't want your campaign to find

814
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: by this, but you know you were a hostage in Iran,

815
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 1: so I would be negligent not to ask about that briefly.

816
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: And you know I respect your service as a former

817
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: US Marine in a nutshell kind of quickly, here's we

818
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: have a lot of a lot more time. But tell

819
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: us just a little bit about how that experience, I

820
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 1: suppose has I guess how it's affected your current views

821
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,879
Speaker 1: on say, Iran and foreign policy, and how it's sort

822
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:43,839
Speaker 1: of altered how you would be as a congressman.

823
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 4: Well, I think I've always been about America first, but

824
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 4: like Ronald Reagan, not about America only. The Trump doctrine

825
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 4: even suggests that countries need to pull their own way

826
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 4: our allies, but that we would provide the material type

827
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,719
Speaker 4: support to them. I love that. When I was twenty

828
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 4: years old and serving as the senior NCO at the Embassy,

829
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 4: noncommissioned officer at the Embassy and the Marines as a

830
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 4: marine guard, a lot of people don't understand that our

831
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 4: marine security guards are actually we're supposed to be following

832
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:28,319
Speaker 4: the orders of the Department of State officials, the ambassador

833
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:31,879
Speaker 4: the Charget affair, and that's exactly what we did by

834
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 4: reducing the chaos, by reducing the threats to American lives,

835
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 4: And that's what happened. And yes, we were held prisoner

836
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 4: for four hundred and forty four days, and I could

837
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 4: talk at length about some of the horrors that my

838
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:49,439
Speaker 4: colleagues went through and the challenges of even getting back

839
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 4: and getting back into the swing of things as a

840
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 4: free American. But for me it was a formative experience.

841
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 4: It was my first opportunity to star of my country,

842
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 4: and it's one of the reasons that I joined. It

843
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 4: was really threefold. One was to serve my country. Two

844
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 4: was to travel the world hopefully and I got to

845
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 4: see Japan and Iran, and lastly to take advantage of

846
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 4: the GI Bill to go to college. And so for

847
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 4: forty five years now, since we returned, forty four years,

848
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 4: I've been telling people that really I'd much rather be

849
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 4: known for what I've done with my life than for

850
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 4: what happened to me for a small part of my life,

851
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 4: still very important, informative, But I didn't understand when I

852
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 4: was twenty that it would be the first of many years,

853
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 4: many decades of how can I serve and for me

854
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 4: because so many people, let's face it, I mean not you.

855
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 4: You were You weren't praying for me, you weren't putting

856
00:50:56,440 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 4: yellow ribbons on your tree for me. Jessica, I was alive.

857
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 4: I know you were alive, but I wasn't going to

858
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 4: I wasn't go down that path, I know. But the

859
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 4: truth it is that this is part of my way

860
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 4: to have been giving back to a community, a country

861
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 4: that didn't forget about us while we were gone and

862
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 4: welcomed us home with open arms. And I love I

863
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 4: can tell you one of the big, one of the

864
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,399
Speaker 4: biggest things that I've been the most proud of over

865
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,800
Speaker 4: the last forty five years is my involvement with the

866
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 4: Vietnam Veterans organizations, which, let's face it, they were shunned

867
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 4: by the American people. They were spat on when they

868
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 4: got back. They had to strip themselves of their uniforms

869
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 4: at the airports in San Francisco and LA and wash

870
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:41,720
Speaker 4: in Seattle when they got back to the States because

871
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 4: we were not appreciating our veterans who were merely doing

872
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 4: their jobs. And so I've had that privilege of stepping

873
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 4: forward and in some cases even speaking on their behalf

874
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 4: because they did not get the welcome home that they

875
00:51:55,880 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 4: deserved and it was given to us. And let's face it,

876
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 4: we did learn a big lesson as a result of that,

877
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 4: because we have appreciated our veterans who have served in

878
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:09,880
Speaker 4: the war on terror for the last thirty years.

879
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 1: So, mister hermiting. So I had hit Michael Fonso pretty

880
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:17,720
Speaker 1: hard a few minutes ago for this more than million

881
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:21,240
Speaker 1: dollars being dumped into this district from a shadowy pack

882
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: in Alabama. You had said that your campaign finance report

883
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: will be strong. Where is your money coming from.

884
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 4: It's coming all from inside the district. At this point.

885
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 4: There are no pack dollars. At this point, I am

886
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 4: making a sizable contribution to my campaign. I mean, I

887
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:46,839
Speaker 4: have a forty year career as a financial advisor, and

888
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 4: I think that it is a good value for me

889
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 4: in dollars and cents to put my money where my

890
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 4: mouth is and ask people to not only support my campaign.

891
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:01,240
Speaker 4: I cannot fully sub fund my own campaign because I

892
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 4: haven't sold my business yet and I don't intend to.

893
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 3: I have a job.

894
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 4: In fact, I'm also an adjunct professor at u W

895
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 4: Stevens Point, where I teach upper level juniors and seniors

896
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 4: financial planning, helping them get their feet on the ground

897
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:18,360
Speaker 4: and learning about how they might even get into the industry.

898
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 4: I'm in in one fashion or another, but I don't

899
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 4: really I'm not really looking to respond to what the

900
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 4: other candidates are doing or what they're not doing. I'm

901
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 4: wanting to put myself out there and listen. I ran

902
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 4: for this seat when I was in my twenties, Jessica.

903
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 4: I did this same seat, and the voters told me

904
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 4: something that I learned, and that was I needed to

905
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 4: get a job. I needed to prove that I was

906
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 4: worthy of their support. I needed to get involved in

907
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 4: my community, maybe start and raise a family, maybe even

908
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 4: get elected the local office. And I was elected six

909
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 4: times to the Mosany School Board after a couple of

910
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 4: terms of being on, and then I got off, and

911
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 4: then many years later, got back on the board. I'm

912
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:10,280
Speaker 4: a big believer in term limits, and so I lived

913
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 4: it out. I lived my principles out. And I've shown

914
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 4: the people I live with every day and I talk

915
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 4: to every day, and I go out to the fish

916
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 4: fries with every day, and I hang out at the Veterans'

917
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 4: halls with every single week or month, that I did

918
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 4: what they asked and hopefully they will feel that it's

919
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 4: been enough.

920
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for coming on. I have to go

921
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 1: to a break. I appreciate your service, and I appreciate

922
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 1: that you were willing to come on and talk to me.

923
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: Stay tuned when we come back, we are going to

924
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 1: talk about mister Chad Kadonko. You're not going to want

925
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 1: to miss this one.

926
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:55,880
Speaker 7: Rob the Lynch Buwick GMC of west Man Total Traffic Center.

927
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 8: I'm going crash clean up at the Stadium interchange. They

928
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 8: now have the sellyll Ones seventy five ramp to eastbound

929
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 8: ninety four completely shut down as a result.

930
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: Switching gears to Chad Kadonko. He used to be a

931
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:14,400
Speaker 1: Village of Sister Bay trustee and elected official. Used to

932
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 1: be because he breaking news. Chad Kadonko has now stepped

933
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: down from the village board. He is having a very

934
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: bad week, to which I respond, play stupid games, win

935
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: stupid prizes. Am I allowed to say this on the air.

936
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,640
Speaker 1: I'll let me use the acronym. What do they say

937
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:40,360
Speaker 1: FAF Oh yeah, I think I'll leave it with the

938
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: A acronym. So I'm get in trouble with the FCC or.

939
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,200
Speaker 1: In case you missed the story, which you may have

940
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: missed it because the liberal media missed it. This is

941
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: broken by Wisconsin right now this week. If you follow

942
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: our social media, you know about this and now the

943
00:55:56,680 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: media are catching up. There's a story in the General Sentinel.

944
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: There's a story in a Door County newspaper. Chad Kadonko'

945
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:06,720
Speaker 1: is a co owner of a Door County bar and grill.

946
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: He was also Sister Bay Village trustee. He's accused of

947
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:18,360
Speaker 1: drum roll plays burning, yes, I said, burning his bartender's

948
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:24,319
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk sweatshirt in front of other employees because he

949
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 1: Chad Kadonko believes Charlie Kirk was a quote unquote bigot

950
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 1: and racist. Now he's entitled to his, however, faulty opinions.

951
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 1: What no one is entitled to do, however, is to

952
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:46,080
Speaker 1: torch the personal property of another person, much less an employee,

953
00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 1: because you don't like what it says on their sweatshirt.

954
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 1: This was this. I have a photo of it put

955
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 1: on Facebook. It was a sweatshirt that had Charlie Kirk's

956
00:56:56,040 --> 00:57:01,719
Speaker 1: name and an American flag and it said freedom. And

957
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: this so enraged Chad Kadonko that he allegedly burned it

958
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 1: in front of these other staffers. And I spoke to

959
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:14,880
Speaker 1: someone with direct knowledge of this who described, you know,

960
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: how stressed out this has made this poor bartender like

961
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: he needs this job. It's at Huspy's Food and Spirits

962
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: is the name of the establishment. It's hard to get

963
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 1: another job in the winter in Door County, that kind

964
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: of thing. The guy needs the job, and so he's

965
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 1: dealing with all of this. And this source told me,

966
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,320
Speaker 1: you know this man has you know, other employees have

967
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:38,840
Speaker 1: been laughing about this. They thought it was some big

968
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:43,959
Speaker 1: inside joke. And I obtained two text messages that Chad

969
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 1: Kodonko wrote this bartender. One he said, I need to

970
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 1: apologize for destroying your personal property. Please tell me how

971
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: much I owe you. I would like to have us

972
00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 1: sit down with you sometime this week. I meant to

973
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: address it yesterday, but I am sick, and now he said,

974
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 1: I am not sorry for the message I sent to

975
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,240
Speaker 1: our staff by doing what I did. Charlie Kirk was

976
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 1: a bigot and a racist. There's no place for that

977
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:10,480
Speaker 1: at Husby's. We are inclusive. And the presence of that

978
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 1: sweatshet it was offensive to many staff members. Well guess what,

979
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: burning it legly is offensive to a lot of patrons.

980
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 1: It's offensive to a lot of people who now know

981
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 1: about this because our posts blew up over like a

982
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 1: million views collectively on social media and within I don't know.

983
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: Two days Chad Kadonka was putting out a statement, Oh,

984
00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm stepping down as a village trustee, I'm

985
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 1: stepping away from the business. And in fairness there's four

986
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: co owners and another one of them condemned it. Very upset.

987
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 1: You know that, I think by the hue and cry.

988
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:51,439
Speaker 1: Another text, Chad, roach this bartender is you are right.

989
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: Everyone is entitled to their thoughts, beliefs and opinions, and

990
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 1: we are as a business as well. Most of all

991
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 1: of your coworkers believe what I believe about Charlie Kirk.

992
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: I respect people having different points of view, but I

993
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:08,280
Speaker 1: don't respect racists or discriminatory behavior. You have to understand

994
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: most people will tie his hateful beliefs to people, then

995
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:13,880
Speaker 1: will wear a sweatshirt with his name on it. I

996
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:16,840
Speaker 1: welcome you to explain to your co workers that you

997
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: don't believe that stuff, because right now they do. But

998
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 1: first of all, Charlie Kirk was not a racist or bigot.

999
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 1: You can only get there if you take his comments

1000
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 1: wildly out of context, wildly out of context. Secondly, even

1001
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 1: if you believed that this is the man's personal property

1002
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:38,200
Speaker 1: and his boss has no right to go and allegedly

1003
00:59:38,280 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 1: torture it in a bonfire or whatever. Now, how do

1004
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: we find out about this? Not from the bartender want

1005
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: to protect him, you know, he's declined to comment, but

1006
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 1: from a courageous former police officer. I have him on

1007
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 1: the line, so we're gonna talk to him briefly. His

1008
00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:58,600
Speaker 1: name is Paul Kwiatuski. He's a retired detective with the

1009
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:02,479
Speaker 1: Nashville Police Department atf Agent and he lives in Door County,

1010
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: retired there, and he found out about this and he

1011
01:00:06,280 --> 01:00:09,200
Speaker 1: outed it and that got to us through a couple

1012
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: other people. He wrote a letter to the village board,

1013
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 1: mister Kwiatowski, thanks for coming on the show.

1014
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me Jessica.

1015
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I was hoping you could tell people

1016
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:23,880
Speaker 1: is to start with this, like you heard what had

1017
01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 1: happened with the sweatshirt, and like what was your reaction

1018
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 1: when you you learned through the grapevine?

1019
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:28,360
Speaker 5: Right?

1020
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 1: It's it spread like wildfire around Dork County before it

1021
01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:32,720
Speaker 1: came to my attention.

1022
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:36,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's not unusual. I mean, being a retired

1023
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:39,520
Speaker 3: law enforcement officer to have people call me about public

1024
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:41,680
Speaker 3: safety issues or reach out to me about things. But

1025
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 3: this particular case, I was getting texts and emails and

1026
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:49,640
Speaker 3: calls from from people from from every every facet of

1027
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 3: the county. And and you know, at first we you know,

1028
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 3: we heard the story, and then when I saw the

1029
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:58,560
Speaker 3: text messages, I was I was stunned when I saw

1030
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 3: the comments. And obviously, we worked really hard here into

1031
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 3: our county to find employees. You know, we have an

1032
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 3: employee shortage up here, so we really take good care

1033
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:08,919
Speaker 3: of our employees. We really treasured them. And to see

1034
01:01:09,040 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 3: a prominent business owner allegedly do this to an employee

1035
01:01:12,360 --> 01:01:15,080
Speaker 3: was was unbelievable. And then when you add that on

1036
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 3: top of that a village trustee, this is an elected official.

1037
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 3: It's it's it's a situation where I mean, not only

1038
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 3: is it illegal, I mean burning somebody's properties illegal. In fact,

1039
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 3: there's there's actually a hate crime statue of enhancement in

1040
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 3: the Wisconsin Code. But you you, when you when you

1041
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 3: look at the fact that Charlie Kirk was assassinated what

1042
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 3: sixteen weeks ago, and and you're going to take a

1043
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 3: shirt and a shirt with an American flag on it.

1044
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 1: Too, on it it says freedom on it.

1045
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 3: Yes, and and it's obviously it was something that I

1046
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,600
Speaker 3: felt like definitely needed to be brought to the Sister

1047
01:01:55,680 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 3: Bay Village Board's attention. I don't know if it if

1048
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 3: they knew about it before where they got my letter

1049
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:03,320
Speaker 3: or not, but they knew about it after they got it.

1050
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 1: So you wrote a letter and you know, explain in

1051
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:09,000
Speaker 1: a nutshell what it said. You know, what you were

1052
01:02:09,080 --> 01:02:10,320
Speaker 1: asking them to do.

1053
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 3: Well, the only thing I was asking to do is

1054
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:16,000
Speaker 3: I said that there's a very concerning allegation that that's

1055
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 3: taken place in one year establishments in your in your town,

1056
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 3: and it's in it's allegedly was was was carried out

1057
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 3: by a member of the management. And I explained what

1058
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:28,000
Speaker 3: it was, the burning of Charlie Kirkshirt, and and I

1059
01:02:28,600 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 3: told them, I said, you know, you know, Sister Bays

1060
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 3: is is a town that really preaches inclusivity and and

1061
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 3: I would certainly think that they would want to look

1062
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:38,880
Speaker 3: into that and get to the bottom of it and

1063
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 3: make sure that it's it's a welcoming community for all.

1064
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:44,880
Speaker 3: And that was that was essentially what I said.

1065
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 1: I mean, good for you for doing that. And then

1066
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:49,479
Speaker 1: that came to our attention because somebody saw your letter

1067
01:02:49,560 --> 01:02:51,800
Speaker 1: and then sent it to me and we blew it up,

1068
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:54,640
Speaker 1: and you know our website on social and you know,

1069
01:02:54,960 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 1: it took a life of its own. I had contacted

1070
01:02:58,480 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 1: the Dora County Sheriff's depart and they had said I

1071
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: couldn't have the reports. They did get a complaint I

1072
01:03:04,840 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: think from the bartender whose shirt was allegedly burned, and

1073
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:11,560
Speaker 1: they said I couldn't get that because it was an

1074
01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 1: ongoing case. And now I saw something in the Journal

1075
01:03:16,440 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 1: Sentinel this morning where they're now saying it's not an

1076
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 1: active investigation because they need more information from the bartender.

1077
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:26,120
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell you all. I mean, this bartender

1078
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:28,120
Speaker 1: doesn't want to lose his job. Like he's in a

1079
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:30,840
Speaker 1: terrible position, right, I mean, it's like a scary thing

1080
01:03:30,920 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: to now go cooperate with the Sheriff's apartment about your

1081
01:03:33,600 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 1: boss or I don't know if it's a former boss.

1082
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:39,240
Speaker 1: Like there's a statement where Husby's is like got this

1083
01:03:39,280 --> 01:03:43,959
Speaker 1: apology from Chad, and Chad saying he's stepping away from

1084
01:03:43,960 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 1: the business and all that. I guess you're a former

1085
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:51,000
Speaker 1: ATF agent, a former detective as I said with Nashville PD,

1086
01:03:51,520 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: what do you think the Door County Sheriff's Department should

1087
01:03:54,400 --> 01:03:55,160
Speaker 1: be doing here?

1088
01:03:57,000 --> 01:04:00,480
Speaker 3: Well, obviously, I mean a case like this, a lot

1089
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 3: of this is going to fall in whether or not

1090
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 3: the victim wants to prosecute in this case. But given given,

1091
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 3: given the magnitude of this, and and and and and

1092
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:12,800
Speaker 3: the other in the and all the other stuff that's

1093
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 3: involved in it, I mean, you definitely want to you

1094
01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:16,160
Speaker 3: want to get on a case like this as quick

1095
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:18,720
Speaker 3: as you can and put it to rest. You want

1096
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:20,600
Speaker 3: to you want to found it, you want to unfound it,

1097
01:04:21,160 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 3: prosecute it, don't prosecute it. But making a decision as quick,

1098
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 3: you know, as quickly as you can and get into

1099
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 3: the bottom of it is definitely important.

1100
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 2: You know.

1101
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 3: Obviously, a case like this, I mean, employees going up

1102
01:04:33,480 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 3: against owners isn't isn't always really a fair fight sometimes,

1103
01:04:37,640 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 3: if that makes sense. And and so I think that

1104
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 3: that's probably one reason too, why so many people in

1105
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:46,440
Speaker 3: this community stepped up and really, you know, really demanded

1106
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:49,160
Speaker 3: that you know, demanded that that this case be looked into,

1107
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:51,280
Speaker 3: and and and really you know, really we're there to

1108
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:53,520
Speaker 3: support the victim, which I think is really important here

1109
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:55,080
Speaker 3: as much as anything else.

1110
01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:58,480
Speaker 1: Mhm, right, I mean, And I want to make something

1111
01:04:58,480 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 1: clear as well. This man, his name's Robert Meredith, the

1112
01:05:02,200 --> 01:05:05,880
Speaker 1: bartender at Husby's. He did not try to wear the

1113
01:05:05,960 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: Charlie kirkshirt while bartending or while on the clock. What

1114
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,160
Speaker 1: he did is he wore it to work and then

1115
01:05:12,200 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 1: took it off, and he put it on a clothes rack,

1116
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 1: and then he switched into some work shirt and then

1117
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:20,280
Speaker 1: he worked, and then he forgot it hanging in the

1118
01:05:20,280 --> 01:05:23,800
Speaker 1: clothes rack at Huspy's, went home and then learned from

1119
01:05:23,840 --> 01:05:26,400
Speaker 1: other employees that this had occurred, that it was burned,

1120
01:05:26,680 --> 01:05:31,240
Speaker 1: and then received these text messages from Chad Kadonko. I

1121
01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: would also note that Dor County has been called a

1122
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:41,200
Speaker 1: Bellweather county because it has predicted the presidential election outcome

1123
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:45,320
Speaker 1: for years and years. It's a very divided community politically.

1124
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:49,560
Speaker 1: It failed in its Bellweather status in the last election

1125
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 1: because it went to Kamala Harris, but only by fewer

1126
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 1: than five hundred votes. Now, mister Kwatowski, you and I

1127
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:59,840
Speaker 1: had spoken previously, and you said some interesting things about

1128
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,360
Speaker 1: just the tensions in the community because it is so divided.

1129
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:06,520
Speaker 1: I think you had commented that you realized how tense

1130
01:06:06,560 --> 01:06:10,280
Speaker 1: it was getting when people were being uninvited to packer parties.

1131
01:06:10,320 --> 01:06:11,920
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about all that.

1132
01:06:13,480 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 3: Well, going back to twenty twenty, the election cycle was

1133
01:06:16,840 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 3: extremely hostile up here. There were, particularly for the conservative

1134
01:06:24,480 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 3: on the conservative side, people who were who had conservative

1135
01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:31,080
Speaker 3: signs in their yards were seeing those signs stolen and

1136
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 3: vandalized and alarming numbers. I mean, to the point now

1137
01:06:34,280 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 3: that pretty much if you see a conservative political sign

1138
01:06:36,920 --> 01:06:38,280
Speaker 3: up here, you can bet that there's going to be

1139
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 3: a trail camp taking a picture of it all the time.

1140
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 3: That culminated with the vandalism of the Republican Party headquarters

1141
01:06:45,720 --> 01:06:50,040
Speaker 3: in Sturgeon Bay, and after that it seems like conservatives

1142
01:06:50,120 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 3: up here really went underground, especially the business owners. You know,

1143
01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:55,720
Speaker 3: they were concerned, they were concerned about getting hit with boycotts,

1144
01:06:56,600 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 3: They were concerned just I mean in general about the

1145
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:03,360
Speaker 3: hostility that conservatives are facing up here. And a couple

1146
01:07:03,400 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 3: of years ago a friend of mine said, you know,

1147
01:07:04,680 --> 01:07:07,959
Speaker 3: I've been being going to the same packer party every year,

1148
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:10,560
Speaker 3: and and and you know, the all the time, season

1149
01:07:10,640 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 3: after season, and well when they figured out who I

1150
01:07:13,360 --> 01:07:16,000
Speaker 3: voted for Trump. They I got uninvited to it, and

1151
01:07:16,080 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 3: that was really amazing because I started hearing everything breaking

1152
01:07:20,320 --> 01:07:22,280
Speaker 3: down up here on political lines. We never used to

1153
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:24,200
Speaker 3: do that. Nobody ever cared what your politics were when

1154
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 3: you were hanging out at the beach or or whatever

1155
01:07:26,520 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 3: the supper clubs. But it just Door County became extremely,

1156
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 3: as I put it, politically toxic. And I actually had

1157
01:07:32,560 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 3: the opportunity to testify in a court case, a civil

1158
01:07:35,440 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 3: hearing this past summer, and it was it was it

1159
01:07:38,760 --> 01:07:42,920
Speaker 3: was involving threats of political violence. And I actually testified

1160
01:07:42,920 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 3: and told judge that I felt like Door County had

1161
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:48,280
Speaker 3: become politically toxic, and this is exactly the type of

1162
01:07:48,320 --> 01:07:49,640
Speaker 3: thing that I was talking about.

1163
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 1: Well, here's the solution, sir, here's the solution, and this

1164
01:07:53,960 --> 01:07:55,800
Speaker 1: is where it all connects. And if you've been listening

1165
01:07:55,840 --> 01:07:59,200
Speaker 1: to the show since you know, three o'clock, you're going

1166
01:07:59,280 --> 01:08:01,280
Speaker 1: to see how you know everything I've said kind of

1167
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:05,000
Speaker 1: you know, now it connects. I had said in the

1168
01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:08,960
Speaker 1: past or the show several times that the center of

1169
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:13,680
Speaker 1: power in the media it's shifting. It's shifting as we speak,

1170
01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:16,680
Speaker 1: and it's shifting in favor of independent voices, of podcasters,

1171
01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:19,439
Speaker 1: of social media and all of this. It's shifting away

1172
01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:22,840
Speaker 1: from the so called liberal media. And so I think

1173
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 1: what we were able to do is push back for

1174
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:30,880
Speaker 1: this bartender. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't think

1175
01:08:31,080 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: Chad Kadanko knew what hit them at first. Like all

1176
01:08:34,160 --> 01:08:37,000
Speaker 1: of a sudden, there's like you know, probably thousands of

1177
01:08:37,000 --> 01:08:40,439
Speaker 1: people commenting on this. The word got out. Okay, the

1178
01:08:40,479 --> 01:08:43,240
Speaker 1: word got out through independent media. The word got out

1179
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:47,840
Speaker 1: because of courageous folks like yourself, mister Kotowski, who said enough,

1180
01:08:48,400 --> 01:08:50,640
Speaker 1: like we're not tolerating this anymore. We're not going to

1181
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:55,760
Speaker 1: stay underground anymore, and we won't be censored anymore. And

1182
01:08:55,840 --> 01:08:58,760
Speaker 1: if you do something like this, you allegedly take your

1183
01:08:58,760 --> 01:09:02,519
Speaker 1: employees try Elly Kirk sweatshirt, you decide to burn it

1184
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:08,320
Speaker 1: in front of other employees, guess what we will expose that.

1185
01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:11,360
Speaker 1: You will be held accountable for that, you will have

1186
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:15,280
Speaker 1: to answer to that, and it will happen pretty rapidly.

1187
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 1: And so I have to go to another break now.

1188
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:23,800
Speaker 1: But I commend you for standing up for the spartender,

1189
01:09:24,040 --> 01:09:30,639
Speaker 1: for standing against you know, political hate, and for doing

1190
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:34,080
Speaker 1: something about it, for writing to your village boarden, for

1191
01:09:34,200 --> 01:09:38,120
Speaker 1: exposing this, thank you for coming on the show. Stay tuned, everybody,

1192
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:39,080
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.

1193
01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:45,880
Speaker 8: Set in Delay Building eight ninety four east bounds eighty

1194
01:09:45,960 --> 01:09:49,120
Speaker 8: fourth to seventy six ninety four east bound. The ramp

1195
01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:51,479
Speaker 8: from one seventy five south bound there at the Stadium

1196
01:09:51,520 --> 01:09:55,240
Speaker 8: interchange completely shut down for crash clean up. I'm Kevin

1197
01:09:55,280 --> 01:09:55,840
Speaker 8: Henry in that.

1198
01:09:55,920 --> 01:10:01,160
Speaker 1: On the show today, Paul Kwiatowski, Trevor t Tomash, Kevin

1199
01:10:01,200 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 1: Herman Ing and the person I mentioned, Nick Shirley, the

1200
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:11,000
Speaker 1: YouTuber knocking on Smali daycare centers in Minnesota. What they

1201
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:15,840
Speaker 1: share in common is that they're fighting back. They're getting

1202
01:10:15,840 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 1: off their sofas in their own ways, in their own

1203
01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:23,840
Speaker 1: communities and worlds. They're fighting back. They're saying, you know what,

1204
01:10:23,960 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: we are just not going to take it anymore. Well,

1205
01:10:30,200 --> 01:10:32,760
Speaker 1: here's another person that we all need to fight back for.

1206
01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:38,920
Speaker 1: And I feel this really really viscerally. Fred Smith. Who

1207
01:10:38,960 --> 01:10:44,320
Speaker 1: is Fred Smith? He is a one hundred percent disabled

1208
01:10:45,120 --> 01:10:49,479
Speaker 1: Vietnam War combat veteran. Let me just tell you a

1209
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:51,759
Speaker 1: little bit about him, then I'll talk about the news

1210
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:54,599
Speaker 1: on him and why we need to fight back for him.

1211
01:10:56,560 --> 01:11:00,719
Speaker 1: Mister Smith was shot five times in Vietnam. He's seventy

1212
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:05,040
Speaker 1: five years old, almost seventy six. He's had three knee replacements,

1213
01:11:05,040 --> 01:11:09,280
Speaker 1: a hip replacement. He uses a cane. He ran an

1214
01:11:09,360 --> 01:11:14,160
Speaker 1: antique business in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Fortunately for him, it's

1215
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:17,639
Speaker 1: in Dane County for years. He's lived in the same

1216
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 1: house for forty years. He's considered the team Grandpa for

1217
01:11:22,479 --> 01:11:29,000
Speaker 1: his grandkids, you know, sporting games and teams. He's a widower.

1218
01:11:29,040 --> 01:11:31,759
Speaker 1: His wife died about ten years ago of Bavarian cancer.

1219
01:11:31,960 --> 01:11:36,439
Speaker 1: He is a father of one. He has no criminal record,

1220
01:11:36,560 --> 01:11:43,240
Speaker 1: not even a speeding ticket. On December twenty third this year,

1221
01:11:44,320 --> 01:11:47,600
Speaker 1: mister Smith went to the VA to a doctor's appointment,

1222
01:11:48,160 --> 01:11:50,479
Speaker 1: and on his way home he stopped at a quick

1223
01:11:50,520 --> 01:11:54,760
Speaker 1: trip in Mount Horeb to get lottery tickets scratch off

1224
01:11:54,760 --> 01:12:00,880
Speaker 1: tickets for his family members for Christmas. Also, mentioning is

1225
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:04,240
Speaker 1: very very important. He has a slipping memory. And I

1226
01:12:04,280 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 1: spoke to his daughter yesterday and this morning at great length,

1227
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:10,519
Speaker 1: and she described how he puts post it notes around

1228
01:12:10,520 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 1: his house so he can remember things. The family was

1229
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:16,600
Speaker 1: already working to get him, you know, moved out of

1230
01:12:16,640 --> 01:12:19,160
Speaker 1: the home where he's lived for forty years, closer to

1231
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:23,400
Speaker 1: the daughter. All of this slipping memory very important. He

1232
01:12:23,439 --> 01:12:26,000
Speaker 1: goes into the Quick Trip to buy these scratch off tickets.

1233
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:29,320
Speaker 1: You have to pay cash, and he accidentally pays with

1234
01:12:29,400 --> 01:12:33,720
Speaker 1: a Trump Novelty one hundred dollars bill. It is obviously

1235
01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:37,360
Speaker 1: a fake bill. It's a joke bill. We've all seen these.

1236
01:12:37,439 --> 01:12:40,679
Speaker 1: I think they exist for all presidents. It got mixed

1237
01:12:40,680 --> 01:12:44,040
Speaker 1: in with two fifties, his daughter said. He didn't know

1238
01:12:44,080 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 1: what was there. He doesn't even remember where he got it,

1239
01:12:46,160 --> 01:12:48,760
Speaker 1: maybe at a restaurant, has no idea how it got

1240
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:51,880
Speaker 1: mixed in with this. Didn't realize he was paying with this.

1241
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:54,960
Speaker 1: He forgets his debit card on the counter and he

1242
01:12:55,000 --> 01:12:59,000
Speaker 1: goes home. The police show up. Mount Horry Police show up.

1243
01:12:59,040 --> 01:13:03,479
Speaker 1: They interrogate him, this disabled combat veteran. They had traced

1244
01:13:03,520 --> 01:13:06,880
Speaker 1: him through the forgotten debit card. He's cooperative. He said

1245
01:13:06,920 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: he's sorry, he was confused, he shocked, like he had

1246
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:12,439
Speaker 1: no idea this was there. He didn't mean to pay

1247
01:13:12,439 --> 01:13:15,160
Speaker 1: with it. Can I make this right? Can I go

1248
01:13:15,240 --> 01:13:18,439
Speaker 1: to a Quick Trip. I'll pay it right now. I'm sorry.

1249
01:13:18,479 --> 01:13:22,599
Speaker 1: I really didn't know this again, never even a speeding ticket.

1250
01:13:23,280 --> 01:13:25,799
Speaker 1: What are the Mount Horror police do. Do they use discretion?

1251
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:27,920
Speaker 1: Do they say, you know what, sir, let's just go

1252
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:30,240
Speaker 1: make this right, Let's go to a quick trip, pay

1253
01:13:30,280 --> 01:13:35,040
Speaker 1: the money, make this right. No, they arrest him and

1254
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:39,439
Speaker 1: they haul him off to jail for three days. This

1255
01:13:39,520 --> 01:13:42,639
Speaker 1: man spends in the Dane County jail, at jail by

1256
01:13:42,640 --> 01:13:47,160
Speaker 1: the way, that will not even honor detainers for criminal

1257
01:13:47,160 --> 01:13:50,719
Speaker 1: illegal immigrants who stab people in the stomach and things

1258
01:13:50,760 --> 01:13:54,960
Speaker 1: like that, rape children. But they hold this man, Fred Smith,

1259
01:13:55,040 --> 01:13:59,960
Speaker 1: for three whole days. He calls his daughter, he said,

1260
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:02,120
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can make it through the night.

1261
01:14:02,760 --> 01:14:06,360
Speaker 1: He's limping around. This man can't even use his handfully

1262
01:14:06,400 --> 01:14:11,559
Speaker 1: because of his gunshot wounds from Vietnam. Finally he gets

1263
01:14:11,640 --> 01:14:14,240
Speaker 1: released three days later. It's because of Christmas. He gets

1264
01:14:14,240 --> 01:14:17,000
Speaker 1: held for so long, and guess what happens. The very

1265
01:14:17,080 --> 01:14:20,840
Speaker 1: liberal Dane County District Attorney ishmael Osan has charged this

1266
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:27,040
Speaker 1: man with a felony felony forgery, facing a maximum prison term.

1267
01:14:28,640 --> 01:14:33,440
Speaker 1: Excuse me, I'm getting so angry, I'm coughing a maximum

1268
01:14:33,439 --> 01:14:38,800
Speaker 1: prison term of six years. I'm gonna take a break

1269
01:14:38,840 --> 01:14:43,280
Speaker 1: when I come back. I'm gonna unpack this further. Stay tuned.

1270
01:14:48,760 --> 01:14:52,840
Speaker 7: From the Lynch GM superstore in Burlington. Total Traffic Center.

1271
01:14:52,680 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 8: Stadium interchange ramp from southbound one seventy five to ninety

1272
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:58,240
Speaker 8: four east bound reopened from an earlier accident, but now

1273
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:00,880
Speaker 8: I got police activity closing the night for eastbound.

1274
01:15:01,520 --> 01:15:04,800
Speaker 1: He was shot five times in combat. Now charged with

1275
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:09,639
Speaker 1: a felony felony forgery by the Dane County District Attorney,

1276
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:15,760
Speaker 1: very liberal district Attorney Ishmael Ozan for accidentally paying for

1277
01:15:15,880 --> 01:15:20,519
Speaker 1: lottery tickets for his family at Quick Trip in Mount

1278
01:15:20,560 --> 01:15:27,680
Speaker 1: Horreb with a Trump novelty bill. This isn't even a

1279
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:31,000
Speaker 1: clever counterfeit bill. I mean, it's not like he was

1280
01:15:31,040 --> 01:15:34,519
Speaker 1: trying to do this obviously. And there's a concept in

1281
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:37,760
Speaker 1: criminal law. It's called mensrea. It means you have to

1282
01:15:37,800 --> 01:15:40,599
Speaker 1: have a guilty mind, like you have to be conscious

1283
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:43,280
Speaker 1: of the fact that you're doing something wrong, like he

1284
01:15:43,320 --> 01:15:46,519
Speaker 1: didn't realize that he had this bill mixed up with

1285
01:15:46,560 --> 01:15:50,760
Speaker 1: his other cash. He is an elderly man, a lot

1286
01:15:50,800 --> 01:15:56,000
Speaker 1: of physical challenges. Who's honestly, he's he's got slipping of

1287
01:15:56,080 --> 01:15:59,400
Speaker 1: his memory, putting post it notes around his house so

1288
01:15:59,439 --> 01:16:01,920
Speaker 1: he can remember things. He didn't mean to do this,

1289
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:07,200
Speaker 1: and yet ishmael Azan charges him with a felony. We

1290
01:16:07,280 --> 01:16:09,599
Speaker 1: need to stand up for Fred Smith, like, how can

1291
01:16:09,640 --> 01:16:12,640
Speaker 1: you do that? You can do that by writing the

1292
01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:16,360
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office and say you know, I dismissed these charges.

1293
01:16:17,439 --> 01:16:19,760
Speaker 1: That's one thing you can do. There's also a GoFundMe

1294
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:23,000
Speaker 1: to help him with legal costs because he's now fighting

1295
01:16:23,040 --> 01:16:25,800
Speaker 1: to stay out of prison. Now, who are the other

1296
01:16:25,920 --> 01:16:29,720
Speaker 1: villains in this story? Well, Quick Trip doesn't look very

1297
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:35,360
Speaker 1: good either. They're an iconic company. I like Quick Trip

1298
01:16:35,479 --> 01:16:38,160
Speaker 1: going to it, but you know they mishandled this completely

1299
01:16:39,920 --> 01:16:43,080
Speaker 1: because the Mount Horror Police put out a statement indicating

1300
01:16:43,920 --> 01:16:49,919
Speaker 1: that Quick Trip had wanted to pursue criminal charges against

1301
01:16:50,000 --> 01:16:57,240
Speaker 1: mister Smith. Now I contacted them. The daughter of Fred

1302
01:16:57,240 --> 01:17:03,160
Speaker 1: Smith has spoken out and now has done I'm calling

1303
01:17:03,160 --> 01:17:06,639
Speaker 1: it at about face. I spoke to their spokesman, Been Libel,

1304
01:17:06,680 --> 01:17:09,760
Speaker 1: today and he said, we did call and apologize and

1305
01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:12,600
Speaker 1: we are now looking to get the charges dropped. It

1306
01:17:12,680 --> 01:17:15,080
Speaker 1: was never our intention for this to happen in the

1307
01:17:15,080 --> 01:17:18,480
Speaker 1: first place. And I said, well, but it was reported.

1308
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:21,519
Speaker 1: You know, the police said that that Quick Trip was

1309
01:17:21,560 --> 01:17:26,040
Speaker 1: pursuing charges against mister Smith, and he had no answer

1310
01:17:26,080 --> 01:17:28,240
Speaker 1: for that. He said, well, I don't know what to

1311
01:17:28,280 --> 01:17:33,000
Speaker 1: say about that. He said, I'm not quite sure about that,

1312
01:17:33,080 --> 01:17:35,800
Speaker 1: but it was never our intent, he said. Quick Trip

1313
01:17:35,880 --> 01:17:38,400
Speaker 1: has called the DA's office. They've made it known that

1314
01:17:38,439 --> 01:17:42,040
Speaker 1: their wishes are that the charges are dropped against Fred,

1315
01:17:42,800 --> 01:17:45,840
Speaker 1: but of course quick Trip doesn't have the power to

1316
01:17:45,920 --> 01:17:51,840
Speaker 1: do that by itself. That is Ishmael Ozan and mister

1317
01:17:51,880 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 1: Smith already spent three days in jail and he's now

1318
01:17:54,360 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 1: socked with a felony charge. The Mount Horror Police don't

1319
01:17:58,080 --> 01:18:00,479
Speaker 1: look great either. And I'm usually very properly, but I

1320
01:18:00,560 --> 01:18:02,880
Speaker 1: called them and gave them a chance to say, well,

1321
01:18:02,880 --> 01:18:05,160
Speaker 1: we wish we had handled this differently. Maybe we didn't

1322
01:18:05,160 --> 01:18:07,320
Speaker 1: need to arrest this man and pull him off to jail.

1323
01:18:08,880 --> 01:18:13,080
Speaker 1: I mean, give me a break. And instead they reissued

1324
01:18:13,120 --> 01:18:16,480
Speaker 1: their old press release to me, which basically just recounts

1325
01:18:16,520 --> 01:18:20,080
Speaker 1: the facts that, yeah, he handed this to the clerk.

1326
01:18:22,240 --> 01:18:25,639
Speaker 1: You know what, The DA and the police and Quick Trip,

1327
01:18:26,280 --> 01:18:29,680
Speaker 1: they don't look very good here, and I am officially

1328
01:18:29,720 --> 01:18:32,760
Speaker 1: calling them all out. The dominoes are starting to fall.

1329
01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:34,760
Speaker 1: Quick Trip is now doing the right thing. They want

1330
01:18:34,760 --> 01:18:37,719
Speaker 1: the charges dropped. The Mount Horne Police, I am calling

1331
01:18:37,720 --> 01:18:40,360
Speaker 1: on them to say the same, please drop these charges.

1332
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:42,880
Speaker 1: And I am officially calling on whether he I don't

1333
01:18:42,920 --> 01:18:45,280
Speaker 1: know if he cares what I say or not. Da

1334
01:18:45,560 --> 01:18:49,200
Speaker 1: Ishmael Ozon to start going after the real criminals and

1335
01:18:49,400 --> 01:18:56,160
Speaker 1: drop these charges. Fred Smith is a man who served

1336
01:18:56,160 --> 01:18:59,920
Speaker 1: his country with distinction. He was shot five times in Vietnam.

1337
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:03,519
Speaker 1: He needs our support. Everybody, stay tuned.

1338
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:17,760
Speaker 7: All programs on News Talk eleven thirty wys and are

1339
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:22,040
Speaker 7: broadcast through the NX Wealth Management Studios. NX Wealth Management

1340
01:19:22,400 --> 01:19:25,559
Speaker 7: know the difference staying forward all.

1341
01:19:25,560 --> 01:19:28,400
Speaker 1: Day to the show. You're listening to News Talk eleven

1342
01:19:28,439 --> 01:19:32,639
Speaker 1: thirty WISN the Dan O'Donnells Show. This is Jessica McBride

1343
01:19:32,640 --> 01:19:36,840
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin RightNow dot Com, filling in for Dan. And

1344
01:19:36,880 --> 01:19:38,920
Speaker 1: I teased in the three o'clock hour that I have

1345
01:19:38,920 --> 01:19:42,519
Speaker 1: a very special guest if I'm gonna take her on now,

1346
01:19:43,560 --> 01:19:48,200
Speaker 1: Claire Sardina. Now many of my listeners will know who

1347
01:19:48,200 --> 01:19:53,519
Speaker 1: that is. She was part of the legendary Milwaukee Neil

1348
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:59,439
Speaker 1: Diamond interpreter band Lightning and Thunder, and she's being played

1349
01:19:59,439 --> 01:20:03,439
Speaker 1: by Kate Hudson. In the movie song song Blue. So

1350
01:20:03,680 --> 01:20:05,080
Speaker 1: I want to switch it up here. I want to

1351
01:20:05,120 --> 01:20:08,519
Speaker 1: go non political, I want to go positive. I'm a

1352
01:20:08,560 --> 01:20:12,240
Speaker 1: movie buff and I went to this movie a couple

1353
01:20:12,360 --> 01:20:17,360
Speaker 1: days ago, and I absolutely loved it. And it's been

1354
01:20:17,439 --> 01:20:19,639
Speaker 1: such a long time since I've seen a good movie

1355
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:22,400
Speaker 1: in the theater. There's so much, you know, just garbage.

1356
01:20:22,960 --> 01:20:28,360
Speaker 1: Turned out. This was heartwarming. It was an absolutely wonderfully

1357
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:31,760
Speaker 1: moving movie. And I know that a lot of my

1358
01:20:32,080 --> 01:20:34,600
Speaker 1: listeners feel that way too, because you've been telling me

1359
01:20:34,640 --> 01:20:37,639
Speaker 1: that on social media. How many people loved this movie.

1360
01:20:37,680 --> 01:20:41,799
Speaker 1: So I asked Claire to come on and she graciously accepted. Claire,

1361
01:20:41,840 --> 01:20:46,080
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on wisn to talk about this movie.

1362
01:20:46,360 --> 01:20:49,200
Speaker 9: Well, thank you for having me. Jessica appreciate it.

1363
01:20:49,360 --> 01:20:52,000
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I want to jump right in and

1364
01:20:52,040 --> 01:20:55,200
Speaker 1: just ask you. I guess, what's it like having a

1365
01:20:55,240 --> 01:20:58,280
Speaker 1: movie made about you?

1366
01:20:58,400 --> 01:21:05,920
Speaker 9: Well, it's surreal. I'm humbling myself and saying to myself, well, wow,

1367
01:21:07,200 --> 01:21:10,720
Speaker 9: why me? And how is this all possible? But it's

1368
01:21:10,920 --> 01:21:16,360
Speaker 9: possible because I guess lightning and thunder here in Milwaukee

1369
01:21:16,840 --> 01:21:23,400
Speaker 9: and the surrounding areas were much more popular than I

1370
01:21:23,560 --> 01:21:31,200
Speaker 9: ever imagined. And they picked up this movie and they

1371
01:21:31,240 --> 01:21:35,000
Speaker 9: saw the story, and they were encouraged by the story,

1372
01:21:35,960 --> 01:21:40,280
Speaker 9: they were mortified by the story. They were they fell

1373
01:21:40,400 --> 01:21:44,080
Speaker 9: in love with the story, and all of a sudden

1374
01:21:44,160 --> 01:21:47,439
Speaker 9: it becomes a major motion picture.

1375
01:21:48,080 --> 01:21:51,240
Speaker 1: So I want to read something to you that I wrote.

1376
01:21:51,320 --> 01:21:53,000
Speaker 1: I kind of did a mini review of the movie,

1377
01:21:53,040 --> 01:21:55,759
Speaker 1: and I said, I don't think it was really about music.

1378
01:21:56,280 --> 01:21:59,599
Speaker 1: I think it was about human connection and love. I said,

1379
01:21:59,600 --> 01:22:01,960
Speaker 1: everyone should find a thunder to their lightning, a love

1380
01:22:02,080 --> 01:22:05,040
Speaker 1: like this despite moments of great trauma. Mike, that was

1381
01:22:05,160 --> 01:22:07,519
Speaker 1: you know your former husband's passed away when he was

1382
01:22:07,600 --> 01:22:10,519
Speaker 1: lightning to your thunder. I said, his devotion to you

1383
01:22:10,640 --> 01:22:14,240
Speaker 1: never wavered in yours to him, you were soulmates, such

1384
01:22:14,280 --> 01:22:16,400
Speaker 1: as a line in the movie when he said people

1385
01:22:16,439 --> 01:22:18,320
Speaker 1: told him he was the one who looked like Neil

1386
01:22:18,360 --> 01:22:20,240
Speaker 1: Diamond suggest sing with out her when you had a

1387
01:22:20,280 --> 01:22:23,200
Speaker 1: tragic accident lost part of your leg, but he said,

1388
01:22:23,280 --> 01:22:26,360
Speaker 1: I can't and I won't. We are a duo. Love

1389
01:22:26,439 --> 01:22:29,800
Speaker 1: isn't always easy, but yours endured despite great hardships. So

1390
01:22:29,880 --> 01:22:32,120
Speaker 1: that's I think one of the key themes I took.

1391
01:22:32,479 --> 01:22:35,040
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that, like your love for Mike

1392
01:22:35,160 --> 01:22:35,479
Speaker 1: and his.

1393
01:22:35,520 --> 01:22:42,000
Speaker 9: For you, well, it was unconditional, and we were definitely

1394
01:22:42,240 --> 01:22:47,200
Speaker 9: soul maids. You know, when you look into someone's eyes

1395
01:22:48,200 --> 01:22:50,920
Speaker 9: and you can look at each other as though you're

1396
01:22:50,920 --> 01:22:54,200
Speaker 9: looking in a mirror, and you can read each other

1397
01:22:54,479 --> 01:22:59,120
Speaker 9: thoughts and feelings, and you feel the same things, and

1398
01:22:59,160 --> 01:23:04,439
Speaker 9: you have the same desires in life, the wants and needs,

1399
01:23:04,479 --> 01:23:08,040
Speaker 9: and we both wanted to be performers, so we both

1400
01:23:08,160 --> 01:23:15,400
Speaker 9: elaborated on that, and our lives morphed together with family, friends, relatives,

1401
01:23:15,640 --> 01:23:19,360
Speaker 9: and especially fans of lightning and thunder.

1402
01:23:19,720 --> 01:23:23,519
Speaker 1: I do think that you forged a very deep bond

1403
01:23:23,600 --> 01:23:25,800
Speaker 1: with your audience back in the day, and I think

1404
01:23:25,840 --> 01:23:30,240
Speaker 1: that was captured to this much broader audience now, you know,

1405
01:23:30,320 --> 01:23:33,160
Speaker 1: through this movie. And I'd also written I think the

1406
01:23:33,160 --> 01:23:36,080
Speaker 1: movie was just about human connection, and I said it

1407
01:23:36,120 --> 01:23:39,760
Speaker 1: captured something purely Milwaukee, the certain humility and connection in

1408
01:23:39,800 --> 01:23:42,519
Speaker 1: a place where everyone is connected by a few degrees,

1409
01:23:42,840 --> 01:23:45,680
Speaker 1: a small town, big city. You know, Mike's connection with

1410
01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:48,479
Speaker 1: the Soul band, his connection with his manager and dentists,

1411
01:23:48,520 --> 01:23:52,920
Speaker 1: his connection with your daughter, all very moving, the blended family,

1412
01:23:53,640 --> 01:23:56,720
Speaker 1: His connection with Neil Diamond's words and your connection with

1413
01:23:56,760 --> 01:24:00,320
Speaker 1: those words can you speak a little bit about that. Yeah, like,

1414
01:24:00,360 --> 01:24:03,360
Speaker 1: what do you see as the deeper theme of this movie.

1415
01:24:05,439 --> 01:24:09,960
Speaker 9: The deeper theme, in my opinion, is if you look

1416
01:24:10,120 --> 01:24:14,200
Speaker 9: at people's lives, they can all when they're sitting in

1417
01:24:14,240 --> 01:24:18,920
Speaker 9: the theater, look at their own circumstances and relate in

1418
01:24:19,040 --> 01:24:22,600
Speaker 9: some kind of way, shape or form. I've heard that

1419
01:24:22,840 --> 01:24:26,559
Speaker 9: a lot about people that have seen the movie, like, oh,

1420
01:24:26,800 --> 01:24:30,439
Speaker 9: I just thought this special person in my life and

1421
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:34,800
Speaker 9: I've had to regroup and revamp or I'm disabled in

1422
01:24:34,960 --> 01:24:39,439
Speaker 9: this kind of way. And Claire, you're an inspiration to

1423
01:24:39,640 --> 01:24:44,200
Speaker 9: me regarding your disability and how you handle it. But

1424
01:24:44,479 --> 01:24:48,200
Speaker 9: I think everybody in life has got a situation. If

1425
01:24:48,200 --> 01:24:51,840
Speaker 9: you sit back and you look and you observe, you

1426
01:24:52,000 --> 01:24:56,840
Speaker 9: realize that I'm not alone in this picture. There are

1427
01:24:56,880 --> 01:25:03,560
Speaker 9: many people that can relate to the events that transpired

1428
01:25:03,760 --> 01:25:04,800
Speaker 9: in the movie.

1429
01:25:05,479 --> 01:25:07,960
Speaker 1: I think it's because the movie essentially is about the

1430
01:25:08,040 --> 01:25:11,680
Speaker 1: human condition and life is hard, right, it's challenging, I mean.

1431
01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:13,920
Speaker 1: And in case people don't know your story, so you're

1432
01:25:13,960 --> 01:25:17,960
Speaker 1: part of this very successful but local, fairly local band

1433
01:25:18,520 --> 01:25:21,120
Speaker 1: that you know it was interpreting Neil diamond songs, and

1434
01:25:21,160 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 1: then the movie shows that you were gardening outside your

1435
01:25:25,280 --> 01:25:28,479
Speaker 1: home in the Milwaukee area and in Milwaukee County, and

1436
01:25:28,520 --> 01:25:31,439
Speaker 1: a car struck you, and you lost part of your leg,

1437
01:25:31,479 --> 01:25:35,040
Speaker 1: and that really was difficult for you. And yet your husband, Mike,

1438
01:25:35,080 --> 01:25:37,479
Speaker 1: who was in the band with you, stayed at your

1439
01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:41,000
Speaker 1: side until you found, you know, the will to sort

1440
01:25:41,040 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 1: of go back to performing. Was that accurate? Is that

1441
01:25:44,520 --> 01:25:48,240
Speaker 1: how the tragedy happened with with with your leg?

1442
01:25:49,000 --> 01:25:52,519
Speaker 9: Very much? So I always say that the way I

1443
01:25:52,680 --> 01:25:56,599
Speaker 9: describe it was, I was gardening in my front yard.

1444
01:25:57,080 --> 01:26:01,960
Speaker 9: A car came up on my property and struck me down.

1445
01:26:02,400 --> 01:26:08,840
Speaker 9: And basically it was an older driver and he should

1446
01:26:08,840 --> 01:26:13,040
Speaker 9: have never really been driving anymore. And I believe I

1447
01:26:13,080 --> 01:26:16,719
Speaker 9: had heard that he never drove again, and like six

1448
01:26:16,800 --> 01:26:20,400
Speaker 9: months later he passed away. He was an elderly man,

1449
01:26:21,200 --> 01:26:25,080
Speaker 9: and I think what he did was sideswipe a car

1450
01:26:25,760 --> 01:26:31,360
Speaker 9: on the street and literally lose his footage and stepped

1451
01:26:31,479 --> 01:26:36,080
Speaker 9: on the accelerator instead of the break and headed right

1452
01:26:36,600 --> 01:26:41,439
Speaker 9: to me. So again, you say the word, what was

1453
01:26:41,439 --> 01:26:45,960
Speaker 9: the word you used about about people and their lives?

1454
01:26:46,200 --> 01:26:47,880
Speaker 9: You use that word.

1455
01:26:49,280 --> 01:26:52,680
Speaker 1: That's about the human condition. I think this story, this

1456
01:26:52,800 --> 01:26:56,840
Speaker 1: movie was just about the challenges of life. Like life

1457
01:26:56,880 --> 01:27:00,680
Speaker 1: is hard, marriage is hard, blended families, hear all of

1458
01:27:00,720 --> 01:27:04,600
Speaker 1: this stuff. Pursuing your passion is hard, and yet you

1459
01:27:04,760 --> 01:27:07,400
Speaker 1: never gave up. And it's so wonderful to see the

1460
01:27:07,439 --> 01:27:10,519
Speaker 1: reaction to this movie and that your story is now

1461
01:27:10,560 --> 01:27:15,280
Speaker 1: being brought to a wider audience outside of this smaller

1462
01:27:15,400 --> 01:27:19,160
Speaker 1: pond of Milwaukee. What would it mean to Mike do

1463
01:27:19,240 --> 01:27:24,160
Speaker 1: you think to know that and to see this movie work.

1464
01:27:24,960 --> 01:27:30,880
Speaker 9: What it would mean to him? What it means to him? Really? Yeah,

1465
01:27:30,920 --> 01:27:35,120
Speaker 9: because you know, I feel his presence every day. He's

1466
01:27:35,200 --> 01:27:38,960
Speaker 9: my angel. I talk to him, I look up to him.

1467
01:27:39,479 --> 01:27:43,160
Speaker 9: I pray to him. I say, give me strength to

1468
01:27:43,200 --> 01:27:46,679
Speaker 9: deal with what would be something that was your dream.

1469
01:27:47,720 --> 01:27:51,680
Speaker 9: And he knows it from heaven. He knows that it

1470
01:27:51,800 --> 01:27:56,120
Speaker 9: was his dream. And he's shaking hands with doctor Dave

1471
01:27:56,720 --> 01:28:01,720
Speaker 9: and Tom Demodoo, our manager of lightning and thunder and

1472
01:28:01,800 --> 01:28:06,760
Speaker 9: all that have passed before us. And really he is

1473
01:28:06,920 --> 01:28:13,320
Speaker 9: rejoicing in the fact that this is transpiring today. He's

1474
01:28:13,400 --> 01:28:18,479
Speaker 9: playing a role in it. I believe this strongly and wholeheartedly.

1475
01:28:19,840 --> 01:28:23,320
Speaker 1: I told everybody this is a very inspiring movie, and

1476
01:28:23,479 --> 01:28:26,240
Speaker 1: everything you just said, I feel like that sentiment is

1477
01:28:26,360 --> 01:28:29,719
Speaker 1: captured in the film. I wanted to ask you because

1478
01:28:29,720 --> 01:28:31,880
Speaker 1: I know people who've seen it will just be curious

1479
01:28:32,520 --> 01:28:34,720
Speaker 1: what did the movie get, you know, just right where

1480
01:28:34,720 --> 01:28:37,439
Speaker 1: they're like, wow, they nailed that about us, and what

1481
01:28:37,520 --> 01:28:39,800
Speaker 1: did it maybe get wrong? Where it just it' didn't

1482
01:28:39,840 --> 01:28:41,400
Speaker 1: happen that way. I mean, I'm not trying to mash

1483
01:28:41,439 --> 01:28:44,160
Speaker 1: a movie, but like, what are something I was asked.

1484
01:28:43,840 --> 01:28:46,840
Speaker 9: A question by Hugh Jackson when he came in town

1485
01:28:47,000 --> 01:28:50,400
Speaker 9: for the Milwaukee premiere, and he says, what did you

1486
01:28:50,680 --> 01:28:53,760
Speaker 9: like the most about the movie? I believe Craig Bore,

1487
01:28:54,000 --> 01:28:58,240
Speaker 9: the director, also asked me that, and I stopped and

1488
01:28:58,360 --> 01:29:04,800
Speaker 9: I proceeded to say the dream scene because I could

1489
01:29:04,920 --> 01:29:10,320
Speaker 9: relate to that, being that, you know, the delusions that

1490
01:29:10,479 --> 01:29:15,920
Speaker 9: come after some kind of a tragic loss and the

1491
01:29:15,960 --> 01:29:20,200
Speaker 9: mentality of things that you go through and stuff like that.

1492
01:29:20,840 --> 01:29:25,960
Speaker 9: Kate Hudson had it. She nailed it. I mean, these people,

1493
01:29:26,800 --> 01:29:31,200
Speaker 9: Hugh and Tate, they nailed the story to a t.

1494
01:29:32,160 --> 01:29:38,200
Speaker 9: It's not chuannologically exactly in the order, but the message

1495
01:29:38,439 --> 01:29:47,080
Speaker 9: is there of love and resilience and music and camaraderie

1496
01:29:47,200 --> 01:29:58,640
Speaker 9: and just pain suffering, help, wellbeing and overall human strength.

1497
01:29:59,479 --> 01:30:03,200
Speaker 1: I love that so much, and yeah, I'm curious. I'm

1498
01:30:03,240 --> 01:30:06,000
Speaker 1: going to mix it up just slightly because I don't know.

1499
01:30:06,080 --> 01:30:08,160
Speaker 1: We don't have much more time than I get you here.

1500
01:30:08,200 --> 01:30:10,240
Speaker 1: But what does Hugh Jackman like?

1501
01:30:12,160 --> 01:30:15,880
Speaker 9: Two? Jackman is the most down to earth personable person

1502
01:30:16,320 --> 01:30:20,000
Speaker 9: you could ever meet. After seeing and doing all he

1503
01:30:20,080 --> 01:30:23,320
Speaker 9: did in Milwaukee and more that he had to do,

1504
01:30:23,680 --> 01:30:26,280
Speaker 9: he came into the green room, put his arm around

1505
01:30:26,320 --> 01:30:29,799
Speaker 9: me and said, Claire, how would you like to sing tonight?

1506
01:30:30,439 --> 01:30:36,040
Speaker 9: And like, oh my goodness, you know, but beyond that,

1507
01:30:36,600 --> 01:30:40,679
Speaker 9: just so so down to earth, so personable, I mean,

1508
01:30:41,240 --> 01:30:44,000
Speaker 9: true to life. And you've heard this, You've heard this

1509
01:30:44,160 --> 01:30:48,200
Speaker 9: from people. But Kate Hudson when I went to the

1510
01:30:48,280 --> 01:30:51,800
Speaker 9: New York premiere because she was unable to make it

1511
01:30:51,800 --> 01:30:57,960
Speaker 9: to Milwaukee, she with open arms, welcomed me, welcomed me

1512
01:30:58,120 --> 01:31:02,839
Speaker 9: with open arms, made me feel so comfortable, so loved,

1513
01:31:03,320 --> 01:31:08,240
Speaker 9: so needed, so wanted. She is a beautiful human being

1514
01:31:08,680 --> 01:31:13,120
Speaker 9: and a wonderful family person too. I met her mother

1515
01:31:13,439 --> 01:31:18,559
Speaker 9: to Goldie Hawn and her counterpart Kurt Russell.

1516
01:31:20,240 --> 01:31:23,519
Speaker 1: Wow, that's I mean, can you explain, just for people

1517
01:31:23,520 --> 01:31:27,799
Speaker 1: that don't know the story, how lightning and thunder started?

1518
01:31:27,960 --> 01:31:30,719
Speaker 1: And again I called it a Neil Diamond interpreter band,

1519
01:31:30,760 --> 01:31:33,080
Speaker 1: because that's what the movie described it as. You know,

1520
01:31:33,320 --> 01:31:35,960
Speaker 1: Hugh Jackman playing Mike described it as not just a

1521
01:31:36,000 --> 01:31:39,640
Speaker 1: tribute band, but you're interpreting Neil Diamond's wells.

1522
01:31:39,640 --> 01:31:43,920
Speaker 9: We started actually was we started doing Kerrie ok. When

1523
01:31:44,000 --> 01:31:49,559
Speaker 9: we first got together in April eleventh, nineteen eighty nine,

1524
01:31:50,160 --> 01:31:53,439
Speaker 9: I picked him up from the airport. We had our

1525
01:31:53,560 --> 01:32:00,120
Speaker 9: first business meeting at Mosfiser's restaurant down on the East Side,

1526
01:32:00,240 --> 01:32:03,360
Speaker 9: and he proceeded because at the time you could smoke

1527
01:32:03,439 --> 01:32:07,960
Speaker 9: in restaurants, and he was smoking a cigarette, and he

1528
01:32:08,240 --> 01:32:11,120
Speaker 9: took a drag of his cigarette and he blew it

1529
01:32:11,200 --> 01:32:14,680
Speaker 9: out in my face and he pointed at me and

1530
01:32:14,720 --> 01:32:21,240
Speaker 9: he said, you watch my smoke, baby, And then before

1531
01:32:21,400 --> 01:32:25,320
Speaker 9: the end of the night, the night turned into a

1532
01:32:25,479 --> 01:32:28,680
Speaker 9: romantic night between the.

1533
01:32:28,640 --> 01:32:29,559
Speaker 4: Two of us.

1534
01:32:29,880 --> 01:32:34,720
Speaker 9: So that's the beginning of Lightning and Thunder, and then

1535
01:32:35,280 --> 01:32:41,320
Speaker 9: from there a couple years into our stint as Lightning

1536
01:32:41,360 --> 01:32:45,759
Speaker 9: and Thunder, which was from nineteen eighty nine to six,

1537
01:32:45,880 --> 01:32:48,479
Speaker 9: the year that Lightning passed, So we were lightning and

1538
01:32:48,560 --> 01:32:52,640
Speaker 9: thunder all the time that we were together, the seventeen years.

1539
01:32:53,080 --> 01:33:01,360
Speaker 9: But anyway, what I was saying is that our business

1540
01:33:01,439 --> 01:33:06,400
Speaker 9: meeting was the beginning. And then two years later and

1541
01:33:06,560 --> 01:33:11,080
Speaker 9: Elvison personator said, you do a great Neil Diamond, you

1542
01:33:11,200 --> 01:33:16,120
Speaker 9: have to pursue it. So he did pursue it. And

1543
01:33:16,240 --> 01:33:21,599
Speaker 9: then I pursued Patsy Kleine as my feature artists, and

1544
01:33:21,640 --> 01:33:25,519
Speaker 9: then we got involved in Wisconsin State Fair, and then

1545
01:33:25,560 --> 01:33:30,960
Speaker 9: we started drawing bigger crowds and the popularity began. And

1546
01:33:31,000 --> 01:33:34,080
Speaker 9: then we had a four year stint at a place

1547
01:33:34,160 --> 01:33:38,920
Speaker 9: called Alioto's on Jackson. We were the house band there

1548
01:33:39,000 --> 01:33:43,120
Speaker 9: for four years. We got married in nineteen ninety four

1549
01:33:43,640 --> 01:33:48,400
Speaker 9: at Wisconsin State Fair under a big tent. And all

1550
01:33:48,439 --> 01:33:53,200
Speaker 9: of these different features can be found in The Truth Story.

1551
01:33:53,840 --> 01:34:01,000
Speaker 9: The documentary of Lightning and Thunder also entitled Song Song, and.

1552
01:34:01,040 --> 01:34:03,519
Speaker 1: I wanted to give you the final word here, a

1553
01:34:03,640 --> 01:34:07,240
Speaker 1: chance to talk about your upcoming performance. You're performing in

1554
01:34:07,320 --> 01:34:09,200
Speaker 1: the Milwaukey area tomorrow, right.

1555
01:34:09,880 --> 01:34:14,759
Speaker 9: Tell us tomorrow, tell us where we can find You're excited? Yeah, Tony,

1556
01:34:14,800 --> 01:34:17,000
Speaker 9: are you excited about that performance?

1557
01:34:17,640 --> 01:34:20,960
Speaker 3: Well, in the words of Hugh Jackman in the movie.

1558
01:34:21,280 --> 01:34:25,360
Speaker 9: Huge like Huge, Tony is sitting right by my side.

1559
01:34:25,680 --> 01:34:28,960
Speaker 9: We just got done with the zoom interview before we

1560
01:34:29,120 --> 01:34:33,240
Speaker 9: talk to you. We like to multitask and had a

1561
01:34:33,360 --> 01:34:37,160
Speaker 9: nice breakfast in this cold cold weather. You know, I

1562
01:34:37,240 --> 01:34:39,640
Speaker 9: live in Arizona.

1563
01:34:38,800 --> 01:34:39,360
Speaker 8: Right right?

1564
01:34:39,400 --> 01:34:41,519
Speaker 1: Who's Tony? Tell everyone who Tony is?

1565
01:34:42,600 --> 01:34:48,040
Speaker 9: Oh, Tony, Tony Luciano is my partner in crime. He

1566
01:34:48,360 --> 01:34:51,960
Speaker 9: is my first of all. Claire Giver, she likes to

1567
01:34:52,000 --> 01:34:57,880
Speaker 9: clarify that my manager. Yes, get it, Clairegiver, get it.

1568
01:34:58,000 --> 01:34:59,880
Speaker 9: He's a caregiver. Claire Giver.

1569
01:35:00,360 --> 01:35:01,879
Speaker 1: I'm just glad to see you happy.

1570
01:35:02,040 --> 01:35:03,800
Speaker 9: I'm glad to.

1571
01:35:03,720 --> 01:35:08,120
Speaker 1: See you happy, like laughing and happy and performing.

1572
01:35:08,360 --> 01:35:13,400
Speaker 9: He is too, He is too. We are called Thunder

1573
01:35:13,640 --> 01:35:17,439
Speaker 9: after Lightning. To go back to the performance, Thunder after

1574
01:35:17,560 --> 01:35:22,080
Speaker 9: Lightning if you get the title there, Thunder after Lightning,

1575
01:35:22,680 --> 01:35:25,879
Speaker 9: and he is the after lightning part of the thunder

1576
01:35:25,920 --> 01:35:29,759
Speaker 9: and after Lightning. And we will be performing there together

1577
01:35:30,120 --> 01:35:34,880
Speaker 9: from six to nine for tuba Door Tuesday at Polly's

1578
01:35:35,120 --> 01:35:37,360
Speaker 9: Pub and Eatery. We can't wait.

1579
01:35:40,320 --> 01:35:42,960
Speaker 1: Eighty first, so people could just show up and see

1580
01:35:43,000 --> 01:35:43,479
Speaker 1: you perform.

1581
01:35:44,280 --> 01:35:49,439
Speaker 9: Oh, absolutely, we want everybody to come. Polly's will make room,

1582
01:35:49,520 --> 01:35:52,960
Speaker 9: They got plenty of rooms. Yes, let's make it a

1583
01:35:53,000 --> 01:35:55,599
Speaker 9: blockbuster night. We would love it.

1584
01:35:55,800 --> 01:35:59,559
Speaker 1: I love this. Thank you. Thank you so much for

1585
01:35:59,600 --> 01:36:01,519
Speaker 1: coming on the show. I have to go to a

1586
01:36:01,560 --> 01:36:03,880
Speaker 1: break now, but I want to thank you and you

1587
01:36:03,960 --> 01:36:06,320
Speaker 1: honestly thank you for doing Milwaukee Proud. This was a

1588
01:36:06,360 --> 01:36:10,599
Speaker 1: wonderful movie. It was I thought it. I thought it

1589
01:36:10,640 --> 01:36:12,679
Speaker 1: was the best movie of twenty twenty five. I loved

1590
01:36:12,720 --> 01:36:16,080
Speaker 1: it in every way, shape and form. So thank you well.

1591
01:36:16,120 --> 01:36:20,320
Speaker 9: The general consensus is that Jessica and I thank you

1592
01:36:20,400 --> 01:36:28,000
Speaker 9: for your time today, and so does Tony. Say goodbye, Tony.

1593
01:36:26,960 --> 01:36:27,479
Speaker 1: Stay tuned.

1594
01:36:27,520 --> 01:36:31,040
Speaker 9: Everyone, Thank you, Delica, Happy New Year, Happy New Year,

1595
01:36:31,320 --> 01:36:33,600
Speaker 9: and come tomorrow night to Paully's.

1596
01:36:33,920 --> 01:36:42,439
Speaker 7: Thanks prob the Lynch Chevrolet of Kenosha Total Traffic Center.

1597
01:36:42,479 --> 01:36:44,640
Speaker 8: He's been ninety four out at Brookfield Road. You got

1598
01:36:44,680 --> 01:36:46,920
Speaker 8: a stalled vehicle off to the right shoulder. Then you

1599
01:36:47,000 --> 01:36:50,439
Speaker 8: got delays starting at seventy six clearing up after Hally

1600
01:36:50,720 --> 01:36:52,360
Speaker 8: West Bandalay's.

1601
01:36:51,680 --> 01:36:54,639
Speaker 1: On the movie song sung Blue. Give me a call

1602
01:36:54,800 --> 01:36:57,160
Speaker 1: four one, four, seven, nine, nine eleven thirty. I can

1603
01:36:57,200 --> 01:36:59,200
Speaker 1: take a couple of your calls. It didn't receive a

1604
01:36:59,240 --> 01:37:02,439
Speaker 1: text message from a listener. He said, Jessica, I can't

1605
01:37:02,479 --> 01:37:04,840
Speaker 1: tell you how much I'm enjoying your interview with Claire

1606
01:37:05,000 --> 01:37:07,479
Speaker 1: as it is so down to earth, gives a great history,

1607
01:37:07,560 --> 01:37:10,760
Speaker 1: and getting to hear her voice is incredible.

1608
01:37:11,240 --> 01:37:11,400
Speaker 2: Now.

1609
01:37:11,400 --> 01:37:14,599
Speaker 1: The only thing I didn't like about the movie was

1610
01:37:15,320 --> 01:37:18,800
Speaker 1: Kate Hudson's accent. She didn't quite nail it. I think

1611
01:37:18,880 --> 01:37:23,240
Speaker 1: if you're not from Milwaukee or Wisconsin, you probably wouldn't

1612
01:37:23,240 --> 01:37:25,680
Speaker 1: realize that. And it was close. It was close, it

1613
01:37:25,760 --> 01:37:29,280
Speaker 1: just wasn't quite. It was a little bit too pronounced.

1614
01:37:30,160 --> 01:37:32,160
Speaker 1: And of course the movie took a few liberties with

1615
01:37:32,200 --> 01:37:37,679
Speaker 1: the facts. For example, a Mike Sardina did not pass away,

1616
01:37:38,640 --> 01:37:41,679
Speaker 1: you know, in the parking lot of the custard stand

1617
01:37:41,720 --> 01:37:44,360
Speaker 1: on his way to see Neil Diamond. You know, just

1618
01:37:44,439 --> 01:37:46,760
Speaker 1: a few things that they had to sort of fictionalize

1619
01:37:47,240 --> 01:37:51,080
Speaker 1: for the purposes of the movie's narrative. I read you

1620
01:37:51,080 --> 01:37:54,280
Speaker 1: though a couple paragraphs I wrote in my mini review

1621
01:37:54,320 --> 01:38:01,439
Speaker 1: of this I said the movie captured something pure Milwaukee,

1622
01:38:01,720 --> 01:38:05,040
Speaker 1: that certain humility and connection in a place where everyone

1623
01:38:05,120 --> 01:38:08,559
Speaker 1: is connected by a few degrees, a small town, big city,

1624
01:38:09,400 --> 01:38:12,519
Speaker 1: a place where people have their priorities straight, exemplified by

1625
01:38:12,520 --> 01:38:14,760
Speaker 1: the friend in the movie who wouldn't forsake Mike when

1626
01:38:14,800 --> 01:38:19,760
Speaker 1: he couldn't pay his mortgage. He nailed at Milwaukee dichotomy.

1627
01:38:20,240 --> 01:38:23,960
Speaker 1: By he, I mean the director and Hugh Jackman. They

1628
01:38:24,040 --> 01:38:28,040
Speaker 1: nailed that Milwaukee dichotomy and artists who can changes on oil.

1629
01:38:28,439 --> 01:38:33,439
Speaker 1: A veteran Mike was the working class struggle, and she did,

1630
01:38:33,840 --> 01:38:39,439
Speaker 1: having a passion persevering through tragedy and trauma, getting back up.

1631
01:38:40,880 --> 01:38:43,559
Speaker 1: Folks who are content with making it big in their

1632
01:38:43,600 --> 01:38:49,880
Speaker 1: smaller pond because actual human connections matter more to them

1633
01:38:49,920 --> 01:38:55,719
Speaker 1: than high tailing it to New York or La because

1634
01:38:55,720 --> 01:38:58,320
Speaker 1: the movie was about human connection between him and the

1635
01:38:58,320 --> 01:39:00,799
Speaker 1: soul band, between him and his dentis to some manager,

1636
01:39:00,880 --> 01:39:04,800
Speaker 1: between him and his stepdaughter, very moving, between him and

1637
01:39:04,840 --> 01:39:08,200
Speaker 1: his step son, among the blended family, between him and

1638
01:39:08,240 --> 01:39:12,360
Speaker 1: the folks in the Thai restaurant, perhaps between them both

1639
01:39:12,400 --> 01:39:15,680
Speaker 1: and Neil Diamond's words, between them and their audiences, and

1640
01:39:16,080 --> 01:39:20,320
Speaker 1: this city, between Claire and her daughter. I also thought

1641
01:39:20,360 --> 01:39:23,920
Speaker 1: the movie had a great message about adoption and about

1642
01:39:23,960 --> 01:39:29,240
Speaker 1: forming families that aren't always connected only by blood. So

1643
01:39:29,439 --> 01:39:33,200
Speaker 1: also about people who almost made it bigger and now

1644
01:39:33,320 --> 01:39:37,160
Speaker 1: have through this movie but for some severe twists of fate,

1645
01:39:38,439 --> 01:39:43,320
Speaker 1: the human condition, the challenges of life and trauma. But

1646
01:39:43,400 --> 01:39:45,240
Speaker 1: maybe they didn't need to high tail it to New

1647
01:39:45,280 --> 01:39:47,800
Speaker 1: York or LA. Maybe they didn't need all all of

1648
01:39:47,840 --> 01:39:51,400
Speaker 1: the soup law. They had something deeper. And we should

1649
01:39:51,439 --> 01:39:53,519
Speaker 1: all be so lucky to find a love like that,

1650
01:39:54,240 --> 01:39:57,920
Speaker 1: to find friends and family like that, to know that

1651
01:39:57,960 --> 01:40:00,920
Speaker 1: when we go out of this tough but beautiful and

1652
01:40:01,120 --> 01:40:05,320
Speaker 1: very challenging world, there will be a roomful of people

1653
01:40:06,000 --> 01:40:12,920
Speaker 1: who care. That was my mini mini movie review. All Right,

1654
01:40:12,960 --> 01:40:15,719
Speaker 1: we're gonna switch it up one more time here. Maybe

1655
01:40:15,760 --> 01:40:18,600
Speaker 1: I'm over using that phrase, but I do want to

1656
01:40:18,640 --> 01:40:24,719
Speaker 1: talk about the Somali daycare centers. Nick Shirley was also

1657
01:40:24,800 --> 01:40:28,760
Speaker 1: named one of the Wisconsin right now dot COM's Winners

1658
01:40:28,840 --> 01:40:31,960
Speaker 1: of the Year. You can find our full list on

1659
01:40:32,080 --> 01:40:36,040
Speaker 1: Wisconsin RightNow dot com. All kinds of people that were

1660
01:40:37,040 --> 01:40:40,080
Speaker 1: honored by Jim Pivovar Chicken I as winners of the

1661
01:40:40,160 --> 01:40:45,599
Speaker 1: Year in twenty twenty five. And we also honored the

1662
01:40:45,680 --> 01:40:51,760
Speaker 1: reporter from the Capital Times who exposed the the dpi's

1663
01:40:51,800 --> 01:40:57,040
Speaker 1: mishandling of sexual misconduct cases involving teachers. I think I

1664
01:40:57,120 --> 01:41:01,040
Speaker 1: never thought that I would ever give a Winner of

1665
01:41:01,040 --> 01:41:03,719
Speaker 1: the Year award two a reporter from the Capital Times.

1666
01:41:03,760 --> 01:41:08,000
Speaker 1: It's a very very liberal newspaper, but Daniel decloses her name.

1667
01:41:08,160 --> 01:41:11,000
Speaker 1: She she just did know a great job. I didn't

1668
01:41:11,000 --> 01:41:14,439
Speaker 1: think the reporting was perfect, but it was gutsy, it

1669
01:41:14,520 --> 01:41:17,320
Speaker 1: was courageous, it was old school, and it's making a

1670
01:41:17,360 --> 01:41:22,240
Speaker 1: real difference. And so we also recognized her. But in

1671
01:41:22,280 --> 01:41:25,759
Speaker 1: that section of the winner's list, we recognize Nick Shirley.

1672
01:41:25,840 --> 01:41:29,960
Speaker 1: He is this YouTuber podcaster. You haven't seen it, you should.

1673
01:41:30,000 --> 01:41:32,000
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the first hour of the show,

1674
01:41:32,600 --> 01:41:36,799
Speaker 1: he's been going around Minneapolis with the video camera, knocking

1675
01:41:36,880 --> 01:41:44,640
Speaker 1: on the doors of Somali daycare centers and finding no

1676
01:41:44,800 --> 01:41:50,280
Speaker 1: kids there, and talking to people who are in the

1677
01:41:50,360 --> 01:41:54,000
Speaker 1: area who say, well, we don't see kids going there.

1678
01:41:55,439 --> 01:41:59,160
Speaker 1: And he's been exposing this in these videos that had

1679
01:41:59,200 --> 01:42:02,160
Speaker 1: something like a hunt undred million watches. And I've been

1680
01:42:02,200 --> 01:42:05,160
Speaker 1: talking the whole program about how this balance of power

1681
01:42:05,280 --> 01:42:10,960
Speaker 1: is shifting within the media ecosphere from trictional media to

1682
01:42:11,479 --> 01:42:14,920
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. But to be honest, I have

1683
01:42:15,040 --> 01:42:18,120
Speaker 1: sort of a mixed feeling about some of these MAGA

1684
01:42:18,160 --> 01:42:21,559
Speaker 1: influencers or just social media influencers saying we are the

1685
01:42:21,600 --> 01:42:24,000
Speaker 1: media now, because a lot of them sit on social

1686
01:42:24,040 --> 01:42:27,880
Speaker 1: media and argue with each other the sort of nonsense

1687
01:42:27,960 --> 01:42:31,160
Speaker 1: we saw it Amfest there's a lot of inspirational stuff

1688
01:42:31,160 --> 01:42:36,160
Speaker 1: out of Amfest. I didn't think the podcast wars were

1689
01:42:36,200 --> 01:42:40,240
Speaker 1: among them. You know, Ben Shapiro going at Megan Kelly,

1690
01:42:40,320 --> 01:42:44,240
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly going at Ben Shapiro, Candae Owens in the

1691
01:42:44,280 --> 01:42:47,840
Speaker 1: mix somewhere there, all of this back and forth Tucker

1692
01:42:47,880 --> 01:42:51,120
Speaker 1: and this, Like, you know, people, this is not about you.

1693
01:42:52,040 --> 01:42:55,080
Speaker 1: It's not about your egos or your feuds. It's about

1694
01:42:55,160 --> 01:42:57,800
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk. This is about Erica Kirk. This is about

1695
01:42:57,800 --> 01:43:02,880
Speaker 1: the message, the theme, and so some of this sort

1696
01:43:02,920 --> 01:43:07,960
Speaker 1: of national scale influencer stuff I'm not a huge fan of.

1697
01:43:08,160 --> 01:43:10,719
Speaker 1: I think it's like any new technology, there's a plus,

1698
01:43:10,760 --> 01:43:13,920
Speaker 1: there's a minus. It's a tool. It's all how it's used.

1699
01:43:14,120 --> 01:43:17,760
Speaker 1: There's going to be a good and a bad. I

1700
01:43:17,800 --> 01:43:21,800
Speaker 1: want to see more of the kind of stuff Nick

1701
01:43:21,840 --> 01:43:25,559
Speaker 1: Shirley is doing where people aren't just arguing on social media.

1702
01:43:25,600 --> 01:43:28,240
Speaker 1: They're out there with a microphone, knocking on doors, doing

1703
01:43:28,280 --> 01:43:32,000
Speaker 1: some original reporting. And that's what Jim and I have

1704
01:43:32,080 --> 01:43:34,360
Speaker 1: tried to do. Jim Pivovarchik and I have really tried

1705
01:43:34,400 --> 01:43:36,040
Speaker 1: to do with Wisconsin right now. I mean, we do

1706
01:43:36,080 --> 01:43:39,320
Speaker 1: our opinion stuff, we have our social media element when

1707
01:43:39,360 --> 01:43:42,000
Speaker 1: it comes to our news site. When we started it

1708
01:43:42,040 --> 01:43:45,200
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, we said to each other, we are

1709
01:43:45,280 --> 01:43:48,160
Speaker 1: going to approach this journalistically. We're going to use traditional

1710
01:43:48,200 --> 01:43:53,400
Speaker 1: journalistic skills and we're just not going to infect it

1711
01:43:53,600 --> 01:43:56,880
Speaker 1: with liberal bias, and we're going to try to do

1712
01:43:56,960 --> 01:44:00,479
Speaker 1: the stories that the liberal media won't that they and sir,

1713
01:44:01,760 --> 01:44:04,920
Speaker 1: but we're going to use traditional journalistic skills to do that.

1714
01:44:05,000 --> 01:44:10,960
Speaker 1: Knocking on doors, filing open records requests, verifying information, not

1715
01:44:11,080 --> 01:44:13,360
Speaker 1: printing it if you can't prove it, you know, all

1716
01:44:13,400 --> 01:44:15,519
Speaker 1: of this kind of thing. And I think it's when

1717
01:44:15,560 --> 01:44:18,559
Speaker 1: you nail it to the wall journalistically, I mean, be honest,

1718
01:44:18,640 --> 01:44:22,080
Speaker 1: like we did with with this Sister Bay Village trustee guy,

1719
01:44:22,600 --> 01:44:24,559
Speaker 1: you know, took the time to call people, to talk

1720
01:44:24,600 --> 01:44:27,120
Speaker 1: to people, to call the SHARE's department, you know, to

1721
01:44:27,160 --> 01:44:29,559
Speaker 1: pick up the phone to you know, not just sort

1722
01:44:29,560 --> 01:44:31,679
Speaker 1: of do a riff on social media, but to actually

1723
01:44:31,760 --> 01:44:35,439
Speaker 1: do some reporting. That's when you move the needle. And

1724
01:44:35,960 --> 01:44:38,439
Speaker 1: that's what I think some conservative sites have not done

1725
01:44:38,479 --> 01:44:43,560
Speaker 1: right in the past in Wisconsin as well. I'm not

1726
01:44:43,600 --> 01:44:45,519
Speaker 1: gonna name nas or anything about trying to be negative.

1727
01:44:45,920 --> 01:44:48,879
Speaker 1: I'm talking about years ago, just where it's more a polemic,

1728
01:44:48,960 --> 01:44:54,080
Speaker 1: it's more opinion unless doing the journalism. You move the

1729
01:44:54,120 --> 01:44:58,960
Speaker 1: needle with the journalism. And so Nick Shirley, I commend that,

1730
01:44:59,120 --> 01:45:01,920
Speaker 1: like he's doing what I want to see more of.

1731
01:45:02,040 --> 01:45:03,960
Speaker 1: I want to see these influencers doing more of this,

1732
01:45:04,080 --> 01:45:09,800
Speaker 1: like literally doing the journalism that you could argue in

1733
01:45:09,840 --> 01:45:13,519
Speaker 1: some ways the tricial media won't do. It's a little

1734
01:45:13,560 --> 01:45:15,760
Speaker 1: unfair in this case. And I'm going to break that

1735
01:45:15,800 --> 01:45:20,760
Speaker 1: down in a minute. So he's taking this these cameras

1736
01:45:20,800 --> 01:45:24,960
Speaker 1: going around, getting all of these massive views, and now

1737
01:45:26,000 --> 01:45:28,800
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security has picked up the torch and

1738
01:45:29,760 --> 01:45:31,760
Speaker 1: that's why they weren't doing this already, although they have

1739
01:45:31,880 --> 01:45:36,599
Speaker 1: been exposing Somali fraud in Minnesota through other criminal cases.

1740
01:45:36,640 --> 01:45:40,799
Speaker 1: But they went out today and they're knocking door to door.

1741
01:45:40,800 --> 01:45:42,960
Speaker 1: They're going door to door and they're sort of replicating

1742
01:45:43,000 --> 01:45:44,960
Speaker 1: what he's doing, but now it's with the power of

1743
01:45:45,040 --> 01:45:49,639
Speaker 1: law and they're out there sort of trying to verify

1744
01:45:49,680 --> 01:45:52,400
Speaker 1: this and knocking on the doors of these daycare centers.

1745
01:45:52,439 --> 01:45:55,519
Speaker 1: And this has Tim Walls on his heels, man, I mean,

1746
01:45:56,240 --> 01:46:00,240
Speaker 1: all this fraud that's coming out that's been charged, right

1747
01:46:00,320 --> 01:46:03,160
Speaker 1: the other stuff that's been already charged and now this.

1748
01:46:05,760 --> 01:46:08,000
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take a break. When I come back, though,

1749
01:46:08,000 --> 01:46:10,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you some nuances. It's not gonna be

1750
01:46:11,040 --> 01:46:13,439
Speaker 1: just like the cheap talking points on this. And I'm

1751
01:46:13,439 --> 01:46:16,720
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about daycare centers in Wisconsin.

1752
01:46:16,800 --> 01:46:17,759
Speaker 1: So stay tuned.

1753
01:46:22,560 --> 01:46:24,760
Speaker 8: He's been ninety four out at Brookfield Road. He got

1754
01:46:24,800 --> 01:46:27,040
Speaker 8: a stalled vehicle off to the right shoulder. Then you

1755
01:46:27,080 --> 01:46:30,479
Speaker 8: got delays starting at seventy six clearing up after Hawlly

1756
01:46:30,760 --> 01:46:33,960
Speaker 8: West Band delays from thirty fifth to Mitchell Boulevard. I'm

1757
01:46:34,040 --> 01:46:34,720
Speaker 8: Kevin Henry that.

1758
01:46:35,120 --> 01:46:41,639
Speaker 1: So we are dissecting this Nick Shirley expos of Somali

1759
01:46:41,760 --> 01:46:45,439
Speaker 1: daycare centers, this YouTuber slash podcast or millions and millions

1760
01:46:45,479 --> 01:46:47,880
Speaker 1: and millions of views because he's going around knocking on

1761
01:46:47,960 --> 01:46:51,519
Speaker 1: the doors of Smalley daycares and looking for children, and

1762
01:46:51,560 --> 01:46:54,360
Speaker 1: all Homeland Security is going door to door and kind

1763
01:46:54,360 --> 01:46:57,040
Speaker 1: of replicating his work and trying to see what's there.

1764
01:46:58,360 --> 01:47:02,400
Speaker 1: So I promised you the non talking points version, so

1765
01:47:02,400 --> 01:47:04,600
Speaker 1: here it is. So let's just go a few a

1766
01:47:04,640 --> 01:47:08,120
Speaker 1: few things. I have a list here. Claim number one,

1767
01:47:08,240 --> 01:47:10,559
Speaker 1: the media have never done this kind of thing before.

1768
01:47:10,600 --> 01:47:13,200
Speaker 1: So I'm seeing this on social media, and again I'm

1769
01:47:13,200 --> 01:47:15,760
Speaker 1: a fan of Nick Shirley and his work, to be clear, Like,

1770
01:47:16,000 --> 01:47:19,240
Speaker 1: good for him, Like I said a few minutes ago,

1771
01:47:19,400 --> 01:47:21,920
Speaker 1: he's getting off his sofa. He's not just sitting on

1772
01:47:21,960 --> 01:47:25,519
Speaker 1: social media. He's doing original reporting and he's knocking on doors.

1773
01:47:25,920 --> 01:47:29,120
Speaker 1: Good for him. My guess is they're going to find

1774
01:47:29,160 --> 01:47:34,200
Speaker 1: a lot of fraud in this world, in Minnesota and

1775
01:47:34,200 --> 01:47:36,879
Speaker 1: probably throughout the country as a result of him asking

1776
01:47:36,920 --> 01:47:41,040
Speaker 1: these questions and doing this work. But I'm also seeing

1777
01:47:41,040 --> 01:47:43,720
Speaker 1: people say he's the next coming of sixty minutes. The

1778
01:47:43,800 --> 01:47:46,960
Speaker 1: media have never done this before. Now, I'm sorry to

1779
01:47:47,000 --> 01:47:51,360
Speaker 1: be an apologies nutricial liberal media. You all know me.

1780
01:47:51,600 --> 01:47:55,000
Speaker 1: I call out media bias all the time, and I

1781
01:47:55,040 --> 01:47:56,800
Speaker 1: see a lot of it, and I've called it out

1782
01:47:56,840 --> 01:47:59,160
Speaker 1: for twenty years, and they tried to take me down

1783
01:47:59,600 --> 01:48:04,120
Speaker 1: frankly and lied about me at one point because of it,

1784
01:48:04,160 --> 01:48:09,960
Speaker 1: in my opinion, But I also tell you it like

1785
01:48:10,040 --> 01:48:12,639
Speaker 1: it is. It's not true that the media have never

1786
01:48:12,680 --> 01:48:16,160
Speaker 1: done this before when it comes to daycare centers. I'm

1787
01:48:16,200 --> 01:48:19,280
Speaker 1: old enough to remember the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter name

1788
01:48:19,360 --> 01:48:24,840
Speaker 1: were Kel Rutledge. It's a good reporter. She did her

1789
01:48:24,960 --> 01:48:28,519
Speaker 1: version of this in Milwaukee. It was called Cash for Kids.

1790
01:48:28,560 --> 01:48:31,639
Speaker 1: I believe no Cash for Kids, cash or Kids, something

1791
01:48:31,720 --> 01:48:36,200
Speaker 1: like that. Google it. Casher Kids were Kel Rutledge, MAWAKEI

1792
01:48:36,280 --> 01:48:37,960
Speaker 1: Journal Sentinel, and you'll see what I mean. It was

1793
01:48:38,000 --> 01:48:46,040
Speaker 1: an exhaustive series exposing these fraudulent scam daycare centers. They

1794
01:48:46,040 --> 01:48:49,639
Speaker 1: weren't Somali, but they were in Milwaukee, and she did

1795
01:48:49,680 --> 01:48:53,120
Speaker 1: what Nick Shirley did. This is maybe fifteen years ago

1796
01:48:53,200 --> 01:48:57,200
Speaker 1: or something, and she went around and staked out these

1797
01:48:57,280 --> 01:49:03,080
Speaker 1: daycare centers. I will say that, you know, I feel

1798
01:49:03,120 --> 01:49:08,559
Speaker 1: like the current so called tricial media, whatever you want

1799
01:49:08,560 --> 01:49:11,720
Speaker 1: to call them, liberal media, legacy media. I do think

1800
01:49:11,720 --> 01:49:14,080
Speaker 1: they've kind of lost their way, like they're not doing

1801
01:49:14,120 --> 01:49:16,120
Speaker 1: this kind of thing as much as they used to.

1802
01:49:16,760 --> 01:49:19,040
Speaker 1: I feel like the reporters of old twenty years ago,

1803
01:49:19,080 --> 01:49:22,679
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, they were democrat biased, a lot of them,

1804
01:49:22,920 --> 01:49:26,680
Speaker 1: many of them the news outlets certainly were. But they

1805
01:49:26,720 --> 01:49:29,880
Speaker 1: recognized a story more when they saw one, and they

1806
01:49:29,920 --> 01:49:33,360
Speaker 1: followed the money, and they tried to expose fraud and

1807
01:49:33,720 --> 01:49:36,920
Speaker 1: waste in government, things like like this, And they weren't

1808
01:49:36,960 --> 01:49:41,960
Speaker 1: just political operatives, but that was a really good series

1809
01:49:42,000 --> 01:49:45,120
Speaker 1: and exposed this kind of thing and how much of

1810
01:49:45,160 --> 01:49:48,719
Speaker 1: this there is. Now, how have the Wisconsin media covered

1811
01:49:48,800 --> 01:49:53,960
Speaker 1: the daycare story in the last one or two years.

1812
01:49:54,680 --> 01:49:58,080
Speaker 1: They've been stenographers for Tony Evers press releases. Google it

1813
01:49:58,160 --> 01:50:04,040
Speaker 1: Google Wisconsin Daycare and you will see gushing stories from

1814
01:50:04,400 --> 01:50:09,200
Speaker 1: news outlet after news outlet whining about how there isn't

1815
01:50:09,200 --> 01:50:13,720
Speaker 1: more money flooding into these daycares, many of whom, by

1816
01:50:13,760 --> 01:50:19,439
Speaker 1: the way, are in makeshift homes. They have a couple

1817
01:50:19,560 --> 01:50:22,320
Speaker 1: kids on the roster. You know, we're not talking about

1818
01:50:22,360 --> 01:50:27,160
Speaker 1: these huge daycare centers. They're just usually in these sort

1819
01:50:27,200 --> 01:50:31,519
Speaker 1: of I don't know, shadowy kinds of homes, you know,

1820
01:50:32,160 --> 01:50:36,400
Speaker 1: on a block. So yeah, I mean the media they

1821
01:50:36,400 --> 01:50:38,800
Speaker 1: did really good work about fifteen years ago on this

1822
01:50:38,920 --> 01:50:42,719
Speaker 1: topic and then kind of turned into stenographers for Tony Evers,

1823
01:50:42,800 --> 01:50:45,000
Speaker 1: gushing about how there needs to be more money flooding

1824
01:50:45,040 --> 01:50:47,800
Speaker 1: into this. There was a lot of COVID money that

1825
01:50:47,840 --> 01:50:50,519
Speaker 1: went to daycares in Wisconsin now Wisconsin right now. We

1826
01:50:50,560 --> 01:50:53,600
Speaker 1: did do some investigative reporting on that where it was

1827
01:50:53,680 --> 01:50:57,360
Speaker 1: going a couple of years ago, and we found that,

1828
01:50:57,439 --> 01:50:59,280
Speaker 1: for example, it's kind of the opposite side of the

1829
01:50:59,280 --> 01:51:03,120
Speaker 1: coin here. It was going to some very affluent areas.

1830
01:51:04,640 --> 01:51:09,200
Speaker 1: We found hundreds of thousands of dollars. We found lots

1831
01:51:09,200 --> 01:51:11,919
Speaker 1: of money going to, for example, a chain of daycare

1832
01:51:11,960 --> 01:51:16,280
Speaker 1: centers that were financed by Swiss millionaires that were tied

1833
01:51:16,479 --> 01:51:22,120
Speaker 1: in the past to Junkyard Bond King. Michael Milkin. Yeah,

1834
01:51:22,160 --> 01:51:24,879
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like, why did they need all this taxpayer money,

1835
01:51:25,000 --> 01:51:30,760
Speaker 1: Like they're financed by gazillionaires in Switzerland, had piles of

1836
01:51:30,800 --> 01:51:33,680
Speaker 1: revenue nation they were getting all this taxpayer money. We

1837
01:51:33,720 --> 01:51:38,160
Speaker 1: exposed that kind of thing. KTSP at TV station in

1838
01:51:38,200 --> 01:51:42,120
Speaker 1: Minnesota also did some good reporting on these Somali daycares apparently,

1839
01:51:43,439 --> 01:51:46,000
Speaker 1: but it didn't get much attention. And so I think

1840
01:51:46,040 --> 01:51:49,759
Speaker 1: one thing that's changed, you know, with Nick Shirley's reporting

1841
01:51:49,920 --> 01:51:54,679
Speaker 1: is kind of showing this is that now there's this lever,

1842
01:51:54,840 --> 01:51:57,599
Speaker 1: right you put something on social media, you don't get

1843
01:51:57,600 --> 01:52:00,800
Speaker 1: censored anymore, thank you to Elon Mosk. And now there's

1844
01:52:00,840 --> 01:52:04,040
Speaker 1: this lever where government pays attention and you can get

1845
01:52:04,080 --> 01:52:07,160
Speaker 1: this massive audience as a conservative doing this kind of thing.

1846
01:52:07,720 --> 01:52:09,680
Speaker 1: And so Nick Shirley puts this out, it gets one

1847
01:52:09,760 --> 01:52:12,599
Speaker 1: hundred million views. It wouldn't happen probably three years ago,

1848
01:52:12,720 --> 01:52:16,519
Speaker 1: the Twitter would have throttled it back before Elon. And

1849
01:52:16,560 --> 01:52:19,320
Speaker 1: now we have Trump, you know, the Trump administration, and

1850
01:52:19,320 --> 01:52:21,840
Speaker 1: now Cash Pattel. They're jumping on board and they're going

1851
01:52:21,880 --> 01:52:24,600
Speaker 1: around and knocking on these doors. So there's like a

1852
01:52:24,680 --> 01:52:27,880
Speaker 1: different sort of reaction when this kind of stuff is

1853
01:52:27,920 --> 01:52:31,680
Speaker 1: done by conservatives anyway, maybe even by an outlet like

1854
01:52:31,720 --> 01:52:35,400
Speaker 1: a KTSP. The other point I wanted to say is

1855
01:52:37,640 --> 01:52:41,240
Speaker 1: Nick Shirley did great work, but it's not prime facia

1856
01:52:42,240 --> 01:52:45,080
Speaker 1: evidence of fraud or proof. I should say it's evidence,

1857
01:52:45,160 --> 01:52:47,679
Speaker 1: but it's not proof of fraud. If someone doesn't answer

1858
01:52:47,720 --> 01:52:49,320
Speaker 1: the door, they won't talk to you, or they won't

1859
01:52:49,320 --> 01:52:52,080
Speaker 1: show you all the kids in a line. And there

1860
01:52:52,120 --> 01:52:54,280
Speaker 1: is some kind of reporting where people are kind of

1861
01:52:54,280 --> 01:52:58,360
Speaker 1: pushing back on the timestamps and like things like that.

1862
01:52:58,960 --> 01:53:02,680
Speaker 1: When he did this, we'll see how that all unfolds.

1863
01:53:03,000 --> 01:53:08,160
Speaker 1: But I think he didn't definitively one hundred percent proved

1864
01:53:08,200 --> 01:53:10,880
Speaker 1: these were all fraudulent daycares. I think what he did

1865
01:53:10,960 --> 01:53:15,160
Speaker 1: is planted massive red flags. Ask the right questions, ask

1866
01:53:15,240 --> 01:53:17,960
Speaker 1: good questions, and now it's up to the you know,

1867
01:53:18,040 --> 01:53:21,000
Speaker 1: to the government to authorities who should have been doing

1868
01:53:21,000 --> 01:53:24,680
Speaker 1: this already, and we're in some cases to pick up

1869
01:53:24,720 --> 01:53:27,600
Speaker 1: that torch and nail it to the wall. Now, I

1870
01:53:27,600 --> 01:53:30,400
Speaker 1: think the journal sentinels very good reporting, like fifteen years

1871
01:53:30,400 --> 01:53:34,400
Speaker 1: ago on daycares like did show how this this could

1872
01:53:34,400 --> 01:53:37,880
Speaker 1: be nailed to the wall journalistically. I think there needs

1873
01:53:37,880 --> 01:53:40,719
Speaker 1: to be more reporting to definitively say all these daycares

1874
01:53:40,760 --> 01:53:45,639
Speaker 1: were committing fraud. I mean that's the journalism instructor in me. Okay,

1875
01:53:45,680 --> 01:53:48,080
Speaker 1: I tell my students, you report a story three ways,

1876
01:53:48,200 --> 01:53:52,400
Speaker 1: observational reporting, human interviews in the paper, trail file, open

1877
01:53:52,439 --> 01:53:56,720
Speaker 1: records requests, the documentary evidence, more interviews with named sources.

1878
01:53:56,800 --> 01:54:00,760
Speaker 1: Like it just needs more reporting. I'm not criticizing that,

1879
01:54:01,040 --> 01:54:04,240
Speaker 1: Nick Shirley. I mean, I'm actually applauding him, but I

1880
01:54:04,280 --> 01:54:09,559
Speaker 1: am saying it needs more reporting. Good for him for

1881
01:54:09,640 --> 01:54:12,559
Speaker 1: putting that huge spotlight there and sparking everyone else to

1882
01:54:12,600 --> 01:54:17,160
Speaker 1: do that. I suppose it's also not only Minnesota, it's

1883
01:54:17,240 --> 01:54:20,720
Speaker 1: not only Somali's, and it's not only daycares. Okay. Years ago,

1884
01:54:20,880 --> 01:54:24,800
Speaker 1: my students did a huge project on tutoring centers. They

1885
01:54:24,800 --> 01:54:28,080
Speaker 1: were getting a lot of federal money in failing schools

1886
01:54:28,880 --> 01:54:31,920
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee, and you know, they went around, had a

1887
01:54:32,000 --> 01:54:36,480
Speaker 1: really difficult time getting information. One was a foreclosed home,

1888
01:54:37,640 --> 01:54:40,240
Speaker 1: things like that. You know, it was very reminiscent of

1889
01:54:40,280 --> 01:54:45,880
Speaker 1: this kind of accusation. And I spent some time after

1890
01:54:45,920 --> 01:54:49,400
Speaker 1: the Nick Shirley reporting looking just starting to look more

1891
01:54:49,920 --> 01:54:53,480
Speaker 1: deeply into the daycares in Wisconsin, and I found, you know,

1892
01:54:53,560 --> 01:54:57,360
Speaker 1: something like eleven pages of revoked daycares. And that's just

1893
01:54:57,400 --> 01:55:01,080
Speaker 1: the ones in Wisconsin. The system knows about more that

1894
01:55:01,120 --> 01:55:07,560
Speaker 1: were suspended. Lots of violations among these suspended daycares, for example,

1895
01:55:08,400 --> 01:55:13,600
Speaker 1: allegations of falsifying records, colluding with other people to purposely

1896
01:55:14,000 --> 01:55:21,320
Speaker 1: mislead investigators, shady things going on allegedly with attendance record keeping,

1897
01:55:23,760 --> 01:55:27,200
Speaker 1: and really no news coverage of that side of the coin,

1898
01:55:27,280 --> 01:55:30,080
Speaker 1: because again the media have been operating as stenographers for

1899
01:55:30,200 --> 01:55:33,840
Speaker 1: Tony Evers, ranting and raving about how there needs to

1900
01:55:33,880 --> 01:55:38,360
Speaker 1: be millions and millions more dollar dollars funneled into daycares

1901
01:55:39,440 --> 01:55:44,080
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. Well, there's another side to the coin, and

1902
01:55:44,120 --> 01:55:49,480
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing coverage of it. So, you know, I

1903
01:55:49,640 --> 01:55:52,760
Speaker 1: ran some of the people and who are running these

1904
01:55:52,840 --> 01:55:57,280
Speaker 1: daycares where they're suspended and stuff in seacap know, I

1905
01:55:57,320 --> 01:55:59,760
Speaker 1: just started doing this, but I didn't find any criminal charges.

1906
01:56:01,160 --> 01:56:03,040
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if you could go through all these

1907
01:56:03,080 --> 01:56:06,720
Speaker 1: eleven pages of revoke daycares in Wisconsin and where the

1908
01:56:06,760 --> 01:56:10,120
Speaker 1: government is saying, this is something so awry here that

1909
01:56:10,160 --> 01:56:14,160
Speaker 1: we're revoking your licenses, how many of those resulted in

1910
01:56:14,200 --> 01:56:18,640
Speaker 1: criminal charges? Is like that part of it happening? Do

1911
01:56:18,720 --> 01:56:21,640
Speaker 1: any of these people end up just creating another makeshift taycare?

1912
01:56:22,960 --> 01:56:26,000
Speaker 1: And I ran some of the addresses and you know,

1913
01:56:26,040 --> 01:56:29,880
Speaker 1: again they're in kind of run down homes and they

1914
01:56:29,920 --> 01:56:33,000
Speaker 1: have a capacity of like eight or something like that.

1915
01:56:34,840 --> 01:56:36,960
Speaker 1: And then there are all these issues with the attendance

1916
01:56:36,960 --> 01:56:43,080
Speaker 1: records or cooperating with investigators. And you have to wonder

1917
01:56:43,120 --> 01:56:46,160
Speaker 1: because again, that's just the stuff that the government has

1918
01:56:46,200 --> 01:56:50,360
Speaker 1: found out about, and I'm not seeing much concern in

1919
01:56:50,400 --> 01:56:55,000
Speaker 1: this state, you know, with Evers in his administration for

1920
01:56:55,080 --> 01:56:57,960
Speaker 1: that side of the coin. So you have to wonder

1921
01:56:58,040 --> 01:57:01,240
Speaker 1: how much of this is going on. These aren't Somalis.

1922
01:57:03,360 --> 01:57:06,440
Speaker 1: They're people all over the state. There's a cluster in Milwaukee,

1923
01:57:07,520 --> 01:57:09,600
Speaker 1: but they're you know, they're honestually all over the state.

1924
01:57:09,640 --> 01:57:12,560
Speaker 1: They're raking in a lot of money, a lot of

1925
01:57:12,600 --> 01:57:17,520
Speaker 1: money from taxpayers. And so I think the Nick Shirley reporting, okay,

1926
01:57:17,520 --> 01:57:19,240
Speaker 1: it's what I would like to see happen. Let's put

1927
01:57:19,280 --> 01:57:23,040
Speaker 1: this way and conclusion here is that the media not

1928
01:57:23,080 --> 01:57:26,000
Speaker 1: twists themselves into pretzels to try to unravel his reporting,

1929
01:57:26,000 --> 01:57:28,560
Speaker 1: because that's usually what they do when conservatives come up

1930
01:57:28,560 --> 01:57:32,440
Speaker 1: with things, They twist themselves into pretzels. They did it

1931
01:57:32,440 --> 01:57:36,160
Speaker 1: on our parole coverage with Tony Evers's appointee, and twist

1932
01:57:36,160 --> 01:57:39,600
Speaker 1: it into pretzels, and all the stories were like saying

1933
01:57:39,640 --> 01:57:43,680
Speaker 1: things like here's how parole really works in Wisconsin, rather

1934
01:57:43,720 --> 01:57:46,040
Speaker 1: than picking up the torch and doing what the media

1935
01:57:46,080 --> 01:57:48,640
Speaker 1: can do, and it really concentrates and try to see

1936
01:57:48,640 --> 01:57:53,280
Speaker 1: what else is there. I am saying, Wisconsin media, do

1937
01:57:53,400 --> 01:57:56,600
Speaker 1: your thing, use all the resources you have. Don't twist

1938
01:57:56,600 --> 01:58:00,200
Speaker 1: into pretzels to try to undo Nick Shirley's work. Pick

1939
01:58:00,280 --> 01:58:03,320
Speaker 1: up the torch here, knock on the doors of daycares.

1940
01:58:03,360 --> 01:58:05,040
Speaker 1: I may do some of it with Jim. I'm one

1941
01:58:05,040 --> 01:58:08,080
Speaker 1: person in my basement, okay, Like I can't do all

1942
01:58:08,120 --> 01:58:12,600
Speaker 1: the importing in Wisconsin for the entire media apparatus by

1943
01:58:12,680 --> 01:58:18,240
Speaker 1: myself pick up the torch, knock on some of these doors.

1944
01:58:18,320 --> 01:58:20,960
Speaker 1: General Sutton'll do your thing, repeat what you did fifteen

1945
01:58:21,040 --> 01:58:22,920
Speaker 1: years ago, and let's see how much else is there.

1946
01:58:23,800 --> 01:58:25,920
Speaker 1: Let's see how much else is there. My guess is

1947
01:58:25,960 --> 01:58:30,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fraud there. But again, the media

1948
01:58:30,280 --> 01:58:34,000
Speaker 1: have refused in the last year or two to look

1949
01:58:34,040 --> 01:58:37,440
Speaker 1: at that side of the coin. So I commend Nick

1950
01:58:37,520 --> 01:58:41,360
Speaker 1: Shirley because he is sparking something that I think is

1951
01:58:41,360 --> 01:58:45,360
Speaker 1: gonna grow like wildfire, and I think people will be shocked.

1952
01:58:45,480 --> 01:58:48,640
Speaker 1: Their jaws will drop, I think at the amount of fraud,

1953
01:58:48,680 --> 01:58:52,680
Speaker 1: and not just with Daycares, and not just with Smollies. Okay,

1954
01:58:52,720 --> 01:58:55,320
Speaker 1: and I think Elon was on some of it with Doge.

1955
01:58:55,520 --> 01:58:58,320
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened with that. All right, thanks

1956
01:58:58,320 --> 01:59:00,480
Speaker 1: for joining me everyone. I hope you have a really

1957
01:59:00,960 --> 01:59:01,560
Speaker 1: good evening.

1958
01:59:10,280 --> 01:59:12,560
Speaker 8: Eastbound eight ninety four and sixtieth. You've got a car

1959
01:59:12,640 --> 01:59:15,839
Speaker 8: spun out on the shoulder and it's gonna have heavy delays.

1960
01:59:15,920 --> 01:59:18,800
Speaker 8: Back to the hail interchange ninety four eastbound OAP at

1961
01:59:18,800 --> 01:59:19,600
Speaker 8: Brookfield Road.

1962
01:59:19,600 --> 01:59:21,920
Speaker 7: You got a stall on the right. I'm Kevin Henry.

1963
01:59:22,000 --> 01:59:22,640
Speaker 7: That's your latest