Mark Belling Podcast #108 Season 2 begins

I not only survived, I thrived. And one of the things that I noted over all of those years is that almost everybody I didn't see everybody, Almost everybody who was able to survive and as I said, thrive over the really long haul and talk radio had developed a bond with his or her audience, and that bond was

based on credibility. Now I've talked to I've talked about that a lot over the years, that people will listen to all sorts of things for a while, but one of the things that keeps people coming back again and again and again is that sense of credibility that a the person is telling the truth or if expressing an opinion, an opinion at least based on facts, and secondly that you're stating what you actually believe. Again, there's exceptions to this,

but not many. If you take a look at for the of you who don't live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin like many of my listeners do, whoever the dominant you know, radio talk show host, and whatever your area was. I mean, I mean, somebody that's been around ten, fifteen, twenty years, tops in the ratings and so on. I'm willing to bet that that person's audience sees the individual as a straight shooter without regard to what the political beliefs are.

Starting last year, I transitioned from radio to podcasting, and my podcast is very similar to what I did on the radio show. There are obviously some differences. There are nowhere near as many commercials, the audience is more geographically diverse than the old radio program was. The radio show was broadcast live. The podcast can be listened to at any point. Their differences, but I did the radio show very similar. I did the podcast rather very similar to

the way that I did the radio show. What I have noticed, particularly over the last several months is that thing that I mentioned about and every media is different. Radio is different from TV, TV is different than obviously, and podcasts in radio, I think are clearly different. And one of the things that I've noticed, at least over the short term, is that there are a lot of people that are very, very successful who don't feel the need that I just mentioned to be a straight shooter

and honestly say what they believe. Now. I don't know about the long term because the whole landscape of I mean, the first podcast of any size showed up ten fifteen years ago. But I think the overwhelming majority of podcasts that are out there right now started in the last two years, and every week hundreds, maybe thousands more start, some with almost no listeners, some that aspire to be big, So we don't really know who's going to be dominant over the long long run. The best example that we

have is Rogan. Joe Rogan had the first really huge podcast. It's still huge, But other than him, there isn't a long long track record of lots and lots of us over many many years or even decades to see whether or out it'll play out the same. But what I have certainly seen recently is that there are some very big and prominent people doing podcasts who are just saying stuff for short term clicks. Clicks. That's what it's all about. In my world, a click would be a download. You

listen to the pod, you download the podcast. That's how we're measured. I have not wanted to be involved in all of this infighting that's going on in the conservative world and the bloggestphere of the podcast sphere and so on.

I don't even know if you can delete them. Can you delete them? I mean, but I mean you can delete them. But they say it's like anything on social media. When the cops go in to look at somebody's phone, you're always able to find it. Once somebody downloads something, I think that they have it forever anyway, So everybody went back and played the inn their Tucker said, I watched him say it. I wonder if he's the anti Christ. The anti Christ. This is a guy who only a

few months ago was a cheerleader for Trump. He stood by his side at the Republican convention in Milwaukee in twenty four, stood side by side with him for the first few months of his administration, defended him through most of the first term, and through this middle period in which he was under season, was running for reelection in twenty four, and all of a sudden it just dawns

on him. Maybe he's the anti Christ. Now, as I've said, everybody has a right to change their mind on things, and only a moron refuses to change his or her mind when the facts indicate that the original position was wrong. I always cite as the example for this. I didn't think the Packers made a good decision when they plucked Ron Wolf out of football bureaucracy to be the GM of the Packers in the early nineties. Well just stick

with that, of course, that the position was wrong. So say so do you have a right to change your mind on things? But were some of these people. We're not talking about changing your mind. You're talking about flip flap, flip flap, flip flap, flip flop, and it just strikes me as insincere. It's an old radio talk show host named Michael Savage. I always had the impression that he was making it up. Maybe that's wrong, but I had that impression. Again, maybe I'm wrong about that, but I

had that impression about him. He was one of the few people that had and he was on in the middle of the night, so maybe that was a little bit different. But eventually I think he got into primetime and evenings, depending on when stations would carry him. I just since that there wasn't a sincerity about him. And again maybe I'm wrong about that. I didn't listen to

him enough and I don't know him. In the case of Tucker, how could you have been as close to Trump as you were for all of those years and not picked up on maybe he's the anti Christ. He doesn't think Trump might be the anti Christ. He's just saying that because he broke ranks with Trump on what issue, the war in Iran and suddenly, rather than having the ability to break ranks on that that issue and say that he disagrees, he turns Trump into this terrible monster.

He's a part of his real Maybe he's the anti Christ. Trump's behavior is no different than it's ever been. He's always been like this. He picks fights, he does all the thing. Whether you like Trump or not, just the same Trump. What you're not getting, though, is the same Tucker. Once he decided Trump's out of his side, and Trump made it clear that he's not on Tucker's side, you get this all out over the top rhetoric. And again I don't think he believes it. There have been others

who have been doing the same thing. They'll say things because they think they can get a big following. Now again, in the short term, that works. Tucker's got right now a big following, a lot of the people that are opposed to the war listening to him. Same thing with candae Owans big following. I just wonder, though, and I

don't know, because podcasting is different than radio. Radio is still a mass media and listening you know, conventional radio, there's a finite number of stations that are out there. You know, my show was ranked number one for years and years and years in the state of Wisconsin. But that was rated against just all the other radio I mean, what's in Milwaukee have right now? Eighteen twenty twenty two

stations state of Wisconsin. Not that many. It's a finite world, and in order to get a big share, there are only so many options against radio. But I was doing radio. I wasn't measured against podcasts or anything on YouTube. It's

just radio ratings, that's what it was. But in the podcast world, where there are zillions and zillions and zillions of them, all you're trying to do is get clicks, perhaps a smaller percentage of the overall market that you did when you were doing say cable television or radio and so on. So I don't know if Tucker does this flip flopping flip flopping, flip flopping, flip flopping, if he comes back into the good graces of Trump and then he goes out, will it work for him over

the long term. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm too damn old to change the way I do it. And it's one of the things you know, I've over the years, I've had zillions of people ask me, first, how do you make it in radio? Know? How do you make it in podcasting? And I've never had a good answer to that other than well, first of all, you have to have natural ability, you kind of do or you don't, and then you have to come up

with an approach. And my approach has been to not give three bleeps whether or not anybody in the audience agrees with me. I have to agree with me, and I have to back it up. And I've found that that may frost even some of my loyal listeners from time to time when I'm in a position that they don't agree with, But over the long haul, they come back because they realize, Okay, he was whacked on that thing, but at least he leaved it and he could make a case for it. I mean, this is a great job.

We have a new producer in season two. Jason Gotchi's with us after I had Paul for all of these years. Jason is now a radio talk show host. He's bopped around doing a bunch of things in the business, but now he's established as a radio talk show host at my old radio station, WIS and Milwaukee. Also produces the show. He's gonna do his show the way he feels to do his show. It's a great gig. The whole world is looking for people to pay attention to them, and I get paid a lot of money to have people

listen to me. Most people you couldn't pay them to listen to him. You just want to get away from there, So dull I get paid to have people if you have that privilege, if you have that platform. Seriously, what is the point in saying something you don't believe this? Candice, OAN's really believe Eric Kirk had her husband killed? I don't know, but I think there's a good chance he's making it up and knows it isn't true. Or maybe

she does. I don't know, but I sense that she and Tucker and some of the others are just right now making it up. Well, if I get to have this large audience that's hanging, why would I say something I don't believe it. It's great to go in try to persuade people of your own beliefs, not some fake belief just saying something for the show. You you know who does that. Actors actively may play a villain in one movie and a hero in the next they're acting,

it's not them. That is a lengthy introduction to the first program in season number two. You Line moves fast so your business doesn't miss a beat. From shipping and industrial supplies to office furniture, you Line offers a wide range of products that are in stock and ready to ship the same day if you ordered by six pm, and that includes the big stuff. You Line's expert customer service team is available twenty four to seven to answer your questions, help you quickly and easily place an order,

or assist with any other business needs. Visit you line dot com hart actual topics. I mean, the story isn't funny, but just something about the concept of it that kind of makes you laugh. Every the whole existence of Spirit Airlines has been in a way, I won't say amusing, but you're bemused by it. Groundbreaking company. They just had

a non sustainable business model. Their business model was to sell airline seats really really really cheap, and then up charge for every single thing that you do, up charge for the bags, up charge for the peanuts, up charge for this, up the charge for then ad. In the end, it was not a financially sustainable market. There are a lot of theories as to why Spirit didn't make it. They shut down over the weekend. One of the things that I've commented on, and I mean it's an exaggeration,

but not that much of one. Just when I've been at an airport and I've never flown on Spirit, but when you're in an airport that has some big airports, there's only one airline and a concourse, like in Atlanta, Delta has certain concourses all to themselves. But when I've walked past Spirit counters, it just always seems like there's chaos there. And then you watch these videos on YouTube of people acting up on airlines. It isn't always Spirit, but boil boy, it's Spirit. A lot of the times

people have theories about why this is. They're angry that they're getting bad customer service while they're paying peanuts for their tickets, or some of the people that are flying on Spirit are people who are used to traveling. You know, you miss your connection, you miss your connection. It's a pain in the ass. But again, it happens all the time, and it's Spirit. A parent of the customers can't stand it,

or they cancel the flight. You know, the crew is over their hours, or there's a mechanical issue, You're screwed. It's just part of the overall hassle of fly and Spirit. Spirit customers just seem to have a harder time. I'm handling it the NOD. So anyway, they shut down late Friday night into Saturday morning. I can't even imagine the chaos at the airport's the next day, because you know, lots of people. Even though apparently that contacted people via texts,

some people don't pay attention to them. There are people who showed up at the airport expected to get on their Spirit flight and none of there's Spirit not there. The customer service was down. It is gone. They say they'll refund, they're bankrupt. I hope they refund, but they're done. No, there's a reason in bringing this up, and a lot of commentators have made the same point over the last

couple of days, so it's not original for me. But in twenty twenty four, Spirit and jet Blue proposed a merger. Jet Blue is a discounter, but not as much of a discounter as Spirit. Jet Blue's another airline I've never flown on. There are many flights out of Milwaukee on Jet Blue, it's a more limited route airline. It is a discounter, but it's apparently not as deeply discounted as Spirit and the level of service, et cetera is considering

considered to be a bit higher than Spirit. But what they both saw was an opportunity to eliminate a competitor and expand the available routes and the gates that they have at airports. The Biden administration opposed the merger, and Elizabeth Warren, who Trump calls Pocahontas, the senator from Massachusetts who lied and claimed that she was a Native American when she wasn't. She led the charge railing against this because it would be anti competitive and offer fewer opportunities

for the American consumer. Now, my position on anti trust and monopolies is different from many in the conservative world. I don't like monopolies and I think they should be busted up, and when mergers are truly anti competitive, I do think that the government should oppose them. But in this case, you saw two airlines trying to survive. Spirit's been in trouble for years, so might not letting them

merge they go out of business Altogether. I think the biggest mistake Ronald Reagan made his president, was to had two breweries at a time in which the brewing industry bigger was better. High LeMans of Lacrosse, which had been a great brewery for many years, was really beginning to struggle because the giant breweries Miller Anheuser Busch were getting so big and controlling the distribution market. Woman's tried to merge with Might have this wrong? Did they try to

merge with Stros or was it? I don't remember anymore. In any event, the Reagan Justice Department blocked the merger. Hilman shriveled up and essentially died. The brands are now controlled by somebody else, but the company died. First of all. I don't understand how that was anti competitive. There are a zillion beers still even if those two had merged. Likewise, in the airline business, there were one, five, six, seven, eight airlines that are pretty well known that travel across

the United States. So once again lefties showed their complete lack of understanding of American economics. The type of merger that perhaps you should raise eyebrows about would be when two thriving, huge companies that control combined sixty percent of the market. Throw together, they're both already making money and they both have huge chunks of the overall market. Maybe that would be anti competitive, but two two smaller companies that are trying to compete against the big giant competitors

trying to stay afloat. I don't know this, but my guess is that a higher percentage of people who fly Spirit vote for Democrats than vote for Republicans. So they did this to their own base on a transportation related topic. Over the years, I've talked a lot about how no terrible, stupid lefty idea is ever dead. They go into long term hibernation, but they're never dead. If we conservatives stop something, we never really kill it. We just put it on

ice until the lefties bring it back again. Twenty ten. Amazing that it's that sixteen years ago, but it is sixteen years ago. The Democrats that controlled the governorship in Wisconsin for eight years, much like now, the state was on a bad path. Jim Doyle had been the governor for eight years, wasn't going to run for a third term, knew he was going to lose. A couple of Democrats

eyeballed the thing. Tom Barrett became the nominee. One of the things that Doyle did in his final year as governor was he greenlighted a train that would run between Madison and Milwaukee. I said at the time that this is an absolute boon taggle and I went through all of the reasons why it wouldn't work, and so on. Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for governor, picked up on this and I'm killing it. For those of you who aren't from Wisconsin or don't recall, he ran an incredible

number of ads saying he would kill that train. In the meantime, Doyle was trying to get as much work as he could get done on it in twenty ten before the election, figuring that so much money will already have been thrown in this that no governor, including a Republican, would ever walk away and essentially give up all the money that had ever been spent. Walker won the election. Barrett was trying to mumble away about why he thought

the train was a good idea. In the rest of Wisconsin, people from anywhere but Madison and Waukee are the places in between who are already fed up with all the money that they send to Madison Milwaukee. We're furious that you were going to spend a fortune and say tax tile. Imagine if you're an anago, you say, what good would that train be to b I think it's possible Walker would not have won were it not for his opposition

to that train. As I said, it just resonated and after Walker killed it, and indeed he killed it, walked away from the whole thing. There are a couple of lawsuits over contracts and so on, but the idea went away. That was sixteen years ago you had back. I almost called Scott up and said, hey, I know Tom Tiffany's in the race and all of that, but your issues back,

Maybe you want to run again. Now this plan is different than the last one, but I kind of think maybe it's not as bad, but I've fear it's worse. Let me explain. This proposal would be to have the train be an Amtrak train. Amtrak has a nationwide route that runs through Milwaukee, but we also have a line that runs between Milwaukee and Chicago back and forth. It's

called Hiawatha. That train's been around forever. This idea would be to put a spur of the Hiawatha line that would run back and forth between Milwaukee and Madison, so they call it part of Hiawatha, but it would just be a train that went back and forth between those two cities. There would not be a separate link connecting

Madison in Chicago. Under this plan, the state of Wisconsin would subsidize it, but it would come mostly out of Amtrak's budget always they say initially, that would mean it's not as bad as the first plan back in twenty ten because the majority of the money would come from the federal government. It's too bad kind of Doge disappeared and Elon Musk went away at all of that. I'm just saying, all I would have needed to do is get him on this radar. He was killing off boondoggles

we already had. Here's one to nip in the bud. Reading about this on js online, they use the train stations currently in Milwaukee. We have one at the airport, and then there's the so called intermodal station. It's the Greyhound and Amtrak station next to the downtown Milwaukee Post office, so that one's already in place. But there isn't a train station in Madison, so you'd have to build one there. And then there are proposal is to have it stopped

twice along the way Pewaukee and Watertown. There are no amtractations in either of those places. First of all, I'm just telling you these costs are low balled. Do you know how much money it's going to cost to build a train station? And they said, well it wouldn't you know, the ones in Watertown and Pewaukee not that many people will get on or get off there. Then if that's

the case, why do we need this. So on the one end, they're saying it wouldn't have to be that big of a station because not that many people would use it, But on the other hand, they're saying that there's this incredible need. By the way, their estimate is based on the projection about a thousand riders a day. In the history of humankind, there has never been a mass transit proposal projected in which the ridership didn't fall

short of what the projections were. The Downtown Milwaukee Trolley will forever live as the most obvious example of that bea say, well, they wouldn't have to be that expensive of train stations, give me wait till they get started. This like makes the cost overruns in school referendums look like nothing. You're gonna build the thing, and now we need to acquire a lot of land for the parking lots because people are gonna take the train have to

have somewhere to park their cars. Now we're building the thing, and eighty eight compliance and everything else, federal contracting rules, unionized labor, and once they start building the thing, everybody's gonna want to have their piece of the pie. There's gonna be you know, people are gonna want to lease space of the train station, all of that to have

this train run back and forth. Now, under the proposal, their schedule would be to have one run a day, one in the morning rather than one in the evening. So the train would leave Madison at six fifteen in the morning and get to Milwaukee around eight, and then it would turn around and go back to Madison, and then they'd flip it around again. The Madison train would

come back at five point thirty in the afternoon. So for all of the people who might initially say that this is a good idea, what about somebody who's in Milwaukee and wants to has to be in Madison. Say at noon, what they're going to leave four hours early, or they're done in Madison by two fifteen in the afternoon,

they're going to wait until five point thirty to come back. Likewise, somebody who lives in Brookfield and doesn't want to drive to Madison, they're going to haul but all the way to Milwaukee at the exact time that the trail is going to be there, leave their car there all day, and then go to Medison. Now you get to Madison, I'm guessing they'll they would put the Madison train station

somewhere downtown. You're the capitol. What if you're going to the university, that's probably a twenty dollars to twenty five depending on the time of day, uber right away, or you're going somewhere else. Imagine you're going to Epic and Varuna.

What good is a tea for you there? I'm telling you who It would make sense for a Milwaukee lobbyist who works the day in Madison but lives in Milwaukee, and maybe a few members of the state legislature, but even they sometimes the legislature works beyond the end train time. The overwhelming majority of people will eventually say I just drive next time. An hour and forty five minutes from Milwaukee to Madison. You can get there faster riding a camel. Now,

right now, I'm Milwaukee. We've got the I ninety four East West construction that slows things down during the rush hours. I came in this morning around eight thirty and only slowed me down about two minutes, but during the rush hour periods, and yet that the construction can really back things up. But otherwise I went to my sister's house a couple of weeks ago. This is about an hour and fifteen minutes. That was on a Sunday, and I wasn't driving that fast one forty five. This isn't a

bullet train. So the only people to whom this is going to appeal are people at the specific who have to are willing to leave, specifically early in the morning and we'll need to come back late in the afternoon, who just don't want to drive for an hour and twenty five minutes. Now, I admit that drive from Milwaukee to Madison isn't doesn't take that long, but it is. I'll acknowledge it. It is an obnoxious drive. The freeway is goes from four lanes to three lanes to two

lanes for a stretch. Then it gets up to three lanes near Madison, it can it's for whatever reason, it's just to me an annoying ride. Driving north toward the Fox Valley or south towards chi Kaga just is to me a more pleasant It's just an annoying drive. And it might be because when you get onto the two lane stretch it can really slow down. You have somebody slow going in the left lane, and so I acknowledge that, but in this you're physically unable to drive. For almost everybody,

driving would be more convenient. Secondly, if they approve this thing, here's what's gonna happen. The ridership will be way lower than projections. And they're gonna say, well, it's because the trains are not running at the right time. We need to have an option in the morning, the late morning, the early afternoon. And the thing, you know, we got trains running back and forth forever and ever and ever. The Feds are gonna say, we aren't going to pay

for this, and it'll come upon the state. JS Online Today has a story quoting just about all the candidate Democratic candidates for governor and Mendela Barnes honest, they actually say. They couldn't figure out what his response was. Joel Brennan was babbling too. Otherwise, All Mard favor of it, and

Tom Tiffany, the Republican, he's against it. This may actually be a good thing that this is being proposed, because it might give Tiffany a campaign issue on the same way that Walker used it by asking the residents of all the rest of Wisconsin, and for that matter, even southeastern Wisconsin. We've seen Kenosha Sheboygan filic. Why do you want to pay for this for this train that is nowhere near you that you would never use. I've got

another story here. For whatever reason, over the last few years, I've done an unusual a high number of fishing stories, which is weird because I don't go fishing. I just can't bring myself to do it. Jason's are no producer. Do you fish? Not at all? I believe I lacked the requisite patience to do it. It's probably one of those things that if I you know I as a kid, we grew up on the Fox River in which the only fish species floating around at all were carp Even

the bullheads were dead just carp. I did we did go fishing for those carp a few times, just as something to do. But that was a You know, this is when I was a kid. There's no internet, there's no gaming, there's nothing. When you have nothing else, they don't go down to the river and fish. I never got it. Anyway, These stories just seem to come toward me. Now. A listener tipped me off to the story. It's actually

reported today in the prededition of the Journal Sentinel. There's a controversy going on in northern Wisconsin on the tribal land controlled by the Lock de Flambeaud band of the Chipwa was The Lock de Flambeaud, for whatever reason, are always involved in controversy, and what they have done is closed off access to several lakes on their reservation to non tribal members. This is creating a very The tribes are claiming that these lakes are being overfished. I can't

speak to whether they are or they are. We have a law on Wisconsin that all navigable. That means you can travel on it all navigable waterways. This would exclude say a little criek that doesn't go from here from point A to point B. You just gotta stop any navigable waterway is open to the public. It's a controversy in many of the communities in the lake country here

in southeast and Wisconsin. People at these really really expensive homes in the lake, and here comes Joe Bubba backing up and taking his jet skis and his wave runners and all of this other stuff and putting it on the lake and yelling and screaming and hollowing and partying on the boat next to these people, the rich people on the lake shore. It's controversy, but the law on Wisconsin is everybody has access to the lake. Indian reservations,

of course, are a special kind of thing. The tribes are sovereign nations and all of them cut contracts in the federal government back in the eighteen hundreds in which there was some level of sovereignty to the tribes. They are American citizens, but they're also members of their own tribe. They do have to follow American laws in some areas,

but in many cases they are exempted. It's why the federal courts have ruled in in Wisconsin, the Native Americans are able to operate casinos, but nobody else's so can they close off the lakes? And claim that we own these lakes because they're on our reservation, which nobody would be able to do. For example, the people who live on Lake Nagaweka, who live alongside the lake, can't say that we own the lake. You don't you want right up to the shoreline. That's it. The tribes, and another

thing I should mention about the tribes. Native American tribes do not consider one another to be like brothers. The Potawatabes do not consider themselves brothers. For example, of them nobbities. When they operate their tribal casinos. The members of that particular tribe get all the money. They don't share the wealth, and in fact, many of them don't get along. Potawatabe forever has tried to stop the Monomine from building a

cas and Kenosha. So if people say these rich Indians are being greedy here, the lack de Flambeau aren't rich. They don't have an off reservation casino yet, I don't believe. And they treasure the land that they're on and they think that it's being overfished, or maybe they just don't want a bunch of white guys hauling up in their ford expeditions, putting their big boats in their legs. The state of Wisconsin is now suing the tribes, claiming that

the tribes can't deny access to the lakes. You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast. This is the Mark Belling podcast. Let's discuss the intriguing case of one Kirk Bangstead. The story is being misunderstood by a lot of people, particularly I won't even just say around the country, even in Wisconsin. He's the loudmouth who owns this little brew pub in Monocola called Monocua Brewing Company, and a lot of people think that's all he is, that he has a brew pub.

He's actually the guy who fronts a major American political super pac. He's just the front man. The money doesn't come from him, maybe a little pittance. He calls it Monocua Brewing Company super pac. I think the reason that big money American lefties donate to it is it makes it look like this is just a small Wisconsin business trying to influence public policy. What it is is money laundering. It's legal money laundering. I can give money, for example,

to a political action committee. I have the right to do it, and I can give money to if I had lost my mind to the Monocua brewing company super Pac. But a super pack that's named after a local brewery might sound a little bit more friendly than one of these ninety seven zillion others that are just they've got shadowy names with shadowy figures. Bankstad commented after the assassination attend to President Trump at the Whitehouse Correspondence Association dinner

that too bad they missed. Continue to offer free drinks at his brew pub up there on monoco if somebody actually does kill Trump. Now, a lot of people have said things like this on both sides, and usually they fall on their sword and apologize, in some cases actually remorseful. It's a stupid thing to say. Our own. Dan O'Donnell got into trouble for a post that he made about Tim Waltz apologized. I don't know any of the background, but Dan was off the ear for a little while.

There are consequences for what, and he apologize. There are increasingly no consequences for people on the left. In bank says case, he's stumbling out at it, probably figuring nobody can fire me. I run the super pack myself, and this rinky dink little brewery in which I have my water down crappy beer up there, a bunch of lefties come into it, nobody can do anything to me. So I'm just gonna say it again, Yeah, you ought to

be shot. So all the Democratic candidates are governor. They're running away from this because most Americans don't like this kind of rhetoric no matter where it comes from. The differenced on the left and on the right, there are actual consequences for somebody on the right who says something like this, and the left anymore is just completely unapologetic about it. So now Banks SAIDs running for governor, He's taking the publicity that he got from this and saying

I'm not only doubling down, I'm tripling down. I'm not only not going to retract my wish for Trump to be killed. I'm going to say it to get it again and again, and I'm gonna make it a referendum of Democratic voters. I'm going to join the ninety seven other wing nuts that are running for governor on the Democratic side. And I'm sure he's figuring, Look, we got like seven eight nine candidates running. You don't need a great percentage in order to be the winning Democratic candidate.

Maybe I can get eighteen to twenty percent of the people out here on the left unhinged enough will also want Trump to be killed to vote for me. It also gives him free publicity to spread his hate. I have another theory, though, As I said, he's the frontman for a super pack. It's er pm other people's money.

He may have figured that, after he made these statements about wishing Trump was killed, that some of the lefty donors to the super pac might decide he's too hot to handle and they're gonna put their money into one of the other nine trillion lefty super PACs that are

out there. So he figures, if my super pac gonna fizzle away because nobody's putting any money into it anymore, I'm just gonna raise money myself for my own campaign, raise it from unhinged fellow lefties like me, run around, repeat all of the stuff, and have a great grand old time, and maybe drop out a couple of weeks before the election rather than face the humiliation of getting killed. More Democratic politics, there's a character named Peter Pergellis. He's

an alderman from the city of Milwaukee. No this is good stuff. To be a left is to be a hypocrite. It's impossible to not be a progressive or a liberal and a hypocrite because almost always one of the things that they say that they believe in comes into conflict with something else that they say that they believe it. In addition to that, they just think that the stuff that they carry out about never applies to them right. Bergellius is an alderman on the south side of the

city of Milwaukee. One of the issues that he's been making his bones on is he's railing against the end of the residency rule for city employees. It's been gone for years and years and years. It used to be that if you work for the city of Milwaukee or you work for the Milwaukee Public Schools, you had to live in the city limits of Milwaukee. Hardly anybody else in the state of Wisconsin had that rule, but Milwaukee

had it. Weirdly, even though the Democrats of the Pro Union Party, Pro Public Union Party, and the Republicans have been opposed to the Teachers' Union, these Republicans that were opposed to the residency rule. In particular, a lot of cops and firefighters were choosing not to work in Milwaukee because they didn't want to live in the high crime city. And you were ending up having had adminished job applicant pool because you were excluding all the people who didn't

live in the city. But again, that was years ago that that happened. It's not even a new thing, but Brigellis is still railing about it. And one of the things that is indeed happened since the Residence zero was dropped. It's been part of the death of the middle class in the city of Milwaukee. Milwaukee is a city that has lots of affluent homes downtown, third ward, Upper east Side, a few middle class areas, but mostly the rest of it is rather impoverished. The middle class has gone and

all these public employees leaving has accelerated that. And I grant you that that's been one of the ramifications of ending the Residence zero. Anyway, Brigellis is constantly railing against the loss of the Residen zero. All right, Burgellis has just decided that he's going to run for Congress. The congressional district in the southeastern corner of the state has

been held for several years by Republican Bryan Style. It's a Republican leaning district, but not overwhelmingly so Style Hill has the seat, and before him, this was Paul Ryan's history, so the Republicans have had it for some time, but it's not as say, overwhelmingly Republican as a couple of the other districts in the state. It's one that in a big Democratic year, the Democrats think maybe they could flip. And some think that twenty six will be a big

Democratic year. So Burgellis is running in this district. Now, roughly the district is the southern portion of Milwaukee County, all overre Seen and Kenosha Counties and then west to Walworth County. I think there's some southern Wakasho in it and maybe a little bit of going into Rock, but basically the southeastern corner of the state. Burgellis wants to run as a Democrat in that district. Here's a beautiful thing, as I said, to be a Democrat as a hypocrite.

Burgellis doesn't live in the district, mister residency rule, it's running for Congress in a district that he doesn't reside in. So Bergelis thinks that in order to be say a teacher in Milwaukee have to live in Milwaukee, but he's running for Congress in a district he doesn't live in. Now, there's nothing illegal about it. The law does not require you to live in a congressional district that you're running in. What it does require is if you are elected, you

move into that district. Now, this has been scammed also for years. There are some members of the Congress that don't even live in their home state. They just live year round in DC and they may come back every now and then without a permanent residence. Or Henry Royce the Lake Congress and from Milwaukee, he had a po boxes his address ferrate it never residents Milwaukee for the number of years. But you have to at least come up with an actual add So Burgella says, if I win,

I'll move into the district. But he knows he's probably gonna lose. So it's not like he's going to buy a house and run a place somewhere. Other than that, he wants to stay where he is. And again a lot of others have done this, but how many have done it who have made their biggest political issue to rail in favor of a residence who over city employees.

But now he's running in a congression. So you people have we sin and you got a ironic who does not live in your district but thinks that some poor schmoe who works for the city clerk in Milwaukee they should have to live in Milwaukee. Some people ask me what I did during the four months that the podcast is on hiatus. Mostly find out about stories like this

and rant and raved to nobody. In particular. I'd post a few things on x but other than that, I'd have to just like, let this sit, let this out there sit, because I got nobody. I'm in Florida. I supposed to tell this to somebody at a bar in Florida. Hey, we've got this guy, but I'm back. Here's an ex one. I have referred to certain stories as the perfect story. The perfect story is one that is interesting in and of itself, sometimes really interesting. This one's not really interesting,

just interesting. But more importantly, they raise larger issues beyond that issue. In other words, it's a teaching point for everything else. As you may know, the city of Milwaukee is having a significant problem with troublemakers and street takeovers at night. For several years, the problem was on Water Street. Now that they've tried to seal off Water Street and stop the chaos and mayhem and often violence there, the

takeovers are moving to other parts of town. There was a big one in the Bayview area a few days ago. There are many people who believe that the lakefront of Milwaukee is on borrowed time, that there are going to be some there. What happens is young people go on to social media and say, let's just go down there

and take over the street and aus mehim. And when hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them do that, the forty or fifty or sixty cops who show up seem to be powerless to do anything about it, or have been rendered powerless because their instructions are not to try to grab up as many people and arrest them because

it will just make things worse. So Milwaukee's attempting to do something about this very similar to they're ripping up of all the streets in downtown Milwaukee on the east side and taking out traffic lanes and putting in concrete medians in the middle of the traffic lane to create a separate bike lane, and putting in all these cones and bumpers and tons of speed bumps and making all the streets and obstacle. Course, this is their way of

stopping reckless driving. Their approach now to get rid of the street takeover says they're going to make the food trucks shut down at ten o'clock at Apparently I had an expert of this, because I have never gone to a food truck after ten o'clock a night in my life. In fact, I don't think I've ever gone to a

food truck. Depend on what you describe them, and like, if you're at like a church festival or a fair and somebody's got like a thing that they drive in, I've gone to those so far as I can tell. The If you go to a food truck, you better like tacos, because I don't have you ever seen a food truck that sells anything else? Are they? Aren't they all tacos? Have you ever been to one of them?

You've seen pizza? Do they make the pizza there and put it into the oven or they just make it in there and they warm it up a little bit in a microwave they make it? Oh, I would think that'd be a fire hazard. I mean, a good pizza of it is like seven hundred degrees. I don't want any say anyway. So the food truck operators, they're all hacked off. They say, we make most of our money after ten o'clock. Now I want to look down my

nose at this. But I was once young, when I was like in my heyday, centuries ago, decades ago, it was not uncommon after bar time, which in Milwaukee on weekends was two thirty to go out to eat. I mean, my Fisher's was a twenty four hour place, and it was packed at two thirty in the morning. All the George Webbs there was on Van Buren Street where the Mentro Market is now. There was a Marx big Boy.

That place would be mob with people who left victors two thirty three, three fifteen in the morning, and I'll admit I've done that. Another one people would go and get rib some seed quin. So I'm not going to say that I can't imagine eating that late at night, because I've eaten much later than that. But I can't

fair of them anymore. I mean, I don't want to eat right before I go to bed, get you know, and sleep right anyway, they say they do most of their business, and apparently the city is of the opinion that these food trucks are attracting big, giant crowds to hang around them, often of people who are not old enough to go on the bars. Many of the street takers of our people not people that are going to

a bar area. They're going to a barrier because that's what people are hanging around, but they're not actually going to the bars because many of them are way too young. But they're not too young to go to a street to a food truck. So the city is saying, let's get rid of the food trucks. Maybe that will solve the street takeover problem. Now, I actually don't care if they tell the food trucks they have to shut down

at ten o'clock at night. Ideologically I would say no, they're a private businesses that can operate if they want to operate. But frankly, I don't really care every issue I've talked about. I care more about whether or not we should allow the food trucks to be open after ten o'clock or not. The reason I bring this up is it raises the larger point leftist leaders don't know how to deal with the actual problem, so they do

something else. In the same way that you put all of these extra lanes on roads to make it impossible for somebody to drive eighty five, you can't drive twenty five on some of these streets. Let's get rid of anything that might actually draw people down to an area. Rather than do what needs to be done, have a major show of force, grab up as many people. They don't call them patty wagons anymore. Do you know that

you've heard the term paddy wagon? Yeah, you know you're not supposed to say that's supposed to say that anymore. I just followed this out. Apparently Irish people think that that's some sort of ethnic slur. I did not. I Apparently that is the legacy of it. Drunken Irish people were thrown in, just thrown into the thing, and they haul thirty people. I never knew that that's where the

term paddy wagon came from. What paddy wagon is What you do is you throw like zillions of people you're arrested in there and haul them all over to the jail. Rather than grab up these hooligans, throw them in jail and take your good and sweet time before they get to see a judge not release them. A little bit later on, Oh, actually, but the city of Milwaukee is not going to mass arrest hundreds of young people and run the risk that this is going to inflame and

incite the crowd. So they're sitting back and trying to go, oh, please, don't do it. Let's get rid of the food trucks. The next thing you know, they're going to say the bars have to close at ten o'clock at night, all because they're unwilling to confront the actual problem. And now this, this story is really cool. I said, I've had four months in order to do the podcast, but everything that

I've done here is actually recent. It's not like I'm going back to February seventh and pulling something out of Here's something not this. This story was broken by Wisconsin right now. This is really good. Municipal judges need to explain what they are. In the state of Wisconsin, we have circuit courts and they're divided by county. Every county has a circuit court, and every one of those counties as a district attorney. That's the person who prosecutes offenders

in the circuit court. The circuit court handles almost all cases, not just criminal cases, divorces, lawsuits, child custody, corporate issues, zillions of stuff, challenges the state laws for the offenses that are below that. Essentially this is oversimplifying, but not much. Say traffic tickets and ordinance violations. If you have a violation of a municipal ordinance, that's not a violation of criminal law. A lot of speeding tickets, for example, go

to municipal court. Other stuff is well. Each municipality has a municipal court, and several municipalities throw in together and have a joint municipal court, and they have municipal judges. Other than in the city of Milwaukee because of its size, maybe Madison, the municipal judges are not full time positions. There just isn't enough activity to do it to warrant it. So they tend to be lawyers who take on the

municipal judgeship as a side gig. And as I say, there's just a lot of them all over the place. You've had a community somewhere, you've got a municipal judge. In the Lake Country, this is the area in Walker Shore County. We call it the Lake Country. For those of you are not from southeastern Wisconsin. We call it the Lake Country because a lot of lakes, a number of communities have thrown together, and they have a municipal

court called the Lake Country Municipal Court. The judge who presides over that court is named Timothy k. He's apparently had the gig for some time. He's a lawyer. He's a lawyer in somewhere out there might be a econum walk. But he's also the municipal judge for the Lake Country. So he's got a guy who appears before him. His name is Matt Cole. He got a ticket for speeding. Now, I have no idea about this municipality, but there's kind

of an there's an unwritten rule. Again, I don't know if it still applies everywhere, but usually in the past, if you got a ticket and you showed up in court, they'd reduce it. You would agree to plead guilty and they would reduce the charge. So a lot of people would show up in court just for that reason. This would be an issue, for example, for people who if you already have points points numbers that they put against your driver's license, if you go over a certain number,

they can suspend a revocual license. You might want to try to plead down a violation that's a three point violation to getting a fine for the same dollar amount but no points. So it used to be just kind of like an unwritten rule that if you show up, the judge would reduce the punishment for you under the citation that you had. I don't know if that's the root of this case, but Matt Coleb appeared before the

Lake Country municipal judge Timothy K. Corb didn't like the outcome. Now, municipal judges, I'm getting to know Jason the new producer here. Where are you from? Originally he grew up in Displains. I know where that exactly where that is. It's west of the city of Chicago. Municipal judges in Wisconsin. Like everything else, talk show hosts, podcasters, plumbers, there's really good, a lot of average, some that aren't very good, and

some that stank. If I had five hours here, I tell you a story about an issue I had with a municipal judge in the city of Lacrosse when I went to college. But I don't have those five hours in any of it. They're very low prof oppositions. In some cases they're elected, in other cases they're appointed by the tom board of the village board, the city council

and so on. Hardly ever is their opposition. But when they hire somebody for it, a lot of people want to get it because it pays pretty good for the lawyers that aren't overwhelmed with work. And in some of the communities they hold the court at night, maybe one night a week or two nights a week, and it's an additional spiff to your income. So remember, now, this judge k also has a private legal practice, which you see is majority of his work. So the sky cop

appears before him for speeding. He's apparently fighting the charge, and the judge convicted him, and cop is not happy. I can imagine in Wisconsin in the last twenty years this has happened three hundred thousand times. Somebody went to municipal court and left unhappy. All you have to do is watch police videos on YouTube. I mean, actually, and I understand, the only ones they show the ones that the cops tip off the people who will do these things on YouTube, they tap them off when somebody's a

dank Because what's the point of watching a video. They pull somebody over like me, ohkay, you have a ticket. I just steer, They give me the ticket and I drive off. That's boring. You only see the ones that are people are ballistic or the idiot sovereign citizens or people who go nuts and cannon and go out of their mind. So I don't know if there've been this number of people that have gone out of their mind forever, or if YouTube just makes it seem like that. But

people fight these Some of people fight these tickets. They go to courtA they don't like it. Well, the judge didn't let them out of the ticket. So what do you think Cold does? By the way, Jason, if you heard of the story, you have again, I've been away. I don't know how many other people know of this same But anyway, Cold gets hacked off. So he goes to post an online review of the judge's private legal practice.

I mean almost everything, there's a place Google. There's Google reviews and yell review I don't even know what they all are. They're really big in restaurants, so a lot of people are gonna go check their reviews on a restaurant. I find those reviews to be very unreliable if you ever read them. So the rest of reviews, they often have nothing to do with the quality of the food. It's like the waiter took five minutes too long to

bring the check. They put that in there. Well, that doesn't mean they're gonna scow bringing the check up to me. Same thing with hotels. But like if you don't know, what's something to go on? Now, Remember, this guy called was not a law client of K, but he went to K's law firm's site and put a review up and gave him one star. That's the worst. He put up a one story review of this guy as a lawyer, even though, in fairness to the judge, he wasn't a client,

so it's a BS review. He's not reviewing this thing as a judge because they don't have a review system for judges up there, but he trashed him as a lawyer. Again, my guess is that this now happens all the time, and one of the reasons that a lot of these reviews are unreliable is sometimes somebody just has it in for the person who owns the business or whatever. Anyway K sees this review, he's a judge, he hauls Cole back into his little two bit municipal court and finds

him in contempt of court. He didn't do anything contemptuous. Actually, in court he found him in contempt of court and gave him a new fine for posting a one star review. I don't know if it's yelp. It's in here somewhere in the Wisconsin Right Now story, which is extensively reported. It goes on eighteen thousand pages. Well, Cole reports this to the City of Oconawa Police department and they investigate, and the police made the determination that this is a

misconduct in public office. You can't find someone guilty of something because they gave you a bad review on Google, and they referred the criminal case to Alkashakani Distinct Attorney Leslie Baisie. She declined prosecution. During the period of which she declined prosecution, Kay resigned his judicial position. I haven't asked Basie about this, but my guess is that this was a deal in which Basie said, if you resign,

I won't charge you. I'm not going to take charge you with a crime if you agree to resign, And likely if he was convicted, they'd put him on probation and make one of the terms of probation the need to resign. So that's probably the way I would have been handled anyway. Is it a fair resolution or not? The guy have actually faced criminal charges for so grotesquely

abusing his power. Maybe yes, maybe, But he's off the bench, and clearly he loved his gig as being the judge, given the fact that he was so thin skin that he couldn't handle the negative. Can you imagine if I latched out and everybody who ever said anything native about me, you'd think that being a judge, you'd have a pretty thick skin. But some of them, and again this is just a municipal judge, a little tin pot. There are more than one municipal judges in Waukesha County who stink.

I won't name any names here, but I've had a couple of discussions of some of the others. And again I know that's skilled for my association and that many of the others do not. But some of these are lawyers who frankly disgrace themselves. Now, I don't know the history of Timothy ka If I've ever met him, I've forgotten it. Whether or not he's been a good job

over the years or not. But in this case, he tried to find a guy in contempt of court because he responded to a conviction in his case by posting a bad I mean, what if the what if the lawyer are also own like a restaurant when you go on there and post a one star review saying that he didn't like the hand. You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast. All right, that's pretty much a wrap for the first podcast of season two. We drop new podcasts Mondays,

which would be today, Wednesday and Thursday. And obviously you found it because you're listening to this particular podcast here d we urge you to subscribe to the podcast. There's different terms that are used depending on the platform that you're on, or put a check mark and click on it. That way you'll be aware of all of the podcasts that come up as we go out through the course of the year. I want to comment briefly on the

Kentucky Derby for those of you're not aware. I have been a long term owner of race horses and a syndicate better than thirty years follow horse racing closely. I posted my picks on the Kentucky Derby on my website belling dot com. I did both good and bad. Of the four horses that I liked a lot, and I picked them in order. There are four that I suggested putting in an exact box. Three of the four hit the top five. Unfortunately I didn't have the winner at all.

For those of you who watched the race, we call them racing a meltoun. It was a meltown. They went so fast so early that all of the horses that were anywhere near the front spit it out and were on fumes in the last eighth the sixteenth of a mile, and the top three horses all came from the rear. In fact, going into the final turn, of the four horses that were the fourth last horses, three of those

four finished in the top three. In other words, the speed just stopped and the closers all came flying, and this horse named Golden Tempo came flying the best and got up in won. He was something of a log shot, and I didn't see the horse winning. In fact, I generally have a bias against these very very deep closures because often if you're coming from way back, you have to weave through so much traffic. In this case, these horses were so far back and the horses in front

of them were all slowing down. In the case of Golden Temple, he had no traffic at all. He just went around all the other horses that were slowing down, and he didn't he a little bit of a bump in mid stretcher a horse was close to him in mid stretch, but otherwise he just flew all the way to the wind. And it was the first win ever by a female trainer in the Kentucky Derby. It's not the first Triple Crown win. Female trainer won the Belmont

Stakes a couple of years ago. First time a female trainer. Sharitavo one has trained a Kentucky Derby winner. And two of the greatest jockeys and thoroughbit racing are brothers or Rod or Teas. Who's a little bit better at Jose or Teas And it's been sticking in Jose's craw forever that people said, well, Rod's a little bit better, But they're probably both in the top four or five jockeys in the United States. Some think a rat is the best.

Jose won the race and a rad Red second. See had brothers that ran one two and it was just simply a function of the fact that they were both on closers. One of the favorites in the race was the one that a Rod was on and Jose was a little bit wider and therefore was able to close a little bit better. And an update on my own race horses. This is this for people who don't understand why you get so excited when you win a horse race. You have little You just have no idea how impossible

it is. For everything that can go right, fifteen thousand things can go wrong. We had a horse yesterday in Canada making his career debut, first time started. He shows signs that he might be very good, and those signs are just you know, the trainer's evaluation of how the horse is working out and so on. The track in Canada, Woodbine is a mid tier track. It's not at the highest level of racing like say Churchill Downs or they're on the Derby. It'd be like on one level below that.

The horse is a Canadian bread, which is what bread in Canada, which is why we's starting him out at Woodbine. It was his career debut and he had the inside. Poe was the rail That's often a problem for first time starters because they tend not to break well when they're inside. They see that starting gate right next to him, and they may shy away a bit, or if there's a gap between the starting gate and the inside rail,

they may break inside. And indeed he broke a little slowly, not real slowly, but spot of the field like two lengths coming out of the gate. But he had the rail end. He has a lot of natural speed, so the riders just let him accelerate right up inside the rail, and it wasn't long before he was in first, just scooting up the rail, and he never turned back and won very comfortably. I won't say wired a wire because wire implies right when to get off the break, but

virtually wired a wire. He got to the lead very very soon and was never passed and won the race. That's the good news. The bad news the erasing stewards determined that during this period in which he came up the gate and moved up inside, he impeded the two horse that was right next to him. These kinds of things in racing are always controversial. Racing as a sport is always at instant replay. There's always reviews after the race, and the Stewart's posted an inquiry and the jockey and

the other horse raised an objection. I've seen a zillion of these, and everybody has an opinion, and I'm just telling you, obviously I'm biased. I own the horse that the foul claim was made against. I see worse than this every day, especially out of the starting gate. It's very hard, especially when you have horses that our young horses are running for the first time, to break out of the gate absolutely dead straight. They often break in a tangle and there's a little bit of bumping coming

out of the gate. Watch the beginning of the Kentucky Derby. There's like four or five horses that are squeezed coming out of there. There's no inquirer or anything on this. Secondly, when our horse came through, he's the one horse he has the inside path. If he only broke a little bit slowly, it's hard to imagine how they can claim that he didn't have the right to the inside path when he's breaking from this. He did move a little bit to his right a bit. I thought it was nothing,

and I've seen far worse. The horse that he allegedly impeded, finished all the way down at fifth place. I think there was. It was an eight horse field in my recollection. So we were disqualified and moved to six. No purse money, no nothing, even though he was clearly the best horse. Now my good news bad news thing. Would I have rather he finished, say second or third, running average, or would I rather we be decued all the way to six?

But he ran spectacularly. It's the second because in the short term, while we didn't get the way to it to get that person, we know we have a very good horse. So in his next race, he's going to come right back at the same level, which is horses that have never won. He ole have run for the first time, and he'll face the same class of horse again and shouldn't have much trouble beating them. And he indicates that his future may be very very bright, that

he may be really good. But for those of you that are into horse racing, it was the sixth race at would buy it on Sunday. His name is Wilful Warrior. If you want to see a preposterous disqualification, that was it. I know a guy that actually got a lot of money at our horse. He's the one that's hacked off because the ticket went on to be worthless. So in our case, we didn't win any money with the race

that we may have a pretty good raceourse. Okay, that's it for this one, three per week Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for the whole remainder of the year. Talk To You Said.