June 27, 2025 • 12 mins
Midwesterner editor Kyle Olson lit up the mic: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson stone-walled lawmakers yet again—ducking a subpoena for the 2024 clerk “guidance” booklet while blaming everyone else for her botched election rules and broken transparency site—just as she eyes the governor’s mansion. House committees also roasted Whitmer’s DNR for undercover stings against hunters, with Uncle Ted Nugent branding the agency “the enemy of conservation” amid a deer-car-crash epidemic surpassing 58 thousand wrecks last year. And Michigan families? They’re literally drying clothes on the line and skipping Christmas lights because DTE and Consumers keep hiking the nation’s highest electric rates while service reliability tanks—chasing jobs and manufacturing out of the state. Read it all at TheMidwesterner.news.
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Join Justin in the MAHA revolution - http://HealthWithJustin.com
Try Cue Streaming for just $2 / day and help support the good guys https://justinbarclay.com/cue
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kyle Olsen from the Midwestern and Midwestern ort News joining us. Now,
what the latest big busy week not throughout not just
throughout the country and the world, Kyle, but also here
in Michigan as things have been buzzing along. You've all
been covering it all with the Midwestern Thanks for taking
the time to.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Be here with us today. Happy good morning, So hearing.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
After hearing, let's start with Benson this week. Oh man,
this was something to see the Secretary of State and
you know, some interesting things happened. She was busted, caught
doing something kind of interesting that Midwestern are covered. I
thought it was that was kind of funny, but also busted.
Rep Kara in a moment there with Secretary of State
(00:41):
Benson as it calls her out on a few things,
the most lawless secretary of State in the history of
this state. What do you make of that there, Kyle Olson?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, obviously it was sort of a gotcha yeah, But
you know, I think it's important for all elected officials
to have some self reflection and admit when they make mistakes,
and she's She's made a lot of mistakes, either intentionally
or through incompetence. So whether it is how she's interpreted
election laws and then the guidance that she's given to
(01:14):
clerks incorrectly and illegally to the point where courts have
intervened or it is, how she's batched this transparency website system,
and she now is working with that company to try
and fix what's going on. They're saying it could be
in July. She has said that she's going to be
(01:36):
very upset if it's not fixed in July. So there's
I think there's a lot that she has to atone for.
But the fact that she sort of is very defiant
about that and refuses to acknowledge any sort of mistake,
I think is very telling.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
You know, I think you've got to watch out for
those folks.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
They've got this really lockdown on They the job interview,
and by the way, folks don't get a twister. That's
a job interview that's taking place right there, or an
opportunity for one. That's for sure, she does it. She's
not qualified for the job she currently holds, and yet
she wants she wants to run for governor. I say
(02:15):
she's completely unqualified. The point here is they'll ask in
job interviews, Hey, what's one of the biggest you know,
it's one of those biggest mistakes, or a mistake you
made that you really learned from. Or they'll ask that
question in a job interview and the answer they get
tells them everything. In other words, if somebody really comes
Clayton and says, you know, I there was one time
(02:36):
I did this and gosh, it was like the worst
thing that I could have done, but I really learned
from it. It's made me a better person, and boy,
you bet I'll never do that again. And this is that,
this is how I learned. That's somebody who, as you said,
is introspective.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
They're not full of pride, they're not full of hubris.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
They know, Okay, I'm gonna screw up every now and then,
but I'm gonna do my best to make sure I
get it right.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'll amit it when I get it wrong. She didn't
do that.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
She did what some of these people do, which is
they sort of they don't want to look bad and
from the job interviewers, so they don't even did fault
about anything, and they have a hard time coming up
with something that they did wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
What did she do?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
She pointed the finger, She pointed the finger at everybody else, you, me,
and everyone else. Now we know, let's go back to
those elections that she oversaw, specifically in twenty twenty. We're
learning every day. In fact, this is a subject part
of it, of a conversation. We had podcasts dropping this
weekend with Ryan Kelly, one of the guys that was targeted.
You can remember during the twenty two election, that guy
(03:38):
running for governor. You know he's out there, he's at
the capitol on twenty twenty, and of course in January
twenty twenty one, I guess it was Jename six. And
we're finding out the reason they went to the capitol,
these people because there were things that they saw that
was wrong, They had issues right with They just wanted
to get these things fixed and say why what about this?
What about that? Well, now we're learning the FBI saying, hey,
(03:59):
you know, well China was involved. They were involved. They
were trying to print fake ballots, they were trying to
print fake IDs, and we find out the FBI was
trying to.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Cover all of that up.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So you know, we've got we've got major issues in
these elections that she's overseen, and she's been part of
it since day one, and yet she doesn't want it
met it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Well and the whole One of the major cruxes of
what's going on in the State House right now is
the Election Integrity Committee wants to make sure that the
guidance that Benson, Secretary of State, is giving to local
clerks on how to handle ballots, how to count ballots,
(04:45):
et cetera, is within the law. And so there are
about five thousand local clerks who have received this guidance,
which is in the form of a booklet, and the
House Integrity Election Harry Committee has asked for a copy
of that from the Secretary of State and she refuses it.
She refuses to give it to them, and to the
(05:08):
point where they have subpoenaed it, and she is refusing
to comply with the subpoena. So I guess, of course,
the question is is what is there to hide? Why
are you hiding this if this is a guidance that
you are giving to clerks, and by the way, it's
from the twenty twenty four election, so it's not I mean,
(05:30):
it's not we're not currently in this election. But she
is claiming that, well, she can't do that because of security.
But the question is what exactly are you hiding because
this is a public document, it went out to five
thousand people, and she won't she won't answer that again.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Transparency, and she wants to be the governor. Of course
she'll tell us everything we need to know when she
becomes a governor. But now she just she can't really
get into all that.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And that's that's the thing here, is that her campaign
is premised on two things. One transparency and two that
she has done such a great job as Secretary of State.
She's improved elections, she's improved customer service, et cetera, that
she should be in charge of the entire state government.
(06:21):
So that's how she has that's how she's framed her campaign,
and so that's how we should be scrutinizing her record
and what she wants to do.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Kyle also the Midwestern or the Midwestern Dot News more
fireworks than Lansing yesterday. In fact, Ted Nogent Uncle Ted
or was it the day before, testifying about the abuse
of dn R, etc.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
An eighteen year old boy who gotten into bow hunting
because of my TV show got a ticket because his
bow case wasn't zipped up. There's a law in Michigan,
that wildlife policy has to be based on science. What's
the science of a bowl case?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know, she made so many points.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And I know this was about hunting, fishing, wildlife, et cetera.
But really, if you take a look at that way
of thinking, the way the government comes really to everything,
it really is a blanket approach.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
It really does.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I believe it's hina a big spotlight on everything that
they're trying to do. When it comes to everything, there
is no common sense. It's complete control and they're out
of control of lancing. And I was just happy to
see him testify and make those points.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, and he said that the DNR is the enemy
of conservation, and I thought what that hearing really did.
And there was another hearing by the Government Weaponization Committee
that really brought light to the fact that the DNR
is they're actually going undercover. They're deceiving ranch owners to
(07:56):
get onto the property and investigate what is going on.
And it shows that this DNR is totally out of control.
One of the things that he talked about is how
the deer population is totally out of control. I live
in suburban Muskegan County and I can tell you the
deer population is totally out of control. And just drive
(08:17):
when I drive to Lancing occasionally, the amount of deer
that you see on ninety six on the side of
the road from Muskegan County to Lancing is crazy. And
this is the way it is across the entire the
entire state. The last data that's been made available was
twenty twenty three, over fifty eight thousand car deer crashes
(08:40):
in the state of Michigan. First of all, at which
led to eleven deaths. So, first of all, that is dangerous,
but secondly, think about what that does to insurance rates,
what that costs a motorists when they have to fix
their cars. This is a huge problem. And so the DNR,
instead of trying to figure out out what to do
(09:01):
about the deer population and how do we incentivize hunters
to to hunt more, which helps one helps our economy
and two controls the deer population, they're going after bow hunters.
As as Ted said, they're going undercover. They have lost
their way and it's it's up to the to the
(09:24):
state House to do something about that. Because the Democrats,
the Whitmer administration, which is I mean the DNR is
her appointee and her appointees and the state Senate. They're
not going to going to do anything about this, and
so it's up to the House to do something about it.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Kyle.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Also, the Midwestern or the Midwesterner Dot News always a pleasure,
my friend.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Before we go, there's one story.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
That's over on the Midwesterner that we talked about at
length a little bit yesterday and wanted to just sort
of get your comment. I can you hang with us
for just a moment. It's a story in fact about
the people in Michigan living like they're amish to live
like they're amised because the prices of the energy keep
going up, and it's a story folks who are really
(10:09):
passionate about want to dig into that and find out
I tell you what, you can find more of these
stories in the Midwestern or the Midwestern Dot News. We're
back with Kyle Olsen coming up in just a minute.
And don't forget, folks, don't just bookmark it. Definitely put
your email address in so that you can stay up
tonight on these stories and more. All right, Kyle Olson,
whether it's The Midwestern or the Midwestern or Dot News,
(10:30):
people in Michigan living like their Amish because of the
electric prices and the energy just keeps going through the roof.
A great article story about this on the Midwestern or Kyle,
I've only got about like forty five seconds here, but
i just wanted you to address this. This is something
driving people up the wall.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, Michigan has the highest electricity rates in certainly in
the Midwest, if not the country. And here we've got
companies like DTE Consumers Energy. They keep going to the
Whitmer Public Service Commission asking for rate increases and year
after year, and people are saying, we can't, we can't
(11:08):
afford this anymore. And not to mention, we have some
of the most unreliable electricity in the country and so
something has got to give. And so we've published this
story about how people are they don't have Christmas lights anymore.
They're hanging their clothes outside so they can, you know,
not have it, not pay for the dryer electricity. This
(11:29):
is not the way people want to live, but because
of the situation in Michigan, it's what they're having to do.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It is incredible, and you're right, it's it's like we're
paying more for less and every day people are just
ringing their heads. By way, it's not just you or me,
it's also industry, big business that would like to come here, manufacturing,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
They can't because they just can't afford the energy crisis.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Always a pleasure, my friend, I appreciate by the way
it costs us jobs folks the Midwestern or the Midwestern
Dot News Kyle Olson, Thank you, sir, God bless happy
do you.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Thanks
Kyle Olsen from the Midwestern and Midwestern ort News joining us. Now,
what the latest big busy week not throughout not just
throughout the country and the world, Kyle, but also here
in Michigan as things have been buzzing along. You've all
been covering it all with the Midwestern Thanks for taking
the time to.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Be here with us today. Happy good morning, So hearing.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
After hearing, let's start with Benson this week. Oh man,
this was something to see the Secretary of State and
you know, some interesting things happened. She was busted, caught
doing something kind of interesting that Midwestern are covered. I
thought it was that was kind of funny, but also busted.
Rep Kara in a moment there with Secretary of State
(00:41):
Benson as it calls her out on a few things,
the most lawless secretary of State in the history of
this state. What do you make of that there, Kyle Olson?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, obviously it was sort of a gotcha yeah, But
you know, I think it's important for all elected officials
to have some self reflection and admit when they make mistakes,
and she's She's made a lot of mistakes, either intentionally
or through incompetence. So whether it is how she's interpreted
election laws and then the guidance that she's given to
(01:14):
clerks incorrectly and illegally to the point where courts have
intervened or it is, how she's batched this transparency website system,
and she now is working with that company to try
and fix what's going on. They're saying it could be
in July. She has said that she's going to be
(01:36):
very upset if it's not fixed in July. So there's
I think there's a lot that she has to atone for.
But the fact that she sort of is very defiant
about that and refuses to acknowledge any sort of mistake,
I think is very telling.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
You know, I think you've got to watch out for
those folks.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
They've got this really lockdown on They the job interview,
and by the way, folks don't get a twister. That's
a job interview that's taking place right there, or an
opportunity for one. That's for sure, she does it. She's
not qualified for the job she currently holds, and yet
she wants she wants to run for governor. I say
(02:15):
she's completely unqualified. The point here is they'll ask in
job interviews, Hey, what's one of the biggest you know,
it's one of those biggest mistakes, or a mistake you
made that you really learned from. Or they'll ask that
question in a job interview and the answer they get
tells them everything. In other words, if somebody really comes
Clayton and says, you know, I there was one time
(02:36):
I did this and gosh, it was like the worst
thing that I could have done, but I really learned
from it. It's made me a better person, and boy,
you bet I'll never do that again. And this is that,
this is how I learned. That's somebody who, as you said,
is introspective.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
They're not full of pride, they're not full of hubris.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
They know, Okay, I'm gonna screw up every now and then,
but I'm gonna do my best to make sure I
get it right.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'll amit it when I get it wrong. She didn't
do that.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
She did what some of these people do, which is
they sort of they don't want to look bad and
from the job interviewers, so they don't even did fault
about anything, and they have a hard time coming up
with something that they did wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
What did she do?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
She pointed the finger, She pointed the finger at everybody else, you, me,
and everyone else. Now we know, let's go back to
those elections that she oversaw, specifically in twenty twenty. We're
learning every day. In fact, this is a subject part
of it, of a conversation. We had podcasts dropping this
weekend with Ryan Kelly, one of the guys that was targeted.
You can remember during the twenty two election, that guy
(03:38):
running for governor. You know he's out there, he's at
the capitol on twenty twenty, and of course in January
twenty twenty one, I guess it was Jename six. And
we're finding out the reason they went to the capitol,
these people because there were things that they saw that
was wrong, They had issues right with They just wanted
to get these things fixed and say why what about this?
What about that? Well, now we're learning the FBI saying, hey,
(03:59):
you know, well China was involved. They were involved. They
were trying to print fake ballots, they were trying to
print fake IDs, and we find out the FBI was
trying to.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Cover all of that up.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So you know, we've got we've got major issues in
these elections that she's overseen, and she's been part of
it since day one, and yet she doesn't want it
met it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Well and the whole One of the major cruxes of
what's going on in the State House right now is
the Election Integrity Committee wants to make sure that the
guidance that Benson, Secretary of State, is giving to local
clerks on how to handle ballots, how to count ballots,
(04:45):
et cetera, is within the law. And so there are
about five thousand local clerks who have received this guidance,
which is in the form of a booklet, and the
House Integrity Election Harry Committee has asked for a copy
of that from the Secretary of State and she refuses it.
She refuses to give it to them, and to the
(05:08):
point where they have subpoenaed it, and she is refusing
to comply with the subpoena. So I guess, of course,
the question is is what is there to hide? Why
are you hiding this if this is a guidance that
you are giving to clerks, and by the way, it's
from the twenty twenty four election, so it's not I mean,
(05:30):
it's not we're not currently in this election. But she
is claiming that, well, she can't do that because of security.
But the question is what exactly are you hiding because
this is a public document, it went out to five
thousand people, and she won't she won't answer that again.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Transparency, and she wants to be the governor. Of course
she'll tell us everything we need to know when she
becomes a governor. But now she just she can't really
get into all that.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And that's that's the thing here, is that her campaign
is premised on two things. One transparency and two that
she has done such a great job as Secretary of State.
She's improved elections, she's improved customer service, et cetera, that
she should be in charge of the entire state government.
(06:21):
So that's how she has that's how she's framed her campaign,
and so that's how we should be scrutinizing her record
and what she wants to do.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Kyle also the Midwestern or the Midwestern Dot News more
fireworks than Lansing yesterday. In fact, Ted Nogent Uncle Ted
or was it the day before, testifying about the abuse
of dn R, etc.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
An eighteen year old boy who gotten into bow hunting
because of my TV show got a ticket because his
bow case wasn't zipped up. There's a law in Michigan,
that wildlife policy has to be based on science. What's
the science of a bowl case?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know, she made so many points.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And I know this was about hunting, fishing, wildlife, et cetera.
But really, if you take a look at that way
of thinking, the way the government comes really to everything,
it really is a blanket approach.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
It really does.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I believe it's hina a big spotlight on everything that
they're trying to do. When it comes to everything, there
is no common sense. It's complete control and they're out
of control of lancing. And I was just happy to
see him testify and make those points.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, and he said that the DNR is the enemy
of conservation, and I thought what that hearing really did.
And there was another hearing by the Government Weaponization Committee
that really brought light to the fact that the DNR
is they're actually going undercover. They're deceiving ranch owners to
(07:56):
get onto the property and investigate what is going on.
And it shows that this DNR is totally out of control.
One of the things that he talked about is how
the deer population is totally out of control. I live
in suburban Muskegan County and I can tell you the
deer population is totally out of control. And just drive
(08:17):
when I drive to Lancing occasionally, the amount of deer
that you see on ninety six on the side of
the road from Muskegan County to Lancing is crazy. And
this is the way it is across the entire the
entire state. The last data that's been made available was
twenty twenty three, over fifty eight thousand car deer crashes
(08:40):
in the state of Michigan. First of all, at which
led to eleven deaths. So, first of all, that is dangerous,
but secondly, think about what that does to insurance rates,
what that costs a motorists when they have to fix
their cars. This is a huge problem. And so the DNR,
instead of trying to figure out out what to do
(09:01):
about the deer population and how do we incentivize hunters
to to hunt more, which helps one helps our economy
and two controls the deer population, they're going after bow hunters.
As as Ted said, they're going undercover. They have lost
their way and it's it's up to the to the
(09:24):
state House to do something about that. Because the Democrats,
the Whitmer administration, which is I mean the DNR is
her appointee and her appointees and the state Senate. They're
not going to going to do anything about this, and
so it's up to the House to do something about it.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Kyle.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Also, the Midwestern or the Midwesterner Dot News always a pleasure,
my friend.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Before we go, there's one story.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
That's over on the Midwesterner that we talked about at
length a little bit yesterday and wanted to just sort
of get your comment. I can you hang with us
for just a moment. It's a story in fact about
the people in Michigan living like they're amish to live
like they're amised because the prices of the energy keep
going up, and it's a story folks who are really
(10:09):
passionate about want to dig into that and find out
I tell you what, you can find more of these
stories in the Midwestern or the Midwestern Dot News. We're
back with Kyle Olsen coming up in just a minute.
And don't forget, folks, don't just bookmark it. Definitely put
your email address in so that you can stay up
tonight on these stories and more. All right, Kyle Olson,
whether it's The Midwestern or the Midwestern or Dot News,
(10:30):
people in Michigan living like their Amish because of the
electric prices and the energy just keeps going through the roof.
A great article story about this on the Midwestern or Kyle,
I've only got about like forty five seconds here, but
i just wanted you to address this. This is something
driving people up the wall.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, Michigan has the highest electricity rates in certainly in
the Midwest, if not the country. And here we've got
companies like DTE Consumers Energy. They keep going to the
Whitmer Public Service Commission asking for rate increases and year
after year, and people are saying, we can't, we can't
(11:08):
afford this anymore. And not to mention, we have some
of the most unreliable electricity in the country and so
something has got to give. And so we've published this
story about how people are they don't have Christmas lights anymore.
They're hanging their clothes outside so they can, you know,
not have it, not pay for the dryer electricity. This
(11:29):
is not the way people want to live, but because
of the situation in Michigan, it's what they're having to do.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
It is incredible, and you're right, it's it's like we're
paying more for less and every day people are just
ringing their heads. By way, it's not just you or me,
it's also industry, big business that would like to come here, manufacturing,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
They can't because they just can't afford the energy crisis.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Always a pleasure, my friend, I appreciate by the way
it costs us jobs folks the Midwestern or the Midwestern
Dot News Kyle Olson, Thank you, sir, God bless happy
do you.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Thanks
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