Justin Barclay Show: Guest Host James Dickson 12-23-24 (910AM)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello Detroit, and good morning Michigan. Don't adjust that dial.
I know Justin and Barclay and I look quite a
bit alike, but I am not Justin Barclay.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is James Dixon.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
You've heard my voice a few times now. This is
my third time filling in for my friend Justin Barclay.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
We should be thinking about Justin.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Last time I filled in for him, he was tending
to a loss of a life. He was going to
celebrate a life and doing a funeral. Today he's relaxing
and enjoying the Christmas season. So Justin, if you're listening
out there, have some hot cocoa on my behalf, sir,
please Programming note, the show is not going to be
live the rest of the week.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're gonna run some tape.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
So today's show is the show for the week, and
it's already the show of the week. And so here
today on the Justin Barclay Show, We're here for a
good time and a long time. George Orwell, famous author
nineteen eighty four Animal Farm, which is my favorite of

(01:07):
the two. George Orwell wrote that all art is propaganda.
His point is that every piece of art that's created
promotes a certain set of values. And the point behind
that is that nothing is neutral, nothing just exists. Everything

(01:28):
was made for a reason as opposed to no reason.
All of art that you've ever seen is meant to
move you to a point B that's either preferred by
the artists themselves or the people backing the artist. The
original use of the word propaganda has Catholic roots. It

(01:50):
refers to efforts to propagate promote the Catholic faith and
Catholic values. And so I agree with our or Well,
I agree with Orwell exactly. All art is propaganda. And
I believe if George Orwell were alive today, he would
agree with me that all journalism is politics. If you

(02:13):
follow me on Twitter x, I'm at down I seventy five.
I talk about this stuff all the time. This is
the Justin Barclay Show. James Dixon filling in pop quiz,
pop quiz. What kind of person becomes a sports writer?
Probably a sports fan, right, Probably the kind of person

(02:35):
who loved watching games with their dad as a kid.
Maybe they even played a little bit, but they decided
fairly early on in their adult life that this is
how they wanted to spend their life. You will hardly
ever meet a sports writer who gets into it mid career.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
That's not a thing.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Sports in particular has a great emphasis on Oh, before
you're going to cover or Michigan football at the Big House,
you gotta start with the lacrosse team. You gotta cover
some high school bowling first. You gotta pay your dues.
You can't just come in at the top. And so
it's sports fans who becomes sports writers. I think we

(03:16):
all understand that. Pop quiz what kind of person becomes
a politics reporter? Someone who doesn't like politics, really, Is
that what you think? Or is it someone who believes
that politics is a way, and perhaps even the best

(03:37):
way to change the world. Is it someone who believes
that there is perhaps a right way to do politics
and a wrong way. Is it perhaps someone who has
really strong views about who should hold power and what
they should do with that power.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Again, nothing is neutral, Nothing just exists.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Everything exist to move you to a point, be preferred
by the artists, the journalists, or in some cases, the
people bankrolling them. So you know the truth. You know
that people who love politics go into political reporting. People
who love sports become sports reporters. People who have opinions

(04:21):
on politics go into politics, And unlike in sports, there's
not thirty teams in politics. Maybe in Germany or England
or something like that, but in America there's two teams.
There's the red team and then there's the Blue team.
None of us, nobody you will ever meet or have

(04:41):
ever met, is a blank slate in life. Think about
every political reporter you've ever known personally or you've read
their work in Michigan or anywhere else, Washington, anywhere else, Chicago.
If I asked you, what is that person's politics, you
could probably tell me. And if you tell me that

(05:04):
you can't tell me that it's just too hard to decipher,
that this person's just too split down the middle. Send
me their stuff and I guarantee I can tell you
exactly what their leanings are, what they say, what they
don't say, who's quoted first, who's quoted last, whose voice

(05:24):
carries the headline. These things are all how biased manifests
in journalism, and lately we've seen a lot of it.
And fortunately the examples I'm about to mention are not
from the Michigan market. It's the fact that all journalism
is politics. That we get news. These days written in

(05:45):
the past of voice. You see that story over the
weekend one of those Christmas markets in Germany. A Muslim
immigrant plows through it in a car, kills a bunch
of people. You guys probably saw that story over the weekend.
A woman was set on fire on a Brooklyn subway

(06:07):
car in New York City, set on fire and died
in the fire in a crowded subway in America's most
crowded city. These stories aren't political per se, but they
are politics. Both are meant to portray a certain worldview,
and in both cases, those passive voice headlines are written

(06:30):
to shift blame away from the people who commit crimes.
You might think from reading those headlines that cars are
the problem in Germany and that we need car control.
You might think from reading that story in New York
that fires are the problem and we need fire control.

(06:50):
And the reason both headlines are meant that way is
to shift blame and focus away from the people who
commit crimes. And in these cases they're both immigrants, one illegal.
I think the guy in Germany might have had some
kind of legal status, but even that is screwy. These days,
You guys know that if you enter the southern border

(07:12):
of America. There is an app called the CBP one app.
A few keystrokes on that app and boom, you are
a legal assi lee. You have legal asylum status. There's
no vetting, No one knows who you are, no one
knows that you are who you claim to be, and

(07:33):
just that quickly you're granted legal status. So don't be
bowled over by this idea that someone has legal status.
That just means that the regime played a role in
bringing them to your doorstep. So these stories are all political.
They're all political at heart because they're all meant to

(07:55):
drive you into a certain direction. And so I just
need us to move into twenty twenty five with an
honesty about what we're doing and a clarity about what
we're reading and watching. If a reporter is on Twitter
these days, you can tell their politics. If they're on

(08:15):
Blue Sky, they told you their politics. They're liberal. And
so when I say that reporters are Democrats and press badges,
that's true by definition. Look, everybody on this planet leans
one way or the other. And that friend you're thinking of,

(08:35):
maybe your dad, maybe he's mister right down the middle. Yeah,
he's not covering politics for a living. That's not who
applies for jobs covering politics. That's not who gets jobs
covering politics. And so I have a modest proposal. Rather
than us telling lies and acting like they're true, how

(08:56):
about we do this. Why don't we make journals honest again?
Fun fact, the first journalism in America was political journalism,
and it was done by rich men who owned printing presses.
These men were not blank slates, and they did not
hire men who were blank slates. These men had objectives.

(09:20):
They were not objective. These men set out to move
overton windows in their preferred direction, whether that was against
the British or in favor of the US Constitution, or
in opposition to slavery.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
They were not neutral.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Neutral is a marketing campaign to make you think that
news written and edited and assigned by human beings and
somehow not the product of any of their biases. Everyone
involved has somehow managed to overcome their bias to deliver
neutral journalism to your doorstep. Well, I'm here to tell

(09:57):
you there is no such thing, and that's why all
journalism is politics. Bias is a feature of journalism, not
a bug. And if bias is inherent in journalism, and
it is the only question left is in which direction?

(10:21):
What to cover, what not to cover, What goes on
the front page, what goes on the last page. These
are all choices made by men with biases, prejudices, default settings, sensibilities,
and teams they cheer for. This is why we hire

(10:43):
men with news judgment to make these news judgments. This
is why we don't let the algorithm just decide what
goes where.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
And even if we did.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
That algorithm is designed by men with biases and prejudices
and default settings and sensibilities. You think AI is a
way around that. AI is just an approximation of human intelligence.
It hopes to reach the level of conflict that we
live every single day. And so yeah, it's been said

(11:16):
that all politics is local. My slogan is make news
local again. And the idea driving it is that locally written,
partisan journalism is the root of all journalism in America.
That's when journalism was its most honest. So when we
think about a legacy news outlet like the New York

(11:38):
Times or CNN, why are those fading while a Justin
Barclay or a Glenn Beck are rising. It's because Justin
and Glenn are honest about their limitations. Justin and Glenn
are each of them are one man out of eight
billion people, And they say so, They admit that this

(11:59):
is one man's tas on the world.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Take it or leave it, but that's what they have
to give you.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
The news meanwhile, acts like there's only one right way
to view the world, their way, and they're running into
a brick wall called reality. The fact is that's not true,
it's not honest, and nobody believes it, and that's why
the Democrat Media Alliance failed on November fifth. So if

(12:26):
I could leave you with one thing, if this is
all you hear all week, know this, All journalism is politics.
Free yourself from this belief that political reports or political
reporters are somehow objective. And look, don't get mad at
these people. Don't get mad that reporters aren't objective. Nobody is.

(12:47):
You might be mad that they lied to you, and
that is your right, but imagine how they must feel
lying to themselves. When we come back from the break,
we're going to talk about something that's been on my
mind as we go into this last week of twenty
twenty four. What do we want twenty twenty five to

(13:09):
look like I have some thoughts on what we need
to change, what I'm going to change. I'd love you
to hear them. Justin Barclay Show James Dixon hosting. Talk
to you guys in just a few minutes. Wow, Hello Detroit,
and good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon billing in

(13:29):
for Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show. This
is the nine to ten am superstation broadcasting out of Southfield, Michigan.
It's Christmas week, it's a cold week, it's a family week,
and I hope you're making plans to enjoy that right now.
But I want to talk about how we're going to
end twenty twenty four as a year. And you know,

(13:52):
Elsa could have written this next monologue because basically, what
I'd like to encourage you to do is to let
it go. There is a great danger and sometimes even
a grave danger in the half opened door. After today,
this show is going to go dark. We're going to

(14:13):
take the rest of the week off to enjoy Christmas
with our families, and I hope you do the same.
We're not meant to go through life alone. I love
talking about the creation story in Genesis one and two.
And God had created the heavens and the earth, and
those were good, and the plants and the animals, and

(14:35):
those were good. The one thing in that entire story
that God describes as not good is Adam being alone.
And so as we go dark the rest of this week,
you should too. We should take this winter season this
week before the new year, and we should use this

(14:57):
opportunity to take stock. One thing I've learned over the
years is you have to take what the seasons give you.
When it's dark, like it is right now, it's dark
and cold in the winter, go to bed early. Don't
try to fight that stuff. Go to bed early when
it's light and bright and warm, stay up late, enjoy

(15:24):
time with your friends. Take what the seasons give you.
The season is literally telling you how to enjoy it
and how to use it to your advantage. And anytime
you're fighting reality, anytime you're fighting seasonality, you're going to
run into problems. I know this myself, because once upon
a time I used to have seasonal depression. It turns

(15:48):
out I did not need more light. What I needed
was to need the light less. It was my expectations
and my needs that were out of whack. And I
learned this when my girlfriend got me a blackout curtain,
and so I put this blackout curtain on my apartment

(16:08):
at the time, and man, not only would I sleep
like a baby, but by the time a workday ended.
This was still in the early COVID era. By the
time the workday ended and it was time to go
out and go to the gym or take a walk
or do whatever outside the house, you know, time was where. Man,
you go outside and it's five o'clock and it's pitch dark,

(16:31):
and you don't want to be there. It just it
was a depressing feeling overall. Dark and cold is a
tough thing to overcome. But then I used the blackout curtain.
I realized lack of light was not my problem. I
had too much of a need for a light, and
so bringing in more of the dark actually helped me

(16:54):
get over that hump in my life. I've heard it
said that we're all ahead habbit that we need to
start and a habit that we need to stop from
changing our lives for the better. And so in your
quiet moments these next few days, consider.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
What that is.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Who or what do you need to leave behind in
twenty twenty four. Focus in this case, focus on your
relationships with other people. If I ask you right now,
pop quiz, who in your life is not a fit
for twenty twenty five? Who should not make the journey

(17:34):
into a new year? You probably have an answer right
off the top of your head. Whether a name comes
out of your mouth, I guarantee one popped up in
your mind's eye. You see that person as I'm talking.
The question is will you act on it? See the
mind interprets the half open door or the door left

(17:57):
ajar as being open. And so when we keep relationships
are alive that are just limping along on life support,
we're keeping a door ajar that we should just close,
And in so doing, we block the people we need
and want in our lives from finding us because we're

(18:18):
sitting there holding a torch for what is not, has
never been, and will never be. There is some door
in life that you should close. You know what it is,
You feel it in your heart. You should act now.
I have a little rule in all my self improvement

(18:41):
practice that no serious plan starts with the word tomorrow.
And so when I talk to someone about the next
year and they're talking about Oh, I'm going to wait
till next year to get to the gym, to cut
that person off, to.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Do this, to do that.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
I know they're not serious, and I tell them that
they're not being serious.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
No serious plan waits until tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
And we certainly don't wait what a week, week and
a half, ten days, We certainly don't wait all that
time to change our lives. What do you need to
move on from? Who do you need to move on from?
My advice is you need to start thinking about that
today and you need to start making that move. So

(19:28):
use the stillness of the season, Use the quiet of
the season, Use the time that you're going to have
with not working this week, or maybe if you are working,
maybe it's a little less hectic. This probably doesn't apply
to our friends who work in retail, because it's going
to be absolutely nuts all week. But whatever your situation,

(19:50):
your thoughts are free and you will have quiet moments
this week, and in those quiet moments, you should think
about your cast of characters. Who you had around in
two two thousand and five isn't who you should have
around in twenty twenty five. And just like Saint Nick,
you need to make that list you need to check
it twice. We're gonna be back out of the break

(20:11):
with my friend Jen Ayers. She's gonna talk about a
story that you may not know. Did you know that
a woman from Michigan built mar Alago. I'm gonna tell
you more about that right out of the break. Hello Detroy,
Good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon filling in for

(20:33):
Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show. This is
nine ten am superstation broadcasting out of Southfield, Michigan. You
may know that mar A Lago, donald Trump's Florida residence
in West Palm Beach. You may know that mar A
Lago was built to be the winter white House. Did

(20:54):
you know that Palm Beach itself, the community has served
in that capacity now for two presidents.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
John F.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Kennedy, whose family had property there since the forties, and
Donald Trump. But today Trump is actually living the original
vision of mar A Lago, literally operating a winter white
House and managing his power base from the Florida compound
that he's owned since the nineteen eighties. What you probably

(21:22):
don't know is that a woman from Michigan built mar
A Lago. I didn't know any of this either until
I read my friend Jennifer Ayres a story in the
Michigan Enjoyer.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
It's a great story.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
It's called a Michigan or Built mar a Lago, and
it's an absolute must read. You can find that at
enjoyer dot com. Jen is my guest today. Jen Ayers
is a writer. She is a wife and a mother
in Oakland County, just like myself. Well I'm not a
wife or a mother, but I live in Oakland County anyway.

(21:56):
Jen Ayers is a great writer and she is my
guest today, Jen, Jen, thank you for taking the time
this morning.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Good morning, a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Absolutely, Jen, we'll get you started on an easy one.
What do you enjoy about Michigan?

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh gosh, I feel like I say the same answers
as everyone, But I absolutely love our lakes and our
sand dunes. And also, I'm for sure a fifth generation
Michigan Andrews, So I have very deep roots here, fifth generation,

(22:36):
fifth generation, yes, holy sure that I can trace. Yeah,
so it's possible that my family's been here since statehood,
but I haven't been able to go quite that far
back yet. But it's beautiful here, and you know, Christmas time.
It's magical. I'm looking out my window. My neighbors have

(22:58):
their trees lit up and it just lovely with the snow.
You don't get that too many other places.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
So no, Jen, tell me how this story came about
in the Michigan Enjoyer. You had texted me about this,
and I'd never heard about this. Obviously, mar A Lago
is a is a great facility. I never knew the
Michigan connection. First of all, how'd you know that? And
what made you think this story needs to be told?

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Oh that's a great question. So I am from I
was born and raised Calhoun County, So our west side
ers no Battle Creek. In the summer, you smell fruity pebbles,
and you smell fruit loops our warm days. Yes, seriously,
during the week you smell it. And I'm a big
history nerd buff whatever. And I looked it up because

(23:53):
I heard President Trump say before that Marjorie meriweather Post
built mar A Lago. So I did my homework and
I was like, holy cow, she wasn't born in Michigan,
but she grew up in Michigan. From I believe I
might be saying the wrong years I think from age
four to fourteen. So she helped her father glue the

(24:16):
early post some labels. It was like a cereal drink.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
So imagine a little girl before the turn of the
century here in Michigan in a barn and she's gleaning
labels on to these food packages.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Right.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
So she is new money. She's every inch a Midwesterner. Right.
So she loved square dancing, and that might not be
something we split into the article there. So she Yeah,
she may have been new money, but she was also

(24:53):
a very practical woman. She liked to build things, so
I had I just had a lot of fun looking
up her life, listening to interviews. You've on Library has
a great online resource where you can listen to her
in a voice to interview talk about how she built
mar Lago, where she got the tiles. It's fascinating because

(25:18):
that it is a complex. I mean, she built it
to last, so she wanted to make sure it was
on a coral base so they could reinforce it with
stealing concrete against hurricanes.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
And she.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Was into all the details. So it's someplace I hope
to see one day in person, because I've heard absolutely
and of course from the photos, it's breathtaking, So yeah,
it's jet.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Even the descriptions are breathtaking.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Just a small excerpt here you write that gold plated
fixtures are found throughout because Marjorie thought they'd.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Be easier to clean.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
She acquired thirty six thousand and this these years will
blow your mind. Thirty six thousand Spanish and Portuguese tiles
made between thirteen ninety eight and fifteen fifteen. Some of
the tiles were recovered from old shipwrecks that never completed
their journey. And it's just so funny because you know

(26:24):
the post family, they were new money at the time,
but we think of old money as building these kind
of gilded age facilities. So it just absolutely three bomb shelters.
Let me ask you this, was there any fact like
all of this blew my mind, but you you had
a little bit more background on it. Was there anything

(26:45):
just that just absolutely shocked you as you did the
research on this.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
What I found last minute was during the Korean War,
she had bomb shelters because it was built on a
coral base there on the strip of land between.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Why am I.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Forgetting the lake on the other side? It's early Pardon me,
folks between the lake and the sea. So during the
Korean War, bomb shelter Lake Worth thank you, she had
bomb shelters. Put In and her fourth husband and I'm
forgetting his last name, he was an ambassador to Russia.

(27:26):
So speaking earlier, James, he spoke of the Kennedy's. He
entertained Rose Kennedy at mar Laco and Rose yes, and
Rose Kennedy once said that never had she had such
a fantastic time dance scene.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
So yeah, so she had dignitaries there. She had Rose Kennedy,
I think Lady Bird Johnson came there and some other
people that dignitaries or you know, foreigns represented at the time.
She entertained them all there. So she she had a

(28:05):
passion for entertaining. She did charities. I think the Red
Cross charity ball that President Trump still puts on today
was something that Marjorie had also done as well. Yeah,
so that's a long tradition there at mar A Lago.
I don't know. Of course, there was a break when

(28:25):
the property, you know in the article people will read
the property did bounce back and forth because it's so
enormous and the upkeep for facility that large. So I'm
so thrilled that it's been saved and it's now one
of our national Historic sites. So it's I'm very happy

(28:47):
that the building of that beauty and magnitude has been
saved and it's being enjoyed. And yeah, could you.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Talk about that vision that she initially had.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
I mean, she was taught talking about Winter white House
before there there was even such a thing. This was
before Camp David, like the government had not sprawled nearly
the way it would under FDR. And in the ninety
years since, how was the vision of a Winter white
House received? And what might they think to see mar

(29:22):
A Lago actually serve right now, all these years later,
a century later its original purpose?

Speaker 3 (29:31):
You mean you mean Marjory Post her?

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, or the Post family?

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Do we know anything about what they think about seeing
the Winter white House they built actually be the Winter
white House?

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Now?

Speaker 3 (29:46):
You know, I haven't found anything specifically. There are grandchildren
still alive, but I am not sure some people who
watched film and movies. Her daughter was Dina Merrill. She
changed her name, but she was an actress, So like

(30:09):
I'm really naming old films here about Butterfield eight. She
was in with Elizabeth Taylor. She has children that are
now older. I would love to know what they think.
I don't know, though, that's a great question, but it's
it's just the when I was reading, like the amount

(30:32):
of gold and everything. Even when it was being built,
it was I think the most expensive home at the
time in Beach and Anna Dodge speaking of Michiganers, and
I think it's the same Anna Dodge, right, they have
a home there, but it was torn down because no

(30:53):
one bought it to do the upkeep. It wasn't as
large as Marlaco, but as long on all these huge
homes built at that time during the Roaring twenties, mar
Lagos the last one left.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Wow, it's really the end of an era.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
It's the end of an era. I don't think anything
would be built like that. Again, she had sculptors from
Vienna come in and they spent three years doing the
sculptures around the property. So if you.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's tough to even imagine how much that would cost. Oh,
I mean it's tough to get a freaking plumbing job
done in a timely fashion, and you're bringing in sculptors
from another country before air travel was common or cheap.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Exactly she was doing that. And the designer, the gentleman
who did interior designs. And this is really going far
back because people've heard of zig Field follies. He used
to be a set designer and I think he also.

Speaker 5 (32:05):
Worked for.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Not JP Morgan, but I'm thinking of of course, it's
slipping my mind this morning, but it was another super
wealthy person at the time, and he's the one who
worked with her on making the blend of Moroccans, Spanish
and Viennese styles so right. So they did just a

(32:31):
real mix, and Mercury herself said a lot of the
fireplaces looked more modern, but the tile was old, and
she said she liked the mix between the new and
the old, so I thought that was interesting. She had
a lot of input into the home, so much so
that she had individual homes within. So there's a main house,

(32:55):
there's a children's house called the Baby's House, and I
checked on that. I think that's still percent it's the
original form, and I think Ivanka Trump might have used
it as a bedroom. I think at one time. There's
the owner's house where I think President Trump might live

(33:16):
in that park. This home is so massive, and then
there's guest homes. But I do know that President Trump
added on extensions for the club members, So I find
all that fascinating.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Jen, you are a bit of a non traditional writer.
You you really took something that you were interested in,
You did the research, you did the work, and you
found people to publish your story. It's really an inspiration.
This is the kind of thing every aspiring writer should
be doing. What advice would you give a writer who's

(33:52):
trying to get in the arena but doesn't know how
quite to get started?

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Oh? I would say just start. I wasn't sure that
this wouldn't you know, I wasn't even sure like, oh,
with this idea if he liked. But you know, you
can't be afraid to try. Just go out and do it.
Just jump in and do it. Another friend of mine
who's a writer, had the best idea, just start. Just

(34:18):
put your work out there and you never know. And
it was a It's been a pleasure working with the
Enjoyer team. I'm getting this piece put together and it
was loads of fun.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
So we'll get you out of here on this one, Jen,
what's on your mind as you look into twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Oh, I'm excited I feel I feel like everybody's ready
for the energy to start back up in the country
and the optimism, and I'm just looking forward to, you know,
our country just going off on, you know, full steam ahead.

(35:01):
And that's what I want for Michigan. We're builders, we're creators. Yes,
we enjoy our state. We have so much talent and
artistry here and I would love to see more of it.
I love to see us building things again because that's right.
And you know, we were big food before it was

(35:22):
called big food. And I know, you know we're looking
at making our food healthier, but our food was healthier before.
And we're very much an agricultural state too, So I
would love to see us win again on all fronts.
It would be fantastic.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Absolutely, John. I want to thank you so much for
taking the time. This is an absolute great story. Guys,
go to enjoyer dot com. It's the top story. It
is the most interesting story you'll read all week. A
Michigan or built mar alago Jen be blessed this Christmas season.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Thank you you too. It's been a pleasure. Have a
great one.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
All right, take care, bye bye.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
We're gonna come back from the break and we're gonna
talk about the lame duck session that just wrapped up
here in Michigan. Michigan Democrats are unfit for command, and
in just a few minutes, I'm going to tell you
how and why. Hello Detroit, Good morning, Michigan. This is
James Dixon selling me in for Justin Barclay. This is

(36:26):
the Justin Barclay Show on nine to and am superstation
in Southfield, Michigan. If you don't get along with one person,
that's their problem. If you don't get along with anybody,
that's your problem. My dad told me this is a
school kid when I wasn't getting along with anybody. Dad

(36:47):
lives in Vegas now, but his words apply perfectly to
the twenty twenty four Michigan Democrats. When the one hundred
and second Legislature started, Senator Dana Polhanky Livonia right that
Democrats held all the gavels in Lansing. Holding all the
gavels means that no one can stop you from doing

(37:09):
what you want to do. Nobody can stop you from
making new laws. You can only stop yourself. But that's
exactly what just happened to the Michigan Democrats during lame duck.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Not since the.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Tower of Babel has a group of workers started out
with such a grand vision and left the work site
more confused and more disappointed than the lawmakers in Michigan's
hundred and second legislature.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
So when I say lame duck, what does that mean.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Lame duck is the period of lawmaking that comes after
election day and before the new group of lawmakers who
were chosen on election day come in.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
And so.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
In Michigan we have a pretty long lame duck session
where from November sixth, when Democrats were voted out of
the Michigan House, until January the Democrats still run everything,
and they still hold all the gavels, And so the
fear and all conservative hearts in Michigan was basically that Democrats,

(38:21):
with nothing left to lose because they had already lost,
were just going to run rough shot over the state.
They were just going to ram through their agenda. They
were going to give driver's licenses to illegals. They were
going to enter Michigan in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
They were going to change Michigan in radical ways that

(38:42):
are not easily Undone. Look, just because Republicans took the House.
That doesn't mean they've taken over. To make a law,
it takes the House and the Senate. They have to
pass the same exact bill, and that bill has to
be signed by the governor. And so it's unlikely that

(39:03):
the Michigan House Republicans can push Michigan.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
To the right next year.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
But if you can stop the insanity, if lame duck
was just a preview of what's coming, and what's coming
is gritlock, a gridlock that's gonna save you tax money,
a gridlock that's going to maybe keep your business open
because it's not going to be subject to crazy regulations

(39:30):
dreamed up by Lancing lawmakers. If it's that kind of thing,
those bills are not going to have a chance to succeed.
The extreme left agenda is dead. The right wing agenda
is also dead, So there's no agenda. So Lancing itself
goes into a two year lame duck period. Right now,

(39:50):
this was the Democrat's best shot without facing voters again
with nothing to answer for, with no one to answer
for except the This was Democrats last and best shot
to change Michigan. And they couldn't do it because they
couldn't get along with each other. Don't fear these people.

(40:13):
These are not good people. These are rotten people. They're
not smart, they lack social skills, they lack vision, and
they're losing even when they hold all the gavels. After break,
we're gonna talk with my friend Katie Hyde. She's gonna
help us understand what exactly happened during LANGDA. Hello Detroit,

(40:37):
and good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon filling in
for Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show, nine
ten AM Superstation, Southfield, Michigan. Katie Hyde is a name
you should absolutely know in Michigan journalism. Katie is a
reporter from Michigan News Source, and Katie herself and her

(41:00):
news outlet as a whole produce some of the most
balanced journalism you'll see in our state. If you read
just the Detroit News or just the Free Press, you
really need to read the Michigan News Source and you
need to read the Midwesterner to balance out, to balance
out your knowledge, because if you just read those left

(41:23):
leaning sites, you're never going to get the full picture
of what's going on. Katie, Katie, thank you so much
for joining us this morning.

Speaker 6 (41:34):
Thank you Merry Christmas Eve Eve.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Absolutely, Katie is so good to hear your voice. Katie
Hide with Michigan News Source. Katie, Democrats came into this
one hundred and second legislature twenty twenty three to twenty
twenty four. They came in holding all the gavels and
bragging about holding all the gavels. They end at pointing
fingers at each other. They lost the House going into

(41:59):
next turn. Our Governor Gretchen Whittmber is both mia and
a lame duck. Katie, Why are the Michigan Democrats in
such disarray right now?

Speaker 6 (42:12):
Well, I hope you had your popcorn ready last week
when they got back in session, because there was a
lot going on. So it appears to be there's some
policy differences, but really a lack of leadership in the
Michigan House Representative Joe Tate, who is the outgoing House Speaker.
Really for a party that seemed so unified, the Democratic

(42:35):
Party really started to fracture last week and so there
were a lot within the Democratic Party, a lot who
had said that Joe Tate wasn't leading, that he wasn't
showing up. And so when the House met to bring
up all of these bills and kind of go out
in a final hurrah as part of their Democrats and majority.

(42:56):
He was not there. There were some representatives saying, if
you're not going to be here or promote my bill,
I'm not going to show up. And one of them didn't.
That was Representative Karen Whitset. And so because she didn't
show up and was angered that they kind of led
her on with one of her bills and went back
on a promise to bring it up, she decided not

(43:19):
to show up to session. That meant they didn't have
a quorum and they couldn't vote, and so many of
the bills that needed to be passed in the House
to go on to the Senate died. And there's been
a lot of scuttle butt on social media over the weekend,
like you said, with Democrats pointing fingers at each other,
pointing fingers at the Republicans, Republicans pointing fingers at the Democrat.

(43:41):
But the question that I would ask anybody is when
we elect representatives or senators to the Michigan Legislature, are
they serving their party or are they serving their people? So,
no matter what you think of Karen Whitset. She represents
the people of Detroit. The people of Detroit had different
needs than say people in the up and so it

(44:03):
can be argued that she was playing politics, but was
she trying to serve her people? And those sorts of
questions bring us back to the center of why we
elect representatives and senators in the first place, Katie.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Where did the solidarity go? I mean, this is incredible.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Republicans when they left Lancing, they tried to make a
thing out of it, but it didn't really matter because
Democrats holding all the gavels means they don't need you
and they don't need your help to make law. So
if the Democrats had just stayed solid they get through
their entire worsh lists, they have all the power, no

(44:43):
one could stop them.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Why did they stop themselves?

Speaker 6 (44:49):
That is a great question, because you're right they did
pitch a fit a week ago Friday when Republicans walked
out and wn't deal with the tips wage and these
issues affecting the restaurant industry. They didn't need them to
pass anything. It's the breakdown, really, based on what I've
been able to research, comes from House Speaker Joe Tate

(45:10):
and again those within his party were saying, lead, show
up to your office. And what he's done is he's
announced an exploratory committee to run for mayor of Detroit.
You can argue that he has his sights focused on
other things. Perhaps there are some hurt feelings going on
behind closed doors of people that were promised one thing

(45:30):
and didn't get it. And it is interesting to watch
the Democratic Party fall apart because normally that's the party
that circles the wagons. It doesn't matter who's running for
what office, they support that person, yeah who, no matter who.
And they started a fracture. And as you mentioned, Governor
Whitmer's miia, she put out this extremely disconnected congratulatory message

(45:54):
on social media while her own party is imploding in Lansing, saying,
we've worked for the people of Michigan. We've delivered, we
put money back in her pockets, all of these political plantitudes.
But this is your party falling apart and she's nowhere
to be found.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
What did you make of the Senate's marathon session. A
lot of senators are trying to pat themselves on the back.
Oh my god, we stayed, we worked for thirty nine hours.
You know, my solution. I have a way to save
you guys a bunch of time. Why not just make
the whole thing a part time legislature. What did you
make of the Senate doing this marathon session knowing good

(46:33):
and dogone, Well, nothing they passed was going to make
it to the House, which means it couldn't make it
to the governor's office. They wasted their time and the
people of Michigan's time, and they were proud to do it.

Speaker 6 (46:46):
Why it's the equivalent of the college student partying all
semester and then cramming for their finals at the last minute.
And you bring up a part time legislature that has
been discussed over the years. Some will argue Michigan is
too big of a state to have a part time legislator.

(47:07):
But the legislature, excuse me, but they've wasted so much time.
They could have been meeting prior to the end date
here and they chose not to. And we discussed last
week on your show as well, that they have the votes,
they have the agenda. They look at November fifth and

(47:29):
the way that Michiganer's and Americans voted and they said,
we don't care. We're going to push this through and
here we are so as much as I love my sleep,
they brought this on themselves. I can empathize with being
there for close to thirty hours, but this could have
been done way before. And people can argue, you're playing politics,

(47:53):
you're wasting money, and I would say it is possibly
a good time to look at what a part time
legislature would look like here in Michigan. And would they
be doing a better job with less time. Would it
force them to look at the issues that affected mischig Anders.
I don't know. I mean politics is politics, but it

(48:15):
does appear that a lot of time and a lot
of money was wasted.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Katie, what would you say was?

Speaker 1 (48:23):
This is Katie Hyde with Michigan News Source, joining us
today on the Justin Barclay Show. James Dixon filling in Katie.
What was Democrats' greatest success during lame duck? Something they
actually got all the way before they broke down.

Speaker 6 (48:41):
I wanted to point out that the Foyer bills died,
which you can argue for Democrats or Republicans.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
That's the one thing with bipartisan agreement, right because Michigan
is one of the few.

Speaker 6 (48:54):
I think it's one of two states. That doesn't allow
the Freedom of Information Act to touch the governor legislature,
and so you have the Whitmer administration that and Jocelyn Benson.
You know, obviously it's part of that touting that they're
the administration and they're the party of transparency. But Foya
died and so the governor cannot be be Foyd and

(49:16):
that It wasn't a huge win for the Michigan people,
but it does create some protection there for those politicians.
Side note, Jocelyn Benson, again Secretary of State, who touts transparency,
often refuses to open the comments section on her social media.
So I will leave it at that. What the Democrats

(49:40):
did end up passing here as I'm going through all
my notes, what a week. They increased yeah, oh what
a mass. So they increased limits on what public employees
can pay toward their workers' health care.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (49:54):
They took up two House bills that addressed safe storage
of firearms, and they mad dated that schools pass out
information to the parents each year. Senator Dana pul Hanky
really liked that bill. But I'm just wondering what a
flyer is actually going to do to save people from
gun violence.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
That I.

Speaker 6 (50:17):
Nothing, and the money that would be wasted to print
those flyers things that have come home over the years
to me and my husband from my kids were very
involved parents. Often it goes in the trash, so you
can imagine the money that we'll be wasted there. They
gave thumbs up to bills that embed stricter hate crime
prohibitions into Michigan law. And so these were some of

(50:38):
those laws that I had an attorney described to me
that said, oh, you can put forth these charges against
people for just having hurt feelings. They approved bills that
allow pharmacists to prescribe contraceptive so you don't have to
have a doctor, you can just have the pharmacists do
that and correct which I think raises a whole host

(51:01):
of health problems, but I'll leave it there. And then
a legislation passed that would allow law enforcement offers, so
there's and corrections officers to participate in the state police
retirement plan. There are other things that didn't pass that
we're really getting a lot of talk. Prior mandates, teaching
about gender identity and sexual orientation and sex. Dead class

(51:24):
that is dead driver's licenses for illegals. That's dead, prohibiting
removal of books about sexual orientation and gender identities, and
public libraries that's dead. New taxes on gas, water and
sports tickets that lost along the way, early release for
violent criminals. So there are some wins in there for

(51:44):
the Michigan people, but quite a flurry of legislation. And
Senator Lana Tye posted a picture on her social media
that showed the amount of bills that could have been
quoted on versus what actually was, and it gives a
great visual of the amount of stuff that was going
to be considered, probably not for the benefit of Michiganders

(52:07):
or for the benefit of public safety or public policy,
and really showed how it got whittled down.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Katie and the opener I gave a thesis that you know,
George Orwell talked about how all art is propaganda. My
theory is that all journalism is politics, that all of
it comes from people who have biases, who have sensibilities,

(52:33):
and so the bias of journalism is inherent. It's a feature,
not a bug, and that objectivity is just marketing essentially.
It's not something that exists in human nature and certainly
not in journalism.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
What say you, I.

Speaker 6 (52:52):
Would say, I agree partially. None of us are robots, right.
We have our ideologies, we have our world views, we
bring it there. But at Michigan News Source, our motto
is to bring real, honest news what is actually going on.
We're not just going to print a press release from
the governor's office about all of the good things she did.

(53:13):
We're going to dig into what that actually was. And
so much of journalism now, as you mentioned, is either
reprinting that because they don't have the staff, or they
don't understand how journalism works, or with a leftist bias.
We really strive to walk that middle line of presenting

(53:33):
both sides and presenting the accurate picture of what is
going on with your elected officials. So I love the
work that we're doing. I love that I'm able to
be a part of Michigan News Source, and I hope
that more people hop on over to our website, Michigan
News Source dot com to see the good work that
we're doing and to get a more accurate picture about
what is going on in Michigan politics.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
You know, Katie, you just said something very important. We
got Katie high with Michigan News Source here. You talked
about how Michigan news source sets out to describe reality.
And I think that's the biggest failing in journalism right now.
When I think about that story in New York with
the woman a fire killed a woman, you know, as

(54:17):
if it, you know, fire just animated itself and jumped
on to this woman. No, a person set the woman
on fire. The car crash in Germany, the car didn't
do it. A person driving the car did it. I
just and so as they move away from reality, it
becomes easier to ignore. So I think if you guys

(54:37):
continue in that reality lane, it's going to be nothing
but success, because that's a blue lake right now, Katie
will get you out of here on this. What becomes
of our lame duck Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the new
look Michigan where Democrats don't hold all the gavels, you
can only make deals. It's going to be like a

(54:58):
two year version of what we just saw. Where does
that leave Whitmer in her future?

Speaker 6 (55:04):
I think that's a great question for Whitmer, because, as
we discussed, she's Mia. I think she has her site
set on the national political stage, perhaps a run for president.
Whether anyone thinks that she would be good or pole. Well,
I mean, these are all things that need to be
figured out, right, but I think she has her site

(55:26):
set there, so she will do her best to preserve
her legacy. We still have a Democratic Senate, but we
have a House Republicans taking over, so there's going to
be some balance there with the kind of bills that
go over from the House to the Democrats. But she
needs to be a physical presence for her party, and

(55:47):
I'm not so sure she's there during this time. So
she has two years remaining, she's going to do the
best she can to cling to whatever legacy she thinks
she's made here in Michigan. And then I think she
has her sites that's elsewhere, so she might be trying
to maintain the status quo, not do any more damage,

(56:07):
kind of keep it looking pretty good, and then she's
going to move on in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Awesome, Katie, that is great insight. You really are someone
people need to know. Katie Hyde, Michigan News Source. Check
out Katie check out Michigan News Source. Back from the break,
We're going to talk more about Michigan Democrats. They are
lame ducks. What did they do what did they try
to do? What should we think about it? Just a

(56:33):
few minutes, we're going to talk more about that. Hello Detroit,
Good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon here filling in
for Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show on
nine ten AM Superstation, broadcasting out of Southfield, Michigan.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
What we just talked about.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
What we're going to talk about with our next guest,
Representative Anne Bolin from Brighton, Michigan. Democrats are unfit for
command of the state. Let's talk about just a few
of them. We have our House Speaker, Joe Tate from Detroit.
He's the invisible man. He's the Ralph Ellison of the
Michigan Legislature. We have the House Speaker who doesn't speak.

(57:18):
We have the leader of lawmakers who can't lead lawmakers.
This man, Joe Tate, has a six foot seven tall
marine looks like he's carved out of granite. But when
he gets in that context in Lansing, he can't even
hurt a few cats to get them to vote. You know,

(57:39):
it's been said, never pull out a gun if you're
not willing to use it. Well, the other day, Joe
Tate issued a call of the house, Call the Houses,
when the speaker says, look, dog Garnett, we're voting. You
guys are going to take this seriously, and I'm going
to send the Sergeant at arms and for those of

(58:00):
you who are not on site, the Michigan State Police,
and you will be brought to Lancing. Can't make you
vote my way. I can't even make you show up
to the vote, but I can make you show up
to work. Joe Tate the other day briefly issued a
call of the House and just as quickly rescinded it
without it ever working. So Joe Tate essentially called men

(58:23):
with guns on his colleague. Now, four years ago, Michigan
Democrats would have told you that cops are the new KKK,
that to call the cops would mean that you're calling
the guys who are gonna put a knee on someone's neck.
Maybe one of these lawmakers is gonna wind up as
the next George Floyd. And so every time you called

(58:44):
nine to one one, you were calling men with guns
to arrive, and you were introducing the possibility of violence.
That's what Joe Tate just did.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
A and B.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
It didn't even work. I think about our governor Gretchen Whitmer.
She's been absolutely mia during lame duck. What does she
want past? What does she not want past? Well, I
don't know, and people who make laws in this state
don't know. Our governor claims to be a leader, but
at the time her own party was in a state

(59:18):
of disarray. Gretchen Whitmer didn't make anything any better. Karen Whitsett,
this woman is a backbencher, a Detroit Democrat, who somehow
through the use of her fifty sixth vote. It takes
fifty six votes to pass a House bill. We have
one hundred and ten members, it takes fifty six to pass.

(59:42):
Karen Whitsett just taught us all that the fifty sixth
vote is the most powerful person in Lancing And so overnight,
a woman with no leadership became the most powerful woman
in Michigan politics. Everywhere you look, the Michigan Democrats are
unfit for command. Look at Mayor Mike Duggan in Detroit.

(01:00:05):
You have the leader of the biggest, deepest blue city
in Michigan saying I don't even know no Democrats. Everybody's
walking away from the Blue team, and those who represent
it proudly are actually embarrassing the Blue team with their behaviors.
So everywhere you look, everywhere you turn, the Michigan Democrats

(01:00:28):
are unfit for command. We're going to talk about how
they blew up the lame Duck session in just a
few minutes with Representative Ann Bolan.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Stay tuned, Hello.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Detroit, Good morning, Michigan. This is James Dixon filling in
for Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show, nine
ten am Superstation, Southfield, Michigan. I'm going to be joined
right now by Representative Anne Bolan, a Republican out of Brighton,
and much like Kate, is going to help us understand

(01:01:03):
exactly why lame Duck went the way it did.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Again.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Lame duck is what happens between the election and when
the new group takes office, and so it's kind of
the last hurah of anyone who's who's currently in office
but maybe won't be in the new year. Democrats had
quite an agenda going in and they didn't really get
much of it done, and we're gonna we're gonna ask

(01:01:27):
Anne Bolin to explain why.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
Representative thank you so much for joining us this.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Morning, Good morning jeans.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
How are you so good? So good to hear your voice,
and if you don't mind, we'll just jump right in.
Why did Democrats unravel the way they did? How do
you go from holding all the gavels to you can't
bang the gavels in success because you can't get anything.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
Passed well scaled leadership, no plan, end games. You know,
if these were such good policies, why didn't they put
them forth at the beginning of their trifecta. Now I
do want to call attention. They did a lot of
damage with the trifecta. They overturned right to work. Yeah,
they reinstated prevailing wage, and we cannot forget what they

(01:02:16):
did in their first year of rain in twenty three,
the reign of terror. But in twenty four they were stopped.
And during lame Duck we were successful. The House Republicans
held together. We basically walked out of session on the
Friday week ago Friday, and we did that because there

(01:02:37):
was absolutely no negotiation for putting the priorities of the
people in Michigan at the top of the list.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
So lame Duck is more or less over. The House
is allegedly going to come back in on New Year's Eve.
Probably not much is going to happen, now that we
could talk about it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
I'm sorry, Yeah, no, it's likely not going to happen
because the Constitution calls at the session for will be
called no later than noon on December thirty first, and
again field leadership pure chaos on the Democrat side, they
called session to start at one to thirty on New
York Wait.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
I want to make sure everyone who's listening heard what
Representative Boland just said. We got Ann Bolan here, a
Republican from Brighton talking about lame duck. Justin Barclay Show,
James Dixon filling in what Anne Boland just said?

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Is that? And could you say it again?

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
Sure? So? Would they adjourned session till one thirty on
December thirty first in the House and the Constitution calls
that we will session will be called no later than
noon on December thirty first, And so right there, they're
in violation of you know, what we're supposed to do.

(01:04:00):
And so it's highly unlikely unless there's something called a
call of the House and call the House speaker. Joe
Tate tried that last week and that was unsuccessful as well,
lasted for about forty minutes, and the reason why there
was a call the House, in my opinion is was
to get one Democrat back, Karen Whitsitt, who actually is
a profile and courage in my opinion, and she stood

(01:04:23):
strong and said, no, I will not be back. I
will not sit in that chamber. You have not put
forth the priorities of people in my district of the
state of Michigan, and won't come back. And I think
he just finally threw his hands up and said I'm
done again, sign a failed leadership. But what that means
to people in Michigan is that in cooperation with the Senate,

(01:04:46):
who was then in session for almost thirty one hours,
forty two hours, they were able to stop the passage
because we stopped passage, and then they didn't affirm anything
that came out of the so things that are dead,
you know. The film credits two point zh driver's license
for illegal adience taking on the liability of twenty five

(01:05:10):
billion dollars in new pension debt, Holy count criminal horrible
criminal justice reforms, eliminating cash bonds, letting violent felons go early,
good time for good time, you know, ten million dollars
for tampons in boy bathrooms. Honestly, I think Michigan has

(01:05:30):
higher priorities than this, you know, and you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
You made a great point earlier. So this year in
lawmaking going into the election, So last year, three hundred
and twelve laws passed quite a lot, quite a lot
this year going into election day only one hundred and
fifty six, half as many. Twenty twenty two was also

(01:05:56):
an election year, but they passed, you know, almost two
hundred and eighty laws that year, and that's with Republicans
running the show with the Democrat governor.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
So Democrats' problems started.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Before lame duck even why did they do so little
in the meat of the year. It wasn't just the
election because the Senate wasn't even up for election, because.

Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
They knew what the top priorities in the state of Michigan.
The people across the states were concerned about jobs in
the economy. They failed to address it during the campaign cycle.
In fact, they added more burden on employers and ultimately
the trickle down effect is on employees. They extended unemployment
to twenty six weeks. They almost doubled the benefit no

(01:06:41):
waiting period for medicaid. We have a shrinking population. Agreeing
population right, they did little to the call to action.
We needed two things to be addressed during lame duck
based on a July Supreme Court ruling, and they were
not touched. The tipped way and also the earned sick time.

(01:07:02):
Everybody wants people across the state of Michigan to earn
a fair wage, but the tipped workers, they do get
minimum wage if they don't leave their minimum wage through
their tips. Loud and clear across the state. They have said,
we want to keep our tipped wages. Small businesses are
going to suffer with this earned sick time. The courts

(01:07:23):
did legislative work from the bench and we felt was
a priority to address those. So hopefully, under the leadership
of Matt Paul, who I'm proud to call our speaker elect,
when we come back in January, we will try to
put those on the Governor's desk to make some corrections,
and hopefully it's not too late. But the people in
Michigan deserve better and we know that, and they're going

(01:07:47):
to get that with Republican leadership.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
You know, this constitutional issue just kind of blows my mind.
Session on December thirty, first, the last day of the year.
Can't start afternoon, and yet it's supposed to start at
one thirty.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
And how does that happen? Is your read on it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
Did the Democrats not know what's in the constitution or.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Do they not care?

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):
I think honestly they don't care. They make up rules
as they go. We have seen that all along this session.
We had Attorney General nessl calling us criminals because we
literally criminals were checking in literally criminals, all right, And
that's why you know, Look, I believe I need to

(01:08:31):
show up for work on behalf of my people, but
I also need to be the voice of my people,
the people that I represent, and we have been completely
cut out for the last two years.

Speaker 5 (01:08:41):
It was very.

Speaker 4 (01:08:42):
Evident there was no desire to work across the lines
during lane duck. And again that's why I have a
constitutional amendment to change that. We would require two thirds
vote for lane duck. And I also have an amendment
that would say we would doc pay if people don't
show up to work.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Interesting, so.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Let's say that second part were the law. Would that
have changed Republican strategy in Lamdock?

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
No? I think that well, in essence, what happened was
they did not have a quorum, so technically session didn't occur,
so they needed fifty six people in the seats and
so as a result, there was no session. So we
would not have been doctor from pay. But I have
no problem giving up my pay and taking a stand
for the people. It was a legitimate reason. While it

(01:09:33):
probably wouldn't have fallen under the guidelines of rules set
under the Constitutional Amendment, we stand firm our voices need
to be heard for the people that we represent. And
throughout the year we had Democrats not showing up to work,
session would be canceled or no votes would be put
up on the board because Democrats didn't show up for work.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Yeah, there was most little activity.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
So the idea that it all had to happen in
this kind of two new week period of lame duck
is just simply not true.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
It wasn't believable.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
But if you read the news that was written about
Lansing and lame duck, you might think it was true.
And what did you think about the way the lame
duck session was covered in the Michigan media.

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
Well, I actually think the Michigan media did a better
job than usual on reporting some of the facts, and
they didn't make this This is not a matter of
These are not partisan issues. These are principled issues, and
I'm glad. I was glad to see some of the

(01:10:39):
coverage go towards the principles and recognize the principles and
what the people want for Michigan and what we are.
We're representatives of the people, and you know, we won
Ferrence Square. Republicans did clearly our messaging worked and planned
for what we haven't so hopefully to either stop and

(01:11:00):
to start up come twenty twenty five. But I do
think that they did try to do a better job
than normal and you know, a little more airtime for
Republicans and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, positive
in the sense thank you for fighting for us. I
don't know how we're going to hold on. The economy

(01:11:22):
still is the number one issue, yes, and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
Help us understand this.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
We have Representative Anne Bolan, a Republican from Brighton, a
state Rep. James Dixon here hosting for Justin Barclay. Help
us understand how we have this ten million We have
two of them. To my mind, we have a ten
million person consensus in Michigan that our roads are busted.

(01:11:48):
You come back from Ohio and the difference is stark,
and it makes you think, what the heck is going
on here? We have a ten million person consensus, at
least among the people who are politically active in Michigan,
that this tipped waves thing needed to be fixed before
the legislature adjourned, and that didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
And neither one has happened.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
So how do you have two issues that all of
Michigan cares about that don't get done while these smaller
boutique issues are getting handled.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
Again, it's failed leadership. And you know, the entire legislature,
including governor. The governor in two thousand and eight, in
the twenty eighteen election style campaigned on better roads. Fixed
the damn road.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Right was there?

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
Some Republicans were in charge. We invested exponential amounts of
money in the twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,
again in twenty two, but they're still not fixed. What
the governor did when she didn't get her way, she
went out and put the state in more debt. We
had a nine billion dollar surplus and they went out

(01:12:59):
in issue you'd bond basically taking on debt that doesn't
make sense.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
They also spent down that surplus in one year, one year.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Nine billion dollars in one year.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
And no one can tell me, no one could ever
convince me that we are nine billion dollars better off
for it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Where did it go? We don't see it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
We are not, we are not. It went to special interests,
special projects. And how we achieved that surplus is during COVID,
you know, it was manna from Washington coming to the States,
and when the state accepted that money, what we did
as Republicans with a budget is we put it towards

(01:13:40):
one time spending nothing that would require a future revenue source,
anything that was eligible for it. So that built the
general fund. We paid down debt, We did invest in infrastructure,
we invested in law enforcement, we invested in schools, our
local communities. And then that's what built a surplus. And

(01:14:03):
the idea was that that surplus. Then we knew that
we were going to have tough times coming forward. Population
was dwindling, is going to take a while for the
economy to recover. And then the Democrats came in and
just went on absolute reckless spending spree. Now what we
have ahead of us is we're going to have to
do a lot of oversite. We're likely going to have

(01:14:26):
to cut a lot of the budgets. Programs are going
to have to be eliminated, and I think it's probably
long overdue for some of them. But I am looking
forward to really combing through the state's budget again. I've
served on appropriations for my first three terms. I hope
to continue to do that and oversight, really sifting through

(01:14:50):
what's going on in these budgets.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
And I want to thank you so much for taking
the time today. This is absolutely fascinating what's happened. I've
never seen one party just unravel that had that much power,
and nobody does it a better job of explaining exactly
what happened. And thank you so much. And Merry Christmas,
Thank you, James.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
Merry Christmas to you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
All right, be blessed.

Speaker 4 (01:15:17):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Out of the break, we're going to be talking about
Michigan's freshman representative in Congress, one of our freshmen, Tom Barrett.
Mister Barrett goes to Washington. We're going to talk about
that in just a few minutes. Stay tuned. Hello Detroit,
and good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon filling in

(01:15:39):
for Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show on
nine ten am Superstation. Tom Barrett is going to be
the only freshman Republican from Michigan in the next Congress.
By all accounts, he's exactly the kind of person we'd
want to send to Washington. He's smart, he's driven, he

(01:16:01):
has a great family, and he has the values of
a twenty two year Army veteran. But we call Washington
a swamp for a reason, and it's not just the humidity.
And so if you are the praying type, pray for
Tom Barrett as he starts his career in Washington.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Look.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
DC is a nice place, but it's far away from
your family and it's far away from your district. It
can be easy there for someone to forget who they are,
who their friends are, and who their voters are. In DC,
you can feel like a master of the universe. You
can feel all powerful. A congress person has a staff,

(01:16:42):
they have access to many friends who want to help them.
Problem with being a master of the universe is sometimes
you wind up in the bonfire of the vanities. You
have elderly colleagues there to mentor you, and sometimes they
call those favors. In you have new friends who are
there to fundraise for you in those favors are always called.

(01:17:04):
In DC, you have power, and power can be addictive.
Power can also be corrosive. Add in the media, pressure
and political considerations. It's not difficult at all for even
a good man, even a great man, to come out
of the DC swamp, unrecognizable to himself and those who

(01:17:29):
know and love him best. And this isn't just something
that happens to happen in DC. This is the design
of the swamp itself. Swamps like Washington and Lancing, they
exist specifically to bend knees that don't want to be bent.
They use a combination of favors in force to make

(01:17:52):
offers that are not easily resisted. And so as Michigan
sends mister Barrett to Washington, we have needs and we're
going to need our Washington delegation to be focused. But
I do think about Barrett and I am praying for him, because, man,
you go to this new town, all these new friends,

(01:18:16):
someone like a Barrett. It takes a village to elect
a politician. A lot of people came out and helped
raise money for you. A lot of people put boots
on the ground to help get out the vote for you.
What do you owe them? Probably not nothing? And so
can you do favors in a way that doesn't compromise anything,

(01:18:37):
that doesn't oppose your values or what the district needs
from you, or what your state needs from you. These
are the things Tom Barrett's going to have to wrestle
with in Washington, and it's going to be really fun
to watch him do it. So coming back from the
break in the new hour, we're going to talk to
mister Barrett about his plan for Washington, about what he's

(01:19:00):
going to be doing in Washington. We're coming into the
last hour of the show. This hour is just this
broadcast is just absolutely flying by. Never had three hours
go so quickly in my life. Back from the break,
we will talk to mister Barrett as he goes to Washington.

(01:19:21):
Hello Detroit and good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon
filling in for Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show.
This is nine to and Am superstation out of Southfield, Michigan.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
My guest is Tom Barrett.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Tom Barrett is Michigan's only freshman Republican that we're sending
to Congress in the new term. His career is going
to be one that I watched closely because we see
people often after the swamp has gotten to them. But
Tom Barrett, I mean, this guy has the character, has

(01:19:57):
the experience in politics, every trait that makes you think
he can withstand the pressures of the swamp.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
And we look forward to watching him do that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
Tom, Congressman Elect Barrett, welcome and thank you for joining
us this morning.

Speaker 5 (01:20:14):
James, thanks so much for having me on. Merry Christmas
to you and to your entire audience today.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Absolutely, Merry Christmas to you. Tom.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
We'll start here. You are also you know you're going
to Washington. You're already in Washington. You're about to start
work there officially. But as a state lawmaker here in Lansing,
you had quite a bit of success fending off the
Lancing Swamp. First of all, could you help us understand

(01:20:42):
some of the pressures you face in the Lancing Swamp
and how were you able to overcome that?

Speaker 5 (01:20:50):
Well, thank you, and I'm actually back home, thankfully. I
was out in Washington for my orientation and had a
trail back for some meetings, but thankfully back home for Christmas.
I don't go back until I get sworn in to office.
But you know, I spent eight years in the state legislature,
and you know, I was willing to have an independent

(01:21:12):
voting record there and felt that, you know, I held
firm to the issues I had campaigned on, the things
that people had sent me to Lansing to do. Voted against.
One of the things I'm most proud of is I
voted against the relentless, just continuous corporate welfare schemes that
were created and imagined and rammed through and you know,

(01:21:34):
we're seeing the evidence of how these have failed time
after time after time, again and again. I had one
of the best records on opposing that of any lawmaker
over the last twenty years who had served during the
time that I was in office. And that was something
I felt was an important commitment that I had made
to the voters in my district that I wasn't going
to deviate from. And once I had made that decision,

(01:21:55):
it became far easier to just, you know, return back
to that. When I would talk to people lobbyists often
who had train convinced me that this was somehow different
than the last time one of these projects had failed
or been turned away or jobs had been created. I
would just go back to them and say, look, this
is the commitment I made. You know where I've been

(01:22:17):
on this, and I'm going to stay consistent on it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
You know what I find fascinating about you is that
you've actually been made to suffer for some of these choices.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
I think about the twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Election, and that was used big time where Alissa Slock
and back then you guys were running against each other
for a seat in the House.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
Now she's headed to the Senate, you're headed to the House.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
But back then she basically made it sound like you're
some kind of cave man who opposes economic progress because
you don't want to send you know, the six hundred
million we just heard about that got sent to GM
without a single standard being upheld. No, no, we'll drip
it out little by little. I mean, they just got

(01:23:00):
sent a big check, no oversight, no nothing. You opposed it,
you suffered for it at the time. Why have things changed?
And just just in just two years, a lot of
that consensus has gone away and the world has moved
in your direction.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
Why is that?

Speaker 5 (01:23:18):
Yeah, you know, I think there's a variety of factors,
but you're right, two years ago this was a just
a relentless barrage of attack against me or you know,
billboards up right next to my house. There were TV
ads running constantly. In fact, that one of the billboards,
I mean like really just on the on the on
ramp for me to drive to Lansing to do my

(01:23:39):
job back when I was still in the State Senate,
giant billboard with my face on it attacking me. And
my daughter, who was eight at the time, saw it
with me in the car one day, and you know,
I didn't point it out to her and call attention
to it, but she saw it was all excited that
my face is on this billboard. And my son, who's
a little older than her, said, well, eleanor like those

(01:24:00):
people don't like Dad, like they're saying something mean about it.
Are fans those they're not fans yet, And she goes, well, Dad,
I still love you. So I was like, oh, thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:24:10):
And that was you know, that was what kind of
kept it in perspective.

Speaker 5 (01:24:13):
But but you're right, it was a relentless, just attack.
And it's interesting if you ask people, do you support
giving away more and more of your tax money and
corporate welfare to some of the largest global corporations in
the world for promises they often haven't been able to keep,
for things that just enrich them further and further and
don't typically help the employees. And I'll give you an

(01:24:35):
example with this one that was attacked against me, six
hundred and eighty million I think it was for General Motors.
The jobs that were being created under the plan. Uh,
we're going to be paying thirty five to forty thousand
dollars a year, but we're going to cost the taxpayers
of Michigan one hundred and fifty five thousand dollars each.

(01:24:56):
So taxpayers are paying one hundred and fifty five thousand
dollars to the you know, leadership of General Motors, who
you know, Mary Barro made I think twenty nine million
dollars last year. But the workers who were even if
they were employed under this plan were only going to
make about sixteen or eighteen dollars an hour. It just
doesn't pencil out. But when you attack people and say

(01:25:16):
you voted against creating jobs, well, all of a sudden
that becomes something that people stick in their mind and
you can't explain to them the cost that is going
to be incurred by taxpayers and the lack of oversight accountability.
And now General Mowers has completely sold their position in
that plant to a sorry, to a Korean LG Korean

(01:25:38):
battery company that's not going to honor the UAW contract
negotiated while the workers were on strike last year. So
there's so many things that happened. And look, I tell people,
I'm not Warren Buffett. I'm just an army grunt in Charlotte, Michigan.
But I can tell that these things have really gotten
away from us, and they don't meet the intent. The
taxpayers pay for it, the jobs don't. New lawmakers are installed,

(01:26:02):
new governors are elected, there's no accountability, and the next
crew of people all want to take credit for creating jobs,
so they come up with their own plans with the
help of the lobbyists, to spend more of our tax
money in the cycle repeats itself. So I had just
seen enough and said I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
keep going for it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
Absolutely, we have Congressman elect Tom Barrett joining us today
James Dixon filling in for Justin Barclay. This is the
Justin Barclay Show. Tom, Have you had that welcome to
Washington moment so far of like, oh, this is going
to be a little bit different of a deal from
Lancing from the Army from what I have known?

Speaker 7 (01:26:40):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
Yeah, what's that been like?

Speaker 7 (01:26:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:26:44):
You know, And I did go out there for my
orientation and had traveled back a couple of days for
some other meetings I needed to do around my committee
assignments I was going to have, And it is different.
I mean just starting out, the commute certainly to go
to Washington is far, far greater of a distance for
me to go than it is. You know, I live
in the Greater Lansing area and proud to represent Lancing

(01:27:06):
in the surrounding community, but it means I can't just
hop in my car and drive thirty minutes down the
road to get to work every day. It takes a
lot more of a commitment there. You're spending the night
overnight in Washington, DC while I'm going to be in session,
and you know it's going to be something to learn
and figure out, you know, a new community, a new area,

(01:27:27):
new pitfalls more people. I mean, the biggest caucus I
served in in Lansing when I was in the state
House was you know, maybe fifty eight or sixty people,
give or take. You know. The conference for Republicans in
Washington is you know, more than two hundred people, so
each different perspectives, many of whom have been there a

(01:27:48):
really long time. We didn't you know, we don't have
term limits in Washington the way we do back home.
So there are very very long tenured people that are there.
And then you also have people that are far more
recently elected with a different set of priorities and values.
And I'll kind of point out the one of the
things I'm encouraged by is the up the kind of
up and coming younger veterans that are coming into office

(01:28:11):
that I'm really excited to be serving with men and
women who've served in this post nine to eleven generation
like I have, that have really felt the effect of
America's foreign policy that has failed over these last more
than two decades, and they want to see a change
come about. I actually was telling my wife as I
went to bed last night that today, December twenty third,

(01:28:32):
is the twenty fifth anniversary of when I signed my
enlistment contract with the army as a senior in high school.
Is it really never predicted that twenty five today is yeah,
this morning, probably right. I was either on a bus
or you know, sign of my contract man as as
a kid in high school. And but you know all
of that that transpired since then. We have a number

(01:28:53):
of veterans that are coming into office or have been
elected over the last two or three terms that have
that experiences to really make sure that we don't make
those same mistakes again, that we don't get into these
endless wars. I'm proud to be serving with them. But
it is different than serving and Lancing. People come from
different states that have very different types of priorities and needs.

(01:29:14):
I mean, you go out to the Western States and
they're talking about access to water. I mean here in Michigan,
we're abundantly surrounded by the Great Lakes. So just issues
like that are going to be different between different you know,
geographic places people come from. Things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):
Absolutely, we have Congressmen Elect Tom Barrett here joining us
the Justin Barclay Show, James Dixon filling in Tom. When
you were a Lancing lawmaker, is there a relationship between
the two between the two delegations, like what, you know,
did you did you talk to the Washington delegation as
a Washington lawmaker just about to start. Is there a

(01:29:52):
type of relationship you'd like to have with the legislature?

Speaker 5 (01:29:56):
Absolutely, yes, yes to both. And I had the good
fortune Tim Wahlberg, who's still member of Congress today, was
my member. I live in Eton County, which had been
part of Tim's district for decades, you know, and Tim
had been my congressman until the redistricting shifted that around.

(01:30:18):
So I had a great relationship with Tim and his
wife Sue, and my wife you know, just you know,
helped give me, you know, some confidence and advice when
I was serving in the state legislature. And I have
a great relationship with the members of the Michigan legislature
who are in my congressional district and want to continue
that relationship. And I think it helps that I came

(01:30:40):
recently from the state legislature to still have those relationships. Yeah,
helped to you know, build upon those because there are
a lot of issues that people call a congressional office
and maybe their issue is really something that the state
needs to handle. They call their state lawmaker and it's
a federal issue and they're just unaware of those distinctions
that exist in having those good relationships. To be able to,

(01:31:04):
you know, at least handle constituent cases is really important.
But even from there, make sure that we're making policy
that is good for both the state and the federal
level on different, you know, different issues we may be facing.
There's a lot of interconnection between state and federal government
and a whole host of different issues.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
Tom, how do you go about making your mark as
a freshman? I mean, everyone you know, Tom Kuns, you know,
one of our state reps described it perfectly once that
you know, everyone you see in Lansing was class president,
and I imagine it's even more ramped up in Washington.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
So you go there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
I mean you are like literally in the belly of
the beast. Professional politicians. People have been politicians as long
as you've been alive on this planet. How do you
make your mark and what would you consider a successful
freshman term?

Speaker 5 (01:31:56):
Yeah, well, I think you got to be humble about
it and understand that, you know, Yeah, I have my perspective.
My idea is the things that I want to do
at the end of the day, I want to be
the voice for my district, and I have a unique
opportunity here. I'm not somebody that comes to Congress as
a you know, wealthy, self funded, you know, glamour project
type of type of thing. I mean, my wife and

(01:32:17):
I are very middle class or raising four kids here.
We live in a small town. Literally, my neighbors are Amish.
I you know, I want to take that perspective to
Washington and the families that have been left behind in
our country. And I'm excited for that ability and that
opportunity to do that. And for me, a successful first
term would be advocating for my district, ensuring that we

(01:32:40):
secure our southern border, making sure that you know, we
bring down the costs of living by elevating access to
American energy so that we can have a growing economy.
Extend the tax cuts that could cripple economic growth. You
want to talk about things that make jobs happen. It's
going to be far more on our tax and regulatory policies.

Speaker 7 (01:32:59):
Than it is.

Speaker 5 (01:32:59):
I'm giving a picking winners and losers with state tax
mine to give them a check. Why don't we make
an economy that everyone can benefit from and opportunities that
really truly allow those that actually create the jobs, the
risk takers, the entrepreneurs, and those that put their blood, sweat,
and tears into doing this have the opportunity to do it.
So we don't take their money and give it to

(01:33:21):
you some global corporation with the high powered lobbyist. So
that would be, you know, my idea of a good
first term. I'm looking for opportunities that are you know,
available to me to kind of see things through the
perspective of people, just like other families in my district,
and what would they do if they were in my position?
What would they expect to see their congressmen do? And

(01:33:41):
that's what I'm hoping they'll love up too.

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Tom.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
We'll get you out of here on this one. I
saw a video. I believe it was a burger vending machine.
You were rather enamored with the burger vending machine. Have
you already been captured by the swap?

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):
Tom?

Speaker 5 (01:33:58):
Well, to be fair, it was a white castle vending machine.
And I'm proud to come from a district that has
a white castle in it. As I go to Washington,
DC and was very excited to see they have you
know like the big city. They got they got everything.
They got a vending machine that will serve you white Castle.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
Oh you were just serving the district then, No.

Speaker 5 (01:34:19):
I was in Washington when I saw the when I
saw the vending machine. But there is a white Castle
in my district over in Howell.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
Absolutely well, I think it's going to take more than
a burger to sway you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
But man, Tom, thank you so much for taking the time.

Speaker 1 (01:34:33):
Please be blessed over this Christmas season, and we're just
we're so excited to watch you work in the new year.

Speaker 5 (01:34:39):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (01:34:40):
Merry Christmas.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
All right, Merry Christmas, be blessed. That was Tom Barrett.
That's our congressman elect from Michigan. He's going to be
an absolute superstar in Washington. Coming out of break, we're
going to talk about why gritlock that we're gonna have
in Washing or in Lansing next year, Why gritlock is
good and not bad.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
Stay tuned. This is the Justin Barclay Show. Hello Detroit and.

Speaker 1 (01:35:07):
Good morning Michigan. This is James Dixon filling in for
Justin Barclay. This is the Justin Barclay Show. Nine and
AM Superstation out of Southfield, Michigan. You may not have
heard this before. You probably haven't heard it before, but
ritlock is good. It's bipartisanship that's bad. It's actually worse

(01:35:30):
than bad. Bipartisanship is a psyop. It's a narrative meant
to warm your heart that Democrats and Republicans have put
their differences aside and they managed to get along. Well,
here's the truth, they actually get along great. Remember reading
all those stories during Gretchen Whitmer's first term about oh
my god, the Republicans said this, and Whitmer said that,

(01:35:53):
And if you read that stuff and you took it seriously,
you might actually think that these people were meaning at
odds with one another. Here's a fun fact. During Whitmer's
first term, she signed one thousand laws with an allegedly
Republican legislature. That means that every single bill during that

(01:36:16):
time that made Michigan worse was done with bipartisan support.
Bipartisan support means that the call came from inside the house.
Bipartisan support means it'll be your own people who cause
you problems. We talk about the uniparty in politics, but

(01:36:37):
what does that mean. Well, it's easiest to show you
with examples. The uniparty is when Dick Cheney, who was
a Republican vice president twenty years ago, supports Kamala Harris
over Donald Trump because Harris is more likely to carry
on in the uniparty tradition than Trump would. Trump's the

(01:36:59):
kind of guy who looks at what we're doing and says,
why are we doing it? Should we keep doing it?
And perhaps we shouldn't. And those kind of attitudes are dangerous.
See you and I, if you're listening to this show,
you're probably like me and that you don't think that
the status quo is working, and the status quo is
not working for you. But if you're like Dick Cheney,

(01:37:22):
the status quo is the height of civilization.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
It's all you could ever want. And so the uniparty
is when, say the.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
Michigan Republicans in twenty twenty two, after they lose all
the gavels, they decide on their way out of power
to do one last favor for Gretchen Whitmer. They're alleged adversary,
and they funded the Q line train in Detroit, the
train to nowhere for twenty years. The uniparty is when

(01:37:54):
a Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana acts as
if one hundred a fifteen hundred I'm sorry, a fifteen
hundred page bill to fund the government is the only
way you can fund the government. So in the new year,
Michigan lancing will enter a new era of gridlock. Republicans

(01:38:18):
are going to control the House while Democrats control the
Senate and the Governor's office. The good news is the
current crop of Republicans is less inclined than their predecessors
were to cut deals with big Wretch. And so when
the media tells you that gridlock and lancing is a
bad thing, don't believe it. Gridlock is what's going to

(01:38:40):
save you from tax hikes. Gridlock is what's going to
save your business from new regulations. Gridlock is what's going
to keep homeschool free and unregulated in Michigan the way
it should be. It's funny, though, the same media that
will tell you that lancing gridlock is bad will also

(01:39:01):
tell you that a Republican led Washington is bad. On
that case, they'll tell you that Republicans aren't being collaborative
enough that they're running the country themselves and shutting out
half the citizens. They'll say that Donald Trump is the
rise of an American form of fascism. On their face,

(01:39:23):
these look like different arguments, and it looks like the
media is being inconsistent.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
They're not.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
In Lancing, gridlock means Republicans have a say as opposed
to no say, And in Washington, fascism is when Republicans
win all the gavels. So when I say that all
journalism is politics, this is what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
The news holds two tools in its hand.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
One is credibility, the other is the ability to influence events.
And their desperate attempts to win. In November, the media
tossed aside credibilit and they went all in on influence.
What they forgot Journalism can't influence people if it doesn't
have credibility.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
So you heard it here.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
First, Britlock is good and in Michigan, britlock will be
the health of the state. Coming back out of break,
we're going to talk to Senator Jim Runstead. Jim was
part of the lame duck situation. We're going to hear
what's going on in Lancing. Hello Detroit, and good morning Michigan.

(01:40:35):
This is James Dixon hosting the Justin Barclay Show. This
is the Justin Barclay Show, nine ten Am Superstation. We
were hoping to hear from Jim Runstead to talk about
the Michigan GOP chair race, but I haven't been able
to get in touch with him just yet. But I
do have thoughts. I do have thoughts on what we need.

(01:40:57):
So as I look at one six, this is the
great battle for Michigan. This is probably, I'm not gonna
say it's the most important election of our lifetime, because
had we lost twenty twenty four and there was just
four more years of a communist government, and there had

(01:41:17):
been four more years of open borders, and there had
been four more years of let's open the prisons and
let's bring every type of social dysfunction to your kids school,
or let's bring boys into your girls' locker rooms and
the girls metal stand and sports competitions, it would have
been absolutely terrible. So you needed to win twenty twenty

(01:41:42):
four to have any type of a future. We have
that we've been given a new lease on life. I've
been walking around half an inch taller ever since November fifth,
because I realized that, man, we really managed to save
this country. It is almost impossible to consider what life

(01:42:04):
would be like if we were what less than a
month now, less than a month from a Kamala Harris presidency.
Close your eyes and imagine just just hop hop hop
with me here into this scenario. Tim Walls is Vice
President elect of the United States. Does that make you

(01:42:28):
feel happy? Does that make you feel that America would
be secure and respected in the world, or would you
pretty much be sitting on one butt cheek and waiting
for something terrible to happen. Because people like Vladimir Putin
and Russia, people like Xijinping and China, they have a
gift for spotting human weakness and human frailty and human failures,

(01:42:56):
and they would have seized on those things. They would
have seen the weakness of our administration. They would have
seen the impotence of these people, and they would have
decided that this is the moment to make the attack
on America, that this is the moment when we can
be weakened. Thankfully, that won't happen, but you need to

(01:43:18):
appreciate how close we caame, and you need to appreciate
what twenty twenty six is going to mean for us.
So to talk about that, we have Senator Runstead. Jim,
thank you so much for joining.

Speaker 7 (01:43:30):
Us today, agreed to be on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:43:35):
Jim, you were running for So you're currently a state senator.
You're up in White Lake, fellow, Oakland County man. You
live in God's Country. Jim, you're running for chair of
the Michigan GOP. Why on earth would anyone want that job?

Speaker 7 (01:43:52):
Well, it is. It's a comprehensive job. There's a lot
of movie parts to it, and it's coming out of
a lot of controversy. So you're right, it's a challenge
and it's something you really have to have the real
desire and passion to do because there's a lot to overcome.
But I think my skill set, everything I've done in

(01:44:15):
my life kind of brings me up to this point
to be able to effectively do this job, but better
than I think anyone in the state. And that's why
I feel about it, and I think it's where you
have to go into it to be successful. So it's
a matter of a number of component parts. One of
the big ones is fundraising. I've always been one of

(01:44:38):
the top fundraisers in the legislature. You're in and you're
out most of that money raised in the district. A
lot of times when you're in Lancing, you got to
make the right votes, tell you money at your fundraiser.
So I have not been able to raise that kind
of money in Lancing because I have among if not

(01:44:58):
the most conservative, voting right, you do not make.

Speaker 2 (01:45:01):
The right votes, Jim.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
We talked about the swap and the force and favors.
You pretty much are on the force side of the
line when they deal with you. How have you been
able to survive in politics despite that?

Speaker 7 (01:45:18):
You know, a big part of what you have to
do when you are voting conservative is you have to
make an extra effort to get along with colleagues, to
be engaging and personable. If you're nasty and rotten and
your votes are contrary to what the establishment wants, then

(01:45:41):
you're going to have a lot of problems. But I've
always focused on getting along with everybody so that I
can say, hey, yeah, we voted different on this, but
you know that doesn't mean I don't like you as
a person. You have your own reasons for making your vote,
and I'm never going to question that as a colleague.
And I think it's that interpersonal relations that you have

(01:46:03):
to have with people that can overcome those frictions that
can occur with the donor class and lancing, which is
different than the donor class state to state party. The
donors there are packs for lobbyists, and their pretty much
sole purpose is trying to give money to get you

(01:46:25):
to be compliant with their agenda. So there I have
not been compliant with their agenda. But I've been in
financial services for thirty five years where I had to
go out and meet with people and sit down with
them and have them write a check for a fifteen
or twenty million dollar annuity and trust me to fund

(01:46:46):
that annuity. And I've learned how to sit down with
people all across the state of Michigan and say I
really need to raise some money for this purpose, and
they were kind enough to donate that money with no
quid pro quo, no hey, I want this bill passed
kind of thing. So that's the way I've raised my money,

(01:47:07):
and I am looking at the opportunity of continuing to
do that. I've already raised one hundred thousand dollars in
about three days for the state party run for the
first time. They want fifteen fifteen thousand, non refundable dollars.
I raised that in a day and it's already at
a state party, so I have no problems, no concerns

(01:47:30):
about raising the money. The other big component of this
job is bringing people together, speaking all around the state
for probably a month, and I still hear the divisions
within Sometimes within a county, they will say, Hey, are
you going to go after this side of the room
because it's such and so, and are you going to go?

(01:47:50):
I said, no, I'm not going to go after any
factions of the party. My goal is straight down the
line the Democrats in twenty defeating them in elections. And
if we are going to play these personality games within
every faction, engaging in every little disagreement, we're not going
to get anywhere. It has to be a complete mission.

(01:48:13):
For as I tell everyone, your kids and your grandkids.
Looked out at your kids and your grandkids. Do you
want them, you know, having boys coming into the girls showers.
Do you want them to have a child born given
to them at school? Do they want every legacy that
you've had passed on to you destroyed by the Democrats.
Because that's what we're talking about. You've got to be
focused on what is important, and it's not this little

(01:48:36):
friction here or there. It's got to be just game
on for the Democrats every single day that you wake up.
And that's what I'm gonna do. There's going to be
no attack on any Republicans. That's not the role of
the state party chair. There's some party chair to be
focused on the Democrats. So I've been delivering that message
all across the state and it's very very well received.

(01:48:56):
I think people recognize the internal firing squad is not
going to get anyone anywhere. We have to put those
aside and get to the goal, and that is winning
elections of twenty six.

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:49:11):
What you're referencing is what they used to call the
eleventh commandment. The eleventh commandment was thou shalt not speak
ill of a fellow Republican. M Ay what happened to
that commandment? And b the Democrats. I look at them.
They used to run on solidarity and blue no matter who,

(01:49:31):
and now they can't get along with each other. We
are Republicans fighting Republicans, Democrats fighting democrats, rather than Republicans
fighting democrats.

Speaker 2 (01:49:41):
How to get to this point.

Speaker 7 (01:49:44):
Well, I think that there was some dissatisfaction with people
who were saying one thing and doing another. Over many years,
where somebody would run for office or as a brand,
we would say we stand for lower taxes, smaller government,
and then we were voting for Crony Camp was some

(01:50:04):
expansive government. And now you're beginning to undo what we
were known for and what people were voting us in for,
and that is this smaller limited government, Freedom's constitution. It
was getting away from that, and so people were getting
frustrated and they were starting to go at each other's throats.
To me, it's the role of the State Party is

(01:50:27):
to bring all these people together. I will road show
around the entire state of Michigan, meeting with groups continuously.
It's not just to get elected. I'll be on my phone,
working on the phone, traveling the state of Michigan, talking
to people. What are your concerns, what do we do?
What else do we need to be doing. Usually you
find the grassroots or the boots on the ground. They

(01:50:48):
know better than some talking head and lancing with a
bunch of yes men. What's going on? If you're asking them,
what are you seeing? What do we need to be
doing differently, You're going to get a tremendous amount from
the ground up type of information that you don't get
if you're sitting in a silo somewhere. So I will
be asking people all around the state of Michigan what

(01:51:11):
their thoughts are. It's important to engage them so that
they can trust and believe that what you're doing is
what you said you were going to do. And that
means getting out there, that means talking to people. So
that's another thing I intend to do. And in the
interim I'm in my last term, cannot run again everything
I was doing for the last two years. If your

(01:51:32):
listeners watch the videos, I did more videos, more floor speeches,
more amendments than anyone on the Republican side. By far,
I probably did about sixty percent of them. I intend
to carry that statewide, attacking the Democrats relentlessly, because my
last two years are going to be very little to
do in Lancing. All of my floor speeches are gone,

(01:51:54):
every single bill will be negotiated. I won't get a
bill out of the Senate and the Democrats still control that.
But what I can do is take everything I learned
in Lansing and get it out across the state of Michigan.
We will be doing more media. I already do probably
more media than the whole Senate combined. I will continue
blazing and blasting away at the Democrats, pushing out media scrums,

(01:52:17):
pushing out press releases. So it's going to be a
tsunami coming at the Democrats like they've never experienced before.

Speaker 2 (01:52:25):
But you have Jim Runstead here, Senator Jim Runstad.

Speaker 1 (01:52:27):
Of White Lake, a Republican, James Dixon here hosting the
Justin Barclay Show for Justin Barclay, Jim, twenty twenty six
is the great Battle of Michigan. It's like the new
twenty twenty eight or twenty eighteen where governor, Attorney General,
Secretary of State, and those are all going to be
open seats, no incumbents, the entire legislatures up. What makes

(01:52:52):
you think twenty twenty six will be a good year
for Republicans.

Speaker 7 (01:52:57):
Well, what you just saw in this last election is
kind of running counter too often of what a consultant's
narrative is. They tell Donald Trump, you do this, this, this,
you know, the old style consultants, and they were completely wrong.
One of the things that he did was ethnic outreach

(01:53:19):
looking for new voters. That is something I've been doing
for six years. I've done more ethnic outreach to the
Indian community. They named me Legislator of the Year for
the whole state of Michigan last year. The coachir of
the Taiwanese Friendship Caucus the only person ever invited the
Republican or any politician to the MONOPOLIESE and the Vietnamese

(01:53:43):
New Year's States celebration. I met with the Yemen's three
and a half years ago about issues that they had.
They said that that broke the kind of frost between
the air community and Republicans. I helped them, and no
Democrat would help them. I can go on and on,
but I've done more ethnic outreach than anyone else in

(01:54:04):
the legislating Republican history. It's all documented on my website.
But I think we have to continue that. It can't
be a one time showing up before the election. It
has to be an ongoing outreach. I produced a flyer
for the Indian community about all our shared values, everything
I've learned from them about what we share. I pra

(01:54:25):
those by the thousands and got them out to the
Indian community. So that's what's a component part. The other
of it is just sticking to what you said you're
going to do. And when you look at Florida when
DeSantis when the first time he won by less than
a point zero five percent, like two thousand, it was

(01:54:46):
so infinitesimally close. So all the consultants told him, what
you need to do is be real, mushing moderate. You know,
Florida's mushy moderate. You gotta don't take any strident positions,
just kind of go with the middle line. And he
rejected it all. He said, no, this is what I
ran on, this is what I said I was going
to do. Just like Trump, I am going to go

(01:55:07):
like a bowling ball at the Democrat bowling pins. I'm
going to go after them. He did. He delivered what
he said he was going to do, and what happened.
He turned the state of Florida from purple to red.
They won by over twenty points. It was a slaughter
in his coattails, brought in all these other candidates that

(01:55:27):
just wipe the Democrats out a to z down the
school board. Now everyone says it's a red state that
happened in one single four year term. So if we
deliver on the things we say we will do that
people liked about us. We can turn Michigan red, but
it means a lot of work, and it means that
we follow through on what we tell the voters we're

(01:55:48):
going to do.

Speaker 2 (01:55:49):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
Senator Runstad, I really appreciate you taking the time, and hey,
Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:55:56):
This is great insight and we're very excited to see
what happened in that chair race.

Speaker 7 (01:56:01):
Be blessed, Jim, thank you, Thank you so much. James.

Speaker 1 (01:56:05):
All right, after the break, we're gonna talk about what
we've learned on this beautiful Christmas week here in Metro Detroit.

Speaker 2 (01:56:13):
This is the Justin Barclay Show.

Speaker 1 (01:56:15):
Be back soon, Hello Detroit, Good morning Michigan. This is
James Dixon filling in for Justin Barclay. This is the
Justin Barclay Show. Nine and AM Superstation Southfield, Michigan. We've
been together three hours this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:56:32):
What have we learned?

Speaker 1 (01:56:34):
We learn that all journalism is politics. Journalism is a
form of politics. It doesn't just describe politics. It's meant
to achieve ends. It's meant to move society, politicians, the country,
your community to a specific point B. Nothing is just neutral,

(01:56:55):
nothing just exists. We learned that Michigan Democrats are unfit
for command of this state.

Speaker 2 (01:57:02):
Just ask them.

Speaker 1 (01:57:04):
We learn that the government that governs best governs least.
This means that gridlock is good. It's protection from the
busybodies who want to interfere.

Speaker 2 (01:57:14):
In your life.

Speaker 1 (01:57:17):
We know that the battle with Democrats was just one
on November fifth, and we know now that twenty twenty
six is the battle with the Republican Party, the battle
for the soul of the Republican Party. So as much
as I like something like the Eleventh Commandment, this is
actually the time when we do need to fight right now.

(01:57:39):
It's a matter of which Republicans will be forwarded to Lansing,
which ones will go to Washington, and what will they
achieve