Comical Incompetence from Milwaukee's Election Commission

On Friday's "Dan O'Donnell Show," Dan is left speechless at how incompetent the Milwaukee Election Commission official who downloaded audit logs instead of vote totals on primary election night. The MEC's explanation and proposed changes for November further illustrate just how in over her head one of the top election officials in Milwaukee actually is. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you consider this the last summer weekend or Labor
Day weekend next week because Labor Day is so late
the last summer weekend? Whatever it is, we are almost
into a great Wisconsin summer weekend, whether it's the last
one or not. Ultimately irrelevant when you've got a Friday
afternoon as beautiful as this one. Three hours of conservative

(00:24):
thought and not just talk on the way. Hopefully you
are listening to me on your AirPods while out for
a walk with the dog. Maybe you're lounging by the
pool or maybe you've got another couple hours of work
like producer Eric Paulson and I do. But nonetheless, we
are ready to go with three hours of broadcast competence,

(00:46):
if not broadcast excellence. For you this afternoon, Carpetland USA
Flooring Center talk and text line open, as it always is, 414-799-1130.
You can also email me, dod at iheartmedia.com, at Dan
O'Donnell Show on X, Facebook, Instagram, across social media. And

(01:06):
please do subscribe, like, follow, download, and listen every day
to the Dan O'Donnell Show podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever
you listen to podcasts. A lot coming up. President Trump
making history. He is the first sitting president to make
a phone call to the International Space Station. He was

(01:27):
down at the Johnson Space Center in Houston where he
announced the new Space Academy also presented the Congressional Medal
of Honor to the crew of Artemis II. We will
get into that in the Daily Trump Date in the
4 o'clock hour. What did the Libs do today? Well,
they spent their time on the stairs of the Lincoln

(01:48):
Memorial on the anniversary of MLK's I Have a Dream
speech by screeching about why D.C.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Statehood is a racial issue.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
How Trump is actually running a totalitarian state and basically
saying anything and everything except what MLK actually stood for.
Lindsey Clancy jurors going home for the weekend as they've
been deliberating for about 10 hours now. They are not sequestered,

(02:19):
which means they're not going to have to stay in
a hotel room over the weekend and not have access
to the news.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
The judge just a couple of minutes ago.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Telling them do not consume news or basically don't go
on TikTok to see all of the unhinged women throwing
ice cubes into bathtubs while screaming uncontrollably because they see
themselves in the.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Woman who murdered her three children.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Some of the most important testimony that came during the
state's rebuttal case this week. And as the jury now
has the case, we'll get into some of that coming
up later today on the Dan O'Donnell Show. Five o'clock hour,
a chance for you to win a trip for two
to Las Vegas in our iHeartRadio Music Festival Flyaway Contest, plus.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
A $ 1, 000 gift card and much, much more.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
We are going to send you into what might be
the last weekend of summer, second last weekend of summer,
with a whole lot of fun. Milwaukee Elections Commission, to
kick things off, has sent a letter to WECC, the
Wisconsin Elections Commission, not explaining exactly how a deputy director

(03:35):
of the MEC, Milwaukee Election Commission, who we have identified
as Marisha Harris, who was hired by the Milwaukee Election
Commission to be one of the top deputies to Election
Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez last year, after Harris spent
a good amount of time running a nonprofit organization in Milwaukee.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Now, despite the fact that.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Marisha Harris appears to be a very capable, very competent woman,
she was a real estate agent. She has run this nonprofit.
In fact, she got an absolutely glowing review of her
organization's work in a puff piece news story by today's TMJ4.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Just two years ago.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I mean, this is not a woman who seems like
she would not be aware that the giant pop-up window
that says, do you want to download the audit log
and not the actual votes from the voting tabulator would
actually download the audit log and not the votes. Just

(04:46):
to review, during the Democratic gubernatorial primary on August 11th,
the city of Milwaukee's vote total was delayed. For some reason,
the city of Milwaukee always, it just always happens that
the city of Milwaukee is the last city to report.
No matter what, the city of Milwaukee always has to

(05:08):
be the very last municipality in the state to report
its absentee ballot totals. It's never a similar big city
like Madison. It's never Green Bay, never a scene, never Kenosha.
It is always Milwaukee. Well, on August 11th, it seemed
as though everything was going pretty smoothly. Milwaukee County had

(05:28):
all of its votes in, save for those absentee ballots.
But Fond du Lac County and Greene County were experiencing
some technical difficulties, so their vote totals weren't going in.
And neither was the city of Milwaukee's. So weird how
that happens. First, we were told that Milwaukee's absentee vote

(05:48):
total was going to be in by 10 p.m., then 1030,
then 11 at 11.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Okay, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
We will have those votes in by 1130. 1130 comes.
Fond du Lac County and Greene County are still outstanding.
They are still not reporting their vote totals. At 1130,
in a hastily called press conference, Paulina Gutierrez, the head
of the Milwaukee Election Commission, says, well, due to human
error on five of the nine vote tabulators at Central

(06:21):
County in Milwaukee, the high-speed tabulators are would actually count
up all of the votes. They are fed through, the
ballots are fed through these tabulators by City of Milwaukee
Election Commission staff, and then they're added up. The way
you transfer the data from those tabulators to the Milwaukee

(06:42):
County Election Commission, the Milwaukee County Clerk, for recording in
the county's vote totals is you have to download the
vote totals from each of the nine tabulators onto a
flash drive. That was done, apparently, by Marisha Harris. Harris, however,

(07:04):
somehow downloaded the audit logs instead of the vote total
on five of the nine tabulators. Now, Milwaukee Election Commission
put out a statement saying it was impossible to know
whether or not you were downloading the vote totals or
the audit log. That was proven to be a lie.

(07:26):
Within a day, CBS 58 reporter A.J. Byatt-Poor posted a
screenshot of the moment where the mistake happened and the
audit log was downloaded instead of the vote totals. You
could see in that screenshot on the giant touch screen
on each voting tabulator that there was a pop-up that said,

(07:50):
do you want to download the audit log?

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Hit confirm.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Once you hit confirm, there is a second pop-up that
takes up the entire screen that says downloading audit log.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
The Notion.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
That Marisha Harris could not see or would have no
idea that she was downloading the audit log was proven
in that moment when that screenshot was posted to be
a complete fabrication. The fact that she did this five
more times defies explanation unless the explanation is Marisha Harris

(08:26):
might actually be too dumb to function as an adult.
The other opportunity for some sort of clarity that I provided,
the other option that I have given is that Marisha
Harris is in fact functionally illiterate, that she can't read
and she had no idea that the letters that form
the words audit log did not actually form the word vote.

(08:49):
because that's the only way that I could see this
happening five different times after you hit confirm.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
This is the key.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
You have to, it says download audit log, question mark,
hit confirm. She did this five times without realizing she
was downloading the audit log. That's staggering levels of incompetence
that necessitate I think removal from this position.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
This isn't one.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Of the little old ladies that volunteers to work at
the local high school gym and take your ballot and
give your ballot to you. And God bless those little
old ladies. Some of them are out front. They're selling
homemade baked goods to kids. raise money for the local
4-H club. We love you, little old ladies who do that.

(09:39):
You are the backbone of American democracy. But it wasn't
one of these little old ladies that was being asked
to do something that maybe she wasn't comfortable. This is
the second in command of the Milwaukee Election Commission. This
is a top deputy. This is someone who your tax
dollars are paying to do exactly this. and nothing else

(10:01):
you're telling me the one thing we pay her to
do she can't do why are we paying her to
do that almost immediately after human error was blamed And
people like me started identifying Marisha Harris as the woman
whose human error was responsible. Milwaukee's Mayor Cavalier Johnson came

(10:23):
out and said, well, nobody is going to be fired.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Nobody is going to be punished. Nobody is going to
be disciplined.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Gutierrez repeated that same position in an interview on Upfront
this weekend. She said, no, this is an opportunity for learning.
For learning what?

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Your ABCs?

Speaker 1 (10:45):
How to read when a giant pop-up says downloading audit log?
It actually means that you're downloading the audit log? Today,
Gutierrez sent a letter to WEC, the Wisconsin Elections Commission,
trying to explain exactly how Marisha Harris, who may be
the most incompetent person in quite possibly the most incompetent

(11:10):
county in America, David Crowley's Milwaukee County, How exactly she
did this. According to the letter sent out today, MEC,
the Milwaukee Elections Commission, determined that the download team, the
download team. Marisha Harris had a similar level of incompetence

(11:32):
working under her. The download team, led by the deputy director,
mistakenly selected and downloaded the audit log rather than the
election results file from the five of the nine tabulators.
Written procedures were available to the team at the time
the downloads were performed. Again, the only thing that makes
sense is that they're functionally illiterate, that they could not

(11:54):
read the written materials. Unless, of course, we want to
entertain the other possibility that nobody wants to entertain that
this pattern of incompetence is not actually incompetence at all.
So either you admit you hired somebody who literally can't

(12:15):
read or you admit that the Milwaukee Elections Commission is corrupt.
And is intentionally delaying city of Milwaukee absentee ballot reporting
to see how many absentee ballots it will take to
get the preferred outcome.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Those are the only two options here. Only two.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
MEC, the letter continues, takes responsibility for that error. While
the existing safeguards ensured that the error did not affect
the security and accuracy of the underlying election results and
allowed the discrepancy to be identified before results were posted,
the incident also identified an area of MEC's process that
can be strengthened.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
What?

Speaker 2 (13:02):
What are you going to get? Hooked on phonics?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Is that going to work for Marisha Harris and her
team of illiterates? Here are the corrective actions that MEC
is taking. MEC, the letter continues, has begun implementing several
changes before the November election. Written download procedures are being

(13:27):
updated to include visual images of each relevant screen that
will enhance those instructions. I'm telling you, I think this
woman is actually functionally illiterate. When I say functionally illiterate,
I mean just that. Like, you are able to... It
is a real thing. And I'm not saying this to

(13:50):
poke fun, okay? There are a whole lot of adults
who are able to get by, but they aren't able
to read at a level that would allow you to be.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
You aren't reading at a proficient level.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
And if you're in a job... where reading is required,
that could be a big problem. So the solution is
we're going to provide pictures. So somebody, a top deputy
in the city of Milwaukee responsible for handling the elections

(14:25):
needs pictures in order to do her job properly. So
step one is going to be including pictures. An appropriate
version of these procedures will also be made available to
observers at Central Count, excluding passwords and other security-sensitive information.

(14:45):
Download teams will participate in a briefing immediately before the
download process begins to confirm that all participants understand their
individual responsibilities and the steps required to complete the download. Folks,
this reads like Paulina Gutierrez, the executive director of the MEC, say, yeah,

(15:10):
we know this woman is really, really dumb and the
people who work for her are even dumber.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
So we're going to step by step.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
We might have flashcards with all of the pictures that
we hold up before they download things so that they're
not downloading.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
The wrong things. Back to the letter.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
MEC will also implement a point and call verification process.
Staff will verbally identify and confirm critical selections as they
complete them, allowing other members of the bipartisan team to
actively verify each step. So she's now going to have

(15:51):
to say, okay, I am pushing the button that will
download the vote files. Oh, wait, I just downloaded the
audit log.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Whoops.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Like, so she has to yell out what she's doing.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
So that someone nearby can say, no, Marisha, you're doing
the wrong thing again. Does this sound like somebody or
an organization that can be trusted and To competently administer,
so far, we have got, they need pictures in addition

(16:31):
to the written instructions. We need to have a grown-up
tell them, here's what you do immediately before they do it.
And then they have to out loud say, okay, here's
what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
This is like instructions for a kindergarten class. Back to
the letter.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
MEC also plans to demonstrate the results download process during
public testing before the November election and provide additional information
so observers and news media can better understand and follow
the process. Oh, we understand the process. We can follow
it very clearly and very easily. The issue appears to
be that one of the top officials in the Milwaukee

(17:13):
Election Commission cannot. And she has an entire team that's
even dumber.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
And less competent than she is.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
In the interest of transparency, the letter concludes, MEC will
make available copies of the audit logs, EL-104s in the precincts,
processed reports from the August 11th partisan primary central count.
Those records will be available by Friday, September 4th at
the City of Milwaukee's central count website. Is there anybody

(17:45):
working in the Milwaukee Elections Commission? who you would consider
hiring for any job ever doing anything. Honestly, I had
to read through that twice when I first saw this
letter this morning.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
They need pictures. They need a step-by-step.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Guide from someone who is, in theory, more competent than
they are and actually able to do the job that
they're drawing a taxpayer salary to do. And then they
have to yell out exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
What they're doing.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
So everybody around them, who presumably is smarter and more
competent than they are, can stop them if even after
the pictures and the detailed instruction immediately before they do
what they're supposed to do, they still don't get it right.
Do I have all of this correct? according to this
email that was sent out. So I guess the excuse

(18:51):
that we're going with is Marisha Harris, the deputy director
of the Milwaukee Election Commission, who nobody wants to name,
by the way, because it's got to be insanely embarrassing
to have all of this because you are too dumb
to be able to do the thing. Now, look, dumb
stuff happens all the time. I make dumb mistakes all

(19:13):
the time.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
All the time.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
What I can tell you is I don't make them
five times in a row and then have my boss
try to cover it up by saying, well, there was
no way that Dan O'Donnell could have given the wrong
word for the iHeartRadio Music Festival Fly Away Con. There's
just no way. Like, for example, let's say the word
in the five o'clock hour is bank.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
OK. It's not. So don't try to text in the
word bank.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
And.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
The excuse for me constantly reading the wrong word was, well,
Dan just needs a picture. So there's a picture of
a bank next to the word bank. And even after that,
I'm still saying, well, the word of the hour is safe.
A gray box with a dollar sign on it. I'm

(20:08):
not sure what this is.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
And then before I do each contest, Jerry Bott comes
in and says, okay, Dan, Dan, the word is bank.
The picture that you're looking at is a picture of
a bank. All you have to do is say the
word bank. Then before I do.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
The contest, I say, okay, when I do the contest,
I'm going to say the word dollar.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
And at that point, everybody can start calling in and say, no, no, Dan, Dan,
the word is bank. Are you telling me that something
similar is what we need to do? So a government
employee can do the very basic, most elemental aspect of

(20:55):
her job.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
If that's what you're going with, but you do have
to understand how ridiculous this looks to everybody else. in
the state of Wisconsin way to go Milwaukee Election Commission
Paulina Gutierrez and Marisha Harris for proving that just when

(21:20):
you think government employees could not get any less competent
you have proven that we just need to there are
at least some people working in elected or appointed positions
in David Crowley's Milwaukee County who have had just about

(21:40):
enough of the staggering incompetence that is quite literally leading to.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Crimes being committed.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Milwaukee County Judge David Borowski, who has been a guest
on this program and might be one of the best
circuit court judges in the state, let alone Milwaukee County,
because he is actually tough, but fair. He actually enforces sentences.
He was the judge that, remember when Act 12 passed,

(22:14):
where David Crowley and Cavalier Johnson, the mayor of Milwaukee,
begged the state legislature for more shared revenue, and the
state legislature said, okay, but Milwaukee has to return police
officers to MPS schools. City of Milwaukee just sort of
refused to do that for a year. MPS refused to
allow resource officers back in the hallways of MPS schools.

(22:36):
Borowski was the one who said, OK, well, as I
understand it, this is legally required that you put resource
officers in the schools. So I am ordering you to
do so, to follow the law. And if you don't,
I am going to hold you in contempt. And I
am going to start locking up MPS officials until there

(22:58):
are cops back in the schools. I can't think of
another judge who would have the cojones to do that.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Or to do and say this.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Borowski is currently hearing a triple murder case. Thomas Zollicoffer
is charged with three murders. in an incident on August
8th in which he shot his ex-girlfriend Vanessa de Herrera,
her friends Scott Buchholz and Shamarla Hare to death. He

(23:35):
allegedly confessed to police. He faces life in prison if
he's convicted. He is currently being held in the Milwaukee
County Jail, where he used a jail-issued tablet to discuss
threatening witnesses to that shooting. Prosecutors requested barring Zollicoffer from

(23:59):
using the tablet that's given to apparently every jail inmate
to do anything but communicate with his attorney or visitors
that he might get in jail.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Now, the Milwaukee County Jail.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Actually does give tablets to pretty much every inmate. Excuse me,
the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department, under Danita Ball, no longer
calls Milwaukee County Jail inmates inmates, but rather guests or residents.
Each one gets a tablet. Now, the tablets don't run

(24:38):
on a standard operating system like an iPad runs on iOS.
They're loaded with a special monitored software called Viapath or GTL.
Securus is another one. It's very common. And what they're
used for? is to do supervised visits. So instead of actually,

(25:01):
you know, you see on TV, the inmate goes out
and behind the glass, they sit and talk through the little,
they don't do that anymore because it's just, it's a
security nightmare moving inmates or excuse me, guests throughout the building.
And you've got people who are going into the jail
who aren't inmates, but rather actual guests. It's just easier

(25:24):
to put them on a secure connection.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Through the tablet.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
They can also load these things up with educational courses.
You can get GED prep. You can actually get a
GED on these tablets. And you can also load them
with books, with movies, with all of this. This is
one of those things that sounds like a great idea

(25:49):
to libs who believe that all inmates, or excuse me,
guests of the Milwaukee County Jail are fundamentally good people
who just, you know, had to steal some bread to
feed their starving family because societal forces like poverty and
racism and Donald Trump drove them to commit crimes. In reality,

(26:16):
many of these inmates, or excuse me, guests, have in
recent days and weeks been using these tablets to somehow
unbeknownst to Milwaukee County correctional staff, threaten witnesses or send
harassing messages to their alleged victim. There was one high

(26:39):
profile case in which a dude said hundreds of mess.
He was charged and he was in jail for stalking
his ex-girlfriend and sending unwanted communications.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
He uses his jail issued tablet.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
To continue to send her unwanted unsolicited messages in essence
to keep committing the crime that ended up with him
in jail. So today in the Zollicoffer case, David Borowski.
The only Milwaukee County judge and potentially one of the
few Milwaukee County employees in David Crowley's dysfunctional Milwaukee County

(27:19):
government who actually cares about good governance had enough.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
And in one of the truly.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Epic judicial rants, just took the Milwaukee Sheriff's Department to
task for giving these people tablets.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
Why is the Sheriff's Department giving laptops and iPads to
defendants that are charged in homicides or any defendant, why
is the Sheriff's Department handing laptops or iPads to defendants?

Speaker 6 (27:51):
Why?

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Judge, I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
That one's above my pay grade, Judge.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
And that needs to be addressed. This is a bigger question.
I have had cases. I have a case in particular
where I had a defendant who was given a laptop
or an iPad by the Sheriff's Department. He used it
to intimidate witnesses. He then later apparently allegedly hacked through
it to access child pornography.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
I have another case.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
We know there's a very high-profile case in front of
another judge. It's not my case, where a defendant allegedly
made 1,200 or 1,500 intimidating threats and phone calls or
attempts from a tablet. Why is the sheriff's department giving
defendants tablets? It's preposterous, and I would like the sheriff
to answer that.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
There is no need.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Constitutional or otherwise, for a defendant to have a tablet
when they sit in jail. And I don't care if
they're charged with a burglary or an armed robbery or,
for that matter, a domestic violence case.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
This is a triple homicide. This defendant does.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Not need a laptop, and he will not have one again,
subject to my court order. He won't have a tablet,
he won't have a laptop, and I'm granting the state's
request across the board. He's locked down 24-7 with the
exception of meeting with his attorney. No defendant in this
court ever gets to intimidate a witness or a victim ever.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Bravo, Judge Borowski. Bravo.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
And I will second his demand for answers. Why does
Thomas Zollicoffer or any other inmate or, excuse me, guest
of the Milwaukee County Jail need a laptop, need a tablet? Okay,
you're going to use it for attorney communication or for visits.

(29:41):
Then they get the laptop or they get the tablet
when they have a visitor or when they need to
communicate with the attorney. And at no other time, oh, well,
they're using it for their GED course. Okay, well, then
when they have a supervised time, They can go into a,
I don't know, do the jails have study halls? They

(30:03):
can go to the study hall and they can use
the tablet under this physical supervision of a guard where
they will do exactly what they're supposed to be doing
with this. Clearly, the inmates have figured out how to
use these tablets to intimidate witnesses, to potentially commit more crimes,

(30:27):
and yet There is no accounting for this. Again, this
is going on in David Crowley's Milwaukee County. And you
know what we're going to hear? You know what we're
going to hear from them? Well, Dan, Dan, Crowley doesn't
have any responsibility for this. This is the Milwaukee County Sheriff.
That's a separately elected position. You see, this isn't, it's

(30:49):
his county. He is the county executive. He is the
top official in the county. And yet there continues to
be utter dysfunction. There continue to be ruinous policies that
are quite literally potentially putting people in grave danger. Because
of this policy, there was a woman who was so
terrified by her ex stalking her that she filed charges.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
He's in jail.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
He's continuing to stalk her using a laptop or using
a tablet provided by the jail. And the jail doesn't
actually answer, hey, why are these people getting laptops?

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Why are they getting tablets?

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Now you've got a triple murderer talking about potentially intimidating
witnesses so he could try to get off of a
triple murder, again, using a jail-issued tablet.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
And the excuse is going to be, well.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
This isn't David Crowley's responsibility, so he shouldn't talk about this,
or this should not have any bearing on your belief
in whether he's competent enough to be Wisconsin's governor. Frankly,
at this point, outside of David Borowski, I don't think
anybody in Milwaukee County government is competent enough to do

(32:03):
basic manual labor, let alone be governor of the state
of Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
You're listening.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Coming up in the four o'clock hour, the latest on
the Lindsay Clancy trial that has captivated the nation.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Jurors sent home for the weekend. No verdict. which is
not surprising.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
They have heard a lot of testimony and you couldn't
expect them to come up with a verdict after hearing
months and months of testimony in like 45 minutes, unless
it was the OJ jury and they acquit him because
one time one of the cops said the N word.
I think easily the greatest miscarriage of justice ever. in

(32:47):
this country's recent history was OJ Simpson, who was beyond
guilty walking because of what essentially amounted to the most
egregious case of jury nullification in anyone's memory. We will
get into that, plus Phil Kirpin, who is the president
of American Commitment on a major mistake that Biden's Inflation

(33:11):
Reduction Act made that has everyone paying more for prescription drugs.
That's all coming up right now. It's time to name
the unhinged liberal of the day. Unhinged liberals today are
all of the left-wingers who hijacked the 63rd anniversary of
MLK's I Have a Dream speech on the steps of

(33:32):
the Lincoln Memorial to just rant about.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
About Republicans. Like, for example, Virginia Solomon.

Speaker 7 (33:42):
We live in a time of military occupation, corruption, conflict,
and the dismantling of civil rights. State-sponsored murder by ICE
agents and unbridled capitalism. And we are living through white
supremacy's desperate last stand. And while it may not feel

(34:02):
like it at times, we are winning. The far right
knows we're winning, and Donald Trump knows we are winning,
and that is why they are desperately trying to weaponize
their power against us.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
I don't even know what she was talking about. In
case you're wondering who is Virginia Solomon, I have no idea.
She was described as an activist, but apparently she got
a prime speaking spot. This was a Bernie Sanders AOC production.
Both of them spoke at this event, which was attended by.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Almost nobody.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
It is kind of remarkable how few people actually attended
this thing today, which is a shame because they missed
speakers like Gurleen Joseph.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
We understand that this country was built on the back
of black people and we continue to hold that truth.
As we see, we live under a dictatorship that is
criminalized immigrants, specifically black immigrants.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Have you noticed they just sort of keep repeating the
same buzzwords and catchphrases without ever really saying anything? They
are criminalizing immigrants, especially black immigrants.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
No, actually.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Unlawful entry into the United States is a criminal act.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
No human being is illegal. That is correct.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
However, when you are an illegal immigrant, you have committed
a criminal act by illegally immigrating into the United States.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
No.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Producer Eric said, Virginia Solomon is the CEO of the
league of women voters. I thought they just picked her
up outside of the Lindsay Clancy trial. Like she was
holding up a sign that says, I heart Lindsay. This
is a CEO. This is the CEO of a major

(36:14):
national lib group.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Listen to this tribe.

Speaker 8 (36:16):
We live in.

Speaker 7 (36:17):
A time of military occupation, corruption, conflict, and the dismantling
of civil rights.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
That's, That's the CEO of the League of Women Voters.
She's also the CEO of Common Cause. One before the other.
So she's been the CEO of Common Cause and the
League of Women Voters. And she says stuff like this.

Speaker 7 (36:43):
State-sponsored murder by ICE agents and unbridled capitalism. And we are.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
We are unbridled capitalism. That's my favorite part of that
whole rant through white supremacy.

Speaker 7 (36:56):
Desperate last desperate.

Speaker 8 (36:58):
And while it may not feel like it at times,
we are winning.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
OK, that's enough of her.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Janice Lewis George is a candidate for mayor of D.C.
She also spoke and rather predictably said D.C. statehood is
about what else?

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Racism.

Speaker 8 (37:20):
This isn't an oversight, my people. This is disenfranchisement. And
a city built by generations of black Washingtonians like my family,
we have to call the issue of D.C. statehood what
it is.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
D.C.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Statehood is a.

Speaker 8 (37:36):
Racial justice issue. It is a voting rights issue. It
is a civil rights issue. Fannie Lou Hamer taught us.
Nobody is free until everybody is free.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Well, America, D.C.

Speaker 7 (37:56):
Isn't free.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
They're not free. They they are.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
They are not free as she is literally running to
be mayor right now.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
But they're not free.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
All three of those are pretty much everybody who spoke
at this farce of an event.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
You're unhinged liberals of the day.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
I know meteorological summer goes until the fall equinox, the
autumnal equinox.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
No, that's that's you're right. You're right. Astronomical summer. You're right.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Meteorological summer ends September 1st, which is Tuesday. Well, yeah,
August 31st. So meteorological fall starts September 1st. So if
you're using the meteorological definition of summer, this is the
last weekend of summer that we're starting right now.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I think a lot of people get off work at
4 p.m.

Speaker 6 (38:55):
Now.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Do you think.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
8 to 4 is the new 9 to 5? It
has been that way for a while, Producer Eric, except
for us. We work three to six.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
It is a grueling three-hour workday for me. Who am
I kidding?

Speaker 1 (39:10):
I usually start work at about, I'd say, 7 a.m.
I maybe have an hour or two to run errands
in the middle of the day, but I keep myself
busy getting ready for this show. Obviously, we are very
busy constantly producing the very best analysis and all of
the latest news on politics and conservatism here in wisconsin

(39:35):
at our website the heartland post check us out heartlandpost.com
uh we are your one-stop shop you should be going
there every single morning to see what is going on
in wisconsin heartlandpost.com. Coming up in just a couple of minutes,
a big fan of Phil Kirpin, who is going to

(39:58):
be joining us in just a second, how Biden's blunders
made drug price controls far worse and what the Trump
administration has been forced to do about it. He is
going to join us in about five minutes or so
to talk about that. He is the president of American Commitment.

(40:21):
Before we get to that, though, it's time for The
Daily Trump Take. President Trump at the Johnson Center in Houston.
to award the Medal of Honor to the crew of
Artemis II.

Speaker 9 (40:34):
Today we're proudly awarding the Congressional Space Medal of Honor
to the remarkable crew of Artemis II. Please join me
in congratulating Commander Reed Weissman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist
Christina Cook, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Great people.

Speaker 10 (40:58):
Thank you.

Speaker 9 (40:58):
Congratulations.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Now, during that speech, President Trump also made a pretty
significant announcement that he is going to be opening a
brand new space academy on par with West Point, on
par with the Air Force and Naval Academies, the Coast
Guard Academy, and that this is going to be starting
up very, very soon.

Speaker 9 (41:21):
In a few moments, I will sign an executive order
to begin the process of creating a new national academy.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's called the U.S.

Speaker 10 (41:28):
Space Academy.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
That's a big deal.

Speaker 9 (41:36):
So you think of West Point and you think of
Annapolis and you think of the Air Force Academy and
you think of the Coast Guard Academy is great.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
They're all great.

Speaker 9 (41:46):
But we're going to have now the Space Force. We're
going to have an academy for what the people in
this room love the most.

Speaker 10 (41:55):
That's exciting.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
It is very exciting.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
By the way, I love almost as much as how
the president pronounces how he pronounces space she's.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Kind of roles as space.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Afterwards the president made some history he became the first
sitting american president to make a phone call to the
international space station.

Speaker 10 (42:18):
Great honor to be with you is a great honor
and i just want to thank you jessica anneal jack
great americans great patriot brave people I wouldn't do it,
I will tell you right now. I hate to admit it,
I would not want to do it. But some people
love it more than anything, and you have amazing courage.

(42:38):
And the job you've done, even to be selected, along
with your fellow compatriots. You have some very good friends
on board, too, from different places. And I don't know
if they're hearing us, but just welcome them also. But
I just want to congratulate you.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
The Jessica he was talking to is Jessica Meir, the
spacecraft's commander for the SpaceX Crew-12 mission aboard that International
Space Station. She has been aboard the station since February.
The president also told her about the surprise announcement. He
did not say anything about this. In fact, nobody knew

(43:16):
that this was coming. that there was going to be
a new Space Academy, and she expressed her gratitude for that.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, first of all, that is very exciting news. We
are thrilled to hear it. It's the first we've heard.

Speaker 8 (43:27):
Of it as well, and we want to welcome you
on board the International Space Station.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
We and all of our colleagues are very thrilled to
have you up here today.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
We're all doing very well. We've been in the middle
of several spacewalks, and we're getting ready for another one
next week.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
And the president is obviously very much excited about this.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
I believe we got some wires crossed with Phil Kirpin.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
So you know what? Should we take a quick break?

Speaker 1 (44:03):
We were– He was supposed to call us, but we
had to reschedule this interview from a second time. And
do we have the ability to call?

Speaker 2 (44:15):
No, we don't. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, this
is how– you know what?

Speaker 1 (44:20):
We're at least happy that the phones work here at
iHeartMedia Milwaukee. Well, I'll tell you what. Why don't we
take a quick break? It's just a three-minute break. Let's
get Phil on the phone in that– Second segment. And
then we'll just go a little bit longer in that
because we're going to have to call him and tell

(44:43):
him to call in or he's going to be wondering
what the heck's going on.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
So let's take a quick break. You're listening to The
Dan O'Donnell Show.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
When we come back, Phil Kirpin to talk about a
significant Biden blunder and much, much more here. We are
very pleased to be joined by the president of American Commitment,
Phil Kirpin, to discuss how President Biden's blunders actually made

(45:10):
drug price controls even worse. Phil, I am a huge
fan of yours on social media. It is such an
honor to have you on the program. Welcome to the
Dan O'Donnell Show.

Speaker 6 (45:24):
Oh, the honor is mine. It's my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
So How exactly did the, as you put it, comically
misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, I myself always referred to it
as the ironically titled Inflation Reduction Act since it made
inflation much worse.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
How did its government.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Price controls on prescription drugs actually contribute to much higher
prices for prescription drugs?

Speaker 6 (45:55):
Well, I like to say that it's the most backwardly
named bill since the Affordable Care Act.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
That's pretty good. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (46:02):
You know, yeah, but you can have a lot of
fun with how ridiculous. By the way, does anyone remember
that it was originally called Build Back Better?

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (46:10):
And Joe Manchin said, I would never vote for this.
Build Back Better, this is terrible. We should do something
about inflation. And then they're like, well, what if we
just change the name, but we keep the bill the same?
And he's like, oh, okay, yeah, that sounds great.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
That is such classic Democrat behavior.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
it's stagecraft is what it is but.

Speaker 6 (46:28):
The major and it proved to be the total phony
you know quote moderate whatever i mean if they they
change the day i go out and i think place
for that uh... well it did not uh... lower prescription
drug spending uh... with promise did not save hundreds of
billions of dollars in medicare as was promised uh... in
fact medicare spending by taxpayers went up pretty sharply after

(46:51):
a path and of course the share that's paid by
seniors at the drug counter did as well. And, you know,
there were a lot of warning signs that this was
going to happen because of the way that they redesigned
the benefit in Part D. And, you know, their theory
of the case was that, you know, the insurance companies,
I guess, would just absorb the losses. Of course, they

(47:14):
did not. They raised premiums instead. And then they got
so panicked that premiums were going up that they did
a bailout towards the end of the Biden administration. They
essentially bribed the insurance companies with massive direct payments not
to raise premiums that they otherwise would have based on
the economics of that bill. And then they sort of
dumped this whole mess into Trump's lap. But to get

(47:36):
back to your question of what did it actually do
for drug prices, it's actually amazing. If you look at
the chart of drug prices, like the Consumer Price Index
chart for drug prices, It was low in Trump's first term.
It spikes up when Biden's in, like the price of
everything did. The drugs were no exception. We had this
huge inflationary spike. And then it comes way down again

(47:58):
under Trump. And, in fact, the 12 months that just
ended with the most recent print of inflation data, the
12 months that ended in July of this year, prescription
drug prices fell by 3.1 percent, fell. Now, 3.1% might
not sound like a lot, and it's not, and nobody's
feeling super great about their drugs being cheaper because of 3.1%,

(48:19):
but that is the largest drop in the history of
the Consumer Price Index data for prescription drugs, which goes
back to 1970. These are prices that just don't go
down normally. The best you hope for is that they
don't go up, but they've actually gone down in the
past year under Trump. What I've noticed, which is, you know,
ridiculous and inaccurate and dishonest, but probably should be expected,

(48:43):
is the media and the Democrats saying, oh, this is
because Biden's price controls were so successful. And, of course,
that is the opposite of truth, that price controls were
extremely unsuccessful. As I said, combined with the way they
redesigned the program, they actually had the opposite effect. We
were spending more, not less.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Well, it worked.

Speaker 6 (49:00):
Was Trump's market-oriented approach where he said, we're going to
do a few things to force these prices down. We're
going to have a lot more competition. We're going to
have competition in distribution models. We're going to have direct-to-consumer
sales from manufacturers and through sites like TrumpRx and Mark
Cuban's site to compete with the pharmacy channels, which have
been really manipulated by the insurance companies, which bought up
the pharmacy benefit managers. We could do a whole show

(49:22):
on that. But basically, instead of endlessly having these lobbying
fights over whether the PBMs are good or bad and
all of that, which you've probably seen a million ads
on TV in recent years, Trump just said, okay, we're
going to have direct sales from the manufacturer, and if
people want that, they can do that. If they want
to go through pharmacy, they can do that. Let's have
it compete. Let's see what happens. And that's put a
lot of downward pressure on price. He's finally playing hardball

(49:45):
in trade negotiations with other rich countries, demanding that they
not get a free ride off of us with government
price-controlled prices. He got the U.K. to agree to a
substantial increase in what they pay for U.S. brand drugs,
which everyone said would be impossible, that no country would ever.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Agree to that.

Speaker 6 (50:00):
Well, he got the U.K.

Speaker 5 (50:00):
To it.

Speaker 6 (50:01):
He hasn't quite convinced Europe yet, unfortunately, or Japan, which
are very important, because if he can get Europe to
agree to what he got the U.K. to agree to,
we'd have twice as many new drugs developed, and they'd
cost less, because the addressable market return would be double.
I mean, you'd double the size of the market. It
would be incredible. So he's working very hard on that. And,
you know, we're– and the other thing is that he

(50:26):
sort of told the– Now, I don't love this because
he used the tariff threat and other tools that are
not my favorite policies, but he basically leaned on them
to bring a huge amount of investment in production back
to the United States. And so, you know, that reduces
shipping costs. That means we've got more classes where there's
more competition. We've got more generic manufacturing. And so, yeah,

(50:47):
I know 3% is not going to save anyone's household budget, but, boy,
for prices of drugs to actually go down instead of
up is pretty incredible. And, you know, this is the
biggest decrease we've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (50:59):
and i think it just shows that government price control
are not really the most effective or or even the
united that are not been not only that that policy
but they don't even do what they're supposed to write
which is lower prices as well as markets and competition
and choice what we see.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
We see the exact same thing with government rent controls
phil kirpin by the way the president of american commitment
joining me here on the dan o'donnell show i mean
anytime you see what what The mayor of New York,
Zoran Mamdani, is attempting to do, oh, well, we're just
going to have rent control. Well, OK, yeah, if you
can't charge what the market is willing to pay for

(51:40):
high rise apartments, why would you be incentivized to build
high rise apartments? So the supply of housing is artificially
restricted and therefore the rent goes up. where you don't
have this artificial control.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
That's such a good example. That's such a good example
because one of the things that happened in Argentina when
Javier Millet came in is he got rid of rent control,
just ripped the Band-Aid off in Buenos Aires, which had
chronic housing shortages because of that. And rents went down.
Rents went down when he ended rent control because it

(52:17):
brought a huge number of units that were completely vacant
because they weren't economic to rent. back onto the market.
And so he got rid of the price control and
rents actually went down, not up, which is pretty incredible.
New York is doing many insane things with their housing policies,
but I think that they're doing it because the mayor
wants the economics not to work and he wants the
city to own all the buildings, which, by the way,

(52:38):
is crazy because they already own a ton of buildings
and they're in severe disrepair and they're incompetently run. But nonetheless,
he wants to make it impossible for the economics to
work for private landlords. And what we're seeing in New
York now, they got rid of the one safety valve
that they always had in New York on rent control
is when you got a vacancy, you could adjust to
a market rent. They got rid of that. So now

(52:59):
you have vacancy. Now they just clean them out and
leave them vacant.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Well, I think that what this is, I think this
is cloward pivot. This is the cloward pivot strategy. You
just intentionally overwhelm the system and say, well, it's not working.
Capitalism isn't working. We're going to need to own all
of the buildings. I mean, ultimately, I think that's what's
going on in New York. I think what you are

(53:22):
seeing with the drug price is market-based solutions work. Government-centric
ones never, ever make things more affordable because government is
just woefully inefficient. Phil Kirpin, the president of American Commitment. Phil,

(53:42):
it is always a great time talking to you. You've
got such great information. Americancommitment.com is the website?

Speaker 6 (53:53):
Well, it's. org, but we've got the. com, too. So
if you type that, it'll ask you over.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
I can never tell. I'm like, if you're a. org,
always have a. com as well. Americancommitment.org.com.

Speaker 6 (54:02):
That's good advice.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Always get the.

Speaker 6 (54:04):
Com, because that's what people type first.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Well, sir, we do hope to have you on again
anytime you'd like to come back. Great talking with you.
Phil Kirpin of American Commitment here on the Dan O'Donnell Show.
Do you remember Milo Yiannopoulos? Do you remember that name,
conservative dad fly? Turns out he overstayed a visa and

(54:27):
he's been in this country illegally. ICE picked him up yesterday,
according to a tweet about an hour ago from Homeland Security.
He legally entered the country on May 14th, 2019, through
New York City. He chose to overstay his welcome in
violation of our nation's laws. Ianopolis was issued a final
order of removal by an immigration judge on July 22nd

(54:49):
after failing to show up for his immigration hearing. He
will remain in ICE custody pending removal. Being in detention
is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take
control of their departure with the CBP Home app. The
United States is offering illegal aliens $ 3, 000 and a free
flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally

(55:13):
to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance
to come back to the U.S., the right legal way
to live the American dream. If not, you will be
arrested and deported without a chance to return. Still, one
of the best ever illegal immigration controls, self-deportations are working
three grand free flight home Three million people have taken

(55:36):
advantage of this, and Milo probably should have.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
He's going to be deported.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
That is something I did not have on my 2026
bingo card, nor did I have so many women seeing
themselves in a.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Triple murderer role.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Who murdered her three children. That is not in dispute
that Lindsay Clancy killed her three children. What is in
dispute is whether or not she was suffering from postpartum
psychosis when she did so and was not able to,
because of that psychosis, determine the difference between right and wrong. Well,

(56:17):
the prosecution during its rebuttal case this week I think
blew a huge hole in that psychosis diagnosis, which, by
the way, she never had. She was never diagnosed with
postpartum psychosis, even though she was doctor shopping to try to,
I believe.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Get one. Dr.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Gregory Satoff, during the rebuttal case, who interviewed Lindsay Clancy
earlier this year, testified this week that the only time
she ever heard a, quote, male voice ordering her to
kill her children was during the 18 to 20 minutes

(56:57):
where she was actively murdering the children. Never heard it before,
never heard it again.

Speaker 11 (57:02):
When I asked her about the voice that she heard, again,
she said that it started really right after the telephone
call at 534 with her husband, Patrick. And she said
it was a man's voice. It was very clear. It

(57:23):
was external. A lot of the words came from outside
of her head. That it was constant. So this phrase,
this is your last chance. You have to kill your
kids and then kill yourself. was something that was repeated
over and over and over and over again during that

(57:47):
period that she strangled her children. And then just as
soon as it started, it stopped when she had finished
killing the children, strangling the children.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Okay, so the voice starts right after she talks to
the husband. And then it stops right after. Well, had
she ever heard any of those voices, that male voice?
Had she heard any voices before that?

Speaker 11 (58:21):
Well, what was significant to me is that she had
not spoken about hearing voices before that in any of
the mental health professionals, the psychiatrists, the nurse practitioners, the doctors.
physicians and staff in the emergency departments or at McLean.

(58:43):
And so this was the first time that she reported
that was documented, but also that she experienced an auditory hallucination,
according to what she told me.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
So that was unusual.

Speaker 9 (58:59):
And then.

Speaker 11 (59:04):
Also, what was very unusual was the fact that was
the fact that the voice stopped with the death of,
or the strangling of her youngest son, Callan.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
So.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
She'd never heard a voice before. She heard a voice
only when she was engaged in the murders and never
heard any voices afterwards. This sounds to me like a
story that was made up well after the fact about

(59:50):
voices in her head. Folks, I cannot shake the idea
that she was doctor shopping for a diagnosis that she
was not getting a postpartum psychosis that would justify what
she was planning to do for a long time and
that was to murder her children the motive for that

(01:00:13):
who knows was it because she didn't want to have
kids anymore and live happily ever after with her husband
did she want to kill herself and thought, Oh, I
can't do that to my kids. So I have to
kill them first.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
And I, I don't think anybody could get inside that
poisoned of a mind or would want to, but the
external evidence to me is, and has always been very
clear that this was somebody I remember the only standard
it's known as the McNaughton standard is whether or not

(01:00:52):
She was, at the time of the crime, suffering from
a mental disease or defect, insanity as it is classically known,
such that she was unable to determine the difference between
right and wrong. That she was so far gone, she
had no idea that strangling her three children was wrong.

(01:01:14):
Not just that they would be gone forever, but that
there was anything wrong with that. The fact that this
case has been just so misinterpreted and it's sort of
serving as a totem for, I think, the increasing divide

(01:01:35):
between young men and young women on the issue of
not just politics. I mean, much has been made about
the political divide. Young men are more conservative than any
young men in recent memory that have come before them.
Young women are basically to the left of Che Guevara.
these are the people who are advancing the socialist movement.

(01:01:58):
But it really is sort of more reflective of a
diametric opposition and value systems. And this case is sort
of playing itself out on TikTok as a sort of
battle between the sexes, for lack of a better phrase.
But what this is really about is criminal insanity. And

(01:02:19):
we're going to get into that coming up in just
a second. You're listening to The Dan O'Donnell Show. But
towards a force of truth, it is the Dan O'Donnell show.
And the truth of the matter is that those soundbites
that you just heard in the last segment coming from Dr.

(01:02:42):
Gregory Satoff are really what this trial is ultimately all about.
It's not about postpartum depression. It's about whether or not
Lindsay Clancy essentially faked a diagnosis of postpartum psychosis as
sort of a cover of for the diabolical and remarkably

(01:03:03):
well-planned murder of her three children. Frankly, folks, I think
that testimony is a bombshell. I actually can't believe it
didn't come out in as succinct a manner as you
just heard from Dr. Satoff earlier in the trial, although
maybe that was by design that prosecutors in their rebuttal

(01:03:27):
case earlier this week wanted to call this witness to say, look, no,
she only heard the voices during the murder. She did
not hear any voices telling her to kill her children
other than in those, what was it, 18 minutes that
it took to strangle her three children and then kind

(01:03:48):
of try to kill herself. Folks, I'm just, I'm not
buying it. I just do not buy. It sounded to
me that all of the powerful medication that she was on.
She deliberately did not tell one doctor what the other
doctor had just prescribed her. I think she was trying

(01:04:10):
to get into a state in which she would be
able to make the claim later that she couldn't possibly
be responsible for her actions because of the interplay of
all of these drugs, which, wouldn't you know it, This
is exactly what her defense is claiming, that because she
was on all of these drugs, because she was having

(01:04:32):
all of these problems, because we just don't know how
all of these, what was it, 13 different antipsychotic, antidepressant
medicines that were in her system were all working in
concert to just completely screw her up and exacerbate a
condition that, by the way, she was never diagnosed with.

(01:04:55):
What it sounds like to me is that she was
doctor shopping to try to get a specific diagnosis of
postpartum psychosis in order to find an opportunity to later
murder the three children.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
You know, I don't know if.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
The children were a bar to her living a happier life,
if they were a bar to her committing suicide, but frankly,
all of the evidence presented at trial suggests only to
me that this was a person who was very clearly
able to appreciate the consequences of her actions. And that's

(01:05:37):
according to what's known as the McNaughton standard. It is
a longstanding Supreme court precedent that says it doesn't matter
if you are criminally insane. Jeffrey Dahmer, sort of the
classic example of this. He rather obviously was insane, but,
The standard is whether or not he could appreciate the

(01:05:58):
consequences of his actions and whether or not his mental
illness made him incapable of ascertaining the difference between right
and wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
That's it. That's the standard.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
To me, a suicide attempt immediately after the murders of
the children is evidence that she knew what she did
was wrong. She knew that She needed to somehow escape
the consequences of what she did, and suicide, to a
whole lot of people, is an escape for consequences. This

(01:06:32):
is why so many times you will see murder-suicides in, like,
a love triangle, in, well, we were talking earlier today,
the Thomas Zollicoffer case. An ex-girlfriend is killed. Very many times,
the defendant, the murderer, will kill himself because he doesn't
want to go to prison. And When you see that

(01:06:55):
level of pre-planning, is it evil?

Speaker 8 (01:06:58):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Is the killing of children by the mother so horrifying
a crime that society doesn't really even want to think
about it?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Yeah. But it doesn't change the fact.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
That, for example, Andrea Yates, she, I believe, strangled her
three children, four children about 20 years ago. And instead
of trying to run away or killing herself right away
or anything like that, she arranged the children's bodies so
that they would be next to each other so that

(01:07:35):
they would protect each other and stay together when they
were in heaven. Does that sound like someone who really
understood the consequences of what she did? And in fact,
Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and
she was sentenced to a mental health facility. She has
been eligible for release for decades, and she has refused

(01:07:57):
every single time because she feels so guilty and so
awful about what she did when she was, in fact,
not in a state where she could appreciate the gravity
of what she was doing or understand the differences between
right and wrong. I just, after seeing a lot of
this evidence presented, including the sound bites that we played

(01:08:19):
for you in that last segment, I just have a
very difficult, if not impossible, time believing that Lindsay Clancy
had a similar mental breakdown that Andrea Yates had and
that she could not appreciate the gravity of what she did.
You're listening to The Dan O'Donnell Show. Stay tuned. We'll

(01:08:40):
be right back in just a second. Here we go,
Dan O'Donnell show. You know, something we have really not
been doing lately, and I want to get back into
because I really like this segment. As you know, it's
been a bit of a transition here on the program.
as we have been given the edict from corporate that

(01:09:03):
we cannot play any music in our podcasts because of
a long-standing copyright issue basically the music that we play
on the radio is can't be used in a podcast
that will essentially be on the internet forever. So we
have had agreements in place with BMI ASCAP.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Yes, it is called.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
The ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Artists, and Producers,
I believe it is. The acronym is ASCAP. So yes,
ASCAP and BMI. I should say, yeah, that's what it's called.
So we've had long-standing agreements that you can play, you

(01:09:46):
can get the rights to play music on the radio
because that's sort of what radio does.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
It plays music. Well, we have thematic license.

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
We have the ability to use bumper music, songs that
are copyrighted by the artist, by the record labels, because
the idea is that once it's broadcast, it's gone. You
don't have the ability to play it over and over
and over again. I don't know why you would play
a 30-second snippet of a song over and over and

(01:10:16):
over again, but okay.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
But because a podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Is on the internet forever, we as a company don't
have the rights to use copyrighted material forever. So iHeart
has been trying to go to these associations or artists
to figure out, okay, what do we have to pay
in order to use this stuff in podcasts. And so far,

(01:10:43):
ASCAP and BMI have not come back to us with
any number. We have no idea. So in the interim,
we're not able to play, say, the unhinged liberal of
the day theme we used, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, because
I want to include the unhinged liberal of the day
in the podcast. And unsung hero of the day, we
use the song Hero of the Day by Metallica. Because

(01:11:06):
I want to include those segments for the daily Trump date.
We used YMCA, of course, by the Village People, the
song that Trump always dances to. Because I want to
continue to do those segments on the air and include
them in the podcast. We've just gotten rid of the
theme songs. And, you know, I thought, OK, unsung hero

(01:11:27):
of the day. Maybe we can do that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
Maybe not.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
But we are going to try to get back into it.
And we have got a great one. Today, I got
an email this morning from a woman who.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Is an Army veteran.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Along with her husband, they were at an Air Force
graduation for her son. Dan, first time writing, my husband
and I are both Army veterans and are currently sitting
in the San Antonio airport after attending graduation for my
son at Lackland Air Base. Super cool to see all
three ceremonies. It was a big class with 811 graduating yesterday.

(01:12:04):
One of the coolest thing that happened was they announced
that 49 graduates would be given American citizenship after completing basic.

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
I had never heard of this, but I know these
are the immigrants I want in my country. Those that
believe in our country duty, honor and country.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
And then she signs her name. I am going to
just kind of leave it anonymous. But your unsung heroes
of the day are all 811 Air Force graduates, including
the 49 who will become American citizens after they complete
basic training. Our emailer is correct. These are exactly the

(01:12:47):
type of people that we all want in this country.
And this is something that is, I believe, deliberately misinterpreted.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
By the libs.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
We conservatives don't want an end to all immigration. We
want an end to irresponsible immigration, and that includes illegal immigration,
and that includes flooding this country with people who are
here legally, but who are unnecessarily providing competition and are

(01:13:21):
being deliberately brought in to undercut American workers. by providing
that same job at a much lower salary if you
think about it why would you pay uh... say a
hundred fifty thousand dollars for and engineer when you get
and h one b visa you promise living in america

(01:13:45):
being able to start a family in america having a
child who becomes an american citizen through birthright citizenship will
only pay you seventy five thousand dollars but will relocate
you to the united states And we get the benefit
of somebody working for half what it would cost us
to pay an American engineer. And you get American citizenship

(01:14:07):
for your kids.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
You get to live in America. Doesn't that make up
for the difference?

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
This is essentially the scam, especially that big tech has
been running for years. They're hiring people, just not American citizens.
So when conservatives say, that we want responsible immigration that's
legal and illegal immigration the idea here there are jobs

(01:14:32):
that americans won't do or there are jobs that americans
don't have the skills to do i have always countered
with how would we know since for forty years we
have essentially had unchecked immigration into this country illegal immigration
to provide a cheap labor force at the bottom end

(01:14:52):
of the socioeconomic spectrum to do the jobs that Americans
supposedly won't do but were doing for the entirety of
American history up until that point when the American worker
was supplanted by lower-cost immigrants. and now we're seeing this
at the higher end and highest levels of the socioeconomic

(01:15:12):
spectrum we're told that well america just isn't turning out
enough engineers in america isn't turning out uh... stem graduates
to be able to fill the positions that we need
so we have to report what how would we know
since wages are being artificially driven down and thus making

(01:15:33):
those stem careers less attractive By immigrants coming in on
H-1B visas or big tech just outsourcing entire departments altogether
to try to get cheaper labor, this is one of
the big problems. But I think one thing that all
of us can agree on, if you are willing to

(01:15:53):
come into this country and serve this country in our
Air Force, in our Army, in our Navy, in our
Coast Guard, in our Space Force, If you are willing
to put your very life on the line to bleed
and potentially die. For this country, this country is your home,
and we welcome you with open arms. Very, very cool email.

(01:16:17):
I am so glad we got it. We're going to
step aside for a break. Coming up in the 5
o'clock hour, your next chance to win $ 1, 000 plus a
trip for two to Las Vegas in our iHeartRadio Music
Festival Flyaway Contest.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
The Dan O'Donnell Show coming back with your chance to
win after the news. Hopefully your weekend is already off
to a great start. Five o'clock hour on a beautiful
Friday afternoon. It is the Dan O'Donnell Show. Welcome back
to it. 414-799-1130 on our Carpetland USA Flooring Center talk

(01:16:55):
and text line. If you want to email the program,
dod at iheartmedia.com at Dan O'Donnell Show on X Facebook,
Instagram as well. Again, we are getting back to the
DanoCam livestream, likely on Monday.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
Just wanted to make some tweaks. And you are.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Just going to have to deal with the sound of
my voice. Only you won't be able to see my
beautiful face until Monday.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
I know, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Somehow we'll make it through this dark chapter in DOD
show history.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
I'm kidding, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
We always have fun. Audio-only programs. If you miss a
single second of this or... Any show, be sure to
subscribe and listen every day to the Dan O'Donnell Show
podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts because
it is a great way to catch up very, very quickly.
Already covered a lot of ground on today's show and

(01:17:51):
plenty to get to in this 5 o'clock hour. But first,
it is a chance to win a trip for two
to Las Vegas in our iHeartRadio Music Festival Fly Away Contest.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
The word this hour is WIN. W I N win.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
You've got until five 55 to text the word win
to 200, 200, two zero zero two zero zero. If
your entry is picked at random, you will win a
trip for two to the I heart radio music festival
in Las Vegas, September 18th and the 19th included in
this round trip airfare for two, two nights, hotel stay

(01:18:29):
ground transportation and tickets to both nights of the festival.
plus $ 1, 000 gift card. It is a massive prize, and
we want you to be our first winner. If you
enter this contest, you will get a confirmation text and information,
standard data, and message rate supply in this nation. contest

(01:18:52):
earlier this week we talked extensively about a new york
magazine article entitled the pay-to-play childhood all about the professionalization
of youth sports how it's become a 40 billion dollar
a year industry and that figure sort of stuck out
to me because the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
Is a $ 20 billion a year industry. Think about that
for a second.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Youth sports in America is twice as big a business
as by far the biggest professional sports league in the
United States of America.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Twice the size in terms.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Of annual revenue, $ 40 billion per year versus $ 20 billion
per year. Now, the reason for this is pretty obvious
as opposed to just a couple dozen nfl teams and
couple hundred games every season there are thousands and thousands
and thousands of youth sports teams and tens of thousands

(01:19:50):
of games every year and it seems like there are
more and more and more leagues and teams and elite
travel ball programs and now the newest thing is sports
academies it's not just that you go to uh... like a, well,
a good example is Hitters Baseball Academy. Hitters Academy is

(01:20:11):
a really, really well-run program. And while they do have
ultra high level competition, they do turn out a phenomenal
amount of professional baseball players. They have various levels to
their program where you can develop sort of at your
own pace. I'm not talking about like a Hitters Baseball Academy.

(01:20:32):
I'm talking about a year round program school where basically
you do virtual school and then you will play soccer
for the majority of the day. Academics is quite literally
secondary to whatever sport. This is big down in Florida
where all of these sports can be played year round
because the weather is not going to turn like it

(01:20:53):
is in just a couple of weeks, I am afraid
to say, here in Wisconsin. I shouldn't say that. Fall
in Wisconsin is one of the most beautiful seasons that
you will find anywhere in the U.S.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
Or the world, really.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
Unfortunately, it is a very small period of time. Summer,
it seems, to stretch here until, I would say, mid
to late September. Then you've got three, four, five weeks
of fall, and then winter comes real quick, and it
doesn't end probably until about mid-May next year. So while

(01:21:30):
you just don't have the ability, say you are a
superstar youth golfer, and we have some of the absolute
best courses in America here in Wisconsin. I mean, Kohler
is just phenomenal. You've got Aaron Hills, which hosted a U.S.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
Open. You've got up when i'm gonna miss so many uh.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
of these great courses shiny the american club has always
been a favorite of mine uh... down in lake geneva
but you have got just professional level courses but you
can't play here round so you can't have that youth
academies that said we do still have truly insane people uh...

(01:22:16):
in and around youth sports so Pretty much the same
day that we were talking about the craziness of youth sports,
this story was just starting to go viral. It happened
on Saturday during a Brew City League youth football game, U10.
So these are 9- and 10-year-olds at Racine Case High

(01:22:40):
School in Mount Pleasant. There was a parent, a 41-year-old man,
of a Milwaukee Colts player, who ran onto the field
and tripped an Eagles player who was running toward a touchdown.
This video that was captured by a spectator has gone
down mega viral. And today I think it succeeded in

(01:23:03):
just going all the way around the country. The video
shows the man extending his leg and sending both he
and the player to the ground. Witnesses to the incident
and the coach of the Eagles player who was tripped
say this was absolutely intentional.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
And it was.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
The man later told police that he was upset with
a play, so he tripped a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
On the field.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
The child was not injured. The man took off. Mount
Pleasant Police located him nearby. He admitted the act and
that he was wrong. He was cited for disorderly conduct
and release. Possible child abuse charge considered but not pursued
because the boy was not hurt. The Milwaukee Colts team
was fined. The parent was banned for the rest of

(01:23:53):
the season. The coach of the Eagles, Channing Schultz, called
it the most cowardly act I've ever seen, said the
man should be banned for life.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
I agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
I don't see how you can ever be trusted to
be on the sidelines of a youth football event ever again.
If you trip a nine-year-old who's going to score a touchdown,
I just, I didn't watch the video. This is where
I really wish that we were streaming or had the
ability to show a live video here because it is

(01:24:24):
really something. The two teams are scheduled to play again
in about two weeks. So that will be a much
anticipated game, a must watch game. So since we did
this topic on youth sports and just how all consuming
and how much it has just fundamentally changed the culture,

(01:24:48):
I have gotten so many incredible emails and so many amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Responses from all of you.

Speaker 1 (01:24:59):
The best one I got was from a loyal listener
who has been in Hawaii for quite some time.

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
And he's got extensive experience.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
He has asked that I don't identify him or don't
use this for public consumption because he doesn't want to
be identified. So I will say only that he's from Hawaii.
And he said that he has been doing a lot
of research into this and that this has sort of

(01:25:31):
been a passion of his to try to figure out
not just how we got here with youth sports culture
just dominating everything about American life right now, but also
what should be done about it. He writes, in part,
the big question, what to do about this. i've been

(01:25:55):
working on the issue as you can see from unattached
report much of the area i live in is that
poverty level lots of local hawaiians there are great families
with great kids who like to play any sport available
and there are no decent programs for them the elementary

(01:26:16):
and middle schools don't have very good fired programs the
high schools are better with their after-school sports program I
know the athletic director at the local high school and
several of the coaches. I think the AD was an
NAIA honorable mention softball catcher. One of the coaches was
all league and college girls basketball. They have talked about

(01:26:36):
some kind of free or nearly free afterschool program for
elementary and middle school boys and girls.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I've been in a few of those discussions. Some keys.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
There is a mishmash of programs now. County Parks and Rec.
Boys and girls clubs, etc. These need to be coordinated somehow.
There need to be well-trained and paid coaches. This is
really important. Transportation to the program and home afterwards. There
is a bus service for the island. Make this free

(01:27:09):
and safe. Offer a variety of sports. Some maybe soccer, basketball, swimming.
There are county pools in many communities. Volleyball at schools.
Judo for active sports. Three to five sports a week,
no specialization, save it for high school. The program would
be free or nearly.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
So, i.e. swimsuits and shoes provided.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Have a contract with the parents stipulating that free means
the kids must maintain a B or C average, no
Fs on the report card. Consider having a tutor for
athletes who may have issues in classes.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
Funding.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
The county budget here is roughly one billion dollars. There
is never enough money, of course, in a Democrat-run operation.
Following the state-of-play information that I've attached below, communities with
strong sports programs raise incomes roughly 10%, which means more
taxable income. Instead of raising tax rates, there would be

(01:28:10):
more money coming in through people being better off financially.
The Reagan and Kennedy tax cuts work. following the percentages
a ten percent increase in incomes equals ten percent more
money for the county that's a hundred million dollars even
if it's a three percent increase in incomes equals thirty
million dollars putting one and a half or two million

(01:28:32):
dollars down and getting a 30 million dollar return is
fairly easy to understand where the benefits are another possible
source of funding is the school he says cam chumka
schools but that may be tied only to hawaiian kids
if you have any suggestions ideas comments that would be
much appreciated might even work in Milwaukee, and he ends

(01:28:57):
appropriately with an aloha. So what is being discussed, at
least in his area in Hawaii, is to coordinate all
of the various public programs.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
And here in the Milwaukee area and.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
Across Wisconsin, that might be a little easier said than done. Hawaii,
of course, is a very, very small state, both geographically
and population-wise, and and the populations are relatively spread out
and it's it's a different client but i i do
see where we're coming from here in trying to get

(01:29:33):
government and trying to get a lot of these things
more subsidized unfortunately i'd just don't think the genie is
going back in that bottle because just as the parents
of you know uh... that the the wealthier parents who
want to give their kid every advantage are able to

(01:29:54):
sign up for these travel teams they're able to pay
five thousand dollars just to be on the team and
then an additional ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year
to travel to all of the various tournaments and to
deal with all of the associated expenses i'd just don't
see that government because government has been and this is

(01:30:17):
the this is the big thing government at least in
terms of the schools has been perfectly fine with and,
in fact, has quietly cheered the fact that sports has
been essentially privatized up until high school. For many schools
and many school districts, there are still a handful of

(01:30:38):
middle school teams. Like, the middle schools will typically have
a basketball team. There will be a volleyball team. There
will be a track team. There will not be a
middle school baseball team. There may be a middle school
football team, but often that's kind of a public-private hybrid
where it's a private club, but it serves all of

(01:30:59):
the kids of a given community, and it's essentially a
feeder program for the high school football team.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
Soccer, the clubs have totally taken over that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
The only time you see school teams at all here
in Wisconsin are in the Catholic leagues, in the Lutheran
school leagues, the Catholic school leagues.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
You play.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
other Catholic schools that have soccer teams. But again, from
what I'm hearing from parents just through the youth soccer community,
there just aren't the kids that are playing for the
school teams anymore because the word has gotten out there
that if you really want to be a top-tier soccer
player or a top-tier volleyball player, You can't just play

(01:31:40):
for the school. Maybe you play for the school, but
you're also playing for the club. So the idea, I think,
that you're going to be able to get schools and
get government back in the sports game, I just don't
see that as realistic. I'm not sure that part about, well,
if you have a sports, a healthy sports league or

(01:32:04):
something like that, it raises incomes in the area by 10%. That,
I believe, is a bit of a specious argument. It's
sort of a chicken or the egg thing. If you
have incomes rising in an area because people are moving
in who are making more money and you have industry
that's coming in, neighborhoods are getting gentrified and so forth,

(01:32:27):
that's when you have the investment in more public leagues
and you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:32):
Have the ability to do that. That said.

Speaker 1 (01:32:35):
I do believe there is something there. I'll tell you what,
we've got to step aside for a break. We'll get
back into this when we come back. You are listening
to The Dan O'Donnell Show. Conservative thought, not just talk.
It is The Dan O'Donnell Show, 5 o'clock hour on
a Friday. Hope all of you are already having a

(01:32:56):
wonderful start to your weekend. It just feels like I
don't know. It feels like it should be Labor Day weekend,
doesn't it? I mean, pretty much every public school starts
on September 1st. You have got, I was told that
all of the UW schools are starting Wednesday, September 2nd.

(01:33:18):
But no, we still have a couple of days left
in August. And then Labor Day weekend is next weekend.
It is the latest it can possibly be.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
And you know what? That's just fine with me.

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
Extend this summer as long as you possibly can. So
fantastic email from a listener who's actually in Hawaii and
just has sort of seen everything play out. He has
extensive experience. He's originally from the Milwaukee area, moved down

(01:33:52):
to Hawaii in retirement, and he still stays active. I
don't want to identify him too much. He asked that
I didn't. But some of his suggestions are fantastic. He
says to try to get the ability for all kids
to play.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Let's just be clear here.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Kids are obviously being exposed to sports.

Speaker 2 (01:34:16):
They're obviously able to play in sports.

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
And we were talking about this at length earlier in
the week because of a New York Magazine article entitled
The Pay to Play Childhood. It was 10,000 words, very,
very deep dive. And other periodicals, other newspapers, the New
York Times did a big expose on this. I mean,
this has been the source of a good deal of
consternation in the media class for a long time. But

(01:34:43):
it also, it's a very real thing, just how much
youth sports has taken over American culture. And I know
a lot of you folks, your kids are grown. Maybe
you're seeing the grandkids go through this right now. I
have kids who are a bit older. We've got one
who's starting college. One's a sophomore in high school. One
is about to start seventh grade. So we're right smack

(01:35:06):
in the middle of this. If anything, we're towards the
end of it because once they get to high school,
you still somewhat play with your club teams. But hopefully
there are other activities. There are other sports that you do.
My one who graduated played two sports. He did soccer
and golf at the high school level. I think my
younger one's going to do soccer and golf, maybe track something.

(01:35:30):
So there really isn't a lot of time for the
club soccer anymore or anything like that. But if you
are a specialized athlete and you're really going gung-ho about this,
you are still doing the club thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
In fact, the biggest reason is that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
You don't have college scouts really going to high schools anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:35:55):
It's a relatively rare thing.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
And this is something that we didn't bring up earlier
in the week. But why do you absolutely have to
play club sports now and elite club sports if you
want that college scholarship or you want to play at
the Division I level? Because you're not going to see,
like in the old days, you would have college basketball

(01:36:18):
coaches going to these tiny little gyms. to scout some
kid in, you know, Hickory High School, right? Where Coach
Normandale is running the picket fence for, what was the
superstar kid's name? Jimmy Chitwood, who was just a cat misc.
You're not going to have that anymore because Jimmy Chitwood is,

(01:36:39):
he's going to, with his AAU team, play at some
giant showcase in Chicago where all the scouts go. And
instead of making 20,000 trips to scout all of these kids,
you see all of them playing against top-tier competition.

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
I will admit, that just makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Because coaches and scouts, they just do not have the
time to be able to go to all of this.
It's not like in the Normandale-Hickory High School. By the way,
that's a reference to Hoosiers. Gene Hackman played Normandale, one
of the best basketball movies that has ever, ever been
made about uh... little school that could that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
One the uh.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
indiana basketball championship the state basketball championship based on a
true story uh... back when indiana basketball had every school
play in the same tournament regardless of size in a
tiny little school one in like the nineteen fifties and
they turn it into the movie hoosiers in the mid
nineteen eight is just a tremendous tremendous uh.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
film.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
If you're looking to watch a great basketball movie i
cannot possibly recommend that highly enough. But because there are
so many more kids playing and because, and here's the
other thing that has just fundamentally transformed athletics, especially at
the college level, you're no longer just competing with American kids.

(01:38:04):
You're competing with kids from all over the world, high
level division one soccer programs. They aren't just recruiting American
high school kids. They're recruiting college, High-level kids from Spain,
from Colombia, from Germany, from all over the world. It's
becoming just much, much more difficult to get these spots.

(01:38:25):
Same thing with tennis, with golf, with... for the girls sports.
Volleyball is one that's played all over the world.

Speaker 2 (01:38:35):
Basketball.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
I mean, you look at a division one basketball project,
look at the NBA, how much foreign players have just
taken over. I mean, that's a tremendous thing that more
people have access to sports more people are loving what
were once primarily american sports softball and and volleyball and
basketball work were able to share those with the entire

(01:38:59):
world it's great but just like with the job market
here in the united states are now competing with h
one b visa holders you're competing with people from all
around the globe who are doing jobs at american companies
the the uh... call center is a classic example of
that you are not getting any sort of customer support

(01:39:21):
anywhere that is going to be located in the United States.
So that's kind of a big deal that has changed
the game, pardon the pun, in both the job market
and also the sports market. So when you've got that
many more kids to scout, it makes sense that the

(01:39:44):
clubs serve a purpose because they're going to these showcase events.
They're going to these high level tournaments so that college
professional scouts can take a look at the very best players.
I'm not saying that in any way that's detrimental. If
there is a kid who is at that level, I'm
telling you, I am absolutely telling you, yes, that is

(01:40:06):
the only way to do it. The problem is and
why I think a lot of our listeners suggestions about,
you know, well, we need to have the local league.
They're great. They're fantastic. They're not going to take off
because the demand is clearly there from parents for these
higher level leagues. And so long as that demand is

(01:40:28):
there and it's not going to slow down, it's not
going to abate at all, you're necessarily going to have
a diminished talent pool and a diminished just number of
kids and number of potential coaches who are going to
be left at that local rec league or local little
league level because everybody is going to be in this.

(01:40:52):
I don't know what the answer to that is, but
the reason for it is relatively simple. Everybody wants the
best for their kids. Every parent wants to give their
child every advantage. They want to make sure that they're
able to compete at the level that, you know, they

(01:41:14):
can compete. They're terrified that their kid is going to
be left behind, that they're not going to be able
to play on the high school team.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
Folks, I am.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
Telling you, so long as your kid is dedicated, so
long as your kid does the work in the weight
room and on the track and does the requisite skill work,
it doesn't matter what league he's playing in. It doesn't
matter what team he's playing on. It all has to do.
with the hard work he's going to make the high

(01:41:44):
school team. I promise you that if the kid works
hard enough on his own and he is just kind
of a natural athlete or he develops athleticism, the coaches
will find a place for him. I can absolutely promise
you that. You're being told when your kid is seven,
that he's not going to make the high school varsity.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
How could you possibly know that?

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
If he doesn't play on the travel baseball team at
the U8 level, he's not going to play on the
JV baseball team when he's 13, 14 years old. You
have no idea how a kid is going to develop.
Absolutely no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
But the fear is there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
The fear is sort of implanted in parents' minds that
their kid is going to be left behind and they
don't want that.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
They don't want that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
Now, a lot of it too, guys looking at you primarily,
there is a whole.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
Lot of vicarious living through the kids.

Speaker 1 (01:42:43):
There is a whole lot of the belief that I
would have been a professional shortstop. I would have been
a pro baseball player. Had I had all of the
advantages that my parents just couldn't provide for me. So
I'm going to provide them for my kid. That can
be the potentially most toxic thing of all. If there

(01:43:07):
is this unrealistic expectation that your son is living all
of your dreams for you, that you're living your frustrated
dreams through your kids. I mean, this has been going
on forever, but now, There's an entire sort of ecosystem
in place to feed into this idea that, well, if

(01:43:31):
you just get the kid on the best team, well,
then he has got a much better shot for a scholarship.
He's got a much better shot at playing professionally. It's,
I can't tell you how, sure, there are late bloomers.
Giannis is a classic example. didn't even pick up a

(01:43:51):
basketball until he was, what, 11, 12 years old, shoots
up five inches late in his teens, becomes one of
the best players in the history of the NBA. Everybody
knows this. Chances are you can tell the kids who
are really, truly gifted, special. It is an innate thing,

(01:44:12):
often that comes from genetics. There's a reason that so
many kids, so many young basketball and baseball players have
fathers or uncles or people who played in the pros.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
It has nothing to do with nepotism. It has nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Well, Bronny James, I'll give you being on the LA
Lakers has everything to do with nepotism, but he's still
athletic enough. You still have that natural athletic ability that
comes from genetics that ultimately you're not going to get around.
But there are still parents who believe, well, we can

(01:44:48):
kind of make up for that if we just have
the best coach, if we just have this. They don't
quite understand that the investment that they're making is the
wrong one, that they're chasing a dream that their kid
might or might not also share, but that might not

(01:45:09):
necessarily pay off, even in terms of, getting that scholarship
i'll explain why when we return in just a second
here on the dan o'donnell show welcome back dan o'donnell
show why is it that so many parents are chasing
a division one scholarship or chasing money for college they

(01:45:33):
say this is the big reason that we're doing all
of this the professionalization of youth sports i think is
ultimately catering to parents who believe that their kids can
essentially pay for college in Getting an athletic scholarship. Well,

(01:45:53):
the reality is is that this is a horrible horrible
investment because the money that you're paying now in team
fees and uniforms and travel costs and all of this
is is money that you could be putting in an
Edvest account, and you could be paying for.

Speaker 2 (01:46:13):
Your kid's school through that.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
Not only that, what I think a lot of people
don't understand about how college scholarships work is that for
the majority of sports, outside of the revenue ones, men's
basketball and football, you don't have a certain number of
scholarship players. You have a certain number of scholarships. that

(01:46:37):
will be oftentimes divided amongst players. For example, let's say
you're a college lacrosse team. And for lacrosse, your school
gives out 10 scholarships. That doesn't mean that 10 kids
have full rides to lacrosse university. That means that there

(01:47:00):
are the equivalent of 10 tuitions and rooms and board
that are paid for.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
That can be split.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
Amongst 15, 20 students, 15, 20 athletes. That means you're
still paying for school. And this is at the division
one level at the division two, three level. You don't
have full scholarships. In fact, oftentimes you don't have scholarships
at all. The odds of your young athlete going division

(01:47:32):
one are very long. Now, most parents, I think that
sign up for the elite division, travel ball lifestyle, understand this.

Speaker 2 (01:47:41):
They know this. They know the odds.

Speaker 1 (01:47:43):
They know in their hearts that Junior probably isn't going
to be a D1 athlete, but there's still always that hope.
There's still always that dream.

Speaker 2 (01:47:55):
And when the kid is just obsessed.

Speaker 1 (01:47:58):
With it, and once you're on one of these teams,
it's very difficult to leave because that becomes, and this
I think is the biggest factor in why travel sports
has just taken over American culture and totally supplanted everything
because it is a culture unto itself. It is the

(01:48:21):
social circle and the center of gravity, not just for
the kids. All their best friends are on the team.
They've been playing together forever. A lot of times all
of the kids are from the same community or from
the same basic geographic area, you go to school with
at least a couple of them, but also the parents,
the social circle becomes the other parents on the team.

(01:48:43):
And it's very, very difficult to give that up. It
truly becomes the center of the family's life. I just
do not believe, I fundamentally believe that that is really
not a healthy thing.

Speaker 2 (01:48:59):
Now, don't get me wrong. It's fun. It's great.

Speaker 1 (01:49:02):
I love, I have a great community of parents and
people that I've met through kids' sports.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):
I am a soccer coach.

Speaker 1 (01:49:12):
I've coached pretty much every sport at the local rec level.
I'm a massive advocate for bringing the local rec leagues back.
There was a very influential article a long time ago.
It was called Make Rec League Great Again, which I
am a huge supporter of, and we have been sort
of talking for much of this hour about an email
i got from a loyal listener after we were talking

(01:49:34):
about this topic earlier in the week and he offered
some suggestions and the center of it was you've got
to have government take back the the center of.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
The sports uh the sports administration, right?

Speaker 1 (01:49:53):
That the local county league needs to be merged with
the city league and the city league needs to be
merged with the schools.

Speaker 2 (01:50:00):
That's all well and good.

Speaker 1 (01:50:03):
Even if you merge all of those into one, there
aren't enough kids. There aren't enough families interested because there
is so much that is in that travel ball club space.
culture that that is in. They're not going to go
back to it. And you've got this sort of self-perpetuating

(01:50:27):
system where the younger siblings go into it and they're
telling that the parents are telling the friends that they
have from outside of the clubs that, oh, yeah, you know,
this this is what you got to do now, because
if you want your kid to continue with his athletic journey,
you've got to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:50:45):
And then they make it.

Speaker 1 (01:50:47):
So incredibly attracted to think the damnedest thing I think
I've ever seen is you realize they have now I've
seen these on social media and you know what, if,
if you posted one of these pictures on social media,
I actually do mean to shame you for this. They
have signing ceremonies where the eight year old signs his

(01:51:08):
letter of commitment with the baseball team. And they have,
you know, just like the signing ceremony, when you, you
sign with You sign your national letter of intent to
play college basketball.

Speaker 2 (01:51:19):
You put on the baseball cap. They have that for
little kids. Come on.

Speaker 1 (01:51:26):
I don't know why that that chaps my rear end
so much, but it just I saw.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
One of these about a year or so ago. I
have no idea who posted it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:35):
Probably some rando, you know, thing that I see half
of your Facebook feed now, if not three quarters, is
not your actual friends. It's just random content that Facebook
has curated for you. You actually have to click a
button just to see content that your friends post.

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
But I digress. I saw one of these.

Speaker 1 (01:51:53):
I said, there's no way they're doing this for the
Little League Baseball Club.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
Sure enough, they are.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
They really make it so that it's a whole big
thing that you really feel like you have to be
a part of. And so long as that exists, folks,
the clubs and the travel ball didn't exist hoping there
was demand for it. People didn't start these leagues. They
didn't start these clubs. They didn't start these sports academies

(01:52:21):
hoping and praying that parents would sign their kids up
for it. There was a massive demand for it that
is being met by an increasing number of these clubs.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
It is not supply that is driving it. It's demand.

Speaker 1 (01:52:39):
All right, when we come back, we will talk about
some actual professional sports. Packers have their final preseason game tonight.
We'll offer a preview coming up next here on the
Dan O'Donnell Show. Final Packers preseason game tonight as they
host the Arizona Cardinals following a 33-13 win over the

(01:53:00):
Denver Broncos. In the second preseason game, they lost their
opening preseason game to, I would say, Aaron Rodgers and
the Pittsburgh Steelers. But, of course, Rodgers didn't play in
that game. In the Broncos game, the offense, first-team offense,
played one series. They score a touchdown. The first-string defense,

(01:53:23):
not particularly great against the Broncos' first-team offense. The Broncos
are a Super Bowl contender. They're a very, very, very
good team on both sides of the ball. Bo Nix
in that starting offense. They added Jalen Waddell, longtime Miami Dolphin.
They just marched up and down the field.

Speaker 2 (01:53:42):
On the Packers.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
So this will be the final chance. I don't know, frankly,
if the first team is going to play at all.
Now there is significant uncertainty at the running back position,
not only is Josh Jacobs banged up, but of course,
breaking news yesterday, he faces two criminal charges, two misdemeanors,
one for battery, another for criminal damage to property, neither

(01:54:06):
with the domestic violence modifier, but both could wind him
up with a suspension by the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:54:14):
I can't imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
That suspension comes this season unless there is a quick
acceptance of a suspension. There's a negotiation between Jacobs' representatives
and the league, and they say, okay, we'll take a
one-game suspension. as opposed to potentially a three-game suspension later.
What they don't want is the sixth gamer for a

(01:54:37):
domestic abuse incident. As I said yesterday when this story
was breaking and the lawyer for Jacobs was saying, no, no, no,
this is not a domestic violence incident, not a domestic
violence incident.

Speaker 2 (01:54:47):
He was saying that because.

Speaker 1 (01:54:49):
He does not want his client suspended from NFL action
for an extended period of time. So he's not going
to play tonight. Will Jordan love in the rest of
the offense? remains to be seen. Most of you, though,
will probably be watching high school football as we spent
much of this final hour on Friday afternoon talking about

(01:55:10):
youth sports. There is still nothing as fun, nothing as
pure as going to a high school football game in
fall or, in this case, in late summer. I myself
have got a full weekend of soccer, a full weekend
of family stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:55:32):
And I hope you do, too. I am seeing some
rain in the forecast.

Speaker 1 (01:55:35):
I don't think that's going to be enough to ruin
or change anyone's plans. I really do, folks, hope you
have a fantastic weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:55:44):
It's fun. It's safe. It's happy.

Speaker 1 (01:55:47):
And we'll all come back Monday afternoon, tan-focused and ready
to start another busy broadcast week. Talk to you Monday
at 3.06 right here on the Dan O'Donnell Show.