It's the Incompetence, Stupid

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages.
Welcome to another busy broadcast week here on the Dan
o'donald Show.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I am Dan.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
If you haven't guessed that by now, and if you
would like to join us at any point, Carpetland USA
Flooring Center always open four one, four seven nine nine
eleven thirty email DoD at iHeartMedia dot com. I think
you can actually make a pretty compelling case that the
city of Milwaukee might actually be the single most incompetent

(00:59):
one in the entire country. An assistant city attorney apparently
cost eight hundred thousand dollars in a default judgment against
the city earlier this summer because he just sort of
missed a filing deadline for a brief and said he
had computer problems.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
If you have been listening to this show.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
For any period of time over about the last year,
you know that computer problems are sort of a daily occurrence. Somehow,
we get at the very least broadcast competence, if not excellence,
on the air each and every day. Now, whether we
stay on the air, that's another question, but we always

(01:45):
are able to at least attempt to get a radio
show on and it sure as heck ain't going to
cost taxpayers nearly a million bucks. We'll dive into that story.
The Milwaukee Election Commission director speaks publicly for the first
time since the absentee ballot debacle, which led to serious

(02:08):
questions surrounding the reporting of results and what's going to
happen in November following the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Meanwhile, Data
Center David is absolutely sticking to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley,
who just happens to be the top elected official in

(02:29):
what may be the worst run and least competent county
in America. Will get into that, and then in the
five o'clock hour, New York Magazine has a fascinating.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Long form cover story.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Article about the cultural shift in America that not nearly
enough people are talking about. It is youth sports culture,
something that I have been talking about for a long
time as I've been essentially living it as my children
have grown up. I have seen the change since I

(03:06):
was playing many, many many years ago. I actually started
my youth coaching career coaching my younger brothers eleven years
younger than me in soccer in the early two thousands.
I would say, I was still in college, going to
law school, coming back every weekend to do radio and
to coach my little brother's team. And I've sort of

(03:28):
been in this really almost since I left youth sports
what nearly thirty years ago. The evolution hasn't just been
the professionalization of youth sports. It has been a full
scale change in American culture that has sort of touched
every aspect of American life. We're going to spend pretty

(03:48):
much the entire five o'clock hour talking about this.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's not about sports.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
This is not for the stick to the issue's crowd,
Dan talking about something other than the issues This is
is one of the biggest issues. And if you're not
swept up in this cultural shift, you can be forgiven
for not knowing that it's actually going on. All right,
If you would like to follow the Dan o'donald Show

(04:13):
at Dan o'donald's Show on x, Facebook, Instagram, we are
streaming watch the show via the Danocamacross social media on
our YouTube channel smash that like button. As the kids say,
and if you miss a single second of today's show
or any show, you've probably missed a lot. So you
want to go back, always be sure to be subscribed

(04:34):
to the Dan O'donalds Show podcast. Listen every day at
iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
has the story todayjsonline dot com reporting of Milwaukee City
Attorney's office. Lawyer has departed the City Attorney's office. This,

(04:55):
of course, the same office that was once held by
the singer most buffoonish, cartoonishly corrupt idiot who I think
has ever served in a public attorney component in a
public attorney position in this.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
State's history, Tierman Spencer. So same office.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Now they've actually got a competent democrat in Evan Goiki,
who apparently is not nearly as competent as I would
have thought, because he hired a guy who made a massive,
massive mistake. In early April, Regal Rexnored Corporation, a fortune

(05:37):
one thousand company that manufactures electric motors and power transmission components,
fible lawsuit challenging the city's assessed value and property taxes
for the company's downtown headquarters for twenty twenty five. In
its case against the city, requesting a refund, the company

(05:58):
filed a judgment for about eight hundred and thirty two
thousand dollars including interest. This according to jsonline dot com,
this would actually be a motion for summary judgment. I
believe the city was given a May fourth deadline to
respond to this motion, but the city attorney in charge

(06:20):
of this case, Kyle Bailey, thirty nine years old, failed
to answer the summons and complaint. He just didn't turn
in his homework assignment by the date of the final exam.
May fourth passes now sometimes, and in fact, this does

(06:40):
happen relatively often. If there are issues, the parties will
go before the judge. There will be communications saying, hey,
May fourth, we've got this this going on, can we
push that to May sixth? If the other party stipulates okay, fine,
not a big deal, but there was nothing regal, Rexnord

(07:05):
waits until May twentieth, more than two weeks later, then
files emotion for a default judgment. Default judgment is exactly
what it sounds like. You win by default, the other
team doesn't show up. It's a forfeit. May twentieth, nine

(07:25):
days later, Bailey objected to that judgment and asked for
time to file the answer. Now, let's say you're at
work and you miss a huge deadline.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
It happens people screw up.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
It's how they rectify their mistakes that ultimately defines them.
You screw up if you have a big mess up
at work, you take full accountability and you try to
fix it as quickly as possible. Kyle Bailey waited nine
days yes to respond to the motion for default judgment.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Nine days.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
I get, you've got to write a brief, you've got
to compile it. But my god, I'm working twenty hour days.
I am sleeping in a cot in my office in
order to get this done. Because, oh my goodness, I
screwed up royally by not responding to the original motion.

(08:25):
So you'd better believe I'm going to show this judge
that I've got my you know what together and I
can actually respond in a timely fashion. On May twentieth,
the motion is filed. Nine days later, he raises an
objection and asks for more time. He finally files his

(08:48):
answer June tenth, after which Circuit Judge Paul Van Grunsvin
orders a hearing. This fromjsonline dot com. According to a
transcript June twenty ninth motion hearing, Bailey blamed technological issues
with the office's new computer record keeping system saying cases

(09:11):
were quote falling off the calendar. In response, Van Grunsvin said,
you have got a sizeable default judgment that's being sought here,
and I ask you for facts, and you today you
give me an argument that you have computer problems. Regal
Rexnord's attorney Stera Sarah stell plug Rapkin, stell plug rapkin

(09:37):
okay stell plug st e l l p f l
u G. I'm guessing that's German, that is German, that
is Austrian. I apologize if I just butchered that Sarah.
She said Bailey had never reached out and called the
matter befuddling. I just don't understand the sloppy work, and

(09:58):
I'm not satisfied that the response rises to the level
of that which would prevent me from granting default quickly.
Van Grunsvin said, you know the stakes, you know the
consequences with that. Van Grunsvin said Bailey's objection woefully failed
to provide relief from the more than eight hundred and
thirty two thousand dollars judgment, the difference between the twenty

(10:22):
twenty five taxes the city imposed and Regal Rexnord's calculations
and ruled for regal Rexnord. According to his resignation form,
Bailey resigned from the office July fifteenth, listing his reasons
for leaving as relocation and personal but he also checked
the box that described his reason as in lieu of discharge,

(10:44):
meaning he left or he was going to be fired.
According to public records, jsonline dot com reports, Bailey had
an annual salary of about ninety three thousand dollars. Hearing
has been set for this Friday on a city motion
for relief from the default judgment.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Now, if the.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Computer problems excuse sounds familiar in the City of Milwaukee,
it should because that's the same excuse that the City
of Milwaukee Elections commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez has given
for the absentee ballot debacle. Now, she was on the

(11:25):
program Upfront on WISN TV Channel twelve in Milwaukee and
aired across the state on a statewide network hosted by
Jaren Jordan and Matt Smith, and she said, look, we
don't know exactly what happened. It was just human error.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Human error.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
A deputy elections commissioner, in fact, one of the top
deputies to Paulina Gutierrez who was just hired last year
and appears to have zero election experience before this. And yes,
I have decided, since nobody else is going to demand

(12:11):
any sort of accountability, I am going to identify this
assistant Election Commission director. Her name is Marisha Harris. She
has been deputy director since twenty twenty five. Previously, she
worked as the director of the Dominican Center, which was

(12:32):
a community organization focusing on the Amani neighborhood of Milwaukee.
She was hired last year and she was the one
who on election night downloaded to five different flash drives
instead of the vote totals for the absentee balloting that

(12:54):
this city had conducted. The audit logs the city's tabula,
and there are nine of them, are supposed to count
up all of the absentee ballots that are fed in
on election day, very very quickly because they're not connected
to the Internet, to finally put that conspiracy theory to bed.

(13:16):
In order for the results to be transported from the tabulator,
which just counts up ballots, counts up who voted for who,
how many votes each candidate got in each race, there
is a flash drive that is plugged into the machine,
the data is downloaded onto that flash drive. The flash
drive is transported to the Milwaukee County Election Commission office

(13:38):
at the County Courthouse downtown, and then the total is
reported as part of Milwaukee County's vote total. On election nine, well,
for nine of those tabulators, five different times, Marisia Harris
downloaded the audit log data, basically a redundancy to show
exactly what was done instead of the actual vote total. Now,

(14:01):
a couple of days later, after Gutierrez on election night,
in the following morning said well, it was human error
and we didn't notice the mistake. You couldn't notice the
mistake was made until we got all the way to
the County courthouse. Aj Byatpor of CBS fifty eight posted
a screenshot of the moment that the audit log was downloaded.

(14:23):
And it's basically impossible not to know that you've downloaded
the audit log and not the vote total. There's a
pop up that says, do you want to download the
audit log?

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Confirm.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Harris would have had to have hit confirm. After she
hit confirm, there is another pop up that says downloading
audit log. She did that five different times. Jaron Jordan
and Matt Smith yesterday on up Front asked the election director,
Paulina Gutierrez about this was even possible.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
And we saw the shot where it clearly said exporting
audit logs on the screen.

Speaker 5 (15:05):
So how did this happen not just once, but five
times downloading the audit log versus the results.

Speaker 6 (15:11):
Well, the most important thing that I want voters to
understand is that this had absolutely no impact on the
accuracy of the election results. It had an impact on
when those results were posted. Our teams are trained, they
had written instructions with them, they had done it before,
and unfortunately, the mistake still happened. I can't get into
someone's head, but what I know is that we're learning

(15:33):
from this mistake and making enhancements so that it doesn't
happen again.

Speaker 7 (15:36):
Was this a scenario where the mistake was made five
separate times, since there were five flash drives?

Speaker 6 (15:42):
That is my understanding. I can't get into someone's head
about what happened, but that was how the mistake occurred.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
So five times.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Mauricia Harris, who isn't just some random poll worker. She's
not a little old lady who you see, you know,
taking the ballot and giving it to you.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
They're very, very nice, but I could see how.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
One of them doesn't quite know how this technology stuff works.
Five separate times she did this, and the best explanation
was it was human error and we're gonna do better
next time. Smith asked, Okay, so no one is going

(16:30):
to be disciplined.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Nobody's going to be fired.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Like at least the city attorney who had a really,
really bad screw up and blamed computer problems for it.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
He was essentially fired.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
He was told, you're going to be fired, or you
can resign, but you're not going to work here anymore.
The Milwaukee Elections Commission blamed, Okay, the human made an
error because she couldn't read the giant pop ups that
we're on the screen in front of her. Five times, Smith,

(17:05):
as stoic and as neutral as he is, sounded incredulous.

Speaker 7 (17:11):
The mayor said, no one is going to be fired.
Can you discuss whether there's any punishment or any recourse
for the person who did this and who this person was.

Speaker 6 (17:21):
At the end of the day, the buck stops with
me as the executive director, and so my job is
to make sure that people are ready. I'm not going
to discuss personnel matters, but what matters is that we
get better and we learn from this issue.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Uh huh, So how exactly is Mauritia Harris going to
get better? Well, according to Gutierras in this interview, the
issue may have been are you ready for this? That
in the training manual that the Milwaukee Election Commission uses,

(17:54):
there aren't pictures that would show what happens when you
push the button. There is just a written description that
when you push the button that says export audit log,
it might actually export the audit log.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
So a top.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Deputy who is responsible for running elections in Milwaukee ahead
of a gubernatorial election, the first gubernatorial election in sixteen
years in which we're going to have a new governor.
Regardless of who wins, Tom Tiffany or David Crowley will
be a new governor, first time we're gonna have one
in sixteen years. So it's a pretty big election, real

(18:37):
big election. She needed pictures to do her job right
and push the correct button. I'm having a real difficult
time that anyone could possibly be this stupid, and I

(18:59):
say stupid advisedly because the only alternative is that she's
corrupt that is truly the only alternative. I have made
a whole lot of tech mistakes. I am a spiritual
boomer when it comes to some technology. But I think

(19:20):
if I saw a big sign in front of me
saying do you want to export data logs? I would
probably guess, by I don't know the third or fourth
time that I do it, that I'm exporting data logs. Again,
this is either such gross incompetence that Mauritia Harris can

(19:46):
no longer be employed at the Milwaukee Election Commission, because, frankly,
there is no way anyone could or should trust elections
in Milwaukee when they're being run by somebody who, according
to her boss, needs a picture in order to know

(20:06):
that she's not unless she is, and if she is,
I do apologize. Unless she is functionally illiterate, and I'm
not saying this to be mean, I'm not saying this
to be a joke. But if she does not read
at a level at which she would be able to
follow written directions and literally does need picture, Guys, there

(20:29):
are a whole lot of adults who are functionally illiterate.
That doesn't mean that she doesn't know her ABC's. It
means that some words, she just doesn't know, she doesn't
get unless that's what you're saying. And I really hope
that the former director of the Dominican Foundation, who has been,

(20:51):
according to my research into this woman, been on a
number of different boards across the city of Milwaukee. Unless
that is the contention, then she is incompetent at this
job and needs to be fired, or there actually is
corruption involving this employee, which I don't, for the record,

(21:12):
believe there was. I do not believe that the vote
was tampered with. I don't believe that Francesco Hang actually won.
But boy, oh boy, what reason could I possibly or
anyone possibly have for trusting anything that comes out of
this election Commission, after not just this, but two other

(21:36):
massive screw ups just in the last six major statewide
elections for governor and for president that they've run. We'll
get back into that more from Paulina Gutierrez and why
it's all about not the economy stupid, but the incompetence

(21:57):
stupid in this upcoming election. You're listening to the Dan
o'donalds show. It's conservative thought, not just talk. For almost
two weeks here on the Dan o' donald show, I
have been sitting on the name of the employee who, incorrectly,

(22:19):
due to human error, downloaded vote log audit log data
on five different tabulators at Milwaukee's Central count Facility during
the Democratic gubernatorial primary. I did not release her name
because I thought, you know what, this is not a
public figure in the traditional sense. If it was Gutierrez

(22:41):
herself that did this, all bets are off. She is
the public face of the Milwaukee Election Commission. Why am
I now telling you the name of the employee who
was responsible for this. Her name is Mauritia Harris, and
she is been a deputy Milwaukee Election Commission director. She'd

(23:04):
been an assistant director since last year. Before that, she
served as the president or the director of the Dominican Center,
and there was a glowing profile of her leadership and
her organization on Today's TMJ four in twenty twenty four.
She also has some real estate experience. She appears to

(23:28):
be a real mover and shaker in the Milwaukee community.
She is also being protected from a clearly firable offense,
a mistake that is so egregious that it really defies
explanation as to why the City of Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier

(23:49):
Johnson came out last week. I'll admit I actually missed
this when he said, no, we're not going to punish anybody.
I mean, I would have assumed that they're not going
to punish anybody, But why he said so quickly. Nobody's
going to be punished. We're using this as an opportunity
to get our processes better. City Attorney's office fired a

(24:13):
guy because of computer issues that he said left him
unable to file a response to a motion for summary
judgment in a lawsuit against the city. It's potentially costing
the city in Milwaukee eight hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
He's gone, He was forced to resign, or he was
going to be fired from his position. This is just

(24:37):
some random attorney in the City Attorney's office. He was
still fired for his incompetence. Mauritia Harris isn't apparently even
going to be suspended for hers Why not. I am
not releasing her name in order to have any of you,

(25:01):
as I'm sure I'm going to be accused of in
Democrat circles, you know, track her down or anything like that.
This is not to dx her, but as a member
of the Election Commission. She is a public employee. She
is drawing a salary from the City of Milwaukee. She
is drawing a salary from you if you live there, directly,

(25:22):
indirectly from all of us. Our taxes go back to
the city in the form of shared revenue that pays
her salary. She is accountable apparently not to Mayor Johnson
or to the Election Commission director Paulina Gutierrez. She is
accountable to you as a sort of spokesperson for the

(25:45):
people of Wisconsin who are always ignored and never listened
to when it comes to the goings on of big
Democrat run cities like Milwaukee. I feel that it is
imperative for you to know exactly who this is, because
it's obvious that she is just going to go on

(26:05):
her merry way and she is going to continue to
administer elections even though she is so thoroughly unable to
do so that she couldn't read a giant pop up
that said, are you sure you want to download the
audit log, and then another pop up that says, after

(26:26):
she hit confirm, okay, you're downloading the audit log. If
let's say I couldn't tell if I was reading a script. Sometimes,
when I do heavily researched pieces, I will have a
script that I'm working on. It's relatively rare. Sometimes I'll

(26:49):
write a column and read from that. If I was
unable to discern the difference between the letter D and
the letter and the word I read was duck, and
I kept saying the word duck. But you know what,

(27:09):
I actually thought there was an F in their FCC
and I said the F word about one hundred times.
Would the will he just needs more training on whether
the letter is D or F.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Would that fly?

Speaker 1 (27:33):
I don't necessarily think so.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
For Mauricia Harris it does.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Why Gutierrez on Upfront WISN Channel twelve, Matt Smith and
Jaron Jordan interviewing her about well.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
How did this happen?

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Gutierras said, you know what, things were actually going really
really well until the giant national embarrassment.

Speaker 6 (28:07):
No, up until that point, the election was running smooth, smoothly.
I was very pleased with the team, and I can
understand the frustration and disappointment. I too am frustrated and
disappointed by the process. But with every step that we take,
we get better. And the training was there and at
no point was the accuracy of the results threatened. It
was just about when those results were posted. And like,
what we're doing now moving forward is putting visual images

(28:30):
onto the instructions. We're doing briefings beforehand, reviewing it one
more time, and we're also providing the page by page
process to observers so they can follow along as well.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
With those images, Paulina, will there also be a page
that you can color them. We're providing updates to the
training with pictures, and we're going to have a briefing
with apparently all the staff, but really form Okay, Marisha,
this is a voting machine. This is a vending machine.

(29:10):
I know you've been trying to get a twist bar
from the voting machine, but here's a picture. You can
stop putting dollar bills where the ballots are supposed to go.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Oh, I'm being too mean? Am I being too mean? Here?

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Because the other alternative is she's smarter than everybody else.
And in case you forgot, this was a very tight
race that was decided by less than four thousand votes
out of hundreds and hundreds of thousands statewide, and it
happens to come down to David Crowley's own county, in

(29:50):
the building where David Crowley works.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
And why was there this long delay?

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Well, it just so happened that Green County and Fondilac County,
for various server issues, processing issues, various issues, were reporting
their votes late. Fondolac County in Green County did not
have their votes in. If I was inclined to believe

(30:18):
that there was something to farious going on, I would say, well,
the City of Milwaukee would have needed some extra time
to see how many votes David Crowley was a head
by or behind by, And so they pretended that there
was this massive audit log issue, and the woman somehow

(30:41):
didn't see that she was downloading an audit log five
separate times.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
So either.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
You allow me to make fun of somebody for being
so stupid that she would be putting dollar bills in
a voting machine and ballots in a vending machine. Or
the alternative, which I think you can actually make a
pretty compelling case for, is that she isn't dumb at all.

(31:09):
So which is it? There is no third alternative. Very
famous line in the movie Casino, Ace Rothstein played by
Robert de Niro, that the head of the casino that's
bankrolled by the mobsters, says, either you're too stupid to
work here, or you're.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
In on the scam.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Since there was no scam, I don't know. This isn't
about one woman's job, though, it's about accountability.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Everybody makes mistakes.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
As I said in my opening monologue, it's how you
account for them. It's how you remedy them that defines you.
And so far, the only thing that's defined Paulina Gutierrez
and her tenure as the head of the Milwaukee Election
Commission has been disaster after disaster after central count Remember

(32:05):
there was the issue with tabulator doors left open the
morning of the November twenty twenty four presidential election. Thirty
some thousand votes had to be recount. And it isn't
just the incompetence, it's the lack of transparency, she says, though,
when confronted about that, since she was pretty obviously lying

(32:28):
that nobody could have known you were downloading audit log
data and not voter data when there's a giant screen
shot all over the Internet that says, ah, yeah, she
was downloading audit log data and then did so five
times and could clearly tell she was downloading audit log data.
There's been a decided lack of transparency. She was confronted

(32:48):
about that and said, we've been transparent enough.

Speaker 6 (32:52):
We are transparent. We've been transparent throughout the entire process.
As soon as we discovered the error, we convey those
results immediately to the county. We allowed press inside of
the building. We provided the reports that were originally printed
and allowed people to see the new reports and saw
that the results were absolutely the same. At no point
was the accuracy of results threatened. We had the Milwaukee

(33:14):
Police Department stationed in front of Central Counts so no
unauthorized individuals could come to that location. And upon immediately
discovering the error, we went out to the public to
let them know.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
You let the public know something that was two days
later proven to be false. Frankly, folks, the last Milwaukee
election director was unceremoniously fired for reasons we still don't know.
I've got some serious questions about the continued employment of

(33:48):
Paulina Gutierrez as well as Mauritia Harris. And again now
that we do have a demand for written answers from
Dave Max who is the chair of the State Assembly's
Election and Campaign Committee, demanding answers to all of the questions.
We went through this on Friday afternoon, show all of

(34:09):
the questions he provided within thirty days. I still do believe,
and Gutierras did say to her credit that she would
welcome any outside investigation. I simply don't see how the
FBI should not be involved here because I'm just really

(34:30):
struggling to determine how human error, human error, human error
keeps getting repeated, but then there's no discipline whatsoever for
making that error.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Why not.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
When we come back, we name the unhinged liberal of
the day at one of the most entertaining things to
ever happen at a w NBA game. Over the weekend,
you're listening to the Book of bat Too, the Dan
O'Donnell's show. It's classical Conservatism and contemporary Style coming up

(35:06):
next hour, why Data Center David is really sticking to
David Crowley and causing severe panic amongst his campaign consultants.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
And also the daily Trump.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Date, Operation Economic Outcast officially launched today against Iran, and
a big, big announcement about education coming from the Trump
White House that's coming up next hour.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
And then of course, in the.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Five o'clock hour the biggest cultural shift, and it is
a significant one that you might have not seen coming,
and unless you've lived it, you probably might not understand
just how fundamental it is the professionalization of youth sports
and how it is fundamentally reshaped American culture that is

(36:00):
coming up for much of the five o'clock hour today
here on the Dan O'Donnell Show, plus another chance at
a thousand dollars plus a trip for two to Las
Vegas in our iHeartRadio Music Festival flyaway contest that is
all still to come here on the Monday edition of
the program. Right now, it's time to name the unhinged

(36:20):
liberal of the day, and it is everyone who was
so freaked out about a dude wearing a shirt that
says woman noun adult female that they caused one of
the biggest controversies and yet most entertaining moments in a

(36:45):
w NBA game ever. On Sunday, former NBA player Ennis
Cantor Freedom was ejected from the game between the Chicago
Sky and the Indiana Fever in Chicago after Sky guard
Natalie Cloud started screaming at him. Now, what did Cantor do?

(37:08):
Did he run on the court? And dunk in Cloud's face.
He is, after all, declaring himself eligible for the w
NBA draft. No, he stood up because Caitlin Clark, who
had thirty seven points and ten assists in the game,
she has more. This is the most insane stat I
think I've ever seen. She has more games with thirty

(37:30):
points and ten assists than the rest of the w
NBA in its history combined. She's been playing for three
years and missed most of last season with an injury,
so basically, in not even two full seasons, she's got
more thirty and ten games than the rest of the

(37:50):
league in its history. And yet her fellow players voted
her the eleventh best guard in the WNBA and nobody
is talking about her as w NBA MVP.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Oh okay, So.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Late in the third quarter, Cloud approaches Cantor's seat, screaming
and pointing at him. Freedom stood up, spread his arms,
and then took a step toward the court. Security and
players intervened. He was escorted out of the arena by
the police. He displayed his shirt, argued that he was

(38:27):
supporting women, and later posted on x I just got
kicked out of a WNBA game for supporting women. Let
that sink in America. He claimed Cloud initiated the exchange
by accusing him of trying to sleep with Sophie Cunningham,

(38:48):
saying She's not gonna sleep with you, bro.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Aha. He said he was there.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
To protect women's sport, Natasha Cloud and everyone else who
is freaking out over this, your unhinged liberals of the
day and O'donald's show. Welcome back to it, Harman. You
can let that theme music bump for a little bit longer.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Everybody scared because we apparently had a copyright violation and
we are not allowed to have.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Any any music whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
On the podcast. It's the lawyers, yep. The lawyers get involved,
and you know, bad things happen. Why couldn't the lawyer
from whoever owns whatever song we got busted for be
like that now, former assistant city attorney and just sort
of missed the filing deadline. Now we didn't get sued
or anything like that. We just got, you know, a notice.

(39:51):
I don't even know if it was our station, our market.
The edict came down from corporate thou shalt not play
any music whatsoever on thy podcasts. So this is why.
In case you were wondering, we used for a decade
almost the song Crazy by Gnarls Barkley for our theme

(40:14):
song for the Unhinged Liberal of the Day. Well, I
want to include the segment in the podcast because usually
it's hilarious, like, for example, today's Unhinged Liberal of the
Day Natasha Cloud of the Chicago Sky WNBA team as
a Texter on our Carpetland USA Flooring Center Talk and
text line put it, why is she verbally assaulting a

(40:39):
transathlete who is about to declare for the WNBA draft?
How dare she Ennis Canter Freedom, who is a former
NBA player and is trying to prove a point since
the WNBA apparently does not know what the W in
WNBA actually stands for. They don't know whether trans women

(41:02):
i e. Men should be allowed to play. All of this,
all of this stems from a backup forward on the
Indiana Fever saying in a print interview, Yeah, I think
women's league should be for women and I don't see
anything controversial about that. Then, in an interview after the

(41:24):
ensuing media firestorm, she said, I said what I said.
That's Sophie Cunningham and If there is one thing that
the w NBA cannot stand is any sort of conservative
messaging coming out of its league or its players. They

(41:45):
want fans, they just don't want the wrong kind of fans.
And it is still comical how much this league absolutely
despises Caitlin Clark. They're not just trying to kill the
Golden Goose. They are trying to drop a nuclear bomb

(42:07):
so that there are no more golden geeses who happen
to be white and heterosexual that ever dominate their league. Again, seriously,
I actually was inspired by a Rando on X. This
is what happens when you have some insomnia issues. You

(42:30):
stay up late and read random stuff. Some rando on
X actually watched film of a Caitlin Clark game and
on something like fifty eight percent of the times that
she touched the ball, fifty eight percent of the possessions
where she touched the ball at a recent game, she
was fouled, but it wasn't called. She was fouled, he

(42:56):
estimates several dozen times and got four free throws. She's
officiated differently than the rest of the league. Her peers
voted her as the eleventh best guard in the NBA
not eleventh best player, eleventh best guard. Last night or
yesterday afternoon, she went for thirty seven and ten thirty

(43:19):
seven points, ten assists. She has more games with thirty
points and tennisists than the entire WNBA in its history combined.
She has five in about two seasons. She missed pretty
much all of last year with an injury. The WNBA
has been in existence for at least thirty years.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
I believe she has five games.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
The rest of the league in thirty years has four.
She is absolutely She is third or fourth in the
WNBA in scoring, just behind her team Kelsey Mitchell, who
this coach, who also apparently despises Caitlyn Clark, insists on

(44:07):
running the offense through. She loves Kelsey Mitchell. She hates
Caitlyn Clark. Mitchell and Clark actually really like each other
and play well together. But the offense has to flow through,
you know, the point guard, the playmaker, and this coach,
Stephanie White, refuses to just let Caitlyn Clark be Caitlyn Clark.
She subs her out when she starts to get hot.

(44:29):
She runs plays, specifically Kelsey Mitchell had a twenty point
game scoring streak going. She literally calls plays to ensure
that that streak keeps going. Clark is third or fourth
in the WNBA in scoring and second in assists, and
she's second by zero point one and is almost certain

(44:51):
to overtake Alyssa Thomas.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
I believe of Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
I told you I actually do some research on this
stuff that I talk about, even NBA basketball, and she
is not even being mentioned as a potential MVP contender. Meanwhile,
a rookie by the name of Olivia Miles is nowhere
near the player or putting up nowhere near the stats

(45:17):
of Caitlyn Clark, and they're trying to turn her into
a Rookie of the Year slash MVP so they can
make the case that she is somehow better than Caitlyn Clark.
And do you know the controversy surrounding Olivia Miles, it's
not surrounding her per se. She is a generational talent,
like she is a truly good basketball player and fun

(45:37):
to watch as well. It's the one with the afro
and funny looking glasses. I'm sorry, the goggles. She looks
like Horace Grant with a fro, only like five foot seven.
She was drafted two overall, even though everybody could tell
she's a generational talent and she needs to go first overall. Instead,

(46:02):
the team that had the first overall pick had the
first overall pick for two straight years. They took Paige Beckers,
who is the superstar Yukon point guard. Last year, she
was a rookie last year. This year they took a
woman named Ozzie Fudd. Ozzie Fudd, that is the name.

(46:23):
Why did they take Ozzie Fudd over the generational talent,
Olivia Miles? I am not even kidding you. Ozzie Fudd
happens to be the girlfriend of Page Beckers.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
My producer Arman got some heat over the weekend over
a tweet about Glenn Big Dog Robinson that was interpreted
as he did not like Big Dog and thought the
Bucks should have taken Grant Hill or Jason Kidd over Robinson.
Hill and Kid are in the Hall of Fame and

(47:02):
Big Dog is not. We love Big Dog here, right,
we love big Dog. Could you imagine though, if the
Bucks passed on Grant Hill not because big Dog was better,
but Big Dog happened to be dating Vin Baker at
the time. That would have been like the biggest story ever, Like, wait,

(47:24):
what they passed on a guy who's the future Hall
of Famer because Vin Baker wanted them to take his boyfriend.
Man the w NBA, it's the only entertaining stuff. Is
just how dysfunctional and how awful this league is run
and operated. I saw someone I do not share this opinion.

(47:48):
I just want to make it clear, just want to
make it clear, this is the opinion of somebody else.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
But I chuckled.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
The joke was the w A NBA is proof that
the idea women running the world would not produce peace or.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Something to that effect.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
It was Anyone who thinks the world would be better
off if women were in charge has never seen the WNB.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
I got admit, love you ladies, but man, oh man,
it's just a lot of drama.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
All right.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Should we go to the Daily Trump Date or should
we go right to Dave Spawna. Let's go to Dave
Spano and make him wait, because I do actually want
to get a very big, very quick, big update the
Daily Trump Date things going on today.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
In the world of Trump.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
President Trump, in a Rose Garden ceremony today, talked about
all of the advances that he made an education hosting
along with Education Secretary Linda.

Speaker 8 (48:58):
McMahons, achieved more for the benefit of American children in
less than two years than most administrations do in many years,
eight years, or frankly, you can take two or three
administrations put them together, they haven't been able to do
what we did.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Now, the President and the Education Secretary are marking the
start of the new school here. A lot of kids
in private schools started today across Wisconsin and the country.
I believe public schools almost all of them start next Tuesday,
September one. During this ceremony, the President highlighted the Education
Freedom Tax Credit from the One Big Beautiful Bill. It's

(49:37):
a federal tax credit of up to seventeen hundred dollars
for scholarships covering tuition, books, and other costs at private
and choice schools.

Speaker 8 (49:49):
As we remove the far left extremism from the classroom,
we're taking historic action to ensure that every child in
America has access to a first class education. The United
States spends more money on education than any other country
in the world by double and our results should be
better than they are.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
I would look at.

Speaker 8 (50:09):
Lists where we were rated out of the forty top
nations were rated a number thirty eight, thirty nine, and
number forty with all the money we spent. But Linda
has changed that so rapidly and so drastically, and frankly,
it's shocking how fast it's gone under her leadership. One
year ago, as part of the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill,
we passed the Education Freedom Tax Credit, the largest ever

(50:32):
expansion of school choice. And we want thank you, and
we want every parent to have the power to send
their child to a high quality school that shares their values.
So important.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Thirty states have opted into this. Guess which one did not. Wisconsin,
the Republican controlled state legislature, passed the opt in legislation
Governory for his VD Assembly Bill six oh two. There
is a fantastic piece on our website Heartlandpost Heartlandpost dot

(51:10):
com asking is David Crowley, if he is elected governor,
would he commit to opting into this tax credit because
Democrats right now are quite literally taking money out of
the hands of children. That's not the big announcement today, however,

(51:32):
and I want to bring in Dave sponno for real.
This way, we know the difference with Dave Spono. Each
and every Monday at about this time. He is the
CEO of Annex Wealth Management, and Dave the Treasury Secretary
Scott Bessent. Today, on the orders of President Trump, started
Operation Economic Outcast.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Take a listen to the announcement today.

Speaker 9 (51:57):
At President Trump's direction, the United States has begun Operation
Economic Outcast, an unprecedented campaign against the Islamic Republic of
Iran and its enaghborers. In the Second World War, D
Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our

(52:17):
allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions,
including those in third countries. Today, in that same spirit,
we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections
around the globe. Around the globe, our objective is to

(52:38):
sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until
Tehran stands alone.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
The D Day he's talking about against third party countries
are massive sanctions against any nation that does business with Iran,
mostly in the form of purchasing their oil. There have
already been a ton of secondary sanctions on those nations.

(53:08):
These are going to be massive, and generally speaking, Dave,
this is sort of seen as about as close to
a massive bombing campaign that you can have without dropping
physical bombs because Iran's military is defeated and has been
since early spring, all right, nobody's disputing that, But they

(53:31):
do still have the capability of launching a drone, a
suicide drone bomb, and basically making commerce going through the
Strait of Horror moves too terrify to actually put ships through,
even though President Trump is assuring the world that the
Strait of Horror Moves is open. This is something I

(53:53):
think that is aimed at bringing Iran to heal very
quickly by basically cutting it off from any ability to
actually have money and short of invading pArg Island and
basically seizing the oil production the not the oil fields,

(54:14):
but the petroleum facilities. This is about as big a
deal as it gets, is it not.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Yeah, well, you look at really all of the tactics available.
And of course there is military which we all know
about that's been going on for six months. And of
course there are sanctions, and the sanctions have.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Been on Iran.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
So the next step now is to force sanctions on
countries that do business with Iran. And so now if
you listen today and I you know, as you know,
I respect Scott's best on Treasury Secretary. But he didn't
come out in say China, he didn't use the way,
but he but he certainly talked about you know, Turkey,

(54:55):
the Middle East, in Europe playing ball, and those countries
that continue to do business with him.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
And there was a story in Wall Street with them.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
There was a story in the Wall Street Journal about
the fact that Trump is saying that the that the
Straits are open, but they're trying to find where this
oil distributions are going and seeing what's happening happening with
that right now. So it is the next evolution of
pressure to put on Tehran. So they were of course
just to re track that Number one is what we've seen,

(55:25):
uh militarily. Second was the sanctions that Iran and now
third are going to be sanctions on other countries that
do business with Iran to put economic pressure. But I
know you were talking a little bit about uh drama
in the w n B. A boy, there was a
lot to talk about today, you know, think about you
know what is not only has happened with Scott Pissens,

(55:45):
the Treasury Secretary's operation Economic Outcast Outcast with a C,
by the way, not with a K.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
And the uh and the story that you sounded like
you were waiting for me to interrupt with it.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Well for it.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Well, I I'm sorry, miss Jackson. I am going to
just let you continue.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
There you go, but I want you to know I am,
for real, pretty nice job. All right.

Speaker 4 (56:09):
So you got that going on. You've got Kevin Warsh
who is the FED Chair. He is going to be
the keynote speaker in Jackson Hole, which of course is
the woodstock for the economic folks.

Speaker 3 (56:23):
This is this is actually interesting.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Would you say Worshes is really gonna like shake it
up there?

Speaker 3 (56:30):
Would you say, would you say.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
Would you say, you know where I'm going dog gunnet?

Speaker 3 (56:34):
He sniffed it up.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Would you say he's gonna shake it, shake, shake it,
shake it like a polaroid picture?

Speaker 3 (56:41):
All right? Go on, go on, go on.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
I've got in all right, So you've got all the drama,
You've got the Treasury Secretary, You've got the FED Chair.
The FED Chair is going to talk in Jackson Hole.
And of course you know, the big thing was that
he was going to be less transparent. Because he's less transparent,
is that going to increase on certainty into the end
of the in the federal Reserve, and you can see
what's happening with the ten year, the ten and the

(57:05):
thirty year treasury going up. So of course then the
Treasury Secretary goes out and starts to buy bonds back
to kind of lower those things down. And so that
drama is happening. And then of course the third thing,
because there is no drama, of course, is Howard Lutneck
and what's happening with Canada. And so now a fifty
percent a parent tariff to go onto Canada, and you know,

(57:27):
just what is that going to do? I mean, first
of all, you know, the NAFTA is gone in US MCA,
the United States Mexico Canadian alliance that is obviously at
risk right now. And so you put all of these
things together and there is true uncertainty and the geopolitical market,
and you think about you know, when earning season is
going on, you can really talk about companies, did they

(57:49):
sell more you know, widgets, did they earn more income?
Can we put a multiplant? When earning season wraps up,
all these other things start to happen. They get in
the story because that and also they start to move
the market, not about the things that you can measure
about the things that you cannot measure. And so you know,
last report here is in Vidia and video is going
to come out now on Wednesday. Dam in Vidia is

(58:13):
the largest cap stock by far on the market, more
than five trillion, with a t bigger than Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon,
They're bigger than all of those companies. Their earnings reports
are going to come out on Wednesday. All of this
news is going to have the market moving. And of course,
you know last piece, and I think we need to

(58:33):
talk about it is the deficits and debts. So you know,
you and I have been talking about this for years.
And the debt, of course is the aggregation of all
of the deficits. So when you spend more money than
you take in, which we're doing to the tune of
two trillion dollars, that's our deficit. You lock that on
top of the total debt, the aggregate debt, and that's

(58:54):
how you get to forty trillion dollars. That hasn't gotten
anyone's attention. But what's getting attention now is the fact
then interest rates are higher, so your listeners are going
to have higher mortgage rates, gonna have the high credit
card rates are gonna have higher borrowing costs. Companies, small
businesses are gonna have higher borrowing costs. That is the
offset for having higher debt. And of course the bond

(59:15):
vigilante saying you need to pay us more for all
of that. So this is all the drama you talked about,
the w NBA having drama. You talked about a little
outcast drop. But here you go, here's a plenty of
drama to talk about.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
He is Dave Spano, always entertaining, helping you know the
difference between financial advisor as I am told that if
you go to annexwealth dot com and set up a
free review of your portfolio, Dave will stop by and
drop a verse while you're meeting with one of his
great analysts. Is there any truth to that? I know,

(59:49):
zero zero truth. I mean, there's a verse I'm gonna drop.
It's certainly not going to be an outcast, that is
for certain.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Okay, so I leave that. I leave that to you
take out.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
You're more of a two pot guy, all right, all right,
you take this out with one last wrap.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
And then no, no, no, no, you're putting me on the spot.
I'm totally having a brain farm. I know like a
thousand outcast songs, but I'm trying to think of a
verse that's actually clean. The first one that came into
my mind was actually one of my favorite songs by then.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
It's called Roses.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
You were going to say the same one, and it's
I know you like to think your bleep, don't stink,
but lean a little closer, and roses really smell like pooh,
pooh pooh. Yes, I am twelve years old at heart.
At its wealth dot com, you will work with people
who are working with and for you as fee only fiduciaries.
They're not trying to sell you a product, a fund.

(01:00:44):
They are actually working with you and for you to
secure your family's financial future. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
I've known Dave for O boy o boy, my goodness
at least fifteen years, and he just runs an incredible,
incredible company. Big big fan of annexwealth dot com. You

(01:01:06):
are listening to the Dan O'Donnell show Data Center. David
has the Crowley campaign in something of a panic.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
We'll discuss when we reach a discourse.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Irreverent fun that sometimes includes late nineties and early two
thousands rap lyrics.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Seriously in two thousand and four. Was there a bigger
release than the double album speaker Box Love below by Outcasts.
You should have known things were not going well for
the duo. They've since reunited, they're back on too. I
actually saw them Oh Boy years ago on one of
their reunion tours. Very very talented.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Couple of dudes, but you could tell that there was
trouble in paradise when they couldn't agree on a single album.
So basically each of them released their own and they
just kind of put them together as a double album.
Speaker Box was Big Boys and Andre three thousand or
two thousand or four thousand. His was The Love Ballage,

(01:02:13):
a classic classic album. How much you want to bet
if I check our carpetland Usay flooring Center talk in
text line right now, there is at least one person
who has already texted rap is not music. I guarantee
you they're there, Boomers. I love you, I love you.

(01:02:36):
But there are two things I can count on one.
If I ever talk about rap music, someone will post
either rap is crap? Did they put that on T
shirts in like the eighties that all of you had
that I was just not aware of because I wasn't
old enough. You will either post rap is crap or
rap is not music. Admittedly, a lot of rap is

(01:02:59):
absolute garbage. Some of it is incredibly deep and very
very good. Outcast was one of the good ones. The
other thing I can count on. The Other thing I
can count on.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
Is if I ever talk about video games, there will
be a boomer somewhere. It'll be in my inbox, It'll
be on the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Carpetland USA flooring center talking text line that will say
the last video game he played was Pong, Never pac Man,
never Super Mario Brothers. It is never like Adventure on
the Atari. It is always Pong Again. I love you.
There are several things I can count on. Those are

(01:03:41):
two of them. You know, dog Gone well that when
my kids look I'm in the millennial generation, we get
it from both sides, all right. Our kids think were
like the most cringe human beings on earth, and our parents, well,
they think we're just a bunch of idiots.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Both are true. Since we're the generation that may.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Actually take this to a socialist country if we hit
a critical mass by the time we hit seventy years old,
it is entirely possible. But I digress Hey speaking of
hip hop and R and B. David Crowley rather famously
said on the campaign trail ahead of the primary election

(01:04:26):
earlier this month that when it came to data centers,
he wanted a quote Beyonce approach.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Wait what quite?

Speaker 10 (01:04:37):
Frankly, I call it the Beyonce approach, and people keep
asking me what does beyoncely have to do with data centers?
But it means bring your own nuclean energy. It's an
acront and so I want to see them building more
in a more more wind power, more solar power, and
more battery stores. So we aren't seeing the cost burden
as it comes to ratepayers.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Did you catch that beyonce is an acronym for bring
your own new clean energy? Did he forget the e
in beyonce? It's not totally an acuratey. I'll give points
for creativity.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
It is b E y O nc E bring your
own new clean energy.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
That's all well and good, except the two big data
center projects that are already under construction in Wisconsin have
an estimated one hundred thousand acres of land that are
being consumed because the companies that are building those data

(01:05:47):
centers are beyoncey Ng and are putting up solar panels
as far as the eye can see. You heard that correctly,
a hundred thousand acres.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
Tom Tiffany on.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
WEAUTV in Eau Claire as he kicks off the second
week of his tour of rural Wisconsin, just absolutely hammering
Crowley on the data center issue. Highlighted the fact that
we would be talking a massive, massive amount of land

(01:06:27):
if the left wing environmentalists like Crowley get their way,
and there need to be solar panels and wind farms
that go up next to every single data center that
goes up in Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 (01:06:40):
Least one hundred thousand acres of land is going to
have to be converted to solar production in order to
power like the Mount Pleasant and Port Washington facilities. So
think if we become the worldwide hobb as mister Crowley
has said, it's going to be well into the hundreds
of thousands of acres that are going to end up

(01:07:01):
getting converted, and that's a really bad deal for Wisconsin's agriculture.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
It's really not about any of the things that you
associate with the opposition to data centers. If you're not
in one of these communities that potentially could have its
entire character reshaped by them. And I will admit the
Tiffany campaigns very strong position against them was one that

(01:07:33):
initially I did.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Not agree with.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Obviously, the politics of it are why it's so damaging.
We ran down the new Tip poll on Friday show
I get It's one of the last Fridays of the summer.
A lot of people were out, didn't catch the show. This,
by the way, why you need to listen to the
podcast every single day. iHeartRadio Dan O'Donnell's show. You can
actually add it to your presets right at the top

(01:08:00):
the app.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Please do so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
It'll be a personal favor to me. In exchange, I'll
give you a chance to win a thousand bucks in
a trip for two to Las Vegas in twenty minutes. Deal,
Deal good. That Tip poll showed just fifteen percent of
Wisconsin i's have a positive view of data centers, sixty
six percent disapproved. That is a minus fifty one approval

(01:08:22):
rating by comparison. We were told that Francesca Hong was
going to be absolutely a nightmare in the general election
because socialism is so unpopular in Wisconsin. Socialism has a
minus thirty nine approval rating data centers minus fifty one.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
The opposition to them is not.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
As I spent a lot of time outlining, what the
left has been opposed to is the fact that, well,
they're going to just suck the energy grid dry, and
they're gonna suck Michigan dry. Literally, Uh, they need to
they need to put their own solar panels up or
or whatever that that it's this luodite anti technology opposition. Well,

(01:09:14):
there's a reason Democrats aren't putting data centers in the
states that they control or the communities that they control.
And if they are in states that they control, you
better be damn sure. They're not going in La County,
they're not going in Brooklyn. They're going in conservative communities.

(01:09:35):
And when you got somebody like data center David Crowley
literally saying yeah, yeah, yeah, Milwaukee and Madison and Green Bay,
we've got enough data centers. We want to share the
wealth with the rest of the state. What he's saying
is he sees the rest of the state as an
economic opportunity zone and doesn't care that a data center

(01:09:58):
in say, Port Washington would make it not Port Washington anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
It would change the character of the community.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
If you don't just put a data center in, and
you better dog go on well believed. If David Crowley
is your governor, you are going to have massive wind farms,
massive solar farms, massive amounts of farmland and woodland that
are dedicated not to the data center itself. But because
we can't have new coal burning power, we can't have

(01:10:32):
new fossil fuel power data centers. We're going to need
to turn half of Wisconsin, which by the way, does
not see the sun from like mid December until March.
It's like all of us, like the groundhog, come out
one day in April, squint in the sun, and then

(01:10:55):
go back in for when spring actually starts sometime around
June twenty fifth. What Crowley wants is sort of nimbyyond steroids.
He wants nothing in his backyard. And the City of Milwaukee,
by the way, was going to have a data center.

(01:11:18):
They voted again Milwaukee Common Council. This is City of Milwaukee,
not David Crowley's Milwaukee County government. City government actually shut
down a proposal that would have put a data center
in an abandoned shopping area. As Mark Belling has said
on his podcast, Northridge would be a perfect spot. Why

(01:11:41):
have none of the libs suggested a data center there?
Why do we need to put a data center in
farmland Because they don't want them. They want oh, they
want the tax revenue, they want the money coming in,

(01:12:03):
but they don't want them in their backyard. They want
them in yours. And the people who kind of like
their backyards, the people who say, hey, we like our
quaint little towns. And if you have fifty thousand acres
of land taken up by a solar farm to power
a massive data center, we no longer have our quaint

(01:12:27):
little town. We have something else entirely. And yes there
are new jobs, Yes there is new development that goes
along with it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
Yes that means more people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
That means the quaint little town might very quickly no
longer be little or quaint. And while you would think, okay, yeah, yeah,
development is good, that's great, a lot of people like
the quaint, they like the sleepy in sleepy little town.
It's why a lot of people live in those communities.
And when they feel like they're being ignored, that they're

(01:13:03):
being even worse, they're being pushed aside, especially by somebody
from Milwaukee was saying, thou shalt have data centers in
thy farmland data center's fore thee, but not for me.
That's a big, big turnoff to seventy one other counties

(01:13:23):
in this state. You're listening to the Dan o'donald. It
is the Dan o'donald's Show. Welcome back to it. Coming
up in the five o'clock hour, we are going to
dive in into one of the biggest cultural shifts in
America over the past quarter century, the professionalization of youth sports. Fascinating,
fantastic in depth piece in New York Magazine Today called

(01:13:47):
the pay to Play Childhood and I do want to
get as many calls as we can possibly get kind
of reacting to this, discussing some of the issues ras.
So that is going to be in the four o'clock
five o'clock hour here on the Dan o'donald Show. We are, however,
right now following a major breaking news from the US

(01:14:11):
Supreme Court six' three decision granting an emergency request from
The trump administration that lifts a lower court's injunction blocking
key parts Of President trump's executive order back In march
of this year restricting the use of mail in. Ballots

(01:14:34):
this applies to twenty three Mostly democrat run states that
had sued to stop the. Order wisconsin, is of course
in This the executive order directed The department Of Homeland
security to create a list of ELIGIBLE us citizen voters

(01:14:56):
for each, state and also order The Postal service to
deliver mail ballots only to voters on those approved, lists
and prioritize The Justice department's investigations and prosecutions of officials
who issue ballots to ineligible. People, now the court's action

(01:15:19):
allows the administration to move forward with implementing those restrictions
ahead of the midterm, elections although a separate injunction on
some of the aspects of this surrounding The Postal service
do remain in place for. Now now it is critical

(01:15:41):
the justices did not rule on the merits of the
executive order, itself but they showed that the states have
not yet shown any concrete harm that the order has
not been, implemented so the injunction was. Premature, now states

(01:16:01):
can and almost certainly will still challenge specific implementation of
specific parts of this executive. Order, this by the, way
is why states want to get those ballots out as
soon as possible There do you Realize california is already

(01:16:22):
getting ready to send out. Ballots It's august twenty, fourth
the election Is november. Fourth they want to do this
so there are as many ballots in circulation as humanly,
possible and we have no idea who they're going out.

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
To we have no idea whether these are ACTUAL us.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Citizens The Supreme court did not get into the constitutionality
of The Elections clause and why, Yes congress and through
the enforcement of federal, law the executive branch absolutely do
have dominion over federal. Elections states administer. Them but ultimately

(01:17:06):
The Elections clause says the, time, manner and everything else
of holding elections that resides with The. Congress The president
absolutely can use The Justice department to investigate suspected illegal
voting and take measures to ensure that people who are

(01:17:29):
not eligible to vote i. E non citizens are not
being issued ballots and are not. Voting, so in some
today was a pretty big ruling for The trump. Administration
we're gonna step aside for a. Break dan o'donald's show
back Before You know the final Hour monday edition Of

(01:17:50):
The dan O'donald. Show we are getting into for much
of this. HOUR a fascinating fanastic. Article, yes it is
tinged with some liberal conclusions that are not actually confirmed
or supported by the rest of the. Article it is

(01:18:11):
after All New York, magazine but it is on how
the pay to play model has broken youth. Sports Entitled
The pay To Play. Childhood it is the cover story
Of New York magazine and it is. Fascinating the, author
woman by the name Of Caitlin, moscateello does a very

(01:18:34):
deep dive into what we've been talking about here on
The dan O'donnald show for, months if not, years and
what most people of my generation and Maybe GENERATION x
before us have experienced something wholly foreign from when our,

(01:18:55):
children or in my, case even our younger siblings experience
against when playing youth. Sports they are now all. Encompassing
they have fundamentally changed much Of american culture from the ground.
Up it's not something that you would necessarily see ON, tv,

(01:19:17):
unless of, course you're watching The Little League World, series
which was always a, thing but now has many more
people thinking that they could be playing sports ON, tv
not just in The Little League World, series but professionally
and at the collegiate. Level parents are taking out loans

(01:19:38):
in order to afford fees and travel expenses that can
often top twenty thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Dollars per kid per.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
Year we will get into, that and we want your phone.
Calls i'm going to read substantial portions of part of
The it's a thousands and thousands and thousands of. Words
it is behind a, paywall so if you don't feel
like subscribing To New York, magazine you probably aren't going

(01:20:10):
to be able to read the entire. Thing So i'm
going to read some relevant portions and talk about WHAT
i have experienced WHEN i think a lot of people
in my generation and my kids' generations have experienced in
how this in a very real way has changed a
lot About american. Culture we'll get into all of. It

(01:20:32):
four one Four we want to hear from. You four, one, four, seven, nine,
nine eleven. Thirty that is Our CARPETLAND Usa Flooring center
talk and text Line emaildod at iHeartMedia dot. Com we
will try to pepper in as many calls as we
can throughout the next couple of segments.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
Before we get into.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
It though The iHeartRadio Music Festival Flyaway, contest the word
This hour music M usi Se. Music you have got
until five point fifty five to. Go text the word
music to two hundred two. Hundred if your entry is

(01:21:09):
picked at, random you get a trip for two two
R Festival september eighteenth and. Nineteenth round trip airfare for
two is included two Fabulous Las vegas two nights hotel,
stay as well ground transportation and tickets to both nights
of The iHeartRadio Music, festival plus a thousand dollars gift.
Card if you enter the, contest you will get a

(01:21:29):
confirmation text and Information standard data and message rate supply
in this nationwide. Contest New York Magazine Caitlin, Moscatella, look
the kid is fine at soccer.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
At.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
Eleven he's competitive and loves the.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
Game but his, Mother, elizabeth if she had it her,
way he would still be on one of the town's
low cost teams where he started at age, six rather
than the five thousand dollars a year club program that
now dominates their. Schedule she looks back on those earlier years,
fondly carpooling to games with other families from their suburban public,

(01:22:11):
school cheering on the neighborhood kids from the. Sidelines that
version of youth soccer remembered and resembled her own days
on the field in the, nineties when it was the
norm for, children even the most athletically, inclined to play
on community based teams through eighth. Grade she had wanted
that for her son, Too saturday mornings at the park with,

(01:22:34):
friends orange slices from the cooler during, halftime parents clapping
for everyone win or, lose because, really what's the?

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
Difference those simpler days were short.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Lived by the time her son was, nine at least
a third of the children enrolled in his town rec
league had left for a travel, league including The Pricey,
clubs offering a mini version of professional, sports crisp, uniforms hired,
coaches games in different. States with fewer, players the town

(01:23:06):
teams became less competitive and gave the remaining boys the
impression that they were in a second rate. Program before
his tenth, Birthday elizabeth's son asked if.

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
He could try out for one of the clubs.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
Too, now IF i may, interject this next line will
remind you that this is.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
An article from the uber Liberal New york. MAGAZINE i
actually laughed out loud WHEN i first read this this
morning Quote i'm gonna laugh again QUOTE i want to
be a social justice. WARRIOR i didn't want to flex
my privilege, Muscle elizabeth, said but her son was getting.

(01:23:50):
Bored she didn't want to flex her privilege, muscle meaning
that unlike one of the, poor presumably black or brown,
families she could actually afford the five thousand dollars a
year travel. Club.

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
Yeah in the switch to, club she found herself surrounded
by parents with both means and. Flexibility her son did,
improve but in her, view it wasn't because of the
coaching or so called premium. Facilities the boys on the
club were simply playing more four days of practices and
games a, week almost year. Round, still other things troubled.

(01:24:32):
Her the time investment made the stakes feel artificially. High
there was an enormous focus on Winning at. Games she
witnessed parents yelling at, players sometimes not even their, own
and berating the. Referees the coach was red carded after
losing his temper over what he perceived to be a bad.
Call every single time after a, loss the parents blamed

(01:24:53):
the ref Said, elizabeth what does that teach the?

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
Kids?

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
NOW i happened to be out last night with a
deer group of, friends including a couple THAT i had
coached with when our boys were very, young and they
were telling old stories About Coach. Dan one of their
favorites is HOW i got a technical foul while coaching

(01:25:18):
a third grade reck basketball league game because the kid was.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
Traveling now you might Say dan's third.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
Grade they all Travel this kid was taking like this
was Like lebron and like Another, lebron basically just running
down the. Field it wasn't a kid who, was you,
know at the end of the bench and you know
he's he's just learning the.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
Game, okay, Fine obviously this was like the best kid
on their.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
Team he had something like twenty five, points and so
that THE i was, like he's.

Speaker 3 (01:25:53):
Traveling, sorry this is a travel you gotta call.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
THESE i wasn't berating him or, whatever but the ref
had An he, said, okay, coach that's a technical follow
AND i, said, fine but he's still. Traveled and my assistant,
coach dear dear friend Named, greg he tells that story
all the time and always. Laughs so it's not just

(01:26:15):
the elite. Coaches i've had my share of red and yellow.
CARDS i will ADMIT i lose.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
Your because you get, in you, know the. Competition it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
It just it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Happens back To elizabeth's, story the financial obligations piled. Up
there was a tournament fifteen minutes from her brother's, house
but everyone on the team was required to book rooms
at a designated. Hotel this is what's known as a
pay to play tournament or a stay to play tournament excuse,

(01:26:49):
me where they partner with local hotels and in order
to play in the, tournament the teams have to book
blocks of rooms at those. Hotels it's actually a sweet
sweet scam that they've got going with The beymont inn in.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
Sweets i've knocked them, down picking on.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Them it's everyone That The rock In, franklin there's like
three hotels that went up around. There i'm willing to
wager that most of the tournaments and showcase events held
that The rock require you to stay at one of those.
Hotels you'd be stupid not to. If and the hotel
in exchange will provide money for spot.

Speaker 3 (01:27:28):
You know, whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
Whatever they'll give money to the tournament to pay for
umpires and things like, that so it's a win. Win
Financial Obligations pilot parents were told to buy pink jerseys
in addition to the other. Uniforms the players wore them
only a few. Times elizabeth was shocked when the coach
made a surprise announcement that the team was going to
compete in scrimmages In europe that cost thirty five hundred

(01:27:53):
dollars per. Player they kept, Saying, oh don't worry about,
it it will only be thirty five hundred of per
because we're going to fundraise for, it she. Said and to,
me it's, like, Okay so Then i'm going to ask
my friends and family help support my son going to
play soccer In.

Speaker 3 (01:28:10):
Europe this is where we.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
Are travel sports a term that has come to encompass
all sorts of private, teams, leagues and. Clubs used to
be for the truly exceptional young. Athlete now therefore anyone
willing to pay an, expensive exhausting commitment that has become,
popular not necessarily because millions of parents want them for their,

(01:28:37):
children but because it can feel like there's no other.
Choice rec programs are underfunded and struggle to compete with
for profit leagues for prime, field rink and court. Times
as more children Leave, rex so do their. Parents creating
a void of volunteers and at the level of play is,
diluted often very. Early as travel teams are incentivized to

(01:28:58):
enroll children at young, ages some hold tryouts as early as.
Kindergarten parents Like elizabeth are familiar with the. Stats they
know only around two percent of young athletes will compete
In DIVISION i college, sports and roughly zero point zero
five percent will play. Professionally the vast majority of kids

(01:29:19):
quit organized sports entirely by the time they turn, thirteen
and plenty of parents by now have it drilled into
their minds that the hyper, competitive highly specialized environment travel
sports pushes isn't developmentally appropriate for young. Children for, years
The American academy Of pediatrics has warned that intensely playing
one sport from a young age can lead to, stress,

(01:29:41):
burnout and overuse injuries caused by performing a repetitive. Motion
experts have long advised that children are best served by
playing multiple sports without pressure until they're in their early
teens or even, later but travel teams often lock children
into packed practice and game schedules stretch well beyond a typical,

(01:30:01):
season leaving little opportunity to try other. Sports numerous books
on the, matter published across three, decades mostly boiled down
to keep sports, fun make them child, centered focus on,
development not. Results, still it can be difficult for parents
to resist the travel. Craze children aren't different from adults

(01:30:22):
in that they look, around see what their friends are,
doing and want to be a part of. It the
mother of a first grader In manhattan was appalled when
upon telling him travel baseball would leave no time to
play on his school team with his. Classmates he, SAID
i don't want to be a part of a team
that anybody can. JOIN i want to be a part
of a team that you have to try out to.

(01:30:43):
Make that's sort of a joke of, it though a
lot of times you just kind of pay the fee
and they find a team for. You you may not
be on THE a, team but if they have the,
coaching if they have the field, space if they have
the ability to get, gamed there will be A b.

(01:31:03):
Team there'll be A c, team A d, team AN e,
team AN f, team and on down the. Line so
they're getting your five thousand. Dollars around five million children
in THE us now compete on travel. Teams the article,
Continues parents find themselves. Trapped they know the benefits of,
sports better health, outcomes higher self, esteem and want that

(01:31:24):
for their, children yet giving it to them often means
buying into a sports ecosystem that's inherently. Flawed as the
pay to play model increasingly takes, hold so does the
idea kids should start competing at younger and younger, ages
risking their sense of self along with their shoulders and.

(01:31:45):
Acls parents have so far shown a willingness to. Pay,
overall families spent forty six percent more on a primary
youth sport in twenty twenty four than they did just
five years. Prior according To Project, play an initiative of
The Aspen, Institute it estimated that youth sports generate up

(01:32:08):
to forty billion dollars in annual, revenue nearly twice as
much as THE. Nfl it isn't just the ultra rich
doing the, spending. Either an Ap ipsos survey published this
month found that less affluent parents spent about the same
on their children's sports as ones whose household income was

(01:32:31):
at least one hundred thousand. Dollars the children most left
out of organized sports are from homes with incomes under
twenty five thousand dollars according to The Aspen, institute and
that gap is. Widening, meanwhile profits for investors in youth
sports companies are growing. Significantly this is where we dive
into liberalville From Caitlin moscatello And New York. Magazine of,

(01:32:53):
course the villain in this story is invariably the equity
firms and the the companies that have capitalized on a
clear demand in the marketplace for a more professionalized. Experience
that is part of, it but that's not the real.

(01:33:15):
Cause one reason parents accept all, This moscatello, concludes is
that they're anxious about what will happen if they. Don't
in a time of justified concern for children's mental health
and unease about the, future parents have latched onto sports
as a. LIFELINE a kid throwing a ball around is

(01:33:36):
a kid not scrolling. YouTube no parents want their child
to feel left, out and more and more parents may
worry that a travel league is the only way to
set their child up to play beyond grade. School some
school districts across the country have cut freshmen and junior
varsity teams from their, budget increasing competition for fewer, spots

(01:33:57):
Said ferry of The Aspen. Institute someone quoted earlier in the,
Article i'm sort of giving you the cliffs notes version of.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
This he experienced it himself as a.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Parent you look at the high school, team and all
those kids played club starting from a fairly early, age
and just to preserve the opportunity that my kid could
play in high, School i'm, like, WELL i might as
well go with, it he. Said and the next thing you,
know It's Mother's day and you're In poughkeepsie at some dreary.

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):
Inn that's just a great, line by the, Way well
it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Writing this guy actually said, it or maybe the writer
massaged the, quote but that is It's Mother's day and
you're In poughkeepsie at some drury. INN i have definitely
Spent mother's days on the sidelines of a soccer. Field
Father's day there used to Be my kids played in

(01:34:56):
the local rec league in baseball and.

Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
Basketball we loved.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
It they have done clubs, soccer but not at the
high level travel. League WISCONSIN i actually think does a
very good job of having select teams that are local select.
Teams so one of the reasons that clubs.

Speaker 3 (01:35:18):
Took over for school.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
And community based organizations is that the funding just wasn't. There,
now this Author moscatello BLAMES. Covid that is a laugh
when all of this, started when all of it was
well BEFORE, covid in, fact twenty three years BEFORE. Covid
my pet, theory which is shared by a lot of

(01:35:41):
people who follow this, Stuff it started The monday after
the nineteen ninety Seven Masters, tournament which was won By Tiger,
woods who was twenty one years old and fresh out of.
College he had just turned pro that past summer ninety
six at The Greater Milwaukee, open who was his first

(01:36:02):
professional tournament also first professional hole in one little Known
Tiger woods fact thirty years ago when he won The,
masters his, Father, earl And tiger were on every talk
show and what you saw every single, day and what
was repeated ON espn and The Today's show And Good morning.

(01:36:24):
There all of this was three year Old tiger hitting
golf balls on The Mike Douglas. Show and it convinced a,
generation multiple generations of parents that if they want their
kid to be the Next Tiger woods or even as
this is sort of, progressed even if you want your
kid to be the next high school golfer or soccer,

(01:36:46):
player basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:36:47):
Player you need to start very.

Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Young you don't necessarily need to be as obsessive As tiger.

Speaker 3 (01:36:54):
And Earl woods, were but you need to.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
Have a more professional. Experience the demand didn't follow the
supply of travel ball and sports academies and all of.
This they went up to meet the, demand which is still.
Growing this is not to say that there isn't incredibly

(01:37:18):
good things that. COME i have had nothing but an
incredible experience with the soccer clubs that my kids have played. On,
now they've played in the local, clubs they've played with
all their friends growing, up we did not have that.
Experience in, part my wife AND i, said we're just
not going to do.

Speaker 3 (01:37:37):
It because of my. Job i'm not able to travel every.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
Weekend we have family, commitments the kids do, music they've
got other. THINGS i didn't want them to sacrifice. ACADEMICS
i didn't want to sacrifice my social life or their's
time with grandparents and cousins and. FAMILY i didn't want
to Spend Christmas eve at a Drury in In. Poughkeepsie

(01:38:04):
in other, words, yeah the poor Drury in is really
getting dunked on on this show and In New york.
MAGAZINE a lot of people have made that. CHOICE a
lot of people might be regretting, it but a lot
of people feel that it's really not a choice at.
All that getting the best for your kids means getting

(01:38:28):
in the best. League BUT i wonder how much of
that is for the, kid how much is for the.

Speaker 3 (01:38:35):
Parent we want to hear from.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
You four, one, four, seven, nine, nine eleven thirty on
the Carpet Land Flooring. Center talk and text line lines are.
Open we welcome your, calls we welcome your. Texts we
will get to them and get into this a little more.
Deeply it has a huge cultural, shift and it is
going on and has been for almost three decades.

Speaker 3 (01:38:58):
Now we're gonna talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:38:59):
IT A childhood which is a very very good, article
despite it being from a very obvious liberal writer in
a very Liberal New york. Magazine some of the conclusions
blaming private. Equity there is an element of adult greed
in trying to get as many dollars out of parents

(01:39:21):
for travel sports and select sports as, Possible but that's
not what this is really all. About she tells the
story this author about a family with an eleven year
old boy And elizabeth the mom struggling with her son
wanting to play at a higher. Level this, year despite her,

(01:39:42):
Reservations elizabeth's son will play for a different soccer. Club
he doesn't feel like a real option to return to
the town, team not when she knows there are so
few kids, left much less ones who play at his.
Level she doesn't see soccer as a path to college for.
Him the end goal is not a, scholarship she, said
but she he does want him to continue to love the.
Game elizabeth recognizes her family is complicit in a broken.

(01:40:06):
System when her son first joined a, club he left
behind one of his closest friends on the town. Team
that boy was just as. Athletic the only difference was
his parents couldn't afford the costs of a private. League
Since elizabeth's son, left that child's mother has told her
he's lost interest in. Soccer his family loves the, game
but he doesn't want to play. Anymore there are enough

(01:40:27):
kids in our town that if they all played reck
my son would have had a great, Experience elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (01:40:33):
Said his friend could have. Two it's a collective action,
problem she.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
Said that is the end of the. PIECE i told
you it's a Collective Action, Problem, CARPETLAND, Usa Flooring Center
talk and Text line four one four, seven nine to
nine eleven. Thirty we start With aaron on the Dan O'donnald's,

(01:41:00):
Heather i'm, Sorry heather From aaron on The dan O'donald.

Speaker 3 (01:41:03):
Show welcome to.

Speaker 11 (01:41:05):
It thank, you thank. You my bottom line, is let
kids be, Kids let them be good and a little
bit of. EVERYTHING i had three, kids AND i could
have done the select programs for all of, them but
it would have been a lot of, travel like you,
said and WHAT i chose was let them have fun
with a lot of. Them none of them are going

(01:41:25):
to BE nba superstars OR mlb. Superstars and they love.
Baseball they love, basketball they love. Volleyball so there they
are enjoying a little bit of everything and can participate
in so many things in life instead of just being
drilled on one.

Speaker 1 (01:41:41):
Avenue And, HEATHER i so appreciate you bringing up that
point because that is the biggest cultural. Shift it's not
that it's necessarily about the club and select, teams.

Speaker 3 (01:41:59):
But they're Old. Now revolves for.

Speaker 1 (01:42:02):
Parents of kids from seven eight years old right up
until they graduate from high. School revolves around youth, Sports, yeah,
obviously when you're a, parent especially a parent of young,
children your life does and should revolve around your. Kids
but just as the youth travel league and select league

(01:42:27):
craze has gradually caught, on that becomes the center of,
community that becomes the center of a social. Circle it's
no longer the, town it's no longer necessarily the, school
it's no longer the, church it's no longer the. Family
it's the travel ball. Team and don't get me, Wrong

(01:42:49):
i've made lifelong. Friends some of the best FRIENDS i
have ever made as an adult were through being our
kids playing soccer or another sport, together or meet coaching
with some of these. DADS i understand. That but when
the shift happened where sports took, precedence so for pretty

(01:43:12):
much everything we shoved to the, side, say performing, arts
we shoved to the. Side other extracurriculars like, forensics the debate,
team the school, play the well one that's near and
dear to my, heart the school, orchestra the school. Band

(01:43:34):
in a lot of, schools a lot of these programs
are being dropped. Now liberals are, well it's because the
schools aren't getting enough, money you, Know it's because there's
not enough. Interest if you don't have enough kids to
make an, orchestra you can have a, quartet or you're
not going to have a.

Speaker 3 (01:43:51):
Program think about it this.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):
Way it's very rare that you will see a school
referendum or a new performing arts. AUDITORIUM i Believe musquigo
had when they've got a, beautiful beautiful. Auditorium you get
all the time referenda for football. Fields it's not because

(01:44:16):
the supply of elite private equity finance leagues and teams
and tournaments was there. Already they came up because what
changed about parents that said the only way like, parents
the parents who do this and the parents who sign
up for this and get into, this this, lifestyle they

(01:44:41):
do so because they love their kids so. Much half
of them, SAY i don't want. TO i myself resisted
the club. Level my kids were playing in the rec
league UNTIL i think my oldest one until about fourth.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
Grade AND.

Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
I had reservations BECAUSE i had heard and read about
all of, this because they had a busy schedule with
all of this other. Stuff BUT i myself, Felt, okay,
WELL i guess you gotta do. It guess you got
to do. It you have to be on the.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
CLUB i just got a text that, said.

Speaker 1 (01:45:19):
Damn high school coaches will tell the players that if
you're not on a high level club, team you have
no chance of making. Varsity well that may be, true
but a friend of mine has a team at their high.
School there were two sophomores who made the. Varsity neither

(01:45:41):
of them played high level sports at the travel. League in,
fact one of them played at the local rec. League
is entire.

Speaker 3 (01:45:49):
Life what was the.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
Difference the kids, worked they lived in the weight, room
they had a ball at their feet. Constantly it's if
the drive is, there if the kid says, YES i
want to do this all the time. Constantly it's not
a matter of just paying the. Fee trust, me if
a kid is good, enough the club will do what it.

(01:46:12):
Can at, soccer, basketball THE, aau, whatever there are all
sorts of kids from inner City milwaukee who make it
onto the ELITE aau programs without paying the full fee
because they want the most talented. Kids and that's how
it always. Was but now parents have been convinced that
if they do, this if they don't do, this, rather

(01:46:33):
their kid will be left. Behind so there is certainly
a big element of fear that your kid will much
earlier than he would want be told or she want
that they can no longer play because they're just not good. Enough,
sure but there's a whole lot of vicarious living through
children that also sort of rears its ugly. Head, look

(01:46:59):
we're gonna step. ASIDE i just looked at the. Clock
we got a lot of calls coming. OUT i want
to get to. Them we are way late for a.
Break let's take it right. Now you're listening to.

Speaker 9 (01:47:06):
The, Day.

Speaker 3 (01:47:15):
Greg In.

Speaker 1 (01:47:16):
Germantown up next on The Dano donald's, show The pay
To Play, Childhood how increasingly professionalized youth sports has fundamentally
Changed american. Culture, Greg welcome to The dan O'donald.

Speaker 3 (01:47:30):
Show, Sir thank You.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
Dan how are you?

Speaker 11 (01:47:33):
Today?

Speaker 3 (01:47:34):
Fantastic my, FRIEND.

Speaker 2 (01:47:37):
I had a situation where my truly talented and normally
very well behaved daughter suddenly was picked for one of
these sports teams five state, travel five to six. Grand
but at the TIME i was having some, small really
very minor not coming to the dinner table for supper

(01:47:58):
sort of, Issues AND i, said if this doesn't, change
you don't get that privilege that was actually held against
me in family court by my ex, wife the G
A l and the. Judge why would you not why
would you not support this budding superstars development that is sanity.

Speaker 1 (01:48:19):
Because you disciplined her and you took AWAY.

Speaker 2 (01:48:24):
I, THREATENED i threatened. Her they forced me to pay for.
It What, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48:35):
On the grounds that not doing so would be harmful.

Speaker 2 (01:48:38):
To, her on the grounds THAT i had paid for soccer.
Previously i'm cutting the check into this. Month oh And
i'm actually going to mail you the court.

Speaker 1 (01:48:49):
Stuff please don't, please please please please don't. Up it
is it Is AND i am not getting in the
of any like current disputes with your. Ex, Okay, OKAY
i JUST i don't want. TO i kind of have
A i've made it a policy on this show in

(01:49:13):
the middle of. It does it absolutely?

Speaker 3 (01:49:15):
Does? It absolutely?

Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
Does it absolutely does that a guardian atletam J l
would would actually, say somebody who is hired to represent
the interests of the, child that's that's literally what the
G al.

Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
Does.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
Uh that somebody would say the the only, interest the
very best interest is she has to play on this,
team or the father is not doing his job as
a father is absolute. Insanity, uh especially if it's a disciplinary. Issue, now,

(01:49:49):
OBVIOUSLY i just for legal liability and such.

Speaker 3 (01:49:54):
REASONS i have no idea the full. Story.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
Greg theoretically he could have been making the whole thing.
UP i very seriously doubt that he, is but that
does speak to the inside just when there's an ongoing.

Speaker 3 (01:50:08):
Dispute.

Speaker 1 (01:50:10):
Greg, also since you're a, LOYALIST i don't want this
used against you AND. I at his next, Hearing greg
shows up and that he went on The dan O'Donnell
show and talked about it to the entire. State he
didn't to like bash his ex wife or anything like,
that but to just, illustrate like this is how pervasive
that idea, is that you're you're truly doing something wrong

(01:50:33):
by your kids if you, don't and, THAT i will
admit that motivates the vast majority of, parents the fear
that if they, don't you're not going to.

Speaker 3 (01:50:41):
Make the high school.

Speaker 1 (01:50:41):
Team i'm telling, you the very best KID i ever,
coached or EVEN i think saw play high school. Soccer
sure he played somewhat at the highest level of the
club soccer. Hierarchy what made him so good was the
fact that he always had a ball at his. Feet

(01:51:03):
his dad said in the. Backyard he would just be
juggling a soccer. Ball he would kick the ball against
the wall for. Hours it was just he would not.
Stopped he could not stop. Training it was just the
thing he loved, most and because he loved it so,
much he did it non. Stop ultimately natural talent and

(01:51:25):
just sheer drive to instead of making an actual drive
To michigan for some tournament where you end up playing
a team from like ten minutes down the, road that's
gotta be the most frustrating thing of. All you go
to Like, Fresno, california and you're playing against a team
From Oak. Creek what what are you doing? Here we

(01:51:49):
could have played you and cut A, hey when you
have a kid who has the drive to spend six
hours training by, himself you can drive him to Tim
buck two to play the best team at his level On,

(01:52:11):
earth and he won't get better just doing that if
he doesn't do it for six. Hours the ten thousand
hours thing is very. True believe that was freakonomics that
in order to master, something in order to be truly
great at, it you have to spend ten thousand hours doing.

Speaker 3 (01:52:29):
It, doubtful try.

Speaker 1 (01:52:31):
Twenty you have to love doing something so much that
you just do, it not because you feel you have,
to because you're just never if something feels like a
job or it feels like, work if it's not your true,
passion and you're not willing to do everything when nobody is,
looking not a, coach not a, teammate not your, parents
it's just you and the.

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):
Gym it's just you shooting balls at a soccer goal.

Speaker 1 (01:52:59):
Or shooting free throw is in the. Route i'll never
forget a Story Kevin. Garnett this stuck with me. Forever
it's A Sports illustrated article about him in the mid.
Nineties he ran like several miles every. Day and one,
day it was the fourth Of. July it was about
one hundred and four degrees.

Speaker 3 (01:53:16):
Out all of.

Speaker 1 (01:53:17):
His friends, were you, know going and hanging, out and
his mom saw him about to go out for his,
job and she was more concerned about his physical safety.

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
That he's going to get a heat. Stroke and she, Said,
kevin you you can't possibly be running in this. Heat
it's the fourth Of. July why don't you, relax have
some ice cream or.

Speaker 1 (01:53:34):
Something and he, Said, MOM i can't because somewhere there's
some other kid who's doing this AND i have to
be better than. Him that's, drive that's, dedication and more,
importantly that's wanting something so badly that you're willing to

(01:53:55):
do anything to achieve. It let's go up next to
who is? It ken In Oconoma. Walk you're on The
dan O'Donnell. Show welcome to, It, Ken.

Speaker 12 (01:54:07):
Hi, dan great. Topic i'm part of What. I'm What
i'm gonna say is confirming everything you're. SAYING i have two,
sons you, know AND i had them in, everything you,
know and they one found a passion in, football the
other found a passion in. Lacrosse my football son ended
up playing For university Of. Utah, HOWEVER i kept him.

(01:54:28):
IN i didn't do any of you, KNOW i kept
him in all. Wreck you, know we didn't do any
of the travel. Stuff but he, had you, know he
had his own. Drive he had discipline LIKE i can only,
imagine you, know both my sons. Did BUT i will
say that when you get into that high School i'm

(01:54:52):
the part of the travel thing is that the coaches
are usually involved and they're usually making some money on.
It and what they struggled with was playtime in high
school where certain people would get played more than, them you. Know,
yeah and even though you know generally you, know there

(01:55:14):
was a consensus with a team that you, know my
boys with a better player out of. Them but you,
know it's so it's one thing when you're in that travel,
stuff you're kind of greasing the coaches a. Little, yeah
now there's.

Speaker 1 (01:55:26):
That the, politics the politics of that is very. Significant
we've got to leave it, there ken, unfortunately because we've only,
got believe it or, not one more minute left in the, show.
FOLKS i could spend hours and hours and hours talking about.
This it is a significant cultural. Shift everything is revolving

(01:55:47):
around one. Thing the reasons for this are. Many one
of them is parents'. Egos one of them is it's
a status symbol that you're on the select.

Speaker 3 (01:55:58):
Team your kid is.

Speaker 1 (01:55:59):
Special to quote from The disney Movie The, incredibles everyone is.
Special that's just another way of saying nobody. Is it's
not so much that nihilistic or that cynical of a,
view but what it is is everyone wants their kid
to feel, special but just as, importantly they want the
psychological ego boost of having a kid who is. Special

(01:56:22):
it is also about community and. Belonging you find your,
friends your. People kids and parents alike have a community
of like minded people that they spend a whole lot
of time with as they are at these. Tournaments it
all comes. Together it is all one thing that might

(01:56:45):
or might not ultimately be in the best interests of the,
kids the next, generation or this.

Speaker 3 (01:56:52):
Country, armen are we out of? Time, yes we are
got to end a little.

Speaker 1 (01:56:56):
Early one more break to. Play don't worry, though we
are back tomorrow we do it all. Again tuesday edition
Of The dan O'Donnell, show three o six.

Speaker 3 (01:57:03):
Pm

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