Vicki McKenna Show - Not Just Buisness Policy

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Saturday, July 25th. I know I will be the best welterweight in the world. An undefeated phenom. Batman is a rising star. And a frightening force. What a win for Shalmila! Ascend on the nation's capital to fight for gold. Thad, the silverback jeans. Silverback nation makes them noise. Versus Shemil Muzaev. All it's over! For the PFL welterweight world title. Saturday, July 25th at 10 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Good morning. Welcome to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. I'm working on vapors at this point. I had about, I don't know, three and a half hours of sleep from the endless storm warnings last night. I'm going to get to that in a sec. Brandon just barely, and he's like, you know, a Bugs Bunny cartoon character just sliding into the studio because of the accident on the beltline because a bunch of people managed to somehow crash on dry pavement in sunshine with no weather related concerns whatsoever. So we're both a little bit on the edge of stress. Me, because I've had no sleep. Brandon, because he was trying to get to work and a bunch of idiots. I'm going to sleep too. Or are you also on vapors? Did it, were the storm sirens going off around you? I live in Lake Mills. You live in, I forget where? Some prairie. Okay. So in my town, the tornado sirens are going off at one in the morning. I get up at 4.45. So they're going off at one in the morning. I have a weather radio in my bedroom. And the weather radio sirens are going off. You know, and it's this broad, you know, area of tornado warning, which I can barely hear because those weather radio, you know, the sirens are loud, but the guy, you know, the computer voice from Milwaukee Dan Sullivan weather, it's so low you can't hear anything. So I got to get up, stand by my weather radio to hear the guys say. There's a tornado warning, not the guy. The computers say there's a tornado warning for whatever. Rock County, Walworth County, Jefferson County, Dane County. And I'm like, oh, no, Jefferson County. That's where I live? But where in Jefferson County? Where? So all of a sudden, my town's tornado sirens start going off and grab the dogs into the basement. We go. Turn on weather. Far southeast corner of Jefferson County. That's not me. That's not me. So I look at the weather radar. The weather's radar is not going to hit where I am. Back upstairs. Into bed. 120, something like that. Everything's expiring at 1.45. The stupid weather radio goes off again. I'm like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to putts around the house. That's what I'm just going to putter. Maybe if I'll doze off, I'll just sit on the couch and just snooze, which is what I did. So I'm a little bleary eye. I'm slamming Celsius sodas and coffee. And we'll see how we can do. Brandon, I'm not sure. Just don't fall asleep, all right? We're going to just make lots of mistakes on the program today because neither one of us are fit to be operating heavy machinery.

It's just like we just all down like six Benadryl. All right. So what's coming up on the program? Well, I can still read. We're going to talk about the economic environment, economic climate in Wisconsin and the tax climate in Wisconsin. We are going to talk more about the, there's sort of a new enthusiasm for cracking down on. migrants, asylum seekers, people with TPS, etc. The people that President Trump is having a hard time dealing with. There's a new enthusiasm. And I mean an enthusiasm beyond just the administration. We'll also talk about a young girl being forced to sue her school because they simply refuse to follow the law. We'll do some horse race politics, particularly with... the fallout of Eric Swalwell. He had to resign from Congress. You probably all saw that yesterday, but it's getting worse for him as more information dumps out. More on Tony Evers' decision to put a whole bunch of violent offenders next door to everybody in Wisconsin. If he can, because racism and all of that coming up on the program. So let's start with...

the Democrats' decision in Wisconsin to lead with advertisements to not come to Wisconsin. Let's start with that. Because that's what we're going to start with. Scott Manley's going to join me. We're going to do some nuts and bolts. We're going to get some numbers. You have a raft of pieces of legislation that advertise don't come. You have the governor wanting a 9.8% top income tax rate. That tells wealth to flee Wisconsin. You have the Democrats introducing a reinstitution of the death tax. That tells, tells wealth to flee Wisconsin. That tells not even big wealth, but small wealth to flee Wisconsin. You have proposals for massive increases in spending and cost. You have what is left of that surplus, which is dwindling by the day, being committed by Democrats in forms of legislation. that would, I won't say exponentially, but will significantly increase costs in Wisconsin because it would be one-time money for ongoing expenses. You have the massive veto that Tony Evers did that resulted in a 400-year property tax increase. And you have Democrats proposing additional taxing authority for local bodies of government beyond what they're doing to us at the state. Now, on top of that, you have got Wisconsin advertising that it wants to be a magnet for hookers, that Wisconsin wants to be a magnet for homeless people, and Wisconsin wants to be a magnet for criminal. So Tony Evers has proposed, actually did it already, obliterating truth and sentencing. You have Francesca Hong who wants to be governor, who wants to make prostitution legal in Wisconsin. Oh, you've got the legalized marijuana. legislation out there and the legalized doctor-assisted suicide. So you can come here and die, come here and get high, and then die while you're here high. You can come here if you want to run a prostitution operation, if you want to run a grow operation. And by the way, if you're convicted of a violent offense, no worries, because we've got you covered. There's an advertisement not to come here. On top of all of that, the same Democrats want to take away. most of our ability to get a concealed carry license. And when the criminal steals your gun, they want to make it a crime for you. So this is, you put this on billboards and no one comes. Nobody wants to locate in Wisconsin. This is what Minnesota has done. This is what Illinois has done. That's why people don't want to go to Minnesota, go to Illinois. Illinois has lost 400,000 people. Minnesota has had a net gain only in Minneapolis from Somali migrants. But everywhere else in the state of Minnesota, people have fled. So they've lost a little bit over 100,000 people. In Wisconsin, we've gained about 4,500, but only because we're nearby. We're advertising for people to leave.

It's expensive. We don't have any interest whatsoever in trying to make it easy for people to come and stay. And we're certainly making it very difficult for people to retire. Okay, we're going to take a break. Scott Manley's going to join me. We're going to put some numbers to this in just a moment from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. We have a chance to turn it all around. That is assuming people are paying attention and assuming people are motivated to vote in the next election. I mean, instantly turn it around. Like, snap your fingers if Tom Tiffany is governor, and we can turn it around. Why? Because the Supreme Court gave the governor almost a monarch-like authority. So that's something we can take advantage of, and we should start talking like that. Well, if the governor's a king, let it be our king. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. Scott Manley from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce is joining me on the program. And as I opened up, it's not just business policy that has been proposed or tax policy that has been proposed. It's all of the other types of policy that actually have an impact on whether someone chooses to stay in Wisconsin or leave Wisconsin or someone chooses to come to Wisconsin in the first place. And that's what I want to talk about, Scott. We're starting to aggressively advertise not to come. with various different proposals being rolled up by gubernatorial candidates or the outgoing governor himself, which is essentially teeing up what amounts to a campaign plank for the Democratic Party. It's raised the top income tax rate. It's reestablished the estate tax, the death tax. Drive all the wealth where you're generating, you know, the lion's share percentage of your tax revenue out of the state. It's hitting people with new building codes. which means commercial building, including apartment complexes, are going to be that much more expensive. Housing will be that much more expensive. Our energy costs, we're going to get, going to get whacked with another massive rate increase here. So it's one thing after another, after another. It's, you know, Iowa is not that far away. And its economic outlook looks a little, a lot rosier than Wisconsin, Scott. Yeah, it absolutely doesn't. Everything that you just rattled off, Dickey, is a terrible economically destructive policy. But I think it's important to remember where we're sitting at today, because where we're sitting at today is we've got the eighth-highest property taxes in the country already. And if you happen to live in Dane County or Milwaukee County, Those two counties, and this is fresh data from the Tax Foundation. Dane County property taxes are in the 95th percentile in the United States of America, and Milwaukee County is in the 97th percentile for highest property taxes in the country. Our income tax is ninth highest in the country, and they want to raise them. You talked about energy costs. Well, the Democrats proposed and actually voted for doubling the energy tax.

Now, thank goodness they weren't able to do that. We actually have a fairly reasonable sales tax compared to some of our neighbors, but they voted and they lost, but they voted to allow every city, village, town, and county in Wisconsin to raise the sales tax another half a cent during the budget debate. I mean, it goes on, you mentioned the death tax. It's sort of like their idea is if you earn money, we're going to tax it. If you spend money, we're going to tax it. If you invest your money, we're going to tax it. If you use your money to buy a home, we're going to tax it every single year. And if you die. we're going to tax your death and make sure that you can't pass anything along to your children or friends or family members. I mean, if you are, just not on that alone, just bringing back the death tax. So we're not talking about the death tax, by the way, always ratchets down. But we're not talking about, you know, the Hendricks. We're not talking about, you know, the billionaires. That will hit the billionaires. They'll split. They'll go somewhere else. They won't establish any kind of base of operation here because they're not going to subject themselves to the death tax. Small farms, businesses that had grown into medium businesses that are going to meet the threshold. Why would you stay in Wisconsin so that you can give Wisconsin? Well, I forget it was 40% I think is what they wanted. The proposal was, I think, a 40% death tax. Why would you do that? You wouldn't. You'd get out when you can. Obviously, you wouldn't get out like tomorrow, but you'd make plans to leave Wisconsin so that that tax revenue is not captured by the state of Wisconsin, but rather by your family or whether people you would prefer that money to be captured by. And for what? For what? What are we getting out of this? 37% proficiency in reading and math. Roads that we are constantly fixing. We're not getting economic growth. We're not getting anything. We've got high crime in the cities. You've got crappy roads. You have got high energy prices. You've got lousy schools. What are we getting for the money? It's what people need to start asking. Look at what happened to California and New York. No one started by asking, what are we getting for this? Well, what we're getting is an education system that is not adequately preparing kids for the workforce. And that's a huge problem. I mean, we already have some of the worst birth rates in the country here in Wisconsin. We're one of the oldest states by population. And that means more people are aging out of the workforce, and we don't have that pipeline of young kids to replace them. And of the ones we do have. You know, as you mentioned, two out of three can't do math or reading at grade level. That is, they are unprepared. One other tax that I want to mention that people often don't think about as a tax, but they really should, is regulatory burden. Regulations. Every regulation has a cost, and that cost is like a hidden tax on consumers. And Wisconsin happens to be the...

13th most highly regulated state in the country. And so I think a lot of people think, oh, well, you know, that regulation doesn't affect me. That affects businesses. But when businesses incur those costs, they pass those costs along to consumers in the forms of higher prices. So if people do care about affordability and I think a lot of people do right now, people should care deeply. about our regulatory burden. And you mentioned Vicki that the Supreme Court just gave Tony Evers or whoever's governor full authority to essentially do whatever they want from a regulation standpoint and the legislature, your elected officials who represent you in government have absolutely no say over it. It is like a dictatorship. in that regard. And because of the court, we have a high level of uncertainty as well. Because what you think is established law isn't. I mean, just on that, we're talking about regulation. What the Supreme Court did was obliterate the oversight of regulation by the legislature. And so that means the executive branch essentially functions as its own super legislature. The legislature has nothing to say about it. You can't say no. Don't impose those building codes because, number one, they don't make any sense. And number two, it's going to explode the cost of construction in Wisconsin, including pipeline in the pipeline projects. That blew my mind when I learned that, that the adoption of these building codes affected in the pipeline projects. So that now you're going to have to check. And it's all energy related. It's all green energy BS. That's why these things got updated was so that all the climate change freaks could have boxes checked that make. No difference. All they do is increased costs. So again, what are we getting out of it? Nothing but higher costs. And again, an advertisement not to come. I mentioned Iowa because Iowa is working on its tax policy. Iowa's working on its regulatory policy. Iowa is what's so special about Iowa? I got nothing against Iowa. But what's special about Iowa? Not much. But if it's more attractive to site in a new facility, that's where it's going to go. And the Midwest still gains, but Wisconsin loses. Well, and you talked about we're giving people reasons to not come here, and that's a problem. But what I'm really worried about is we're giving people reasons to leave. And if you look at the data, it's just so clear that people are voting with their feet and they are leaving high cost and high tax states and migrating to low cost and lower tax states. And in fact, there was just a study that came out of California, Berkeley, of all places, that said that the high cost and the high taxes. in California are causing people to flee the state. And that, unfortunately, particularly if things go poorly in November, that is the path we are on, Vicki. We are going to be on the path to make Wisconsin so expensive and so unattractive that forget about people choosing not to come here. People are going to leave the state. And guess what that when we have fewer people?

who are paying income taxes and sales taxes and property taxes, guess what that does to the tax burden of the people who stay? It makes it worse because we have fewer taxpayers to distribute the burden among. And so we are going to get into this death spiral, economic death spiral, if we allow this sort of thing to happen. We just had a massive increase in the budget as well. I mean, the budget always goes up. Taxes always go up. We're collecting excess tax revenue and not returning it to the people. But again, I'm going to ask this for what? Are we getting exceptional? No, we're not even getting mediocre. We're getting dysfunction. When you see these costs go up, whether they're regulatory costs or whether they're tax costs, we're not paying for good stuff. We're paying for more dysfunction for bureaucracy, for waste, for fraud. And it's astonishing. This is all across America, but here in Wisconsin, where you need to make the state attractive. You know, we have great beer, we have awesome sports, and we have great lakes. Okay, but it's not enough to drag somebody halfway across the country. Say, well, I really want to drink Wisconsin beer. I think I'm going to pay exceptionally high taxes and have a high cost of living. so that I can freeze in the wintertime, but the beer's awesome. And I love the Packers. That is not how people make their decisions to move. So we've got to do it better than the other guy. And I'm thinking back on Walker. And he understood that. As much as he loved Wisconsin, he understood we had to make, we had to sell ourselves. to the rest of the country because of people's perception of what Wisconsin is. We want manufacturing here. We want farming here. We want young people here. We want tech here. We want all of it here. How do you do it? Make it cheap and make the cost of living low. And we're not doing that any longer. No, and when you look at school spending, the conversation is always about, well, yeah, maybe the test scores are terrible, but that's not because we're spending, or that's because we're not spending enough. Well, we are spending enough. I mean, we're spending over $18,000 per year per kid in our K-12 school system, and that happens to be 50% more than what it costs to attend a year at UW Madison. So if we can give a world-class education to kids at UW Madison for, you know, a little over $12,000, how in the heck can we not properly educate our kids in a K-12 setting for over $18,000 a piece? It's about how are we spending that money. And how we're spending that money, Vicki, is that we're hiring a bunch of bloated bureaucracy in our schools. non-teaching staff and the test scores show that that's a really poor decision and a misallocation of our tax money. You know, I just want to say this, that one of the highest performing private schools in Southern Wisconsin's Edgewood, right? So consider one of the highest performing public schools. It's $4,000 cheaper than what we pay per student in K-12. It costs $4,000 less to go to a private school.

than it does what the taxpayers are committing to lousy K-12 public schools that have fewer than 40% of kids reading or doing math at grade level. Mississippi spends far less money per pupil than we do in Wisconsin, and they are blowing us away on fourth grade reading scores right now. I mean, there is not a correlation between the more money you spend on education, the better results you get. Nope. In fact, it's almost the opposite. Milwaukee public schools spend almost $24,000 per kid, and they've got the worst academic achievement of any school district in our state. Money is not the answer. It's how do you spend the money? The worst, and they actually, I think they're in the bottom. Three or five school districts in the country. and they spend almost $25,000 per student. Thanks very much for joining me, Scott. I appreciate it. We have a chance because of what the Supreme Court did by essentially, you know, granting monarch-like authorities to the governor. If Tom Tiffany is governor, he has that same authority. So all of the stuff we're talking about in very, very short order can reverse itself as long as we're paying attention and we're motivated and we're out there working. Good to have you on the program. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Vicki. We'll take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna show, and I'll be right back. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. I just looked this up just for fun. We'll get to the immigration stuff here in a sec. But there is a larger proportion, larger percentage of people over the age of 65 in Wisconsin. I'm not beating up on anybody over the age of 65. There's a larger proportion of people over the age of 65 in Wisconsin than there are under 18. Our average age is 41 years old. The median age of the country is 36 years old. Yeah. So we got a bunch of old people in Wisconsin, many of whom are going to say, I don't want to freeze my butt off and shovel snow and have to contend with wind chills at minus 20 for two weeks a year. And they're going to move. And then what are you going to do, Democrats? Then what are you going to do to fund your insane spending? All the support systems for those illegal immigrants who are about to talk about. All right. Ira Melman is standing by for Federation for American Immigration Reform to talk about a couple of different things. I want to start by what seems to be a new enthusiasm to pay attention to people who have either overstayed visas. or lied about asylum claims or whatever. They're not, they didn't just like cross the border illegally. They have some kind of paperwork that says it's, it's fine for them to be here who are.

open the doors of all jail cells and refuse to do anything serious about violent felons. And so I think that, you know, they almost like they've overplayed their hand, not that those progressive cities will change, but it is changing people's perceptions. Yeah, you know, I guess it's a little bit like making sausage. People want the job done. They just don't want to see it, and that's part of the problem. You know, occasionally it doesn't look good on television, but it is a necessary function of the government to prevent the sort of events that we saw in Florida last week, where you had somebody who was allowed in under the Biden administration. You know, they try to figure out, how can we keep this guy here? Oh, yeah, we'll give him TPS. uh... and you know here he is what four five years later uh... murdering somebody with a hammer in a gas station in florida these are the these are also the sorts of things that the american public doesn't want to see but you know i think we need to be mature enough to understand that law enforcement uh... is sometimes not an easy thing to do uh... the the law enforcement officers have to do what they have to do within reason you know there are laws that govern how they behave uh... but they are doing that uh... and you know that the fact that you have these talking heads screaming or people on social media uh... posting videos doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing this because it is essential to protect lives And we learned that all of their stories are lies. Over time, we learn that they're lying. So I forget, Liam Ramos, I think is his name, the little kid that they pretended, was somehow seized and kidnapped by ICE when his father actually fled and his mother refused to claim him. It turns out that family lied on their asylum claims. Guess who's all getting deported? The whole shebang. The whole family is getting good word. So now with the installation of Markwayne Mullin as the new DHS secretary. And I think that that has somewhat to do with, I think, the slight change or shift, positive shift in perception of immigration enforcement in the United States. I mean, he's, I'm a little skeptical just because. You never know with someone. You just don't know their fully vetted background. But he seems to have come out of the gate hot. By saying to sanctuary cities, we're pulling CBP from your airports. We're punishing people if you continue to protect identifying immigration judges for the Trump administration to fire or force resignations on, you know, aggressively. reorienting ICE operations to target not just the worst or the worst offenders, but just getting rid of people who have wholesale lied, committed acts of fraud. And so I think competence and no showboating seems to be benefiting perceptions.

Yeah, it is. You know, you mentioned the airports. You had Larry Krasner, the DA in Philadelphia, say, you know, during the shutdown, that, you know, if ISIS goes into the airports to help people get through the airports, get through security, that they're going to go out and arrest the ICE officers at the airport. So, you know, they're kind of asking for it. But at the same time, you know, you don't want inconvenience millions and millions of innocent travelers who are just trying to get... where they're going. So it is kind of a balancing act here, but you do have to send a message to these local jurisdictions that we're simply not going to tolerate this kind of interference, whether it is at the airports or on the streets of the cities. If you get in the way of ICE doing its job, There are going to be consequences, not just for the people that ICE is arresting, but, you know, we're going to cut off certain federal funding. We're going to do all kinds of things, flood the city with ICE officers. That's the way to get, excuse me, to get their attention. So, you know, he has all sorts of options available to him. We just need to find out which ones work most effectively with these sanctuary jurisdictions. Right. And he doesn't have his eyes on the 2028 presidential nomination. And so we don't have to worry about bad decisions based solely on optics or bad optics based on bad political decisions in pursuit of politics itself. So let's go to stay on the airports for a second. When Mullins just said to California or any other sanctuary jurisdiction, we're going to poll CBP. Those are your customs agents, customs and border patrol. You need those people for international airports. If sanctuary cities refuse to comply with the Department of Homeland Security, he has threatened. He has not yet dropped the hammer, but he has threatened to pull customs agents from international airports, which would, for all intents and purposes, shut down international travel into those airports. It's that kind of stuff. Nobody, you know, not many people are, you know, play in the world's smallest violin for international travelers into the United States. It's that kind of stuff that I think is beginning to shift. That makes sense to people, to shift people's perception. And there's now a net plus, a plus 10 point improvement in approval for police officers generally and for ICE agents. So it does seem to be working whatever it is they're doing. Yeah, the American public has seen what lawlessness looks like. We saw lawlessness at the border for four years. We saw the impact on communities all across the country. We saw people die as a result of it. We see what happens in these cities where you have defund the police, where you have DAs who refuse to prosecute offenders. It really does have an impact on those communities. And the American public... You know, look at this. You know, I want to be able to go to the gas station, fill up my tank, you know, if I can afford to these days, without having to worry that some crazy guy with a hammer is going to come smack me in the head. So these are the sorts of things that the American public can only tolerate for so long. And I think we're seeing the effects of that. You know, even in cities, even in deep blue sanctuary cities, there is, you know, at least some sense that we have to have some kind of safety on our streets.

Right. And the progressive mantra, which is you're racist, if you don't accept what we're doing, which is what they've done in Europe. And look at what has happened in Europe, where you've got an entire, you know, government-wide apparatus that is supporting lawlessness and decay. And, you know, people are trying to figure out ways to struggle against that now. It's going on in Ireland. There's, you know, the rumblings of a revolution. There's pushback in Germany. There's pushback in the UK, albeit slower in the UK. But once when you do that to people and you make life unlivable, you don't expect them to just sit there and say, okay, I'm just going to accept my fate. If they can still push back, they will push back. And in the United States, that's, you know, a potential for midterms. So, you know, you've got people who are making certain areas unlivable. Zohran Mamdani or, you know, the Larry Krasner, whoever, I mean, Larry Krasner, please keep popping off because that's going to, I mean, that gets a lot of attention when he acts like an idiot like that. So that makes, that instantly makes people just say, okay, that guy's nuts. We're going to go with the other guy. So it's, I don't know, I've, I've some optimism simply because I think quietly the Trump administration made some significant changes and they started to produce competence. And they started to produce a shift in perception. And I think that maybe that's going to bode well for us. Yeah, you know, obviously we have to see. You know, you mentioned Philadelphia. San Francisco recalled Chelsea Boudin or whatever his name was, the DA there. You know, they turned the mayor out of office. You know, you have, you know, it's not exactly a, you know, a conservative, but by San Francisco standards, the new mayor is. fairly conservative and, you know, has a focus on law and order. So, you know, even in a place like San Francisco, people can say, you know, enough is enough with the, you know, people living on the streets, with illegal aliens running rampant and committing crimes and no consequences. There is at some point a sense that there's got to be some kind of limits placed on what can happen on our streets. We may be reaching that in a lot of places. You know, you mentioned Wisconsin perhaps losing its tax base. We saw just, you know, the other week in New York where Kathy Hochul is begging all the people she told if you don't like it here, go to Florida. Please come back from Florida where you can shovels, you know, you can come back to New York and shovel snow and we'll tax you to death. Yes. So please come back. Let us tax you to death. They're fleeing California. They're fleeing Florida. They're fleeing all of these high-tech jurisdictions, which we're also telling them they have to live in unlivable environments. They have to contend with the DEI critical theory perception of crime. They have no way to push back. If they push back, they're racist. People get sick of that crap. And if you can't afford to move and you're the one left behind. you tend to still only have a maximum amount you will be able to tolerate before you start fighting back. So again, it's not hopeless as long as people understand that they're not without options. I do appreciate the time, though, Ira. Thank you. Anytime. Thank you. And so far, I think Mullen's a pretty decent job. I mean, he's new on the job, but he does seem to be telegraphing aggressive competence. We'll be right back.

But Dodge County is now suing Kevin Morrison and Sundas Nocti because it's 100% made up. It literally never happened. Nothing even close to it happened. There isn't even something that happened that inspired her to do this. She just decided, hey, I have dark skin. I hate ICE and Trump. I'm going to make up a story and I got a buddy who's going to help me do it. And this story went viral nationally. But it never happened. They've got now video of her. Arriving at O'Hare, going through customs checks, just like normal people do, leaving the airport, getting a car, checking into a hotel, going to the spa, little shopping, and then renting another car and driving to Dodge County, Wisconsin, Beaver Dam. To be specific, probably to visit friends. And she makes up this entire story about how she was in a van and they were detaining her and it was terrifying, but literally never happened. But also, nobody checked. This is under the category too good. CBP said that's not. Let's not check out her story, even though right away. CBP said that's not how it happened. And DHS said that's not how it happened. And the Dodge County Sheriff said that's not how it happened. Because it didn't happen at all. Right away, three government agencies said that didn't happen. But that was irrelevant. The story went viral. How horrible. Beaver damn Wisconsin. Dodge County Sheriff is so terrible. That's the story that's too good to check. CBP is so terrible. ICE is so terrible. DHS is so terrible. Trump is awful. Mean orange man. He's just a racist. He just wants to, he's just sicking his ice agents on anybody with brown skin. And so now, I hope this is an FAAFO moment for these people. I'm not sure. It looks like Schmidt, the Dodge County Sheriff, in his personal capacity, having been personally defamed, is suing Kevin Morrison in Sundas Nafi for concocting this story. And then having the official stamp of the Cook County Commissioner made it seem more official. So he's suing them both. And I hope he gets something out of it. I do. Because. This is typical. If you see these stories, if you see stories like this, they're probably lies. They probably are. Like Liam Ramos. Oh, that little boy in his, you know, furry little blue cartoon characterhood. And he was kidnapped by ICE. No, he wasn't kidnapped by ICE. His father abandoned him and his mother would not take him in. She would not answer the door.

They were attempting to make contact with the father who fled on foot. They then attempted to bring the boy to his mother at their home, and she refused to open the door. And so what ICE did is got him ice cream and McDonald's until they could figure out how to get this kid to somebody who loved him. See, that story was kidnapping. Like Kilmara Alvin Bragg Garcia, he's just a Maryland dad. No, he was a gang member, MS-13 gang member. When you see these stories, they are lies. And every single person in local media does these stories. This story originated, at least in Wisconsin, WISN out of Milwaukee. They were the launch pad story. And it went, it was everywhere. No one checked. Oh, here's a hot one. People are going to click, click, click, click, click on this story. Because clicks is all that matters. Click. Got to watch the ad before you see the story. Woohoo. People are clicking. Who cares if it's a lie? We're indemnified because we're the press. We don't have to check out anything because it's really hard to sue us for defamation. It's really hard to sue us for slander and libel. It's almost impossible, in fact. Click, click, click. We just want that click revenue. Stories a lie. I hope Schmidt takes them to the cleaners. She's there getting her manny petty and a deep tissue massage and a facial at a spa. While she claims she was being manhandled and abused because she's a brown woman by Trump's DHS. All right. We're going to take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna Show. I want to come back and reset to a story in Wisconsin. Why is it that you can't just follow the law? Why won't government just follow the law? Why does it make you sue it to get it to follow the law? We'll get to that in a sack. Welcome back to the program. Why is it that you have to sue governments to get them to follow the law? This is government digs in. You say, but you're violating the law. And government says so. Sue us. Well, here we are again with this story, which is on rinse repeat. In Wisconsin, we've talked about this story, a young woman who has been pushing back against her school in New Richmond, which is, I think, St. Croix County, because boys are in the girls' bathroom, because boys are in the girls' locker room, she's being forced to sue the school. Because the school won't follow the law. Dan Lenington, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, I believe it is Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, who is representing her, joins me on the program. We've been over this, Dan. It's the law. You don't allow boys in these spaces. Title IX is clear. The guidance on Title IX was rescinded by this administration. Why does Ella have to freeze, I think is her last name, have to sue her school? to have privacy in her bathroom? Well, I think it's that the mind virus that's infected school board members and administrators and guidance counselors and school nurses is so strong that they would rather violate the law than give equal treatment to boys and girls, which is exactly what Title IX requires. Title IX, the language, the federal law that was...

past decades ago, and it says that no person in the United States on the basis of sex shall be excluded from participation in or denied benefits or be subjected to discrimination based on sex in an educational institution like a high school. And that's exactly what's going on here. There are boys' bathrooms and there are girls' bathrooms. And there is one boy in the school in New Richmond that wants to use the girls' bathrooms. And the girls are upset with this. And what the school has said to Ella and other students is that if they feel anxiety or they're worried about privacy or safety in the bathrooms... then they're allowed to use single-stall bathrooms. And the school has actually, this is a large high school. The school has actually put maps up on the walls. And we have on our complaint, the lawsuit that we filed, we included a copy of this map. And the school, and this is all over the school. It says, if you are looking to use a single-stall bathroom, please note the locations of the restrooms on the map. And Ella, among other things, and other students. She has literally missed class time because the single-stall bathrooms are located on the opposite side of the school from her classrooms requiring her to walk a long distance. And she's missed part of her lunch hour. She has suffered anxiety and discomfort based on the possibility that there's a boy in the bathroom every time she wants to go to the bathroom if she's told her story publicly. And guess who doesn't have to deal with this in New Richmond School? It's boys. So this is the very definition of sex discrimination. Girls have to put up with this inconvenience to say the least or discrimination. But boys don't have to. And that's very exactly what Title IX was passed to stop. And, you know, in addition, our Constitution. prohibits sex discrimination. And so this is unconstitutional and it violates federal law, which is something that protects the rights of students like Ella and all the other girls that are in that building today. So they lost, the people who put this policy in place, the couple of them who were up for re-election lost their seats, but it wasn't enough. The school just simply could have said, okay, all right, gosh, clear. We're clear now. They're relying on a Minnesota law firm, from what I understand. And the lawyer in Minnesota is giving them the exact opposite advice of what Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is giving. They're saying the lawyer in Minnesota is telling a Wisconsin school district, nope. You're going to have to make all those girls walk halfway across the school, wait in line to use a single stall bathroom so that one mentally unstable boy can use the facilities at his leisure. That's what apparently one lawyer is telling them and they choose to listen to that lawyer from Minnesota rather than to you, other legal advice. They're going with that guy.

Well, we're going to have to litigate this, and we may have to get up to the U.S. Supreme Court. There's a number of cases that U.S. Supreme Court that have been coming down on these gender issues. So it started with a year ago with Mahmoud, which is the case about education based on, you know, certain books and things that were, you know, the right of a parent to direct the upbringing, the educational upbringing of their child, you know, transgender books in schools. that were being sort of crammed down on parents without any notice or opportunity to opt out. And we got that right back in Mahmoud. And then just a few weeks ago, the case of Mirabelli came down, which said that, you know, secret gender transitions are unconstitutional. We're going to have the sports ban cases. up, which says, you know, West Virginia and Idaho saying that, you know, boys cannot participate in girl sports. Those are likely going to come down on the side of the parents in those cases in the states that want to ban those activities. So this will be the next, and maybe the final frontier in this legal issue is about... whether a boy can basically hold an entire school hostage to his whims on what bathroom he chooses. And do girls actually have rights? under Title IX. And I think that, you know, bathrooms is probably the last one of, hopefully the last thing that the Supreme Court has to decide. And this, you know, this is a unique case. There have been sort of some cases like this, but I think this is the only one pending right now, and maybe the first one in quite a while, which actually was brought on behalf of girls seeking privacy and rights. to under title mind. Typically, the bathroom cases are brought by the trans student, and those have been percolating for many years. But this is a unique case, and we think that this one might be worthy to go all the way of the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope it is. I do hope it is. But what it, so here's the question for you as a lawyer. Let's say, okay, New Richmond says, eesh. We're not a real, you know, deep-pocketed school district here. Dan Lenington is a good lawyer. Corey Brewer is a good lawyer. These guys are talented. We're just going to say, okay, we're going to rescind the policy. Then you guys don't have a case, correct?

Well, we have a case for what's happened in the past, and we would have to resolve that with the school districts. So they have up to this point been violating the law, and our clients are entitled to damages and were entitled to attorney's fees for what's happened so far. It would be a nice step if they rescinded the policy. But, you know, there should be some punishment. for the school board making this decision. And they can't just get away with it by just changing their policies a minute they get sued because there's a lot of time and effort that goes into putting these things together. So it doesn't foreclose the legal actions that Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty can continue to pursue. That was my question about this. I want to ask about Title IX. What's the point of Title IX? It's talking about sex discrimination, but let's talk about the point of Title IX. The intention of Title IX was to protect girls. That's who it was drafted to protect. That's who it was meant to protect. And yes, it protects from sex discrimination, but it was meant to protect girls. It's the reason why we have... investments in girls sports. It's the reason why we have protections for girls and girls' privacy because we have this law. And so the idea that somehow Title IX didn't automatically just prohibit a school board from discriminating against girls like this blows my mind. And on the sports question, Title IX in and of itself should be sufficient to answer the question. of whether or not it's okay for boys to displace girls in sports or hurt girls in sports or ruin girls' opportunities in sports. Yes, Title IX is about the distinction between boys and girls, men, and women. That is the whole point of the law is that boys and girls, men and women are different and have different needs. And the idea, you know, about Title IX. No, we have women's lacrosse teams. We have women's soccer teams. We have, you know, women's tennis. We have all these women's sports. Do we have them because they make a ton of money for the universities? No, we have them because sports teams and the sporting experience provides a particular benefit about leadership and teamwork and life lessons and hard work and paying off that is an educational benefit for the student. And if we just look at sports like UW football as like a way to make money. then there's going to be no reason to have girls sports because they don't make any money. But that's the point is not that these sports make money. It's the point that these are student athletes that are learning valuable lessons about life.

in the context of their sport. That's why we have sports in schools. We have sports in high school. We have sports in college. It's because it's an educational process to go through sports and to learn things about yourself and your teams and how to work together. I think a lot of employers will say, I'd like to hire somebody who actually participated in a high school or college sport because those people have a different set of values, a different understanding about how life works. And there's a benefit to that. And just to say, like, we're not going to protect girls sports because they don't make that much money for the, you know, the endowment or whatever is that's why Title IX was passed so that we're going to have equal access. to, you know, sports, educational offerings, facilities, all sorts of things are going to be equal because the value of these things is not in the income that they generate. The value is what the kids are getting out of them. And that's why it's important for girls and boys to have separate and equal things. We're allowed to say the separate and equal in gender and sex. We're not allowed to stay separate but equal in race, but we are allowed to stay in the sex situation because men and women are different and have different needs, and we value those differences between men and women. We all embrace those differences every day between men and women, and why can't the school district of New Richmond value those differences too? No, it is beyond bizarre. It is, it's truly, because it also protects girls, Title IX also does some other things as well. It also protects girls from sexual abuse, sexual assault, by nature of giving them private spaces as well. So Title IX confers a whole bunch of responsibility on an institution. And New Richmond is essentially saying they are not obliged. at least in this instance, to protect girls in any capacity, in any capacity whatsoever. So again, I think Title IX in itself is sufficient, but you're saying this has to get all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which is dumb. But here we are, everything, because this is what the left does. This is a progressive critical theory in action, where everything gets inverted, turned inside out, so that the meaning of discrimination becomes the opposite of what it actually is intended to mean, and the law becomes the opposite of what it's intended to protect. And so, you know, You're forced in every single instance, no matter what the policy. So we should have already had it asked and answered for these other gender-related cases that have already gone. Well, the logic applies to sports. The logic applies to bathrooms, right? But we can't do it that way, apparently, because when the progressives get a dog toy in their mouth, they shake it until all the stuffing comes out, and you're forced to actually rip it out of their teeth.

Yeah, and all along the way we're billing our time. And, you know, at the end of the day, the taxpayers of this school district are going to have to pay my bill. And if they don't like that, they should probably elect different people to their school board. And, you know, I don't like taxes going up because they have to pay attorney's fees. But that's what's going to happen. If they have to litigate this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, it would be a very expensive bill for the taxpayers by that district. Good. And so there is some punishment here, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's people need to realize they should vote for a rational... elected officials who make reasonable decisions and follow the law, not people who are imposing some gender ideology and cramming it down the throats of little teenage girls who just want to go to the bathroom and feel safe in private and do what normal girls do in bathrooms, which is different than what boys do in bathrooms, and to recognize there are differences in our sex and that we appreciate and embrace those things. In denying this idea and allowing this gender fluidity and this ridiculous behavior is just denying the existence of humanity. And it's just very offensive. And somebody's going to have to pay. If you wanted to accommodate that mentally, you know, unstable boy, you could have had him use a single stall bathroom. Simple as that. Obvious. It's the obvious answer to that. Obvious. But of course it's not the obvious answer when you're talking about critical theory and critical politics. Good to have you on the program. I don't, you know, I feel zero sympathy for people in New Richmond are going to have to pay your bills, Dan. I do. I have none. Zero for them. And you guys are good lawyers. So hopefully, you know, you charge what you're worth. Good to have you on the program. Thank you. Thank you, Vicki. Good to have you on the show, and we'll take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna Show. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. So let's do a little bit of political spitballing here. David Johnson's strategic vision is standing by. David, you can't help but start with Eric Swalwell. So let's start there. It looks like... It looks like the Dems decided they didn't want a knife fight. They wanted to beheading. This looks like an inside job to take him out. He's a creep. But everybody has known he's been a creep for a long time. So what the heck is going on with that in the, you know, pulling the stick up on the political view on that one? They were worried because he was leading in the California gubernatorial race. and they were actually horrified that he would be their nominee, probably against Steve Hilton on the Republican side, and this stuff would dump, and they could lose California. So they realized they had to get rid of him. And they decided to dump it now, force him out. I suspect we're going to begin seeing this story fade away quite a bit now that he's gone.

Yes. So now it's up to the Republicans to hold everybody's feet to the fire. And they're not interested in doing it so far, except for Anna Paulina Luna. She's interested. But there aren't a whole lot of people who are interested in pursuing who was the person behind the camera filming you with the hooker. Who are all of these people who knew this was going on? You know, that's the story we want now. And that's the story that's going to go into the dumpster. Well, and they're worried right now because they've been trying to build up Ruben Gallego from Arizona, the senator, as one of the presidential prospective candidates in 28. And it comes out that he was a big friend of and supporter of Eric Swalwell. And now, of course, he knew nothing. This Gallego actually divorced his wife when she was in the hospital nine months pregnant. And I mean, this guy's a creep too, but the Democrats are not going after him. There's quite a few other Democrats who basically knew about Solo, but they're, of course, saying now they didn't realize it was going on. And don't forget, the Democratic nominee now probably is going to be Katie Porter out in California. So they've gone from someone who physically and sexually assaulted people to someone who verbally assaulted people. Remember late last year all the stories that came out about her assaulting staff members verbally and she assaulted her husband as well. She beat her husband. She beat her husband. That's not in dispute. She actually beat her husband. So let's stay on California for a second because if Katie Porter is the nominee, does that open up an opportunity for Republicans in California? It does. It truly does. And this could be historic. I mean, some Democrats are already saying, look, if Republicans get in, we need to start a recall campaign as quickly as possible. Not based on anything, just based on the fact that. A Republican got in. That's how the Democrats are going to play it. Oh, my goodness. So they're really worried about California. We have a real potential in California. That's shocking in my lifetime. I didn't expect to see something like that. If in fact that happens, there are two Republicans and both of them are kind of split in the vote right now. Does the, does one of them get out? I don't think so. I think they both stay in. There was a chance for a while that we could have two Republicans because remember they view that jungle primary in California. But Donald Trump endorsed Steve Hilton and now the other Republicans beginning to fade after that. Okay. So it'll probably be who else besides Katie Porter is out there who could win for the Democrats? She's insane. Okay. So who is likely to win? Oh, please let it be Katie Porter. is going to be Katie Porter. Okay. I mean, the Democrats in California never go for insanity. They go for insanity. That's outstanding. So this is outstanding. It's like the best political news I can even think of. So let's move on to what is going on with, it's going to be perception of people.

vis-a-vis what Trump is doing in Iran. And, of course, what the media decides to fix on, whether that is, you know, a meme he posts, the shots at the Pope after the Pope took shots at him. How is this all shaking out in 2026 for the Republicans? Right now, it's not really hurting Republicans. People are still focused on the economy, but the problem Democrats have is there even more unpopular than Republicans are right now. It's going to be very close either way. All this talk of the blue wave, we're not seen. Look, in Virginia, voters are seeing what happens when you vote for this so-called moderate. Banberger has gone super progressive. Her numbers have tanked. The gerrymander referendum that are having on the ballot looks like it could get down to defeat. So Democrats are not in great shape. Okay. So this is different. Everybody says, well, when the party that's in power will lose the midterms. And this just looks different, is what you're saying. It really does. And a lot of it is because of the unpopularity of the Democratic Party. Voters don't think that they got the message from 24 and don't see a change. They're disgusted with the leadership. And the Democrats are going further and further to the left. Is this nascent, how do we describe this? Conflict on the right. In podcastistan, is this having any impact? I'm talking about what's been termed the woke right. These are people who pretended to be MAGA, who are now slicing and dicing Trump and all of his loyalists. In fact, some of his loyalists who are just pretending to be loyalists. Is this just a side show? Or is it something we have to worry about on the right, which could interfere with our ability in the midter? Okay, it's a side show. It seems like a side show. It seems like it could have been important and it devolved into a side show. Democrats in the media want to make it a bigger issue than it is. The focus really that we're seeing a lot is people are focused on the Democrats going almost full Nazi. Look, Graham Platner looks like he's going to win the nomination to run against Susan Collins. We are seen in Michigan. It looks like. The Muslim doctor who had Hasan Piker up to campaign for him might pull it off as well. He's pro Hamas. He's actually disputed the genocide at some point from the Holocaust. So Democrats look like they're going into crazy land. and these right wingers or whatever we want to call them, these podcasters, they're not doing the damage as much as real-life Democratic candidates are. Okay, we call them, you know, they're like critical theorists on the right. They essentially are the left. They're only approaching the exact same outcome with different rhetoric. And so we're talking about people like Tucker Carlson.

I can't think of all the names of some of them. They're only, they only exist in the online realm. The worry is that they are having an effect in that young population, particularly young male population that went for Trump. But hopefully, hopefully they went hard too soon because now they just sound stupid. I'm kind of paying attention to it tangentially, but it just, it just doesn't even, it's not even smart. No. No, it isn't. And I mean, they're going more and more crazy. every day, and we see that with their podcast. I think they're basically marginalized. If you look at polling with a lot of the young voters, they don't go along with them. They're actually pro-Israel. They support smart economic policy. So they're not polling. Yeah, this is socialism. I think a lot of it is people are facing by the craziness of these podcasters. Okay. Yeah. And because the economic policy they support is actually socialist. And so when you're when you've got a whole bunch of these young people going, um, no. I didn't sign up for that. Okay, so in Wisconsin, to your point about the Democrats really liking the people that are furthest from the center. Francesca Hong in Wisconsin, in the last poll, is the lead Democrat candidate. This is a woman who cannot stop herself from saying F-bombs. She has proposed a hooker's bill of rights. I'm not kidding. Legalizing sex workers, legalizing prostitution in Wisconsin. A hooker's bill of rights is a full-on and proud and loud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. So, you know, the Democrats, of course, they're, she's their candidate because she's DSA. She is actually leading. She's got a statewide campaign organization. And, you know, there are people like me who are cheering around to pull it off. Exactly. And I mean, that's what we're seeing. And if they do that, this is going to blow up in the Democratic state. And that should be their nightmare, but we're seeing a lot of a so-called. Democrats in leadership go and endorse these people. Elizabeth Warren yesterday campaigning in Maine with Graham Platner who proudly boasts about his Nazi tattoo. we're seeing this and nothing seems to be hitting these Democrats that they're going so far that races that they should win, they're going to lose because of what they're doing. Okay. And it doesn't, there's only certain ways that Democrats can be hurt. And that's if they're beheaded by fellow Democrats. So like I said, Democrats don't do knife fights. They do beheadings like Eric Swalwell. If they, that's the only way Democrats go down because then the media has the green light, the permission slip to do the story.

the negative story we need to take out eric swell well media says how can we help that's so all the republicans have done this story in Eric Swalwell it would be nothing you could trot out multiple accusers in the state of california and it would barely be covered it would be it would be covered but it barely be covered by local media And here's a question for you, because Gavin Newsom thinks he's going to run for president. He still thinks he's going to run for president. Does the disaster in California, is that an anvil around his neck? Or is this just something because of the way the media treats the guy, is it hard to be so good looking? That he can overcome because all of the negative information is being expressed by people who are his political opposition? No, he can't overcome it. And we're seeing that. And his wife is another albatross around him as well. And we've seen that in polling. The more people see about her and her far-woke philosophy, it turns them off. There is no way that Gavin Newsom, I think, at this point gets elected. Could he win the nomination? Yes. I mean, right now he's the frontrunner, but you usually don't want to be the frontrunner this early for the Democrats. So, yes, and I know it's too early to ask this, but I'm going to say it anyway because everyone's talking about it. In the potential on the GOP side for 2028, who right now? Who right now do you think? If he wants it, I think it's Marco Rubio. I do too, and I think too. It was very significant that JD Vance was sent over to Pakistan, and Marco Rubio was at Trump's side on Saturday. And I'm hearing more and more, even strong MAGA supporters who were very crazy about JD Vance in the beginning, who were with Trump from the very beginning, are saying here, at least in Georgia, they would prefer Marco Rubio than JD Vance. JD Vance is turning off a lot of voters. And a lot of voters feel far more comfortable with Marco Rubio. Look, even Stephen A. Smith, who's not a MAGA supporter, said that basically he would vote for Marco Rubio unless the Democrats nominate someone like Josh Shapiro, which they're not going to do. Which they're not going to do because Josh Shapiro is Jewish and supports Israel. And the Democrats will not. do that and is not a minority is a white guy they just that ain't gonna happen um david johnson so this is not doom and gloom although of course things can change give us two weeks maybe we'll bring you back and something horrible happen but it's good to have you on the program thank you let's hope not yes thank you let's pray not we'll be right back well day one of the blockade of the strait of hormuz an unqualified success. In fact, some are describing it as a coup. Iran losing somewhere around $400 to $500 million a day. You know, so $14, $15 billion a month. And it's working. It's working.

So would you like to sit down at the negotiating table? Or would you like to be broke? So we'll see how this shakes out. But, you know, is the media lit its hair on fire and claim that, you know, this is Trump being crazy Trump? No. But of course, all the headlines are bogus. But we're going to talk about a little bit more about this with Kevin Hermaning, who is not just running for Congress, but has a fair bit of firsthand knowledge about Iran. He is running for Congress in District 8. I want to get my districts right in Wisconsin. He's a former Iranian hostage and has made it, you know, his... just, you know, his personal life to understand what's going on, hopefully to have an effect in Congress someday in Wisconsin. That's coming up in the 2 o'clock hour. We'll also talk about Tony Evers' stealth decision to end truth and sentencing and what that could mean for you and your neighborhood. Have a great lunch. We'll see you back here at 2 o'clock. Good afternoon and welcome to the Vicki McKenna show. We've got number one, all kinds of technical difficulties. So if things go sideways, do bear with us. The storm has wreaked some havoc. But anyway, here's what's coming up on the program. Kevin Hermaning, who has a very unique perspective on what's going on in Iran, having been an Iranian hostage back in 1979. But he's also running for Congress. He is going to join me on the program. And we're going to get into the stealth. elimination of truth and sentencing in Wisconsin. And it's a big deal. It happened with virtually no one paying attention, but the lion's share of the reporting was done by Wisconsin right now, so we are going to talk about that as well. But here's where I want to start. Virtually no one's covering the story, and it's a Wisconsin story. I mean, imagine this. Imagine this. University of Wisconsin student. attacks Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Reporter. Or University of Wisconsin student attacks a Democratic Party activist. Would that be news in Wisconsin? Of course it would be news in Wisconsin. But when a UW Stevens Point student, her father and her mother attacked a reporter from T.P. USA. It's as if it never happened. Who is this person? This person's name is Paige Ostrusco. She is a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student. She is also featured as a University of Wisconsin-Stevens-Point soccer player. She, her father, and her mother were in Minneapolis and physically attacked. Savannah Hernandez, who is a reporter on the ground covering the protests, covering no kings, covering the ICE protests in Minneapolis. She's been arrested. She's going to be, at least according to Harmeet Dillon of the Department of Justice, she is going to be charged by the USDAJ. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division says they're investigating and likely bringing charges.

against a University of Wisconsin Stevens Point student. She was arrested. There's virtually no coverage of this anywhere to be found in our state. Why? Why is that? There's video of this assault. It's on video. Savannah Hernandez is about my size, maybe 5354, probably weighs a little less than me. And this woman, her dad and mother, and in particular her dad, shoved this little lady so hard. She almost went airborne. All she was doing was taking her iPhone and filming a protest. She wasn't interacting with anyone. This is all on video. She wasn't up in anybody's face. She was just filming. And it's not even a story. It would be a story if I did it. It'd be a story of someone on the right attacks someone on the left. It would be a story. In fact, not only would it be a story, it would be a national story. Now, this story is something of a national story. It's just not much of a national story. So the way you're going to find it is if you're going to go on X or you're going to go on Facebook. That's the only place you can find it. Newsmax did a quick feature on the story and announced that Harmeet Dillon intended to pursue charges against this family. What they were doing in Minneapolis? Who knows? Why do they think it was okay to assault a reporter? Who knows? Actually, a whole bunch of people say these folks are known for this kind of behavior. So known quantities. No, I'm not sure what her status at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is or on the soccer team. It appears that the soccer team has scrubbed her picture from their roster. It doesn't mean that she's been kicked off the team or kicked out of school or anything like that. But it would be a story. If an allegation were made, as I talked about earlier in my program, an allegation was made against the Dodge County Sheriff. It was a completely false allegation. But that story went national for a week and a half. A week and a half. And it turned out to be a lie. There's video of this. And it's the only place you're going to find it is on the right. So I wanted to open with that. We're going to, again, come back here and talk about the disinterest that the left has in the rule of law and injustice, as is proved here. They do not care that a woman attacked a reporter. They'd only care based on the political identifications of both sides. So we'll come back and we'll talk more about the big middle finger to justice. that Tony Evers has decided to fly on his way out the door, and more on this with Jessica McBride. And also, as I mentioned before, Kevin Hermaning is going to join me. We'll be right back on the Vicki McKenna Show. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. And as I've been promising, I wanted to get Jessica McBride on the program.

to talk about a story that really did escape attention until Wisconsin right now did this story. And that was a quiet move by Tony Evers to essentially undo truth and sentencing, at least truth and sentencing for a very large category of very dangerous people. So I bring around the program to talk about this story. I missed it. It was early April when he did this. It wasn't until I saw your story that I realized it had happened. Thanks for joining me on the program. Yeah, Vicki, thanks for having me. The reason everyone missed it, to be honest with you, is because he dropped it on Good Friday, okay, which was obviously intentional. And so I'll be honest with you. I saw it fly past, and I didn't dig into the details of it because it was Easter weekend, you know, and I was busy with family. And then I received a text from a judge, a very respected conservative judge, and he flagged it for me, you know, like two days ago and said, this is. horrific, you need to look at the parameters that he set here. Now, let's be clear, like under the state constitution, the governor does have the authority to grant commutations. Like, that part's not new. But it had not been done for 25 years in the state. And before that, Tommy Thompson granted seven commutations in 14 years that he was in office. So this has happened seven times in 39 years, not at all under Doyle and McCallum and Walker and even Evers first term. So Evers does not have to do this. He is choosing to do this. And the parameters he set, which again, that's a choice, like which categories he's excluding and including in this new process, he set up via executive order creating this board and all of this to do to fast track this. That's a choice. Right? Like he made a decision. And what shocked the judge and shocked me is that he chose to include first degree intentional homicide lifers in this equation. Like they qualify as long as they've served 20 years and they're not a sex offender or didn't commit physical abuse of a child. So there's a list of like five or six. offenses that he did roll out, and they're mostly sex offenders. But notably, he didn't roll out homicide, even life without parole. And so when I said, like, basically, this is ending truth and sentencing. What I mean by that is these families were promised certainty when the truth and sentencing reform came to be in like 2000, right? This eliminated the old parole. And now you were getting a, you know, a determinate sentence where families knew life meant life. If you got 20 years, you serve 20 years. Well, that's been a race. That certainty has been erased for these family members. Well, and here's the thing. He sets up a board. So it's one thing. The governor has authority. The governor can review cases. This is a particularly interesting case. This person has turned his life around or whatever. But he set up a board. And it almost sounds like the parameters mean for the board to consider this somewhat automatic. That's my concern.

is that as long as you've served 20 years, have your sentence, as long as you haven't had any violent offenses in the last five years of your prison sentence, et cetera, as long as all these things, you can check these boxes and it's not that much of a box to check, you're good to go. You're automatically at least on the pile. And then what does the commutation board use to say no? What is there, what is, in a first degree intentional homicide is there? What are they used to say no? And we're talking about people who would qualify, people like, and you mentioned this in your latest update, Stephen Avery. I mean, Stephen Avery, who's got a bit of a fan base, could potentially find his, his file before this commutation board. And then the commutation board says, here you go, Evers, rubber stamps it, or whichever governor rubber stamps it, you're good to go. Yeah, let's talk about Avery for a second and we'll walk people through why he would qualify, okay, because that seems shocking. Like, could that possibly be true, Stephen Avery? I mean, he was convicted of murdering a young photographer than putting her in the burn pit behind his creepy trailer in Manitua County. We all know the case. Okay, so Stephen Avery was convicted of homicide, and his only other offense was a fallen in possession of firearm count, which was run concurrent. So under Evers new system, people who have life terms for homicide qualify to seek release after 20 years. I'm sorry, Avery has served 20 years. Now, sex offenders don't qualify. So, like, Jeffrey Dahmer wouldn't have qualified because he had a sex offense and he was a registered sex offender before he started doing all the murders or whatever, okay? So I researched that on Avery. And although he was charged with sexual assault, that that count got dismissed. He was never convicted of it. And of course, we all know he was once convicted of sexual assault in like 1985, served, you know, time in prison. But he was exonerated in that. And in that case, he actually didn't do that rape. Like everyone acknowledges. He didn't do that original rape, right? So I see no prohibition under the parameters that you've set. on Stephen Avery, unless this is the one thing I don't know, is what is prison discipline history is like. Like if he committed violent incidents in prison in the last five years, then he has to wait another five years and stay clean, you know, behaviorally in prison to qualify. So this, you know, Tony Evers is doing this. Expect a big wave. before he leaves office. Oh, yeah. So expect a big wave. And he's very much a fan of this. And we can go over the initial reporting that it's different, but it's similar of all of these unbelievably violent offenders who were being given their ticket to freedom. And that was reporting that was done a few years ago by Wisconsin right now. But so expect a big wave of this. And if Francesca Hong...

is governor if mandela barns is governor i mean you know de-incarceration is sexy is governor if if any of the democrats the front-runner democrats would become governor this commutation board stays in place this continues to happen the only way this would go away is if Tom Tiffany were elected governor right and it's not only these old cases It's also new cases. So let's talk about a couple of those, the fresh ones. So another piece of this is that Evers said, you know, anyone serving time who isn't like basically a sex offender or child abuser and kept their nose clean in prison. Okay. They qualify if they've served 50% of their sentence. They can now ask to get out. And anyone, okay? And the lifers again 20 years. So what about Maxwell Anderson? This is this guy in Milwaukee. He murdered Sharday Robinson, this young woman. and and just dismembered her, and then put her body parts, sorry to be graphic, like all over the city of Milwaukee. Well, this guy got a life prison term ostensibly without parole, but now under Evers' scheme. He can qualify to seek release in 24.5 years, as long as he doesn't misbehave in prison. What about Matthew Rittner, police officer, and, you know, Mike McCulte, another beloved Milwaukee police officer. They were both murdered in the last couple years. Their killers receive life terms with no chance to get out, you know, ever see the light of day. Well, now under Evers' theme... They do qualify, actually, and we calculated that. In the case of Rittner's killer, he can speak released in 13 years now. And in the case, Mikulski, it's something like he has 20 more years to go before he could speak release. Now, imagine what that does to these families. So Iver supporters will probably trot out and say, well, in these worst cases, Evers will just reject them. He'll say no, because the ultimate... authority under this new process is with evers with the governor okay is the sole authority to do this Well, okay, but the families are now going to go through this trauma that they shouldn't have to go through of wondering whether these people will get out of fighting against these releases. And frankly, why would Evers include homicide lifers if he didn't think they would have a chance to get out? I don't trust him. I mean, you mentioned, look what he did with the old parole, his appointee.

Yes, we're some of the worst, were some of the worst violent offenders in Wisconsin were let out. And people only discovered it after it happened or while it was in the process of being processed. And Ivers, you know, wiped his hands of that and said it wasn't me. I wasn't the one who did that. But let's go to the 50%. So if you're not a lifer and you're not a sex offender and you served half your time. Are you saying that people who, let's say you got convicted of a homicide, but it was a second degree homicide, and you got 30 years or 18 years. Is this saying that if you're serving nine of your sentence, you're good to go? Say if you're an 18 year, if you got 18 years or if you got a 10 year sentence, if you serve five, you're good to go. The 50% is for the non-life sentences, right? Correct. There's a lot of those. There's a lot of those. And there's thousands and thousands of those. And so he's basically saying 50 percent, he served 50 percent of the time you got from a judge that you now qualify to ask Evers secretive board. for release, for early release. And there's some other concerns in the process he set up. For example, bizarrely, he left it up to the inmates to notify the judge and the DA. So the judge and the DA can object if they find out this is happening, but they don't have the final say. This board then makes advisory recommendations to the governor who has the ultimate say, and he can overrule the judge and the DA anyway. He left it up to the inmates to do the notifications. Why wouldn't you require the state to do that? That's just bizarre. And I saw nothing in the process that indicates they're going to check to make sure the inmates actually did this. There's so many flaws in this system. And so the judge I was talking to and some prosecutors I was talking to, they believe there's going to be just an absolute flood, you know, of these applications from inmates all over the state. They're going to swamp this board. And they're concerned, this isn't, they're not even going to have hearings on most of these. They're just going to like rubber stamp these releases like like a. assembly line. This is a governor, by the way, let's remember, who promised to reduce the prison population by 50%. Well, this is how he's going to get it done. And again, if we are dumb enough to let a Democrat get elected, this will be reality in Wisconsin for a very long time. That's the concern. And expect, I mean, start paying attention. Expect to see the moment this board is seated and it will be seated before Tony Evers leaves. Expect to see the first wave and it will probably be relatively shocking. And it will survive.

It won't survive of Tom Tiffany's governor. Tom Tiffany will look at this and say it's an executive order. I'm tearing it up. But if any of the other candidates, Democratic candidates, get into the East Wing, this is going to be our reality until they're gone. Great reporting. And I appreciate that judge for giving you the heads up on this. Thank you very much for joining me on the show today. Thanks, Ricky. And we're going to take a break. That was Jessica McBride, Wisconsin right now. And we will be right back. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. And I'm very delighted and honored to have back on the show, Kevin Hermaning, who is a candidate for Congress, Republican candidate for Congress in District 7 in the central part of the state. But he also has the distinction of being a survivor of the original Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979. And so it is in your capacity as a candidate and your capacity as a businessman and as a family man, but also in your personal experience. and your knowledge about what is going on in the region in Iran. That's why I bring you back on the show. So thanks, Kevin, for joining me. Thank you, Vicki. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with your listeners. I want to start by talking about the way this is being reported. And remember, 70% of people never click beyond the headline. Okay? That's a fact. Most people read the headline. It comes across their phone. That's what they think. And they think they know everything. The headlines that are being generated, be it Google, Apple News, whatever it is. All the headlines are negative. All the headlines are using the keyword already, which is quagmire. And on top of that, they're describing President Trump as a lunatic, you know, it's the Antichrist, et cetera. So they're describing what amounts to a disaster. in our efforts to topple Iran and seize control of the region because that really is what we're trying to do. It's not even close to true. So let's start with that as someone who understands what's going on with the complete opposite perception of what reality at least seems to be if you're looking 10 centimeters deep. Well, there's no doubt that the president did the right thing back in late February by... trying to, once again, bring an end to the Iranian government, the regime's nuclear ambitions. It's not just the United States that for decades has been saying that Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon. Even NATO, which has certainly not been pulling its weight in this effort. Quite often, that is the case with NATO. But they've been saying that forever. The IAEA, which was supposed to have been doing a good job of looking at the efforts of the Iranian regime in pursuing their so-called nuclear power, they really never truly got to the bottom line in looking at how much, how advanced their efforts were to enrich uranium. But this is not a quagmire.

That's what we're hearing right now. A quagmire, let's face it, I think as I would analyze it, really it isn't just a war. It's a war that becomes a long-term factor with no clear end. I mean, we're nowhere near that. Oftentimes, a quagmire would involve ground troops that can't go anywhere, and we don't have that. You know, we don't have untargeted or... untargeted, I think, is our strategic objectives as far as the use of our weapons. I think that that's been something that we've done a good job of so far. But this does meet the narrative of the left in particular, and the pacifists and those who, for some reason, especially the so-called feminists who always say that they look out for the woman. Women have been oppressed and abused in Iran and in the Shia Muslim community for decades. And the feminist communities have done nothing, much less left side here in the U.S. Yeah. So we have targets. We have clear targets. We don't have indiscriminate or rather effusive targets. We have very clear targets. So militarily, we know what we're supposed to do. Our military knows what it's supposed to do. It has clear rules of engagement that's something else that was missing from if you were going to describe something as a quagmire. You've got a bureaucratic mess that is confusing the troops on the ground, right? They don't quite know what they're supposed to do. Sometimes they're doing things that are the exact opposite of what seems to be the right thing to do. So that's not happening. So we've got clear military targets. We've got the, you know, clear rules of engagement. We have a clear strategy because the president's been very abundantly clear on this. We have a success so far with the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. It's a success. Iran is losing $400 to $500 million a day. We have, we are holding the cards, the energy cards for that country. and for its nefarious allies, Russia and China. And we made that even easier for ourselves by going to Venezuela and working on Cuba first. So it seems to me the strategy is kind of clear to see. What's the long term? I don't think it's going to be military. I think that's what our Arab allies are going to be involved in. I think our long term is managing the new. geopolitical order. I think that's long term and that ain't a quagmire because it really hasn't begun yet. Well, that's true. I mean, but we do have to keep in mind, I shouldn't say but. I should say and Iran, we have to be aware of. They don't really need to win. They need to endure. And they've been doing that for nearly 50 years.

We have to ensure that we gradually move, not the goalpost, but move the strategic direction as each new element of the war progresses, right? None of us wants to be at war right now. But Iran has been chanting death to America, which is just words, but they've actually been doing so much more. And that's what the left ignores. Yes, they captured the 52 Americans at the embassy in Iran. That was my role in it. But look at all the troops that they've killed throughout the last 50 years, starting with their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthi rebels by attacking our bases, our Marine Corps barracks over in Lebanon. This has been going on forever, the IEDs that they planted in the war when we were in Afghanistan and Iraq. So many of our young men and women maimed and killed. traumatic brain injuries. It's just been terrible. I've met so many of those who've been affected by the war, the war that's been going on, the Islamic War against the West for the last 45, 47 years. And we have to... especially now that we engaged back in late February, we have to finish this because if we don't, we're going to be right back here another five to ten years. Yeah, I think so. And I think that endure is the word. The Iranians, not even the regime, the regime is. not enduring because it's pretty much gone now you have somewhere 13 to 14 different factions that are vying for control of what's left over um they can endure because they're not centralized so when you hear about negotiations um you know a lot of that seems like box checking to me we're negotiating well you're negotiating with a faction You're really not negotiating with any one particular unified government. So that seems to me almost like we're just checking boxes. We're, okay, we're negotiating. All right. Well, the negotiations fail. We have a ceasefire. Of course, the ceasefire is going to fail. I think the United States understands that. And I do think that the ultimate goal, of course, besides, you know, protecting the United States from the Islamic Theocracy and the spread of it, which noticed what has happened to Western Europe and Canada. and places like that. But it's also that it has been essentially selling oil on the cheap to our biggest geopolitical enemy, which is China. And they're suffering right now. They are having, they're 17% of their oil reserves and their energy reserves come from the Iranian supplies. So there's like big, there's big picture stuff to look at as well. There is. And I would say that the lesson of history, to me, is actually pretty simple, that if we don't define the end of this war effort at the present time and even a few weeks ago at the beginning of it, the conflict ends up defining it for us. And so...

In any negotiation or any discussion with an adversary, you need two honest brokers. The Iranians have proven themselves for a long time to rarely send an honest broker to the table. In everything and anything, going back to 1979 to 1981. So it's not a big surprise that they walked away from the table the other day. They brought a list of completely unrealistic demands, as though we hadn't even shown up in the Gulf over the course of the last six weeks. And so what we're going to see next is a continuation of obfuscation. They're going to be trying to pretend that their military has not been decimated. It's not been destroyed. We still see their mobile missile launchers. They're still able to use their drones. They're manufacturing in the backyard of a lot of these homes right now and the places that seemingly are off the beaten path. But we've got to be very careful about what it looks like if we do commit troops on the ground. I would like to see the president lay out and his military leaders. And thank God we have a president who seems to be relying on the military leaders rather than social workers, which it seems was what's happened for the last 20 years under Obama and Biden. And, you know, it doesn't mean that the president and his team. Shouldn't have some criticism. We need to be aware and realistic that this wasn't going to be a one strike and it's over, right? Perhaps that might have been one thing that the president failed at in his initial 2 AM announcement that we were going there that this was going to be over in a few weeks. It's not that quick. It's not that easy, but there are economic considerations. You know, a lot of people aren't putting this fully into the context of what he did in Venezuela and why that was so important. And I think, I honestly God, I think that Cuba is next. People just needed to, you know, dust off a history book and realize that the Monroe Doctrine exists for a reason. Can you imagine many people say, well, you know, why do we have to act now? Were we supposed to wait until under the cover of darkness? A couple of Iranian missiles were put into the bottom of a ship and, you know, sail right into the Venezuelan or the Havana port, 70 to 70 miles to 1,300 miles off the coast of Miami. And then suddenly what are we supposed to do at that point? That would remind me of the surprise at Pearl Harbor, you know. By then it's too late, Vicki. We have to have acted because... We know that the intelligence gathering that has been done for the last quarter century has often been suspect, but the Iranians themselves proved that just a couple weeks ago that they had the ability to deliver long range, 2,500 miles nearly long range of missile that targeted Diego Garcia are based in the Indian Ocean. Well, and that's not even being, I mean, you're not even seeing people speculate on that. It's all about just, you know, sort of beating down the war effort. And the promise, I guess this is what I'll ask you to end the segment with. The promise of.

the reset of the quote rules-based order. So we don't have those risks, a Pearl Harbor style attack on the United States. We don't have the same level of existential risk. But beyond that, we would be the ones in control. So you had mentioned them in the road doctrine. That's about giving us control over the Western Hemisphere. But we would be the ones sitting in the driver's seat of global control. It wouldn't be Russia, China, and Iran. We wouldn't have to be worrying about these things. That's what I think everyone's missing. And I think that's sort of the big picture goal here. High risk, right? But extremely high reward if it happens. Well, Vicki, last night in the 7th District, we had a candidate forum up in Phillips. It was the first of many. And the final question that the moderator asked the candidates. And we all had the same answer. I had the privilege of going first was what is the single most? critical threat to the United States in our future. And I thought, but I quickly answered nonetheless, it's China. And yes, certainly Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism and the axis of evil is important, but China is our world's biggest threat, our nation's biggest threat to the future. China is fueled by Iranian oil, cheap Iranian oil, subsidized Iranian oil. And we should not give control to China of... They're our enemy. We should not give to them a clear opportunity to defeat our nation economically, which they've been doing for a long time and potentially militarily and our allies in their part of the world as well. So, you know, we have to use our military for deterrence and protection, not mission creep. So that's important. So we're in the middle of a blockade, right? Or supposedly we're going to have a blockade. It needs to be conditional, not endless. You know, state the benchmarks. I think the president started to do that and have a short review cycle. Go back to it and make sure. And then pairing all of that pressure with humanitarian discipline. So we have to have strict discipline and inspection of regimes and pressure on their military and regime assets. And I pray every day that the Iranian government will change its leadership. But that's not up to us. That's up to them. We can't install their next leader. If the big, you know, goal is China, they already want to talk. So all, again, if the big goal is like we say it is, China, they want to have a conversation with President Trump. Why? Because 17 to 20% of their energy resources come from Iran, because they are powered on cheap, subsidized, and manipulated currency purchases of sanctioned oil. So everyone just needs to kind of, just. Don't, you don't need the hot take. No one needs a hot take on this because this is, this is not something that happens in the course of a social media, a social media, you know, cycle. It's something that is going to go on for some time. And the goal, I think everyone needs to keep their eye on, is to have the United States back in the driver's seat of the rules based order. I do appreciate the time. Kevin Hermining, where can people find more about you if they want to learn more about you as a candidate?

Either at Kevin Harmanin.com or on our Facebook page, Kevin for Wisconsin. Good to have you. Thank you so much for joining me, Kevin. Thank you, Vicki. And we will take a quick break on the Bickey McKenna show. That is going to do it for me. Thank goodness the technology held throughout the program. It was touching go there, people. But coming up on tomorrow's program, we'll check in with Tom Tiffany, is a gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany. But also I want to talk about something the Democrats just introduced. Well, what would that be? How about a way to punish law-abiding, lawful gun owners? if someone commits a crime against them by stealing their guns. Yes, the Democrats have introduced legislation that would make it a crime if your gun gets stolen. We will talk about that and the assaults on the state's concealed carry law, which has also been rolled out by the Democrats on tomorrow's program. So definitely tune in for that. Everybody have a great afternoon. We will see you back here tomorrow. Ready to put a little spin on your day? Then check out Chumba Casino's new online social casino game. Ryan Seacrest 10K Waves. It's free and packed with 10,000 ways to play. Only at Chamba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Voidware prohibited by law. CTs and C is 21 Plus. Sponsored by Chumpa Casino. This is the race fans wait for all year. EMSA returns to Virginia International Raceway, August 21 through 23rd, as the world's top GT teams and drivers battle for championship points on VIR's iconic road course. See Porsche, BMW, Corvette, Mercedes-AmG, Ford, and more competing wheel-to-wheel. Three days of racing, paddock access, and nonstop action. Secure your tickets now at racevIR.com. That's r-A-C-V-I-R.com. What's going on, everyone? It's Bluff here, and we're driving through the States in the BluffMobile, and the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino-style games on SpinQuest. They have over a thousand games, including Live Dealer Blackjack and Crops, with tons of slots and unlimited. You can get a $30 coin pack for just $10 for new users. Sign up today. Go to SpinQuest.com right now. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visitspenquest.com for more details. Saturday, July 25th. I know I will be the best welterweight in the world. An undefeated phenom. Batman is a rising star. And a frightening force. What's a win for Shalmila! Ascend on the nation's capital to fight for gold. Thad, the silverback jeans. Silverback Nation makes them noise. Versus Shemil Musayev. All it's over! For the PFL welterweight world title. Saturday, July 25th at 10 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. These days, it's getting harder and harder to trust what you're seeing. Who made it? Is it real? But with iHeart, everything you hear is guaranteed human. That's why 78% of listeners trust their favorite radio hosts product recommendations.

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