Vicki McKenna Show - Lack of Attention in American Media

Good morning. Welcome to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. Before we get to anything, which is, by the way, going to include some updates on what's going on in Iran. I don't know why no one's talking about that. That's kind of mind-boggling. The currency collapsed to zero against the euro. You have got, I mean, virtually every city overrun with protesters. The regime is... running out of money, doesn't have reserves. You've got mass crowds overwhelming the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. It's just, anyway, we'll get some info on that and how we got to a point where maybe finally this latest iteration of a revolution sticks. And the Islamic fascist regime of Iran collapses. President Trump's also threatened to reverse 25% tariff on anybody doing business with Iran, who also wants to do business with the United States. It's interesting. More than interesting, it could be like Berlin Wall level event. All right, but before we get to that, we'll also get into health care. This is a lot of people coming off their parents' insurance policies, and they're wondering, what? We'll talk about maybe ways to get at some of the price problems in health care, the politics and the fallout of, you know, agitation. What are we on now? Agitation 18.1.6. What's my iOS? I think we're at 26.01. Okay. I think that's probably where we are in the iteration of agitation. performances by the left so we'll talk about that fallout lots more coming up Ron Johnson's going to be on the program here's your word to win for our cash contest pay that's your word today is tuesday january thirteenth and the word for the nine a m hour is pay i have a list pay We'll pay up, sucker. All right. So I hope you win. All you got to do is go to our website, WIBA.com. The link works. It was up and down yesterday. I apologize for that. We got it fixed. We got a fixed before the end of the first hour. So it's good. Enter the keyword. We will not spam you. We will not sell your information. We just want you to go to our website and see all the great content. Pay. WIBA.com, it's a nationwide contest. We had one winner yesterday from our Wisconsin family of radio stations, so that includes Milwaukee. They were listening to the Clay and Buck Show. I forget the name of the person. But we already had a winner. So this is one of those things where we win lots. When I say we Wisconsin people, I don't know why. Maybe because algorithms can't be truly randomized. But I groked that. And Grok says algorithms can be truly randomized. So I can't quite explain it. But anyway, who cares? It means good on us. You could win money. We will call you if you win. All right? We will call you if you win. So let me, because we're going to get into this coming up.

on health care. I'm going to get to Iran, but on health care. I just saw a video of a guy, and he's filming himself calling the customer service number on his, on the back of whatever bill he got. He was billed for an ambulance transport for his daughter, $600 some odd dollars. He then... submitted his insurance, and he was given a different bill, a new bill, updated bill for $1,300. So he was given a cash price of $600, basically. When he submitted his insurance, a brand new bill was generated for $1,300. That just seems bizarre, right? Yes. It happened to me. A few months ago, which I detailed here. The cash price on two procedures for common screening things that I had were $1,400 more, I'm sorry, 1,400 percent more than what the cash price would have been.

That's a scam. How do you get to... Now, there was nothing that guy could do who was filming himself having this conversation. Well, can I just go back to the cash price? Well, no, sorry, you already submitted your insurance. Well, what if I canceled my insurance? Well, you already submitted your insurance. You have to pay the $1,300 instead of the $600, or instead of the $600. $700 more. In my case, it was going to be $2,300 more. This is what happens when you let... Companies that are vertically integrated decide how to rig pricing so only they benefit. What is the, I mean, the short lesson here is it would be better to have a cash payment system. It would be better to build on that. How can you do it, however, if you have no idea. what all of the cash prices are for your services. And you don't. It's hard to find all the cash prices. You can find maybe about 100 cash prices. If you download a machine readable file and you have the capacity to read it, which I did not, you can find 100 to 150 cash prices for common things. No one is, I mean, we're just not even at the point where we're like, let's just go to cash. Let's just price this stuff in cash. Big middle finger to the insurance company. So we're not there. Some people are because that's where they got to be. And they have to negotiate for cash. But at the very least, when your company is negotiating for insurance coverage for you, can your company see? How bad? They're getting ripped off. Can at least the company have access to that? No. No. Your company's not allowed to have access to how they are pricing procedures, how they are pricing different types of screening, et cetera. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break. We'll come back and talk more about this because in order to make all of this happen, in order to make it fairer, you have to pass legislation. And legislation is moving at a turtle's pace. One step, one step, one step, very slowly. We've got a piece of legislation moving through the Wisconsin legislature that isn't going to solve the problem, but it's going to help. We'll talk about that next. This is the Vicki McKenna Show. Hey, welcome back to the program. Here's a wild idea. This is not the bill we're going to talk about, but I'm just throwing this out there if somebody in the legislature wants to pick it up and run with it. You should have the option to use your insurance or not use your insurance. In my case, which was a screening procedure that I got, I was billed $3,400 for it, $3,400. The actual cash cost was around $350. But I was billed $3,400 of that. Of that, I received a bill for my insurance company for $1,300. The cash price was around $350.

So I should have the option. But you don't. You don't. Because the way health plans work, the way system medicine processes payments, once you have submitted insurance, you're stuck like it or not. Also, you have really no good idea of what the actual cost is. You might have an estimate on what your insurance billed cost is going to be. Sometimes you might not. We have companies that have no idea how they are getting billed for the policies that they are presenting to their employees. Scott Manley, help us unpack all of this because there are a couple of decent pieces of legislation that could help, if not completely solve the problem, at least improve the process. Yeah, absolutely, Vicki. And thanks for having me on. I think before we talk about what the solutions are, we need to define the problem. Let's do that, especially for employers. Yeah, and the problem in Wisconsin with the high cost of health care is uniquely bad. We have the fourth highest hospital costs in the country. right here in Wisconsin. And we are absolutely a top 10 state, if not a top five state, just for the cost of health care in general. But hospitals, as you know, because there has been so much consolidation, and it's difficult to even find a medical provider anymore that's not affiliated with a hospital network. They are the vast majority of the providers and the spend. And so when you have costs that are, you know, the fourth highest in the country, obviously you want to get your arms around that and look for ways to reduce those costs. And most people in Wisconsin who aren't, you know, over 65 years old and on Medicare get their health insurance from their employer. So this is a big deal to employers who are typically paying 80 to 85% of those costs on behalf of their employees. But it's a big deal to employees too. Because not only do they pay for part of their premiums, but a lot of employees, in fact, I would argue probably the majority of employees have a deductible plan where they have to spend money out of their pocket. before their insurer coverage even kicks in. Yep. So what do you do about it? I think whether you're talking about Senator Hutton's bill that would give employers more access to utilization data and so forth, which the businesses, our members have told us they strongly, strongly support that. I mean, there's the old saying, you can't improve something unless you can measure it. And you can't measure something unless you have access to data. But I think the real game changer could be the price transparency piece because that will allow consumers of health care to actually act like consumers. Well, yeah. And I'm going to just complain a little bit about that legislation. That says provide machine readable file. And some health systems actually do that. Try opening one and reading it.

You know, it should be all health systems should provide it in a search box at the top of their websites or on their apps. I should be able to search. An AI should take my description of what I need and produce something that looks like an estimated price for cash. And then I can submit my insurance information and see what it's going to cost me if I submit insurance. That's the simplest thing. But I'm sorry, I got ahead of you. So this is Senator Bradley's bill on price transparency. I think it could be a little bit better, but it's better than nothing, certainly. That forces everyone to actually have to publicly post prices, correct? That's correct. And right now they're largely hidden. And you're right, machine readable files for the average person who isn't familiar with Excel spreadsheets and so forth would find it difficult to use so that what you suggested would be a helpful improvement. But the bottom line is that the prices are hidden. Nobody knows how much anything costs. So they can't make informed decisions as consumers. And if they can't make informed decisions as consumers, there is going to be no competition in the marketplace. There will be no reason for medical providers. to, you know, go lower their prices to be competitive. And I think the big secret of healthcare that a lot of people don't fully appreciate is that there are wide, and I mean wide variations of what medical providers charge for each procedure. You can go to one clinic and get a MRI. for $300 and go to another clinic and get an MRI for $3,000. And people don't know that because the prices are hidden. So if you have health insurance from your employer and you've got to pay for the first $2,500 of your medical care out of your own pocket before your insurance kicks in, and you need an MRI. Do you want to pay $300 for that MRI? Or do you want to pay $3,000? Correct. So let's go back to when we, when HSAs came on the scene. You've got your HSA. That's supposed to be your pre-tax savings that you can use to pay that deductible. The whole point of it, the whole point of the HSA, the whole point of the deductible was that you and I would be consumers. We would act like consumers. We would shop around. You can't. You can't. That's the problem. Now we just get hammered with deductibles and our HSAs are limited. You know, there's only so much, you can obviously put additional money into your HSA, but what your employer puts into your HSA has gone down.

Imagine if you went to buy a car or a laptop or a TV or a refrigerator and you don't know how much it costs and they'll just give you the bill after you purchased it and whatever that bill is you have to pay. That's ridiculous. Health care is literally the only service in our economy and it's a massive one, by the way. where consumers have no ability to make choices based on cost because they have no idea how much anything in the system cost. And that's how you end up with one medical provider charging, you know, X amount, you know, for a procedure and another one charging 10x. And that's how when consolidation happens, nobody complains. When functional monopolies actually now exist and in segments of Wisconsin like they do in southern Wisconsin, nobody complains, right? Because they don't know the actual cost in the first place. So it doesn't really think, it doesn't make them say, geez, maybe if all of these systems get together and consolidate, they're going to price set. They don't think that way because they don't see the price in the first place. They submit to their insurance. And then they get the bill. And then, you know, they get kind of an estimate in their my chart. And then sometimes it's right. Sometimes it's not. But let's talk about the employers. Out of the gate, employers are forking out, what, $25,000 per employee to cover them? For a family plan. Right, for a family plan? You wonder why employers want to keep people beneath 39 and a half hours? You know, I mean, you wonder why employers want to keep people if they can at maxed out part time? Because it costs 25 grand to put you to work in the first place on top of all the other regulatory compliance. You and I talk about. Yeah, and really for employers, it is a big health care for their employees is a big, big cost of doing business. And people, I think, need to appreciate that that's all part of the total compensation for employees. So every dollar that an employer has to spend on health care coverage for their employee is a dollar that they can't use to raise that employee's wages. Yep. So if we can enact some reforms like price transparency and other reforms that will allow employers to get their arms around this and maybe help them design plans for their employees that are going to be more affordable and more effective, that's going to free up money for wage increases. Because again, that's all part of the total compensation. package for every employee. And so I think these reforms, although they will be good for employers, they'll be even better for employees. Well, that's because you can only suck up so much cost. If you're an employer and you're already saying, okay, well, I can maybe afford the $25,000 per employee. I can't afford $28,000 per employee. So I'm passing along the increased cost to my employee. Employee says, that's not fair. gripe, gripe, gripe, double digit premium increases. I got a double digit premium increase. So we all complain about that. And no one actually says, well, you know, what's driving this? Most of us will either blame our employer, we'll blame the insurance company. You know, but really, if you don't let people know what the price is, there's no way for them to use their HSA and to be able to shop around because the deductibles, the reason the deductibles keep

going up is because it's trying to control costs of the actual premiums themselves. That is going to be an ever upratcheting pressure on people's finances forever if we don't do something about it. Yeah, I'll just look at the Obamacare insurance market, which is an absolute disaster and has been ever since it was enacted into law. But, Vicki, the average out-of-pocket deductible for the bronze tier of coverage under Obamacare is $7,000 per year. Yeah, that's the low, that's the low tier. That's insane. So you've got to spend $7,000, in addition to your premiums, by the way, before any of your coverage kicks in. And $7,000 is a lot of money to a lot of people. And if you have to spend that $7,000 and you don't know what prices are so that you can shop around and get the best health care and the most health care coverage for your $7,000. What good is it? I mean, what are we even doing? Those big deductibles, like $7,000, we saw 300% premium increases in some of those plans. I think the bronze plans went up the least. But people are dropping from silver plans to bronze plans. By the way, if you're healthy, as I've said, we've got American Medical on the program as an advertiser. Please go check them out because if you're healthy, you're going to save some money if you get off the exchange. But anyway. Those big deductibles. And I have a friend who's got an $8,000 deductible. And that's employer coverage. You're functionally a cash customer at that point. If you don't have a preexisting condition, which, by the way, gets you trapped in Obamacare, if you don't have one of those problems that you're automatically going to spend, you know, $7,000, $8,000 a year on your health care, you're a cash customer. But you're not treated like a cash customer. That insurance policy makes you pay more. It makes you pay more. And that ticks me off too. And that's why I hope someone out there is listening and saying we can work on that. Give people the option to either check the box. Yes, please submit this to my insurance or do not check the box and let them use their HSA to pay cash. Well, we've got a lot of reforms that need to happen. And I'm actually really encouraged by the progress that's being made on some of these bills. I mean, take, for example, this price transparency bill that Senator Bradley and Senator Felskowski are championing. It's Senate Bill 383, by the way. It passed out of committee last week on a bipartisan vote. And by the way, that is the first time in like the past, I think we've been trying to do this for at least three sessions in a row now, maybe even more. That's the first time the bill's ever been able to pass out a committee.

So that's a big deal. That's a big milestone. That's not a guarantee that it's going to pass both houses of the legislature or that Governor Evers would sign it. But it's progress and we need to be making progress on this because it's being the fourth highest cost state in the country is not competitive. It's not good for businesses. It's not good for employees. Yeah, and when we talk about affordability, as we're talking about affordability, affordability, it's three things. It's health care costs, it's housing, and it's energy. And one of the big, and we talk about the young people all the time, the Gen Zers, the young millennials, particularly Gen Z, if you're just coming off your parents' insurance policy, that's got to be a sticker shock that's, that's, you know, pretty overwhelming. So maybe do something about that. These are healthy people who should not be, you know, having to choose between the electricity bill, their medicines, and maybe paying their rent. That makes no sense. So maybe cut everybody a little bit of slack here, and it ratchets up the food chain to the rest of us if you can actually start doing transparent pricing. Great to talk to you on the program. I know this is a big issue. I'm glad that you report that there's bipartisan support for some of this. Never thought I'd hear you say that, Scott. So again, again with a bill number on the, the transparency bill is the big one. Again, with a bill number on that. Senate bill 383. 383. Everyone should just, you know, pop a quick email to your senator, Democrat senator, Republican senator, and say, let's get this done. And let's then start working on some other things that can improve the process. Scott Manley, as always, from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you, Vicki. Thanks for tackling an important topic. I'm so mad about it. As long as I'm mad about it, you can guarantee you'll get attention to it. Thanks so much for being on the show today. I'm mad about everything, though, so fear not, people. And in fact, if you email me with things that you're mad about, you could probably get me mad about him. We'll take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna Show. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. Let's talk about Iran. I'm kind of stunned at the lack. of attention to this from American media. Almost all the information that I am getting about Iran, I am getting through social media feeds, largely X. I'm not on TikTok. So what videos are appearing, what commentary is appearing, these are people who have ties in many ways on the ground to people in Iran. We have word. that the currency has collapsed against the euro. We have word today that the revolution is in it for the long haul, that they have kind of said this is our last attempt. If we don't win this one,

So be it. But they're not being fearful of the guns being pointed at them, the mass amounts of bullets that are flying and killing people, that they're in it to tear apart the Islamic Republic. And I have Kazim Kesarunian, and I hope I've said your name right, sir, from the National Council of Resistance in Iran, also professor of mechanical engineering at University of Connecticut, to talk about this. Thanks for joining me. I appreciate it. It's wonderful to be with you today. Thank you for having me. So what, from your perspective and your sources, how much of what I'm seeing being reported in the socials, but not being reported in American media, which is strange, how much is closer to truth than not? So for the past three weeks, Iranian streets have been the scene of really through war. As of last night, close to 10,000 people have been killed on the streets. According to numerous reports, the Internet is shut down. So it's very difficult. It has been difficult for the past few days to get news out of Iran or videos, but still there are some coming out through a Starlink or other means. But as you said, people are in this for the long call. The Iranian people have been struggling against this regime for decades now. They don't want this regime. They want to replace it with a secular democratic republic. And it seems that the fear has shifted. The fear used to be on the people on the street, but right now, we are seeing that fear in the revolutionary gods, in the army, as the units are escaping and retreating back to their bases. The collapse of the currency that we're hearing, which is that the Iranian currency went to zero against the euro. That, I mean, to me, that's an existential level event. or extinction level event, rather. That's it. How do you, I mean, you've got the president threatening 25% tariffs than anyone who does business with Iran. We're actively, you know, attempting to disrupt any kind of oil transport. What does it take to ultimately make it end, though, for the people in that country?

So the will of people, which is there, I don't think that this regime is going to just walk away. I think that they're going to fight until their very last bullet. And therefore, there is a resistance against them that is going to be unfortunately bloody. It has been bloody already. But as you said, the economy is in total collapse. The environment, there is a total bankruptcy of water. Water shortage in all of the cities have been severe. Actually, many, many households have not been getting water for days. There is no electricity is in the same thing. People cannot afford to buy the minimum. minimum essentials anymore. So there's a total collapse on every aspect of life in Iran. If for on the positive size, I think all the factors have lined up for this regime to fall. What are the factors? So you had said that they want a secular government. We've been told for how long? Since 1979. That's how long. And I was very young back then. We have been told that people wanted Islamic law in is the ruling structure, the governing structure of Iran. That's what they wanted. That's what the revolution was all about in 1979. And then as I, and again, you know, I don't know what to trust. I'm looking at data that says most of the people who would claim to be Muslim. are more kind of culturally Muslim. Many, many, many, many people are Persian, sort of, you know, in that religious tradition. Lots of people are agnostic. We're not hearing that, at least I'm not seeing, that there is this 99% compliance with radical Islam in Iran. Oh, no, absolutely. It is quite the opposite. I think, well, I'm sure, and I see a lot of data on that, that the Iranian people want a secular regime. They want to practice their own religion, their own culture, their own language. And the current regime, actually, at the very beginning, started as with promises of freedom. No, before the current regime, we had Schoss regime, which with its brutal suppression of freedoms in Iran, I think paved the way for Khomeini's regime to take over. So Iranians have never wanted a dictatorship, a religious dictatorship. They don't want it now. It has been proven disastrous. And on the resistance side, National Council of Resistance of Iran about 40-some years ago came out with a very detailed plan for a secular democratic republic in which it is non-nuclear, can coexist in peace with its neighbors, can coexist with other countries, the one that is it is a free economy.

one that minorities and other ethnicities in Iran can practice their own cultures. And we are hoping that this time around we get to see the end of this regime. So back in the day, and again, this is, you know, I was 10. The Shah was brutally suppressing people in Iran. The Islamists come in and say, hey, freedom for you, just pick us. They end up, and I'm guessing in fairly short order, at least it seemed like that in the United States, began suppressing people's freedoms. How long before it just got, you know, in terms of quality of, you know, standard of living, quality of life, how long before it got bad and how really materially long have people been living under what just feels like brutality? So I would say about a year or two after the 1971 revolution, things went south. The Khomeini's regime actually came out with this brutality. It exposed brutality, dictatorship, started to force their own fundamentalist backward ideas on the country. It started actually reaching out to the region, to other places, to Syria, to Lebanon, to Iraq, to Yemen, to Afghanistan, trying to export its influence in the region. And at the same time, they started their... nuclear ambitions, building nuclear bomb. And fortunately, they have lost all of those now. Iran has lost their influence in the region. They have lost their ability to negotiate on nuclear stuff. And therefore, they are in the weakest, weakest position that they have ever been. This is, at the same time, I should, I would be remiss if I don't mention that as we get closer to see the light at the end of the tunnel and we see the success of the uprising, there are a lot of opportunistic forces that are popping up and claiming leadership. And one of them, which... has absolutely no supporters inside Iran, but is creating a lot of smoke screen outside Iran, is Reza Pahlavi, son of Shah, which, for the past 40-some years, he has done nothing, he has never run anything, not even a grocery store, and now suddenly he's going around promising all sorts of things and all sorts of interest groups. And so that is right now a major threat to derailing the uprising. Well, I hope it doesn't derail the opposition here. I genuinely hope so, just because they're opportunists. And certainly there are opportunists. I mean, no doubt you've got, you know, you've got Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin saying, let's see, how can we watch this collapse and still try to, you know, somehow manipulate this to our benefit. The geopolitics.

are all up in the air right now. You've got what's going on in Venezuela. Now it's the potential for what's happening in Iran. And in the United States is in an interesting position. Certainly some are arguing that the United States has an obligation to do something to help this revolution. Is that what the sense is as well? And in which case, what does that look like or what are people expecting or hoping for? So, yes, absolutely. I think that United States has a lot of interest in this part of the world. United States can definitely benefit from a peaceful, stable Middle East. And that peaceful, stable Middle East starts with Iran, which is the largest economy in that part of the world, at least as far as the resources and oil reserves are concerned. But at the same time. People of Iran are seeking support from United States not in the sense of boots on the ground. They're not asking for money. They're not asking for arms. All they're asking is for stopping that heisman, which we have seen over the past few decades. Time and over, it has stopped the uprisings. It has derailed the uprisings. Thank God that President Trump is not inclined that way at all. But at the same time, I think that recognizing the right of people to resist. He's a major, major factor. And that is, I was reading a message from President Trump just a few minutes ago, which indicates that, yes, he recognizes the right of the Iranians to resist. He encourages Iranians to resist. I don't think air dropping cases and cases of rifles and ammo into the revolution would be a bad idea. Just saying, that would be something I would support entirely. Really interesting talking to you. Are you optimistic? I am very optimistic. It feels very different this time. Okay. I think I'm very cautiously optimistic. But at the same time, now we, this is the sixth or seventh uprising in the last 10 years. And every time for various reasons, it has, it has. stopped or derailed, and I hope it doesn't happen this time. It feels very serious and very real. I appreciate the time on the program, Kazam Khazirunian, from the National Council of Resistance in Iran. A pleasure. Thank you, sir, for joining me today. It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me. And we will take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna Show. I will be right back. This just in, we just got word that... beloved conservative commentator former cartoonist Scott Adams has passed away. There's all kinds of posts if you want to go see on Facebook or on X. The very last message he said is he was encouraged by so many people to convert at the end of his life was this. I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with him.

Wow. We'll take a quick break. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. So you've got another chance to win $1,000 in our cash contest. Here is your word. It's bank, B-A-N-K. There's your word for the 10 a.m. hour. Go to W-I-B-A.com and enter the keyword bank, B-A-N-K. And you can win $1,000 in our contest. It is a nationwide contest. We're asking you again to play on our website or on the I-Hart Radio app where you can also stream or listen to the podcast of the Vicki McKenna Show, right? That's the best reason to want to get that I-Hart Radio app. Plus, it's free, and it's really great. It's very highly functional, super intuitive. You'll love it. So you can play on the app as well. We will call you if you win on the phone. We don't leave messages. So if you're one of those people screening your calls, you're not going to win. You're going to miss the call and then you're not going to win. So pick up the phone. It's going to stink if it's not us. But you got to know that. All right. I'm pleased to report that because of what Trump said today, to Iran, to the Iranian resistance, help is on the way. That is what he said. You just heard Kazim Kesarunian, who is with the National Council of Resistance in Iran on the program. He said, I just read President Trump's comments, help us on the way. That has finally. put this story, at least on the splash pages of mainstream media, of elite media. Finally, it is on the very top of the splash page. That's your website homepage. Now, I don't know what it's going to look like on the television broadcasts, but that's what it looks like on their website. So that is Annette Good. Where is the ICE Minnesota story? That's still there. Now, it's probably going to lead the actual broadcasts, but it's, you know, sort of de-emphasized on their websites. You know, I look at these things, trying to get a sense of how these stories are ebbing and flowing. And pretty much on the ice story, everyone's just, we're sick of it. We're sick of it. We're tired of it. The whole nonstop swap in, drop in the new, you know, SIM card on the latest exactly the same outrage protest. I mean, last week it was Venezuela. This week, the exact same people are protesting ICE. Next week, what are they going to protest? I don't know. It'll be something new. It's all they have. The beautiful trouble slash rules for radicals, direct action, Linda Fithian, Arabella funded, Neville Roy Singham funded, Code Pink direct action. It's all they got. It's all they got. So expect more because it's all they got. And these people's identities are completely controlled.

by whatever SIM card, the machine needs to function. They have ceased having any free will. They have allowed their free will to be hijacked or happily turned it over to a machine function. So it's not going to end because they don't have an externalized way of understanding reality. They don't have an externalized identity. Or rather, they don't have an internalized identity. They only have an externalized identity. They have no way to do it. They have no way to flip the switch back to real life, real world, their entire sense of purpose and what they are as human beings is tied up in the drop in protest orders from the machine. Okay. Before we move on, and we'll talk a little bit about politics here coming up. Madison Plan Commission has approved a one-year pause on data centers, which is great, okay? Except that Madison is not being targeted for the data centers. Greater Madison is being targeted for the data centers. Just the same. I'm for this. This is one of those things where the left and the right find strange overlap.

resistance to this idea of putting these behemoths that eventually will have costs that we have to absorb In our backyards, there is a strange bipartisan resistance to this, and I'm happy to report that it exists. But, you know, having the Madison Plan Commission, so now the city council would decide on this, to have a one-year moratorium, number one, it's only one year. Number two, Madison's not the target. It's deforest. It's the communities around Madison with more land space, because it needs a lot of land space, that are really the ones being targeted. So, if the Dane County Board. does this, that will be meaningful. That will be meaningful. This is symbolic for the most part. If the Dane County Board does this, that means that the left and the right are, in fact, in agreement. And this is not just for show. Just like the bill that I was talking about yesterday. Which, by the way, we got the bill number wrong on that. I apologize. Michael Lucas and I were talking about the data center bill that's in the legislature. That's AB 840, 840. So I apologize. I think I said 801 yesterday. It's 840. That's the bill number. If this bill is really crafted to protect us. from data centers and the utilities dumping the costs onto ratepayers. And it really is a sincere and legitimate effort for Republicans and Democrats to help us, then I'm for it. If it's just a way to try to write a bill that is designed to get a veto, then I'm not. So. The rubber is going to meet the road on these things. And this is a memo to Republicans out there. If you're out there thinking, well, you know, maybe we can write a bill and then Tony Evers will veto it and then we can blame Tony Evers for vetoing. Write a bill he'll sign. If you think you're going to be getting away with shining people on that you're really against data centers when secretly you're not, you won't. That's how mad people are about these things. You won't get away with it. Same with Democrats. No, actually, you will get away with it because your voters are stupid, right? And their identity is completely designed by the whatever, the NGO machine that you have had in place for decades. But Republican voters are not going to let you get away with it. So memo to people in the legislature. Write legislation that Evers will sign. I hate to say this. Bring him into the room. If you actually care about rate payers and energy, one of the three main.

Issues of affordability in Wisconsin, one of the three main issues of affordability is energy. Sit down, write a bill that will get a signature and can be passed into law. That's what I want to see. If there's bipartisan support, get enough bipartisan support to override a veto. That's what I want to see. Because you have that bipartisan support in the general population. You have at least two-thirds of Wisconsin wanting protection against having the costs of these data centers passed on to them. In fact, if you actually explained it to everyone, you'd probably get closer to 75 or 80%. So do that on behalf of the people, not on behalf of the lobbyists. Because the lobbyists are spending way more money than we the people can even imagine on this stuff. All right, we're going to take a quick break. Let's come back and talk about the politics. 27% of people say they call themselves Democrats. 24% of people say they call themselves Republicans. 45% of people say they call themselves independence. The parties have a problem. We'll get to that when we come back. I'll be right back on the Vicki McKenna Show. All right. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. David Johnson from Strategic Vision is standing by on the program. Happy New Year, David. Good to talk to you. Happy New Year. Great to talk to you, too. All right. I don't know if I want to start with the lack of enthusiasm for party identification. Perhaps we can get to that. I guess we'll get to that. But I want to talk about this sort of, you know, drop-in programmed, you know, whatever the outrage du jour is, that we are going to have to. contend with going into these upcoming midterms the outrage du jour model of politics for the democrats ice now in minnesota the week before that it was complaining that we took out a narco dictator in venezuela if trump helps the people in iran they'll probably start cheering the mullahs i mean actually they already have some of them are they okay all right some of them have He said that we've gone too far. That's what they do, all right? That's what they do. And then occasionally they'll drag some black pillar ex magas with them like Tucker Carlson or Thomas Massie or Marjorie Taylor Greene or whatever. And then they pretend it's bipartisan or some such thing like this. Okay. Is this going to work this time? They are doing this because it works. And I mean, are. Are we sick of it? I'm sick of it, but then again, I'm in the shoot all the time. I mean, most Americans are sick of it. They're tired of it. And look, what Americans are concerned about more than anything is affordability. Look, we had some good news come out today. The CPI was lower than experts had predicted. All this doom and glooms have been saying about the tariffs aren't happening. The other thing is constant protests. are turning people off. Look, it's not middle America that they're seeing on TV protesting. These are people who are going out, organizing, constantly, saying that law enforcement is evil, law enforcement must be stopped, let the illegals in, and we're seeing Americans don't want that. If you look at some of the...

Democrats on the Sunday talk show hosts, some of the senators, Mark Warner, for example, he won't endorse ICE. He won't endorse the Trump policy, but then he comes back and says that under Biden, the border was open, and we can't allow that. Because Democrats, the smart ones, realize the American people, they may not like all the stuff they're seen on TV, but they don't want to return to open borders or the Biden years. And I'll tell you something else. If Iran falls, which I think it could, Venezuela turns out the way it seems to be going, we're going to see oil prices go down. We're going to see a safer world. And I think it'll give Trump even increased momentum. Remember, foreign policy is something that voters don't vote on per se, but I can doom a presidency. We saw that with Jimmy Carter, so with Joe Biden. If Trump comes out of both Venezuela and Iran looking like a winner, that will give him renewed momentum and Republicans renewed momentum to address some economic issues before the midterm and cite some real policy triumphs. in 2026. Amen. I think you're right about that. As long as is, you know, you don't get people in the way, all right, as long as people stay out of the way. And I'm talking about the Republicans, stay out of the way. You've got Republicans. They're the reason why there's a tariff case before the United States Supreme Court. That could throw everything into a tailspin. Now, I'm hearing Kevin Hassett say that Trump has a backup plan at the Supreme Court partially detonates or entirely detonates the tariff scheme. But. You know, that's, again, the Republicans, the conservative organizations on behalf of people who lobbied them, who fund their foundations, brought this case before the U.S. Supreme Court. What do you think about this weird, total shift, 180 turn on Hamas messaging? I've seen this. Everyone's noticing this. They're all using the exact same language. The Democrats I'm talking about. You've got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you name it. They're all putting out anti-Hamas. messaging. There is a reason for that, David. We're not quite trying to figure out what it is because it doesn't seem like, you know, the Israel issue being, you know, being anti-Israel has hurt the Democrats in the past. So what gives? Well, it's hurting among some of these swing voters that they need, especially in some of these key congressional districts and some of these swing Senate races. For example, down here in Georgia. The Jewish community is very divided right now in this critical Senate race. And what they're trying to do is give Democrats like John Alsop some room to really come out, denounce Hamas, and appear to be pro-Israel. He's been going both ways or trying to. And if he has any hope of re-election, he has got to recapture his Jewish base down here in Georgia. And we're seeing it in other races as well. So they're trying to give the so-called centrist Democrats. They're not centrist, but they're called that some cover by having Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some more of the squad come out and denounce Hamas.

to give them cover to appear to be more pro-Israel. It's the Zohran Mamdani effect in reverse, because what we're trying to do is tie them to Zohran Mamdani. What they're trying to do, and of course they love Zohran Mamdani, what they're trying to do is run away from that. As little as possible attention on what's going on in New York right now. You've got New York that wants to confiscate housing. You have New York that wants to... punish white people who own private property. You have New York that wants to obliterate any kind of merit or any kind of, you know, effectiveness of the police department and the fire department and turn everything into a DEI social experiment. Ben there done that. So you don't want to pay any attention. to what's going on, you know, government-owned grocery stores, rents exploding. It's going to become an absolute failed city, New York, very soon. And I think they don't want to have to take responsibility for that. So all of a sudden, we look reasonable on Hamas. We love Israel. It's awesome. Exactly. And I mean, they're worried, too, as you said, about Zohran Mamdani. But the bigger issue is, too, it's these critical swing races as well. They want to give some of these Democrats some cover. These swing races, though, are going to be subsumed. They're going to be subsumed pretty soon by Neville Roy Singham, by Code Pink, by, you know, the Tides Foundation, et cetera, because they don't care what the DNC says. No, they don't. They don't take marching orders from the DNC. So I'm enjoying that here in Wisconsin so far, where you've got people who are forced by BLM into denouncing police, defund the police. Mandela Barnes, he's got. abolish ice. He's wearing the t-shirt. He says defund the police. Francesca Hong wants to defund the police. And so the radical groups drag them to these positions. Now, it hasn't hurt them in the past. It's kind of helped them. It hasn't, but I think it's going to because I think the more extreme they go, the more it's going to turn off the swing voters, a small group of ones that we need who go back and forth between Trump and the Democrats. And look, these groups are becoming more radical with the anti-ISC protests. They're telling parents to take babies and use them as human sheep. Yes. This is going to turn off swing voters. Yeah, the crazy old white ladies in, you know, in Minnesota or wherever they are. I mean, if you take a look at these No Kings protests or if you look at any of these other protests, they're middle-aged or older white women. who are the people who are in these protests. I mean, you know, it's not BLM anymore. It's not a whole bunch of black people. It's a whole bunch of white ladies. And so I'm not... Well, and what's interesting is like, say, North Carolina, where we got a key Senate race. Yep. What we're hearing is in a lot of these communities, they're busing in these old white ladies from other states or from Charlotte or Raleigh because in your rural areas...

There's nobody who supports these... No King rallies and things of that. Yes, Matt Ben Eric Swalwell has been reporting on this. He's actually identified multiple professional protesters who just lead bus trips from here and there and crisscross the southern parts of the United States, particularly the southeastern parts of the United States. Then there's another group that organizes all the northeastern protests. There's another group that's organizing the Midwest. So these are, I mean, these are planned professional, you know, outfits that do this, and they're very well funded. All right. So let's get to the first. How is the fraud that is being exposed in Minnesota? You just have Scott Bessent announcing that the IRS is just, it's going to require the IRS to go in and start using algorithms to, to identify the fraud. You've got Trump announcing the end of TPS, temporary protected status for Somalis that targets Minnesota, Ohio, a lot of other places. How is this going to play out or how could we make it play out in the upcoming midterms? It could hurt Democrats, and I'll tell you, the thing, though, in Minnesota, what's interesting is their local media is not reporting all of this. If people are hearing about it, they're getting it from the national media, not their local media. So don't look for Minnesota that have a great reawakening. But nationally, it's going to help Republicans because... If we play this smart, we can make this synonymous with programs throughout the country that Democrats are doing this with. And we're seeing in the polling, it turns off voters on Democrats massively. Yeah. And they believe that there's even more. corruption that's been revealed so far. Our gubernatorial candidates here in Wisconsin need to really start pounding this because Tony Evers is not turning over data. He doesn't want anyone to look into this. We don't have any inventive media like they have in Nick Shirley or Nick Sorter in Minnesota. I mean, they're kind of unique that they've got two on the ground, upstart indie journalists, you know, asymmetrical journalists, and then they've got Alpha News. And we don't have that in Wisconsin. We don't have someone, you know, descending, knocking on doors, finding out, for instance, If anyone wants to do this, if those group homes that don't seem to be owned by people who, you know, we're born in the United States, knock on the doors, okay? We don't have people to do that. And so I think you're right, though. I think Minnesota stuck. Minnesota, and I just talked to... And now I can't think of his name. Darn it, from Powerline blog, who said it's a 50-50 state in the legislature. But you've got Minneapolis-St. Paul that dominates everything when it comes to statewide elections. And that's probably going to be true in the next upcoming election.

And that's why we saw so much of the fraud, too, with the Somalian community, because Democrats need those Somalian voters to win statewide. And that's what this is all about. I agree. I agree. So last thing, David, and that is we see 24% identify as Republicans. These are people under the age, I believe, of 45. And 27% identify as Democrats. 45% identify as independents. That changes things in the way elections are run. That has to. Oh, it does. I mean, we're not seeing any strong political affiliation. And if you look to at voter registrations across the country in these states, even in blue states or deep red states, independence are surging. and affiliated voters with the two parties are in deep decline. Yep. So what it means is Republicans have got to find a message that will appeal to these people, and they can't appear to be uniparty. And that's what's hurting a lot of Republicans. A lot of voters don't see a difference between the two parties. Well, and it makes it harder for ballot chasers. One ticket in office. It makes every ballot chasing effort look like Wisconsin because we don't have identified party affiliation. It makes everything look like Wisconsin. It makes chasing ballots harder. And I don't, you know, in the run up to election day. David Johnson's strategic vision, thank you very much for joining me on the show today. Thank you. Good to have you. And we'll take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna show. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna show. Well, you know that whole remote learning thing that was taking place during COVID. That wasn't for the kids. And it wasn't to stop the spread of a disease. That was because the teachers' union wanted remote learning. And they still want it. And now, isn't it curious, that protests have become a reason for schools to declare remote learning again? You've got it going on in Minneapolis. There is a push for it in New York City, and we've seen this pop up in other areas of the country. Terry Schilling, American Principles Project, joins me on the program. We can talk about Minneapolis generally, but can we start with this? They've wanted this. since it ended. I mean, you had cities that tried to drag remote learning on for as long as possible cities like Chicago and Los Angeles and et cetera. When they had to go back into the classroom, they were miffed. Oh, that's exactly right, Vicki. The reality is that there are a handful of really, really good teachers that, you know, we all know. But the reality is that the teacher's unions only represent the worst of them. And that means that they advocate. for things that are not going to actually help our children learn, right? They don't love our children as much as we do. They don't have as much invested in our children. They pass them on after just one year most of the time. So they're actually only advocating for their own self-interest. And their own self-interest at this point is to get paid as much time as much money as possible for as little time as necessary, right? The teacher's unions are absolutely a threat, not just to our country, but like to your children.

Everyone that's listening right now, if you have your kids, if you have your kids in a public school or a school that's represented by teachers unions, you're not doing your kids any favors. Those teachers don't care about your kids. They don't care if they're learning. They only care about their paychecks and making sure that they have to work as little as possible. There is a case in our state where teachers were trying to trans a child. without their parents' knowledge. That is, they're fighting to keep. Teachers, the ability to trans children in California, even after a favorable federal court ruling. So yes, to your point, when you have 33 to 37 percent proficiency in reading and math, then that tells you that schools are not about education. And when you see the most important things on the agenda lists for the Teachers Union Convention are about transing kids and protecting us from ICE and immigration law enforcement, you know that it is. isn't about helping kids. And so now they're making a hard move back to remote learning. Well, you know, we've got too many kids who have Hispanic surnames. Therefore, we should go to remote learning. We have protests going on. Therefore, we should go to remote learning. The teachers' union wants better compensation or, you know, therefore, we should go to remote learning. That's what they're saying in New York City. And so there is a, I mean, if you thought this was done, you're wrong. Now, here's the thing, though, Terry. At least that woke up a lot of parents to realize exactly how bad the classroom was. Well, that's true, Vicki. But I will tell you, as someone that's been involved in the movement to revive the American family, it's somewhat disappointing. I keep waiting for when the parents' tea party is going to happen. This nation was founded because the British kept raising our taxes on stamps and tea. They're transcing our kids. They're kidnapping them from us. Right? They're still doing it. And President Trump's in the White House. California hasn't suffered any sanctions. At this point, these states that are taking kids away from their parents to trans them and give them surgeries that sterilized immunizing them? How is that not an enemy regime? How are they part of the United States of America? Is that what unites? That's what divides us. No one wants sex changes for kids. Literally no one, not even Democrats. The majority Democrats are against sterilizing children for this stuff. It's totally crazy. But I think that there's just so many special interests led by the teachers unions, led by big pharmaceutical companies that are pushing for this. And I just got to say, real quick, if the teachers really loved kids so much, then why do they want to sterilize them? Why do they want to prevent them from creating future children that they could then teach down the road? They don't care. They want sterilization. They want stupid kids because stupid kids are easy to control. Stupid kids turn into stupid adults who vote for Democrats. That's the process. The other thing is that they're totally sexually dysfunctional.

They will become totally sexually dysfunctional. And they will be rage-based. Their emotions will be anger, misery, despair. And that's easily weaponized. When you have anger, misery, and despair, you can then help that person externalize that onto an other. That's exactly what they need. That's exactly what is going on here. And I actually kind of referenced this a bit earlier in my program today. When your identity has nothing to do with reality, when your identity is all kind of a drop in school. slogan-based external identity, then you can be made to do things. You don't have free will at that point. And that's really, in the end, I think, why it doesn't bother the Radical Teachers Union that these young people become completely despair-based, dysfunctional, and angry. All of this, by the way, even after HHS, comes out and says, don't trans kids. There's no medical evidence that this is a good idea. In fact, all the medical evidence is to the contrary. Don't trans kids. Yet it's still happening. You made an excellent point. No one's been punished for this. California hasn't lost any aid. Linda McMahon, I was talking about this yesterday, hasn't even rescinded the Biden rule on Title IX. So let's get, I mean, let's get serious here. It doesn't seem like not only are the parents all that interested in fighting a Tea Party style fight. It seems like a whole bunch of people in the administration don't want to do it either. Well, look, I think that H.A., I think the first step, you know, that they've taken at health and human services anyway is to stop paying for this stuff. You know, the whole trans movement would not exist. if not for the federal government funding it by the tune of billions of dollars. Yes. That's not an exaggeration. Through Medicaid, through all of the reproductive, they call it reproductive health care. They call it family planning services, right? All these things actually ruin your reproductive system. They keep you from having babies. They keep you from having families. Right. So it's a bit of Orwellian, but they stop funding all this stuff. They cut it out and they're going to actually withhold all Medicaid funding. from hospitals who perform these types of procedures on children at HHS. We still need to go further. There's still so much work to be done. But it is incredibly fresh. And where are the dads, Vicki? Where are the dads? The dads are on the sidelines. And it's because we've had this war on men that tells them to sit down and shut up and your opinion isn't as valuable as women's opinion. It's crazy. Dads need to reclaim their role as the head of the household. And they start defending their children because if they don't, their children are going to kill them. I agree. And it's going to kill, it will kill our culture. And I think we're seeing a nascent movement back toward a sort of a masculine expression. But we're not seeing that in a way that can be, let's say, harnessed. yet. We're seeing it pop up, right? You've got the Trump administration modeling good dads. You got the Trump administration modeling, you know, good intact families, et cetera. But we haven't really, I mean, you've got good models. That's a start. That's better than nothing. But it's got to, we got to start talking about these culture issues a little bit more. And I'll tell you what, again, it all starts in education. Going back to education.

Bill Harris was right when he was speaking in front of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2006, the Motor Force of Revolution begins in the schools. They figured that out. We're just sitting around staring at our feet going, how come they keep doing this to us? How come they're still DEI, even after the executive orders? How come they're still transing our kids? How come they still want remote learning? How come we still have 37% proficiency? Jeepers. It's like you're standing around waiting for somebody else to fight the fight. And I think that's what the dad. are doing. They're waiting around for someone else to fight the fight. And so without them, it's just moms. It's just those gorilla moms and those gorilla moms are a minority. No, I think that's right. And by the way, there's a lot of Karens out there. There's a lot of, you know, woke white women. You know, I'm based in Fairfax County, Virginia. Oh, in the schools at the PTA meetings. You know, we had a great parent, you know, revolt back in 2020 and 2021. But it kind of fizzled out. It's starting to come back. But there's still all these woke white women that are on SSRIs that are obviously mentally disturbed. that are, you know, showing up to these PTA meetings, showing up at the school board meetings to advance all the things that are going to destroy this country. And until the moms and the dads that actually care about their kids that love them. I will just say, though, Vicki, the other thing that sucks is the economy sucks for these families, right? You need two jobs. A lot of people, a lot of parents are having to work extra jobs just to make their bills every month. I'm stuck in a 1,900 square foot house with seven kids. I can't buy a new home right now because we can't afford it with interest rates and the rising prices of homes. It's crazy. So everyone's busy. Everyone's distracted. They've created an economy that requires both parents to be separated from their children as much as possible. We've got to turn this around. And it starts with the next generation. Right on, when you create an economy where both parents have to be separated from their kids, then that remote learning thing becomes problematic, doesn't it? And all of a sudden, that becomes an additional financial stress on families. And that financial stress initially is why they're happy to have what amounts to only and only amounts to free babysitting, free daycare, because they're not teaching these kids to read and write. They're teaching these kids to hate their country. They're teaching these kids to hate their parents.

and they're teaching these kids to reject the idea of reality in favor of a slogan-based identity. The longer we let this go on, the more unlikely it is that we are going to claw our way out of the mess that has created a bunch of people willing to put their kids at risk and go stand and try, you know, to run down ICE agents with their SUVs. Yes, that is exactly right. These are the kids, these kids that are being indoctrary in schools that don't have active parents involved and engaged in their lives. They are the ones that are taunting police officers. stopping them from doing law enforcement and kicking out enemies, right? It just came out that these guys embezzled $18 billion from the United States taxpayers for fraudulent daycare centers, and these woke white women who are mentally ill are on the front lines defending them and putting their lives in danger to defend them. These Somalians hate you. They think you're an idiot, and they demand your money. Like, what are you doing? The only explanation that can explain any of this is that they're indoctrinated and that they're mentally ill. And that's what our school systems are producing. I agree. I agree. Thanks, Terry, for jumping on the program today. Terry Schilling, American Principles Project. I appreciate it. Happy New Year. Thanks, Vicki. And we'll take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna show. So the left is stuck. They are. It all depends on how everyone else is going to react to them. But they are stuck. with the people who don't have any free will, who just do whatever the NGOs tell them to do. So dumb, middle-aged, white lesbians who care so much about their kids, they lose custody of them, induced by radical direct action training organizations, in her case it was called Ice Watch, to... engage the struggle against the evil ice people by trying to run people over for trying to run ice officers over you're stuck with those people you're stuck with them you're stuck with them You think you're going to be able to pivot. You think you're going to be able to pretend that you guys have not been cheering this stuff on. You're the reason they're doing it. You're the reason, the incendiary rhetoric, the insanity. Everybody describing, everybody on the Democrat side describing ISIS, the Gestapo, the media that has been generating headlines and narrative exercises and their stories about this. You're the reason the politicians like Adam Schiff or Nancy Pelosi or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ianna Presley or whoever they are who have been going out there and describing this as a murder, Jacob Frey, Tim Walz, describing what the ICE agent did as he was being gunned down with a vehicle as murder. You're stuck with those people. And if the Republicans are not stupid asterisk.

They'll make sure they're stuck with those people. Here's the latest. Just to prove, you can't. You can't escape them. Harmeet Dillon, who heads up the Civil Rights Division and the Department of Justice, has told her left-wing hangers-on, the Obama-Biden hangers-on, they're not going to be allowed to conduct an independent investigation of that particular ICE agent. No. You're not going to do that. Sorry. If Pam Bondi decides she wants to conduct an investigation, she can make that determination. We're not going to do that here. And what have they done? Why, ladies and gentlemen, they've taken to the streets. They want activism. Now, occasionally Brian Schimming listens to this program, so I hope he is. You put this albatross around the neck of every Democrat. All of the Republicans who are running for re-election in the upcoming state legislative races hang this albatross around their necks until it rots and starts stinking. Because the left won't let the Democrats tack to the center. Let's not. Let's be part of that effort, bipartisan effort to make sure the Democrats don't tack to the center. All right, folks, we're going to let you go for lunch. We'll be back here with Ron Johnson in the 2 o'clock hour. Also, Brian Stile in the 2 o'clock hour. He's got an interesting plan to stop people from scamming inside information to get rich in Congress. Good afternoon and welcome to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna show. ahead on the program we've got congressman brian style on the show we've got um senator Ron Johnson on the program before we get to anything how about a chance to win a thousand dollars your word in our cash contest is money m o n e y you know how to spell money i got to spell it anyway to go to our websites you got You get your choice. If you're listening in Milwaukee, you can go to newstalk 1130.com. And if you're listening in Madison on WIBA, you go to WIBA.com and you play the contest there. It's a nationwide contest. It's always a nationwide contest. And you have the hour to enter the keyword money to win $1,000. Don't screen your calls. We'll call you if you win. Hope you win. We already had a winner yesterday, somebody, and I can't, I don't have the email sitting in front of me, so I apologize, listening to the Klan Buck Show, but listening on News Talk 1130 WISN. So as I said, we've got Ron Johnson coming up in the program. We have got Brian Stile, Congressman Stile as well. Congressman Stile, of course, being targeted for elimination by the left by the same people who want to protect insider trading. in Congress. But we'll get to that. We'll get to that. I have done the work other Americans won't do. You know? I went on X and I watched video after video after video of middle age or older women because these are the only videos out there. Shrieking, melting down, vomiting profanity.

at ICE agents or reporters who are covering their postmenopausal temper tantrums. Ladies, H.R.T. Check it out. Get off the SSRIs. Get off the Benzos. And get yourself some HRT. You'll feel better. You know what you need? You need estrogen. You're depleted. Your hormones are out of whack. You're taking it out on people who don't deserve it. You don't have to be crazy and unhinged. You don't. H.R.T. What if we did that? What if we just, like, handed out estrogen water? Just like, like bottles of soy milk. You know, packets of estraven. Just hand it out to these women. Good. Gaggle. It is just something. It's only white women. It's only middle-aged white women. There's a reason why that's the meme. The best memes. This is how you can cope. You cope by going and finding the memes. Go find the memes. The best memes about what's going on. are the romance novel cover memes. Those are my favorites. Showing the aging, sagging, estrogen-depleted, sharp-tongued herpy who hasn't colored her roots in like six weeks. In the arms, in the passionate arms of an ice agent, you've got to go find the romance novel memes. You have to. Now, this maybe it only makes sense to women. This meme might only make sense to women. We don't normally get memes for us. So I'm pleased that I've got my own very, my very own meme, my very own category of memes. If you remember back in the 80s and the 90s, specifically in the 80s, at the Walden Books. or whatever your bookstore was, in my mall, it was the Walden Books. They would display the latest romance novels. Remember, this is how Fabio got to be famous. He was a model for romance novel covers. And they would have these sort of faux painting images of these very virile men with their, you know, their shirts open with the damsel and Elizabethan dress. Just. falling into his arms in, you know, in a just faint of of ecstasy. That was on like tons and tons of these books. Those are the memes. Only instead of the beautiful woman in the corset and the instead of the, you know, falling into the arms, ecstatic, it's middle-aged women with bad roots and who are estrogen depleted, who are falling into the arms of vice agents. It's all done on AI. It's super fun. You've got to do this because we're stuck with this. We're going to get the next SIM card is going to be inserted into these robots. And so maybe a week from now, maybe a month from now, and the exact same collection category.

of insane postmenopausal women who are in desperate need of HRT are going to move on to the next thing. So last week it was Venezuela. Just last week it was Venezuela. This week it's ice. Now, I don't want to be mean. I won't be mean. I won't be mean. Calling them. you know, postmenopausal sagging harpies is probably mean enough. So I'm just going to leave it at that. But go find the stuff that makes you laugh about this because we're stuck with it. We're stuck with these aren't people who are actually acting like human beings. They're acting like apps. They're apps. You're just changing the input in the app. And it's spitting out the latest shrieking rage. Here's another thing we could maybe just drop off a box of chloral. Just say, here, here, here's some estrofen. Here's some soy milk. Box of clareol. Here's a manny pettie kit. And some bath bombs. Now go, go, go. Go indulge in some self-care. Please. And shut up. We'll be right back.

Hey, welcome back to the program. It's the Bickey McKenna show. And I'm just going to throw out a non-sequitur here. You make it about what you will. I just saw a study that was published that had a very strong correlation between happy marriages, gut health, and low body mass index. So I'm just saying. I'm just saying maybe that's part of the Karen's problem. in Minneapolis, and everywhere else they show up to shriek into microphones or film themselves devolving into choking sobs over things that mean nothing to them. Okay, just wondering, maybe, maybe it's because you threw your husband out. Just saying, you'd be healthier, you'd be happier, and you'd be happier, and your gut microbiome would be better. if you had happy marriage. There you go. That's why my gut microbiome is excellent people right there. All right. Like I said, it's a non-sequitur. Poor Brian style, Congressman style, standing by on the phone. How you doing? I'm doing well. How are you, Vicki? Thanks for having me on. Yeah, care to comment on that study? Kidding. Unless you want to. All right. So before we get to your proposal to ban stock trading so that you can't go into Congress, use inside trading details and get... filthy, stinking, rich, while the rest of us suffer. I do want some reaction to, because you've experienced this at your town halls. People who show up and they don't have anything to add, they don't even have a demand. They don't even have a policy that they would like you to consider. They just want to get up to a microphone or not. and scream and choke cry and shriek and behave like adults throwing toddler style temper tantrums. You have seen it. Every one of your colleagues has seen this. And now it is taking control of American cities again as the Democrats playbook for election victory in 2026. We see time and again. There's the radical left, wants to protest for protest sake. I often reflect back when I did a town hall not long ago in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. And I came out on the stage and I started my town hall, like I start all of my town halls with the Pledge of Allegiance. And there was a group of individuals who were booing the Pledge of Allegiance, one who gave a Nazi salute during the Pledge of Allegiance. And that gives you an idea of how the rest of the event went for that group of individuals who wanted to be disruptive. But here's what it makes me often think about, Vicki, is they want to be disruptive, they want to shout down conservatives. And the reason is because the facts are on our side.

It's about going on and explaining to people that, yes, you can secure the U.S.-Mexico border when you have a president like President Trump. It was a choice by President Biden to leave the U.S. Mexico border unsecure. Yes, you can stand with law enforcement. Yes, you can lead and make America secure by a peace through strength agenda. And because the facts are on our side, because the Democrats and the radical left are driving forward absolutely loony-tune ideas. Like having boys playing girls sport, they don't want to have the debate. They don't want to have an adult rational conversation. What they want to have is a screaming match because it's their only shot at trying to even the playing field. We have the facts on our side. If we go out and sell them, we're not only going to be successful in the past as we have. We're going to have a really good midterm election coming up, Vicki. I think so. But I don't know if they do this. you know, deliberately because they don't have debate. They've rejected debate. They are plug and play at this point. I mean, it's drop a SIM card in and it's we're going to protest Donald Trump's actions in Venezuela. We're going to protest Donald Trump's actions if, in fact, he engages in actions in Iran, whatever it is. So it's just drop the new SIM card in. And logic debate doesn't matter. In fact, I listened to a young man, he was an independent reporter, ask a guy who is screaming about, we stand for the people of Venezuela and showed him that the people of Venezuela were quite happy that Maduro was gone. He actually said to the reporter, when presented with these facts, that logic didn't matter. It didn't matter. The facts didn't matter. Logic itself didn't matter. And that's what we're up against. These are the people. who show up to scream and throw Nazi salutes at the at the pledge of allegiance and and i mean that's not what do they want they don't know they just want to tear it down and i guess to have a maduro style government replace what was what what is here now i honestly do not know because i do not think they know Yeah, they're fighting for socialism, really. I mean, these are democratic socialists or actual full-blower socialist. who want to be out there advocating for communist principles, right? Collectivism. They don't want private ownership. And they are trying to tear down the institutions that have made this country what it is. And because their arguments are often irrational, they're not thought through. They, we see time and again where radical leftists just want to protest. And then you combine that with Trump derangement syndrome, which is is more and more likely to be fully declared a real problem, a real disease, because you're watching people, if President Trump goes out and does anything, positive, he could cure cancer tomorrow. And somebody would go out in protest that President Trump cured cancer. There is a reactionary force by the radical left that they refuse to recognize that we're finally turning around again, in this country going in the right direction after four horrific years under President Biden.

You mentioned that. They protested a ballroom that was privately funded for Pete's sake. Yet they say they're for socialism, but they don't mind that Bernie Sanders is a millionaire. They don't mind that Nancy Pelosi got rich on inside stock tips. They don't mind that people go to Congress and come out, you know, double digit, sometimes triple digit millionaires. They don't seem to mind that very much. They don't mind the looting. They don't mind that there is $18 billion in counting of Somali fraud. They don't mind that one fifth. of the federal budget, and that includes our debt, is likely scammed. It doesn't bother them. You know, so if they're for socialism and wealth redistribution, then why is it that they're totally comfortable with their side having gazillionaires living in gated communities while the rest of us suffer? Well, yeah, there were zero protests for the fact that millions and millions of dollars have been stolen in the state of Minnesota. That's exactly where they should go protest, the governor's mansion in the state of Minnesota. Because that is where the problems reside, is with the leadership of the left, that they are driving forward this radical agenda. But you're exactly right. There's a protest and a movement and a cause that the Democrats continue to turn. It's... Cycle after cycle, we watch the issue is maybe new, but the underlying principles are the same. They want to drive this country towards a radicalized socialist agenda, and they're unabashed in their support for that cost. Tell me about, since I mentioned it, tell me about this inside trading stuff that's been going on. I know you've been looking into it. There's a piece of legislation. This is meant from making people who are supposed to go and be civic servants from becoming gazillionaires, you know, basically using lobbyist tips and stock tips. Well, yesterday I introduced comprehensive legislation to ban members of Congress from being in a position to trade stock and profit of of insider information. In 24 hours, we've already garnered 70 co-sponsors to the legislation, bipartisan at this point, and we'll be marking it up in my committee tomorrow. What does that mean? That means after we pass it through committee and we have the public support of a majority of the committee already, this is very likely tomorrow. that it is ready to move to the floor of the House. Leader Steve Scalise, Speaker Johnson, have both come out in support of this legislation and said that we can move this on the House floor. This would be transformational. In my opinion, if you want to go and be a day trader in stocks, there's a place to do that, and that's called Wall Street. We want people coming to Capitol Hill to advance in America First Agenda. And this is our opportunity to actually start the process of cleaning up Washington, giving the American people confidence that they know their member of Congress is not up here on Capitol Hill trying to profit for themselves that they're actually working for the American people. I'm optimistic where we're going to get to tomorrow. And then it's off to the races to actually get this bill across the House floor and ultimately signed into law.

So I can't imagine anybody would be against this except that there are a whole bunch of members of Congress who have benefited from this, a whole bunch. And they benefit because they're in line with people who have information that the rest of us do not have. And so they just laugh all the way to the bank. We've lost count how many people got wealthy. Elizabeth Warren got wealthy and Nancy Pelosi got wealthy. Adam Schiff got wealthy. They're all claiming, oh, is Nancy Pelosi absurdly dead? Well, that wasn't me. That was my husband. So this, tell me this legislation says family members are not going to be permitted to do this. Immediate family members because that's another way to transfer wealth and just simply launder the money through a family member. No, you're exactly right. So this applies to the member, the member spouse, and their dependent children. It puts in place the guardrails that are needed for the American people to have confidence that what was taking place in other instances isn't going to happen again. Time and again, members saw, the public saw that members of Congress were trading stock. There was risks that they were profiting off of insider information. And this is the opportunity to just say, enough's enough. Let's just prevent members of Congress from being in a position. to be able to buy and sell stock at their whim, day trading in effect on Capitol Hill. Again, this is about restoring integrity, providing disclosure to American people, and banning the acquisition of stock when a member is in Congress. You and I, well, you, right now until this legislation passes, maybe you'd get a pass. I will be put in prison for insider trading. Martha Stewart went to prison for insider trading. Michael Milken went to prison for insider trading. So insider trading, we consider that a crime in the United States. So I can't imagine if other people have already gone to prison for it, that we wouldn't want to run. to support this legislation. Last thing before I run out of time, and I'm looking at my clock here to make sure I keep you on time. And that is, where do we stand on Act Blue? We have learned from the Trump administration that Arabella, Tides Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Neville Roy Singham, who's in Beijing, Code Pink, you name it, are still laundering their dollars through Act Blue so that we can't find the source of those dollars. I mean, is there anything else you can do with this money laundering scheme? Well, I just spoke to Speaker Mike Johnson on this exact topic earlier today. The United States Department of Justice has multiple open investigations into campaign finance violations of which Act Blue is involved. Our opportunity is in particular, we at the Committee on House Administration that I chair, we've transferred our information over to the United States Department of Justice for their criminal investigation. That investigation, now that it's ongoing, it's confidential, so I can't know all the ins and outs, but I am of the belief that what we will see is action taken by the United States Department of Justice against Act Blue or against bad actors that were utilizing Act Blue.

and the not too distant future. Again, those are confidential investigations, so I don't have the day-by-day play. But I can say with confidence that the Department of Justice is taking this seriously, there are open investigations into campaign finance violations. And the hope is that with President Trump-led Department of Justice, we have an opportunity to not only uncover this, but to end it once and for all. Brian Stile, thanks very much. I know you're short on time. I appreciate the time today. Thanks, Vicki. And we'll take a quick break on the Vicki McKenna show. That was Congressman Brian Stiles. Senator Ron Johnson's going to join me in just a moment. Welcome back to the program. It's the Vicki McKenna Show. And I'm, as always, happy to have on the program, Senator Ron Johnson on the show. I want to start with a big issue of freedom, Ron, because I kind of want to start positive, and then we'll go to negative land if we have to. But what we are seeing, not here in the U.S., but what we are seeing in places that we never anticipated, maybe having the potential to become free. Venezuela, possibly Cuba. We haven't seen anything quite start up there yet, but possibly Cuba, certainly Iran. When you see... the people what they're willing to sacrifice for it. And then you contrast that to what we have, you know, what we have from the left demanding of us in the U.S. or what Western Europe seems to be demanding of its people in the, in Western Europe. The contrasts are so stark that I think they bear noticing and discussing. I think the desire to be free is. pretty universal, if not completely universal among human beings. The problem is, is that it doesn't take much, if you're a tyrant, a brutal tyrant, doesn't take too many hangs in the public square to power a population into not demanding and achieving freedom. And then... Probably even worse is once you have freedom, once you become an absolute society, you always have the siren song of collectivism, of socialism, of what's face it, radical leftism, that appeals to far as many people, particularly in a democracy where you have, you know, on net, more than half the people being net beneficiaries of the government at large-est, and they figured, oh, we can actually border cells. benefits, and that becomes the death now to a democracy, and then people start giving up their freedom for the false promise of security. So it's a cycle. America has withstood the time constraint of most democracies that seem to crumble in about 150 years, or about 250. But we are a nation in peril.

because we have a news media that is primarily governed and controlled by radical leftism. And they're not pointing out the dangers. We don't educate our children because radical left has taken over institutions, academia. churches, our government, all these other institutions, and they continue to preach that. And not enough Americans have their eyes open in terms of the true danger. And how, again, freedom is pretty fragile. Venezuela was a pretty successful country just a couple of decades ago, incredible natural resource wealth. It ought to be a... You know, it ought to be the wealthiest country, potentially in the hemisphere, quite honestly, but certainly in South America. And it's not. It's an economic basque basque case because of leftism, about socialism. So that's just universal. I mean, this is the ongoing struggle. Humans want to be free, but they're always tyrants. There's always evil. that is pushing back on that and evil triumphs oftentimes. Yeah, and it's allowed to because we let it. We have a grievance-based intersectional left. So that's what we've permitted to happen. We've permitted that to infect our military, our schools, our churches, as you say, our media, certainly our entertainment culture. Once that became, you know, sort of the cultural patina of the United States, everything went sideways. is they just started talking about Iran. Just today, because President Trump said help is on the way. Just because President Trump said help us on the way, now we're going to talk about Iran. Certainly, they're probably going to talk about it as something awful that the Trump administration could possibly do to what? Free the people in Iran? Look at how they covered Venezuela. Here you have people celebrating in the streets while they could before the collectivos came back out and tried to shoot them all in the face. And the response from the American media, the American left, Democratic Party was almost Maduro apologism. So, yeah. And, you know, I think you're right. I think we are in peril because, you know, even with what you have going on with, you know, political assassinations, people rioting in Minneapolis. I mean, you still have a whole bunch of folks saying let somebody else solve the problem. And they're riding in Minneapolis because? I mean, again, the radical left convinced enough Americans that we want to open borders. And so the elected Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, who threw open the borders, allowing millions of people to flood this country. A lot of people who do not want to assimilate, that would be, in one case, the Somalians who really aren't interested in assimilating, not embracing our Constitution. They want Sharia law. They're happy to live off.

hardworking American taxpayers who are providing them the benefits, you know, taunt us with the benefits they're receiving. And then when you have law enforcement, federal law enforcement, engage in legal enforcement activity, they are being blocked by people like that woman who was unfortunately shot to death. And then the radical F rallies to... Start rioting and protesting law enforcement, putting them at risk. I mean, let's face it. The ICE officers were shot at in Dallas killing from illegal immigrants, not the ICE, but the ICE officers are the target. They've been, you know, the Radical Act has been using vehicles to ram ice. So, you know, ICE officers are on tight, hair trigger alert because it have to be. They've got to protect their own life. You know, they're being docks. I mean, they're being threatened by the Radical F. I mean, this is how out of whack this is. I mean, if you don't want to get shot by a nice officer, comply with them. But they're, you know, lawful enforcement activities. You don't block them. When they come up to your car, she rammed him. But she, prior to that, she was blocking the road there. She was blocking. She was blocking. She was obstructing justice. So they went up to her to get out of your car. She didn't comply. That's a really stupid thing to do. Okay. I mean, you comply with law enforcement. I certainly do. We pay these people. You know, we fund police departments and federal law enforcement to enforce the law to keep us all safe and secure. Okay? And yet the radical act is out there demonizing ICE. demonizing those who expect by their lives to keep us safe. I mean, this is sick. And by extension. So much support from the left and so much support in the media. is thick. That's why we're in peril. They are demonizing ICE, but by extension, they're demonizing anybody who would support them. So we just had an Antifa radio host on some college station say it's time to take out JD Vance. You've had, you know, so that's that kind of when you know, when you think that you get to decide what the law is, when our compact of getting together and deciding through rational debate is not something you need to respect any longer and you decide that it doesn't apply. you, then yeah, then you're going to say things like, let's just take them out, because that's what tyrants do. That's what the mullahs did in Iran. That's what Chavez and Maduro did in Venezuela. That's what Castro and the boys did in Cuba. They get to decide. That's where the left is at this point. Let me go back to something you said in that historical sort of thought process you were in on how, you know, free nations fall. One of the ways they fall, Ron, is debt. And we have been able to shine it on on debt for a very long time. If ever that, you know, that bill comes calling, we won't be able to resist a lot of what has been going on any longer. And that's when the lepsis take over. That's when the real insurrection succeed. So what's your witnessing right now.

from the radical X. That's what insurrection looks like. It's not, you know, a protest that, you know, went awry one day in the Capitol. Okay, it's hundreds of protests that turn to riots in the summer of 2020. It's sanctuary cities and sanctuary states who are encouraging, who are inciting radical F protesters to, you know, obstruct. lawful enforcement actions. I mean, that's what insurrection looks like. So that's what drives you nuts about the left, is they, they usurp the terms. falsely used them against their opponent's Republicans. Again, it was just remarkable how in no time there's an armed insurrection of the Capitol, although there were no guns rounded up by the FBI. There was no armed insurrection. There was no insurrection. There was a protest that, you know, violence we all condemned occurred at. I mean, that's what happened on January 6th. It wasn't the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War. The greatest threat to our democracy right now since Civil War is what is happening. in the streets by the radical left today and started literally with the election of Donald Trump. It won't end with the exit of Donald Trump, though. This is not, I mean, they want the civil war. In fact, I think we have a civil war, a civil war that only one side really is fighting right now, but we have it. We went from, you know, low-intensity conflict to high-intensity conflict. We've got political assassinations now. We've got women trying to run over ice agents and then people pretending she's the victim, whatever that might be. I mean, you've got federal judges who are actively engaged in subverting the law itself. Yeah, we have an insurrection. We have a civil war. We have a whole bunch of awful things going on. And if... going back to debt, if that debt crisis hit, if, you know, if we're no longer able to float ourselves, you know, what are we at now, Ron, 39 trillion? When are we going to pass 40? When we're no longer able to do that, then you're right. That is when the tyrants come in. That's when the mullahs came in in Iran. That's how Castro managed to seize control in Cuba. That's how Chavez got control of Venezuela. When you have essentially treated your resources in such a way that that they no longer can be managed effectively and they are not working for the people, that's when you get the people getting upset and they start doing dumb, desperate things. Well, let me correct myself. It really began with rules for radicals, but it really began the election of Barack Obama. I mean, he was the radical leftism. Remember, his wife was never proud of America until they elected.

President Obama, then, of course, Reverend Wright, you know, what he said about America. Again, that was really the, that was the sea change. That is when all norms were basically cast aside, and we started plunging ourselves down this path of radicalism. And, again, it's just ramped up. It really exploded and showed its true face when Donald Trump was elected, and they haven't backed off since. I mean, they've just been going full steam, full bore. ever since, and again, they've basically supported by the mainstream media. weaponized grievance. That's what he did very, very effectively. In ways that actually made good people, it used good people's compassion and good people sense Christian orientation even against them. Well, we're not going to solve this on the program, but maybe we see some heartening examples across the globe that can, I don't know, light some fires under people. I do appreciate it, though. Thank you so much for joining me today. Have a good day. Take care. You as well, Senator Ron Johnson, ladies and gentlemen, and we will be right back on the Vicki McKenna Show. That is going to do it for me on the program this afternoon. Hey, take my advice. Go on X. Go on your social media. Start looking for those memes. They will, at the very least, make you laugh enough to cope. 100% worth it. Go look for those ice memes that are all over the place right now. Coming up on tomorrow's program, we have a whole bunch of Democratic. gubernatorial candidates and they're all running from the radicals. They're running from them. They're not going to be able to run from them, but they're running from them. Lots of them are running from their own rhetoric, their own anti-immigration enforcement rhetoric, their own anti-ice rhetoric, anti-cop rhetoric, defund the police rhetoric. We're going to talk about that and put everybody back on the record since they all think they should be governor of the state of Wisconsin. So that's coming up in tomorrow's program and a look into the mind of those post-menopausal harpies. that I was talking about earlier today with Duke Pesta. Have a great afternoon. We'll see you back here on the Vicki McKenna show tomorrow.