The Blue Slip Blues

How can one of the most qualified men to ever serve as US attorney here in Wisconsin

be out of a job next week?

Because Tammy Baldwin doesn't like him.

Welcome to the Dan O'Donnell show as we dive into the blue slip blues on the Tuesday

edition of the program without any further ado.

Let's dive right into a tough story is that we are following right now Brad Shimmel will

leave his position as interim US attorney when his temporary appointment expires next

week.

We will explain why and why the process for appointments need some serious reform.

That is coming up in just a second.

It is an election year tradition.

A statewide election is coming up and Tommy Thompson is yet again, letting it be known

that he is very interested in running plus what are the betting markets saying about who

Democrats will pluck out of the clown car to be their nominee.

That story coming up at 325 the Milwaukee school board approves a plan to cut 260 non teaching

jobs, but we actually crunched the numbers and found a whole lot more fat in MPS that

could be cut.

Our exclusive analysis is coming up at 506 coming off at about 406.

It is the daily Trump date as White House press secretary Caroline Levitt gives an update

on the war with Iran.

One day's in this campaign has been a resounding success thus far and America's warriors are

winning this important fight at an even faster pace than we anticipated.

Secretary of war Pete Hegseth also providing an update today.

We will hear from both of them coming up in the four o'clock hour and the Save America

Act appears to be stalled in the Senate because majority leader John Thune says he cannot

get enough senators on board with getting rid of the standing filibuster.

We will get into that throughout much of the four o'clock hour here on the Dan O'Donnell

show.

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Just how popular and how influential a talk show this is Brad Shimmel who served as interim

US attorney for the past 110 days plus is going to be out after a majority of federal

judges in the eastern district of Wisconsin ruled today that they are not going to allow

him to stay past the expiration of his interim appointment.

According to a release put out by those judges, a majority of judges on the court declines

to exercise this permissive authority.

In doing so, the court intends no criticism or commentary on the performance or qualifications

of the interim United States attorney or any of the attorneys in the United States

attorney's office to the credit of that office from the court's perspective.

It is continued to represent the citizens of this district.

Well, the court awaits the nomination and confirmation of a full time United States

attorney by the president and United States Senate.

Now why has Wisconsin's eastern district not had a permanent US attorney?

Because Tammy Baldwin United States senator from this state, Democrat, of course, has refused

to return what is known as a blue slip.

In other words, she has been able to veto a permanent selection by president Trump that

would ever go to the United States Senate for confirmation because she has had an issue

with pretty much anybody and everybody that president Trump has potentially looked at.

In order to try to get around Baldwin's obstinence and Baldwin's clear, politicking Brad

Shimmel, who is a former prosecutor in Walker Shoes, the former Walker Shaw County district

attorney.

He is a former Walker Shaw County judge.

He is the former attorney general of the state of Wisconsin.

He was a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is the real reason that Baldwin

despises him.

Actually, the real reason is that he dares to be a Republican in public life.

And Baldwin is the most craven political creature.

Quite possibly this state has seen in quite some time.

She is going to oppose anybody and everybody that president Trump puts out on either an

interim or a permanent basis.

Wisconsin has an additional, okay, so to to back up to the start, here's how the process

works for nominating somebody to serve as a US attorney or as a federal judge.

Now you might think, you might think the Constitution might be pretty clear on this that the president

makes appointments and the Senate has what is known as the advice and consent power.

The Senate confirms the president's nominees.

This is rather obviously how it's supposed to go.

However, it doesn't because since at least 1917, there has been a process by which the

presidency essentially defers to senators from the state where the nominations are going

to take place.

This is informally known as the blue slip process because the two senators from that state

quite literally return a blue printed piece of paper to the head of the Senate's judiciary

committee.

Since 1979, Wisconsin has been unique in that it's not just the home state senators that

have a say.

There is actually a bipartisan federal nominating commission.

It's a six member commission with three members chosen by each senator.

So it will actually solicit applications for US attorney for vacancies for federal judge.

It actually interviews candidates.

It makes recommendations to the two senators and the senators almost always only support

and return positive blue slips for the candidates who come through this commission.

Because the commission has become so overtly political under Tammy Baldwin's Democrat nominees,

they have simply refused to approve anybody.

Democrats would not approve a single US attorney to come through this commission for the Eastern

District of Wisconsin.

So President Trump had no choice but to go the interim route and do essentially bypass

the bipartisan commission.

So the way the blue process works is it actually takes away power, not just from the United

States Senate as a whole, but also the Senate's judiciary committee, the committee that is

supposed to be responsible for this sort of thing.

So here's how it happens.

The president nominates someone for a position in a specific state here Wisconsin.

The Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley in this case sends each of the states two senators

a blue colored form.

It is literally blue.

Senators return it with either a positive response saying, I am okay with this nomination.

A negative response saying, I'm not okay or they'll just withhold a return of the slip

entirely and that's actually the most common way to block a nomination.

The chairman will decide what happens next under long standing practice.

If there is one negative blue slip returned or if one of the blue slips is not returned

from a home state senator, the nomination is dead.

The Judiciary Committee doesn't even bring it before the committee to advance out of committee

and then go before the full United States Senate.

Now things had gotten so bad in 2017 when it became apparent that Democrats were so ticked

off that Donald Trump dared to get elected.

That Grassley had no choice but to overhaul the blue slip system for circuit court judges,

the lowest federal judges, not the appellate courts, the district courts or Supreme court

obviously.

But for circuit court judges, the rule was relaxed.

So a negative blue slip or a withheld blue slip no longer blocks a hearing it no longer

stops a nomination cold.

But for US attorneys and district court judges, those blue still lips are still very important.

Again, this is sort of seen as a senatorial courtesy.

It dates back at least a hundred years.

It's been sort of an informal practice.

And the idea was to force the White House to consult with the senators from the state

where the person is going to serve.

And you would think just in theory, this makes a heck of a lot of sense, right?

That you need to understand the people who represent the folks that your nominees, that the

people are going to serve as US attorneys or serve as judges, that they are actually

going to represent that they're actually going to be serving with and serving for.

As you might imagine, Democrats have completely abused this process.

As of December, only two of 18 confirmed US attorneys have served in states with a

Democrat senator.

Think about that for a second.

Trump has nominated 18 different US attorneys.

We're in a state where there is at least one Democrat senator.

So the Democrat senator can withhold the blue slip or say, I don't want this person serving.

16 of 18 times the Democrat has refused to sign off on one of President Trump's picks.

Let's go back a little further.

During the Obama presidency, there were 20 known nominees who had at least one negative

or withheld blue slip from a Republican senator.

Going back even further during George W. Bush's presidency, there were 37 who faced blue

slip problems.

And again, when Trump got elected, Democrats became so obstructionist that Chuck Grassley

had no choice but to relax the rules.

27 of 28 circuit nominees had blue slips.

What this means is had the rule not been relaxed in 2017 during Trump's first term?

Every single one of President Trump's federal judicial nominees for the lowest level for

the circuit court, Eastern District of Wisconsin and so forth, 27 out of 28 would have been

rejected out of head.

They wouldn't have even gotten a hearing in the Senate's judiciary committee because Democrats

in that state are simply for no reason other than because the nominee is a Republican.

And because they don't want Republican US attorneys or Republican federal judges to

serve in their state, they're handing out the blue slips.

Now there was no question that Tammy Baldwin was not going to oppose Shimmel serving past

the expiration of his term next month, which by the way, is St. Patrick's Day.

March 17th, Shimmel is going to leave office as US attorney.

Well, on March 4th, last Wednesday, Baldwin issued a press release opposing any sort

of extension.

She called Shimmel a clearly partisan actor who shouldn't get an extension for this job.

Clearly partisan actor.

Are we kidding here?

The man was serving as a judge as a Waukeshaw County judge.

There has never been a case in which his integrity or any sort of decision making was ever called

into question in any case he ever served on.

He's a Waukeshaw County district attorney and got incredibly high marks in that role.

Got himself elected to two terms as Wisconsin's attorney general again, received very high

marks, except of course, from Democrats who invented attacks on the rape kids, which

by the way, are being completed as a much slower rate under his successor, Democrat Josh

Qual, than they ever were under Shimmel.

There is no legitimate criticism of Brad Shimmel.

He's a partisan actor.

Give me a break, a clearly partisan actor.

Does the name Gregory Hanstad mean anything to you?

Gregory Hanstad.

Anything?

He's the former United States attorney.

He served from 2022 through the end of President Biden's term, previously serving as acting

U.S. attorney 2016 through 2018.

He's Democrat, right?

He is a Democrat.

Ron Johnson filled out a positive blue slip before he was acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern

District.

Had he ever served as a prosecutor, has he ever served in any sort of capacity in public

life?

He had not.

So he had far less relevant experience than did Brad Shimmel.

He was no less a quote unquote partisan.

You don't get through this bipartisan nominating commission and approved by Democrats unless

you are an about partisan Democrat.

So clearly he was a Democrat.

He got a hearing.

He got confirmed.

He served.

Yet Brad Shimmel, who is prosecuted at the county level and is prosecuted as the head

of the state's entire Department of Justice as attorney general, because he is a Republican

doesn't get to serve.

Folks, as with everything, Democrats are abusing the blue slip process, especially here in

Wisconsin, to block clearly qualified actors.

Is there anything about Brad Shimmel that would put him outside of the mainstream of

say political or legal thought?

He's sort of the definition of a no nonsense law and order guy.

He's not out there like say, Alina Habba, Alina Habba was President Trump's personal attorney.

And she was nominated to be a US attorney in New Jersey.

She got blue slipped because she was seen as rather obviously too close to President Trump.

Okay, it's his personal attorney.

There is a conflict of interest there.

I could actually understand the Alina Habba blue slip.

Brad Shimmel taking money from the Republican party.

Brad Shimmel running as a conservative backed by the Republican party for state Supreme Court.

That's somehow too partisan.

Give me a break.

Gregory Hanstad was far less qualified for the job than Brad Shimmel ever was.

That Hanstad sailed right through.

Hanstad was just fine.

Servant 2016 to 2018 before he was eventually replaced by President Trump.

No issue there.

It's nice and unfortunately a relic of a bygone era that the president is expected to sort

of defer to what a home state's senators want.

Home state senators who happen to have a D next to their name, they're just never going

to fill out a positive blue slip for any of Trump's nominees or frankly, I don't believe

any Republican nominees ever again.

Remember, we went through this a generation ago when President George W Bush could not

get any of his federal judges confirmed.

They might get positive blue slips and they might actually get a committee hearing,

but Democrats resolved that they're not going to nominate a single.

They're not going to approve a single Bush judge Republicans, of course, then said in

the early days of the Obama administration, okay, look, we're going to respond in kind

because this was so ridiculous.

It was so beyond the pale.

I'm telling you folks, everything you think is unique and is new in the era of Trump

Democrats did it.

It just wasn't nearly as widely known in the era of George W Bush because we didn't have

social media back then and people weren't nearly as obsessed and because we didn't have

social media, people weren't online every waking moment and know every single thing that

every other person on planet earth is thinking at any given moment.

But they were just as bad.

They were just as obstructionist.

So Republicans say, okay, turn about fair play.

Said into Obama takes control Republicans retake control of the Senate and the House

of Representatives and they say, all right, we're done.

Harry Reid evokes invokes the nuclear option.

Remember that to break filibusters on judicial nominees.

Every single judicial nominee short of the United States Supreme Court was done.

Then of course, when Democrats for the first time in the history of this country, for Neil

Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch out of the three Trump nominees was probably the least controversial.

He was just a soft, spoken judge, served at the appellate level forever.

Democrats filibustered him just because he was nominated by President Trump.

That was the only reason they filibustered him.

So of course, cocaine Mitch, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell says, all right, we're

going to invoke the nuclear option for all judicial nominees.

Well, Democrats lost that power.

So they can't just filibuster and it's it's all appointees, right?

Democrats were so obstructionist that it's now every single, this is why Trump would not

have been able to assemble a cabinet because there would have been a filibuster of every

single one of his nominees.

Even the ones that are eminently qualified Marco Rubio at state, Scott Bessent at at Treasury,

all of the ones who are to forget about Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as good as he has been.

Remember, he was just a Fox News host and a drunk when he was up for nomination.

They just would not have allowed it, but since they no longer have the power of the filibuster,

they're now abusing the blue slip process in order to try to sink these nominees.

You're listening to the Dan O'Donnell show.

We are now a week from St. Patrick's Day, and that means it is a very fun tradition

here on the show.

We play special Celtic punk bumper music for the next week straight ahead to St. Patrick's

Day.

So be listening for that.

All show.

Look, comment up next, the surest sign of spring, Tommy is floating a statewide run for

office.

Welcome back to the Dan O'Donnell show, as we are now one week away from St. Patrick's

Day.

As you could imagine by the title of this show, yes, O'Donnell actually is my last name.

I don't use a stage name here.

We take St. Patrick's Day very seriously.

My family is actually from Donnie Gaul in Northern Ireland, known as We Donnie Gaul.

We took a group of listeners with our friends at cruising tour a couple of years ago to the

mother country, and I'll tell you, I had an absolute blast.

And in fact, as you might know, there is an Irish singer who happens to share my name,

Daniel O'Donnell.

They actually call him We Daniel from We Donnie Gaul.

So our tour guide, a guy whose name was actually quite literally John McGinnis.

I don't know if it gets much more Irish than that, took to calling me We Daniel.

And it was actually hilarious because we were rolling up with these two big buses.

And it said in the window of the bus, you roll up at a hotel in Dublin or in Galway or

wherever it was we were.

And it would say the Dan O'Donnell family adventure, which is what we call the trip, Dan O'Donnell

family adventure, and crowds would gather around thinking it was this singer, We Daniel

from We Donnie Gaul.

He's sort of like the Irish Barry Manolo, it's the way it was described to me.

Your grandmother loves Daniel O'Donnell, he's an incredibly talented guy with an incredibly

beautiful voice.

But every time crowds would gather around, I'm talking like 10, 15 people would just stop

in the middle of the street and sort of like peer into the windows of this bus to try

to see We Daniel.

Our tour guide John had to stop them and say, no, no, it's not him.

It's just a radio presenter from the States.

And with that, I realized that no matter what I did, I would not be better than We Daniel.

Well, it doesn't feel like it today, but yesterday, boy, did it feel like springtime, huh?

The sun shining, the snow melting.

Maybe we even saw the very first Robin of the spring, but none of those are the real

sign of springtime in Wisconsin.

No, we got the first real sign of springtime in Wisconsin today when former governor

Tommy Thompson let it be known to one and all that he is once again interested in

running for statewide office.

Stop me if you have heard this one as much as we love Tommy and we do love Tommy on

this show.

He's an incredible guy.

He is a true legend.

He is the forget about being the greatest governor in the history of Wisconsin.

I think it's one in one a him and governor Scott Walker.

He's one of the greatest most consequential state governors in the history of this country.

Every year, it seems, since he left the governor's ship to become Secretary of Health

and Human Services under President George W. Bush, he has come back every single spring.

There is a statewide election with an open Republican seat and said he's interested.

It started back 20 years ago, May of 2006.

Thompson toyed with the idea of a Senate run, publicly announced though a little bit later.

He's not going to run.

His longtime aide former secretary of administration Jim Clouser confirmed that Thompson gave a Senate

run serious consideration ultimately though his family convinced him not to and this began

an annual springtime tradition, sort of like the groundhog popping his head up and saying

it's going to be an early spring when Tommy pops his head up in the spring, you know,

campaign season has officially begun March of 2010, political, roll call, tons of national

organizations start to report that Tommy quote is eyeing a bid for the United States Senate.

Then about a month and a half later, Thompson said, I can't describe how badly I wanted

to run, but say it with me, my family convinced me not to.

He also apparently gave some consideration to a comeback bid against incumbent Democrat

diamond, Jim Doyle, but the race he was really looking at was the United States Senate.

Two years later, he actually did run for the Senate.

He won a bruising primary against Eric Houghty, but then he was completely out of cash.

And Tammy Baldwin, who didn't face a primary opponent, was able to just cruise through ultimately

Tommy lost to Baldwin by six percentage points and what turned out to be a big Democrat

year, buoyed by the re-election of Barack Obama.

For the next ten years in the era of Scott Walker and with Ron Johnson as the incumbent

Republican Senator, there was really nothing to run for, but then once again, we had the

sign of spring.

It came early in 2022, January 11th, he gives an interview with WISN Channel 12 saying everything

is on the table, in terms of whether or not he would run for the governorship of the

state.

I am physically and mentally capable of doing anything, telling multiple outlets he wanted

to run.

He actually visited President Trump to discuss it.

And he only decided against it because of, say it with me, is family convincing him not

to run.

Finally April 18th, he made the official announcement.

He is not going to run saying, I wanted to, but family opposition ultimately for them.

Now he is out again, our good friends at Wisconsin right now reporting that Tommy Thompson

is telling people that yes, he is interested in potentially running for governor.

At some point, the people around Tommy have got to do everybody, including Tommy, a very

valuable service and tell him that all of this is completely unbecoming.

He is not going to get into this race.

He is not going to win this race and that if anything, the constant will he or won't

he, Brett Farve on the tractor routine is only serving to harm his legacy and his legacy

is a towering one as one of the greatest, most revolutionary conservatives at the state

level in again, American history, forget about Wisconsin history, American history.

But now it's become something of a joke.

For 20 years, every time there is a Republican who might be running every time there isn't

a Republican incumbent, Tommy pops up and says, hey, me too.

Look, this is not an ageist comment or anything like that.

Tommy is 84 years old.

I have no doubt I actually just ran into Tommy talked with him a couple of times at the

Republican National Convention.

He looks good.

He sees probably got more energy than I do for goodness sakes.

Age would be an absolutely massive issue.

He would be 88 years old at the end of his first term were he to win.

Not only that, this song and dance routine four years ago did incalculable damage during

a must win gubernatorial election in 2022.

The Republicans then had coalesced around former lieutenant governor Rebecca Clayfish.

She was raising a good amount of money.

She got pretty much every endorsement from every political figure in the state.

It looks like we're going to avoid the bruising primary that absolutely destroyed Leah Vouckmier

in the 2018 Senate race where she had to battle tooth and nail against our good friend Kevin

Nicholson and she was tapped.

She was spent just like in 2012.

The bruising primary between Hove D and Tommy left Tommy completely out of resources.

Tommy's allies convinced whoever would listen or they tried to convince whoever would listen.

I know this because they reached out to me multiple times.

They told me Dan Becky Catwin Rebecca has no chance of it to which I replied Republican

women are winning everything.

This was in the era where January 6th was still fresh and let's face it that Trump brand

was not doing particularly well.

When Republicans nominated women, they did exceptionally well.

I said, you're telling me that Republican women are winning everywhere, but in Wisconsin.

Rebecca Clayfish is the one Republican woman who can't possibly win.

Give me a break and I rejected that flat out.

Tommy's people though were relentless.

They said, no, no, no, no, no, we need Tommy.

We need Tommy back in this race.

So behind the scenes, they were trying to get Tommy to run so that he would go in with

the Trump endorsement.

He would just blow Clayfish out of the water and then all of the support would go to Tommy.

Well, again, April 18th, he officially says, I'm not going to run.

About a week later, Tim Michaels gets in the race.

Now, Michaels was sort of the backup candidate as I understand it.

He was not going to run if Tommy was going to run rather obviously, but Michaels just

happened to get all of that institutional Tommy support, the Tommy support, by the way,

which was kind of hostile to Rebecca Clayfish and her Scott Walker based team.

They wanted nothing to do with each other.

Once again, bruising primary left Tim Michaels, who we were told was going to be able to

self-fund and was going to be able to just blow evers out of the water and fundraising

numbers because you would just dump $50 million of his own money into the campaign, dumped

a ton of money into win the primary and then he just sort of stopped spending.

I have nothing against Tim Michaels.

In fact, I love Tim Michaels, but it was obvious he was not the right candidate.

Would Rebecca Clayfish have won?

I don't know.

Frankly, it's an unknowable thing, but what I can tell you is that Ron Johnson won and

Michaels ran significantly behind him.

There's notion where the entire party coalesces around one cat right now.

It's Tom Tiffany and yes, I've heard rumblings that the mayor of Wapan, Ron Bishop, who

is a good guy.

I've seen online.

People are blasting him as a rhino.

He is not a rhino.

He's a very good decent man.

He's a principled conservative Republican, but again, he's just not going to have the institutional

support.

It would essentially be a fool there.

There is just no chance at this point, anybody is going to unseat Tom Tiffany.

And so help me.

If this is part of another behind the scenes effort to get an alternative to Tom Tiffany,

because now we're starting to get cold feet in Tommy world that Tiffany can't win.

I just I can't support any of this.

Now is this just Tommy wanting to hear people talk about it?

Yeah, certainly possible.

Certainly possible it is.

But four years ago, it wasn't just an innocent thing like, oh, well, Tommy's interested

in running.

Four years ago, it absolutely was a precursor to one of the most damaging primaries that

Republicans have ever inflicted upon themselves.

And I'll be dog gone.

If it's going to happen again on my watch, you're listening to the Dan O'Donnell show.

It's a tour de force of truth and it's coming right back in just a second.

Welcome back to the Dan O'Donnell show.

Matt Hurt in the St. Patrick's Day bumper music rotation here on the Dan O'Donnell show.

By the way, we have our complete playlist up on Spotify.

Yes, I know it's technically a competitor of I heart radio.

I have been trying to get an I heart radio premium account for many years now.

And I guess I'm just not as good a negotiator as I thought I was when I got my last contract.

I could not get a premium subscription to I heart radio thrown in.

And despite my best efforts, I wanted to put a playlist on you go to I heart radio.

Dan O'Donnell shows St. Patrick's Day bumper music playlist.

I can't make playlists because I don't have a premium account.

I don't know.

I don't want to pay the company that pays me for a premium account.

I already have Spotify.

Sorry boss.

I have Spotify.

So you can check it out on Spotify.

We'll share it again.

We are doing all St. Patrick's Day bumper music until the big day next Tuesday.

And we always have fun with the St. Patrick's Day bumper music.

Time now to name the unhinged liberal of

the silver.

We are in pre-nazzy Germany.

All white people are racist.

Cup is dangerous because he's evil.

America is in over.

Today's unhinged liberal of the day is

whomever it is that runs the at CNN X account.

You know the two terrorists from Pennsylvania who went to New York City

on Saturday morning and through improvised explosive devices

into an anti-Muslim protest outside Gracie Mansion.

Yeah, here's how CNN describes them.

I did not change a single word out of this tweet.

Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning

for what could have been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.

But in less than an hour,

their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing

homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zoran Mamdani's home.

Here's what we know so far.

What?

Two Saudi nationals were just out for a flight on a beautiful September

What are we doing?

They're terrorists.

You crazy people.

He was a brilliant mathematics student who could have gone to Harvard at age 15.

But instead, he started mailing bombs to people.

The Ted Kaczynski story.

They could have spent a normal day enjoying the city.

Yeah, they could have, but they're terrorists.

So they did what terrorists have a tendency to do.

What is it about liberals in the media and their attempts to sanitize

what it is the worst people in humanity do?

Whoever it is that runs that CNN X account is your unhinged liberal of the day.

Coming up for four straight years, four straight years,

Democrats told us that the president is not responsible for gas prices.

Do you know there are just so many factors that go into the price of crude oil

and that, you know, the refining process and it could be it could be bad weather in Malaysia.

And that has an impact on the global oil market.

Look, there's nothing Biden could have done could get gas prices down from five bucks a gallon

in the summer of 2022 now that we have seen a temporary spike in the price of gas.

I believe the AAA average today is three dollars and 53 cents.

Now it is 100% the president's fault.

And by the way, by the way, we have paid three dollars and 53 cents a gallon for gasoline

since yesterday morning.

So about two days give or take two days, right?

Would you believe that is only eight cents higher than the average price of a gallon of gasoline

during four straight years of Joe Biden's presidency?

That's right.

It was about this price for four years.

Libs, what do you think we'd forget?

Donald Donald show coming right back.

Welcome back to the Dan O'Donnell show.

It is classical conservatism delivered with contemporary style.

Want to apologize for last hour.

Apparently we had some sort of signal interference or something.

And those of you who are listening to us on our flagship station,

news talk 1130 WISN did not hear my opening monologue about the blue slip blues.

How Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin has been abusing the process by which

US attorneys and federal district court judges advanced to Senate's judiciary committee

and then advanced to the full Senate after they're nominated by president Trump.

It is the reason that US attorney Brad Shimmel had been serving on an interim basis is not

going to continue and is not going to be the permanent US attorney for the eastern district

of Wisconsin, even though that's who president's Trump wants to be the permanent US attorney.

Uh, the best I can tell you, we'll try to recap a little if we have time.

It is I'm going to warn you.

It's a jam pack show folks.

We've got a ton of stuff to get to.

So I don't know if we're going to be able to do a redo.

What I always do though is post highlight show clips on my social media at Dan O'Donnell show

on X or Facebook dot com slash Dan O'Donnell show.

And the best way to ensure that there's never any signal interferences to listen to us

on your I heart radio app.

You can listen to the show live by heading to the news talk 1130 or 1310 WIBA channels or

you can always listen to the show afterwards.

And the podcast is usually posted about 15 to 30 minutes after the show goes off the air

at 6 p.m. central.

There is never any signal interference.

You are always able to hear it in crystal clear stereo funic sound.

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Smash that like button as the kids say follow us across social media at Dan O'Donnell show.

And watch the show.

Look, I was talking maybe a couple of weeks ago.

About how radio is it's it's my first love.

I love radio.

I love the medium.

I love spoken word.

Broadcasting.

But it's a flawed medium.

It's a very expensive medium.

And it's 100 years old.

The reality is internet delivery systems are far more efficient, far easier.

And you don't get signal interference.

You don't have to power down at sunset.

And yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was absolutely counting down the days until the start

of daylight saving time when sunset is well after this show goes off the air.

Boy, oh boy.

Was it nice not to walk outside into pitch blackness like I'm stepping into the middle

of like a vampire hellscape every time I go off the air.

All right, you want to join the Dano Donald show 414-799-1130.

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Time to get you updated on all things.

Trump White House.

It's the Daily Trump Day.

We're going to win so much.

You may even get tired of winning.

Trump just keeps winning.

It is a win for the administration.

It's also a big win for the United States.

We have to keep winning.

We have to win more.

We're going to win more.

White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt updating on the progress

of the war in Iran during her daily press briefing this afternoon.

More than 5,000 enemy targets have been struck so far.

Iran's ballistic missile attacks are down more than 90 percent

and their drone attacks are down by approximately 85 percent

since the start of Operation Epic Fury.

The United States is also annihilating the Iranian regime's Navy

and we have destroyed more than 50 Iranian naval vessels

including a major drone carrier ship.

None of the regime's vessels are operating in major regional waterways

and the Iranian Navy has been assessed as combat

ineffective.

Levitt also reiterated President Trump's warning to the remnants

of the Ayatollah's regime to not disrupt the transportation of oil

and other goods through the straight-of-war moves.

Moving forward, the stated objectives for Operation Epic Fury

remain the same.

Destroy the terrorist regime's ballistic missiles.

Raise their Iranian missile industry to the ground.

Ensure their terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region

and ensure that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.

President Trump remains confident these goals will be accomplished

in swift fashion.

Levitt today also urged senators to pass the Save America Act

which requires proof of citizenship and photo ID

for voting in all federal elections.

We'll dive into the very latest on that.

Coming up at about 425.

Earlier today, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth offered his own update on the war

and said that this conflict will not

despite what the media is saying.

Be a forever war.

Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes

inside Iran.

The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes,

intelligence more refined and better than ever.

So that's on one hand.

On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire

the lowest number of missiles they've been capable of firing yet.

Just the bifurcation, just the trend lines

that we talked about on our first briefing.

You see, this is not 2003.

This is not endless nation building

under those types of quagmires we saw under Bush or Obama.

It's not even close.

Our generation of soldiers will not let that happen again

and nor will this president who very clearly ran against

those kinds of never-ending, nebulously-scoped missions.

Those days are dead.

Instead, we're winning decisively with brutal efficiency,

total air dominance, and an unbreakable will to accomplish

the president's objectives on our timeline.

Oil prices continuing to plummet today from a high of over $115

a barrel Sunday evening.

The average price of gas in the US is now $352

a gallon up substantially from a month ago.

But up just slightly from the average price

under four years of president Biden.

More on that coming up in just a second.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy today

spoke at the first ever National Autonomous Vehicle Safety Forum.

He says the United States is in competition with other nations

to master this new technology.

We're the race, right?

Everyone is trying to have the best technology

that will be deployed around the world.

And I want the technology to be developed in America.

I want the jobs in America,

and I want the rest of the world to use American technology.

I don't want to see a foreign competitor

slash foreign adversary slash communist party

beat America and have their technology deployed around the world.

This is a national security issue.

This is an economic issue.

This is a safety issue.

Today's seminar is being hailed

as the biggest federal gathering on self-driving cars

safety in years.

It comes as autonomous taxi services like Waymo

and Tesla's Robo Taxi scale up their operations

in a number of cities that ladies and gentlemen

is your daily Trump date producer.

Eric is with us here on the Dan O'Donnell show.

Eric, you ever been in a Robo Taxi self-driving car?

I have not either.

My brother was in one in Austin, Texas.

And he said it's one of the coolest things he's ever seen.

He knew I would be super interested.

So he actually videoed his entire ride.

He was like giddy as a schoolgirl

when he saw a Waymo come to pick him and his family up

when they were visiting my other brother about a year or so ago.

And he said it's one of the wildest experiences.

I am a big believer in autonomous technology.

As you might imagine,

I am a huge believer in artificial intelligence.

Generally, I think it's going to revolutionize the world.

I think it is already revolutionizing the world.

And you want to talk about not being dependent

on the straight up or moves or uncertainty in the Middle East.

You get into a situation in which autonomous electric vehicles

are just dominating American roadways.

And that does more than anything else to decouple us

from awful regimes like Iran.

Well, also that and just destroying the military capabilities

of an evil regime.

Now, Democrats are not used to this sort of military might.

Now, you heard from the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.

And he said what I have been trying to explain to people

for several weeks now since this conflict started.

And really starting with the arrest of Nicholas Maduro,

the now former dictator of Venezuela.

We are not going to the idea of a forever war.

The idea of American boots on the ground for a generation

like they're were in Afghanistan.

That is long past.

Technologically, the United States is so superior

to every other military on planet Earth

that we are able to achieve our objectives

as quickly as the blink of an eye.

Without deploying a significant portion

of our fighting force or any portion of our fighting force.

Now this sort of strength, this sort of speed,

this sort of military might, this sort of extreme competence

at the top of the Department of War.

Or as it was formerly known, the Department of Defense is rather alien.

I want to take you back two years ago to February 1, 2024.

The Iranian regime's proxies, Hamas,

had just killed three American service members.

And Biden's Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin,

took to the White House briefing room podium

to offer his condolences and to pledge to do, I don't know,

something in response.

The president will not tolerate

a tax on American troops.

And neither will I.

Sounds tough, right?

Exactly 45 seconds after Austin opened that press briefing by saying that,

he apologized for going a wall over the Christmas holiday,

just absolutely disappearing.

And even the woman who was left in charge as acting Secretary of Defense

had no idea that she was actually in charge,

while Austin was getting surgery for prostate cancer.

Now, of course, nobody is going to criticize Secretary Austin

for having prostate cancer.

All right.

I have loved ones with prostate cancer.

I've known my grandfather had prostate cancer when he passes

millions of men at prostate cancer, millions of men get treatment.

That's not the issue.

You cannot, while Houthi rebels were sinking American ships,

while Hamas was flexing its muscles, just sort of disappear

and leave America without a Secretary of Defense.

But 45 seconds later, after he promised some ambiguous action

at some future date in response for the killing of three American service members,

you had Austin groveling for forgiveness for going a wall.

But I want to be crystal clear.

We did not handle this right.

And I did not handle this right.

I should have told the President about my cancer diagnosis.

I should have also told my team and the American public.

And I take full responsibility.

I apologize to my teammates and to the American people.

How absolutely pathetic was that display?

Meanwhile, Democrats have spent two days now predicting that oil would get to $200

dollars a barrel.

It is now at $77 and in freefall.

Yesterday, we actually saw the single biggest one day decline in the price of a barrel of oil.

After there was a whole lot of fear mongering.

My good friend Dave Spano over at Annex wealth management calls it a wall of worry

that just sort of gets built up over things, whatever it is.

Global conflicts, the federal reserve, anything and everything.

When you get that wall of worry built up, a lot of times you get panic selling,

a lot of times you get panic hoarding, you just get illogical behavior.

What we saw with the Straits of Hormuz being essentially bottlenecked by the remnants of the

Iatola's regime was this wall of worry being to call it a dam of fury being built up in the

strait of Hormuz.

But once that cleared, once it was abundantly clear that we had plenty of supply,

the price of a barrel of oil dropped from 110 down to 84 almost instantly Monday,

and pretty much every Democrat talking point was destroyed.

Right now, though, we are in a gas price spike.

We have seen higher than normal gas prices.

According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded is $3.53 per gallon.

The average price under Joe Biden for four years was $3.45 a gallon.

For four years, we have been paying the price of gas that we are paying for the last two days

when it's a natural national emergency excuse me.

Democrats are screaming about the price of gas as though we didn't just live through the single

worst period for gas prices probably since the last time we had a truly disastrous

Democrat president in Jimmy Carter.

And at some point, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is worth revisiting.

Carter's responsibility for not just bringing us the Iatola's brutal 47 year reign of terror

in Iran, but also undermining Middle East policy by subsequent presidents through back channel

communications with Iran and other other Middle Eastern countries after he left office.

You know, Jimmy Carter somehow skated by on this reputation, largely unearned of just being a

nice guy who builds houses for habitat for humanity who is going back to his peanut farm in

Georgia. And he was just going to live a nice long life. No, he was actively undermining American

foreign policy to the degree where some might consider it to be a criminal offense against the

United States of America. To say nothing of the fact that 47 years of the Iatola

and the Mullahs brutally oppressing their people, spreading the tentacles of terrorism,

not just through the Middle East, but across the globe, killing hundreds of Americans,

thousands. If you include all of the IED attacks in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,

Jimmy Carter in in large measure and his feckless foreign policy in the late 1970s was responsible

for a good portion of it. All right, when we come back here on the Dan O'Donnell show, the

Save America Act, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not going to pass because he

does not have support for ending the Phantom filibuster. We'll discuss in just three minutes here

on the Dan O'Donnell show. Barroom hero, the dropkick Murphy's in the St. Patrick's Day punk

music bumper music rotation here on the Dan O'Donnell show. Welcome back to it. Happy St. Patrick's

Day a little bit early and top of the afternoon to all of you Senate Majority Leader John Thune

saying today in a press conference with reporters that he does not have the votes to get the Save

America Act passed through the talking filibuster. For those who have been unfamiliar with this debate,

the talking filibuster is what you would think a filibuster should be. You simply talk until you

can't talk anymore. You might remember we had to do something like that on this very radio show

back in December when we lost the ability to play commercials or anything else. I basically just

had to talk for hours and hours and hours. The most famous example that everybody reminds

themselves of when they when they hear filibuster is Mr Smith goes to Washington 1930s or 40s film

starring Jimmy Stewart as Jefferson Smith who goes to Washington and tries to take on corruption and

the climactic scene is him filibustering and he gets all the mail delivered from people who support

him and then he collapses because he just can't talk anymore. So that's what people think when

there's a filibuster. Well, about a hundred years ago or so, the Senate abolished the talking

filibuster and instead went to what's known as a zombie filibuster or phantom filibuster.

A Senator merely says he's going to filibuster and then there is a vote for cloture. Cloture

means debate is ended on a particular measure and then there's a vote on the measure itself.

Cloture used to require two thirds plus one majority, 66 votes plus one. When that threshold

was lowered to three fifths in the 1970s, zombie filibuster became commonplace. When you only

needed 60 plus one, when you only needed 60 votes to end a filibuster, everybody started filibustering.

But not actually filibustering using the zombie filibuster. There has been a movement and this

is something by the way that the framers of the constitution never actually intended. Look,

the framers of the constitution never actually intended for the direct election of United States

Senators. They actually intended that state legislatures would appoint two United States Senators.

We changed that with the 17th amendment about 150 years after the constitution was ratified.

Thune today. It's about the votes. It's about the math. I'm the one who has to be clear

ride and a realist about what we can achieve here. We don't have the votes either to proceed

to get on a talking filibuster nor to sustain one. If we got on it, there is nothing I can do

about that. I mean, I understand the president's got a passion to see this issue addressed as we all do.

So the fear that a lot of Republicans have and yes, it's the usual suspects, Susan Collins of

Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, cocaine, Mitch McConnell, as much as I loved the guy when he

was Senate Majority Leader, he has no business being in the Senate anymore. I was in the first hour

talking about how Tommy just I hate to say it, but is too old. Even though he's very vibrant,

he's very full of life. It just isn't going to work him as governor of Wisconsin again.

Mitch McConnell is not vibrant at all. He is the opposite of vibrant. He needs to step down. Now,

of course, he's not going to, but he also opposes this. You actually also have a number of

other senators. I think I saw a Barrasso was one of them. You got a pretty big coalition. Seven

or eight senators who are saying, look, we don't support going back to the talking filibuster and

the fear is always the same. That Democrats will simply do what Republicans did after cocaine

Mitch went on the floor of the Senate. Remember when the late Senate Majority Leader Harry

Reed for the Democrats got rid of the, he used the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster

for nominations for for federal courts. Cocaine Mitch gets up and he says, you may regret this

and you may regret it sooner than you think. And Democrats absolutely did because as soon as

President Trump took power and Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch, Republicans simply used

Democrats precedent against them and said, all right, well, now we're going to use the nuclear

option and get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees as well.

The fear here is that if Republicans do anything to the filibuster now, as soon as Democrats

retake control of the Senate, and they've got say a governing trifecta, a president, the Senate

and the House of Representatives, that they will simply use the Republican president and further

gut the filibuster and get rid of it all together. Is there anyone alive who thinks that this

current crop of Democrats, well, folks, they're talking about packing the Supreme Court,

adding states simply to give them more senators. So Republicans have no chance of ever

winning the Senate again. And you're wondering if they'll keep the filibuster rule.

They were calling the filibuster a relic of Jim Crow when Republicans were using it against

President Biden from 2021 to the end of 2024. You're, you're really telling me

that they're not just going to do whatever it is they feel like. Maybe a generation or so ago,

Democrats would have bowed to President and say, okay, there's a level of decorum here,

and we must respect prior President. I'm telling you, folks, this generation of Democrats does not.

As soon as it suits them, they will get rid of the filibuster.

They will do whatever they need to get their agenda passed.

The idea that we can make this most minor change and simply go back to what a filibuster is

supposed to be this idea that this is just a bridge too far and we can't possibly do this,

especially to get something passed as vital as ensuring that only American citizens are taking part

in America's democratic process. If we can't even do that, then what are we really doing with

a governing majority? We will talk more about the Save America Act itself when the Dan O'Donnell

show returns. Stay tuned. Welcome back to the Dan O'Donnell show. So the Save America Act itself.

What specifically does it require? There is a whole lot of misinformation out there. All it

requires is that you essentially prove not only that you are who you say you are, but also that you

prove that you're an American citizen. During today's White House press briefing, press secretary

Caroline Levitt took the very first question on the Save America Act, and it was about Democrats

who claim that married women will be unable to comply because they're not able to change their name

when they get married. This is honestly one of the dumbest arguments I think I've ever heard.

It essentially comes down to married women and it's always racial minorities. Just racial minorities

are unable to comply with this law because reasons. Well, the very strong implication is that

they're somehow not competent to be able to get the thing that you need to do to do most things

in American public life. And that's have a photo ID in order to get on an airplane in order to buy a

car in order to rent a car in order to buy a house in order to rent an apartment in order to apply

for a loan for a credit card for a bank account. You need a photo ID.

And what is so wrong with requiring a birth certificate, if you don't have a passport, by the

way, 50% of Americans have a passport. It is, it is very easy to get one admittedly. It does cost

money. This is why there is a provision in the law where if you are one of the estimated three

percent of people who is unable to get your birth certificate, it doesn't have easy access to your

birth certificate. Admittedly, I don't have a copy. Actually, I do. I take that back. I do have a

copy of my birth certificate somewhere in the files in the bowels of my home. I think somewhere in

my home office, I've got my birth certificate. But you know what I can do? I was born in Milwaukee

County. I can call up Milwaukee County and I can get a birth certificate printed for me. I can

go and get it. I can get it emailed to me. There are a million. It is very, very easy. I make fun of

Milwaukee County government inefficiency, but their records department is remarkably good.

Very easy to get. So Caroline Levitt was asked, okay, are married women really not going to be

able to comply with this? As far as married women who have changed their name, if they're already

registered to vote, they're entirely unaffected by the say that did for the small fraction of individuals

who have changed their name or their address. They can still register to vote. Of course,

they just have to go through their state processes to update that documentation. And this is

something that the American people married women in minorities and people all across this country

who Democrats are insultingly saying cannot do this. They're already doing it every day. Go

into the social security office, going to the DMV. And I think it's frankly insulting that the

Democrats are saying that there are certain groups of people in this country who aren't smart enough

to update their documentation to allow them to vote. That's it. Exactly.

The fact that there is a provision in the proposed bill in the act itself that says, okay,

if you truly cannot get it, you are still able to attest, meaning you're still able to say,

okay, hey, person who is checking my ID, I swear I am an American citizen. I am someone who is

legally authorized to vote in this country. And oh, by the way, lest you think non-citizens voting

in American elections is something that never happens. There was just someone who is arrested

yesterday for voting in presidential and other federal elections since 2008. He is a native of

his Mauritania is that how you say as a nation in Africa. It's rare to be sure. We think it's rare.

We have no idea how often it actually happens. There is no legitimate argument against this.

Unless when it boils down to we don't care who it is that's actually voting in our elections. Now,

I would say, okay, Democrats don't actually want non-citizens voting in American elections,

except Democrats want non-citizens voting in American elections. Multiple cities across the country,

including San Francisco allow non-citizens allow legal residents in this country. Not illegal

aliens, but again, how would you really know if illegal aliens are voting in municipal elections in

school board elections? This has been this was something that for a few years in there. This was

all the rage in Democrat circles. We have to allow non-citizens to vote in these municipal elections,

especially school board elections, because look, they live here too. They go to the schools.

Their children are going to the school, so they should have a say in who it is that

represents them on these school boards, who it is that's hiring the superintendents and

principals and so forth. Regardless of the fact that it is a federal law that only American

citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections, the clear implication there is that you need to

be a U.S. citizen in order to take part in American democracy. And I just find it bizarre that the

Democrat party who has positioned itself as the great defenders of democracy ever since January

6th, all of a sudden does not want any procedural safeguard whatsoever.

This is something, folks, that 80 plus percent of Americans want. Even about 47 percent of

Democrats actually do want proof of citizenship, not just voter ID, but proof of citizenship

before you're allowed to vote in federal elections. Election security is something that actually

unites both parties because frankly, both parties have accused the other of stealing an election

and cheating every time they have lost. Oh, Democrats don't do that. That's just Republicans.

That was just Trump pitching a fit in 2020. Oh, really? Oh, really? Because in 2024,

how many people were taking to social media and say, hey, there were 8 million Democrat votes who

just disappeared. These voters just disappeared. In 2020, there were 8 million more Democrat voters

for Joe Biden than there were for Kamala Harris in 2024. What happened? Trump must have done

something to which I said, yes, absolutely. It is weird. It is very weird that it just looked like

there were eight to nine million people who appeared out of the ether in 2020. They voted for Joe

and then they disappeared never to be seen or heard from again. Yes, I do find that very weird.

In 2016, Democrats claimed that Trump was a Russian agent and that Russia hacked the election.

They were actually going into ballot boxes and hacking the vote totals. 2004, remember in Ohio,

they were claiming that ironically enough, Dominion voting machines were changing

John Kerry votes to George W Bush votes. In 2000, of course, they accused Jeb Bush,

then governor of Florida for rigging the election for his brother in the critical swing state with

the hanging chads and the Supreme Court decision. Do you realize that Democrats every single election

they lost every single one this century. They have claimed was rigged. They have claimed was stolen.

They have claimed was not on the up and up. Don't you think it is a little weird therefore

that when Republicans say, okay, yes, we want to do something to make sure that those elections

can't be stolen. That elections can't be rigged. That Democrats say, well, no, absolutely not.

We don't want to do anything about that. Unsung hero of the day coming up next right here on the

Dan O'Donnell show. If Republicans get shellacked in the midterms, you can take a look back at today

as a potential big reason why. If in fact, John Thune and Republicans in the Senate don't show

some sort of spine, some sort of backbone, and President Trump and Republicans can't get

something that 85% of the American people want passed. That is the Save America Act required

voter ID for all federal elections in addition to a requirement that you prove citizenship.

That'll be a big reason why forget about the price of gas, forget about the war in a run,

forget about inflation or the economy or interest rates or anything like that. This is

this is about just doing what your voters want, doing what all American citizens want.

The Trump administration has had a year of pretty substantial wins, especially on the immigration

issue, but it's all for not if we can't have faith and can't have secure elections and we can have

faith in elections that we know to be legitimate and and Democrats. This is the thing that

absolutely gets me. The charge of being an election denier is almost exclusively hurled at

conservatives, even against your very humble host here who actually did find a substantial

amount of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election in the form of nursing homes,

absolutely casting ballots for patients who had no business voting whatsoever.

I found dozens of examples. I think that the final number was 76 examples that were emailed

to me that I could verify. These are people whose loved ones contacted me and said, look,

my mother has no idea who is on the boat. She would have no idea whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden

is even running for president. She had no idea Donald Trump was president yet somehow she voted

and I'm going to take a wild guess that she voted for Joe Biden.

Democrats have been complaining that elections have been stolen every single time they have lost

an election this century. Let me repeat that every time Democrats have lost an election this

century, they have complained that it was rigged. Did Republicans complain in 2008 that Barack

Obama had had rigged the election? Or did we say, hey, okay, a lot of people voted for the first

black president. John McCain was not a particularly inspiring candidate. Heck, we Republicans didn't

particularly like McCain all that much 2012. Same thing. Did we complain that somehow the election

was stolen 2020 when all of a sudden you had roughly 66 67 million total votes for Barack Obama.

All of a sudden that number jumps to 83 million for Biden and then it goes right back down

to the mid 60s. Again, maybe it was upper 60s for Kamala Harris. Yeah, there's a big reason

that people are suspicious of that. That a guy who didn't even campaign got the most votes by far

in the history of American elections in a year in which Democrats fully admitted that they

changed all the rules because of COVID-19. Okay, time to name the unsung heroes of the day.

Today's unsung heroes of the day just might be the most worthy in quite some time. They are

Assistant New York City Police Chief Aaron Edwards and Sergeant Luis Navarro during Saturday's

terror attack at the anti-Islam demonstration outside of Gracie Mansion in Manhattan. Assistant

Chief Edwards jumped over an iron barricade and tackled one of the terror suspects, a man by the

name of Emir Balant, brought him to the ground as he was trying to throw a second improvise explosive

device. The video is absolutely incredible. Assistant Chief Edwards actually gets him

mid throw. His tackle stopped the second bomb from being launched into the crowd. Sergeant Navarro

as Edwards tackled the suspect. He ran straight toward the lit smoking IED that Balant had dropped

near officers and protesters. He did so according to the New York Police Department without hesitation

and without regard for his own safety to neutralize the device and protect everyone nearby. Both

were publicly honored by Mayor Zoran Mamdani and New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tish in

yesterday's press conference and today they are the Dan O'Donnell Show's unsung heroes of the day.

When we come back here on the program, MPS is going to cut 260 non-teaching jobs. Is it enough?

Not nearly. Stay tuned. We'll be right back after the news.

Believe it or not, we are three weeks away from the spring election here in Wisconsin.

My goodness. Is it really that quick? Let's see. One, two,

four weeks. All right. Four weeks away. Two weeks away from the start of early voting. My goodness.

In person early voting where the rather paradoxically titled in person absentee voting. That that

just kind of reiterates how ridiculous it is. You are absentee voting, but you are doing so in person.

Folks, we are once again launching the state's largest early vote drive here on the Dan O'Donnell show.

What we are going to encourage everybody to do as per usual is to vote early to vote as early as

possible. Vote for conservative Maria Lazar. Vote for every conservative on your ballot. What

what Dan? What's that you're saying? Dan, Dan, we don't know who the conservatives on our

ballot are. We don't know. Well, ladies and gentlemen, have we got something for you?

What we are going to unveil on Monday, March 23rd is the state's ultimate conservative voter

guide. We have been working on this for the better part of a month and a half now. It is going

to be the single biggest conservative voter guide that has ever been put together.

It is going to be in a new digital spot, which we are going to unveil on Monday, March 23rd. I am

very, very excited about it. And as part of this, we are going to be running once again our very

popular segment, better know a candidate. And we are expanding this in conjunction with my good

friends, Ben Yount and Jason Gotch, who do the morning and midday shows here on our flagship

station news talk 1130 WISN. They are also going to be doing better know a candidate. And they are

also going to be letting you know where you can get the digital copy. We are not having hard

copies of the conservative voter guide. It is going to be let's just say at a brand new spot

online. And you are going to know no matter what county you are in, we're going to have an

interactive map where you're just going to be able to click on your county and you are going to

have every conservative that we were able to identify. We have been working with Republican

party, county parties across the state. We have been working with conservative groups across

the state. We have just been going through and doing our own research on the candidates.

And we are trying to get as many conservatives as humanly possible. Again, if you are a conservative,

if you're in Southeast Wisconsin, Walker Shaw County does easily the best job of this. I think

I've ever seen the Republican party of Walker Shaw County Terry Dietrich, the chairman there

does just an excellent job. He runs an initiative called WIS Red and we have partnered with them.

You're at the Dan O'Donnell show. So if you're in Walker Shaw County, don't worry,

we already know who you are. You are already in our voter guide. Same thing with I believe

Milwaukee County, we've got Racine, we've got Kenosis, Boygan, I believe Fondalak, we've got

what WIS Red does is to identify candidates and actually produce materials to help them win

in local elections. We're not doing that here on the Dan O'Donnell show. We're literally just

giving you a list of names because for years and years and years now, I've been doing this

radio show for the better part of the decade. I believe it's coming up on a decade now.

The number one question I get every spring is Dan, when is Tommy Thompson going to say he's

thinking about a serious run for statewide office. Okay, but the second biggest question that I get

is Dan, who is the conservative in this race? Dan, who should I vote for in this race?

I am firmly convinced that one of the big reasons that conservative turnout is somewhat

depressed and has been for a long time now in spring elections in state Supreme Court elections

is that conservatives stay home because they literally don't know who to vote for.

And this isn't, you know, I'm sure at this point liberals are going to be saying, well,

that's because conservatives are stupid. They don't pay attention to local race. It's very

difficult. It's very difficult. Pretty much every study has shown by the way that conservatives

actually consume way more news than do liberals and are way more informed and better informed on

current events than the left is. The reality is, when am I going to be talking about the, you know,

Mount Horib School Board? When am I going to be talking about the Shaniqua Village Board elections?

And folks, I dare say we here on this show do local news and do Wisconsin news more in depth and

I may pull out a shoulder blade patting myself on the back here, but I dare say we do better

local coverage than pretty much anywhere else. We certainly break more exclusive stories.

I think then any other news organization in this state on Wisconsin news and politics,

but we can't cover it at a granular level and an unfortunate byproduct of the destruction of

local news is that you just don't get that coverage anymore. Remember when we used to have this

CNI local newspapers, you'd have like Greendale now, hell's corners now, cut a hey now.

Those don't exist anymore. And we don't have patch attempted to fill the void, but it really

didn't work out. It is very difficult to do. I'm sort of hoping that now in the era of artificial

intelligence, where you can have AI do some of the newsroom work that you would otherwise have,

like low level employees or interns do, you might see that again, but the reality is they're,

there just aren't a whole lot of people passionate about it. So as a result, we're a less informed

electorate. We're a we're a much worse served electorate by the so-called fourth estate.

And heaven knows the biggest news organizations in the state, the journal set all the state

journal, they aren't covering local elections in any fair manner whatsoever.

So that's why I think I actually do believe that you get people say, well, I don't know who any

of these candidates are. I don't even know if I'm going to be running voting for the right person.

Why should I show up? And then when you say, okay, well, there's a big Supreme Court election on

the ballot. Some people will show up and just vote for that, but other people will say, well,

does it really matter? Honest to goodness. Does it? Does it really matter? All right. That was a

long way of saying stay tuned. Monday, March 23rd, the ultimate conservative voter guide goes live

online. Top stories we're following right now here on the Dan O'Donnell show. The White House

is providing an update this afternoon on the status of the military campaign in Iran. Press

Secretary Caroline Levitt says Iran's ability to strike back against its enemies is decimated.

And the US its mission is well ahead of sketch. Moving forward, the stated objectives for

Operation Epic Fury remain the same. Destroy the terrorist regime's ballistic missiles.

Raise their Iranian missile industry to the ground. Ensure their terrorist proxies can no longer

destabilize the recent region and ensure that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon. President

Trump remains confident these goals will be accomplished in swift fashion. And I have no doubt that

that is the case here at home. The Milwaukee Public School Board has approved MPS superintendent

Brenda Cassilius's plan to cut 260 non teaching positions more details on that coming up in just a

second. Then coming up at 325 did the Hudson school district flat out lie to parents about an

anti-ice student walk out last month. It sure seems like it. One parent called the district

out during last night's school board meeting. You won't want to miss this audio from that brave

parent. Finally, what is it about liberals that they don't want parents knowing what sort of

sexually explicit material their kids have access to a library group in Madison. Very upset

that Republicans in the legislature want warning labels on graphic books for kids that story

coming up at 535. Right now, though, Brenda Cassilius, the Milwaukee school superintendent,

has announced plans that she is going to cut 262 non teaching positions from MPS.

This is to help close a $46 million budget shortfall. That sounds pretty impressive. And MPS,

the school board passed these cuts last night. The school district wants some plots here. They want

an Attaboy for saying, Hey, we're doing something right. This is on top of the 160 jobs

cut last year. About 104 of those positions, I believe, were subsequently refilled.

Well, I actually did some digging. Just how many non teaching positions are there?

In MPS. And what percentage is 262 non teaching positions? According to MPS's website,

it employs 4,500 teachers. It's pretty impressive. That's actually very impressive.

Plus 1,500 educational aids, okay? 1,500. So we have got 6,000, what I would consider

teaching professions, professionals, right? Guess how many non teaching positions there are

in the Milwaukee public school, a mid-level school district, nationally, it is by far the

biggest school district in Wisconsin.

Sekowale, guess, 4,000, 4,000 non teaching positions. There are roughly 10,000 total

employees in Milwaukee public schools. The 262 non teaching positions that are being cut right

now represents a 6.5% reduction in the number of non teaching positions.

Given the fact that MPS has been fiscally underwater for quite some time now, and apparently

its financial situation has been so bad that they have just refused to report it to the

Department of Public Instruction for several years, resulting in all manner of sanctions,

not just from DPI, but also from the federal government because of its financial reporting

requirements that MPS did not follow. And also, by the way, the fact that the Head Start program,

the Pre-K daycare program that MPS runs was quite literally losing track of children,

the Biden Education Department actually cut funding from MPS's Head Start program.

And given the fact that the Milwaukee public schools just passed a $252 million

referendum a couple of springs ago, and also got roughly $770 million in federal

SR grants for COVID-19 relief and mitigation, this district over and above shared revenue from

the school, from the state, over and above property tax revenue has gotten more than a billion

dollars. The fact that it can only manage to cut 6.5% of the non teaching staff is frankly a slap

in the face. Not only that, what we found from Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce are great

friends here on the Dan O'Donnell show in their brand new competitiveness report here in Wisconsin,

is that statewide, we have lost anywhere between 65,000 and 83,000 K-12 public school students

since the year 2000. As you might imagine, that's led to a loss of teaching positions as well.

We have shed roughly 2000 teaching positions in the past 25 years.

But according to WMC, across the state, we have gained 8,000 non teaching educational bureaucrat

positions in that same time frame. How exactly does that make sense, especially when oftentimes

non teaching positions, vice principals, education coordinators, any manner of make work jobs at

MPS central office or in district offices across the state? These people are oftentimes making

sometimes double the salary that teachers are making when teachers are the ones who are providing the

most valuable service actually educating our kids. If anything, let's you think that that

evil Dan O'Donnell big bad conservative he hates teachers. If anything, I would say double

teachers salaries and get rid of half of the administrative staff. I'd rather have instead of

4,500 teachers and 1500 educational assistants, I'd rather have 5,500 teachers and 2,000 educational

assistants and maybe 1000 non teaching bureaucrats who are making, by the way, way more than those

teachers and educational assistants. I would actually bump up the salary of teachers and dramatically

reduce the salary of the educational bureaucrats. Look, folks, the reality is it ain't working.

MPS is according to the most recent national testing, the N A E P national test. It is the worst

school district in America for educating black students. Pretty damn bad at educating all students,

but Milwaukee has the single worst racial disparity in the country. It's so bad that the entire

state of Wisconsin has the worst racial disparity of any state in the entire country.

Cutting 262 bureaucrats is a good start, and I will actually admit I have been pleasantly

surprised by Brenda Casselius' brief tenure as the head of MPS.

The bottom line though is that more bureaucrats need to be cut, more salaries need to be shed,

more of these wake, make-work positions need to go away permanently, and the investment has to

be in teachers. The investment has to go into the classroom. The investment, in other words,

needs to actually go to kids. From Milwaukee to Hudson, a student walk out in protest of ice,

put students in danger. One parent is absolutely furious. You'll hear from him coming up in just

three minutes. Welcome back to the Dan O'Donnell Show as we are celebrating St. Patrick's Day

a week early, and for the entire week leading up to the wherein of the green with special Celtic

punk bumper music, all week long here on the Dan O'Donnell Show, welcome back to it. Well,

about a month ago, students across Wisconsin, across the country, were taking advantage of

the lefties freaking out about how quaint it seems when the lefties were just freaking out about

ice raids in Minneapolis. Now they're freaking out about World War III, about the price of gas.

It's just quickly, it's remarkable how quickly they're able to just turn on a dime as to what the

most existential crisis to this world is. Well, about a month ago, it was ice rings, and you might

recall that every Democrat in Wisconsin was panic mongering that ice was going to leave Minnesota,

and they were going to set up shop in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, we're not entirely sure where

maybe in Hudson. Students in the Hudson school district took part in the nationwide trend of

getting out a class by walking out in protest of ice. Well, one parent at the Hudson school board

meeting last night by the name of Joseph Rivera stood up and said, hey, wait a second.

Last month, we were told by the superintendent that there was going to be no walkout that students

were not going to be walking out of class. The very next day, guess what? The students walked out

of class, and not just that, they walked out in what appeared to be a very highly coordinated

school sponsored anti ice walkout. Parents were told that students would not be permitted to leave

campus, that disruptions would be minimized, and that parents could excuse their children if they

plan to participate. In response, the superintendent wrote back stating that he supported that

message to families, and that the district had handled previous walkouts in the same manner.

But the next day, around 150 students, including middle school students, walked out of school,

and were seeing downtown participating in protests, and wandering around the streets with alongside

adults. That was not spontaneous. It was anticipated. District policy 442 clearly states that

disruptive demonstrations and walkouts during the school day will not be permitted, and that

students remain subject to compulsory attendance loss, yet the walkouts still happened.

Parents were told one thing and experienced another. I heard from families who were frustrated that

their children were allowed to leave campus without their permission and without consequences.

That creates confusion, it undermines trust, and it puts our students at risk.

Now, why would the school district say, no, no, no, students are not going to be allowed to leave

campus if they want to walk out, they can walk around, and they can march around the campus.

They're not going to go downtown, but they did go downtown. Now, just to be clear,

just to be clear, this is not Joseph Rivera, or Dan O'Donnell, or anybody else,

saying that these students don't ever write to walk out. They do. First amendment.

They, however, are still students. They are still kids. They are still being protected by

school staff, by teachers, by adults, who should know better than to allow them to just

sort of wander around downtown, where there's 150 kids marching, and maybe only a handful of

chaperones in something that was never communicated to the parents. The parents, in fact,

were told the exact opposite. Okay, your kids aren't going to march out. They're not going to leave

campus, and then lo and behold, very next day, they're marching out, and they're leaving campus.

Here's Rivera. When students are on campus during the school day, they're under the district's

care and responsibility, allowing that many students to leave campus and walk around through

downtown during school hours, creates obvious safety risks. Uptown police were present,

and I appreciate their support. They were only there because this was a known safety risk.

But the reality is this. We got lucky that no student was hurt, and we cannot rely on luck when

it comes to the safety of our students. Policy exists for moments like this, when leadership

must enforce clear boundaries and set expectations. If a policy exists, it must be followed.

If expectations are communicated, they must be enforced, and if safety is the priority,

actions must match words. Our students deserve that level of leadership. Our families expect it,

and our district must do better. I don't know if Joseph Rivera is running for school board or not,

but he should, and he absolutely would have my vote. Why is it that a random parent seems to be

the only one in the Hudson school district who is concerned about this sort of thing? Again,

nobody is saying the kids can't walk out. They can't make a stink about ice as dopey as some of

those protests were. They do need to be safe, and parents do need to know where their kids are

going to be. You drop off your kid, especially if it's a middle schooler. Kid who's sixth, seventh grade,

you drop your kid off at school, and if they're going to be leaving the school building,

let's say they go on a field trip, right? Isn't there always a big, well, there's weather day

at the ballpark. The meteorologists from a local TV station will go to American family field,

and you watch a daytime brewers game, and you learn about the weather as a cool little tradition.

You have to sign your consent for your student to go to weather day, even though they know exactly,

don't exactly where the kid is. Okay, is that American family field? Okay, there's a certain number

of shadow, their parent shaperones, there are teacher shaperones. But when it comes to protesting

the evil Nazi brown shirts in ice, well, those rules don't seem to apply because you see the message

is just so great that we got to allow as many 12 year olds to walk out of the building without

ever telling their parents, again, what is it with the school employees? Who believe that they

do not have to tell parents what it is their kids are doing at school? This goes right back to the

same thing we have been arguing about the social transitioning, where a kid is going by different

pronouns at school. And the teachers are saying, well, your secret is safe with me. Okay, adults

and children should not have secrets unless they're mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, okay, fine.

I think I'm old enough to admit this. And I was in my 20s, I really liked PBR beer, perhaps

blue ribbon. This is in the era where hipsters were drinking PBR and old Milwaukee and you know,

shlits and everybody accused me of being a hipster because I'd go out to bars and I would order a

PBR. Well, really, it was because my grandpa, when I would, I was a teenager, I was like a junior

senior in high school and I drive over and every week or so, I would mo his lawn. My younger brother and

I took turns. Well, my grandpa, when I got to be an older teen, he would sit and he loved the smell

of freshly cut grass. What, what dude does not? And he would sit and he would drink a PBR

and watch me mow the grass and just sit out, read his newspaper. And as I got a little older,

I was getting ready to go off the college and so forth, he would have a PBR waiting for me.

And he would say, what do you think he told me? As he and I would sit and sit beer, don't tell

your dad. Well, we lost grandpa 15 years ago. And I think I can finally come clean to my dad that

grandpa was allowing me to have PBRs. And that's why I still to this day, I haven't, I've actually

extended dry January, I call it dry January. I haven't really had a dry, I went out to the

Milwaukee Public Museum's food and froth event, by the way, fantastic event. The last one at the

old museum, that was the only time I've drank in 2026, the only alcohol I've had. Oh yeah,

I'm probably down producer Eric. Do I look thinner? I think I'm down 15 pounds just from cutting out

alcohol. I'm not even kidding. Well, just from alcohol and I don't know what it is. I,

boy, it's been a rough year for health for for the old DOD. If I've sounded, I've had real bad

acid reflux and that has really impacted my hunger. I'm just, I'm not hungry because like my

chest and my stomach just constantly feel awful. And if I've sounded distracted,

last week, I think I told you folks that it was almost certain that I tore my ACL.

Well, MRI results finally came back. I didn't tear my ACL. I tore my ACL and my

meniscus. So I've been found midway through the show. I took the call from the doctor's office

and yeah, no real surprise there. I'm going to need surgery. So boy, oh boy. But no, I haven't

been drinking alcohol. My point though in saying all of this is that unless it's your grandpa,

sneaking you a beer before you go off to college after cutting the grass, you should not be having

secrets with adults. This is why this idea of social transitioning at school is so dangerous.

Oh, it's you're in my cigar. I won't tell your mom and dad that you're exhibiting signs of

severe mental illness. No, no, no, you can trust me. What is it about this? In fact, coming up

next, we have got education advocates in Madison, very, very upset that parents might actually know

about the sexually explicit material in some of these left-wing children's books that are on

school library shows. Stay tuned, Dan O'Donnell show coming right back.

All St. Patrick's Day bumper music that you hear here on the Dan O'Donnell show, you can find

on the Dan O'Donnell show St. Patrick's Day bumper music playlist at Spotify will send out

a link shortly after this show wraps up in about 15 minutes or so or a mind or please do

subscribe to the Dan O'Donnell show podcast on iHort Radio or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm loving folks all of the the kind words. Yeah, it's been

it's been a rough go of it with this knee that's been bothering me for quite some time.

Good to finally have some, well not not good the fact that we could go sadder as playing basketball

with my son and just it just collapsed like my leg just it was like it wasn't even there.

I knew instantly something was badly torn turns out it is a complete tear of the ACL

plus a what is it vertical tear of the meniscus. So yeah, I'm something of an overachiever says

one listener on our Advent knows dot com talking text like I can't just tear one ligament I got a

tear to I am going to need surgery probably going to miss minimal time off of work.

But just fair warning that that is happening Republicans in the state legislature

want to require warning labels on explicit content that is sold commercially and geared towards

children's literature. In other words, some of these truly insanely graphic kids books.

Boys aren't blue is a classic example where there is folks I have done this segment so many times

that it's almost become cliche where I will literally just read passages from books geared towards

children and see if I don't get shut down by the FCC. That's how graphic this stuff is.

All Republicans want is a warning label on the book that says hey parents are there is like

graphic sexual content in the book that is geared towards 11 year olds.

Well, one group in Madison headed by a woman named Rowan Childs is very upset that Republicans

would warn parents about the pornographic content in the books that are marketed towards children.

Here's the report from WMTV. We always are concerned when people are policing books or policing

words. So, A, we're always concerned about that and always look at who is trying to police

books, whether they are for adults or teenagers, kids. Rowan Childs with the Madison reading project

says her organization focuses on expanding access to books for kids and families across

Dane County. She says a big part of that work is making sure children can see themselves and

the stories they read. The diversification of the books, even just that alone, is really

important so that you can see yourself in the cover or you are the main character in the book.

Those are all really important things so that everybody can engage in the books.

So yeah, what if the main character is performing sex acts? Do we want that? Do we want the 12

year old to see himself in the main character there? Nobody's talking about banning books,

although quite frankly, folks, do yourself a favor and read. First of all, make sure you explain

to anybody else who might use your computer while you're looking at the images you are

because, folks, I'm telling you in some of these books, this is not like, are you there,

God? It's me, Margaret, where the little girl gets, you know, she becomes a woman,

she gets that time of the month for the first time. It's not that, okay? It is a very different

sort of coming of age story where you have graphic depictions of sex, of drug use, of, and I'm not

talking about like implied sex where it's necessary to the plot where, say, I'm trying to think,

what would be trying to think of a classic work of literature where some sort of sexual abuse

is very central to the plot. Yeah, Lolita, classic example. Lolita is all about, you know,

the relationship between a man and a girl about pedophilia, okay? There is artistic merit to Lolita.

I never actually read it to be totally honest. Didn't they make a movie about it like 20 years

ago or something like that? Yeah, I didn't use. Yeah, just a little creepy for me. But okay,

there, there you go. There's at least some sort of a, in, in many forms of literature and forms

of entertainment where there is going to be graphic, you know, relations. It was always sort of

done tastefully. You always knew when a sex scene was coming because, you know, the characters

would start kissing and then they would pan away from the bedroom and it was implied, right?

Now you don't get that. And I'm telling you folks, take a look at what is actually in these

books. It's not as though, I mean, these people, they, they try to pretend that they're freedom fighters

standing up against the Nazi book burners. When really it's bizarrely trying to make sure that

nobody knows what type of sick child sexual material. And that's what it is. You have got underage

characters in books, engaging in sexual content that is being put out into the marketplace and

marketed explicitly to underage audiences as part of young adult or even children's literature.

There's a big problem with that. Republicans are saying, okay, well, maybe we should put warning

labels on that, hey, there's a graphic sex scene in the new Bernstein Bears book. Okay, I'm making

that up. Brother and sister bear are not doing all manner of unholy things. But the point is that

in some of these books, the folks, I wish I can't even, I can't even describe one of the scenes

that I am thinking of in boys aren't blue. That's how graphic that is how truly deviant it is.

And the idea that we would warn parents that it's in there is somehow wrong give me a break.

Couldn't believe what I heard from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer today as he is again

voicing his opposition to the Save America Act. It sure as heck sounds like he admitted that there

are an awful lot of illegal aliens on America's voter rolls. Why else would he be spreading the

paranoid delusion that ice is going to be cleaning up the voter rolls? Ice.

About voter registration, it makes it, it allows ice to kick tens of billions of people off the rolls,

off the rolls, and they don't tell them until election day and you show up and you say,

you're not registered anymore, you're not registered here.

What? Why would ice be involved unless the people on the voter rolls are illegal aliens or

suspected of being illegal aliens? You're not on the rolls. And they say, I didn't know that.

This is a bill that destroys the country and it is not about showing ID when you show up to vote.

It's about the voter registration rolls, destroying them, purging them, not letting people know

and taking the rights in a algorithm put together by ice, put together by doge and musk.

It's an outrage and that's why so many people don't want to pass it.

You got to have ice, doge, musk, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Stephen Miller,

Christie Nome, let's see, who else don't we like? Sean Hannity,

Rush Limbaugh, wait, he passed away a few years ago, give me a break. By the way,

if there was no issue with the voter rolls, especially here in Wisconsin, why is Governor

Evers hiding them from federal investigators? Not ice that wants to look at Wisconsin's voter rolls.

It's the FBI. They're apparently finding all manner of inconsistencies on voter rolls in

Maricopa County in Arizona. So much so that they're now fear mongering that if that happens here

in Wisconsin, big article in the journal sentinel today, if that happens here in Wisconsin,

they may know who you voted for in 20 times. No, they won't, you people. All right, out of time,

back tomorrow, Wednesday edition of the Dan O'Donnell Show, talk to you then.