If you don’t know who you’re voting for President at this point, that’s unbelievable and that’s on you.
BUT there is an open Senate seat in Michigan.
Elissa Slotkin (D) v. Mike Rogers (R)- both creatures of the deep state.
Who is responsible for the death and destruction in Iraq?
For one brief moment, they both emerged from their spire hole.
The media won’t report on them, so the Red Shovel Network will.
With us is ML Elrick from the Soul of Detroit.
For more information on ML Elrick’s Eye On Michigan, the student investigative reporting program based in Detroit and East Lansing, click here.
TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You can
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always tell something about somebody’s maintenance on how clean their air filter is. It’s the year of the working stiff. Seems like everyone running for political office is pretending they got dirt under their nails and battle scars from the fast food French fryer.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It’s on sesame seed Bun
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Michigan. Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin wants to be your senator. Slotkin owns the old family farm on a dirt road in Holly. That’s where her grandfather grew beef. Back in the fifties, he invented ballpark Franks. Well, the cattle are long gone, but Slotkin is leading the public to think the cows are still there. That’s bull. The political elites know that populism is real. So the offspring of the opulent have come up with a devilish pitch. I’m one of you. I’ve got copays too. It’s not as though the hotdog eras never worked for a living.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
I was recruited by the CIA to be a Middle East analyst and sent overseas to do three tours in Iraq,
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Analyst in Iraq. Don’t forget the information provided by Slotkin and her pals in the deep state led to the death of a half million Iraqis, 40,000 US casualties, the rise of ISIS and Iran and no weapons of mass destruction. So naive was Baghdad Betty that the late senator John McCain famously told her this, you either don’t know the truth or you are not telling the truth to this committee. Not much of Slotkin past has been questioned by the media, even though this is the most important election of our lifetime. Again, but that’s the thing about personal histories and work resumes. There are a lot like ballpark Franks. They plump when you cook ’em
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Live from downtown Detroit is the no bullshit news hour with my and Jar Dub.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
The disrespect. Don more bullshit. Don’t. More bullshit. You need a new agent.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
You think?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, we cut ’em. We’re like, wait, wait, Karen. Okay, just do that. It’s all good. Yeah, we up and rolling, bro? Yeah. Alright man. No bullshit. NewsHour Special guest today, Detroit Free Press columnist, ML Elrick. Welcome in brother.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Great to be with you Charlie and Karen
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Dumas and Karen Dumas. And yeah, this is a Red Shovel Network special. This is when we began with Drew Lane, the Drew Lane podcast. We had envisioned teaming up and I can’t think of a better time now during an election where there’s too much to do and the Michigan media is totally failing. They’re not doing their job.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I don’t know if I can go all the way with you there, but let’s put it this way, 50% failing. There’s more of them than there are of us, and we need more reporters to get to more truth because it’s getting harder and harder to find.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So lemme give you some more truth about slacking in that farm. We’re also led to believe that legumes are being grown on the old slot. Can homestead, see, I don’t know, beans about soy, but when I went up there and perused the property, there was nothing but runaway seeds gone to seed. Not so much as a tomato can be seen growing from a property line, and the place has no farm licenses attached to it. This doesn’t prevent the congresswoman from claiming a $2,700 farm tax exemption on the property. According to campaign commercials of which Slotkin stars, the hotdog eras tells us that her mother suffered from breast cancer as a young woman lost her insurance as an older woman couldn’t find new insurance because of the preexisting breast cancer as a younger woman was then diagnosed with ovarian cancer as an older woman only to get her insurance back through a miraculous loophole.
(04:09):
Sadly, slot’s mother died in 2011 and my condolences. But why would the ex-wife of a wealthy man be without health insurance? What was the miraculous loophole? We’d all like to know that my mother’s sick. It would really be none of my business actually, except for the fact that Slotkin made this story a centerpiece of her election bids for three cycles. Now, governor Gretchen Whitmer tells a similar tale of health insurance woes never bothering to mention that her father was the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield. That must have been a hell of a relationship. The state of Michigan politics is so infected, the public so fed up that the rich folks who seek conspicuous chairs of Congress find themselves having to move away when their district lines get redrawn because their own neighbors won’t vote for ’em. There are at least a half dozen, nope, half dozen in one, by my count, worse among them, maybe slacking and maybe not.
(05:10):
Could be Rogers, which we’ll get to. Who moved from Washington and DC in 2017 to the old family farm to run for Congress and had never voted in Michigan before then? That was before she moved into a lobbyist condo in Lansing when she was redistricted only to abandon the new district and return to the family farm in our old district after winning election in the new district. Are you following me? I’m getting dizzy. Now. An enterprising young person might think of starting a relocation service for our congressional members. We could call it clown card associates. Oddly, little of Slotkin Pass has been relay to the public during this, the most important election of our lifetimes and just let us not the hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, 40,000 US casualties, 4,000 military personnel dead for what was the intelligence finally last night? Nobody saw it. Nobody knew it was there. It wasn’t even telecast.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I think it was on Channel four. Was it? It was wood tv. They put it on Channel four and then it may have been on somebody
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Else. See, I didn’t even know
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It was not must see tv as far as
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I know. So this is Mike Rogers, the former congressman who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 2011 to 15, voted for the rock invasion and Slotkin, who as you saw in the piece, her whole career, 20 years, is in the deep state. All the letters, the CIA, the DOD, the DOS, the National
Speaker 3 (06:52):
NSC or
Speaker 2 (06:53):
N, national Intelligence Director, all of it. And so we reporters haven’t been able to get to ’em, ask ’em about this shit, which is really important because adults, we know this about the election. You know who you’re going to vote for. The real question is they’re going to get off your dead assin boat, right? That’s pretty much it. We never got to, there is a US Senate race. Nobody knows who it is. So this is from the debate last night. This is the small exchange we got about their records in Washington and what they did. Do we have that Mark? Yep. Let’s roll that.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
In the run up to the Iraq war, there was no greater supporter. There’s no greater fist pumper than Mike Rogers in leading us into that war.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
I had my family in the military during the Iraq buildup. And so I was more cautious than most about us being using military force within the region. And by the way, that information that was given to Congress was based on the CIA at a time that my opponent was in the CIA doing analytical work. And so if you think about how dangerous this is, and listen, I get it. The CIA has deception training. My opponent clearly went through that, but you’re supposed to use that against your adversaries, not Michigan voters.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
That was a good one.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What do you make of that?
Speaker 5 (08:13):
I don’t know what you can make of that, Charlie. I mean, seriously, that was a good zinger though from him. But no, I mean, what can you make of it? I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if I knew I’d be in a completely different place in this world and in this room. How can you decipher just a relentless and endless amount of just rhetoric that has no value other than to continue to mislead people? I And then where are we? We are misled. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And as a reporter, man, you see this, okay, A debate basically is kind of like you’re interviewing both people at the same time, but it’s not a report. Because after you interview ’em and before you interview ’em, in fact you’re checking the facts. And that’s not Googling, right? That’s not fact checking on Google. That’s looking things up, doing due diligence. And we didn’t get any, haven’t gotten any.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Well, if that’s a bumper sticker, I guess I got fooled and she’s the one who fooled me. I don’t know that that’s the winning message. But here’s the well done. You want to talk about interviewing candidates? When was the last time you got to sit down with the kid? Now I know you got Tudor Dixon to do it and she probably regrets that to her last day. But these candidates are so insulated. Not only will they not speak to you directly now, we used to get to talk to candidates all the time. They have spokespeople who will not speak to you. They’ll talk to you off the record. They’ll try and find out everything you want to find out about. They’ll tell you, they’ll call you back. You wait. And in the end they give you a statement and you say, your statement doesn’t answer all my questions. I have these questions. And then they’ll say, we’re sticking with our statement. This is not how a democracy is supposed to work. If you want to stand for office, if you’re asking people for that precious vote and you won’t talk to them, what are you going to do once you get it? That’s what I’m worried about.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
Well said. Nothing, which is what they’ve done is nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And I guess, and you’re afraid of a reporter
Speaker 5 (10:05):
And
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You’re going to stand up to Vladimir Putin,
Speaker 5 (10:07):
But they give a break, but they get away with it. And that’s why I think that’s now a pattern. They don’t have to, the accountability is not there. Not from voters. So they can avoid the accountability from the media. They’re not held to that standard anymore.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, when I talk to somebody in a campaign or a public official and they give me a spokesperson and then they give me a statement after they’ve agreed to talk to me, I make sure everybody knows that so that readers of my column on guard in the free press know exactly what I went through. So they get an idea of what kind of runaround they’re likely to get. Because whether it’s right or not, reporters are still more likely to get a call back from a public official or a candidate than Joe Public is if they don’t care about us,
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Joe Public, God bless you, man. And think about what everything’s about. Is it Trump or not Trump? It’s not really about Harris. My opinion being out in the world. The next level is the United States Senate.
(11:02):
This is the Senate’s in play. It’s a tremendous, tremendous vote. Look at the Supreme Court that’s decided by the Senate. Thank you. And we have treaties. We have two people that spent some time in Washington and they’re not vetted. And look, Karen and I were saying, Hey, why don’t we do just all the lies? Everybody’s telling. That was How long is your show? Exactly. Exactly. We’re just going back and forth all week. And it’s like everybody knows you can find what you want, but there’s one thing that’s bothering, and this is the only fact check I’ll do. Right? I can’t get over Tim Waltz. I can’t get over him and his military record. Right? We’re talking military. She’s deep state. He was tell fbi. He was the Army. Army then he was FBI Intelligence Committee. Okay. We don’t know anything about them. Tim Walls comes out and just bullshits.
(11:57):
Here’s the thing. I didn’t know my dad too well. You know what I mean? I didn’t grow up with him. He’s a no, I’m vet. He didn’t talk about it. But before he died, he mailed me his ribbons, his expeditionary, his medals. And that let me know it was important to him. He didn’t want to talk about it, but it was important to him. My brother served in Korea, my grandfathers in World War ii, my great-grandfathers, and all the way back to before this was a country I was in the Iraq Theater with the Marines. So Tim Walls gets caught in the lie about he’s misrepresenting. Were you in a war zone? Were you in Afghanistan? So now it’s settled on this. Even that AI says it is false. He served in Italy, was deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, which is Afghanistan, except that’s really important to military people. These ribbons are your resume, your life of all the theaters. Like if you served in Turkey, that is considered a zone within the theater. If you are in Turkey, Cyprus, Hungary, Romania, anything supporting it, you’re eligible for that ribbon.
(13:14):
I pulled it up. Department of Defense. Italy is not one of those theaters that made you eligible for that expeditionary medal. You’re fucking lying about your service to this country. You didn’t need to. You got caught and you’re continuing to do it. Midwestern men, you could say what you want, but to many of us, it’s an insult. It’s an insult to people that wear the uniform. And you’re supposed to know better because as the sergeant major command Sergeant major, you’re basically the colonel of the enlisted men. You were telling me before the show, wasn’t it an admiral?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, it was about 20, 25 years ago. There was an admiral, one of the top guys, I don’t know if he was on the joint chiefs of staff or not, but a very powerful, incredibly well-respected admiral beloved by everybody who had been wearing his fruit salad. And he had a star or a little something or other denoted that he was in combat in Vietnam. And Newsweek reported, I think it was Newsweek reported that he actually didn’t qualify for that. Just little itty bitty pip that he had on one of his ribbons. And when they went to report that he committed suicide because the shame was so great that he would rather die than face people saying, Admiral Mike, we thought you were a good guy. Now, I don’t know anything about this waltz thing. So I’m not conflating Tim Waltz to this admiral. My point is, this is a big deal to claim something if you have or haven’t done it. And my uncle was in Vietnam, never talks about it, got lots of decorations, was in a chopper that got shot down, pulled the pilot out, carried him. Guy ended up dying. He never talked about it. Because one of the things, and JD Vance talks about what he did in Vietnam. He was combat. Was he private? Joker Iraq.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
In Iraq,
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah. Or yeah, sorry. Thanks for that catch. Was he a combat correspondent? Like private joker in full metal jacket? I don’t know because private jokers saw some shit. I don’t know. But here’s what I do know about the real heroes. They don’t talk about that much
Speaker 6 (15:26):
Because
Speaker 3 (15:26):
For anybody who’s seen a war movie and thinks it’s glorious, to see somebody else die at your hands is not glorious. Adi Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War ii, became an alcoholic kind of a movie star too, but money only an alcoholic. Because I think when you see that kind of stuff, this is not something you want to brag about. This is not something you want to talk about. It’s heavy duty stuff. I don’t know what JD got to be careful claiming what you did.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I don’t know what JD Vance did there, right? But I will tell you, he ate a cat and a dog. I think he was a press attach. I was there in 2003. He was there in 2005. Two different, two different sort of eras of that action. The press attache that I was attached to, I was with the 24th Marine Expeditionary unit, it was then Captain, now retired major, Dan McSweeney. Great dude. He was responsible for us. He’s taking overweight guys from near Spiegel and just pomp his BBC assholes. And they would do shit like we have a tent and they got all their computer gear trying to charge cell phone, and they got the flap open and we’re in a war zone and it’s easy to pinpoint you. And it was a dangerous job that he had. So dangerous in fact that I am disin embedding with the Marines. I’m going with these two Arab journalists and we’re going to strike that on our own. This is fucked up. So I don’t know what JD Vance did, but I don’t like seeing overly dressed correspondence on the TV shows putting down that piece of service. Right? I’m not putting down Tim Wall’s service. I’m not just don’t.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
You just want it to be accurate.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
You got to grow up at some point and stop with the bullshit stories.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Be proud of what you did. What you did is good enough. Exactly. Yeah. If you’re six four, you don’t have to be six four and a half. Six four is pretty tall. I’m six one and a half by the way and a half and a half. I think I might have
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Shrunk from getting beaten down, but my eyes are brown. Let’s go into what you found out about former congressman Mike Rogers, who again, I’m glad you did it because I’m sitting here. It got old school in me. It’s got to be even. I’m not trying to tell people who to vote for. I am like, oh man, fucking Mike did something. You want to explain where they can find it and what you found?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah, sure. So I guess it’s been out there for a while that Mike Rogers is a carpet bagger. He lived in Florida, came back to Michigan to run for office. This happens a lot these days, not just in Michigan. And the same charge was brought against Alyssa Slotkin when she ran for Congress in 2018. And it was brought again recently because she did move out of her district to find a more favorable district in 2022 when she won, she moved back into her old place, which was in her old district in Michigan, you only have to live in the state. John James had the same issue throwing at him in 2022. So this is not a partisan thing. Everybody’s trying to find an easy route to Washington. But one of the things with Mike Rogers is I became curious about where does he really live? And somebody had told me, actually one of his opponents had told me he’s living at his sister-in-Law’s house.
(18:46):
Now, I like my sister-in-Law, but I wouldn’t move in with my sister-in-Law. So I figured, I’m going to look into this a little bit. So I did what I teach my students to do, get off your ass, knock on doors. Goya Cod we call it. So I went to his neighborhood in Genoa Township where Genoa Township, where he said he lived, where he registered to vote when he moved back to Michigan. The people I talked in the neighborhood and it’s a small neighborhood, had never seen him. Now, if you’re a congressman from that area and you’re running for Senate, I imagine you’re going to tell your neighbors, Hey, I’m in the neighborhood. Vote for me. I also expect he spends most of his time on the road campaigning as a good candidate should. But then I went and pulled his voting record and his voter registration.
(19:27):
And one of the issues that really got people interested in this initially was he left a massive beautiful home on a canal in Florida for a 700 square foot shack in White Lake Township. And that just didn’t really resonate in terms of the ring of truth. So he bought it and decided it wasn’t good enough. So he knocked it down. He’s building a house. The problem is, and to get to the heart of the matter, he’s registered to vote at a house where he can’t live and he’s voted from a house where he can’t live. Experts have differing opinions on whether this is a problem or not, but it
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Really, because there’s no utilities and stuff, right?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Well, there’s no certificate of occupancy. You cannot
(20:07):
Legally live there. And by the way, his campaign has basically said no, he doesn’t live there, but he lives somewhere in White Lake. Well, where we won’t tell you where, okay, this is the kind of thing where Ronald Reagan said it, best trust but verify. I’m willing to trust you, but you got to tell me where the man puts his head when he is not on a campaign trail. They won’t do that. So there’s a couple issues here. Now, if Mike Rogers goes to vote for himself in November and hasn’t moved into this place that he’s building, which is being built by his brother, by the way, can he be challenged? Can he be challenged as a legal elector? Some people say, as long as you live in White Lake Township, you’re okay. Some people say if you vote from a place where you registered that you don’t really live, you committed a misdemeanor by registering at a place where you don’t really live. You committed a felony for voting from a place where you don’t really live. And next time you try and vote, people can stop you and say, not today, pal. Is that going to happen? We’ll see. But that’s in a nutshell what we found.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
What’s funny about that is you don’t have to have an address when you register to vote. Homeless can say, I sleep near the dumpster. That’s the closest place. So you didn’t even have to say it was your brother or it was this house. You could just say, PO box me.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
But isn’t there a question of integrity, even regardless of where he is, to just like you said it earlier, just to say so, just to be upfront about it and to not to try to make it something or make himself something that he’s not.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Well, I think if he had said I sleep by the dumpster, that would be a story. But that’s different than saying, no, this is specifically where I stay.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
And that’s where I think his, I’m saying for his people to say, okay, but he’s somewhere in White Lake. Just stay where it is. I mean, just be upfront about it. To me, that would speak volumes than moving the chess piece.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So whatever where he lives, no, that’s the beginning of everything. Where are you from? Do you like us? Are you from among us anymore? And I can’t get a straight answer on the basic thing. Yeah. And
Speaker 3 (22:08):
This happens all over. This happens with local candidates, it happens with state candidates. How many federal can we’ve candidates? How many times we MTV a million times? And the
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Best fire chiefs and city council members, judges.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
The best thing I’ve ever heard said about this, I was looking at a Betty Cook, Scott, who’s notorious for this, and her next door neighbor or the next door neighbor to the place where she said she lived, said, if she lies about this, what else is she lying
Speaker 5 (22:33):
About? And that’s what I said, it’s about a
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Question. Exactly. This is a foundational fundamental thing. And I think we would all love to have representatives who live among us and have lived among us for a long time. So they’ve experienced what we’ve experienced so they know our issues. But I also like people who’ve seen a little something around the world who have also seen what it’s like elsewhere. They can say, we want to do it more like this, or we’ll never do it like this. You don’t want somebody who’s lived on the same block their whole life. That is certainly not the case with either Alyssa Slotkin or Mike Rogers because they’ve been around
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And this is reversed. Yeah, I want you to have been around the world, but now I want you to come back here and create a life and then say your representative. It shows you the state of these parties. It’s garbage.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
I think Haley Stevens was under the same criticism when she ran a couple years ago that she’d been working for the bailout in New York and Washington. She came back to Michigan to run. I mean, we see a lot of this and we like to have the expertise come home, but take some of us with you back to Washington,
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Lead me into this. So that’s where we’re at. And so the big question is, where are your fingerprints overseas? Like slot can help negotiate that nuclear deal, which was a bad deal because okay, you say you’re going to stop and then we’re going to give you the money we pull out of it, we game the money anyway. Look what’s happening around the world. It’s not good. But we’re not getting this stuff in our local media, right? Intelligent friends of mine working downstairs don’t know who’s running for Senate because I feel we as the press haven’t presented it to ’em as important and in an interesting way, right? Because politics can be dry and boring. But we needed to have done it and we haven’t done it. For instance, I got a call from New York before we went on the air. Here’s the coast coming, here comes the coast, Michigan, you’re like specimens to be pinned to a cardboard and put under glass and then a bell jar. Where do I go? Talk to voters? And I said, did you know, you know that 2,450 UAW members who just got a historic contract, Monday was their last day because the Lantus kicked them to the curb. The Ram plant down eight mile in Warren, down to 1500 people had 5,500. That’s huge. That’s what Michigan is. That’s the issue. And who did stories on it this week? So Monday was the last day, Ken, you looked that up, right?
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So what media anywhere on Planet Earth even reported that Monday was the last day of work.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Just the World Socialist website.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
The World Socialist website. How was the writing?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
It was okay.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
It was passable.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Little comedy,
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Little pink. I hope so. It’s a little rare. Little pink. I get it. That’s despicable. Well, and Pat myself on the ass, I went and asked him here, here is your fellow American, your fellow Michiganian, your fellow Detroit fellow Metro Detroiter. Here they are.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
And I’ve been here four years working hard. See, I’m sweating hot tire, legs, heart names, heart, back, heart. And you want your car back. You want to give these jobs to other people so you can pay ’em less than what you’re paying me. You shouldn’t have never did that. Own my own
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Home. A couple cars. You know what I mean? I got four kids, got a wife, beautiful wife at home. So to see it just all of a sudden disappear. Wouldn’t you be a little mad about that?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
But that’s America, Charlie. I mean it is. And we talked about this last week when I said, even hookers get paid. We keep putting out and getting nothing back. I mean, repeatedly. I mean, that’s middle America. And that’s the disconnect. People have an extreme disconnect with the reality that people are living every day and they don’t care.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That’s the source of populism. And I don’t even like the word, right? It gets to be associated with Trump now. No, no, no. It’s us and them trying to tap into it. But that’s really what’s going on here. Dearborn. Dearborn. The importance of Dearborn is it’s Ford’s world headquarters. And you go there now, the campuses a ghost town. The scent GMs headquarters is a ghost town. Auburn Hills, right? Chryslers is a ghost town.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
But at the same time, Ford just moved into the train station. So there are things happening. There
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Are, but they didn’t move into the train station. They got a coffee shop now and there’re going to be some classrooms. Ford, even before it opened, announced they’re not moving into it. Remember it was going to be their whole EV deal. It’s not now. It was a bait and switch.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I just saw something in the free press that said workers are moving into the old train seat. But I didn’t read more than the headline. I’ll have to take a little closer look. By the way, it’s 10 cents a month for a subscription. If you want to check
Speaker 5 (27:38):
For yourself 10 cents a month. 10 cents
Speaker 3 (27:40):
A
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Month. Well, I’m being overcharged. I maybe you’re
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Getting the good stuff. I don’t know.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
I want to credit,
Speaker 2 (27:46):
We’ll cover that one next week, but I want to wrap this up. But yeah, we have an issue. We have an issue with journalism and I mean it getting so bad, we’re going to have to get the kids to do it. And that’s what you’re doing. And we’re trying to raise money. What do you got going, Mike?
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Yeah. You remember when all the crusades failed? The last one was a children’s crusade. That’s kind of where we’re at now. We’re trying to train students to become investigative reports. I have a program called Ion Michigan, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. We have two goals. One is to diversify investigative reporting. Because as much as the media tries to diversify, investigative reports still look a lot like you and me. And so we’re trying to get high school kids interested in pursuing a journalism career so that once they get to campus, we can hire them to work as part of our student investigative reporting program where we hire college students, we work on major projects, we get ’em published. The free press just published our first major endeavor, which we call the top 25 takers. It looks at how much lobbyists have given to lawmakers, and there’s loopholes because you reported a couple years ago on how a law firm treated Dana Nessel to a trip that they didn’t have to disclose under Michigan’s lobbying laws because they were not a registered lobbyist.
(29:03):
Well, the people who have registered to lobby disclosed 17,000 free meals and trips given to lawmakers being between 2001 and 2023, more than $6 million spent on that. And that doesn’t include meals under $75, which I think even now, the two of us can go out and have a good time for under $75. These kids did great work. There’s a searchable database. You can look up your lawmaker to see how much they took. We’re doing this, we ask people supports with the donation, and not only have we published this in the free press, but we’re making it this week available to every media outlet in the state of Michigan because people can’t afford to do this anymore. So what we’re doing is we’re providing the high quality free content that their readers, listeners, viewers deserve. And we’re giving these kids a chance. We’re showing ’em how to do it so that you and I retire, which hopefully will be soon. There’ll be somebody to step up and do this work. So we got something that’s worth 10 cents a month.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
So, oh, so that’s 10 cents a month. I thought you made the free press. So how do you make a
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Donation? No, the free press is 10 cents a month. We’ll take more than 10 cents if you got it. Do you donate? Where do you find it? You can go to patronicity.com. Go to look for Ion Michigan. We’re trying to raise $25,000. We have a donor who’s going to match $10,000, so we can get $10,000 more than we got. We’ll double that money.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Okay. So I’m assuming if you go to the, there’s a site where we can search the database and on that site is also donate, right?
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah. Every one of our stories. We also have,
Speaker 2 (30:29):
What’s the name of the website?
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Well, right now you go to free.com to see the stories.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
But there’s a paywall.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
No, these stories are free. These stories are not behind the paywall.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Okay. So just what do we look up then? What? Ion Michigan. Ion Michigan free.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
And is there a link there to donate?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yes. Every one of our stories has a link to donate. That’s and more information about the program.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
You’ll
Speaker 3 (30:51):
See the kids in action. A lot of reporters don’t like to get in people’s faces. When lawmakers wouldn’t answer our phone calls or emails or anything, we went to the capitol and we got ’em. And when you see these kids, they’re professional, they’re courteous, they’re respectful, they’re on point, they have good questions, they stay with them until they get answers, until they get to a door. You’re going to be proud of them. And you’re going to know that this profession that we do, that we want more people to do is alive and well. And we hope to keep serving
Speaker 5 (31:18):
You. Was that like the kid in Flint that was asking Remember the kid from
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Davidson
Speaker 5 (31:21):
From high school? Yeah. Remember him? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (31:23):
He was When he
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Cornered Nestle.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Yeah, that was, I mean, he was like, so let me you this, if I may, or the
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Girl who asked Monica Kas. Remember her? How’s she doing?
Speaker 5 (31:31):
She
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Called him. Remember?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Successful woman now.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Yeah. She’s got to be in college or through college.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Oh, for sure.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
So do you have a diverse group of students that’s starting out now?
Speaker 3 (31:42):
We do have a diverse group of college students. Not as diverse as we would like. But in terms of high school, we, last year we did a workshop. We had 50 kids from Detroit public high schools who came out? Everybody on our panel except me. Well, let put this, let me flip that. I was the only white person on the program.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
They, I’m donating
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Because we not only want people to know that they can do this, we want people to know that you are doing this.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
They
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Need a few more white people. This isn’t about dreaming underrepresented there.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Do you feel discriminated against Charlie?
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Charlie? We do have a Native American on the team. Good.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
And she
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Shot all the video and edit
Speaker 5 (32:23):
It. Well, I will donate. I will submit. I make a donation
Speaker 3 (32:28):
More than 10 cents.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
It’ll be way more than 10 cents.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Thank you for that. Thank you very much. Go to free
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Ion Michigan.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Ion Michigan free search it. Thanks for joining us. Next week we will Here to whoop some ass no bullshit news hours, brought to you by Luke Acki, who wants to remind you that the politicians lie. The media lies. How do you know if your investment statement is lying? You’re not managing your wealth. It’s some other guy. He’s working for a bonus using an algorithm and gambling. You got to know your money man. Work with a financial specialist who’s working with you and knows your needs. That’s Luke Acki. Financial plans from annuities, retirement accounts, college savings. He’ll keep you up to date and always a phone call away. Luke Acki. We’ll worry you don’t have to. 2 4 8 6 6 3 4 7 4 8. Before we go, let me just check real quick, because Luke’s very busy. You’re
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Not looking at the market, are you?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Spot price
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Gold? Let Luke look at the market. You got other stuff to worry about?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Let’s see. 26 50. Man, the commodities are, why would the commodities be going up like that if bonds yields are going down? The only going up. That’s my teeth,
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Man. You’re asking the
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Wrong guy. And there’s trouble in the Middle East. So oil is, I don’t what I’ll call Luke. Two. Four, eight, six six three four, seven, four eight. Thanks for being here,
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Brother. Thanks man. And we’ll give you a link if you want, for your website. For our website for I am Michigan.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah,
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Listen,
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Give us that goal. That’ll be great. Give us that goal. We want that goal. I want to know what a goal is at. Alright. All right. Peace.
