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Brian Kruger
Welcome to The Common Bridge. We have a guest here today we haven't seen seen in a while. Rich, welcome back from the road.
Richard Helppie
Well, we see me recorded, but yeah, been away for a little bit, trying to escape the gray. I don't know if this is the end of winter or the beginning of spring, but typical schizophrenia in Michigan in terms of weather, but happy to be home.
Brian Kruger
We've got a lot to cover today. I hope you're comfortable because I'm going to do a little bit of a mix of topics we haven't talked about and I have some stuff from the mailbag here. I think we'll have a lot of fun with this. Are you ready to jump in?
Richard Helppie
Absolutely. I love these things, there's no preparation involved.
Brian Kruger
All right, we'll start off on an easy one.
Richard Helppie
Well, let me just say this before you ask the question. I know it's a big development with significant implications and then I can make a lot of speculation. I obviously I read a lot of the news, and that's how they hook people - it's a big development with significant implications, we're talking about it on MSNBC tonight.
Brian Kruger
Yeah, this one isn't breaking news, though. I want to start you off across the pond. We're going to talk a little bit about the coronation coming up. What's your take on that? We're going to have Prince William and Harry, is Megan going? What's your take?
Richard Helppie
You know, I don't follow the Royals at all. I hope whatever they're doing that the people over there are happy.
Brian Kruger
No drama there. All right then, we'll just jump into the swamp. What's your elevator pitch or escalator pitch on Trump's indictment in New York?
Richard Helppie
Well, actually I read the indictment and it was hilarious. They took one act and then sliced it 34 ways and said that's 34 counts. But wait, it's only a crime if they link it to a felony, which they didn't name. Even the pundits on the left are like, yeah, this is really thin. But look, it was Alvin Bragg taking the hand-off. What amazes me is that we've been down this "the walls are closing in" story over and over again and it's like people keep falling for it. As you know, I'm no fan of Trump. I think he just needs to go away. He had his chance, he mishandled it and he needs to go away but [what a] horrible abuse of the justice system and people can't defend it.
Brian Kruger
So as much as the left and the right, the Democrats and the Republicans, seem to kick themselves in their own shins and step on their own toes, we had a situation in Tennessee when you were gone. I'm sure you followed it where there was a protest over gun legislation in the House in Tennessee. Three, actually, I think, representatives were voted on to be booted, two were African American; probably doesn't look good for the Republicans on that. But what's your take on the whole thing and then how that all went down in Tennessee?
Richard Helppie
Well, look, as you know, I've written a lot about guns and there are ways to stop violence by keeping firearms away from people that shouldn't have them. You know about my oft published and oft referenced policy about graduated licensing, which would stop most of this mayhem, including the recent Louisville shooting; the guy bought the firearm on April 4 and a week later was in killing his former co-workers. It's insane what we're doing. But in our political world, we have some places going into permit-less carry, which is crazy, and we have other places saying “it's the guns, it's the guns” and I'm saying, if it's the guns, let's deputize the students. Let's have the ATF in full tactical gear, supervise them, and let's go zip code by zip code and pick up all the guns. Those are the two polar [extremes] that we're between. So the Tennessee legislature - I had to look this up because this is how bad our news reporting is - the headline is "GOP kicks out people that just wanted to speak, they kicked out two black representatives, 140,000 people will have no representation because of the evil GOP." I'm like, what did they do, okay, it's the question I want to know. What did they do? Well, after some digging it turns out that these guys walked into the Tennessee legislature in session leading dozens or hundreds of people shouting through megaphones and destroying the representative democracy that they're part of. There are ways for them to get behind the podium. All these legislatures have their rules and so they're protesting the government that they're part of. It reminds me of back when all these groups were taking a knee about alleged police brutality - that's something that's off the radar these days - the Ann Arbor city council members are all taking a knee for better police behavior. And I'm like, guys, the police department is a department of the city. You're taking a knee against yourself. It's ridiculous. But we keep getting this garbage in the news because people keep buying this stuff.
Brian Kruger
Okay, let's talk now a little bit about Dominion's lawsuit against Fox News
Richard Helppie
A great suit. And I think on the larger issue that we talked about - we've had lots of good guests on: Matt Taibbi, Joe Furillo, others, Kevin Allen about where's the journalism gone - Fox pioneered the affirmation programming; define a demographic and keep hammering them with stuff that will get them alarmed and coming back. Well, the next logical extension of that craziness is just complete disregard for the truth. From what I've read about Fox's own internal communication, they're handing the evidence to Dominion voting systems, like yeah, we knew this wasn't true but, damn, it was a good story. It reinforces the bigger point there's not a market for the truth. So when a place like Fox, in this instance, reports out about, hey, this laptop from Hunter Biden looks legit, nobody can believe them because they keep doing stuff like this around Dominion voting systems.
Brian Kruger
I just saw a very recent polling that asked the Fox viewers what they thought about this, and the Fox viewer doesn't care if they were lying. That's frightening.
Richard Helppie
That sums it up right there. It's idiocracy and it is exactly what we don't need. We need people to be holding the media companies accountable or just walking away from them. This is why I like to always joke, big development, significant implications. Oh, the thing that we were trying to hang Trump on has run out of gas and we're now reloading with a new one. And people keep doing it, they keep buying it.
Brian Kruger
MSNBC, CNN, and to a lesser extent, Fox, all had record ratings from the day that Trump said he would be indicted all the way up until the day he was and shortly after. All three networks claimed to be wanting to rid themselves of Trump but I don't think that's true. They need Trump. It's those three networks that really keep him in the spotlight and it's really self-serving.
Richard Helppie
They all need Trump, and the Democratic party needs Trump, very bad. Republicans, it's like gum on their shoe they can't get rid of [laughter]. In terms of sensible things that have been said - which there is some sensible stuff being said and little of it getting reported - Governor Kemp in Georgia is saying that Trump as the front runner is going to cost us the election. He's lost three or four election cycles in a row. And as you know, I'm well published on that. I think if Trump's the nominee, you could run a ham sandwich against him and it's going to be a 49 state landslide. Nobody wants him to be president. I mean, I'm not saying they'd vote for Hillary Clinton over him but I'm saying just about anything else they'd go for.
Brian Kruger
Totally agree. So what are your thoughts on George Santos and some of the other circus characters we have in Congress and in the Senate right now; I won't get into Marjorie Taylor Greene and that whole circus.
Richard Helppie
So George Santos, all right. It was like, Oh, my God, this guy made up all this stuff. He's lying, he's telling contradictions; those were all accurate assessments. He blends right in. He fits right into Washington. [Laughter.] I saw one thing where they laid it side by side against Biden's record and all of a sudden, George Santos is clearly not qualified to do anything. It's like never mind, he just fits in there with all of them. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, the only question is okay, there's Larry and Moe, where's curly? There's got to be like a desk in a newsroom that's the Marjorie Taylor Greene desk; go find her and make her say crazy stuff. And then you look over in the Senate and you've got Dianne Feinstein, they're finally going, well, maybe she's not cognitively all there, physically all there, to be the senator from the biggest state in the country - said the political party that has John Fetterman and Joe Biden in it - then said, well, who's she going to be replaced by and you've got Barbara Lee - I think her first name is Barbara Lee - that is 76 years old, long track record progressive representative. She's probably the most reasonable because the other two candidates are Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. (Brian Kruger: Yeah, right.) He can't get in the same room with the truth if his life depended on it, and to knock out Katie Porter, just go watch the Bill Maher segment with her and Piers Morgan. She starts out by exaggerating all the talking points around January 6, making stuff up, which I guess flies, and then just gets her head handed to her by Piers Morgan. But one of them - either Adam Schiff or Katie Porter - is now going to end up in what used to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. It's a shame.
Brian Kruger
And there's some urgency there because with the margins being so close with one of them gone, or two of them gone, all of a sudden the GOP can run the Senate so they can win the vote straight away.
Richard Helppie
Not really because if Senator Feinstein is unable to serve, then Governor Newsom will appoint another Democrat. But the Democrats earned their majority in the election cycle. You know, good job, Herschel Walker and Donald Trump. They're going to be fine, they're going to hold that; if you're a Democrat, you should probably like that. But I can't believe any thinking person isn't cringing at who's going into Washington these days. I mean, it's absurd.
Brian Kruger
Well, then Rich, somebody like you and your colleagues - with long storied careers in business, successful careers in business - why on earth would you or your colleagues or that type even think about serving in public office anymore?
Richard Helppie
We used to go to a business person, an academic, a states person, a military person and say, you've proven yourself and now you're ready for bigger responsibility, will you be our leader? And now we've devolved to this side show. The primary system is hurting us very badly, hurting the country. And we've talked about what voting reforms might need to be like, but I tell you what, when you have entrenched power it's very, very difficult for people to make changes because it's just going to impinge on their power that they have developed. You're sitting in the governor's chair now or the presidency or senate seat and what's your incentive to change?
Brian Kruger
Well, I've asked you off the record several times, hey, Rich, you ought to run for office, and you're like, I don't want any part of that. There's a great example.
Richard Helppie
But I will tell you this, Brian, I'm a problem solver and if my president or my governor called me today and said, look, we want you to work on whatever: guns, voting, healthcare, things I'm reasonably qualified in, I'd go and serve to the best of my ability with a nonpartisan effort. I mean, that would be true if it was Rick Snyder or Gretchen Whitmer or Donald Trump or Joe Biden - or any of them. But we've gotten away from this notion of service. Now it's politics as entertainment and the three villains here are the Democrats, Republicans and the media system.
Brian Kruger
All right, let's talk about Dylan Mulvaney, Anheuser Busch and Bud Light. What do you think of that?
Richard Helppie
Well, first of all, Bud Light, despite the fact that we drink that after most of our hockey games, is pretty wretched stuff as far as beer goes. [Laughter.] I don't have a dog in this fight but it's interesting that we hear about this Dylan Mulvaney, a caricature of a young woman, but we don't hear about Keira Bell, who sued the National Health Services in the UK over being rushed into transitioning. There's been a lot about this transgenderism and look, there are people that are genuinely intersex. They may have both female and male genitalia, like gonads and a vagina or some other combination of that, and there needs to be some kind of affirmation as they work through that process. I've personally known people that did develop outside of what their genitalia might say; it happens on a fairly natural basis. But this expanding and trying to tell little boys and little girls that you're not a little boy or little girl, there's not a scientific basis for that, it's really more fetishism and getting people to have to buy into that. When you see it spreading to young teenage girls - this is the population that gets bulimia and anorexia and cuts themselves - this so called “affirming” care, it's like telling Karen Carpenter, yeah, you're fat. People say, actually, well, you could look at Karen and tell she wasn't fat and I'm like, hello, look at Dennis there and you can tell Dennis is a boy, okay, you can do that. When you look at what other countries are doing, like Finland and the United Kingdom cutting back on this, why we're not pumping the brakes in this country for juveniles. Again, if an adult wants to do anything they want to do themselves, you've reached the age of majority, you're free to do that, I hope you're finding happiness. But running this down on little kids who are being sexualized way before their time and interrupting natural puberty, it's insane.
Brian Kruger
Some of these young girls are under so much pressure and it's just social pressure that they think they want to change. A good friend of mine has a charter school, K through eight, and the eighth graders - every one of the eighth grade girls now thinks they are non-binary. And I think that's much more to do with what they're seeing on social media and talking with each other. It's a confusing time for teenage girls and this just makes it worse.
Richard Helppie
The term I've heard, is called "sudden onset gender dysphoria." Look, there are a couple of things that some people subscribe to - a science - and some don't, one's called "autogynophilia," which is a form of a sexual response in biological males, that they're characterized by the idea of being female, and the opposite of that called "autoandrophilia," which is a rare form of sexual response in the opposite, of females wanting to be male. But you know, it doesn't invade like a virus. Requiring a society to buy into someone's fetish or a caricature as some kind of statement of freedom is insane. I read two stories on transgenderism that were supportive in the New York Times over the weekend; you've got to read the comments. The comments, there were so many that said, look, I'm further to the left of anybody in the Democratic party - I've been that way - but no, if this is what we're doing to kids; this is a bridge too far. We've got to stop.
Brian Kruger
And not to mention the suicide impact of all this, right?
Richard Helppie
Well, first of all, there's no credible study that says that an adolescent that says they have gender dysphoria that is denied the ability to participate in that isn't going to be any more suicidal than the opposite of those. But also, when I hear that, it reminds me of the person that says, Listen, if you leave me, I'm going to kill myself. It's a form of emotional blackmail no different than a young woman saying, if you don't let me date the 21 year old college guy next door, because I'm so in love, I'm going to kill myself. You wouldn't give in to that, there are times you've got to step up and be a parent and get the right care and make sure that they're in a safe place. And there are lots of different ways to do that. But the notion that we have to put dangerous chemicals into people, adolescents, stuff them full of cross-sex hormones and then surgically mutilate them so they don't kill themselves is a crazy argument. Again, as a nonpartisan person and someone who is trying to solve a problem and find the middle ground, I don't think it's unreasonable to say reserve that type of intervention for adults, let them do what they need to do. And when you have somebody that's medically intersex, again a couple of examples like that, that's a very private thing between the family and the person and the medical community; let them work that out. But to take a perfectly healthy young man or young woman and begin trying to transform them in a Frankenstein way because of what's in their head and making the world conform to everything they want, no, there's no good future for society doing that. It's the same thing about people...well, certain people, they're against drag shows. Look, there have been transvestites and there have been drag shows since the beginning of time. The Bible talks about eunichs, that's from as far back as we can record. Nobody has an objection to drag shows but is that really part of the first grade curriculum? I mean, I've hired a lot of people. We would interview them and find out what their education was like; do they have math skills, problem solving skills, can they read, can they write, can they research. We've never had a situation where we set out [to find that] their school district didn't have drag shows in the first three grades so somehow they're just missing out on their education.
Brian Kruger
We got a story out of Portland, Maine, where a mother sued the school system and the employees and everybody there in federal court, saying that they supported her child's gender expression. They also purchased a chest binder for the 13 year old girl to hide her breasts and they didn't inform the parents about any of that. I'm sure you're thrilled with that notion.
Richard Helppie
Well, look, you've got school systems, they can't give a kid an aspirin or Tylenol for a headache, they're not allowed to administer anything like that. It's trying to twist the notion that the child doesn't belong to the parents or doesn't belong to the family. There's a duty within the education system if a child is being abused, but what you have to be careful of is that slippery slope of what defines abuse versus what defines good parenting. There's a bill that has gone through at least in the legislature in Washington - I've been reading that over the last couple days, I think it's 5599, I may not have the exact number - but it's basically trying to say that not buying into somebody's gender dysphoria is a form of abuse and it's crazy. There is a time when people need to sit down and have a discussion about this and be the adults in the room, help guide this young person into a successful adulthood and don't leave the parents out of this.
Brian Kruger
Okay, well, I want to go to the mail bag just for a moment. This is kind of nebulous, but it's a nice tee-up. I got this from Dan Powers from Opelika, Alabama. “What are your thoughts on the leaks of the information about the Ukraine war from the 21 year old and his little buddies online?”
Richard Helppie
Well, first of all, we're early in the story. That it was discovered by a journalist, not by any of the intelligence agencies (Brian: That's worrisome.) a 21 year old Air National Guard member is the one that is purported to have initiated the leaks and then shared them online in gaming rooms. How was security breached to the point where this information was available to someone at that level of classification? I think there's a lot more to be said here but you can't fight a war or engage in diplomacy if your security information is compromised.
Brian Kruger
We've got Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that the young man is a hero for leaking that out. I don't quite get that. She's taken some rebukes from her own party on that one.
Richard Helppie
Well, there are days that Marjorie Taylor Greene might say some intelligent things but I haven't heard any yet. [Laughter.] I mean, I just hear the headlines and it's like someone's lurking around trying to get her to say something stupid so they can report it, and apparently you don't have to work that hard at it. So, I mean, I'm going to put her in the Prince William and Andrew and Harry and whatever the princes' names are category - people I don't care about.
Brian Kruger
We get this one from Mike Cannon, in Georgia. Oh, this tees it up nicely. He's in Georgia. "Rich, what are your predictions for the 2024 election? Who are your favorites? Who are the underdogs? What do you think?” That's from Mike Cannon.
Richard Helppie
So on the Democrat side, it looks like Joe Biden is steaming toward a renomination at the moment, much to my chagrin, and frankly, I'm a little appalled. But if you look across the Democratic bench, they don't have a lot of options beyond Joe Biden, okay, unless they go to a moderate like a Joe Manchin or someone like that.
Brian Kruger
So you think Kamala Harris is not an option?
Richard Helppie
Oh, no. No. In fact, Kamala Harris, I don't know, nominate her to the Supreme Court or something, but she's going to be more of an anchor, because people should logically be looking at her as is she prepared for the presidency. Now, she will be protected by the media, but she's clearly not ready for prime-time in any form.
Brian Kruger
Who do you see on the Republican side?
Richard Helppie
Well, the Republicans have a deep bench, all right, they have Ron DeSantis, who, despite all of the negative reporting, has done a great job as a governor of Florida. You have Nikki Haley, you have Tim Scott. I know not a very popular choice but Mike Pence is a reasonable and capable executive. He is not very exciting, but maybe we could use a lack of excitement for a while. But the Republicans problem clearly is that Donald Trump is the bull in the china shop, doesn't seem to care how much destruction he leaves in his wake, and may be trying to prove a point by running in the primaries and creating havoc. One of the first primaries, of course, is New Hampshire, and Governor Sununu has all but announced that he's going to run and he seems like he's a reasonable executive. So the Republicans' problem is Donald Trump and the Democrats' problem is Joe Biden and no bench. So there you have it.
Brian Kruger
This is a little bit out of our wheelhouse but Beth Cable from Chicago, wrote, "What do you think about the new mayor of Chicago? And how do you think unions are going to influence more elections in the future?" There you have it.
Richard Helppie
Well, public unions have always been in power and despite Franklin Delano Roosevelt saying you can't make a case for public unions, because who are you negotiating with. And when the unions are able to say, look, give us the contracts that we want and we will give you the workforce, and for the elections we'll make sure that you get campaign donations, it's a very dirty cycle. I feel bad for Chicago. The new mayor was tested over the weekend with mayhem, and instead of condemning the law breakers he said, well, you really can't blame them because they need a place to go. Look, as you know, I am a fan of the late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young because when he came into office - the first black man elected to the mayor's office in the city of Detroit - he famously told the criminals and thugs, these are his words, "to get out of town." He told them, "hit Eight Mile Road." People said, well he's telling them go attack the suburbs, that's not what he was saying. What he was saying was, there's not a place for you in the city of Detroit. We need to get more of that. I don't understand why the mayor feels like he has to put up with that versus saying, no, this is not going to happen on my watch. I mean, imagine if you're a homeowner or a taxpayer, you work in downtown Chicago and the mayor's like, well, I guess they stopped a few cars and terrorized a few people and broke a lot of glass but it's cool, no worries.
Brian Kruger
All right, we've got one last thing here in the mail bag and we can wrap this up. It's from Sam Klein and Sam Klein is from Lincoln, Nebraska. He says, "Rich, where should I read and watch my news? I don't know where to get real news anymore."
Richard Helppie
Well, I'm going to recommend that you go to Substack and pick the writers with a bit of a jaundiced eye, if you will; read multiple sources. There are other more free press oriented sites out there that are coming online but the battle is on right now. We've seen that big tech and legacy media have colluded to censor and to try to define truth that is not objective truth. We've talked about it just on this episode, that only a part of a story is getting reported, or it's being mis-reported. Look at the tragedy in Nashville, which we touched on. It ceased being a story when the perpetrator was a "transitioning" young person that went out and murdered little children. The first thing they said about this guy - the intel/incel fellow who breached national security - first thing was oh, he's a white Christian male, therefore, these people must like him. We just need to reject identity politics, reject that really weak media reporting and try to go to facts. Be careful about media that says, well, this could mean this and this could mean that; that's a favorite technique. Say there was a car accident. What if the person didn't have a license? What if they had been drinking? Well, is there any evidence they didn't have a license? No. But what if...? That's what we have to stay away from; the speculation and get onto what are the facts. I would encourage people when they hear something about legislation to ask what's in the bill? Okay, remember the Georgia voting bill? Oh, you couldn't give someone a glass of water; not true, but that spread like wildfire. Ask that second follow up question, what would happen if we didn't take action, that's what we need to ask. We talked about the case with the Tennessee legislators coming in, I literally had to dig [to find out] what did they do because the headline was, the GOP kicked them out because they were two young black representatives, like, well, that would be pretty extreme. But there are people that bit on that story, got themselves all lathered up about it. And there are people that got all lathered up that Dominion voting systems were changing votes. Why not ask the second question: what's the evidence for that? And they were still citing Antrim County, Michigan on the voting machines. There are like 6,000 voters up there - I think it's 6,600 - there was a parameter file that was misloaded, they caught it right away. They corrected the parameter file, re-ran it, and they got an accurate count. But that's still being held up - ha,ha, look at Antrim County - people don't even know where Antrim county is. (Brian: We do.) Yes, we do. Yes, yes, we do. It's right up here and it's not very [populated]. This is where people have got to be smarter about what they consume. But then we would never know if Prince William and Harry are going to be seated by someone's, is it a wife or ex wife, whatever. Whatever they're up to, we wouldn't know that.
Brian Kruger
Great callback. Fantastic callback.
Richard Helppie
But I notice, Brian, I want to end where we started. It's a big development with significant implications. [Laughter.]
Brian Kruger
All right. Well, thanks for coming by. It's good to see you again and we'll look forward to the upcoming shows this summer and glad you're going to be around.
Richard Helppie
If we still have an audience after this, I'll see you around.
Brian Kruger
All right, Rich, see you later.
Richard Helppie
Bye.
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