Mark Belling is on his way out as far as WISN radio is concerned (good riddance!). His on-air time on the radio show that still ostensibly bears his name has been reduced to brief guest appearances every few days or so. One would hope he might go off the air sometime soon, and from there eventually join Rush Limbaugh in Hell. But for now, I want to focus on Belling's heir-apparent: the hyper-extremist Dan O'Donnell.
Charlie Sykes worked with Dan O'Donnell for years at WTMJ radio, and remarked way back in 2020 just how astonished he was at how Dan had gone completely overboard in recent years. In the years since, he seems to have gotten even worse. But O'Donnell's extremism doesn't seem to have given the executives in charge of WISN any problems. Far from it! In fact, O'Donnell gets three hours of airtime from 9:00 A.M. until noon on weekdays, and then gets yet another three hours filling in for the slowly fading-away Belling between 5:00 and 8:00 P.M. And what this person does with that additional airtime is breathtaking beyond belief.
There are some key differences between Belling and O'Donnell. For starters, Belling is at least leery of Trump and understands that he's a poor businessman. He still supports Trump, of course, but he's critical of him. O'Donnell gives reality no such latitude. In his book, it's all Trump or nothing. For another thing (and this plays to O'Donnell's favor), O'Donnell doesn't take the ridiculously long pauses between sentences that Belling takes. Belling wasted perhaps 40% of his airtime with not-so-pregnant pauses after forcing his listeners to endure 15 solid minutes of nothing but commercials leading up to, and sometimes during, his show. (I timed it!) O'Donnell at least keeps things moving along, and doesn't bother with dead-air time. Also, if he talks to someone off-microphone, he will allow that person to respond in the studio. Not so, Belling, who was constantly saying, "Paul says this," or "Paul says that." (Paul being his producer and call-screener.) Just give Paul the damned microphone already!
But I got a real taste of the kind of unbelievable bullshit when I listened to his podcast episode from March 20th. He kicked it off by (interestingly) campaigning strongly for early voting. This is a sea change for right-wingers in Wisconsin, who had previously decried mail-in and early voting ballots as skewing strongly toward Democrats. But now, it seems, O'Donnell is convinced that early voting plays to the conservatives' advantage, and so he strongly advocates for it. I look forward to seeing him proven wrong.
But that was just the beginning. He goes on from there to draw parallels from today to when the very first Republican was elected (Abraham Lincoln), and Southern Democrats threw a fit about it, preferring secession to advocating. The result was, of course, the Civil War.
"Man! Those Democrats just refused to give up their slaves!" he says. "What a racist party!"
Well, no. The crucial part that O'Donnell leaves out is that these Southern Democrats were ALL Christian conservatives! Yes! Don't believe me? Recall William Jennings Bryan, three time DEMOCRATIC candidate for president, and the prosecuting attorney in the John Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee. You don't get much more Christian conservative than that! This sad state of affairs stayed that way all the way through the 1970's, after which Reagan convinced most Southern Democrats to slowly switch sides. Southern Christian conservatism became exclusively owned by the Republicans by the time the 1992 mid-term elections ousted Democrats from their Congressional majority for the first time since Roosevelt.
And all the moderates either resigned or declared they would not seek re-election.
"It is just weird," he goes on, "that it's not taught anymore. That every single secessionist, was a Democrat." And later adds, "They launched a violent revolution against the Uni... some might call it an insurrection! against the government of the United States. Who would have guessed that 170 years ago all of that would have been started by a group of abolitionists who were tired of Democrats treating people like their own personal property."
Apparently, somebody in the newsroom studio took exception to this bullshit and tried flagging O'Donnell for attention. Perhaps they were saying, "Dude, what the fuck?!"
"What?" O'Donnell Protested on the air. "What? It's history."
No, Dan, it's not. Because history is telling the whole story, not leaving out the most crucial part of it in order to transform it into political spin. These were CONSERVATIVES in the Confederate South. And they revolted, just like their ideological descendants did on January 6th, 2021.
"Democrat" is nothing more than a team name. The real enemy is conservatism. And more specifically, that brand of Christian conservatism which has no problem with telling bald-faced lies on the air, designed to make their own people revolt yet again.
Later that same broadcast, he cites Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden's, and plays some key parts of his testimony in congress during the Joe Biden impeachment attempt. He claims that this testimony shows that Hunter Biden took payments from China in exchange for leverage against Joe Biden. As additional evidence, he cites the fact that Joe Biden bowed out of the 2016 election back in 2015. He (Bobulinski) says he believes that China's money bought influence regarding that decision, even though that's pure speculation. He says it's clear to him that Joe Biden was the brand being sold in the Biden family, which is more speculation. He asks, if Joe Biden were so innocent, why is his family being so dishonest about it?
"That's a great question," O'Donnell says. He then claims that 10% of the payments from China were being "held by H. for the Big Guy." Where H. is presumably Hunter Biden, and the "Big Guy," is his dad. He then highlights a $40,000 payment to Joe Biden. "Remember that amount," he says. "$40,000."
He cites Byron Donaldson's testimony, and plays a clip, in which he details various payments made from the CCP to CEFC, a company associated with the Bidens, and various smaller dollar payments that went from that fund to various members of the Biden family, including Joe.
O'Donnell then plays a clip of a heated exchange between Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Tony Bobulinski, a former associate of Hunter Biden's who was testifying. O'Donnell plays that clip. For clarification, here's a brief transcript:
AOC: Did you witness the President commit a crime?
Bobulinski: Yes.
AOC: And what crime have you witnessed?
Bobulinski: How much time do I have to go through it?
AOC: It is simple, you name the crime. Did you watch him steal something?
Bobulinski: Corruption statutes, RICO and conspiracy, FARA...
AOC: What is the crime? Specifically. I asked you to answer the question.
Bobulinski: You asked, I answered the question - RICO. You're obviously not familiar, corruption statutes...
AOC: Excuse me sir, excuse me sir, excuse me sir-- RICO is not a crime. It is a category.
[At this, some audible gasps are heard from the floor.]
Bobulinski: It's a category of crimes that you're then charged under, a long hundred list of statutes...
AOC: (Speaking over Bobulinski) you have charges -- you have charges -- sir, please name...
Bobulinski: You want me to name the exact statute under RICO?
AOC: Yes.
Bobulinski: Well, it's funny, in this committee room, everyone who's not here, there's like eighteen lawyers who went to law school. I'll leave it up to you guys to find the statute.
AOC: I reclaim my time.
[Note: RICO is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.]
After playing the audio clip, O'Donnell actually laughs, going on to describe how he thinks corruption payments flowed over to Joe Biden and his family. But wait, there's another interpretation, here. That the Bidens had perfectly legitimate business interests which received money from the CCP just like every other corporation that does business in China.
AOC's question is perfectly valid. What IS the actual crime, here? Bobulinski couldn't name one and was forced to appeal to the authority of the lawyers in the room. That's a pretty good job by AOC in getting to the point of the matter!
In fact, on Keith Olbermann's podcast, Countdown, he played exactly this same clip as proof that the investigation into Hunter Biden is baseless. Now why is one ultra-left podcast getting pretty much the exact opposite interpretation from a right-wing A.M. radio program?
The answer is obvious: spin. The truth is somewhere between the extremes. Hunter Biden was into some shady shit, but we already knew about that. Does any of it lead to Joe? Not decisively. So then AOC's point is perfectly valid. There is no actual, identifiable crime here. And if there's no crime, then there's no impeachment.
And just how utterly ridiculous is it to conclude that a mere $40,000 can convince a Vice President to not run for office? $40 million, now we're talking. But $40 thousand? Come on! That's a drop in the bucket for any vice president. This paltry sum couldn't have bought anything. And, bear in mind, that Biden was only VICE president at the time. Just what kind of influence do these idiots think a VP could even peddle?
This is what we're fighting. There are thousands upon thousands of O'Donnells out there, each one spewing this same sort of spin-doctored crap, some of which they may actually believe themselves, driving their listenership insane for the sake of a few more ratings points. People are glued to this stuff, sometimes 18 hours per day, being lied to and lied to and lied to until they're so pissed off that an insurrection on the capital seems like the only thing to do!
It's all threatening to happen again.
And we're doing exactly NOTHING to stop it.
Eric
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