Dead Men Walking #126 Representative Joe Bellino on politics, the left, & America's biggest threat

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exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from an undisclosed location,

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Dead Men Walking starts now. Well hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking podcast.

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We appreciate you coming along for the ride and we appreciate you sharing with a friend, leaving positive reviews and visiting dmwpodcast .com

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where we have all kinds of merch, fun stuff, you get to know a little bit more about us and you support the show. We appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by Jacob's Supply right here in Temperance, Michigan.

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Go handle your business guys. Support these brothers. All right, cool. Now that we've got the business out of the way, I'm excited. We have one of my friends and my state representative here in studio with us,

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Mr. Joe Bellino. How are you, sir? Doing fine and thanks for having me. Oh, our fake audience loves you.

01:24

Look at that standing ovation in the studio. Standing ovation. I'll probably take a called strike three and walk back to the dugout.

01:33

So we've known each other a long time. And as people know, on this podcast, we talk about politics quite often. And you are a current state representative.

01:40

You're running for state senate. We're going to get into that. But before we do, can you just introduce yourself to the listeners? Let them know a little bit about yourself.

01:47

What you're all about. Sure. Joe Bellino. I married my wife, Peggy. Margaret's a real name. Peggy, we call her.

01:52

About 38 years ago, we have three daughters, basically 35, 33, 31, and six grandkids.

01:59

I grew up at Detroit Beach. My parents stole my grandpa's car, went to Georgia and got married because my mom was 16 and wasn't allowed to get married in Michigan.

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And when he got back, my grandpa gave my mom and dad a 680 square foot cottage that he rented at Detroit Beach in the summers.

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Yeah, that's back when it was Detroit Beach. People from Detroit would come down and rent the cottages and go on Lake Erie, right?

02:22

There was no AC and it was cooler by the lake. Seriously, that's what I did. It was cooler by the lake. So we lived in that house till I was 12 and moved out in the country when

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I was 12 years old out near Holy Ghost Church and went to public school to high school. I wanted to be like one of my uncles and I ended up going to Catholic Central.

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I wanted to be a football star. That didn't work, but I got through. It was injuries, right? It definitely wasn't the talent.

02:41

It was injuries. It was probably lack of size. But went to Catholic Central, then I got my two -year degree from Monroe County Community College and took on life.

02:51

Really? And somewhere along there, I think you became an entrepreneur and a business owner, didn't you? That was a little bit later in life.

02:56

Okay, I had to go through a lot of ups and downs before that. When I was 25 years old, I went to rehab. Okay, it turns out that when you drink and drug too much and not know what you're doing to become a complete idiot, you might have a problem.

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Okay, it was pointed out to me many, many times I might have a problem. And one day it sunk in, I got a moment of clarity and went to rehab and been sober.

03:14

So how long have you been sober? 37, almost. December 28th.

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So long you can't remember. December 28th, 1984. So it's almost 38 years. Yeah, it's crazy to think that 84 is 38 years ago.

03:28

It was a good year. Tigers Wonder World Series. And you got sober. It was a good year all around. Very cool.

03:33

So then you moved into business ownership because that's kind of where our friendship started. But you were the owner at Broadway.

03:39

Broadway, yeah. I worked with my family when I first got sober, selling booze for a living. Okay. Tried to do something different.

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So I worked six years for St. Vincent de Paul in Detroit. And I challenge anybody, if you want to learn about life and you want to get humble and learn how

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Christ works in life, go work at a charity in the inner city. Yeah. You'll see how it happens. That was a great job.

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It molded me who I am today. Yeah. And a couple years after that, I bought Broadway Market on smoke and mirror and a prayer.

04:06

Yeah. Long before the bank collapses and stuff. Right. And bought the store and we had it almost 24 years.

04:12

It was a great business and a great, great thing to grow up in. Yeah. Isn't it crazy the difference between people who talk about a belief and actually live out their beliefs, right?

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Like you're saying, volunteering in the inner city or things like that. People can talk a good game about believing something or you should do this or you shouldn't do that.

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But when they put their money where their mouth is and actually live that out, I think that's a real life changer.

04:34

It was a wonderful experience and I would wish that on anybody, although it doesn't happen to everybody. It was a great job to have and great to learn that Christ put you there for a reason.

04:43

Yeah. Take care of that reason. Now, I would assume or I think you might even be busier now running your campaigns than you were even when you owned your business because I see you out everywhere.

04:54

I see a door knocking, putting up signs. I see at events. I see your social media posts and I feel like you somehow have 28 hours in a day and most people have 24.

05:04

So what's that been like? You know, all I lack from the old days is probably 700 amphetamine pills.

05:11

They can be long days. So what powers you now? Are you a coffee guy or energy drink guy?

05:17

You said you had a roaster here. That's great. I love my coffee. I love my Red Bull. But you try to eat right and it's a long day and you gotta pace yourself.

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Don't have any heavy lunches. It's a sin in Lansing to have a heavy lunch because you're going back to session.

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You're probably gonna fall asleep. Yeah, it's nap time. Pace yourself.

05:37

You're in studio making sure you don't say anything she doesn't like. She walks with the manager. I take the right side of the street.

05:44

She takes the left side because I'm a Republican. Well, let's get into a little bit. So what is your, you know, you're an elected official.

05:50

You're running as a state representative right now. You're running for state Senate. What's your philosophy on government? You know,

05:56

I didn't have a philosophy till I bought my store and I saw, and actually I was a Dingle Democrat.

06:01

Okay. 80s, 90s. I voted for John Dingle every time. Yeah. He was pro -auto, pro -gun, pro -life back then.

06:08

Yeah. Things have since changed. When I bought the store, I saw the tax I was paying and the services

06:13

I was getting and I liked what I saw, but I saw deficiencies in other areas of the state. And I got elected to the

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Community College Board in Monroe. Right. Great school, Monroe County Community College. As a trustee, correct? As a trustee. Okay. We were always battling

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K through 12 and the big schools like Michigan, Michigan State to try to get money for our school.

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We were the ugly person on the totem pole. Right. The low person. So like even, even this present budget,

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I mean we're giving a lot of money to the big schools and we worked hard to try to change that. It didn't work. Maybe next year it'll work.

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So I saw that having a voice in Lansing would help the community colleges because we had, we had a lobby firm,

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Munchmore Harrington. Okay. Pat Harrington's a community college grad, so he was our lobbyist up there. And we paid for the association to lobby, plus we lobbied as trustees.

06:56

Right. That was one way. The other way was owning my store and seeing all the laws being formed to help

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Walmart, Kroger, Meijer and nothing for the small guys. And in Michigan we have a thriving small store business.

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We do. I got involved that way. So those two together and I saw one day that my rep,

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I felt he wasn't doing much and I decided to run against him and I knew I was gonna lose, but I had to learn how to do it to run the next time because we all knew that his wife would be running for his seat.

07:24

And that happens a lot in Lansing. Right. I think there's 10 or 11 spouses. Yeah. Brothers and sisters.

07:30

On both sides. On both sides, yeah, that are serving in the legislature because it's name recognition.

07:35

Right. That's where it's at. And you kind of came out of nowhere really because you had, I mean, you had been at the college and you had some elected experience, but generally when you go to state rep,

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I mean, that's, you're biting off a lot. I mean, your district is. You're running against somebody who averaged 60 percent in two elections.

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I mean, Bill had 60 .2 and 59 .8. Yeah. So everybody knew I was going to lose. Nobody in Lansing gave me a shot.

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I think maybe Dale Zorn thought I might win. And my wife, well, actually she didn't think I was going to win. A little story.

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We were about, we were about two weeks to go for the election the first time and we knew we were going to lose. We were down seven to 11 points.

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Somebody did a poll and told me about it. And I said, I sat her down in the restaurant and said, honey, we're going to lose. We're going to work hard. We're going to make it close.

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Yeah. We're ready for the next time. And when that night came and receipts were coming again, we were looking at numbers coming. I thought, gee,

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I should have lost this by a lot. I should have lost this by a lot. Well, I won this township. And next thing you know, I won.

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And that night from 11 o 'clock till eight in the morning next day, I got 400 friend requests on Facebook because nobody knew who

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I was in Lansing. Nobody wanted to know who I was. But I had to get up. I was up till four in the morning that night. I had to get up and open the store and work and then go to Lansing.

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Oh, you had real man problems, not career politician problems. I had to work and then go to Lansing to go to school. They send you to school for a couple of days, learn about the budget and the departments and things like that.

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And we had to do that. So I feel like that says a lot about your work ethic too, because you were a first timer. You were, uh,

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I think back then it was majority Democrat. You were running in the Republican party. I think it might've been trending, but your district was,

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Oh, my district was heavy. Dem was heavy. Dem, right? So everyone goes, this guy isn't going to win, but man, I saw all the signs.

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I saw the door knocking. Once again, I always preach that here. Go out, meet the people, talk to them, connect with them. Signs. Don't vote.

09:17

People do. They're nice, right? They're nice. We, we work, Peg and I work the first, we work every, uh, primary, like it's a general.

09:24

Yeah, absolutely. We walk a lot of doors today. We hit 120 doors this morning until they got too hot.

09:30

Right. Um, and then you put lots of signs up and you meet people and you're always smiling and you wear your orange, your bright orange stuff and just go from there.

09:37

So the first time, uh, we ran the primary hard. Yeah. And I kept hearing rumors that, you know, the

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Dem was upset because we were, why are you working so hard? It's just a primary and you have no, you have no opposition. I didn't really care. I had to get my name out there and to show people

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I was working and you would be amazed how many people beep at you and say, way to go, Joe. And they see out there pounding signs in the ground, pounding those things in the ground.

09:57

They know you're a working man and they knew I worked. Yeah. And so I worked all those days at store and, and I, I won,

10:02

I caught, I caught, uh, I caught the Trump wave. I caught my hard work. Um, uh, when I first got to office,

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I got a call from the New York times. They want to do an article about Monroe County, how we switched big time. You called me on that. No, no, this was a

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CNN, CNN one that you called me. So they called you multiple times. And why'd it flip? Yeah. CNN, CNBC, New York times, you know, they wanted to put it all on Trump.

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And I said, no, no, my guy was lazy. He did. If my guy would've worked at all, I would've lost, but he was lazy.

10:27

He did work. And actually the whole Dem party was lazy because they didn't spend a dime on the race. Yeah. They thought it was in the bag and if you remember back in the late summer,

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Trump's numbers weren't trending well. So the Dems thought they were gonna take over the house. Sure. And, and that didn't happen.

10:41

We, we had 62 seats when the election happened. When I won, we had 63 seats. And that next day when

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I started meeting people, I put everybody on my phone, but I didn't know, I didn't know anybody. So I have Shane Hernandez, R.

10:53

Jason Shepard, R. I didn't know if they were Republicans or Democrats. Steve Johnson, the most conservative voter,

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R. Lana Tice, the most conservative voter in the Senate, R. You know, I didn't know. So you live and learn.

11:05

Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's funny because like I said, it, it's your work ethic, but it's also,

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I've noticed that the elected officials that I tend to gravitate towards are the ones with real world experience because they got into it because they saw an issue and go,

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I bet you I can fix that. I bet you I can make that better or more efficient or help people with it. And those are the elected officials

11:26

I really gravitate towards because out of that, there's like a servitude there instead of, man,

11:31

I'd really like that title. Maybe I'd like that extra money. Maybe I'd like that notoriety, that insurance or whatever, that insurance or whatever it is.

11:38

Right. And I, yeah, I got elected and I'm there and, uh,

11:43

I don't know what I'm doing at all. Not a word, but they sat me next to a young man on the house floor named

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Tom Barrett. Now at that time, I had no idea who Tom Barrett was. Okay. I love Tom Barrett.

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Tom Barrett. I would run through a brick wall for Tom Barrett. He's going to be a great Congressman. You watch. Yeah. And I think his race is doing pretty well.

12:01

He's out. Well, I mean, he's out there. He's got a worker, one of the five races in the country that they're putting a lot of money behind our party.

12:07

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you've been a state rep now. This is your third term, correct? So six, six year, all done in six months, all done in six months.

12:16

And we do have term limits here in Michigan for those listening outside of Michigan. Uh, what kind of things are you proud about that you've accomplished in the state house?

12:24

You know, when I first got elected, I was there about a couple of days and I get a call from Ryan Kelly and he's our

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Lieutenant governor at the time. And he says, oh, you're going to be on an opioid committee. We have a Republican and a

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Democrat from the house, Republican and Democrat from the Senate where we got some bills we got formatted and we're going to help this community and I want you on it.

12:42

I said, well, thank you, sir. Thank you. So I go to the first meeting. It was a Senator Anik and Senator, uh, who ran it for AG against Tom Leonard, Senator lady.

12:57

Oh, a blonde, uh, West side state. Who is it? Come on, Peggy.

13:04

I can see her too. I don't, uh, Tanya, Tanya, Tanya, shoot, shoot maker. Great lady. What a hard worker she is.

13:10

What a hard worker. She was Randy's best coxmate. He, she brought a lot of a big weight for Andy when he brings the

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Senate. So they were in the Senate and it was myself and he's now the now president governor or a mayor of Lansing.

13:24

Andy Shore was the Democrat. So we're talking and we're at this first meeting. I don't, I get there. I'm a novice, right?

13:31

I'm a new fight. I know nothing. So I'm sitting down listening. And, uh, and Lieutenant governor said, we have these four bills and all your names will be on them.

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And then, and then the guy next to me who was Andy Shore, Democrat, I don't know him at all. He says, well, my party is going to be upset that his name's running.

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He just got elected. And Lieutenant governor said, well, that's too bad. Andy, everybody's names on it or nobody's names on it.

13:49

And that's how it is. So we went to the next subject and we kept going around and somebody started explaining some things about recovery. And, and I looked at the

13:55

Lieutenant governor and winked and he goes, yeah. And so I told him a little bit about myself and I was brought into the group and Andy Shore and I became great friends after that day.

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Yeah. When he ran for mayor of Lansing as a Democrat, Peg and I wrote a $200 check. We believe in that guy so much.

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He's such a good guy. So we worked hard on some stuff together. That was a great feeling, a great way to get your feet wet in Lansing is to be with a group of people and try to get some things through.

14:19

So, uh, I didn't know at the time though, there were a lot of people in the house upset that they put me on that committee. There were people that wanted to be on that committee because it's a big highfalutin priority, you know, big, sure, sure.

14:28

A big, it's a lot of press starlight. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. And the worst one, I think I heard was that the present, uh, prosecutor of Macomb County who was upset he wasn't put on it.

14:38

So, but they didn't know about me. They didn't know I was an addict in recovery. Right. And, uh, and, and that, and that's a lot of the bills have come my way that with, uh, with recovery, with alcoholism, with the drug addiction, people want to know my, what

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I think about it. Uh, what would you do about it? How can we format this bill this way, that way. So I've done a lot of bills with that stuff right there.

14:55

Um, so I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the fact that, uh, we, we finally got a one DUI exemption bill passed.

15:01

I saw that. Yeah. 300 ,000 people. When we passed the bill, 300 ,000 people in Michigan have one DUI and they wear it like a scarlet letter.

15:08

Yeah. My deacon at my church got one 35 years ago. Yeah. Why should he still be penalized today?

15:13

He's a great man. He made one mistake. Yeah. I know a lot of law enforcement was against it. My, uh, my opponent in the

15:19

Senate race voted against it. Uh, that's too bad. Yeah. It's not made to help addicts that are still, that are still working hard to keep their addiction up.

15:27

It's made for people who are sober or people made a mistake. Yeah. And it was for a single, not a repeat offender. Right. Right.

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And we put a lot of, uh, stop marks on it. If you have more than one, no way somebody got injured in your act.

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If you had an accident, somebody injured, no way you got to wait five years and the judge still has to okay it. So you could be not getting a

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DUI, but still be an idiot in life. The judge will say no. Right. It happens a lot. So I'm proud of that and proud of, uh, a lot of bills we've had to keep the taxes down.

15:53

Yeah. Um, I would love to see us take the sales tax on gas and put it toward roads. Yeah. Well, we've been talking about that a long time, long time or to get a tax cut.

16:02

I heard somebody on WGR today might've been, uh, Chad live with talking about there's all this money. Why don't we have a tax cut?

16:07

Well, we don't have a tax cut because we don't want to do it the way the governor wants it. She wants to give a check to you with her name on it before the election.

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We say, no way, let's, let's cut the taxes. So we, we, we, we benefit for generations.

16:19

Yeah. Not for two weeks. Yeah. Her, uh, fix the roads kind of went to the wayside. I feel like I haven't heard anything about, well,

16:25

I did see her post a video of them putting throw and go on a county road and she goes, see, I'm fixing the roads. I could have done that.

16:32

Come on. There's a lot of roads still be fixed. You're correct there. Yes. Yeah. Uh, you know, we talked about this a few weeks ago.

16:38

I heard you mentioned something where someone from the opposition party said, I don't want his name on it. He's new here. There's some of that in Lansing is,

16:44

I mean, in politics in general, where it's, whereas everyone's jockeying and it really disturbs me.

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Can't we just kind of get along and do what's best for our communities and for the taxpayers and the constituents, but you got to fight that all the time.

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Don't you all the time? Or we can, we can pass those bills after the primary. That happens a lot. I mean, there's a lot of things out there that we want to do, but nobody wants to put their name on it before the primary.

17:06

So nobody wants to look less far, right. Or less far left like that for the Dems. So they don't want to touch anything.

17:12

So, yeah. So why the run for state Senate? What, what are you going to, what do you want to accomplish there? You know, I never thought about it until about last

17:19

November, December, October, somewhere in the fall thinking, you know, I'm my last year, what am I going to do? And, uh,

17:24

I didn't run for the house to be a senator, right. But I'm still have real good health. I'm only 64 years old.

17:30

Yeah. I can still get 10 ,000 steps in a day without a sweat. I mean, I can still do a parade and run half it like I did an Adrian the other day.

17:36

Right. Uh, I just think that our area, Monroe, Lena, Wayne Hillsdale, they need someone that with real work experience, someone who has suffered in life, someone who's lived through hell and someone who wants just to help the people.

17:47

I don't have an agenda to, to bring, to do something crazy. I want to keep us flowing down a good, hard Republican path.

17:56

We've been the last few years and we, and it's got to be someone there that can still fight the governor too, like we have been.

18:02

So yeah, no, absolutely. So what is the difference between the two chambers? Really? I mean, uh, I mean, we know house, uh, deals with revenues, right.

18:10

A Senate, like what are you going to be doing differently if you're to win the Senate than what you were doing in the house for those listening?

18:16

It's, it's a different culture. Usually in the Senate, that person has a lot of experience until the last Senate race, four years ago, five people got elected that never served in the house that never had before since term limits.

18:27

So no experience, no experience at all. Um, there's only 38 senators. And when a vote goes on the board, you have one minute to vote or you missed the vote compared to what house.

18:36

Sometimes we have votes on the board for a half hour. Okay. Um, in the old days, uh,

18:42

I think, uh, there was a Dem, uh, uh, running the house. Uh, he would put something on the board and go to lunch in Detroit and come back four hours later and finish the vote.

18:50

Yeah. And that doesn't happen in Senate 38 senators, the house. It's like herding cats.

18:56

Cause you're a hundred, 10 people. It's loud. You got all the things you want. The Senate is more docile and, uh, you get your stuff done and get out.

19:02

Sure. And there's only 38. So there's a little more attention paid to the 38. Yeah. Now do they do the late night sessions?

19:08

Like you just did, uh, I think a few days ago, you guys did like an 8 AM to 4

19:14

AM deal or something like that. The Senate got off early. They left at two 30. Oh, that's why you're running for Senate.

19:19

You get to get off after 10 hours instead of 14. We reconcile bills, send them back and forth. And, uh, because, you know, look at, it's very easy and sometimes acceptable to rail on some of these politicians and we, and I do it on this podcast sometimes.

19:33

Uh, but what people don't realize is when I text someone like you and you go, Oh, still in session.

19:39

And I text you, I think 1145 at night. I didn't realize it was that late. I'm a night owl. So I'll start sending texts when

19:45

I have ideas ago. Oh geez. People are probably sleeping. And I think that night I text you, I read the next day you guys were in session until two or three in the morning or two in the morning or something like that.

19:55

Uh, and people don't realize that sometimes, yeah, you got to put in those, uh, 18 hour days when you're wrestling through something.

20:02

Now that was for school funding. I think I'm referring to and, and their, their budget started the next day. So we wanted to, and they knew they were getting a lot of money and we wanted to do the, to get the regular budget done too.

20:10

So, yeah, we got it done. It took, took time. There's a lot of negotiations when you have, uh, an administrator, the governor, who's a different party than you, there's gotta be a lot of give and take.

20:20

Now people may say, why are we giving her anything? Well, we'd, nothing gets done then. Yeah. She can stop everything. So everything doing nothing is better than doing something halfway.

20:28

Uh, not when there's $9 billion there and you don't want to leave it all to her. Seriously. Seriously. If we, if, if we happen to lose the house and Senate and leave her $9 billion, there's three new programs being started tomorrow.

20:38

Right. I mean, seriously, we don't want that to happen. We want it to go to infrastructure, roads, water management, piping, things like that.

20:45

Get the money out there so it can be used next couple of years and not wasted on a program that we don't really need.

20:51

Yeah. And you kind of alluded to this earlier and I would say, you know, our governor has kind of proven herself to be pretty radical within the democratic party.

21:01

Uh, I was watching Bill Maher and he, he, he said this and you know, he's, he's liberal and atheist and all that, but he goes, look at,

21:08

I haven't changed. I'm the same Democrat I was 15 years ago. My democratic party has changed.

21:14

And he was kind of railing against some of the CRT stuff and the woke stuff. And you go, gosh, this guy 15 years ago, he was a radical leftist.

21:21

Now he's just a moderate centrist. Really? When, when you, you know, when you hear what he has to believe in, our governor has really went left on some stuff.

21:29

So it kind of brings up that point of like, we've got to do something now or she gets her hands on that money. Uh, I know

21:35

I talked to a lot of parents and they're real concerned about parental rights and what's being taught in schools and, and if they have any advocacy for their own children when they're in public schools and the governor's just come out and basically said,

21:47

I'll do what I want and we own your kids. Now she didn't say it that way, but essentially saying that, which scares a lot of parents, even those that might be softer

21:54

Dems or more center left, you know, and I just don't know how far they can run to the left before people just go.

22:02

Cause look at you talk to a lot of people when you do or not. I talked to about 5 ,000 people every cycle.

22:07

When I, when I do or not, I start talking about common sense things. 80, 90 % of the people go, yeah,

22:14

I'll vote for you. Yeah, I agree with that. You start talking about far left or far right stuff. They go, no,

22:19

I'm not on board with that. And I'm wondering if, if you know, you have a minority of people driving a narrative or an agenda when most of us,

22:27

I mean, most of us, we can sit down and agree on most things. Now, of course there's going to be some stuff, social issues, maybe tax issues that are extreme that we don't, but for the most part,

22:35

I feel like most people are moderate thinking. Does that make sense in America? We are, but, but the loud people are on the far left or far right and they want their way or that's that they want.

22:47

And so the governor gets elected and, and it was thought that she would be a moderate governor. You know, she surrounded herself with people far left and her policies are far left and she believes in the

22:57

AG and the AG I think needs to be changed. And she believes in the secretary of state. And I think we need to change the secretary of state too, because you can see what they've done the last four years.

23:05

Uh, yeah, she, she's a, the governor needs to be changed. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, before we get into our next segment and round this out, why don't you give us really quick a walkthrough of you've see a problem, your elected state representative, you go, we need to fix that.

23:20

Whether it be with a bill or repealing a bill, give us like a, just a one minute walkthrough of start to finish how that works.

23:26

You have an idea, you see an issue, you go, Hey, who's the first person I'm contacting? Are we contacting attorneys to write the bill?

23:31

Are we contacting lobbyists, uh, legislative assistants? And then how do we move it through to get it maybe to the desk of a governor for signature?

23:39

Okay. So I'm going to 12 step meetings and I see that my friends have to be picked up to be driven to 12 step meetings because they're paying driver responsibility fees.

23:46

Oh gosh. It was brought out during the past democratic governor's reign. They had to raise money.

23:52

So they said, well, if you've got over 12 points, you've got to pay a thousand bucks a year away. You didn't have a hundred dollars to renew the license.

23:57

So because you drove without it, now we're going to charge you a thousand bucks a year for two years. And I thought that was so egregious.

24:03

So I go to the speaker, Tom Leonard, he goes, Joe, we're working on something. So let's talk about it. So I meet with the staff.

24:08

We talk about it. I look at the numbers and the people that had driver responsibility fees, fees, they owed the state $350 million.

24:17

And most of it was three years old or older. So if you're a bank and somebody owes you money after three years, they don't pay anything.

24:23

You write that off, but not governor Snyder. Cause he was, he was an accountant. He was an accountant. That was money on the balance sheet.

24:30

He wanted that money there. So we got the bill through with one, no vote with a lot of lift from Tom Leonard helped me out.

24:36

Cause this is my first time I was doing this. We had one, no vote in the house and none in the Senate, I believe. So anyway, the bill gets passed and I'm excited.

24:43

I'm texting all my friends. You know, your driver's responsibility fees. Yeah, we're all excited. The governor's going to veto it.

24:49

He calls Tom Leonard the night of the, of the last day to veto it. He says, Tom, I'm between that bill.

24:55

And Tom says, governor Snyder, why? Well, it's $350 million hit to the state budget. Tom says, governor, you know, we're not going to collect.

25:02

That doesn't matter. It's $350 million. And Tom said, governor, this is a Bolino bill and we're going to override that bill next week.

25:09

So veto it. If you want, you had one, no vote. We may, we might have a couple, no votes more after you veto it, but we're going to, we're going to run it right through.

25:15

Right. The next day, the governor signed a bill. Yeah. He, he saw the numbers, but we saw how it was hurting people.

25:21

And it's about people. If you don't have ways to help people, why are you even running? Why are you serving?

25:27

Yeah. You can say all you want. You can, you can say all those politicians, just say what you want to hear and stuff. But I've been here five and a half years.

25:34

I'm Joe Bolino. I was Joe Bolino when I got elected. I'm the same dude. I haven't changed. Yeah. Uh, if, if I get a little ego and I go to a 12 step meeting with a little ego, my buddies knocked me down to size.

25:45

Everyone needs those types of friends in their life. If you don't have that checks and balances, you're crazy.

25:50

And you're crazy. And there's a lot of balancing like that. So, all right, let's wrap it up. You want to play fresh 10 with us so we can find out a little bit more about you.

25:57

Sure. Let's do it. All right.

26:10

Joe doesn't know these questions and we're going to rapid fire them and see what he comes up with. Uh, since you're in politics, let's start with this.

26:16

Who is a figure in history you look up to that inspires you? A figure in, I met him yesterday,

26:23

Abraham Lincoln. There was a six foot four guy looked just like Lincoln in the Adrian parade. We got a great talk.

26:28

Abraham Lincoln. Okay. And, and, and I, I, I love what George Custer did at the battle of Gettysburg.

26:34

Here's a guy who was last in his class and barely gets there and leads the charge and helps us win.

26:40

So it was great. Yeah. I think everyone only remembers, remembers him for his last, uh, his last battle.

26:46

Oh, what happened in his last battle? I didn't get that. I didn't teach Ed when I went to school. Wait, Custer, we'll let the listeners go.

26:53

Google it. You had me going there for a minute. You got a good poker face. Uh, number two. Uh, what do you like to do to relax?

27:01

What's golf golf on Sunday nights at six 37 o 'clock.

27:06

After everything's done, my wife and I will go out and play nine holes. We went, we went yesterday and cause everything was done July 4th.

27:11

We got out there about six 30, play nine holes and loved it. Uh, this one's for all the entrepreneurs out there.

27:17

What is the two part question? Three and four or three. What is the most rewarding part of owning a business? The rewarding part is that you're working hard to make money.

27:24

And when you make money, you give something back. Our goal when we bought the store was to give back 1 % of sales. Yeah. And we did it almost every year for 24 years.

27:31

Beautiful. What's the most difficult part of owning a business? Question number four. Owning a business is you don't anticipate the alarm company calling you at four in the morning or somebody calling you five minutes before they're supposed to show up to work.

27:44

So you're sick and wear all the hats like that. It's what I miss about owning my store is 75 % of my customers.

27:51

I miss 75%. That's about it. Yeah. Uh, question number five, what three albums are you bringing with, with you on the deserted

27:59

Island? Okay. I'm bringing a white album. I'm bringing darkness down the edge of town.

28:04

Okay. The boss. And I'm bringing, um, a Bob Dylan, a 1964

28:10

Bob Dylan album. I love it, man. You got right in there. I asked this to a guest a couple of weeks ago and he had, it sputtered a little bit.

28:15

He's going, well, I don't know. And you're pretty definitive on that. I like it. All right. Uh, number six, what property do you try to buy when playing monopoly?

28:24

Railroads. You're a railroad man. My wife's a railroad and I make fun of her every time and she ends up beating me and I love railroads pay off.

28:31

Railroads pay off. And I get calls about railroads a lot. And I have a good connection with the railroads and they write the number down of what intersection it is and what's the number on it.

28:39

We get things fixed. Right. Very good. Number seven, what book should everyone read outside of the Bible or something religious?

28:44

What's a good book that someone should pick up and just take a look at once in their life. It's a blue book that I have at home and it's got two big

28:50

A's on the front. Okay. No matter what, they should take a look at it. All right. Number eight, where's your favorite place to vacation in Michigan and why all gray.

29:00

Yeah. Or just my wife's family has a cottage on the water and all gray for years. And, and, and, and that leads us, let me go into something special here.

29:08

Four years ago, every, every spring we pump out the seepage bed or the septic tank. Yeah. Four years ago, the guy comes in and says, well, it's the top is broke.

29:15

Joe, what do you mean? We go out there and all of us look and the top is broken, but he goes to look and you have an old one. What do you mean old one?

29:20

They dig a hole, they put a top on it and everything runs into the sand. It's all sand. No, there's no septic tank.

29:27

And this happens all over the state, all these old places. So we spent thousands of dollars, got it fixed the correct way.

29:32

But in Michigan, we don't have a seepage code for the whole state. Yeah. We don't have a code for that.

29:39

We're the only state in the union. We let the counties take care of it. Right. I think we're doing a disservice to the people in the water by not having a state septic code.

29:46

So I mean, we're a water state. We're a water high water table. You might ask me, Joe, why can't we get a bill passed?

29:52

Yeah. Why can't we, Joe, why can't we get a bill passed? It's called the realtors. And I love them, but they don't want to have any more fees now.

29:59

So we do deal with that. And it is county by county. I know. So here in Monroe, I sell a house. No problem.

30:05

They can do a private inspection. I go to Washtenaw. Boy, you better go pay for an inspection before it can pass sale.

30:11

Yeah. So it's per county. And our people, our health people down here are people involved in that area. We're a little different than the rest of state.

30:17

We have a lot of clay here. We have a bedrock real close. So some people have to build their front yards up three, four or five feet to get the perk for a seepage bed.

30:24

So we're a little bit different down here. So there's some concerns about that. So in the piggyback on that, I'm a little different and I'm conservative.

30:32

I don't like federal and state regulation for the most part. But when it comes to natural resources, there's something special in my heart to where I go.

30:39

Those have to be preserved. We're not making any more dirt, right? Great Lakes stuff, conservation stuff,

30:45

DNR stuff. I see that there is an area for some type of coding and regulation when it comes to preserving natural resources.

30:52

That's probably where I'm the softest on regulation. Everything else I go, I don't know, I feel like we could eliminate a lot of it.

30:57

But when it comes in, because people do dumb stuff, they don't understand that we got one earth, we got one, you know, only so much natural resource should be taken care of it.

31:05

Sometimes you gotta regulate that. Here's a big sticky thing in Lansing, driving with a phone in your hand.

31:11

Yeah, we outlawed texting and driving back in the early 2000s. Not knowing one day we would that your phone would be a computer.

31:18

Yeah. So when you get pulled over, he'd just say, I'm on Facebook. I'm buying something on Amazon. You can't get a ticket.

31:25

Oh, cannot get a ticket because it's just technically tech unless you do something stupid to get a reckless driving or something.

31:30

You can't get a ticket. They see your phone. So we need to change it. And I'm getting a lot of pushback from my own party. But you know what?

31:35

We need to change the culture of driving. Yeah, before it goes autonomous because you and I are gonna be dead when they're all autonomous vehicles will be gone.

31:43

But there's too many people out there. When I go to Lansing every day, if I don't see 20 people look at their phone when they're driving, I don't see any.

31:48

Oh, it's every day, all day, every day. I wouldn't even ride a motorcycle now just because people drive so stupid.

31:54

It's crazy. It's crazy. And I believe people should have rights. But you don't have the right to kill somebody else because you want to look at your phone, right?

32:01

No, absolutely. Yeah, I have a little self discipline, right? All right. So this one's a fun one. Time machine. Would you rather go into the past and meet your ancestors or go into the future and meet your great, great grandchildren?

32:11

Let's say it's possible. So you got that DeLorean, the flux capacitors running. Are you going to the past to meet the ancestors?

32:16

Are you going? I'm going to the past and I'll give you a story. My great grandfather got here in 1895 and he worked at the quarry where Lake Monroe is now.

32:23

Francestone Quarry at Dunbar Monroe. I didn't know that quarry was that old. Yeah. Yeah. So he, he, uh, he died when the banks collapsed during the depression.

32:33

He lost $14 ,000 in the bank. And I kept asking my dad, how do you lose $14 ,000 in the bank when you work at a quarry?

32:39

My grandfather was a bootlegger. I found out Joe Boggs wrote a book about prohibition about five years ago. Okay. And he talked to me a lot about my family, all the stuff he found in the paper and addiction runs deep in your family.

32:50

My grandfather, my great grandfather had a car that when he was being chased by the police, he pushed a button, the smoke came out the back and the police had to stop, but they always found the car in Liberty court.

32:59

Nobody in it. My grandfather, uh, ran away from a drive by shooting from the purple gang.

33:05

Now that was a vicious, uh, Jewish based gang out of Toledo. Okay. And, uh, they were bootlegging without paying their proper money to them.

33:11

And so they show up to their house. They waited for him to come home. They shot the arm off my grandpa's older brother. They killed one person and rest of them got away into the house and that purple gang guys, you know, ran off.

33:22

And then the next day in the paper, they interviewed my grandfather and say, Nick, what did you see? I didn't see anything.

33:28

I heard shots and I ran. That's all. Wow. So my, my family was involved in bootleg. I'd love to be around her, you know, and maybe that's why

33:34

I sold drugs when I was younger. Cause that's bootlegging days. Wow. Yeah. Very lively past.

33:40

All right. Last one. And we'll wrap this up. What's the most concerning issue facing state and federal politics today?

33:45

In your opinion, the overreach of federal government, the overreach of state government, the overreach of the governor, the shutting down of things.

33:51

You look at what states did differently. Someone like Kristi Noem out there in the, in the West and the

33:56

Dakotas, they had less of a percentage of death than we did. And they were open for business. Yeah. Indiana had a 4 % growth in 2021.

34:04

And we, we were 2 % down. Why? Because they were open for business all the time. We lost big. We locked the state down.

34:09

We lost lives and we lost business. Yeah. Bam, bam, bam, triple X. We lost because of the governor's policies.

34:17

All right, cool. That's fresh 10 guys. All right guys.

34:31

Thank you. Thank you for coming along on another ride. Uh, Mr. Bellino, do you have anything before we head out of here?

34:37

And why don't you throw out maybe social where people can get ahold of you? Maybe even go to your website, check you out. Yeah. Go to elect joebellino .com

34:44

or go to my Facebook page, Joe Bellino, or, uh, you know, look me up, Google Joe Bellino. Now after he gets the

34:50

Heisman trophy, when it's 1960, the next one, the next one would be me. Unfortunately he died during COVID.

34:55

Oh man. So I, I, people say to me, you won the Heisman trophy. I said, yeah, I was two years old. I was a prodigy.

35:01

I was a little short guy. Ran between all the line and no one saw me. Very cool guys.

35:06

Yeah. Go check them out. We'll link everything up on the podcast when it comes out. Um, guys, thanks so much for listening.

35:12

Joe, thank you for being here. Peggy, thanks for sitting in and hanging out with us as always guys. God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at dead men walking podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips, or email us at dead men walking podcast at gmail .com.