FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2026
CITIZEN WATCHDOG GROUP EXPOSES RACINE COUNTY COVER-UP: CHILD EXPLOITATION RING OPERATED INSIDE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT USING ENCRYPTED APPS WHILE SUPERVISOR SUPPRESSED COMPLAINTS — SWORN COURT TESTIMONY NAMING LAW ENFORCEMENT COLLEAGUES NEVER INVESTIGATED, NEVER REPORTED
H.O.T. Government Demands Federal Investigation; Documents How Encrypted Applications Gave a Uniformed Deputy Cover to Operate a Statewide CSAM Network; Reveals Sworn In-Court Disclosure About RASO Colleagues That No Media Outlet Has Reported
RACINE, Wis. — H.O.T. Government — Honest Open Transparent — today releases a comprehensive public accountability package documenting a sprawling child sexual abuse material distribution network that operated inside the Racine County Sheriff's Office, reached across multiple Wisconsin counties into federal jurisdiction, exploited encrypted communications technology designed to defeat law enforcement surveillance, and was met with institutional silence rather than full investigation.
The release follows the publication of HOT Topics, a two-part audio investigative series produced by H.O.T. Government, which examines the documented paper trail surrounding former Racine County Sheriff's Deputy Preston Kite, now serving 65 years in state prison, and the institutional response — or deliberate lack thereof — by the Racine County Sheriff's Office, its command staff, and the officials who have since endorsed the department's highest-ranking supervisor for the office of County Sheriff.
The August 11, 2026, Republican primary for Racine County Sheriff is 69 days away. The frontrunner, Captain Cary Madrigal, was found by an independent investigation to have suppressed formal complaints about Kite's predatory behavior for at least eight months. She accepted a 10-day suspension without contest in February 2025. She then ran for sheriff.
PART ONE: THE COVER-UP — WHAT MADRIGAL KNEW AND WHEN SHE KNEW IT
The Records She Fought to Hide
Before the documented facts about Madrigal's conduct could reach the public, they almost didn't. With the August 11, 2026, primary approaching, Captain Madrigal filed a Woznicki lawsuit — a specific Wisconsin legal mechanism allowing public employees to proactively sue to prevent the release of their personnel records. In her sworn affidavit, she argued the records would fatally harm her candidacy.
On May 14, 2026, Racine County Circuit Judge Gasiorkiewicz rejected her arguments and ordered the release. Rather than appeal — which would have delayed release past the August election — Madrigal pivoted. She released the records herself and issued a public statement saying she had 'nothing to hide' and should not be defined by 'past mistakes.'
H.O.T. Government's analysis is direct: spending thousands of dollars in legal fees to seal a document and then claiming nothing was in it is the textbook definition of the Streisand Effect. The fight to hide the records illuminated precisely what was hiding behind them.
The Eight Months That Should Never Have Happened
The independent investigation conducted by outside counsel Attorney Samuel C. Hall Jr. commissioned by Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and filed as RASO Internal File No. 25DC20 — established the following documented timeline:
— Summer 2022: A RASO deputy received an unsolicited sexually explicit photograph directly from Deputy Preston Kite. The complaint was known inside the department.
— June–July 2023: Captain Madrigal approached the complaining deputy in the hallway of the Law Enforcement Center and told him she had 'heard about the Kite stuff.' Rather than initiating formal disciplinary proceedings as required by RASO supervisory policy, she asked the deputy to informally talk to Kite about his behavior — keeping it entirely off the books.
— November 2023: The deputy reported directly to Madrigal in her office. A second deputy was present. Madrigal responded: 'I guess we will have to address it.' No formal action was taken. No report was filed.
— February 4, 2024: Kite was arrested — not by his own department — by Kenosha County Sheriff's deputies after being caught masturbating in a public bathroom while on active duty in full uniform, with his badge, service weapon, and radio. His arrest exposed a massive cache of child sexual abuse material on his devices, including images of toddlers.
Kite remained on active duty, in uniform, with full public access, for at least eight months after Captain Madrigal first received credible, direct complaints about his predatory behavior. This was not a paperwork error. The Hall investigation and multiple corroborating witnesses document that informal resolution was a deliberate choice — one that neutralized the department's ability to track predatory behavior on paper.
The Hall investigation further documented that witnesses reported a pervasive belief inside RASO that Madrigal had a personal relationship with Kite outside the workplace — including claims that he rented property from her. The investigation did not confirm a romantic relationship, but confirmed these perceptions were widespread and that they caused rank-and-file employees to lose confidence that Madrigal would take formal action.
The Departmental Forum: A Public False Statement and Retaliation
After Kite's February 2024 arrest, RASO held an open departmental forum to address the arrest. In that forum, Captain Madrigal publicly claimed that Kite's behavior was the first she had heard of it.
The Hall investigation found this statement to be directly contradicted by multiple witnesses with corroborating accounts. When a deputy stood up at that same forum and confronted Madrigal directly about the complaint he had previously made to her, she warned him he was 'on thin ice' for calling Kite a predator.
A public false statement to fellow officers in the aftermath of a child sex crimes arrest. Retaliation against a complaining witness. These are the documented facts of what occurred inside Racine County's law enforcement command structure after one of its deputies was arrested for 45 felonies.
The Consequence: Ten Days
For suppressing formal complaints over eight months, making a materially false public statement, and retaliating against a complaining witness, Captain Madrigal received a 10-day unpaid suspension. She accepted the discipline without appeal at a Loudermill meeting on February 20, 2025. The official who imposed that discipline — Sheriff Christopher Schmaling — has since publicly endorsed her for his own seat as sheriff.
The same sheriff who once called Kite 'an excellent example of how deputies use their unique skills and talents to serve the community' gave his supervisor a 10-day suspension and then backed her for his own office. That is the institutional response H.O.T. Government is documenting.
PART TWO: THE NETWORK — ENCRYPTED APPS, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, AND THE ROT THAT RUNS DEEPER
How the Arrest Happened — and What It Accidentally Revealed
On February 3, 2024, a citizen driving from Milwaukee toward Illinois stopped at a Petro gas station in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. He opened a location-based hookup application called Sniffies — a hyperlocal proximity app that shows users who is active within walking distance in real time. He received a message. He walked into the men's room. Standing there was a fully uniformed Racine County Sheriff's deputy, pants undone, actively engaged in a sexual act.
Before leaving the parking lot, the citizen photographed the marked patrol car — Car 5051. That photograph allowed Kenosha County detectives to identify the deputy as Preston Kite within minutes. It is not an exaggeration to say that a single citizen with the presence of mind to take a photo brought down a statewide child exploitation network.
The Encrypted App That Law Enforcement Couldn't Penetrate From the Outside
When detectives seized Kite's personal cell phone to corroborate the Sniffies communications, they discovered something that transformed a local indecency case into a federal conspiracy. On Kite's phone was an application called Session.
Session is categorically different from standard encrypted messaging applications. WhatsApp, iMessage, and even Signal all require a phone number or email address to create an account — meaning that even when message content is encrypted, the metadata (who sent it, when, which cell towers were pinged) is still logged by telecommunications providers and accessible through carrier subpoenas or Stingray devices.
Session requires none of that. It uses permanent alphanumeric strings as usernames with no phone number or email attached. It uses a decentralized network modeled on onion routing — messages bounce through multiple nodes, completely masking the origin point. It collects no geolocation data. It is, in the plain words of H.O.T. Government's analysis, purpose-built to evade law enforcement surveillance.
Inside Kite's Session account, operating under the username JustMe1169, detectives found active conversations with a user called Matt94. The content of those conversations instantly escalated this from a local indecency case into a federal criminal conspiracy. Kite and Matt94 were actively trading videos of child sexual abuse material. They used coded language — including a pizza emoji, a documented dark web cipher for child pornography — on Twitter/X to initiate contact before moving communications into the encrypted fortress of Session.
Who Was Matt94: A Government Official Responsible for Hiring Other Government Officials
Matt94 was Adam Westbrook — at the time the Human Resources Director for Outagamie County, Wisconsin. He was, in plain terms, the person responsible for vetting and hiring public employees for an entire county government. He held the master keys to the building.
Westbrook had resigned from a prior position as Human Resources Director for the City of Sheboygan in September 2023 — citing vague 'defamatory statements' — and moved directly into the Outagamie County HR Director role. No red flag was raised between counties. The institutional trust loops that govern local government background checks are designed to look backward at public criminal records. They have no capability to proactively sweep an applicant's encrypted dark web footprint. A man running a child exploitation ring from encrypted applications passed every standard vetting process and moved seamlessly between government HR director positions.
On May 15, 2026 — 19 days before the date of this release — Adam Westbrook was sentenced in federal court to 10 years in prison and 20 years of supervised release (PACER No. 3:24-cr-00019, U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin, Judge James Peterson; prosecuted by AUSAs Elizabeth Altman and Anita Marie Boor).
The Snapchat Deletion That Nobody Has Explained
Federal PACER data reveals a timeline anomaly that has received no public explanation from any law enforcement agency or DA's office. Adam Westbrook deleted his Snapchat account on February 4, 2024 — the exact same day Preston Kite was arrested at the Petro gas station in Sturtevant.
Kite's personal phone was sitting in a Kenosha County evidence locker. Session's decentralized architecture had not been penetrated. And yet Westbrook, two counties away, began scrubbing his digital footprint the day his co-conspirator was brought in. H.O.T. Government has formally demanded that the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the Wisconsin DOJ confirm whether this deletion was examined for potential federal obstruction charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1519. No public answer has been given.
The Full Network — Four Convicted, Multiple Counties, Federal Court
The investigation produced four total convictions across state and federal courts:
— Preston Kite — 65 years, Racine County Circuit Court, Case No. 2024CF000164, Judge Jon Fredrickson
— Adam Westbrook — 10 years federal, PACER No. 3:24-cr-00019, U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin, sentenced May 15, 2026
— Jacob Boudreau, 32, of Appleton — 15 years, Winnebago County Circuit Court, Judge Michael Rust (nearly double the state's recommendation). Open bestiality case in Outagamie County, hearing scheduled July 7, 2026
— Noah Thiel, 22, of Oconomowoc — 1 year jail, Outagamie County Circuit Court, sentenced January 29, 2025
The investigation required coordination between the Wisconsin DOJ Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney's Office. DCI was named as a lead investigating agency in the federal Westbrook prosecution.
The Most Explosive Fact in the Entire Case — The Sworn Statement Nobody Reported
On July 22, 2025, Preston Kite appeared in Racine County Circuit Court before Judge Jon Fredrickson for his sentencing hearing. He was given the opportunity to make a statement. Under oath, in open court, he said the following:
"I was having multiple sexual partners including two other deputies and a supervisor within my own department. And an ADA from a neighboring county who encouraged me to go to a rest stop to engage in sexual activity that he partaked in himself."
— Preston Kite, sworn statement, open court, Racine County Circuit Court, Case No. 2024CF000164, July 22, 2025
A convicted child pornography distributor, in open court, before a judge, named two of his colleagues and one supervisor as sexual partners. He also named an Assistant District Attorney from a neighboring county who allegedly encouraged and participated in public sex acts.
H.O.T. Government conducted a comprehensive statewide media archive search in June 2026. Not a single Wisconsin media outlet reported this sworn statement. Not the Racine Journal Times. Not Fox6. Not the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Not Wisconsin Public Radio. No investigation has been publicly announced by any law enforcement agency. The two RASO deputies have not been publicly identified, investigated, or cleared. The supervisor has not been identified, investigated, or cleared. The ADA has not been identified.
At the same sentencing, the prosecutor stated on the record that Kite was connected to three 'higher-ranking' individuals circulating CSAM across Wisconsin and beyond. Adam Westbrook accounts for one. The other two have never been publicly identified.
The Child Nobody Is Talking About
After Kite's arrest, investigators were contacted about a 9-year-old child who had been in Kite's care in January 2024. The child subsequently exhibited behavioral changes and told a detective that something 'weird' happened that the child was not OK with. This is a separate child from the five-year-old victim at Wisconsin Dells whose abuse was documented in the Westbrook federal case.
No public statement has ever been made by any official about the current status of that investigation. No media outlet has followed up. H.O.T. Government has formally demanded a public accounting from RASO, the Kenosha County DA, and the FBI.
THE INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE: HOW THE SYSTEM PROTECTED ITSELF
An Investigation Scoped to Find Almost Nothing
The Hall investigation — the sole official consequence in this matter — was described by H.O.T. Government's analysis as a controlled demolition. Like a building brought down to collapse inward rather than damage the surrounding city block, the investigation was scoped specifically to avoid examining the surrounding institutional rot.
It examined Madrigal's supervisory policy violation. It did not investigate:
— The two RASO deputies Kite named as sexual partners under oath
— The RASO supervisor Kite named as a sexual partner under oath
— The ADA from a neighboring county Kite named under oath
— Whether personal relationships between Madrigal and Kite — including witness reports that he rented property from her — affected how complaints were handled
— Westbrook's deletion of his Snapchat account on the day of Kite's arrest
— The status of the 9-year-old child who disclosed concerning behavior to investigators
— How Kite was able to seek placement on the ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) unit, which would have given him lawful access to the same material he was distributing
The result of a deliberately narrowed investigation was a deliberately insufficient consequence: a 10-day suspension for the supervisor of a department that housed an active child exploitation network.
The Jurisdictional Paralysis That Protects the System
When sworn testimony implicates a district attorney's office, sheriff's deputies, and a supervisor within the same county institutions responsible for investigating crimes, local agencies face insurmountable conflicts of interest. The Kenosha County DA originated the Kite investigation. The Racine County DA prosecuted it. The Racine County Sheriff's Office employed the primary offender. When the rot is alleged to be inside the house, the house cannot investigate itself.
This is precisely why H.O.T. Government has bypassed the local institutional structure entirely and directed its demands to state and federal authorities with independent jurisdiction.
H.O.T. GOVERNMENT'S DEMANDS
What We Are Calling For
H.O.T. Government is formally demanding the following from the agencies identified below. All demands have been submitted in writing. All responses — and all non-responses — will be made public before August 11, 2026.
— FBI Milwaukee Field Office: Confirmation of whether the statewide CSAM network, the Mount Olympus/Westbrook child victim, and Kite's in-court disclosures about RASO colleagues have been referred for federal investigation
— U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Wisconsin: Whether Westbrook's Snapchat deletion on the day of Kite's arrest was examined for obstruction; whether the three 'higher-ranking' network members identified at sentencing are all accounted for
— Wisconsin DOJ / Attorney General Josh Kaul: Whether DCI's role in the Westbrook prosecution created any investigative obligation regarding Kite's sentencing disclosures about RASO personnel
— Wisconsin Law Enforcement Standards Board (LESB): A formal decertification review of Captain Madrigal, based on three independently documented grounds — deliberate suppression of formal process, public false statements after Kite's arrest, and retaliation against a complaining witness — plus a fourth ground added in June 2026: her May 18, 2026 public statement directly contradicting her own accepted disciplinary finding
— Racine County Board of Supervisors: Seven specific questions demanding public answers, including whether the Board was ever briefed on Kite's sworn sentencing statement, whether the two named deputies are still employed by the county, and whether the Board will direct Corporation Counsel to commission a fully independent review
— District Attorney Patricia Hanson: Whether her office reviewed the Hall investigation for any criminal referral obligation; whether the ADA Kite named has been identified and referred; whether her endorsement of Madrigal was made with full knowledge of these facts
— Speaker Robin Vos: Whether he knew of Madrigal's disciplinary finding before presenting her the 2025 First Responder of the Year award at the Wisconsin State Capitol on October 14, 2025 — eight months after she accepted her suspension
The Legal Strategy: Weaponizing Administrative Law
H.O.T. Government's approach is not to complain about politicians on social media. It is to execute a targeted administrative law campaign that bypasses local political structures entirely. The tools are Wisconsin's Open Records Law (Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31–19.39), the LESB decertification process under Wis. Stat. § 165.85, federal PACER records, and the systematic creation of a publicly accessible record of non-responses timed to land before voters go to the polls.
By filing demands now, H.O.T. Government is boxing the system in. Every institution must either produce the documents that prove the cover-up — or go on the official public record actively refusing to release them, right before an election.
THE PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGN
H.O.T. Government is conducting a comprehensive public information campaign across all platforms to ensure Racine County citizens have access to the documented facts before August 11, 2026:
— https://t.co/1qAyApbshj — full accountability web page with complete court records, official disciplinary documents, sworn affidavits, and all formal demand letters
— HOT Topics — two-part audio investigative series available on Rumble, documenting the full network, the encrypted technology, the institutional failures, and the unanswered questions
— Social media — documented fact distribution to citizens of Racine County across Facebook, Twitter/X, and Rumble
— 6×9 direct mail — accountability mailers to Racine County voters featuring endorser photos and documented facts
— Open letters to citizens — formal public accountability letters to Racine County voters
ABOUT H.O.T. GOVERNMENT
H.O.T. Government — Honest Open Transparent — is a Wisconsin-based citizen accountability organization. H.O.T. Government is a volunteer organization with no financial interest in any candidate or political campaign. All factual claims in this release are sourced from official public documents including court records, sworn affidavits, PACER filings, authenticated investigative reports, and verified news coverage. All source documents are available upon request.
Source Documents Available to Media Upon Request
— Sentencing transcript, State v. Kite, Case No. 2024CF000164, Racine County Circuit Court, July 22, 2025 — contains Kite's sworn statement about RASO colleagues in full
— RASO Disciplinary Complaint No. 25DC20, February 19, 2025, and Acceptance of Disciplinary Charges, February 20, 2025
— Sworn Affidavit of Captain Cary Madrigal, Racine County Circuit Court Case No. 26-CV-280
— Criminal Complaint, State v. Kite, Case No. 2024CF000164, filed February 8, 2024
— Judgment of Conviction, State v. Kite, March 5, 2025
— PACER No. 3:24-cr-00019, United States v. Westbrook, U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin — Sentencing May 15, 2026
— H.O.T. Government Accountability Package — June 2026, including all formal demand letters, open records requests, LESB complaint, and FBI/U.S. Attorney/Wisconsin DOJ correspondence
PRESS CONTACT:
H.O.T. Government — Honest Open Transparent
Jim Spodick, Citizen Investigator
https://t.co/tTUprU4YFC
Racine, Wisconsin
— END OF PRESS RELEASE —
Produced and Paid for by H.O.T. Government | Honest Open Transparent | https://t.co/tTUprU4YFC | Racine, Wisconsin
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
All factual statements sourced from official court records, sworn affidavits, and authenticated public documents.
You can view the official press release here:
https://t.co/wzz0WWeUvD
@repvos@JoshKaul@journaltimes@journalsentinel@fox6now @WisconsinPublicRadio @tmj4@WISN12News@peterbernegger
Patrick Colbeck - [DS] Election Rigging Coming To An End,Evidence Will Be Produced,Trump Card Comin
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Today’s Guest: Patrick Colbeck
Website: Let’s Fix Stuff
https://t.co/z13fBcY23C
Patrick is an aerospace engineer, author, former elected official, and former candidate for governor in Michigan. Served Two 4-yr Terms in Michigan Senate. Patrick was on the frontlines during the elections, he was a poll watcher. Patrick has been studying the election systems and through his research he is found that the election systems are connected to the internet. They transmit the results and foreign actors do have access or could possibly cyber attack the elections. Since the election system is connected to the internet they are vulnerable to a cyber attack or they results could be manipulated. The [DS] will do everything they can to cheat in the upcoming election and if they can’t cheat they will try to cancel the election. Trump is putting safe guards into place to protect the election, EO regarding USPS, one day voting, voter id and paper ballots.
Dr. Zelenko is not done helping people.
Although he is no longer with us, his X page is still going strong. There, you can find world-class insights from the good doctor himself.
The page posts daily and is managed by his friends and family.
–> @zev_dr
The good doctor is no longer with us, but he is remembered by his wife and eight kids, his patients, and the people who fell in love with his message.
Dr. Zelenko saved thousands of people directly with his world-famous Zelenko protocol. But he saved hundreds of thousands more by broadcasting his insights to the world.
It's worse now: 8,354,848 registrants as of today. And yes the "Inactives" can be flipped to Active very easily, then have a ballot cast for them. I've seen it happen numerous times, and the bad actors can change the name, address, jurisdiction - move them around the state to better hide them. What should be happening is the Wis. Election Commission would use the official legal term "Elector" and either your an Elector and on the list, or not an Elector, not on the list. Simple. But noooooooo, this deep election fraud of clones and more inside the Wis. Voter Registration list must continue to provide a pool of registrants the bad actors can pick from to cast ballots. @TheSCIF
How is it possible in Wisconsin to have 7+ MILLION registered voters, but only 4 MILLION legal aged adults allowed to legally even register to vote?
Almost double the amount of people registered than legal aged voters. This is called VOTER FRAUD.
@seanhannity
Sean,
My name is Mike Bski. Army combat medic. Twenty-three years. Iraq. Medically retired, one hundred percent disabled. Four kids, a mortgage, and I teach high school science in Ohio because the VA check does not stretch as far as you'd think. I watch your show. I have for years. And I am writing to you because I have run out of smaller options.
I need to tell you about something that is happening right now, today, to fifty-two thousand combat-wounded veterans, and I need you to understand it the way I do — not as a policy issue, not as a line item in a defense bill, but as a betrayal. A documented, mathematically provable, one-senator-is-personally-responsible betrayal of the people who bled for this country.
But first. Your father.
Hugh Hannity. World War II veteran. You grew up in that house. You know what it looks like when a man carries his service with him for the rest of his life — the way it shapes how he talks about this country, how he raised you, what he expected from you. I did not know your dad. But I know that type of man. I treated that type of man in Iraq. I have the greatest respect for what your father's generation gave this country, and I think you do too. So when I tell you what the government is doing to the men and women who came after him, I need you to hear it the way a son of a veteran hears it.
Here is what is happening.
When a service member enlists, two promises get made. First: serve twenty years and you earn a military retirement — 2.5% of base pay for every year you put in. Second: if you are injured in our service, the VA will compensate you for that injury. Two promises. Two separate benefits. Earned in two entirely different ways for two entirely different reasons.
Now. A soldier is at eighteen years. Or seventeen. Or fourteen. He has been downrange multiple times. His body is done. The Army medically retires him — not his choice, the military's — because the body the government used up can no longer serve. He gets rated 100% disabled by the VA. He comes home.
What does eighteen years of service pay him in retirement?
Zero dollars. Not reduced. Not adjusted. Zero. The VA disability payment and the military retirement get offset against each other, dollar for dollar. Since the disability payment is larger, the retirement is completely wiped out. Eighteen years of service, gone, because the injury that ended his career is also being used to cancel the retirement that career earned. One injury. Punished twice.
I want you to meet some of these men.
Sgt. Lyle Allen. Tennessee. Army combat engineer. Fourteen years, multiple tours in Iraq. He was in a five-ton vehicle when the IED hit. His own words: "I was driving a five-ton vehicle, we got hit by an improvised explosive device. I don't remember too much. I remember the medics coming up to me, making sure I'm alright." He came home with a traumatic brain injury rated total and permanent — meaning it will never get better. The offset wipes out his retirement completely. Fourteen years of service. In his own words, he is "retired without retirement."
Sgt. Chad Rogers. Also Tennessee. Multiple Iraq deployments. His injury was quieter and just as permanent. "Somewhere along the way, we don't know where. There were places that I would go into, and the air would taste weird, or the air would burn your skin." Came home 100% disabled from chemical exposure. His grandfather served in World War II — same generation as your father. Chad enlisted planning to serve twenty, maybe thirty years, just like his grandfather. "When I enlisted, I had every ambition of serving at least 20 years; the goal was 30 years." The government ended that ambition. And then took his retirement on top of it.
Sgt. LaToya Lucas. Purple Heart. Iraq, 2003. An RPG hit her vehicle. Every year she receives a statement showing exactly in black and white how much money the offset took from her family that year. Not an estimate. A number. Right there on the page.
Sgt. Amanda Tallman. Single mother. Medically retired. The offset costs her over twelve hundred dollars a month. Every month. That is rent. That is groceries. That is whether the lights stay on.
Fifty-two thousand veterans. Every single month. Up to nineteen hundred dollars each. Gone.
Sean, I need to tell you what it means to be a combat medic. Not the TV version. The real version.
There are three rules every combat medic lives by. They do not teach you this in a classroom. You learn it because you have to.
Rule one: good soldiers will die.
Rule two: Doc cannot save everyone.
Rule three: Doc will go through hell to break rules one and two.
That third rule is the one that keeps us moving when everything in us wants to stop. But the battlefield does not care about your commitment. It does not care about your training or your heart or your prayer. It does math. And sometimes the math is the cruelest thing you will ever face.
You want to know what the math looks like?
I am going to tell you something I do not say out loud very often.
You are downrange. You have casualties. And I look out and I see three of my best friends lying there — not strangers, not names on a roster. The ones I know the names of their wives and kids. The ones I helped with paperwork to buy a house while we were overseas. I see these three and I think — I can save all three of these.
But the math does not care what I think.
If I try to save all three, the stats say two will perish. So I pick the two that are less time consuming and I go to work. And I let the third one die.
He is yelling and screaming as I take care of the other two. He can see me. He knows I am right there. He does not know why I am not coming for him. And I cannot stop to explain it. I just work.
His yells will haunt me. Each night. Every night.
But I saved two and I brought them home.
Now those two — the ones who were so badly wounded in combat, the ones who almost did not make it, the ones who made it only because I refused to let them — they came home. They cannot work. Their bodies are done. Their careers were cut short not by their choice but by what happened to them on my watch. And every year the government mails them a statement.
It tells them what they are entitled to for their retirement. What they earned. Right there in black and white.
Then it shows them the bottom line.
Zero.
That is what I kept those men alive for.
I need you to sit with that for a second before we talk about the bill.
Now. Those two men — so badly wounded they almost did not make it, who made it only because you refused to let them die — they came home. They cannot work. Their bodies are done. They did what their country asked and then some, and their careers ended not by their choice but by what happened to them downrange.
And every year the government mails them a statement.
It tells them what they are entitled to for their retirement. What they earned. Years of service. Dollar amount. Right there in black and white.
Then it shows them the bottom line.
Zero.
That is what I kept those men alive for. That is what Doc went through hell for. So the government could mail them a piece of paper every year reminding them of everything they earned and then explaining why they get none of it.
I need you to sit with that for a second before we talk about the bill.
The bill to fix this is called the Major Richard Star Act. Named after an Army combat engineer from Ohio — burn pit cancer, stage four, medically retired just short of twenty years. While he was fighting terminal cancer on an oxygen tank, while he barely had the breath to stand, the government was clawing back part of his retirement check every single month. He traveled to testify anyway. He made phone calls he barely had the lung capacity to make. He refused to quit. He died February 2021, age fifty-one years old, without ever seeing it pass.
His wife Tonya quit her job to care for him through it all and kept fighting after he was gone. She fought until she was gone too.
That is the human cost of delay. Both of them. Dead. Bill still not passed.
The Major Richard Star Act is currently H.R. 2102, S. 1032, filed as S.Amdt.4056. The CBO — Congress's own accountants — certified it costs $9.75 billion over TEN years. Less than a billion dollars a year. It is the most cosponsored bill before Congress right now. Seventy-six senators. Over three hundred House members. Both parties. The votes have existed for YEARS to pass this bill.
One man will not let it come to a vote.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He controls what gets scheduled, and he will not put this on the calendar. October 8, 2025 — Senator Blumenthal asked for unanimous consent to bring it to the floor. Wicker stood up and objected. One word. Done. Bill dead again. The very next morning he voted yes on a $924.7 billion defense authorization. Nine hundred and twenty-four billion dollars, Sean. In a single vote. The day after he could not find eight hundred million a year to stop the government stealing retirement pay from men who lost their legs, their lungs, and their minds in its service.
And here is what should make your blood boil. He told the Senate floor the bill costs ten billion dollars per year. The CBO number is $9.75 billion over ten years. He was a cosponsor of this bill in 2021. He knew the actual number. He said a different one anyway, in his own name, on the floor of the United States Senate, to justify blocking a vote.
He has done this for four consecutive Congresses. Six years. This is not confusion or incompetence. This is a choice.
Sean, you have covered veterans your entire career. You emcee the Patriot Awards. You have honored these men and women on your show more times than I can count. Your father was one of them. Your audience — twenty million radio listeners, millions more on Fox every night — they love this country and the people who bled for it. Most of them have never heard of this bill, because it lives buried in the fine print of defense authorization language and VA benefit tables, and nobody has stood up with a prime time platform and said clearly: the government made a promise, one senator is breaking it, and people are dying waiting for it to be fixed.
There is a discharge petition right now — H.Res. 1247 — that would bypass Wicker entirely and force a floor vote. It needs House members to sign. It needs the kind of public noise that only comes when someone with your reach says: this is wrong, this is happening right now, and here is what we do about it.
I will come on any night you will have me. I can explain every number, walk through every veteran's story, and name every senator who has failed these fifty-two thousand people while smiling for the camera at a Veterans Day ceremony. I am a science teacher. I am used to explaining complicated things to people who did not come in wanting to care about them. By the end of class, they care.
Your audience will care. You know they will.
— Mike Bski (@BskiMike22802)
Medically Retired Army Combat Medic | High School Science Teacher, Northeast Ohio | Father of Four
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@TruthHammer4EVA The Catholic Church faithful fully embrace Jesus directly, The Pope and the VATICAN hierarchy are not the global Catholic Church. Corruption affects every powerful organization, corporation, religious denominations, Catholic or Protestant, have had their fair share of sinful men
Yes.
They smuggle humans.
Children, specifically.
Great thing about a war zone.
Nobody thinks twice about handing orphans and lost children over to people you've been taught to trust.
So when they disappear - as many of them did in Haiti - no questions are asked.
For awhile, anyway.