From the Civic Media Radio Network, moving Wisconsin forward one joke at a time.
This is As Goes Wisconsin with Kristen Brott.
Good morning. Welcome. Welcome to As Goes Wisconsin. So happy to have you along.
Calvin is on the board Greg Bach with me in studio and you can always join us at 844-967-2789.
You can call and or text if you're watching the live stream on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
You can leave comments there as well and we encourage you to do so.
All kinds of things coming up today. Our very own Civic Media's Luke Mathers is here in the Waukeshaw studio.
So he is going to join us coming up at 1030 and then an hour to 1133 talking sports with JR Radcliffe.
And some people will love this. Some people will hate this. But there's a lot of buzz about Sunday nights Packer game.
And at night, not be for the reason that you think.
I'm so excited. This might get me to watch football. Well, that big, big, big Sunday nights.
So we're going to be talking about the Packers and the Brewers and the Bucks and many things with JR next hour to start off though.
We wanted to talk about math is hard. It is hard.
I've always had a difficulty with math. I am not a math whiz by any stretch of the imagination.
This is why I do what I do because I find math challenging.
Apparently, I am not the only one because Lauren Bobo-Bobert, the Republican representative from Colorado.
In a hearing yesterday with a Social Security Administration official and she wanted to talk about employee productivity.
Yes. And whether or not the Social Security Administration is doing a good job of keeping tabs on employees when they're working from home.
And she did it. I must say, and this is very, very interesting. She did it in such a respectful tone.
I really felt like the person she was speaking with felt valued for his opinion.
Are you being sarcastic? Absolutely. I'm in a spicy mood today.
Spicy. We do have a little sound clip from this hearing yesterday, Calvin. Are we ready to go with that?
Let's take a listen.
You all are allowing delinquent employees to sit on their sofas at home instead of actually getting to work and doing their jobs.
This is absolutely unacceptable.
They are connected to the workplace, whether they are in the office or at the home.
Then why is the backlogs for Social Security applicants increase from 41,000 to 100,700,000?
Because we've been historically underfunded for a number of years now.
I don't think you're underfunded. You're funded at the Nancy Pelosi levels. At the Democrat levels, we just continued that same funding.
So I would say at pandemic level, spending.
So I would say we have an increase of over 8 million beneficiaries of the last 10 years.
At the same time, we experienced our lowest work staffing levels at the end of FY22.
That's a math problem. I mean, that is a problem. If you have those workloads increasing and you don't have the staff to take care of those workloads,
you're going to have the backlogs that you're talking about representative.
Now, I want to say in full context that clip is about two minutes long.
I cut about a minute out of it. But the reason why I did that is I cut out him speaking on all of the ways they are connected as Social Security employees,
tell a tell a office saying or tell a work and all the checks that they have on these folks.
You can go listen to the whole thing. It's nothing cut out for context other than just they are working.
They're doing their job and they are and and and the bosses above them are making them accountable.
Everything she's doing is just so disrespectful, the interrupting the like she had to bring out the Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat of the pandemic.
It's like you're you're just swinging at the greatest hits.
And you just look like an idiot with every single statement.
Well, I mean, people on Twitter just went off just went off on her.
And again, this Social Security administrator, I think, made a really good point.
Social Security has seen an increase of more than eight million beneficiaries over the last ten years with the lowest work staffing levels ever at the end of fiscal year 2022.
And those numbers as far as Social Security administration beneficiaries, those numbers are only going to continue to rise as more people at my age start retiring 25.
Oh, yes, in my dreams.
I start retiring.
And this also goes back to previous conversations we've had about funding for the IRS.
Yes.
Yep.
And the long wait times and the, you know, taxpayers not being able to get anyone to answer their questions.
I spent 90 minutes a couple of weeks ago on the phone with the IRS and didn't get anywhere.
I mean, this is the thing is every time, whether it's, I, I refer to it as bingo, bobert, um, or a Matt gates or an MTG.
Anytime they, they sit down on their committees and they get on their high horses and they start pointing the finger at somebody who knows exponentially more than they do, they always look like fools.
And they always, and they embarrass their party.
They embarrass us as people and they embarrass the people they represent.
I would like to think they do at least, but I don't for someone like bobert.
I don't think that that she believes she had got you, they believe they have got you points.
I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you with this.
And even though this in our estimation backfired on her yesterday,
I think she got out of that committee hearing and her staff was all high five and her going, good job.
You really, ooh, you showed him, you really put him in his place.
And that's the question I have is, and if anyone can direct me, I mean, I'll, I'll do my own research.
But how many times has this worked in their favor versus not?
I've never seen even a Fox news or a news max or anybody who says here today representative, Laura and bobert did XYZ.
She called, held them to the wall and you watch her like, oh, yes, she really brought to them.
She really looked for information, but it's always of just a, just taking the biggest shotgun she can find
and shooting herself in the foot with it.
I'm using a garden reference because it works with her.
I've seen her Christmas cards.
Yes.
But it never works in her favor.
And I'm wondering, is there any staff saying maybe don't?
No, because I don't think they have to be surrounded by yes.
Yes.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's the whole point.
I don't want anyone who's going to, who's going to go against, you're going to do what I say.
Yeah.
And you're going to do what I want.
I mean, if I was running against her, I would just run clips of her saying, this is the person you voted for.
What has she gotten you?
844-967-2789-844-967-2789-Jack from Mirror Mac.
Good morning, Jack.
Thank you for joining us.
What do you want to say?
Just that the chronic underfunding of governmental service agency has not ever been a problem with caused by the Democrat.
It's been caused by so-called compromises in the budget that have been reached that would allow it to get to, you know, something like the filibuster in the Senate, things like that.
And this is the same, these are the same people that are whining and morning about our huge national death and our annual deficit.
Gave away a few years ago to trillion dollars to the richest and the richest corporations.
They're trying to defund the increase in IRS personnel that go after not, not you and me.
Right.
And the studies are still, I think, what is it for every dollar you fund something like that, you get back as a seven or eight in the new money that goes to the Federal Treasury.
You've talked about totally disingenuous.
These guys are unbelievable.
You know, they're whining about the poor service on social security.
And like I said, right like you said, they're not funding appropriately.
The funding has, compared with the real cost of living, it's probably gone down to 15 percent in the last eight years or so.
I mean, it's just these guys are unbelievable.
And the problem is people, you know, this is math.
We don't do math.
We don't do math on the radio.
I hit someone once, but the problem is many people just don't do the math and they don't realize what's happened.
Absolutely, Jack.
And I've got, I've got some other numbers too that I wanted to share with folks because there was another GOP representative talking about what a, what a failure.
The Biden economy is and how much better things were under the former president under Donald Trump.
The economy lost 2.9 million jobs.
The unemployment rate went up by 1.6 percent to 6.3 percent.
The international trade deficit under Trump, which he promised to produce.
The trade deficits in goods and services in 2020, the highest since 2008 up 40.5 percent from 2016.
Under Trump, the number of people lacking health insurance rose by 3 million and the federal debt held by the public went up from 14.4 trillion to 21.6 trillion dollars.
And I think you're right, Jack.
I think a lot of people just, they hear the numbers that they like and then that's what they're going to put forward is the fact, right?
Yeah, that seems to be the case.
The sources like Business Insider and the Wall Street Journal, neither of which is exactly a far left extremist publication that pointed out that the economy is just looking extremely good.
So it's yet businesses aren't looking at layoffs, real income is up.
This is something that they didn't mention, but something that is probably attributable to the Biden administration that is immunization is up, which is one reason why incomes are getting a little bit higher again.
And of course corporations are seeing the highest profit that they've ever seen.
Yeah, life is good.
If you're a corporation boy, they weren't able to jack prices up during the pandemic and remarkably, they've never come back down.
Jack, from Mirror Mac, thank you so very much for calling, Jack, really, really appreciate it.
Math is hard.
Yeah, it is.
I have a few more things I'd like to say about it, but you know, don't have the time.
But you know, with regard to, I'll say this with regard to cuts and limiting things.
I have thoughts on those we can come back to it.
All right, 844-967-2789-844-960 party.
If you want to check in with us, stay close.
This is As goes Wisconsin.
We're on the civic media radio network.
I used to think that I was stupid.
Because of all the things that you said.
But I was mean to hurt on myself.
Because some of the most brilliant minds can't even draw a straight line.
And that's completely fine.
So be sure to give yourself a rest.
Because you can always be the best.
And I'm the worst of all.
I'm not a man.
I'm not a man.
I'm so bad a man.
And I don't understand.
Good morning.
Welcome to As goes Wisconsin.
Jane McNair.
And for Kristen, Brian Gregbock with me in studio.
Callin is on the board.
And you can always join us at 844-967-2789.
Shout out to our folks in Racine who are listening on WRJ.
And also in Wasa on WXCO.
We were talking about the fact that math is hard.
And yesterday, Colorado Republican representative Lauren Bovert,
questioning a social security administration official on whether or not their employees are actually working.
And just basically implying that they're all lazy and no one's doing their jobs.
And he had to point out to her that the social security administration has seen an increase of more than 8 million beneficiaries.
In the last 10 years, while they had the lowest work staffing levels ever at the end of fiscal 2022.
Yeah.
So he said that this is a math problem.
This is a math problem.
They always, and the thing is is to ought to leapfrog the math problems.
They always just make huge sweeping action items.
So like, you know what, I, I don't doubt that the federal government is huge.
I don't doubt there are tons of redundancies and things we can, you know,
hey, this form in this form, they can be made into one form.
Hey, this office can be blended in with this office.
Would people lose their jobs?
Possibly.
But there are ways to look at every single one of these departments and making small cuts that would actually do something.
But instead what the Republicans on the Hill always do is say, kill the Department of Education.
Kill Social Security.
Kill Social Security.
It's always these wide sweeping things.
They're just like, no, that's, that's like saying, oh my gosh, Greg, you got to hang now.
Let's cut off your lag.
I just don't understand it.
And it tracks with people too.
It does.
Because it's so simple.
It's so candy-esque.
It's so shiny and sweet.
It's easy to digest instead of saying, no, let me actually talk to you.
Because it's very complicated.
Oh my gosh.
844-967-2789.
Tom from LA.
Good morning, Tom.
What do you think?
Good morning, Jane.
First off, we, the people ultimately have a government.
We must never forget that.
Second, I wish Jill Biden, I think it was the best moment of 2023, was when he had the State of the Union address, the address.
And he said to all the Republicans, when he said that the Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare,
and they all were up in arms.
It's okay.
Well, let's have the debate right now if that's the case.
And I think he needs to do a little bit more of that.
Put them on notice.
Tell them, you know, be the person that's going to use his age as an actual asset and say, hey, you know what?
None of you will have your earned benefits cut on my watch, which is I think what he said, but I think he just needs to keep on saying that.
And people like Lauren Bulbert and people like that can start to explain themselves why it is that they would like to cut our earned benefits that we paid into the system on.
Well, and this goes back to something that I've gripped about for a long time is I, I dislike the way they use the word entitlement because it makes it sound like something that you're getting for nothing.
Right?
It's an, it's an earned benefit.
We have all paid into this program, all of our working lives.
Am I entitled to it? Yes, but I guess the way that it's used again makes it sound like, well, you didn't do anything for it.
Here's a weird question to when if you are under age, under 18, do you pay, you pay Social Security on your wages?
So I have been paying into Social Security since I was 12.
Wow.
That was when I got my first paid check, job, not cash on the table.
Wow.
I was a paper boy.
I was employed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or about that time was Milwaukee Journal.
Right.
So yeah.
And I agree like that.
I've been paying it for 35 years.
And you're going to tell me that one, it might not be there in two.
You want to cut it?
I will sue you for that money.
Well, good luck doing that.
Thank you so much for the call.
Tom really appreciated eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine texture on the text line.
When folks say the economy is good or bad under so and so, I feel like the first question should be,
how do you measure the strength of the economy?
Because statistically, you can always find data to support your position depending upon how narrow you want to make the view.
Absolutely.
And we talked about this many months ago about how it's just easy to say, well, the economy is trash.
Well, no.
There's so many fact there's so many different factors.
There's so many factors.
But when it comes down to is, how is job growth?
How is inflation?
How is the deficit?
How are we combating all those?
How are we working on all those things to make sure nothing is getting in the way of and sending us to a recession?
If we have job growth and we're not near a recession and there's quarterly growth every single time,
then our economy is doing good to great.
Okay.
But they want to take all these good points and be like, it's still trash.
And again, don't forget, our corporations are doing very, very well.
Oh, they're counting their money.
They are counting already.
I don't know either.
Which is going to trickle down.
Can't wait any decade now.
If you're listening to a live stream right now, are you watching on the live stream?
You can wish that it's going to come crashing through all that cash.
Oh, it's just we're all going to be, we're going to need umbrellas.
And as I'm, as I'm pulling myself up by my bootstraps,
it's going to all come down crashing on my head.
And I can't wait to spend it on extra cheese on your whoppers.
All right.
Well, we have time for one call.
Dave from McOne.
Real quickly.
Dave, thank you for joining us.
What does you want to say?
Hey, good morning.
Thanks for taking that call.
Really quickly.
There's a couple of things.
Why?
And I mentioned this in your whole show this morning.
If we don't make any adjustments, what's wrong with it in the current projection,
there is automatically going to be a cut, a substantial cut in less than eight years,
to both Medicare and the social security.
We'll still get something, but it's going to be a vastly reduced amount,
like I think 20% roughly.
That being said, one thing I think that frustrates me is that social security,
now my father had over, oh well, I'm close to like 60 years of putting in the social security.
And during that time, and now obviously he's collecting,
but what really takes me off more than anything is he gets taxed on it.
It's double dipping.
And the federal government, oh yeah, here we go.
You get your social security, but we're going to tax.
Right.
And so I think that you'll be careful how you, you know, when you look at it,
the government is literally confiscating money that you put in for all those years,
along with your employer.
Now, if you're self-employed, you're both the, obviously you're doing double the fight taxes,
because that's actually what I've been doing for the last 25 years.
So turn around and then have the government do that.
How dare they?
Good night.
Well, that's about all the time we've got for that Dave.
Thank you so very much.
Really appreciate you checking in.
844-967-2789.
Also, you can leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook,
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It is, it is a lovely app.
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So please download that.
Coming up, Luke Mathers, our very own executive producer here at Civic Media.
I'm going to kick some things around.
Stay with us.
You're listening to As Goes Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning and welcome to As Goes Wisconsin.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Jane Mattenair, in for Kristin Bri, Calvin's on the board, Greg Bach with me in studio.
And a very special guest so that we really don't get to see very often.
Civic Media executive producer Luke Mathers is here.
What are you doing?
I'm doing well, Jane.
Thanks for having me on the show.
Always nice to see you.
Always nice to have you as a guest.
I want to do a little housekeeping before we move on.
We were talking about Lauren Bobert from Colorado.
Hurtiver?
I have.
I have.
Is there another beetle juice?
Did you say her name three times?
What happened?
No, she, in a hearing with the Social Security Administration yesterday, she basically accused
all SSA employees of being lazy and not doing their jobs.
And you know, it's terrible.
Why aren't you?
Why is there such a backlog?
And he explained well.
We had a hundred eight, what was it?
Eight million.
Eight million new beneficiaries in the last decade.
Wow.
And yet their staffing was at the lowest level ever.
Okay.
At the end of 2022.
Sounds very similar to the unemployment insurance problems that we had here in Wisconsin,
where there was a lot of people criticizing the system not being able to get out those benefits
in time.
And why was that?
It was a very archaic system ahead and been updated in three, four decades.
They were running Windows 94 or something like that.
Oh, it was bad.
Yeah, it was really bad.
And they're like, oh, why is nobody getting their benefits?
It's like, oh, maybe we should update this system and put it to the cloud and actually
use technology.
But that requires funding.
Right.
And there's certain individuals that don't like to fund government agencies being able to do their job.
Well, and because then they can point to the current administration and say, you're not
doing your job.
And at the end of the day, too, who wants their money?
It's just people who don't want to work.
So they don't need their money.
It's not like they paid into it or anything like that.
No, it was a rainy day.
Which takes us back to Social Security.
This kind of spilled over into Social Security and the funding of Social Security.
And Dave Caller from McWan had joined us.
And just if I at least said, you know, his father has been paying in for 60 years.
Finally, taking his benefits and now he's getting tax done, those Social Security benefits.
Okay.
And Tom from LA pointed out on the text line, Ronald Reagan began the tax on Social Security.
Yeah.
Congress passed and Reagan signed into law the 1983 amendments under this amendment up to one
half of the value of the Social Security benefit was made potentially taxable income.
So have you want to blame somebody?
Well, it's important to ask the why did this happen?
And when did this start happening?
And questions when you're upset about that?
And who instituted it?
Well, the only thing I would like, I would like more information on this.
Was it Ronald Reagan who instigated it?
Or was it the Democratic Congress back in the 80s?
Because the Democrats were on the show back in the 80s.
That's an interesting question.
So it may have been them who proposed it.
That's it.
We will we will delve into this.
Yeah.
So I'm once again, I am not defending Ronald Reagan, but there's a lot of times where we say,
well, he's the president.
He's signing the bill.
He needs responsible for everything.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Sorry.
There's an old, there's a bygone era of the comedy that you would have between Democratic House Speaker,
like Tip O'Neill and other Republican president like Ronald Reagan.
Shake and hands going, how are you doing, Ronnie?
Doing good, Tip.
Nowadays, they can even be in the same room.
Seriously, without almost getting into a fist fight.
And that's and that's within their party.
That's in fighting.
Yeah.
That's in the intrapartic fighting.
All right.
Lots of things shaken up in Wisconsin.
Yeah.
Today, a Senate Minority Leader Melissa Aguard announcing she will campaign for Dane County Executive.
Yeah.
She's leaving the state Senate after this is her first term.
Her first term.
So, it's been 2022.
2020.
2020.
Yeah.
20 20.
Four year terms for the state Senate.
So, I remember the, that was the first election in the height of COVID when we were very uncertain
about how things were going in 2020.
Melissa, I think Senator Aguard did a tremendous job running in a campaign in Dane County.
Like there was a lot of uncertainty for that election in 2020.
And going on the ballot then leaving the state assembly, leading in the state Senate as
the minority leader.
I think she's, she's been a tremendous public servant and as a Dane County resident, I'm
pretty, I'm pretty excited that she's going to now go into the running for Dane County
Executive.
But I think the state Senate loses out on it.
So, it's a pretty big loss for the state.
Dane County wins.
Yes.
Not so much the Democrats.
Not so much the Senate.
Are there any announcements you want to make today?
No.
There are several names though who are, are jumping in for that spot.
Right.
Let's hear.
Senator Dianne Hesselbein and Senator Kelder Royce will be running for Senate Democratic
leader as early as next week.
The Democratic leader.
Sorry.
Yes, leader.
Yeah.
Okay.
In the state Senate.
So, that'll be interesting to see who steps up to lead the, that party in the state Senate.
It's not the, I don't think it's the most ideal job for a lot of people.
It's a very, very gerrymandered minority in the state Senate for, for Democratic elected
officials.
So, it'll be interesting to see though, but with the state Supreme Court hearing the
redistricting case and what the potential could be for 2024 maps still, that makes it
a little bit more appealing.
So, I think it's important to keep a focus on who will be leading the minority party in
the state Senate going forward with the aguard announcing that she's stepping down.
And I'm trying to remember who was it, who it was that said, being in the minority is
never any fun.
No, it's a, it's got to be so fresh, just frustration, there's got to be a lot of people
quoted with that because I, I got to assume that anybody in the minority party anywhere
is.
Why do I, why do I even go in?
Yeah.
Right?
But because again, we're, we're away from that bygone era of, of comedy, we're, comedy
T as in being able to come together and agree on things even when you are not on, on
the same political persuasion and, and trying to get stuff done.
And that's, that's something we see anymore.
Hopefully we can get back to those times.
I think having more competitive districts, if there is a way that the state Supreme Court
is going to decide on the state's maps, could help lead us to that.
But as of right now, we, we just see Robin Voss and then elected Republican officials in
Madison focused on making sure the libraries send out notifications to parents, rather
than, you know, address the, the looming issues the state faces.
He talks about good old Robin 16% Voss.
Is that is the most recent polling?
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he's, he is the popcorn king.
All hail.
Uh, but that's 16.
I want to get him a jersey.
It just says 16 or back.
Yeah.
But it goes back to, I believe that most Wisconsinites do want to see that comedy come
back.
Yeah.
They do.
They want people.
And why?
And why?
Because Wisconsin doesn't respect people who cheat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I believe I, with all of my heart that the vast majority of us want to see compromise.
So things actually get done.
Yeah.
We're a 50, 50 state.
There should be a lot of agreeance and then that compromise needed to be able to get
things done.
And for, for far too long here in Wisconsin, we've seen it, uh, we've seen a, a system
that is set up for certain thresholds where it's baked into the cake, Republican elected
officials are going to get more representation in Madison, uh, then Democratic elected officials.
It's just the case.
And, uh, the, the maps that we currently have have been studied, they've been allitigated
many times over to be not what constitutes with state law.
And it's going to be interesting to see how this, this, uh, state Supreme Court decides
on it.
We've been the ultimate example on, you know, terrible maps, like it.
It's great when Wisconsin, like, well, look at them.
They're, it's worse.
They're awful.
Yeah.
It's worse.
It's better than Wisconsin.
You've never want to be that.
Oh, yeah.
We'll box it six, whatever.
But speaking of Robin Voss, isn't there another big ad by that's coming to, uh, aimed
at him to again, remove Megan Wolf and impeach Janet Protocé.
I've missed it.
Yeah.
So that, uh, I think there's another one.
I think there's another round that's coming.
They're, they're not done, uh, going after, uh, well, I have a feeling that he will come
out and strongly say I will not let the media bully me into a decision.
And then change his, change his stance on it.
But the thing is, it's like, that's the problem.
It's like with him, he, he can be like, I don't want to do this and he gets bullied into
doing it.
And then he does it.
Then he's bullied into not doing it because I feel like I don't, I'm not jealous of Robin
Voss, where he is right now, because even just two years ago, he was just so powerful
and then worked without, he worked with impunity.
Yes.
And now it's a matter of like, he has the craziest of his party saying, you
got to do this.
And he's like, I guess I got to do this.
And then you, the ones who are a little more level mindset, you got to do this.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Are you idiot?
Sorry.
That was, that was, I was playing a character.
It was calling Robin Voss.
I wasn't calling Robin Voss an idiot, I would never call speaker, assembly speaker Robin
Voss an idiot.
This fictitious person did, but that is a terrible place to be because honestly at this
point, I don't see him surviving another election.
Well, he barely survived his most recent.
That's right.
Primer.
Yeah, and that was primary.
Well, that's, currently that's the only place that Wisconsin elected officials have
accountability is in primaries because we have so few competitive districts, like there
have been a few off examples where there have been flips in the, the current maps, but
the most likely scenario is either a Republican or a Democratic candidate getting primaryed
and that's how they get ousted rather than losing in a general election here in Wisconsin.
And that's just, that's not a Democratic process, like little D, Democratic process of
voters being able to pick who represents them rather than the politicians being able
to pick who votes them in, it's, it's a system that needs to be updated here in Wisconsin.
And it's something I would think again that I think we all agree for the most part.
Yeah.
Large majority, large majority agree.
Yeah.
And, and that's evidenced by the overwhelming win of Justice Janet Protosewitz, I think
from, from last April.
The question I have in this is for, you know, like, because you know, you know that,
you know, what's his face is probably going to run against him again in a primary, Brian
Steen.
Steen.
Brian Steen.
Sure.
But like, honestly, I watched that primary happen and then I haven't thought a whole lot
about it since.
So I couldn't tell you who he lost to.
I'm just wondering if there is a more sensible center right candidate out there in that
district who are like, you know what?
I'm not going to cout out to this crazy because the crazies can win, but they don't win
on policy.
They don't win on know how they don't want an expertise.
They win on crazy.
Well, they went on a stream.
Yes.
Crazy.
But my point is, is there, is there a person who's just like, Hey, I'm a business
Republican.
I like, I like less government.
I want to, you know, is there someone who can run against me in a primary on the other
side who's just not that maga crazy who's just like, I want to bring the sense of compromise
back.
The idea of working together, is that possible?
Is it?
I don't know.
We haven't seen any moderation in several years now, so it's very, well, there has, I
think everybody can agree there's needed to be from a, from a liberal sense point of
view.
No, I think there's a lot of middle of the road, Wisconsinites and Americans across the
country that just want to see some common sense government.
But because of the way that we have the system set up right now, yes, it's been pulled
to the extremes.
And, and the problem is it's only pulling farther to the extremes because it's going
to be an interesting 2024.
The primary season is here before we know it like already less than 90 days away, I think,
is the Iowa caucus, no, less than 60 days away as the caucuses middle of January is
the Iowa caucuses.
Like we're at.
So it begins.
Yes.
It's coming.
It's coming up fast.
And so it is.
Yeah, less than 50 days.
I have.
I got so many.
Hard.
Yeah.
It's more on the end of December and everything before January quite, but it's still looming
back there.
It's like, you know, this is probably because you should be paying attention to it.
I think my point was not that it wasn't necessary.
I think Robin Voss has done a good job of placating and selling himself as the center Republican
appealing to what is a center Republican in this day and age.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I haven't thought about it from that framing point.
I think about Robin Voss more than most of my family.
So this is.
That's probably not good for you.
Not my dog.
I think my dog.
But but 2024 is is here like the there were having all these discussions.
There's polling.
There's presidential primaries on the Republican side.
There is the caucuses are coming and we've already seen rules being changed to all of
a sudden have the in the Republican primary, which it seems like former presidential Trump
is going to run away with it, but we don't know until votes start happening, which
has been my kind of stance on it the whole time.
The polls can say a lot of things, but until people start caucusing and voting, that's
what it's going to determine.
But quietly throughout 2023, Republicans have been changing the way that they conduct their
primaries, because that's who conducts them's parties.
And now there's a lot more winner take all.
So if there's a 50% threshold, which Donald Trump is the current only person that could
pull that kind of threshold according to the polls, it seems like he's going to have
a lot more winner take all and run away with this primary before it's even really
started.
We are going to continue this conversation and then we're going to do a quick episode
of who's the sphincter.
So stay with us.
You're listening to As Goes Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to As Goes Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning, welcome to As Goes Wisconsin, Jane McNair in for Kristen Breige, Kelvin on
the board.
What was that?
A Snoop Dogg.
That was the that was drop it like it's hot by Snoop Dogg.
It is a teaser for the who's the sphincter story.
Oh, nice.
The way the way you said that I want to just hear Calvin on every hip hop station around
the country.
That was drop it like it's hot by Snoop Dogg dog.
All right, we were talking about some of the changes that have been made to the primary
process.
Yes.
And I would imagine that this is essentially just a way to sow things up for Donald Trump.
It seems like his allies in state parties around the country have done a pretty good job
of that teaming it up for them because it's not in just like the democratic process and
there's a long history of primaries and parties helping determine how and then the Democrats
have their own problems with the delegates versus super delegates, which has been a huge
point of contention for that party's primary process.
The Republican party has for quite some time now leaned more favorable to winner take
all primaries.
And so the fact that we've seen now quietly over these last couple of years, even a larger
emphasis on winner take all, it was one of the reasons why in 2016 Donald Trump was
able to be able to pick up the nomination for the Republican party as quickly as he did
then.
And because he was able to have these, nobody, there was the non Trump coalition of Republican
voters was split between so many different candidates that Donald Trump continuously
had the plurality.
And in the cases where it was in a state that took winner take all, he was able to take
all of the delegates, even though he was only winning with 33, 35, 40% of the vote.
Wow.
He has even a larger share of the vote after serving as president for four years and going
on essentially campaigning for 2024 since he lost in 2020.
He's been campaigning since 2021.
I mean, before that, I'm sorry, I take it back.
He's been campaigning since 2017.
He'd like, he made, he's, yes, he was holding campaign rallies in the, in the rose
garden, like at the White House, which was unprecedented at the time and it's just like,
oh, that's just one more of the unprecedented things that all of a sudden we have presidents
doing now.
Yeah.
But the fact that quietly, these Republican parties in Massachusetts, all the way to California,
have changed the rules.
There's going to be a lot more delegates at stake for a winner take all set up next year.
And it seems like there, you have a lot of these people that are like, hope casting or
wish casting that maybe there's going to be some more alternative that will, it resurrect
as you pointed out, be the moderate Republican party, say, Nikki Haley, I don't think
Rhonda Santis is, is the, the moderate neither, neither, but she's trying to paint herself
that way.
Yes.
That's the way that she's presenting herself to voters and, and say somebody other than
Trump, I don't think there's going to be that, that somebody because the way that the
state parties are now going to hold their primary process for the Republican nomination,
there's going to be a lot more winner take all and Donald Trump is going to be the only
person that can really qualify for that threshold that's going to be needed to, to ensure
the nomination next year.
We just have a couple of minutes left and I want to get to this before Luke Mathers has
to move along and go do other work related things.
But Elmo yesterday, okay, Elon Musk was, was being interviewed at the New York Times
deal book summit.
And the interviewer asked him about the rash of anti-Semitic comments that are showing
up on Twitter and I could tell immediately on my feed as soon as he took over the difference
in material and things showing up on my timeline.
And so he was, advertisers have been fleeing Twitter because they're showing up next
to these anti-Semitic comments and they don't want to be associated with that.
And Elon basically said that they can all go F themselves.
Yep.
I don't need you.
You said, if Twitter implodes, it's going to be their fault.
It's the advertisers fault for not advertising.
It's the people calling for the advertisers boycott's faults.
And so he wants to blame those people and the advertisers that then follow suit and pull
their advertising from Twitter for following the boycott, that would be their fault as well.
And then he had some, like asked the world and then he's like, well, who's the world?
And it was like, well, the people are the world.
And it was a very, like, it was a strange interaction and yeah, it's obviously, it wasn't
FCC friendly.
So it's not the best interview to play over the air.
It would be challenging.
Yeah, it would be challenging.
A lot of editing.
Lots of editing.
Yes.
We'd have to edit that together.
But it very just doesn't seem like a even-handed approach to running one of the larger social
media companies here.
And I have to say every time I hear him speak, I don't think he's that smart.
I think he's a douche waffle.
I think, I think he grew up extraordinarily wealthy with all kinds of privilege.
I'm not saying he's a moron, but I don't think he's this laser brain that he gets so much
credit for.
The one thing I will give him credit for is when the first space X rocket blew up and
they called it, what was it, oh, unexpected rapid deeds, unscheduled rapid disassembly.
Yep.
That deserves a prize.
That's one of the best euphemisms for an explosion that I think I've ever heard.
It went boom.
When he bought Twitter, it was $44 billion.
It's now worth, they say, probably an estimated four to six billion.
Isn't that mind blowing?
I mean, the fact that he owns it outright, I don't, I mean, I don't, is there's no board,
I think, in work.
He just bought it.
It's privately.
I don't know how the intricacy is.
By him.
It works.
Now I begrudgingly still on the platform.
I haven't kept it very close to him.
And I call it now X more because that to me is saying he is the one who's ruined this.
When you call it Twitter, for me, I don't care what anyone else does.
When I call it Twitter, I think of the old days when I was on Twitter and it was fun.
X is like the post-apocalyptic, I word Twitter was fun, but I just always found it useful
because that's where news would be.
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
That's where everything showed up.
When you called X now, it just sounds, it sounds like a post-apocalyptic hellscape of
misinformation and bitterness.
But I'm still there.
So follow me.
I am Greg Bach.
Let's just call it an internet hellscape.
I like the word hellscape.
Hellscape.
We'll just call it the hellscape.
It's hellscape.
I can go with that.
All right.
Luke Mathers, thank you so very much for joining us, really appreciate it.
Stay with us next hour 1133 talking sports, something big happening Sunday night in Green
Bay.
And it might not be football.
That's all on the way.
Stay with us.
Wisconsin, you're listening on a civic media radio network.