Civic Media Spotlight (Hour 2)

Transcript

Civic Media Spotlight (Hour 2)

Civic Media Spotlight · Sat Mar 21, 2026

Kathryn Lake

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This is

the Civic Media Spotlight.

We begin the second hour of the Civic Media Spotlight.

We kick off the first segment with Rational Revolution with Mark Becker.

Mark speaks with Carlton Hoffman about the recent U.S.

bombing campaign in Iran.

What's

going on everybody?

Welcome to the show.

You get the Rational Revolution.

You got Mark Becker.

That's me on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm so glad you're here.

And we've got my returning friend and yours.

You know, I think this is like, this is like our MVP guest here is what we're talking about.

And if you don't know, it's Mr. Carlton Huffman, hailing from beautiful North Carolina.

What's up, man?

Not too much of a spring is in the air and I was telling a friend the other day It seems like the United States is living through a tradition I've gone through now three times in my life first as a elementary school student in 1991 as a senior in high school in 2001 and now as a 42 year old elder millennial going to war in the Middle East

It

seems to be the record that is old stuck on repeat right

now terrible.

Yeah, and I'm glad you're here and talk about that because

You know, I think, yeah, millennials, you know, this is not tales all this time, but like, and this one's different, because I mean, Iran is a completely different beast.

There's a reason why there's what seven presidents haven't like gone to war and done this, because this isn't going to end well.

You're absolutely right.

I mean, you could sit here and say with the first Gulf War in 1991, we had a simple objective and we knew what it was, like get the Iraqis out of Kuwait, which we were able to do very quickly.

2003, obviously, whenever we kicked in the door, going after Saddam Hussein.

Yes, some of the rationale for the war was wrong, but we knew what we were trying to do,

which is

go all the way to Baghdad, get Saddam Hussein out, find the weapons of mass destruction.

This war, I have no clue what we're trying to do.

It seems to change every day that the president opens his mouth there and we the American people are in for a ride on this one.

Well, and like people don't realize, I hope people realize, but like the population of Iran, it's

like 90 million people.

And by comparison, like the population of the United Kingdom is under 70.

So this is not a small country.

This is a very populated country that is the bully of the Middle East.

This is not Afghanistan.

That's not Iraq.

This is a different beast.

Absolutely.

And I would say that the thing with Iran that we all, if you look at the map and you just understand the flow of global commerce,

20% of the world's oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz and one thing that you could tell very quickly with this military operation is that

We expected after we killed Ayatollah Khomeini and I mean, I will say he deserves every like ugly incel version down there south of Purgatory.

But

the thing is that we seem to think

we seem to think that once we killed him that that was it, that the regime was going to be destabilized and that would be the end of it.

But instead here we are two weeks in now and.

The straight of four moves is shut down.

Americans are feeling it at the pump, and we don't seem to have a clear plan of, are we going to keep bombing until we run out of bombs?

Are we going to keep bombing until the regime quits?

What's the plan?

Nobody seems to be offering us anything on that one.

There's no plan.

No.

Absolutely not.

No.

And like, okay, so you started this and we're bombing the bleep out of people.

Where does this end?

We have one of the senators said that he was in a classified briefing and like there's no plan.

I was at Blumenthal said that there's he doesn't see he sees we're gonna send troops like totally crap.

It's I mean basically

Either we get a ceasefire and the regime is still standing and we will have expended however many like 10 or 12 billion dollars just in the first week of the war alone.

And we've had global commerce, especially with the oil markets, but so much more that touches on.

Commerce just beyond the oil shut down for two weeks to basically leave in power The regime that we said was so evil which yes they are they have killed a lot of Americans They killed over 30,000 of their own people just in the first two weeks of January But at the end of the day if we're gonna go to war Let's actually go to war with the plan that you've explained to the American people and had us on sign on for instead we went to war on a whim and now the thing is that

This is not going to stop.

I mean, we might get a ceasefire, but we, the Israelis were bombing them last year.

We joined in on bombing them last year.

Here we are again in March.

And this conflict is not going to be one that just we quit bombing them one day and we live happily ever after.

That's just not what happens in the Middle East.

No.

And it's like with COVID.

They're, I mean, these deeply unserious people, their plan was to just pretend like it didn't exist, right?

And that cost millions of Americans their lives.

And so now, you know, I don't know how this ends.

I wonder, you know, I'm nervous that it's going to be a Trump thing where he'll declare victory, you know, peace out Iran, suck on that.

I hope you liked those bombs.

And then, and then just pretend like this didn't happen.

And Iran's not going to go for that.

No, absolutely not.

Memories are very long in the Middle East on every side of things, and I would just say that the Iranians remember back in the 80s, whenever Reagan was president during the Iraq-Iran War, we escorted tankers through the Straits of Hormuz to secure the oil, and we sank the Iranian Navy during the 1980s.

You and I were both too young to remember that, but it seemed like the American public didn't register as a real war, but the Iranians remember that.

They've been training for revenge and screaming death to America for, like I said, even longer than both yours and my lifetimes.

And they're not going to stop whether we decide that we would just want to quit and pretend this didn't happen.

And at the end of the day, if we're going to go to war, we actually need to go to war and we actually need to be prepared for it as a

public.

So, I mean, what happens if we do that?

I mean, the gas is gonna, $200 of barrels.

not without, it's not out of the realm of possibility.

I mean, this is, it seems like we got into this thing with no freaking idea of why.

And now it's like, okay, how do you get out of it?

Yeah, that's the and the enemy gets a vote on this one and I can say that we exchange one community for another and this guy had his dad his wife and I believe some of his children killed in the initial strike so and he is he was definitely not a Like said soft touch person before and he's even more hard-line now after seeing his family killed and almost killed itself by the Israelis So this thing is going to be far from over Regardless of whether we decide to just call it quits or not

Well, and, and Kireni sucked.

He was a bad person.

Like, but there, we had a deal in place.

If the, if the real objective was Iran can't get a nuclear weapon, we did that.

We had that.

And it didn't cost us a thing because the, in that deal, all it did was unfroze their own assets.

It

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gave them

their money back that was in foreign banks.

It didn't really cost Americans a lot.

other than just here you go around and they didn't do anything and they were like pacified okay buy and go away now it's just it's all gone with no no plan

and i would say too that the whole balance of power even before we started bombing them on february the 28th was

Ever since October 7th, 2023, with that horrible attack on Israel, Israel had basically shredded Iran's proxy networks.

They had shredded Hamas.

They had destroyed most of Hezbollah's capabilities.

They had shown their own ability to go all the way to Tehran and declare air supremacy over the entire country.

They could bomb anywhere in Iran at will.

So this problem was contained.

It's just seen that Donald Trump wanted the legacy option and BB Netanyahu saw an opportunity to cut the head off the snake.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, there are people out there that say, this is a distraction from the Epstein files.

It's like, I don't even know if that's accurate.

I mean, I'm sure that has something to do with it, but like, I think that's taken the easy way out to say that that's what that is.

I've heard it said that ever since what happened with Venezuela whenever we were able to go in and get Maduro in such a bloodless fashion that people that they get that first hit of a great drug

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and

then that first hit is not enough for them they've got to keep on chasing that high and

to be able to sit there and say that, hey, I took out Maduro, the chance to say I freed Iran, and now he's saying he wants to free Cuba.

The thing is that the other side gets a vote on it.

These regimes that have been in power for decades know that the best that they can hope for is a human rights tribunal versus getting ripped to limb from limb by their own people.

These people are not going to go away quietly.

They're going to fight to the death no matter

what.

you look at what happened in Venezuela, you just replaced Maduro with the freaking vice president.

It wasn't a regime change.

It's the same people that are in charge just without the top guy.

And he thought that the Iranians would be as pliable with a new head of state as the Venezuelans approved to be.

And unfortunately, that is not the case.

We've had seven Americans killed in action so far to date, and this conflict has no end in

sight.

What is the path forward here?

What happens next in Iran?

We are going to continue the air campaign against them.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to what are the world markets going to go through with the oil being cut off?

I mean, we just had the biggest release of oil this week by the IAEA.

And that is a good thing for temporary relief.

But if this thing goes into a month, two months,

It is only going, it's going to be the worst oil shock according to the Wall Street Journal since the 1970s when the Arabs declared the oil embargo on the United States in reaction to the Yom Kippur war.

And if we go through that, I mean, we're looking at a.

prolonged economic recession.

We've already seen the job reports of the last few months, keep on getting like downgraded in terms

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of

the amount of jobs that the economy's created.

So if we're not in a recession yet, we will absolutely be in one.

And especially when Americans are paying close to $4 a gallon gasoline, we saw, I think you posted a picture of Tom Tiffany celebrating

to get

Christens under Donald Trump that we'd ever seen.

And

yet made promises kept.

But here we are turned right around.

We're getting into some of the highest gas prices that we've experienced since 2008 and definitely 2022 when Russia invaded

Ukraine.

We're almost getting to a point where even a complete flip of power from Senate, House, all of that, that's not going to help.

That's not going to help because we're knee-deep in this excrement.

I mean, beyond...

cutting the money off, and that's the thing that, I mean, Democrats are always resistant to do, and I can understand too, when American soldiers are

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in the

firing line that you only give them the support, and we obviously...

We wish the best success for our men and women that are over there in the Middle East.

But at the same time, good politics and just being like good patriots means that we want them to have a mission.

We want their

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mission

to be clear and we want them to be able to come home in victory and success.

And as far as just what we are going to be dealing with in terms of the political calculus,

It feels a lot like 2006.

The economy is uncertain.

Gasoline is going up.

The Republicans run both houses of Congress, but we've got a new and unpopular war in the Middle East, and it feels like deja vu all over again.

And we're going to continue this discussion on the other side with Carlton Huffman.

I saw it as well.

A thing that said that even in the early days of the Iraq war, 77% of the Americans supported it too.

So it's wild and I don't know where this gets us.

But we're going to continue the discussion about this.

We're going to talk about, you know, bye-bye Kristi Noem.

The witch is dead right after this here with Carlton Huffman on the rational revolution on the civic media radio network.

Stick around.

Kathryn Lake

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Next up on the Civic Media Spotlight, we have Night Light with Pete and Greg.

Comedian Mary Mack joins the show to talk with Pete and Greg about her comedy routine, what she thinks might make a fun night, her favorite night, and her interesting takes on the Oscars.

Something tells me I'm into something good.

Something tells

me I'm into something

Greg Bach

good.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Meeting Network.

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yell at

Greg Bach

me.

Pete, I am so very excited about our next guest coming onto the show.

She is comedian, singer, songwriter, a performer, voice actor, all the things.

For me, one of the big things I've said before on the show,

performed on the Grand Old Opry.

Please welcome to the show, Mary Mack.

Hi, Mary.

That was the best, most cheerful intro I've had in ages.

You know that?

It's usually, oh, this next person does comedy and she might have a couple of things to say.

Oh,

Greg Bach

that's terrible.

Please welcome to the show Lady Comic, Mary Mack.

Pete Schwaba

Oh, he crushed it.

I'm listening to that intro going, oh my God, Mary is living my best life.

So good for you

and it's great to

Pete Schwaba

have you.

Hey, thanks so much, Pete.

Thanks, Greg.

Thanks, Dominic, for having me back.

I was really, whenever I go to Eastern Wisconsin, I'm like, whoa, I wonder if I can get on Nightlight again and talk about what's coming up.

And I've been watching some shows.

Oh, sweet.

Yeah, more than normal.

Greg Bach

We can start there.

Shout them out.

What shows are you getting into?

Gosh, the one I'm laughing so hard at, it's so funny.

I have to look her name up because I keep forgetting her name.

We have a similar name.

Well, it's called The Mic.

And my nickname is

MacKenzie.

Yeah, and it's with Mackenzie.

It's the gal who's on Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

And this show, The Mic, streams on Hulu, and it is, I am laughing, like I wake up in the middle of the night, put on TV to go to sleep, and I think I'm waking

So so Tim can't sleep in the in bed with me anymore because I'm laughing so and he snores, but also I'm laughing.

But if it's not his snoring, it's my laughing that's keeping us up.

I'm like, just I can't stop from laughing at this show.

She is she's such a good actress, such a great media actress.

Greg Bach

Caitlin Olson.

Caitlin Olson.

Greg Bach

Yes, and she's, so that show was canceled and I heard nothing but great things about it, but now she's on a show called High Potential, which is also on Hulu, ABC and Hulu.

Yeah.

A

Greg Bach

remake of a Swedish show or something, but also very, she's fantastic.

Yeah, she is fantastic.

It takes, cause she's got her character down very similar in The Mick and Always Sunny.

So it takes a while to like her character in

in high potential but that's also very good but definitely different character for her so yeah really um but her slapstick is so great i slam my coffee down here um but yeah

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really i love

slapstick and that was like oh it's so so so funny that's my my two bits on um on uh

Who I'm what I'm watching but I'm watching or I just don't want to hug I don't want to hug you're from

Greg Bach

you guys.

Oh We

Greg Bach

invite we invite you to our show come on and talk we would we want to hit like are there recommendations Are there shows you feel like that like you need to be watching this show right now?

This is like the you know that

like

Greg Bach

you tell other comics when you go do shows like have you been watching the show?

Yeah, I just think that the mic is such a good escape

Yeah, right now.

I think I've been searching out escape stuff.

I'm a big huge PBS fan.

So, um, I know March 22nd, there's an old timey.

They're all mostly old timey, but there's another

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old

timey one coming out called bookish.

And it's a mystery and I watch all the mysteries in my, my thing.

And I've said it before on this show is like, I really love like PBS or especially BBC mysteries.

Cause I'm trying to go to sleep.

Like I don't want.

anything too good to happen too fast.

Slow, slow show.

And I want to be able to go to bed.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to the foresight.

I have no idea what the synopsis of it is.

Pete Schwaba

Did we talk about line of duty last time you were here, Mary, that Great British Show?

Did I?

Oh, I have seen line of duty, but it's been so long ago now.

I might have to rewatch it.

This is so

Pete Schwaba

good.

Yeah, I just watched it like less than a year ago and it's so good.

I know I talked to somebody about that on the show.

I thought maybe when you talked about British police procedurals that you were the person.

It would have been me and I would have forgotten the show already, which is great for the lifespan of my streaming.

I don't have to like get too many streaming services because I will forget.

after

Greg Bach

a few years.

I'm watching this new show called The Mick.

You just talked about that a month ago.

So if those are your jam, there was two shows that came out last year, late last year.

I cannot wait for their second series to come out if they actually happen, but a show called Ludwig with David Mitchell, where he plays a guy who makes

crossword puzzles for a living.

He does puzzles and he solves murder mysteries.

And then Death Valley, and I don't remember his, I think it's Timothy Spall, but he was in the Harry Potter movies.

And he plays an actor who moves to a small English village, but his show that he was on was a...

like a crime show.

So he solves mysteries as well.

So those are really great.

I didn't realize we got, we got to go.

Oh my gosh.

We'll be right back though.

We'll be right back though.

And we'll be back with Mary, with Mary Mack here on nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

Stay tuned.

Stay close.

You're

awesome.

We stick with Night Light on the Civic Media Spotlight, where Pete and Greg talk to Mary Mack, a comedian talking about her favorite generational movies.

Pete Schwaba

Welcome back.

All right.

You know, I talked about introducing Jason Sheff the other night here in Marinette, and he played all the great Chicago dunes.

He did not play old days, and I love that song, Greg.

No, I'm sorry.

Let's get Mary's take on that.

Hey, our guest is the very funny stand-up comedian and writer and voice actress.

She is a Wisconsin resident, splits time.

She's got a place in Minnesota.

I think Anna plays in Wisconsin.

She's bi-statle, whatever.

I don't

know.

Pete Schwaba

Mary Mag is with us.

It's so great to have you here, Mary.

Thanks, yeah.

I need to sell my house in Minnesota, but I don't want to clean out the basement, so.

I just keep buying more crap.

Yeah, I gotta get to that, but I don't know.

Anyways, let's not bring up the sad

Pete Schwaba

things.

All right, fair enough.

Let's get to some happy things, especially happy things for people who might be interested in seeing you live, because they'll have a couple opportunities coming up this month in just a couple weeks.

Tell us about your show.

First let's start with Sheboygan because it's on March 28th.

Yes, is that March 28th?

Oh my gosh, am I in Sheboy... I think I'm in Kenosha.

Greg Bach

You're in Kenosha on March 27th, that I know because

you're...

Greg Bach

Oh, I've got

Pete Schwaba

the 29th in Kenosha.

Oh, this

is the best.

Oh, here.

Maybe that's another year.

Maybe I...

Greg Bach

Let's go to Merrimack.com

Pete Schwaba

and find out.

Oh, my gosh.

Maybe you're making a prediction here.

I

Pete Schwaba

hope.

I don't

Pete Schwaba

want to be that guy.

Oh, my.

Yeah.

No, I'm in the... I might have said that wrong.

I'm in Kenosha on March 27th of Friday, and then Holman, Wisconsin by La Crosse at Drugans.

um gulf and that's on uh the 28th so um i'm uh and then i go to west bend in may so i'm coming down around that eastern side there and uh i'll bring my snow shovel because because higher

You got more snow than us up on Lake Superior now.

Pete Schwaba

If we still need the assist by then, I will not be living here.

I'm telling you

Pete Schwaba

that

right

Pete Schwaba

now.

Yeah.

I don't know how.

I read that off your email.

So my bad, I might have.

But you have a date.

Do you not have a date in Kenosha?

Or I'm sorry, in Sheboygan?

You know, last year.

I bet you pulled up last year's email.

Last year in March I played Sheboygan.

And you know what?

That's where I learned.

That's where I learned about touch tones, touch tunes on your phone where you can play the jukebox.

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And I learned

how much fun it is.

to when people are listening to like gangster rap in a bar to suddenly put on Celine Dion my heart will go on

and

oh my gosh the joy of doing if you're ever sad just go to a bar where they're like just play exactly the opposite of what they're listening to and just don't don't volunteer that was you because they'll hate you right

But just kind of sit there innocently and watch everybody go run into the jukebox as soon as it comes on.

It's fantastic.

Greg Bach

Two things I love about this.

One, hearing Mary Max say the phrase gangster rap is just wonderful.

Period.

And also my mom's listening right now because she's a fan of the show.

And I guarantee you when you mentioned Celine Dion, she started singing, I'm not wrong.

Do not argue with me, Jackie, right now.

I know I'm right.

Not that I even listen to Celine Dion that much, but it's just the fun of seeing people panic like that.

Because if you put in an extra quarter, you can pop the line.

You can pop the line of songs.

You can make Celine Dion a priority play.

Do you want to know?

the coolest part of that too is just like whatever bar you know if there's ever a place where you kind of had like not a great experience you can be at anywhere else you can be at your home and suddenly just play it's the most passive aggressive thing I do is like I'll play like hell and ready where somebody was like bad mouthing ladies or something

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and

I'll be at home and I'll play that at a bar where

they're being like sexist and I have like I am woman and you can do that from your own couch.

It's like calling your senator.

I had a great time doing that.

You guys have anybody you're mad at?

I'll play him a song.

Tell me where they go and when just come on.

I love

Greg Bach

it.

See, what I would do is if I went to a bar and did that, I would not only, I would never volunteer myself as the person who did it, but I would look around for the toughest guys in the place, just like lip-syncing quietly.

What?

What?

This song really brings up human emotions for me, all right?

Pete Schwaba

I want to know where Mary's hanging out in a bar that still is Helen Reddy on the jukebox.

Boy, what?

The best ones?

funny what yeah why did that bar have Celine Dion in the box in the first you know what they're they're digital that's why oh

it's

coming from this it's coming from God Pete okay coming from the sky God is a hellin ready fan in all in any bar where they're bad moth and women that's

Pete Schwaba

I love it

With my luck, I'd put that on the jukebox and I'd end up in a slow dance with one of those guys.

Greg Bach

And it would be the kindest cuddling you've had in a long time.

You'd feel that little spoon energy.

That's what men need sometimes.

They need to feel like the little spoon.

Pete Schwaba

I'm open to that, but if the guy wanted to take things further, I'd have to head fake them or fake an injury or something, because I'll slow dance with a guy, but I draw the line there.

Greg Bach

You just simply say, no, thank you, sir.

Oh, that's interesting.

And you and you and you and you kiss his hand and they thank you for the dance and you have on with your day

Pete Schwaba

Mary have you played I've heard really good things about the Kenosha comedy club and is that a good like have you played there before?

Yes, I go I usually go like once a year.

I like it I I like it's a big space and you can cram a bunch of people in there and and Yeah, I mean

I don't know, why?

I guess I'm just, I got a lot in common maybe with the folks that are, I mean.

I've been brought presents that were welded together for me and so that's how I'm connecting with these folks is like my family welded, they weld.

A lot of people might make homemade booze and jars and bring that.

I have a lot of things I need in jars.

There's so many, there's so, I'm connecting on some, they like jokes, I like jokes.

Um, so yeah, I'm connecting on a lot of levels.

Pete Schwaba

I

Greg Bach

have to get out

Pete Schwaba

there.

Greg Bach

I have to get out there because I live in Kenosha.

I live five minutes away from the Kenosha comedy club.

So I come check it out.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

It really is.

And then in the summer, you know, so they got this magazine down there called Happening's Magazine and he runs the comedy room and he books like little jazz fast and he books, he books cheese fast and he puts all these festivals together.

Frank Carmichael and he's such so much fun.

Don't tell him I said this.

He might be almost 80.

And he's making about 80.

Sorry if anybody listening is 80, but I can't believe he has the energy because I want to go to bed right now.

He's looking like Thursday in the park fans in Kenosha.

You just bring your own booze and drink in the park.

And it's fantastic.

That's like my, that's the time of my, it's, I love that type of stuff.

I just show me a field where I can bring my own booze and I'll have the best day of my life.

Pete Schwaba

What are your, our guest is Merrimack, the very funny Merrimack for more information.

Go to MerrimackComedy.com.

Did I get that right?

Yeah.

So I just totally forgot what I was gonna ask.

Oh, what is your drink of choice, Mary?

Like if you go to a park and you can bring your BYOB, what are you drinking?

It depends on the temperature and the time of day.

Okay.

So I guess if it's pretty hot,

I want to mix like a, I don't like a sweet rosé, but I like a dry, soft, blank rosé type thing if it's hot.

And then if I did a lot of work that day, I'm ashamed to say that I like a bushlight and I'm really trying not to.

like bushlight because they freaking hate women and so

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i'm

trying not to like them but i love bushlight and and it's a low gluten beer and like uh so if i don't do that i'll have like a corona which is also lower gluten beer

And then I know

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you

weren't expecting somebody to go on and on about this but I have lists that I keep in my head and when I'm on my deathbed This will be the only thing I remember I'll see I'll be like it's it's 10 o'clock and we just mowed Okay, I need a

I need some V8, spicy V8, some bushlight and a lime all together mixed up with some ice please.

Like I will, I won't know anybody's name, but I'll know time of day and what drink and according to activity.

Greg Bach

I think you're redesigning a Bloody Mary for your type.

Like it's a bushlight,

a V8

Greg Bach

super spicy and a celery stick.

That's

it.

Oh, that's nice too.

I put a lime in there and olive would probably be real good in there.

Greg Bach

Oh

yeah.

Greg Bach

Yeah.

Do you like Bloody Mary's?

Yeah, I do, but you gotta watch that.

That's mixed because some of it's got flour in there and that's like a rubber.

Greg Bach

Well, I'm just gonna say, and I'm not being paid by anybody for this, but across the street from the Kenosha Comedy Club is a place called Captain Mike's.

Oh yeah.

Greg Bach

They have

phenomenal Bloody Marys.

Oh, yeah?

Greg Bach

Yes.

I go there.

My wife and I go there like usually once or twice a month just for bloodies on a Sunday morning, get our bloody thing, go home the rest of our day.

You know, it's really nice.

Pete Schwaba

Yeah.

You know, it's so weird.

Like as someone who doesn't drink anymore, I love talking about drinking because I feel like I still stay connected.

And man, that just made me want to Bloody Mary.

Mary,

you're getting some love here.

I don't even like.

the liquor in the bloody, I only want just the stuff.

So I can just have to V8 and whatever else.

There you

Pete Schwaba

go.

You got a fan, Tom in the 262 says, I love Mary Mac.

Wow, thanks.

Pete Schwaba

Mary, did you watch the Oscars at all or have you, what kind of movies are you

watching?

No, I did not watch the Oscars because

I don't know if I like the Oscars anymore.

And that's quite sad to say on a pop culture show like this.

Pete Schwaba

That's okay.

You're having no obligation.

I'm just feeling like rich and famous people are just seem to be getting more and more out of touch.

So I didn't watch it.

I watched the Mick instead, actually.

Greg Bach

Well, we were just, I mean, that's what I was saying to Pete earlier is that last year I felt like with Conan's first year and the LA fires were happening.

So there was all this, there was a need to like come together and be a part of something on like a human level.

And it was so much fun.

And then this year, it just felt like he was trying to tell jokes to a bunch of people who didn't know how to laugh at themselves.

And

Greg Bach

that's the biggest problem is that you have these people who are world-class comedians coming in there to entertain.

And then you have these millionaire billionaire

movie people who are like, okay, whatever.

I don't care.

You know, it's not fun.

It's not fun at all.

So it was Conan hosting again.

Greg Bach

Yeah.

And he had a hard time then this year.

Yeah.

I thought it was better

Pete Schwaba

last year, but his monologue, we were talking about this earlier.

His monologue was really funny.

Like there were great jokes and he's good at that.

But I just thought the comedy throughout the rest of the show is pretty lame personally.

Tom is Tom is your biggest fan now, Mary.

And he says polka bar.

Uh, we were talking about before, and then 715, Matt and Eau Claire says on the conservative jukebox, I love to play Ray Willie Hubbard's conversation with the devil.

Genius.

Another suggestion for you, Barry.

I'm on taken suggestions, so that's great.

I gotta play that one.

Greg Bach

If you want to get tickets, find out where Mary is going to be performing.

Go to marymaccomedy.com for more information.

Mary, thank you so much for being here.

We really appreciate you so much.

Thanks, you guys.

and thanks for filling me in a little on the Oscars.

You guys have a wonderful,

Kathryn Lake

wonderful... You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Finish off the last segment of the Civic Media spotlight.

We go back to rational revolution.

with Mark Becker.

Mark keeps his conversation going with Carlton Hoffman.

The conversation shifts to the collapse of the Republican Party of Wisconsin from its peak under Scott Walker to a hollowed-out shell dominated by Turning Point USA and Trump loyalists.

And what that means for Democrats in 2026.

Really well done here by Aaron behind the microphone producer extraordinaire.

Hewing up the theme song for Christine Ohm's delightful exit.

of federal government service.

Well, I suppose she was given a promotion by dear old Donald.

And we're talking here on The Raster Revolution with Mark Becker.

And I've got my dear friend and yours, Carlton Huffman.

Yeah, I mean, one of the more delightful things that have happened recently is Christie Noem is no longer with the federal government.

Her and her hat and her Botox and all of the things that come with her.

Although she's been replaced by a guy that that asked to openly fight someone in the hearing.

So I don't know.

Another deeply unserious person.

But Carlton, what do you think of that?

Well, I'm going to be sad that we don't have our dog killing plastic surgeon aficionado who makes every chair her husband sits in the cuck chair.

It is just going to be one of the just.

saddest things that we don't have her to kick around anymore.

But I've got to say, it was a delight to see my friend and United States Senator Tom Tillis just

rent

her and take her to the woodshed in that hearing.

But I mean, just once again, you talk about unserious people.

The fact that she is asked if she is having a relationship with Corey Lewandowski in front of God and everybody with

her husband

sitting right there and she can't even lie enough to deny it.

between that and what was it?

She had, uh, Air Force pilot fired because she, the person forgot her blanket only that she had to rehire the person.

It's like there's so many hits that we can talk about with her.

I mean, obviously on the serious note, we definitely want to just commend the people of Minneapolis for

Kathryn Lake

coming

out and resisting.

And we just remember the souls of Alex, Freddie and Renee Good, who she slandered on her, like,

Kathryn Lake

say

before the corpses were even cold.

She's already calling them domestic terror.

and so it's good that she's gone at the same time.

Mark Wayne Mullen, as you referenced, wanting to fight the Teamsters president in the middle of a Senate hearing, which in some ways, the redneck in me would have delighted to see that, but at the same time, on the serious side of things.

He does not strike me as the smartest bulb in the bunch, and I think that he'll be there, much like Christie.

to take orders and say yes.

He

Kathryn Lake

just

does not seem to have his own ambitions as she seemed to with the $220 million ad campaign that you and me paid for as taxpayers.

Yeah, it's good investment.

It's an investment, Carlton.

That was an investment.

Yeah, Mark Wayne Miller.

What was we ranked as his very famous line asking Linda McMahon, what was we ranked in education?

I don't know.

It's wild to see, but that's, I mean, there's no guardrails.

You know, Trump 1.0, we had people that actually, you know, had some experience and some patriotism.

You know, Rex Tillerson was one of them.

John Kelly was another one.

You know, people that were like, yes, yes.

Right.

And the sad thing is, you know, from

Tom Tillis leaving the Senate to Mark Wayne Mullen becoming part of the administration, the people that people are getting promoted who shouldn't be and people are leaving who are the guardrails of the crazies.

It's hard to be an independent thinker and be a Republican these days, right?

You are expected to salute and say to dear leader How high should I jump on this one

Kathryn Lake

or just

whatever?

I mean we see just last night that Trump was in Kentucky going after Thomas Massey who is doing the Lord's work even though There'll be some stuff that I disagree with him on and others of your listeners might disagree with Massey on but when it comes to the Epstein files

The president himself promises transparency on these things.

Massey has pursued it and in return the president and all his acolytes are going to northern Kentucky trying to take him out.

And we still have RFK Jr.

in charge of health and human services with the largest measles outbreak in the United States this century.

him admitting that he snorted coke off a toilet seat.

I mean, that expires once again.

These are the people that are running the United States of America.

And you've got our Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Once again, seeming to take his jollies off of watching things blow up on television while at the same time, we're only finding out in days afterwards that over 150 US soldiers have been wounded in this conflict with Iran right now.

So we are not getting the full picture of what damage is being done to the United States, our assets in the Gulf.

And we could do an entire program of just the mistakes of cabinet by cabinet secretary of what's going on under this administration.

It's and yeah, there's no no plans for anything.

You know, I look back at we got talking with Carlton Huffman You'd like, you know with This this war in Iran we can't fight a forever war.

I mean those interceptor missiles They are hundreds of millions of dollars a pop for those thads and Patriots they take a long time to build and we have to fire many of them at one missile and They're not always successful.

So like I mean they're gonna run out

This is not an endless thing.

And we know this for a while now, definitely during the first Trump administration, but also too with our assistance to Ukraine during the Biden administration, we found out how quickly we can burn through all this high tech ordinance in a very quick fashion.

Whereas the Iranians, we're taking down $30,000 drones with a $3 million missile.

That's an exchange rate that is not sustainable in the long term.

No.

And before we had to break, what kudos to Ukraine for stepping up and sending their drone folks, taking them away from their front lines and sending them to us when we really haven't been the best of friends to them?

I mean...

While we're talking about taking the oil sanctions off of Russia, which is basically putting financial lifelines.

My God.

We are in...

The upside down right now is what's happening.

But I'm excited to talk to you about, on the other side of the break, the downfall of also RPW, Republican Party of Wisconsin.

What is going on there?

What does that mean for 2026?

And talk about our buddy Tom Tiffany.

So stick around with Carlton Huffman on the rational revolution on the civic media radio network.

Kathryn Lake

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