Keep Your Eyes On The Prize (Hour 1)

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Dr. Slide on the board coming to you from our studio here at Radio Park in Racine.

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Well, we spent months and months talking about that abandoned boat.

that was abandoned and left on Milwaukee's lakefront.

A couple from down south, apparently had planned to live on the boat.

They were traveling, I think, from Manitowoc back down south to their home down south, ran out of fuel, ended up grounding the thing, and they simply didn't have the money to do this.

So we want to do a new salute to the owner of All City Towing, Jeff Piller.

who is now the owner of Deep Thought.

Do we have applause, Calvin?

Let's give a little round of applause for Jeff Pillar, the owner of All City Towing.

Yes.

Pillar, when he was asked why he decided to buy Deep Thought, which is in pieces, he said, have you ever had something when you're cleaning at your house and you just can't throw it away?

Yes, I understand that.

The auction for Deep Throat ended just after noon yesterday.

The winning bid $2,525 to Mr. Pillar, who is also the man responsible, who got it off the leg front.

So his company stepped up and removed this thing.

They did get some help.

Milwaukee County paid All City a total of $50,000 to remove the boat.

But they still say we're going to take a loss.

Yeah.

This is the county faces a significant budget deficit.

So it's a small part.

It's a bigger issue.

We have over $500 million in deferred maintenance in Milwaukee County.

We'd love more money from the state of Wisconsin.

But again, well done.

And thank you to Jeff Piller from All City Towing.

Deep

thought.

What do you get that's the thing I want to know

what he says he is hoping to

auction off pieces of the boat

for

charity Okay, because that was the thing that was the question I had was You're not getting the boat you're getting pieces right because the boat was already falling apart

Well, and they had to take it apart to get it off the beach

exactly no and nothing against this man I'm glad he's doing the work needs needs to get done and if they they auction up hey

If it's affordable enough, maybe I'll buy a piece.

If it's for charity, I would love that.

But everyone kept on talking about who's going to get the boat.

No one's getting a boat.

It's a boat in name only

right now.

It's a shell of a

boat.

Yes,

it's a great start.

Deep thought ran aground between Bradford and McKinley beaches last October.

The owners ran out of fuel during a storm.

Legal fees to pursue the boat's original owners, which we had asked numerous times, why can't they go after these folks?

Trying to get the money from the owners would actually exceed the losses.

Yeah.

And also, their full story was never told.

So we got squirrely on this one and definitely said, you know, right.

Thanks, John, for the correction.

We apologize.

It's deep thought.

Yes, it's deep

thought.

I just spoke.

I was going to say something, but I didn't want to screw you up.

No, what am I thinking about?

Mid thought there.

Oh, my God.

Clean your head.

Clean your head.

My

goodness.

Mr. Piller says, quote, it's not to make money with.

I'd really like to spend the time and energy doing good things with it.

I think the right thing to do is to take out a bunch of the good pieces of artwork because it was graffitied all over the place.

and let them be auctioned at charity events for good causes.

None of this is going to be for profit.

Good.

Great.

And so then we salute you, sir.

We salute you.

Absolutely.

Nice to see someone step up.

That thing could still be sitting there.

Yeah, really and was and the thing was yeah fine.

It looked cool.

Whatever it didn't even look I just after a while it was a danger It was dirty

people were jumping around.

You know eventually someone was gonna get hurt

exactly so Thank you all involved for taking care of it is now just a sweet sweet memory and and if they do an auction

Definitely, we'll talk about it as well.

We'll tell you where you can go.

Maybe you want to put some money down, give some money to charity, and get a piece of wood from a boat that was at

a place once at a thing.

There

you go.

I mean, to take everybody off, but you pretty much get as much out of your share of owning a piece of deep thought as you do for being a pack or shareholder, I'm just saying.

Ouch.

Ooh,

that's the whole of the topic.

whole other topic.

We're glad to see it.

Again, shout out to all city towing Jeff Pillar, who is now the happy owner, I guess, of the boat deep thought that was left abandoned on Milwaukee shoreline for months and months and months.

And we thank him again and his crew for taking the time to schlep it away.

Hey, Jane, you know who I'd really like to talk to.

Can we get him on the show?

Can we talk to Joseph Pecky soon?

That's a really good idea.

He's very busy.

He's very busy.

So I know we have to book him out like months in

advance.

Yeah, I don't know if he'll be able to make it.

Hopefully.

Yeah, we'll we'll see.

Okay.

We'll make Calvin.

Calvin's the

one with the poll.

What you guys don't understand is that Calvin is far more powerful than you understand.

He doesn't just hits the ones and the twos here on the show.

He also commands a network of influential folks.

He is the influencer's influencer.

Yeah.

That's what Calvin is to us and to all.

And

he

controls everybody's

volume.

He's really the one in control.

And he controls the weather too.

What you don't understand is that Calvin controls the weather.

We have news coming up next and then a little more about Wisconsin's own Tom Tiffany telephone town halls.

All of that.

Terrific.

And much more.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air coming to you across the Civic Media radio

network.

I got it.

Good morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach.

Sweet Calbee coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us.

Call our text at 855-752-4842.

That's 855-75 Civic.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up a little bit later on today to a clock with the Todd Alba Show.

Todd is live from La Crosse today.

This should be a great show, Fusion Voting Seminar.

This is something that we've talked about and we're gonna talk about it more.

But Leader Ethics wants to revive a forgotten fix for elections system, Fusion Voting.

Join Todd today, they're gonna talk about what is Fusion Voting?

Why did it leave Wisconsin?

What would it do?

What does this mean?

All of that stuff gonna be a great show.

Join Todd today, starting at two o'clock across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Right now we are joined by our

It's been too long political consultant Joe's a peck.

He is here.

Good morning.

Mr. Z. How are you?

I'm good.

How are you guys?

I'm a little worried that fusion voting is like

Related to nuclear fusion and we're gonna be voting that way on the moon under Sean Duffy.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Yes I thought it was more about jazz and the votes that you can't vote for in the

between the spaces Yes, it's all very confusing Joe.

That's one of the reasons we have you on to help us help us to navigate our way through all the Confusing things that are happening these days one thing we wanted to start off with with you Joe was Tom Tiffany

Flirting, as the publications are now saying, flirting, he's batting his eyes at the potential for entering the governor's race in Wisconsin.

What do you think about Mr. Tiffany?

I think he should do it.

Yeah.

I think he has the inside track to an endorsement from Donald Trump, and we know that the key to victory and success

in a Republican primary in the age of Trump with magas running the Republican Party is to have the endorsement of Donald Trump.

That will bode him well.

He is the Trumpiest of all of the candidates.

He at least comes by it honestly, as opposed to Barry and and showman who are groveling to get past things they've done in their past that are not in lockstep with Donald Trump.

This is who the Republican party is now.

When Trump says jump, they asked how high?

When he says, don't touch Medicaid.

It's a political loser.

And Republican members of Congress go, excuse me, but sir, this bill you're asking us to vote for cuts a trillion dollars for Medicaid.

they just go ahead and do it.

And so he would do very well whether or not he can raise money.

My expectation is he gets into this race in the coming weeks.

And I don't want to spend too much time on this other person because we talked about yesterday and it seems more like he was just trying to be relevant for a moment.

But Tommy Thompson has not said no, but he hasn't said yes.

But when you talk about the reckoning of your past as far as with respect to,

the GOP, that's a man who has a past that almost looks liberal in comparison to where he is now to his support and defense of Donald Trump.

I mean, even if he were to run, he's got to answer for those like he's for mass transit.

Oh my goodness, he can't be a Republican.

Well, and Tommy Thompson is not the Tommy Thompson of the 90s.

Yeah, he got smoked by Tammy Baldwin in 2012.

He's now a loser and Donald Trump doesn't like losers.

He's also someone who is, as the Tammy Baldwin tagline said, he's not for you anymore.

This is someone who is sold out to the RFK Maha movement as they are devastating vaccines in this country as they are.

running roughshod over our norms and the system.

And so Tommy Thompson loves to be relevant.

He's a Wisconsin legend.

No one's taken that away from him.

But I don't think the idea that somebody who's going to be 84 before this year is over, that they're going to run a real campaign for governor and serve a full term.

Come on.

Yeah,

I think this is more of a vanity thing for Tommy Thompson.

And as you said, Joe, he likes people.

He likes being around people.

He likes shaking hands.

He likes that part of the politicking of it.

Maybe he misses that a little bit.

And but I don't think this is a serious.

I don't think this is serious.

No, he's he's more likely to be the referee that Ron Johnson wants to get everybody into the smoke filled back room and take

choice away from voters because Senator Rod Johnson doesn't want there to be a Republican primary.

He is on record saying he wants all of the Republican candidates for governor to get in a room by the end of this year and just decide who's going to be their nominee.

Oh, just give it to him.

Yeah, because that is apparently what passes for democracy in the eyes of Republicans these days.

And that's something too that

with regard to what you're saying as being the Trumpiest and being a winner in the eyes of Tom Tiffany, as far as he is currently a sitting congressman, it seems like it also then allows him to not have to work as hard to campaign as the others in the GOP field because he's just he's

I'm a guy, so just give it to me, and you don't worry about what I stand for and what I'm doing up in the Northwoods and the Apostles.

Don't worry about that.

If I love Trump, you love Trump, give me, give me.

I Trump every day, all day.

And therefore, there has to be, he is responsible for...

less campaigning, if you will.

He doesn't have to work as hard, knock on as many doors.

He can hold town halls where it's, you know.

Telephone town

halls.

Perfectly

curated, like a fine restaurant.

Which he just did, by the way, all six questions.

This is from the Wisconsin Examiner.

Tuesday, Tom Tiffany had a telephone at town hall with all six questions that Tiffany took coming from people who are very supportive of the one big blob of a bill.

What a shock.

There was no dissension there.

I'm stunned.

Yeah.

Listen, why would he want to subject himself to what Brian Stiles got subject to?

What the Republican congressman who represents Lincoln, Nebraska in Wisconsin, Nebraska's first congressional district got the other day, which is round after round after round of booze from people who are calling out these lawmakers on their BS, right?

When a Republican stands and says, no, no, no, we're protecting Medicaid.

People know that's nonsense.

We are in an era where Republicans are saying things that are just not connected to reality and the truth, and the American people know that.

And our job is to ensure people are watching what they do and not listening to what they say, because those two things are always very, very far apart.

That's a great point.

Yes.

Yes.

If you're just joining us, political consultant Joe Zipecki is our guest.

We're talking about Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin's own congressman, talking about throwing his hat in the ring to be governor.

Tom Tiffany, of course, represents the North Woods.

We talked about this a little bit though, Joe.

What does he come to the electorate and say I did this for you?

You know he he went and stood by the Blotnik Bridge, which he didn't vote for which was which happened under the Biden administration But he was happy to stand next to the bridge and go look at what we did.

Isn't this a great thing?

It is it just about he can come to voters and say look what I didn't

do for you It's he can own the libs.

It's he can be the culture warrior and the Trump toady

who whenever Trump does something that harms Wisconsin, Tiffany can say, I voted for that.

I supported that.

I mean, this is crazy that this is how we live now.

But the idea that Tom Tiffany doesn't know that the tariff policy is hurting Wisconsin manufacturers and producers and our farmers, he knows it, but he doesn't care.

And apparently no Republicans in Congress care because they're not standing up and saying stop even the ones who against say the right things when it's time to go and cast a vote

They don't live up

to it.

Yeah,

right Ron.

We're going back to Ron Johnson Who who told you know

one

of the shows these tariffs are hurting Wisconsin businesses and if they don't stop

a lot of these companies are gonna have to close or go out of business.

And then when Johnson has an opportunity on the floor of the United States Senate to put a stop on Trump's emergency tariffs, he doesn't do it.

They're not living up to what they're saying, and there is a cost to that for Wisconsin.

And so that might play in a Republican primary, but whoever the Republican nominee is, is going to own the mess that Trump has made.

of the U.S.

economy, of the global economy, of the chaos that is preventing any actual progress on the economy.

People are struggling.

We're not creating enough jobs.

Inflation is rising again.

Beef prices are through the roof.

This is not a recipe for political success.

If you mess up the one thing that voters expected a second president Trump term to accomplish, which was to improve the economy.

Newsflash, the economy is not getting better.

You can fire as many statisticians as you want.

It's not going to change the reality of what people are feeling in their lives.

And that's where we are.

And that's the Gordian knot, which keeps getting tighter for Republicans.

And I think it's important that we all remember as well that.

The implementation of some of these things has not happened yet and aren't going to happen in many cases until after next year's midterms The

people know it people know it's coming

right right, but but again the the full effects Aren't going to be felt for at least probably a year maybe even more Maybe a year and a half once these Medicaid cuts really start kicking in but yeah Joe in the interim

Are beef prices going to start coming down?

He's changing his mind on tariffs every day.

It's exhausting.

Well, the problem that Trump and Republicans are going to have on tariffs is those tariffs are being challenged in court because Trump is using an emergency declaration and an emergency power that just does not comport with reality.

And so if he gets slapped down by the Supreme Court, you know what Trump is going to do.

He's going to turn to his Republican pals in Congress and say, great, do these legislatively.

And then folks like Tom Tiffany.

they're not gonna think twice.

They're just gonna do it.

That is the takeaway of the Trump era, is if Trump wants it, Republicans will do it.

Whether that's a tariff policy, whether that's participating in a cover-up of the Epstein files, they are willing to, they bought the ticket, they are taking the ride and they are happy to do so.

And I wanna go back to something you just said too about the quote, owning the libs.

I feel like while there are still people out there who greatly enjoy it and gives them meaning in life, I feel that

a lot of regular folks are getting past that fighting social media type of thing and saying, oh, no, I don't want to own the Libs anymore.

I want to try to own my house.

I want to try to pay my bills.

I don't care about your social media fights.

I don't care about you calling, you know, AOC a slur and getting away with it.

I want to I want to talk about the fact that my kid can't go to college.

Yeah, I mean, that's and that's the recipe for Democrats is like we can't get distracted by the

Controversy du jour of the week whether it's Sydney Sweeney one week or Bud Light

the

next eyes on the prize Yes, this president was elected to lower prices and improve the economy and he has not done it In fact the economy is doing worse.

We see less economic growth fewer opportunities for wage increases and a tax bill that gives

everything to millionaires, billionaires and trillionaires and scraps for the rest of us.

Scraps to people who work for a living.

Not to mention the fact that we are now rehiring hundreds and hundreds of people that doge fired when they came in and then they realized, oh, they did jobs.

We need that.

Oops.

We should probably have

somebody who knows how to turn the lights on.

It's all about planning.

It's all about looking long term and what's coming down the road.

Yeah, they're not so good at that.

The president has says moving a convicted sex offender to a minimum security prison happens all the time.

Does it?

It does not.

We'll kick that around next with Joseph Becky.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air coming to you across the vast statewide, country-wide.

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Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

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Our friend and colleague and political consultant, Joseph Peckie is here, Mr. Z. Right before we went to the break, Jeffrey Epstein is dead and he just won't go away, Joe.

It's really problematic.

The house, Mike Johnson.

Let the House go home early so they could run away from having to cast a vote about Jeffrey Epstein.

Nobody wants this to go way more than President Donald Trump.

There was an exchange he had yesterday that just kind of jumped out at me.

Calvin, I believe we have this clip from President Donald Trump.

Can you play that, please?

Do you believe that she's credible to be listening to?

Your deputy attorney general sat down with her recently.

Well, he's, let me tell you, he's a very talented man.

Talking about Todd Blanche.

He's a very legitimate person, very high.

He's human.

I just a very highly thought of person, respected by everybody.

Everybody.

And I didn't talk to him about it, but I will tell you that whatever he asks would be totally appropriate.

And

it's not an uncommon thing to do that.

And I think he probably wants to make sure that, you know, people that

should not be involved or aren't involved or not hurt by something that would be very, very unfortunate, very unfair to a lot of people.

That is the clip.

People who should not be involved, we don't want them to get hurt.

That really jumped out at me.

We're talking about Jelaine Maxwell, of course, convicted sex trafficker, convicted sex offender who was in prison

And then last Friday, the Trump administration moved her to a minimum security prison, which now Republicans are saying, Joe, this just happens all the time.

This is the one that's known as club fed.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The rot goes all the way down.

The entire Republican Party is now complicit in a cover up.

And they have given just short of a get out of jail free card.

to a convicted sex trafficker and sexual abuser of children.

Elaine Maxwell groomed girls as young as 14 years old and participated in violent bodily crimes against those young women herself.

She is the worst of the worst.

And it sure looks like the Trump administration cut a corrupt deal with her that

The Trump administration can say we want to release the grand jury transcripts.

And now we're going to go talk to Maxwell and we're going to set her up at this cozy resort like spa like minimum security prison.

And then what's she going to do?

She's going to object on our behalf to the release of the grand jury transcripts, which we're all about trying to quell this fear.

over the fact that Trump and his acolytes have said for years they would release the files they would be transparent about what Epstein did and who he did it with and now they are changing their tune they are covering it up and this is not a situation where the cover-up is worse than the crime the sexual exploitation of minors is a heinous heinous

crime.

But the cover-up is what is going to cause problems for Republicans for years to come.

And any Republican representing Wisconsin, Brian Stile, Tom Tiffany, Tony Weed, Fitzgerald, I'm forgetting.

Van Orden.

Van Orden.

They are now all complicit in preventing the American people from knowing the truth about these sex pests.

who targeted and harmed children, and it is to their everlasting shame.

Well, and what really blows my mind yesterday, James Comer, who sits on one of the House committees, has issued subpoenas related to the Epstein-Maxwell thing.

Yeah, he's issued subpoenas for

Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

You know who's not on that list of subpoenas?

The guy who cut the sweetheart deal with Jeffrey Epstein in the first place, Alex Acosta, who was then made part of the Trump administration and he was in the part of the administration that oversee sex trafficking.

Nobody wants to talk to Alex Acosta.

Nobody wants to talk to any of the victims.

Trump wants this to go away.

more than anything else, and it's not going anywhere.

There are at least three dates in the weeks ahead where deadlines for subpoenas or votes on discharge petitions, the bill is coming due.

This is going to be a boat anchor around the political neck of Republicans for a very long time, particularly because

There's no other good news they can point to.

They can't point to a growing economy.

They can't point to millions of Americans getting new jobs or better jobs.

This is going to be here for a while and it should.

Joseph Peckie is a political consultant and friend of the show.

Thank you so very much.

Good to see you, my friend.

We'll get you back on sooner than we did this last time around.

We

have

news coming up next.

And then when we come back, tariffs and Wisconsin dairy farms, Darren Van Ruden will be here.

Stay close.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air.

We are the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach and Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same.

855-752-

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He joins us on the first Wednesday of the month.

The president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, Darren Von Ruden is here.

Good morning, Darren.

How you doing?

Good morning, Jane.

I'm doing well.

Glad to have you with us.

Lots to talk about.

Lots to catch up on.

Let's talk first of all, Darren, about dairy.

Farms in Wisconsin, how are our dairy farmers doing?

So dad caps latest numbers showed that we're down to just a little bit over 5,200 dairy farms.

Back in 1986, when I graduated from high school, we had 44,800 and something dairy farms in the state of Wisconsin.

And so today now with that information coming out,

We've dropped a lot faster than I thought we would.

Back in the late 90s, I did some work on dairy pricing reform and tried to get a system in that would hopefully keep more smaller farms in business and have not succeeded in that yet.

And so we're looking at that number continuing to dwindle.

So next year, by the time my 40 year graduation date is,

I'm pretty sure we're gonna be under 5,000 dairy farms in the state of Wisconsin, which is because we're still losing one, one and a half a day.

Since 2020, we've lost 25% of the dairy farms here in the state.

And, you know, that just, you know, it's disheartening.

Really it should be looking at a national security issue For a couple different reasons number one because diversity is always the best way to have a food system if you get too Congregated or confined to too too small of a number of people or businesses in control of that it really puts the whole system at stake and you know in number two we just have to make sure that we have a

High quality workforce and looking at what's happening with the dairy farms.

We're losing those generations of high quality workers

I guess the question and something we always talk about Darren on the show whether it's with you or with other farmers or just in general when we're discussing this topic is the government's role in working with the farmers and the farming industry What is in your in your mind, and I don't even want to say a perfect world, but what does the government do?

in your version that helps sustain the amount of farmers grow them or at least take care of them to the place where they're not having to worry every single day about shutting down.

What is what do you want to see from the government as far as partnership?

What do they need to do?

So number one thing is make sure that there's a fair market looking at

what's going on across the country with the very uncompetitive markets that we see because we can't sell our products into a market that's not being manipulated by big business at this point.

It's been that way for decades already.

It's just getting worse because we have less players there.

Number two, making sure that farmers get a plus production for the products that they produce.

so that they can stay in business and that new farmers can actually come into the business too.

We're looking right now that if you don't have a relative or somebody that is helping you get into farming and that's all types of farming, you really don't have that opportunity because of the high asset prices that are on the equipment that we need, the land that we need, and making sure that that's available.

And number two, stop handing out government, or number three, I should say, stop handing out government checks to the largest firms at prices at an amount that's way above what should be.

That's really interesting that you say that, Darren.

And I don't think that that's something that folks realize what impact that has.

And you kind of referred to it when we talk about the concentration, you know, giving

three companies that control over essentially our beef, our chicken, our pork, and our produce.

That's only good for them.

That's not good for competition.

It's not good for our farmers.

It's really not good for anybody, except for those companies.

And there has to be a concern, and I saw a politician in Iowa talking about this, has been concerned too,

is this whole go big or go home.

Under the first Trump administration, Sonny Perdue is the agriculture secretary.

I remember him saying this, you go big or you go home.

And that isn't sustainable for a lot of smaller producers like you are.

Right, you know, and number one, there isn't enough cows for every single dairy farm to be milking 10,000 cows.

Yeah.

And as I said earlier, we need that diversity.

Yeah, certainly we need some larger farms, but do we need 10, 100,000 cow operations, which would be what it takes to keep the food, or 10, 1 million cow operations is what the perfect world for some people is.

But in reality, that is not the perfect world.

That's actually a world that's gonna be turned upside down because nobody is gonna wanna work.

for that kind of a setup.

You know, we're looking at the current Trump administration and what they're doing to the workforce on farms around the country, you know, depleting our natural working force, you know, and trying to bring in something that's not natural is not good for the system from the top to the bottom.

And, you know, whether it's the farmers, whether it's the processors, whether it's the grocery stores, whether it's the distributors,

You know, you have to have people that want to do that job.

You can't force people to do work.

If you're just joining us, you're listening to Matt Nair on Air and Civic Media, and we are talking to the president of the Farmers Union of Wisconsin, Darren Von Ruden, who joins us once a month, the first Wednesday of every month, to give us a breakdown of what's happening in the farming industry in Wisconsin and outside.

And you bring up the natural, the workforce.

And that, like, I mean, we're talking, that's immigration.

We've spoken to you and to Hans Breitenmoser and other farmers that hiring immigrants to do the labor in and around the farms is just something that is a part of life.

And by taking them away and deporting them, disappearing them, kidnapping them, takes also away from your business as being able to run smoothly.

And unfortunately, and I can't remember her name, the secretary who made the speech saying, not

only- But

Brooke Rollins.

Brooke Rollins who said, no amnesty for undocumented folks.

all you Medicaid cheaters, you can go to the fields and work in the farmers.

Well, that's not how this works.

Because Darren, I don't know, you haven't emailed me saying that there's jobs available for me to come and get.

I mean, I'm not a Medicaid, but I love a field job.

I come just knock on your door.

Do you have a line around your property saying, hey, put me to work?

Yeah, you know, you know, my farm is not that type of setup, but certainly there is operations like that around the countryside that they are looking for workers.

But

you know, when you when you get down to the numbers, the number of people that are actually defrauding the Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security system in this country is not going to fill those jobs that are being lost right now because of the Immigration Enforcement Act.

No, they're not.

And we've talked about this the whole time.

Good heavens.

If there were that many people who wanted these jobs in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation.

And I can only imagine

There has been criticism, Darren, to be fair.

There have been some criticisms about farmers taking advantage of undocumented workers so that they can get paid less.

But I think it's important to realize also in order to get these specific work visas, that's quite a process as well.

Yeah, you know, I have never done that myself, but certainly have talked to enough people that are doing that on a regular basis.

And yeah, you know, you don't just fill out a slip of paper today and have a worker on your front step tomorrow.

If you're going to go through all the correct legal channels, which most producers and folks that are looking to hire folks do, and you know what?

can take up to three weeks to actually get an employee through that legal process by the time you get the State Department to okay somebody to come from a foreign country to work in your property.

That's there, you know, I'm hearing right now that even those folks that are here legally buy their papers and have everything they need.

are worried about getting picked up and hauled off to a jail in another state, most likely where they're not, you know, familiar with.

And being from a foreign country is just a scary situation.

And, you know, looking at what our immigration system has done to build this country to what we're at today, to have it being destroyed and, you know, scaring those high quality workers away, you know, it's going to be a scary time.

down the road unless something is changed here in the next two to three months, probably.

Well, and that is not an unfounded fear, tragically, that people who actually are here legally on a green card or a work visa or whatever in some of these indiscriminate ice raids, because that's what they are.

They just come in and grab everyone.

And I have read numerous stories about people saying, look, I have my papers.

I have my documentation.

That doesn't seem to matter.

They, as you said, Darren, they whisk you away and send you to another state and nobody knows where you are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I'm hearing more and more stories about farms in other states.

I haven't heard anything about Wisconsin yet, but maybe that's because we are such purple states and these other states are red states that are having issues of immigration coming in and taking half of the

milkers for the morning shift.

And so then, you know, the farmers close to try to find a workforce to fill them 10 jobs, you know, and their family members have been contacted that they're no longer there.

So.

they're not going to go to work where ICE might show up again.

And that family might only have two family members that can fill those 10 spots.

Well, you need those 10 workers to get those collars milked and fed.

So it really becomes a bad situation in a really fast timetable.

And on the other side, we can also talk about someone who's come out on audio in an event.

President Trump has said,

we need to help the farmers out.

All of a sudden, I don't know if the tune changed or he saw the numbers or maybe just someone said, hey, people helping farmers, that's good.

Okay, I'll talk about that.

It just seems like all of a sudden he is proposing and on the side of the farmers to stop all of this stuff happening.

Well, again, I go back to...

In my estimation, this administration is not good at looking at consequences.

If we do A, here are the things that could happen, B, C, and D. This could happen, this could happen, this could happen.

It's just Stephen Miller wants 3,000 people snatched today, doesn't matter where they come from, doesn't matter who they are, whether they're here legally or not.

We want that quota filled.

We want that quota filled no matter what.

And that's where we are right now.

This is not a good place to be.

Yeah, you know, and certainly looking at what's happened with the Trump administration and the canceling of grants and programs that have been very beneficial to the small producers.

You know, those programs are gone today now.

They're trying to bring some of them back under different names and different language.

But certainly that doesn't make up for the difference that the

the large farmers received in government checks already for corner soybean prices dropping drastically after the Trump administration first started.

So how do we get to a point where every single farmer is treated exactly the same versus picking

winners and losers, which this administration has been doing is picking the winners, which is the biggest farms and the smallest farms that really can use to make sure help are the ones losing.

We're going to continue our conversation with Darren Von Ruden.

President Trump has thoughts about people who pick our produce.

That's all on the way.

Stay close.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

Good morning and welcome back to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach resident young person Calvin on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine you can always join us caller text the number is the same 855-752-4842 you can leave a comment if you're watching the live stream hello live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter if you have the civic media app you can also leave us a voice note

You just record your little voice note and you send it right to us via the Civic Media app.

Make sure you have the app.

It's completely free.

You'll need it on Friday for free ticket Fridays.

Well, we will have a four pack of tickets.

Club level seats.

Those sound really good, Jane.

To see the somewhat exciting Milwaukee Brewers.

They are on fire.

They're hot right now.

They are hot.

Best record in the baseball.

So make sure you download the Civic Media app.

Wherever you get your apps, it is as Greg likes to say.

Absolutely free.

He joins us on the first Wednesday of every month.

So grateful for his time.

He's the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Darren Von Ruden is here.

And before we went to the break, we were talking about the raids that are happening on farms and the

Wisconsin continues to lose dairy farms in the state.

And Donald Trump, who at one point essentially said all the immigrants were rapists and killers and murderers, he had comments yesterday about the people who pick our produce, essentially.

Calvin, let us play that clip from President Donald Trump, please.

Back to their country with a pass back in legally, and we're doing things that are

that are very difficult to do and very complex but it works really well we're sending them back and then they're schooling they're learning they're coming in they're coming in legally we have a lot of that going on but we're taking care of our farmers we can't let our farmers not have anybody uh you know these are very these people that they're you can't replace them very easily you know people that

Live in the inner city are not doing that work.

They're just not doing that work and they've tried we've tried everybody tried They don't do it these people do it naturally naturally.

I said what happens if they get it to a farmer the other day What happens if they get a bad back?

He said they don't get a bad back sir because if they get a bad back they die That's interesting.

You know, that's interesting.

That's our president of the United States

talking about some of the people who pick our produce, they can't get a bad back, they die.

It's astonishing.

It's just astonishing to me.

But now apparently, Darren, everything is fixed because when they do these mass ice raids and they grab everybody off these farms, they just throw them out of the country and then they go learn things and get different and then we let them back in and it's all good.

That's not what I'm hearing.

I'm hearing

a lot

of those

folks are going back to their country and they're staying there because they don't want to be treated the way they're being treated in this country anymore.

So they're not even, they're not, if they're going back to, they're getting deported to their home countries and they're like, I don't want to go back there.

I don't ever want to go through this again.

yep yep you know that's that's what the word on the street especially in California you know and they're they're close to Mexico and certainly Mexican agriculture is going to be the benefactor in this whole process because they're going to be able to you know produce more produce which is what

the they're really good at in Mexico and send in this country.

And so that's another issue with that national security issue is talking about earlier when you become dependent on another country for your food source.

We are in big trouble.

You're in a bad state.

Yes.

Well, and I also like, you know, just as a side note to this, that entire, whatever you want to call those words, the swipe at quote inner city kids, not being able, not doing the job because they've quote tried for so long.

Well, if you want to entice young kids, inner city kids, or as they like to call them black kids, cause that's who he's talking about.

Let's not, let's, let's not dance around the dog whistle here.

Okay.

get them education in farming life.

It's not an impossible thing.

You can put it out there, say, Hey, are you interested in growing food?

Are you interested in farming?

Here's like, also then you need transportation to

those farms to do the

work.

And, and if you're not going to do any of that, then yeah, a kid in Milwaukee isn't going to say, you know what I want to do?

I want to go, I want to go pick corn in Middleton.

How is he going to get there?

Okay.

So.

It's just so offensive.

And Darren, you are one of the strongest people I know just for the fact you are a farmer in this state, in this country.

I don't know how you do it.

Well, it's a passion.

And the thing about a true farmer with a bad back, still gets up and melts the cows, still gets up, feeds the chickens, still gets up, harvests the corn, plants the corn, still does that.

So this idea that urban agriculture can't happen,

Well, under this administration, it's not going to happen because they've cut the programs that were helping a lot of inner city folks develop those urban farms that were actually feeding their neighborhoods.

And for us to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the richest farmers in this country,

and take it away from the smallest is just another thing that the Republican party has been doing for decades.

And this administration has just highlighted the worst of it.

Well, and you just have to wonder if that ultimately isn't the goal to kill off all our small farmers and make sure that we have three companies that run them

all.

Yeah, you know, and looking at what's going on on the countryside right now to JBS, which is the largest meat processor in the country, Brazilian owned.

is paying $100 per head and more for animals right now because they're making big profits in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil.

So they have extra money to play with here in the United States in an attempt to run either the second or third company out of business so that they can therefore bring in that under their belt too.

And this administration is doing nothing about it.

And actually our president is endorsing somebody that's in jail in Brazil for doing exactly what's happening.

Exactly.

Darren Von Ruden is the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

He joins us every month at the first Wednesday of the month.

We learn so much when you're here, Darren.

Thank you so very, very much for your time.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks for the opportunity.

We'll see you in a month.

Stay with us.

News coming up next and then Audio Sorbet, most overrated desserts.

It's national root beer float day.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Good morning and welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Buck.

Sweet Calvi on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same, 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching in the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

We got baseball.

The boys are hot.

I know you're very happy.

Best

record in baseball.

We got

baseball 540.

Our broadcast starts the crew at the Braves.

You can listen on Terrestrial Radio if you can pick it up on WRC and Richland Center in Oshkosh on WISS.

Here in Racina Kenosha, WRJN in beautiful Park Falls, WCQM and in Hayward on WBZH, the Brewers at the Braves this afternoon.

Our broadcast starts at 5.40 today.

If they win today, this will be their fifth sweep in one month.

Wow.

Yeah.

They won both their games against Atlanta this week.

They're on their way to winning their, they, they could possibly win their third.

I didn't jinx it last week.

Get out of my mentions.

No, I think it was Scott Walker.

I agree.

But yeah, this, if I'm not missing one, two, three, I think this will be your fifth sweep in a month.

Impressive.

And as Paul Newton said, if you want to listen back to that, that, that discussion from last week on Thursday, it's not luck.

It's not a fluke.

This is solid planning, solid.

movement of team members.

This is real good baseball from front of house to field play.

It's good stuff.

So yeah, it's exciting.

JR Radcliffe in the Milwaukee Journal Center.

We'll be here tomorrow for sports after 1030.

So join us for that.

But yes, the Brewers in action later on today.

Our broadcast starts today at 540 as they are in Atlanta.

I wanted to share this real briefly.

We got a text come in.

Jane, this is Cindy in Southwestern Michigan.

I am listening over the air on 540 a.m.

We got quite a bounce across the lake, apparently.

I love your show and Civic Media.

Thanks for keeping us in touch with reality.

Cindy is in Waterville, Michigan, which I looked up on the map.

Nice.

It is nice.

Close to the coast there.

I don't know why I just love that.

I just love the idea of listening to radio that far away.

I was, we were talking about off air.

It's like on a good, clear night, usually, especially winter, you can hear the Opry over, over AM, W, W, WCW.

I can't, WSM, WSM in Nashville.

Oh, in Nashville.

And so it's just, yeah, I just love the idea that we're on AM radio reaching.

All the way to Michigan.

Hello, Cindy.

Hello,

Cindy.

And thank you so much for listening.

Really, really appreciated.

Always appreciated as well if you can spread the word about Civic Media and let people know that we are here.

And you can also find out how to support us at civicmedia.us slash support.

Yes.

Civic Media, we are a little unusual.

We're a little special.

We are actually classified as an entity that does, has a service of public good.

Public Benefit

Corporation.

Public

Benefit Corporation.

This is the time of the show where we like to lighten things up and get away from the news.

We call it Audio Sorbet.

Where we clean your ears with

fun!

When we get Matt Nair on air shirt merch, that's that's going

on the shirt.

I'm getting I'm getting I'm ordering small q-tips and on the little little

not Q-tip portion of the Q-tip on the little plastic or whatever.

It's just going to say

cleaning your

ears with

funds since 24.

I love that.

There you go.

There's so much potential.

Yes.

So today is Calvin found this.

It is National Root Beer Float Day.

And that started this talking about desserts off the air.

And we said it's like not everybody loves root beer floats that much.

And

we started

talking about most overrated desserts.

8-5-5, 7-5-2, 4-8-4-2.

What is the most overrated dessert?

Someone comes to you with a plate, you're at a party, whatever, here, have a slice of blank, and you're like, no, I'm gonna save my calories for something else.

8-5-5, 7-5-2, 4-8-4-2.

What is your most overrated dessert?

Also, if you'd like to weigh in on a root beer float day, maybe that is your favorite dessert.

You know, I think when I see root beer floats, first of all, immediately takes me to childhood.

I

was growing up.

It's very much a kid thing.

Yes.

But then something you rediscover as an adult and you say, oh my gosh, I can go to the store and buy ice cream and get root beer and have a root beer float right now.

I don't have to do it for any reason.

I didn't win a championship in Pee Wee Sports.

I can have it anytime I want.

There's a place in Waukesha that was.

not down the street from the old WA UK studios, but close to it called John's root beer.

And it essentially is like an A and W, but it's been, it's been there since I was a kid.

I remember going to John's as a tiny boy, like four.

And you get a root beer float, you get a hot dog, you put some ketchup.

Now I put some mustard cause I'm an adult.

But yeah, that, that triggers so many childhood memories.

And, and I don't have them often because I kind of,

super, super special, not even occasions where it's just, I want it in the moment, and then I won't have it for years.

Yeah.

I can appreciate that.

Yeah, there

you go.

Most overrated desserts, 8-5-5, 7-5-2, 4-8-4-2, as we celebrate National Root Beer Day, Root Beer Float Day.

There it is.

To be accurate.

Calvin, do you have one?

What is your most overrated dessert as our resident young person?

Well, I will say I I do enjoy a root beer float But maybe I guess it is sort of a little overrated in the sense that if I go to Dairy Queen or any other sort of creamery It's not what I would order.

Yeah,

right.

No,

so if someone offered me one I'd probably say sure but that wouldn't be what I would order it

would also have to be out of like

a root beer stand type of place.

You go to restaurants nowadays, I'm sure that both of you have been to these types of establishments where they have something very simple like a root beer float, but it's $17 because it's deconstructed with the finest this and I'm like, just give me, give me a cup of barks, put a slab of vanilla in there, put a straw in there and let me live my childhood again.

I remember going, and this is,

In a similar store, I went to a bar in Milwaukee and they had a Harvey Wahlbanger on the menu.

I was like, a Harvey Wahlbanger?

That's what my grandma drank when I was a kid.

And I love the name.

I love the name.

This is like a $3 drink.

It was $19 because once again, deconstructed with burnt oranges.

And I'm like, dude.

For heaven's sakes.

And also, Jane, it wasn't like the drinks we grew up watching our parents drink.

It was in a rocks glass.

That was probably maybe three to four.

Oh, it

was such a, such a, still makes me mad.

But yeah, yeah, I want to, I want to just a plain Jane.

No pun intended.

Better than insane.

There you go.

Yeah.

I just want like a regular.

Just give me, give me the basic version.

That's what I love.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2 most overrated desserts.

We have Jim from Appleton texting in, listening on WISS and Oshkosh Black Forest Cake.

I personally love it, but lots of friends and family can't stand it.

I

think that's with cherries.

Dark chocolate and with cherries.

That sounds

amazing.

That's right up my alley

now.

That's not a...

I'm not going to eat a whole cake of that.

Well, I should need a whole cake anyway.

But

a nice, a nice hefty slice.

Oh, give

me a

slice.

Oh, mother glory,

Calvin.

That was going to be my overrated.

It's just chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream in general.

I don't won't say I completely dislike it, but it absolutely needs like some.

Vanilla ice cream to cut to cut

that all the chocolate.

Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah, but I would I would go for black forest cake Yeah, absolutely most overrated desserts is our audio sorbet for today 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 what about you?

Mine would be angel food cake.

Yeah, you know what that was my mother's

Favorite and all of our birthdays.

It was never what kind of cake would you like to get here?

No, we got angel food cake with confetti ice cream and to me Angel food cake is like a bad sponge Mmm.

It's a bad flavorless slice of sponge

Unless there's coconut on a cake, I don't believe there's anything as well.

No German chocolate cake is also terrible, but it's it's it's the worst

Oh, that's because it has coconut in it.

My people took all good things and ruined it.

Potato salad, German potato salad, get on my face.

But no, it's the thing of when you go to a place and there's cake and you're really excited and it's angel food with some like just regular frosting, it's like, can't you throw like a layer of jelly in there?

Or can't there be like a, like, I just feel like angel food cake is just so disappointing.

There's just not, it's flavorless.

We have

ss.

It's a frosting delivery system.

Exactly.

And if it's gonna, then you need something better than confetti ice cream.

I'm just saying.

There's so many better options out there and they're not crazy expensive either.

Just do something.

I mean, I'll even eat an ice cream cake.

Actually, I really love ice cream cakes, but same with root beer floats once in a while.

Once is good.

But yeah, angel food cake just kind of gives me like the, I'm gonna eat, I'll eat the whole slice, but I won't be happy.

I will eat this under duress.

Most overrated desserts at 855-752-4842 as we celebrate National Root Beer Float Day.

Ollie from the Northwoods is on the line.

Good morning, Ollie.

Well, I'm going to celebrate National Root Beer Float Day because I can remember every time...

which wasn't very often that we got to go to the NW.

There were four little girls sitting in the back seat, and our dad always got the tray delivered to his window, and he had to take a big sip out of everybody's root beer.

So he

didn't spill.

To this day, we still complain about dad taking

And drinking everybody's root beer.

That's great, Ollie.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

My dad used to say he would take a sip of my soda or something.

He'd go, I just want to make sure it's safe.

It's a quality control check.

Yeah, I just want to make sure you know.

Obviously.

Ben and Richland Center listening on WRCE said pineapple upside down cake, which is kind of outdated, but I think it's overrated.

Good rhyme.

Also, I've never had a pineapple upside down cake in my life.

I think he's right in it.

It's one of those

older desserts.

My mother used to make

that.

It feels like that is a labor-intensive dessert.

It's not just the mixing and the baking.

You've got to put the slices on the bottom of the pan.

Plus, hot fruit has never been my jam.

But you put pineapple on pizza.

No, I don't.

I thought you were a

proponent of.

I am a proponent of simply because I tried it and I didn't hate it after years of being against it and never trying it.

Now Calvin's thinking of the movie Avatar, that's a whole different story.

But the point is, is I will have some if I'm there, but it's never gonna be the pizza I order.

It's never gonna be the thing I make at home.

But yeah, hot fruit is just like cherry pie.

I love cherry pie.

Well, no, I love pie, but I would rather have like a...

I don't know.

Honestly, when it comes down to it, I just rather have cheesecake.

I'd rather just have cheesecake.

That's a whole pie fight.

A whole other

different audio store bay where we'll fight about pies.

PJ gets the last word on this.

We're talking about overrated desserts.

PJ says donuts are overrated because you can get them at gas stations, grocery stores, and bakeries.

They count as a dessert, right?

Yeah, I think donuts counted as a dessert.

I would like to also recognize Andrew from Maine who sent this in.

Audio Neapolitan Sorbet.

Jane is sweet like chocolate.

Greg is widely beloved like vanilla.

And sweet Calbee is the sleeper than that more people like than they want to admit like strawberry.

I didn't read that correctly.

I apologize.

But yes, he's, yeah, I'll take that.

Calvin's the strawberry.

He's the strawberry that you secretly say like, oh, but you like it.

You love it.

We love secret love for Calvin.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you, everybody, for taking part in our audio survey

research

research.

Yes.

And go enjoy National Root Beer Floating.

Go have fun.

Coming up next, this shouldn't be a thing.

The Go Puck yourself P. U. C. K. Edition.

You're listening.

I said it

right.

I

know you're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media radio network.

you

Welcome back to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach and Kelly Teenie on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine You can always join us call or text at 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 You can also leave a comment if you're watching in the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter We were talking before we took a short break about audio survey our conversation today was about most overrated desserts.

Yeah

A couple of texts we had that I wanted to get in before we wrap this up.

Liz from Salkville says fruitcake.

Blech.

There's a lot of people who agree with you on that Liz.

It's one of those things I treat like scones.

Basically not great when they're good.

blow your mind

if they're if they can keep it on the moist side yeah yeah and sue from franklin cake in general is bad give me a chocolate espresso martini anytime

okay sue just wants to drink

i like the

way sue thinks doki i don't want dessert give me alcohol

a dessert in alcohol form that always works

Someday I'll tell you the story how I ate a whole rum cake and it didn't go well for me as a 12 year old.

Oh, there's a segment for future use.

Coming up tomorrow, busy, busy show.

Our friend and colleague and host of amicus, the law review, Jim Santel is going to join us after the 9 30 news.

One of the things that we're going to talk about again.

Yeah, Jeffrey Epstein's dead and he just won't go away.

And the president says that moving Jelaine Maxwell, a convicted sex offender from prison to club fed in Texas, he says it happens all the time.

So we're going to kick that around with Jim Santel and find out just how normal that is.

In hour number two, a little bit lighter tomorrow, weather and wine with civic media meteorologist Brittany Merlot.

We have some scorching hot heat.

Sports and hot heat coming in this weekend.

It's going to be another steamy one.

It looks like for Saturday.

So Brittany will have weather details for us.

And then JR Radcliffe joining us to talk all things sports.

And again, we can talk about those.

Those boys are our brewers are doing really good.

It's

been a while for that young man.

We haven't seen him at the time.

Yeah, we've had some scheduling difficulties.

So J.R.

Radcliffe from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel joining us tomorrow after 10 30 right now, Calvin 10 55.

That means it's time for

this shouldn't be a thing.

If you ever find a thing you think should not be, send it into Greg and me at Jane says at civic media dot US.

Calvin found this from the Associated Press and Cedar Atnasio as the mine line.

This is all over the place.

There is a video element that's worth checking out.

The headline reads, Seattle NHL teams mascot has a close encounter with a brown bear during a video shoot in Alaska.

Seattle cracking forward, John Hayden.

and the mascot, which is a troll, had a close call with a brown bear while they were shooting a promotional video in Alaska.

Kneed deep in the river, they're both wearing waders with other fly fishing gear.

The bear charged the mascot.

They're filming their thing, shooting things just fine, and all of a sudden, here comes a brown bear charging the mascot, splashing water.

but turned away before it contacted anyone.

They and the film crew eventually waited back to shore through a general gentle current.

Nobody got hurt.

The NHL team says it did not intend to include the bear in the shoot, but why not?

When asked for comment, the bear said, sorry, I thought you were Mike.

My apologies.