Two Years Of Kicking That Can (Hour 2)

Good, good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg box sitting in for Jane Matt and air who is currently vacating, relaxing, resting, resting, observantly, and she will be back before you know it in a few days.

And it's going to be a fun time here on the show today.

Very, very packed show.

Let's see here at 935.

We've got Sarah Gonski, who is the director of state policy for the Institute for Responsive Government.

She's going to be here talking about the new attacks from the Trump administration on mail and voting and voting machines.

why this is important, what we know and what we know is absolutely constitutionally and protected for the right to vote by voting machines and by mail-in voting.

We're gonna be talking to Sterak Gonski about that.

Also at 1006, it is the first Wednesday of the month, which means we get a visit from the president of Wisconsin's Farmers Union.

Darren Von Rudin is here to talk about all things.

He's gonna talk about the Farm Bill.

He'll be talking about what they'll be speaking to.

policy makers next week, as well as reorganization at the USDA.

That's going to be at 1006 in the second hour.

So don't go anywhere.

You want to stick around for Darren's update on the farming world here in Wisconsin.

Then we're going to have audio sore bay.

And this is kind of a fun one.

So yesterday, Calvin, Calvin, by the way, Calvin, butte and off sweet Cal B's on the boards right now, doing all the ones and twos.

Yesterday, we had a bunch of guests on yesterday who were just teaching me all sorts of amazing things about Wisconsin.

So I thought to myself,

What else don't I know about Wisconsin?

And I found a really cool story in travel, Wisconsin, about the 20 things you may or may not know about this state.

I thought we could talk about those.

But what's an audio sorbet without the wonderful participation from the people out there in the world listening, watching, if you want to participate and be a part of the conversation, you can do that by calling or texting.

It's the same number, 855-752-4842, 855-75 Civic or

Leave a comment on the live stream.

We are currently broadcasting on Facebook, YouTube, and what in this house we still call Twitter.

You can be part of that conversation, but at 1035 later on in the show, you can be part of that.

Send us those things that you know about Wisconsin, those fun facts you know about.

You can text them in, you can call them in, leave a voice note, but I want to know what you know about Wisconsin that others might not.

I think that'd be a fun time.

I love learning more about this state from the very, very cool stuff.

From that, you know, just...

Those little those little nuggets of joy Calvin and you are of course welcome Calvin to participate as well if there's anything cool about Wisconsin that you want us to know you can do that by calling or texting 855-752-484-2855-75 civic or as I said before leave a comment on the live stream and then we're gonna wrap up the entire show at 1052 with this shouldn't be a thing it is the in the thick of it event edition found by Calvin

he will be defending his reasons why this thing should not be a thing.

So you want to stick around.

It's going to be a really, really fun show.

Good morning, Calvin.

How are you this, how are you this fine day?

That's actually, that's, I mean, it's rainy out, but how are you doing?

I'm doing fantastic, right?

How are you?

I'm doing peachy keen, I guess.

I don't know.

I just, there's a lot going on in the news right now.

And kind of was like the thing was like where to start was a big shoulder stroke, not because there's not stuff going on.

But because it's just all happening all the time, as you know, Calvin, the news never stops.

But we're going to start actually a little out of out of Wisconsin, but trust me, it will connect.

I promise you that this is coming out of the Wisconsin examiner.

Jacob Fischler has the byline.

Judge Warren's of National Police Force and ruling Trump.

broke the law sending guard to LA.

So just came down yesterday.

U.S.

District Judge Charles R. Breyer said that Donald Trump's move to send National Guards and U.S.

Marines to quote, quell immigration protests in Los Angeles violated a federal law against military members conducting domestic law enforcement, which is something.

We have been talking about for some time now, Breyer, who is a appointee of Bill Clinton, hold on, it's fine, you know, it's not because he was a Bill Clinton appointee, but he's just upholding the law.

He was appointed in 1997, said that Trump could not use the National Guard for a wide array of police activities in California, and the order goes into effect as of September the 12th.

He said that the roughly 47, uh, 4,700, sorry, 4,700 guard members and Marines engaged in police activity in violate is in violation of the Posse Comotatus Act of 1878, which was built on the constitutional framers weariness of a centralized military force conducting police work.

We're seeing that in Los Angeles.

We saw that in Los Angeles.

We are of course seeing the, uh,

Some call it invasion, some call it occupation.

I call it no matter what.

This seems unconstitutional, not good in an overreach of power.

We're seeing that in Washington DC.

The president in an event yesterday, which I'll get to in a moment, also made clear that he plans, he doesn't have a solid plan or a date in mind, but.

There will be some sort of troop representation in Chicago as well.

I don't know, Calvin.

I am not the smartest person in the world listening to the live stream saying, we know that already, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist.

It doesn't take a person working on, you know, spaceships to know that these three cities have something in common.

Calvin, but can you, can you put the thread through for me?

I mean, I don't know.

You're way smarter than me.

Well, I don't know about that.

Um,

But yeah, it's it's obvious that these are all blue cities and blue states.

Yeah and The reason why I'm bringing this up this bringing up this story from the judge saying that this is an overreach is saying that once again for the umpteenth time Donald Trump is overreaching his his minions are overreaching his plan is to

uh, create, uh, you know, a police state for what, you know, some say because so they can keep the elections from happening.

Some say just because he wants to be an authoritarianism, authoritarian, uh, dictator, they're all cut from the same cloth of, of, of reasons why he's doing this.

But the reason I bring this up is because as we see these cities, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, I will not.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that Atlanta is on that list as well.

I would love to see a plan, Calvin, where where Donald Trump even tries to say New York.

I mean, I'm I'm sure he'll wait until after the election.

If if Mr. Mamdani wins, I don't, you know, we'll see there.

But the reason why I'm bringing this up, folks, is because also in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

a story written by Lawrence Andrea, and I think it's Lawrence Andrea.

My apologies if I mispronouncing your last name, sir.

Milwaukee police union leader says he's considering asking Trump to send guard troops to the city.

This has been something very on the on the sidelines is very, you know, you know, okay, LA, New York, or LA, Chicago, DC, who's next?

What's next?

What city's next?

And now

And this is something for me, like I basically have a question and I might even ask Jim Santel about this is, you know, this was when Trump sent the troops into Los Angeles, it was not war.

It was not warranted nor was it welcome.

Same with DC.

If the police union president, his name is Alex, I, I, I, I, I Yalla.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Words are tough.

Alex Ayala.

said he is quote, considering sending a letter to the White House requesting national guard assistance following a series of street takeovers, uh, uh, over Labor Day weekend that led to multiple arrests and more than two dozen citations.

We've talked about this now on two separate shows yesterday with Todd Alba.

We talked about it on Friday with Dan Schaefer as well as Angela Lang and the crime statistics.

Regardless of what JD Van says, regardless of Donald Trump says, regardless of what anybody who wants to paint Milwaukee as a crime-ridden hellscape, no matter what they say, the numbers show that violent crimes are down, and I do not believe that what he is considering doing, writing a letter to President Trump, is warranted, is wanted or needed.

You want to do something about crime?

You come up with a different plan.

other than asking the president of the United States of America to send the National Guard into the city.

Let me know your thoughts on this 855-752-4842-855-75 civic.

Leave a comment on the live stream and we can absolutely talk about it because I want to know your thoughts.

Yeah, yeah, go on Calvin.

Just to jump in for so people are aware this is

Purely anecdotally, and my only source here is Reddit.

Yeah, but apparently as of four days ago There were roads shut down in wiki walkie in Illinois that People the residents are claiming are connected to the National Guard's request to Have a station troops at the Navy base there

And where is this walkie in outside

of Chicago?

Okay.

Walkie.

All right.

Well, yeah.

I mean, I do the president has made it clear that Chicago is next on the list.

So any sort of movement and as we know more, we will report, we will talk about it more.

We will discuss it more.

But this is the plan and Chicago is very close to Milwaukee by way of like, just, you know, like 90 miles, 80 miles.

And JD Vance was in La Crosse last week talking about how, how, how, how a crime is so bad there, but he, he wasn't there.

He was in La Crosse and he was surrounded by his, his supporters.

So of course they think it's right.

I just want to know from you, do you think it's right?

855-752-484-2855, 75 Civic, Sue listening on WAUK says, yes, but the courts keeps saying it's not legal, et cetera.

And they keep doing it.

They just ignore the law.

And I'll say it, all of these cities have black mayors.

There's something to be said about that.

Even if they didn't have black mayors, they are, they are, they are going to be listed as quote, democratic cities run by liberals, liberals who didn't vote for you.

And when people don't vote for you, you don't get what you want.

In fact, you get things taken away.

As we saw yesterday at Donald Trump's press conference and the Oval Office, we were talking about yesterday, we were kind of surprised, Oval Office press.

Oval Office address we thought it was going to be.

It ended up being a press conference.

There's a difference.

He made some statements.

He made some remarks.

He said that he is going to be moving Space Command from Colorado to Alabama.

There are people out there saying why.

It's very, very simple.

It's very easy.

It's very understandable.

You can say, like, oh, why is he doing this?

I'll let the man himself say it.

Calvin, we have a clip of President Trump saying why he wanted to move the space command from Colorado to Alabama.

Can you play that clip?

Thank Colorado.

The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting.

They went to all mail-in voting.

So they have automatically crooked elections.

And we can't have that.

When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections, because that's what that means.

So that played a big factor also.

That's right.

It wasn't fiscal.

It wasn't done with a report.

It wasn't after years of studying.

He wanted to do this, actually, by the way, in his first term.

He did it because Colorado has mail-in voting.

Also, Greg, keep in mind that Colorado was the only state who made a real effort to keep him off the ballot in the 2024 election.

Okay.

Then there you go as well.

All right.

So we're going to keep this conversation going.

We got the little, we got the little starter piece there.

We're going to play more in a little bit from another gentleman from a reporter in Colorado discussing this, but he's going to do what he wants.

He's going to send troops to Milwaukee.

He's going to move.

major, major pieces of military, uh, part of the military, military industrial complex because people don't like him.

People didn't vote for him.

We're going to keep it going.

Give us a call eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic want to hear from you.

This is Matt and Aaron air.

Keep the conversation going.

Get some water.

Get some snacks.

Cut on back.

Stay tuned.

Stay close.

You're listening to the civic media radio network.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and they're on air.

My name is Greg box sitting in for Jane Matt and they're and you are listening on the civic media radio network.

If you want to get in touch with us, call text.

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We are on Facebook, YouTube and what

We still call Twitter got a lot of show still left before us at 9 35.

We have Sarah Gonski, who's the director of state policy for the Institute for responsive government, talking about mail-in voting and voting machines and the importance of them in light of the attacks from President Trump in the second hour, 1006.

Of course, Darren Von Runes here.

It's the first Wednesday of the month.

So he'll be talking about all things farming, but you can always be a part of this conversation by giving us a call or texting.

We're talking about the fact that the union president from Milwaukee police said that they are weighing in the, the decision of whether or not they're going to ask president Trump for help with, and when, by, by what he means help, he means sending troops in on every corner because they think that Milwaukee, as they said with other places, or actually JD Vance said last week on the cross, they got, they got some crime, Calvin.

They got some crime and yeah, they do.

Cities have crime.

A lot of cities, a lot of towns, villages, unincorporated places have crimes.

I do not believe that we are in need of military action.

Well, and that's the thing is even the there is a crime problem.

I don't even want to say it's a problem because it's not crime.

Crime happens

in cities.

Yeah, exactly.

But even then stopping it with force does not.

Do anything to address why the crime is happening.

Yeah, and I I might be speaking out of turn or Misinformed, but I believe there has been studies shown that as you increase policing of areas in the long term it results in more crime.

Well, I mean the thing that You want a partnership with the federal government on fighting crime

There's no doubt that there's crime in the city of Milwaukee.

There's no doubt that there's crime in Waukesha.

There's no doubt there's crime in Hayward.

There's no doubt there's crime in Dore County.

Everywhere has crime of some sort.

And you want to mitigate it.

You want to handle it.

And if it gets to a certain point, you want to know that you have a partnership with the federal government on this.

And there are programs and ways of doing this.

One of those ways is just even asking for federal funding to increase your police force.

The problem I see is that the more you send troops around the country, the more you send them into the just the crime ridden havens that are just climbing all the crime that could ever be climbed, you eventually will deplete your forces.

By the way, when we've talked about this on earlier shows, these individuals who are roaming the streets of various cities have jobs, whether they are reserve or whether they are actually in the military full time, they have jobs they need to be doing.

And they're not being done.

And after a while, you're going to run out of people.

You're going to, and then, and, and, and I don't want to run, I don't not want to look into the, the crystal ball of the future of conspiracy theories.

I don't like, I don't like getting into those, but when you run out of an, when you run out of people, you're going to start saying, Hey, who wants to sign up?

Who wants to be a part of this?

Who wants to be deputized?

Is that where we go?

Because.

There are a lot of cities that voted not for Trump.

Do we have enough troops to occupy all of them?

And also, by the way, Kelvin, what happens if war?

Do we start bringing troops home from other countries that are doing their job, securing our national interests?

Do we bring them home to say, hey, you're going to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, because Tulsa, if you look at the election map, or somewhere like Lincoln, Nebraska,

And I'm not kidding you.

I'm not being, I'm not being facetious and I'm not being a jokester.

Look at election maps, places like Lincoln, Nebraska, places like, not, not Tulsa, Omaha, Nebraska.

Sorry.

I don't know states sometimes.

Those are places that voted for, did not vote for Trump.

They voted for Joe Biden.

They're blue dots in a red sea.

Are you going to send troops there?

I just need to know the plan.

There's no plan for Chicago.

He said he's sending troops into Chicago.

Milwaukee could be next.

Kingrad on the live stream says, is there a lawyer who we can all pine?

I'm going to talk to Jim Santel about this tomorrow.

I would really like to know, without a real plan, and what are we going to do?

I know there are people out there who are going to say, yeah, we need people in Milwaukee.

We need troops in Milwaukee.

We need to get it straight.

Well, so far, crime has not been completely eliminated in those other cities.

Yeah, they've gone days without having major crimes, but that doesn't mean crime has gone away completely.

Jim and Brookfield's on the call line.

Jim, what do you say to this, my friend?

Good morning and thank you for being here.

You're welcome.

Good morning, Greg.

I just want to say doing a great job.

I'm going solo.

You're doing great.

It's not surprising that the police union.

is behind bringing more troops.

Remember, this is an outfit that worked out a deal under the table with Scott Walker to avoid the act and cuts, you know, so basically the police union, you know, I'd have a great deal for the police and respect them, but the union.

basically is an arm of the Republican Party.

So that's no surprise.

And I just want to say regarding the troops in DC, my daughter, she's graduated from University of Minnesota.

She's been working out there for a couple of years.

Yes, she's seen them out there and she's a little overwhelmed by them.

And I told them, I said, look,

You know, remember, this is just really a publicity stunt to show a force unnecessary by our president.

And also remember that these troops, they're in the National Guard.

They're not full-time military.

These are people just like me and you who volunteer, you know, to help our country in the time of a crisis, which is, this is not, you know, it's what, one week in a month and two weeks in the summer or something.

They're a part-time force, but they're working people just like you and me.

They should be commending.

But unfortunately, their efforts and the time and the sacrifice I think is being wasted out there in DC.

Thank you, Jim.

I appreciate your call.

And that's right.

And it also has detrimental effects on the economies of those cities.

And I know for a fact, DC's economy is taking a hit in the home market as well as just people not wanting to go there.

So we're going to talk more about this tomorrow.

We're going to talk more about this with Jim Santel.

Hopefully get some thoughts on the lost side of what this means for cities, especially a place like Milwaukee where

Chicago is not that far away, but we're going to keep the conversation going.

But for now, we're going to get some snacks, get some water.

It's important to say hydrated.

When we come back, we're going to talk to Sarah Ganski from the Institute for Responsive Government about voting machines, mail-in voting, and why they are safe, wonderful, constitutionally protected, and why we need them.

So don't go anywhere.

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

Stay tuned.

Stay close.

Good morning and welcome back to Matt and Aaron air.

My name is Greg box sitting in for Jane Matt and air who's currently vacating, deservingly relaxing, awesomely, and she misses and loves you and she'll be back before you know it.

But you got me today for the show and we're very, very happy to have you.

If you want to call their text, do it on the same number.

It's 855-752-4842 855-75 civic.

You can leave a comment on the live stream, which is also on Facebook, YouTube or what we also still call Twitter here.

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We're going to remove it and remove you.

So just as a warning, be cool, man.

Just be cool.

Now, before we get any further, I want to introduce our guest today.

She is the state, the director of state policy for the Institute for Responsive Government.

Sarah Gonski is here.

Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

I really, really appreciate you taking the time out here to join us to talk about this very, very important story that came out about a week and a half ago.

And he basically, once again, it's Donald Trump is taking aim at voting machines and early voting, basically anything that's not the traditional walk in the room vote and put your

put your piece of paper in the box or pull a lever he wants to get rid of.

And before we get to that, I want you to just talk about what the Institute for Responsive Government does and what you do in your role.

Yeah, as the Director of State Policy, I work on policies with Institute for Responsive Gov that help make government more responsive.

We are a nonpartisan think tank and advocacy organization that is focused on building resilience and elections and helping the government achieve practical policies that actually make it a helpful source of customer service delivery to folks that live and pay for

it.

Okay.

And I mean, that seems fairly like a bipartisan thing, something that should not be on the right or the left.

It should not be anything other than just standing up for what

America is built on the values.

And yet we still have to put ourselves in the position to defend mail in voting, voting early, the voting machines that are perfectly safe.

I mean, you put out a press release about a week ago, just talking about the importance of combating the words of Donald Trump as far as his attacks on things that are both safe and protected in the voting process.

And

I imagine that, you know, this kind of went away and now it's back.

He's made it a thing again.

I

think that's right.

And I think, you know, a couple of things to keep in mind about this is that what we are seeing has been a continuing theme for the past couple of years, but it's not actually about security.

It's just about politics.

The good news is that these sort of orders that he's issuing have all of the legal force of a sticky note on a refrigerator.

It's a great way to announce the president's feelings on what he would like states to do about voting policy, but he does not actually have the legal authority to strong arm states into doing what he wants on election policy.

I looked at the press release and there was a lot of great articles from your website.

I just want to start with one that says why mail ballots are secure.

I think what they want to do is press this, press this narrative that someone's going in the middle of the night and changing all the, all the, it's, it is next to impossible to do what they say is being done.

A nationwide fraud of voting.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I think the idea that our Elections are secure is not just some pie out of the sky thing that election officials are saying to make everybody sleep better at night in fact our elections are built upon layers and layers and layers of checks and balances where there are multi steps multi factors of security built into every step of the voting process and that is everything from ballot proofing and printing and security at warehouses

all the way through election day, through tabulation and through post tabulation audits and checks.

Almost every, I mean, every jurisdiction in America will have bipartisan teams overseeing every step of this.

Many of these

Processes are online that you can stream.

You can watch ballot tabulation happening.

Political parties are invited.

The process is incredibly open and incredibly layered with security protections in so many different phases that it would be functionally impossible for somebody to do the sort of large-scale fraudulent meddling that has been the basis for a lot of theories and attacks on elections over the past couple years.

And I just want to remind people that last year in the 2024 election, Ron Johnson, who is no fan of, I guess the liberal ways or whatever, and he can have all his opinions, he went to the Milwaukee counting center in there, looked at it cause there were some questions and he came out and said, this is a safe process.

This is good.

They're doing good work.

He, Ron Johnson complimented them.

So I feel like if he's starting there,

That's something to behold in the process of what's going on and something you just said that's very important as well as When you have a sitting president regardless of party saying something like this It's very hard to implement it because as you just said this is state by state.

This is not a This is not a federally run election.

Every state has their own process has their own people has their own ways of doing it and for The president say I want this to happen.

I mean

Let's say a pie in the sky version, everyone says, okay, we're gonna do this.

How long does it take to implement it if it's state by state?

That's the other big factor is that this is not a federally run election.

And it's not even state run, but it's also county run.

It is so layered, as you say, that I don't even know how the federal government could become involved in that sense.

There is a lot of practical difficulties that that this would face for sure.

So in order for this to be effectuated, you'd have to have each and every state legislature go in and tinker around with any number of state laws.

Keep in mind that we have states that are both.

red and blue states that are overwhelmingly voting by mail.

I am talking to you today from Maricopa County, Arizona, a place that knows a thing or two about elections.

I've heard about that place.

Just once or twice.

And in Maricopa County in the 2020 election, we had about 90% of folks vote by mail and that number is about 80 in a non-COVID year.

That's in a state that is not particularly known for progressive voting laws, right?

So elections are run by mail in many, many different ways across the country.

And all of the folks that are voting by mail run a broad swath of geographics, a broad swath of ideological backgrounds.

is not it's not like Democrats are using mail-in voting as sort of one hack to win elections.

This is in fact a method of voting that's broadly used everywhere.

And so in order to change this at a practical level, what would have to happen is you'd have to have all of these state legislatures go in and roll back an awful lot of entrenched voting laws, which would mean changing things like

not just voting by mail statutes, but the way mail ballots are tabulated, the way that elections are actually run.

And you'd have to go in, have all of the courts approve all of those changes, and then have voters actually make these adjustments.

And so that's why there's a lot of reasons why the president is not in charge of state election law.

The Constitution is pretty unequivocal in that, that Congress and state legislators get to decide not the president.

And this is probably one of them.

It's not actually a very helpful way to make public policy need to happen.

one official get up there and be able to set policy in 50 states for lots of different populations.

If you're just joining us on Matt in there on air, we were speaking with Sarah Gonski, who is the Director of State Policy for the Institute for Responsive Government.

And we're talking about the latest rehashed attack from President Trump on voting machines, mail-in voting, anything that's not the walking in the day of putting the name in the box he does not like, does not want.

It's back.

We thought it was gone.

It's back.

Uh, has one conversation with the Russian president.

It's back.

I got a question on the text line though from Jana and walkie-shot.

And, and I want to connect this with something greater worldwide with regard to voting, which is could mail-in ballots be taken away from voters, be considered a violation of people's with disability who rely on such systems.

And I'm going to take that question and also the folks who are

overseas, our troops, our workers, anybody who is a citizen of this country who can vote legally, living in a non-America country, this seems like a violation on many systems of their ability to vote.

It would just basically mean like, if you live in Europe, you can't vote, sorry, if you can't get here, sorry, you don't get to

vote.

I think that's right.

And I think I'm a

I'm a military kid myself,

and

I've spent time being an overseas voter in my adult life.

And so I have particular resonance with this population.

But yeah, I think the idea of taking away mail voting would really strip away a fundamental method of exercising a core constitutional right for our service members, our military personnel, and the elderly.

As you mentioned there, there's a lot of folks that are confined because of mobility challenges to places that don't allow them to get in a car and drive to the nearest

polling location.

Also a lot of rural voters out there can sometimes live an hour away from the nearest polling location.

It's quite far and difficult to get there, particularly November in places where the roads aren't very good or very passable in some rural areas.

So there are a lot of populations that really rely on voting by mail.

And I think the question of whether or not stripping them away would

trigger a lot of constitutional questions over whether this is something that the state even can do or whether this is stripping away a constitutional right.

I think that there would be a lot of litigation spawned because of this from exactly those types of populations that we just discussed.

Yeah, and I want to point out something that you just mentioned as well and something we've made very clear on this show for a long time is that a lot of these time, you know, a lot of these declarations from this administration make it in the

They want to push the narrative of making America great again.

They want to do all these, but really what they do also has hurt a lot of rural folks, the policies.

And this, as you said, would hurt rural folks.

And I just want that to be, I want to repeat what Sarah just said, because I just want people to remember that, that this is, let it not divide us.

We need to protect all the people here.

And one of those groups of people are people who live out in the farmlands.

who, as you said, live far away from polling places and these types of policies can harm.

And one of the things I wanted to ask Sarah too is, you know, if the, as you mentioned that this is essentially a sticky note on the fridge, which by the way, I love that.

I am going to use that.

I'm going to steal it, but I will also give you credit every time I say it because now every time I think of an executive order, I just think of a sticky note that's just slowly falling off a refrigerator.

I'll make the analogy apt.

This wasn't a thing a month ago.

We had said that this topic had kind of died away.

You know, you saw news outlets having to pay money for lying about the security of our voting.

But now it's back because he says so.

And now we need to have this conversation.

You have to put out a press release to remind people that mail-in voting is safe, secure, guaranteed, and

We've been doing it for decades now.

That's right.

I think I was hoping after 2020 that we could talk about other things for a little while, but no rest for the wary for

the

election lawyers out here.

But I think that's right.

And I think a couple of things just to underscore some of the points before we, you know, as we think about what this would mean is that

President Trump has himself in the past encouraged supporters to vote by mail.

Republicans actually gained votes by mail last year and last year a full third of the natural electorate voted by mail and that includes a lot of states with these rural populations like Indiana and South Dakota and Utah seeing some of the biggest uptick.

So this is a common routine voting method that has actually was led the effort to

you know, include more vote by mail statutes was led by Republican states back in the 90s and 2000s.

And so this is a fundamentally secure method of voting that we can feel good about moving forward politics, notwithstanding.

All right, we're going to keep the conversation going with Sarah Gonski, who's the director of state policy for the Institute for responsive government.

We're going to we're going to keep this conversation going.

But we're now we're going to move it to electronic

voting machines because that was also a part of the target in the President Trump's remarks.

So we're going to keep the topic afloat.

You can call text 855-752-4842, 855-755-CIVIC.

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Good

morning.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg box sitting in for Jane, Matt and air, who is currently vacating deservedly.

She just texted me right now.

Everyone and she says she loves you and she misses you and she'll be back before you know, but you got me and you got sweet kelby on the dials.

You can call or text the number is the same 8557 5248 428555 75 civic.

Leave a comment on the live stream.

on Facebook, YouTube, and what we in this house still call Twitter.

In the second hour, 10-06, we have Darren Von Ruden, who is the president of Wisconsin Farmers Union, giving us all the updates on the farming.

Audio Sorbet at 10-35, and then this shouldn't be a thing at 10-52.

Don't go anywhere.

Stick around.

You're having fun.

I know it.

I can see

it.

I can see it.

I can't see you, but I can feel it.

We got Sarah Gonski, who is the director of state policy for the Institute for responsive government still here talking about fresh attacks from President Trump on mail-in voting, voting equipment, and just the voting process.

Essentially, the conceit is if you live in a blue state, it's wrong.

If you mail-in vote by red states, you're fine.

We'll figure it out later.

Nuance, who needs it?

Sarah, something you brought up that was very interesting before we went and grabbed ourselves a snack to return after the news.

Hold on.

Had to cough.

But you mentioned the Republicans endorsement of mail-in voting.

And I forgot to even mention that too.

In last year, in December of 2023, the Wisconsin GOP got a new chairman, Brian Schimming.

And he made it very clear that he wanted to push the narrative that mail-in voting was safe, accurate, and something you should take hold of.

And as you said, they did.

And now we're back again saying that mail-in voting is bad.

And now we're saying that the voting election equipment is bad.

The electronic voting machines were another target in President Trump's attacks.

And we saw two major news, well, Fox and a Newsmax or whatever, but they had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because they made inaccurate statements about electronic voting machines, which shows

distrust and has a knock on effect and I What do you say to that?

Like what do you say to people who have even though like well, can we really trust it?

What what what is your what is your and your group's response?

Yes, we absolutely can trust it.

I would say that election equipment is tested to the max it is some of the most tested

recertified, retested, and examined equipment used in government full stop.

In general, machines go through federal certification, state, and local certification before and after every election.

Machines have paper backups as well.

So there are literal receipts.

Most of the time, if you are voting on a machine, then it is creating a paper ballot.

At minimum, it creates a paper receipt that can literally go and be checked against that cast vote record.

And it is.

These equipment, the equipment is also sealed.

It is kept in usually very lockdown conditions with limited physical access, limited digital access.

The chain of custody rules are insane.

If you've ever seen election equipment be unpacked or set up, there are more seals than SeaWorld show.

Everybody is unwrapping things with bipartisan teams that are reading out serial numbers.

There is all sorts of audits going on at every stage of the election process.

And then lastly, I'm going to say this like multiple times for the cheap seats, but voting machines are not connected to the internet.

they are not connected to the internet.

They are fully air gap systems, which means that if you walk into a tabulation room, for example, in Maricopa County in Arizona, where I sit, when you walk into the room where the voting equipment is, you can see physically all of the lines of connection that are the internet lines.

Those are actual physical wires that are kept outside the walls so that everybody can take a peek.

So voting machines are not connected to the internet.

Basically, in short, they are some of the most inspected, looked over machines that we can

use.

More seals in a SeaWorld show.

Okay.

All right.

I see what you're dealing with there, Sarah.

I like it.

I like it.

And also, let's not forget something that these companies who create and run and contract these machines to various states for their elections, they have a vested interest in making sure their equipment is correct because even if

take away the take away the the the planned fraud conspiracy side of it.

If one of those machines goes wrong and say one machine starts tabulating incorrectly, they're going to face massive problems, investigations, possibly fines, lawsuits.

I mean, it is in their best interest to create the best machines possible.

It doesn't make sense for them to engage in a multi state

Fraud to to upend our elections.

It just it just never has made sense And there's never been proof by the way to show that this has been the case But yet here we are as you said post 2020 still talking about it because the guy in Washington DC said they're bad and now other people are saying well I guess they might be bad

That's right, and I think that there is just an awful lot

of

there's an awful lot of room for conspiracy theories when election administration is just so complicated and it's so localized that it feels like an impossible subject matter to sort of get your arms around how things actually work and what that's kind of done is leave a breeding ground for people to assume that they probably know how it would work and I think in general one thing to just

keep in mind is that these voting equipment is used in counties run by Republicans, run by Democrats from your deep ruby red counties to your Brooklyn, New York are using similar voting equipment from similar manufacturers, testing it, retesting it in their own local jurisdictions, thousands of them before the election, after the election, certainly somebody would catch if there were anything wrong.

And to your point, the equipment manufacturers have an enormous vested interest and a lot of careers writing on the fact that those

machines are reliable.

Yeah.

And I'm just going to post this post post this question of those who may believe that this is inaccurate what we're talking about.

If that's the case, then the people who you voted for in your conservative areas or just yourself, they didn't win either.

So there it's, it's all, it's not just one candidate.

It's all of the candidates.

It would all have to be redone.

It's a lot.

It's too many questions.

to support a theory like this.

So Sarah Gonski, director of state policy for the Institute of Responsive, for responsive government.

Thank you so much for being our guest.

We'll put all this stuff on our show notes today and we'll get your groups on the show notes as well.

We really appreciate your time on this.

Have a wonderful day.

Thanks for having

me.

When we come back, it's going to be time for the farm update with Darren Von Ruden from the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

So don't go far.

Stay close.

Stay tuned.

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

good morning.

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Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

chat with us.

We want to know what's going on.

We'd love to hear from you.

We are on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform we still call Twitter in this house.

At 1035, we're going to have some audio sorbet talking about the things we're finding out about Wisconsin.

I found out a lot about Wisconsin yesterday that I did not know.

So I did some more diving into the wonderfulness that is the dairy state, the cranberry state, the Badger state, and I now know why.

But you can be a part of that conversation.

Let us know.

You can email that in at Jane says at civic media.us J A N E S A Y S at civic media.us.

And of course to round it all out.

This shouldn't be a thing today.

The in the thick of an edition.

Calvin found this one and he will be defending his feelings on it as well.

So don't go anywhere.

Got a great, great, great second hour for you ahead.

And it is the first Wednesday of the month, which

I don't know if my next guest knows how excited I am to have him on the show every month, because I love hearing from him.

I love hearing about the world of farming.

It is the Wisconsin Farmers Union's president, Darren Von Ruden.

Darren, welcome to the show.

Welcome to Wednesday.

How are you doing, my friend?

Well, thank you, Greg, for having me again.

And I am doing well.

It's got done chopping our third crop yesterday.

So gotta

couple of days off here and then heading to Washington DC for our National Farmers Union fly in and then get home from that.

And then it's Vernon County Fair time.

So I'll be flipping burgers at the Vernon County, Vernon Crawford County Farmers Union food stand on Friday and Saturday.

So busy couple of weeks coming

up.

Okay, I'm going to look up on a map where the Vernon Crawford County Fair is going to be because I would love to have a burger flip by Mr.

Darren Von Ruden, I would say that.

Actually, a couple days off, you don't usually hear that from a farmer saying that.

I got a couple days off.

In reality, I might have less than 12 hours.

You know, it's about noon now and by noon tomorrow, I got to be getting ready to go to Madison and jump on an airplane.

Gotcha.

I see.

So time, time variables are different for farmers.

Like a couple of days off that.

What does that mean in regular people?

Three hours.

Uh, well, I'm glad you, as always, you can take time to talk to us about what's going on in the world of farming.

There's never not something happening.

And I want to start.

You mentioned that there is reorganization at the USDA.

And I'm just going to actually read the headline of an article from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

It says it very simple.

Trump's appointees reorganize and reorganizes and quotes the USDA putting the department's mission at risk.

And from what I understand, Darren, they're going to kind of take everyone in DC and throw them into remote offices around the country.

Yeah, that's the current plan.

And it seems like it's probably gonna be a major hurdle, number one, because a lot of those employees that are in DC might not want to relocate to those cities of choice that USDA has picked for relocating those offices.

We did see some of this under the first Trump administration, where they moved a part of the USDA to Kansas City.

and less than 40% of the actual employees from DC relocated.

So now you see the situation where you have to retrain people, hire new people, get the local sector there really ready to handle what's happening.

The USDA really needs to still have a central location, which hopefully will be DC.

But if they do decide to move that central location out of DC,

that just means that we're going to have less interaction yet with our elected officials through the USDA.

And so, you know, everything that we can see in looking at the history of these reorg things within the USDA, they have not ended well.

So it's hard to say how this is going to end up because it's still kind of in the beginning process, but

We're really afraid of the consequences that farmers are going to face with this reward issue.

Well, and that's, you know, that always is what the conversation comes down to is how this always is going to affect the farmers.

And, you know, one of these days I want to have you on the show where I say, what's going on?

And you say, it's great, Greg, being a farmer is the best.

The government is great.

The state governments are great.

I mean, I am just swimming in money and dairy.

It's the best thing ever.

But it seems like everything

That happens has such a knock-on effect for the farmers and and and by the way folks when I say that I'm really talking about both administer on both parties both sides But what this seems to do to me is Throw the USDA into a timeline of disarray and inconsistency where one their bet they they think better they think that having less people in

the offices, having less people working is better because, you know, government is uploaded, government's awful, government's slow.

So if we, you know, if 40 people quit, then that's fine.

We'll just have the rest of them do the work, because that's how we do it, the government's efficient and whatever.

But also, from the time that this all takes place, from when it starts, and something that I found on farmweeknow.com is that the USDA is extending their comment period for the reorganization plan.

So it hasn't taken effect yet.

And it's going until the end of the month so people can put in their comments.

But let's say calendar year 2026, it starts.

How long is it before farmers can actually rely upon the USDA to do their job after they're done shipping people to different states, getting them their housing, getting them started, plugging in the computers.

I mean, this is.

You are already in a place where you don't know what's going on with regard to the farm bill and we'll get to that in a moment.

But this seems like a whole new hurdle that is just going to absolutely decimate some farms.

Yeah.

Well, you know, in reality, hopefully it's a seamless process so that farmers have that every day contact.

Yeah.

In reality, though, it's probably not going to happen because when you do lose that many employees from any business, really, there is some issues that will arise.

Maybe not on day one, but day 10, 20, 30, as people are still trying to figure out where their office is at number one, but number two, just the programming and as you look at it somewhat of an aged computer system within the USDA, it hasn't been kept up to what it needs to be.

So looking at trying to make those connections and get the programs aligned for your farm that you want to be a part of,

You know certainly with the cuts that have been made within the USD already there's a ton of programs that aren't available So yes, there is a little bit less work But those farms have been critical to small farmers across the country and really you know this reorganization and trying to become more efficient as they say Is really only helping the largest farms that you know, I I don't know that I consider most of the people that are getting those

three-quarter million or a million dollar checks farmers.

They're farming the system is what they're doing.

They're not actually the ones that are out there getting the manure and the dirt under their fingernails and doing the hard work of producing the high-quality food that farmers have.

for decades in this country.

If you're just joining us on Matt and Aaron, you are listening to the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, Darren Von Ruden.

He joins us the first Wednesday of every month to give us the update on what's happening in the farming world.

And we're talking currently about the proposed reorganization of the USDA.

And Tony on the live stream says something interesting here.

And I want to hook it into a question that's

More about your experience of going to Washington because you go to Washington every year to talk to legislators You talk to you talk to people like not just not to see elected officials But the people who work in the departments that directly affect the farmers and he said he said Democrat Tim Ryan from Ohio proposed moving agencies out of Washington DC But he proposed moving them to economically distressed areas not moving for political reasons and the political reasons thing that hit me was because in this picture in this article from the

From I want to get the name of it.

Correct the union of concerned citizens.

There is a picture of the building of where the USDA is and there is a tank and two troops in front of it and there is a hanging banner and I want to know from you Darren of all the times you've been to that building where the USDA is Have you ever seen a banner with the president's face on it?

Or has it just been a banner saying the USDA has it because I'm looking at a banner with President Trump's face on there in his very, you know

Staring with the low lights and making them look very ominous, but have you ever seen that?

Not in all the years that I've been going out there and I've been going out there since the early 90s with the exception of a couple years in that and knowing never have certainly there's been banners Hanging on the buildings celebrating different events that have happened You know, it's certainly during different times of year.

There's banners that are there to celebrate things but

never have seen a banner of the president on the outside.

And I want to bring that up and thank you for answering that because I know that wasn't on our list of things to discuss.

But it goes back to something we talked about earlier that these things aren't being done with a plan in mind.

These are all being done for political reasons and for whether it's whether it's quote draining the swamp or punishing states who don't vote for you or cities that don't vote for you or occupying them with troops.

This everything is about a political reason is not about

It is not about the process.

It's not about a plan that can help benefit the farmers.

This is about propping up one man and that man's in the Oval Office and he thinks he knows everything.

And really when it comes down to it, as you've made it very clear, reorganizing the USDA in this way is not advantageous for the farmers.

Now, if you could, if you, if you were asked Darren Von Ruden, farmer in Wisconsin to say like, Hey, what can we do to make the USDA better?

I mean,

I'm sure you would have a list of things.

You would have some things that here's some pointers.

Yeah, you know, many to begin with number one is making sure that we spread the wealth instead of concentrating the wealth.

You know, over the years, we're starting to see fewer recipients that are getting larger dollars.

you know, why does anybody need to be getting a check for a million dollars when the cost of living and you're, um, oh, I'm trying to think of another word here now.

Anyway, what, you know, poverty level, um, is that $40,000 in most states, uh, some states it's less than that.

But why do we continue to give out these huge checks to one or two individuals?

In some places, some farms are really farming the system and having a whole family, four, five, six, 10 individuals getting those dollars from there.

We need to make sure that happens.

the previous administration, Zach Duchenneau was the Secretary of Agriculture or the FSA Director, National Director.

He actually put his phone number out there so farmers and employees could call him on a regular basis.

We're not seeing that from this administration.

They're really keeping a tight lip and making sure that they don't have to go out and do any more than they have to.

And so the openness being really

proactive in trying to solve problems before causing problems.

We're seeing more problems being caused by this reorganization than we should be.

And going back to what you just mentioned, too, is like those people getting the checks usually are the bigger farm factory companies, not the farmers that you know, the farmer that you are.

And we're going to keep this conversation going with Darren Von Ruden, who is the president of the Wisconsin Farmer's Union, because he's heading to Washington again to talk about

Many things regarding farming, including the farm bill, which by the way, still has not been passed, but we're going to talk to talk to Darren about that and talk about his experience and what we should expect from those conversations.

When we come back from the other side of the commercial, get yourself some water, get yourself a snack, stay hydrated, stay amazing, stay awesome.

You're listening to Matt and Air on Air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg box sitting in for Jane Matt and air who is currently vacating and she will be returning back sometime sooner than later, but we're happier here today or happier sharing your time with us.

You can always be part of the conversation 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic.

You can also leave a comment on the live stream.

We are on Facebook, YouTube and the place we still call Twitter.

My guests as always on the first Wednesday of every month.

is Mr. Darren Von Ruden, who is the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

We were talking earlier about the regal organization of the USDA under the Trump administration and the tumult that it will present for our farmers because he wants to send all of those who work in Washington out to two various areas of the state of the country.

For reasons, I don't know.

I'm not going to try to get in that man's head, but they're not good ones and they're not going to help the farmers.

But you, sir, Mr. Von Ruden.

You said yourself going to Madison tomorrow, getting on a plane flying to DC, because this is what you do as part of the Farmers Union.

You go and lobby and speak and try to push influence in a good way.

I don't want to use that word in a negative light, but you want to help lobby your farming community.

And so talk to us about what will be part of that fly-in next week.

Yeah, so next...

Sunday evening through Wednesday, members of Wisconsin Permers Union and all the other state organizations will be flying into DC to visit the USDA on Monday morning.

We go to the Jefferson Auditorium and get quite a few presentations from USDA staffers.

In years past, we've had very good interaction with our USDA Secretary of Agriculture under the

Last Trump administration, we had a, we were in the presence of Secretary, I'm drawing a blank now on his name from Georgia, but he did not take any questions from the audience because the microphone system in the audience wasn't the best.

Well, under every other secretary, we've been able to interact and have those questions.

And of course, there's going to be some hard ones because

when you're in a dire situation like farmers are, they bring those stories to DC and talk about them openly and want to get a reaction from either secretary or undersecretaries or somebody else that's in there.

Tuesday we'll spend the day on the hill visiting our congressional offices here in the state, plus probably from some other states that we don't have a firm regime in present.

Presidents in Wednesday morning.

We'll finish that up by noon and then farm rolls will head home.

Okay This year we're certainly looking at that farm bill process You know, we're hearing many different names for it right now farm bill 2.0 skinny farm bill What can happen because of the the bill that was passed back in in May that took a bunch of the farm bill

dollars and put them into that bill so some sectors of the farm bill have you know been addressed and have been funded but the conservation title and trying to make sure that a lot of the programs at small farms had been receiving can we get those back but really conservation is a big one because if we don't look at making sure that we've got good adequate water plus lands that are productive

in the system and keep them going.

You know, what does the future of agriculture look like in 15, 20 years if we see a huge bump that we're probably going to be seeing with the current actions in DC?

And for one, former secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue was in during the first administration and shocking as Mike didn't work.

But

as a point of reference, just so people know this farm bill isn't something that's just, you know, oh, we're working on this right now.

We're making it.

You know, it's this is a, this is a bill that's two years late.

This bill is, this bill was supposed to be passed in 2023 and it was kicked down the curb for a year.

And then they said another year and, and, and they weaponized the bill because of the, because of the food subsidies within that bill.

As you mentioned, they took them out and put them into the big bill for billionaires.

And there's a part of me that says, well, you know,

Can we take the lemons and make lemonade?

Can you negotiate?

Say, look, you took the things you don't like out.

Now let's negotiate a new bill that actually helps us.

But it seems like in the conversations I've heard from you had with you and from other people like Hans Brighton Moser and Pam Yankee, the move is to really benefit the corporate big business farms as much as possible.

And you guys, we love you.

You're the backbone.

Good job.

But you're essentially on your own.

Yeah, you know, it's really frustrating that they've forgotten about small farmers small town USA Which as you said is the backbone of the country because with without those economies strong It all trickles up.

Yeah, you know the trickle down economy that we've seen from the Republican administrations for the last four decades now

those dollars never get back to small town america and we're seeing the destruction of that process and this is really going to exacerbate that process as we go forward here because there's going to be less opportunities for small town america to be able to get funding that should have been available could have been available we pay taxes just like the we actually pay more taxes than the billionaires do you know especially with current system the way it is yeah

So why are those taxes tax dollars not coming back to the communities that pay them?

And whether it's through the Farm Bill or it's other programs out there, we need to make sure that we keep fighting and let them know that we're not happy and looking forward.

We do have an election coming up again next year and people really need to take a look at what's going on out there in DC and in Madison.

Which party

is in charge right now and which party's been better for you or more destructive to you.

Yeah

and I would love to be funny about this but I'm not but I hope someone passes this along to the congressman but Mr. Van Orton we're talking are you listening you're on the ag committee help please be part of the solution please

Darren Von Ruden is our guest every first Wednesday of the month talking to us about everything farming.

Mr. Von Ruden, Darren, have a great trip.

Be safe.

Enjoy your day or so often.

Flip them burgers with gusto, buddy.

Thank you, Greg.

What are you on the western side of the states?

All right.

All right.

Maybe I'll be there.

All right.

When we come back, it's time for Audio Soar Bay.

What do you know about Wisconsin?

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close.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome back to Matt and Aaron air.

My name is Greg box sitting in for Jane Matt and air who is currently vacating and we'll be back before you know it.

But you got me for right now and more importantly and way cooler.

Sweet Calbee on the ones and the twos, the Dr. Slide.

Calvin, really quick, we had a suggestion or a request from our listeners.

By the way, if you're listening, watching on the live stream or on the phone or on your device through the Civic Media app, which I'm going to talk about in a moment.

You can give us a call, 855-752-4842, 855-755-CIVIC, call or text, same phone number.

You can do that on the regular phone or on the Civic Media app.

If you're on the live stream, leave a comment.

On the live stream, we are on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform we still call Twitter.

I think last year, Calvin, we put out a request, you know, for nicknames for you.

And I feel like we use sweet Calbee.

The Calvinator and Dr. Slide are there any others that you can remember or that you liked that we don't use or should we put a Request for proposal for more.

I feel like you might be due for a refresh a rebrand

You know, I'm always open to new suggestions.

I think one that's kind of falling out of favor and look I don't have preferences.

It's like

parent with their children they

love them all

equally One that's falling out of favor though.

I think it's the board lord.

I don't hear that

You know honestly for I feeling for the two kind of and I'll just say it and I don't mean to insult you But I might going to I might insult you right now But I do it out of love because I do love you Calvin for the kind of dorks that you and I are nerds geeks.

However you want to put it

I feel like board lord is like that's just like you should be you should be coming in every day like almost Darth Vader-esque in a just a black costume and wielding your fist at all those who leave really inappropriate comments on the live stream banning them with authority and without impunity.

It's my favorite pastime.

There you go.

All right.

Well, if you want to send us more nicknames for Calvin, feel free to do that.

You know, you can email us.

It's very simple.

You can drop them in the live stream.

You can drop them in the text.

You can email them at Jane says at civicmedia.us, J-A-N-E-S-A-Y-S at civicmedia.us.

You can also do that with suggestions for this shouldn't be a thing.

Guest topics we might want to cover.

We love hearing from you.

We really, truly, truly do.

And I want to send a shout out to Barb and Waukesha.

I hope she is listening because last Tuesday was my first show sitting in for Jane this time around.

And she just sent me a really nice note saying, good show, Greg.

And that really, or great show, Greg.

That really meant a lot.

So Barb, I did see it.

I did see you.

And I appreciate you.

Mentioned before the Civic Media app, Calvin, we got to get down to brass tax here for the Civic Media app.

If you have it, great.

You can always get in touch with us via the Civic Media app.

You can call or text.

You can also leave a voice note.

It's also free to put on your device.

So go to wherever you get your apps, whether it's the Google Play Store or the Apple Apple Store.

I just want to say two things, Apple Apple Store.

You can go ahead and get that app on your phone, on your device, and you can get in contact with us.

Voice notes are very, very cool.

And also, here's another thing, Calvin.

You know this, I know this.

Dan Schaefer knows this because he tries this shenanigans every Friday.

For another couple of weeks, we have free ticket Friday, where we're going to give you a keyword throughout the day, five different keywords throughout the day.

And you can use that keyword to enter into contests to win yourself a four pack of Brewer's club level seats.

We'll give you more information as far as who they're playing in a day or so, but you can always enter.

You have to enter with the Civic Media app.

You can enter in as many times when you get that keyword.

You get that keyword.

Let me rephrase that.

When you get the keyword, you enter in once, you get many keywords through the day.

So you have multiple chances to win.

Also, and if I'm not mistaken, and I know I'm not, in the next few weeks, we're going to be doing another statewide text to win contest.

We don't have the details.

We can't give it to you right now because I don't have anything to tell you.

All I can say is that fabulous prizes might be a part of it.

And that means you want to get that Civic Media app on your device so you can participate because you have to have that device.

to participate.

You can't just text it in.

You can't email it in.

You can't call it in.

You can't send it to a snail mail.

You got to use that civic media app.

So go to your app store choice, download it right now.

Listen to us live there because you can listen to us anywhere in the world through that civic media app.

It's incredibly diverse, diversified, it's great and customizable, and it's app, absolutely free.

Shasta listening in Eau Claire on WCFW says Cal Pal.

How about Cal Pal?

You like that one, Calvin, for a nickname?

Kalpal?

Yeah,

I mean, I'm not opposed to it.

OK, all right.

So, all right.

Well, while we wait for more suggestions about nicknames for Calvin, because, you know, we do the good hard work here at the WBA award-winning show, Matt and Aaron Ear.

It's now time for a segment we love that we call Audio Sorbet.

That is when we take the time because we've been talking a lot about a lot of heavy things.

We spoke to Darren Von Ruden about the farmers.

We talked about, you know, the attacks from Donald Trump on mail in voting and voting machines again.

So we want to take this moment.

This is the time when we kind of kick off our shoes, relax and talk about something fun in the news.

And I just yesterday, we were very fortunate to have some great guests on the show.

Todd Alba was on.

We had John Shelton, who's a professor from UW Green Bay.

We also had Terry Barr, the genie of pretty much everything.

And I feel like every single one of them, Calvin, told me something about Wisconsin I didn't know.

So I thought, what else don't I know about Wisconsin?

I've lived here my entire life.

I was born and raised in southeastern Wisconsin, born in Waukesha, lived in southeastern Wisconsin my entire life.

And I don't claim to know absolutely everything about it.

But I didn't know some things and everything they were telling me was wonderful.

So if there are things about Wisconsin that you know that you want to share, I want you to text it in, call it in.

You can leave a comment on the live stream, 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic if you want to call us.

But yeah, we want to know about the tidbits of Wisconsin that you know that you'd like to share.

that maybe we don't know and we get to learn a little bit more about the, the wonderful cheese slash dairy slash Badger state.

One of the most, there's two things actually that Terry brought up yesterday.

I'm going to repeat them.

And one of them comes from Jim from Brookfield.

She talked about this yesterday, but I want to talk about this again.

Wisconsin fun fact.

He's listening right now on the air.

In September of 1962, a 20-pound piece of the Russian satellite Sputnik landed on a street in Manitowoc.

The piece was sent to the Smithsonian Institute for confirmation.

Today, the city of Manitowoc celebrates the event with Sputnik Fest, and we talked about that yesterday, because Terry Barr will be writing about that, and you can see her story on civicmedia.us slash news.

In fact, it's part of her Slice of Wisconsin series.

Great little pieces.

on wisconsin things that we don't know places we don't know places as a wisconsin that you probably never heard of and you want to visit but yes sputnik fest sputnik fest that's hard to say kelvin sputnik fest is part of the raw west art museums uh series it is going to be happening i believe this weekend and let's see here there's a lot going on there's going to be oh it's going to be happening yeah it's going to be happening on the 6th of september so that is i believe saturday

You can get down to Manitowoc and enjoy.

It's all day long.

There's going to be a 5k.

There's going to be food trucks.

There's going to be music.

So if you want to be a part of that, do that and enjoy a little piece of space history that's connected to Wisconsin history.

Calvin, do you have anything that you know about Wisconsin that we might not know?

Fun factoid, maybe about where you're from in your community.

You live more in Western Waukesha County.

So there's always great stuff out there.

Yeah.

Well,

So my I'm from Eagle that is the home of Old World Wisconsin Yep, we have a one-room school house on display there that is about all I know about Eagle that's oh actually we have home of Paradise Springs, okay, which I believe They bottled water there like in the early 1900s like one of the first places to ever do it and now it's kind of

a tourist attraction that high school kids go there to scare each other in the woods.

Of

course, of

course.

One less, I guess it's not really fun because it's kind of sad, but I was shocked when I heard this and a lot of people probably know this, but the legendary Otis Redding died

in a

plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin, which I was very peculiar.

I found that peculiar.

Yeah.

In fact, he wasn't the first musician to

Parrish in a crash at Stevie Ray Vaughan in the nineties did as well.

And I went to, so if you're ever in Georgia and you're in driving distance, go to Macon, Georgia.

It's about an hour outside of Atlanta and they have the Otis Redding Museum.

And what was funny is when we went there, Calvin, we walked through, so my wife's favorite singer is Otis Redding.

She loves Otis Redding.

We've had arguments about who's better, Sam Cooke or Otis Redding.

We just came to the realization they're both very different.

They're both amazing.

That's how you keep the peace.

But we went there and we were looking around very small.

It's not, it's not, and when I say museum, I'm not saying it's like multi-leveled or a big building.

It is literally, you know, a small room, but there's enough history there.

And when we walked up to the counter to buy our wares, we bought a t-shirt, we bought some stuff and we were talking to this young man and he said, do you recognize, like, do you see it?

I'm like, what do you mean?

He goes, do you recognize?

I said,

I don't really, he goes, he goes, I'm Otis Redding's grandson.

So Otis Redding, the third runs that museum and it's a great place.

His family runs it.

They're working on making a bigger museum along with a music center for people, but that's Georgia.

Come back to Wisconsin.

The history of Wisconsin in Waukesha, especially with regard to the spring water is very much in also a part of Waukesha city's history because there was a time when it was called the Saratoga of the West, where there was a belief that the,

Bethesda Springs in Waukesha had healing properties.

They bottled the water up.

That's why Waukesha is called Spring City because in the 19th century, there was such a boom for these healing waters that they actually said that water from the Fox River.

I know the Fox River and the Bethesda Springs had healing properties and that is a fun little

part of, cause Waukesha was called Prairieville back in the day.

And then it was called Waukesha.

But yeah, Richard Dunbar, look him up.

I learned so much about that in grade school, Calvin.

I can't even begin to tell you another great thing.

Another thing that I think that I really think we don't talk about enough Cal is the fact that we are like the largest producers of cranberry in the United States.

We are like, we should, we could easily be the cranberry state.

And there's a cranberry festival that happens every year.

And I think it's actually coming up.

That's right.

It's coming up later on this month, the 26th to the 28th, the 52nd annual Warren's cranberry festival in Warren's, Wisconsin.

We do so much cranberry work here.

It's so cool.

If there's any, another fun fact from Jim in Brookfield, he says the up North town of luck, Wisconsin is an old logging town that God's name, when the loggers made it back from camp before dark, they were lucky.

I love that.

Thank you so much, Jim for.

letting us know about that.

Is there anything else, any other fun facts you'd like to share with us?

Go ahead and give us a call 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.

The largest woolly mammoth ever excavated was found in Kenosha.

Wow.

Found in Kenosha County.

And you can find it at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

I did not know that, Calvin.

The world's largest woolly mammoth.

And if we don't learn our lesson, they're going to remake it through.

regeneration of DNA.

We didn't learn our lesson through Jurassic Park, so we're going to keep doing that.

I'm trying if there was one more.

Oh, and the other thing too, and this was also brought up by the history of the Badgers was not in fact the animals.