The Vacant Agency (Hour 1)

Good morning and welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

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

You can always join us.

Call her text.

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We have.

a really jam-packed show today.

Some would say super jam-packed.

Super jammed.

People are saying people are.

Many

people are saying.

Many people are saying.

Our friend and colleague and host of Amicus, a law review, Jim Santel, is going to be joining us after 9.35.

There is so much to cover.

that we're not going to nearly have time to get into with him.

So listen to his show on Saturday mornings across the network from nine to 11.

It's called amicus a law review.

It is a great show.

Jim Santel going to be joining us after the 9 30 news among the many, many things we're going to talk about.

And we mentioned this just briefly yesterday.

Alex Jones.

Not good

info wars.

who spread vicious, horrible lies about the families of the Sandy Hook victims, and Ed Martin, who's Alex Jones' good buddy.

Apparently, he was trying to go after an FBI agent who testified in the trial brought by the families of the victims against Alex Jones.

It's unbelievable this story.

It is unbelievable.

Yeah.

My eye is also on the story of the nomination for, not Attorney General, but prosecutor.

Jim Santel is what?

He was a former U.S.

attorney.

Exactly.

There it is.

A nomination for a U.S.

attorney who just couldn't find any evidence.

So he either quit or got fired.

I don't know.

No one will save for sure.

But yeah, apparently five months of research brought a bupkiss.

But we'll talk more about that as well.

It's just ridiculous.

Donk, you lost.

And then the person the Trump administration put in to replace that guy who could not find evidence to

bring

against Tisha James in New York, she's never prosecuted the case.

Never.

Then if she did.

Supremely qualified.

Jane, she doesn't do well.

You're up next.

You'll be.

I volunteer.

There you go.

And hour number two representative of Mark Pocan will be here.

We're going to talk about the looming government shutdown next week.

here we are again yes here we are again and of course the republicans that control the house the senate and the white house are blaming all the democrats and and are saying if this happens it's the democrats fault because

you know they're in power uh huh no and also i just want to point back to history and i'll bring this up to congressman pocan is that if you look back to all of the close to or shutdowns that have happened they've almost

They have always been blamed on Republicans.

You can go look through history.

Even when Obama was president because the Republicans were in power.

We'll talk more.

I'm sorry.

I could talk about this for days because it's just perception and the fact that get your house in order.

That'd be nice.

Acme packing companies Paul Noonan will be here for a sports update after 10 30 for a little audio survey and then we'll wrap up the show as we always do.

With this shouldn't be a thing.

Today it's the night shift edition.

I encourage you to stay tuned for that.

It is underway, my friends.

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gas card to it is it's a great package so text in the word bay be a why and good luck we're to talk prices

Grocery prices.

Oh, they're going down.

They're just plummeting folks.

If you listen to anyone from the Trump administration life has never been better Mm-hmm as everything is coming down Unless I don't know you actually go to grocery stores.

I do I went yesterday.

Yeah, I bought a pound of ground beef.

Yeah, it was almost nine dollars

How much was it say like

How much was it during the first Trump administration?

That's even four or five years ago.

That's too long ago.

Okay.

I would say

even last year it was closer to five.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are you seeing higher prices when you go shopping?

855-752-4842.

That's 855-75 Civic Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Maya Pandy with the byline as an article about it that says grocery prices are ticking up across the Midwest.

Nationwide food prices at grocery stores rose by 0.6% from July to August.

That is the largest monthly rate increase for groceries since October of 2022.

I think that, you know, another question I'd like to ask people out there because we've discussed this topic here and there is.

What decisions are you having to make to afford your groceries, afford your medicine, afford your rent, afford this, that, I mean- What about water bills?

What about electric bills?

We saw back-to-school prices skyrocketing this year.

We've seen all of these, and just as a breaking news, breaking news here, gas is still not $1.99, so- It's not, I gasped up this morning.

Yeah, so my question to you is also not just-

Are you seeing higher prices, but are you having to make tough choices on what you can afford versus what you need to pay for?

That's those are the realities and we've got and we've got a bunch of politicians out there who are talking about affordability and I just want to know how are you going to do that because you can't walk up to Nestle and say lower your prices.

Yeah, we're at where we're at now.

Nestle's gonna laugh.

Um, this actually came up on the Fox network.

Laura Ingram.

Oh boy.

who makes millions of dollars a year.

She's fine.

She's fine.

We're talking about prices with a guest.

Let's play that clip from Laura Ingram on Fox, please, Calvin.

Okay, so the halting of the cattle trade with Mexico, a lot of Americans don't know that we get so much of our

beef from

Mexico,

but

we do.

So it's drastically reduced compared to the first half of 2024.

So we've bought 63% less.

live animals from our southern neighbor.

So is there a concern that our costs are going to continue to go up?

Because affordability is a big issue for American consumers.

I was just at the grocery store this morning.

Yes, I go to the grocery store.

Thank you very

much.

And there were two steaks.

It was $33 for

two

steaks at the grocery store.

Fancy steaks or just like maybe they were a little flaming.

I don't know but they were a little

$32.

So here's the thing we talked about eggs months ago when the price of eggs were so high that the problem the challenge I'll say with our cattle and our beef industry is that it takes two years from calf to slaughter but Laura here's the I don't know if it's the silver lining but the long-term vision just like our manufacturing that we have offshored for years that

you've

been such a leader on

We've also offshored our food, our beef cattle, our citrus.

So much of this we're now importing from other countries

like

Mexico.

This is a massive flag for our country.

If we can't feed ourselves, this is a national security issue that has to be solved.

So what I'm hearing from that is maybe our government.

Needs to give a rip about our farmers and help them I understand affordability and I understand that's the point of this conversation But what she just said and what I heard was that if we are if we are relying on other countries for these things For for food which we can grow here.

We can grow food here some some some we can we do beef we do corn we do these so What fixes in the United States?

Can we implement?

How do we help farmers?

Maybe change if they can, do more, incentivize.

I just see possibilities, Jane.

Well,

I guess the thing I pulled out of that was the two years.

Yeah.

Again, Donald Trump said he would lower prices on day one.

Yes, of course.

Of course

he said.

We're

almost 10 months into this administration.

Prices are doing nothing but rising.

And so apparently we just have to wait.

We were told by Elon two years of pain two years of pain two years of just two years of pain and the other thing One of the reasons why we have imports is because people want to eat tomatoes in January Yeah, yes, so we buy them from places that can grow them in January

I would just like to hear that I would like to play that Derek Darren von Ruden will be here next week I'd love to play that last bit for him and say all right you want to

You want to put the same blueprint that you're doing for manufacturing.

Bring it back to America.

Okay.

How do we do that?

Of course, there are things that can't be done.

I understand that completely.

But if you want to have more food growth, more availability here in this country, then you have to do the hard work and make programs that make it easier, incentivize tax credits for them to do this.

Instead, what you're doing to these farmers is just making it harder.

And then guess what happens?

The prices go up.

Carol from

Waukesha texting in.

Yes, prices are up across the board.

Halloween candy has gone up quite a bit.

Also coffee.

And Mary from Tosa.

Yup, food bills are rising.

I'm seeing also some health supplements that I ordered online are increasingly out of stock.

Unusual and concerning.

Thanks, Mary.

855-752-4842.

If you would like to join the discussion, stay with us.

You are listening to Mattnair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Box, Sweet Calbee on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

Join us.

Call or text at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

We're talking grocery prices.

An article in the Milwaukee Journal sent an all talking about grocery prices are rising in the Midwest.

For example, cereal and bakery products up 1% from July, 1.3% from August.

Looks like the biggest increase meat, poultry, fish and eggs rose 1.5% from July, 6.1% from August of last year.

Fruits and veggies are up, non-alcoholic beverage prices, alcohol is up.

Oh, I mean, I think I told you this.

I, you know, I'll stop by the, the grocery store and pick up a six pack for the house, a six pack of beer, not a cans.

I mean, not, not bottles, not a major import or a special.

This is just a regular beer.

And I was, it was a six pack and it cost me $14.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know people will say, Oh, buy PAPS or buy blue ribbon or buy.

It's like, no, we're buying this beer because we want this beer.

And it was $14 for a can six pack.

That seems high.

Do you know why, Jay?

The price of aluminum has gone up.

That's right, because of tariffs.

There you go.

I couldn't say

the word.

I really, that's comedy.

It's all about

timing.

Timing.

There

you

go.

So, what are you seeing when you go out to the grocery store?

855-752-4842.

Roger on the live stream says, I had sticker shock when I saw roast beef from the deli was 14.99 a pound.

And Tony also on the live stream, it is crazy the price of beer now.

What are you seeing when you head out to the grocery store?

855-752-4842.

It's gotta be tough for especially I think of seniors who are on fixed incomes who depend on Social Security and that's their only income.

Yeah,

I mean and meds.

Oh geez I mean it's even though they're gonna be he's gonna reduce the prices by 1500% So apparently everything will be free soon

again, and I and not to belabor the topic But I'm going I'm just gonna keep doing it now because we don't hear from them Call up mega supporters and tell us how this is working.

Tell us how this is winning

I don't understand how day one prices can come down, which on a hypothetical less level is good for the consumer.

Prices come down.

Great.

I don't, don't think about the next steps after prices come down because I don't know how you do that or what suffers in the longterm by just artificially and just summarily reducing prices.

But how do we, why do we have to have two years of pain?

Elon's words and we're.

taking down prices on day one, nothing makes sense there.

So it feels more like we're

in the two years of pain.

I would, I think that's a fair assumption.

Yeah.

Yes.

Two years of, yeah, just two years, you guys.

And then everything's gonna be ducky.

But again, tell us, tell us where you're winning.

Tell us that, you know, that your prices aren't going down.

Do you have a special mega membership card?

Honestly, I'm not trying to be a jerk here.

I really want to know because we don't hear from

the defenders anymore because I don't know what there is left to defend.

The other thing I saw and we're not going to have time to get into into this deeply, but rent prices also aren't coming down.

And that was supposed to be part of this whole great thing in all these mass deportations was going to open up all this housing and it was going to be so much less expensive.

That's not happening.

No,

I know everyone's shocked.

Remember when Kamala Harris.

The days was running for president and she wanted to put together legislation about price gouging Which would be a way to hold businesses accountable from price gouging which they have done look at Kroger's look Google Kroger's price gouging pandemic.

There's your evidence and

People thought she was insane.

People thought she was a communist tyrant trying to tell private business what to do.

But Donald Trump comes in and says, I'm going to lower prices.

Well, how are you going to do that?

Because at least with legislation, we can protect the people through consumer legislation that says, we'll make sure that the businesses aren't raking us over the coals.

Right.

Donald Trump says, I'm going to walk into a room with all these CEOs and tell them to lower their prices.

And they're going to say, yes.

My brain swims in nonsensical waters.

It's like trying to say I want to get a refreshing dip in the Dead Sea.

It doesn't work.

I've never thought of that.

Thank you.

I just came up with that right now and I'm using that forever.

Yeah, it's just interesting seeing some of the dancing coming from the administration.

Any day soon now, it's going to be great.

855-752-4842.

Rita from La Crosse is on the line.

Rita, we've got about 90 seconds left.

Thank you for joining us.

What do you want to say?

Well, I just wanted to say, well, I do the grocery shopping, and we are retired, so we are kind of on a fixed income.

But all the prices, it's not like they just raise them 10 cents.

They raise them like 70 cents.

And what

I'm concerned about is my grandchildren

when after they're done paying with all their college tuition, which I don't think they're going to ever be able to pay for, how can they get a home?

A starter home is 200,000,

maybe

even more.

Even more.

I

mean, this is, yeah.

This is really, I'm

sorry.

Nothing to be sorry for.

We hear you and we feel you.

And honestly, like all those things are the normal.

Those are the normal steps of life, buying a house, getting the girl.

God forbid a one trip to the hospital comes into anyone's life.

That's where we live in this world now.

It's like you have to walk on such eggshells on just trying to live your life like a normal, productive American.

You throw a hospital visit in there and you're done.

You break your

elbow.

You break your, I read an article at a woman.

Thank you, Rita.

I really appreciate you checking in.

I read an article yesterday about a woman who fell and broke her elbow.

$90,000.

Yep.

$90,000.

It might as well gotten a master's

degree while you're

at it.

She's 62.

She said, I'm going to pay this off until I'm dead, and then it still won't be paid off.

We have news coming up next.

And then when we are back, Jim Santel will be here, host of Amicus, a law review.

So many things to cover.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Stay close.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air.

Greg Bach, the board lord coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us.

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The number is the same at 855.

7524842 you can leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter and just a reminder it is underway right now Our multi-state text to win go for the green and gold contest Grab your phone open up the civic media app and text in the word Bay be a Y Text in the word Bay and you are in the running for our daily prize

Through this week and all of next week, every day, we're giving away 200 bucks in cash and gold jewelry.

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Bay.

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B-A-Y.

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in the 11 o'clock hour and one o'clock, then Todd Alba, 3 p.m., Maggie Dawn, 5 p.m., and Pete Schwabba wrapping it up in the 7 o'clock hour for our contest.

So, again, good luck and enter the word, B-A-Y.

He joins us every Thursday at this time to talk all things legalese.

Jim Santel, our friend and colleague and host of Amicus, a law review Saturday mornings.

9 to 11 across the network, you should listen.

It's great.

I like how you introed it in our chat here.

You said, which corruption would you like to start with?

Well, honestly, it is corruption-palooza.

It is corruption-palooza.

And we got to narrow it down because we only have two segments with you, Jim.

And there's so much to cover.

And we just call that Thursday in America

now, right?

Yeah, it's just another Thursday.

Yeah, it's Thursday.

Right.

We mentioned this very briefly yesterday, but I think this deserves

More attention before it completely disappears in the fire hose of news that we live in right now.

The Ed Martin.

Yes.

Prosecution Ed Martin.

Good friend of Donald Trump.

Good friend of Alex Jones.

Yes.

The Info Wars guy who tortured and tormented the families of the Sandy Hook children for years.

They were doxxed.

They were threatened.

They were told their children were still alive.

Eventually, and it took forever, Alex Jones was found guilty and required to pay up big time for what he had put these families through.

And then this Ed Martin in the Trump administration decides to go after an FBI agent who testified during the trial.

It's it's insane Jim.

It is insane and that's being charitable my friend Shane, right?

It's the insanity it just goes on here.

You do have at the core of this once again as you said a civil servant.

He's a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He's one of those who

comes upon this horrific event on December 14th, 2012, just said 21st graders killed, six educators killed.

We all remember the horror.

We still think about the horror of that day.

This man investigates, determines what the facts are.

and when Alex Jones comes along this info wars nut and yes indeed he is a nut and says that that sandy hook never happened it was a hoax it was put together false flags completely wrong he defames the families he def again everything else happens with respect to including this agent

and the agent and the families turn around and they sue for what?

Defamation.

That's right.

You can't say those things, Alex, in the public domain.

That's not First Amendment protected.

$1.4 billion is the judgment of attorney returns.

And oh, by the way, it's another $49 million judgment in another related lawsuit.

Thankfully, the good news here, info wars being dismantled these days by virtue of the attempt to collect on that.

But along the way, this nut,

Another nut named Ed Martin, he happens to be inside the Department of Justice, you may recall.

He was the unsuccessful candidate for U.S.

Attorney in the District of Columbia.

Why?

because he had no legal experience and beyond that was promoting the January 6 rioters.

Members of Congress were opposed to him.

He gets this job inside the Department of Justice.

He's now in this weaponization working group, whatever that is, that our attorney generals put together and begins to go after.

You've got it just right.

He begins to go after this special agent, sends him a letter saying, you may have violated federal law by virtue of doing what you did with the defamation suit.

especially as a private citizen now, other reasons why that's ridiculous.

And here's the only bit, the only smidgen of good news here is that Todd Blanche, as you know, I am not a fan of Todd Blanche at all.

Even for Todd Blanche, this is a bridge too far.

And he says, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's too much.

And so he directs Ed Martin, the head of this webization working group, to withdraw the letter and embarrassing follow-up letters saying,

Nothing here.

Never mind.

Never mind.

We're

withdrawing this.

Go away.

In the meantime, however, Alex Jones posts the initial letter on his social media.

So we all see at the allegations there against this legitimate special agent doing his job.

And now we've got the deputy attorney general calling down Ed Martin down the hallway there and saying, no, no, even this behavior is too much for the Department of Justice.

it should be a source of once again of outrage by everybody just as a footnote, another reason for concern.

Oh, by the way, Ed Martin, not just the head of this weaponization working group, also supposed to assist in these spurious, completely mirrorless and mirrorless of investigations of people like Letitia James

and

Adam Schiff.

And he's also

the pardon attorney.

The president appointed the pardon attorney inside the Department of Justice responsible for the office that used to anyway review pardon applications before presidents act on them.

It is the world turned upside down my friends and yes under under reported with due respect to the media

This is the kind of thing that shows you, I will call it that, the rot inside the Department of Justice, the corruption, and the placement in positions of great responsibility of people who have no business being there, and they're representing you and me and us.

I just want to reiterate, Ed Martin could not get confirmed, even by Republicans, so Donald Trump put him in an acting role.

That's how he gets around this when people can't get confirmed by by the elected officials We're supposed to do this when they can't get confirmed then he makes them acting and slips them in there and the other thing that blows my mind about this Jim is that if Alex Jones had not been so arrogant and posted the he posted a picture with Ed Martin like two weeks ago and Then posted that letter this probably would never have come out if Alex Jones hadn't done that

Right.

Absolutely.

And again, not helping out the Department of Justice that number one understated has egg on its face.

Again, that's wildly understated.

This is abuse of your position.

Again, small thanks to the deputy attorney general for bringing this to a conclusion.

But along the way now, once again, this special agent and presumably others

Defamed of the small D in the public domain because of the publication of this letter, there's an allegation.

It's been withdrawn, but still an allegation by the Department of Justice that you may have committed a federal crime.

Federal prosecutors never ever ever, with the exception of things in the great public domain, announce investigations the possibility of prosecuting because you don't want to taint the process.

You don't want to impugn the integrity of people who may in fact in the end be completely blameless for anything like this special agent.

Here we went roughshod over that as well, and Martin needs to be shown the door, the Department of Justice.

Tell him to go back home, wherever that may be, and let's never see him again, along with, maybe he gets a job with Alex Jones, dismantling info wars.

Get both of them out of our public domain.

get rid of these people.

But is that ever going to, Alex Jones still hasn't paid out a

penny to these families?

Yes, is not.

And they're doing enforcement.

And again, my sense is that they are dismantling, they are dismantling info wars, but it takes a long period of time.

And in the meantime, you would think that there would might be some level of humility.

No, no, no, no,

really $2 billion.

And I'm being financially destroyed.

But nope, we're out in the public domain.

Once again, Mr. President, Attorney General, send these people outside the Department of Justice.

Go do something in another part of the world.

But let's never hear from you again.

But this goes back to Project 2025.

It does.

Gutting the government out of everyone who is not a loyalist to Donald Trump, not the Constitution, not the United States.

We said this for months.

We are now our government is now filled with your least qualified cousin.

We are because their number one qualification is they adore Donald Trump.

That's the only qualification they need.

I was going to say both those things.

I'm good.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Right.

Exactly.

And it's throughout government.

And you think about again, the old days again, when we truly had two parties in this country as opposed to whatever the Republicans party stands for today, there are

legitimate, competent, conservative Republicans who can take these positions, right?

You may not agree with them on policy.

I may not.

You may not.

Others may not.

Or we may agree with them.

But they're legitimate.

They're in the mainstream.

They advance reasonable, if not agreeable, positions, if you will.

That's what the debate's always been about.

Those people are still out there, somewhere among the 343 million people in America.

And the notion that we've got to have all these folks again, I'm getting to the point that there are nine human beings.

The fact that this fellow is the partner attorney, you know, that we've got the secretary of state is also the head of the National Archives and the library, all these things, we can't find anybody, anybody qualified.

And so we keep adding more things to their task list and along the way, corrupting.

the very operation of government.

Well, this goes back to Jared Kushner in the first term.

Jared Kushner was in charge of like so many things that it was laughable, like peace in the Middle East and repairing the economy, like just, you know, two small things.

And we talked about this earlier, Jim, and you have direct federal experience.

You have to be able to find some people out there who are smart enough to do this job, who are also going to be loyal to Trump.

who can do is because when you surround yourself with morons, which these people are morons, there's no getting around it, you're gonna always be stumbling and you're always gonna be coming up with nothing.

You're gonna be coming up with these, instead of coming at us with facts, they're coming at us with rhetoric.

And that is what satiates the news because they get their hit, they get their post, they get the clicks, but really it just embarrasses Trump more and more because he's hiring incompetence to do these high level positions.

And it just doesn't make sense that they wouldn't just widen the net a little to find smarter people around the country.

Right, exactly.

And probably the reason why that's not happening, imagine if you were called upon.

Suppose I, you, any of us who say in that category of competent, reasonable conservatives who might even be willing to say, you know what, I voted for Donald Trump, I support whatever that means in some broad sense what the president is trying to do.

Would you want to become a part of this administration right now?

We're not only surrounded by people like the Dan Bonginos across the street at the FBI who advance all these other crazy theories about Epstein and QAnon.

Would you want to be a part of administration where one day the president is going to call upon you to do something that you know is illegal?

He's going to ask you, for example, as he's done with US attorneys in Virginia, Eastern Virginia.

I want you to file lawsuits.

I want you to prosecute people, even though there is no evidence.

And when you don't do that, what happens to that US attorney three or four days ago?

They're gone.

They're gone.

And that's what

we're

going to be coming.

That's what we're going to talk about next.

The Leticia James case.

She, of course, is the attorney general in New York State.

Trump's been wanting to go after her for a long time, couldn't get what he wanted, so he fired the guy.

And his replacement is a doozy.

All the details coming up.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the vast statewide, countrywide, because up around the world, even in Minnesota, on the Civic Media app.

you

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

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Mock.

Calvitini on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine where you can join us, call or text.

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Tom Hartman will have.

Another word for you coming up in the 11 o'clock hour, so stick around for that.

Jim Santel, our friend and colleague and host of Amicus a Law Review, Saturdays 9 to 11 across the network, is our guest.

He joins us every Thursday to talk all things legal.

Let's talk about the Letitia James case.

Letitia James is the attorney general in New York that Donald Trump has long wanted to go after because she doesn't, you know, she, she.

And she went after him.

Successfully,

by the way, proved

fraud, even though the appeals court addressed the amount of the judgment, the finding of civil fraud remains in New York.

Just like for what is worth, just as an aside, the 34 counts of felony convictions in another court in New York, my president is still a convicted felon.

It loves

me forget that.

Important to remember.

But so he had a U.S.

attorney working on this case for months and months and months.

He worked on this for about eight months, I believe, seven, eight months and did not find enough to bring charges against Letitia James, Eric Siebert.

So he resigned.

Donald Trump says he fired him.

He resigned and now they have put in a young person who has no prosecutor.

She has never prosecuted a case.

Never.

Even though the president

of the

United States of America in live what number 34,000 in his presidential career describes her as a tough prosecutor.

A top prosecutor of what?

Well, she has handled some insurance matters back in Florida, a legitimate thing to do, no suggesting that's inappropriate, but no qualification for this job of being the chief federal law enforcement officer in the eastern district of Virginia, right across from MacTomac, right across from Washington DC, huge numbers of very important cases, national security, other things, by virtue of the fact that you're just adjacent to the nation's capital.

She comes in, and now here's my question.

to your listeners, and certainly I know you're scratching your head about it as well.

Eric Siebert, by the way, not exactly a liberal Democrat.

He's friends with Emile Beauvais.

He has got support inside the Department of Justice.

This is a mainstream, again, probably balanced prosecutor, but he's got ties to the Republican Party.

We're not getting rid of some Democrat here.

Now, we have Ms.

Halligan and Lindsay Halligan.

And so she now gets the same files that Eric Siebert, who was a prosecutor for many years, looked at and said, there's no there there.

There's nothing in this file.

Nice try.

What do you now do, Ms.

Halligan?

Tell me, please tell me.

You're not going to go to the grand jury and attempt to indict Letitia James and others on charges that do not exist based upon information that's not there.

What do you do now?

And when you fail to do that because you can't, what is your fate?

What is your fate?

It goes back to this notion of when you're doing the bidding of the president and there's no bidding to do there, you're putting your own self on the line.

She not only has an oath of office to the United States of America, the Constitution, but she's also an attorney.

And we've seen what has happened with attorneys in the past who have failed to follow their oath of office.

I think she is in harm's way, and it'll be interesting to see what the attorneys in that office, the civil servants, when she shows up there and they show her this file that says nothing about anybody here to prosecute, what do you then, what then does she tell?

the the president of the united states of america

i think what we've seen from many of these individuals is when they have nothing they stand up in front of a microphone they start yelling at the media telling us it's their fault telling it's a democrats fault i'm sorry telling us it's democrat party fault

and making all sorts of claims while trying to buy more time until inevitably she has to leave.

There are no consequences for her failures other than she will be fired or quit or whatever.

I mean, it really is just becoming a revolving door of individuals coming in to do these jobs.

They can't do them.

They move on and maybe they capitalize on it because there's someone out there who wants to hire someone who worked for Donald Trump.

I don't see her getting in trouble because no one gets in trouble.

No,

there's no consequences

anymore.

Exactly, Greg.

And also, to discuss this other issue, the three of us have talked about a great length, which is the complete destruction of the wall that used to exist between the White House and the Department

of

Justice.

This was the reason we had the Watergate reforms back in 1974 and 75.

Presidents, both parties, including the Bushes and Ronald Reagan, and certainly the Democrats, have followed this.

Now, we are simply accepting every morning when the president wakes up and says, as he has,

Attorney General or US Attorney, I want these people prosecuted.

It is completely contrary to the rule of law.

It's contrary to the constitutional separation of powers that we have with respect to who makes decisions about prosecution.

And it's another reason for America to look at the Department of Justice as the vacant agency that has now become.

US attorneys are a part of the Department of Justice to make that clear.

These are not separate entities.

The FBI is a part of the Department of Justice.

We see what's going on.

Listen to Jim Santel, Saturday's 9 to 11 amicus, a law review across the network.

It is fantastic.

Thank you so very much for your time, my friend.

We will see you next Thursday.

Appreciate it.

It's a pleasure, my friends.

We got news coming up next.

And then on the other side, Representative Mark Pocan will be joining us.

He never has anything to say.

We'll talk to Paul Noonan about all things sports and we'll wrap it up with this shouldn't be a thing.

Stay close.

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

We'll be right back.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt Nair on air.

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

You can join us.

The number is the same.

Whether you call or text, it is 855-752-4842.

You can leave a comment.

If you're watching on the live stream, hello live stream.

on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Coming up later on this hour after the 1030 news, the Acme Packaging Company's Paul Noonan will join us to talk all things sports.

So stay tuned for that.

Right now, delighted he made time for us carving out of his busy schedule.

Representative Mark Polkhan from Wisconsin Second District is joining us on the phone.

Good morning, Representative.

How are you?

Hey, good morning.

Thanks so much for having me.

Really appreciate you making time for us.

I know you have many, many, many things going on, but there's a lot going on, Representative Pocan, that I think people need to be aware of in this fire hose of news that we're living in now every day.

We wanted to start off with talking about the looming government shutdown that is coming up next week, correct?

Yes, potentially, you know, right now,

The Senate is still scheduled to be in.

We were scheduled to be in Monday and Tuesday, and the Republicans pulled back those two days on the calendar, which will make it a little difficult to do something to make sure there's not a shutdown.

But Hakeem Jeffries has called the Democrats in town no matter what.

We'll be there Monday night ready to do whatever we need to do to keep the government open.

But, you know, we've

said very clearly, you can't take away healthcare from tons of thousands of our constituents and, you know, think that we're just going to roll over on this.

So we'll see what happens in the coming days.

That is the sticking point, isn't it, Mr. Boakhan, about ACA premiums in particular from what I understand?

Yeah, that's a part of it in the Medicaid cuts and anything healthcare related.

is essentially where the problem lies.

So among other things that we would like to see done, but they wrote this without any democratic input.

That's not generally how it's done when you're doing a simple so-called simple CR.

And so far, we're supposed to have a meeting with President Trump this week.

He canceled it.

They don't look like they're really trying to do something.

Why it almost feels like they want a government shutdown so they can blame Democrats

That could be a part of it that we're waiting to see what's gonna happen But you know, I never try to predict Donald Trump these days.

It's a very difficult with that

Congress and Polk and I want to go back to talking about the budget really quick as far as

healthcare for folks.

And people made it very clear who voted for this bill that, you know, they tried to reword it as saving social security and saving Medicare.

And those are the words you hear on the outside.

We see in press releases and on interviews on the Sunday shows.

And I'm not asking you please, I'm not asking you to name any names, but conversations you might be having with Republicans, how are they talking about this behind the scenes?

Because they have to go back to their constituency and answer to them.

They don't do town halls as much as they should, but there's definitely going to be

blowback on what's coming down the road.

And I'm just wondering what you're hearing from those who may have voted for it, even though they didn't want to, because they didn't like this aspect of the bill.

A lot of them are fine with what's in there, to be honest.

I don't see a lot of Republicans saying, oh my god, I screwed up.

And while they may claim that there's some saving factor, here's the reality.

Social security has a year left, a year less.

left in its life because of the tax cuts in that bill.

So they trimmed a year off of the Social Security Fund and Medicare, because of how they wrote it, will get a half a trillion dollar cut because of how they did it.

It's gonna have an automatic sequestration and there's a $500 billion cut that'll happen to Medicare.

So the only thing they did is hurt

Medicare and social security.

Yeah, and I think it's important that folks understand when we talk about social security and Cut deductions come out of our paychecks However, often you get you get paid, but there's a deduction for social security whether you make $40,000 a year or you make $87 million a year the cap stops at like $174,000 right representative so

If I make a

little bit every year, but that's roughly the amount right now.

Yeah.

So if I make $87 million a year, my donations to Social Security stop once I hit a $174,000.

Yeah.

So it's a

regressive tax.

I mean,

everything else, the more you make the more you continue to pay in this one, there's an actual stop, you don't pay another dime at that point.

So yeah, that's the problem.

You know, I guess the

conversation.

And once again, you're you're a part of this every day.

Does anyone ever seriously bring up up the conversation of, well, let's just

raise the cap, raise the cap a little bit, make them pay a little, just a little bit more.

Like a, like a half a percent more, a 1% more, and that could do so much for social security.

Those billionaires and multimillionaires will never see it.

They'll never understand the loss because it isn't really one.

But I guess for me as just a regular folk who pays his taxes, I never hear that conversation happening.

Is that one that's just so unpopular that never is brought up?

Well, there's no conversation on Jurassic Social Security yet right now period because unfortunately Congress does everything at the last minute generally but Without question the easiest solution to the what we're gonna have eventually you know a problem appearing with Social Security Fund is you lift the cap Yeah, if you lift the cap and you pay no matter what your income is at the same percent as everyone else

you would add 75 years into the future for the funds.

So in my opinion, there is an easy solution that we will likely go to at some point.

If not a complete listing of the cap, it'll be a listing of the cap for people who make more than whatever number, you know, whatever dollar amount.

But you know, that we've got a few years in their poor Congress, in my experience, will not act until that happens.

Until they absolutely, absolutely

have to.

And when they have to act, they'll call it a day and go home.

Go

ahead.

If you're just joining us, Representative Mark Pocan is on the phone with us, representing Wisconsin's second district talking about social security, potentially raising the cap, which would alleviate a number of problems with the social security program.

We also wanted to talk with you, Representative, about free speech and the whole Jimmy Kimmel dust-up.

And it's been an interesting couple of days.

Yeah, you know a couple couple fronts one I mean it's thankfully organically people canceling their Disney and Hulu and ESPN subscriptions brought what happened and You know it wasn't no one could take credit for being the organizer It was people just doing this on their own and you know within a matter of days They had to put Jimmy Kimmel back on what I find especially ironic is they clearly

had a rollout to increase the price of those services.

And this just beat that.

So talk about making a mistake.

I mean, doing that, having many of us, myself included, canceling subscriptions, and now increasing prices, this could have a huge

financial impact.

And they did it all just to make Donald Trump happy, to make the FCC happy.

And hopefully this sends a pretty big message that when you fight back like Jimmy Kimmel did, like the people did, that there's a price to be paid and we can defeat this administration on more things.

Well, and that was something that I took away from this with some of the things I've been reading and seeing on social media is that

A lot of people feel so helpless and so hopeless.

What can we do?

It seems like nothing we do makes any effect.

This made an effect.

Disney lost like four billion dollars.

You can speak up with your wallet and your vote.

Well, and I think more than four billion.

I really do.

I think that's the number based on people canceling subscriptions we saw.

But there's a lot of people that are not going to renew with the increased rates.

And that's

going to have

a much longer term effect for them.

I've got the feeling there's a few Disney execs that might be in a little bit of hot water over this.

Plus, don't forget the two major conglomerates, Sinclair and I think it's NextArt, that still aren't putting Jimmy Kibble on.

So, you know, people could still in those markets put pressure talking to their advertisers as well about this.

And, you know, this may be one of the turning points for folks to see that they do have the power individually.

to go after Donald Trump with his overreach.

And, you know, I think this will be maybe one of those catalysts for us to learn a lot more lessons

from.

And that's one of the things too, Congressman.

It has, has definitely been brought up, but I feel like needs to stay in the forefront is that Nextar, Sinclair and Disney all have business interests that are going to go before the FCC or are before the FCC.

And not only is it they are, they are doing actions.

I mean, Sinclair and Nextar are.

They're doing actions to appease Donald Trump, but also just the sheer amount of power and coverage they will have over our media waves over the next few years.

If these deals go through, I mean, I saw, I think it was Robert Reich who put out a tweet that said, the richest man in the world owns X. The second richest man is going to own TikTok.

The third owns Facebook and Metta.

The fourth owns the Washington Post.

And it's just these billionaires who own everything that gives us our media and our information.

And that

gives me a great deal of pause.

Yeah,

well,

maybe that's one of the reasons why we're seeing some of the diffusing of how people get news, right?

You know, we saw even on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, I think he had 6 million viewers on TV, but 22 million across social media platforms, right?

Yeah.

Still, some of those platforms are owned by those really wealthy folks, but I think there is, you know, some pushback to this solidation of what's happening in the media, but

We just learned a really great lesson, you know, that we can punch back to some of the wealthiest people in the country who are willing to throw us under the bus to appease one person.

Well, there's a price to be paid and it could be a very long term price.

Well, and I guess what I think is important as well, Congressman, is that they are doing anything they can to appease him because of money.

Yeah.

It's because of money.

Yeah.

Yep.

No, it's the greed.

that they have uh that cost them and and again the timing the fact that they had a rollout of a price increase

literally

yes i mean you know someone's losing

They're extra yacht vacation.

Oh,

no.

It

was all ready for that second villa in Italy.

No.

That's it, Ted.

Turn in your fourth boat.

Speaking of perks, when we get back...

We're gonna talk about some of the little things that you might have not realized were in that big blob of a bill that we passed because it's so good for regular Americans and all of us with private planes.

We're going to talk about that.

I have a private plane, Jane.

You do.

I have three of them.

Why don't you?

I'd like a ride.

There you go.

We're going to talk about some of those hidden gems within that big, beautiful bill that's supposed to be helping just us regular folks, maybe not so much.

Mark Pocan is our guest representative from Wisconsin Second District.

We are going to continue our conversation.

On the other side, stay with us.

You are listening to Matt and Air on Air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We'll be right back.

She gives me, and she starts to cry.

She takes a swing, man.

She

can't help.

She don't mean no harm.

She just don't know.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

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

You can join us, call or text at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up at 11 o'clock.

The Tom Hartman show.

In the 11 o'clock hour, he will have a keyword for you as part of our multi-state text to win.

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Great prizes up for grabs, so be listening to Tom Hartman.

In the 11 o'clock hour, he will have the next keyword for you.

Then again, in the 1 p.m.

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with Maggie Dawn, who's on the road today, and then 7 o'clock tonight with Pete Schwab, lots of chances for you to win.

So be listening for Tom Hartman and that keyword after 11 o'clock.

Delighted to be joined by Congressman Mark Polkkan from Wisconsin's Second District.

You're actually on the ground here, sir.

Yeah, you're heading, you are heading to Milwaukee today.

What are you, what are we in store for when you visit?

Um, just some different meetings.

I've been this week.

I've been getting around a little more than usual since I've been home for the whole week.

You know, they've, they've changed our schedule so much this year that it has been very difficult to have a schedule.

So we were supposed to be in session Monday and Tuesday, then they canceled it.

So we got rid of our plane ticket and Hakeem said, no, we should be out there.

We got a new plane ticket.

Like there's a lot of yo-yoing to my life

these days.

I mean, I understand meetings and you're very busy.

I wouldn't have been surprised if you were doing a town hall as you've been doing many of them and not only in your district, but just around Wisconsin because congrats in respect to the GOP members who are actually doing them and getting yelled at.

That's, you know, I applaud your courage, but you're getting out there and talking to people and hearing what they have to say about everything going on.

And I feel like

I would love to assume that they see that this big bill is not going to provide the winning that Donald Trump's friends are.

Am I correct in that assumption, sir?

Yeah, in fact, I think it's still over 90% of the Republicans still haven't done a town hall.

It's a very high number because...

of that bill.

I mean they

know

that it's not a popular bill even though they'll tell you it's good but you know the common sense smell test is if you really did something great you'd get on the rooftop and get a megaphone and talk about it instead they're hiding in their basements instead of doing town halls so the more we do the good news is over 50 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus during the August break went into a Republican's district and either did a town hall or event or something

to raise awareness.

So, you know, I think more and more people are doing this.

I think it's a really good strategy.

I will be back in Derrick Van Orden's district soon, doing another one.

And we're even talking about going on the road with some other members to districts that may not, you know, have a Democratic rep.

They have a Republican rep and, you know, we just need to make sure we're sharing what's in that bill with them.

We're talking to Congressman Mark Pocan from Wisconsin's second district.

I want to talk a little bit about the big, beautiful blob of a bill that pretty much, you know, we cut school lunches.

I read an article today that a man who gets meals on wheels in Monomony Falls now has to cut back to three days a week.

So those are the kinds of things that were being cut.

But we did give a break for some people, Representative Pocan, didn't we?

Especially for those who need to fly.

Yeah, oh, there's all kinds of little specialized tax cuts in there for the wealthiest, for various special interests.

Yeah, I think the thing that really should resonate with folks the most, the so-called middle-class tax cuts, the tax cut on tips, the tax cut on overtime pay, the tax break on, for so, seniors and whatnot.

auto loan interest.

When you

add all of those together, the ones that they tout or what they actually did in that bill, that only adds up to 5% of the bill.

So 95% goes to things like

you know, corporate jets and the wealthiest and those tax cuts, by the way, for the wealthiest got made permanent.

Permanent.

And those other tax cuts are only temporary.

So it's very clear who they were fighting for in that bill.

Again, in case you missed it, my friends, there are tax breaks if you buy a private jet, correct?

Yeah, there's a number of different tax breaks that are in there.

That one probably is going to affect, you know, a relatively small amount of people, but very, very wealthy folks who are then who we probably need that as a tax cut.

But, you know, when they start playing around with the rates and taking care of, again, the wealthiest, you know, I think it's something like the bottom 30 percentile of people are going to pay more in order to help provide these tax cuts.

In addition,

So the cuts they're going to get for Medicaid and for tax breaks for the Affordable Care Act, for their health care, for food assistance, like you mentioned, for education funding, you know, all those things are in trade so that the wealthiest get those tax cuts.

I don't know if I mean I what I'm hearing guys here.

I'm hearing a revolutionary new economic plan called trickle up economics It's great.

It's where poor people support the rich because the rich have had it really hard.

They're in the spotlight a lot We're making fun of them from time to time.

I just think this is good policy and bootstraps all around for people

Yes, no, that's that's essentially what they're doing.

And you know, this is also, you know another way of saying it.

It's the donor class, right?

Yes fund Republican campaigns are getting the tax break so

You know, we just all have to remember that.

We have to really remember that, you know, probably the most significant thing if we're actually going to ever have changes to have campaign finance reform and get rid of Citizens United where these rich people put dark money into campaigns and distort elections and, you know, but they do it for a reason.

They do it because they get tax breaks like this.

It's another reason why we need

He

is a congressman, the representative for Wisconsin's second district, Mark Pocan.

Thank you so very, very much for your time today.

We really appreciate it.

Be safe on the road.

Thank you very much.

Take care.

You as well.

We have news coming up next.

And then when we return, it's Audio Sorbet and the AcmePack companies.

Paul Noonan to talk all things sports.

Baseball.

Baseball, baby.

That's coming up.

Stay close.

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

Dallas left a hole in the ceiling.

Good morning and welcome, welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, the one, the only hour Calzone on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

at 855-752-4842.

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Also, if you have the Civic Media app yesterday at this time, we talked to our colleague David Grant from Max FM in Baraboo.

And if you have the app and you want to listen to one of our music stations, you can do that.

And if you want to give to the request-a-thon, go to max.fm for more information.

You can make a request in there.

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All money goes to the Hope House, which is a wonderful shelter that works with domestic violence survivors.

For like five counties.

For like five counties.

So if you want to be a part of that, go to max.fm for more information.

Request a song.

It's five bucks per request.

Knock a song down for

$25, which is my

favorite.

Or just donate like a good person would.

Yeah, helping their goal today is $5,000.

We can help them get

there.

We can help them get there.

We

can do that.

So listen to Max FM.

Again, they're in Baraboo and they're having their big fundraiser today for Hope House.

So let's get into that $5,000.

That would be great.

He joins us every other Thursday to talk all things sports.

He is the Acme packing companies and a songwriter on the side.

Paul Noonan is here.

Good morning.

How are you?

Hey.

Good morning, doing great.

How are you guys?

Let's talk about that little song.

Yeah, you told me that you're writing music now because as we all know with you, if you put anything online, you are at risk of copyright strike because of the internet.

And you told me in our email chat this morning that now you are writing your own music for your podcast, which is tell us about your podcast, sir.

Yeah, so my football podcast is called Reporting is Eligible.

It is sort of an analytics-focused podcast on the Packers every week.

JR is actually on it quite often, along with my friend Matt.

And I've always used pop music as the intros and outros for it.

And the algorithms on Spotify and Apple and all those just started picking those off.

And I could, by the way, talk about copyright for like three hours.

I'm sure.

I will not do that right now.

But I would prefer to do that.

And I tried to do a good citizen and talk to ASCAP and BMI and EMI.

But they have no interest in licensing music to small potatoes podcasts and do seriously.

Yeah.

So, you know, is what it is.

I in my day job work with AI a ton.

I also understand that.

quite well talking about that for three hours.