Welcome, welcome to Matinair on Air.
Jane Matinair, Greg Bach, Calvin Butenoff.
Coming to you live from our home at Radio Park in Racine, join us, call or text, or leave a voice note at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment.
If you're watching a live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter, it's Friday, October 31st, Halloween.
Dan Schaefer will be here from the Reconpopulation Area, also Civic Media's political editor after the 930 News.
Lots of things to talk about, including a latest, the latest, rather, poll from the Market University Law School.
People in Wisconsin don't want to talk about elections.
It's my big takeaway from the poll from Marquette.
Hey, Jane, sometimes we don't want to talk about
elections.
Yeah, but who are the front runners as we're many months away yet?
From the mayoral elections, governor gubernatorial elections, all those things.
Governors, not mayoral.
But so we'll talk about that with Dan.
Along with many other things, City of Milwaukee considering cracking down on people with lots of parking tickets.
Not a bad idea.
Yeah.
Audio survey.
We're going to do Halloween related.
Again.
There we go.
Halloween week.
It's Halloween week.
Oh, baby.
Audio survey.
Yes.
Oh, nice.
We will talk about great Halloween costumes.
Best Halloween costume you ever wore.
Yeah.
One you saw that really impressed you.
I've seen some amazing displays in my neighborhood.
Yeah.
In, I mean, incredible.
Are, are across the street neighbor.
They, I saw them like two weeks ago and I'm like, what are they doing?
And then the end of the day, at the end of the day, I was like, Oh, wow, this was, it's a display.
Yeah.
There are some folks who put so much work into it.
It's amazing.
And we're also going to do a little shout out to a song which debuted
50 years ago today with a special homage.
A special a very special homage to this.
Artistic homage.
Yes, it's like the epitome of taste.
Yes.
That will be coming up in Audio Sorbet and we'll wrap it up as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.
Today, the Smashing Pumpkin Edition.
Stick around for that.
Gonna start off with Snap Benefits.
We'll be coming to an end tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
It's interesting, depending upon where you get your news, you're hearing vastly different explanations about why we are here.
Oh, yeah.
I think it's important to point out that in the big blob of a bill that the Republicans passed earlier this year, the big blob of a bill cut $187 billion from SNAP through 2034.
Just I think that's an important point.
Yeah.
which again, depending upon where you get your news, you might not be hearing these numbers.
But yes, the Republicans cut $187 billion or about 20% from the federal SNAP budget through 2034.
And then this little tidbit that I found this morning from Newsmax, Rob Schmidt, anchor at Newsmax, talking to Senator Ron Johnson.
Wisconsin's very own.
Our senator who's been there longer who's been there long.
He's been there long.
Yes Rob Schmidt said to Ron Johnson this morning or rather on Newsmax People are using snap benefits to get their nails done to get their weaves and their hair done.
Yeah, this is a really ugly program Senior senator Ron Johnson says that program needs to be dramatically reformed Ron Johnson could have said that's not true
You can't use your snap benefits to get your nails done, or your weave, nice little throw in of the racism there, or your weave done.
That's not how
snap works.
The dog whistles that have been thrown out from various Republican GOP right-leaning, way right-leaning pundits, politicians, whomever, has been brazen.
I mean, a dog whistle I guess isn't brazen because it's
It's
a passive aggressive.
But they're just whipping them out like it's nobody's business.
I've heard them refer to ghettos.
I've heard the weave, the crack, smoking crack comments.
Like just say it.
Say, tell us who you think uses SNAP.
And apparently only uses SNAP, which is of course untrue.
As we've talked to farmers, who use SNAP benefits.
And the ACA.
And the ACA.
So this notion, this narrative you want to write that the,
that the laziest worst dregs of society are the only ones using these benefits.
Um, and now we know who you think those people are.
Congratulations.
And Ron Johnson, good job on not calling him out on the dog whistling or the fact that you cannot use snap to get your nails done.
I mean, let me help me take you just a little seriously, Mr. Johnson,
just a little bit.
No, he's got to go along with their, with their program and, and trying to
frame a narrative around SNAP users.
Again, on Newsmax.
It's 21st century welfare queen.
Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly what it is.
On Newsmax, anchor Rob Schmidt talking to Ron Johnson said, people are using SNAP to get their nails done, to get their weaves and their hair done.
And our rojo says, yes, that program needs to be dramatically reformed.
And that also upsets me too.
There's nothing there.
There's no plan.
There's no suggestions.
There's no speculation.
It's like, yeah, we should look at that.
So let's
cut a whole bunch of money.
Oh,
they did that already.
Well, Jane, what they're doing is they're saving it.
They're
securing it.
Right, by cutting it.
Ensuring.
Right.
Those are the words we use.
Right.
And I stumbled on this this morning.
This is from notice.org.
The US Department of Agriculture had a plan.
to keep snap going during a government shutdown by using contingency funds.
But amazingly, the document that laid out that plan is now gone from the US Department of Agriculture website.
Shocking.
This administration is doing this a lot.
Just removing things.
Disappearing.
Disappearing information completely in some cases attempting to alter history.
by disappearing things.
Well, luckily, a silver lining in as much as the money, the discretionary funds that are set aside to fund SNAP actually still do exist.
They're just not going to be used whether or not the documents available.
I mean, that's, that's important to have in your, in, in your possession.
Well, it's just to say we have a plan.
Yeah.
There, there is a plan.
Yeah.
But they have no, but they, but the money will most likely not be released.
And then the question has been pointed towards, at least in, in, in matters of Wisconsin and our food share program, the question is, okay, state, state legislators, governor, whomever.
What are you going to do to ensure that these individuals will get their benefits?
And, and depending on who you listen to, once again, depending on where you get your news.
There are some folks who want to blame all the blame at Tony Evers doorstep because he's not utilizing COVID funding that's out there.
There is approximately 373, and this is by the way, a CBS 58, $373 million remain unspent, but not for long because the state legislative fiscal bureau told CBS 58.
that the money is obligated, which could include funding for activities that have been completed or just waiting for reimbursement.
So that money might be earmarked for other things, that we don't just have $373 million just sitting like we do a surplus.
Right.
When we got that COVID money, there are constrictions.
There are parameters.
There are parameters on
where and how this money can be used.
But also just because we have $373 million doesn't mean it can be even used for anything.
It can be, it can be scheduled for something right now anyway.
So you, you can look at that money.
That's fine.
But that just, we can't just go to that bank and withdraw it.
And then surplus four plus billion dollars, $4.5 billion.
We could definitely pull, I think it's the, what the 114, 117 million dollars needed to fund food share here in Wisconsin.
Well, Mary Felskowski, state Senator and state Senate president has said, can't.
Can't, not our problem.
Can't do that.
It's a Fed thing.
It's a federal problem.
So the frustration, my point is, is that like, if you want to be angry at Tony Evers for not using COVID funding, then you have to be angry at Mary Felskowski for not wanting to use surplus funding.
I'm frustrated.
Like the COVID funding, I feel like there's far more nuance to that discussion as far as utilizing those funds than just saying, take it.
But the surplus ones again sitting there right in front of us not being used to fund a great deal of things But this is one I feel like talk talk about a a situation which needs emergency funding and we have Way more than we need to fund this There's nothing wrong with that and I and part I Shame on you Mary Felskowski
to say that this is a federal problem and it's a Democrats fault.
That was what she said to Matt Smith on UpFront.
It's a federal problem and it's the Democrats fault.
If you're just joining us on Matt Nair on air, we are talking about SNAP benefits, which are going to be going away tomorrow.
And as a reminder, the big blob of a bill that Republicans passed earlier this year, which was going to fix all our problems, cut $187 billion, 20% from the SNAP budget.
through 2034.
Lots of money.
Lots of money.
A column from Paul Krugman says these drastic cuts in food stamps and health care programs are central planks in project 2025.
Yes, they are.
That is indeed the Trump administration's policy platform.
These planks were written into the one big blob of a bill that they passed last summer.
This is part of the plan.
Yes.
And it's part of a plan that we have been talking about for over a year now.
And I don't want to get into the place of pointing fingers or I told you so.
I'm that it, that solves
nothing
solves absolutely nothing, but we were given it.
We were given their play.
This is like, this is like when the opposing team finds the playbook.
We were given the playbook and it.
for some reason did not move the needle for some people and it was denied by others and it was and the president lied about it and here we are a year later and they have enacted and depending on who you talk to some will say 30 some will say 70 but a good chunk of what was proposed in that 900 page plus book is has been and is going to be implemented.
and most of it through the budget.
Yeah, absolutely.
Roger on the live stream says, ask Ron Johnson how many people have been arrested and prosecuted for having their nails or their weaves done using snap?
That's the thing, Roger.
They don't ever have to back it up with like proof.
All they need to say, like Mike Johnson has said repeatedly is he knows it inherently.
He just knows it within the fiber of his being like they know about voter fraud.
There's no, there's no
Evidence of widespread voter fraud particularly related to the 2020 election no evidence none Zippo zero we spent millions looking for it didn't find it and yet Mike Johnson still knows Intuitively inherently in his gut.
Yeah that it's happening.
I mean
Jane some people are saying I've heard many people are
saying many
people are saying people are reporting that's all individuals need now to just and
This is a problem across the board.
Our confirmation biases are quelled by faces we trust saying very little or backing up very little, but the problem is when you give them
any details, they'll tell you you're lying.
It's AI, fake news.
Even though I have the details and this guy just says, I think you can do your nails with snap.
No, you can't.
Join the conversation at 855-752-4842.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air coming to you across the Civic Media radio network.
Good morning.
Welcome back to Matinair on Air.
Jane Matinair, Greg Box, Sweet Galby on the board.
Coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us.
Call or text at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching in the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
Coming up after the 930 News, we'll start re-combobulating with Dan Schaefer, creator of the multi-award-winning re-combobulation area, also Civic Media's political editor.
Among the many things we're going to kick around,
the latest results from the Marquette University Law School poll.
My big takeaway is nobody wants to think about elections right now.
That's kind of what it is.
And also, Dan published a piece in the re-combobulation area about Mandela Barnes and the election as well, because that's
sort of- He came out really
well on that poll.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so we'll be talking about that when Dan gets here in just a little bit, but that's going to be another discussion.
And yep, we are officially in election season again.
My God, can't we get a day
off?
No, Wisconsin is constantly...
We're constantly in that cycle.
Before we went into the break, we were talking about SNAP benefits, which are going to be ending tomorrow.
US Department of Agriculture did have a plan to keep SNAP running during a government shutdown by using contingency funds.
The whole document that was up on their website.
Now it's gone.
Magic.
Interesting how that happens.
And
that's right up their alley.
That's something they've been doing with a lot of things.
Documents, changing the Constitution, changing Smithsonian display.
It's whatever doesn't fit them, they get rid of.
But the problem is, Jane, is that we are not robots who are reprogrammed every morning with no memory.
When they get rid of things, not only do people notice, that is what makes the news then.
Yes.
When you try to disappear stuff and make it go away.
Yeah.
Exactly.
There are people who still recall.
Yes.
It's amazing.
The other problem, tomorrow enrollment begins for the Affordable Care Act.
Yes.
Also known as Obamacare.
Ooh, Obamacare!
They're the same thing in case people think they aren't.
No, Jane, that's
not what
I was talking about.
Yeah, the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are one and the same.
This article from Politico, Republicans barreling toward the enrollment period without a unified plan to address the sticker shock that millions of Americans are expected to face when they get their premiums.
Hold on, I'm referring to my notes right now.
What happened to two weeks a great new plan in two weeks
repeal and replace I was told repeal replace dot-dot-dot two weeks dot-dot-dot Winning concepts of a plan
concepts of a plan.
Yeah, they don't have a plan.
They've had 15 years Since the Affordable Care Act was passed my
goodness gravy
and they got up to the repeal part They were all ready to repeal Obamacare remember that
well.
I do remember the house
During Obama's time, I think over 120 times voted to repeal Obamacare, died in the Senate every single time.
It was nothing more than a show.
It was performative.
It did
nothing.
Did nothing.
And yet we have nothing to replace it with.
Exactly.
So again, they were ready to repeal it, except for the vote of John McCain, who stopped that.
They were going to repeal it.
They didn't have a plan then.
And they still don't have a health care plan.
I saw one Republican, it might have been John Canavy, very folksy guy.
He thinks we should just go back to what things were like beforehand, with high risk pools.
Meaning that we can go back to the days when insurance companies could refuse to cover you because you had a pre-existing condition.
I don't like pregnancy.
That doesn't surprise, it always seems that the best solution they have is
going back to the old days.
And really when it comes down to it, it's never, it's never a thing of, there's no buy-in for them.
There's no expectation for them because one, they have some of the most amazing healthcare in the world.
Oh, you mean our elected
officials?
Our elected officials.
Oh yeah,
Congress does, yeah.
And even if they didn't, they still have enough money where a hospital slash doctor bill wouldn't
ruin and or bankrupt them so for them to say let's go back to the old days what was wrong with that
yeah everything's worse so everything was so great
yeah it was so great yeah I'm wanting to look up really quick
Senator John Kennedy, as far as how much money he's taken from the healthcare industry, because that's the other thing too.
The moment they start advocating for a system which doesn't put the American people first, it's always like, how much money is that industry putting into your pocket then?
Well, and then all of a sudden, I've heard Republicans in the last couple of weeks as we've been heading towards this cliff, talking about, well, we don't want insurance companies to get rich.
You don't?
I mean,
really?
Pretty darn good at getting rich.
They're getting rich all the time their quarters are like you have tens of billions of dollars like they're doing fine Even they've made no money next year.
They probably still be fine
Lori from Hayward texting in says Jane I think people are taking the page out of JD Vance's book of lies Remember he admitted on live TV.
He was lying talking about
Haitian Americans eating people's pets he admitted that was a lie He had JD events admitted he was telling a lie just to make people listen.
That's what Ron Johnson and many other Republicans are doing now.
Yes, they are blatantly lying and he is
and and he is bringing that back up again.
He has brought the Haitian thing back up in interviews and Yeah, look at that
Oschner Health System has given him 41,145.
Oh, John Kennedy?
Yeah,
John Kennedy.
So he's got a little bit of buy-in with them.
So it's an advantageous for him to plump for the
business.
Oh, and LH.
LHC, it's a hospice home care group, has given him $50,000.
In these days of bribes, that's almost dependent.
Dropping a bucket.
We have news coming up next, and then when we return, Dan Schaefer will be here for all things re-combobulation.
Stay with us.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Good morning, welcome, welcome to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane Matt and Air, Greg Mock, Dr. Slide 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.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
Good morning, live stream.
Thank you for joining us.
It's Friday, so Dan Schaefer is here.
Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the re-combobulation area.
Good morning.
Good morning, Jane.
Wonderful to be here with you on Matt and Air on Air.
On Halloween.
We'll do some lighter things about an hour from now during audio sorbet.
We'll talk all things Halloween.
Wonderful.
I'm curious to hear about your experience with your, with your daughters.
Okay.
And, uh, and I saw some photos that you posted.
Oh, we had some, we had some good stuff from last weekend.
There's good stuff, yes.
But, uh, lots going on.
Let's talk.
Where do you want to start?
Do you want to start with Mandela Barnes?
And should we talk about the poll?
Well, there's much to
discuss
this week.
Lots to
recombobulate
on.
There's many things.
As always, a discombobulating week in Wisconsin.
No doubt.
But yeah, let's start with Mandela Barnes.
Let's
start with...
The candidate looming over the Democratic primary right now, his pending decision on what he is going to do if he is going to run for governor in 2026, if he is going to pass on this one, all signs right now seem to point to Barnes running again.
I decided that, uh, needed to take a little deep dive in a recombobulation area piece published this morning called Barnes 22 revisited.
So as part of, as Barnes flirts with a potential statewide run, I think it warrants reassessing the campaign that he ran in 2022 when he lost by just.
1% 27,000
votes to
Ron Johnson and kind of my my big thesis I suppose with this if anything is that I think
Mandela Barnes' campaign was both underrated and overrated at the same time.
Underrated
for many of the reasons that he has been unfairly maligned for when people talk about this race, because there's a lot of data that suggests he did not run a uniquely poor campaign.
It's just Wisconsin and he lost a coin flip.
And we can get into some of the details within that too.
But I think also if you look back to some of the decisions made in that campaign, some of the ads that they
They ran some of the way the messaging was, some of the approach that the overall campaign took with this too safe risk averse.
We don't really want to say anything
bold
or buzzy or whatever.
I think there were problems with that too.
So that's what the column really gets into.
Just published this morning at the Reconpopulation area.
This one does have a paywall about halfway through.
So you do have to subscribe to read this one.
It's so worth it.
And it's really a
deal.
It really
is.
It is a deal.
And you can get a
free trial.
I just wanted to read this
one.
There you go.
I just lost myself some money there.
So in what ways was he underappreciated in the way that he ran his campaign?
Yeah, so I think there's a lot of data that suggests...
In Wisconsin, it's always going to be, any statewide race is going to be in that toss-up category.
Neither party has the inherent advantage like you would see in many other states.
And so then I think because it was a Republican advantage midterm, people forget this because Democrats did better than expected.
But when your leader is in the White House, when you control the White House, the out party tends to do better in the midterms.
This is what history has shown us over and over again.
Democrats did well.
2006 and 2018 in those regards Republicans did extremely well in 2010 also 2014 but in 2022 I think you know part of it was because of the Dobbs decision that energized a lot of Democratic voters at the time but also just like there was not a lot of great candidates and Democrats won a lot of these Senate races and but you know lost in Wisconsin and I think that is you know obviously what it comes back to with Barnes with when people are having a little
bit of this consternation about him running again, cause he lost,
right?
But I think, you know, he was the closest Senate race in a hundred years.
He was running against an extremely well-funded two-term incumbent.
I think as much as we dislike Ron Johnson as a Senator, he is not a good Senator.
He's good at winning elections.
He sure is.
He
has
kind of been the Republican who has really bridged the last, you know, era of Republican politics from kind of the Tea Party wave that he came in on in 2010 from, you know, just being like business guy Tea Party Republican to the conspiracy theory lunatic MAGA guy that he is today.
But I think that has
Ben, where the party has shifted over the past 15 years, and he has encapsulated that shift in a lot of ways.
So he ran ahead of Donald Trump in 2016 in Wisconsin when he beat Russ Feingold for a second time.
You know, he won this thing.
So I think people might look at Ron Johnson, see, hey, he's the kooky uncle who's on Fox News saying all this crazy stuff.
He's been good at winning elections.
Well,
and he's really good.
Again, I give Republicans a lot of credit for their marketing because I saw this the other day on social media.
What has Tammy Baldwin ever done for Wisconsin?
And I think of all of the federal dollars Tammy Baldwin has brought back to our state for farmers and construction workers and bringing jobs and all of those things.
And I just think.
Democrats have a hard time going, look at what I did.
Look at the thing.
And there is an inherent problem there because, first of all, I want to go back to when something you just said, let us not forget that Ron Johnson beat Russ Feingold.
Yeah.
Twice.
Twice.
Yeah.
The fact that he won once, we thought, oh, flu, Russ Feingold will come back in and he lost.
Russ Feingold, for those who don't know, don't remember.
Democratic Senator Titan in this state.
I mean, known for his policies, known for his, his rhetoric, known to put the money where the mouth is, all those things, the fact that Ron Johnson, but also Ron Johnson in the first election came in as a measured businessman.
And by the, his secondary elect, he was now just
Well, everything changed.
Ruin
conspiracy
theorists.
He went
to Moscow for the 4th of July.
But the thing is, what you're saying, Jane, I think is very, very important.
And I think that Democrats really need to figure it out someday is that when they achieve something and they want to do something policy-wise, they think the best way of doing that is getting in front of you and talking about it for what seems like a decade.
They love to explain.
They're never happier than when they're trying to teach you something.
Whereas...
Ron Johnson, and this was told to me by a friend of mine who is a consultant in DC.
Ron Johnson just simply said, do you like candy?
I love candy.
I'll give you candy.
But for me, candy.
And people were like, I like candy.
So it's about taking all those wins from Tammy Baldwin.
And same problem with Tony Ebers, too.
Not enough standing on the podium, doing victory laps, because it's hard to put these
kind of non-sexy boring things into context to make it look good and feel good and make you go, oh, awesome.
That's the problem that Democrats face.
But it blows my mind that we can have someone like Tom Tiffany who voted against the infrastructure, the infrastructure act, but
then
he'll go and stand in front of the Blotnik bridge and say, look what I did for Wisconsin when he actively voted against the measure that is bringing the improvements to the Blotnik bridge.
That makes me crazy.
Is that for Tammy Baldwin to stand and go, hey, you can't be here.
You know, like does that does she'll never do that?
She will never do that.
And Democrats would probably be like, you can't do that.
But Dan, tell me your thoughts on
that.
Well, as one Democrat put it to me once, if you take three sentences to explain something
you've
already lost.
Yeah,
you're losing.
And that is such a common problem with Democratic politics, because you have to like, oh, well, these subsidies go to take down your health care costs and it's.
if you're explaining you're losing.
So that is often the case.
So I think just to get back to the Barnes thing here too is that Johnson was a pretty good candidate as much as we don't like him as a senator.
And I think, but he also had certain like Wisconsin specific, Johnson specific failings and idiosyncrasies and all sorts of, you know, weirdness that they could have gone after.
And I think the campaign that Barnes ran that was this very like,
on defense, safe, measured, backpedaling, hey, they're telling lies about me, type of campaign, whereas it wasn't a campaign against Ron Johnson, the uniquely problematic senator.
It was a campaign against generic Republican
senator.
And that didn't work.
And I think you have to have, you have to have like a specific campaign in Wisconsin.
You can't just run things here the way they are.
you know, consultant defied and carbon copied across the rest of the country.
It has to be- You gotta narrow your
focus.
You have to
understand the state.
And I don't think that their campaign entirely did.
If you're just joining us, Dan Schaefer is here, Civic Media's political editor, the creator of the Reconvobulation Area.
He joins us every Friday.
You can join us as well at 855-752-4842.
Cindy from Appleton has been waiting patiently.
Good morning, Cindy.
What did you want to say?
Well, first of all, Senator Johnson has done absolutely nothing for the state of Wisconsin, and I just don't realize why people can't figure that out.
But as far as Mandela Barnes goes, no offense to anybody, but as a lieutenant governor, they really don't do anything.
And I just don't believe he has the political experience to run for the governor.
Fair enough.
Thank you, Cindy.
And that's something too that I think I've discussed with the both of you, either on air or off air, is that
You know he ran in 22 if it's if politics of the office if an office was something he was seeking you would think he'd be there more in the line site of
interviews to talk about politics.
He's doing great advocacy and community service work.
I'm not
taking that away from him.
But if you want to seek that office, then you have to put yourself in the right place.
And what it seems like to me is that I don't know if you've heard differently, Dan, but it seems like we're now talking about this because of a poll from a couple of weeks ago that had him at 16%.
No one had him in the conversation, really.
And now all of a sudden, because of that, we're talking about it.
And to me, that's not why you seek office.
It's not because people think you're cool.
It's because you want to do something.
And I didn't get that from Mandela Barnes after he lost in 22.
He went and did his other stuff, but I didn't feel like he was going to run again.
This is why I think if he does run again, it has to be a different campaign.
Yes.
I think you can't run it back and do it the same way as he did last time.
Not just because he lost, and again, I think he overcame a lot of obstacles.
He faced a lot of ridiculous, over-the-top racist ads throughout that campaign.
He was running to make history as Wisconsin's first black senator.
There was an uphill battle in a lot of ways.
He was the underdog going against a well-funded two-term incumbent who had the Hendrickson U-line pack.
throwing tens of millions of dollars that there was no equivalent to on his side.
There was a lot of things working against him.
But I think also he ran, he could have won if he ran a slightly better campaign.
He left a win on the board there.
And I think that is what so many people are frustrated.
So if he, you know, I still think he has a promising future in politics in Wisconsin, but if he's going to do this political comeback, which frankly hasn't worked for a lot of people in Wisconsin,
it has
to be different.
It cannot be the same type of campaign.
It has to be a different type of message.
And so I think that's what he and his team have to be thinking about right now.
If they are planning an announcement, if they are planning to run here, how is this going to be different?
And how can we let people know right out of the gate?
This is a different thing.
We have learned from our mistakes last time.
We are doing things differently.
Let's go.
I think it has to be so different.
We're going to continue with Dan Schaefer.
If you would like to join us, give us a call or send in a text or leave a voice note at 855-752-4842.
Gene, I see you there.
We will take you when we come back.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air coming to Across the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
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Hello.
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That
was good.
Thank you very much.
You listen
in WBA We're gonna clip that
and submit because
I'm very
involved with civic media today edit civic media today.
I'm gonna use that as our main promo My quasi
threat to
another
organization But it's seriously it's a great snapshot of what is going on across all of the shows Even you know Earl Ingram and the podcast and all
of those things and our news like
headlines from around the state from all of our news team and then shawley pitman our news director puts together this you know just kind of like here's what's going on around the state what we're watching today it's a great way to find a lot of wisconsin news
connect all of our
shows yeah
civic media today today dot subs deck dot com there it is that's what you want to do we'll put that in the show notes
Right before the break, we were talking about the Wisconsin races and the race for governor, Governor Evers, Tony Evers, not running again.
And so we were talking about Mandela Barnes.
Jean from Eau Claire has been waiting very patiently.
Good morning, Jean.
What do you want to say about
this?
I just want to say, first I want to clarify something, because they always do this to people in a nonchalant way, this type of thing.
That's how I mean, Baldwin never did anything for us.
I've never seen anybody work as hard as her, except for Russ Feingold.
And I watch Russ Feingold.
Believe me, I've been watching this stuff for years, and the lies and the deception.
These people are masters of deception, and they got a lot of bucks.
Put in to help them keep control of our country and our state and start in our state and moved up to the federal government.
We got to move those people out that are Associated with what happened with Scotty Walker and now they're doing it when their federal government Ron Johnson is a master of deception and lies and one of the things that I've seen him do which I really do believe is
helps to support that once people run they don't get another chance because they use the dirtiest techniques that I have ever seen in my life like putting Mandela Barnes at that parade when the guy went through with the cars and prayed and then they put pictures of Mandela by you know that
what happened there, like he was involved.
It was
sick and I couldn't get that out of my head.
These lie really rotten things to get you to see something horrifying and put the person with it and people got to realize that people that are doing the horrifying things are the ones setting it up like Ron Johnson who don't give a nothing about the people in the state of Wisconsin.
That's my personal opinion folks.
That's my opinion.
So, um, thank you very much.
And in fact, he was up there the other day and I just about choked.
He was up there saying how he was on a, um, oh, uh, list enemies list by Biden, you know, because he was looked into.
I couldn't believe it.
I thought, Holy Moses, anybody seeing that?
He was saying that he was on an enemy's list, and they were checking his January 6 phone calls.
Thank you, Gene.
I appreciate it.
Ron Johnson is all over any cable channel he can get on.
Talking about the fact that, yes,
This is all about the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and who was getting contacted, and who was getting called.
And we know Donald Trump was calling lawmakers when this was going on.
So that's what that is related to.
But yes, they're trying to
overturn the election.
Seems like something to investigate.
I don't know.
It does seem worthy of investigation.
Trying to
end democracy in America.
Kind of a big deal.
Yeah.
But going back to Mandela Barnes, yes, they used some racist tropes.
They certainly
did in, in, in running, in running against him.
They certainly did.
They,
they, you know, had, uh, I believe there was a mailer where his, they darkened his skin color.
Uh, they put his name next to, you know, a crime scene in one of these ads.
I think the gene was alluding to there.
Uh, you know, a bunch of Milwaukee legislators came out talking about how, uh, racist these ads were in real time.
Angela Lang wrote a piece at the reconbibulation area in real real time talking about, um, how this was.
And so I think, you know, he faced obstacles, a lot of other candidates.
because
of
that.
So I
think you have to consider that piece of it, factor that into the larger calculus of things he was running against, you know, running.
against an incumbent to make history.
Like there was a lot of difficult things there.
And I think there was a comment on our live stream about,
you know.
I'm gonna bring this up right now.
Ms.
Artie T says Barnes got 48,223 fewer votes than Evers and lost to Johnson by 26,255 because Barnes couldn't get the necessary democratic votes.
We need another candidate.
Thank you for that comment Ms.
Artie.
Yeah, so.
I do want to address a piece of that too.
So John Johnson of Marquette University, very smart guy, does a lot of really in-depth research.
He wrote a piece after the 2022 election talking about Barnes' campaign and the fact that, you know, why is it that Wisconsin elected Tony Evers by 3.5% and Barnes lost by 1%.
And really what he calculated in this was the force of incumbency, and which he calculated to be about a 2%.
net effect.
So
2% advantage for Tony Evers, 2% disadvantage for Mandela Barnes.
And that explains that kind of four-ish percent discrepancy, that 40-some thousand votes that the folks on the live stream identified as that being different.
And now, incumbency was a really big factor across the board in Wisconsin that year.
There were not a single incumbent lost in November 22.
out of the 90 running in the state legislature and statewide.
So incumbents just did not lose that year at all.
And so we have to incorporate
that into
understanding it.
Yeah.
We have news coming up next.
We will continue recombobulating with Dan Schaefer, Civic Media's political editors.
Stay with us.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the vast statewide countrywide.
You can pick us up around the world on the Civic Media radio network.
Don't go away.
Welcome, welcome to Matinair on air.
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Join us, call or text.
at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream.
Good morning, a live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
It is Friday, so Dan Schaefer is here, Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the Recombobulation Area.
Just want to remind folks, Saturday night, before you go to bed, turn your clocks back one hour.
What?
Okay, you have clocks to turn back.
I have clocks.
I know.
Am I
the only one who has clocks?
I have a clock to turn back.
You have a clock?
A clock.
I have no clocks, honestly.
I'm just thinking about this right now.
I have no clock.
Why don't count the
microwave?
Okay, so
you don't count those.
I don't look for the time on the microwave.
But you don't have actual clock clocks?
I don't have clock clocks.
Oh God, I have a lot of clocks.
Yeah, I have a clock.
One clock.
A clock.
A clock, singular.
20 clocks.
I'll be busy Saturday night.
Maybe the rest of you
won't.
What are you doing Saturday night?
I'm winding and resetting my
clocks.
Always a tough time of year for parents too.
Kids don't know that time is changing.
Neither do pets.
Neither do pets.
Neither do pets.
Her
feeding time,
her feeding time, she's going to be staring at
you for an hour.
She can
learn to feed herself.
Anyway, Daylight Saving Time comes to an end this weekend.
So Saturday night, before you go to bed, turn your clock back one hour, we get to sleep in an extra hour on Sunday.
People
who don't have kids
do and that's going to be dark at four o'clock.
Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that.
That is the reality of it.
So anyway, it's just a
little reminder.
That is where
we are.
So let's I am the killer of joy.
This is my
job.
I am the stomper of joy.
Seven takeaways from the October 2025 market poll.
Another
great column in the recombobulation area.
So that came out this week.
My words this week.
Can I just say thank you for when you do this one because
I love the Marquette poll, but when I see the Marquette poll, it's like saying to yourself, I'm going to read the odyssey.
And you're like, no, I'm not.
This has got a lot of words.
You look at this thing and you always do a wonderful job of breaking it down and making it so my brain of cats can understand that.
Well, I appreciate that.
Great.
Thank you.
That's, that's the goal,
right?
Translate detailed polling.
you know, data into something that people can read and understand.
But there's, there's so much information in there.
They do so much beyond just like the horse race, you know, which candidate is winning, which candidate is the high approval rating, whatever.
They talk about the issues.
They talk about the trends.
There's so much there.
So I think, you know, I, as I wrote in the piece, there's really no meaningful information about the democratic primary so far.
Nobody wants
to think
about it.
Nobody's paying attention to it yet at all.
A lot of
these candidates, they're not that well-known statewide.
It's 81% was undecided in this.
And so it's just like, what am I gonna, and the margin of error was over 6%.
And all of the candidates were within the margin of error.
There's nothing really to be learned from that.
Unfortunately, I was looking forward to it.
But there's nothing to be learned from
that.
They talked to, I think the sample was like 400 people.
No kidding.
And for the Democratic side, it was like 400 for Democratic side, 400 for the Republican side.
The 81% was undecided.
So it's just like, well, what are you going to do?
Like I was interested to learn who might be ahead so far, but nobody is.
So we'll just move it along.
So there's nothing really to be gained from that.
I think the issue poll, there is a lot of really interesting issue polling here.
And a lot of stuff that you guys have been talking about on the show here on Matt Naranair in particular.
inflation and cost of living still way, way out ahead as the top issue that voters in Wisconsin are most concerned with, ranked at almost 70% of voters said it was a very concerning issue, ranked as the most important issue for voters by far.
And I think a lot of that is tied to another question that was asked in the poll about tariffs and about whether tariffs and Trump's policies are
causing some of the inflation that we're
seeing now.
And I think Wisconsin voters can see what's in front of them and can recognize that tariffs are hurting the economy and tariffs are making costs go up.
And so in Wisconsin, again, we are this 50-50 divided state, 55% of registered voters said that tariffs are harming the U.S.
economy.
Only 33% said it helps the U.S.
economy.
independence and Democrats.
It's very, very much overwhelming to say that
it
hurts the economy.
They
also asked about whether it hurts farmers.
We've been hearing a lot.
You guys have been talking a lot on the show about how tariffs are impacting Wisconsin farmers.
62% of Wisconsin voters say that tariffs
hurt Wisconsin farmers.
Only 16% say they're helping Wisconsin farmers.
And if you look at this by region, the Marquette poll breaks it down and kind of the major media markets in the state and then groups Northern and Western Wisconsin into one category.
Only 12% of voters in Northern Western Wisconsin say tariffs are helping farmers.
That's where a lot of farming happens in Wisconsin,
right?
And so I think people can see what's in front of them.
They might get these lies from the Trump administration saying that the tariffs are bringing, you know, manufacturing and agriculture home.
It's not.
And people see what's in front of them.
And I think this is an issue that that Republicans are going to be very vulnerable on.
If you're just joining us on Matt Nair on air, we're talking to Dan Schaffer, civic media's political editor, also the creator of the recombobulation area talking about the recent Marquette University Law School poll about the political situation in Wisconsin.
I want to go back to messaging just for a minute and.
The Biden administration and even Kamala Harris got a lot of criticism leading up to the last election for not talking about prices and not admitting that prices were up.
And that was a big mistake by not, I'm sorry, at least in my estimation, we heard a lot from the Biden administration.
Things are fine.
Things are getting better.
The economy is moving in the right
direction.
That was accurate.
Yet they'd never said, we know groceries are expensive.
Now we're seeing the other thing from the Republican Party, which is essentially the sky is green.
Prices are down.
Prices are down.
Donald Trump says it almost on a daily basis.
Groceries are down.
Energy is down.
Gas is down.
That is blatantly untrue.
And yet that seems to be the messaging that they are hammering.
And people believe it too, then.
They seem
to be.
Immediately.
Immediately.
Yeah, but I do think that...
You know the tear people in Wisconsin really do not like tariffs Like there's a lot of these polls that you look at issue by issue over and over its partisanship colors It's so much.
Yes, it is so much through a partisan lens Like if you look at the shutdown, it's Democrats, you know Democratic voters are blaming our Republicans and Republican voters
are blaming Democrats
That's how it's going But if you look at this like the fact that we have more than 60% of Wisconsinites
often don't agree on
anything as
much.
Saying that tariffs are hurting farmers.
People can see the reality in front of them.
It was the same as the case when the Biden administration was saying, yeah, well, inflation was the, it's better here than any other of the countries in the Western world.
Again, it's that we're taking three sentences to explain we're losing situation.
But
also it's just like it kind of dismisses people's very real concerns about how these
Prices are impacting their own families and their own lives
and the problem is is that we now live in such a news center Well, we live in such a place where you can get your news and on such a deep confirmation bias that if someone takes that information and presents it to Tom Tiffany
and says, what do you say to 60% of Wisconsinites saying that tariffs are hurting people?
All he has to do is say, that's a liberal poll.
I don't believe in that stuff.
They don't know.
All they have to do is reject it outright.
That's it.
And never address the problem.
Therefore, never having to give a real plan, except for saying, we're going to keep doing what we're doing because America's winning.
Then we don't get the discussion that Wisconsinites deserve in such a critical election coming up in such a critical time that will, I mean, let's face it.
What are the odds in Vegas we'll have midterms?
I'm asking that question for real so with an an election like governors coming up We need candidates who are going to answer the questions and unfortunately We now Permit our candidates to just slough it off and move on without having to do anything Except saying they like the orange guy.
That's it.
Yeah
Well, I think he's going to have to do more than that.
I think any Republican candidate running in Wisconsin in the midterm this year is going to have to do more than that because people can see what's in front of
them.
People can see that the tariffs are impacting prices.
costs are still going up.
There was kind of this interesting breakdown within the poll.
There was a gender gap on the question of whether grocery prices go up.
Gee, who does the shopping?
Women more often said that grocery prices are going up, and particularly Republican men saying that grocery prices are not going up.
There was a partisan gap on this, like there is with everything.
Republican women don't say that prices are going up at the same level that Democratic women do.
But at the same time, there was a significant gender gap there, which they pointed out in the poll, which I thought was very interesting.
Gee, what a shock.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, but I saw one Republican lawmaker on my social media from this morning saying, I don't understand why if you get SNAP benefits, which equals about $4,200 a year, that you can't survive on that.
That's $350 a month.
I just spent $48 on one bag of groceries last week.
one bag for two people.
So don't tell me the $350 is gonna carry a family of four for a month.
Tell me you've never been into a grocery store.
That guy.
He's one of those guys that's experiencing the gender gap in that poll.
Yeah, most definitely.
Um, I want to point out another thing too here about not just, you know, the issue polling, there's a poll, they always do, they've started doing this thing at the market poll now where they basically pulled the three branches of government in Wisconsin.
So like pull approval rating for Tony Evers, approval rating for the state legislature, approval rating for this, uh, Wisconsin Supreme court.
So Tony Evers is a slight net positive as he typically is net plus five in the approval ratings, Wisconsin Supreme court, as it typically has been a slight positive as well in net plus six.
the liberal controlled Wisconsin Supreme
Court.
I find that very interesting.
Yeah, why is that?
Well, just because, again...
Depending upon who you listen to, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
My goodness, there's nothing but Marxist, female, feminist, liberal, Marxist, socialist.
Don't forget
Marxist.
On caravans.
Yeah, it turns out people are supporting of the people that they voted to put in office there on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The one branch of government that does not have a net positive approval rating
is the
Republican controlled Wisconsin state legislation.
Shocker.
Yeah, they are a net minus 11.
It is much wider, they are much worse viewed than any other branch of government in Wisconsin, and I think this matters more now.
Because if we're one, we're kind of one year out now, that's what the part of the thought of this poll here, what are the issues in candidates that matter one year
out
from the midterms?
We're one year out.
People are not approving of the Wisconsin state legislature.
The gap is getting wider.
Republicans have controlled this body for more than 15 years.
Going into the 2026 election, this is the first chance that Wisconsin will have to elect a Democratic
legislature
with new maps in a generation.
And so I think if you're looking at this, a big picture here,
This, the fact that it is, and there is again, a huge split down partisan lines on this.
So the approval of the legislature, plus eight among Republicans, minus nine among independents, minus 33 among Democrats who really do not like.
They only pulled GD from Republican.
They only pulled GD from
Republican.
For sure.
So, you know, going into 2026 with.
the trifecta possibility out there, the fact that the legislature has this approval rating and people see it through a partisan lunge, I think that's a factor.
I think it's a big deal.
And I'm just wondering for right now, we'll talk about in the future, what it looks like if Robin Voss decides not to run again.
That's a piece of the puzzle that will be interesting to see come
forward.
Other than
us
throwing a party.
Dance
party, new shoes.
Stay close.
We're going to keep recombobulating with Dan Schaefer.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the Civic Media Radio.
network.
We'll be
right back.
Good morning.
Welcome back to Matinair on Air.
Jane Matinair, Greg Bach, our one, our only Calzone on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us, call or text at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter if you have the Civic Media app, which you absolutely should.
Download it for free.
at wherever you get your apps, and then you can leave a voice note as well.
You can call and text and voice note directly from the Civic Media app, and we do some pretty fabulous contests.
Oh my gosh, yeah.
Where you have to have the app if you wanna
play.
You two really, Dan, put your phone down.
You can't play.
They're really great.
So the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us is great.
the newsletter, civicmediatoday.substack.com, and then the Civic Media app, all free, all great ways of staying in touch, not only with Civic Media, but all of our individual networks around the Midwest.
So it's, these are all free aspects, these are free resources, and it's about like getting your news, getting your music, getting your, your fun stuff, the podcast.
Those are three great places to go, civicmedia.us, civicmedia.today.substack.com and the app.
as well.
Get them all in your
life.
Do it.
It's free.
And
again, there could be another fabulous contest coming soon.
Is it a text-to-win contest?
It would be a multi-state text-to-win contest.
And you have to have the app in order to play.
So download it today, Civic Media.
It's absolutely free.
Like I said, Dan Schaeffer is here from the Reconpopulation Area and also Civic Media's political editor in this article from Fox Six.
Milwaukee's new towing rule, crackdown on unpaid parking tickets starts on November 1st.
Milwaukee Alderman talked about this upcoming enforcement.
Any vehicle parked legally or illegally whose owners
has not complied with parking tickets is going to be towed and impounded.
Starting on January 1st of this year, the city is sending out 30,000 letters to people who qualify as habitual parking violators.
So there's a lot of revenue sitting out there for these people who won't pay their tickets.
A lot of people who have got parking tickets in Milwaukee, that's for sure.
These are people with five or more tickets
more than 60 days overdue.
How do you...
And aren't they, isn't the average, because I've gotten a couple parking tickets over, they're 20 bucks, aren't they?
Something like that,
yeah.
And then it
goes up, the longer you wait.
Yes.
The
amount increases.
Yeah.
But come on,
just pay your tickets people.
Yeah, and I've seen like they started towing after what it was like two or three tickets there, that you're able to tow.
Like this is just kind of ramping that up in a lot of ways.
Oh yeah.
Have you ever had to go to the Milwaukee tow lot?
I bet it's really a lovely experience.
Either of you ever had to go to the Milwaukee Tola?
No.
Once, not because of parking tickets, because I got a flat, I had to spin out on a flat tire off of the national exit in West Dallas area.
And I had no, there was no cell phone at the time.
And I had to walk somewhere to find a phone.
And when I came back, they towed my car.
And so I had to go and like, I'm like, what did you do?
Like, well, we had to get rid of it was in the way.
I'm like, but.
My car now.
And so I had to go to the lot and pay the money and all the things.
And I was like, this is ridiculous.
And what did you have to pay to get it out?
Oh, I don't know.
These are like late 90s prices.
So probably like 100 and 50 bucks.
So, I mean,
that cannot be inexpensive.
It's not also, it's, I've had, I had, I lived on the East side for several years.
It should just come with parking tickets.
Right up the hill off of Lafayette where, yeah, by McKinley Marina.
I used to live over there.
We had to street park.
So I got a lot of parking tickets.
I mean, some, it was a lot of like snow parking or whatever.
They will take you for any little thing that you're going to screw up when you're parking on the East side.
It's just kind of the, one of the charms of the neighborhood when you're living over there.
So I did get towed.
I got towed.
twice.
And then like, I don't know, six or seven years that I lived over there.
So I got towed twice.
I had to go to have somebody give me a ride to that tow lot, sit there while they process it.
Oh my gosh.
Is that an awful experience?
It can't be good.
Yeah.
But the thing I get frustrated with sometimes is like, sometimes you don't know, you get a parking ticket.
Like.
Like you know the ticket will blow away like they clip it under your you know under your windshield wipers or whatever right Or you know you'll get something in the mail, but it's like way later that that I it's like sometimes hard to miss it in the mail There needs to be like a better notification process for when people know that they have a parking ticket like everybody's got your like phone number and email address now like it you're not a hard
to get a hold of.
Well, if your car is registered
and you
have a license plate that's got valid plates, it should be linked to an email address.
And as soon as they plug that ticket in, it goes directly to your email saying, you
got a
ticket.
Congratulations.
I think, though, you asked the question, why aren't people paying them?
If there's not really good enforcement, what's the incentive?
Well, exactly.
It's like, what are they going to do?
Toe my car?
Well, yeah, they are now.
Yeah, they
are.
Driver Cynthia Curry mentioned in this article from Fox Six, she said, she got put on a payment plan.
because
she
was so far behind
after
her car got towed.
She said, it's a great option.
Get on a payment plan and work it out.
I
had
some situations come up where my car got towed, money was short.
I had to pay it.
So I got on a payment plan.
I mean, that's better than having your car towed, pay five bucks a month
or whatever.
Yeah.
So there are options for people instead of just avoiding it forever.
So there's that.
There's another tow related, towing cars related story coming out of Milwaukee.
The state legislator,
state legislature approved a bill allowing Milwaukee to tow vehicles that have been associated with reckless driving.
What?
Which I actually think is a good thing.
I think that's a great thing I think if they find a car parked somewhere that they like hey this has tickets or whatever dealing with reckless driving They can just tow it now But
then what if the
city has to like approve it in its budget this year to finalize but the state kind of like created the mechanism But I worry now
about people whose cars were stolen and then used by kids using it as joy rides They're the ones who are gonna get punished for that ultimately
That's a good point.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking to
have news coming up next when we return We're gonna lighten it up.
It's time for a little audio Sorbet We'll talk all things Halloween and do a special tribute to a song that debuted 50 years ago today Stay with us.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the civic media radio network
Good
morning.
Welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane Matt and Air.
Greg Bach, Calvinator on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine, where you can always join us, call or text.
at 855-752-4842.
Leave a comment if you're watching in the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
Dan Schaefer is here, Civic Media's political editor, also the creator of the multi-award-winning Recon Population Area.
And this is the portion of the program where we call it Audio
Sorbet.
We lighten things up, get away from the news, take a breath, so we can all Recon Populate.
Essentially.
And clean our ears with fun.
The official title of the audio sorbet segment.
We had Calvin bumped in with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, which debuted today 50 years ago today.
Wow.
50 years.
And I remember if you watch the Queen documentary, there's a great documentary about Queen.
When they first played Bohemian Rhapsody for a record executive, he's like, what is this?
This is never going to sell.
It was, I mean, just the fact it was over three and a half minutes, they were like, this is never going
to, you want a six, you want a
seven minute song on the radio with an opera section?
Good luck.
We'll see what happens.
Never hear from them again.
Yeah, we never heard from that record exactly.
Exactly.
But it seemed to work out pretty well for Queen.
I don't know anybody who doesn't know the words to that song now.
Oh, I know.
It's such a classic.
We all sing along to it.
And
I think the Wayne's World.
You know
gave
it a second
life, you
know 15 years after
it
was out with Wayne and Garth rocking out to it We've all done that right now all cranked up Queens Bohemian Rhapsody
in the
car and sang along
I heard
once once a long time ago someone said everybody
When you listen to La Bamba, everybody thinks they know how to speak Spanish.
When
you listen
to Bohemian Rhapsody, everyone thinks they can sing opera.
Because they'll get very floaty, like, sing the first part, and as soon as the opera part, they'll be like, back, stiffen,
and get
ready, deep from the diaphragm, and then don't let anyone hear you sing.
Well, in tribute to the classic that is Bohemian Rhapsody, I found this on my social media last week.
I think this is so fun.
Yeah.
Let's play this homage homage homage Calvin to Bohemian Rhapsody play that clip, please There's video we'll put in the
show
Yeah Rubber chickens rubber chickens people chickens.
Oh, that's good That's a C sharp C sharp C sharp nice nice C sharp C sharp.
Here
we go.
Mm-hmm
High notes.
I've watched Jane
watch
this probably a dozen times and she reacts every time like she's seeing it for the first
time.
It
just
makes me happy.
Yeah, that's what it does.
Oh,
look at that.
Here we go.
It's so good.
Yeah, it's so good.
How much you love it?
Bohemian Rhapsody on rubber chickens.
You have never seen anything like it will make your life better.
Coming to Radio City Music Hall this
fall.
He's actually a concert pianist.
He's a
concert pianist.
Yeah, he's got a great... His name... I don't know if I can pronounce his name, but he does these great videos about...
classical music, but makes them funny by just staring into the camera with this dead eyed stare while playing this really complicated music.
And now he's starting to do the rubber chicken
one.
I saw him do a system of a down song and he's in, he's in, he's in.
Tails.
He's
in
white tux tails and he plays it with the vigor of a concert pianist staring at the camera with all sorts of gusto.
And the rubber chickens are all in a string in front of him.
It
is hilarious.
That mix of fine art and something so deeply silly.
That's great stuff.
It's just beautiful.
So if you want to see the video element and I highly encourage that you do, it'll make your day better.
include that in our show notes after the show is over.
Go to civicmedia.us, click on shows, go to matinee on air, and enjoy.
Spread it around.
Spread some joy today with some rubber chickens doing bohemian rhapsody.
All right.
We can talk about Halloween now that I got that out of my system.
I've been sitting on that for a couple of weeks.
You have been.
Yeah, absolutely.
I just think it's
getting ready for the anniversary of the song to kind
of, you know, that's exactly what we were doing, Dan.
We planned it to the hills.
Lots of preparation for this.
Yes.
Let's talk Halloween.
Halloween costumes, your favorite.
What is.
What have you have done in the past that was a huge hit?
Yeah, what are you going as this year?
What are your kids dressing up as?
What is the hot Halloween costume 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic I know you went out with your girls last weekend.
That's
right.
Yeah, we I live in Probably the but I will say the best neighborhood in the world for Halloween Washington Heights on the west side of Milwaukee.
They block off like
seven or eight city blocks and they have competitions with each block against each
other to have the
best decorations.
It's called the Washington Heights Spooktacular.
It's one of my favorite events that we have every year.
It's always the Saturday before.
Halloween, we had an absolute blast.
The kids look forward to it for months.
And I have two daughters, as you know.
And so they went as the two witches from Wicked.
So
Glenda the Good Witch and
Elphaba.
And so they went back and forth for months about who was going to be which one.
And my oldest ended up going as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch.
And she had, she painted her face green and all that, that green paint was on there for a couple
of
days.
sick I don't
know how to say this I'm not trying to insult your children wonderful children I hear great things about them
I really would have expected her to be Glinda.
I don't know
why.
You know, the way you described your youngest, she's got that energy that seems
like
Alphaba.
But she's the sparkly girl.
But she wanted the sparkles.
The younger one is the sparkly girl.
You're right.
She's
the one after my own heart.
My niece went as Alphaba as well, and she was caked in green makeup.
And I'm like, look what that is.
But
she
looked so cute.
I'm pretty sure my nephew went dressed as a monster truck.
Oh, I like
that.
He loves monster trucks.
And I was
the wizard.
Nice.
I was the wizard.
So I basically just did a Jeff Goldblum impression the whole night.
Go ahead.
Must go faster.
Must go faster.
Best Halloween costumes.
What are you doing to celebrate the holiday eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic Jenny on the live stream says Washington Heights and Bayview have the best Halloween celebrations in Wisconsin.
The the street is the name is escaping me even though I live there for seven years, but there's one street specifically in Bayview.
That's the same.
Superior, I think.
No, no, it's on the other side.
It's it's it's
I'm gonna look it up, but they they are like it is go all out is all and it's multiple houses and this has to be thousands of dollars Every year spending because they
are
they're basically making what looks like mini movie sets on their front lawn
We have one like that in our neighborhood and our our trigger treat is tonight We always do ours nighttime trigger treating the Friday before Halloween now it it lines up nicely because it's actually Halloween But there is one house in our neighborhood that has a whole
backdrop in front of their house and nine foot skeletons and monsters and people just go all out.
It's really
impressive.
We had, there was one house in Washington Heights where they did a whole scene, a Godzilla scene.
So they
built these
like fake looking towers and somebody in a Godzilla suit was walking around knocking them down.
And then another guy in a construction vest was like.
Building
them back up.
That's awesome.
Wow.
It was
incredible.
Yeah, real commitment
there.
Is the competition in Washington Heights between the neighbor?
Is it?
Good, or do you hear murmurs of like, not sabotage, but like, oh, we've got, we've got to be better than this treat this.
You know what I mean?
Like, people who take it too seriously.
It's a very friendly competition.
Good,
all right, excellent, excellent, excellent.
It's for the kids.
855, of course it is, 855-752-4842, talking all things Halloween.
Ollie from the North Woods is joining us.
Good morning, Ollie.
Are you dressing up this year?
Louise, I wish I lived in Washington
Heights.
It sounds great, doesn't it?
Yes, it does.
I don't have the greatest costumes.
I have two of the worst costumes our mother made.
We were poor.
Let's put it that way.
Sure.
And one year she dressed me up as a pumpkin that was made with cloth and coat hangers.
Unfortunately, she forgot to realize that when she sent me off to the church party that I couldn't sit down because I couldn't sit down in that costume.
And another costume that she made, my sister and I, was she sewed two sheets together and made us go as Siamese twins.
So it's pretty hard to trick or treat.
Oh my
gosh, Ali, that is hilarious.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate
you
checking in.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
What are you doing for Halloween?
Are you dressing up?
Maybe you've had a Halloween costume from the past that you thought was pretty spectacular.
Jenny, again on the live stream.
In honor of the final season of Stranger Things premiering next month, I will be the L to my dog's ego waffle.
Well, it's strange your things.
They like
it's been so long since there was an episode I
will have to remind myself
11
and the and
the and the Ego waffles.
I do remember
that.
Okay, right?
Do you have a do you have a costume of great memory?
My favorite costume I ever did one year.
I was Britney Spears in 20 years
So this goes back to her schoolgirl face.
Oh boy.
So I did the patent leather shoes and the knee socks and I had a short little plaid skirt and then I took two balloons and I blew them up and I filled them with Jell-O.
and then I stuffed those in my shirt and I blacked out a couple of teeth and drew a bunch of lines on my face and braided my hair and little braids and I was Britney Spears in 20 years.
Which was great except towards the end of the night the Jell-O started to melt.
So I would turn and I
would slosh.
Slosh, slosh, slosh.
So it was, it was a costume with a little movement.
And actually,
if you're watching in the live stream this morning, you can tune in.
This is my costume.
I'm wearing it right now.
I am a post-menopausal childless woman.
I'm the GOP's biggest nightmare.
How?
And I was saying, I am the GOP's biggest disappointment.
I am a 40-something white man with no children.
Whose wife makes more than him?
Oh my god!
There it is, they're here!
It's horrifying!
Dan, do you have any non-children, like you went to a party or you and your wife went to a party, do you have any costumes that stick out for you in your memory?
So I'm not a big Halloween guy.
Same here.
I'll
play along,
I'll
do it.
So here's a great example of how my approach to Halloween, so my wife gets very into it.
She did this absolutely all out.
perfect to the nine's Cleopatra column.
Costumes one year.
Sorry, discombobulated.
Cleopatra costume one year.
And I just kind of found this Julius Caesar like,
you know,
Toga thing at Goodwill at the last minute.
And so we went to this party that it was at a bar in Milwaukee or whatever.
And like this woman comes up to my wife and she's just like, oh, you have the most amazing costume I've ever seen.
And she looks over at me and goes, I like how you almost tried.
And that's how that's my approach to Halloween.
I almost try I'm playing along.
I'm just there to make my wife
by the way Ronnie from work on checking and listening on W. A. U. K. Referring I'm assuming to the rubber chicken tribute to Well, he me and Rhapsody.
Oh my god, my dogs are going nuts Stay with us when we come back.
We'll wrap it up with this shouldn't be a thing stay close You're listening to Matt Nair on air on this civic media radio network.
Everybody sing
Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair, Greg Mock, Calvinator on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us, call or text.
The number is the same 855-752-4842.
Leave a comment if you're watching on the livestream, on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
Our thanks to Dan Schaefer for joining us for the show today from the Reconbobulation Area, also Civic Media's political editor.
Highly encourage you to subscribe to the Reconbobulation Area.
Dan does amazing work.
Yes, he does.
Breaking down elections, breaking down polls, very...
southeastern wisconsin specifics so if you live around here it's a great it's a great thing to to subscribe to
multi award-winning uh website multi award-winning reporters there uh recombobulation area is a great place in
And it's very affordable,
too.
It does not
cost a lot of money to support local news, which is what we need more now than any time in the world.
Without a doubt.
Local news, and we're seeing national news services getting gutted.
subscribe subscribe today really quick I just wanted to mention something that I was it earlier this week or last week times a construct but we had Madeline Anderson and James Flores from the Milwaukee Public Museum here talking about everything going on and one of the things they were doing is celebrating Native Native American Heritage Month
and
tomorrow at the Public Museum will be
a powwow, the first ever powwow at Milwaukee public museum this Saturday, the three rivers powwow and you are, you are invited to go.
The media
is
going to send it to us, but it's open to the public.
They love to see people out there, but it is going to be, uh, not November 1st.
You can check their website for the time and it's going to be on their second floor.
So I just wanted to pass that along.
If you want to see something wonderful,
go to this power, experience it and find out more about this wonderful culture in the state.
And if you do go, ask the dancers about their regalia, because there's a lot of stories behind what they're wearing and the incredible beadwork and the incredible needlework that they do on these.
It's fabulous.
So yeah, check it out and support our Milwaukee Public Museum.
It is just about 10.55 Kelvin.
That means it's time for.
This shouldn't be a thing.
If you ever find a thing you think this shouldn't be, send it in to Greg and me at janesaysatcivicmedia.us J-A-N-E-S-A-Y-S, janesaysatcivicmedia.us We've been doing Halloween themed tis bets all week.
We'll wrap it up with this one from UPI Ben Hooper coming through again.
Oh man.
We love this guy.
Headline reads, Utah man.
drops 1,917 pound pumpkin onto his Geometro.
Geometro, kids, ask your
memaw.
There's a video element included that I highly encourage you to check out.
It will be in our show notes.
A Utah man said a final farewell to his Geometro he drove for 35 years by dropping a wine 1,970 pound pumpkin.
from a height of about 14 stories.
I'm just looking at the still photo from this.
It looks like a boulder.
It's a boulder that's almost as big as this car, but it's a pumpkin.
Yeah, it's gigantic.
Millville resident Albert Gerbert said his 91 Geometro finally stopped running this year 35 years.
So he decided to send it off in style by destroying it as one does with a giant pumpkin.
His 1,917 pound pumpkin took first place at the Utah Giant Pumpkin Festival way off, was hoisted 14 stories in the air by a crane.
and then dropped onto the 35-year-old compact car, caving it in in a spectacular fashion.
Gilbert says, quote, it's just something that we've talked about.
Me and my wife have talked about for a long time.
I guess you've been sitting around.
What should we do with it?
You know, it would be fun.
We decided this would be the best way for it to go.
And it happened.
And it's been kind of fun.
They own that car 25 years longer than the car company was in existence.
That's amazing because
Geo was a thing for a moment There were car companies back in the night this the Saturn the Geo the all these car companies that came out you're like Oh, wow.
We got some competition gone gone gone But yeah, the Geo car company lasted 10 years this guy had it for 35 Good wait a minute.
I
say it all how
many miles was on it.
I he does not have the amount of miles
must have been really impressive.
I'm gonna guess between 450 to 675,000.
You
have to
replace the
engine at some point.
Yeah, I mean, right?
I'm sure, but a Geometro, that was probably what?
You just take that out of like a shaver and just put it in there because it's like a tiny little engine.
Or just actually put real.
Take out of your Roomba and you can run your Geometro.
Put tiny horses in there, it wouldn't work.
Well done.
I would totally do that.
Albert.
Alan, sorry, Alan.
Alan and his wife saying goodbye to their Geo Metro 35 years old, dropping almost a 2000 pound pumpkin on it.
It's a ton of fun.
Check it out.
Nice.
In our show notes, go to civicmedia.us at the very top, click on shows, and then go to Matt Nair on air and we have about two months worth of archives.
We have a whole section for this shouldn't be a thing as well on that webpage.
So you can find all of our TISBATs securely and.
Pretty if you curated one section, you can listen to them all.
You'll listen to them all in a day, probably.
Calvin, that wraps up today's episode of... This shouldn't be a thing.
Coming up on Monday, Civic Media's news director, Shaly Pittman, will be here hour number two, Greg Bach.
We have a special announcement.
A special announcement.
A special announcement coming up on the show on Monday after the 10 o'clock news.
I hope you can join us.
I'll be president.
You'll be here.
You better be here.
I'll be here.
Thank you, Greg and Calvin and all of our engineers and everyone at Civic without you, nothing works.
And thank you most of all for calling and texting and listening and watching on the live stream.
It means the world.
I hope you find some joy over the weekend and you have the chance to share it.
Keep it right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Have a great weekend.
Happy Halloween.
We'll see you Monday.
Good morning and welcome to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane Matt and Air.
Greg Bach, Calvinator on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment.
If you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, or what used to be Twitter, he joins us every Thursday at this time.
Former U.S.
Attorney, Acting Attorney.
Jim Santel, host of Amicus, a law review Saturday mornings across the network 9 to 11.
Listen to it.
It's fabulous.
Good morning, Jim.
How are you?
Jane Greg is always a delight to be with you once again.
And today for those folks who are tuning in by stream art, you can actually see real law books behind me there.
How exciting is that?
You rented them just for this.
That's so nice.
I did.
It's all a set.
Right.
Right.
I'm not real anyways.
No,
he is an actual attorney who does legal things.
And he's
real
too.
And he is.
Yes, he exists.
We have a lot of things, very serious things to talk about this morning.
And let's start.
Let's start with the situation in Chicago and ICE agents in Chicago and Bovino, the head of ICE.
This ice forest in Chicago is in a little trouble, it looks like.
Or is that not the case?
No, I think he's in a lot of trouble.
Any time that a federal judge asks to see you every single evening to report on what you've done during the course of the day, you're probably in more than a little bit of trouble.
And so that's what she has requested recently.
The Seventh Circuit, the appeals court just above her just yesterday said, well, that's a bit excessive and said he doesn't have to show up for all of those.
But she is plainly monitoring very, very closely what is going on.
He is a U.S.
Border Patrol commander.
Again, you got to just write his name is Gregory Bovino.
And he is also this fellow who is seen on video hurling a canister of tear gas into a crowd.
When you interview him, he plainly is not someone who's there.
Committed to safety and security, but rather to my words not his get people and that is a commission.
That's a mission.
That's a goal completely contrary to what we anticipate from anybody involving the administration of justice and certainly trying to keep peace on the streets of Chicago or anywhere This is this is again a reflection of the Trump administration directive to do whatever you want to do and that's why this is so incredibly troubling
Absolutely.
And one of the instances, and again, this bovino got in trouble before because he was directed not to be lobbing tear gas into residential areas.
And then after that, after she issued that order, he was caught on video doing exactly that.
And at the same time, there were kids leaving their houses with their parents to go take part in a Halloween parade as he lobbed tear gas.
into the neighborhood.
And another story that we mentioned briefly at the same event, there is a running club in Chicago who posted this on social media.
One of our athletes heading bow home from a team run yesterday, he turned onto his block.
Border control had it blocked off.
Agents threatened to break his window if he didn't move his car before he could act.
They pulled him out of the car, knelt on his back, even though he never resisted.
They broke six ribs and caused internal bleeding.
Now, lest you think border control is coming back and saying, oh, that was a mistake.
No, that's not what they're saying.
Their border patrol came back and said, yep, we're doing our job.
And if you're going to cause problems, then this is going to happen to you too.
It is, again, we are in absence for incredible adjectives here, right?
Shocking, stunning, contrary to what we do in America.
And here, not only should this be a source of outrage as to this particular young man, but know as well that there are remedies here.
criminal in nature, although they could be, depending upon if this fellow has indeed engaged in violations of the Constitution in doing this.
It certainly appears, but there's also the notion of, again, a prosecution for arrest under circumstances where you're using excessive force.
And people have, in fact, gotten monetary damages against law enforcement when they engage in this kind of conduct.
There are remedies out there.
And again, as I said, the local state's attorney there in Illinois should also be looking at whether or not this conduct is fundamentally criminal in nature.
Only the DA, only the state's attorney can prosecute that.
But all those things should be on the table.
In addition to America, wherever you are expressing absolute outrage demanding that this not
continue Sarah Ellis.
Sarah Ellis again is the name of the judge who deserves our commendation and our support.
She is the one who's right now trying to keep a hold on this stunningly saying can we please not use tear gas when children are trick or treating tomorrow.
What a stunning stunning indictment of America that a federal judge has to say let's let the kids get some candy and enjoy the evening without being gassed on the streets of America.
What is going on?
If you're just joining us right now, I'm Matt Naranair.
You are talking to Jane and Greg.
We are on the show right now, Matt Naranair.
And we are talking with Jim Santel, who is the host of Amicus, a law review, which is on 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m.
every Saturday.
And if you miss an episode live, you can always go to civicmedia.us slash shows.
Find Amicus and you can download about two months worth of shows, if not more, honestly, because you're once a week.
So there's a lot of access.
It's a great, great program.
And I highly recommend.
you check it out because it's like a little law class every single week for you.
But Jim, earlier this week, I was talking about on the show with Jane that the way we're speaking about this country is how we speak.
We used to speak about other countries, quote, quote, lesser countries when it came to violence in the street as done by the federal government.
And it's seeming to become overwhelming.
And the fact that we are now in the halls of lesser
administrations or countries or however you want to call it.
But there's something to be said about this, about Sarah Ellis, Judge Sarah Ellis, let me rephrase that, is that we're now, we can see slow movements of pushback, whether it's from the judges.
This is a big, to me, this is a big deal.
The fact that there is at least a showing of
of accountability, trying to make them seem a combo.
Whereas a couple of weeks ago, it was just, sorry, that's it.
We don't have to show our faces.
We don't have to identify ourselves.
If we beat you up, we beat you up.
If we disappear you too bad, if we send you somewhere else, not our problem.
Now it seems like, all right, small cracks in the armor here by ways of judge and by the press, by not adhering to Pete Hex, that's new demands for covering the Pentagon.
I mean, from your point of view as a lawyer,
And you see a lot of this happening as far as the legality of what they are doing.
Are you seeing more and more pushback coming from various judges?
Do you see this as the beginning, possibly?
I
think it's the beginning.
I think it's actually the continuation.
We've seen this.
Actually, I go back.
to March 15th when judges uh a fellow named James Bosberg in District Columbia said you know what if there are 238 people on those planes going to El Salvador you bring them back here you tell the pilot to turn around
And many, many other instances, Greg and Jane, where that has happened, Sarah Ellis, the most recent of all of these.
And yes, indeed, your listeners and all of us should take more than just solace in the notion that she is one of the guardrails, as are these other federal judges saying, no, this is not permissible.
This is not legal.
Don't do it.
And so they are one of the guardrails.
It's federal district court judges for the most part.
It's also appeals court judges.
Again, when you get into the United States Supreme Court, you hit this brick wall with peers to be granting the president permission to do whatever he wants to do.
But there are judges out there saying no.
The big question, which we've also talked about in the past on this wonderful broadcast, is what if the government, as it seems to be doing again in the streets of Chicago, written as this guy named Gregory Bovino, simply says, judge, no.
I'm not doing that.
What if Donald Trump says no Supreme Court or other judges?
What do we do then?
Then we truly are beyond the constitutional crisis.
Then we're beyond even authoritarian
government.
What authority is going to step in and hold them to account?
The one thing I will take a little solace from is some of the judges who are making these decisions are actually Trump appointees who are coming back and saying, yeah, nice try.
You can't do that.
But something I find very disturbing that I don't think we've talked about nearly enough.
This is from NBC News.
Some new ICE recruits are showing up to training without being vetted.
Recruits have had criminal backgrounds, failed drug tests, couldn't meet physical or academic standards.
There is such a rush to deport people and get his quota up because Donald Trump has a quota.
Stephen Miller has a quota.
And they're just filling this up with people that we don't even know.
where they come they could be proud boys they could be jet they could be all january sixth defendants who attacked capital police officers i don't understand why there is no oversight over that agency jim
there should be and frankly to your last comment chain wouldn't we assume that many of these people are among the a thousand folks that the president pardoned early in his term on the first day
Proud boys, 3%ers, those folks, mostly because we don't see their faces.
We don't know who they are.
We have no names.
And this latest reporting that you have just accurately recited confirms, again, a basic flaw.
in what has been a part of this administration, this term in the past term as well.
If you want to work for the Department of Justice, I will tell you this is what I dealt with for 30 years.
Appropriately, you submit your documents and until you're completely vetted, your background is done, your academic background is determined, whether you've got any criminal history.
What is your present financial status?
What is your family status?
All these things go into it.
And I've been in situations where I wanted to bring on an assistant US attorney.
The FBI wants to bring in a special agent.
They're ready to go until someone in Washington gives me or gives that supervisor the call and says, you are ready.
You can now call in.
Calvin and bring him on as an agent of the federal government until that happens and that approval is given that person has no authority They cannot enter the building much less be out there doing things this once again is law enforcement turned on its head and therefore we get these kinds of things where there's no background check and then resumably also
No training.
We've seen those videos as well.
We give them guns.
We go out there.
There's no training on how to make a lawful arrest.
So people do not have their ribs broken and do not end up in the hospital.
There are ways of doing that.
That's part of training.
It is all destroyed.
And apparently the president is just fine with that.
Stephen Miller is fine
with
that.
And again, the situation 2025, go back to your central point.
Judges are saying, Mr. President,
No, you cannot do this, do better.
And we should take again some solace on that, even though the incidents continue to happen around the nation.
Staff members at the Ice Training Academy in Georgia discovered one recruit had previously been charged with strong armed robbery, battery from a domestic violence incident.
They've also found as recently as this month.
Some recruits going through the six-week training course hadn't even submitted fingerprints yet for their background checks, and we're giving them guns and sending them out on the streets.
I had to submit my fingerprints to get a bartending license in this state, and they're not- My goodness.
I-
Actually, what's what's weird and I know it's gonna sound odd But there is a bit of sympathy actually feel for trained qualified ice agents who while I don't agree with what they're doing Those individuals come bumbling in can't make their lives any easier either I mean you started you trying to create a situation and calm it down Maybe and they come in with their guns blade.
This is this
is bad.
Yeah or dropping guns.
That's not good Jim Santel We're gonna continue our conversation with him on the other side the tish James case.
I have questions You're listening to Matt near on air this
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Stay with us.
Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bakker, one of our only 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.
7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream.
Good morning, live stream.
On Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
Coming up after 10 o'clock, Hans Brighton Moser will be joining us.
He is a farmer, dairy farmer, cattle producer here in Wisconsin.
We're gonna talk about...
President Trump essentially telling cattle farmers if only you knew as much about cattle as I do So we're gonna talk to Hans Brighton Moser and see how he reacts to that right now Jim Santel our friend colleague host of amicus a law review on Saturdays across the network from 9 to 11 is our guest in the time that we have left Jim I wanted to talk about this tish James case
Of course, the Trump administration has brought charges against New York Attorney General Latisha James.
She's being accused, and now my website just went down.
I gotta bring it back up again.
She is accused of mortgage fraud.
And from what I was able to read and correct me if I'm wrong,
They're saying that she lied on her mortgage application about whether or not she was going to rent out her house.
That's the big crime, right?
That's it.
That she made a false statement when she got this loan and affirmed that the house would be a second residence, would not rent it out.
That's number one, even without what has developed recently.
That's the huge crime here that's alleged.
in this indictment presented once again by this interim U.S.
attorney.
And we've got some developments now, Jane, as you've called to my attention and the attention of your listeners, that it turns out that there is a rider.
There is an insurance rider.
There is a, there's a bank loan rider rather on this that basically says that indeed you can use it for short-term rentals.
This is one of those situations, Jane and Greg, where you know what?
You don't have to be a lawyer.
You don't have to be a judge.
And maybe even if you're an insurance lawyer, which is what the US Attorney does, practices there, maybe you should have noticed that indeed, this is the kind of thing that will not only affect your capacity to bring the lawsuit in the first place, but to get a conviction.
If this goes to a trial and the judge and the defense introduces evidence,
The judge may well look at this and say, you know what?
There's nothing here to be decided by a jury.
You could even do something called a directed verdict, directing the verdict based upon the fact that there's no way factually that a jury could find this person guilty, Letitia James, based upon the fact that there is no overt, not even close, any fraud here of the sort that's alleged.
It's a stunning development once again.
it's going to sink this lawsuit as will other motions as well.
Well, and my whole thing is this was a victimless crime.
There is no one who lost money.
There was no one that got ripped off by this.
They're just claiming that she lied for the purpose of getting this loan on this form.
So there are no victims involved here.
Nobody that she ripped off.
Unlike Steve Bannon, who ripped off Trump supporters
for his wall, I can think of a number of other cases of Trump supporters ripping off people where actual harm was incurred monetarily, and they all got pardoned.
But they want to go after Tish James for this.
This seems like what is it called grasping for straws.
Yes, it's also called vindictive prosecution.
And the reason why she gets prosecuted, she'll raise this motion as well in addition to this issue about there being this rider on the bank loan itself.
She'll also maintain that the only reason I'm here, as she said publicly, is the President of the United States wanted me indicted.
And we pulled up some information here, as you said, the dollar amount that she benefited from is so de minimis, so small.
No U.S.
Attorney's Office across the nation would ever even bring this as a viable prosecution given the Lord Dalaran to begin with, even if there was a misstatement, which there wasn't.
So
many problems with this.
And the reason we're here once again is because Donald Trump wanted to get back at her.
This is his retribution, which he promised the American people, those who voted for him.
This is what you get.
This is the retribution.
And it's also the abuse number one of our judicial system.
This is being bandied about, obviously, inside our courts.
And it brings into the courtroom somebody who should be focused exclusively on what law enforcement in New York.
If you think this isn't diverting her, think again.
And that's the other, of course, piece of what Donald Trump wants to do.
It's the investigation.
It is the prosecution itself.
in his view, which is the punishment.
It does have that impact.
Again, it's an abuse of the system, abuse of justice.
And her name just now goes on the growing list of enemies.
That's the thing.
And he said it out loud numerous
times.
I saw a flag by my mother-in-law's house that said Trump 2024, the revenge tour, and that perfectly encapsulates what this is.
Coming from a party might I add that
10, 15 years ago, they were railing against gay marriage, people who didn't like war, and frivolous lawsuits.
It was frivolous lawsuits.
They could not stop talking about that.
And now this case, to me, that seems like it should get no attention from the federal government, is now the centerpiece and the ire of Donald Trump.
once again, putting in charge someone to prosecute the case who has no business
and no experience.
Well, and I also think this is indicative of the kinds of charges that the government could bring against just regular citizens like you and me.
Yes.
Right?
Let's be passing to see what the grand jury was told here.
The other problem that she has very quickly is if she did not prevent present this information of the grand jury, there's an obligation of prosecutor to present what's called exculpatory information.
If she didn't present this to the grand jury, she has an ethical problem also.
down the road when we get those grand jury transcripts and figure out what this grand jury did and did not hear at the time of this indictment.
More problems
to come in this case.
Good morning and welcome, welcome to Matinair on air.
Jane Matinair, Greg Bach and Calvin Butanov coming to you live from our home at Radio Park in Racine.
You can always join us, call or text or leave a voice note at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up.
next hour, next half hour rather, after the 1030 news, we're going to lighten it up.
with sports.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Guru J R Radcliffe will be here to talk all things sports and we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.
Halloween themed this week.
Today it is the great runaway pumpkin edition.
Stay tuned for that.
Right now we are delighted to be joined by Hans Brighton Moser.
He's a regular guest on mornings with Pat Crichtlow.
Delighted to have him join us.
He's a dairy farmer and a beef producer in Lincoln County.
Good morning, Hans.
Thanks so much for making time for us.
Good morning, Jane.
Of course.
Good to see you.
Good to see you as well.
Lots of things going on.
We can start with beef.
Let's start with talking about beef and our beef producers.
I found it kind of interesting, Hans, that the president of the United States essentially said that beef producers just don't get it if they only understood.
as well as he does the industry, then beef producers wouldn't be upset.
I love that little laugh he had when you said that.
Your reaction?
I think Greg caught my reaction my life.
Well I mean come on really you know can you give us a little bit of credit out here for maybe having some grasp on on what our reality is.
The beef situation is as follows I mean we get into the beef weeds here a little bit and may bore you with this but the but here's what's happening in the beef world the beef
The beef cow herd is as small as it's been in the history of forever.
It's smaller than it's been since like the 1950s.
And so what that does is that creates some opportunities for those of us who produce beef.
So I'm a dairy farmer and of course once a dairy cow loses her ability to
continue producing milk efficiently and effectively, she becomes ground beef typically.
We also produce a lot of little black calves, Angus Holstein cross calves that go into the beef side of things and leave the dairy world and go into the beef world.
to get raised up, to become the steaks and the roasts and all the things that we love.
And so because that beef cow herd is smaller than it's been in a long time, that has created a supply issue and the demand hasn't gone away even though prices are higher in the stores.
And in the dairy world, that's been a good thing for us because the milk prices are terrible.
And so if I can have a little extra income by a higher price,
value cull cow or those little black terminal crosses that we create that we don't need for replacements.
That definitely helps my bottom line and it definitely helps rural economies.
So for the president to say well we're going to solve all the consumers problems by by you know sending a bunch of money to Argentina just doesn't make any sense because it doesn't help those of us in production ag.
And it's really not going to help the consumers either, because number one, the consumers' tax dollars get frittered away and sent south of the border for something that's really not going to improve their prices at the store anyways.
If you truly want to improve consumers' lives and make their lives better while not hurting producers, we should be focused on antitrust legislation in this country and busting up the four great big companies
that
are multinational corporations that are raising your prices.
And if you think for one second,
that introducing a bunch of Argentinian beef is going to help your price at Walmart, you're kidding yourself, because guess what the Walmart's of the world understand?
They understand what...
people are willing and able to pay for a product and they're not going to lower the prices.
They're just going to be a fatter margin for the people in between.
So my prices aren't going to improve in terms of higher prices for my product.
And I promise you, consumers, you will not pay less at the store with this.
You're just going to pay extra taxes.
Well, and we're going to get to the whole hoof and mouth thing with Argentinian beef because that's a whole separate thing.
But
I think it's important that people realize, like you said, Hans, let's go back a little bit.
One of the reasons, from my understanding, that herds are smaller goes back a number of years to when we had extreme drought.
in some parts of the country, right?
And it was very expensive for beef producers to keep feeding their cattle.
It was cheaper for them to send them to slaughter.
And that's
one of
the reasons why our beef price, or our beef herd's shrunk was related to this drought from several years ago, right?
Yes.
Yeah, no, that's absolutely correct.
I mean, that's one part of it, but that's a big part of it.
And to add on to that is the average beef
you know the average cow calf guy is you know sort of my age or older so you know you're talking 60 plus years old average right so there's a lot of people in that industry that have been in an industry for a long time and are looking at their situation saying wow these beef cows are worth a lot of money I don't have enough feed and I'm of a certain age it's silly for me not to pull the trigger so that beef cow goes off the slaughter which
adds beef to the market immediately, but guess what?
That beef cow doesn't get bred with a calf
that
is going to then become that beef steer.
So her productive life is over and the beef cow herd shrinks as a result.
So there's demographic issues, there's weather issues, and I understand we're going to talk about this at some point too.
There's the labor issue because guess what?
It takes somebody to actually feed all those animals and
and do all the things.
If you're just joining us on mat and air on air, we are speaking with Hans Brighton Moser, who is a Lincoln County dairy farmer, a beef producer, a friend of civic media.
And we are talking about the announcement last week.
And really, if I'm not mistaken too, it was really kind of off the cuff.
I feel like his staff was behind the scenes going, what did he just say?
Is that they do that every day, they're going to start buying Argentinian beef because apparently we are investing as a partner, a corporate partner in Argentine, whether
Argentinean.
Wow, good Lord.
Whether it's $40 billion or giving our money to buy their beef, but you are a beef producer and I imagine you talk to other people in the industry and whether it's cattle, people in cattle throughout the country and the state.
What are you hearing from them on this?
I mean, because I have to imagine, regardless of who they voted for, this was not something they expected.
We've seen tariffs.
Cause bailouts we've seen farmers seem to vote against their interests But this is one where he said we're gonna start buying Argentinian beef and I have to imagine y'all were like what?
Yeah Well, yeah, and I think there is a lot of that wait what yeah, that's that's that's the reaction I mean, I think it takes a long time for for people's Voting reflexes to change which is to say
you know the the quote red parts of our country are still pretty darn red
and
it's interesting how much how many questionables or straight up poor decisions the administration can make um and and and and how many
Rather than converts to more progressive politics, but you know, it creates it tends to create Apologists for the administration or or you know people willing to make excuses and say well, you know, this is you know This is somehow part of some magic strategy that long-term plan.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's so interesting because I feel like
you know, other administrations in the past didn't get away with that, right?
I mean, if anything happened, came out of the Biden administration or the Obama administration or even a Bush administration was like, you know, people would jump on it immediately say, what in the wide world of sports is going on?
So, so there is a difference because of this, I'm going to say cultish kind of situation here.
But yeah, I mean, you know, and the other interesting thing is that, you know, one wonders
how much of this has to do with some concern over consumer prices in this country and how much of it has to do with the fact that there's a political ally in Argentina.
If he wasn't in bed with the Argentinian president, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
You know what I'm saying?
If that guy wasn't a huge Trump fan, then this deal wouldn't have happened to begin with.
So it's frustrating because I just don't see a lot of congressional oversight here either.
There's an opportunity for people in Congress to say, wait, wait, wait, hold on.
This is a terrible idea.
And I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat.
It's just poor public policy.
Yeah, it's bad for our farmers who you know our politicians love to raise up on a pedestal anytime they want to get
elected.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean there's no end to the hero worship in my industry and I mean, you know...
I'm proud to produce food.
I really am.
I sincerely am.
But it becomes more frustrating when you have an administration who doesn't understand how that whole system works.
And I'm the last guy that wants consumers to pay through the nose when they go and they want to buy a pound of hamburger or a steak.
But that's my frustration here.
I mean, if I could honestly sit here and say, well, OK, the good news is that Jane and Greg are going to get cheaper food at the store, then it would
be a little bit easier for me to swallow this, but that's not what's going to happen.
I
promise you that simply won't happen.
So what has been gained other than bailing out a guy in Argentina who's struggling politically?
Well, and one of the reasons Hans, that we're bailing out this guy in Argentina is because a member of the Trump administration has a really wealthy friend who bought up debt in Argentina, who really needs Argentina to recover.
So he gets his investment back.
Let's go back a little bit to the four big, there's the four big producers.
They're the ones who, who process the meat.
As you said, there are only four of them in the country that control all of this.
And one of the biggest ones is Brazilian owned.
And yet we never, ever hear that talked about.
No, we don't.
And it's so strange because I feel like, I feel like
from a policy standpoint and how to improve the lot of rural America, this would be a fairly easy one to tackle.
So you've got basically a monopoly in the meatpacking industry and their multinational companies.
And when you layer that monopoly on top of the retail groceries situation and how that's monopolized, it just straight up doesn't do any good for producers and it doesn't do any good for consumers.
And antitrust legislation by God is something that everybody regardless of how you feel about, you know, guns or the minimum wage or anything else.
I mean, I feel like that's something that all policymakers should get should be able to get behind because you see the impacts of it and the impacts are broad.
But I think, you know, at the risk of going down another rabbit trail, you're also talking about money and politics when you start talking about antitrust legislation.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Honestly, Hans, I love having you on the show because you just say so many amazing things and I kind of, I forgot what I was going to ask you because, and we wouldn't have time anyway.
So I'm just going to let Jane take it from here because my brain is falling apart because I read the news all the time.
I wanted to share this.
Usually, usually somebody asks me a very simple question and I ramble for, you know, a half an hour and I forgot the question that they asked to begin.
Sir, would you like fries with that?
That's all I was
asking.
Yeah, exactly.
I was going through the drive-through and half an hour
later.
I wanted to share this with you real quickly before
before we go to break Carolyn Levitt, who is the spokesperson for the White House, talking about America's beef producers.
They're struggling because of the many horrible policies of the previous administration.
Is that your lived experience that this
is all because of Biden?
I'm
just checking.
no no no no
That has nothing to do with who's in the White House.
That is so logical.
That's making
the
head explode.
It's
all across Washington.
They're just
trying to accept the logic of that.
We're to continue our conversation with Hans Brighton Moser.
Stay with us.
We're listening to Matt Nair on air.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Don't go away.
Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air, Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Dr. Slide on the board, committee from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.
Join us at 855-752-4842.
Leave a comment on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
We're joined by Hans Brighton Moser, a dairy farmer and beef producer in Lincoln County.
Hans, we had a Troy from Monhorab has been waiting very patiently on the phone.
Troy, what did you want to say real quickly, please?
Hi, real quick.
The Kansas City Star wrote an article about how tariffs were gutting farmers.
And a farmer from El Dorado said that farmers aren't blaming Trump for the tariffs.
And I said they should.
And he said back to me, no, sir, farmers are doing better right now than the majority of Biden's four years.
Don't open your mouth about something you know nothing about.
Is
that
true?
Thank you, Troy.
Great question.
Great question.
Yeah.
I'm going to attend to disagree with your friend.
Yeah.
Not your lived experience.
Not my lived experience.
No prices are not great.
I'm a consumer and producer of corn and beans.
um and so the lower prices that we're seeing for commodities like corn and soybeans are helpful to the dairy world because we feed those products um but you know we're or you know a lot of us do both and so it's a kind of a double-edged sword there and and the beef prices again are are high but they have nothing to do with
This administration or the last administration is as simple.
It's a simple supply and demand, right?
Yeah, it's a plenty man and it has again to do with the demographics of the average age of the beef producers and the weather that we've had out West and in some of these places where there, you know, the cow calf herds exist
And and you know, we've spoken to we've
Over the past few months we've been hearing from various farmers and some farmers say there's no resentment No problems amongst their peers and their colleagues and whatnot and then we talked to other farmers who say they're hopping mad and then we got people who are mad at Trump and then they get what they want then they're not mad at Trump anymore and I feel like if When you ask a person to speak on behalf of a whole group farmers aren't a monolith Everyone has different thoughts and feelings and they're going to do and say what they want and that's
for them to do.
So yeah, I mean, but I can't imagine that, but the notion that it's, it's better than Biden.
It's like that.
I need more proof than that.
But one of the things we wanted to talk about though with you, Hans, is you went to DC last week to talk about sensible, sensible immigration reform, because as you've spoken on patch show and on our show that this, this mission on behalf of the government to rid ourselves of the immigrants in this country is really doing damage to the farming industry.
And
Guess what?
We talked about that for a while now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I was in DC last week with an organization called ABIC, which stands for American Business Immigration Coalition.
And basically, ABIC is a bunch of folks who are business owners and represent different business interests, ag, hospitality, you know, construction, you name it.
and the medical world as well and our elder care type world as well.
And so the reason why ABIC exists is because ABIC and its members understand that again, it's kind of a simple math problem.
We don't have enough young people compared to the number of old people that we have.
Now to put it in a dairy farmer's sort of lingo,
our breeding program sucked 20 years ago.
And therefore we didn't produce enough babies and there's not enough 20 year olds to fill the positions.
Now we can't unring that bell.
Right.
And this isn't a Democratic problem or a Republican problem.
It's a simple math problem.
If you, if you're, if you're, um, you know, if you're, uh, again, your, your breeding program isn't any good.
And you don't produce enough young people.
Um, it it at some point it's going to bite you in the rear end so And as our population in this country ages from a lower birth rate and from longer life expectancy You've got more and more people entering a stage of their life where they're not producing any widgets whether that's Whether that's beef for the grocery store or whatever it is And you also at the same time have a population who who needs care from other people.
Yes,
right so that
that puts everybody in a bind.
So we've seen that in the ag world for years and years and years and everybody else is seeing as well.
So ABIC's job and those of us who went along, we went there to tell our stories to legislators and to try and help them understand that this is a math problem, that we can't get over any time too soon internally.
And the good news is we've got people from all over the world who would like to come into this country and lots of them that are already
in this country and would like the legal authorization to work here.
They're not
looking for citizenship.
They're not looking for any handouts.
They're really just wanting to be able to do their work.
And again, in many cases work that they've been doing for 10, 15, 20 years, and to be able to do that without getting any aggravation from the heavy hand of ICE.
It almost seems like the individuals who want to come into this country want to do it in a legal, logical way so they can work and provide and yet still, even when they do it the legal, logical way, they're still getting thrown out of this country and it's harming
our farmers.
Well, and as you said too, there's this big push now under the Trump administration.
We need more babies.
We're under-babyed.
Everybody should have more babies.
Well, even if we start that assembly nightline now, as you said, that's going to take 20 years.
Exactly,
no,
and
I'm not anti babies.
I've got five children of my own But but but again, it's it's what do you do between now and then right
who's
gonna?
Care of grandma between now and then who's gonna milk the cows between now and then who's going to you know build the Buildings and do the you know all of these things.
I mean I heard I heard all sorts of interesting comments You know the the elder care industry for examples really getting it hard because their average age is like 55
So, some of these people are leaving that industry and turning right around and requiring the care that that industry
provides.
They just served.
Hans Brighton Moser is a dairy farmer and beef producer in Lincoln County.
Thank you so very much, Hans.
We really, really appreciate your time.
You bet.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
Stay with us.
News is next and then we'll lighten it up with a little audio sorbet and all things sports with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's JR Radcliffe.
Don't go away.
You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.
