If Mass Shooters Could Endorse a Candidate (Hour 3)

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Thank you, Don Rue.

It is 8.06 on this Thursday morning, August 14th.

Good morning.

Nice to have you back here up north.

Live from Lake Wissota, all across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Down in Madison, Parker Olson is producing this shindig in Madison Studio A2.

Chad Holmes will be along in just a sec.

We'll be talking to Sean O'Malley in a little bit about your money in the markets.

Joseph Pecky will join us.

We'll talk about Bill Barian's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

for what to do about concealed weapons in Wisconsin, that and more, all coming up along the way.

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It's a busy day, as always, coming up across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Matt Naraner follows us here from 9 to 11.

Former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel joins Jane and Greg at 9.35.

And then at 10.35, Paul Noonan, sports writer for the Acme Packing Company.

On the Todd Alba Show at 2.35, John Miskowski, director of Wisconsin Public Television, and Sarah Ashworth, director of Wisconsin Public Radio.

On the future of those outlets, after the pending closed

of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And on the Maggie Dawn Show from Four Until Six, we've got Nathan Hodeck from the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance talking about Wisconsin flood insurance and what homeowners and renters need to know.

And then at 430, Chandler Hill from the Center for American Progress will talk about crime data for 2024, numbers that were released just last week.

and how it kind of gives up the goose on what exactly Donald Trump is trying to get accomplished in Washington, D.C.

So much to cover here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

And of course, if you're listening up in the Wausau area at 98.9 WXCO for those local updates, you're going to hear the one, the only Chad Holmes who joins us now to talk about stories he's following up there and maybe sports too, because that's that's what he does.

Chad Holmes, good morning.

Good morning.

Where's your where's your burger?

Did anybody make you a burger this morning for the burgers 12th win in a row?

We

don't have George Webb around here.

No, we don't.

We don't have him up here in the Chippewa Valley either.

I thought somebody might try to piggyback on the publicity because, I mean, I saw an article this morning about the George Webb's PR people.

They're like, you can't buy this kind of publicity.

All you had to do is make a prediction decades ago and let it ride.

I mean, this was, again, I believe this was back in the Braves days when they were

in Milwaukee.

It was even pre-Braves when it was just a minor league team of the American Association.

So yeah, this goes way back.

The

Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association.

That's right.

Yes.

Uh, yeah, you, you know, your sports stuff.

So did you know that the

Milwaukee Brewers were a major league team that they are now the Baltimore Orioles?

I did know

that as a

matter of fact.

I knew you could thrive.

They used to be the Brewers and they're the St.

Louis Brown to now the Baltimore Orioles.

I, I do.

I learn here.

I, I totally nerd out on that kind of franchise history, you know.

So the, the 12 in a row is cool.

I, but I would not have been surprised.

And here's why I'm going to be slightly

Supernatural here.

Um, I can just envision Bob Uker when we got to the 11 game win streak originally and then everybody's all anticipating, you know, the, the free burgers and then they lost that 12th game and you can just envision you going, ha, ha fooled you.

Okay.

Okay.

I can't, here's, here's 12.

Here's an actual 12 game winning streak.

It's just, it's got that Uker magic all over it.

It is just insane what this team is doing.

I, I, I don't know if I said this to you.

I said to somebody on the show.

Uh, you know, you obviously have been following me a little longer than I have, but I've been following the Brewers for almost 50 years and there's never been a team like this one.

No,

because when we've had really good teams in the past, I think there was a little bit of an expectation or that that you could see it coming in some way.

But when you started this year off with the way at the, you know, number one, the.

They were just a little bit, you would call it thinner.

Yes.

I mean, you lose Willy Adamus and stuff like that.

And then you start the year off just getting.

Pelted by the Yankees the first weekend and it does feel like well, maybe a 500 record and maybe a reload this year or this to happen to have an 11 game win streak and a 12 game win streak within a basically a month And to be just you know not pulling a secretariat when it comes to the Cubs right now.

I mean, it's it's like the Belmont stakes right now.

I like that I like I play 10 lengths

15 lengths.

I mean, I Guess the only thing you worry about is the

order

Yeah, don't break a leg at the finish line.

Please don't do that.

But

I've never seen anything like this.

I mean, it's really amazing.

And the karma, if you will, that extends outside of it.

Craig Council jumping ship.

And even though he's doing a good job, the Cubs have a good record, but is now watching his former team.

Aaron Savalli asking for a trade.

All right, we'll send you to the White Sox and get Andrew Vaughn, who is now over producing.

Devin Williams going to the Yankees.

And he is...

He is not having fun in New York.

He is his numbers are not good with the Yankees.

So it's the people that wanted to stay here and put in the work that are making things happen.

So the Brewers have an off day.

They are heading to Cincinnati for a three game series coverage of the pregame tomorrow at 505 on several civic media stations and a reminder tomorrow is free ticket Friday where you can win a game to a Brewers game.

In the coming days, I think I mistakenly said next week, but next week they're gonna be at Wrigley Field.

Five games in four days.

That's gonna be a brutal stretch, perhaps.

It's basically it says compelling as it gets for a baseball fan.

You're not going to want to miss this Brewers Cub series.

It could spell, you know, it'll tell you exactly how the whole late season is going to go at this

point.

The way I look at it is it's sort of like being at the at the tables at the casino.

And when you're hot, you don't go anywhere.

So it's a good time to be there for five games and let's just

Keep rolling and see if this hot street continues.

Yeah.

Let's keep it on sports for a sec here because Mike Clemens folks just heard him now reporting from Indianapolis and the Packers are having a joint practice with the Indianapolis Colts today and then playing a little preseason game Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis.

These joint practices are these things that you've have you ever covered like training camp for any of this or are you specifically more focused on the high school sports up around there?

I basically are focused on the high school sports and it reminds me of what high schools have done forever.

It's actually tomorrow because next week is the season opener for high school football around here.

Tomorrow's teams all get together for scrimmages.

Normally it's anywhere from

two to four to six teams all in one location and they you know scrimmage like tomorrow I'll be heading over and watching Wausau West scrimmage three different teams and it's an opportunity to see some different folks after being in camp for a couple of weeks and also a real chance to see what the intensity is like when you're not facing one of your buddies across the way but somebody that really does want to hurt your quarterback or you want to get after their quarterback but actually I think in what I've been

Reading here in terms of the last couple of years that these Practices are where the coaches really get an idea about these players as opposed to the preseason game because in this case you'll see ones-on-ones a little bit more and Opportunities for guys to maybe step up and make impressions in a way that you don't see during the preseason game In fact, I had not watched a pack or preseason game for a couple of years until last Saturday and it's like I'm gonna sit down on Saturday evening

Get in front of the, get on the coach in front of the TV.

Oh, watch.

I'm going to watch some of this.

How'd that work

out?

Boy, that was a mistake.

That's what I'm hearing.

It just,

just don't

funny.

I was talking to one of the assistant coaches over at one of the high schools I covered the other day and kind of brought up the, the Packer game.

And, and he said, well, I was going to watch the game, but our cable, our internet, our internet, which connects to the cable went out.

late Saturday afternoon didn't come back until around midnight Saturday night.

So he missed the entire game.

And in the end, it was like the greatest internet outage that we've ever seen in our lives because it was that bad.

It was that bad, I know.

All right, well, let's turn away from sports here and let folks know we're going to do a pop quiz for on Chad Holmes here for a second about the history of WXCO.

Because I'm going

to tell

you that next week, next Wednesday, I will be at WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids.

where they will be celebrating the station's 85th anniversary.

And so we'll be talking a bit about the history of radio in Wisconsin Rapids.

But it got me to thinking about WXCO, which has not been WXCO the entire time.

But to what degree do you do they do they give you any pop quizzes there?

They drill into you the history of what was originally WHVF back in 1953.

Actually, I saw some of the original paperwork a number of years back because I've been around here a long time, but my old boss basically found all the paperwork.

He was in an area in our building and had the original paperwork when the original license from the Federal Communications Commission was signed.

And it was in really good shape.

I'll tell you that much, but

but

it was basically I think 1953 if I'm

not

mistaken.

1953 with 250 watts of power.

And the WHVF stood for the owner's initials.

The owner was a person named Hilding V Fourine.

Hilding V Fourine, they changed the call letters in 1964, September of 1964 to WXCO by the new owners, the Post Corporation, and it's changed hands a lot of time since then, but says here, and I don't know if people ever talked to you about the history there, but for many years, it was known as the home of the country gentleman, and it was the first full-time country music station in the area.

I love this kind of local radio history.

I really do.

Well, I just know as part of some of that material, what was really fun, and I know that historical people like ourselves, it had the original schedule.

You know, back in the day, you would actually, you wouldn't have three hour shows like you have.

It'd be a 15 minute show.

Yes.

Yeah, there were a lot of 15 minute shows.

Yeah, there would be like 15 minute newscast, 15 minute soap operas, you know, 15 minute cooking segments and things.

And but they'd also have your local jocks and it says here and it's in Wikipedia.

So it must be true.

But

some of the local personalities back then also included

Buck Leverton, Hoots Roberts, piano role Harold, Harold Golding, and Howie Stieber were among some of the early personalities.

Then later on, they went to a conservative talk radio format, and now they've got the good stuff on.

here that they've had for some time, especially one chat homes, you talking to anybody, particularly fun or informative, you want to tell us about?

Oh, it's been all sorts of interesting people.

I mean, I've been my my in studio engineer is involved in a Shakespeare in the park production that begins actually tonight, the outdoor theater here in wasa.

We have so many really wonderful things going on and brought some of his castmates on to talk about that.

Next week with the school about to start up a

got a new principal at Wausau West High School.

We're going to talk about education, about some of the challenges going on in our schools here.

So that's, I'm looking forward to that.

I know so much about the sports aspect, and I do know, I mean, I talk to folks over there all the time, but it's, no, we're very fortunate with the Wausau School District to still have some very, very talented people, but some challenges as well.

So we'll be looking at that as well coming up early next week.

So again, try to, you know, try to mix it up in terms of

feel some of the fun stuff and also some of the serious stuff that's going on here in the wasa area.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you can catch all that on 98 nine WXO or wherever you are.

You can listen to WXO through the Civic Media app and also through the website civic media dot us chat.

Thank you so much as always.

Have a great day.

You too, Pat.

All right.

Coming up in just a little bit, we'll be talking to Sean O'Malley about your money and the markets.

We'll be talking to Joseph Pecky as well about some of the Wisconsin political headlines, including the very, shall we say, interesting gun idea from Republican candidate for governor, Bill Barion.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Basota, thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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On the program, we'll have our Week in Review panel, including former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel and veteran journalist Mark Jacob will join us as well.

Mark will be talking about one of his new columns and his stop, the press's newsletter, and it's all about reverse verification.

and how the Trump folks are nullifying reality.

You can learn more in the Mark Jacobs newsletter, Stop the Presses, which you can also get through couriernewsroom.com.

Also through Courier Newsroom is Below the Beltway, a new letter about what's happening in Washington, D.C.

by Courier Newsroom's Cam Stevenson, and his most recent edition is entitled, Trump's Solution to the Epstein Scandal, Lowering the Age of Adulthood, For Real.

We talked a bit about it on the program yesterday.

If you missed that, then get below the beltway through couriernewsroom.com slash newsletters.

Let's bring in Sean O'Malley now to talk about your money in the markets, and you're gonna wanna stick around.

We're not gonna get into it right away, but I'll just talk about George Webb burgers after 12 Brewer wins.

That has something to do with money in the markets as well.

So stick around and we'll tell you more about that.

But first, we'll start with the not so pleasant news.

And here comes the S word, stagflation.

Sean O'Malley, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning, Pat.

Yeah, that difficult to pronounce, hard to understand economic concept of stagflation has reared its ugly head again.

But

And since we're not quite meeting the exact definition, there's a term that's being bantered about on Wall Street right now to describe today's economic situation in the US.

And that is stagflation light.

Oh, good.

A diet version of stagflation.

So exactly.

All right.

Well, the

convenience six pack carry size.

So you're you're all set to take it out to the beach for the summer.

So how do we define stagflation light?

Yeah, stagflation light is basically what they're saying is what we're seeing because we are seeing prices go up.

We are seeing economic activity go down and we're also seeing the number of jobs being created going down.

It hasn't really manifested itself enough to quite meet the formal definition of stagflation.

So they're using the term stagflation light to describe the situation.

And is there much of a differentiation between that versus what you would simply call a recession?

Recessions are typically not nearly as severe.

That's typically a downturn in economic activity that also has inflation in many cases going down and then economic activity returns again.

So recession is really just GDP going down.

Stagflation is GDP going down, price is going up.

So it really is a way to have like the most unfortunate circumstances possible.

for the American public.

And what we're seeing with this one is the added benefit of a really soft jobs market.

It is not a fantastic time economically speaking to be an American.

Well, and when we went through the original stagflation late 70s, especially the early 80s and getting out of it was painful.

You know, story we don't have time to get into now, but you know, we eventually we came out the other side and you would think that we would have learned all of those lessons.

But again, we're going back more than 40 years now.

But the way I'm framing it here is

you almost have to work hard to screw up an economy so bad that we end up staring at stagflation again.

But it looks like we have managed to create those conditions here in America once again.

Yeah, basically, what they're doing is again, following the smooth Holly tariff acts playbook from the Greek with depression.

So almost a century ago.

And seeing if that can now create stagflation instead of a depression.

We'll see what happens.

Yeah.

Look, again, what

you said what they're trying in the Trump administration was what they tried 100 years ago.

And interestingly enough, it's what I believe it was John Quincy Adams was trying 100 years before that.

And it seems like it's every 100 years when all the people are dead, who could have told you don't do that thing is they're trying to do that thing again, which includes this heavy reliance on tariffs.

Tell us about this Goldman Sachs new study on who really bears the cost of these tariffs.

Yeah, I'm sure that's going to be a popular report within the Trump administration.

So Goldman Sachs and their economic team has just come out with a report saying that it is the average American taxpayer that's going to be bearing two thirds of the cost of the tariffs.

So putting that into perspective, we've had approximately $200 billion of tariffs year to date so far.

Given the size of the labor force, that means that of that $133 billion that's going to be borne by the average American taxpayer, that equates to about $1,000 per American worker that will have paid in additional monies, additional Trump tariff taxes so far this year.

So far this year.

And that just leads to, again, more financial pressure on people.

And personal Chapter 7 bankruptcies are another indication of what this year has been like so far, right?

That's correct.

We're seeing a 15% increase versus last year's Chapter 7 bankruptcies.

They're up substantially.

I think there is definitely some concern.

We're seeing a lot of pressure.

There's a lot of economic pressure.

jobs or there's the slowdown in jobs and there are the increases in prices so naturally what happens you know you have people having to go chapter 7 bankruptcy because they can no longer afford to you know pay the debt service that they have on their credit cards on their you know mortgage loan on their car loan it just becomes too much and the only way they can get out of it is to go through a chapter 7 bankruptcy.

I mean, again, you can look at all the indicators you want, but personal bankruptcy seems to be pretty high on the list.

If that one's not looking good, you might want to rethink the course that you're taking here.

Sean O'Malley is talking to us about your money in the markets, and you'll want to stick around because when we come back, we're going to talk to Sean about free burgers through George Webb with the Brewers winning 12 games in a row.

There's a lot of free publicity that George Webb gets.

But there is a price to be paid as well in terms of today's economic conditions.

And then Joseph Pecky will join us, and we will talk about Republican candidate for governor, Bill Barion, and his latest thoughts on gun safety and maybe less safety.

Is that a tenable political position?

That's coming up.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Joseph Peckie is wading in the wings but first a little bit more of your money in the markets with Sean O'Malley who has grown up in Hudson spent a lot of years on Wall Street loves to sail out of Bayfield and we had Jeff Renneke from Friends of the Apostle Islands on the program back on Tuesday talking about the wave watch boys that are out there and is that something that you use during your sailing around that part of Lake Superior as well?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, there are actually apps that you can get on your phone where you can get that sort of data all the time.

I've used it, especially last summer when I came from Newport, Rhode Island, all the way to Bayfield.

You want to know what sort of wave action you're going to be dealing with, wind conditions, that sort of thing.

So there's a whole map that you can get, and you can pick a particular buoy, and it will tell you what sort of conditions it's seeing, what the wave heights are approximately, and some information about the wind as well.

It's like a ways for waves virtually.

It is very helpful to know what you're going to be going into and how serious it is.

Yeah, I don't doubt that for a moment.

Producer price index is out.

What can you tell us about that and how the markets are reacting?

Yeah, the markets aren't liking it.

Producer price index came in higher than expected.

Shouldn't have been that much of a surprise.

Of course, CPI number on Tuesday

came in again,

higher than expected.

The futures this morning are already down about, you know.

30 to 40 basis points.

So, you know, not huge, but you're getting close to that one half a percent type range.

We'll see what happens when the markets open here very shortly.

And what can you tell us about speaking of prices and the economy overall?

We've talked a lot about George Webb, that burger chain in southeast Wisconsin, getting all kinds of publicity they don't have to pay for for these free burgers, but the free burgers don't come free to them.

They certainly do not.

I mean, congratulations to the Brewers winning 12 games straight, reminding me of the streak the Twins had back in 1987 for those who was old enough to remember that.

But yeah, there's going to be a bit of an impact to give all the Milwaukeeans a free hamburger because beef prices have gone up 11.3% so far this year.

So that's going to jack it up a little bit.

And that's largely due to the fact that we are dealing with the smallest

beef herd in the United States in 75 years.

That's largely climate change driven.

It's the droughts that are making it more expensive to raise cattle.

So probably makes the burgers more popular knowing what people know about how much beef prices are in the grocery store.

Demand

continues pretty much unabated so you know America's still a little bit burgers and so the prices is moving since the quantity is not dropping.

Yep, makes total sense.

Sean O'Malley, hey, thank you very much.

Hope you get back on the boat soon.

We'll talk to you a little later.

Thanks much, Pat.

Have a good day.

You bet.

838 now.

Let's bring in Joseph Pecky for the more positive end of the Brewers' winning streak.

Are you getting in line later today or sometime to get your

Free hamburger from Georgia web

not today.

I think they said they would announce at noon today Okay, it is likely to be sometime next week.

So I am certainly hopeful that The the hours will work for my schedule

I don't doubt you'll find a way to make it work because is that is that one of the Jacob Mizorowski t-shirts that they were given away last Sunday?

It is.

Someone who loves me went to the game while I was on a little

trip with my boys and snagged a shirt for me.

Oh, that was awfully nice.

And how do you like that?

On that day Sunday, you know, it was the morning everybody woke up to this terrible flooding and the brewers were telling everybody, hey, we're still going to hold the game, but half the parking spaces are flooded and, you know, we apologize.

You might not get there in time for a t-shirt.

You got the t-shirt and they still got to sell out crowd that day.

There is something special happening down there in your part of the state.

There is something special happening all over the state and outside of the state.

I was talking to my nephew, Mac, who turned seven this week and his brother and sister, they're up in the Twin Cities and they have caught the brewers fever.

So it is spreading.

And I want to say there's something special going on around the brewers, but I also want to highlight that there's something special going on in the response to these floods.

Neighbors helping neighbors.

people pitching in and helping out and being understanding you know that that is the best of community and a reminder that we are not.

you know, we are not individual elements just trying to figure it out on our own.

We're a community and people rallied.

We see people helping the other neighbors clean out their basements and get stuff to where it needs to be.

So I just want to recognize that because it's really easy in these kind of crisis like situations to just focus on the 30,000 foot, oh, this is about climate and oh, what's the public policy response going to be?

Let's

point out how good-hearted people are when it comes to their neighbors being in need.

Well, you know, it kind of echoes what we heard last hour from Mike Vansomer and a candidate for state Senate there.

He's in the Dellafield area.

And look, that is a heavily red district, but he talked about the whole notion of teamwork and more and more people see Republicans in Madison and in Washington.

They're not part of a team.

They're just out there for themselves and

I'm old enough to remember 2006 when a lot of districts that people thought would never turn blue managed to flip.

So I just feel like I don't care what district you're in.

No Republican incumbent, no Republican candidate should go, well, everybody else is going to struggle, but my district's going to be easy next year.

Every Republican should be run and scared.

Instead, we're increasingly seeing them run continually crazy and to the

to the furthest reaches of the Trump insanity that we're seeing in Washington, candidates who want to replicate that here in Wisconsin, for example.

It's today.

Well, that takes us to Bill Barion.

And I want to applaud Bill Barion because one of the big knocks on candidates is that they're consultant driven.

pull driven and just do whatever the pull, put your, you know, lick your finger, put it up to the wind and do what the polls tell you.

And Bill Barion, he's not going to listen to that polling that says 80 to 90% of Americans want better gun safety measures.

He's out there telling folks, I want to get rid of concealed carry altogether.

You've got your concealed carry permit.

It's called the Constitution and that he wants more guns in school zones, more guns on the street.

You can't accuse this guy of being poll driven if he's going to pick something that stupidly unpopular.

No, and here are the Wisconsin numbers based on the Marquette University law school poll.

So 69% of Wisconsinites support the current law, which requires licenses and trainings to have a concealed carry permit.

82% of voters oppose the idea of getting rid of that

way of doing concealed carry permits.

And so, but this isn't about popularity.

This is about Bill Barion trying probably in vain to win the endorsement of Donald Trump because he's got a Nikki Haley problem.

He's got a COVID response criticism problem when it comes to Donald Trump.

And so he needs to figure out what are the issues where I can go full chaos, full mega,

and this apparently is one that he's landed on.

Mr. Barion, whose service to this country in uniform we applaud and we honor and we respect, received hours and hours and hours of training on how to safely handle weapons and firearms in order to become a Navy SEAL.

Now,

Nothing in Wisconsin law requires similar training to have a concealed carry permit, but we have basic rules of the road to keep communities safe.

Just as we do for if you want to go drive a big rig, you got to have a CDL.

You got to pass a test, right?

There are very straightforward and simple rules of the road for, you know, well, road and life.

If you want to be in possession of things like big trucks,

or guns that can kill people and so to me it's just another example of barion knows he can't win if he doesn't get the trump endorsement and he's not on track to get the trump endorsement

no and in fact uh adam puts on youtube i caught myself listening to a few minutes of conservative radio yesterday talking about bill barion's concealed carry proposal not even republicans want this

law abiding gun owners know that that's crazy

There are common sense pieces of gun safety legislation missing from our statutes in Wisconsin.

As of right now, if you are a gun owner and your gun is stolen, you are not required to report that to law enforcement.

That's a problem.

That makes communities less safe.

That makes law enforcement officers less safe.

Right now, domestic violence offenders

can still access firearms.

That is a common sense.

Other states have done this thing.

We should do that.

If you hit your partner, if you are violent in your home, you cannot have a handgun, period.

That is something that we should do.

It's something that Sarah Rodriguez, our Lieutenant Governor, a candidate for governor on the Democratic side, talked about as part of this story yesterday around Barion.

And so Democrats are right on this issue.

The public is with them.

And we got to remember not to get distracted by the MAGA crazy and continue to remind people just how devastating the economic agenda of people like Trump and people like Barion will be for Wisconsin.

Every time I hear a Barion ad, he's talking about bringing the Trump agenda to Wisconsin.

The Trump agenda, tariffs that are out of control, just raised producer costs, wholesale prices, to the highest level in like three or four years in July.

We are seeing more inflation coming because of this insanity when it comes to Trump's economic policy, not to mention more tax cuts for the rich and less for those who work for a living.

And what does Barry and say?

Yeah, let's sign Wisconsin up for more of that.

Come on.

From the text line from Troy and Mount Horrib.

CDL holder here.

I can attest to the licensing.

People get this.

This is common sense stuff.

So it begs this question and I don't, the usual disclaimer.

We're going to talk about what candidates are in, what candidates are out in the governor's race.

And there's not a lot new to share here.

But I do wonder if, as Bill Barron continues to answer these questions and answer them poorly, I know you said any other future candidate, they're going to do things on their own timeline.

I almost wonder if one of the things on their timeline is, oh my god, this guy.

This is my opportunity now to show that I'm a better candidate than this guy.

His answers might actually

uh, propel somebody to move up their announcement.

Yeah, they might.

If he's going to keep stepping on rakes, if, uh, you know, if Josh Schoeman is going to continue to try to hide in the tall grass and not weigh in on these types of things, if Tom Tiffany is going to continue to flirt very publicly and go in parades up north with, uh, Tom Tiffany for governor signs, but not actually say whether he's running or not.

They're all being too cute by half and people are not going to respond well to that.

Right.

Well, and.

Look, I have said, I don't think Congressman Tom Tiffany is going to run.

I think he's very comfortable there.

He knows he has very little name ID elsewhere.

He's using this probably to promote his name ID and also his fundraising.

And who knows, maybe he's got his eye on the US Senate.

You know, he's already serving in Washington and maybe when Ron Johnson's term is up, he wants to go.

However, looking at like everything you just said about the current field, if you're a Tom Tiffany, you go,

Well, maybe.

Why not?

There's certainly nobody else who is like the de facto candidate at this point on the Republican side.

No, there isn't.

My message to Mr. Tiffany would be, you know, sir, I'm concerned about your safety.

It sounds like Washington, D.C.

is very unsafe.

And so why not come back to Wisconsin and serve as governor?

Yeah, go ahead, run.

I think that could be a lot of fun.

Joseph Peckie is with us here.

A local update is next for some of you.

Others will have some final news and notes here from Lake Wissota and a reminder that tomorrow we will have our week in review panel here along with Mark Jacob and former US Attorney Jim Santel will be here as well.

No Kristen Lierley tomorrow, but she will be here on Monday.

Talk all about her field trip to Peru.

and the international conference that she's attending for other docs like herself.

So listen for that come Monday.

We'll pause here.

And again, for some of you having a local update, we'll see you back here at 6 a.m.

tomorrow morning here up north.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

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Continuing our visit now with Joseph Pecky and look who showed up now after his dentist appointment.

He couldn't be with us an hour ago as scheduled, but his pearly whites are here.

He's got his toothpaste.

He's got his little tiny tube of, or his little toothbrush and his tiny tube of toothpaste.

Todd Alba, Boys and Girls, is here as well.

Did you, did you pass the inspection?

I passed a little cavity, so I'm very happy about that.

Okay.

Well, good.

Good.

I apologize for being late, but now I get to hang out with the great Joseph Peckys.

My day is

complete.

Exactly.

So we've got that going.

And actually, I can get your thoughts on the question I'm about to ask Joe first.

And that is the, this is the but her emails portion of the show, but instead of but her emails, it's

But Illinois redistricting, which is what we're hearing now from Republicans in Texas and elsewhere, frankly, around here going, Illinois, they gerrymander.

They're heavily democratic.

Joe, there's a bit of a difference here, isn't there?

There is.

This is the middle of a decade.

And rather than try to sell the economic bill,

that the Trump administration and mega Republicans in Congress just passed, which will make your healthcare costs more, will lower your net worth if you make less than $60,000 a year while giving massive handouts to billionaires and super millionaires.

They're saying, let's just change the rules of the game, right?

It's easier to do that than to try to make this dog hunt when it comes to popularity among the voters.

And so,

They don't think the rules exist or apply to them.

They think they can just do whatever they want anytime they want.

And this is bad.

It's not good that Illinois gerrymanders.

We should be for independent, nonpartisan redistricting commissions in every state.

And Democrats, whether it's in California or Illinois, are not going to let Republicans rig the 2026 elections.

because their agenda is unpopular.

That's not how this works.

Todd, you have a unique perspective and you may not necessarily agree entirely with this take, but I want your perspective because you were in the room when redistricting was talked about by Wisconsin Republicans in 2011 and you found it very distasteful and you've explained many times why.

So with that bit of experience, how does that shape your opinion of what's happening in Texas?

Well, I think I agree pretty much with Joe that what's happening in Texas is appalling.

It's not the normal cycle and it's being done for direct parts and purposes at the political genuflecting of Donald Trump.

I mean, he doubled down on the record and said, yeah, I asked Abbott to do this in Texas.

So, yeah, I mean, certainly I've been in the room and seen Republicans do it.

I do think it's not worth it.

I mean, again,

I wish we had more Democrats like Joseph Pecky because I mean he just did the right the exact right thing Yeah, Democrats do it too in Illinois doesn't make it right, but what's happening in Texas is different worse That's all you that's all I think most people are looking for that's why I think the Illinois governor Pritzker is exactly the wrong person to be talking about this the lead person he was on late show with Colbert last week and Colbert Hull held up the map I believe I'll stay corrected by I think two of the worst gerrymandered districts congressional in America our Democratic districts and

Illinois and Colbert is like, uh, what about this?

And instead of just doing what Joe did and said, yeah, you know what, I'm going to try to work for on our state to make this right.

Doesn't make it right.

And then move on.

He makes a joke about, you know, we'll be a lot of kindergartners draw maps in Illinois.

The late great democratic state Senator Tim Cullen used to say, Todd.

Both sides have done this.

It doesn't make it right.

And that's why I work in a bipartisan manner by former boss Dale Schultz to get something done in Wisconsin about it.

So yeah, I think we have to say that both sides do do it.

But what's happening in Texas is different.

It's for direct partisan purposes.

And I'm really torn on this.

I mean,

I'm pretty much a person that just wants fair maps, but I also think there's something to be said that if Democrats just clutch their pearls and go, oh no, once this is gone, it's gone.

And I think that Democrats like Newsom have to at least play the arms race with this thing and at least threaten and it's a game of poker.

You know, at least act like you're going to do it because if this goes through in Texas, I don't know how Democrats get it back and I don't know how we get democracy back.

know, and it puts a lot of pressure on people like Joe, who you've advised, you know, many candidates over time.

So, you know, genuine question to you, if you were advising Wisconsin legislative Democratic candidates, would you be telling them to go one way or the other, the, you know,

two wrongs don't make a right we should we should embrace uh you know independent nonpartisan redistricting or should it be nope i'm gonna you should tell people that we should absolutely do this this is warfare don't bring a knife to a gunfight how do you how do you advise legislative candidates this year about something that's become so toxic

you tell people to be for what they are for

And in the case of Wisconsin, because we have split control, a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature at the moment, there's not going to be any changes, not via the courts, not via the regular order before 2026.

And I do think this is sort of an immediate arms race ahead of the 2026 election cycle.

I don't think even Republicans in 2028, two years before the next regular census,

I don't think this is going to be an issue in 2028 and 2029.

And it shouldn't be.

So Democrats running in Wisconsin should be for fair maps and a better process to get there.

Full stop.

There you go.

Appreciate the answers from both of you there.

And Todd, I appreciate you dropping in after the dentist.

Did you actually say you enjoy these cleanings from the hygienists?

I have a very good hygienist.

She does a great job.

There's no pain.

No pain?

Honestly,

no.

There's no pain?

I feel like I'm watching an episode of The Addams Family, and Uncle Fester is putting his finger in a light socket.

because it makes you feel good.

This is a first for me.

We're going to explore this further sometime, Todd Alba.

I'm glad you're back

safely.

More like Fester these days.

No blood

pouring out of your mouth or anything.

This is great.

Thank you, Todd.

Thank you, Joe.

Appreciate it so much.

Thanks, guys.

Go Brewers.

Go Brewers.

Have a great day.

Thanks to all of you for joining us as well.

Join us tomorrow for our weekend review panel.

And remember, sign up for our newsletters.

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I'm Pat Crightlow, founding editor of Up North News, part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy newsroom.

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Bright and early here up north.

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