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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Wessota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 8.06.
It's Thursday morning, August 21st.
It is so nice to have you up here on the lake on this gorg.
It is gorgeous today.
Up on Lake Wessota, I hope it is wherever you are across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Parker Olson's down in Madison Studio A2.
Chad Holmes coming along in a bit.
as is meteorologist Brittany Merlot.
Sean O'Malley will be here to talk about your money and the markets and the price that you are paying.
You are paying this price right now for Trump's trade war.
We'll talk about the latest on that.
Joseph Peckie joining us in our next half hour as well and we will try to will the Milwaukee Brewers on to victory after losing now three games on the road to the Cubs.
We'll talk to Chad about that in a moment, but first meteorologist Brittany Merlot is here to take all the credit.
for this gorgeous morning.
Because she gets blamed for all the bad ones.
So you you take this.
It's all it's
all
you.
Yeah, I was gonna say some people are shaking their head like Pat.
Wait, we have fog.
What are you talking about?
Oh,
no, we got none of that here.
And so I hope everybody else is gonna get this kind of sunshine the kind of sunshine that isn't once the fog lifts and there's no wildfire smoke and there's no like severe thunderstorm on the horizon, you know about the strike us.
We just get a classic
beautiful summer day before high school football weather comes
in for
a little visit, which is fine because the season starts tonight.
So, you know, it seems appropriate.
The timing is perfect, right?
So other nature is on it right now.
Patrick does fog in places that's already starting to clear off.
It'll be gone within the next hour, more and more sunshine all throughout the state today.
It's going to be a partly sunny day.
Temperatures are about 50 degrees up north and 70 degrees down south, but we're all going to make it to the mid to upper 70s today.
So feeling fantastic, still hanging on to some summery weather.
We put those temperatures on repeat again tomorrow, flirting with the about 80 degrees or so.
But what's going to happen is later tonight a few clouds are going to start to push in far north by Lake Superior.
We're all going to get cloudy by tomorrow because a cold front is marching through the state and it is going to spark some showers and storms far northwest where you could see up to a half an inch to an inch of rainfall tomorrow morning.
And then as the front works through the middle part of the state tomorrow afternoon, it starts to fizzle out.
So some scattered showers, light sprinkles.
And as it continues to work its way south through the state through Saturday morning is the latest that'll linger.
Area south towards Milwaukee and Madison, just getting a few sprinkles, just a trace of rain as that pushes through.
But behind it, yes, that football weather, that fall feel, those temperatures in the sixties statewide on Saturday.
And we are looking at some fifties throughout the state for highs.
on Sunday and with that cut such crisp cool air and feisty northwest winds across Lake Superior, it is going to spark some scattered showers as we go into Sunday to close out the weekend.
Some of those can make it through the rest of the state as well, but.
As we go into Monday, still staying refreshing, crisp and cool.
Well, which is is all fine except for those folks who did not go tent camping last weekend because of the rain.
And now what are we talking about?
We're talking about these 60s, 50s for highs.
What are we talking about for lows?
Oh, yeah.
So that's going to be down into the 40s.
Yeah.
30s far north depends on where you're going to be.
I mean, it's one of those cranberry marshes.
If you're looking at freezing, so they're
They're worried this weekend.
Yeah.
This is I mean, anybody that's 10 camping this weekend is like, am I a deer camp?
Do we have to get get get that bundled up for it?
But again, we get it all in Wisconsin.
And if you're if you're doing your outdoor activities, especially camping, all you can do is monitor monitor and adjust, right?
I think it's perfect.
It's when you actually need that bonfire to keep you warm.
I love
it.
That's true.
There is nothing like a good campfire.
Brittany, thank you so much.
Hope you have a wonderful day.
You too.
Thanks.
All right, let's talk to Chad Holmes now from 98 nine WXCO and was all you can hear his local reports there.
And of course, through the civic media app, follow one Facebook.
But let's let's not kid ourselves.
We know what Chad is doing from from basically this moment onward is he lives, breathes, eats, sleeps, everything, high school football.
because it is often running tonight, Mr. Holmes.
How are you?
Do you have that first day of school, first day of football season excitement?
I was talking to one of the assistant coaches at practice last night, and I said, it's Christmas Eve.
It was Christmas Eve last night.
It's Christmas morning today.
But instead of Christmas being the best in the morning, we open the presents.
They'll be best when the lights get turned on this evening for our first broadcast and first game over at the Tom Field.
That's right.
Uh, have you tallied up like how many, either how many high school football games you do in a typical season or just how many high school sports overall during a school year?
I usually did it, but last year when we got done with our year, I decided I'm going to go back and count just for my own interest because I had seen, I'd see, it's actually, it was brought up because late in the hockey season, I saw note one of the national broadcasters that hit 1000 national broadcasts.
I thought, oh,
That's
Chad's
December, but I thought I had never
And I've always kicked myself for not keeping track.
I know that you always know exactly how many shows you've done.
You've said this.
Exactly.
I do number the shows, yes.
I think
it's great.
But I've never done anything like that.
But I went back and I counted last year, the school year, the 2024-2025 school year.
And I ended up doing 124 high school broadcasts for that.
124.
That's
amazing.
It was a year.
Yeah.
Knight is number one.
So I'm gonna try to keep track now.
One.
That's okay.
Are there teams that you are, you know, looking at with particular interest that they either repeat something big that they did last year or that they've had some big turnover or anything like that?
Well, I think all the teams that we are covering here during the football season all have, I think, they were all in the playoffs last year.
So it was obviously a good year in that respect.
All three, though, lost in the first round of the playoffs.
And I think for all three, there are hopes and expectations of, at the very least, getting back to the postseason, but trying to take that next step.
And sometimes that is the hardest part, is taking a step from competitive to playoffs, but then from playoffs to making a deep run.
And I think it's only unknown with high school sports, because there's always turnover.
There's always a number of kids who graduate.
A lot of spots that are filled in.
There are some kids that you saw last season, but are going to step into bigger roles.
And then there are kids that you haven't seen at all.
So who are going to be the surprises?
Are there going to be somebody that steps up that I've never seen that name?
What's the pronunciation of this name?
It's like, but no, there's high school sports.
There are certain programs that are always really good.
And then there's, I think, the ebbs and flows.
And I think for our area, it's been a lot of ebbs and flows.
And I told somebody the other day, we were talking about badger football, actually.
And I said the same thing for high school sports.
And you can talk about the Packers as well.
If in August, you are not optimistic, there's something wrong with you.
It's sort of like
spring training.
In February and March, if you don't think that your baseball team is going to have a great year, it's like, what's the point?
Right.
Now, if there were a way that people could just follow all these, all this, all these things that you do, oh wait, there is for two hours every Wednesday,
right?
Yeah.
which I love doing.
I mean, I gotta say it's so much fun.
We have the big high school sports show because it's big.
We have two hours where we focus on our, it's not just Wausau, it's Central Wisconsin.
We look at the Wisconsin Valley Conference, Great Northern Conference, Central Wisconsin Conference.
during the fall eight player football.
So we go over the action.
We look ahead to the big games coming up this weekend.
We always have a coach guest and a student athlete guest.
And last night was our first show of the season and had the new head football coach at Wisconsin Rapids join us.
And we also had a senior student athlete from DC Everest who came in the studio.
And it's always fun, especially with the kids, because so often this is the first time for these kids that they actually sit down for a long form interview.
And so often they'll come in nervous because it's something new but it's the fun part is where they loosen up and we talk about not just what they're doing on the field but we talk about
favorite classes, what they like to do outside of academics and sports.
It gives me information on what those kids are up to these days and it's really a lot of fun and we sit down for like 20 minutes with these young people and have those discussions and we also delve in with the coaches and it's I just
I love doing that.
It gets me away from the political stuff, and that's a whole lot of fun.
Yeah, and then it's not just sports there, of course, at WXCO.
You've got the morning report, and I'm noting here that it was a day before yesterday.
You were talking to Christine Daniels of Warsaw Sustainability, Energy and Environment, and Jordan Kaiser from North Wind Solar.
So again, it's not all politics.
There's a good discussion to be held about sustainability and the whole new generation of clean energy.
energy that you can put into the UASA infrastructure.
And one reason we had that discussion is, and so much of the time being spent by both, I think, politicians and those people that cover politics and issues is trying to clear up misconceptions.
And I looked, I popped up on Facebook last week and I saw a posting from a well-known weather person in our community.
Somebody that you see every night.
And he's got some rather interesting takes on alternative energy,
in
addition to a number of other alternative takes that would be considered far to the right.
And I thought, man, this is somebody that people listen to, that people follow.
And it was wrong in terms of solar power and wind power, that we need to have people that truly know what's going on with that.
And I really enjoyed that conversation, and it was
roughly 25 minutes and folks can go to wxco.fm and under our new section where we have our
daily news update.
We also have a podcast for our WXCO morning reports, where you can listen into everything that I talk about during our morning reports and all those interviews as well.
I'm really glad, really glad that you brought up the website wxco.fm, because most of the time, and rightly so, we talked about civic media, and going to civicmedia.us, which is the umbrella site for the radio folks, and you can click on stations and find the station that way.
And it'll take you to the individual page.
And one time I accidentally put in wxco.com.
Don't do that.
It's not going to get you there.
I got a
funny story real quick.
Yeah, go ahead.
We I ordered a brand new banner, a beautiful banner to take out for them in my games.
And I got the original artwork.
because I dealt with somebody that was going to put it all together.
And it said, and we have the big logo and everything.
And I said, www.wxco.com.
And I said, no, that's not correct.
And we got the artwork fixed up.
www.wxco.fm.
Well, yesterday, I got the banner.
Okay, look at it.
And it says wxco.com.
Oh, no.
It's such a beautiful banner.
It's got the wrong website.
I guess I'm still a little surprised that we still have this whole .com, .org, .fm, .tv.
And it's a way for people to have like the same, it's like having the same phone number, but a different area code.
I mean, I get it, but there's still a lot of confusion that comes along with it.
So I just wanted to take a moment to clarify that wxco.fm is how you can do it, or of course, just civic media overall.
I'm gonna get my marker out and try to- Hey,
if the president can do it with a Sharpie on a hurricane map, you just do the same thing.
That is standard practice now.
Chad Holmes, follow him at 98.9, WXCO, or WXCO.FM.
There you go.
Thank you, Chad.
Have fun.
I feel very happy for him.
It's like he said Christmas Eve.
It's it's time to kick off high school football.
A local update is next for some of you and we're going to be talking to Sean O'Malley about your money and the markets and the real price you're paying for the Trump trade war and Joseph Pekki to follow.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Sean O'Malley joining us now to talk about your money and the markets joining us from Hudson today.
And Sean, I know we're going to get into the dollar and the trade war and everything else, especially companies that have had to raise their prices because of the Trump tariffs.
But among those companies is one I want to start with this.
Being CEO of Target always struck me as like the easiest job in the world because
Target is beloved by its customers.
I mean, Kmart is long gone.
There were people that would sooner, you know, cut off their pinky than shop at Kmart versus, you know, going to Target.
They love their Target.
And yet the CEO recently had to resign and Target has had some real ups and downs to tell you that even a company that seemed to have been a well-oiled machine isn't always a well-oiled machine.
What was, why did the CEO have to quit at Target?
Well, what happened, Pat, was kind of an interesting thing.
People do love Target.
Target is much below, particularly in our part of the world, which is really their home base.
But what happened is that Target decided in deference and they nod to the cap to the White House to eliminate their DEI programs.
And so what happened was a consumer backlash.
Sales have been slumping.
targets and that is one of the big reasons why they decided it was time to change you know who is at the head of the company so the CEO is out and they have someone new in place.
And by the way speaking of beloved department stores at some point and I don't know
I haven't talked to you about this at all, but SHOPCO is like the strikes me as the quintessential story of like a hedge fund or something like that coming in and engaging in activities that lead to the store's demise rather than anything that the store necessarily did.
So I mean, people going, Hey, don't forget about the Wisconsin one.
Oh, I haven't forgotten.
Trust me, I have not forgotten SHOPCO and wish that that were still around too.
But the thing is, that's a well known private equity playbook.
So what happens is the private equity company comes in, buys up all the assets and then leases the store back to the company at an observant price and charges for all sorts of the ancillary fees that, you know, for things that the private equity company is doing for the business.
Basically milking all of the money out of it as much as possible until it is, you know, basically collapses in on itself.
And then
they just take the ride off.
So it's a money making scheme where the demise of the functioning enterprise is virtually guaranteed.
Yeah.
Sean O'Malley is with us here talking about your money in the markets.
The US dollar is down 11% so far year to date.
And normally that would result in a particular
Action happening with the economy that is not necessarily happening with the economy fill in the blanks What when the dollars down what should be happening versus what is happening?
Sure when the dollar is down that means that internationally You know companies and businesses and individuals should be a lot more interested in buying Stuff sold in US dollars because hey now it's basically on sale because 11% off congratulations, but here's what's happening
We are not selling more US goods internationally.
Our trade is down recently.
And the other thing is that that's really impactful to a lot of certain segments of the economy is that normally tourism into the US, taking advantage of that, that cheaper dollar would be way up, but it is way down.
According to Forbes, in fact, they're estimating that the impact for 2025
to the US economy could be $29 billion.
That's just in tourism alone, the loss of foreign tourism.
If somebody told you that a president was going to cost the country $29 billion for anything, you'd think twice about it.
And that's been the impact just in foreign tourism, not taking advantage of a dollar that is lower.
And
yeah.
I mean, and I've got friends in Canada who, you know, talk to their friends.
And yeah, there is such a
a hostility I guess you could call it and are you know no longer looking at America's just oh it's it's easy it's like going to Wisconsin you zip in you zip out no they are not doing that they are not doing that with our economy right now and our economy as a result is becoming more bifurcated again one of those things that I think a lot of people were trying to warn us about last year and it's
coming in front of our eyes.
She's very popular because she correctly predicted the 2008 of the crisis.
So a lot of people do listen to her and she's saying what we're seeing is a split economy, a bifurcated economy.
Basically, you know, there are two different populations that are having sort of very different results within
the economy that we're seeing now.
So there are, you know, sort of the winners or I'm calling them the non-losers anyway.
And these are people who have wealth, people who are homeowners and, you know, have or sort of established in that sort of thing.
The people who are paying, the people who are losing are renters, new college grads.
A lot of them are finding it very difficult to find entry-level jobs because a lot of those jobs have gone away.
partially due to AI replacement and partially just due to uncertainty in the economy where businesses don't feel comfortable saying, yeah, let's have that internship program this summer and let's hire a bunch of new first years that are like, we don't know what's going to be happening.
We don't
want
So we'll get into the next step, which is the impact of the Trump trade war on all of this and much more when we come back and continue with Sean O'Malley.
And then we'll be talking to Joe's pecky about Sarah Godlowski's announcement for Lieutenant Governor, or yeah, for Lieutenant Governor and then what it means for some of the other races coming up ahead in 2026 here across Wisconsin.
I'm Pat Kratler from Up North News.
Follow us at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Sign up for our newsletters there.
And of course here, mornings.
powered by UpEarth news on the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back.
It's Thursday morning and that means there's going to be some Milwaukee Brewers baseball this Thursday afternoon against the Chicago Cubs.
The fifth and final game, five games in four days at Wrigley Field, 12.45 the free game on several Civic Media stations.
Sean O'Malley is here talking about your money and the markets and the Trump trade war.
and the price increases that people said were coming, they are coming, and there is a list of what's the latest list you've seen for me has more than two dozen companies that have listed price increases due to the Trump tariffs, right?
I mean, this list includes, we talked about Target earlier, Home Depot, Walmart, Best Buy, Adidas, Nike, Mattel, Proctor and Gamble.
That's going to hurt a lot of households.
Ford, Subaru, AutoZone.
And in doing so, it's going to only increase what is already a higher level of taxation on US consumers.
And that's what these tariffs are.
They are a tax on consumers.
And
It is something that is measurable.
It's measurable in terms of the effective tariff rate.
What is that and what are we seeing here?
Yeah, I think this is really important for people to take into consideration because yes, the tariffs are a tax.
They're also a consumption tax and a consumption tax basically means they are regressive.
In other words, they disproportionately impact households with lower incomes versus how they impact households with higher incomes.
So
Basically poor people pay more as a percentage of their income than wealthy people do and what is that percentage right now?
We're looking at an 18.6% increase Now that's there's a there's an important caveat to that that's what they call pre substitution in other words these tariffs are so high
that people are actually substituting some of the goods that they are buying or would normally buy due to the price of the tariff.
So they're looking at a pre-substitution rate and post-substitution rate.
They're not hugely different, but after substituting some of the products, it's 17.7%.
So even after making other selections for other products, you're still looking at a 17.7% effective increase in the consumption tax rate.
It's just you're paying more.
That's the bottom
We're paying more across the board across the country I've I've seen numbers, you know at about 2400 per household Impact and that's just year-to-date
You know we talked about other numbers.
I was looking at it more as a you know per member of the labor force But the dollar amounts are pretty much the same and we're on pace to remember pay an additional You know 300 billion as a country in these Trump tariff taxes So it's money that is being taken out of our pockets.
We're paying to be able to buy the goods that we would want to buy anyway
Um, and, you know, it's, it's driving prices up and we're starting to see that with inflation.
That's one of the big concerns that's raising its head these days.
Sean O'Malley telling us about your money and the markets.
Sean, thank you so much.
Great to talk to you.
Have a great start to the weekend.
All right, we'll see you later.
Let's visit now with Joseph Peckie and talk a bit about Wisconsin politics, especially given that there is now a candidate for lieutenant governor, Mr. Zepeckie.
Let's get to the important matters first.
How good was that George Webb burger that I'm sure you stood in line for yesterday?
I went a little bit off the beaten path.
found a George Webb's location that wasn't quite so high traffic.
And while there was definitely a lot of people coming and going, no line waltzed right in and got my burger made for a nice little pre-practice snack.
I have to acknowledge it would have tasted better if we weren't on a little bit of a slip and slide here.
But it was great.
It was a lot of fun.
the energy was good.
Just like in 2018, you know, people are just so happy and excited to be happy and excited about the Brewers.
It was great.
Yeah, I mean, but we saw this in 1987 as well with Team Streak.
They got their 12 in a row, but then how many did they lose in a row?
Shortly after that, like 11 in a row or something.
So it, it happens.
We don't want that to happen this time.
But yeah, losing three to the Cubs, I'm not going to say it doesn't sting.
But
you know every every so often gravity does what gravity is going to do so a fickle game baseball yes but you mentioned pre-practice much like Chad Holmes earlier in this hour uh is it kind of have like this christmasy feel like you know the the big season's about to begin
Okay, so again when you notice the little crisp air temperatures coming in, it's just a welcome.
for high school football season.
That's now underway.
All right, well, let's let's turn to some of the events of the day.
And that included our interview last hour with Sarah Godluschi running for Lieutenant Governor.
And she obviously shared her response about where she thinks she can best play a role.
So I don't know if I'm asking about her specifically or her generically, but we always have candidates for Lieutenant Governor.
Why not join the field for the for the big for the big brass ring?
I gotta admit, I'm a little perplexed by this, not just because Sarah Godluschi is incredible and certainly could make a run for governor, but I'm also thrown by the timing of a bid for lieutenant governor.
My belief is that the lieutenant governor has one job, just to help our gubernatorial nominee
win.
Now that's a hard game to try to figure out who is best to be lieutenant governor before we have a nominee for governor, right?
Like candidates for president, nominees for president don't pick their running mate until they are the nominee.
And so it's a known entity of here's what we need to help, whether it's balance the ticket or add to a strength that the ticket already has.
So it's a little bit different.
But the fact that we don't have a very clear sense of the gubernatorial field at this date, and we already have a candidate for lieutenant governor.
I would not have guessed that this is how this would shake out.
I would have guessed that over the next four to six weeks, the field for governor comes into sharper focus.
People like Attorney General Josh Call and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and maybe some of the other names like Fran Hong or Missy Hughes who have been out there make their intentions more fully known and understood.
And then we have a little bit of a start to the race for governor.
And we see who can capture people's attention, who can raise the resources that are going to be required.
And that first part of next year, we see some folks go, OK, I think I can help whoever emerges or who's most likely to emerge.
So I'm a little surprised to see anybody at all running this early.
Um, but I certainly think the world of Sarah Godlowski.
She's fantastic.
Well, and again, for folks that missed it earlier, you know, again, you don't run as a ticket.
And so you, you get the running mate that you get once the voters vote in the primary.
And so yeah, the resulting ticket can be, shall we say, unbalanced.
Um, you might have, uh,
two people, a governor and a lieutenant governor nominee from Milwaukee or from any given place.
Sometimes they're balanced in terms of one's more moderate, the other maybe is a bit more liberal.
You run the risk of you've got two people that are perceived as too far to the left for the general election.
And so that's the risk that you take when you have a set up the way that we do.
And it is just
This is what we have to deal with.
We don't have to dwell on it, but there have been gubernatorial nominees not thrilled with who they ended up with as their running mate and their eventual lieutenant governor.
It's just part of the process.
day.
Oh, okay.
So so you see again, it's early and there's there's there's some value in being early.
But again, nobody's taken out papers until April 15.
That's when you can start collecting signatures to get on the ballot.
You got to turn them in June 1.
So that's when we'll know who actually
is going to be on the ballot.
But in the meantime, you know, this is what we get is, you know, plenty of speculation about who may run, who won't.
And so what happens next in the Secretary of State's race, Secretary of State is now going to be an open race.
And here's the thing, Sarah Godlowski saved that treasurer's position, along with many other folks passing a referendum, saved the office, then served as a treasurer, and then served as Secretary of State.
They're thought to be rather minor roles.
But I would I would contend otherwise and I want your opinion on you know How hard should Dems fight to make sure that they put people in those two positions of Secretary of State and State Treasurer?
We need good candidates for all of these races both because they are incredible sort of platforms from which to Communicate a message about who the Democrats are and who we're fighting for and what we're doing and also because there are levers of power
within each of those offices.
It is also, let's talk specifically about Secretary of State.
That office has been stripped of some power over the last 10 plus years or so because Republicans didn't like the people in the office, thought other parts of the government could do those functions, they've taken some functions away.
It is entirely possible, as we've talked about before, that Democrats win the governorship next year.
and flip both houses of the legislature.
And I don't think it's out of the question that some of those powers of the Secretary of State would be restored to that office.
And therefore it is going to be important that Democrats have good candidates for all five statewide constitutional offices next year.
So let's run through the list.
That's Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Secretary of State.
We got to have a full squad ready to go.
and let's say those are opportunities and if any legislators run for one of those spots then it opens up opportunities in either the assembly or state senate district there so again much left to happen here in the couple minutes before we have to pause here
I just want you to take on the letter that John Shelton and Chris Larson wrote about the qualities they want in the next governor, especially one that is pro-union and the many groups and individuals that have signed it.
Is that a good and valid exercise?
Is it a wish list?
Or are they painting themselves into a corner and will be very uncomfortable to have to accept a nominee who might not adhere to all those things that they're demanding?
That is their job.
And part of what is going to happen over the next, we've got nine months, 10 months until the primary, is all of these groups are going to try to push candidates to commit to fighting for their priorities.
So this is exactly what is supposed to happen.
And we'll see.
We might have a field where half of the folks say,
Absolutely, every single one of these things, check, check, check for it.
And we might have some folks who say, you know what, I can commit to this one, but not that one.
And that is how we inform the choice that voters will make.
Because I don't think it's a given that every single candidate is going to be able to commit 100% to every single one of those items.
That then tells the supporters of those advocacy groups.
OK, maybe I got to look elsewhere.
Or maybe that narrows a field that might have five, six names and say, well, if these are the only two people who are willing to commit to all of them, then I've got a choice between two people and not six.
11 and a half months until the primary.
It's just right around the corner.
Joe Specky, I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
We've got some matinee baseball for you on select stations across the Civic Media radio network, specifically Richland Center.
Oshkosh, Racine, Park Falls, Hayward.
You're all going to get the Brewers and Cubs coverage beginning at 12.45 this afternoon.
That'll wrap up five games in four days over at Wrigley Field.
The Brewers come home tomorrow to start a homestand.
Three games Friday, Saturday, Sunday against the San Francisco Giants.
And then Arizona comes to town for four games at American Family Field, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, evenings, and next Thursday afternoon.
And again, you can catch those games on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network back now with Joseph Pecky.
Joseph Pecky with us now, let's talk a bit about this Trump attack on mail-in voting.
And very quickly, a bipartisan group with several Wisconsin names on it was critical of it.
Tell me about your admiration at the speed with which this bipartisan group came to the defense of mail-in balancing
Yeah, these pro-democracy groups are ready to go They know that Donald Trump and his administration are a threat to the regular order when it comes to how we conduct our elections how people exercise that most fundamental right in a free democracy which we still have for the most part and I just I applaud
especially Republicans.
I don't care if they're never Trump Republicans.
I don't care if they're moderate Republicans.
Any Republican worth their salt knows that what Donald Trump said about the conduct of our elections this week is baloney.
The states run elections.
They are not agents of the federal government and real conservatives.
Every conservative ought to be able to stand up and say,
Hey, this is nuts.
This is not how this works.
And so to those who have been willing to stand up and say, sorry, sir, we got this, we know how to run elections.
My hat is off to them.
I appreciate it.
It's the hardest thing to do in politics these days is for anyone left or right to sort of challenge orthodoxy on their own side.
And we should just call it out, lift it up and applaud it when it happens.
So I appreciate those Republicans who are willing to say, we got to protect the right to vote by mail.
for everybody.
And he noted correctly that, I'm sorry, let me back up.
And it was noted that Trump was incorrect in his allegation that the U.S.
is the only country in the world that uses mail-in voting.
That's nowhere near true.
And again, it was both Republicans as well as Democrats who corrected him on that.
And
I think the thing that makes it look even worse for the president is that he said it in the wake of, you know, Vladimir Putin, you know, saying that he thinks that mail-in voting leads to rigged elections.
Parody in a Putin talking point is still not looked upon kindly in most of the United States of America as much as Donald Trump might wish otherwise.
He can be won over very easily by flattery and by telling him what he wants to hear.
And that, you know, the reality is that for another three and a half years or so, we're gonna have an American president who's a cheap date and is susceptible to flattery.
Wish that wasn't the case, but here we are.
It's exactly same.
Well, the Texas Democrats returned back to the legislature and Republicans were able to push through new gerrymandered maps.
You have California's governor now bringing that up to a vote of the people to kind of follow serve with California's congressional maps.
And you have former President Obama endorsing that, calling it the responsible approach given the era that we live in.
My question for you, Joe, is was the
decision by Texas Democrats to leave.
Was that any kind of a tactical loss or was it a win by calling national attention to this corrupt cartography?
It has raised the profile of this issue.
People understand that this is now a extreme emergency moment for our democracy.
And I think it's way more likely that the California gambit
works out because of this.
And so they did it right.
They didn't run away for months and months at a time.
I think they ended up gone 10 days, two weeks, which drew a lot of eyeballs and attention.
And that is the hardest thing to get right now in our information environment is attention.
So good on Texas Democrats, boo on Texas Republicans.
And yay for Gavin Newsom and California Democrats who are saying, we're not just going to take this.
We're going to fight back.
And I think the way that the California measure is structured is exactly right, which it is not doing away.
with the independent commission for redistricting.
It is saying this is a temporary measure to match what Texas is doing for just the next couple of election cycles.
And once there's a census in 2030, it will go right back to the independent redistricting commission, which is how this should work.
We cannot live in a society where politicians only choose their voters.
and voters don't really get a choice in who their politicians are.
That's not how this works.
And so this is messy.
This is disgusting.
This is gross.
But Democrats have to fight back.
And in this case, they are.
Yeah.
And then finally, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders coming to Wisconsin to campaign for Becca Cook.
Does that help burnisher bona fides with the people who think that she might be too moderate being endorsed by the blue dogs and everything else?
Does it help her in that sense?
Or does it create more confusion with a primary that already has three candidates in it?
What do you think of Bernie Sanders coming to campaign for Becca Cook?
I also think it's worth noting how broad the coalition that Becca Cook has put together is because you got Bernie Sanders coming to campaign.
I was listening to leader Hakeem Jeffries.
I don't think anybody would accuse Mr. Jeffries of being sort of in the same lane of the Democratic Party as Bernie Sanders.
And on a podcast with a national host this week, when asked about the fight for the house, Becca Cook and Wisconsin's third district was the first
district that he brought up and talked about.
And so I think that ability to sort of appeal across the Democratic Party bodes very well for Becca in the primary next August and in the general election next fall.
Joseph Pecky, thank you as always.
Appreciate it.
Have a great start to the weekend.
Go Brewers!
There you go.
All right, and thanks to all of you for being here as well.
Tomorrow, of course, we'll have our week in review panel.
My thanks to today's guests and to Brittany Merleau and to Parker Olson and to you for being here this morning.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
Have a great rest of your Thursday.
We'll see you here.
See you back here 6 a.m.
Bright and early here up north tomorrow.
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