Texas-Sized Trouble with Voucher Schools (Hour 2)

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Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Critewell powered by Up North News.

He's probably tired of me doing this, because I'm a little tired of doing this, but we have to have it accurate.

We can't say he's live at Lake Basota.

He's not.

No, no, no.

He's the founding editor of Up North News.

He's Pat Critewell.

And here he is

now.

Thank you, Parker.

Olson appreciated very much.

Nice to have you back here on this Wednesday morning, October 8th, again, for another day or two here from Texas.

back to the Lake Wistota studio, which will be awfully nice, but always nice to visit family as well.

Coming up and standing by is Ellie Bordeaux, our new newsletter editor at Up North News.

And then later this hour in our homeroom segment, we will be talking to an official for an education advocacy group talking about how down here in Texas, the growth of the voucher school program funded by taxpayers

has been explosive to the point of troubling and so we'll see what kind of lessons we can take away from Texas to prevent what could become a billion dollar boondoggle for taxpayers supporting private schools and public schools.

Should taxpayers really be asked to fund

two education systems in Wisconsin.

We'll talk all about that coming up.

And then at 835, we're going to be talking to Chuck Collins, grandson of Oscar Meyer.

So he knows a thing or two about family fortunes.

And he specializes in wealth inequality issues and has a new book out called burned by billionaires.

And about the changes that'll be necessary to the American political system before billionaires ruin too much more of society, the planet, our politics and more.

So if you can't hang around for that at 835, be sure to subscribe to us as a podcast head over to Spotify and follow us that way or Apple wherever you get your podcasts and follow along.

And of course, we'd love to have you follow along with our newsletter, our unabashedly Wisconsin news that's provided every weekday by Ellie Bordeaux.

You just sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com, click subscribe in the top banner and the aforementioned Ellie Bordeaux joins us now to talk all about what's in today's issue and beyond.

Ellie, good morning.

How are you?

I'm great.

How are you, Pat?

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So good to see you again here.

And you've come back for a second week.

So Parker and I clearly didn't

scare

away.

Wow.

Yeah.

No, no, we did.

We did good.

You

did not.

I'm back.

So Ellie's been producing the newsletter.

What are we at?

Four weeks here?

Roughly?

Yeah, like just over a month, I think.

So we've appreciated it very much as we just continue to keep things rolling on stories that we cover at Up North News, some of the news stories, but then a whole lot of Wisconsin features as well.

And we talked a lot in the past couple of days about it being banned Books Week and coverage in the newsletter about that.

But you also note that this is National Voter Education Week.

And again, we don't have an election here anytime soon.

But there's probably never a bad time to get to know more about what you need to do to be a registered voter and a good voter, frankly.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think this week, especially for National Voter Education Week, like you said, there's never a bad time to check your voter registration status.

Make sure you're up to date on that.

I remember I've talked to plenty of people that are like, I don't even know if I'm registered to vote, that kind of thing.

So I think it's really important to.

make sure everyone's educated on what your polling place is, where you registered, that kind of thing, make sure everything's up to date.

So yeah, bringing awareness to that is, there's no bad time for that for sure.

No, and again, you've

been doing this long enough now as a voter and as a journalist to know that there are plenty of people who like to complain about things.

And then you ask them if they vote, and they're like, Oh, no, no, voting won't do me any good or whatever.

And I feel like you and Parker already, despite, you know, being younger adults, I think you're already ready to throw that back at people the old, you know, if you're not voting, you can't complain.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's a

That kind of thing is a little bit frustrating.

So it is, it's super important to go out and vote, you know, a democracy.

That's how it works is if you go out and vote and can't do that if you're not registered.

So make sure you check that, all that stuff.

It

works better if you participate.

Exactly.

And so you've got this new section called Civic Check-In.

What's that about?

Yeah, so every week, every Wednesday, we're going to be starting or I've started doing civic check-ins.

So every week, we're going to be taking a look at a new topic of just to check in on your civics, you know, do you know what this means?

Is it impacting you?

Just make sure people are informed on those kinds of things.

So today we talked about authoritarianism and if it's impacting your daily life, what that is, what that looks like, those kinds of things.

And it's important to do that because the

there are words that get bandied about authoritarianism fascism socialism communist you know a democratic republic are we a democracy or are we a republic and so any of these little

stories that can help shed some light make for more informed voters.

And so Ellie's doing that through the newsletter.

And then of course, here on the radio show, we're bringing back what we've called movement Mondays, part of the movement toward protecting democracy, where we have different groups come in on Monday mornings, and talk about what their groups are doing to educate voters or get them registered or get people informed on the issues.

And our friend Abby is working very hard to

Find some of the guests for those and solicit op ed columns from them that run on our website up north news wi.com So so many ways that you can stay you know plugged in and increase your civic engagement Which by the way is at the heart of what we're all about it up north news is just boosting your civic engagement However, we're also in the business of boosting your appetite for things and for food and for drink

And I recall that when we first talked about doing this story, the headline in the newsletter today is get a taste of the best of the eight best food halls in Wisconsin.

And he had people going food hall.

What do you what do you mean by that?

Is that like the food court at the mall?

And no, if some folks who live near them say the Milwaukee public market might be the best known of them.

But these are well, tell tell people more about food halls and you know, how how you can find all kinds of variety at them.

Yeah, I mean I think I love the Milwaukee public market.

I think it's Maybe I'm a little biased, but that's one of my favorite but food halls for me is Or what I think of it as is like it's a place where there are a bunch of different vendors You can go check out a bunch of different things.

You've got a bunch of different options, you know

kind of take a taste of everything.

So this story really dives into that.

There's places all in Milwaukee.

There's Mequon.

There's Madison.

I mean, you've got options all over the state.

And this story really takes a look at that, like the Milwaukee public market.

We've got the Mequon public market.

We've got the market on the river and Chippewa Falls.

I was going

to say, that's the new one here, the Wisconsin Farmers Union put together when they.

overhauled this old building downtown right by the river and have turned it into, again, one of these food halls where you have different eating options, but you also have other markets and other vendors as well.

So it's not the malls of the 70s and 80s.

They're smaller and they're much more with an emphasis on local.

Yes, absolutely.

Um, so this story totally takes a look at all those things and I mean, I think about the Milwaukee public market.

I don't necessarily have experience that these other places are the one in Chippewa Falls, but I think about the Milwaukee public market and you've got a spot where you can eat and it's you can take a little taste of everything.

It's

It's great.

I love them.

So.

So again, we've got that story again in our newsletter up North News W I dot that is there as well.

And let's see what else do we have in there for today?

Oh, we have well, that's the story I worked on.

Oh, there's a new bill out there to ban absentee ballot drop boxes.

And again, it's it's a

bill that's not going to get passed Governor Tony Evers.

But it does again, say something that we have lawmakers in the state who would who would remove the absentee ballot drop box option to voters.

And so we just want to make sure that people know about it, right, Ellie?

Yeah, absolutely.

It's very important to again, keep people informed on those kinds of things, what's happening around the state, what's happening at our capitol.

So yeah, it's super important.

Okay, let's see Tony says on YouTube.

Oh, it's like a malt shop.

Sure it is.

Rob from Tigerton says good morning, Ellie.

I love your work on the newsletter.

And while we've got Rob here, he says good morning from Tigerton clear and 32 degrees the coldest since early May.

He says I mowed four yards in Tigerton yesterday.

It was more mowing leaves than grass with the first freeze that this could be the last week of mowing.

Yeah, we've got the first freeze is definitely hit here.

So

mowing leaves is going to be much more the issue than it is going to be mowing grass, which means that Ellie is getting right into the thick of here's where to see fall colors around the state.

Totally.

Yes, exactly.

We've taken a look at that and all that stuff is in

I mean, for the rest of fall, we've got a ton of fall activities all throughout Wisconsin.

We talked about this, I think, a little bit last week of our fall guide.

So that's published on our site now, too.

You can take a look at all the different fun activities, those kinds of things.

We have stories on our site of when the leaves will peak, those kinds of things.

Where are they at now?

So fall in Wisconsin is my favorite.

Yeah, there's there's no there's not going to be any shortage of things to do.

Is there anything on your own personal calendar, any road trips that you've got coming up or I don't know, maybe maybe you've got packers or brewers tickets coming up.

Well, I am going to Madison for the Ohio State game, not going to the game, but I'm going to Madison to watch the game.

We'll see how that goes, you know.

Badgers have been a little bit rocky this season, but figures crossed.

It's an experience, right Parker?

People are there for the experience more so than the score, which is what we say when you're playing one of the top teams in the country, right?

And you're not a good

team.

And you're not a good team.

Yes, we have to add that as well.

So all right, for all that and more of the things that Ellie is working on in our newsletter, sign up for it over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

Click subscribe in the top banner and get on board the weekday newsletter that she puts together the Sunday morning one that I work on as well.

And Ellie will join us on Wednesdays to give us a little taste of what's in some of these issues.

Ellie, great to talk to you as always.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

Yes, same to you.

Thank you.

You bet.

Now tomorrow, Sharita Booker is going to be here and we will be talking about weekend events that are coming up around Wisconsin.

But Sharita also puts together some of the more popular posts of the past week.

I mean, she posts everything that goes on up North News, social media.

And then she shares with us some of the statistics of you know, what's been popular lately and That includes over the past few days here the Ellsworth teacher who lost her job over a social media post dealing with the Charlie Kirk murder and what does that say when a congressman can attack a teacher's First Amendment rights like that There's also the story that Selena Heller told us about on Monday about a woman from La Crosse and her

you know, rather emotional reaction to the prospect of not being able to afford health insurance anymore as the enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act gets set to expire at the end of this year and Republicans not wanting to renew them.

Now that still could change because that's really what's at the heart of the current government shutdown But for the moment a growing number of people are starting to realize what could happen to their health insurance bill if if these enhanced premium credits are not extended and so small wonder that that story

got a lot of clicks over the past week.

Same goes for the new backdoor abortion ban that came from the big bloated boondoggle from the president.

It includes language in there that cuts Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.

Now Planned Parenthood does not get taxpayer funds for its abortion care services, but does for all kinds of other basic health services done in clinics all across the country, many that serve rural areas.

And yet now that funding is looking to be cut and essentially Planned Parenthood is forced to cut its abortion care services at least temporarily while

that part of the law is being challenged in court.

So those are just three examples that you could find on Instagram searching for up North news wi about stories that are getting a lot of clicks, a lot of likes, a lot of shares and a lot of comments.

And we appreciate you doing that with everything that we put up on social media is share and let folks know that you saw it on

All right, we will be talking about the voucher programs here in Texas and then back in Wisconsin.

Coming up in 15 minutes, I'm Pat Whitewell.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

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We have got Brewer's Baseball coming up this afternoon across the Civic Media Radio Network, stations in Hayward and Racine Kenosha, Park Falls, Oshkosh, Richland Center.

We'll all have Game 3 of the National League Division Series.

Theoretically, you know, fingers crossed, the Brewer's could sweep the Cubs.

This is the first game of the series at Wrigley Field.

It's the best three out of five and the Brewers are up two games to none having taken the first two at American Family Field.

Now we see if they can clinch it later this afternoon at Wrigley Field.

And again, the pregame will begin at 3.30 on those aforementioned civic media stations.

It's part of a full boatload of division series games today.

The first one will be Seattle versus Detroit at two o'clock and Seattle won last night to take a two to one lead in that series.

Then there's also

Tonight the Blue Jays from Toronto versus the New York Yankees at six o'clock Toronto leads that series two games to one It looked like they were gonna sweep the series last night But the Yankees had their biggest ever comeback in the postseason they were down six to one at one point and went on to

win the game nine to six last night.

So Toronto still up two games to one.

So Toronto could clinch that series at Yankee Stadium this evening.

And then the other game in the National League division series is Philadelphia at Los Angeles.

Phillies Dodgers playing at eight o'clock.

And the Dodgers lead that series two games to none.

So theoretically could sweep that tonight.

But again, all the focus for us is on Brewers Cubs coming up at 3.30 for the pregame.

All right, let's get you thinking about our guest coming up at 835 and that will be Chuck Collins from patriotic millionaires He has this new book out about the billionaire class It's something he's familiar with coming from one of these families that has you know generational wealth But he has chosen to become active in calling attention to wealth inequality and the way that you know the world's

number of billionaires in the in the year 2020, the year of the pandemic, the wealth of the world's billionaires grew by 54%.

And, and it's only getting to be more, you know, 10% of the population owns 93% of the wealth in the stock market.

And so we always hear that as the stock market is doing well, well,

That just helps everybody else that that lifts all the boats Well, it lifts some yachts more than the rest of the boats and Chuck Collins is gonna talk more about that coming up But he was interviewed for a newspaper article by the Guardian in the UK which came out a couple of days ago where he talks about how the the system that perpetuates wealth inequality is purposely

opaque to most Americans.

They simply don't see the ways in which some of these folks not only got wealthy, but continue to maintain it, protect it by the way they're able to have political power.

And that doesn't surprise a lot of people.

Like, you know, we have a day and age where political donations tend to rule the roost.

But a lot of folks don't connect the next dot.

and that is that they're not only protecting their wealth, they're building on it through what he calls wealth extraction.

In other words, having their political buddies do things that move money from the middle class to the billionaires, which is kind of funny because again, when you hear from the far right,

You always hear about this transfer of wealth and for them they always mean oh It's going from hard-working people in the middle class to those you know lazy people who you know rely on a government handout No, that's not the wealth transfer that's actually happening here The wealth transfer that's actually happening is going from the middle class to the billionaire class which again is growing at an exponential rate and It's only getting worse

If anything, what's happening this year since Donald Trump took office may finally be helping the public understand that this is about extraction of wealth by billionaires.

And when I say the billionaire class, he also points out in the book, we're talking people also in the.

Hundreds of millions of dollars.

They may not technically have a billion dollars yet, but they still have enough wealth to amass this kind of political power That enables them to do the kind of thing that Donald Trump and Republicans are doing right now right out in the open Right out in the open.

They're saying We're going to have these cuts to Medicaid.

We're not gonna renew the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and

as much as they want to say, well, we're doing it to save money.

It's not saving money because what's playing his day out there is that all of this cutting of health care programs is being turned into tax cuts for the super rich.

And I mean, there's no denying that it's right there in black and white that that's what it's doing.

And it's not even a one to one trade.

Okay, it's not like, you know, a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts over the next 10 years translates into a trillion dollars worth of tax cuts for the very wealthy.

It's not just that they're being they're getting tax cuts even more than that.

Even with all of the cuts to Medicaid and to the Affordable Care Act and to snap into farm conservation programs and everything else.

Trump and congressional Republicans are still going to add

another $4 trillion to the national debt.

That's how massive these tax cuts are that go to the billionaire class.

And that's the wealth extraction that we're talking about.

You're not necessarily writing a check to a billionaire, but you're paying your fair share of taxes.

They are not.

You're not seeing the tax relief.

You're certainly not seeing the inflation relief You're not seeing the health care benefits that you thought you were gonna get and by the way now if you're a federal employee President Trump yesterday was talking about how you know how federal employees get back pay when the government shutdowns over He's talking about canceling the back pay as well

It's a very explicit wealth transfer that we will be talking about in just over an hour with Chuck Collins.

But coming up next, our homeroom segment, talking about a Texas-sized problem with school vouchers.

I'm Pat Whitewell.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

here at 735.

Nice to have you along here all across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Critello.

Live this week down in Dallas doing some family visits, keeping up on the Wisconsin headlines and in this segment adding a bit of a Texas twist to it.

Now we've talked previously to our courier newsroom colleagues at Courier Texas about what's happening with

public education in Texas and the voucher school program there.

We've certainly talked to Cam Stevenson from the Copper Courier in Arizona and now he's out on Capitol Hill where again there's continued pushes to use taxpayer dollars to support private usually religious schools.

And of course every Wednesday at this time we talk about public education in Wisconsin

and especially the ongoing threat from a voucher program that is rapidly approaching one billion dollars in annual cost to taxpayers and

It still seems like a lot of taxpayers don't know that yet.

Although they're becoming more and more aware of it each time there's yet another school referendum in Wisconsin.

So while I'm here in Texas this week, I thought we should maybe find out what is happening here and are there things that are happening in Texas that we can take away as lessons to protect public education in Wisconsin.

One of the groups working hard on this issue is IDRA that stands for the Intercultural Development Research Association.

and the IDRA Deputy Director is here now, Dr. Chloe Latham Sykes and joins us from Austin, Texas.

Dr. Sykes, good morning.

Thank you for being here.

Good morning.

Thank you for having

me.

Well, we really appreciate it because, again, you've heard the setup of the...

the problem that we're facing in Wisconsin of helping taxpayers understand that whether they know it or not they are funding two school systems in our state and the one is you know closing in on a 10-digit figure in the state budget.

Can you give us a little background on the challenges that public schools face in Texas?

Oh, yes, I'm so glad that you're covering this topic.

You know, this is a new terrain for Texas with this private school voucher program.

You know, for Texas has.

over five and a half million students in our public school system pre-K through 12.

We serve largest population of emergent bilingual or English learner students.

Over half of our public school students are considered economically disadvantaged.

You know, we're really diverse and we have a lot of needs.

And Texas, unfortunately has.

always fallen behind the curve in properly funding our public schools.

This was a founding issue for the organization I work for, IDRA, establishing fair school funding across our 1200 school district and charter schools now across the state.

And for many, many years, for decades, we fended off

proposals for a private school voucher program until now, unfortunately.

And there could be a whole segment on the ins and outs and politics of how it happened.

And that might be part of your questions.

But essentially, we're starting.

We're going to hit the ground running next school year with a starting point of a $1 billion private school voucher program.

And taxpayers in Texas will be funding two school systems going forward.

with our now it'll be a universal and statewide private school voucher program.

And I'm wondering when you talked about the background of it, I know that here in Wisconsin, the way that we have to remind people is it never grew as a standalone issue.

Anytime voucher schools would be put up as a standalone bill, it wouldn't pass or get vetoed or if it was a referendum, it would be taken down.

But

year after year after year Republican lawmakers usually with some Democrats would insert it into the state budget as something you know one of those bills that has to pass and so by and large the growth of voucher schools has never been something that's been debated on its own merits and as we said it has over the years now been to this point where we're looking at the experience in other states and wondering

what it is we might be able to do to stop this from becoming such a behemoth.

But before we get to what we can do, let's continue just emphasizing where we are in Texas and other states right now, I'm starting to see a little bit of even Republican legislators in some of these states going,

Well, I support, you know, school vouchers, I support private schools.

But as a fiscal conservative, I'm starting to get a little bit of concern about how big this is getting.

Is there any evidence like that in Texas right now?

Or is it still full speed ahead for those folks who basically have a blank check for the voucher school program?

Yes, so so

Our private school voucher program is authorized under what was Senate bill two from this past legislative session in the spring that ended this this spring in 2025.

So this is our rulemaking year.

We haven't even seen this fully hit the ground.

This program is actually housed not in our education agency.

It's housed within our state budget office and the controller of public accounts.

office.

And so they just authorized the organization that's going to be administering applications and providers.

It's going to be Odyssey, which is a major tech firm out of New York that's done some of these programs.

But there was a lot of pushback in the back and forth in the debates.

And this proposal died in 2023.

It was a

major fight.

Like you said, a private school voucher program in 2023 for us was

tied to a major school funding bill.

And we came back for four special sessions after the regular session ended, the most in Texas history in one calendar year, to finally have, they had a final giant bill, house bill one that had all the bait in it.

It had funding for schools, it had increases to the per people allotment, basic allotment, it had teacher pay, it had accountability changes, it had all this stuff, and it had a voucher program.

This is fall 2023 and there was a motion on the House floor from a Republican and outgoing Republican, rural Republican member to strike that article from House Bill 1, to strike it and take out that voucher portion, keep all the school funding bait and they had the votes, they passed.

So then the author took down the whole bill, right?

So that was the major, that was the first time we'd seen

the voucher program get to the House floor debate.

Our Senate has been passing these out, you know, no problem.

It was the first time we got to the House floor and it died.

Now, then we saw a wave of political pressure that got a fair amount of coverage, millions of dollars coming in from outside sources to the Texas governor to support Republican primary challenges in the spring of 2024.

And they were successful and they got a

a new house, a composition of Republicans that were going to be pro the private school voucher program.

And so entering 2025, it was it was pretty hectic.

I mean, we had the bill coming out of the Senate in the first couple of weeks of session, which I mean, you can appreciate normally you're just talking about budget, your assembling committees, they had it going on in January coming out.

And in the house, that's where the fight was always going to be.

And so what we ended up seeing, what we knew was going to happen was there were still a holdout of particularly rural Republican members in Texas who knew this is going to be real harmful to our school districts.

And they knew what they were hearing from superintendents and teachers and families.

And in the final, on the day of the vote, they were going to make a motion to have a push it to a referendum in November, put it to the voters as some other states have done.

And the president called the GOP caucus.

They put him on speakerphone.

They had a caucus meeting the morning of the House vote.

And he said, get in line, ultimately.

I mean, this has been covered.

It was brought, you know, it was

put

out.

And it took a call from the president and they got in line behind the vote.

Two Republicans voted against it on the House floor that evening in April.

So.

there was a lot of holdout till the house debate.

But ultimately, I think politics won.

Well, yeah, because they obviously if they're if they're

ready to go in January, then you clearly have outside groups that are doing their homework and are trying to put something through.

This is hardly anything that's organic at all.

And it's where special interests, you know, have the money to be able to hit the ground running and ram these kinds of things through.

We're talking to Chloe Latham Sykes from IDRA, the Intercultural Development Research Association out of Austin, Texas, about the growth of school vouchers and taxpayer funds for them.

And so at the heart of some of these Republican fiscal conservatives getting alarmed at the price tag of it.

Now, of course, in this case, they were primaried and they were bounced so that the special interests protecting private schools could get their way.

But I wonder if Dr. Sykes, what we learned in there is the path forward is really all about information, making sure not just that these

fiscal conservative legislators understand the cost, but that all of their constituents, that all these taxpayers understand.

I feel like that's the part that's been missing here in Wisconsin is enough messaging to help people understand that, hey, nobody's against private schools per se, but it's about our tax dollars going there.

Is communication the best path forward or are there other avenues as well?

That was key.

That was absolutely key.

And the fact is we know we had a 21 hour committee hearing in the house that might send chills down your spine about this bill.

And it was.

hundreds of families coming out across the state to say, please don't do this.

We know.

And that was bipartisan.

There was bipartisan pushback saying, this is actually not fiscally conservative.

The starting point is a billion dollars.

It's estimated in the first five years to go past $10 billion.

Again, we're going to see how it's implemented next year.

But people understanding this is it has.

no real accountability for academic and student achievement or financial accountability.

The company that's not been chosen to run it was kicked out of the Idaho program because of fraud.

And so spreading that message and the research around this is

These programs are bad for student performance.

They are bad for taxpayer accountability.

They're bad for state budgets.

Just look to Arizona, who has been scrambling over their ballooning private school voucher program.

That was a key part of the messaging.

And that monitoring and research is something we're going to continue to be lifting up and trying to continue to message.

I mean, people feel it.

We have school closures going on left and right.

even with some school funding that came down in the legislative session as well, I think the pressure of this program and how it'll grow as evidence to other states is going to be felt very deeply, very quickly.

So what are your next steps?

What is the IDRA working on and how can people learn more about it?

Yes, we have a basic infographic.

If you go to our website, idra.org, slash news slash.

tx voucher law just to see.

some of the nuts and bolts of what it is.

We have been trying to push people to engage in the rulemaking process of, hey, this program's getting implemented.

Your voice still matters to put some guardrails on this thing.

There was just a first round of rules that came out, and there's going to be more.

So trying to get people engaged, if they subscribe to idra.org, they'll be able to receive all our alerts and infographics, data dashboards, and additional research that we put out.

to show how this will affect public schools.

And there are all kinds of good, active people with the Wisconsin Public Education Network who I know are taking everything that you said to heart and will be looking for all kinds of other ideas to partner in ways that protect our public schools in Wisconsin and Texas and beyond.

Chloe Latham-Sykes is the Deputy Director of Policy for IDRA out of Boston, Texas.

Dr. Sykes, it was a pleasure meeting you.

Thank you so much for so much background and inspiration going forward.

Thank you so much.

All right, take care now.

When we come back in our next hour, we will be talking to Chuck Collins from the group Patriotic Millionaires about the billionaire class in this country.

And how do you keep them from much like the voucher school program from gobbling up everything?

And it involves making some fundamental changes to the system.

But again, people got to know about it.

And Chuck Collins is trying to do his part.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

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.

big news and sports, big, massive news and sports.

I mean, this is gonna, this is a sports earthquake, talking about Janus Anacupo being traded from the Milwaukee Bucks.

Oh, wait.

It's just the latest rumor.

And yet, we have to talk about it because it seems like every time it happens.

Oh, my God, we might lose Janus.

No, we're not gonna lose Janus.

Good morning, Jimmy.

Yeah, good morning.

You know what I saw this yesterday, like I think like a lot of Bucks fans are just kind of roll your eyes,

open it up, see what's there.

I didn't even click on it, but you know, people are, people, again, hair is on fire in some places.

You know, the difference this off season is that, you know, the Bucks just traded away, Damien Lulert, and he's, you know, one of the NBA's top players, right?

He's not going to play this year because of the injury, but.

Uh, people are wondering, well, do the bucks have a roster that can actually contend?

And, you know, in a vacuum, you look at the bucks roster and you're thinking, okay, well, there's obviously, you know, you don't have the star power there, but then you look around the NBA and you look at the Eastern Conference and there's major injuries now to Tyrese Halliburton at Indiana, Jason Tatum at Boston.

So there's, there's, there's something of an opening there, but then you, you look at some of the context of this latest report and how, you know, the.

The Bucks GM is in Greece trying to figure out where Giannis is going and Giannis not, you know, unlike most years where he just pretty plainly puts out something saying like, yeah, I ain't going anywhere.

You know, this year, there's not as much of that, right?

So I think every word, every press conference, every single game result is going to be micro analyzed to death by everybody in national media trying to figure out where Giannis is going.

Giannis has been leaving according to ESPN.

for a dozen years.

Oh, that's such wishful thinking.

Such wishful thinking.

They so want him to go to New York or some other place where they can cover him all the time and just, you know, chew him up and spit him out like they do with everybody else that comes to the Great White Way.

And it's just not happening.

And I know I might be comparing apples to oranges here.

But how brilliant do the brewers look by comparison saying to Jackson Shurio, here's eight years.

Okay, can we be we're not even going to do this rumor game for the next eight years?

Yeah, the brewer is locking down a potential star for long term.

That's what small markets got to do to survive in baseball.

And amazingly, whatever the brewers are doing is just.

Really exploded this year in terms of the sheer amount of I want to call luck, but just the ability to some of its luck, but But you know looking at the trades they made in the middle of the season It's just the player development everything coming together in this perfect storm of a baseball team That's a game away from the NLCS right now.

This has really been a lot of fun to watch not only as a fan, but just as somebody who You know follows, you know transactions follows just kind of the progression of teams the Brewers have set themselves up pretty well

to not only contend this year, obviously, at a year where, you know, if they get to the NLCS, I mean, all bets are off at that point.

Playoffs are, you're the playoffs, anything can happen, but you're also poising, you know, poised to contend for years to come.

I think that's really exciting.

Just a baseball fan, a Brewers fan.

It's great to see.

It is, and...

once again, trying to avoid the hair on fire thing.

But if, if slash when, you know, the brewers can eliminate the cubs and move on.

And if the Dodgers hold on to their two game lead, and eventually, you know, take out the Phillies, and we start doing nothing but 2018 deja vu all over again.

And how do you, how do you get it into people's heads?

That was seven years ago.

And none of those people are around.

This is a whole new ball game pun intended.

And

you know, like you said, if you get to this level, you better enjoy the ride because it's clear there's enough talent to take the team this far.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like a single elimination format where, you know, upsets are more prone to happen.

The Brewers have, you know, in a seven game series, you take them against anybody.

I mean, I guess the Dodgers this year, they were very competitive.

That's that's one of the things why like, when you look at the path to getting to the World Series, I feel like there's a little confidence this year, the Brewers are the best.

run differential in baseball this year.

And that's despite starting out 0-4.

They've got the best record in baseball.

And they've handled themselves so far in a pretty tense rivalry series with the Cubs in two games.

I know that there's two games that begin later today, or at least one game, I should say, because the river is wet today.

It's over.

But they go to Chicago.

for games today and potentially tomorrow.

But the Provers have really asserted themselves well, and they've done it in a lot of different ways this year.

I keep saying this when I'm on your show, Pat, but they've done it without relying on one or two guys.

It's been.

everybody, the whole 26 man roster has shown up to play.

And there's a different star every night.

And I think that's part of why, you know, unlike the past runs by the Brewers, where you're looking, well, what are the stars going to do if the star player doesn't go two for four with a home run and three RBI, there's no chance the star.

We don't have an Aaron judge.

Yeah, what Aaron did last

night.

That's been the great thing about them this year.

Yeah, Aaron judge can save it, you know, Yankees entire, you know, series, like he did last night to keep them alive.

And that's just not the way that we go here.

I have to have some fun with this though, because here's your stone putting up.

I thought ironically, hey, good luck getting through Cleveland.

Man, I thought he was having some fun with his guardians being eliminated.

I think he's talking back about the bucks.

I could be wrong, but I think when he says good luck getting through Cleveland, it's a bucks thing.

But Tony, I'm turning it into a guardians thing.

So thanks for the irony.

I think that's

That's that's terrific.

Well, hey, the Packers didn't get through the Browns either.

So it could be talking about last couple of weeks ago.

It

could be.

It could very well be.

So we've we've got again, game three is this afternoon, the pregame coverage begins at 3 30 on several of the stations of the civic media radio network head to civic media dot us to learn more.

And yeah, as I said, it's it's a it's a full boatload of division series games today.

And so it's

Seattle Detroit at two o'clock and Seattle's up two games to one so they could clinch here and then you've got the Brewers Cubs at four o'clock Milwaukee up two games to none Blue Jays Yankees at six where again Toronto is up two games to one and then Phillies Dodgers at eight where the Dodgers are up two games to none and so I'm is this where I ask you for your bold prediction for tonight or are we not in the prediction business here?

LDS extended their series last night and LDS tonight

I honestly feel like it's shock.

I think that we're done with the NLDS after today.

That's my prediction.

And

then we are on to the NLCS.

There we go.

OK.

There.

That's bold.

That's bold.

As bold as Tony's saying, I was really talking about the bucks.

I'm sure you were, Tony.

Again, you put the comment up.

I get to play it whenever I want to play it.

Jimmy Koska, thank you so much.

Good to talk to you.

Have a great day.

All right.

Coming up in our next hour, we'll be talking to Earl Ingram right after the 8 o'clock news on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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