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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
There we go, the dulcetones of Don Rue welcoming us back to the Lake WSOTA studio here in Chippewa Falls.
Nice to be home after a week of travels.
On this Friday morning, October 10th, 2025, nice to have you along.
Back here up north from wherever you're listening all across the Civic Media radio network,
Nice to be here back for the fall weather It was still in the mid to upper 80s when I left here last week hard to believe that it was
only that long ago.
It was that warm around here and here we are in the long sleeve shirts and the leaves starting to fall as well.
And there is just nothing like fall in Wisconsin.
In fact, we did a whole special edition of our Up North News Daily newsletter about that recently, which you can always check out.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Ask for today's edition.
Well, you'll recall that last week I said that Ellie our new newsletter writer was asking people to share stories and photos of their favorite small business in their hometown
And so a few that she singled out here include Rosalie's book boutique in Beaver Dam.
There's Geiger awards and apparel in Waukesha, Makers Market Square in Mount Horrib, and The Hub in West Bend.
And in every case, a reader has put some really nice comments about what makes them their favorite little hometown shop.
And Ellie is now asking for next Friday, share your favorite local pizza place.
I know we've talked about that on the show here.
It's been a while, but we did, you know, give us your best non-chain local pizza joint.
And we got
tremendous response at the time.
So I would definitely urge you to do the same thing for Ellie.
She's going to be joining all the other newsletter readers in collecting comments.
But you know what, if you want to put in your two cents, you got a couple of different ways to do that, either jump in the comments sections on social media, you can watch us do the show on the Up North News Facebook and YouTube pages and the civic media, Facebook and YouTube pages.
Or if you're like, Pat, I don't I just want to send you an old fashioned email.
And whoever thought we'd call email old fashioned.
Yeah, it was new once upon a time.
Anyway, you can just send us that email us at radio at up north news wi.com.
Again, radio at up north news wi.com.
And send us an email all about your favorite local pizza place and why what is it that makes it so good, you know, the crust, the sauce, the toppings, the creative use of the menu, whatever it might be, we'd love to hear what makes it uniquely yours.
I guess I've delayed long enough, he says, to Parker Olson, producer down in Madison Studio A2, and trying to avoid talking about the burgers losing to the Cubs last night, getting absolutely shellacked by the Cubs last night and forcing a deciding game five.
So the Cubs have survived two elimination games.
Well, now it's an elimination game for both teams.
Both the burgers and the Cubs facing elimination tomorrow night.
at American Family Field pregame at 630.
And then the first pitch itself about seven o'clock, according to MLB.com here.
I
I feel like you're young enough.
They should be.
Do your parents have a baby book, you know, where they put all your little milestones, like first steps and lost your first two
First time.
First rage quitting of a Brewer's game.
That's it.
I'm out of here.
It was just everything was off.
Well, you know what?
Tony is taking the glass half full version saying, I think the Brewers were just wanting to boost the Milwaukee economy within elimination game at home.
Sure.
All right.
Go with that.
That's fine.
I'll all I ask for his fans and they did a fine fine job in games one and two.
All I'm saying
is
game five.
You better not have a voice
when it's
all over because the there will be plenty of Cub fans up there.
And they're going to try so hard to make it feel like Wrigley Field North.
And sometimes during the regular season, they get away with it.
And so that's that's my only request if you are fortunate enough to go see the Brewers Cubs game tomorrow night as a Brewers fan There is absolutely no resting that voice you You make it loud in there.
Yes, and and make make the make the Brewers understand this is a home game and They have a pretty good home record, you know Gotta wake up the bats got to get the pitchers to do this this weird thing called finding the strike zone
And finding it in a way that the other team can't hit the ball over the fence, which seems to have been a problem in the first innings, especially
It has.
Yes, it has been.
you know, it's not to the point that like he said, it's not the first thing that we bring up.
No, but yes, there have definitely been times where once again, I have said, bring on the robots.
Yeah, I am I am so ready for that.
And I get that, you know, a couple of times, the ball will just nibble the strike zone.
And it'll break your heart because you know, an ump would normally call it, you know, one way but the lines are the lines.
Yeah.
And so if you accept that's where the lines are.
I'd rather have that than to have the so-called human factor on that.
I don't want the human factor.
I want it to be the right call.
I want the right call.
I have that little buffer zone of like, if it's a quarter of the ball that's in the zone, fine, I get it.
You're not going to be 100 out of 100.
But there are balls that are literally like a ball or two away, and they're getting called strikes, or a ball or two in.
and they're being called balls.
It's so infuriating.
Yes.
Tom and Hartford puts on the text line to win at home is the charm.
And yes, it would be because if you can win at home, it reinforces why you worked so hard to have the best record in baseball this year and to have home field advantage throughout the playoffs because we now know the winner of tomorrow night's game will go on to face the Dodgers.
The Dodgers eliminated the Phillies last night in one of the
dumbest, goofiest ways imaginable.
If you haven't seen it yet, look up the highlight for how the Dodgers Phillies game came to an end on a throwing error.
A simple little comeback to the pitcher who threw it home to get the runner threw it wildly off the mark.
This little toss that should have been easy enough to make even even for old goofballs like me with no shoulder and
the, you got a case of the yips and that was it.
Philly was, was out and the Dodgers are in.
I, yeah, that it's a little surprising, but I can, you can definitely see how that would be the case.
You don't, you don't see something like that to clinch.
No.
a playoff series.
No,
you don't.
And that, that Philly pitcher is, you know, gonna be, it's going to be a long winter for him and for all the Phillies fans to which all the Mets fans are like, Hey, welcome to the club.
And that same feeling is going to befall the fans of either Seattle or Detroit.
They have an elimination game tonight in their American League division series.
And whether Seattle or Detroit comes out of that game tonight in Seattle, they will face Toronto on Sunday night.
in game one of the American League Championship Series.
And again, for the Brewers, it's all about home field advantage.
If they can win tomorrow night, then they will open up the National League Championship Series Monday night against the Dodgers.
If the Cubs win, then it's the Dodgers who have the home field advantage and game one of the NLCS Dodgers Cubs would be Monday night in Los Angeles.
But we're not going to worry about that.
That's just
Exactly.
So, again, pregame tomorrow, 6.30 p.m.
on Civic Media Stations in Richland Center.
Oshkosh.
We're seeing Kenosha Park Falls in Hayward.
We've got a whole lot of high school football tonight across the Civic Media radio network on local stations.
Head over to civicmedia.us and then look up the individual.
local radio station homepages to find out if there's a game on the air near you.
The Badger football team will be hosting Iowa coverage begins tomorrow at 4 p.m.
on several civic media radio stations and then you've got the Packers taking on the Cincinnati Bengals and Joe Flacco again who they'd faced as the Cleveland quarterback and will now face him as the Cincinnati quarterback
for, you know, the first time within a month, you know, him being traded this week from Cleveland to Cincinnati.
Sunday's kickoff is at 325.
And so coverage will begin at one o'clock on Sunday on several media, several, several civic media radio stations.
Friday morning, huh?
Again, Friday morning, somebody traveling, getting back rather late.
But
It worked out, but it's that whole notion of you get back, you got the long drive from the airport, then you create Laundry Mountain and then you begin to scale Laundry Mountain and get everything back in its place and actually get to sleep in your own bed and drink your own coffee in the morning.
No complaining.
It went just fine.
I, you know, I complained about Dallas traffic, but we got to the Dallas airport.
All right.
Of course there was airport construction because there's always airport instruction, but we, we got in there fine.
But because of the construction, we went to go eat in one of the, the restaurants and we thought we'd be at like a table or a booth and they instead they shimmied us down this very narrow little hallway.
and put us at a counter.
So we're sitting elbow to elbow at this counter looking out over the the the concourse.
Okay.
And so it was little confined quarters, but you know, again, travel travel days for us are fun.
We you know, we like to be able to go places and see people.
And in my case, it was, like I was saying before, my chance to finally watch the Billy Joel documentary on the HBO Max app.
And I
I did not.
I knew it was long.
I didn't realize it was that long that two airplane flights, I haven't been able to finish it yet.
But it's so, so good.
And I even though I haven't finished it yet, I just highly recommend it to anybody who has any kind of connection to Billy Joel songs and interest in him.
You don't have to be the world's biggest fan to appreciate the stories that are being told.
all the cameos that are in there by Paul McCartney and Sting and Pink and Garth Brooks and everybody else commenting on the music.
So it's really wonderful.
My wife was watching Happy Gilmore 2 on her phone over at her seat, saying it too was really good and it too has a whole bunch of cameos that are worth watching.
So we have to catch up on each other's shows over the weekend as well.
And now that Sun's coming up, I finally have to look in the backyard and see
To what degree are we raking?
Are we mowing?
Are we just throwing up our hands and going, huh?
Yeah, you know, let the wind do what it will with it.
Give it a week.
I honestly don't know.
I haven't I haven't looked out yet since the sun has come up, but fall falls arrived temperature wise.
Yes, and it will apparently look to be fairly consistent temps here with highs in the 60s and lows in the in the low 40s and a chance of showers moving back in for early Monday across parts of Wisconsin.
And again, you can catch your local forecast on the civic media radio network throughout the course of the day, including Matt Nair on air, which follows this fine program, Jane Matt Nair and Greg Bach will be here from nine to 11.
And again, my thanks for everybody who
take part in the go for the green and gold text to win contest which wrapped up a week ago.
And as we looked at all the numbers of people who texted in at all different times of day, we really appreciated the growth and all the people who wanted to try to win the grand prize and all of the daily prizes.
And we are looking for new and fun ways to incorporate that texting feature from the Civic Media app, which you can use anytime, text us anytime to send us a message, ask us a question.
We'd love to have that.
And in the very new future award prizes again.
for your participation.
Our Week in Review panel is coming up live from the heart of America.
It's up north here on Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this place a part of your warnings.
This is a new media radio network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Again, if you haven't signed up yet for Civic Media's new daily newsletter, take care of that.
Head over to civicmediatoday.substack.com for Civic Media's daily newsletter filled with links to show highlights and more.
And I tell you to go do that because I assume you've already signed up for the Up North News Newsletters, the weekday version, and of course the Sunday morning one with a
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All right, let's bring in our weekend review panel former US Attorney Jim Santel and journalist Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob.
Nice to have you all here.
We were going to start with
Was anything done that was legal this week by the Trump administration would have been probably a shorter way to go about it.
Mark, you're in Chicago.
We'll start with you and we'll actually start with the words of a Republican governor in Oklahoma who correctly made the, you know, made the case.
How would people in say Tulsa like it if.
National Guard troops from Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois were sent by a Democratic president to the streets of Tulsa.
Wouldn't go over real well, but he might be the only Republican this week that has defended the whole concept of federalism and not sending one state's troops into another state without that state's permission.
I don't believe that's happened since, oh I don't know, 1865.
Yeah, it is it is an alarming thing and it's I wonder if that Oklahoma governor is going to You know rethink the fact that he actually said what he really believed because Republicans aren't saying what they really think now They're just shutting up and letting the would-be dictator do what he wants to do the It is kind of
I just feel like it's really bad for the unity in this country, you know And and and it's not just the fact that he's getting some states National Guard to persecute other states, but he's he's also specifically out loud saying that he's cutting funding during this shutdown to blue states So, you know, whereas, you know, Biden made it a big
point that he was going to help everyone and made sure there was funding for red states, Trump is the exact opposite.
And he's really fomenting this division in this country in an alarming way.
Oh, without a doubt.
And we can talk for a moment here, Jim Santel, about the legality of this.
It seems like, well, certainly for me, I can't keep track of all the various
court proceedings.
I don't even know if if anybody's got to all these different states and whether troops can go to this state or that state.
Can you try to sum up what's happening in the courts on this particular topic?
11 a.m.
Central time you had two two different federal courts addressing basically the same issue 2,000 miles apart right there in Chicago again in response to your question pad about if anything was legal happening This is a judge April Perry.
She's a district court judge She is there in the Dirksen building right there in Chicago and she concludes after a three two or three hour hearing that don't surprise surprise that Donald Trump's
administration's perception of events around Chicago is simply unreliable.
That's her finding.
Then she goes on to say that there's no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois.
or that Donald Trump is somehow unable to execute the laws of the United States of America.
He probably doesn't want to, but he's talking about his capacity.
So what she says is, you keep that National Guard exactly where it is, which is not going into the streets and byways of Chicago.
She's scheduled another hearing for a couple of weeks down the road in which she'll determine whether this preliminary injunction is in place.
In the meantime, we no doubt anticipate that the Trump administration will
go to the 27th floor of the Dirksen building to appeal that.
There may be some more action on that even over the weekend.
That goes on in Chicago while at the same time, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, way out there in California, they're reviewing with the decision of Karen Emmergut, I-M-M-E-R-G-U-T, to the same end in Portland saying, you keep those National Guard out of here.
The interesting and I think revelatory piece about that is she does that last Saturday,
The White House comes back and says, okay, we won't nationalize the Oregon National Guard, but we'll bring in people from other states.
She has a late night hearing telephonic on Sunday night, and she says, what are you doing?
Let me make clear that there is no galaxy from which you can bring National Guard troops into Portland.
The answer is no.
And again, even that reflects the cynicism of this White House in not following what judges say.
That's before the Ninth Circuit had a mixed review yesterday at 11 a.m.
out there in California.
It may well be that we're gonna get another rulings from the Court of Appeals sometime also out this coming weekend.
Watch your news feeds because this is not over.
This is why we give Jim Santel two hours on Saturdays to go through all this.
It's
enough.
No, it's we got the Cliff Notes version here.
And Jennifer, before we go to break again, basically, the bugger for me is that a lot of the headlines are going to be something like Trump tests the limits of presidential authority rather than, again, I believe if it had been a Democratic president, you know,
President invades other cities.
I just, again, the double standard is palpable.
is
Oh, yeah, without a doubt.
So we'll get into, uh, yes, that indictment of, uh, Leticia James as well as we cover the, uh, the week's events with Jennifer Scholesy.
You can catch her on a sub stack at news.
Jennifer, Mark Jacob has the stop the presses newsletter, stop the presses.
News and Jim Santel has amicus a law review Saturday mornings at nine here on the stations of the civic media radio network.
So we will continue the conversation of this week's events.
And then at the top of the next hour, Dr. Kristen Lierly, it'd be a long.
And I'll ask her about Robert Kennedy making comments, connecting autism to circumcision, because we have to talk about these things, despite no reason medically to talk about these things.
Back after this, I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back at 735 on this Friday morning, October 10th, and we're here with our Weekend Review Panel, former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, Chicago journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze.
And Jennifer, let me start with you and let's talk about the government shutdown briefly here.
And the fact of the matter is, it is essentially a messaging battle.
with a whole lot of pawns, like all federal employees.
Troops aren't getting paid.
Air traffic controllers aren't getting paid.
And Sean Duffy says maybe they need to be fired, even though there's a shortage of air traffic controllers.
And Republicans continuing to insist, despite math, that this is somehow the Democrats fault.
But the right wing also has a very robust media ecosystem.
Where do the American people appear to be at this point in understanding
Why the US government to shut down?
Well every poll every legitimate poll shows that the American public believe that Republicans are to blame I Surprise surprise they know that Republicans are in control of the government that they you know hold both houses of Congress and the presidency and the Supreme Court by the way So the public
gets it.
But that doesn't stop Republicans and that doesn't stop, you know, right-wing media from every single day figuring out a way to talk about it so that it shifts the focus to Democrats.
But people are also simultaneously getting their notices about their health care premiums going up.
And the good news about bad news is that reality
you know kicks you in the head sometimes and so I mean I know I've gotten those in the mail this week about what's happening to my premiums the whole country is getting that the truth is that health care is a serious problem and that Republicans can't pretend that that's the democrats fault
no or they can
yeah and they have been trying and and mark that's the thing I mean we
We work in political journalism.
We understand the importance of politics.
But we also know that when some people take politics, play politics and move it too far away from reality, reality normally wins.
Like seeing your health insurance premiums go up or your flights getting delayed or things like that.
Is that like
pretty much every other shutdown, how this thing eventually ends as the people playing politics are going to get trumped pun intended by reality?
You know, I mean, back when Gingrich tried to pull it on Clinton, Gingrich got hurt.
And it is true that the Democrats are
They're not going along.
They are using the filibuster power to require, you know, 60 votes in the Senate in order to get this done.
And what they're doing is what politicians do, which is try to get something out of the deal.
And what they're trying to get is relief for Americans on their healthcare bills.
And so that's really a good issue for the Democrats.
And for the Republicans, I mean, Trump is trying to act like he's Mr.
get things done, mister efficiency, mister, you know, we're in charge of everything.
It's, you know, golden era kind of stuff.
And you can't have a golden era.
I sat on, I came vacationed in Mexico City last week and I sat, I landed at O'Hare and I sat on the runway for two hours and 20 minutes waiting for a date.
And that was I believe you know, I don't have proof but I believe that it was because of the shutdown and people are being required to work You know as air traffic controllers, but they're not getting paid.
So they're some people are calling in sick and so this kind of Chaos and inefficiency really reflects on the party that as Jennifer pointed out is in charge of everything right now
And look, if they, meaning the Trump administration and Republicans, found more ways to try to focus the blame on Democrats, maybe they would be getting away with it.
But they're also busy doing all these other things, like putting, trying to put troops in other cities.
Or Jim, in this case, you've got the Trump administration now indicting New York Attorney General, Leticia James, who prosecuted some of Donald Trump's other cases.
And again,
Vendictiveness is so obvious and the same goes for indicting James Comey, you know a week ago that I mean it it only helps them take their eye off the ball because they're trying to do so many distractions at once Leticia James is simply the latest example of it
He's identified who's coming next.
That's Adam Schiffy senator from
California, likely George Soros.
Remember, Fannie Willis from Georgia, she's on the list.
Christopher Wray, all these people anticipate that now that we are truly in this authoritarian regime, that they will also be indicted by whom?
By the insurance lawyer who's now occupying the position of U.S.
Attorney going into a grand jury.
Grand jury, more and more, we're finding out.
Obviously, we're interested to see what they did with the litigia.
James Indightment.
pushing back on some of this, but finding just enough probable cause and in this case identifying what probably are once again unfounded allegations.
The notion here has to do less with mortgage fraud.
It's about banking fraud saying that she had this home in Norfolk, Virginia.
That's where you get the venue.
That's why she's being prosecuted in Virginia.
That's where this house is instead of using it as a rental property instead of a secondary home.
And once again, it underscores the complete lack of not just focus, but of observance of anything related to the rule of law.
If we were to say once again that there's a country out there where there's a leader who today is prosecuting his political enemies and seeking to jail them, what would we all say?
Oh my gosh, that's a place where there's no rule of law.
We would call that a banana republic.
Welcome to the United States of America.
And we're, hold on for more of this.
It's just going to continue.
Well, and it just seems to me, Mark, that if this were happening, say Joe Biden were doing this kind of vindictiveness that had this kind of vendetta, along with the things that he would do and say throughout the course of the day, there would be talk about a cognitive and a mental decline and the evidence of
Donald Trump's decline is so out there playing his day for anybody to see and yet it feels like the the press corps doesn't want to connect those dots because They'll be accused of oh there they go again.
You know, they did it to Biden So they they're trying so hard.
It seems not to do it with Trump
Yeah, and you really have to wonder whether Trump is actually, you know, actually knows what's going on I mean, obviously, he's a figurehead and he you know, he's he's the charismatic, you know called the personality guy, but
I just don't wonder whether he's pulling the strings.
I mean, he's not saying crazy stuff like that Portland, Oregon has no stores open, you know, and, and, or, you know, or that there was even a time when he said, said, well, you know, you're telling me that the thing, maybe the things I'm saying on TV aren't really the things that are happening.
Or, you know, he, I mean, he made quotes that make you think there's one quote that he said about that that made it seem as if he had been watching a Fox News report that mixed in.
the current situation in Portland with more extreme stuff from years ago, from 2020.
And it's like he didn't know the difference between those two things.
And so I don't think he's operating in a system of reality, which is scary because then you have this crazy man, Stephen Miller, pulling the strings.
People really need to ask very seriously whether Trump has all his marbles and whether he's actually...
Calling the shots or if he's just kind of doing crazy tweets like that crazy thing about med bits that he did you know a while back about something that doesn't even exist That he even had there's a video that even had a fake AI version of him yet Trump posted it
Yeah, and you know Jennifer if maybe some of the White House press corps isn't isn't doing the work that it should How do you feel like it's being seen in in markets like Chicago?
Portland and elsewhere you feel like they're taking things a bit more seriously in terms of the you know The crisis that this is all actually creating
Well, the thing about local news is that that's just one of many stories that are getting covered You know, I always do a quick look around to see what the headlines are and the big stories on any given local newscast in Chicago or newspaper and
You know, we've got a mix of things as opposed to a national network news program which is more focused on politics, right?
So no, the Trump stuff, if it's directly relating to Chicago as it is here, that's a big story.
If it's less so, it's never the main thing and it doesn't get a lot of attention and it certainly doesn't get repeat attention.
So
You know, it just depends.
People like their local news, and the local news generally does not involve Trump, although it does more and more with health care and food prices and that.
So I don't know how much of the Trump crazy breaks through through the local news.
And then the only other way people are getting their information is on social media, which is, you know, not so reliable.
So I don't know.
Not so reliable.
That's that's the kindest way that you could possibly put that.
Jennifer, do you want to kick us off on the significance of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded this morning to the opposition leader in Venezuela and the significance of it and just how much is Trump going to lose it today about not getting this prize that he campaigned for so blatantly?
the
Norwegian government has nothing to do with the prize FYI, but they were worried about the blowback for their country.
They were even in this article talking about, they thought that
that, you know, Trump would declare Norway an enemy of the United States.
And so, I mean, that's how insane this is.
There is a country across the ocean that is sitting there gaming out how they need to be ready to respond to an angry man in the White House not getting the Nobel Prize.
They didn't know who it was going to go to as of yesterday, but they were already planning
their strategy about how to respond to him being angry about it.
So who knows what he's going to do?
The White House has already posted something just crazy about how he's the greatest peacemaker in the world and how dare they?
How
dare they?
How
And by the way, not just risking her life, but the entire country is faced with a leader right now who did not win the last election.
Every outside observer looking at the ballots coming in said it was clear that Maduro did not win.
He is still in power anyway, which is I don't know a testimony to something that there's not a Violent civil war going on there right now But the fact that there is still an opposition leader who can do something to keep the subject in front of the people at least has to give Give people in Venezuela and around the world some hope so it seems mark like perfect recognition
Not that you associate Trump and classy very often, but wouldn't it wouldn't it be really classy to say, boy, what a great choice that was?
You know, we we celebrate, you know, Machado, Machado for, you know, for what she's done and hope that in the end it'll work for the Venezuelan people.
Is that so hard to say?
Yes, yes, the correct answer.
about?
It is.
And it is.
The reason I bring this up is I just, again, without trying to sound too alarmist here is what is life going to be like in 2028?
If Trump like Maduro
Besides I'm not gonna recognize these results.
He's gonna have troops on streets trying to intimidate voters and I feel like even though for all the things that he rails against the Venezuelan government for I feel like it's there as a potential
manual for him to follow over the next couple of years, which is part of the reason that I bring it up this morning with Mark Jacob, with Jennifer Schulze, with former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, our Week in Review panel joining us today and in our next hour, Dr. Kristen Leier League will be along and Mike Clemens will talk about the brewers now facing elimination against the Cubs tomorrow.
I'm Pat Krightloff.
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.
All right, the Brewers are now the ones facing elimination.
The Cubs are too.
It's going to be a deciding game five in the National League Division Series.
That game will be tomorrow.
Pre-game starts at 630 on several stations across the Civic Media Radio Network.
And by popular demand from the listeners out there, I'll take a break from the news.
I will ask the insufferable people from Chicago what they feel about their sports writers and their teams and the series and everything else.
Jennifer appears to be the one with any sort of enthusiasm about this on behalf of the Cubs.
Go ahead, Jennifer.
You
Okay, fine.
We'll take the game as a distraction.
As far as the outcome, I know a couple of people have said, do they know any of the sportswriters?
I mean, a little bit of hyperbole.
It's always the highest highs are the lowest lows, the supreme overconfidence or the will never win another game for 100 years.
But I suppose that's how you get to be a sportswriter in a major market.
I
please.
Yes.
You know, until we can get back to talking about the Bears and who is this year's, you know, new, new biggest quarterback ever.
So it is the nicest thing I'm going to say is it's never been easy to be a Chicago sports fan given, you know, recent trends and things.
All right.
Getting, getting back to the news here, we'll start with former US Attorney Jim Santel and the US Supreme Court taking up a little thing called the voting rights act.
And after chipping away and chipping away and chipping away at it, Jim...
How much closer are we to talking about the good old days when there was a Voting Rights Act to help shore up democracy?
Perhaps you're right about the history on this, the Supreme Court.
And a couple of cases called Shelby County and Bernovich has basically chipped away sections four and five, even section two.
Now it's back in the chopping block.
This is Calais, the name of the case.
This is the curious Louisiana case that the Supreme Court decided not to decide last term and said, we're gonna kick this down the street, having oral argument on it.
next Wednesday, mark your calendars.
Tune in to the oral argument on that particular day.
And the question here is once again, whether or not section two, which is the core.
powerful aspect of the Voting Rights Act is constitutional when it comes to line drawing in Louisiana, congressional districts there.
And here's the argument.
I roll my eyes, even as I say it out loud, the notion of course, under section two, the Voting Rights Act is you can't disenfranchise people of color and people are not English speaking, basically ensuring rights for everybody.
The argument on the other side, and there is not a credible other side, but the Supreme Court's entertaining it, is that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment
makes everybody equal.
And somehow the Voting Rights Act is bringing a group of people beyond equal, moving them above where they should be.
And for that reason, toss out section two.
It is a shockingly, stunningly bad argument.
And about the Supreme Court's going to be entertaining, it's probably going to be the biggest case decided when we get back in June about whether or not we still have a Voting Rights Act.
after all these decades.
It is on par.
It is the same backwards logic that's being used to attack DEI, which we can get into another time here.
But while we're talking about voting, Mark was not expecting this headline, former Republican election official buys Dominion voting.
which had been a target of 2020 conspiracy theories.
It was Republicans lying about Dominion voting systems that helped tarnish the Trump argument for 2020 by their attacks on Dominion, but now Dominion is going to be run by a former Republican elections official.
What?
Here's that word again, urbanization.
Orban in Hungary, who the government doesn't take it over, you get friends of the government who've got money to buy these things.
And so that, you know, they're buying the whole country, you know, you look at
at how all the social media has been bought up by the right wing or the social media like Zuckerberg at Metta has been completely cowed by the right wing.
And so that's kind of a frightening thing.
And it makes it really hard for democracy lovers to figure out what to consume, what to buy, what to boycott.
But I think people need to figure out things that they
They need to reject companies that are doing bad things.
And you saw that a little bit with the Jimmy Kimmel thing, where there was a real blowback on Disney and ABC.
And so that's a hopeful sign.
Yeah, let's close.
Then Jennifer, let's talk about the FBI report shifting many more of its resources to quote unquote, immigration enforcement.
In other words, hey, if you're a white collar criminal, you know, these are high times for you because we're we're reassigning people left and right.
And there in Chicago, I would think that that gets people's attention is to learn again that it's not just a city under siege by military troops, but by federal law enforcement, basically dropping the ball on
almost everything else they investigate just to go after brown people.
You know one of the biggest problems we have in Chicago as it relates to crime is the flow of illegal guns into our city and our state from other states that have more lax gun laws and the Republicans have never helped on that and Trump cut a bunch of the
crime prevention and gun prevention funding through Doge and other things, you know, over the last couple of months.
And the idea that the ATF and FBI and people who have been actively helping Chicago with this gun problem are now
you know, working the night shift, driving big SUVs, you know, in my neighborhood and others trying to terrorize people instead of doing this other job is absolutely horrific.
And I'm not sure that's breaking through yet, but I sure hope that it does because the realignment of resources to do Trump's bidding and not do regular policing is just outrageous.
Jennifer Schulze, Mark Jacob, and Jim Santel.
Catch Jim tomorrow for Amicus Law Review, 9 a.m.
across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Thank you all.
Have a wonderful weekend.
You too.
All right.
Dr. Kristen Lierly is coming up after the news, and then Mike Clemens will have sports at 8.35, right here on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
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