Senate Showdown (Hour 3)

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by UpMorth News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Friday morning, October 17th.

2025.

Another beautiful morning to have you here up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the civic media radio network, watching us on Facebook or YouTube, catching us by podcast.

I appreciate you wrapping up your work week right here.

I got a question for you and for producer Parker Olson down there in Madison Studio A2.

Here's the question.

Do you remember the 2004 Red Sox?

Of course you do.

Of course you remember.

It was the greatest

league championship series ever.

The Boston Red Sox spot the Yankees a three games to non-lead and then come roaring back in game four and then they win game five.

And then they probably win Game 6 and in Game 7, they complete it.

They're down 3-0.

They come all the way back and take the series against the Yankees.

Four games to three to go to the World Series.

It was the first time that a team who was ever down three love in the league championship series and came back and won the next four games to win it all.

And do you know how many times this happened since then, Parker?

I'm going to

guess zero.

Zero.

The number is zero.

There's always, there's always that chance.

It starts somewhere.

And so we're channeling the socks from 2004 going into tonight's game for Brewers Against the Dodgers.

How is that for starting your day with some optimism?

Have I not just given you some hope?

It's way more optimistic than I am.

I'll tell you that.

Mine might be a little manufactured.

However,

I mean, I will say, and I've told the story before, I do very clearly remember that 2004 series.

I was away on a work trip, so you'd have to go down to the little hotel bar for dinner after every day's classes.

And, you know, the first time was game four.

We thought here comes the Yankees in a sweep and Boston won.

And then the next night and then the travel day and then the next night and the next night.

Each time the crowd in the hotel bar would get a little bit bigger because everybody wanted to see the Yankees lose.

course.

And it was great.

It was electric.

I've never forgotten it.

But that's only happened once in 41 instances.

The other 40 times the team that was down three games to none did not have that kind of crazy comeback.

But there's there's going to be a second at some point.

Why can't it be the Brewers 2025?

I'll tell you why.

Let's start with the others.

Right.

The hitting has been so Pat.

It is so incredibly frustrating to watch because the arms have given us such a good chance.

Oh my goodness.

So good.

The batting is so poor that I

don't

even feel like we have a chance.

Do you know how bad you

have to be in one facet to the game to completely wipe out an entirely amazing aspect of your game?

Yes.

Yeah.

And we're, we're seeing it.

It's a nightmare come to life.

In fact, I've got a great stat about that here someplace.

Oh yeah, franchise history.

Okay.

In, in, in the past five games, which goes back to game three of the division series is on the past five games for the Brewers, they have just 18 hits.

That is the fewest amount of hits in any five game stretch in team.

History.

Yeah.

I mean, what a way to make history.

The most wins in team history to get here, the fewest amount of hits in any five game stretch to throw it all the way.

And that's what we're dealing with.

You've got, I mean, Christian Yelich, whether you like it or not, you're the franchise player, so you're the poster child.

Everybody else has slumpy numbers, but we're going to highlight his one for 11 with six strikeouts in this

series.

Yelich couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat right now.

That's exactly the thing.

Meanwhile, the guy that you worried about, Jacob Mizorowski has figured it out.

Three postseason outings.

He's pitched 12 innings.

He's allowed only seven hits, three walks while striking out 16, including nine in last night's game.

That's a team record for a rookie in the playoffs.

And he retired 11 Dodgers in a row at one point while it was still a one one game.

But

When you don't get run support, what can you do?

It's credit to Mizorowski because I didn't even want him on the roster.

So

a lot

of credit to him.

It's cool that Miz being a rookie is absolutely killing it and pitching.

And

it's cool that killed Durbin actually.

I think killed Durbin is probably our best player right now offensively.

Yeah, I mean, he's really got a lot of grit.

He really does.

But then we've got some other pitchers that I mean, Aaron Ashby, he just never inspires confidence.

And so he starts the game giving up a triple and then a double to start the Dodger scoring.

You know, Mizorowski has to come in after just two thirds of an inning.

But truly, it was the Brewer's batters becoming mysteriously incapable of making small ball contact.

the same contact that helped them beat the Dodgers all six times in the regular season, though Roger is quick to point out on Facebook, that back in July, the brewers swept the Dodgers, but the brewers were on a wave.

Well, the Dodgers at the time had a number of key injuries.

Now it's brewers who are hurting the Dodgers are at almost full strength.

What a difference three months makes.

Yes.

We're still making contact.

Oh, it's just we were hitting weather finders is the problem.

Yeah, right.

Tony is up on YouTube early this morning saying Cleveland had amazing pitching, but the lowest batting average in playoff history.

It's really hard to overcome not scoring runs.

Yes, that is the object is to score more runs than the other team does.

But but again, I'm I'm holding out hope.

And so Tony goes on to say between this and you thinking Wisconsin's gonna upset Ohio State, you're gonna have a rough weekend, Pat.

Oh, God.

Yes, it it could be but

Some but somebody here has got to be Mr. Glass half full.

I'm not telling you what it's half full of it this early hour, but I'm half I'm half full of something one Anyway, one of my

buddies texted and said I kind of hopefully just get swept so that this doesn't just keep in consuming my life

Well, that's that part is true because again the series would come back for a game six, you know, but to do that we're gonna have to win tonight and again tomorrow so

That's a, that's a tall order.

And I mean, it is really, I hate to say it, it is grudgingly impressive to watch how the Dodgers are hitting on all cylinders.

And yeah, you got a $500 million payroll, you better be hitting on all cylinders, but they are, and when they are, it's, you know,

It's something to see.

I mean, they're doing something that hasn't been done for quite a while.

No defending champion, and they are the defending champions.

No defending champion has even reached the World Series since the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies.

Really?

And no team has won consecutive World Series since the Yankees took three in a row in 98, 99, and 2,000 before Mr. Olson was a glean and Mr. and Mrs. Olson's eyes.

Is this true?

goes back a ways.

So the game tonight, which could be it, or it could be a reason to keep hope alive, pregame coverage begins at seven o'clock on some of these stations of the Civic Media Radio Network with the first pitch at 738.

And again, there will be a game tomorrow if the Brewers win.

And if they win that game too, then back to American Family Field on Monday.

And if it's 2004 all over again,

Game seven will be on Tuesday at American Family Field.

One can dream.

A lot of ifs.

Dreams are free, Parker.

Dreams are free.

We got that going for us.

Maybe let's get to the other part of that equation of this.

This most amazing weekend in sports.

When you look back at this weekend and say, this was an incredible weekend, it'll also be because the Wisconsin Badgers somehow beat Ohio State, the number one team in the country in a football game.

And coverage on that game begins at 12 30 tomorrow on several civic media stations and the kickoff I believe is 230 I'm not mistaken but 12 30 is when the pregame begins on your favorite civic media station and You're gonna be looking back at this weekend and going I cannot believe what the Brewers did I cannot believe what the Badgers did to Ohio State and Then you wrap up the weekend with the Packers taking on the Arizona Cardinals coverage begins Sunday afternoon at 1

on several civic media stations with a kickoff at three twenty five.

What an amazing weekend this could be.

Could.

And

because it's

uncut.

Could.

Boy, the word could is doing a lot

of heavy lifting.

That might be the biggest could I've ever seen.

Again, there's there's a reason for the Roy Kent coffee mug on Fridays.

There's just some things we only Roy can say as far as what our eyes look like this weekend.

Yeah, it's it's, you know, this is the most Wisconsin sports thing that I can think of.

Now again, we are a radio show, but we are in social media.

And so Tony adds clearly watching on YouTube.

The look on Parker's face to Pat's unbridled optimism is priceless.

Probably because he knows I don't buy it either, but somebody's got to say it.

Somebody's got to say it's possible.

And that's where we are.

Yeah, we, we have to deal in the realm of the possible.

Okay.

Because otherwise it's, it's, it's all fantasy and then, or it's all what was me.

And we're not going to do that today.

we're not we're not in the pity pool today, kids.

Oh, maybe maybe Monday, because the Badgers might be the first to lose by triple digits in a long, long time.

And the Brewers could get embarrassed and the Packers could I can't even think of the radio friendly euphemism here.

But they could do something.

And Monday morning could be, you know, just as morose as can be.

I don't ask for pity.

I will just wallow.

Oh, oh, we're

There may be wallowing.

I totally understand that.

But I would love to hear, see or read some attempts at either optimism.

from folks or change the subject entirely for something new and good.

Let's see what Jim says on the text from Brooke.

I'm not I'm not pre reading this.

So here we go.

Well, the 2004 Red Sox provide a glimmer of hope.

The bottom line is that the second season, the playoffs always belong to the team who is healthy, happy and peaking at the right time.

Unfortunately, the brewers are not any of the above.

having

the first down.

Jim is officially morose.

Welcome to the pity pool, buddy.

It's here.

There's plenty of room in the deep end.

Come on in.

The water's just, well, it's not even water.

It's beer.

It's so much beer.

This would be a good chance for me to say, yes, again, we would love to have your input on things today at 855-75 Civic, 855-7524842, or you can put a text

On the civic media app you can use the voice note feature of the civic media app You can put comments on the YouTube or Facebook pages where we stream this fine radio show the up north news Facebook and YouTube pages the civic media YouTube and Facebook pages I am relatively certain that

We're going to have some good stuff to talk about in terms of local pizza joints.

I haven't seen the daily newsletter yet that Ellie puts together for Up North News, but I know that she was on Fridays, asking people to send in for their top Wisconsin pizza places.

And let's see what we got.

Oh, yep.

Look, that's a beautiful looking piece of pizza.

She gives a shout outs from our readers to Joe's Fox Hut in Fond du Lac.

says best thin crust pizza with a tangy sauce.

Tony and Maria's in Jamesville.

Fresh ingredients and so much cheese says Patty.

Whisk goes in Eau Claire, Dina Mia.

in Rhinelander, Harry's Prohibition Bistro in Sheboygan, Bricks Neapolitan Pizza in Hudson, and Harry's Pizza Evino in Elkhart Lake are some of the local pizza joints that people sent in by reading our newsletter over at Upton Run News WI.com.

You can get in the game, send us some of your favorite local pizza places, and maybe somebody will be trying something new based on the results of that.

All right, well, as you can imagine, it's Friday and we have all the best, all the best recurring characters coming in.

Kia Vakil is coming up next along with Billy Ball, my courier newsroom partner from North Carolina, our regular review panel with Jim Fantell and Mark Jacob and Jennifer Scholesi.

We've got Kristen Lyrely is off, so we'll talk to State Senator Jeff Smith and we'll have Mike Clemens with sports.

All that and more ahead on a busy Friday morning.

I'm Pat Kreitman.

You're up north.

Go on, Craig!

Welcome back.

It is 622 now on this Friday morning.

And as always, we're talking with Courier Newsroom's national political editor, Kia Vakil, and joined this week by senior editor of the Cardinal and Pine in North Carolina, Billy Ball.

Billy, Kia, good morning.

Morning.

Nice to see you both.

Unfortunately, it's not for the best of topics.

We would be talking to Kia anyway about the way that the U.S.

Supreme Court heard arguments this week that could lead to the further gutting or perhaps just the inevitable death, it feels like, of the Voting Rights Act.

piggybacked onto that are recent developments in Billy State, North Carolina, where the Cardinal and Pine is the courier newsroom sister publication there.

And the headline there this week is that North Carolina Republicans at Donald Trump's behest are gerrymandering North Carolina again.

Billy A, what are they doing or thinking they want to do?

And B, can they get away with it?

Oh, they'll absolutely they can get away with it.

They've gotten away with it.

numerous times in the last 15 years or so.

So I don't find that farfetched at all.

But a little bit of background on this is that a few weeks ago we started getting rumors that that Phil Berger who is.

You know, for all intents and purposes, probably the most powerful lawmaker in North Carolina.

He's the Senate president, a Republican.

He's also in a primary to stay in the legislature.

There were rumors that he was seeking an endorsement from Trump in his primary, and Trump, in exchange, wanted him to gerrymander North Carolina a little bit more.

For clarification, we were pre-recording this, and that's where we lost Billy.

But I think he is since he did such a good job setting it up We we just want to carry on and maybe Billy can rejoin us again We'll see but I mean the key phrase there was Donald Trump's endorsement.

Yeah, I mean look Donald Trump There has taken over the Republican Party.

It is a cult of personality We know this he does unfortunately carry a lot of sway with his endorsements and you know, Phil burger who is the

Republican Senate Majority Leader in North Carolina, you know, he's been in office for quite a while and he has a primary challenger to his right.

And so he wants Trump's endorsement to fend off that challenger.

And in exchange, he's going to gerrymander the maps in North Carolina to give Republicans an extra seat there in what is basically like, you know,

a 52-48 state, they're going to have 11 of 14 seats.

And it is the inevitable fate of something that started with what was partially a Wisconsin case, like a decade ago, it feels like now, when now retired Justice Anthony Kennedy made the bold claim that essentially, there can't be such thing as a political or partisan gerrymander that is illegal.

And that

Essentially, it was, you know, the trust factor.

We're mutually assured destruction.

The parties would behave because if they do it, then the other guys are going to do it someday.

And Trump's Republican Party is like, no, if it's not illegal to do a partisan gerrymander, this is what we're going to do.

Yeah, it turns out you need guardrails for

democracy.

You know, we've seen those guardrails fall away one by one over the last 15 years, whether it's Citizens United, whether it's the various rulings weakening the Voting Rights Act.

What is, as best you can tell, is the legal argument that there's supposed to be a statute of limitations on the Voting Rights Act because of the terrible things that happened in the decades earlier, but that, you know, now they're they don't apply to the terrible things that are happening now.

Yeah, that seems to be Brett Kavanaugh's belief that these sorts of considering race and the history of racism and poll taxes and everything in the US under the Voting Rights Act, considering that as a factor, should only be permitted for a short period of time.

unclear what that is.

But this very much goes back to the similar ruling about a decade ago when John Roberts struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, you know, more or less saying that times have changed and we don't need this.

I think we've got Billy Ball back from North Carolina.

So let's bring him into this as well.

And Billy, one of the things we were talking about, there's got to be a fair number of Republican folks out there that, you know, still have a moral compass to say this ain't right.

If they can squeeze out per Trump's request, if they can squeeze out one more seat, which looks like they're trying to do is move it to 11, that's the goal.

And frankly, it's kind of difficult to see because it seems as if North Carolina is as gerrymandered as it could possibly be.

So in some fashion, they're going to have to make some of their Republican districts, their solid Republican districts a little more competitive in order to do this.

So it's a strange situation, but they likely are intending to get at least another seat.

So, Keal, let's wrap up with this from a California perspective.

We know that voters are going to be asked to change the maps to basically add five Democratic seats to offset the five in Texas, and yet now all of these other Republican states are starting to act as well.

Do you think that that leads California voters to be more skeptical of this or that in the end they're going to say, well, we're going to do our part to try to protect democracy?

Yeah, no, I think we're going to pass it quite handily.

I think that California voters will probably increase the urgency of passing this.

We are a 60-40 state.

even if it doesn't pass by that margin, I would be very surprised if it doesn't pass.

Obviously there's a lot of money being spent on both sides and awareness isn't necessarily that high, but the most aware part of the electorate are the liberal base.

And so I do think the odds of it passing are quite good.

It's just, as other states do it, the effects of us California pushing back are going to obviously be minimized in the long run.

Keva Keel is the national political editor for Courier Newsroom and Billy Ball is senior editor at the Cardinal and Pine from Courier Newsroom at CardinalPine.com.

A name I will always be jealous of because we have pines here.

We have cardinals here.

But Billy went and got it first.

So

they belong to us.

What

are you going to do?

Billy, thank you so much.

Kia.

Thanks.

Have a good start to the weekend.

Thank you too.

Coming up next, Greg Bach drops by and I'll tell him don't go changing to try and please me as we take care of today's history lesson with an emphasis on us nerding out over the Billy Joel documentary.

That and much more ahead on a Friday morning, I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Alright in today's history lesson.

Let's start with this week in 1989 when Billy Joel released the album Stormfront with some enduring hits such as that one I go to extremes Shameless which was later made popular by Garth Brooks and we didn't start the fire all part of Stormfront released this day in 1989.

You know what?

Let's just park the rest of this The rest of the history if we get to it we get to it, but you know what?

Greg Bach is here now, and Greg Bach and I, we have completely nerded out on the Billy Joel documentary on HBO Max.

Can you affirm that for us, Mr. Bach?

Good morning.

Absolutely.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Peck.

Good morning, Parker.

And I can confirm and not deny that I watched both parts in a row thinking to myself, all right, you know, I'll watch like an hour because I got stuff to do.

Yeah.

And then I watched the whole first half.

I'm like, I'll just start the second half.

And then it was like dark outside.

I said, well, that was a day I could have done stuff.

But hey,

I

learned that

you've learned that that was a very compelling documentary that will eat up four hours and 50 minutes.

And if you if you have any appreciation for Billy Joel, you will enjoy all four hours and 50 minutes of it as as we did.

I mean, just the

There's the personal story, of course, with the father who really got him into classical music, but then abandoned him at the age of eight.

He was never quite the same after the war.

He had witnessed so many atrocities and things, and he just up and left.

And Billy Joel's mom had some issues as well, so he just buried himself in his music.

And we're just here to talk about just the songwriting, the lyrics that were based on

all kinds of real life experiences.

And Greg, here's where I really get into trouble.

All right, the Beatles.

Beatles were the great Beatles were the best.

Beatles did a lot of she loves you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, they really captured the overall essence of feelings and the human experience.

Billy Joel on the other hand was like, here's my personal experience and I'm going to write a song about it.

Absolutely.

I, you know, his was my favorite kind of song.

It still is when you listen to like

the Eagles or Steely Dan or Billy Joel, the personal touches, but also the snarky, sarcastic

nature

of lyrics.

And the thing I always think about is that is early in his career, he, you know, he's got management.

He's got a buzz.

People are talking and he goes to LA and he hates LA.

So he writes a song making fun of LA and they're like, get out.

And he's like, yeah, I sabotaged it.

I don't know what I was doing, but that's what I did.

I'm like, OK.

Just what it does.

Now, when he writes from Xtreme, it all starts with this one first early hit when he wrote just the way you are.

Yes.

That's your cue, Parker.

He's too into this song right now.

He's too.

He's like, I'm loving it.

I go to Xtreme.

I'm just going to play all of this.

I was

very interested in that one.

I'm not going to lie.

So much of this this song and so many others are about the the woman who would become his first wife Elizabeth and That's a story in and of itself and that one I don't want to do a spoiler alert on on how they met and how they came to be together It was complex.

Well, and also it's a beautiful story too that like honestly, I think Regardless of their status still endures like they're still like oh, yeah, it didn't it wasn't that it wasn't the that's the stereotypical

you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,

you know, you know, you

know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you

mid to late 70s feel about this tune.

I love it.

He could really write to the times and some of it was about Elizabeth and some of it was about the other things that he was going through with his life like having to again because he signed a bad record deal his first one to get out of it.

He had to play anonymously and that's where we get this next song Piano Man coming from.

It's at that point.

The crowd goes wild and, you know, you can't hear anything the rest of the song because the crowd just

sings.

And I would venture, you know, in the annals of song sung by the audience, I think this outdoes Sweet Caroline.

I think it does.

Sweet Caroline for the chorus.

That's great.

But this song, I've watched videos of entire audiences singing the entire song.

Yes, because you can, because you can, even if you don't play the instrument, you can relate to him trying to grind out a living and the people that he's meeting.

And yeah, go

ahead.

I was gonna say, and what I loved is that in this documentary, like you get to know the characters in the song, you've always got, you've always known their names and what they do, but he fleshes them out even further, so you get to like experience who they are in his life personally.

Around that same time, you mentioned, as you said, say goodbye to Hollywood and The Entertainer.

Two songs which really summed up his feelings about people who criticized him or who'd done him wrong.

He had kind of a, you know, a darker phase at times with songs like The Stranger and with songs like Big Shot.

Let's play that one next.

And I love that he was so honest that not only is he still writing the songs about personal experiences like this one is about his waning days with Elizabeth, but he said I purposefully wrote the songs for Glass Houses to be big and loud because I love performing those on stage.

So you know, why doesn't it do just the way you are the nice little melodies?

Because he's now played on stage and realizes you need big songs for a big audience and Glass Houses is full

of them.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And by the way, in between those

lyrics, just like,

oh.

Tom Perignon in your hand and a spoon up your nose, yes.

But at that point, because he went from the 52nd Street album, which had a very New York City vibe, to Glass Houses, which was loud and brash, he was really getting trashed by the critics because the critics wanted to pigeonhole him.

And he refused to be

pigeonholed.

But then that takes us to the the nylon curtain album where he really started to comment more on society where you've got songs like pressure You got Allentown, which is usually the the one you would play for nylon curtain where he's really commenting on society But I would rather highlight good night Saigon where he was talking to friends of his who served in Vietnam They wanted a song about it.

He said I've never served They said listen to us tell our stories

The song that he wrote, this one right here is probably the one you most likely at home haven't heard and you need to hear

it.

Yes.

But then, in a massive pivot,

Billy Joel got away from the music business for a bit.

He went down to St.

Bart's in the Caribbean and was just, you know, kicking it around.

He was playing piano in a bar just for fun when in walks Christy Brinkley.

Yeah.

As happens to all of us at some point, right?

Yeah.

A supermodel comes walking into your life.

Next thing you know, he's writing the Innocent Man album with a whole different genre of music, including one specifically written and a video starring Christie

Brinkley.

Even Parker knows it.

Yeah.

I was going to say Parker.

You know, I mean, I know you've heard of Billy Joel.

Of course you have.

You've heard the songs.

But he was one of those artists back in the early to mid-80s who was so big.

He was everywhere.

He was touring everywhere.

He was on every radio station all the time.

Honestly, if you didn't like Billy Joel, it was a sad time for you because you couldn't get away from him.

Because it was, yeah.

Chances are you did because you may not have liked everything, but there was something in all of that writing that resonated with you.

One more I want to highlight from that album, so many offensive men, but leave a tender moment alone.

I mean, just for the harmonica playing, if nothing else, but the lyrics and everything else.

Well, anyway, that's when, about this time, Billy Joe finds out that he made another bad deal by making his ex-wife's brother his managing.

Well, a million dollars embezzled later.

And Christie Berkeley was actually the first one to kind of notice like, Billy, where's the money?

Where's it going?

And they figured out they can't get it back.

The only thing to do is to get out, get back out on the road.

And he did.

I mean, he, he did baby grand.

He did.

And then everything else that led to Stormfront and the song that we were playing before.

But his drinking was getting in the way as well.

And Elton John, by the way, the cameos in here, besides Elton John.

I mean, so many people that you know by one name, Sting, Bruce, Pink, Garth, Nas, Sir Paul.

Okay, that was two, but you know what I mean.

And Elton John saying, your drinking is getting in the way of things.

When Elton John.

The man who invested early in cocaine, Inc.

When

Elton

John tells you, you have a problem.

Oh, you might need to look at yourself in the mirror.

Yeah.

I mean, and, and that relation, I remember as a kid being like, wait, Billy, Joel is marrying Christie.

Wait, do, do I have a shot?

We all

learned.

No, no, I could,

but

don't let that relationship get in the

way.

Yeah.

But one that, what that, when they're talking to her, like it's another one of those things where it's.

The the the dissolution of that relationship is heartbreaking.

Yeah, it's heartbreaking

And yet when you can get all four of your ex-wives to be part of a documentary and all of them express ongoing admiration for him and he for them

You know, you know that there was a pretty good heart there on the inside.

Absolutely.

So he does he does no more writing at that point.

He's like, I am tapped out.

It is he describes it as some kind of a beautiful torture or something like that.

And he hasn't written pop song since.

But you know what, for that time that he put things out, again, much like the Beatles, pretty good run.

You know,

I'll say one thing.

One last thing about it, too, is that, you know,

You can say you respect him as a songwriter.

You can respect him as a player.

You can respect him.

And there's no way you can get away from how great he is.

But the thing that I actually have the most admiration for is the fact that after his pop career, he started writing classical music, writing it, like notation wise, writing the actual music.

And he said to himself,

I don't have the talent to play this.

Billy Joel said that I don't have the talent to play this.

I'll find the kind of humility you have to have in a world where you are Billy Joel to say, no, I don't have the chops.

I'll

get the guy who can

write it, but somebody else can play this better than me.

And he found that person.

Oh my goodness.

I was like, I didn't know he had done that.

I thought I thought he played it.

I didn't realize he didn't play

it.

And when he

says, yeah, I can't do this.

I'm like, what musician of his level actually has that kind of inner monologue of critique?

I will say not to the same degree when we talk about the Beatles, but to know to bring in Billy Preston was a pretty good deal.

By the way, I skipped a step before he completely tapped out of writing.

River of Dreams was the last thing that came out.

We'll play a little bit of that as we start to wrap things up.

Then came all the Mas and Square Garden shows.

No new material.

You don't need new material.

You got a pretty good set list to work on.

That three-ring binder that he has on the piano is pretty thick, you know?

And now he's just trying to be a good dad, like he said.

He had young kids really late in life.

I get really tired just thinking about it.

But he's doing it, you know?

And good on him.

So there you go.

That was our Billy Joel appreciation segment, so that we get it all out of our system in one fell swoop, rather than continuing to torture you with it in drips and drafts.

We're done now.

Like Billy Joel, we're tapped out.

We'll never talk about him again.

Some of you will have a local news break others will come back and we'll we'll Yammer about some of the other stuff that actually happened on this day in history You can listen on the civic media app Facebook or YouTube and then we'll catch you after the seven o'clock news across the rest of the civic media radio

network

Okay, now it's

time for the rest of today's history lesson.

It all started with Billy Joel in 1989, releasing Stormfront, but let's go back to 1960 and the Drifters had saved the last dance for me as the number one hit.

for the first of three weeks at number one.

Greg Bach continues on with us now, along with Parker Olson as we go through the rest of today's history lesson.

On this day in 1973, OPEC imposed an oil embargo against countries they deemed to have helped Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

The Arab oil embargo of 1973 was, I mean, one of those lightning bolt moments in history.

And it really should have been our wake-up call to like go all in on alternative fuels and other things like that It's taken us 50 plus years just to get to this point With a president who's trying to dismantle that progress

when we

actually should have been so much farther along by now

Oh, absolutely.

I bridge and I were having that discussion this past weekend that

it will take another how many decades even to give ourselves some sort of infrastructure that will give us real alternative energy.

Yeah and I mean we will get there it's just that it would have been less expensive to do it you know right away instead of dragging it out year after year after year.

All right back to 1964 now and Manfred Mann had the number one

song.

I'm not saying that this

song wouldn't have had stain power were it not for the movie but Sometimes you can look at something like the movie stripes and go yeah, that movie is a forever classic now because of that movie

I say the same thing for maybe shout an animal house that like right back into the zeitgeist and yes, yeah

This song is silly.

This is silly.

I know this song from Full House, I think.

That makes sense.

Full House.

That's weird.

That's so as like as old as I am.

You know, they've got reruns.

Yeah,

it's true.

I was watching Full House as a kid.

Interesting.

Alright, we'll explore that further.

The Olsen twins.

The late George went.

Oh, it's sad to say that.

He passed away back in May.

He was born this day in 1948, 77 years ago.

Wyclef Jean is 56 today.

Chris Kirkpatrick is 54.

Do we know Chris Kirkpatrick?

Of course we know Chris Kirkpatrick.

Here I go again,

questioning your boy band credibility.

But no, you know, you got the credits.

You got Chris Kirkpatrick of NSYNC is 54 today and Eminem, Eminem is 53.

That's 53, boys and girls.

That broke

Greg.

Apparently Eminem has a new song out targeting Donald Trump.

I haven't heard the whole thing and I had to be convinced that's real because, again, AI.

But yeah, if it is, I'm going to listen to that more.

You

know,

see if there's maybe five seconds that we can play on the radio.

You should watch his freestyle, too, that he did about Donald Trump in a parking lot.

It is amazing.

He's really good.

He can't play that on the radio.

He hates Donald

Trump.

Oh, yeah.

So happy birthday to Eminem.

53 today.

The number one song this week in 1970 was by the Jackson 5.

Oh, God, I think I had to sing this in middle school.

Of course you did.

Of course you did.

Oh, I just dawned on me.

And of course, it was the Mariah Carey version.

But still, now you get to know that there was an original.

It was by the Jackson Five.

Let's see.

Let's move on to 1987.

Lisa Lisa and Cult Gem had the number one song.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No,

that's not.

That is 19.

Oh, wait.

I'm sorry.

I skipped.

There you go.

Yes, you did.

So

it's so fun doing this with a young fella.

It's

Lisa Lisa and called Sam with featuring full force.

That was the whole thing.

They have a bio pic on lifetime.

Seriously?

I think it's supposed to be kind of a jokey thing or not super serious.

But yeah, I'm I want to watch it.

Clearly, you've proven you will invest in a good music documentary.

Absolutely.

Oh my goodness.

Go for that.

Let's see.

Jim Seales of Seales and Crofts was born this day in 1941, passed away three years ago.

Country legend Alan Jackson is 67 years old.

I remember when he was brand new on the scene and I didn't know that he was going to go places because he didn't like do anything other than just stand there and sing.

But it turns out if you just stand there and sing and you're really good, you'll still do all right.

That's the George Strake School of Thoughts.

They stand there, sing a good song, and let the people come to you.

And I love Alan Jackson.

Good gravy.

Yes, big fans here.

Gary Puckett of the Union Gap.

What's your mouth?

I know Gary Puckett, no relation to Kirby, is 83 years old today, native of Hibbing, Minnesota, just like our friend Robert Zimmerman,

aka

Bob Dylan.

And hey spoiler alert you're never gonna believe what the number one song was this week in 1998 by Bear naked late Well, you probably know but listen anyway

Loud

loud shirt day is on Parker's list here on the National Day calendar.

I feel targeted were you coming after my

My

lads I would not I would not qualify your flannels is Wow, okay.

No, I qualify as it's comfy.

Yeah, it's extremely comfy.

It's very Midwestern.

It's yeah, definitely get into that that time of day.

Let's see, Parker, you've also listed National pasta day.

So here we go.

We're going to rank all the pastas in order of which is the worst to best go.

No, no, wait, we don't have enough time for that.

So Parker, favorite pasta.

Oh, God, um, tortellini.

Oh, that's a solid choice.

That is really solid.

I'm going to go with Mastacholi, because that's good old fashioned comfort food there.

And Greg, do you have a favorite pasta?

I do, and I just don't know the name of it, because I just found, I just...

Bukitini, Bukitini.

Oh,

Bukitini,

very nice.

That's very filling, very filling.

Hey, congratulations again on the new home for the laughing tap.

Can't

wait to learn

more about that.

Absolutely.

And you, thanks for joining us.

Have a wonderful weekend.

You too, buddy.

All right, our weekend review panel is coming up and then State Senator Jeff Smith right after eight o'clock, running against another incumbent senator because of redistricting.

I'm Pat Whitelow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Hey, good morning.

Happy Friday, 706.

Nice to have you back here up north on this October 17th, 2025.

Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.

And of course, on Fridays, we have our stellar week in review panel with former US Attorney Jim Santel and journalist Mark Jacobs and Jenna Pritolsie out here.

One hour from now, we'll be talking to State Senator Jeff Smith of Eau Claire.

And we'll be talking on the campaign side of things.

because of redistricting.

Now there were new maps, new fairer maps for Wisconsin voters the last go-round, finally, after more than a decade of rigged maps that Republicans of gerrymandered, and it made a difference in 2024.

There was turnover in several assembly seats because things got a little bit more representative of the actual Wisconsin electorate.

Well, it didn't impact all of the state Senate races because state Senate terms are four years instead of two.

And so only half the Senate is up for reelection every two years.

So that means that next year in 2026, the other half of the state Senate is going to have some interesting races with people in new districts because in some places.

People were drawn into similar districts.

Republican Senator Jesse James of the Altoona area and Democratic Senator Jeff Smith of Eau Claire had been in two separate districts.

They're now in the same district.

Or they will be for next year and Jesse James made official yesterday that he is going to challenge Democrat Jeff Smith Jeff Smith has said that he's gonna run for reelection and so these two incumbents will be squaring off in what is definitely a proxy for The way that the entire 2026 is gonna shape up with a race for governor races for Congress and this big battle for a key seat in the Wisconsin legislature and so Jeff Smith is gonna talk to us about the race and

So far, the case that he is building for Wisconsin voters, that's all coming up in just a little bit.

Again, a reminder that you can sign up for our unabashedly Wisconsin news by heading over to UpgroundNewsWI.com and clicking subscribe up in the top banner.

Today's edition includes from Ellie Bordeaux, our new newsletter editor, a small business shout out on Fridays, this time

geared specifically to local pizza places and we rattled off a few of them in our last hour.

We'll try to bring it back up a little bit later on but you'll want to see that newsletter to see who the readers saluted for having among the best local pizza places in Wisconsin.

You of course are free to also

nominate some business, just get in the comment section of YouTube or Facebook where you can watch us do the radio show, the Up North News, Facebook or YouTube pages, or the Civic Media Facebook or YouTube pages, and put a comment there about pizza.

In fact, Rob does from Tigerton.

Rob says good morning from Tigerton.

It's cloudy 54 degrees picked up just about a tenth of an inch of rain with some lightning and thunder too.

Last night, he had homemade pizza.

at his sister Laurie's house in Caroline, and it was excellent.

So I guess that's not a local pizza joint.

You can't go to Caroline's house necessarily.

And he says today I get to try a new place in Tigerton called the Yeager Bomb Bar and Grill.

It's great to support a new local business.

Oh boy.

We say what Greg Bach said during the commercial break, probably not.

You know, we'll just say the sloppy drunk saloon.

I mean Yeager, but your name in the place for Yeager bombs.

Yeah,

that's

something right there.

But hey, it's a bar and will.

So how how do you do?

How do you incorporate Yeager mice into your?

Oh,

that means you've got ammo.

Yeah.

We

also, we also talked about national pasta day.

And Tony up in Ashland puts on YouTube ravioli, but only from the classically trained chef boy Rd.

Real class.

That's fair.

Yeah, or the like Greg said, the Franco American that he and I grew up with.

So we'll take your nominations, favorite local pizza joint, favorite pasta, and maybe your favorite bar names too.

Because Jager Bomb Bar and Grill, that's that's got to go up there on the list of some of the best, most classically, Wisconsin bar names that are out there.

All right.

Like I said, Jeff Smith in the next hour, but I want to talk about

something that was done at the state government level yesterday right now when it comes to the state budget.

And we haven't talked about this for a while because the state budget has been written for the next two years to fund education and, you know, take care of our natural resources, our roads, infrastructure, all the things here that make Wisconsin such a great place to live.

And we have for a number of years now had a budget surplus once we came out of the pandemic.

And again, Wisconsin had a really nice recovery coming out of the pandemic.

and then had a surplus.

Yes, there was a chunk of that that was federal pandemic aid, but there was also because people continued to work in Wisconsin and generate taxes because we didn't, you know, our unemployment situation was better here than in other states that also contributed to things.

So Governor Tony Evers yesterday put out a press release with an update on the state surplus.

And the press release reads in part Governor Tony Evers today celebrated Wisconsin's continued fiscal success and outlook despite continued national economic uncertainty and volatility.

The Evers administration today announced that the state ended the fiscal year back on July 1st with a positive balance of

$4.6 billion in the general fund.

That would be the state's main checking account.

So they ended the year with a $4.5 billion surplus, which exceeded all previous estimates.

Additionally, the state's rainy day fund now stands at $2 billion, the largest balance in state history, and more than six times what it was prior to the governor taking office.

And that should all be, you know, a reason for everybody.

Republicans as well as Democrats to say, yep, let's give ourselves a little pat on the back.

Really nice job.

Job well done.

We don't always agree on things, but let's celebrate the fact that while other states are struggling, we still have a four and a half billion dollar surplus.

But no, that wasn't good enough for State Assembly Representative Jerry O'Connor, Republican of Fond du Lac, who felt the need to put out a press release that said,

The $4.6 billion surplus is a result of strong fiscal responsibility by legislative Republicans over the past decade.

Contrary to how the governor has misleadingly framed the report, this is not the result of his fiscal planning.

If our tax and spend governor had enacted his proposed budgets, we would have a scarily different report and fiscally dire situation to discuss.

Well, a statement like that deserves a proper response.

And so here it is.

Give me a break.

You guys needed to be dragged, kicking and screaming to support the people whose taxes helped fill those coffers in the first place.

You would have been happy to let the surplus money sit there and collect dust.

Until you could do with it what Donald Trump is doing with our federal treasury right now.

giving it away to the wealthy in the most reverse Robin Hood style scene in this country since the first Gilded Age.

You talk about tax and spend things that Governor Evers would have done, I don't know, where do you want to start?

Should we start with the nearly two million dollars you cut for services to homeless veterans?

I mean, veterans haven't forgotten how you literally cut that line to zero dollars and tried to blame anybody else but yourselves.

There's also the zero new dollars in general state school aides.

Yes, there was some money put in other specific parts of the education budget, but generally, well, it turns out that the official numbers have come out for Wisconsin's 421 school districts and only 26% will receive more general state aid this year than the last school year.

while 301 districts, 71% of school districts in Wisconsin are getting less general state aid.

And frankly, you had to be dragged kicking and screaming to even that point when you'd rather keep starving our children's education.

As a result, we will continue to see more school referendums in Wisconsin hiking property taxes because of this lazy legislature.

Don't forget the child care accounts program you killed that as well Some extra child care money elsewhere in the budget is not going to stop the ongoing wave of child care providers who are getting out of business Forcing more parents into financial or personal crises There's also the fact that you haven't accepted the federal boost for Medicaid to cover more families.

Oh sure Donald Trump is gutting it for now, but

Up to this point, you have cost the state billions of dollars because of your ongoing temper tantrum that the Affordable Care Act passed.

It was 15 years ago.

Let it go, man.

And take care of your constituents who need your help, not your right wing talking points or your lectures.

And then finally, there is that state's rainy day fund, which now stands at $2 billion, which you didn't touch during a pandemic.

When COVID was new, when Wisconsinites were losing their jobs left and right, when Governor Evers was trying anything possible to try to make sure that families were supported, y'all took nine months off, never came into the capital.

Let that rainy day fund just sit there.

What good is a rainy day fund for emergencies if you guys decide to take a paid vacation during a national emergency?

So no, you don't get to lecture this governor on financial responsibility.

It was his shepherding, a federal pandemic funds that gave Wisconsin one of the healthiest post pandemic recoveries in the country.

When you would have let Main Street businesses wither and die so long as WMC's members could keep their big, fat corporate tax breaks.

So you can put up all the press releases you want, but you will face voters next year under fairer maps.

who wonder what the heck it is you guys do for a living to earn your taxpayer funded paycheck.

So cash those taxpayer funded paychecks while you can because there is no guarantee that after next year you're going to be around to squander a state surplus any longer.

It's 717 right now.

And again, as we have mentioned a couple of times, there are going to be no Kings rallies all across the state.

In fact, talking yesterday to Cindy Greening from Chippewa Valley Indivisible, that last count, 97.

different locations in Wisconsin will be the site of No Kings rallies at some point during the day tomorrow.

And the time is very widely.

There are some that start as early as nine in the morning in Little Medford across from the farmers market.

Many of them start at 11 o'clock, say in Shawno at Franklin Park.

Some start at the noon hour, like in Friendship at the Adams County Courthouse.

Others are in the afternoon, like Oshkosh starts at one o'clock at Hiker Park.

But in Chippewa Falls, it doesn't get going until four o'clock at the peace circle.

So head over to knowkings.org to learn more about where you can take part and put your two cents in on what is happening in the state of this country right now.

We're going to talk to our Weekend Review Panel in just a little bit about the state that our country is in right now, including the US Supreme Court taking the next step.

toward completely gutting what remains of the Voting Rights Act troops in the streets of places like Chicago that are frustrating even to Chicago police because of the lack of coordination.

But before we get to all of that news, we have the equally unhappy task of telling you that the Brewers are now down three games to love in the National League Championship Series after losing the game last night at Dodger Stadium three to one.

three games now in the league championship series, just three runs scored for the Brewers.

In the past five games, they have just 18 hits.

That's the fewest amount of hits in any five game stretch in team history.

Not exactly the kind of time that you want to pick for setting that kind of a team record.

However,

We keep the 2004 Boston Red Sox in mind because at least once a team has come back from a 3-0 postseason deficit to win a seven game series.

So there's that.

Our Week in Review panel is coming up live from the lake.

I'm Pat Critello.

Thanks for listening to us here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Back in a bit.

All right, please forgive me I was so deep in the pity pool of the Brewers losing to the Dodgers in game three that I neglected to tell you that there is a game for and that is tonight coverage begins at seven o'clock tonight on several civic media radio stations first pitch at 738 and of course we are Hoping that we don't get a Dodger sweep

in four games.

If there is a game five, that will take place tomorrow in Los Angeles.

And if the Brewers happen to win tonight and tomorrow, then game six would be Monday at American Family Field.

And if we're really getting crazy and there's a game seven, that would be Tuesday night at American Family Field.

So, you know, keep hope alive.

We got that going for us.

Time to talk to our weekend review panel former US Attorney Jim Santel along with Chicago journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Scholes.

You all here joining us now.

Good morning to Good

morning.

Good

morning.

Good to see you all let's let's start with Mark because you know a lot of the foundation of this segment was You know grading the the media for the way they covered the the week's events and mark has literally done that now the title of his latest newsletter is I'm handing out

pro democracy grades to the media.

Read more at stopthepresses.news or couriernewsroom.com.

Professor Jacob, let's hear about those grades.

Yeah, it was a little haughty of me to do that.

But you know what?

This show is

built for haughty.

I mean, people ask me all the time, you know, I mean, there are two things going on here.

One,

People on social media say you can't trust anything in the media.

Don't pay attention to anything.

It's all, you know, which to me is a formula for disaster.

I mean, if you don't believe in anything, then you just, you know, you camp out on your couch and watch old movies and Trump does what he wants.

Yeah.

So to me, that's not an option.

And people have asked me, what do I regard as credible media and

I mentioned the Guardian gets an A, ProPublica gets an A, the New Republic gets an A, MSNBC B+, if they got rid of Joe Scarborough, I'd like them better.

And I go through it.

The New York Times, they give a C, but maybe they slide to D some days.

It's hard to know.

um and npr i just wish they were better i gave them a c and and c and nc minus

hey let me let me stop you at the npr there because i am not a regular listener because of all my work you know here on on another radio network so when i hear you give npr a c um i'm a little surprised tell me tell me why

well it's because it's this uh legitimizing of lies you know they they decide that in order to be fair they're gonna have democrats on they're gonna have republicans on

And if it's a Republican who is a liar, which unfortunately today is most of them, the Republican will lie and lie and lie and lie, and then the NPR host will say, thank you, please come back.

There's not the kind of pushback that should happen.

I mean, what I've been saying for a long time is that journalists need to be so...

respectful of the truth that they are personally and professionally offended when somebody lies to them and their audience and they need to push back and if you don't do that you're not really defending democracy.

I totally get the grades that you would give, say, you know, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

But I want to ask you about one other one, because not everybody, everybody sees the commercials for News Nation.

Not everybody knows about it.

They're certainly trying to brand themselves as

this

independent, you know, new news network.

And yet you put that in your F column.

Why?

Yeah, because well, they're not, they're not.

unbiased.

I mean, they really want to be a right wing network, but they want to pretend that they're fair and balanced.

You know, because Chris Cuomo is there, he's a star and he's he got kicked out of CNN for ethical breaches.

And they keep on having Bill O'Reilly, you know, because of Bill O'Reilly's, you know, sexual harassment, Fox News has paid millions of dollars to people at Fox News.

I mean, these are not legitimate people.

And then nation news nation wrote

along on that horrible ice raid on the south side of Chicago where they, you know, repelled from helicopters and terrorized people.

They brought News Nation along on that, you know, because they could trust them to give the administration side.

Okay.

Well, now let's get the professor graded by Professor Shulze, who I'm sure is looked at.

Do you take issue with any of your friend Mark's

grades?

was mostly in agreement with Mark.

I would have, you know, edged a little bit here and there on some of them.

I would give a higher grade to NBC News.

Overall, I'm a big fan of NBC because it is currently the only news network that has not written a check to Donald Trump.

And that's like a big deal.

And I think they do really good work, especially on certain issues.

So I'm a bigger fan of NBC.

I do agree with Mark on pretty much everything else, however.

In

News

Nation, no, they are not.

I

used to

say they were Fox Lite.

I think they are now at least Fox Medium.

Okay, Fox Medium.

I like that very much.

And I will say this about NBC.

Having worked at an NBC affiliate for many years, I find that particularly frustrating because they, yes, they have their moments, but they have fallen so far in some areas.

And Jim Santel, former US Attorney, you get to provide your own take on these grades as a viewer, as a news consumer.

I don't know what else that you're taking in, but do you want to hand out either

A's or F's for anything that you notice as you watch coverage of things?

I'll seize on this enterprise and just say once again on Wednesday when the United States Supreme Court all but announced that the Voting Rights Act is going to be done as of June of 2026.

The New York Times has a headline that says Supreme Court appears skeptical of key provision of Voting Rights Act.

That's the headline.

The reality is that we had members of the Supreme Court led by Brett Kavanaugh saying on the record, quizzing the attorneys, how quickly can we get rid of this?

Aren't we done with race now in America?

And isn't it time for the sections with the Voting Rights Act to be over?

That's more than skepticism, New York Times.

That's signaling that America is about to change.

Once again, dramatically, at the pen of the Supreme Court, robbing us of yet another, the court, this shining gem.

of the civil rights movement.

Legislatively, it's about to be gone.

And that's the response of the New York Times.

Again, calling out extremism as extremism is not bias.

That is actually the more accurate reporting.

We will continue this conversation with Jim Santel, Mark Jacob, and Jennifer Scholesi coming up right after this little pause.

And then at the top of the hour, State Senator Jeff Smith, and then we'll have Mike Clemens with a weekend preview of sports.

I'm Pat Kraitlo.

You're up north.

We sure do like it when you take us along with you on the radio I listen in your car or listen through the civic media app But sometimes you can't get the whole three hours in one setting and maybe want to listen later on on demand Well, we've got a podcast for that while you got to do is head over to Spotify or Apple wherever you get your podcasts and follow this show as a podcast each hour is a different episode of the podcast so you know six seven and eight AM hours you can

pick the hour that you want to listen to, catch up with guests, catch up with topics, and get some fodder for sending us a note with your questions or comments.

Again, follow us as a podcast over at Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

Back to our Week in Review panel now with Jim Santel, Mark Jacob, and Jennifer Schulze.

And Jennifer's column, her latest one on Substack, Indistinct Chatter is the name of it.

Search for News Jennifer at Substack.

and the headline is the abuses of federal power are far worse here in Chicago.

Don't look away.

Jennifer, what are you trying to tell folks?

Well, I want to remind people who may not be aware or on listening to the news every day about what's happening in Chicago that something very bad is happening here and it's getting worse every day.

You know, federal courts, as Jim has pointed out, have issued orders and ICEs ignoring them.

You know, they've been told not to do harsh treatment towards the press or the protesters.

Well, yesterday they were flinging those tear gas canisters like mad at everybody again after being ordered not to.

They've been ordered not to wear their masks or wear a cap.

cameras, and it's a very serious thing that's happening here, and I think that the whole country should be paying attention to it.

I think the local press in Chicago is doing a phenomenal job covering the story and getting the facts out.

What we found is that every single time the Department of Homeland Security issues a press release about an incident that happens in Chicago, it's mostly lies.

In fact, I'm going to probably go with it's all lies.

And the press here is really digging into those things.

And then, of course, the residents with the videos of what actually happened is helping tell the story.

I wish there was more national press here on an ongoing basis, because I think this story is really important to the country.

Let's take that point as I bring it over to Mark for his thoughts being in Chicago land as well, that, again,

Maybe it was just because first it was DC and then it was Los Angeles that oh troops on the streets of a city not a big deal, but Mark you think national media should be paying more attention to this as well?

Oh, I sure do I mean and there's some of it, but there's not enough and and because What did the scary thing is Trump said it in his himself?

He said he wants to use you know troops in American cities as training grounds for the military I mean that that should scare the hell out of everyone

And he really does plan to do it throughout the entire country, I think.

And of course, he's starting in big cities that voted against him.

I mean, Pat, it's not like he's targeting cities that have high crime rates because Chicago's homicide rate has fallen dramatically.

He's targeting places that voted against him because he's trying to crush dissent.

And if you see it in any other way, if you see it, well, this is Trump's attempt to lower the crime rate, well, then you're just buying into the lies.

Yeah.

James, there's just so many court challenges to what he is doing with troops that I don't know, maybe you do follow all of them.

I just wonder if, again, because of Trump's clear flood the zone strategy, is there any single case that

Frankly, all the resources should be put into to try to get the court system to ultimately say, you can't do this.

Once again, I would say that the lower federal courts, your district courts, your appeals courts are doing the right thing.

And that is not a political assessment.

That's a constitutional assessment that they're upholding the law.

They're upholding the ways in which, as Mark and Jennifer just said,

that America works.

And so we should be celebrating those even tomorrow in the demonstrations and the protests and the advocacy around our nation.

You know, just yesterday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said yes to Judge April Perry.

She is the one who has said, you know what?

The National Guard can be there physically, but don't you dare deploy them, Donald Trump.

The Seventh Circuit of Three Judge Panels said yes.

This is not a close question.

Again, the National Guard, not to go in.

They are different plainly.

The listeners appreciate this from the ice and all the things that Jennifer has just identified.

But there are, once again, the lower federal courts are still across the country looking at these things and saying, there is no insurrection.

We've got no rebellion.

There's no justification for doing this.

No crime that would justify this.

And that's the reason for Salas.

The difficulty, the profound difficulty, of course, is what happens when these get to those nine folks in Washington, D.C.

who seem to be inclined to give the president whatever he wants, Tangy Brown Jackson calling it Calvin Ball, which basically means there are no rules anymore and the administration wins.

That's the concern, but we should take some solace in the fact that they're good and decent judges across the board.

politically who are doing the right thing in America.

Let's look at a different case that's going to come for the courts because of the new indictment handed down against one of Trump's early national security advisors, John Bolton, who then became a critic of Trump and therefore became an enemy and is now facing criminal charges.

And I can't say that

I'm terribly surprised.

We all know the same.

Everything Trump touches dies.

I mean, everybody that has tried to say, oh, I'm the one that can tame him has found out no, it doesn't work that way.

And so whether it's it's this new one, or it's James Comey, or the other cases, Jim, what is it about this new one with John Bolton?

What can we glean from this about the way that Donald Trump has weaponized the United States law enforcement system in a way that only

a want to be dictated or

There is a take away from that also underscores the

about 18 counts yesterday.

He's basically accusing him of using personal email and messaging to share about a thousand pages of his diary notes.

There's some very interesting issues related to attempted extortion from someone who's going to release them.

Interesting things here, but that larger point is the one that you were implicitly stating, Pat, which is just this.

We know that the indictments against James Comey

And again, Statisha James, our paper thin, as an evidentiary matter, almost certainly not going to be able to prove those cases beyond a reasonable doubt.

And may, even before you get there, be subject to a vindictive prosecution dismissal.

The problem here with the Bolton matter, which has been under investigation for a long period of time, is this may be one of those cases where his political enemies, that is Donald Trump's political enemies,

may indeed have actually committed a crime.

And so the problem is that when you indict someone who has committed a crime, but also happens to be on this laundry list of all the people the president hates, the natural reaction is to say, of course, that prosecution, perhaps legitimate, again, he's innocent of proven guilty, that prosecution may also be illegitimate and therefore also subject to the attack in court and out court that it's vindictive.

That may or may not be the case, but it underscores the problem when you've got a president who's out there who's saying these things, who's telling people that he doesn't like these, and demanding that his Department of Justice indict people when you do get to a legitimate prosecution and that person happens to be on your list of enemies, that one also gets thrown into the bin of illegitimate prosecutions.

I fear for the future of the grand jury process and the legitimacy of what Americans appreciate about criminal federal prosecution in America.

it just mark makes your your head spin to see a president of the United States in the Oval Office with the attorney general with the FBI director with the assistant attorney general saying saying not demanding or asking because you know mob bosses know you just say things out loud and then things magically happen.

You know, I think that you know, Senator shift of California is a criminal.

Again, in any other time in our country, the media would have been doing their job.

Well, there's they're trying to do their job.

But I mean, they are being overwhelmed to some extent I used to say come right out and say what's actually happening Which is you know, just Trump is trying to marshal all the power of the federal government against his enemies in a very predictive and lawless way, you know Pat There's also the this whole IRS report that just came out that that he's organizing the IRS to go after a long list of people who

fund uh leftist organizations or liberal organizations or just plain democratic organizations and and i mean he's just he's he's going after all of his enemies using all of the power that he's that he's not supposed to have but that he's claimed and and and it should scare the hell out of everyone he's he is trying to crush all opposition

the irs one by the way was specifically mentioned in richard nixon's

you know, Watergate impeachment.

Again, this is the kind of stuff that would get a president impeached.

But Jennifer, by Republican senators, failing not once but twice to vote to convict Trump in legitimate impeachment charges against him, just makes me

wonder if there is if there's any way back from this precipice or if if we should just go ahead and start calling it what it is martial law when you've got troops in the streets and when you can give a persecution in the courts of your enemies when you can use the IRS I'm starting to wonder when the term martial law applies officially

Hello, Pat.

That just scared the heck out of me.

But yeah, no, I agree.

Look, it's bad.

And I think most people know that it's bad.

You may not be able to keep up with every twist and term because every day, you know, there are dozens of transgressions and, you know, breaking the law here.

And it's just, it's overwhelming.

But as Mark said, the overarching thing is that he's trying to squash the opposition and using troops and his Department of Justice, which is not really interested in justice anymore, as James has so correctly pointed out time and time again.

It's an overwhelming time.

Americans are going to have a little something to say about it, I think, very loudly tomorrow across the country.

you know, where we go from here.

Oh man, I don't know.

It's a very scary time.

Because, because again, you're incredulous that we're hearing about charges about mishandling classified documents from the guy who, hello, had boxes of classified documents in his bathroom and a defense secretary that was sending battle plans to people through signal.

Right.

I mean, these are the people who are least have the least amount of credibility to bring these kind of charges and yet they are.

Jim, we're going to talk a little bit about the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act, and then we're going to pause, and some folks will catch their local news, and the rest will hear us talk more about it on the Civic Media app.

But give us the very beginnings of an overview of what the question was that the Supreme Court took up on the Voting Rights Act, and ultimately what that means.

Right.

It comes out of Louisiana.

It is once again line drawing, as we do in Wisconsin, Illinois.

And the question is there, a narrow question, but important question is whether there should be two majority black districts.

That's technically what's in front of the Supreme Court, but the larger issue is whether or not race can be used as a determinant factor in drawing those lines.

Voting rights act since 1965, do the math.

That's 60 years in America has said that yes, indeed you can bring challenges.

And it appears yesterday that led by Brett Kavanaugh who asks.

At what point does all of this end that the intentional use of race to create districts comes to a conclusion?

And that's a big takeaway.

That was the focus of the oral argument for two hours.

And again, prostaging this notion that probably at eight months, we're going to see the end of section two.

And to, again, this framing of addressing racism.

is somehow racist, is absolutely mind blowing, but still has legs in the standage, which tells you even after 60 years, how much longer, how much farther we have to go.

Jim Santel, Mark Jacob, and Jennifer Schulze are guests, our stellar week in review panel.

I'm Pat Kratlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.