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Welcome back.
Nice to have you here up north on a Thursday morning.
It's November 6th.
Online open at 855-755-CIVIC 855-755-248-42 or use that Civic Media app to call us, to text us, leave us a voice note.
On the text line, Charles from Eau Claire says, the economy is for sure going to be worse in a year.
This is what happened last time with Trump.
But last time we were coming into his term after eight years of the Obama economy that was thriving.
So we had a bit of a buffer before Trump plunged us into chaos in 2020.
This sucks because I'm 30.
I work 45 hours a week and I can't afford health care without the Affordable Care Act.
And now I can't afford groceries.
Thanks, Trump and MAGA.
He writes again, that's Charles from Eau Claire on the text line.
We've got Sean O'Malley coming up in just a matter of minutes.
Talk about your money and the markets.
We still don't have access to government data.
Thanks to the shutdown.
But there are plenty of other ways to find out just how shaky things are looking out there right now.
Breaking news from the world of politics, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just announced that she will not
be running to be reelected to the House of Representatives in 2026.
One more passing of the torch in Washington DC.
Joseph Becky coming up a little later on this hour as well.
But now let's check in with Chad Holmes from our Civic Media Station in Wausau 989 WXCO.
Mr. Holmes, how are you?
Doing terrific.
How are you doing?
Good.
I mean, you sound you sound well rested like you're not doing, you know, a whole bunch of football games out in weather that would give you pneumonia.
In other words, the teams didn't do so well up there.
I am, I don't know, well rested is the word because actually I'm taking next week off and I'm ready to take a few days off.
I am ready to just go away for a few days and
Then start up the following week is when we start our basketball and hockey coverage and the winter is so very busy.
So I thought I need to kind of
get the energy back to 100% to get through the winter and go from there.
I
think you might have mentioned last week.
I know you've got the one week where you like to go to Vegas to play poker.
But this particular break, this one's a little more unstructured or do you have a structured thing you like to do this time of year?
Well, I'm going to go down to the Chicago area where my sister lives.
Ah,
but there's also a poker tournament down there that I'm a play.
Yes And also and
also I'm hoping to see a hockey game at the United Center.
I've never done that So that's my hope next Wednesday night to see the Black Hawk play the New Jersey Devils and and also one reason I want to go down there is because That is that area is the closest to where I live here in the wasa area
to a Krispy Kreme donuts.
Okay.
We're gonna go stock up on some Krispy Kreme donuts and put on five pounds before I come back.
Do you know before Krispy, right before Krispy Kreme made it big, we were in Las Vegas, and our girls were whatever they were at the time, maybe eight and 10 or something like that.
And
We saw a Krispy Kreme donut for the first time, the little conveyor belt, putting the frosting on and having this warm, fresh, frosted donut.
And honestly, we just thought we had found heaven on earth.
And then, then the company was everywhere.
And classic case of a company getting too big too fast, they had to shrink way back
down.
Well, the reason I bring up the story is that
For those girls for one year, and this had to be in the late 90s during the dot com bubble when everybody thought the stock market was going to go up forever.
And they had these things where you could buy one share of stock.
And then frame it.
So for our kids, the one daughter who is all about being a Disney princess, we got her one share of Disney stock and for the other, we got one share of Krispy Kreme because she loves donuts.
And we had that framed and everything.
Well, I forget how many years back now, Krispy Kreme went through bankruptcy.
So I don't.
think it's necessarily worth anything anymore.
But I'm thinking it's one of these things I need to pull out of a drawer someplace because it's not on the bedroom wall anymore.
And see if if that thing isn't worth the paper, it's printed on or if I could actually buy a dozen donuts with whatever that stock has become.
A number of years ago, and I think you're exactly right when you talked about their big expansion, they did actually open a store right here in Wausau.
And then within a couple of months, I mean, it literally a couple of months.
And I don't think it was a case where there were people weren't buying Krispy Kreme donuts, but it was not.
And now it's a furniture store, but.
It was like here and then a snap of the finger.
It was gone and it was just it's still heartbreaking.
But at the same time, I tell people all the time, if we had that story here all these years,
oh, yeah,
you would see this picture of me with about, you know, a lot less room or from my left to my right, because my whole body would just be filled.
Oh, my goodness.
Same two.
So there's things that I see in some other cities and like, I'm so glad this is not here.
In fact, where I used to live in the Twin Cities,
They, I met my, my two sisters there a couple of weeks back and there's a breakfast cafe and breakfast is my weakness.
And I, I've told you, I, I, for a time I did a live radio show from a breakfast campaign, a breakfast cafe when heckles big steer had a location in rice lake and I drive to the big steer every morning and do a radio show from the breakfast counter.
And if there'd been a breakfast counter anywhere near me, that would be dangerous.
So yeah, sometimes, sometimes it's better.
to not get everything that you want.
And by the way, one thing that I'm really, really happy about is that I kind of looked ahead and I decided
I'm not going to fly anywhere for this vacation.
Oh, you were very wise.
I
would just be, I would be more, I would take a year off my life with worry because the odds are my flight would not have got off the ground.
Yes.
Because I do not trust Sean Duffy.
I
was just going to say, let's get Sean Duffy's email out there and send Sean Duffy a thank you note for what he's announced that he's about to do to air travel in the United States.
And let me say again, I know I said it earlier.
but these air traffic controllers who aren't showing up for work, it isn't just that they're not getting paid.
It isn't just the stress that comes with it, but because they're not getting paid, they're not calling in sick.
They're calling in saying, I ain't got daycare because I got to pay the daycare provider and I don't have any money to pay the daycare provider.
So I got to stay home with my kids and all the other things that are associated with this.
Sean Duffy could be part of the solution and be one of those to urge his boss to, you know, maybe make things right and not jack up people's health insurance.
But Sean Duffy would rather inconvenience millions of travelers.
This is worse than any one of those days with bad weather.
The amount of flights that are about to be canceled for the foreseeable future.
The cutback is almost criminal.
And we have Thanksgiving coming up.
I mean, we are at a point where is is
I must say Stephen Miller because they're we talked about Trump sure I wish people would say the word Stephen Miller more because I have no doubt that he is the guy that is bombing those boats He is the guy that has had this he's leading this shutdown He's the one that wants to get everybody lose their health care and and we have an unelected Fascist king.
It's not Donald Trump It is Stephen Miller, but that's just throw that out there, but also I
I don't know if you saw yesterday because on the steps of the Capitol, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, had a post-election press conference.
And I got to say, I am now on his side because he had a nice sign right in front of him that said, Democrat shutdown.
So obviously it's a Democrat shutdown.
I just laugh at the little things that these folks do that think that that's going to make me think, well, Mike Johnson has a sign right in front of him that says, Democrat shutdown.
So it must be a Democrat
shutdown.
He is just continuing proof that denial ain't just a river in
Egypt.
By the way, this guy, again, runs as this very
Religious man.
Yes.
I would I just wish one of the one of the people would ask him the question is your well-known friend Jesus What would he think about all this lying that you're doing because he
every
time he opens his mouth?
He's lying and and I think that's and I'm not just throwing that out there I mean when he says like Sunday night Donald Trump was on 60 minutes and he says I had no idea who this guy was that I pardoned and then Mike Johnson asked and what did he say?
I don't know anything about that.
Every time he's asked about something he doesn't want to talk about, he puts his head in the ground.
These are the least informed people I've ever met.
They clearly never watch a newscast or look at a news site to hear them tell it.
Oh, I don't know anything about this or that or the other thing.
Maybe get out of the bubble, but I think you actually do know who these folks are.
I just get frustrated with that kind of stuff.
I think you've talked about this and I talk about this that the whole
system is based on battles of ideas that, hey, we may not agree on everything, but at least let's get out there and actually have a real discussion on these issues.
And it's so hard in this era when, and I'm not going to say this on the both sides.
This is when one side constantly does not exactly tell the truth in terms of what they want to accomplish.
I mean, they don't give us specifics.
Why?
Why is it better to.
throw millions of people off their health care in order to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy.
Tell me, why is that the best rule forward for the United States of America?
Then maybe we can actually go somewhere, but
when we're
having this discussion where it all lies, it's just
not... If you're going to lie and say that it's 200 million illegals are getting health care, when... Right.
I mean, that's demonstrably...
false.
And so you would get more respect, you'd get much more respect if you'd say, I don't favor the Affordable Care Act.
Here's my alternative.
Yes, they have had 15 years to come up with any kind of an alternative that keeps Americans medical costs from making them bankrupt.
And there are other ways to come at it.
I mean, yeah, there's single payer, you know, government run, a lot of people don't want that.
That's fine.
But there are other ways you can come at this.
And yet
they are either unable or incapable or too afraid to put something on paper, so they make stuff up about millions of migrants getting healthcare that they can't sign up for.
And that's
where they start
with this
discussion.
That's the thing that's frustrating.
That's where they started in this discussion.
When you start the discussion of a very important policy issue, but something that is demonstrably false, where do you go from there?
Because then you're always fighting.
Because I mean, you're wasting your breath by saying, well, that's untrue, because they will just put their feet on the ground and say, no.
Well, it was like that, that state assembly rep from Sheboygan Falls, whose audio we played yesterday, when, you know, Lee Snodgrass was citing an Associated Press report that there has been no demonstrable election fraud in Wisconsin, certainly not from absentee ballot drop boxes.
And this assembly woman from Sheboygan Falls was like,
who wants this bill to ban drop boxes.
I'm sure Doug Denney has some things to say about that, the Wausau mayor.
Anyway, her retort to Lee Snodgrass was, oh, the Associated Press.
I don't think that's a credible source.
Hello, hello, the Associated
Press.
I was reading the story concerning Geo Underly's appearance the other day, and one of the questioners, a Republican I wish I had in front of me, quoted that, was it the Capitol Times that made this?
He says, well, that's certainly not known as a conservative source.
And my first thought is, well, if they write a story that goes after your political opponents in some way, then all of a sudden, it's a reliable source.
But otherwise, it's constantly fake news.
Again, there's no consistency here.
You either think it's a reliable source of information or you don't.
But only when they go after your opponents do they think, oh, well, then I'm going to say, oh, yeah, this is.
But that's how history is going to look back at this is an entire generation of conservatives who threw away their credibility chasing after somebody who is so far from conservative and so far from the Judeo-Christian values they pretend to espouse.
And that this is what they'll be known for.
They're never going to be able to wash that stain away.
You can catch Chad Holmes on his morning updates during this fine program on 98.9 WXCO.
Listen at 652.722.
752-822.
You can see past episodes, current headlines, weather and more at wxco.fm.
Chad, thank you very much.
Have a great day.
Thank you, you too.
All right, we'll be talking to Sean O'Malley about your money in the markets and more from Joseph Pecky about this week's election results all still ahead.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Hey, we've got a question of the week from our Sunday morning newsletter Sunday mornings with Pat Crichtlow.
You can sign up at up north news wi.com This week's question is about the economy a year from now as we get set for the midterm elections.
Where will the economy be a year from now?
Are we just in a rough patch and things are going to be better a year from now?
Are they going to be about the same kind of a slog or things going to have like a real downturn?
over the next 12 months.
What are your thoughts?
There are definitely statistics that show us how things might be going and for that we talked to our friend Sean O'Malley and for folks who are shall we say the uninitiated.
Sean is a Hudson native.
He has a lengthy Wall Street career in anti-money laundering, financial risk management, data analytics, compliance, fraud and risk management, and so much more.
So when he says something doesn't look quite right, he specializes in identifying the things that don't look quite right.
And on day 37 of the longest running federal government shutdown in history, things aren't looking quite right in the job market.
Sean, good morning.
Yeah, things are not looking quite right in the job market at all.
As you already mentioned earlier in the show, you're talking about how we don't have any data from the federal government because it's shut down.
Still interesting that they had the data ready to go on Friday after over first and decided not to release it.
or whatever was the third, I guess.
But still, you know, here we are.
We're not going to get any data tomorrow either.
We would normally get the October non-farm payroll number.
So what we're having to do is deal with proxy information.
And we'll go with ADT because they're one of the largest payroll service providers.
And they indicate for October that payrolls did increase by 42,000, which is not a great number.
um, it was down 29 000 in september if you'll recall uh, we and also the result was a That 42 000 up was a little higher than expected.
They were expecting about 22 000 But still again historically low anything as i've said before anything below 100 000 is really considered Not even treading water.
So you're not even really replacing the jobs that you're losing,
okay?
But let's talk about the breakdown in that job creation and where it was where the job creation was happening and where it really was not
Yeah, and right and that's the really important part only job creation at large companies Small and medium employees employment was down now You got to remember the biggest job engine in the US economy is small and medium-sized companies The fact that you're seeing jobs go down in that segment is particularly troublesome.
That's particularly worrisome because that means that
on the whole, you should expect that jobs will continue to go down.
So there is job growth, but it's for the big companies.
And yet corporate job cuts for this year have already gone past a million with what is probably the worst October for corporate layoffs since 2003.
Since 2003, not 2008, 2003.
We just had Tony's of Roman Paul said yes even worse than 2008 which is surprising considering what was happening with not only the stock market but also the job market back during that time frame I personally know a company that had to sell itself In that month in particular because I used to work for them.
I left nine months before they had to sell
because as Pat pointed out, I'm one of those guys that sees what's coming and gets out of the way when I see the big train chugging towards me.
Well, and then sometimes you got, like you said, like you just defined, properly defined the train of jobs and, you know, the big difference between the engine and caboose here, same goes for consumer spending.
And while, you know, consumer spending has, you know,
has got had its ups and downs where that spending is happening is important to know.
And so when we I mean,
And that's that's without even talking tariffs and everything else, but but they're not spending.
But if you're in the upper crust, you know, you're you're doing all right.
Well, let's look for some news elsewhere.
How about purchasing managers?
There's some numbers there that indicate.
Yeah, yeah,
we're looking at the purchasing managers index, always a good proxy for sort of what's going on with manufacturing.
So we've been tracking that and reporting that for a while.
It continues to be below 50, which is not good.
Um, because that that indicates economic contraction within the manufacturing sector so PMI for october went back down uh to 48.7 it was 49.1 at september but now it's back down to 48.7 which matches the same number from uh august by the way
okay so we see where sentiment is there and then i wanted your thoughts on the supreme court arguments um
oral arguments heard on the tariffs case, whether the president has unilateral authority to impose tariffs without Congress having to give a yes or no, what was your takeaway?
Well, the interesting point is, and I think it was made very concisely by Neil Conte on his arguments in front of the court saying,
You know a tariff you know tariffs are a tax.
It was that was his opening statement and later in questioning Chief Justice John Roberts repeated that that
tariffs are attacks that are you know attacks on on consumers and That point was never rebutted by the solicitor general who is representing the United States government Which is basically Donald Trump in this case because it is it was not the United States government But that put these tariffs on and that's the whole crux of the case you have taxation without Representation because the power of the purse taxation is supposed to be Congress only
Trump taking unilateral action here, strips Congress of their power over the purse.
So that's really the debate.
Yeah, that they're having
and basically declaring an emergency but an open ended emergency an open ended emergency is essentially the definition of authoritarianism.
I get to do whatever I want so long as I declare this to be an emergency.
We'll talk to Sean O'Malley more about your money and the markets and trade wars and the election results.
And then we'll talk election results with Joseph Peckie as well all ahead live from the lake.
Thanks for being a part of our mornings powered by Up North News.
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Our question of the day is our Sunday morning newsletter question of the week.
Where's the economy going to be a year from now?
Is it going to be better?
Of course, the same.
Let us know.
You get to see it first by signing up for that newsletter up north news wi.com or put something here in the comment sections of Facebook and YouTube.
Joseph Peck, he's coming up as is Todd Alba.
First, a few more minutes here with Sean O'Malley talking about your money and the markets and tell you what, Sean, let's we were talking about tariffs and the Supreme Court.
Yeah, do we have a measurement of just how bad that the tariffs have been at this point?
Of course, once we get new numbers for the Treasury, but we do know a couple of things economically.
We know that consumer prices have gone up 1.8%.
Not good.
So that means basically inflation's up.
Gross domestic product is down about a half a percent.
Also not good.
So anytime you've got prices going up GDP going down and we just covered what's going on with the jobs market.
It's very soft.
It looks like stagflation light continues to be the recipe from the Trump administration for our
economy.
And that's certainly seen in many sectors, not the least of which are our farmers.
And while I've already emphasized this last week, Sean, that while Trump and China have pledged that China will repurchase soybeans, I would just remind folks that that's exactly what China and Trump said during Trump's first term, and China did not follow through.
for a couple of years on that pledge to resume purchasing soybeans.
So any deal you heard last week take with a big old grain of salt.
That's why I'm very careful to use the word pledged.
Yeah, spot them.
These are not soybeans that are sold.
They're saying we will buy them.
By year and and we're gonna buy 12 million metric tons.
Okay times running out.
We'll see how it actually plays out.
The interesting thing is I did the math on current soybean prices.
You're talking a little less than five billion dollars 4.8 billion dollars in sales.
Normally we make sales I mean last year.
It was 12.6 billion, so almost three times higher.
And if
And even if the pledge comes through, what Trump accomplished was a lower
net purchase overall.
It's, it's, it's sabotage is what it is.
Well, Joseph, Becky is standing by and we're going to talk about, you know, how much of this week's elections were vote on the economy.
But even looking at the polling on the economy, it's
Pretty clear where people see things right now.
I mean Joel getting into greater depth I'm just gonna focus on what voters were saying about the economy It was of course not surprisingly their number one topic because a lot of people are saying that You know, they're paying more for a lot of things across a lot of the polls that they're saying and in terms of those who approve and disapprove of what's going on with the economy right now the Disapprovals are virtually unanimously across all polls over 60% disapproval
And truly, unanimously, the approvals are below 40%.
So you're dealing with a net 20 plus percent underwater.
I think 24, 25 is about the average.
So you got a quarter of Americans that do not agree with the economic direction.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm still surprised that even is in the upper 30s for approval, but we'll just keep following the money where it goes.
And right now it's not going into people's pockets.
Sean O'Malley, thank you so much for that as always.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
Take care.
Right.
Uh, Joe's Becky has also been looking at all the election results from this week.
Of course, the poll numbers, everything else.
Uh, good morning, Joe, writ large.
What's what is the big takeaway from all the, uh, clean sweep results from Democrats on Tuesday?
Donald Trump isn't doing the job the American people elected him to do and they're furious about it.
That sounds about right.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, I like the the actual number that stuck that stuck out to me the most is there was a poll released on November 3rd, so just before the elections Showed Donald Trump's disapproval rate at 63% this is one poll, but it's a big number.
Here's how big a number that is After January 6th
Trump's disapproval in that poll was only 62% Okay, and so I you know I I like to say that polls are noise and elections are signal.
Mm-hmm, but sometimes a poll released just before an election Tells you the story when you look at the signal of election day because this was not just about a couple of big ticket races This was a resounding rejection
of Republican policies from coast to coast, right?
You had Georgia flipping for the first time ever, like Democrats won statewide their version of like RPSC, the Public Service Commission.
You had Mississippi Democrats breaking the super majority in the legislature.
So this was not just about
you know, win some Earl Sears, the bad candidate in New Jersey is really a blue state and that just reverted to the norm.
But Joe, that's what I heard from Speaker Mike Johnson and others is that this election was blue candidates win in blue places and that was it.
You seem to be mentioning some pretty red places that went blue.
I changed my mind.
Mike Johnson is a million percent right.
I hope he wasn't listening.
And I hope Republicans don't understand the message that the American people are trying to send, which is I really believe that it was about the economy in 2024, that the Biden administration did not get their arms around selling the economic improvements that we had made.
And inflation was an incumbency killer.
And we saw that around the world.
what Trump and Republicans have done is not focus on the economy, right?
The ways they have, they're just making it worse.
And I really think that people who were with the Donald Trump economy of 2017, I know he's a bad guy, but man, I need a few more bucks in my pocket.
And so I'm gonna vote for this guy.
They have watched the last 10 months and go, what the hell is he doing?
And I mean, it's almost cartoon-like when you say that we're in the longest government shutdown of all time, and he is remodeling the Lincoln bathroom.
Tariffs are hammering soybean farmers, and he's got $300 million to spend on a ballroom, and he's holding a great Gadsby-themed, roaring 20s.
you know, ball at Mar-a-Lago?
I mean, this is, if anybody on our side did it, it would be called political malpractice.
Oh my gosh.
And so if Republicans like from Mike Johnson on down don't care to notice or learn anything from Tuesday night, then 2026 might be an even better year for Democrats than I think.
By yeah, and by the way one that we we didn't mention today But we're gonna we're gonna bring up tomorrow is courier newsrooms political editor key of the keel and we will be joined by the political editor for our courier newsroom outlet in Pennsylvania Sean kitchen where Pennsylvania voters stopped a billionaire from buying their state's Supreme Court So yeah, there was a lot about affordability and dissatisfaction with Trump But then there were some of these more locally specific things like the way Wisconsin voters didn't like
a billionaire Elon Musk trying to buy a Supreme Court seat last time around.
It just really feels like voters are more plugged in than in maybe some elections past.
But well, I don't know about plugged in.
You know, in a place like Pennsylvania, this is like their equivalent of our spring elections.
So I did not look closely at those because the margins were absolute blowouts.
They retained those judges by wide margins.
But I assume that much like in April general elections, fewer people vote than in 2020.
So it's probably a fairly engaged electorate.
But I think what Republicans miss to their own detriment is how many people have checked out of the news across the board.
and are just voting on what they're feeling in their lives, and they are feeling uncertain.
I mean, you've got the Trump administration using the R-word now.
Treasury Secretary Scott Best has acknowledged that parts of the U.S.
economy are already in recession.
That's pretty
bad.
Pretty, pretty bad.
And as Sean O'Malley is still listing in and puts up on YouTube, Biden had two back-to-back years of 20% returns in the stock market.
Again, didn't do a great job of communicating that at the time.
But the data is the data.
And now we really have data from 2025 to compare it to.
And it is not looking good.
And it is looking increasingly like people like Derek Van Orden, Tom Tiffany, Tony Weed, Brian Stahl are not making some kind of a principled stand, but are basically on a paid vacation so that Donald Trump can just run things without them.
them.
Those who hate government the most should be trusted the least to run it competently I'll say it over and over and over again because this is what they want is they want to crush the spirits of people and go you know what fine Just take the the big hike in health insurance.
I need to get you know the snap aid back We need to get government open again.
So fine and you know
Democrats, if they accept that, if they cave in, that's exactly what Trump and Republicans are looking for, is we want to be able to dictate that you're going to pay more for the things we tell you you're going to pay more for.
And health insurance is top of mind.
I mean, millions of Americans are opening the healthcare.gov and shopping for their plans and seeing outrageous price increases.
And it's not just in the news, folks.
This is happening organically.
One of Melissa's friends shared something about a granddaughter, a young adult in Florida who will see like 164% increase next year.
This is happening all over the place.
Yeah, we're talking to Joseph Peckie about election results and now things that are happening back here in Wisconsin as well where, you know, we'll have our elections in just under a year here.
And we had state assembly minority leader Greta Neubauer on in our last hour talking about the fall legislative session.
the things that Democrats would like to be working on, things like healthcare and education, and what we're getting instead.
And one of the things we were getting instead this week was a Republican bill that would ban absentee ballot drop boxes.
That's the bill they decided to give a hearing to this week.
And we've already played the laughable comment from the Sheboygan Falls lawmaker who doubted that the Associated Press is a valid source when it comes to not finding any fraud with absentee ballot drop boxes.
But it really says something about their priorities.
No different than a gilded ballroom at the White House that their priorities are not in line with what people want their legislators to be working on right now.
I don't have much to add other than I will refer people who may have missed it to White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt this week.
who from the podium in the White House, what used to be a hallowed room in my estimation, was alleging that there was a bunch of fraud in the mail-in votes in California.
And when reporters said, you just said that there's fraud, can you provide any evidence for that?
And she responded, it's just a fact.
And they pushed back again.
And once more, she went back to, it's just a fact.
I don't think they know what facts are.
And now it's like, is this, you're telling on yourself when you just say, it's just a fact.
know that you have to actually
demonstrate, and they can't.
But they have been doing this since the 2020 election.
We've said, prove it.
Well, it just is.
Prove it.
Well, it just is.
And that's what we continue to get.
And they tried to la la la their way through this.
And it's just not sticking with folks.
And we will ask Todd Alba about this when he joins the conversation.
Coming up in just a bit, I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News.
Follow us at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
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.
Well, we're all on the program.
We'll have a lot of our regulars.
We'll have Courier Newsrooms key of the keel.
He'll be joined by one of my Courier Newsroom colleagues from Pennsylvania, Sean Kitchen, to talk about election results there and a billionaire who unsuccessfully tried to buy some Supreme Court seats this week.
We will talk to our Week in Review panel, former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, veteran journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze will get sports with Mike Clemens.
We normally have Dr. Kristen Lyrely on, but she will not be on.
She is in Washington, D.C., where she has sent
Plenty of evidence of what an armed encampment the nation's capital has become under, you know, Trump's military rule there.
And so we'll hopefully maybe get an update from her, but we'll see.
But along the way, we've got Joseph Pecky and now Todd Alba from the conveniently named Todd Alba show, joining us as well.
Mr. Alba, how are you?
I'm well.
I'm
well, gentlemen.
How are you?
I think we're all good as well.
Let's get, for the purposes of our show, Todd, your quick overview
if you can, the most general overview of what voters writ large were saying nationwide this week.
Joseph Peck is right.
That's the bottom
line.
If you didn't hear before the break, I think he's right.
It was largely about the economy.
Donald Trump made promises a year ago and the Trump administration and Republicans, my former party, which I left in 2011, have not delivered and people are angry and they can't afford things and they don't understand the chaos in Washington.
All they know is that they can't put food at the tables.
Their health premiums are going up and they can't find anybody to watch their kids go to work and they're ticked off.
the polls.
Yeah.
All right.
And by the way, they want their kids to stay safe.
And so that leads us into the story about teachers and investigations of misconduct of the most terrible kind and losing their licenses and perhaps their jobs and the transparency that's involved with it.
And there's a lot to be said for the CapTimes investigative report.
State Superintendent Jill Underly has issued her own proposals that include more
including for private schools.
You have Republicans who have put forth their own legislation and so Joe is a Democratic political strategist.
Todd is a former Republican state capital staffer.
I ask this in all earnestness.
Is there any chance
that Republicans, Democrats and Governor Evers will come up with something bipartisan that will pass and get signed with a focus on the kids or will this like so many other subjects just devolve into finger pointing and we look back at the end of 2025 and say they just couldn't get it done for the kids.
I will just say very quickly that I think it is possible and it should be possible that this is not that complicated.
If there are bad teachers who have done bad things and should no longer be in classrooms, people across the state of Wisconsin in different school districts should be aware of that.
And I think that same principle should apply to rogue cops who break policies within their departments and then try to go work somewhere else.
I think more transparency is good.
Accountability is good.
And if Republicans can't work with Jill Underly and Tony Evers on this,
That's that's on them.
All
right, Joe.
Thank you Joe Todd
In the words my former broadcasting partner Kevin O'Connor great possibility great possibility for disaster it could go either way.
I think that Yes, I agree Joe.
There is a possibility
I don't know how these things, we all know how these things go.
I just saw the TV highlights or clips from the hearing this week, the Senate hearing where Dr. Underly did show up.
So Kudo's on her, I've been pretty rough for her avoiding those things.
So I'm glad she showed up.
From the clips I saw, the Republicans seemed to be asking
difficult but earnest questions.
I don't know how crazy it got when the cameras were not off.
So to Joe's point, I think there's something there.
We saw what a lot of us, including myself, didn't know if this could be a possibility to even have a state budget this year.
Republicans and the legislature and Governor Evers found a way to push forward.
So it's possible underlies not up for what three and a half years.
So they're not going to try to use us to take her out.
That probably helps the situation.
But we have the midterm elections and the legislature coming up and everybody's trying to score a political point.
So I'm not super optimistic, but I'm
not going to say no.
Okay.
And for my two cents is that something will come of it.
But one of the things that Democrats are going to have to accept is that Republicans will not add more transparency to the private schools.
That's just that that's a line that I think Republicans are going to draw.
And I think that's just a damn shame.
I agree.
It is a shame, but I agree.
Yeah, all right, couple minutes left.
So this one's going to be rather quick.
The topic is Mandela Barnes and the governor's race.
And we've, you know, a lot has been said, especially why he shouldn't get into the race.
I'm not going to have time for all this.
She can be really quick.
Todd, can you make the case for Mandela to get in the race and the case to not get in the race quickly?
High name ID likable guy, a fairly good campaigner on the plus side, negative side.
He's run once and lost never a good sign statewide.
Democrats seem to be apprehensive and already strong democratic field.
Okay.
Joe, same question.
Make the case for Mandela Barnes to get in and the case to say, why don't you wait for Senate in 28 or something like that?
My takeaway from Zoran Mondani's win in New York City is not about where he falls on a left-right political spectrum.
It is that
To succeed, you have to be a dynamic communicator.
Mandela Barnes is a dynamic communicator.
There are others in the democratic field for governor already who are as well, but Mandela can do that as well as anybody.
And there's an appetite for people who bring the type of energy and clarity that Mamdani brought to that race.
And that to me says, why
not?
Okay.
And now play devil's advocate and make the case why you tell him maybe not this time.
No, it is a fair question.
All right.
I got to admit, you guys do great with the speed round and Todd Alba will not be on the speed round.
He'll have two full hours to say whatever the heck he wants.
Weekdays from two to four across the civic media
network.
Birthday boy is on today.
Well, his birthday was yesterday,
but Dan Schaefer
turned 40 and he said that was a little discombobulating.
Yeah, of course it was.
And he shares that birthday with Governor Tony Evers who had a birthday yesterday and one or two other people as well.
So it's a big birthday day for so wish him a belated happy birthday from us.
Joseph Becky.
Thank you very much as always.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
All right, thank
you guys.
All
right.
Good to have you all here as well.
Thanks to all of our guests for being on today.
And we'll do it one more time to wrap up the work week.
I'm Pat Kratlow from Up North News.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy news network building a more informed, engaged and representative America.
Enjoy the rest of your Thursday.
We'll see you 6am right and early right here up north.
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