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Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Critello, powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Critello.
Hey, good morning, 8.06.
It's a Thursday morning, December 4th.
Nice to have you back here up north.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.
We'll be joined in a little while by Sean O'Malley, financial expert to talk about your money and the markets.
and blindfolding the Federal Reserve when it comes to setting interest rates because of the lack of some key statistics due to the government shutdown.
Joseph Heckey will be along as well to talk about the entry of former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes into the governor's race, but before all that, we'll check in with Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO.
Out in Wasauer, he does the local updates throughout these mornings powered by UpNorth News.
Chad, how are you?
Cold.
Yes.
It
is
cold outside.
I was going to say, it's six below here.
There's still some teens below zero and some isolated parts of the state.
And it's, I don't know when we're getting above freezing next, not least for the next several days here.
Yeah, this is a little bit unusual because, I mean, it feels like last number of years, winter has been pushed back.
I remember back in the day, Thanksgiving.
and the early December there would always be snow when I was a kid and then
Recently, it has not been.
I mean, what could be causing that?
I don't know.
I don't know.
It
feels like there's something changing about the climate.
I don't know what.
It's a coincidence.
Yes, I know.
It's a mystery, very much so.
I saw that you had Nancy Stencil on the other day, and when you were on a little break, you were nice enough to loan her to us, Chair of the Marathon County Dems, Seventh CD Dems Chair, either current or past, something like that.
Always.
always has things to talk about up there, especially, you know, in this seventh congressional district where Tom Tiffany is running for governor.
So you have a wide open race now.
And I can only imagine this was after she was on last with you.
But I can only imagine what she and others have to say about Trump, President Trump calling affordability a con job.
As Congressman Mark Pochan reacted to in our in our last hour, I can almost hear Nancy's laugh the next time she's on with you talking about this.
I know.
But the thing about it is, every time you hear the president talking about issues, it is more and more apparent he has no idea what he's talking about.
And I don't mean that to be just throwing mud at the wall or anything like that, but it just is where the first thing out of his mind and out of his mouth is that anything that is of
Any criticism that he takes against him, it's got to be some sort of hoax.
And that's no way to lead a government.
That's the thing that jumps out at me.
It's like, man, I mean, you could do this in so many different ways.
And I think it was you yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, talked about last year.
the idea that the Democrats made some mistakes, especially the president, President Biden, in terms of not acknowledging maybe the issue that was inflation, I think earlier, more significantly in his administration, but that some had said, yes, we understand it, we're gonna try to fix some of these issues, not just ignoring the issue.
And I think Donald Trump takes that so much beyond any other president we've ever seen, where if there's a problem out there,
No, no, there's no problem out there.
Well,
no, it's out there.
The idea that any kind of issue that is a problem under his administration, no, the world is
never ever, ever acknowledge you're wrong.
Never, never acknowledge an error, double down on everything.
But then along with it is never show empathy.
I
mean,
he has talked about, he talked on the campaign trail about affordability, but you could tell he never had the, you know, with Bill Clinton, they always use the line, I feel your pain.
And it was easy to mock him for it.
But you also knew that he meant it.
And Donald Trump has never meant that.
He, at no point has he shown
personal empathy toward the plight of the people who support him.
I mean, even look when that guy passed out in the Oval Office a couple of weeks back.
Did he go over and try to render any assistance or comfort?
No, he just stood there and stared at the wall.
You know, if Joe Biden had done that, they'd be saying, when can we lock this guy up in a nursing home?
And he's not
getting any healthier, and he's not showing the empathy that would be required at a time like this.
So no wonder you have people watching that Tennessee special election this week and going, ooh, next year's gonna be rough unless Republicans figure out real quick how to show some empathy or service.
Well, doesn't that picture a true microcosm of the whole attitude of Trumpism in 2025?
Ignoring it that he ignored a guy that was could have been dying next to him Yeah, and I think that is a microcosm of the the Republican health care plan or lack thereof that millions of people are gonna be either Paying a lot more money for their health care or losing their health care completely and of course when that happens people die and the thing that I there was a member of Congress on
One of the cable networks either yesterday or the day before talking about, you know, the outlines again of what they want to do.
The idea that that again, you talk about high risk folks compared to other folks when it comes to insurance that yes, we want to be able to cover the people in the certain groups and not other groups.
And my thought is, well, I could be or not be in a certain high risk group, but that doesn't mean that next week I won't get sick.
No matter what it, I could be somebody that people say, well, there's no way that he's going to get sick in the next two years.
So maybe we don't have to spend all this money on whatever, but there's no guarantees that anybody won't get sick next week.
And then we put in a situation where they have to spend thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars to try to save their life.
The idea again, that putting your head in the sand on that issue, especially,
where people are going to die is inexcusable.
And yes, I saw that, you know, we, we've heard about the Tennessee race, but was it seven, eight, nine points?
It was like a 22 point
Republican district, right?
My, my first, my first thought is yes, that obviously says that there's a big turn in terms of perception.
But my other thought is literally, literally what would it take for the people in that district?
the turn against Republicans in a way that would not send them to represent them in Washington.
Right.
I mean
literally it's like what would it take?
What would it take?
Because you you've had and I've seen the interviews now around the country of people who are losing like for example their farm and being asked at the at the auction you know
to what degree do you hold President Trump responsible?
And they say, oh, not at all.
He's doing the right thing.
Even though it cost me my farm, I feel like he's on the right track.
So it's that kind of cognitive dissonance that's getting in the way of having service driven.
Republicans joining with service driven Democrats in getting things done.
We're talking to Chad Holmes from 98 9 WXCO in Warsaw.
You can see a lot of the work that he's doing and updated high school sports that he covers at WXCO.fm.
And you've had a busy few days covering high school sports.
It looks like you got do you cover do the hockey as well as the basketball?
I was gonna say I see a couple of
hockey games on the dock at Friday, Wausau West at Waukesha High School.
Get put on the bus with the guys this weekend.
Every other year, they go down to Southeast Wisconsin.
And on Friday night, they play at Waukesha.
Saturday, they're at University School.
New school, so we go on the old bus and they're nice enough to provide me a room and get to hang out with everybody.
at the hotel on Friday night, big, big parties going on, you know, those rowdy hockey players.
Oh, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
And it's not it's always, it's always fun.
They, they treat me like one of their own.
It's as close as I will ever get to being on skates on the hockey
race.
Well, there you go.
So Friday, the game against Waukesha from Wausau West starts at 645.
Again, you can hear it on the app.
And then Saturday, Wausau West at University School that Saturday at 215.
And you can catch that
game on the civic media app.
So by the way, real fast, by the way, the one of the things that I really don't like about going to university school, the arena is named after Dick Uline.
Of course it is.
Of course it is because
you know, but that's the one it's good for him to do that.
I will say that it's I wish he would spend more money on helping
kids and, and, uh, and not electing people who are kids and families, money ads.
Yeah.
Right.
Well,
look, and the same goes for Diane Hendricks, another billionaire who has put a ton of money into, uh, blight sports facilities.
Yeah.
And again, good, good for her on that.
Maybe just spend a little less on the people who are giving billionaires like you all the big tax breaks.
But I bring up the sports only to close with, uh, again, uh, it seems we're, we're going to do this every year.
if the bucks aren't, uh, you know, if they're, if they don't have a perfect record, we're going to be talking about whether, uh, Yana Santatacupo is being traded or not.
Do we, do we buy into the hype or do, are we just waving it all dismissively and saying they got to talk about something?
You cannot wave it dismissively this time because I mean, you kind of, you know, people kind of, oh, you know, it was a social media.
He or somebody within his group decided to make a statement by scrubbing the social media.
You don't do that if things are going hunky-dory.
So that this is not a national.
I know a lot of people like to say, oh ESPN is trying to best us to get clicks and and discuss discuss where where Yanis can go next.
I mean, I saw an article last night when I got home from my from work and I'm one of the sports sites that I follow talking about ranking the the 29 other NBA teams in order in their likelihood of getting Yanis.
I mean,
it's like, you
know, it's crazy, but
Giannis did make an active move there by by by taking you know cleaning off his
his social media outside of the championships.
And he was saying something there.
And, and I, and I don't think it's all just being made up by the ESPN insider shams that there's not going to be a discussion.
And I don't think it's, I don't think it was a coincidence that happened after the most embarrassing loss that you could possibly have in Washington earlier in the week.
And now who knows?
I mean, we have to find out exactly how serious that calf injury is that he suffered last night,
right?
Because if he's injured for a significant
amount of time all this goes to the back burner anyways because you're you're not trading him when he's hurting because you got to make sure that number one you if it gets to the point where they need to trade them you cannot be saying well you honest where would you like to go we're gonna try to do
well by you because you've been great to us.
No, you go out and you make this an auction for as much as you can get to try and rebuild the franchise because that's the only way you can turn it around in a rather quick way.
And there is an outline.
I mean, longtime Bucks fans will recall it was about 50 years ago when they were
put in a position where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wanted to be traded and they traded them and it did not tank the franchise.
They actually had a really good run for more than a decade after that because they were able to get some really good players.
They got a couple of players whose numbers are in the rafters at Pfizer Forum like Brian Winters and Junior Bridgeman and Dave Myers was part of this trade with the Lakers and a number one pick.
I mean, they were able to, they were able to reload.
So if they get to the point they have to trade
Giannis, you cannot be playing this.
Well, we're gonna try to do well by him.
No, you put you go out there and you try to get as much as you possibly can for them to try to make the transition to the next phase as painless as possible and not be forced to go into a full level tank and they really can't because they've traded so many of their top draft picks over the next handful of years.
So a tank really is not an option because it won't do any good if you don't have any draft picks when they're going to somebody else.
Hey Parker, have you ever considered having Chad Holmes on as a guest for the
Make the call.
Sports show Saturday mornings from seven to eight on the Civic Media app because you really ought to.
We should.
Your name has been thrown around.
You're on our radar.
Yeah.
Well, not this weekend.
He's going to be out carousing with the hockey
team.
So safe travels.
Safe travels.
Have a good time.
We'll check in with you next week.
Chad Holmes, everybody.
Follow him at 989 WXCO back in a little bit.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media radio network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Speaking up on 823 on this Thursday morning, December 4th on Facebook from Ardeth.
I'm not into sports very often, but I do like listening to Chad Holmes.
He knows how to make it interesting.
Thank you, Ardeth.
That goes right in the file that I will be sending Civic Media Management saying, give that guy a raise.
Let's check in now with Sean O'Malley to talk about your money and the markets, taking that extensive Wall Street career of his coming back home to Wisconsin and sharing with us some of his
the problem with the knowledge though is that you got to have basic statistics to back it all up and that seems to be a problem.
We're going to kick things off with essentially blind folding the Federal Reserve.
Sean, good morning.
How are you?
Yeah, good morning.
I thought the the intro song there, Pat, you know, Steely Dan's I'm a fool to do your dirty work.
Yep.
That is the perfect intro for this particular segment because what we're dealing with is
It smells a lot like dirty work.
Yeah, we we know that we had a lack of economic data when the federal government shutdown was on Okay, that made sense.
We understood what was going on and a couple weeks ago, right?
We did have one number come out.
We had non-farm payroll come out We announced it, you know, basically Right after it was announced on your show It was up for September 115,000 jobs But there was an increase in unemployment
Right from 4.3% to 4.4% which kind of goes to show that even if you have an increase in jobs You can also have an increase in the unemployment rate because the replacement rate Which I've been talking about for a while tends to need to be around 150 so 100,000 is is pretty anemic well We're gonna have even less to talk about in terms of economic news because now
the federal government has decided that they are not going to be announcing the October reports for any of the major categories.
So that means non-farm payroll, not for October, unemployment, not for October, and inflation or the consumer price index also will not be announced for October.
Huh.
Those seem like important.
Those are really the three major drivers of economic news.
There's big economic news and there's small economic news.
That's big economic news
Yeah,
and the worst part is that now they've decided to change the calendaring of the announcements for December of the November data So we're skipping October entirely doesn't exist will never exist in the records from an economic data perspective But the November data instead of being announced like non-farm payroll that first Friday
in December?
Oh, no, no, is being moved until after the December 9th and 10th Fed Open Market Committee meeting at which they decide interest rates.
So we're asking the Fed to make decisions on interest rates, like I said, blindfolded.
Basically, yeah.
Blind blind, let's maximize our political influence.
I mean, that's what I read about that.
You know, this is dirty work.
We're going to maximize the influence that we can exert on the, you know, Federal Reserve governors politically, and we're going to deny them the data that they would normally have to be able to talk about things in an intelligent way.
And that just enables you to continue to ratchet up the political pressure, just do it the way that we want to do it.
That would be
dirty work enough in and of itself.
Now we have an item about the Secretary of the Treasury essentially playing politics with the withholding that people do with their paychecks.
What is it he's he's suggesting and why do you think it's not such a great idea?
Well, I'm going to put it in perspective by hitting the the highlight the high point first, which is
changing withholding taxes.
is probably the dumbest way to try to make things feel like they're more affordable because you'll have more money in your pocket.
This is like a
50-year mortgage.
When he
says, well, just reduce your tax withholding amounts from your 2026 taxes.
Correct.
It's the same feel good thing and it just shifts the pain.
And I get the sense there's a political motivation for wanting to move that pain point.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's what can we do to increase affordability?
This is again, probably the dumbest way because all you're doing is you're moving it.
And the thing is you're not moving it that far.
But most importantly, you're moving it to April of 2027.
So in other words, after
the midterms in 2026.
Oh,
after the midterms is when you'll see that higher tax bill.
But
you're going to push all of that tax burden off.
Take the money now so that next, you know, so that April of 2027, you're going to go, wait a minute, you know, I owe how much?
This sounds not just dumb, but sounds dangerous.
Yeah.
Well, imagine people getting there and they haven't
saved for it.
They haven't reserved for it.
And suddenly, it's the one big expenditure that you cannot ignore, because it's the federal tax system.
And you've got to pay it.
So people are going to get to April 2027, they haven't withheld enough, because they listened to Scott Besant, the Trump's Treasury Secretary.
And then they're going to get this bill.
But by that point, again, in much like a lot of the Medicaid cuts in the
you know, big boondoggle bill won't happen until after the midterms.
They're trying to push this pain off as well.
There's just so much sleight of hand here from blindfolding the Fed to giving bad advice on withholding.
I mean, honestly, if this administration had a motto, it would be la la la la la.
Not pay attention to the bad stuff right now and push it all off
and
put the fingers in the ears.
No, it doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist.
Because we say it doesn't exist.
And then, oh, what?
It's real?
You know, that's going to be the response later on.
And, you know, at that point in 2027, let's face it, Trump is quacking.
Well,
yes, he's not already.
Right.
So, you know, again, put off the pain.
I just don't know that that's going to fly with with a lot of folks.
Sean O'Malley is with us.
We're going to get into some of the payroll numbers for employment as well coming up in just a bit.
And then we're going to be joined after that by Joseph Peckie.
We will talk about Mandela Barnes entry into the governor's race and what that does to the field.
It had all been speculation, but now we're actually at that point.
So
Where does that go with a large democratic field of people who want to succeed Tony Evers as governor?
I'm Pat Crightlow from UpNorth News.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network, back in a minute.
Joseph Becky is coming up in just a bit, 8.35 on this Thursday morning.
I'm Pac Wright, low in Chippewa Falls, and we're talking about your money in the markets with Sean O'Malley right now.
And let's get to the point of some nasty numbers.
I mean, the numbers don't lie when it comes to payroll, but also when it comes to, as people like to say, the vibe about the economy.
Let's start with the payroll numbers, which, again, we're not having some government numbers, but that doesn't mean
There aren't some numbers out there to guide us along the way, right, Sean?
That's correct, Pat.
Um, yeah.
So what has sort of been the default proxy for non-farm payroll given its sporadic, uh, announcements, uh, this fall, people are turning to, you know, the large payroll provider ADP for their jobs data.
And, uh, there was an expectation for fairly anemic, uh, 40,000 jobs up reported for November.
Uh, that didn't happen.
Didn't go up at all, in fact, went down, went down 32,000 jobs.
So we are definitely seeing a continuing softening of the labor market in the US, which is never a good thing.
How much of this, I know we talked about this a week or two ago, but I mean, is it, is it, how over simplified?
How much oversimplification is it to say that if it weren't for the AI bubble, that the Trump folks obviously want to stay inflated.
But if it weren't for that, people would be much more aware of how soft all of the other economic numbers are.
Well, I think what you're dealing with is a thing that's really bifurcating the economy, which is why you're seeing some of the polling numbers go the direction that they're going.
The economy for those at a certain income bracket and up is doing just fine.
Yeah,
the markets seem to be
fine.
Markets up, you know, 15% on the S&P for the year, roughly.
And yeah, you know, you're sitting pretty, no big deal.
Your taxes are probably going down a little bit.
But for the vast majority of Americans, it is not a great situation.
Jobs are being lost.
People are hanging out the jobs that they've got, even though their satisfaction with them is decreasing, because they're so scared about the economic uncertainty.
You have the hit from tariffs, which, even though the Trump administration denies that they're attacks, they're attacks.
And they've basically had to say as much to the Supreme Court in the hearing on the issue.
And you've got a lot of friction in there.
And stagflation is still the big economic mover.
And so that's reflected in in current polling on Trump's approval rating.
Yeah, right.
I mean, the latest Gallup poll, which tends to be the most widely accepted and also kind of a little bit more on the conservative side, they don't really do wild swings.
They came out with a very surprising number of 60% disapproval for Trump and 36% approval.
Now, ironically,
But perhaps not surprisingly, those are the exact same numbers for approval and disapproval on the economy.
Oh, well, see, it still is the economy stupid.
It still is.
Yeah, you know, about James Carville, you
know, true words, never spoken in politics.
Sean O'Malley, thanks so much as always for the economic update.
We'll talk to you a little later.
All
right, take her.
All right.
Let's bring in Joseph Peckie right now.
Who's going to tell us more about, you know,
how money in the markets translates into polls and polling on things like election day.
But Joe, first and foremost, how was your Thanksgiving weekend?
I don't see you wearing a cast or anything like that.
No, we survived the Turkey Bowl unscathed.
Had a lovely time.
I hope yours was good as well.
I hope you're once again warm
in your home.
Yes, I don't know if I've told the follow-up story, but yes, the furnace is working again.
It turns out we found a new technician, a new company, and the guy didn't just look and go, well, I'm not seeing the problem.
Call me back when it repeats itself.
He actually waited.
And he waited almost an hour, but the problem did finally pop up again so he could see exactly what it was.
Replace the part, the furnace is working again.
It's amazing what happens when you get people who are actually, who take service seriously.
And I know that sounds like an old man thing, but I don't feel like it is.
I feel like
there are
some people that actually want to do their job right and are willing to work hard, even if they have to sit there and look at a furnace for a while because they know I'm not crazy.
So, end of rant.
I'm warm again.
Thank
you.
You're not crazy, Pat.
Everyone else is.
That's, well, maybe not even everyone else, but at least
I'm not crazy
on that particular thing, Dr. Evil.
Thank you so much.
You know, we'll get to Mandela Barnes on the governor's race, but let's piggyback off of what Sean had to say about public sentiment.
And again, we know in Wisconsin, perhaps more than any place else, being as purple a state as we are, that polling
especially well ahead of an election does not translate and the quintessential example is Ron Johnson.
He has never been anything other than underwater in polling in terms of approval disapproval and yet he has won three different elections so you know the the lesson of course is you know you cannot count your your electoral chickens before they're hatched here but having said all that these numbers forgive the naughty word here but if you're any republican in wisconsin or elsewhere these numbers they
Yeah, and polling is an imperfect science.
What I often say is polling is noise, election results are signal.
And what we saw this week in Tennessee in a special election in a overwhelming like plus 22 plus 23 Trump district was a 13 point over performance by the Democratic candidate Afton Bain.
And it wasn't a low turnout special election.
In the 2022 election in Tennessee's seventh congressional district, there were 180,000 votes cast.
On Tuesday, there were 179,000 votes cast.
And, you know, so if you are a Republican, whether you are a statewide Republican who won by less than 13 points, or whether you are Brian Stile,
or Derek Van Orden sitting in a congressional district that you won by a lot less than 13 points.
This is a five alarm fire for Republicans.
And it speaks to the broader challenges that the country is facing, the economy is facing, and a failure by Donald Trump and Republicans to do a damn thing about it.
And by the way, things are going to get even worse.
it does not appear that Trump and Republicans have a solve to skyrocketing health care prices.
No.
We have no reason to believe that Donald Trump is all of a sudden going to have the Midas touch when it comes to the economy.
How could we when this week he described the affordability crisis as a Democrat hoax.
So
the political environment is going to get worse for Republicans, but it's already pretty bad.
And that is, of course, first and foremost because of the economic anxiety that Wisconsin families and American families are facing.
And you and I both know because we have worked with people who would be considered more moderate Republicans.
We know what would happen in a in a more normal time is you'd see.
Republicans who want to work on some kind of solution to say, for example, well, we don't want all of the enhanced premium credits for the Affordable Care Act restored, but we're willing to come up a little bit on it because it's hurting people.
But instead, we've got a bunch that will double down and say, we're ignoring your pain because we're right, or at least we're just going to do whatever it is that we want to do.
And right now, Joe,
i'm not seeing any sign in madison or washington that there are republicans who are going you know maybe we shouldn't be joined at the hip with this guy
no they refuse to do it the easiest thing in the world for republicans to do would be to extend the tax credits for a short period of time and then roll out their own health care plan but they don't have one right they've had 16 years and they don't have one
So I loved this little anecdote I saw.
President Trump's pollster was advising congressional Republicans this week that when people complain about rising health care premiums, they should ignore that question and pivot to things they can do to lower drug costs.
It's like, yeah, maybe if you just ignore the problem, American families won't see that their premiums are spiking.
Come
on.
That's but that's it that that that's how this works and They're continuing well, especially in the White House, you know continuing to do whatever it is they want to do and that that includes, you know the The the tone deafness of all of these
pardons that Trump is granting.
And I know people like to say, well, you know, Biden granted a lot of pardons and blah, blah, blah.
Here are the numbers.
I saw this on CNN yesterday.
George W. Bush, 189 pardons.
Barack Obama, 212 pardons.
Trump in his first term, 144 pardons.
You had Joe Biden, 80 pardons.
Trump so far.
more than 1,500 pardons starting with everything about the domestic terrorism that happened on January 6th in the capital of the United States, but now drug kingpins and grifters who rip people off to the tune of over a billion dollars.
I mean, Joe, I think people are kind of figuring out if you elect a convicted criminal as president, he's the one that's going to be opening up the prison gates, not somebody else who's
quote unquote soft on crime this is the ultimate soft on crime
yeah and the raw numbers don't even begin to speak to the corruption of it or the dissonance between we have the united states armed forces committing probably war crimes and extrajudicial killings on the high seas in the name of preventing drugs from reaching america on the one hand and on the other hand
Donald Trump just pardoned someone who is convicted of flooding America's streets with these same drugs.
So it's just, it's a mess.
It's a mess and they can't get their story straight.
Was the boat heading to Trinidad or was the boat heading to the US?
There's so much about the story that they can't keep straight because, again, there isn't
anything about them that wants to say, you know, guys, we're going to level up.
We, we, we kind of, you know, didn't get this one right.
And because any, anything like that is a sign of weakness.
When you and I and the voters know better, we actually want to see a little humility
and our
knowledge, you're not perfect.
But we got, we got a guy and the people who worship him going, well, of course he's perfect.
He's infallible.
What do you want?
And I mean, they're finding out you can only carry that act for so long.
No, exactly.
Listen, and
Folks like Derek Van Orden know full well that if you fire on survivors of an attack who are clinging to debris, that is a war crime.
It is literally the textbook example that people in the Navy get and when you get to the level that Mr. Van Orden did in his service,
you get that drilled into your head over and over and over again.
So this story is far from done.
But some people are going to be out of a job
at minimum.
All I'd like to see.
just once is some kind of profile and courage from a guy, if not Van Orden, then somebody else who served to say, you know, I love this president and I love everything he stands for, but this was a screw up.
Well, we're seeing some Republicans, you know,
yeah, there's one to investigate and I okay, you're right.
We are seeing it in some little pockets of places.
but I cannot believe a certain Wisconsin Republican or two, Scott Fitzgerald, has served in the military as well, that we're not seeing it from them.
We're talking to Joseph Pecky, and in a bit we will get to the other big topic in Wisconsin politics, and that is what's happening with the Wisconsin governor's race.
Now that former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is in, along with not just a former Lieutenant Governor, but the current Lieutenant Governor, a state senator, a state representative, a county executive,
former, you know, top state official, and more.
Where's a Democratic voter supposed to go assessing all of this?
We'll talk to Joseph Pecky about that coming up in just a bit.
Tomorrow, of course, we'll have our Week in Review panel as we do every Friday.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
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Mandela Barnes getting into the governor's race in just a bit.
First, of course, the obligatory hand wringing about the Milwaukee Bucks and the whole, oh, Yannis wants to be traded.
No, Yannis has never said anything about it whatsoever.
You are much more of a fan and follower of this, so this is my check in with you on where you are with all this.
I'm doing okay.
I'm nervous.
I'm worried for Yannis, especially after leaving the game with the injury last night.
but I'm also of the mind that he has earned all the grace and space in the world to make the decision that is best for him and his family.
There you go.
All right.
So folks didn't hear it.
Yeah, you went out with a, I think a right calf strain yesterday and.
Non-contact.
It could be a little scary.
Yeah.
Yep.
So we'll see how that happens.
They play at home against Philadelphia tomorrow.
All right.
Well, we've, we've spent a lot of time, you know, speculating that, you know, will he or won't he, and this week we learned that Mandela Barnes is now in the governor's race.
It is, there are six Democrats all with their various
of experience.
We have kind of been to this rodeo before back in 2017, 2018 with a large field of Democratic candidates.
So again, this is more of a, how are you feeling question, but to you as you look at the field right now and you look at the landscape that's likely to be there in 2026, how do you feel about this field writ large?
Like we have an embarrassment of riches.
Our Democratic candidate cup
runneth over.
Wherever you fall within the Democratic Party, there is somebody for you.
And what I'm a little frustrated by this week is some of what we've seen in terms of the reaction to Mandela Barnes getting into the race.
This is a six pack of really good candidates.
You can find somebody to be for.
And if you don't know who to be for, you can
Find a way to figure out which one you're gonna be for.
You can ask them questions.
You can go see them do the thing.
You can send an email.
There are ways to figure this out.
And then you can go and be for that person.
And that is the way that primaries can really be a good thing, a way to build the party and grow the party.
What we don't need to see are cheap shots and people who either haven't picked a candidate yet.
or have picked a candidate, but think it's fun to dunk on a candidate that they're not supporting, we don't need that.
There's just no place for it.
Mandela Barnes is a guy who got 1.3 million votes in Wisconsin, came closer than any Democrat in America to unseating a Republican incumbent in the United States Senate in 2022.
And he was a really good lieutenant governor, a really good partner to Tony Evers.
Sarah Rodriguez, really good partner to Tony Evers.
David Crowley, running the largest county in the state of Wisconsin.
Missy Hughes, somebody who ran a billion dollar business.
There is someone for you in this race.
So be for your person.
Don't, you know,
For sport, dunk on people you may not be supporting because whoever emerges from this, the day after the primary next August, every Democrat and every person who knows that we can do better than what we're getting out of Trump and Republicans in this country, we're going to have to come together as one team.
And so that's what I think it's important to say this week.
And by the way, to round out the field, to see the comments out there by people who are fans of Representative Francesca Hong or Senator Keldor-Royce, they're all doing the thing that I, too, would recommend.
And that is, pick somebody you like and be very vocal about the
way
you like that person.
But then if that person comes up short, understand, eyes on the prize.
Yeah, this is where we got to go.
We're talking to Joseph Peckie here.
We started the show with this, with the former Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, conservative justice Annette Ziegler, using essentially a made up quote to
completely changed the meaning of a U.S.
Supreme Court decision as it involves the congressional maps and whether lower courts can get involved in them.
She did then issue kind of a revision but didn't really take back her, I would argue, intentional misinterpretation of what this court did.
It doesn't get a lot of attention because it sounds kind of technical, but
This is a big no-no for a state Supreme Court justice, but it's also very in line with MAGA world of never admitting you're wrong.
Up is down, you know, what I say goes, don't believe you're lying eyes.
Listen, I don't know if this was a mistake from a clerk or if Justice Ziggler herself was actually writing this opinion, but it is, it's a pretty tough look.
And she's been on the bench for a very long time.
So she knows better, I'm gonna, you know, speaking of grace and space, give her the benefit of the doubt that this was not intentional.
And whether it was or wasn't, doesn't matter because she was in the minority.
And now there's a couple of three judge panels that are gonna look at this.
I'm still pretty skeptical that there's gonna be new maps before 2026, but there's no question that
having a 6-2, six Republicans, two Democrats in Congress representing our state, when we are literally the definition of a 50-50 state, it's a little out of whack.
Something's off there.
Makes no sense.
I only need 30 seconds on this, which is fine, because we're getting back to the governor's race, but the one in Minnesota, because Mike Lindell, the my pillow guy, has filed paperwork to run for governor.
So Joe, we got that working in our favor.
We don't have any wackadoodles quite yet.
I mean, some of Tom Tiffany's policy positions are pretty wackadoodle.
Just
because he hasn't made a billion dollars selling bad pillows, doesn't mean that he's not a way out of step with the people of
Wisconsin.
Doesn't make the ideas any better, exactly.
Joseph Pecky, thank you very much.
We'll talk to you later.
Have a good one.
All right, thanks to all of our guests today.
Of course, Joe Specky there, Congressman Mark Pocan, Sean O'Malley, Chad Holmes, James Kelly, Sharita Booker, Parker Olson, and to you for being here this morning.
I'm Pat Critello, founding editor of Up North News, part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy news network.
Enjoy the rest of your Thursday.
We'll see you back here tomorrow morning, bright and early 6 a.m.
here up north.
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