How Trump’s Policies Are Wrecking Your Coffee (Hour 2)

Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Across

Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network.

and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaugh with our outstanding producer and engineer, Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.

It is six past the hour of 12 noon on this Tuesday, April 15th, 2025.

It is a great day.

to be Wisconsinite, the World Headquarters of Civic Media, Downtown Madison.

Skies are partly cloudy or partly sunny, whichever you prefer.

Not too bad of a day, a little chill in the air, Mr. Zombers, but glad to be back on the air with you.

You were down at that brewer blowout last night, but not in a good way.

I sure was, and it sure was demoralizing.

But you had great seats.

I did have great seats.

It was a good time, but it also...

There was one point and I believe the sevens inning I might be remembering incorrectly towards the end of the game where the bases were loaded.

We could have gotten a Grand Slam, you know or something, but no, it just petered out the Brewers never caught their footing

tough game for the Brewers last night against the Tigers.

They'll try again this evening pregame show starts at 6 0 5 across the network in Richland center Oshkosh or a scene Kenosha Park Falls and beautiful Hayward

The tiger is against the brewers tonight at 605 and it's tax day.

One of my least favorite holidays or days in America is tax day.

But one of my favorite people in all of America joins us now on Tuesday.

He is the host of Up North News radio every morning from six until eight.

And I think now I can can I can I announce the new part now as well.

Yes, okay And it's starting next Wednesday the host of mornings with Pat quite low here on the civic media radio network.

Mr. Pat quite low.

How are you Patrick?

I'm great because it is tax day one of my favorite days of the good Lord.

Why

and I'll tell you why please

Uh, in the many people that I met while, uh, serving in the legislature and running for Congress, I will never forget one particular farmer who had done very well for himself and he was, he was quite old by this point.

And he said, there used to be more people like me, uh, who said this, but I

love paying my taxes because it reminds me how far I have come in life that there were days when I'm the one who needed help.

I needed handouts or a hand up and now

My taxes go toward educating our kids, having good roads, all the things that make Wisconsin better than almost anyplace else in the world to live.

And that is something we should be proud of, not cynical about.

You know, he described himself as an FDR New Deal Democrat because he was old enough to remember, you know, what times were like when times were a lot, lot tougher.

And it's so easy for us to be cynical.

selfish and believe that all of the bad things in the past are staying in the past but if we've learned nothing over the past oh I don't know a couple of months it's that some of the worst features of that era the pre-new deal era can very much happen again so we'd best be thankful for what we've got and we'd best not

Take it for granted.

I think

that's a lovely, lovely sentiment.

And I agree.

We're fortunate to live in a country where there are services.

And to get those services, I get it.

Of course, if you want good roads, look, we all got to pay taxes.

We got to have good roads, things like that.

It doesn't take the burn off my wallet anymore.

Because I'd save up.

I knew I was going to have to pay this year.

And I knew I had to say, and now I have this nice little

savings.

And now it's all

gone.

But it's like saying, oh, Christmas really snuck up on me.

No, it didn't.

No, it didn't.

It's December 25th every year.

And if.

Look.

If you're either expecting a really big refund or you've really got to pay in a lot well again That's not the fault of you know the government you you got to plan these things out because you you roughly know your income barring any unforeseen circumstances So you're either withholding too much or too little and by the way don't take all of this all this pleasant rhetoric about it as any kind of you know endorsement of the current tax system It's a joke.

It was made more of a joke by Donald Trump

Ron Johnson and others in 2017.

And I cannot believe we are at this point again, where the disaster they created then is about to be recreated here.

There's all the politicians that are like, oh, we should have a flat tax and something so simple you can put it on a postcard.

Well, first off, no, we need the exact opposite of a flat tax.

And second, yes, we could make the system a lot easier.

the IRS pretty much knows what your income is.

They could tell you, in many other countries, they send you a letter saying, here was your income, here was your situation, if it hasn't changed at all, here's what your tax or your refund would be.

And we could simplify it that way, but there are too many people, places, companies that make money off of the tax industry to allow Congress to ever make taxes easier on us, and that's a damn shame.

Yeah, I, I, I pretty

much go along with that.

I, I just come, I have an absolute bias.

So I come with, to it with a personal bias because my years has been a small business owner in Wisconsin and employed whenever around a dozen people part time, well, one guy full time.

And I, I just, in my experience and talking to other people the same way that more to your point, Pat, that the way, even in the state of Wisconsin.

You're working 90 hours a week when you're running your own business.

And then you got Yahoo's that are like, oh, you didn't file a piece of paper that said you're going to be paying us taxes.

Did I pay all my taxes?

Yes.

But you never filed a piece of paper.

So that's a $1,500 fund.

I could not

agree with you more because when I first knew I might be running for elected office and we had kids here and we were both working crazy.

and so we hired a cleaning lady.

And remember the old days, when a cleaning lady, that was enough that you couldn't get a cabinet appointment for a newly elected president because you didn't pay taxes on the cleaning lady's income.

So I wanted to make sure to follow those rules.

And so let me say for the record here, because I still have an LLC, I do nothing with it, but I just wanted it to be there just in case.

the system in Wisconsin is an absolute joke.

It is.

It is everything that you just said and more.

And if I could have tackled anything else as a legislator, it would have been to tear into that and say, why does this have to be so complex?

So again, don't take my comments on the concept of taxation going to good things versus an endorsement of the tax system.

It's awful.

and needs to be

fixed.

One quick thing, if you, because I've been there and so confused, I seize up because partly my dyslexia is more numbers than letters, but

But I can look at a state budget, multi-million dollar, billion dollar state budget, I can explain it to people fine.

But to sit and do things on my taxes, it just freaks me out.

And so I was in the place in years past where like, I didn't want to do something wrong and file something incorrectly.

So I didn't, I just didn't file.

And I thought it was better not to do something incorrectly.

That's, by the way, that's the wrong answer.

If you need, if you're out there and you're like me, at least file an extension, you could go online, do it fairly easily.

They ask you to pay what you think you might owe if you owe anything.

If you don't think you're going to owe anything, just file that extension.

It's a one-page formula.

It'll save you a lot of headaches moving forward because, folks, I've been there.

Absolutely.

And yes, I've said multiple times, if you can't make it today, don't skip it.

The only people who can skip on taxes today are millionaires and billionaires because Donald Trump gutted the IRS.

Not the one that goes after regular folks, the one that goes after multi-millionaires skipping out on their taxes.

Joe Schmo not going to get away with it.

So file the extension if you can't get it done today.

This is your tax service from Pat and Todd today.

No, no.

We are the H and R blockheads.

I did I do my taxes now the great folks HR block in Monroe, Wisconsin and my tax preparer her name is faith block I'm not making that up no relation But yeah, and I just you know so I can report to you that my taxes have been filed in my my Destin Society had been paid I

noticed my bank account shortly after midnight had the right amount plucked out of it.

Well, you guys didn't waste any

time Not at all.

All right.

Yeah, and all seriousness Patrick of a quick

Apology on the air.

I did this last week off the air because last week I had been told and Zomers is my witness.

Oh Zomers again.

Stop it.

But quickly I just wanted to do this.

The

lineup is out there.

It's okay.

I know but but I did this I really feel terribly because as Zomers is my witness I was told I was free to talk about the lineup and then I blew it because you had not announced on your show that you're on the new lineup and I really really felt badly so I apologized to you and your listeners for getting ahead of the game on that that's on me.

But talking about the new lineup and the new show, it's very exciting.

I, I, I filled in for somebody on this network yesterday and my first question to the producer was, have they mentioned the change yet on

this

show?

Nope.

Oh, it's going to be awkward talking about my change, but okay, here we go.

Uh, but you know, people have sick days and things like that.

Anyway, uh, up North news radio is getting a name change.

It's getting a new time slot and expanded time slot instead of six to eight on weekday mornings.

It'll be six to nine.

So there's more me to go around apparently.

Fantastic.

Yeah, followed by Matt Nair on air from 9 to 11 will be their new time.

And then of course, your new time is two to four.

Wait,

it is?

No, no, it is.

Don't do this again.

No,

no.

So I'm very flattered to be asked to do an extra hour of programming.

I hope it's a nice endorsement of what we're doing.

in terms of, you know, will we be doing much of anything different?

Two things.

One is that I am, and I haven't even announced this on my show yet.

Something else we're breaking on your show first is I'm tired of fighting with Facebook and YouTube.

and other social media companies when we play music, you know, pop music,

you

know, we're still going to do the this day in music history thing.

And we're going to find a way to keep that section off of social media or something.

But in terms of all of our other bumper music and everything, it's just too much of a hassle.

And there's a lot of great, you know, independent music out there that's not restricted by license.

So it'll sound a little different.

It'll have a different name mornings.

with Pat

Critelaw.

With

a conveniently named Pat Critelaw.

With a conveniently named Pat Critelaw.

It'll have that.

And then the one other thing is that obviously with an extra hour, I tend to do some kind of a, we have a regular stable of guests at 6.30.

We try to bring in newsmakers and political folks at 7.30.

Well now at 8.30, I'm hoping to do the other thing that we do at Up North News, which is much more Wisconsin features.

We don't do enough features on our radio show.

So if we can talk about people, places, food, drink, you know, all things that

As one man likes to say, make Wisconsin great.

I think that that's a very noteworthy thing.

And I hope people will give us ideas for guests and topics.

Yeah, I totally

agree.

It's, you know, I have all people.

Change is never easy.

But I think there are some good things happening.

And certainly part of it is increasing your show to three hours.

LA Tom on YouTube said, asking about Earl Ingram show and just make sure that folks know.

I know Jane talked about this this morning on her show.

Earl is not going anywhere, by the way.

Earl and Civic and Earl have agreed to this, and I'm totally excited about it, that he is, instead of doing his morning show, he is going to be an ongoing special correspondent to Civic.

He is going to do kind of a podcast type of thing and be on different shows talking about different things.

So he will be on

our show?

Yeah.

We'll be talking to Chad Holmes that way as

well.

Right.

A lot of fun ahead of us.

So Earl's not going anywhere.

Hope you aren't either.

Come on back.

Pack quite low.

Todd Albal, Zombers on the other side.

This is the Todd Albal Show for a Tuesday.

On the Civic...

radio, radio

network.

With pontoon fishing knowledge so large, he had to go to three hours to give it to you every morning.

Pat Critello of the newly named Mornings with Pat Critello starting next week across static media from 6 until 9 a.m.

Patrick Critello joins us every Tuesday.

We'll see where we're kind of working out all of our new schedules.

But the good news is we'll still talk to you once a week at some point.

Well, I just want to find out with the new schedule whether Old Man Trigvia is still coming along.

Can I get back to being reunited with him?

Because he makes me sound so young and virile all the time here.

So that's fantastic.

I would go for that.

I can learn so much

at his knee.

Well, we'll see if we can get the band back together here.

April 15th at his tax day.

This is from the no, no, Todd.

They're never listening to us.

Pat and I were talking last segment about to be in tax day.

I'm not I'm not joking around.

Literally.

during the break.

On my phone, this pops up.

The weight we carry, a tax day reflection from Main Street for small business owners.

I mean, look at this.

You just talk about it and suddenly something pops up on your phone about what you're doing.

No, none of, we're not being listened to by anybody.

No, no, no.

No, it's all good.

I mean, very secure.

Jeff Perry, your ongoing contributor and friend on Facebook saying, I have good news and bad news.

This tax day, the good news is by refund this year, $47,000.

The bad news, I'm going to federal prison.

I would suggest spending that refund.

Quickly, quickly, very quickly.

I would suggest spending it, not at all.

Well, yeah, there's that too.

Oh lordy.

Uh, Pat, it's, uh, lots going on, uh, news as it is every, every day.

I talked about this a bit with Jane and Greg on Matt on air this morning.

I know you did on up North news as well.

There is a, uh, a new candidate on the Republican side, a new, uh, billionaire boy who wants to be governor.

I don't know if he's a billionaire, but I do know he's the, you know, CEO business owner.

And, uh, that being the case, it means that we're, we're.

doing another round of the Tim Michaels, Eric Hovde.

Let's run government like a business.

Let's bring out all the same old tropes.

And whatever this guy's situation is, his announcement read, no different.

He's a carbon copy of Tim Michaels and Eric Hovde.

And all I'm saying, and I'm not trying to make trouble.

That's not true.

I'm trying to make trouble here.

Good trouble.

Will somebody,

in the Republican party of Wisconsin stand up and go, no, no, let's, let's not try this again.

Now I, I'm not saying that there's some other perfect candidate who would, who would be the, the GOP nominee for governor.

I'm just saying that if, if you're going to run the same model for a third time at least, I mean, I think they were all hoping the Ron Johnson model would stick, you know, wealthy business guy.

But remember, he's got, he's got a lot more money behind him.

Yeah, and even even then he only squeaked through last time Maybe you want to look again.

I just imagined Rebecca Clefish looking at the radio going right right The

key is I think in Ron Johnson's case use your wife's money That's you know, that's the key for Ron Johnson.

No this story We're talking about by Molly Beck and the walkie-journal Sentinel today.

Look I spent 30 years the Republican Party before leaving in 2011 guys name is Bill

Beren or baron I'm Beren.

I guess B-E-R-R-I-E-N

Never heard of pro tip if you're thinking of running for something find a way to get the pronunciation of your name in there Have a little fun with it or something.

Yeah, no idea.

Never heard of him before on some company called pin a pin dull global precision and Liberty precision in New Berlin and You know he brings out the and look We've done shows on military bases

I have great respect for our veterans and everybody who wears the uniform.

But here's another guy says he liked Derek Van Orton.

He was a former Navy SEAL.

Look, if he is, if he was, God bless him for his service.

But that seems to be a calling card.

Oh, and by the way, I'm a multi-millionaire.

And he goes on, Pat, with some of the same tropes that we've seen from MAGA Republicans.

Yeah,

the whole, you know, boy should be boys, girls should be girls.

Let's beat up on China.

Let's give parent, trace, and education.

parents already have a say in their child's education.

So I'm not hearing anything other than, you know, him, him citing Donald Trump is going to spur the reindustrialization of America, which

tells me this guy hasn't like watched the news the past couple of days, right?

Because there's nothing about this current tariff policy that is going to reindustrialize.

We're currently in the process of depopulating America and we were already involved in a worker shortage.

So unless this guy's got some new answers, it's just a retread.

And we played the cut yesterday of Trump, but Trump on his Air Force One going to the UFC fight at taxpayer expense and talking about.

these tariffs or not just the tariffs but also the the deportations and saying things like uh well you know maybe we're going to work with the farmers look at the farmer vouchers for some of these guys and they say they're okay we'll let them stay a little while longer oh same for the service industry people the restaurant service

If it wasn't so sad, Pat, it would be comical how he's walking certain things back, because guess what?

The tropes and the lies he was telling that immigrants are taking people's jobs, for the most part, if not all, simply not true.

No, not even close to it.

And unfortunately, far too many people are still, shall we say, intimidated to the point that they don't want to have a robust

pro-immigration stance to them you always have it couched in oh well if anybody commits crimes they they shouldn't be yeah we we know that we know that we lock up criminals currently but you if you're gonna lead with the this fraction of immigrants who commit crimes

you're going to throw overboard all the people who are coming here wanting to chase the American dream, wanting to fill the jobs that we are desperate to have people fill to build the prosperity of this country as the baby boomers continue to to age out and fade away.

We are doing this so backwards right now and nobody's got the guts to say that this is a policy that has no economic basis and it's not based in public safety.

The statistics are there.

It's not based in public safety.

So what's left?

It's a state-sanctioned racist policy designed to win over enough white voters to go, yeah, I feel aggrieved by these people who don't look like me.

There's no thought into it whatsoever, and it's going to be so bad for our country in the long

run.

We're going to come back and talk about this meeting yesterday at the White House with Trump and Salvadoran President Bukele.

Minute left, Pat.

Your thoughts on it before we go to break.

I just don't even know how to handle people that don't recognize the constitutional crisis that we're in.

The only thing left to trigger it is for Trump to step up to a bank of microphones and say to the Supreme Court, you and what army?

And at that point, we're going to realize this is a guy that has no intention of holding free and fair elections or ever stepping down.

And then the question becomes,

What are we going to do next?

Yeah.

What we're going to do next is go through some of this, play some of these cuts from Trump and Bukele themselves.

I agree with Pat.

We are in a constitutional crisis.

Never a crisis, though.

Pat always makes us feel better every morning.

Six until eight, and soon six until nine.

Thanks, Pat.

We appreciate you.

Back after this on the Civic Media Ready Network.

doing it.

I'll come back to the title of our show on the Civic Media Ready Network, 34 now past 12 noon on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025.

Many thanks to Patrick Kraitlo for being with us.

Pat now gonna be starting next Wednesday every morning from six until nine across the Civic Media Ready Network.

Excited about that.

More Pat is great.

It's fantastic every morning here on the Civic Media Ready Network.

Over the break, you might have heard a little meditation music.

meditation music, especially those watching on the stream.

So we're working out a couple of bugs.

Everything is fine.

Don't worry.

It's glad to be back with you.

So just hang tight wherever you're at.

We're working on a couple of things right now.

But in the meantime, that was great at Zommer's.

I felt like I could just zen out for about three minutes.

Play that for people that might not have heard it because it's very therapeutic.

I feel like the Skexies in Dark Crystal.

Normally,

that's our, oh,

good movie, good movie.

That's

one of my sister's favorite movies, Dark Crystal.

It's one of my favorites.

Really?

I love practical effects in movies, and I love Frank Oz.

It's fantastic.

And all that good

stuff.

Anyway, it's going to be a thank you very much for Pat Crichtlow for being here and coming up at the one o'clock hour.

Very excited about this.

TJ Samanshin is going to be here.

He is the president and CEO of Wonder State Coffee, who of course is the 2025 coffee roaster of the year.

And it's named by Roast Magazine, top roaster in America.

Very, very excited course.

We were, they were so kind as to host us last year.

Trig V and Reed Galen and myself, we took the show on the road.

We did the, uh,

did the show for the main cafe in Varroqua.

TJ is going to join us to talk about the effects.

He's part of Main Street Alliance here in Wisconsin.

And he's going to be here to talk about the real effects of the Trump tariffs on people like him.

Somebody who imports coffee, roast coffee, has cafes.

What do these Trump tariffs mean for Wisconsin small business owners?

We will talk to TJ some mansion after the top of the hour.

And we have a what's worse for you as well.

And much, much more right now.

I want to turn our attention.

Touched on it, touched on it before the break to this White House meeting yesterday with President Donald Trump and the president of El Salvador, Naib Bukele.

And I think before we get into the cuts, I got a couple of cuts for you.

I want to give you a little history.

As our friend Matt Flynn likes to say, you're not woke unless you know history, you're not woke unless and until you know history.

And he's very right about that.

Never thought that my life knowledge and history of El Salvador and Salvador and politics, whoever come into play, especially here, but here we are.

So for those that might not know, I'm not gonna tell the whole story again, but basically,

went for the first time to El Salvador in December of 1991 with a friend of mine from college who was from there.

We had hosted him as a exchange student in college, ended up going down there.

And in 91, just before the peace accords were signed to end the 12 year civil war that killed upwards of 75, 80,000 Salvadorans in that civil war.

And thus began my journeys to El Salvador and went back.

39 times thus far my last time was in 2019 so I Know the country fairly well, especially for a gringo and I've seen this country go from civil war and destruction and bombed out roads to a vibrant economy and That the through line are the people of El Salvador wonderful wonderful people better people you will not find and

What needs to be said at the top of this thing, and the reason you need to understand why Naib Bukele is so popular in his country, is that these folks at El Salvador have endured all kinds of strife, death, fear, crime.

There are people at El Salvador that have up until Naib Bukele came along, were taking different routes home for fear they'd be followed.

and robbed at gunpoint.

Lots of places you couldn't be out after dark.

I know business owners in El Salvador that were serious when they said, look, if you would say, let me chop off your left arm and we'll end the crime of the gang violence in El Salvador, I would do it.

They were serious about that because it was so bad.

And also Naib Bukele used to be part of the FMLN, the more liberal party.

It was the opposition party during the Civil War that got rolled into an opposition party.

And they've actually had a couple of presidents elected under FMLN.

And Naib was next, he was the mayor of San Salvador.

And he did a lot of good things in San Salvador.

He lowered crime to a certain extent.

He invested in public spaces and infrastructure, and he wanted to run for president in 2019, 2018, 2019.

At his own party, the FMLN said, no, you're not next to the line and said, we're not gonna endorse you.

We're endorsing this other guy.

And he said, look, that guy doesn't have as much experience and has done as much as me.

And he said, no, no, no, no.

just wait your turn naive.

And one of his parents, I forget which one I think is originally from Egypt.

And so that's why he has a not a common Spanish sounding name.

It's a it's a Egyptian more name.

I guess dad is from Egypt originally, his mom is from El Salvador.

Don't quote me on that, but that's more or less it.

And he said, well, screw that.

And he was like in his late thirties.

And he said so he was he's kind of the.

El Salvador version of Barack Obama.

Young, good-looking, wears a leather jacket and a baseball cap, super articulate, educated partly in college in the United States, fluent in English and Spanish and probably a couple more languages I don't know, and very proficient on social media, in particular Twitter.

And he went to the Salvadoran people and said, look, and this is true.

Both the right-leaning party, Arena,

and the left-leaning party, FMLN, we've had presidents from both.

Guess what?

Most of our former presidents from both party are in jail because they're criminals, and they stole from us.

How about we start a new party with new ideas?

In fact, we'll call it the New Ideas Party.

In Spanish, it's called Nuevas Ideas, and he started it, largely by himself and his supporters on Twitter.

And it caught fire.

And he was elected by a huge margin.

And then what happened to shorten it up a little bit is he said, look, I want to do this stuff.

And the Supreme Court said, wait, you can't do that.

That's against the Constitution.

And he said, well, look, see, I'm trying to do stuff on these Supreme Court justices appointed by former presidents are holding this up.

And the legislature, he didn't have a majority.

They have a unicameral legislature, just one general assembly.

And the assembly was kind of like, well, you know, we want to help you.

And so what he did was he brought in the military into the national assembly.

And they were all armed around the exterior of the floor of the assembly.

And he went to the dais in front.

And he said, I'm here to pray.

I'm here to pray that God will lead the assembly in doing the right thing and voting me the authority to do what the people have elected me to do.

I'm going to leave now, but I'll leave the military here to make sure they encourage you to vote the way that God would have you vote.

I paraphrase a little bit, but that was, he brought the military in, he said something similar, and he left, and guess what?

The military vote, or the legislature voted to give him the power.

And they threw out the Supreme Court justices in El Salvador that disagreed with Bukeli.

He installed, yes, yes, people.

The press, La Prenza Grafica and Dio Rio de Oi, they called him out.

He intimidated the press.

Sound familiar?

And the people loved it because they said, finally, someone's doing what we want them to do.

And he pushed through his reforms.

And guess what?

During COVID, he had testing kits and masks and vitamins and that's a whole another kettle of fish that he delivered to every Salvadoran home.

He fixed roads and infrastructures and he suspended the law and the Constitution of El Salvador and installed martial law and they set up a text line in El Salvador.

I'm not making this up.

They set up a text line in El Salvador.

If you feel somebody that you know or a neighbor belongs to a gang, text us.

And we'll come get them.

And they did.

And there is essentially no checks or balances, no trials.

They got sent to this big prison in El Salvador that Na'im built.

Beyond high security, they literally stack inmates up like dog kennels on top of one another.

30, 40 guys into a cell.

And so what was happening, of course, is that some people were like, well, that guy slept with my wife.

And they text into the anonymous line, this guy's a gang member, gone.

And the people love it because I haven't been there since 2019, the longest time I've gone now since I started going that I haven't been back.

But what I'm told by a lot of people that I know who have been there who still live there is that it is so much safer and the Salvadorans love it and he suspended the Constitution because you're always supposed to have one five-year term in El Salvador.

He got them to say, hey, have another term.

And he won by 90% in an internationally watched democratic, democratically free and fair election.

So that's the history that everybody needs to know about this guy Naib Bukele and in my opinion now I believe that Donald Trump is looking at Naib and is insanely jealous and wants to be that and I've said and Naib he loves the fact he's called the dictator by the outsiders and he calls himself the cool dictator and Salvadorans love it

for the most part, not everybody, but for the most part.

And this is the guy that did not get along with Biden at all, Bukele, because the Biden administration was calling him out, saying, look, he would write abuses, you didn't respect the Constitution, you were using the military improperly.

And so Biden and Bukele did not get along at all.

And now you got Trump.

Trump makes a deal Bukele will give you six million dollars to take whoever we send you Bukele says he's transactional sure Gets invited to the White House makes him look in Salvador and eyes like a winner and Then this meeting yesterday in the Oval Office Do we have time for the first cut timers the home so here is Naeem Bukele talking

Off-camera or off-microphone for US, but Trump was showing Bukele around the Oval Office and there was a Salvadoran presser that had their mic on caught Trump telling Bukele it's not just Outsiders he wants to send to Salvadoran prisons.

It's American citizens

It's

hard to make out and and but I want it what the the key line is when Trump says the home groans are next and Bukele says that's fair we have space

The home groans and later when the American press were there they asked him and he didn't deny it He said look if they're home groans and of course he always puts the caveat in well, you know I mean I'm having the Attorney General looked at this Pam Bondi You know we want to follow the law, but if we're able to do it we were just we're only talking about the really bad people You know the bad people the Donald Trump has said are really bad people like former general Mark Milley

Like Joe Biden Like Liz Cheney like Adam Kinzinger You understand now where we're going Trump wants it is insinuating not even insinuating saying it right out He wants to send American citizens to a Salvadoran prison With no chance to return no habeas corpus.

No due process.

No constitutional rights

that will never come back.

And they're the people that he deems Trump himself are dangerous.

855-752-4842.

Gonna come back, play more cuts from this meeting.

From yesterday, it's the All Balls Show on the Pacific Media Media Network.

Having fun doing it.

Welcome back to Ted Albao's show on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Glad to have you along.

Nine before the hour, one o'clock on the top of the hour.

ABC's CBS News, check of local news, weather and sports.

And then coming up, TJ Samanshin, president and CEO of Wonder State Coffee, headquartered in Viroqua, Wisconsin in the beautiful drift list, the 2025 Roaster of the Year.

and of course has cafes across Wisconsin.

Talk about that, but TJ is part of Wonder State as a member of the Wisconsin Main Street Alliance talking about the effects of the Trump tariffs on Wisconsin businesses.

That's coming up after one o'clock at a what's the worst in hour number two as well.

Right now talking and breaking down this meeting in the Oval Office yesterday, Donald Trump meeting with Salvador and President Naib Bukele.

I gave you the background here in the last segment.

I want to play this cut where Naim Bukele, the president of El Salvador, talks about the criticism that he's had from outside about locking up thousands of Salvadorans, many without a trial, and it's believed to be many innocent people for the reasons I stated in the last segment.

And here is his response and also his advice to Donald Trump about what he should do in the United States.

of america

sometimes they say that we increase in thousands i like to say that we actually commemorate the millions so you know like it's very good who gave him that line did you

think

i can

use

that

trump loved it if you didn't get it because again the audio is a little at that zombers fault it's just a source uh but the nagi bukele says hey we get criticized for imprisoning thousands

But what I look at it is we liberated millions.

And I'll tell you, most Salvadorans agree with him.

They feel liberated from crime and gangs.

And they're like, yeah, it's too bad that some innocent people got roped up.

But unless it's one of your relatives or friends, you don't care because crime is so much.

It's almost, they've been gone from the murder capital of the Western Hemisphere to one of the safest places now.

And the Western Hemisphere in El Salvador.

And Trump just with wide eyes says, that's a great line.

Who gave him that line?

Can I use that?

And Naeem goes on to tell Trump, hey, look, your responsibilities to 350 million Americans, liberate them, goading them on saying, do more of this stuff.

Well, one more cut quick.

It's kind of slightly different.

But one of the reporters, CNN, was asked, Caitlyn Collins.

And again, the brashness of Donald Trump and his opinion of the free press in the United States.

What they've done to us at the border should never and can never be forgotten.

It's a sin what they did.

And you are helping us out.

And we

appreciate it.

Thanks.

Actually, what you're doing with the border is remarkable.

It has a drop of 95%.

It's incredible.

This morning, 99.1% to be exact.

Why are those numbers not on the media?

Well, they get up at the fake news.

CNN over here doesn't want to put them out because they don't like putting out good numbers.

They only like putting out because I think they hate our country, actually.

The president of the United States, the Oval Office, saying that one of the most, that one of the major media outlets in America, CNN, quote, hates our country.

Imagine if, as Trig V. Ulster reminds us, imagine if Barack Obama in the Oval Office had said on camera like that, or off camera, had said, you know what, I think that Fox News hates our country.

The MAGA folks would have gone apoplectic.

But yet it's fine for Donald Trump to say, you know, CNN hates our country.

And again, remember, he is now asking the FCC chairman, which is pro-Trump, who wears a gold Trump head lapel pin.

Trump is asking this guy to suspend the broadcast license of CBS.

CBS.

Because he didn't like one of the stories on 60 Minutes.

Again, this is right out of Naebu Kelly's playbook in El Salvador, intimidate the press and don't get them to report the truth because it's inconvenient.

That's where we're at.

And then you have the sick of fans, the people who are just lapping up Trump's boots, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi, Stephen Miller telling outright lies to the press.

And they're not called on it, by the way, by anybody in the press.

in the White House yesterday, outright lies that this poor guy and the guy who's in prison in El Salvador is part of the MS-13 gang in El Salvador, which an American court initially brought that up or prosecutor.

But because the guy had due process and his day in court, that was disproven.

That was proven as false information.

And the judge said at the time, because this guy

is fearful of his life in his home country of El Salvador, regardless of how this hearing goes, he must not be sent back to El Salvador, the one country on earth that the court said he couldn't be sent to.

And then fast forward to where now the Trump ICE folks round him up, disappear him.

There is no evidence proven in court by the Trump administration that this guy should have been deported.

There is no evidence he was part of a gang.

But yet he's disappeared and there's whole narrative of naive sitting next to Trump yesterday saying well nobody can do anything give me a break Trump's paying the United States is paying El Salvador six million dollars to house all these people if Trump had just said in front of the cameras naive We need this one guy back or you know what we're not gonna be able to pay that next payment on the six million He'd be back These guys are stroking each other's

Political egos will keep it clean.

They're dependent on one another.

They're the same type of person.

It's just that Naib Bukele is a lot smarter and understands that he has to take care of his own people to keep his popularity.

But make no mistake about it.

We are in a constitutional crisis here.

The next move is back at the courts.

Will the courts help to continue to uphold democracy?

or will they surrender?

Back with more after this is the Todd Allball Show on the Civic Media Ready

Network.

Live from the Civic Media World headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albault, along with our outstanding producer, Mr. Aaron Zummers, on the board.

It is six minutes past the hour, one o'clock.

Welcome into hour number two of the big program on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025.

It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.

We are downtown Madison, Wisconsin at the World Headquarters.

Beautiful, partly sunny day, Mr. Zummers.

I'm very excited.

About this hour and about our next guest you know me too.

I know very very excited indeed.

I'll come in a little bit later this hour

What's worse addition for you your chance to call in and voice your concerns on the nonsensical But right now we have serious business to do and also some fun as well He has been on our program before when he was kind enough to be our host and beautiful varroco, Wisconsin Back for me back in the home part of the state of the driftless area the CEO and president of wonder state coffee Which is the 2025 roaster of the year mr. TJ's to mention joins us via stream yard TJ.

How are you?

I'm pretty good.

How you doing Ted?

I am fantastic because for those watching on the stream on Facebook YouTube and Twitter People know how much I enjoy Wonder State coffee and look what they got me for my birthday this year a beautiful a beautiful mug here with the Wonder State logo on it It is filled with Aqua Aqua Blanca from Columbia.

That's my mom or my favorites I buy that a lot and then

This is a love-hate thing, TJ, because their cafe on the square, they sell these amazing addictive crack.

No, it's not crack.

It is the salted chocolate chunk cookie, which I cannot get enough of.

Wow.

You're getting the full effect there in the studio.

Yeah, it really is.

So thank you for gearing me up and get me ready for the show today.

Let's just start off a little bit for those that might not have heard our previous shows.

Tell us a little bit about Wonder State Coffee, how it came about, and where it's located.

Yeah, so we are...

On our 20th year here in Verroqua, so as you mentioned, we're right in the heart of the Driflus region, close to your hometown.

And we've, for our first 10 years in business, we were just a wholesale roastery.

So we import coffee from around the world, from Africa, Central and South America, directly from small farmers.

We're really rooted in supporting farmers, that's at the core of our mission.

And the other side of our mission is providing extremely high quality coffee.

So that's that's what we've been doing since 2005.

And then in 2015, we opened our first retail location, our first cafe.

And we now have three cafes, one right on the capital square in Madison, our flagship store.

And then we have one here in our hometown, Roqua and one up on the shores of Lake Superior in Bayfield, beautiful Bayfield.

So we have

We have three cafes now around the state.

We sell online.

We sell to local and national chains in the upper Midwest.

We sell to independent coffee shops.

We have some corporate campuses around Madison, some of the larger corporate campuses where the employees can enjoy our coffee at work.

So, yeah, we're around the state, around the upper Midwest, and we sell quite a bit on our website nationally as well.

And one of the great things I love about Wonder State

is your respect for the farmer.

And I had a stint in coffee.

I was honored to have friends in El Salvador.

And I talked about that last segment more than political term.

I never thought that my knowledge of El Salvador and the politics of El Salvador would come into play on a show like this.

But it has.

That's where we're at.

But I spent a lot of time there.

And I was very fortunate because TJ knows this.

But if you're in the coffee industry,

They talk about, oh, you know, someday you'll get to go to origin, meaning where the coffee is growing.

And I was kind of fortunate enough to start my coffee experience there and learn from it.

Talk a little bit about at Wonder State Coffee, what that means.

Do you visit and talk with farmers and that relationship and why that matters?

Yeah, absolutely.

And I kind of got my start in coffee a similar way.

I was living in Costa Rica.

Oh, wow.

And so I was studying issues around sustainable development.

and just rural issues in Latin America.

And so I was just living in the coffee lands and got to see firsthand the model of a small farmer coffee cooperative.

The town

I

lived in, there was in a Tainas, Costa Rica, there was Coapia Tainas, which was a coffee farmer cooperative.

And so this was, you know, small farmers who own their land.

who own their cooperative and own their product all the way to the final destination.

And the empowerment that brings for rural farmers in Latin America.

You know, contrary to that, we studied that and then the flip side was kind of bananas.

And for those who know the history of banana republics and just how like banana in large multinational corporations have kind of, you know, they control the land, they control the shipping, they control,

I

mean,

back in the day they controlled the country right they they planted their their politicians right so they they own all segments of of society and whereas you know these democratically controlled coffee cooperatives really empower small farmers and they they keep those farmers on their land they you know empower them they give them a good return on their product so those are the farmers that we're really committed to supporting.

And in a lot of countries, and you've probably seen this in El Salvador, even in the coffee sector, there is really intense poverty.

That there has been a lot of exploitation of coffee farmers, the workers, the laborers who work on the farms.

And that has been remnants of colonial power structures that persist till today.

So part of what we work towards is balancing out those power structures, making sure farmers are getting their fair shake.

We work directly with them.

We travel constantly.

Nick, our director of coffee, was just down in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, visiting with the farmers, setting up the terms for next year's harvest.

our hopes and their hopes and sharing what we're all trying to get out of this mutually beneficial trade.

And we have these relationships for years and years.

So yeah, at the core of our business is really those relationships with the farmers and our commitment to them.

I could talk.

coffee for two hours with TJ here.

We're talking to TJ Sumansion, president and CEO of Wunderstate Coffee in Wisconsin.

But just one more and then we'll kind of move on to the tariffs and USAID type of things.

But just again, to put a fine point on this, TJ, because we tried to do something similar to what in our little coffee business, what you guys did very successfully at Wunderstate.

which was to put the emphasis on the farmer.

And ultimately, for the reasons you just stated and more, that requires that you probably are gonna have to charge more than say, hey, a Folgers or whatever.

And I'm not here to hate on anybody, but I think it's important for you just to talk a little bit about, there are different levels of coffee and if you buy low quality coffee, it could taste like crap, especially if it's prepared poorly, but if you buy,

higher quality coffee, which is oftentimes found in higher elevations in more rural areas to your point where the producer doesn't even have a car or truck to get their lot to market on the coast.

And so what happens is, and I'll just pick on the big one and not to say that there aren't good things about it in some ways, but you have a Starbucks will go up way up on the mountain and give that farmer the lowest price for the highest quality of coffee.

And so then you have things like cup of excellence who allow farmers to have their really good coffee exposed.

to more buyers, and that gives the power back to the farmer.

And so that's why it's important, in my opinion, to buy coffee at a couple of bucks higher from people like Wunderstate, because ultimately, you're empowering the farmer.

Am I wrong about that?

You stated it perfectly.

Yeah, we're going to be our spokesman.

That was perfect.

Yeah, so how critical it is to our part of our vision is we love good coffee.

We just love tasting things.

We love the enjoyment of it, the morning cup and have it be elevated, really treating it as a specialty beverage.

You know,

the folks, folks get this, right?

Like we know that sometimes you buy a $10 bottle of wine and sometimes a 30

or

you buy your micro brewery, you know, brewed beer and right that these come with an additional cost because they're higher quality.

right and and coffee is in that same realm as a specialty beverage you know that

it can

be elevated it could be an elevated experience something that there's just really amazing nuanced flavors in the cup and to pull that off the farmers have to work a lot harder and be really intentional and so we are want to be right there with those farmers especially those farmers who historically haven't had access to the market haven't had access to

the techniques and the post harvest processing that results in this high quality.

We want to work with them and build their capacity so they can keep getting a higher and higher price for their product and keep improving the livelihoods of their families.

That's

really

at the core of this is, you know, trying to support farmers who are, you know, just trying to improve their lives.

About two and a half minutes left before our first break, TJ.

Talk to us a little bit about

You know, we look at what's happening with the Trump tariffs that you think will last happening in other places.

Tell folks a little bit how this is affecting people in the Main Street Alliance here in Wisconsin, particularly folks like yourselves at Wonder State who deal with commodities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, wow, it's, it's really brutal.

It's brutal.

I mean, what's happening for small businesses.

I mean, these tariffs are directly hitting us, right?

This is who pays for it.

It's the businesses who are buying these products from it.

I mean, literally, I am the guy who pays the tariff, right?

I mean, it is, it is a direct increase cost of business.

It's a tax.

It's across the board.

All of our coffee right now, you know, two weeks ago is between 10 and 28% with the reciprocal tariffs.

Right now, all of our coffee is going to get hit with a 10% tariff tax.

That's just a boom, unexpected increase cost of

of business, I need to go out and find financing for that.

I have to pay for that tariff upfront before we sell it to the end consumer, right?

I got to come up with that cash.

And so that's a scenario, you know, us who we, our whole product line is from a, from something that we import, something that cannot be grown in any volume in the United States between

Hawaii in Puerto Rico, the US produces like less than a half of a percent of the world's production.

There's no, there's no way to replace coffee domestically, right?

It's

a product that

grows in the tropics and we have to import it.

And so, you know, that's just, that's a, that's a heavy, heavy hit for us.

But, you know, I have been hearing stories of other small businesses who are just mom, pop shops who came up with a good idea and they brought a product to market.

And where was that?

only place in the world that product could be produced at a lower value is China, right?

And they've set up a relationship with a manufacturer in China, right?

But these are US businesses, US families who are just facing a

decimatingly high level of tariffs.

We're talking to TJ Sumansion of Wonder State Coffee.

We'll come back and continue our conversation.

If you have a question, give us a call at 855-752-4842.

As they said one time on SNL, it's coffee talk.

Come on back.

No big

whoop.

Way down among Brazilians, coffee beans grow by the billions.

So they've got to find those extra cups to fill.

They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.

Welcome back to the Towel Ball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

They have coffee in Brazil.

They also have coffee in Verruqua.

and in Bayfield and in Madison, other places as well.

We can get into Wonder State Coffee.

The president and CEO of the company, TJ, so to mention, is our guest that's had our TJ.

Great to have you along.

We were geeking out about coffee over the break.

I mean, it's just, I think when you get to somebody, when you talk to somebody else who gets coffee, it's just like you can go on and on because, and people who never, who don't, haven't had the privilege to be in that position, it's like,

What do you get so excited about coffee for it's like because it's so cool

Right although who doesn't I mean we all like

70 some percent of Americans drink coffee daily.

So once we get on this topic, I think we're actually in good company.

I think people love talking about coffee.

No, they do.

It's like it's a common denominator.

You know, we all enjoy

it.

Yeah, it really is.

TJ and Wonder State are part of Main Street Alliance here in Wisconsin talking a little bit about tariffs.

I want to talk about some of the things in the USAID as well.

But did I miss anything, TJ?

Is there anything that you want to pass on to folks either about the coffee industry or?

about small mom and pop businesses in general in Wisconsin on tariffs.

Yeah, again, I'm really, really concerned about a lot of our fellow small businesses.

I think we're going to see if this continues again, it's changes day by day.

So you don't know, you know, what

the

administration is going to do.

But

If it continues right now, we're going to see businesses just go under without a doubt.

Small businesses are not going to be able to, who are dependent on imports and are being required to pay these tariffs up front.

They're not going to have the cash.

And this is going to put them under.

So I'm really, really concerned about that.

And we talked about this when we were up in Varroqua at your cafe up there.

I mean, Wunderstait's a kind of place.

I mean, you're, you're providing health care.

You're providing some of these benefits to your employees in small towns and large, all across Wisconsin.

We hear people say, well, we want employers to take care of our employees.

Here's a place that Wunderstait is doing that.

So now you, you're doing that, but now you're also having to pay for this tariff and you have to make tough choices about your house.

you're going to treat your employees.

Ultimately, this is going to get passed on to the consumer if people want the companies to keep taking care of their employees.

Yeah.

Yep.

I mean, we can't bear, you know, just a 10% increase.

And we're also, I want to be clear too, we're in a moment where at historically high coffee prices.

Yes.

So this is a multiplier effect of something that has already really hit our industry.

We just increased prices.

We had

to and this you know in a way this is a a win for the farmers, right?

That that music piece in the break a lot of coffee in brazil well for the past few years largely because of climate disruptions there hasn't been as much coffee in brazil and The and that has caused a supply crunch.

So the commodity market for coffee is that historic highs, right?

So these tariffs are coming on top of that, you know, the the market was

below $2 a pound, this is commodity, commercial grade coffee, below $2 a pound, and it just peaked over four.

So the tariff is hitting us at 10%, right?

If it was at $2, it's a 20 set per pound tariff, now it's a 40 set per pound.

I mean, so this is just terrible timing,

yeah.

And we don't have time to just like get all into this, but just yes or not, more than yes or no, but make sure I'm correct.

everything you said and then put on to that climate change where some of the coffee in some of these places is developing something called coffee rust and they're having to go to higher altitudes and in some cases relocate farms and that also is driving up prices, right?

Exactly.

It's just harder for farmers to grow coffee.

For a lot of reasons climate change is the driving but there's also political instability.

You mentioned things like USAID.

Farmers need support in getting their product to market.

They need the infrastructure.

They need the marketing.

And so you need the institutions that can support these farmers in doing that.

So it's just getting harder and harder by the day.

And that's putting it downward.

about pressure and supply.

About three and a half minutes left, TJ.

Talk about what you just said.

USAID, we hear a lot about the tariffs, what's going on there.

Talk about the impact that the Trump administration cuts and basically getting rid of USAID, US Agency for International Development, what that is doing to the coffee industry and around the world.

Yeah, this is such a short-sighted policy.

It is so brutal and to be doing it so fast and furious.

So USAID, I honestly don't

know of a farmer that we work with that has not in some way benefited from USAID support.

And that could be support with technical assistance in the field, support with marketing.

USAID has taken coffee professionals and hooked them up with up-and-coming producer groups to help them draw that link of how to market their coffee to the international market.

And these are, these are not huge spends.

These are low, you know, this is a couple plane ticket

kind

of things for professionals to come and share their expertise with farmers that are working hard, try bringing their product to market.

And these are in areas of the world that are politically unstable.

This is, we're talking about the DRC in Africa and Ethiopia, Columbia, Southern Mexico, places where

if there's not stable options for farmers, this is where they get pushed into narco trafficking.

This is where they get pushed into extremist groups, jihadist groups, potentially in Africa.

These are the places where as the social fabric kind of falls apart, these bad actors can come and prey on them.

And I see it.

I see it in Columbia when prices are down.

I see that farmers rip out their coffee trees and they put in coca.

And as soon as they do that, you're bringing in the bad actors.

Those communities then have guns.

They have violence.

They have all the things that that brings with it.

So USID has provided a platform for stability.

It has provided a platform for companies like us to find those farmers and to buy from them.

It's not charity.

This is just infrastructure support.

And this is as critical as like building a road.

from your port so that you can get your product out, right?

I mean, these are things that we take for granted that we have a lot of support here in the US for this, but in other countries, small rural farmers don't have access and know how to get their product to the international market.

TJ, some mention of water state coffee.

I cannot thank you enough for taking time for us.

Very educational.

On the bottom of each bag of water state coffee, it says, stay curious.

which I think is exactly where we need to be right now as a country.

And if you want to buy a product that is curious, but also has a social conscience and just is the best coffee around for my money, Wunderstate.

Appreciate it, Todd.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, TJ.

Thank you very much from Main Street Alliance.

Come on back.

We'll do a little What's The Worst?

next on The All Balls Show in Civic Media.

So in truth, wherever it may lead, even to a coffee cup, having fun doing it.

See, that was a part of the fun doing it.

Welcome back to the All Balls show on Civic Media, 34 minutes past the hour of one o'clock.

Just think somers, a week from tomorrow, we'll just be getting ready for the show.

You're right.

I hope we're more than just starting to get ready

at

this time.

Well, let's be honest, it might just be starting to get ready.

Yeah, probably.

No matter what if you haven't heard, we're, we're moving.

moving a couple of hours to two o'clock, starting next Wednesday.

So starting next Wednesday, you can hear it every afternoon from two until four.

And the reason is, is because Zomers and I need more sleep.

I did.

We didn't plan this, but I did yawn right as he was

saying that.

I didn't know that's what he was going to

say.

Many thanks to TJ Samanshin from Wonder State Coffee.

How about that guy?

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

Yes,

absolutely.

One of our listeners, where is it from again?

I'm sorry, Deerfield.

Beautiful Deerfield, Wisconsin.

Larry in Deerfield says, hi Todd.

What do you say coffee beans do you recommend?

I'm planning on ordering.

Look, I'll simply say just since you asked, what's in my cup and normally what I have, I buy whole bean and I have the Agua Blanca from Columbia.

Colombian coffee, and what's the cool thing is, and other places do this as well, higher-end coffee roasters, but a wonder state, they'll give you what notes each call, just like wine.

Because if you buy high-end coffee, as TJ was saying, each one has a unique flavor profile.

And just like you have people, was it salmoneer or salmoneer, whatever the, for the wine taster.

Samelier.

That's it.

We're not that fancy back where I'm from.

But yes, Somalia, there's 160 some different flavors, profiles in wine, exact same thing in coffee, but 162 different natural flavors in coffee.

The reason people that say, well, I never tasted that is because a lot of places,

will buy low-end coffee that naturally tastes bad, and to cover that up, they burn the coffee.

And when you burn coffee, when you roast it, whole bean, it turns that really dark, shiny color.

But through really great marketing, coffee companies have convinced the consumer, oh, if it's dark and shiny, it has lots of caffeine in it, and it will make you wired.

And so they come up with great marketing gimmicks.

If you see coffee that's shiny, it looks oily and like dark, that is bad overroasted burnt coffee.

And it's gonna taste bitter and it's gonna taste like charcoal, because that's basically what they've done to it.

Properly roasted coffee is going to have a matte finish on it.

It's gonna look brown, all right?

Brown and a matte finish.

And then if you properly grind it and then properly prepare it, here's a little tip.

for home coffee roasters, water.

Because guess what?

Coffee in your cup is 98% water.

So either use like a zero water or whatever, or bottled water or something like that.

Don't use tap water

when you make coffee at home.

That's huge.

That was

one thing

when I worked at Starbucks.

They really emphasized.

We have, I don't remember how many times, like five times filtered water or something to have super clear water to make their coffee because

That's what most of it is.

Right.

So

water is very important, but then, then buy from, from roasters that do it right like that.

And so if you buy coffee like that and prepare it properly and you kind of train your palate, you can sometimes taste a fruit flavor, whether it's nectarine or raspberry or other flavors, brown sugar, straw, um, on and on brown, you know, all these natural flavors and coffee.

And so just like you have a sommelier in wine in coffee is called a Q cupper.

And don't ask me why, but it's called a Q cupper.

And you go through all this training and you have to have somewhat of a natural palate just like in wine.

And these people will sip the competitions and they sip the coffee and you say, well, how can they sip all that coffee?

There's a spittoon next to them and they have it on a.

tablespoon or a teaspoon and they put it up their lips and they suck it in because they want the air and the coffee to hit all their taste buds and so it sounds like birds And they suck it in they swirl around they spit it out They don't actually drink all that coffee and so that's how you that's how you grade coffee properly

and you come up with the different notes and things like that.

So there's everything and more you ever wanted to know about coffee.

Oh, Larry in Deerfield says, my daughter uses a conical grinder.

Is that what you mean by proper grinder?

Yeah, it's a burr grinder.

So that means that it looks like gears inside the grinder.

I used to tell people, you can use a general spice grinder with one blade that just goes around.

Hey, that's better than nothing.

But yes, a conical bird grinder has three, generally three different gears it looks like that grind the coffee and you can set it and adjust it.

So, you know, we can geek out on coffee.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Let's go to LA Tom quickly.

We got to get to what's worse.

LA, what do you got for us?

Well, I just want to say that what a great education about coffee and also I think just small mom and top businesses, not the big corporations that call themselves small businesses.

But I want to report that 12,500 people in Idaho showed up last night for AOC and Bernie's

We fight the oligarchy to her and I really recommend anyone if you have the mightiest touch or just check it out online and check out her speech.

Her voice is really becoming her voice now and it's pretty exciting.

So I hope everyone checks it out.

Thanks, LA.

Appreciate you checking in.

Have a great day out there on the beautiful West Coast.

Chris, our own Chris Casper, one of our great engineers, checking in on YouTube saying, I like non-shiny beans.

Same with me, Casper.

Ethiopian is his favorite.

Very close.

Second are all these Central American coffees.

Yeah, very close.

I would probably just my personal bias.

I'd probably reverse that.

I'd probably more into more fruit flavored, slightly sweeter, slightly less acidic.

Central America, but there's a lot of great Ethiopian coffees.

We were talking to TJ during the break another great roaster not in Wisconsin, but out in Los Angeles a blue bottle and one time I got an Ethiopian from blue bottle and did a pour over and you would swear that somebody had taken a teaspoon of Strawberry Jam

and mixed it around.

It was that even a person, I'm not a cucumber or I'm not certified to grade coffee, but even somebody like me, whoa, it's like that, that is amazing.

And that was Ethiopian, so very good.

855-752-4842, quickly mark and prayer to sack.

Mark, what have you got for us

today?

Yeah, getting back to the whole Trump thing, that they court from the Declaration of Independence, I think has

Applied tried to Trump now for a long reason that our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury if Prince whose character is thus marked by every act Which we define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people Yeah, I I'm just appalled at the fact that the

Republicans en masse, you know, as most of the Democrats have, have been not condemning Donald Trump's comment about, I don't give FCC non-compliant word inserted here, that he could round up American citizens and ship them to El Salvador and probably without trial and all that, and they're not actually just coming out condemning that.

if the if biden would have operated in that fashion you know that said to take these powers that trump has assumed that he has you know donald trump's ass would be you know in some very unpleasant place like perhaps duplicating the tribe the the cell of little ease in the tower

of

london

um it's a it's a great part uh great point mark i appreciate you calling a couple of segments back but yeah that uh now white house meeting yesterday with kelly that was uh

Of all the meetings, that was one of them.

All right, 43 minutes past the hour.

Time for what's worse.

Let's go.

Time

once again for what's worse.

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All right, this is a timely, timely indeed, as Mike Lucas likes to say, because I must, good gosh, Zauber's got the hiccups.

That's what I get for eating a salted chocolate junk cookie on the air.

But they're so

good.

But they're so good.

I'm not sure about you, but you're living alone.

I don't like, I like to cook.

I just like to cook for myself.

But when I do, I feel like, well, okay, now I gotta, you know, I'll cook leftovers for a couple of days.

But then you're like, all right, I don't like chili.

I'll make a pot of chili and eat on that for a week.

I'm fine with that.

But another thing is it's like, ah, you know, after a couple of days, I'm done with it.

So here now, today's category, leftovers or throwing out leftovers.

What's worse?

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

What's worse, leftovers are throwing out leftovers.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, or you can text us on the Civic Media app.

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It takes less than a minute to download.

Go to your app store on your Apple or Android device.

Type in civic CIVIC media.

It'll pop up.

Just download it and you're set to go.

How about that?

What's worse?

Leftovers are throwing out leftovers.

Zombers.

This is this is what I struggle with sometimes.

I really do because because I'll make it.

And then after a couple days, I'm like, well, maybe I'll have like, maybe I'll make some chicken.

And it'll be like four days, but it's better than the refrigerator.

And I like, well, I've eaten that for like two or three days.

And like, there's a couple of other pieces of chicken left.

I don't really want to put it in the freezer, but I feel guilty about throwing it away.

Yeah, I agree.

I think throwing away...

Yeah, it's tough.

It depends what the leftovers are and how much you have.

Right.

Because again, if you're eating the same thing all week, that can get pretty old.

Right.

Especially when reheated in the microwave and then, you know, chilled again and then reheated again.

Right.

And then, of course, you know, you're flipping through channels and you see the ads for, you know, starving Ethiopian children.

Right.

And you think, well, I mean, they would love this.

Here I am.

I'm a glutton.

I've got, how lucky am I to have this surplus?

And what?

I'm going to throw this out in the garbage while there's kids starving across the world?

Yeah, I think I got to say throwing out leftovers is worse.

And also, not only that, but if you forget about something.

Mm-hmm.

and you have it stuck in the back of the fridge, and

it gets moldy.

Then you gotta throw it out.

You gotta throw it out, and that also sucks.

It's like, okay, do I even open this to check if it's moldy, or do

I just assume and throw the whole container out?

Sometimes I'll throw out the whole container.

No, you gotta throw out the whole

container at that

point.

Matt Middleton on the text line, WMDX says, throwing out leftovers is worse.

I hate wasting food and feel foolish for making too much.

And he goes on to say, leftover food is toxic.

Well, I mean, yes, I mean, if you let it go too far, it certainly can be right.