You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Todd Albaugh along with Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.
It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025.
It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.
Welcome in everybody to the world headquarters of civic media downtown Madison the intersection of state and Fairchild a little overcast skies bombers as my mom likes to say into every day a little rain must fall
It does very fall-ish But that's appropriate now that we are technically in the autumnal equinox Well, we'll read you a little bit a little bit of it's always good to look at science and history Especially a light of what happened yesterday on a Cedaminophen
and Tylenol.
We're going to get into that a little bit as well.
Actually, it's not a laughing matter, but yet it is.
So I'll tell you a little bit of the history of not history, but a little science behind the autumnal equinox.
What's your favorite equinox?
that
We have spring equinox and fall autumn equinox.
you have summer solstice and winter solstice.
all interesting.
I Tell you I'm a little I'm fine.
I'm fine.
By the way, I'm sorry if I was a little grumpy yesterday I think I was a little grumpy yesterday on it off the air and I figured out the reason why and embarrassed to tell you I got home last night and I noticed on my counter the amount of coffee that I drank yesterday and I really only had about
Not even a quarter of the amount of coffee I normally have And as my family will tell you a Todd that's uncaffeinated in the morning is no fun at all So I apologize if I was a little We had a fun show yesterday.
We had a fun I made up for it today though.
I've made two trips to a wonder state So they're they're doing fine is over caffeinated better.
Oh, absolutely over caffeinated Todd is much better than under caffeinated
No, it was a great show yesterday.
But boy, the audience yesterday.
I'm glad that I'm glad you're here today, because that was a rough one.
Just kidding.
Letterman, Letterman used to say that a lot.
Speaking of, we're going to play you a cut.
It happened.
We broke the news yesterday on the show.
ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel is back with Jimmy Kimmel Live Tonight from Hollywood.
I told you right that I was at Jimmy Kimmel's show once.
Yeah.
Our friend Chris Gheesey.
was acting, working in LA and knew someone, a producer that worked on Kimmel's show.
And so he was kind enough on one of my vacations out there that he got me backstage passes and we went into the green room and it was the night because it was, I was thrilled because one of my Hollywood heartthrobs, Jake Gyllenhaal was the main guest.
And we got there a little late because of LA traffic.
And so I didn't get to meet him before he went out with Kimmel.
and it's a beautiful, I'll just go into it later, beautiful, cool, open vibe game room type of green room in the back.
And then the show ended, whatever, I did not get to meet Jimmy Kimmel, but afterwards we're kind of mulling around and Jake Gyllenhaal comes out from his dressing room and just no entourage, no bodyguards.
He's just like standing there looking at his phone, maybe 20 feet from me and Chris goes, go over and stay high.
I had suffered from a terrible cold.
In fact, I went to the doctor the day I left.
And then he got the altitude and the ears popping.
I couldn't hear anything.
I was, I think I had a fever.
I can't remember.
And I'm like, I'm just going to look like a dope if I go over.
So I didn't.
But A, he seemed like a very nice person.
B, as a handsome and hot in person as he is on film, C, shorter than he might be.
Interesting.
About my height,
Yeah, let's see.
Anyway, so we'll talk about Jimmy Kimmel live coming back with Letterman said what John Stewart said.
And what this means for Wisconsin media, radio, Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns some television stations in Wisconsin, not ABC, but Fox Affiliates, what this means.
because St.
Clair says they're still not going to carry Kimmel tonight.
So we'll talk about more free speech and through the lens of Jimmy Kimmel and all that sort of thing.
Donald Trump ridiculously calling out Acetaminophen and Tylenol with no actual science behind it.
We'll talk about that.
He was at the UN today and one diplomat texted a reporter for the Washington Post and said, this guy is a lunatic.
Don't you Americans see this?
Well, Trump literally went after the teleprompter during his UN speech today.
So we'll talk a little bit about that as well.
Don't forget our green and gold text winning contest going on in hour two.
And what's worse for you, your phone calls as well, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, all that.
And much, much more on today's edition of the show.
Here's where I want to begin as Chris Link.
who overhauled CBS this morning back in the day.
Then when he worked for Colbert for a long time as executive producer, he was fond of saying the news is the news, which you say, well, duh, that's real pertinent time.
It is because we apply that to the show.
In other words, what we want to talk about is what people, what we used to say or talking about around the water cooler.
You don't have too much of that anymore.
But essentially, what are people texting and sharing on their socials?
What are they talking about at coffee shops?
The news is the news.
And today in Wisconsin, not a lot bigger news, particularly in the sports world than comments from former University of Wisconsin football coach and athletic director Barry Alvarez, who went on ESPN, Madison and Milwaukee last night.
weekly show, I believe, where he has an appearance.
And he made comments, talked about fans booing the University of Wisconsin football team, and in particular, and we talked about this yesterday, the student section was chanting, fire fickle.
Fire fickle and it started earlier in the first half and according to Mark Tauser who's on this program with with uh uh jason willdy He got wow the guys the broadcast booth were hearing this so here from espn madison milwaukee From last night show here is coach elvarez on the fans of wisconsin Coach, what do you make of how
reacted?
I think it's
embarrassing.
I think it's terrible
Despicable they're spoiled rotten Here's a team that you get young players trying to trying to come on and they're competing They're gonna have a chance to get better and you flip on them early in the season and you flip on them and you're Channing for the coach What do you think that makes how do you think that makes the the players feel
exactly?
That's
just that's just
That's disrespectful.
It's it's not loyal.
You're not a fan If I'm a person sitting next to me boom, I don't get your ass out of here We don't need you in here.
You know, you don't want to watch this go someplace else go booing a bar You know, I
just that really upsets me Barry Elvarez a willy and towel should ESPN, Wisconsin last night on his feelings On Wisconsin fans
What about the one go boo in a bar Barry says What do you think our Wisconsin fans unjust With their discontent with Wisconsin football 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 I'm not sure if I 100% agree.
You know, I I think overall I absolutely agree with the sentiment like you're here for the team You should be cheering on your team.
Don't just be a fair weather fan
And it is potentially disrespectful to the players, but also I think you're allowed to have opinions on the team Like you can love the team and still think fickle is a terrible coach and maybe I don't know the way I look at it chanting fire fickle rather than booing a player You're advocating for the players to have a better chance now that in my mind
Zombers, I know you say you're not a huge sports person, but that's a great take
And a lot of people on social media across the state today have a very similar take on what Zommer's just had.
Which is, look, they weren't, the fans weren't booing the players.
It's fickle.
And there's a lot of layers to this.
And already we saw our athletic director, Chris McIntosh, who took over for Alvarez, he had to come out over the weekend and give
Luke fickle a voter confidence.
Don't forget he did that two weeks before he fired Paul Christ And now last night talking to the Wisconsin State Journal here in Madison UW Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnuchin Felt she had to come forward and give Chris McIntosh a vote of confidence What does this say about the brain and disarmers point
It's not some I mean at what point That our fans supposed to just say we're putting out hundreds of thousands of dollars in tickets and we're fine We're fine Yeah, I get what Barry say and look as somebody pointed out on talk radio either last night or today Barry Elvarez might be the only person that can say what he said
And by the way, now everybody, including us, are talking about Elvarez's comments and not about the fact that Wisconsin can't seem to put a good product on the field.
So there's that.
Maybe Barry took one for the team.
But I want to hear from seasoned ticket holders, people that are buying tickets.
Because remember now, for those that might not be seasoned ticket holders, now in order to have seasoned tickets,
It was You have to pay a fee You have to pay you have to give a quote-unquote donation But is it really a donation if you're forced to give it you have to give a donation and Then you have the privilege of buying season tickets Those people the new end zone and the in the south end zone that fancy those are thousands of dollars for those seats You think that they're okay
And again, for me, this isn't just about the wins and losses.
It's about how they're losing.
Now, after going on two and a half years, the product doesn't seem to be better.
They're not competing the line of scrimmage.
They're muffed, not puns, they're muffed snaps.
And I get it, it's a backup center.
But muffing snaps over the quarterbacks heads.
Weird just intercept special teams that can't do basic fundamentals.
I think Wisconsin fans would be a lot more understanding if it's like, yeah, you know what?
We're not creating dumb penalties.
We're not beating ourselves.
We're competing as good as we can.
We're a player or two away for each position.
We're only losing by a touchdown or 10 points.
But getting blown out at home by Maryland.
And the schedule doesn't look a whole lot better, folks.
They will not lose this week because they have a buy.
Then you go to Michigan, you come home against the Ohio State University, you gotta go to Oregon to take on the Ducks, and then maybe you come home and win one against Iowa, maybe.
But I think fans have the right, I would never boo players, but I think that fans have a right to be
discontent with what they're seeing on the field for what they're being asked to pay at the gate.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to
get started.
with what they're seeing on the field.
Look, longtime listeners of this show know hard to find a bigger Cardinal and White fan than me.
Big Badger fan.
Partly because I am Badger envy because I didn't have the grades to get into Wisconsin, so I went to Wisconsin Plattville, which is a fine institution.
Both my God sons, graduates, proud Badger graduates, love everything about.
Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin, and not just the athletic department.
But this is part of why this is news today because.
Yeah, let me give you a quick primer on funding.
Much of not much.
There is a large portion of funds that come in from places like Badger football, men's basketball, men's hockey.
Not all the revenue that comes in for those sports just goes to athletics.
Part of that money goes into the general fund for UW Madison.
When I worked at the Capitol, I never, I mean, I was at meetings where Barry Elvarez was talking to my boss, but it was a real education for me to understand how it all goes together.
And this is why chancellors at UW Madison, starting most recently with Donna Shalala,
back in the 1990s.
And by the way, there's a statue of Barry Alvarez deserving.
There's a statue of Mike Richter deserving, or Pat Richter, pardon me.
When do we get the statue of Donna Shalala?
Because she was the real person when she became chancellor that understood that you can't have a failing athletic program.
and have a winning university.
She understood the nuance to this, that if your football and men's basketball and men's hockey programs are sold out, that gives you additional money for research and for academics.
And every time that Wisconsin football goes to a bowl game, goes to a Final Four, goes to a Frozen Four,
the amount in politics we call it earned media.
In other words, there are stories about you on network and cable shows and the newspapers and online publications, and the university doesn't have to pay for any of that advertising, millions of dollars in advertising.
You talk to anybody at UW Madison in admissions.
They'll tell you that when Wisconsin went to a Rose Bowl or a Final Four or a Sweet 16 or a Frozen Four, the amount of interest.
From potential students in admissions goes up because they're more aware of the story of Wisconsin Donna Shalala understood all that and so she said look we got to redo this You know, she's she's a physically very short woman and people greatly underestimated this small stature woman.
I wanted she know turned out a lot
Because she went after Pat Richter who is the CEO of Oscar Meyer had made that company very successful when it was still independent and based in Wisconsin Had played on the 64 Rose Bowl team was a multi-athlete at UW Madison And to hear Richter tell it I've interviewed him before he didn't really know if you want to give all that up But Shalala basically said you have to do this
and convinced him to leave his big cushy job.
And remember, the athletic department was in the red when Shalala and Richter started.
And then Richter went after and Shalala and hired Barry Alvarez.
And that's where it all changed to the early 90s.
And yes, I agree with Barry.
Fans have gotten spoiled by success to a degree.
But to my question of season tick holders and others,
at what point should fans expect some kind of return?
Not so much a win's losses, but on the quality of product on the field.
855-752-4842.
Let's go to Charles down in beautiful Milwaukee on WAUK.
Charles, thanks for holding.
Let's
see.
Hey, good afternoon, Todd.
So I think if fans want to boo, they have a right to boo.
I wouldn't boo, but if...
It's your first amendment, right?
That's what we've been talking about in the last couple of weeks.
You have a right to say, you know, certain things, but I, I, I get it.
I mean, I watched the game and I'm like, oh boy, you didn't get it on 31.
I'm used to Wisconsin football being a smashed mouth down your throat, run the ball right up the middle.
And we have gotten used to great running backs and, and other things.
But I think the biggest problem with college sports.
Today is the portal the transfer portal because nobody wants to stay With the team that they started that as a freshman and tried to build something for the next three or four years Yeah, and and now that you can pay now that players can get paid for their name and likeness.
Oh boy Yeah, trying to keep people together
To say all right, let's you know, we we got a decent team this year We didn't make it where we wanted to but if we all stick together we we improve next year We have set our goals for making a bowl game, right?
Well, you know winning
it I I agree I believe it's the clock Charles, but I agree it is made Individualists out of players instead of team 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 quickly to dick in Madison on WM DX dick in about 45 seconds.
What's a
Yeah.
What happened to running back?
You 1.6, 1.6 yards per carry.
Uh, that's just not going to make it.
You know, and your last caller, I agree a hundred percent with the transport.
The thing is, is really hurting it.
Uh, I don't know.
It was so hard to watch Saturday and I'm a huge fan.
It was, by the way, the 63 Rose Bowl.
But, um, you know, and then
It just, I don't know how to say it.
It was hard to watch.
Yeah, it was.
We're here.
Thanks, Nick, for the call.
I appreciate it.
Come back, wrap this up, and also look at what's happening on Jimmy Kimmel Live and why free speech and free radio is at risk.
We'll tell you about it after this.
Far News is next for Pam Yonkee on The Civic Media.
Great number.
We're doing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the title ball show on the civic media.
We're 35 now past the hour of two o'clock.
Long Zommer's on the board.
Keeping us on the air.
Always appreciate all this great work.
You across the state of Wisconsin from Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Green Bay to the old Mississippi River and everywhere in between.
Great to have you along on a Tuesday last to get to today.
Gonna finish.
This discussion up that we've been having.
And I get you, people are like, well, you know, you're not, you're not a quote unquote sports show, Todd.
You're right.
But it's part of the ethos of Wisconsin.
It's a lot of what people are talking about.
We played either cut from ESPN, Wisconsin last night, former head football coach, long time, most successful and athletic director, Barry Alvarez calling out fans that booed at Saturday's game, the loss to, uh, to, to Maryland.
And by the way, Chris texting in saying they booed at halftime.
It was not fickle.
It was not fire fickle.
Barry's right.
Barry Alvarez saying that, uh, you know, if you want to go boo boo at a bar, calling fans out in fair, I mean, just, I saw, I watched the telecast and, and, and Mark Tauser, who was part of the broadcast team confirmed it on the radio today.
Yes, there were booze, but there was also, particularly from the fan of the student section, there were chance of fire fickle.
One kid printed out on his, I don't know, how do you do that?
It's like you create, you type on your phone, you make a big font, so it looks like a sign or whatever.
And one kid, I got the story here, one kid on his phone said, Jim Leonard, please save us.
And like, Jim Leonard, of course, the former, I walk on at Wisconsin, great player at Wisconsin, went on to have an NFL career, came back, was the defensive coordinator, interim coach at Wisconsin after Chris McIntosh fired Paul Christ.
A lot of people, most people thought that Jimmy Leonard was going to be the next head coach and McIntosh.
To everyone's surprise Passes Leonard over and goes with the football sexy pitch or sexy pick Luke fickle who was at Cincinnati and had taken a smaller team like Cincinnati to the Final Four football playoffs But as I noted I think on subsequent shows Most of his assistants at Cincinnati
Did not go with him to Wisconsin.
Where did they go?
They went with coach Freeman to Notre Dame and you know, Notre Dame was the runner-up to the national championship last year So Marcus Freeman was part of that since that his team associate had coached there with fickle and his assistant most those guys went to Notre Dame
Now, why that is, I don't know.
I don't know if Fickle didn't ask them.
I didn't know if they didn't want to go.
I don't know.
But Fickle chose to do his own thing, start over at Wisconsin and brought in the air raid.
That was a disaster.
Now they got grimy.
It's a better offense, I think.
But a lot of this was Fickle and McIntosh.
He made that he knew that this was probably putting his own job on the line.
And the question is, I mean, is this fair?
Is it a fair criticism or like Barry Alvarez says, fans should keep their mouths shut.
I think it's fair.
I would never boo a player.
All right?
I've just, my dad's coaching experience through knowing Brady Ewing.
I at least have an appreciation for how hard these girls and gals and guys work.
I don't think it's fair to ever boo or go on a player.
But look.
Coaching is a business man, especially at that level millions of dollars and when fans are being asked to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for Season seats.
I think it's at least fair to expect a competitive team not always winning but to say you know what I Heard somebody else say this today that you want other teams to say man, we don't want to play those guys We eat that weed that just wow
So I think that is fair, Summers.
Well, that's a
case.
Yeah, they're a schmuck.
Yeah, I mean, right.
a little
Yeah.
But I think it's fair to criticize coaches.
Don, listening on WMDX in Wanna Key, says, hey, Todd, some of what you're saying is true.
But it's also true that as athletics got better, academics suffered.
We did better in all the major sports, and our academic ranking went down.
I'm an MS graduate from UW.
I was saying before the farm news,
that you know, this is all connected.
Part of the why that Barry Alvarez is common to this whole situation is news, news and not just sports is that academics, pardon me, athletics brings in revenue for academics and also notoriety for the university, which ultimately helps bring in students, which ultimately helps academics.
Now, Don, I'm not plugged into the academia world tight enough.
I'll take you at your word, but
I don't know that just because athletics does better, that's not the reason the academic rank rankings went down.
Maybe that's true.
I don't know that to be true.
But my point is just from my time at the Capitol, I do know that it's a better bargaining position.
And let's not forget, especially now, chancellors at our public universities at the UW system, this is a business.
And it gives
Chancellor Mnuchin or any other Madison chancellor a better bargaining position When they go a block from where I'm sitting at the state Capitol to talk with at least for now a Republican legislator and say look We're filling the seats.
We're doing everything we can to be self-sufficient and bring in what we can on our side And this is why we need this amount of help.
That's a stronger position
Then to go in there and I'm not saying it's right.
I'm saying it's a reality Then to go in there and say well, we need this amount of money and then legislators say we'll look at all these seats that are empty Why aren't you selling them?
You have all this available revenue and you're not doing your part.
That's all I'm saying is that is the academic athletics can Can help out on the academic side as well Matt in Middleton
Uh, saying thanks to Amazon and the internet, there's a surplus of everything entertainment, et cetera.
And people want things to be fast and satisfying.
So the patience for a team to improve is apparently gone.
I think that's a fair comment, Matt.
I also think that from a fan's point of view, they're saying you had somebody that was Wisconsin through and through and Jim Leonard.
and Macintosh, the athletic director, made a conscious decision to pass him over and go for the unknown.
Great potential, as my former broadcast partner is fond of saying, and great potential for disaster.
I'm not here to say that fickle disaster yet, but I'm just saying that to completely undo the ethos of Wisconsin football, big offensive line,
Gonna always compete.
Gonna have a run game.
Gonna always hold.
Nobody's gonna blow us out on it.
We're always gonna be in it.
And Wisconsin does not have that identity anymore under Luke Fickle.
Philip in Beaver Dam on WMDX says they fired Chris and he had a better record.
This is a really bad product.
Booze are justified.
When the fans stopped showing up,
They'll be back to pre-1990s.
Phillip from Beaver Dam, yes, Firefickel and McIntosh.
Robert in McFarland on WMDX says, it's not the lack of patience, it's the lack of losses that a team could have to be able to make the NCAA playoffs.
855-752-4842.
Troy, with our fine listeners out in beautiful Mount Horn, listening to MDX.
Troy, you got the last word on this, what say you?
Yeah, sickle was more proven than Leonard was So all these people including you saying we should have hired Leonard, you know,
I
don't agree with that at all necessarily even now but You know because the Packers tried that same thing with Lombardi's people with Bart Starr and Forest Greg and it didn't work out So, you know say Leonard
was proven and Tickle wasn't.
Tickle had gone to the national championship playoffs.
So he had
done
something.
I'm not necessarily saying he was more proven.
I'm just saying that he had the Wisconsin ethos.
He was an acolyte of Barry Elvarez.
He knew what had worked in Wisconsin up until that point.
And Macintosh made a conscious decision to essentially blow that up.
And that's his right.
I'm not saying that's right, right, but but I'm one of
his own guy,
right?
And so they made a decision to say we're not gonna go the route that has gotten the success for 25 years We're gonna go a new way.
We're gonna go to the air raid We're gonna recruit a whole new set of people and we saw this and Barry Elvred said himself.
It was a mistake We saw this under Anderson after after Brett Bielamote left they brought Anderson in from Utah
And kind of change things around right and they went back to Paul Chris back to the old system and guess what by a large it worked That didn't work either it did.
Yeah, I went to the 19 I went to the 19 or the 2019 Rose Bowl
What yeah until they quit on him against Illinois
But but if you look at all Chris won 10 games Troy Paul Chris won 10 games or more in all but one of his seasons Where are we now?
We didn't make a ball game last year and they'll be lucky to win five games this year
I'm not even I'm not even arguing for fickle because it's probably time except for the buyout It's probably time to get rid of
us.
That's true.
We didn't touch on
that I don't like though we should have went with Leonard because
Leonard boy Thing because I
just say I think they should have they should have kept the Wisconsin ethos.
That's all I'm saying All right,
right obviously in hindsight, that's true
It's always 2020 right?
All right appreciate you appreciate you as always.
Thanks, Troy.
I I could I could get a little Fun we have some fun at Troy because we've met and he's a good guy
It's just, I think it signifies the passion of Wisconsin fans, and isn't that better than having fans that just say, I don't care, don't show up?
Yeah.
Oscar and Madison saying, how many championships do we have?
That's the main thing.
Who cares if you win 10 games a year if you want to win any championships?
Well, Oscar, I would say that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Myself.
I would rather win 10 11 games a year and go to a Rose Bowl every every year and now I know that's not a possibility because of all the playoff stuff.
I would rather have that.
Then try to go for a national championship because I don't know that we have that's all the discussion.
We just don't have enough billionaires to contribute to the NIL fund to pay enough good players anymore.
That's why I just believe that.
48 minutes now past the I guess almost 10 till good gosh time is going faster.
All right Let's change gears a little bit.
You're gonna come back and talk more about this Jimmy Kimmel coming back on the air tonight on ABC after being suspended indefinitely by ABC Lots of different reports.
You don't know what numbers to believe
But lots of people canceled their ABC, Disney, plus Hulu, plus online subscriptions.
Apparently, Disney was feeling it in the pocketbook.
We'll come back and hear from the great David Letterman, John Stuart, and Governor Josh Shapiro on what this all means to free speech and what it means to us here at Wisconsin.
Don't go anywhere.
Just use the media.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
civicmedia.us.
week.
Mike Clemens, a great sports reporter.
Brew Crew came out.
I'm this is where I was going earlier.
I got sidetracked.
Little sleepy today because I stayed up late.
Here's what happened.
And people that know me will appreciate this.
I thought I really want to stay up and watch this game tonight on FanDuel.
Can I take a guess?
Yes.
I did fall asleep in my chair.
I fell asleep right before the game started, and I woke up at about the sixth inning, and then I was ready to go about 10 o'clock.
we go.
There we go.
And it went to extra innings, and those dang Padres, they were able to come back and win the game in extra innings.
They got to celebrate because it clinched a playoff berth for them last night, so they had their big champagne do-ins.
after the game last night.
Brew crew now lost two in the row.
Back on track though, tonight you can hear the game either take a nap early or do what I do, sleep for the first couple of innings and then finish it up.
You can hear the game on several of our stations, 805 for pre-game show, first pitch just after 8.30, Wisconsin time.
Crew taking on San Diego.
on WRCE, Richland Center, WISS, Oshkosh.
CQM in Park Falls and BZH in Hayward, Wisconsin.
Crew still a couple, three games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies for the, to clinch the number one seed baseball, which would give them home field advantage in the playoffs.
Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel back tonight on ABC.
And there's more to it than just entertainment.
Want to hear from David Letterman, who appeared at a convention earlier this week or in the last week on with the Atlantic talking to this before Kimmel and Benjamin stated, but here are his early thoughts on this.
In the world of somebody who is an authoritarian, maybe a dictatorship, sooner or later, everyone is going to be touched.
But this is me.
For 30 years, I did this for a living.
So I see this happen.
They took care of Colbert.
That was rude.
That was inexcusable.
The man deserves a great deal of credit.
He's in the Hall of Fame nine times, and to be manipulated like that because the Ellison family didn't want to trouble Donald Trump with this move.
So they got rid of him, not only got rid of him,
got rid of the whole franchise.
You're not going to have to worry about anything, Larry.
It's all gone.
It's fine.
Good night.
And then my good friend, Jimmy Kimmel, I, you know, I just, I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct?
It's managed media and it's no good.
It's silly.
It's ridiculous.
And you can't
go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office.
That's just not how this works.
David Letterman, the great David Letterman.
Of course, he had the late show on CBS before that late night on NBC.
I agree with him.
John Stewart, great John Stewart, the Daily Show.
This was a year or two ago when Jimmy Kimmel was honored with a Mark Twain Award, one of the kind of the lifetime achievement for people in comedy.
Here's what John Stuart, very prescient, very, was, was forecasting ahead a little bit of a, bit of a sage, if you will.
Here's John Stuart on government coming after comedians.
The threat to comedy, comedy doesn't change the world, but it's a bellwether.
We're the banana peel in the coal mine.
When a society is under threat Comedians are the ones who get sent away first.
It's just a reminder to people that Democracy is under threat Authoritarians are the threat to comedy to art to music to thought to poetry to progress to all those things It's never been all that
is a red herring.
It ain't the pronoun police.
It's the secret police.
It always has been, and it always will be.
And this man's decapitated visage... is a reminder to all of us that what we have is fragile
and precious.
John Stewart of The Daily Show of a couple of years ago...
Forecasting what was ahead we have time to get the Shapiro cut in Zomers This is Josh.
Oh,
Not the whole thing.
All right.
We'll come back.
This is important I want to just finish this up on on the other side because Josh Shapiro really sums it up in my opinion this from a couple days ago Summs it up and it has to do with a conversation that he had with someone on Spanish radio by the way for those don't know one of the fastest growing audiences in
over the air broadcast radio is Spanish language radio.
And by the way, most of that is owned by conservatives, whether it's music or talk.
And it goes under the radar for a lot of people.
And Josh Shapiro had an opportunity to be on one of those shows.
And what one of the announcers said on one of those Spanish language stations really resonated with Governor Shapiro.
We're gonna play that for you after the break talk about how it affects us here in Wisconsin Because make no mistake about there are Sinclair.
Oh, by the way Sinclair big conglomerate that owns a bunch of ABC affiliates They're reportedly not going to play Kimmel tonight not gonna air it Gonna put something on else in place of it
And there are no ABC affiliates in Wisconsin that are owned by Sinclair, but there are Fox both here in Madison and in Green Bay.
There are a lot of good people that work at those, by the way, here in Wisconsin.
They have nothing to do with the politics of Sinclair.
But once Sinclair asks of their employees and what parameters they put on, what they can report and what they can't,
That is changing the way Wisconsin voters think.
And that's why it is so important to be cognizant of where we get our information.
And it's why I'm so proud to work for Civic Media who has made it clear that they are not putting sensors on us, that we are free to speak clearly and speak our mind.
For better or worse, folks, it's 100% Tati.
We'll come back.
Your chance to participate in the green and gold text to win contest.
Don't go anywhere.
Our tour is straight ahead.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.