Oct. 31, 2025

A Perfect MRI

Show Notes

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On this week’s show…

Donald Trump’s medical path seems to be tracking alongside his poll ratings: going down. Six months after his “annual” physical exam, doctors gave him a screening test for dementia, and ordered an MRI for undisclosed reasons. But when your doctor says you need an MRI (or a monthly dementia check-up), it’s not a clean bill of health.

The latest campaign finance reports are in, and they offer some strong clues for what to expect over the next year of campaigning. We’ll take a deep dive into “following the money”, and be joined later by campaign finance tea-leaves reader Simon Shuster from Michigan Bridge.

The state court of appeals has ordered state House Speaker Matt Hall to release his hostages: nine bills passed by the Legislature in the final days of the 2024 session that he unconstitutionally refused to deliver to the Governor for signature. We get the lowdown from the attorney for the winning side (his last name is Brewer).

As Trump continues his unconstitutional killing of alleged drug runners in international waters, a lot of his underlings may be needing criminal defense lawyers. Trump has Supreme Court gifted immunity, but everyone from Pentagon Pete Hegseth on down could be looking at multiple charges of murder as the killing spree escalates.

State Republicans staged their first gubernatorial candidate debate and the alleged frontrunner didn’t even show up. John James continues to hide in the witness protection program both as a candidate and as a congressman.

An estimated 1.4-million Michiganders are on the verge of losing SNAP benefits. State legislators are trying to fill the federal funding void – a $71-million emergency appropriation passed the state Senate earlier today on a bipartisan vote; the state House can act on the measure as early as Tuesday.

We start with the latest batch of campaign finance reports – the ones filed by would-be Governors. On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson smoked the competition for the cycle. On the Republican side, candidate-in-hiding John James continued his strong fundraising, and former attorney general Mike Cox opened his own checkbook to fatten his campaign treasury.

This episode is sponsored in part by
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EPIC ▪ MRA, A full service survey research firm with expertise in
• Public Opinion Surveys
• Market Research Studies
• Live Telephone Surveys
• On-Line and Automated Surveys
• Focus Group Research
• Bond Proposals – Millage Campaigns
• Political Campaigns & Consulting
• Ballot Proposals – Issue Advocacy Research
• Community – Media Relations
• Issue – Image Management
• Database Development & List Management

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We’re joined this week by veteran journalist and media monitor Jennifer Schulze for a deep dive into the right-wing takeover of where we get our news.

Jennifer Schulze is a longtime journalist, mostly broadcast news and mostly in Chicago. She headed the WGN TV newsroom and lead the team that created the WGN Morning News. She writes media cricitism and other articles for The Contrarian, Lincoln Square, Heartland Signal, etc. She does regular media roundups for Civic Media and Courier Newsroom with host Pat Krietlow and for WCPT Radio with host Joan Esposito. Her fellow Chicago journalist Mark Jacob joins her on both of those regular segments. Jennifer’s Substack is called Indistinct Chatter and you can find her on Blue Sky and threads @NewsJennifer.

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