Hi folks,

The Minocqua Brewing Company Times team came back from the holidays and dove right into issues that will help safeguard Democracy in 2026, both in Wisconsin and America.

In last night’s Up North Podcast, we spoke with Nathan Taylor from a group called the Election Truth Alliance. They’ve investigated election irregularities primarily in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida.

His group has already sued a number of counties in Pennsylvania after their entire slate of voting machines failed on election day and workers recopied people’s ballots in order to count them. Here’s a clip explaining all of Cambria County’s problems.

Additionally, we discovered that 70% of all the voting machines in America are owned by only two companies: ES&S and Liberty Vote (used to be called Dominion).

The new owner for Liberty Vote is former GOP Election official and both companies have ties to Republican donors.

Not only is a near-monopoly on American voting machines troubling, but regulatory bodies for those machines are flawed. Pro V&V, the testing body for these machines, lost their accreditation in 2017 while called CIBER and 2 members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the appointed board that oversees voting machines, were sued in 2022 for having secret meetings with the Heritage Foundation.

Next, Princeton Computer Science Professor Andrew Appel has claimed for years that that Election machines aren’t protected from hackers, and Nathan, who has a cybersecurity background, mentioned on the podcast that their were questionable software updates made on a majority of America’s voting machines only a month before the election. Here’s the clip:

Now, I’m the last person to hold hands with MAGA and claim that the election in 2024 was stolen like Trump claimed in 2020, but I do think that we should be talking about ways to ensure that our voting machines are 100% trustworthy well before the 2026 elections, and that’s why we had Nathan on our show.

Why?

Because Wisconsin, being a swing state, has been BESIEGED by voter suppression from the right for decades, and progressives have learned that we have to be absolutely VIGILANT in fending off their constant attempts to reduce the voter rolls and voter turnout.

Listen to this next clip, where Senator Chris Larson runs through the litany of ways Wisconsin Republicans have tried to cheat in elections over the last few decades.

We moved on to talk to my lawyer Fred Melms about our federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of Wisconsin to unmask ICE. I’ll talk more about that in my essay next Sunday. In short, we need witnesses who can testify that they saw masked men who purported to be ICE harassing and/or abusing other Wisconsinites, as well as video clips. This shouldn’t be a tall order given what we see on the news every day. If you’d like to be a witness in our case, please email us here.

In the final segment of our podcast, we reminded everyone that we’re beginning to start our special events for paying subscribers. Here’s a list of what’s happening over the next week.

* Happy Hour with Kirk - Dec 5 at 4 PM CST

* Join me tomorrow for a virtual beer tasting on our Substack page I do this every weekend in Minocqua all summer long in Minocqua, and will now do it monthly for paid subscribers. I’ll tell the story of our beer labels and how they relate to Federal, State, and the crazy local politics of bright red Northern Wisconsin. I’ll also answer any questions you may have in the chat.

* Office Hours with Patti - Dec 8 at 4 PM CST

* Patti and I will have a chat next Monday about her Mocha Monday article, and both of us will answer any questions you have for us in the chat

* Holiday Party - Dec 10, 7-9 PM, Madison Taproom (RSVP required)

* All paid subscribers are invited to our holiday party at next Wednesday after the Up North podcast. Both Patti Vasquez and Ben Cominos will be there in person, and we’ll your first beer is on us. Here’s a link to our member’s page. To RSVP to the party, go to the Upcoming Events Section.

* Office Hours with Ben - Dec 16 at 1 PM CST

* Same as with Patti, I’ll talk to Ben about his latest article with us for a half hour and we’ll take questions for our subscribers in the chat.

If you want to join me and the crew in these more intimate podcasts and parties, here’s the link to become a paying subscriber:

That’s all I have for you today. I’ll see many of you again tomorrow, beer in hand, at 4pm.

Kirk Bangstad

Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company/Minocqua Marketplace

Publisher, Minocqua Brewing Company Times

Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit minocquabrewingcompanytimes.substack.com/subscribe