The Milwaukee Brewers will have a busy July 30 trade deadline which could include the addition of one of the more impactful players expected to be moved in the coming days.

Despite being at the top of the National League Central, the Brewers still have holes in their roster that need to be addressed for a deep run in the postseason. Starting pitching help should be Milwaukee’s focus when entering the trade deadline, and they are rumored to be in hot pursuit of a highly talented arm.

“Two NL Central teams are pushing for (Erick) Fedde,” The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal wrote Saturday afternoon. “According to sources briefed on the discussions. One is the Milwaukee Brewers. The other is believed to be the (St. Louis) Cardinals.”

Fedde has a 3.11 ERA with a 108-to-34 strikeout-to-walk ratio, .227 batting average against and a 1.14 WHIP in 121 2/3 innings pitched across 21 games.

Adding the 31-year-old to the rotation would put Milwaukee in the best spot possible for the remainder of the 2024 campaign, and the Brewers should act fast attempting to trade for Fedde.

The veteran is not only one of the best starters in the American League but is on the first year of a two-year, $15 million contract. If the Brewers pull off the trade, it will not only aid their current postseason pursuit but jumpstart 2025 — when Brandon Woodruff and Fedde would bolster an already dominant pitching staff.

In addition to bringing in an arm to the rotation, the Brew Crew is also looking to add a left-handed bat while star outfielder Christian Yelich is rehabbing a lower back injury — leaving the front office with busy upcoming days.

More MLB: Giants Reportedly Open To Trading Two Intriguing Sluggers, Brewers Should Pursue

The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee seems very far away from Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party. As one approaches the RNC, inside the heavily guarded, temporary steel wall erected around Milwaukee’s downtown as part of this so-called National Special Security Event, one encounters a side street next to Media Row, filled with food vendors, a stage, T-shirt and souvenir booths, and a slew of organizations touting conservative issues. Also present is a replica of The Little White Schoolhouse, towed into place by the Ripon Chamber of Commerce. It was in the actual schoolhouse, still standing in Ripon some 90 miles northwest of Milwaukee, that a group of abolitionists launched their new Republican Party on March 20, 1854.

The abolitionists who met in Ripon in 1854 included many from a nearby socialist community known as Ceresco. They felt the freedom they sought should be enjoyed by all, including the millions of people enslaved in the U.S. Two years after the party formed, an Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln joined. In 1858, he ran a failed Senate campaign against a pro-slavery Democrat, Stephen Douglas, then, in 1860, ran for president. Southern states began seceding within months of Lincoln’s election, launching the nation into civil war.

Several years earlier, in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, giving bounty hunters from the South significant powers to abduct and remove suspected runaway enslaved people from the North to the South. When Joshua Glover, an escaped slave from Missouri living in Wisconsin, was caught and held overnight in the Milwaukee jail in 1854, a crowd of up to 6,000 formed, stormed the jail, freed Glover and helped him escape to Canada. It was the Glover incident that spurred the Wisconsinites to finally launch their new, abolitionist political party.

“Resolved … we will cooperate and be known as Republicans. … We cordially invite all persons, whether of native or foreign birth, who are in favor of the objects expressed, to unite with us,” read one of the founding resolutions. The principal “object expressed,” their main goal, was the abolition of slavery in the United States.

One hundred seventy years later, the rhetoric pouring forth from the RNC podium sounds strikingly different. Back in 1854, immigrants were a large part of the population swelling new states like Wisconsin. Now, hostility to immigrants is a central theme of the Trump campaign. Donald Trump ordered the streamlining of the GOP’s platform from 66 pages of detailed policy prescriptions to a compact 16-page document.

“We must deport the millions of illegal migrants who Joe Biden has deliberately encouraged to invade our Country,” it reads, promising to “begin (the) largest deportation program in American history.” Many delegates at the convention were enthusiastically holding signs that read, “Mass Deportation Now!”

On stage at the Fiserv Forum, MAGA Republican loyalists spoke from the podium, heaping praise on their party’s unquestioned leader, Donald Trump, just days after an attempted assassination that left him with a bloodied right ear over which he now wears a white bandage. A number of Republican delegates have been wearing symbolic ear patches in solidarity.

Speakers compared Trump to legendary leaders like President Abraham Lincoln, Civil War General then President Ulysses S. Grant and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In the wake of last Saturday’s assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, several key Republicans, including Donald Trump himself, are calling for national unity. Unfortunately, most convention speakers are calling for unity by rallying their base against marginalized communities like immigrants, trans people and others they consider undesirable.

“We are facing an invasion on our southern border — not figuratively, a literal invasion,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz said from the podium. “Every day Americans are dying, murdered, assaulted, raped by illegal immigrants that the Democrats have released.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has engineered an armed standoff between Texas National Guardsmen and U.S. federal border agents, and who proudly buses desperate migrants to cities run by Democrats, spoke as well:

“Biden has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists.” In fact, the crime rate in the immigrant population is far less than in the general U.S. population.

Jean Guerrero, a senior fellow at the UCLA Latina Futures 2050 Lab, said: “They have nothing else to offer the American people. It’s scapegoating politics, rooted in stoking fear and stoking hate and creating the impression that there’s a dystopic reality at the border, which simply is not the case.”

The answer to the current threat to democracy is more democracy. “Knocking on doors and talking to people,” Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, suggested as the best organizing strategy. “You need to get the word out, because every vote counts.”

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!” She is the co-author, with Denis Moynihan and David Goodman, of “Democracy Now!: 20 Years Covering the Movements Changing America.”

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — Multiple festivals are expected to draw thousands to Milwaukee’s lakefront this weekend, but driving in and around downtown could create some headaches. Officials say pack your patience.

Street signs are already going up in anticipation of the crowds.

With so many big events in town parking this weekend could be tough.

This weekend, only motorcycles will be allowed to park along Lincoln Memorial Drive just outside Veterans Park for Harley Fest.

Who won’t have a difficult time parking this weekend? Scooters because they can be left anywhere.

The Air and Water Show’s website is selling reserved parking. Saturday parking is sold out, but right now, Sunday is still available.

“On Bradford Beach, McKinley Beach, McKinley Park we have reserved seating. We have our box office open, get here early,” said Paul Rogers, President, Waterstone Bank Air & Water Show.

The water part of the show starts at 10 a.m., then at noon, they’ll be flying.

“So, this is a unique weekend because of Harley Fest, German Fest and Brew Fest, Milwaukee County Parks wanted us to do all of these events together. We all said yes so now we have a great weekend with all these events. It’s working out great,” said Rogers.

The Thunderbirds will be zooming overhead about 3:00 p.m.

“This is an F16 C model with a block 52 variant which means it has the pratt and 22 engine and gives us a bit more thrust, a bit more power,” said Lt. Col. Nathan Malafa, U.S. Air Force, Thunderbirds Commander.

Eight F16’s are already lined up at the 128^th Air Refueling Station, but only six will fly in the show. Two are backups.

“So, when you see the four jets flying together, I’ll be the one in the front and then when we rejoin the six jets together, the delta, I’ll also be the one in the front,” said Lt. Col. Malafa.

“And on Friday they’re gonna practice and do at least one, maybe two full practices down there so that’s another opportunity to see just about a full show,” said Col. Merkel.

Col. Charles Merkel says in addition, visitors will see a possible replacement for one of Milwaukee’s fleet that the 128^th is hoping to get in the near future.

“We obviously love our KC135s but they’re 60 plus years old and it’s time to modernize and we want to have the opportunity to do that,” said Col. Merkel.

For now, consider this weekend in Milwaukee a one-stop shop for all your entertainment needs.

“Oh, you’re gonna hear us absolutely, I’ll bet you’ll hear us taking off from here all the way over to the beach as well,” said Lt. Col. Malafa.