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I'm Brian Noonan.
It is 7 0 6.
You're getting ready for your day.
That means we're going to give you some you need to know.
It's a wake up call in more ways than one.
Time for some you need to know.
Well, we'll start with this.
The Dane County Board of Supervisors this month voted to purchase about 165 acres of land for $6.4 million with the intention of donating it to the Ho-Chunk Nation.
The property near the Yihara River just southeast of Madison includes archaeological sites culturally significant to the tribe.
The property also includes ecological resources in its mud lake basin that county officials want to protect so they're planning to place a conservation easement
on the site to protect it from development.
The site includes six recorded archaeological sites and 22 ancient burial mound groupings.
It includes the third largest remaining mound group in the country.
Wisconsin once had tens of thousands of these ancient indigenous burial mounds, but they were destroyed by development the past 200 years.
The Ho-Chunk Nation has been at the forefront in protecting remaining mounds in the state.
That's fascinating that Wisconsin led the nation in
We have so much history here.
I think it's really cool, especially when you start dealing with the Ho-Chunk Nation.
around the state.
It is really, it's cool.
It's very cool.
In other stories that you need to know this morning, an independent candidate for governor is now filming himself going to Milwaukee neighborhoods and stealing campaign yard signs for Francesca Hong and Ryan Clancy, which is a violation of state law, probably not good to record it.
Carlos Lamar Dixon posted a video on Facebook on May 27th, showing himself taking a
yard out of the yard sign, taking yard signs out of the ground.
I'll get the words out this morning
and then loading
He filmed a similar video on May 28th.
He's now criticizing...
Democratic Socialist candidates based on the Democratic Socialist of America's original ties to Zionism, which the DSA has since shed.
State law says that no person can deface, destroy, or remove any legally placed election campaign advertising poster with penalties up to $100 fine.
Now, local police say that the action can fall under theft and damage to property, which can bring the fines, can bring higher fines or jailed.
No.
Here's the thing.
Don't do this first and foremost because it's illegal, but then don't be stupid enough to record yourself doing it and put it on social media.
Well, that's why he's an independent candidate for Governor Francesca Hong's response was funny though.
She just said, I don't care that you steal them, they're just so expensive.
So now she's got to replace them and they cost a lot of money.
They do.
All right, leaving Wisconsin for a moment.
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled for a black death row inmate from Mississippi who claims there was racial bias in the makeup of the jury that convicted him by a five, four vote.
The justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner.
In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight and overly hurried jury selection process or some other cause, things broke down.
That was Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
writing for the court.
Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberal justices joined with Kavanaugh in this.
There were 11 white jurors and one black juror in a trial with similarities to that of another black man on Mississippi's death row whose conviction the High Court overturned seven years ago.
See, another reason you can't have AI, we talked about this yesterday, AI juries.
I don't want AI juries, but they'd be colorblind.
No, all they see is machine.
I don't know what color that is.
OK, all right.
I think he just joined back in here to the stream.
But Claude Lemieux, a four-time Stanley Cup champion, who's ferocious, hard-hitting style of play, angered opponents, and sometimes overshadowed his skills and ability to deliver in the biggest games, has actually died after taking his own life.
According to authorities, he was 60 years old.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said yesterday that deputy
responded just after 3 a.m.
to the scene of an apparent suicide at a furniture store showroom in Lake Park, Florida.
The sheriff's office said that the victim was believed to be Lemieux.
Just three days ago, he was the Montreal Canadiens torch bearer prior to game three of the Eastern Conference final at Bell Center.
And as a player, he was a mix of talent.
He was a little abrasive, and he wasn't afraid to cross the line in the name of competition.
He actually won the Kahn's
is it smite?
Okay, thank you.
Trophy as playoff MVP, I'll defer to the actual sports people after scoring 13 goals in 20 games for the New Jersey Devils to help them win their first championship in 1995.
Comments, Frank?
A couple of things.
One, I was watching the game live where he was the torch bearer for the Canadians game.
So I just saw him on my TV days ago and then I saw this news pop up yesterday.
I was beyond shocked like everybody else.
One real quick thing also about him.
If you like hockey, if you are starting to get into hockey.
And you want to go look at like real fun stuff like ferocious fights and whatnot.
Look up Claude Lemieux, Avalanche vs. Red Wings in the 1990s.
You know, during COVID, I watched like old games that were on YouTube that I didn't watch because I was too young.
Sure.
It's a blast.
Go have fun.
He was a great player.
He was, you know what?
Mostly painted as a villain on the ice.
Sure.
which is kind of what we need.
Like
in sports, it makes the
You know, I love to talk about this.
But I find this fascinating because these outside groups are really in full force already.
If you've been paying attention or you've watched any of your favorite shows.
And they're all right now packs that are not anti-Tom Tiffany.
They are all packs that are basically putting in a good word for the democratic
pool of candidates.
That's essentially what these PACs are right now, but they're coming from all over to support our local candidates, which is, you know, hey, that's is where the B in my bonnet comes from.
They're not
in the
Absolutely.
What I think is weird about these particular groups though, if you happen to see these commercials on your TV and I'm going to assume there's probably some digital pre-roll ads as well that are probably gonna roll out at some point because that's the world we live in.
Most of these groups that are backing some of these candidates right now are
actually registered with the state's tracking system
of
And the two groups you mentioned in particular backing Lieutenant Governor Rodriguez and County Executive Crawley, neither one of them actually have really great social media presence either.
In fact, what they do have was just recently launched.
So obviously they're trying to make sure that people can go check them out as well if they happen to see these ads, I guess.
That's when it starts getting a little weird for me.
Like, if you're not really that established and you have to go out and establish yourself before you start running these ads, I don't know, it always leaves me with kind of a weird feeling when
at all to the candidates or their campaigns because we know the Democratic Party in Wisconsin is not going to spend any money till there is a winner in the primary.
And then they've got, they've got the most money.
So they'll start pumping it in once there's, there's a candidate.
But right now we don't know.
And the other thing is we saw in the polls, most voters
are
And this is why these PACs are always interesting to me and why I wished we didn't have them because these outside groups can spend money basically on any candidate without being subject to the same sort of disclosure laws as the campaigns themselves.
So that means that you're getting potentially a powerful money.
while the smaller donors to campaigns might just be trickling in, and those are actually capped by state law.
And let's also be clear that it's also wealthier individuals who throw their weight behind a given candidate and then put them into these packs so that they can't be directly tied to the candidate.
And we've heard it, we've heard it million times, we've talked about it a bunch.
How do I know where the money's coming from?
It's from a pack.
I don't know who is So there's a lot of shady things happening when it comes to money in politics
and it's good at 730 I just 735 we're gonna talk about Strategy in general yeah from the Republican standpoint because you if you were with us yesterday And if not you can always go to Spotify and listen to the podcast of the show.
We talked about Tom Tiffany's latest ads
And so we're going to talk to a former Republican strategist to give us kind of the strategy, but the money part is
is different, and that's always very
Here's the thing that always bothers me about these ads too, especially in a state like Wisconsin.
How much of the advertising actually works?
Because voters are
We are so overwhelmed with elections in this state.
It feels like it's always election season.
And campaign officials will tell you that it's necessary, you've got to advertise, and I've worked on campaigns, so I understand that.
You need the name recognition, but as voters, do we actually really care?
But it hasn't changed my mind, but it will give me name awareness.
Sure.
So if I'm, oh, I hadn't heard of that candidate.
That's intriguing.
Then I would go and research that candidate.
So I get it, especially if you're, and those will drop off the more the closer we get to November, you drop off and after the primary, all these
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We're joining us on this Friday morning.
Hopefully you're having a great start to your day.
It is time for swipe or stay.
We are going to put the politics conversation aside for just a few minutes, and we're going to dive more into the world of pop culture with our senior producer Frank.
How are you today?
So Mazer came out and said that he's been trying to get the script in front of Billy Joel's eyes and approved by him for years now.
And he wasn't blindsided by this at all.
They've been trying to cooperate with him, try to get his blessing, try to get him work on it because he said there's nothing that paints him in a bad light, which I just don't.
If you
Get these stories.
For everyone that doesn't know, if you didn't go down the rabbit hole some years back, Scooter Braun bought the record label that owned her music.
She was reaching the height of her fame.
She tried buying her master recordings from him.
He said no.
And then she got really upset, called the Swiftie army against him.
She re-recorded her old albums, called them Taylor's version, which I own multiple copies of each one.
Of course.
And then he eventually sold it to another company and then that company sold the Masters back to Taylor.
But now
he's
Young MC Morris Day, the commoners and Martina McBride are among the scheduled acts who said they will not be appearing.
McBride put out a statement saying, I would like to talk to you and clear the air.
I will not be performing at the great American State Fair on June 25th.
I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a non-partisan event, but that turned out to be misleading.
Go
Well, living in Wisconsin, whether you like it or not, you are used to frequent elections and with them the nonstop political commercials touting one candidate or another.
Yesterday we talked about Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany's ad focusing on crime and singling out two of the seven major Democrats currently vying for the party's chance at the governor's seat.
So how do campaigns choose the issues they focus on?
How are political strategies formed?
Well, to help us figure this all out, we're joined by Rusty Schultz, a former political strategist and executive vice president of operations for platform communications.
A little background on Rusty.
He served as chief of staff to Wisconsin's assembly leader, where he crafted legislative policies and strategies to tackle some of Wisconsin's largest policy reforms.
He's also worked for several political candidates.
Most notably, he served in a communication
during Senator Ron Johnson's 2010 campaign and joined Governor Scott Walker in 2018 to spearhead the governor's digital efforts.
And he is with us here.
Good morning, Rusty.
Thanks for your time.
Good to talk to you.
So I know you're not working with Tom Tiffany, but if you were working with him or other Wisconsin Republicans, what would you suggest is the main strategies for them heading into not only the primaries, but then the midterms?
Yeah, well, first, good to be with you, Brian and Jamie.
I think Tom Symphony is really on the right track.
He's talking about affordability, taxes, taxes, taxes.
You can't take two steps out the door and not hear someone talking about gas prices, grocery prices, what have you.
And it's something that resonates with someone, whether you're 18 years old and voting in Wisconsin or you're 80 years old and voting in Wisconsin.
And as long as that's the drumbeat between now and November, I think he's on the right track.
Otherwise, it's finding other things that resonate with the masses.
You heard him talking with press this week about prioritizing investments in transportation and education.
Again, it's those things that had that broad appeal to wide swatches of the electric no matter if you're in superior or down in recede.
When we talk about the affordability, obviously that has been kind of the winning message as we've watched these primaries across the country play out, not just here in Wisconsin.
But I think we would be remissed if we didn't talk a little bit about the property tax issue and how you see the Republicans using that to their advantage, especially after that failed surplus deal.
So how do you think that they are going to position themselves to be better or different than what's previously been done?
Yeah, the way I like to describe that Jamie is just like everyone likes ice cream.
Everyone loves a property tax cut, right?
It's just what's the flavor of the day?
And you know, I think by and large Republicans are united on the idea that we need to deliver tax relief to Wisconsinites.
Tom Tiffany wants it to be big bold.
He's made that as plank of his campaign.
I think that's what you're going to see him talk about.
I think you've already seen
Republicans, the legislature rally around that.
I think it's a matter of agreeing on that flavor of the day.
And Tom wants it to be big bold when he gets elected in November and sworn into office come January.
Rusty, as we see friction within the Republican Party on a national level with senators and congresspeople starting to distance themselves from the president, if you were a Wisconsin Republican, how
Good an idea is it to align yourself?
We know the president endorsed Tom Tiffany.
He endorsed one of the candidates up north How how wise is it at this point with polling numbers so low and things in such disarray in the country to Align yourself with this administration
Yeah, what I would say to that is there is something unique about the governor's office that makes it, you know feel a little bit more personal to voters and I think
There's a separation from being a member of Congress, a member of the U.S.
Senate, and running for governor.
And when I give Tom Tiffany a lot of credit for, guys, is he's building that operation on the ground in a way we haven't seen as Republicans in a few years here in the state.
I mean, as an example, small-dollar donors from 72 counties across the state, he just handed in signatures to get his name placed on the ballot.
They had signatures from every county.
They're building out an apparatus of field offices.
When I talked with their campaign earlier this week, they said they're up to 50 field staffers that are hired already.
So to kind of carry that infrastructure through November, I think it's more about finding, again, those issues that resonate with voters and building that grassroots coalition at a local level that make me go, wow, this guy's doing this the right way and in a sustainable way to carry them through November.
And he's going to do it on his own, I think.
He's the executive vice president over at Platform Communications, former political strategist.
When we talk about that grassroots effort, is that different than what we've seen for Republicans in the state in the past?
I know Democrats have been very good about being the boots on the ground party.
It kind of feels like the Republicans have been a little bit more distant in building out that infrastructure.
So is this new for the Republican Party?
in Wisconsin to this level anyway.
Yeah, that's a really great question.
I mean, the way I look at that is it's not necessarily new.
It's maybe something that we as a party haven't made that type of investment or had that strategy on, you know, early on in a campaign.
Certainly in the last cycle, that was not the case.
It was a little bit of a scramble to play catch up.
And I think that, you know, if there is a benefit to having a unified party behind the nominee, and obviously Tom's received the endorsement.
the state republican party um a few weeks back at the convention um it means that you can unify and start focusing on these things as opposed to working through those primary gymnastics and um not necessarily a new thing but it's kind of returned to the basics of of what a good campaign should be and and how you kind of carry that to the the battle box november
going with that a little bit rusty what is it about the republicans versus the democrats where the republicans were able to pretty much hone down
this primary to just one candidate, Tom Tiffany.
And the Democrats, we've got seven major candidates, a couple, a couple others kind of on the outside.
Why is it the Republicans can quickly coalesce around one person and the Democrats seem to have trouble doing that?
Yeah, I don't know that there's a secret sauce or a secret formula that Brian, I mean, I think Tom emerged early, raised his hand, said this is something I'm interested in.
I think a lot of people saw value in that.
We've got to remember, he served in Congress for the last two years, but before that, back when I was working in politics, he was a state senator, right?
He was in the state house, crafting budgets as a member of the Joint Finance Committee, finding ways to cut taxes, invest in those schools.
And with a track record like that, you know, it does clear a field a little bit because people recognize the sweat equity he's put in and that leadership that he's shown to do those things.
And, you know, we didn't have the robust primary process that Dems are having.
robust as a little tongue-in-cheek because it looks like the mud's starting to sling and the claws are coming out a little bit now as we get closer to that August primary.
But, you know, I think it's really a credit to Tom for having the leadership and shown and demonstrated his ability to lead in these various roles that the party quickly unified behind him in this process.
He's the executive vice president over at Platform Communications.
As we continue talking a little bit about the Republican strategy going into the midterm elections.
Now, I think it's interesting because Tom Tiffany's campaign has really focused most recently, especially on their online ads, on Francesca Hong and Mandela Barnes.
Because the Democrats have such a wide pool and there isn't really a frontrunner yet,
this by design to kind of lock in on the two names, maybe the more that they're seeing as the more progressive candidates, basically showing that sort of opposition in the state to their views versus Tom Tiffany's.
What is the strategy right now for really looking at Francesca Hong and Mandela Barnes?
Is it just name recognition or something bigger, do you think?
I think it's a healthy blend of a lot of things, Jamie, and we can talk about some of them here.
I mean, definitely name recognition as chief among them, whether it's Marquette polls, whether it's polls I've seen from folks on the right or hearing things from friends on the left.
I mean, Francesca Hong and Mandela Barnes certainly are rising to the top of the polls in terms of what is resonating right now with Democratic voters.
I think the other thing that we've got to consider as a part of that, though, is there are probably some of the more progressive people in that
right now championing things like abolishing law enforcement.
legalizing prostitution.
We've got a former lieutenant governor and Mandela Barnes who chaired a climate task force and couldn't point to a single thing that did well, but parade green new deal.
So it's some of these things from the far left factions, the party that they're championing that, you know, maybe even some Democrats don't identify with or find that resonate.
And highlighting that certainly is
a feeling to a Republican voter who's saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this person wants to lead my state.
But if it's also kind of shading points off on the dem side and bringing awareness to some of the more, what Tom would probably say is radical policies, so be it.
And that's a good thing from his perspective.
As a former operative, Rusty, I'm always thinking of the more shady avenues on everything in politics.
this away for Republicans, and I'm sure it'll happen once the Democrats have their own candidate.
For Tom Tiffany's campaign to go, all right, let's go after the most extreme candidates and ignore the more moderate Democrats who might have a chance, a better chance against us.
But if we highlight the far progressives, that's going to give us an edge before they actually have their candidate.
You know, that's really a double-edged sword, Brian, because at the end of the day, think of it this way, if you highlight some of those extreme policies of the folks on the far fringes, right, to a point where they're unelectable, you could argue that those are the folks you want to run against in a general, because there isn't that appeal in a bipartisan sort of way.
So what I'd say to that is, while you're seeing advertisements, while you're seeing highlights of some of those things,
I can guarantee that Tiffany Camp isn't ignoring a single person in that primary because it's a balancing act.
And Wisconsin is a 50-50 state.
We call it a purple state.
It's a swing state, whatever you want to call it.
We've seen it all here, and they'd be foolish not to be kind of tracking and following a lot of these folks in the primary and kind of having game plans to account for any one of them at this point because it is neck and neck.
I do want to talk a little bit about Tom Tiffany and how he pivots in certain instances because his voting record would indicate that some of the policies that would have helped people with food, health care, even veterans, health care, he voted against.
And obviously everybody in Congress has the reasons for doing so.
He's also gotten a little flack this week with his messaging on law and order, especially, you know, kind of going after Mandela Barnes and
Francesca Hong and then making comments this week about the anti-weaponization fund and whether or not he would be supportive of that.
How does he go about telling voters, showing voters that he would do opposite of what his voting record has been or previous comments, right?
Because I know that's always an issue that every political candidate has.
But how does he strike that chord when the voting record is pretty obvious that he has voted against some of these programs that would have helped people?
Yeah, and it's politics at its worst, Jamie, to be honest with you.
And what I would say to that is what I really appreciate about a candidate like Tom is, well, the news story of the day, the spin of the day might be he's against this.
He has a long track record of votes both here in the state and in Congress.
to point to places where he's made investments in law enforcement, to point to places where he's made real meaningful investments in our schools, and to point to places where he's cut taxes.
And those are the three big planks of his campaign.
And when I look at some of these other candidates, they don't have that track record.
It's a lot of, I promise, I promise, this is what you'll see.
This is what I propose.
This is what I've seen work elsewhere.
Tom's the guy that's done it.
It's been boots on the ground and has that track record to run on.
So I think with that in his pocket,
it really helps him because he's done it.
Oh, that's a good question, Ryan.
You know, I think the biggest thing they could do to eat him and him is to sign those common everyday issues, right, that he's trying to talk about and try to shave points off the margins.
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And I just, for everybody who was sending us texts and stuff during that last segment, thank you for getting involved.
We appreciate it.
Yeah.
Yes.
And this is my, it's better to know what your enemy thinks.
And I'm not saying Republicans are my enemy.
I'm not Donald Trump.
But the other side, you want to know what the other side is thinking.
You want to know what they're plotting.
And then you can counter program.
as we like.
So I thank you all for getting involved.
Yes, thank you.
We
we
So in honor of our 100th show which aired earlier this week I finally got my audio recording working.
We're gonna play who said it.
I'm gonna read off some quotes that have been said from every member of this show.
OK, regular cast members, of course, no guest appearances.
And we all have to decide.
We have to guess who, in fact, that quote was attributed to.
morning.
Just a little background.
We put things in different places on this show's rundown for for reasons to break things up.
And just for everybody texting in, just a reminder, we have had every Democratic candidate governor, as you saw, as I embarrass myself in front of Keldor Roy's.
But yeah, we're moving on.
Quote number five, I can't believe I have to sit next to this guy for the next two hours.
We have
Beside
app.
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