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It's the John and Gordy show.
Do you know what this means?
Wouldn't you like to know weather, boy?
You're pretty high and far out, aren't you?
What kind of kick are you on, son?
You're no good bastard.
Your show
sucks.
What made me think this was a good day to stop drinking?
What if you want coffee?
Coffee.
Coffee.
Black coffee.
Coffee.
Coffee.
They
want us
about people
like
you!
What a load of crap.
Thank you, sir.
May I have another?
Well, do
it live!
And that's the way it
is.
On 92.7 FM, WMDX.
Take it
away, boys.
Well, we need some coffee, right?
Oh, do we ever?
Start the day off right.
Wow.
Got a big, big day ahead
of us, John Peterson.
I know.
This is jam packed.
I don't know how we're going to find the time to even talk about half the things we need to talk about this morning.
We should have started 20 minutes ago.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We might have to cut into Stephanie Miller's program.
We might have to somehow stretch time itself.
Really?
So you
gotta bend
the time space continually.
Hop into the time tunnel and get a few extra minutes.
Oh, the time tunnel, yes.
Those were the days.
Look at the sunshine.
Once again, it's
a
bright, beautiful start this morning.
It's going to be wonderful all day long.
A lot of people are already getting ready to travel.
It's John Peterson, Gordon Young, producer Sam pushing the buttons, flipping
the switches.
You said
Sam.
Oh, did I?
Did I say
Sam?
Sam.
Wow.
Whoa.
Wow.
Slip.
Okay.
All
right.
Boris is punching the buttons and yes, Boris.
Clipping the switches.
But if we get to the WMDX official weather watch in Samsung.
Okay.
71 degrees currently high.
In fact, it feels like 71 degrees.
Does it?
Yeah, I don't think it's quite that warm.
High.
High of 89.
today and a low tonight of around 69 degrees, possible thunderstorms this evening.
So we'll see about that.
Not, not a real big possibility, but that's
only a 20% chance.
It's like cover your
ass I have 35% I know it's a cover your ass thing I hated that more than anything every day.
I was a slight chance was 20% 20% Yeah, it's just ridiculous.
You know mean anything.
Yes And then of course the official WMDX wet weather windows never incorrect and it looks sunny today
Yeah, the weather window temperatures 67 degrees
Oh, it is.
Yeah, and with highs in the mid 80s today, and I think it's gonna feel
Fairly comfortable.
All right.
You're
stepping
on a limb there.
Well, did you check the dew point?
Can you check the dew
point?
I actually can, yes.
I scroll through a lot of it.
Yes, I don't have to pay for it.
It doesn't have an entry fee as you go.
Well, the dew point is about 64, so it's starting to feel rather uncomfortable.
Humidity about 79%, so look out.
I wonder how warm it's going to be tomorrow.
for the 4th of July.
Only there was a way to figure that out.
If there was a kind of a way to prognosticate the weather and look into the future.
I'm seeing 88 for a high tomorrow.
Partly cloudy.
And it looks like it'll be rain free.
And that's good.
That is good.
So those fireworks will be
going off all over the place.
You know, I came out against fireworks the other day.
Did you?
Yeah.
But, you know, people, if you do it responsibly, you know, more power to you.
I read a, well, a city memo from Sun Prairie saying, they're illegal here.
No one, no one can fire off a firework in our city.
Really?
Yeah, that was their memo to the friendly folks in Sun Prairie.
You can't do it.
Somebody asked a very simple question.
Really?
If I have fireworks, can I shoot them off?
No, you can't.
No one can.
It's not possible at Sunbrow.
No way.
Good luck with that.
OK, man.
Calm down.
A little bit later on, we're gonna talk to Jim Santel.
He's gonna catch us up on whatever's going on with the Supreme Court, you know, the pending cases, whatever's
been happening in the last few days.
He always gets into the weeds with this stuff.
We love that part of it.
But at some point, I look at the big picture, and I'm looking at what they're doing, how they're destroying this country from the...
executive branch to the administrative branch, the legislative branch to, you know, of course, you know, the Congress.
What's the one with the courts in it?
Judicial branch?
Judicial branch, is it?
Wow.
Are you okay?
No, I need more coffee.
Brain cells aren't firing on all six.
What's our coffee guy, anyway?
He never stops buying.
We never have him around here anymore.
I guess we've washed the door enough.
Oh,
no, he got in.
Oh,
boy.
Fresh.
Over here.
Right over this way.
Tore something.
Wait, hold it.
Come on in.
Oh,
well,
yeah, that's weird.
What?
Yes.
She still can't
find the studio.
The thing is, he can't hear us over whatever he's seen.
It's never a fresh pot by the time we get to
it.
That's
for sure.
I mentioned Jim Santel, Tim Slecker will also join us from Busted Pencils in a while and get caught up on edumacation.
Yeah, there's a lot of little things, you know, Antigo made the press and they talked about that, yeah.
And it's an interesting story out of Antigo, so we'll talk to you what...
Tim Slacker.
Tim Slacker.
Are you having a moment?
It's going to be a long morning.
Maybe I walked in today.
You know it, right?
I said we
have
such a jam-packed show.
I
don't know how we're going to get to any of it now.
It's so jam-packed.
I can't remember anybody's names that are part of the show anymore.
I was listening to Schwabba, I remember his name.
But anyway, he was talking about that documentary on smart studios that will be going on at the Edward Music Hall.
All whatever.
So anyway, they're going to have that film there.
This is like a 10-year-old
film.
And it's uh, that's gonna be in a couple of days.
I've got the yeah, I have the date on my calendar
It sounds really interesting.
Yeah, it's really gonna be something because they'll be talking with butch big and and some of the other people that were a part of smart studios Exactly.
Bodine's are playing there tonight.
Oh, they
are.
Yeah.
Yeah, they are
There's only one Bodine now at this point The other guy was dating him the other Bodine's daughter.
Oh, is that right?
That didn't go over well really
It was a problem with that.
I think that was the problem or his ex-wife or something.
I don't remember exactly.
July 9th is actually the smart studios get together at Wood Music Hall.
And that'll be good.
That's, you know, they smart studios, man.
They cranked out a lot of great stuff.
Well, you know, the precursor, of course, was the group Spooner.
Yes, Spooner.
Yeah, those guys.
Which big and Doug Erickson.
Yeah, Doug
Erickson.
Yeah.
And yeah, and then garbage, you know, hit the band, that band.
And but they did a lot of great stuff with musicians at smart studios and that that's going to be quite the documentary and get together.
Okay,
all right, you know, yeah, I'm just all morning long I'm just gonna you know joke about the fact that I can't remember people's name and then and then I can get away with that I'm just kidding.
You know, I'm seeing if you're paying attention.
All right, so let's get the let's get the game going here
and
let's get and find out what's
What's worse?
Would you rather
hate?
You need more coffers.
Brain fart thing that you got going on is contagious, I think.
Okay, I actually have an intro for this now.
Let's play
it.
Let's play it.
Go ahead.
This is Woody Brown.
It's like wedding music.
Would you rather?
By the way, your neighbors texted us and said also the band Fire Town.
Oh,
yes, Fire Town.
Yeah, from Spooner to Fire Town.
That's right.
Yeah, I forgot about Fire Town.
Alright, let's get into Would You Rather.
First question, would you rather be forced to listen to the Barney theme song or so in Slurp Soup for 24 hours straight?
They're both the same.
After hearing the Barney theme song, you do want to slurp
soup.
I'd go with the slurping of the soup.
I don't remember how much fun we have with the Barney
theme song.
Do
you have the Barney theme
song handy?
I think I do.
I got to turn down this music.
There you go.
Let's listen to some Barney
music.
Here we
go.
Oh my god.
Okay, I can't listen to that anymore.
Alright, let's switch that up now.
Alright, so second question.
Actually, what would you guys say?
You guys had soup, right?
Yeah, I'd rather listen to Slurping Soup.
Alright, second question.
Would you rather be seated on an airplane between a couple that's arguing or next to a crying
baby?
I'd like to sit next to the couple arguing so I could throw my two cents
in.
That was good, that was good.
Yeah, I
mean, I gotta go along with that.
Yeah, crying baby would be really,
really tough.
I think I agree.
Yeah, we're all in agreeance here.
First two questions.
Yeah, I couldn't handle a crying baby.
30 final question.
Would you rather get brain freeze from ice cream or burn your mouth on hot food?
Hopefully.
I'll
go with the brain freeze since I've never experienced that so I'll just enjoy my ice cream It's a myth something people have created I make it seem like hmm no Gory you've ever
had brain freeze.
Oh, no.
I oh, yes.
Do you really you've gotten that?
Oh sure.
It's real.
Oh, yes Wow, so I would go the burning food on the
tongue.
What was it?
I think I would go burning food on burning your mouth on hot food.
All right.
I think I would do that.
But yeah, those are the three questions.
Wow.
You stay up really late at night coming
up with these, don't
you?
I
do.
I do.
I do.
Well, those are good questions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Find out a little bit more about each and every one of us here in the
studio.
So, Tom, do you have big plans for the 4th of July?
Weekend?
Big plans.
I do.
Three days
off, you know, we pre-taped tomorrow's show.
We did,
we did, yes.
And
we've got a lot of great segments
in here, but some
best of stuff.
Interviews that we've done
recently.
Yeah.
So what's your plan?
My plan is my friends from back in Illinois, that's where I'm originally from.
That's
right.
You're going to hop a freight car and hit the hobo circuit, is that
correct?
I'm going to be on
the train track.
That's fantastic.
Just
watching everything.
That's what I'm gonna be doing, yep.
And yeah, surprisingly, I have friends that are gonna be coming up here, and we're just gonna be watching some fireworks.
That's it.
Wow.
Nice and easy.
Plenty of
fireworks to be had.
So why did they think coming up to Madison was an important time for them?
Well, because they live somewhere that's really boring,
and
they don't wanna be there.
good old small town for
Illinois.
Okay.
Well, if you're from the Flatlands, it's not a great place to be.
And he was really not a lot to see, except for Flatland.
Of course, you know, you head north of the Cheddar Curtain.
Yeah.
And suddenly everything just brightens up.
You know, you got the Dells just waiting for it.
The Dells, yes.
That's the destination.
It's like Oz, you know, in the
distance, you see Oz shining.
And the fourth of July weekend is the really the
big start of summer in the Dells.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
So there'll be a big backup on the interstate, you know, heading north up there.
Yeah.
Probably later today.
Well, I hope so.
All through the weekend.
Yes.
I think it's the best water parks in the nation.
I really do.
We're just getting started on this Thursday morning back with more of John and Gordy in just a
moment.
Don't pass me over.
No, no, no.
Don't pass me by.
See, I can see good things for you tonight.
Yeah, good things for you.
No, no, no.
Don't pass me
over.
No, no, no.
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.
Every morning.
Every day.
Yeah, look out, look out.
No, it's
to beat
that.
Big finish.
Yeah, keep rocking.
Bring
it out home.
Come on.
Russ Launiello.
Here he is.
Look out for 92 FM,
baby.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Whoa.
He was something else, man.
Russ Launiello.
I wonder where he was in Vegas.
Is he?
Yeah.
I contacted him.
I didn't hear back from him.
I thought maybe he'd do another one of these songs.
Right.
Not yet.
But I'll harangue him a little bit more.
He used to play at a supper
club.
on the southwest side, Capitol Hill supper club.
Oh yeah,
Capitol Hill.
And he played these cassettes for the music bed.
Back in the day.
And then he did his impressions of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra.
Yeah.
Great stuff though.
Oh man, he was, he was just.
Terrific singer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And a lot of fun.
And to appear on the show, you know, you take that kind of chance, you know, you got nothing to lose.
Good guy.
Can we get the AOC cut cued up and ready to go?
All right.
All
right.
Let me just mention that, you know, I wanted to put this in here at this time.
This
portion
of the show is brought to you by Madison Hearing Aid Center.
You can find them at 4706 Cottage Grove Road, Madison.
They offer fast and flexible appointments.
Jim and Sarah will take care of you there.
They help people change their lives.
Their number one goal isn't just selling hearing aids.
It's improving the quality of life through better hearing.
MadisonHearingAidCenter.com, great website.
Check it out.
You can get a free hearing test right there to get you started.
It's Madison Hearing Aid Center, 4706 Cottage Grove Road in Madison.
Okay.
Yeah, well, last night, you know, I was watching Andor on the Disney Channel.
Andor.
Andor.
It's a spin-off of Star Wars.
It's a prequel.
Very, very...
very early prequel of Star Wars.
And I was having a difficult time hearing the dialogue.
And I thought, well, I'll get that and get out the hearing aids, you know.
And I didn't have them charged up.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
So I just floated through reading the closed captions, but.
Well, it doesn't take real long to charge them up.
Right.
I don't know.
I don't know how
long.
Well, it only takes a few minutes, like maybe 10 minutes or so, 10, 15 minutes.
Yeah.
Well, so anyway, we want to hear Andor.
Andor's a character.
That's the guy's name.
And he goes through all these iterations of trying to get the opposition going against the Dark Lords.
Well, you were talking about AOC.
She was on the House floor yesterday.
really gave her thoughts about the big beautiful bill and what it's all about.
Let her
rip.
Let it go.
Thank you.
And I thank the chairman.
You know, President Trump had issued some statements throughout this process saying and urging, insisting that this bill does not cut Medicaid.
He's also said some things.
You know, he says he doesn't think I'm too much of a smart person.
And I'll tell you one thing.
It doesn't take a smart person to know if you're being lied to.
President Trump, you're either being lied to or you are lying to the American people.
because this bill represents in the text of this bill the largest and greatest loss of health care in American history.
17 million Americans will lose their health care on this bill, not undocumented people, not quote unquote the disgusting term illegal, but 17 million Americans will have their health care cut from this bill on this point of tax on
as one of the only people in this body who has lived off of tips, I want to tell you a little bit about the scam of that text, a little bit of the fine print there.
The cap on that is $25,000.
While you're jacking up taxes on people who make less than $50,000 across the United States, while taking away their snap, while taking away their Medicaid, while taking, kicking them off
of the ACA and their health care extensions.
So if you're at home and you're living off tips, you do the math.
Is that worth it to you?
Losing all your health care?
Not able to feed your babies?
Not being able to put a diaper on their bottom in exchange for what?
This bill is a deal with the devil.
It explodes our national debt.
It militarizes our entire economy and it strips away healthcare and basic dignity of the American people for what?
To give Elon Musk a tax break and billionaires the greedy taking of our nation.
We cannot stand for it and we will not support it.
You should be
ashamed.
Great.
Great sums it up.
Let's sit in the
context.
Yeah.
Well, there's still voting on that this
morning.
Hakeem Jeffries is stalling.
Yes.
And he just continues to speak, delaying
the vote.
That's right.
But they do expect it to happen sometime a little later this morning.
So
it'll probably
happen.
Our eye on
that.
And of course, the state budget has been signed, folks.
Oh, that's right.
Yes, we'll get into that.
Yeah.
And a whole lot more.
Tim Slecker is right around the corner from Busted Pencils to talk about what's the latest in education and any updates there.
Coming back with more of John and Gordy on a Thursday after this.
The Dales and Door County, I'm going to Cheeseland.
Broadcasting from Cheeseland, capital of Wisconsin, Madison overlooking State Street and John and Gordy in the morning of WMDX 92.7.
We've got sunshine this morning.
It's going to be bright and beautiful through the day.
Highs in the mid 80s this afternoon.
and it's going to heat up over the fourth of July holiday weekend.
This portion of the show brought to you by Virlo Mattress.
You can wake up and sleep better on a Virlo Mattress.
A lot has changed since 1958 when they opened their doors, but some things have remained constant.
They're still direct to consumers, providing superior products at unbeatable prices.
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Westside and go to Verlo.com for more information.
We're
talking to Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils this morning.
Welcome to the program.
Good morning Tim.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you guys?
We're doing okay.
You know, I'm wondering why they didn't have this commercial scale sawmill here in Wisconsin at the time I was in school.
But, but Antigo has this thing going.
And this sounds really interesting.
You, you, you were talking about it in your latest podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fill us in a little bit on this thing.
Well, you know, we've been focusing a lot lately on busted pencils on, I guess you could maybe one way of phrasing it is alternative
higher
education.
You know, what is there out, you know, I don't want a four year degree and $150,000 in debt to work at Costco.
You know, things like that.
But it's a great place to
work.
It
is.
It's a
great place.
And so we've been, you know, what are these other pathways and people think of the trades?
And yeah, you know, let's focus on those because those are, you know, essential occupations and skills.
And what we, you know, in fact, it was our producer, Jacob, who brought us this story from Antigo where in combination with the University of Wisconsin system up there,
high-tech wood cutting.
Yes.
Well, and it's just like you read this and my my thing was is like oh so they got a sawmill up in the north woods big deal
of
course of course they do you know and So really we're gonna we got to train people on how to put stuff through a saw you know other than you know
Yeah
Keep your yeah keep fingers away
And so, yeah, an apprenticeship on wood cutting would be, you know, at the end of the day, you have all your fingers.
You're
you're now.
Yeah, you're a skilled woodcutter.
And actually, what this piece does is points out that, no, this is the whole science of wood and the technology of the saws and the new systems in there and how to analyze the different trees and the woods and the type of cuts and how many different cuts you could make for economic benefit and how to mix these
It's a high-tech job to be a woodcutter, and there is a place in Annaco up in the Northwoods that is saying, you know what, we've got a facility, and with a grant from the University of Wisconsin system, they put together this facility that...
really can give people an alternative higher education in a high-tech field, in an industry that is right there at home in the Northwoods.
And I think what I really like about this is that
This is one of these opportunities that creates economic independence for people to stay in their communities and add and contribute to rebuilding particularly those rural towns that have been hit so hard.
Yeah, I was fascinated by the fact that you can scan wood for the knots in the wood.
and the ingrown bark in some of these these trees.
Yeah.
And I had no idea they could
do that.
Yeah.
You know, last time I saw that was like, you know, Superman could do stuff like that.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You know, but who knew that your chat GPT could see through wood?
I know.
I have more respect for that now than ever before.
I think what they're going to have to do is, you know, we've got a big statue of
bunion in the Dells.
They're going to have to put a cell phone in his hand where he's working an app to cut wood.
There you go.
Oh my God.
Throw away that app, small
bunion.
They still have great pancakes there
by the way.
And lots of bacon.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
They pile it on.
Oh boy.
But yeah, this is really an interesting thing because, you know, I
I hail from Middleton where my kids went to Middleton High School and on the board they always had the new jobs that
they were training for you know it would change maybe a couple of times a year but you could take certain classes and train for those specific jobs so this is just another extension of that and this is really something else you know I mean the safety aspect of it though I mean the insurance coverage for something like this might be extensive
Well, you know, I could actually bring my Uncle Jewel up there who's missing a couple fingers.
He could stand at the
end of the
stall, you
know, and just hold up his hand, you know, like that and go like, okay, you don't want to, and he's from Hungary, you don't want to be like Uncle Jewel.
That's true.
You know, one of the things, you know, because I think the administration has gotten rid of OSHA, where they've defanged it quite considerably.
this point.
So, you know, we got to kind of look out for ourselves at this point.
But this is a great program.
Fantastic.
This
is a great program.
And what we've been trying to do on busted pencils is to really is to make people aware because it's kind of some of those things now where it's this, you know, what, what are you going to do after high school?
And it's like, if you don't know about these options, people are not going to, you know, take them up.
And so you're wrestling against to
two kind of things there's the culture of well you know uh if you go to college you're the smart kids and if you go to trades you're not the smart kids and we're we're trying to take away that idea of going everything you do
After high school and during high school.
This is all education.
Yeah, and you know, it's leading you and this isn't Oh, I didn't go to college.
I went to saw mill school.
It's like no, you know what?
I went to saw mill school.
I learned about yeah artificial intelligence and its implementation in wood cutting Understanding the science of wood, you know, it really isn't and I said this story kind of I think creates an image in people's heads
of, you know, people pushing, you know, logs through a big bladed saw and cutting them in half and moving on.
I think if you paid it, you know, in the show, I said, and you guys remember this, you know, the Waltons, you know, they owned a saw mill, right?
Yeah, that was there.
you know but but that that's not the image that we need to put across here this is again this is a highly skilled highly educated workforce that is doing this work and this work is something that you're not going to export across overseas you're not going to do this i mean you know the north woods of wisconsin uh the forestry the lumber industry is there um the idea now too of creating
opportunities for people who live in those communities to get a higher education in a form that says, you know what, this provides a real economic opportunity to contribute.
And I said, you know, what we're fighting against to in a lot of these small rural areas are brain drains that
kind of put forward the idea that, you know, if you got to get out of here, you got to get educated, therefore you can go and work and make money once you get out of here.
I'm saying, you know, that that's not a great message or, or, you know, an exercise if you're trying to actually restore and keep communities healthy.
And we're real, you know, we want to keep our rural communities healthy and thriving.
Yeah.
Well, you know, another thing that you were talking about as well in all of these podcasts is that a lot of these students graduating are really unsure about what to go into next,
right?
Right.
And that's this is part of that problem.
You know, at least you get training in school.
But if there isn't anything that interested you in high school, then how do you pick where to go next?
And we talked about this, too.
You know, some there are fad occupations to get into maybe temporary occupations.
We know technology will advance them into something completely different at one point.
So, you know, students are kind of left wondering, what should I do?
How do I pick a subject?
How do I pick an occupation?
Yeah, well and that is an issue we know some kids are yeah They're not informed going back to this making sure that they know that these opportunities are out there to give them a thought of going I'll try this the other thing was to is to see this program and this is kind of the work I'm doing here in Pennsylvania It's a partnership with the University of Wisconsin system and this idea that you know Well, I'm gonna be a woodcutter the rest of my life.
Actually, you're working with the UW you're doing this work.
You might go out and work
for a few years and but you're going to be able to imagine and go well you know what I'm going to come back to UW because I actually want to take more of a passion and really understanding the science of wood and there's an opportunity and so that's the other thing is just to communicate that this isn't the end
your
trade your job your this is an educational experience that's going to
Open you up to some ideas.
You're gonna do some work and it may even ignite another passion that you're now able to continue to pursue and so I think that's the message of Higher education is
is
to try to recommend that we're lifelong learners and that these things that we have out here These are just options to continue our education and so when you see industry and higher education working together such as what's happening in antigo
that what that's really doing is trying to create pathways that allow people an alternative to, hey, you know what?
I really like doing this high-tech wood cutting.
I'll stay here.
Oh, I'm doing this and it's with the University of Wisconsin.
I think I'm going to transfer the skill set and the credits that I accumulated at the Sawmill to the UW and put it towards a degree.
And so it's, you know, again, it's just a great story that we need to be talking about every time we see these opportunities.
Yeah, continuing
education, big deal.
We're talking to Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils, and Tim, we talked about the lumberjack industry and the wood cutting industry, but also...
you know, future opportunities in the dairy industry.
We were talking with our friend Pam Yonkey, the family, the fabulous farm base, the other day about automated milking barns, you know, that keep, that are really way more efficient than the old ways of doing
it.
You don't have to be there.
The machines move up and milk the cows all by themselves.
The cows actually know what to do.
Yes.
And the cows are actually happier and produce more milk this way.
Wow.
Yeah, super technology.
Yeah.
I want to know that's an app we need to invent is the app AI app that looks at a cow and says this is a good milk and
cow.
Yes, we're talking about the the shade machine that goes through the fields now and the cows are underneath the shade machine.
Have you heard
about this?
No, no.
Yeah, it's like a plane, big wings with solar panels on it.
And it operates the better operated tractor that moves this truck along very slowly so the cows can be in the shade during this hot weather.
So they're better at milking.
They get more milk out of these cooler cows.
Yeah, that's
amazing.
Like I said, I, you know, cause when we can identify which cows make skim milk, 1% chocolate milk.
Yeah.
That's all in our future.
Jim.
Tim.
Tim.
Good to talk
to you.
Yeah.
Happy fourth.
Don't blow off your fingers.
Okay.
Dr. Tim Slacker from busted pencils.
They drop new podcast Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays.
Check them out on the weekend on the civic
media
radio network on Saturdays.
Back with more after this.
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.
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Hey, we want to invite you to enter one of our new contests here for Sugar River Pizza.
We're doing pizza parties this summer and you and your office.
Folks could be a part of the pizza party.
We're going out to your office, and we're going to deliver pizzas and share a slice with each other.
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Yeah and when we bring the pizzas
It'll be a fun time.
We
used
to do
this many years
ago.
It was great.
It's great to meet a lot of the listeners out there and people had never listened.
Just part of the office.
Who doesn't like
pizza?
Yeah, and of course we'll bring along a few goodies.
We'll bring along the boombox and force people
to listen to our show.
Pre-recorded, of course, from the podcast.
Give away a few t-shirts and some other swag that we have in our prize closet.
Okay.
Now let's get to Derek Van Orden.
He signed on to the big bad bill in the
house.
What a surprise.
And then when it went to the Senate it changed a little bit and then he started panicking because they changed a few things in that big bad bill that would affect Wisconsin rural communities.
Derek is a big supporter of the rural communities by accident, really, just because he's from there.
Anyway, he was begging Governor Evers.
He was relying on Governor Evers to sign our budget in the state immediately before the house signs on to...
the big bad bill
sent
from the Senate.
So if you could just keep track of all this stuff.
So anyway, I want you to get a little history of this.
This is Derek Van Orden saying, oh, man, he isn't going to sign on anything that makes cuts to Medicaid and puts puts those hospitals at risk in the rural communities.
Let's listen.
And so far, Republicans are coping with this fundamental obvious contradiction by just
lying their constituents and just falling in line.
Let me give you an example of how this kind of thing works.
So Derek Van Orton is a Wisconsin Republican and he's an interesting case because he represents a true swing district that's also rural in character, okay?
And back in March, boy, boy, he got all wound up and
he
sounded like he was sticking to his guns
on this film.
I have very, very few hard lines when it comes to
these issues that we talk about regularly.
One of them is this, and I've been crystal clear with the leadership in the house here.
If during this budget reconciliation process, they're going to try to cut rural health care, I am not on board.
I will not be on board with a package that if anybody is trying to cut any type of rural health care, it's just not going to happen on my watch.
Well,
so that was his red line back in March.
Then
two months
later, he voted to pass a House version of the Trump bill that did exactly what he said he would vote against.
Republicans like Van Orden at some levels, you can see they understand cuts to health care would be devastating their communities.
Crossing Trump would be devastating to their future political prospects, not to mention it probably involves like having to deal with a lot more security, frankly.
It's
why Republicans have been lying so consistently to their own constituents about just what the bill
does.
So anyway, we know where Derek stands on this thing, you know, so he voted for it anyway.
So he sent a memo out to Governor Evers saying the state budget includes an increase to the state provider tax rate, which by the way, state providers of health care in the state
contribute a little bit of money to Medicaid in order to pay for all of these things that are going on in the state, the real hospitals and the care that they get, and that is going away under the new bill, the big bad bill in Congress right now.
That goes away for some states, but there is an exemption, and that is that the states that did not sign on to expand at Medicaid get to keep whatever
whatever form of tax they had upon these healthcare providers.
So it's a Medicaid expansion state that can't do that, but Wisconsin isn't part of that.
So they allow 6% to remain untouched in this new bill.
But Wisconsin has a 1.7% tax rate that goes to help Medicaid
pay for all of the services that they provide.
So anyway, he says, pass this bill, pass this bill in the state.
So we can keep our, we actually, I think they're increasing this from 1.7 to 6% in the state budget.
I'm not sure, I'd have to check on that.
But anyway, he's begging the governor to sign it.
Well, the governor signed it.
So now we're all safe and ready to go.
But he was panicking.
He wanted the governor, a Democratic governor to bail his ass out.
That's my point.
That's why I'm bottom lining it here.
Whew, that was a long explanation.
I know.
I had to
diagram that out.
Wisconsin's provider tax rate has not been updated.
for a long time and the big, beautiful bill will allow non-Medicaid expansion states like Wisconsin with provider tax rates to remain untouched.
So he wanted
to
make sure that we still had that tax to support those rural hospitals.
And Governor Evers went along with it and helped him out.
That's what we do.
We
help those Republicans out.
Yes, they need all the help they can get.
Okay.
659, in our next hour, we'll talk to Jim Santel, attorney at law, find out the latest at the Supreme Court level and local...
issues as well, and a special surprise, yes, sometime in the seven o'clock hour.
Yes.
Stay tuned.
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