It’s Not A Milwaukee Problem, It’s A Wisconsin Problem (Hour 2)

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and air on air.

Jane Matt and air Greg Buck and Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our home at Radio Park in Racine.

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It's Friday, Dan Schaefer will be here, Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the multi-award-winning Recon Population Area.

I know we're gonna talk about Jill Underly.

Oh,

yes.

And the reports in the Cap Times, among many other things.

Yes.

That's not going well.

No, some would say handled not well.

Yeah,

handled in, uh, yeah.

Not, not good.

Uh, so we'll talk about that with Dan, among many other things for audio survey.

We're out the bucks.

We'll talk a little about the Brewers too.

I realized yesterday when Paul Noonan was on the show, we didn't talk about the Brewers app.

all not even like the little hint of like oh it's baseball's over we just it was ignored

yeah so well we'll talk about the Brewer's season and any memories that you want to share yeah from this past season uh Dan Schaefer here for audio sorbet we will wrap up the show as we always do with a listener this shouldn't be a thing chain if someone

is a listener listening right now with their listening ears yes and they're like

I have a great idea for audio sorbet, or this shouldn't be a thing, or a guest, or a topic, or here's a story you might be interested in.

How would they do that?

How would they get in touch?

Oh, it's so easy.

Jane says at civicmedia.us, J-A-N-E-S-A-Y-S.

Email us at Jane says at civicmedia.us, like

Greg said you can send in your TISBAT suggestions, audio, sorbet topics, anything you feel like.

Send it in to janesaysatcivicmedia.us.

This one was sent in from Peter.

Thank you very much, Peter.

Thanks, Pete.

It's great.

Yes.

Take a breath edition.

Taking the breath edition of this shouldn't be a thing coming your way around 10 53 So I hope you can join us for that wanted to share with you new data out this morning showed inflation heated up in September to a pace not seen since January September consumer price index showed prices rising at a 3% annual rate up from 2.9 in August above April's

Post-pandemic low of 2.3%.

This is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Box reporting this morning, an increase in gasoline, 4.1%.

Food, 0.2%.

Food at home, 0.3%.

Other things increasing.

Shelter, airline fares, recreation, household furnitures, and apparel.

So pretty much everything.

Everything.

But it's all good.

But chain.

It's all good.

But, Shane.

Greg.

It's all good.

It's all good.

We have a clip from, remember, Kayleigh McEnany?

Yes.

She was a... That sounds like a made-up name from a kid's book.

Kayleigh McEnany.

She was in the previous Trump administration.

Oh, so she's a rhino.

And now she works for Fox.

Oh.

And she had an announcement yesterday.

Good news, everybody.

Yeah?

Take a listen to Kayleigh

McEnany.

at least one trend and true brand is making a big comeback as consumers tighten their wallets.

And here it is, hamburger helper.

The mix of mac and cheese and ground beef is seeing a surge in sales.

Yay.

We did it, everybody.

Yay, hamburger helper is surging as people can't afford beef.

So I guess we're just going to have noodles.

Well, see, there's a lot to one.

pack with that.

Just her statement.

She was very smiley, very, very smiley.

It's like she's being paid by the glove itself.

She's like, she's handing over some money.

Like, here's the hamburger helper people, big hamburger helper.

I think that it's very telling on this because, and I don't want to, I grew up eating hamburger.

And hamburger helper was the go to affordable.

I don't want to say cheap.

That's it's affordable.

The ground beef was affordable.

The box was affordable.

And there you go.

It was a way to stretch your, your meal.

Yes.

You could, you could, you could feed people with that and then have leftovers for lunch the next day.

But it was an affordable way of doing it.

And nothing against hamburger helper as an item, nothing against the people who still eat it.

But her excitement while she says, while people are tightening their wallets, tightening their wallets.

I feel like we should focus more on that part rather than how excited we are over a food stuff that has an anthropomorphic glove pushing it.

Her excitement is almost

insulting.

I would agree with you.

Yes.

But again, even though Fox said this morning, core inflation came in up.

at 3% with an increase in food and shelter and airline fares and recreation and household furnishings and apparel and all those things.

But the president says not to worry.

Really?

Everything is good.

Calvin, play that clip please from the president of the United States.

The only cost that's really up is beef and the fake news only wants to talk about beef.

And what I did is I made it possible for those people to survive.

They're incredible people.

But they were being decimated by other countries.

And I didn't want that to happen.

So prices are way down.

Groceries are down.

Everything's down.

Energy is way down.

Even interest rates with a bad chairman of the Fed is terrible.

He said,

everything's way down.

He's your chairman, dude.

Everything is way down.

Maybe you're not actually seeing that when you go in the store.

I know I'm not.

But in his

world, everything is down, you guys.

Well, it's easy.

It's like Ron Johnson.

We were playing that clip of him saying that the healthcare subsidies and just the rise of cost is not going to be a major gut punch.

When you're rich,

It doesn't matter.

Exactly.

And the president has what I, what I assume is world-class healthcare as the president of the United States.

So we don't know about that as food.

He probably doesn't realize that some of that food, he actually does have to pay for himself.

That's one of the underlying, underlying rules of being president is that not everything's free, but hey, $230 million.

That's going to come your way.

Yeah.

Point is for those people who are still mega strong,

And love Donald Trump.

How do you square what you see at the grocery store and at the gas pump with his words with his words?

Where is what is so I hear is lying and my ears are pretty dumb.

I'm not a genius.

He says prices are down.

They are not this week.

I watched gas prices overnight go up nearly 50 cents at a gas station and quick trip in Kenosha.

That's not a lie.

So when he says prices are all down except for beef beef is just crazy You're shopping at these grocery stores too and you're seeing prices go up.

What am I missing?

That you know that I don't that makes us winning that We're not getting as people watching the prices also go up.

I'm seriously I want you to explain to me the 4d chest that's being played right now where he says energy prices and grocery prices and

All these prices are going down, even though they are not.

What is the secret that I am missing?

855-752-4842.

Also, what kind of grocery prices are you seeing?

Are you seeing them down anywhere?

I'd love to know.

We'll all go shop there.

That would be great.

And I think it's important to point out also that in that clip that we played of Donald Trump, the people he was referring to who are suffering and struggling

Are the people in Argentina?

Yes.

He's not talking about Americans who are struggling to put food on the table.

He's talking about bailing out Argentina to the tune of $40 billion because he wants to help them.

I know we didn't need any allies anymore.

I mean, do we need allies?

We're seeing to be

losing

them.

It's America

first.

Yeah.

I

thought it

was

America first.

Yeah.

And.

Two weeks ago, it was 20 billion.

Then it became 40 billion.

Don't be surprised when it becomes a hundred billion, when it becomes a in perpetuity pledge of billions.

This is not ending.

This is not how that works.

No.

And the other thing, speaking about tagging on or prices rising.

Yeah.

And I saw this this morning.

We're not going to have a lot of time to talk about this.

But the big blob of a billionaire ballroom.

So he has said that this is being funded by donations from all of his donors who want access to the White House so that he can do them favors.

What about the electricity going forward?

What about the maintenance of this building?

What about staffing this building?

What about furnishing this building?

I would assume that taxpayers are going to be on the hook for that stuff.

Well, yes, I mean.

Also, what about all the people who worked in the East Wing?

Which, by the way, is gone.

It's gone.

It's gone.

Completely gone.

The East Wing no longer exists on the White House.

Weird.

Where do all those people go?

They have to be put into new spaces unless they were just fired, because it was office space, there was living space, there was security there.

Where does that go?

That also costs money.

Do you have to build in new spaces, do new offices in other spaces?

what happens to all those individuals?

This goes right back to the Qatari plane.

It's not a $400 million free plane.

It is a plane that needs to be, that he wants to use, that must be retrofitted to be secure like Air Force One.

We pay for that.

And

then he gets to keep it.

And then he gets, gets to keep it.

And there is upkeep.

There is staffing.

There is constant, there is constant technology that needs to be replaced.

Those things, if you ever want to see something actually amazing, look at the process and how they, how they,

update Air Force One.

They take it apart down to its ribbons and scrap.

They put it back together to make sure everything is good.

That is going to cost us a lot of money.

This East Wing ballroom is going to cost us money.

And I'll be very, very technical and very petty about this.

But the fact that all those individuals who are on that list of folks who've given, they have all enjoyed massive tax breaks.

That is our tax money that we've given to them.

We're paying for this whole thing.

For a ballroom, most of us will never get

into,

will never be invited.

Well, I don't know if it's so much as an invitation as it is a donation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in that administration, it means the same thing.

One gets you the other.

And I feel like personally, we're just not, I don't know how to make people pay more attention to the fact that because of this president, now our White House, one third of our White House is gone because he wanted a fancy ballroom.

Yeah, he can do anything

he

wants, you know, but prices are down folks.

Congratulations.

Enjoy your hamburger helper and Fill up with less gas.

Well again, apparently we're

gonna be using hamburger helper just without hamburger.

It's just helper.

It's just

so

we're just gonna have noodles

We're

gonna be eating noodles.

I'm not against that.

I mean personally that's a choice.

It's a choice.

It's a it's a culinary Jane seriously her

excitement

Let's play that clip, Calvin, just one more time in case you're just joining us.

This is Kaylee McEnany from Fox with some really happy news.

Calvin, let's play that clip once more.

And last but not least, one trend and true brand is making a big comeback as consumers tighten their wallets.

And here it is, Hamburger Helper, the mix of mac and cheese and ground beef is seeing a surge in

sales.

Who was on the side going, ugh?

No, she was going, ugh.

Yummy.

Yay, Hamburger Helper is back.

It brought to you by Big Helper.

Big Helper.

All right.

I'm sorry.

I don't mean to laugh.

That was just funny.

That's a funny play on words.

When we return, the shutdown continues, and even some Republicans are now saying, hey, Mike Johnson, there's actually work we could do.

Yeah.

No kidding.

Right.

That's all coming up.

Stay close.

You're listening to Matt and Aaron here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Let's go get some helper.

Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Box, Sweet Calbee on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us.

Call or text.

The number is the same at 855.

7524842 leave a comment if you're watching in the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up in just a little bit after the 930 news Dan Schaefer will be here from the Recombobulation area a lot of things to talk about Dan with and good morning live stream Dan always brings several hundred people with him talk to us stream so thank you so much for joining us

Really appreciate it.

Right before we went to the break, we were talking about Donald Trump says, oh, all prices are down and everything is good.

And Kaylee McEnany all excited because more people now turning to hamburger helper because everything's so good.

And we also talked about the big blob of a billionaire ballroom.

And Tiffany had a good comment.

The East Wing is how the people used to enter the people's house from Tiffany and River Falls.

Is it a coincidence that was demolished seems like the people are no longer welcome in the people's house?

Yeah, that's a real good point and Yeah, we're never gonna be invited there.

No unless we can all maybe if we all chip in together and make a donation One of us could go I

Don't want you.

You know what Jane you

not interested.

You can do it.

You can do it.

I'll be there.

I'll be the one

Yeah, I

There was a post, I think the Lincoln project posted this on their Twitter account, which was the picture of the demolition of the East Wing.

And they said, a picture is worth a thousand words.

And like,

what are

we going to have to say for ourselves?

What are we going to have left when, if and when this is all over?

I mean, do, does the next president come in and say, you know what, we're going to try to rebuild the East Wing back to where it's, or,

Jake Tapper made a very, very interesting point in an interview regarding this.

A lot of presidents, they like to enjoy what's been done after, before they walk into office.

They're like, ah, it's fine.

The ballroom is fine.

We'll keep the

ballroom.

Well, if you listen to Steve Bannon, who is still out there and very influential, Steve Bannon said yesterday that Trump is going to have a third term and he will be in office in 2028,

which I think he just said recently, like a couple of months ago that he wouldn't.

Like they,

the plans in place.

Anyway, we are still in the government shutdown.

Thanks to Mike Johnson, essentially.

And this from Alexander Willis, we need the place to be open.

GOP lawmakers, GOP lawmakers fume as Mike Johnson refuses to put the house into session.

Lisa Murkowski.

from Alaska.

She's got concerns.

She does.

The issue is, is that if we're going to do substantive things like legislation, we can't just do it in the Senate.

We need both bodies.

We need the place to be open.

We need the house to be functioning.

The house has been in recess.

It seems like longer than a month.

I think they've only worked like 14 days in the last three months.

House members.

Yeah.

because he really doesn't want to do anything about the Epstein files.

That's what this is all about.

Well, that and swearing in the woman from Arizona.

Yeah.

The new Congresswoman who was duly elected, legally elected, all the votes were counted.

She won.

And they're just sitting on it.

And you, wow, if you want entertainment, watch him try to skirt past that question every, because he has the same answer every time.

And now press people, reporters are just like,

Everything you're saying is untrue.

Everything you're saying has, there's no precedent for what you're saying.

You could swear her in right now.

Absolutely,

he could.

We're

talking about

Mike Johnson, by the way, the speaker

of

the house.

It's absolutely just

infuriating.

I saw an article yesterday that said that they expect that Johnson will keep the house shut down through Christmas and through New Year's because they do not...

Above all, they do not want to release the Epstein files.

Yeah.

And it might not... Many people have said that Trump's not in it.

Trump is not implicated in this.

It's all of the people around that they are protecting because they are protecting these people.

Adelita Grahalva is her name.

I just want to make...

be respectful.

She is the congresswoman elect from Arizona, waiting to be sworn in.

No reason why she can't be.

And he has every has every reason to keep it closed.

I someone said, right, he has every reason to keep it closed because there is a portion of people who will just sit there and go, yeah, do it.

We don't care.

Doesn't bother me.

I don't say because there are congresspeople who are like, I don't have to work.

Fine.

And there are people who voted for them saying, yeah, don't do it because we don't have to.

Okay, cool.

The

the business of this country is grinding to a halt.

And it doesn't have to be.

Nope.

Representative Kevin Kiley, Republican from California said in addition to this making it a lot more difficult for us to actually end the shutdown, it also means we're not doing all of the things the House was supposed to be doing this month.

Even Senate Majority Leader Tom Tillis, Republican from North Carolina, said there are so many bills we're all working on.

I'm working on a number of things.

It requires you to be here.

Yeah, they could be there actually doing things on behalf of their constituents

They can actually be there now.

They can't get anything passed, but they can

be there can still me there are are

still hammer things out There are lawmakers in Washington DC working in their office doing everything they possibly can but yeah, we are at a place now where The government shut down the house isn't working

And it seems to be fine.

There seems to be no problem.

It seems to be just don't worry about it, Jane.

This

is hard.

Because prices are down.

This is how America wins.

Because prices are down if you just listen to that one person.

Yeah.

It's all good.

We have news coming up next, and then when we come back, Dan Schaefer will be here, Civic Media's political editor and the creator of the multi-award-winning re-combobulation area, so stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air, coming to you across the vast statewide, country-wide, you can pick us up around the globe on this Civic Media radio network.

Good morning and welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air.

Greg Bach, Dr. Slide on the Board, committee from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on a live stream.

Good morning, live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter.

He joins us every Friday to do some recombobulating.

Dan Schaefer,

the political editor for Civic Media and the creator of the re-combobulation area.

Good morning.

Good morning, Jane.

Good morning, Greg.

Always wonderful to be here with you at Radio Park and Racine to re-combobulate on yet another discombobulating week.

Yeah, it's certainly, there hasn't been one.

There

hasn't, we have never had a normal week.

I've been

doing, I've been on this show for, you know, three years or whatever it's been now as a regular guest.

I don't think there's been a single time where I've come on and just be like, Hey, this has been a normal, very

chill week.

Let's

talk recipes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that hasn't happened.

We're going to start off by talking about a state superintendent of schools jail, jail under Lee.

This just keeps getting worse.

It

does.

It does.

So the background on this here is that the Cap Times published an investigation last week into how the Department of Public Instruction investigates cases of sexual misconduct and grooming among teachers.

There's a lot about that story that we can't really talk about on the radio.

I would

encourage people to read it.

It is a tough read, but it is an important story and it prompted this assembly committee

hearing yesterday in Madison.

And State Superintendent Jill Underly, who oversees the Department of Public Instruction, was invited to attend and help clear up some of the confusion about

what's going on,

answers

and

questions.

This reporting, which DPI has disputed, raises a lot of serious questions that demand answers.

from the head of this agency.

And she did not go to the hearing yesterday.

And

she did not go to the hearing yesterday.

She

did send someone, a deputy, right?

Yeah, there were a number of people from the department.

I think three different people from the department who attended and were generous with their time.

It was like a three hour hearing.

They answered a lot of questions.

Underly certainly put these folks in a tough position.

And then they think they performed admirably given the circumstances.

what's going on here.

Like why, why, if you are the head of the department of public instruction, this bombshell story, a year in the making drops from the cap times.

She refuses to be interviewed for that story.

She then disputes the reporting in that story.

And then, you know, if you're not going to answer questions from a journalist, sometimes you're going to end up answering questions in a committee hearing.

And that's what happened yesterday.

And instead of showing up, she was out of state at her,

alumni at Indiana University, receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award.

Instead of answering questions about the safety of children in schools in the state of Wisconsin.

It was unacceptable that she was not there.

Absolutely.

This just gets worse and worse and worse.

From a professional standpoint, it was unacceptable.

From a political standpoint, it was stupid.

It was.

This is absolutely... She has gone into her second term

as the head of DPI, there's no way she didn't know about these things.

There are so many chances for her to get ahead of it and say something and come forward, come clean and say we do this.

We recognize the problem and we will work on a solution and we're telling you now because it's important for transparency and she didn't do any of those things and she walked right into an election and won it.

And also, I keep on thinking about Tony Evers.

This is his last year.

And this is going to be the albatross around his neck trying to get things done.

And this is what people are going to want to talk about.

And she goes to Indiana to get an award.

I don't understand the thing.

This also speaks, though, to her attitude towards the election as far as she was so not really like the campaigning was not sparkling, in my opinion.

This is

not the first time that she was said like, oh, I have other obligations

when

she was invited.

I think there was like a marquette.

Um, you

know,

basically

debate

and with politics at a forum or whatever it might be.

Uh, and then she said no to this and no to that and, and just didn't want to come answer questions from journalists.

And if you are the state superintendent.

Why are you running from these situations over and over and over again?

Tom McCarthy, Deputy State Superintendent at DPI told lawmakers during that hearing the state database used to display an educator's license status could include more information about their why their license was revoked or surrendered changes that lawmakers called for on Thursday from what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong.

Dr. Underly's position is that there are problems within the reporting system.

That seems to be the excuse to a certain extent.

Yes, that's been part of it There's also just like we you know And I think this is always a common complaint among people in Wisconsin for many years now It's that they are under resourced to be able to investigate these types of things which you know, I'm sure is a factor but

that is

if that is the factor

then answer the questions and have that conversation if that is the factor.

And this is not something that's been going on for, this is not just like a blip either.

As the Cap Times reporting shows, they broke down what was going on from 2018 to 2023.

And so in like more than 200 cases of allegations of sexual misconduct and grooming that the department had

investigated and kind of shielded those investigations from the public, made it hard to find out which teachers had been investigated, might be losing their licenses.

And Republicans are all over this.

They called this committee hearing.

They've had press conferences.

They've demanded answers.

Tom Tiffany had a press conference himself in front of the state Capitol yesterday as part of his campaign for governor.

And I've been very frustrated to see how quiet Democrats have been in the face of this.

I know

Underly is, she's a Democrat.

She was endorsed by the Democratic Party in the election.

But at the same time, like, why are we just remaining silent on a major issue that demands a level of accountability?

Like, if there are, you know, confusion about this or whatever, like, have the conversation and have that, you know, look for those answers.

But by again,

burying your head in the sand and refusing to talk about this, it's just making the situation worse.

And Democrats in the legislature at the governor's office, the silence across the board on this has been really, really frustrating to see from a party that I often agree with.

And really damaging.

I'm sorry, it's really damaging.

It really takes, so it just makes it seem like you don't care about the health and safety of children.

And that is something that, and I don't mean to swoop in politically, but that's something that the GOP can

and mine until the last moment.

And I don't see a good end for Jill under Lee.

This seems like, this seems like a resignable offense because if this was like two or three teachers or two or three investigations over the course of five years, five years, I get that 200 though.

That's a problem that you all know about.

And no one said anything.

And the fact that you said nothing during an election, during your first year, like you could have come into your

and said hey we found these problems and we're going to fix

them.

And here's the fix for that.

Exactly.

Instead they sat there and honestly the silence from the Democrats right now is indicative or a reflective of the silence from her and her administration during the entire

to our first term, if you ask me.

Right.

If you're just joining us on matinee or on air, Dan Schaefer is here, Cidic Media's political editor, the creator of the recombobulation area.

We're talking about Jill Underly, the head of the Department of Public Instruction and this really damaging report that came out last week from the CapTimes about teachers.

looking like they were being shielded after accusations of sexual misconduct.

Lawmakers asked the DPI officials who showed up at this hearing who were cited in the Cap Times reporting where educators were investigated for these offenses and then able to later reapply for their license.

One official said some of those agreements were only for a year or three years or a defined period of time.

We don't do that anymore.

Well, there was the one story in the big in the initial article from the cap times the one story I think was the first teacher they reference He quit so he didn't get fired so he could keep his license right there needs to be I don't Quit fired no there needs to be a paper trail saying why this teacher left if I mean and make it very simple like if it's they left because they're moving tick a box they left because they They're leaving the industry tick a box if it's something like this

fill in the box that says other but we need to know regardless whether they're fired or they're leaving why this happened transparency and this yeah leaving to keep your license are you out of your mind are you out of your mind right now this is

I am really surprised that nobody, no Democrats have made any waves on saying so.

This is not how, like you look at all the other, Al Franken, Robert Menendez,

Bob Menendez,

these Democrats who were wrong and did stupid things and bad things, they were held to account and they were made to leave office or Menendez's go to jail.

But this,

the wisconsin democrats i mean has there been anything from the wisdoms at all as an entity apart from the politicians

from from the party no uh but i you know i think you know initially like okay let's wait and see what comes out the fact that she didn't show up in the hearing yesterday

i

think

it really

changes the dynamic here uh one democratic state representative in that hearing uh representative mike

I don't know if it's bar or bear But he's from Verona and Dane County.

He said on the record in that in that committee hearing you said quote I'm disappointed that dr. Underly is not here.

She should be here I've conveyed to her that her to conveyed that to her team twice in the last week that she should be here and she was not

Jenny on the live stream says in the shadow of the Epstein files The best thing Democrats can do is face this head-on and justifiably demand under Lee's resignation

and on top of that

it undercuts the demand of the release of the Epstein files.

You do not do the thing that you are asking for.

When you do not take action, but you're asking others to take action, it undercuts your credibility to do that.

You say, we want the Epstein files.

Well, why aren't you holding your own person to account here?

Where is that?

It's hypocrisy and it doesn't help anyone.

And again, let's, whether it's Epstein or this, we're talking about the safety and well-being of children.

And you know, this wasn't even the only negative story that came out over the last week and a half here about.

Underly and DPI and what's going on.

There was another story in Wisconsin public radio with the headline audit finds nearly a quarter of Wisconsin schools missed financial deadlines So there is this big dust-up last year about Milwaukee right about MPS missing its deadline and that information coming out right after the

election voted

in favor of increasing their property taxes for a referendum to pay for what was going on at MPS This finds that Milwaukee was not only not the only school to do that

a quarter of all schools were in the same position.

And it's just over and over again, there are these examples of just mismanagement and poor leadership coming from this agency.

And you know what?

I think it makes Democrats politically vulnerable on an issue that had been a strength for

them for so long, which

is education.

Yes.

Jenny, again, if Democrats want to be the party that says we address what needs to be addressed, even if it hurts us politically, this is how you prove that you care.

Yeah.

It's

not wrong and for it's gonna be a long time before a Democrat can stand up and say we want more money for schools Well, why?

Everything you've done is shown that you can't manage the schools.

You can't manage their safety You can't manage their financials their budgets and the kids can't read those are easy responses from the GOP There's more nuanced discussions within that topic, but when Democrats say we want more money Republicans in Sweden say for why what have you what have you done anything?

And I mean Tom

Tiffany held a press conference within hours of this.

I'm sure this committee hearing happening They're

jumping all over this.

They're they're recognized this as an issue that they can win on And Democrats are silent

again.

It feels like by debate

situation all over

again.

Yeah, silence for absolutely no reason.

We're to continue our conversation with Dan Schafer stay close You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media radio network.

Don't go away

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, our one, our only Calzone on the board.

Coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

Join us, call or text.

at 855-752-4842.

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We stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

He joins us every Friday, Civic Media's political editor, creator of the Reconpopulation Area.

Dan Schaefer is here.

You've had quite a busy week.

I've had a weird week in a

lot of ways.

What's going

on?

Should we talk about my weird week

here?

All

right.

Discombobulating times as always.

So I had a couple of different things where, I don't know, stuff that I posted on Twitter, we're still calling it Twitter.

Just

random

thoughts.

One of these things ended up in the, referenced in the New York Times.

We can talk about that.

And another led to now multiple segments on News Talk 1130.

going back and forth a little bit with one of their morning show hosts, Jay Weber.

And so this is, how do I get myself into these situations, Jay?

Because you still use Twitter.

I guess that's part of it.

What

happened?

But okay, so first we'll talk about the, well, let's talk about the...

The New York Times piece.

So I posted the New York Times ran a piece this week about Mandela Barnes and his potential candidacy for governor in Wisconsin with the headline, this Democrat lost a big race.

The party is uneasy about his return.

I believe you guys have.

Yeah,

yeah.

So in it, it referenced a Twitter poll.

that I ran Asked so it was the day Josh Call said he was going to run for re-election I was like well the one big question left is Mandela Barnes So I put the question out there Do you think or should Melon de la Barnes run for governor was the question?

So I'd yes no and show results as the answers yes was 21% no was 57% and show results was 22% so I was genuinely surprised at how few

Yeses there were.

Oh, no, really?

Were you really?

I was.

You know, I thought the fact that, I mean, he ran a statewide race.

I have a pretty left-leaning Twitter following.

You know, I thought, you know, hey, he's a well-liked Democrat in Wisconsin.

People probably want to see somebody like that run again.

I was very surprised at how many people said no and how few people said yes in that.

And I know we've talked about this on the show.

Jane, you've made your thoughts on this clear.

I think he's a very nice man.

I do not see the substance there.

I just don't.

I don't see the depth.

I don't see the substance.

I do not, I do not see him as being an effective candidate for governor.

I just don't.

I don't know what he brings to the table that the other candidates haven't already talked about or bring with their, with their experience.

When you talk about Fran Hong or Calderois, Sarah Rodriguez, or especially David Crowley, who, I mean, honestly, like he's a guy who runs a county.

That's, you know, that's good stepping stone towards running a state.

Mandela Barnes is, to me, he is an activist.

He is an advocate.

He works in that social justice community organizing, and that's great.

I don't think he brings a lot to the table elections-wise.

Well, I just think people are, my sense of it is just that people are apprehensive about it because he lost.

Yeah.

I mean, and I think we're seeing different react, different

responses from different sides of the aisle on candidates who have run and lost and would run again.

And I think we saw it this week with Attorney General Candidate Eric Tony, the Fond du Lac County District Attorney.

He lost to Josh Call four years ago.

He's running again, but I saw a lot of the conservative media saying, hey, it's going to be different this time.

Right, but I've also seen Tim Michaels posited.

Again, as coming back to run again for governor, that would make three times.

Yeah, I saw that too.

That was from Dan O'Donnell, who also said that my Evers, my column about Evers dropping out was part of a coup to install Ben Wickler as governor.

So I'm going to take anything Mr. O'Donnell says with the entire salt drinker.

Oh, that's

when

I need to have

the X-Files theme song, obviously.

I love one that, oh my gosh.

Wait, wait, wait.

Go back.

Sorry.

Say that one more time.

So when I wrote my column this summer saying that Tony Evers should not run for a third term that he should pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders.

Yes.

Dan O'Donnell talked about that column on his show and he said at the time that this was part of a larger effort to push out Evers and install Ben Wickler as the candidate for governor and that I was just like kind of some sort of Trojan horse, I guess.

for this idea.

This, of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

I just wrote the column because that's what I believed.

And Ben Wickler also, yeah, there we go.

Wow, I missed

that.

Yeah, maybe it was when you were on vacation

or something.

Oh, Mike, you influenced Petler.

I

didn't.

Yeah, so yeah, that was part of that.

So I'm taking

any of

Dan O'Donnell's reporting on the governor's race with, again, the entire salt shaker.

So we shall see what exactly comes from the potential Tim Michael, but it's like, you know,

Tim Michaels ran for Senate and then ran again for Governor years later.

Brad Schimel ran for Attorney General, ran for State Supreme Court years later.

Dan Kelly ran twice.

There's all these repeat candidates and it hasn't worked for any of them.

And now they're just

saying Tony's gonna be the guy this time.

Well, and I saw Dewey Strobel's name

come

up yesterday.

It's like, are there no younger people who wanna do these jobs?

Is

there no bench

at all?

Right, at all?

We just keep going back

and going back.

I'm really surprised they haven't just said,

you're good and just walked away and said, I'll do other things.

I mean, honestly, like he'd be the perfect representative for their guy.

He'd be just do whatever Trump said and they would be happy.

So the fact that they're

concerned about Tiffany too, because it's as our, our own Mark Becker from rational revolution posted on, I said on his show last week, he talked with Tommy Thompson and Tommy Thompson told him that he doesn't think Tiffany can win.

Yes.

Yes.

That was, I saw that tweet from you.

I listened to that and it was a very frank conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm surprised he said it on air.

Yeah.

And Tommy Thompson was saying that, uh, you know, he, he doesn't think Tiffany can win enough votes in Dana, Milwaukee County to, to win a statewide race.

But

Tommy thinks he could.

Tommy thinks he could.

He always

thinks he could.

This just in Tommy Thompson, still thinking about

it.

We have news coming up next.

And then when we will continue recombobulating with Dan Schaefer, stay close.

You are listening to the civic media radio network.

This is Matt and air on air.

We'll be right back.

Good morning and welcome welcome to Mattnare on Air.

Jane Mattnare, Greg Buck, Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from her home at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text the number is the same.

855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

It's Friday, so Dan Schaefer is here.

Civic Media's political editor and also the creator of the multi-award-winning Recon Population Area.

We're talking a little bit about...

some flaming wars going on.

No, just my weird week.

You know, I had a weird week, a discombobulating

week, very discombobulating week.

So I had a tweet.

We talked about in the last segment, I had a tweet referenced by the New York Times, a Twitter poll that I posted about Mandela Barnes posted in the New York Times, which is just weird.

And then had a little bit of a back and forth this week on also on Twitter with some of the folks from the J Webber show on Newstalk 1130 WISN.

who you know just they always conveniently blame Milwaukee

for everything all of the time.

It's

just, it's everything is always, you know, the mismanagement Milwaukee and it's Milwaukee's fault and the streetcar this and that and whatever.

Tom Barrett, Chevy Johnson, all these different things.

And we're always going to blame Milwaukee.

So this time they were talking about this story that the fire chief Aaron Lipsky had raised that they're having some difficulty budgeting for replacing some of their vehicles, some of the actual fire engines and updating some of the, some of them are getting old.

They want to update it.

those are very expensive.

The city doesn't have the budget for, for all of that.

And so his point was to say that like this is just the city needs to be prioritized better.

The city needs to do a better job budgeting, but I always

Look to you always need to look upstream for where these problems tend to start which in our case in Wisconsin for so many issues over and over and over again these issues start at the Republican controlled state legislature

without a doubt

they have had full control of the state legislature in the state for 15 years now and so to somehow for one to somehow you know divorce from Milwaukee from the rest of the state and say that they have a bare absolutely no responsibility for the challenges that this

city faces, I think is absurd.

But then we also have this issue that I think every community across the state is facing, not just Milwaukee, with local government and particularly the paying for some of these major expenses when it comes to things in public safety.

And so, you know, it's if you look at

local news across the state and the local news landscape has been decimated.

And

I'm glad that we at Civic Media are trying to play at least some role to

keep it alive in

the news desert and continue to, we've got some new reporters all over the state that have started over the last few months, which is really exciting.

But they, if you look at some of these local news stories, there are places all over the state that are saying, Hey, we need to, we might need to cut a

of some fire department jobs.

The city of Brookfield.

The city of Brookfield was the exact example that I used, Jane.

Because the city of Brookfield, they had a referendum that failed, and then their mayor put out a budget proposal and said, hey, we're gonna have to cut some things.

We're gonna have to cut $4 million from our city budget.

The first thing mentioned was something in the fire department.

So my point was that this is not a Milwaukee problem.

This is not a Brookfield problem.

The fact that...

States that are different political ideology Whatever it might be are facing the same issue Suggests to me that the problem is upstream and the problem is at the state government and because we've known For years and years and years that the state is underfunding local government.

We've had the you know shared revenue

bill that passed a couple years ago was essential to getting something addressed there, but it didn't go nearly far enough.

Tony Evers' proposal at the time would have gone much farther to bring more money to local government.

So my issue here is that the Republican-controlled state legislature continues to sit on a $4 billion surplus while our local governments are starved.

And if they want to talk about defunding the police or defunding public safety or not paying for this in the fire department, not paying for priorities in the budget,

It goes back to the state.

It's not because and I want to put the call out to our to our listeners here on the show too.

If you in your community across the state have seen examples of your city

government's

cutting services

cutting services cutting key services, whether it's public safety or other major priorities within the city It happens everywhere all over the state and it goes back to how state government is run Yes, there might be some issues with the local level and prioritizing and budgeting and doing the right thing and and having a fiscally sound budget and whatever it might be but the fact that New Berlin and Elm Grove and Brookfield are all dealing with the same types of problems that Milwaukee is suggests to me that this

This is not a Milwaukee

problem.

We have a common problem and it's the Republican controlled legislature.

And I think it also goes to show that these talking heads, pundits, whoever they are coming from, whatever choice of media you want to look at, they honestly don't really care about the problem.

They just, they say, Milwaukee, bad.

I can put that on Twitter.

I can say that and get a lot of likes and views and retweets and make fodder of that.

They don't care about Milwaukee.

They don't care about Brookfield.

They don't care about Grove, Waukesha, because most of those people don't have to work.

about the problems that other people have to face but what always seems to baffle my mind is that we hear a lot of individuals say don't raise my taxes don't raise my taxes my taxes my taxes they seem to purport themselves as tax experts because they don't want their taxes raised but the moment they vote no on raising their own taxes and then we say your services are going to get cut why

because you didn't want your taxes raised.

You voted no.

Therefore, we now have to make cuts.

If you are going to talk about being fiscally responsible, then we have to be fiscally responsible.

And that doesn't mean that the things you don't like get cut.

It means the things that are more expensive have to be sacrificed, including fire, including police, including buses, libraries, garbage pickup, libraries.

So when people come at...

I'm not me personally but just at the situation of don't raise my taxes how dare you raise my taxes it's so expensive yeah because the the cost of living goes up and and to I will I love doing this I will quote Oliver Wendell Holmes a Republican taxes are what you pay to live in a civilized society and if you don't like it well then your society will reflect what you don't want to spend on and it might be a little less safe but they do not care about Milwaukee

They don't care about anything.

They just want to make political hay and they want attention.

And that is the most frustrating part because no matter my mom lives in Brookfield and the fact that they're going to, they might have to cut things that, you know, will it directly affect her immediately?

Probably not, but it could.

Milwaukee is getting some heat right now for proposing a wheel tax.

Yeah.

You know, who else did that this year also?

Hmm.

New Berlin.

Did that get.

As

much

attention?

Did

that get a segment on the morning show there?

No.

Probably not.

No, it's never gonna get attention unless it's a Milwaukee thing.

So

it's always just Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Milwaukee.

Well...

Maybe it's not just Milwaukee.

Yeah, maybe it's

maybe it's every community across the state is facing similar challenges and we need to do a better job funding local government.

And I would even make the argument that we need to do more to fund local government and less to fund state government because I think local issues can be managed better by people who understand their communities.

And Milwaukee, you know, people always also taught we're talking about in my mentions over the last couple of days here, like, oh, you know, we don't want to subsidize whatever Milwaukee's spending is.

It is the opposite.

Milwaukee is the one subsidizing the rest of the state.

This is the economic engine for the rest of the state.

Milwaukee puts, sends more taxes to Madison

than it gets

back.

It is the opposite dynamic that we see there.

And then there was also this point about family budgeting, and he's just like, oh, don't you, you know, make your own family's budget?

Again, it's

very different to like budget for a city of 560,000 people than a family of four.

It's a little bit of different dynamics.

But also, if you're recognizing this, you need to recognize, if you're talking about it in those senses, let's recognize our sources of revenue, right?

One of the main sources of revenue for city budgets is shared revenue that comes from the state.

And so to somehow divorce everything, to somehow like,

corner Milwaukee off from the rest of the state, like we're gonna blame Milwaukee.

The rest of the state has nothing to do with it.

It's completely, you know, it absconded from any blame that might be passed around.

It's just absurd.

Well, it's an easy scapegoat.

The city has been an easy scapegoat for decades.

Decades and decades.

If you're just joining us on Matt Nair on Air, Dan Schaefer is here.

Civic Media's political editor and also creator of the Recombobulation Area, a multi-board-winning Recombobulation Area.

Talking about the city of Milwaukee and essentially just communities around the state struggling.

with their budgets, because again, and I think that's something that if we forget, we still have that $4 billion surplus.

And the only answer Republicans in my estimation have ever had is cutting taxes.

There is no investment in things.

There is no investment in schools.

There is no investing in infrastructure.

Tax cuts is their answer for everything that will fix everything.

I think they're

one economic policy

and it hasn't fixed everything.

No, no, it's been 50 years more than 40 years and the wealth still has not trickled down.

We're waiting.

And one of the things too is when when people in the media put forth these age old narratives of Milwaukee, the bad city, it allows the politicians.

around the state to utilize that as cannon fodder to say, see, look at their bad.

This is why we shouldn't do anything about raising your taxes or making these investments.

So then people who don't live in those cities can be like, well, at least I know my taxes aren't gonna go up.

At least we're gonna be fine.

So the politicians don't actually have to do anything.

They can just sit there and wag their finger and go.

Milwaukee, Madison, all

those big

cities, they're so bad.

And if they just knew what you knew, Dan, because you live in a tiny little town in Wisconsin, you understand, you got a family, you know how to budget.

It's just that continuous regurgitation of the same talking points that allows them to never take a big swing, make the investment.

Therefore, nothing is lost for them.

It's lost for us.

It's never lost for them.

Mm-hmm, you know so I here's a I Milwaukee always gets undue scrutiny I was so I've been I'm coaching youth sports this year with my daughter I don't want to get into that right now

Oh you patient man

But at one of the introductory meetings one of the people at MPS running the kind of like youth sports orientation coach orientation

thing

was talking about just like how you need to conduct yourself as a coach and She was saying that like you know other schools might not face this kind of thing if we screw up we're on the news

That

has really stuck with me.

Because

if you're

in Brookfield or New Berlin or all these other things, you might have some bad behavior.

It's not making the six o'clock news.

If you do it in Milwaukee, it's making the six o'clock news.

Wow.

Oh my god.

I'm sorry, but we can take this back to Tommy Thompson and stick it to Milwaukee.

It goes, this goes

back

a long, long way.

This has been the narrative of all of them for decades and decades and decades across the country.

The city is always the worst place.

It's the, the, the infestation of evil and crime and well.

And all the moochers

and only people apparently in urban areas use the Affordable Care Act and SNAP and other benefits.

And that's not actually true.

Yeah.

It's a Jenny on the live stream says cities can't work without the work without what rural regions provide them agriculture and rural regions can't survive without cities revenue.

It's a partnership.

It's a

mess together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, smaller towns, villages, unincorporated areas, those folk folks are going to have to feel the tightening on their budgets for and see those those services disappear.

because their leaders won't lead and do something about it.

And we have this gridlock and yeah, cool tax cuts for the, for the, for the, for everyone and, and just decimate our surplus.

What happens when there's a no surplus left?

What do we do for tax cuts?

How do we, we got to make more sacrifices than more education being cut.

I don't know how much more we can do.

But yeah, this is a, is it an Ouroboros?

It's a snakey and stone tail.

I think it's what it is.

I don't know.

It just really,

it's

really frustrating.

Or to continue recombobulating with Dan Schaefer on the other side, you can always join us at 855-752-4842.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Stay close, we will be right back.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Calvitini on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

Join us at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up for the last half an hour of the show.

For Audio Sorbet, we will talk a little bit about sports.

We'll talk about the buck season and some favorite moments from the brewers.

Yes.

Which they had a good season.

Had a great season.

And then we'll wrap up the show with a listener.

This shouldn't be a thing.

So love it.

I love when that happens.

I do too.

Scented by Peter.

Take a breath edition for TISBAT coming up at the very end of the show, around 10.53.

Hope you can stick around for that.

Dan Schaffers here, Civic Media's political editor, creator of the Recombobulation Area.

We have been covering a number of things since you joined us, Dan.

But we had a text come in that we want to address real quickly here.

I think it was slightly unfair.

to categorize the investigation into teacher misconduct, a democratic problem, the timeframe from 2018 through 2023 crossed political affiliations and happened while Republicans hold a super majority slightly disingenuous to suggest this falls more heavily on Democrats.

Which

we were not saying it's a Democrats fault.

I'm not going to speak for any of you in here.

I'm not saying it's a Democrat's fault.

I'm not saying it's a Democrat problem.

I'm saying it's a systemic problem within this department.

A department, if you look back, has been run by Democrats going back all the way from Jill Underly to Carolyn Stanford.

I can't remember her last name right now.

Carolyn, I want to get her name correct right now.

Carolyn Stanford, Taylor to Tony Evers, who held the job for their all Democrats.

The point is, is that it is, it is the.