Bernie Bets on Buyer’s Remorse in Wisconsin (Hour 2)

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Wisconsin from Civic Media.

This is Up North News Radio.

Now, live from our late Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitlo.

Don there says all across Wisconsin.

I say unabashedly, Wisconsin.

We are Up North News Radio, brought to you by Courier Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network at 706.

On this Monday, March 10th, nice to have you along.

We will be talking to a representative from Chippewa Valley Indivisible coming up later this hour.

Up North News reporter Selena Heller was part of a Bernie Sanders rally, covered it on Saturday in Altoona.

We'll talk about that in just a bit.

Jane McNair coming up as well.

Just a busy hour ahead, but

I was gonna tease so much more, but gosh, Britney's Britney's here and it is it is Britney it's gonna be 70 in places today.

This is This

is

crazy.

I mean if I didn't know we could get 70 by moving the clock ahead.

I had done that six weeks ago I mean causation is correlation, right?

So yeah, I'll take it.

What is this like a one-shot deal?

Is this a one-day thing or what?

It's a one day thing, but we're gonna break some records probably pretty much all across the state because the records are sitting in the low to mid sixties everywhere and our temperatures are forecasted to be in those mid sixties like you said Pat said a few low seventies are definitely possible in parts of the state today, so it's gonna be feeling like summer it is gonna be

tank top and shorts kind of weather so go ahead go for it today but you're going to want to grab some more layers as we go through tomorrow because we do have a cold front moving through unfortunately and it's going to slam us right back to where we should be this time of year.

in those upper 30s to low 40s by tomorrow.

Now we don't stay there either.

We'll get back to the mid 40s to mid 50s as we go into Wednesday, some low 50s in Thursday and we spike back again on Friday to more 60s in the forecast.

So we've got a roller coaster of temperatures, but we're at the top of the hill right now.

So enjoy the ride.

No kidding, my goodness.

Okay, well, we will take it for a day.

I can't complain.

Rob says, good morning from Tigerton, clear and 31.

Some roads may have slippery spots.

Yesterday was 58 in Tigerton, just two off the record from four years ago.

We played Respect earlier.

He said, Aretha Franklin's Respect was the number one song when I was born on June 5, 1967.

Well, there you go, Rob.

We know your birthday now.

When I think of warm weather in March, I think of March 2012 when we set all kinds of records for warmth, including, he says, St.

Patrick's Day 2012 when we hit 80 degrees.

Don't know that that's going to be the case a week from today for St.

Patrick's Day, but the 70 stuff is pretty nice on this National Pack Your Lunch Day.

Do you pack your own lunch, Brittany?

I do.

I love

that.

National Napping Day.

Do you nap, Brittany?

I did pretty hard yesterday.

Tell your boss about that.

Uh, the national filler stapler's day, or you could just wait till it empties out and then you really need it.

All right.

I don't really appreciate you making fun of such an important holiday because you're going to staple.

We've all been there.

You go into stable papers and you're like, staple, staple, and then nothing left.

You left click, click, click.

Who did this?

Who did this?

That's

not like refilling the toilet paper roll.

You can't see it.

So it's a little different.

True.

There's a little thing on the side there, Selena.

Point to Heller.

That gives you a progress bar on your staples.

I can't believe you

remembered that.

uh let's see it's national uh bagpipe day

uh

yeah international day of women judges i know a few of those uh including in the chippewa valley here wonderful folks uh national skirt day national paper money day and national landline day so those of

you left for the

landline congratulations i guess britney thank you so much for the forecast have a great day

You too.

All right.

So we will talk to somebody from Chippewa Valley Indivisible coming up at the bottom of the hour here, but Selena Heller did cover Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during his Chippewa Valley appearance on Saturday, was in Kenosha Sanders was on Friday evening.

And as I said in the last hour,

Selena, this is really not so much about appealing to the far left.

Of course, that's where Bernie's typical appeal is.

But the message that he's delivering probably is meant to go probably beyond the audience in talking to people who, again, in a closely decided state like Wisconsin, and despite Trump's talk of a mandate, this was one of the most closely divided elections in 60 years,

There are still a lot of swing voters out there and some of them may be having buyers remorse about Donald Trump and he really wanted to explain how he thinks Wisconsinites should be looking at the Trump presidency so far.

Tell us more about what he had to say and then we'll hear some clips from him.

Sure.

Yeah, he kind of went through things really with a fine tooth comb kind of a thing.

It was really interesting.

Like he talked about oligarchy and then he talked about laying out the speeches that have happened and what's really actual and what's maybe not so true.

And he laid out what really the truth is.

And he just went through everything and all the cuts that were going to happen and what they are actually going to do for people.

And that was kind of one of the bigger

messages too we've really talked about you know there hasn't been talk about what is going to affect people what things that are keeping people up at night how do we address these things and he kind of went through all of these things the veterans administration social social security medicaid medicare health care received the

kind of a biggest applause.

So you could tell from the crowd what was important to people and he really hit all of those things because he just went through everything and laid everything out and it was just really interesting.

He's really a dynamic speaker.

I had never heard him before and so it was really interesting to me to hear just how he just really

specifically went through everything.

And you could tell by the crowd that that was really well received.

It was overflow crowd in Altoona and Kenosha when he was here.

Well, let's start where he's talking about this whole notion of oligarchy and, you know, which is just, you know, a word for government run by the very rich for the very rich.

And here's what the Vermont Senator had to

say.

The

Trump

administration is a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class.

For a number of years, I have been talking about how our nation is moving toward an oligarchic form of society.

My friends, we are no longer

moving toward oligarchy.

We are living in

oligarchy.

And as we assemble here today, we are going to make it very clear that oligarchy is not what this country is about.

Obviously a big cheer from from the Bernie crowd.

There are folks though who they hear.

something like oligarchy and they go, oh, got a big fancy word.

No, that's not what

I

voted for.

I voted for Trump for this or that.

And that's where Sanders gets into, well, let's talk about the specifics about what Trump has said versus what Trump has done.

And so what did you get?

You want to start with health care, things he said about that?

Oh, yeah.

And like I mentioned, that was like the

some of the things that he was talking about with healthcare, healthcare, the biggest cheers.

And of course he talked about cuts to Medicaid and everything and the potential for what will happen to your parents in nursing homes and things like that.

And for kids and dismantling the Department of Education, what that does for kids and nutrition programs, getting rid of those and we can't feed the kids.

But this healthcare issue really got the crowd, I mean, fired up.

they were fired up the whole time, but this is what he talked about the healthcare system and kind of how that needs to be changed.

The function of the sane and rational healthcare system is not to provide huge profits for the insurance industry and the drug companies.

The function of the sane system is to provide quality care to all.

We are spending twice as much for the capital as other countries.

We don't even have enough doctors.

We don't have enough nurses.

We don't have enough dentists.

We don't have enough pharmacists.

So

we gotta

take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies.

Healthcare is a human right.

Let's pass Medicare for

all.

Right away, Scott on the text line in Madison says, very tongue-in-cheek.

Man, sounds like super far left extreme to me, you know, wanting everybody to have health care and be able to afford it.

But these are the kinds of things, again, these are basic human needs of families that they would talk to their congressional reps about if those reps were to have town halls.

And instead, we've got a Vermont senator in here, Selena.

And that's what he said.

He said, I came from Vermont.

How come your congressman, you, you, you need to, you know, voice your concerns and that it was pretty neat what he did at the rally because he actually, you know, called on people to tell him, you know, what does living paycheck to paycheck mean to you?

And he called on people and they said, stressful, I can't put food on the table.

I can't do this.

I'm worried about buying shoes for my kids.

And it was really like, it was really interactive.

And so he was really

holding a town hall meeting right there, something that we haven't had a lot in Wisconsin.

That's here we said about

town

halls.

The reason we are in this community is you have a congressman who won by a somewhat slim margin.

Now I am here, we're doing a town meeting.

Now I come from Vermont.

Well I think if I'm from Vermont doing a town meeting here, your own congressman should come here.

He got a chance to talk, explain his point of view, and you have the right to ask questions.

And I think the key question in Wisconsin and all over America is why the hell is anybody thinking of a trillion dollar tax break for the 1% and massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition, and education?

Seems like a fair question that people might want to ask.

And again, you could hear from Senator Sanders saying, look.

This isn't about being rowdy or violent or anything.

You should be respectful, but you should also, your congressman should give you the respect of holding a town hall, letting you talk to your congressman.

And just listening,

yes.

And just listening and getting all of that.

When we come back, Selina's going to tell us just a little bit more audio from this because it's not just about Bernie Sanders, but about Congressman Van Orden and his failure to...

be, shall we say, receptive to a lot of the public, including recent events here in the Chippewa Valley.

So we'll hear about that.

We will talk to Cindy Greening from Chippewa Valley, Indivisible, coming up in just a moment as well.

First, just wanted to tell you very quickly that the Bucks lost last night.

That's two in a row that they've lost.

The Badgers and Marquette Man's basketball teams begin their conference tournaments coming up on Thursday.

More after this, you're up north.

You're listening to Civic Media.

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.

Happy birthday to Carrie Underwood today.

So I mentioned both the Badgers and Marquette Men's basketball teams.

They begin their conference tournaments on Thursday.

The Badgers on Thursday will play Wednesday's winner between Northwestern and Minnesota.

Marquette already knows that on Thursday they will play number four seed Xavier at Madison Square Garden.

The Badger women's hockey team number one in the country, they won their conference tournament over the weekend.

They are the number one overall seed for the national NCAA women's hockey tournament.

They will next play Saturday afternoon against Thursday's winner between Boston U and Clarkson.

The Badger men's hockey team, their season is over after losing in their Big 10 tournament quarterfinal at Ohio State.

Three to two, they finish with a record of 13, 21, and three.

The Bucks lost, as I said, to Cleveland last night, but Giannis Anatocumpo scored 30 points and moved into 50th place all time.

on the NBA's scoring list.

And Christian Yelich hit a home run over the weekend, continuing his rehab from back surgery.

Little sports there at 722.

Selina Heller is with us talking about Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders coming in, talking to packed houses in Kenosha and then Altoona and then more in Michigan yesterday, continuing a tour of both

Democrats and progressives, Sanders officially being an independent, trying to fill the gap for the lack of town halls.

You have the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee telling members to stop doing town halls.

And we've heard a few times these concerns like, well, they're, they're,

There might be a fire hazard.

The room might be too crowded.

We certainly heard that from Derek Van Orden's staffer when so many people registered for an appearance recently at the Ellie Phillips Library in Eau Claire Salina.

And you've talked to people who were, you know, associated with that, who just aren't really buying the notion that Congressman Van Orden and others can't come in here from their constituents.

Yeah, I was there when all those people showed up more than a hundred at the Eau Claire Public Library when there was to be an event and then I also so some stayed at the library because they were just still they still came even after they knew the staffer wasn't going to be there and then I walked with them down to the van Orden office and then had the the staffer actually come out of that office and then say well he just didn't want to interrupt the the library because there's so many people and just

of coming then.

And so then, so a group of people wanted to go in and talk with them there, in which they did.

But I got to sit and listen to all of the people voice their concerns, and they talked about USAID, and you know, one of them's, the daughter worked for that program, and then it was just Lauren, she didn't have a job, and talked to people about concerns about

cuts for programs that give funding for medical trials because she had a brain tumor.

And so all of these things were important to her because she wouldn't have had this treatment that extended her life.

So I just got to listen to all of these people.

Staffors didn't because they weren't there.

One of the people that that spoke that day and then I also walked down to the office and actually talked to the staffer inside the office was Joe Abholt and he is from Eau Claire and he talked about this was kind of the general sentiment he talked about.

I want to ask all of these questions here.

questions I want to ask.

I am a voter.

I live and work and thrive here in Northwest Wisconsin.

I want to ask Mr. Van Orden, since you're saying you will oppose cuts to various programs like Medicare and Medicaid, what public actions are you taking to publicly demand House Republicans do not cut these programs?

Will you sponsor a resolution which any representative can do at any time to not give $4 trillion to the 1% and instead apply the savings to the deficit?

Will you sponsor a resolution to demand that President Trump comply with court orders?

Will you sponsor a resolution to stop the intentional harassment and illegal firing of federal workers?

Will you sponsor a resolution to demand that President tell the truth about what Doge is actually doing?

Will you sponsor a resolution demanding that Doge is on a website not affiliated with the highly conflicted Elon Musk?

Will you present a resolution

to sustain the checks and balances of the Constitution, and when will you come to your district to listen to your voters and your constituents?

All fair questions.

All of them, nothing sounds too terribly extreme there, but these are the issues that have been aired out by folks, and even Congressman Mark Polkhan.

Democrat from Dane County has been holding town halls, invited Derek Van Orden to one that he held over the weekend in Belmont.

Van Orden was a no-show for that, of course.

But again, it just showed that there were and remain plenty of people.

who feel very troubled by what Elon Musk is doing.

To the point where Pokan actually has introduced a bill to basically address the Elon Musk situation because Musk, again, was not elected to anything.

And so Pokan has introduced a bill and it's called the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy Act.

Uh, yeah, that the

first,

well, if you look at the first letter of all those, it's the Elon Musk act to eliminate looting of our nation by mitigating unethical state kleptocracy.

All it is is it would, it would direct federal agencies to terminate any contracts held by a special government employee similar to the bans for members of Congress and other federal employees.

Uh, you can't have

people in positions like members of Congress directing federal spending to their own self-interest.

Well, why should a special government employee get to do the same when you consider, as Pokan points out, that Elon Musk has received some 20 billion dollars in federal contracts and is able to do more to

prevent money from going to his competitors for federal contracts and more money to himself.

So Po Can, I'm sure, talked about that in Belmont over the weekend, and it just again says people in attendance there, Selena, they just want basic accountability.

They maybe don't regret their vote for Trump, but they again are looking at Elon Musk and going, who's this guy?

Definitely the sentiment that you got in Altuna over the weekend.

Oh my goodness, yes.

And that's what kind of Bernie Sanders said.

You know, it has to come from us now.

Like this, we have to do this.

democracy ourselves has to start from the bottom up.

And that's what you have to do kind of set forth and conquer kind of was a message as he left the room into some very big applause and taking it back here when all of these some of these groups are forming and getting going.

One of them is Chippewa Valley Indivisible and Cindy Greening is coming up.

She kind of hosted that session the other day.

And

she'll tell us more about it in just a couple of minutes here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Cindy's coming up right after this break.

This is Up North News Radio on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Bad Bunny is part of today's birthday list.

You can get our history lesson every morning at 6.50 here on Up North News Radio.

Coming up on Friday morning at 7.30, we will be talking to Brittany Kinzer, a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction.

She is challenging the incumbent Jill Underly.

We talked to Jill Underly a couple of weeks back and we're now able to schedule Brittany Kinzer.

So that'll be this Friday morning at 7.30.

will certainly be talking about her work as an advocate for charter and voucher schools and making sure that

you know, this is not a drain on Wisconsin taxpayers and how do you make sure to protect and strengthen public schools with such a rise in a second parallel school system here in the state of Wisconsin.

So again, Brittany Kinzer coming up Friday morning at 730.

We're going to talk now with Cindy Greening from Chippewa Valley Indivisible, one of the groups that you just heard Selena talking about in connection, not just with the Bernie Sanders appearance, which he did on his own, but also the event recently

where Brian Westrate, a staff member for Congressman Derek Van Orden, and a longtime local Republican Party chair, he was supposed to hold a listening session with some members, some indivisible members, and it got real popular, and so he got real scarce.

But they found him anyway so that they could bring their concerns to their local Congressman through his representative.

And Cindy Greening joins us now.

Cindy, good morning.

Thank you for being here today.

Hello, Pat.

Thanks for having me.

Well, it's nice to see you as well.

Can you let's back up a step first, because we've heard Indivisible used with various groups around the country and around Wisconsin.

Frankly, going back a few years here, you're relatively new to it.

But when you're asked, you know, about your role or you're asked about Chippewa Valley Indivisible, how do you describe it to folks?

Indivisible is a grassroots organization of people who believe in progressive values, and we're fighting for a fair democracy for all of us, for everyone.

For everyone.

That's where we get into this whole notion of this talk of oligarchy, which, again, is just a fancy way of saying the rich have continued to get richer, which would be great for them.

if maybe if it wasn't hurting everybody else but that

if it wasn't on our backs yeah if it wasn't in our farmers if it wasn't draining our veterans if it wasn't draining our schools that'd be great i'm more i'm all capitalism is a great idea until you start using it to exploit other folks

Well, and that's just it.

There are varying degrees of everything, whether it's capitalism or democracy or whatever system you choose to study, you can take it to a certain point where it is no longer really true to its original definition,

and

that certainly is the case in democracy, where you have a lot of election denialism going on, and certainly in the case of running a government here.

So, Cindy, let me ask this, because

A lot of folks associated with Indivisible are folks who have supported, do support Senator Bernie Sanders and a lot of what he stood for.

But I believe that Senator Sanders and others are trying to also get a message not to people who think similar to them on every issue, but to people who are what we, you know,

Usually, the colloquialism is swing voters.

People

who

have voted either way in an election, they may not follow the news very closely.

They're looking at political ads.

And this last time around, they compared Donald Trump to Kamala Harris.

And for their own reasons, they voted for Trump.

There are a lot of people who think that maybe some of those voters either regret their vote or at least are saying, this is not quite what I voted for.

Are you running into people like that, or is that

just?

Yeah, there are some in our group.

We actually have some of those, you know, the population, the number of them isn't huge yet, but we have some people who either didn't vote or voted for the Trump administration, who are now in there saying, I didn't vote for this.

So we're actually, we're seeing that phenomenon, and I think we're especially seeing it in sign up.

I actually only formed the group in October of last year, sorry.

But I didn't really start meeting it until January.

And so on January 20th, when we first met right at the inauguration, we had 28 members.

And as of this morning, we have 452.

Oh, well, there's no doubt there are some folks in there who, like you said, either voted Trump or didn't vote at all.

And again, there's the reality is so much different than what was promised during the campaign.

Exactly.

And I want to be honest, I was not a Bernie bro.

I mean, I spoke at his rally because I believe in what he's fighting for, but I was not a big Bernie proponent, even though I liked a lot of his ideas.

I like that.

I think we all should be healthy.

I think we should take care of our veterans.

I think we should take care of our seniors.

I sure think we should educate our kids.

So I agreed with his values, but I was not a big Bernie supporter, but I am supporting him now in the fighting oligarchy.

I don't think the billionaire should be taking over the government.

and just sacking everybody left and right.

And it comes back to that notion of, you know, what what is government spending and what of government spending counts as waste.

And it seems like a lot of people are learning now that, you know, what maybe they thought of as wasteful spending is different than what Elon Musk and Donald Trump consider to be wasteful spending.

agree I you know Heather Cox Richardson said this thing that I just love she said government is is what we call the things we do together so take making sure we have a fire department making sure we have roads police making sure our kids are educated that's what government is I was in college in high school I I was anti-war and anti-government because I I also think that there are some time what I just what I now see is that I

I was against the misuse of government and the misuse of government funds But when you're when you're younger you don't always see the difference you kind of lump it all together and now what I see is There's a lot of government stuff like our national parks, you know, they cost three billion a year They generate 55 billion in revenues.

It's like million million million.

So why why are we shutting them down?

Why are we sacrificing our natural resources?

So the it's you know

It's what we do to help each other.

And to do that also requires talking to each other.

And I know that there are various things that, you know, indivisibles done that that citizen action does and other groups do, something called deep canvassing, for example, where we just do more to reach out to our neighbors, but also to listen to what they're saying.

And it certainly seems now since the selection that more people than ever, despite all the political ads around us are saying it, it feels like nobody's really asked me what I thought.

Yeah, we definitely see that as well.

And one of the things that I think is really important and that we want to work on.

especially at you know is community building and reforging the bonds.

I actually think in the upper you know up here in the Midwest we watch out for our families and we like we watch out for our communities it's kind of who we are up here and so things are going to get tough now with a lot of the state and federal funds drying up and so we're going to have to watch out for each other we're going to have to you know help our folks because you know we have a linked fate if they you know if a hundred or

300 of our neighbors get hurt, lose their jobs, suddenly can't be in a nursing home.

If that happens, that's going to impact all of us.

And so as a community, we have to come together, listen to each other, work together, and fight for a better life for all of us.

I mean, all of us.

Let's talk about a couple of events that Chippewa Valley Indivisible is working on starting this Wednesday in Eau Claire.

What are you doing?

This Wednesday we have the defend our first defend democracy rally and we're really excited about that That's at four o'clock supposed to be sunny and warm I will tell you the first one was supposed to be last week But Wisconsin likes to be Wisconsin and she said no So we moved it to this week at four o'clock Bring your signs and we're gonna march in front of the federal building down on Lake and Barstow We have you know, we're anticipating a big turnout

What's the significance of that?

Because let's face it, there will be some far right Trump supporters that will make comments about hippies and everything else.

But you're doing this for a reason, and it's not for the most fervent Trump supporters.

What is it that you hope average folks driving by and seeing you will be thinking?

I hope they're thinking people like me disagree.

Because I think a lot of people disagree with what's happening.

I think a lot of people are horrified at some of the things they're seeing.

And I think when we get out there, we show other people like you disagree, and we want you to know it's OK to voice your opinion.

That's the thing I said at the Sanders rally on Saturday.

It's time for us to stand up and make our voices heard.

So if you like this, if you like the billionaire spending the money, if you like him having your tax information, great.

Stand up and say it.

We are standing up and saying, no, we don't like this, and we want you to know we don't like this.

Come join us.

Does this strike you as the as part of the antidote to an era where people on the far right in positions of power have really learned how to intimidate others.

They've intimidated people right out of the Republican Party.

And you're concerned that people otherwise might might not stand up might not express themselves.

If we don't have big enough numbers, they won't.

I mean, I'm afraid.

If you get doxxed, if they decide to put your name out there, a number, and all that, it can be pretty daunting.

But it's like, if enough of us stand up, I'm fond of saying at the meetings, well, they can't jail all of us.

You know, somebody's got to go to work.

So at least if enough of us stand up and make our voices heard, and I think people need to know that there are way more of us out there than they realize.

And so that's a special event on Wednesday at 4th Federal Building in Eau Claire.

And then you have regular meetings.

Your next one is when?

Is it this coming Saturday?

This coming Saturday at the Market on River in Chippew Falls.

We meet every Saturday.

We have been since the end of January.

And every meeting just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

And we now, and you know,

We have a lot of actions for people to do, things to help get Susan Crawford elected, but then also things like for building community, things for reaching out to each other, talking about education.

Each member that comes in, they kind of target what area they want to work in, and then they bring their energy and passion to the things they care about, because I think if each of us takes a piece of the puzzle and works on it, we can get the whole picture and make sure everybody's covered.

All right, to learn more about this, you can look up Chippewa Valley Indivisible.

You can also find the website at ChippewaValleyUnited.com or search for Chippewa Valley Indivisible on Facebook.

Plenty of ways for people to find out what you're up to, Cindy.

Thanks for having me, Pat.

Cindy Greening, thank you very much.

We appreciate the visit.

Have a very good start to the week.

You too.

All right, Cindy Greening again from Chippewa Valley, Indivisible.

A reminder that Up North News is having its first ever live event that's coming up this Wednesday.

It's at the Overture Center in Madison Wednesday evening from five to seven p.m.

Followed at seven p.m.

by a watch party for the two candidates running for the open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

That's Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Waukesha County Judge and former State Attorney General Brad Schimmel.

head over to upnorthnewswi.com slash supreme and you can register for tickets they're free to join us and then we are working with civic media to come up with live stream and potential broadcast options as well we'll have more to say about that tomorrow so again upnorthnewswi.com slash supreme for our first live event three different panel discussions one about reproductive rights one about education and one about the economy

because this election on April 1st will determine control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, whether progressives maintain control or if conservatives regain control as they had for the 15 years prior to the election of Justice Janet Protasewicz.

So learn much more about the issues that are in play by joining our live event and our coverage at Up North News between now and that April 1st election.

One new story that we haven't...

told you about yet today.

And that is again, that weird little case in Madison where nearly 200 absentee ballots went uncounted because they weren't found right away when it was time to be counting ballots.

And then that wasn't reported right away.

And frankly, the word that's being used in news coverage by the Associated Press and others is flabbergasted.

And the headline is that flabbergasted Wisconsin elections officials are going to depose Madison workers over those uncounted ballots.

Now again, it wasn't nearly enough to tip an election, but that's not the point.

It's that your vote should always count whether you're in a very blue area, a very red area, a very purple area.

And so the Wisconsin elections commission launched an investigation in January to determine whether the Madison city clerk violated state law or abused her discretion.

because she didn't notify the election commission of the uncounted ballots until almost a month and a half after the election and long after the results were certified.

The commission has not yet determined whether the clerk acted illegal or improperly, but appeared flabbergasted at the failures.

Commission Chair Ann Jacobs was particularly upset for the lack of an internal probe that didn't get launched immediately.

A story we'll continue to follow.

Jane McNair is coming up next.

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James says she'll wait just a moment while I tell you what else is coming up across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Earl Ingram today has Anthony Street with the National Association of Social Workers to discuss cuts to social security that's coming up at 9 a.m.

on Earl Show on many of these Civic Media stations.

We mentioned that Brittany Kinzer will be here Friday morning at 7 30 to talk about her campaign for state superintendent of public instruction.

Tomorrow, we will have Hans Breitenmoser joining us to talk about matters that are important to the rural economy.

And yes,

Recently, a lot of it has been about the new administration and tariffs.

They're on again, they're off again, they're on again, they're off again.

We'll look to see if we have anything closer to an answer on that because it's so important for the entire economy, not just the real economy as well.

So Hans Breitenmoser tomorrow at 730.

Jane McNair, who is always behind Greg Bach and everything he does.

literally standing behind him right now.

Yes, to talk about what's on your show this week, Jane.

Good morning.

Good morning, Pat.

Good to see you.

I'm glad I remembered today, as opposed to last week.

But yes, we have a busy show coming up today on Man Air on Air.

Randy Manor, retired major general from the United States Army will be joining us at 1030 to talk specifically about Ukraine and that.

Oval Office embarrassment from a couple of weeks ago and what this really means and where America's place is on the world stage and How are we gonna do going forward with seemingly no allies anymore?

To the point where some of our allies have been talking about withholding intelligence.

Oh, yeah from the US

which again eats into our global standing as a leader in sharing intelligence that can help other nations and not require us to commit troops necessarily.

There's just so much being done here that I don't know how to describe other than providing aid and comfort to Russia and Saudi Arabia and China and North Korea and Hungary.

Not our

allies.

Yeah, traditionally, no, not our allies.

Good heavens.

I saw this morning, even the former president of Romania is now hitting out against Donald Trump and his treatment of Ukraine and essentially saying, come on in Putin, take whatever you want.

And if you are on social media where Russian media shows up, they are delighted with Donald Trump.

They are over the moon about what Donald Trump is doing to Ukraine.

Oh, yeah.

And again, the...

the lack of, shall we say, long term thinking on where this goes if Ukraine falls.

And so many people believe that, oh, well, that's it.

That's all he really, that's all Putin really wants, and it'll be fine.

And I really have a feeling that the major general will have a different point of view on this.

Without a doubt, Randy Manners has been a guest of ours on numerous occasions.

So we're really looking forward to having him back.

In hour number two, we will try and lighten things up a little bit.

We're going to learn about the Apollo showcase that's going on in Milwaukee.

And it's an opportunity for young people to get on stage and show us their stuff.

It's a wonderful event.

So we actually have guests who are going to be in studio with us.

And we're also going to talk about raising bees and being a beekeeper and how you can get your bees in the mail.

Oh, you can get your bees in the mail.

Get your

bees in the mail.

And I know we've talked about that, uh, a lot of us in the past because of Trump's postmaster general slowing everything down.

And you got to, again, you got an, you, you got more of a feel for what all gets sent through the mail.

There are, there, there are medicines that have expiration dates.

There are, you know, there are live chicks and eggs to hatch or whatever

that goes

to farms.

There are bees.

Yep.

that that go through all of this and when you and you you had it being used that way because the U.S.

Postal Service was efficient that way and not so much lately not so much not through the fault of the people who deliver your mail but because of the ideologues at the very top.

Yeah well we can thank Louis DeJoy and you know they're talking about privatizing the post office now along with along with Amtrak and the

The ramifications of privatizing the post office for people in rural communities I just don't think is appreciated enough.

Oh no.

The postal service must deliver to everyone.

No matter how far out you live, no matter how inconvenient it is, private companies don't have to do that.

No,

and and they won't do it now And it's just a failure to understand and appreciate and it does lead to one of those things where people go Pat You just always you know you're defending Biden on everything.

No, let me let me make clear I've got I've had some problems with the Biden presidency and I

if it's not number one on the list, it's awfully close, is not kicking Louis DeJoy to the curb.

Because

again, they said, well, we have to work through a process.

And as we replace each member of the board of governors as their term comes up, eventually we'll have a majority, you know, and then they'll vote to put a new postmaster general.

That's how it's supposed to work.

Nothing works how it's supposed to work anymore.

And stop.

I'm sorry for the inelegant analogy, but stop bringing a knife to a

gunfight.

Well, it's not good.

It doesn't help if only one side follows process.

And the other side is just like process, process, we're just going to do what we want, which is essentially what's happening.

Well, and that's, that's

where it does get tricky.

People say, well, then, then you become just as bad as they are.

I wouldn't go that far.

I'd say pick your battles.

And there was definitely a battle to be picked.

in preserving the post office and again putting a new postmaster general in place so yes that one that one still sticks in my craw from the biden years but um you know we'll we'll get one look at it from from a b perspective coming up on your final program the b perspective i love that they'll be checking yes they don't like it either

And please don't take that in any way, shape, or form, folks.

Jane and Greg are not the BE team.

They are very much the A team in all of this.

Thanks, Pat.

Appreciate that, Matt.

We are just happy little worker bees.

Happy to drone on for you until you come on at 10 o'clock.

That's enough for the BE now.

I'm about to cut

your mic.

I'm about

to cut your mic.

OK, bye.

Greg Bach will be back in two hours with Jane Matt and Air for Matt and Air on Air.

So stick around for that.

And you can also listen across the Civic Media app.

Hans Brighton Moser here tomorrow.

Have a great Monday.

We'll see you tomorrow morning here on Up North News Radio.

You're

up north.

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