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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breidler.
Well, good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio.
Brought to you by Courier Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network 706.
On this Tuesday morning, March 11th.
Nice to have you here.
This hour, we're going to be talking to our friend Hans Breitenmoser, a dairy farmer from up near Merrill.
We'll be talking about farmers engaged in lobbying.
Whether it's in Madison or Washington DC, there are farmers who can take time this time of year before things really get busy with spring planting and everything to tell their elected representatives from the heart what are the things that concern them most and needless to say the given recent events
There are some very heartfelt things on that list that we will talk to Hans about in just a little bit.
We've also got Brittany Merlo's forecast.
We've also asked Dan Hagen from Newswatch 12 up in Rhinelander to hang around for a special reason.
We'll play some games here in a minute.
But first, Brittany's here to play a game with the weather called It's Up, It's Down, It's Up, It's Down, It's Up.
Where's the temperature going today compared to yesterday, which was
Gorgeous.
I know.
Oh, goodness.
Yesterday we broke records across the state.
72 degrees in La Crosse.
Can you believe that?
72.
That is Florida weather.
in early March.
So even though Claire 69 degrees, Madison, Milwaukee coming in at 67 degrees, it felt fantastic.
But do not wear shorts and short sleeves today.
You're going to regret it if you did because we have a high pressure system in place.
Cult front moved through last night.
So highs today are only going to be in the upper 30s far north to low 40s far south.
So that's quite a jump down.
But it is more closer to our average high temperatures.
This is where we should be for this time of year.
So yesterday was that extremely warm.
It was about 30 degrees warmer than average.
So we are going to stay dry all week.
We've got this huge high pressure system staying here for us.
We're looking at a ton of sunshine today, tomorrow, and then things start to change Friday.
Now we will see temperatures rise tomorrow into those low to mid 50s.
Friday looks extremely warm too.
Now, I don't think we're going to break records, but we will hit those upper 60s to low 70s one more time.
But then we're looking at a chance of some strong storms moving in Friday night, a rainy Saturday and potentially some snow on Sunday.
So a roller coaster and right now we're at the bottom.
We will be climbing right back up the hill and crashing back down again.
It
was a week ago.
that my wife had to stay up in Rice Lake because the winter weather was going to be so bad.
And then six days later, we're busting 70.
It is truly, as Rob says from Tigerton, the March madness of weather.
That's
exactly what
it is.
In Tigerton, he says it's clear in 35, the high yesterday in Tigerton, 66 degrees, four past the record.
He said, today I have to take
my truck old beast to my mechanic Todd for an oil change.
Fix a light assembly and check the exhaust.
Warm weather has been thinking about mowing season and getting my tractors ready.
Last year he says I started mowing April 28th and back in 2012 I was mowing lawns on March 28th.
Um, that's, it's just nice to think about the, uh, the green, green grass that's going to be coming really soon here.
Right around the corner.
That's exciting.
I love the smell of fresh cut grass.
I'm excited for that.
I
cannot wait for that.
Uh, we kept Dan around because we were, we were talking off air about, uh, one of the games that he likes to play, uh, or has played, uh, that apparently Greg wanted to play.
The game is Dungeons and Dragons.
Brittany, I just wanted to see if you had any exposure to the game or, um,
You know, perhaps new other little nerd nicks who wanted to impress you with their D&D knowledge.
Wow.
You know, I never played.
No, no,
no.
Okay.
Oh, Greg too.
But Dan, you're, you're a pro at this.
I mean, not like professional, like you make money, but you've got some experience.
That's right.
I Dungeon Master, I DM for a campaign right now of six people.
So, Brittany, imagine you're a half orc running through the mountains
right now.
We promise that's FCC compliant.
You come across a small gnome trying to grab a mushroom.
And that's Greg.
That's what I thought was going to happen.
But as Dan's demonstrating for us, this whole thing, not the whole thing, but there's a lot of improv going on here, Greg, which I think is part of what appeals to you when you said you were interested in it, but never got into it.
No, I actually, it far predates my comedy years.
When I was a young kid, my friend said, do you want to come play DND?
And I said to my father, we're going to play DND.
And he goes, no, you're not.
Because back in the eighties, there were some problems with DND and DND players and things like that.
And bad, bad, um, bad reputation surrounding the game.
So that, that was squashed very quickly.
So I never got into it.
These were the same people that thought the teletubbies were like too sexual or satanic or God knows what.
There were a lot of busy bodies in the 80s on things like this growing up, but Dan Hagen, rebel that he is, fought through it to be the dungeon master that he is today.
How often do you play?
at all yeah we play
once once a week pretty much
once a week
yeah once a week it takes it's like a couple hours each time we go to a person's house at 6 30 we stay until at least 10 30 I have in my hand some dice
oh yes
but the famous one is this this d20 it's this 20 sided dice so
Whenever anything happens you roll this 20-sided dice and if it's usually like above a 10 or something It's pretty good a below a 10 not so good
Well, there you go folks if you ever seen the
everything you can that to make fun of this right now I can see it in his face Okay, I have an
idea Pat you Greg and Brittany we started D&D podcast these are real things Okay, and we go around maybe it's a mythical Wisconsin and we travel
Okay, that sounds like fun.
Go around Wisconsin and travel mythically, okay.
You can
chase galactic storms, Brittany.
Yes, can I?
So
if any of
you have seen the parent trap, 14 year old Dan Hagen swapped bodies and is telling us more about Dungeons and Dragons than I expected to know and hopefully is intrigued a lot of people.
Katandra writes in on YouTube, my husband plays now.
He loves it.
Weekly goes into Appleton and plays at a board game store.
The biggest issue is he can't stop buying dice.
These
are some cheap dice I have but you can buy you know hundred dollar dice there's dice made out of bone there's there's everything
but I
will say it is fun like there's no screens right it's just you hanging out with your friends and there's no small talk either because you're just trying to like defeat a dragon or something so you got to stay focused
I love this.
This is so great.
This is more than I've ever heard about the game previously.
Um, you know, because I'm just jealous of those of you who grew up with.
That's
how I feel, Pat.
Friends and games and things like that.
Uh, but, but Dan, now that you, now that we know that you are a dungeon master, we will have to find a way to weave this into your, your regular Tuesday morning visits with us.
Absolutely.
Maybe it's a lesson, a tip, a day or something to let's, let's help Greg and Brittany become the, the, the dungeon masters or the orcas or whatever you said that they, they are destined to be.
I can make.
And the key thing is a character voice.
So last night, one of my villains was Raj who's an Australian.
Guy who, you know,
Greg, how is this not, you should be, this is just screaming your name.
I know, but it's just, it's, it, it, as Dan says, it takes, I mean, you have to, you have to have a weekly commitment to this and that's, that's tough for me.
I work a lot.
So.
Oh yeah, please.
I got to work my way.
I need a weekly commitment to touch my toes before I can engage in anything like, you know, luxury game playing.
Um, Brittany, as always.
You're the best sport in the world.
Thank
you.
We just wanted to ask if you played it and now that you've learned so much about it,
you know, I'm interested.
I know.
Thank
you.
All right.
Thanks to both of you.
Have a wonderful day.
And, uh, you know, happy, happy dragon.
Dungeoning happy.
Is there a greeting for, for D&D?
Pat, uh, I think you need to, we need to talk offline.
I think.
You're way off space.
Just a whole different subculture, secret handshakes.
You offended the Dungeon Master.
Yeah, no kidding.
I'm in trouble here.
All right, Dan, Brittany, have a great day.
You too.
We'll
see you later.
All right.
Hans Bright and Moser is coming up in just over 15 minutes here to talk to us more about what's happening with the Trump administration's cuts and trade wars and things like that.
There's a new wrinkle that has come up as well.
And this story was out of Politico about the Trump administration, the USDA under Trump is now cutting a billion dollar program that helps make sure that local farmers and their produce that that food can be locally sourced.
to schools and school lunch programs.
It's only the latest example of where farmers in Wisconsin are, uh, getting, uh, treated badly.
Let's leave it at that and not say any, any bad words here by the Trump administration to this point.
Derrick Van Orden, Congressman from the third congressional district has, uh, spent his, his, his past term in office.
crowing about being on the House Agriculture Committee, but doesn't have anything to show for it.
The Farm Bill was kicked down the road over and over again to the point where a bill that originally passed in, what, 2018 has not been updated since and still can't be in this Congress.
Meanwhile, farmers are now seeing cuts to their conservation programs.
And as I mentioned, seeing these punishing tariffs that are going to hurt them far more than it's going to hurt Canada, Mexico, China, anybody like that.
So at this point, we can tell you this morning that there's not one.
There's two Democrats, both from the Chippewa Valley, who are indicating today
that they may jump into the race good and early for 2026.
Yes, for 2026.
This is only the eighth week of the Trump presidency and Van Orden's second term.
And already Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge has confirmed to Up North News that she's considering a run for Congress.
And Rebecca Cook, who ran against Van Orden last year.
has confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel her interest in trying again to unseat the volatile Republican incumbent.
For Berge, a lot of it is born of frustration by other Chippewa Valley constituents that Van Orden is basically ignoring the largest city in his district.
And for Cook, of course, it's the trade issues and reproductive health measures as well.
Cook ran ahead of Kamala Harris and Tammy Baldwin in the 2024 voting, but still fell short by about 12,000 votes.
The same margin that Brad Path fell short of running against Van Orden in 2022.
But again, Democrats will see this district as winnable.
They see Van Orden's constant social media taunting and insults as making him vulnerable along with
his record, and so stay tuned for these two candidates and possibly more in that third district race.
More after this,
you're up north.
In today's history lesson, Debbie Gibson, then 18 years old in 1989, had the number one album in the country, Electric Youth.
We have today's history lesson every morning.
at 650 with little spillovers into bumper music like this on Up North News Radio, coming up on 722 right now.
In sports, the Milwaukee Bucks will be in Indiana tonight, taking on the Pacers.
Meanwhile, the Badger Men's basketball team is getting set for the Big Ten Conference Tournament.
Debbie, that's enough.
I'm trying to do sports over here.
The Badgers are in the Big Ten Conference Tournament Thursday.
Opponent TBD.
But coverage begins Thursday at 12 30 on civic media stations in Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Richland Center.
Check out the civic media app or civic media dot us to learn more in the Marquette man's basketball team is in the Big East conference tournament.
They too get a first round by so they too will first play on Thursday afternoon against the number four seed Xavier at Madison Square Garden.
Coming up tomorrow.
is the first ever live event by UpNorth News, a forum about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race on April 11th.
And the many ways that the outcome of this election is going to have a direct impact, truly black or white, one way or the other, on some serious issues around reproductive health rights, around education, and frankly, the Wisconsin economy overall.
I don't mind telling you that one of the stakes in this race is that the court could once again become what it was during the Scott Walker era, which was practically a wholly owned subsidiary of Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce.
group that has been working, even as we speak, to undermine the ability to identify PFAS contamination in Wisconsin water and hold corporate polluters responsible.
That's one of the many things at stake in this race.
We'll be talking to state lawmakers, we'll be talking to experts in those various fields at the Overture Center tomorrow evening from five to seven p.m.
If you're in the Madison area, stop in, learn more at upnorthnewswi.com slash supreme.
or just listen right here.
The Civic Media Radio Network is going to be covering the Up North News Supreme Court Panel Forum event, Protecting Justice for All, starting at just after the five o'clock news, tomorrow evening, here all across the Civic Media Radio Network.
So tune in for that.
We look forward to telling you much more and then hearing what the experts have to say and then talking about it the next day, Thursday morning, when we do the show from Madison.
Governor Tony Evers has put forward a new capital projects budget and he put out a release about it yesterday and it will not take long for Republicans to criticize the size of it.
It is four billion dollars in recommended investments for the state's existing infrastructure and major projects in 26 counties around Wisconsin.
the governor, along with pointing out the many positives of these projects, also noted that because of, you know, an austerity budget frame from the Republican-led legislature, Wisconsin has a deferred maintenance backlog that is now topping out at about $13 billion.
So that if you wanted to prevent some system failures, correct some safety hazards, avoid emergency breakdowns and other urgent repairs, you'd have to put $13 billion toward it.
That's too much.
So you've got to triage it where you can.
And clearly, Republicans are not doing the work.
to maintain state infrastructure.
And so the governor's capital projects budget is that size.
And I can say as a former member of the state building commission that it remains one of the very few places that is, I'm not going to say free of party politics.
I'll just call it a place where members do take their responsibilities seriously much of the time.
But we saw in the last session of the legislature politics coming into play in work that would prevent the College of Engineering from building new facilities in Madison, getting caught up in the politics of Republicans trying to prevent the teaching of racial justice and racial history and engaged in promoting diversity.
uh, all across the UW system.
So it is, you know, my hope certainly as a former member and as a taxpayer who would like to not shell out even bigger bucks down the future in the future because of deferred action on, you know, crumbling buildings that this group can come together and approve a big chunk of what's in governor Evers budget.
I looked from a, from a national standpoint and while we do a lot of focus on state news and state politics here, a lot of folks can't help but be watching the stock market and what it's been doing since Donald Trump took office with the mixed signals that he's giving on tariffs and trade.
Uh, it's, it's gotten to the point where, you know, people joke that, uh, what Donald Trump says in the morning is.
Add odds with not Democrats but with what Donald Trump says in the afternoon in terms of whether tariffs are in or out whether this particular spending cut is in or out so it's no no wonder that Wall Street had one of its its worst day of the year yesterday and It wasn't helped at all by Secretary of State Marco Rubio Selling out Ukraine before talks could even start
in Saudi Arabia about the future of the war where Russia invaded Ukraine with Marco Rubio saying that there would have to be some kind of land concessions for there to be any kind of peace rather than any kind of unified force toward getting the invaders out of the lands that they invaded but with
Marco Rubio as Secretary of State for Donald Trump.
You can see where Ukraine, especially after that, Trump, Rubio, JD Vance disaster in the Oval Office last week feels very much behind the eight ball and either is going to have to accept some kind of land concessions or hope that the rest of Europe remains united enough and supportive enough that they can withstand this ongoing Russian assault and beat it back.
In fact, overnight.
There was a drone attack in Moscow, 90-some drones from Ukraine attacking airport facilities there as the war continues to spread into other parts of Russia.
It might be who Russia to be the one being pressured to have peace talks and to give up its aim to remake the Soviet Union.
But that's something that we may not see until more public pressure is put on folks like Trump and Rubio.
More after this, you're up north.
It was on this week in 1972 that Neil Young had the number one album with Harvest at the top of the charts.
Just about 7.35 here on Up North News Radio on this Tuesday morning.
And we were talking just a bit before the break about the Trump administration abandoning Ukraine.
Cassandra Royson on YouTube.
It is absolutely shocking to me.
How many citizens are completely fine with selling out Ukraine?
Anything Trump says goes.
Our grandparents fought against these people.
What is going on?
And there's also that impact on agriculture.
Ukraine was pretty much the bread basket of Europe.
And as that has disrupted farming and harvesting and exporting, it has led to higher consumer prices around the world as a result.
The US can only do so much.
Less so.
when the U.S.
is antagonizing its own trading partners.
It is something we have talked to Hans Breit and Moser about extensively over these past seven, eight weeks, but we're also going to talk about Wisconsin Farmer's Union Lobbying Day at the State Capitol in Madison.
Good morning, Hans.
How are you?
How are you?
Good.
Good to see you again.
How did things go last week in Madison during the visit?
some of the things we did down there as we got involved in a press conference regarding all the federal funding freezes and because there are some legislators in the state that are interested in getting a bill passed to sort of have the state have a backstop against some of these things which is to say when the federal government does something crazy like you know backs out of contracts that they had written
regarding conservation efforts or some of the IRA things and so forth, there's people around the state who are getting pretty jittery because the funds that they were promised were paused and then opened up again.
And it seems to go back and forth and back and forth.
And so the idea behind this bill in the state of Wisconsin is to say, okay, if something like that,
happens and there's man-made chaos out of the White House that Wisconsin would come in and try and make those contracts whole, to the extent that the Wisconsin budget is able to do that.
Just to sort of give farmers and other people who have been on the receiving end of some of this chaos some sort of confidence that
that they will in fact be made whole.
I don't know how far into the weeds you want to get on these contracts and so forth, but it is the case that with conservation contracts and things of that nature, you know, typically what happens is farmers, you know, they make a contract with NRCS and then they start spending money on a conservation effort.
And at the, you know, once the project is complete, they turn around hand in their receipts and would expect to get the money that they were promised.
And so do the banks who loan the short-term funds in there as well.
And some of that has been upended and makes, you know, farmers and lenders pretty nervous.
So this was an attempt to kind of speak to that issue.
Sure.
So to put it...
another way.
This is a reimbursement program.
This is not a case where, you know, taxpayers through the USDA are shelling out all this money and then not seeing anything done for it.
Farmers are actually borrowing money to get this work done and then getting reimbursed.
And it's the Trump administration that is breaking that reimbursement commitment to farmers.
And, and I, you know, I think what's important to remember here is that
Well, two things.
Number one, a lot of these programs are, you know, they're very well thought out.
And like I've said in the past, if you can get money, federal dollars close to the ground, especially in agriculture, they will reproduce like crazy.
And those dollars are doing good things in terms of conservation efforts.
It speaks to the quality of our surface and groundwater, you know, things like cover crops and grazing plans and manure storage and so forth.
And and then yeah, the how that works is you know you enter into as a farmer you enter into a contract and you expect that that contract should be You know that commitment that was made by both parties Should be should be followed through on and some of that isn't happening now Now my understanding as of late is that these funds got unpaused again, but one thing that concerns me is that
When you've got lenders, you know, loaning the short term money to get the project done until the reimbursement comes, you know, I have to believe that that rural lenders are looking at these things and saying, you know, what used to be an absolutely safe bet because was backed up by the federal government now seems kind of sketchy and we don't want any part of it.
And what good does that do for rural economies?
I would like to know.
No, it undermines that that that notion, that phrase, the full faith and credit.
of the U.S.
government, that when the U.S.
government says we're going to do something for you, our farmers, we'll do it.
And then to break your word essentially on that, through by the way, a manner that is at best extra legal, shall we say.
well, I think
that's the other part of that that conversation that people need to have if if you are of the Mindset that these dollars these these are this type of money should not be spent on these types of things Well, that's fine and let's have that conversation and let's have that debate but at some point You know we the people concluded that these were good programs and legislation got them in place and bureaucrats take care of the You know the heavy lifting on getting things done and if at some point we decided
that these aren't good investments in rural America, then that's fine too.
But let's have a means by which we go about that rather than just have a couple of billionaires who wouldn't know a covered crop from their lawn, make all the decisions on this stuff.
It's interesting that you say that because it allows me to give another update when it comes to these tariffs.
And again, the whole notion of hold the vote on these things, hold the vote, hold people accountable.
Do you actually want to cut these programs for farmers?
Now, as I explained to folks yesterday, we're coming up on another deadline for a potential government shutdown.
I can't believe we're saying this again.
But the last time they kicked the can down the road, they kicked it down until this coming Friday.
So by then, Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote if all Democrats stick together.
And right now, it's not looking like he can actually pass what's called a continuing resolution.
which is another way of kicking the can down the road.
Now, let me set that aside for a second, that vote on a continuing resolution.
When it comes to these tariffs, Donald Trump put them in place by declaring a fake emergency.
There is a mechanism in the law that allows a president to declare an emergency and then unilaterally, without needing Congress's up or down vote, do things to impose tariffs.
But.
In that same law, Congress can reel him back in.
They can hold a vote and vote to end those tariffs that Trump put in through this fake emergency.
Now here's where those two things come together.
In the continuing resolution, Speaker Mike Johnson has put language in there that would delay or cancel
vote, the vote on ending the tariffs because he does not want his Republican members to have to take an up or down vote on whether to keep these tariffs in place.
They want to put everything in this one omnibus bill and scare everybody to say, hey, if you vote no on this, the whole government's going to shut down and it's going to be your fault no matter how much garbage we put in this thing.
And so you see where this all comes together that
Hange and others want to see this upper-down vote on do you really want to do this to farmers?
Then you've got Speaker Mike Johnson doing everything possible to protect every Republican from having to actually publicly take a vote on where they stand on what Trump is doing to rural America
It illustrates the spinelessness that we have inside our legislature amongst the Republicans at this point unfortunately, and that gives me no joy to Say that right now.
It just it's just very very frustrating because it doesn't get anything done and the other irony I think is that it once again
Um, I'll sort of gives license to all of those folks out in the countryside who have been sort of anti-government all the time And say well the government can't do anything right the government can't do anything right Well, yeah, we're seeing evidence of that now but but but look who's causing the chaos here.
Just pay attention to who's actually um, you know creating this this man-made chaos and you know in ag the thing is
In egg, we're already dealing with the weather.
We're already dealing with markets.
We have enough things to deal with that are uncertain, you know, and so we should be able to rely on, as you said earlier, the full faith of the of the US government to say when they say something, that's what they'll actually do.
And instead, we get this intentional willful neglect.
There was another new story about more.
farm related programs being canceled by the Trump administration through the US Department of Agriculture, the USDA.
And those cancellations affect more than $1 billion in purchasing local food from farmers for food banks and for schools.
Those programs
are called the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program.
Now, my gut tells me that these were hardly make or break programs for the health of any individual farmer, but to cut a billion dollars after the Biden administration had expanded these farm markets for farmers, it still got a sting.
I mean, you know, I know CSA farmers, you know like small vegetable farmers who Might not live or die by these things, but they're they do have a real impact on on their You know on their finances and and the bigger picture is that these things were created and and sort of trying to you know trying to
made to grow for good reason, right?
I mean, especially during the pandemic, we saw so many examples of great big corporate egg and the products that we produce going off a thousand miles in one direction to get processed and a thousand miles back to feed us.
These types of programs are designed to keep farmers and consumers as close together as possible, to eliminate as much of the price gouging that happens in between, and to make our whole food system safer and more resilient when that black swan flies in.
And suddenly there's a E. coli or something that happens that creates chaos in a large setting that when it's more distributed like this,
like some of these local food initiatives are trying to do.
The food system is simply more resilient.
It's more profitable for farmers.
It gets high quality food to people who need it at an affordable price.
It's a win-win-win, and it's just a really good investment in these rural economies.
It's going backwards from the lessons we learned from the COVID pandemic.
Absolutely.
That to put all of your eggs, almost literally, in the one basket of selling it to Big Ag,
major conglomerates owned by hedge funds and other friends of Donald Trump instead diversify avoid those supply chain disruptions
And like you said, bring bring farmers closer to their actual markets.
This was a lesson learned from the pandemic that instead is being ended to reward again, those mega corporations that become, you know, the the only alternatives for farmers and for consumers as well.
In the minute or so I got left, I know we jumped I jumped all over you when you were talking more about lobbying day, you talked about a couple of things.
So let me wrap it up by saying, you know, your
Your impressions, you know, you know how the legislature acts Republican led with a Democratic governor.
Was there anything in there in terms of your reception or things that said, well, here's maybe something we're going to get done this year.
I mean, you know, when you.
Anybody who's ever lobbied on behalf of any organization, especially when you're not a professional lobby or but you're just a farmer or you know somebody who's acting Inside their own industry, you know, we're not since we're not professionals.
We go down to Madison With I think you know in good faith and try and explain what we know to legislators who
might not otherwise know what we know and try and educate those folks.
And so sometimes you run into staff that does seem pretty receptive on some things and sometimes not so much.
And by the way, that's that staff that you're talking to.
Again, most of the time, I still believe these are good people, Democrat and Republican.
These are good hardworking folks who actually believe that government can play a role.
They may differ on how it does it.
But those are sometimes the best people to talk to.
You can always tell the ones though that are complete ideologues who came in off the campaign.
side.
Thankfully, those are those are fewer and far between.
So I hope you got you got treated nicely, Hans.
It was nice to talk to you again.
Thank you so much for the update.
We'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.
All right, we will wrap things up with Chad Holmes coming up right after this.
You're up
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
All right, time to wrap things up for this Tuesday morning on Up North News Radio.
Earl Ingram coming up on many Civic Media stations.
But at 98.9 WXCO in Wausau, we're going local talking to one Chad Holmes from the Chad Holmes Show.
Whether it's Earl or Chad or any of the programs across the Civic Media radio network, you can listen through the Civic Media app as well.
Mr. Holmes, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
Doing very well.
Thanks.
Uh, yeah, you're sounding good.
You're sounding, uh, you know, uh, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, which is, I hope, I hope a good, uh, sign because this is, well, it's not really the calm before the storm for you.
We're, we're pretty well in the storm of, uh, you know, tournament time and, you know, spring sports are also getting underway at the same time, leading to the ongoing question, when does chat home sleep?
Well, the storm is over for me because all of our teams are out, so.
Actually, last weekend was a storm because I was down in Madison for a few days.
Went back and forth a couple of times with state hockey and then some basketball.
But at the end of the weekend, it all ended.
So now it's like a few weeks before we get to the spring sports and a chance to hopefully rest the voice and be back to 100%.
And it is, I think, back.
But it is nice to take a step back for a few because it was a very, very busy.
winter from basically Thanksgiving until Saturday.
Yes, right.
There, there are these two groups of folks that these two groups of people do not want to be misunderstood, but whether it's sports announcers or parents, sports parents, there is that, that little voice that when, when the local team or when little Timmy's team is eliminated and you don't have to go through like three more rounds of postseason, there's a little voice that goes
I'm sad for you, Timmy.
I really am, but... I get my Saturdays back.
I get a little bit of sleep, so it's not meant to be harmful or cast dispersions, but it's kind of like this daylight savings thing.
You want the extra hour of sleep if you can get it.
No,
absolutely.
I'm still getting used to it.
It takes me a while because in the fall, it's no problem.
But boy, I tell you, the last couple of days, it's like, man, I can't fall to sleep number one because I think that it's like too
early.
And
then it's like, oh, I mean, I'm looking at the clock.
I mean, every hour, it's almost like, oh, what time is it now?
What time is it?
Apparently, I saw a note yesterday was talking about it on my show that
at least some folks, some doctors, scientists, whatever it may be, says it could take like two weeks for people to kind of get back, you know, their bodies to adjust to it.
And I think it may well be that.
For some it is Len on the text line in Madison says, I'm slowly adjusting to the clock change and figure I will be fully adjusted by November 2, which is when the clocks switch back.
So
You know, it's, it's, it's going to be a long eight months for Len and for some of the others.
And I, I, I forgot to ask, uh, Hans, you know, the, the question he surely gets asked twice a year.
And, uh, what do the cows think about this?
Cause they, they don't get a vote, you know,
and
so once a year, they're like, you're here already.
And then once a year, they're like, where have you been?
You know.
if Carlos could talk.
I know,
I love talking Carlos.
Yeah, yeah.
What else are you covering Walsall-wise?
Things that are happening up there?
Or shall we just have a new segment called, what'd your mayor do now?
Or maybe you have other things.
No, no,
I mean, the whole thing about it is, I mean, obviously it comes and goes.
I'm still, we're still kind of waiting.
to see what ultimately the ethics committee decides to do.
There's still, you know, obviously the process is going with, of course, there's an investigation going on with the state DOJ as well.
And the whole point of it is, and there's this idea that there's a, I was talking to somebody the other day, and so they were talking to somebody that they normally would be politically aligned with, and this person for whatever reason.
Is an ally of Denny and it kind of it it's kind of mind-blowing But this person keeps on indicating that anybody who?
Brings up the fact that Doug Denny removed that drop box Illegally what they're trying to get rid of him.
They're trying to impeach him That's not gonna happen.
No, the whole point of it is admit that hey you stepped over the line
here
that maybe you got a little over
zealous in the midst of a campaign or whatever it may be, but the idea that there should be at least a little bit of accountability seems pretty self-evident.
Yes.
Not anymore.
Yeah, we don't have to go to DEF CON one every single time on this, you know.
Well, maybe we switch gears to your Congressman then on the text line from Eric Intosa.
Good morning, Pat.
Please tell Hans that I personally spoke with Congressman Tom Tiffany last Saturday.
He told me he is voting yes on the continuing resolution because it's the right thing to do in his words.
Hans and his friends need to get on their phone and ring Tom Tiffany's phone off the hook.
I'm not I'm not telling you not to I'm just saying everything that Tom Tiffany indicates is that you know Donald Trump's gonna say jump and he's gonna say how high
well the idea of Tom Tiffany saying it's the right thing to do says it all right there um
yeah this is and how convenient that this next one kicks the can to September 30th oh the end of the fiscal year
So they will have gone through the entire year again without actually having to write a budget and just basically turning the government into a slush fund for Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
So if that's what Tom Tiffany's good with, you know, more power to him, I
guess.
I thought you made a wonderful point with Hans near the end of your conversation talking about how Johnson's trying to put in this.
aspect into the CR to basically allow Republicans not to take a stand and let people know where they stand on this.
You talk about the opposite of profiles and courage.
That is the opposite of profiles and courage.
I mean, we elect a Democrat Republican.
to stand there and actually have their voice be heard on behalf of the people that vote them in and to say, well, we're just not going to say anything because, you know, well, Donald Trump and Elon must do it all.
That is not less
right.
Enough campaign ads can make up for that, apparently, is the thinking they've got here.
Chad Holmes' show is next on 98.9 WXCO.
Thank you, sir.
Have a great day.
Mr. Bach is back in two hours for Matt Nair on air.
Tune in for that.
We'll see you tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
here up north.
I'm Pat Critello.
Have a wonderful day.
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