You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
All across Wisconsin from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Lesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitler.
And good morning, welcome back to Up North News Radio on a bash at the Wisconsin, brought to you by Courier Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network at 7.06 on this Wednesday morning, March 19th.
Coming up this hour, we will have our homeroom segment.
We will be joined by a former
UW Madison School of Education Dean who is also the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the voucher school system in Wisconsin.
She was unable to attend last week's session about the Supreme Court election.
And so she's able to join us today and Julie Underwood will tell us more about her thoughts on the importance of this state Supreme Court election when it comes to public education in Wisconsin.
It's Wednesday, so we will talk to Todd Alba as well.
Greg Bach is here.
Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here to tell us about a snowstorm that is approaching, but first it is my sad duty to tell you both
that Tony is at it again.
Tony and Ashlyn, the guy who started this food fight, literally, about coconut.
As we talked about today being National Chocolate Caramel Day, he writes in, you pronounced it wrong, it's caramel.
No, Tony, it's caramel.
That's,
and
again, it doesn't convey.
It doesn't convey as well, maybe in, in written comments, but go ahead, try me.
Well, here's what I'm going to say.
I'm
going to take, I'm going to take this moment and I'm just going to, I'm going to raise it up on Eagles wings.
All my Catholics know that.
Uh, there was a new, I don't know if it's, it was new to me.
I bought a girls, a pack of Girl Scout cookies this weekend and it was chocolate covered cookie with a caramel deal with a Tony center with sea salt.
with sea
salt, chocolate caramel and
sea salt.
Chocolate caramel sea salt.
So it's a Samoa, except that they took all the icky coconut you don't like.
I will dry your
lake to the bone.
And they replaced the coconut with sea salt.
That's a fair trade for me.
I'll eat the Samoas.
You eat the whatever.
Do you remember what they call these new cookies?
They're called better than
Samoas.
That's actually the name
on the box.
And I actually, I actually told the little girl, Scott, I said, I'll give you five bucks if you throw that box into the trash.
You couldn't buy it and ship it to me.
Okay.
I see.
Go to a farming fleet.
They're all over the place.
From Robin Tigerton, it's cloudy and 36 degrees yesterday.
It was beautiful, sunny, 50 degrees.
I got my snowblower ready and I've got to ask Brittany a question.
I've got a doctor's appointment in Shawna at one o'clock at a last an hour.
Could I make it from Tigerton to Shawna and back to Tigerton before it gets real bad?
So it's time for that hourly forecast for Tigerton from meteorologists, Brittany
Merleau.
So I would not go for that trip.
I would reschedule that appointment just to be safe because right around noon is when the winds are gonna really start to rip through the states.
I mean, we're talking about gusts from 40 to 50 miles per hour with the snow already ongoing at this point.
So whiteout conditions are definitely likely and I imagine those road conditions are going to stay pretty bad throughout the afternoon into that evening commute before things start to improve.
So what we're looking at as a winter storm morning from
Eau Claire, Tawassa, and to Rhinelander, Menominee.
You're also looking at Asturgeon Bay, too, into this winter storm morning, so Door County.
A winter weather advisory has been expanded into Green Bay, Appleton, La Crosse, Park Falls.
All of these areas are gonna get quite a bit of accumulating snowfall.
Now, we're looking at, in the winter storm morning area, about six to nine inches.
That's what we're likely looking at.
I mean, some places could get near a foot.
about a good six to nine inches in that area.
And I went to Weather Advisory, you're looking at about two to five inches.
So Fox Valley, two to five inches there.
And again, this is going to start spreading in.
really into our western areas, Winona, probably in the next 30 minutes, in towards the central areas of the state around 11 to noon, and then southeastern areas.
You're going to get some showers and thunderstorms late this morning into the afternoon hours.
Some of them could be strong to severe with hail as the highest risk.
And then we're also looking at a wind advisory going into effect later on this evening from about 7 p.m.
to 7 a.m.
because even southern parts of the state may be not getting the heavy snowfall.
heavy rain, heavy winds.
They're going to be gusting up to 50 miles per hour this evening.
And then it flips to snow for you guys.
So throughout the evening and into the overnight, you are looking at another one to three inches down into southern parts of the state.
So all of us are pretty much getting some snow.
It just depends on when.
Again, that is moving in mostly this morning for the northern half of the state and this evening for the southern half of the state.
But it's going to be a heavy wet slushy type of snowfall as well.
Power outages are definitely possible paired with those winds.
It's going to be a mess out there too.
I just have a really quick question because I'm, I don't know where everything is in the States.
So, uh, how far is Tigerton from Toronto?
How far of a drive is that?
Oh, good question.
I don't think it's that far.
Maybe within like 30 minutes or so.
Okay.
Oh, within that.
Yes.
Cause the way Rob was making it seem like this was like going to be like a two hour journey to a place.
And I was just like, it might be today.
Oh
my
goodness.
Cause I know cause honestly to.
It's kind of a serious thing because hospital access, when your hospitals and your doctor's places are closing down, I'm just like, oh gosh, how far does he have to drive to get to a doctor?
So that was just, I was just making sure.
Yeah.
And Rob says, thank you, Brittany on YouTube.
Tony says, did Ashlyn get left out of all this lovely snow?
Yes, finally, it's our snow, Central Wisconsin.
Stop hogging all the snow, Tony.
He also adds chocolate, caramel, and sea salt sounds wonderful.
I feel like when
you say chocolate, caramel, and sea salt, you have to say caramel.
It's fancy.
You're taking Tony's.
You got the puny up again,
don't you?
It's
context.
It's like, oh, what are you having?
I'm having some caramels.
What are you having?
Chocolate, caramel, and sea salt.
Robert notes that it's 30 miles from Toronto and Tigerton and Genie on Facebook just simply puts one of those green emoji faces like she's going to be sick.
I
guess somebody's
ready for spring.
You know, right?
Could
be.
Yeah.
Which by the way, first day of spring is Thursday.
Yeah.
Are we sure?
No, we're sure.
We're sure.
I was just setting her up to deliver the good news.
that Thursday as we mop up whatever this is, it'll be spring.
And then a week from today or a week from tomorrow, brewer season opening.
Yeah.
Peace ball is
here.
We got this, Brittany.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
You too.
A reminder that you can sign up for our daily newsletter over at upnorthnewswi.com.
We would love to have you as a subscriber.
Christina Laurie puts together our weekday edition and includes some stories there about laughter and the differences between men and women on laughter.
And then there's our weekend edition of the newsletter.
It comes out on Sunday mornings.
We've only been doing this for about six weeks now and we really appreciate the growth in that as people respond to our
question of the week that we put in there.
And this week, it's all about optimism to pessimism on what Elon Musk and his buddy Donald Trump are doing with the economy and with government services and the potential of a recession.
So people are answering either A, optimistic that this whole Trump musk thing is on the right track and everything is going to be sunshine and roses, B, a little bit of hesitation, C, a lot of hesitation, and D, pessimistic, several comments echoing the notion we are toast.
So what will they do with the best economic recovery post pandemic in the world?
Find out and give us your opinion a through D by email radio at up north news wi.com or subscribe to our newsletter that way and learn more as well about what we're covering
We have been covering Minnesota Governor Tim Walls coming to the Chippewa Valley last evening.
He was at the Pablo Center in downtown Eau Claire and doing so.
as he has been around the country lately because Congressman Derek Van Orden, like many Republican members of Congress have been instructed not to hold town halls that, you know, instead insult your constituents and call them paid George Soros provocateurs or something along those lines.
So the people who are, you know, the actual constituents.
Not too happy about it.
Before the governor spoke, Democratic Party Chair Ben Wichler spoke to the crowd and explained how they can send a message about what the Trump Musk presidency is doing on the April 1st Supreme Court election in the state.
and I
We've identified so many critical things that we need to do as Democrats that elected officials can do and candidates can do.
And here in Wisconsin, everyone here, everyone watching a clip of this on social media, we can all be the heroes of this moment.
For the next two weeks, we have this gift.
We have this incredible privilege, which is that we get to organize, fight back, and win an election that sends a message to the world, to the country, to the state, and to ourselves.
We have this moment.
Republicans think that Elon Musk is a force field.
that they can attack Social Security, that they can attack veterans, and Elon Musk will bail them out.
And they think that because he has unlimited money.
But this is the test.
This election is the test case.
He's poured 13.2 million and counting into this election to buy a Supreme Court seat.
No one's ever put that much money into a Supreme Court election.
But when we win, when Susan Crawford wins this race, when Susan Crawford wins this race,
That force field
disappears.
And yes, it's at least $13 million.
It's probably going to go north of $15 million that Elon Musk puts into this one state Supreme Court race in a state where he doesn't live, but in a state where he does have a lawsuit pending that would impact his Tesla company.
And it's up to the voters to say whether a business owner can do that, can have that much sway over, you know, naming.
Basically who gets to sit on the court governor walls then spoke to the group and Again care listen to how he characterizes the way that he's traveling around the country these days
the most unsatisfactory I told you so to her in the history of the world But they made it easy for me they wrote it in that damn playbook that I got tired of using that line I'm a football coach, and I know if you make a playbook you're gonna use it Yes, they were gonna use it and that's what they're doing as they try and strip those rights away from book But you came here as I said you could have been
anywhere, you came here because you know the fight's still on, and you know that you love your country, and
I
You wanted to be here in front of your member of Congress because the First Amendment to the Constitution gives you that right and responsibility to address your government.
They talked about how much they love freedom, which that's fine.
So do we.
But we have a little bit different definition.
When we talk about loving freedom, we mean freedom for everyone.
For everyone.
Because if you say you love freedom and it's not for everyone, you don't love freedom, you love privilege.
And that's a big difference.
A big difference.
As Governor Tim Walls in Eau Claire, the Milwaukee Bucks lost against the Golden State Warriors, even with Steph Curry on the bench losing 104 to 93.
The road trip continues with the Bucks in LA to play the Lakers tomorrow.
Let's pause here wherever you're listening across Wisconsin on this Wednesday morning.
When you're here, you're up north.
This is up North News Radio.
I'm back right now.
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.
It was on this day in 1974 that Jefferson Airplane rebranded as Jefferson Starship held their first concert in Chicago with their new name.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio on this Wednesday morning, March 19th.
Civic Media's next statewide text-to-win contest is right around the corner, so be sure to tune in starting Monday during the 7 a.m.
hour for your first chance to listen for a keyword to enter and be a
part of a chance to be an hourly winner, or you could enter to win the grand prize.
You will have four chances to enter the contest each day in the 7 a.m.
hour, 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m.
hours each day throughout the two-week statewide text-to-win contest.
So to text us, get that Civic Media app and be listening starting at 7 a.m.
next Monday.
for your chance to text in the hourly keyword and be entered to win all kinds of cool prizes.
We mentioned in sports that the Bucks had lost to Golden State last night.
Milwaukee played from behind most of the night, and it notes here that for the sixth time this season, Yanis Anatacupo made more free throws than he did shots.
He only made five field goals, he made 10 free throws.
That's, that's a cold spell.
That's a cold snap.
The Badgers are the three seed and the NCAA tournament in their bracket and they will be taking on Montana, the 14 seed.
The game is in Denver.
Coverage starts at 1130 on Civic Media Stations in Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Richland Center, but not
not on the Civic Media app this time.
Of course it's the NCAA tournament so the rules are a lot different in terms of networks and things and so while you can catch a lot of Badgers action through the Civic Media app during the regular season if you want to hear them in the tournament.
tune into WLAK and Amory, WFH on Wisconsin Rapids, or WRCE in Richland Center.
The Marquette men are a seven seed in the tournament their first game is Friday in Cleveland against 10 seed New Mexico.
And again, the Badger women's hockey team, they're in the final four for their national tournament.
They will take on the Minnesota Gophers this Friday evening.
One other note on the the text line.
This is from Tiffany in River Falls.
Pat, tell me your response to the people that say, but Crawford is backed by Soros in response to Elon Musk backing Schimmel.
It's an excellent question, and I'm glad you asked that, Tiffany.
Thank you for texting it in.
George Soros, also a billionaire, has no business in front of the courts.
right now and that's that is the main issue here we'll get into money and politics in just a second but if you look at the the US Supreme Court right now which is suffering a corruption crisis worse than anything we would have imagined in our lifetimes where justices are accepting
millions of dollars by now in terms of the luxury vacations and the free transportation, the private jet rides, all of the other material goods that they've received and somehow conveniently forget to report them by billionaires who either have cases directly in front of the courts or are financial supporters of others who do have cases before the courts.
You understand why we would not want the same thing happening to our Wisconsin Supreme Court.
We went through that when conservatives controlled the court for about a 15-year period, where it felt like so many of their decisions could have been written at the headquarters of Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce in terms of worker rights, in terms of environmental protections, things like that.
Elon Musk filed a suit on behalf of Tesla, arguing that Wisconsin's law that says you have to use car dealerships, manufacturers can't sell cars directly, seeking to overturn that law.
Now look, you can disagree on the law if you want.
You can say, well, Ford should be able to sell cars directly, and Toyota and everybody else, and they shouldn't have to use dealerships.
That's a fine argument to make.
It's a different argument to say I'm gonna put 15 million dollars behind getting this candidate elected tip the balance of the court and win this suit and by the way also Win anything else that might come before the court on behalf of Donald Trump the guy that I gave millions of dollars to to get him elected president of the United States And don't say well it wasn't Elon Musk's money that got him elected
don't fool yourself.
People would not be spending millions upon millions of dollars on things if the money didn't work, if commercials didn't work, if all the social media ads didn't work.
So voters get a chance this time to say, let's not reward that, shall we?
Maybe we'll have disagreements on how to limit how much money can go into politics.
But I think a lot of us can agree that some kind of a line has been crossed here.
Tony and Ashland also notes on YouTube, George Soros isn't cutting tons of services with Doge.
Now, George Soros has funded causes that I've been a part of as well, Courier Newsroom being one of them.
We are in an era right now where there are a lot more billionaires funding conservative causes than progressive ones.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't others out there in Wisconsin and around the country and around the world who are saying, well, if this is the field we have to play on right now, then I guess game on.
And so Elon Musk can give as much money as he wants.
George Soros can give as much money as he wants and all the other names that we could throw out there.
For the voter, it should be more about what does this mean to me?
What does it mean if Brad Schimel is on the court?
What does it mean if Susan Crawford is on the court?
We do know that if Brad Schimmel's on the court and you've got Elon Musk as your patron That anytime there's going to be a case coming up that may involve corporate power employee rights Natural resources protection against say corporate polluters You've got a pretty good idea Where Brad Schimmel may come down just as you have a pretty good idea where Susan Crawford is going to come down if there's a case in a law that say would
take away a woman's ability to make her own health care choices.
So know those things and vote based on the issue, not whether you like George Soros or not, whether you like Elon Musk or not.
It always comes back to what is, what is the impact on us through this court?
This court with progressive control provided fair maps.
so that we don't have a gerrymandered legislature.
We have a legislature that can come closer to passing laws in line with Wisconsin values.
If the court switches control in two weeks, what do you think happens to those maps?
I'm not saying they're going away, you know, the next day, but what do you think is the long-term prospect for avoiding the political mischief that comes with gerrymandering?
what can a supermajority do in the legislature when it comes to doing things that again a majority of Wisconsin residents don't want.
So look past the money and look at the impact on you and on our state's future.
Home room after this.
You're up north.
We
have, Greg and I have been on the Eternal Quest for just the right walk-up music for our homeroom segment.
And this was my latest effort at that from Timbuk3, study nuclear science.
I love my classes.
And it was, the song was used, if I'm not mistaken, by Howard Hessman.
Most folks know him as Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP and Cincinnati.
But he had this show,
correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, head of the class where he played the rebel teacher, essentially, and they incorporated this song into part of it.
But the fact of the matter is, no matter how much we've tried over the past couple of years, a whole lot of the songs about schools are more like another brick in the wall and other songs that aren't exactly promoting education, shall
we
say.
I was reading through, there was a 38 special song from 1984, I think, called Teacher Teacher, and it was from the movie Teachers with a Young, Nick Nolte, and Jo Beth Williams.
And the reviews on it were terrible, and I remember watching part of it, but it was, again, I thought, well, it's a catchy song.
But as I'm listening to the lyrics and looking back at the movie recap, I'm like, Nope.
This is not
going to be
our
song either.
So I even like I for a while we were using a rock and roll high school and then I hear the lyrics.
I'm like, I don't like this either.
Like there's, yeah, honestly, I think this might be the best one because it's got a really, you know, hey, yeah,
it's got it's got a nice riff to it.
It's very, very much.
pro school.
I mean, there's that line 50,000 a year can buy a lot of beer, but that's after you graduate.
And you're
right.
It was,
it was head of the class.
It was, and he was, I loved that show.
I love
that
show.
That's
a
great show.
When, when Billy, I love Billy Connelly, but when he came on the show, down the hill.
Oh
yeah.
But yeah, uh, Howard has been what a great, great actor.
I know.
Very funny.
Just loved him on WKRP as well back in the day.
All right, so this is our homeroom segment and so we're going to touch briefly on the state supreme court race and its importance to education.
It's something that we discussed at length as one of our panel discussions in two particular areas.
One of them dealing with Act 10.
which was the Scott Walker signature law that removed collective bargaining rights from many public sector workers.
And the thing that has always stuck with me about that is that Scott Walker didn't campaign on that.
In 2010, Scott Walker never said, hey, if you elect me, I'm going to take away the rights of workers in the public sector to collectively bargain.
Might have changed the outcome of that.
In much the same way Donald Trump kept saying we're going to cut spending.
We're going to cut spending.
We're going to, you know, you never said we're going to fire thousands of veterans and we're going to make it tougher to get care through the VA and all of the other things like, you know, humanitarian aid.
We're okay with children dying of AIDS in other countries just on a lark.
You don't, you don't promise those things ahead of time because you know you're not going to get the votes.
And so you try to fool the voters in some other way.
Well, that's what Scott Walker did.
An Act 10 came along despite the many protests down at the Capitol.
There had been legal challenges to it, but of course the legal challenges were heard by a state Supreme Court that was controlled by conservatives who did not exactly have a pro-worker agenda.
Now you have a court with progressive control.
You have had legal challenges to it.
And needless to say, if Brad Schimmel wins on April 1st, those challenges will dry up and Wisconsin will continue to be a place that is more likely to drive away the best and brightest who could be teachers rather than attract them.
The other, of course, is the voucher school program.
And we did try to
talk about that with Brittany Kinzer, who is a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction.
Tony writes in that he heard Brittany Kinzer on Earl Ingram show on Monday.
He writes she completely sidestepped if she supports teachers unions, which to me says she doesn't support them.
And I was going to ask her that question as well, prompted either by Tony or one of the other listeners who texted in and wanted to make sure that I asked that question.
But
Again, she was giving very long answers and I was trying to be polite for as long as I could and then really wanted to get back on the notion of can Wisconsin afford to pay for two separate school systems in this state?
And she never really wanted to address that question.
And it's the one that I think is going to come up time and time again.
It certainly did in our panel discussions last week.
that if there is a new legal challenge to the voucher system, there's gonna be a different outcome depending on whether Judge Crawford wins or Judge Schimmel wins and becomes the next state Supreme Court justice.
Now again, like Act 10, people will say, well, wait, there've already been legal challenges to the voucher school program.
And that's true.
But again, A, it was a conservative controlled court, but more importantly, B, the initial challenges to the voucher school program
dealt with a program that was advertised, billed, sold as a small experimental pilot program in Milwaukee.
And Brittany Kinzer spent a lot of her time talking about kids in Milwaukee and raising test scores in Milwaukee and raising literacy in Milwaukee.
These are all noble things.
And there were people, Democrats as well as Republicans that were willing to try to experiment with school vouchers and private schools to see if that would increase performance.
Sorry about the cough there.
The verdict is in.
Private schools did not prove themselves to be any better than public schools on the whole when it comes to student performance.
They're not worse, but they're not in any way demonstrably better.
They are by and large very selective institutions, whereas public schools have to take on everybody, have to try to teach everybody.
And we have a state legislature that is not responding well to that.
And that's what we wanted to ask Brittany about, Greg.
And like you said on Earl's show, as I take a little cup of coffee here for this particular.
segment.
She was a little elusive on it.
But again, the invitation is still open if she'd like to talk about it some more.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we these are important points to cover.
You are asking for the job of school superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction.
All of these things, when she when she came on the show last Friday, and she spoke about her project, helping kids read, I think that's great.
I don't think anyone can get behind.
I don't think anyone be like, Well, that's not great.
It is great.
Kids should learn how to read.
But beyond that, we need to know where you stand on all of the nuanced issues of being in charge of the Department of Public Instruction, and she's not answering those questions.
Right, and that was the biggest problem was, and she did say, well, I'm not the legislature, I can't decide how to fund these schools.
No, but you definitely work with the legislature.
You said it best, you said you
were, you said best, you said.
No, but you are an advocate and you had to advocate for the schools and a Formula and a plan and that plan has to include all the kids and That's 800,000 children
Yeah, and instead we're dealing with a voucher school program that is coming up on the price tag of 800 million so
That that was the important part and that's what we wanted to talk about.
So that again is why the Supreme Court race is so important Greg if you wouldn't mind Catching up or grabbing Francesca Hong's sound bite from the assembly floor debate yesterday I want to play that back in case folks missed it during early in the 6 a.m.
Hour the State Assembly yesterday passed a bill to
essentially micromanage county sheriff's departments around the state when it comes to immigration enforcement.
And I've written this story for UpNorthNewsWI.com.
So I note in there that county sheriffs in Wisconsin have wide latitude in determining the extent to which they will cooperate when it comes to federal immigration enforcement.
And there are many different ways that you can do that.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Tried to survey every sheriff in the state and at one extreme you have Burnett County up in Northwest, Wisconsin with a very active approach that includes asking about immigration status at routine traffic stops and Notifying ICE immigration and customs enforcement Even if they discover that the victim of a crime is undocumented I would note again
For as much as people want to say, you know illegal immigrant illegal alien illegally unauthorized immigration is Not a criminal offense You can say it is all day if you want it is a civil violation Now the backers of the bill that was debated yesterday said well You've got to give sheriffs sheriffs have got to do a better job of reporting to ICE people who are committing felony crimes But they do
Again, we're talking about people committing felony crimes.
But even then, people still have a constitutional right to due process because anybody can, you know, what's the old law school term?
A ham sandwich can be charged with a felony, but you still gotta prove it.
And that's what's gotten, by the way, President Trump's, what's got him in trouble, even with Chief Justice John Roberts.
is about this case where he is declaring people as gang members and therefore eligible for immediate deportation.
But he hasn't convinced a judge of that in any way shape or form.
You can't wave a magic wand and declare that.
Due process is still a thing in this country even as the president is trying to run rough shot over it.
So that gets us back to the bill that was being debated and about requiring county sheriffs to do even more to report people who may be undocumented and The concern of course is that you know crime victims and others will be less hesitant to approach law enforcement for help if they see them as somebody who's going to overlook their immediate crisis and seek to deport them and this will a state representative Francesca Hong talking about
what it is that is so lacking in this bill.
Laws like AB 24 don't just harm immigrants.
They also expand the surveillance and policing of communities under the guise of public safety.
forcing officers to play the role of federal immigration agents and then expecting them to navigate the very complex areas of federal immigration law.
It only shows confusion.
It weakens community trust.
And then she went on to conclude her remarks by saying, I want to note again that no person is illegal.
Every person has needs.
and should have those needs met.
And she was talking in this case about, again, if you're a victim of a crime or something, that people are not illegal.
Well, the very next speaker was State Representative Jerry O'Connor from Fond du Lac, who, of course, had to start off by saying, this bill is about illegal aliens.
This bill, you didn't quite have a Foghorn Leghorn voice, I'm adding that for a fact, but this bill is about illegal aliens.
Again, just feeling that need.
To say, these people who happen to usually be a different skin color than I am, these people are the ones we have to get rid of who are committing felonies.
But the bill, again, even as amended, even as amended where the bill says this is about people, you know, arrested for felony crimes, without a certain level of due process, you're simply going to increase the fears of errant arrests and errant deportations.
And if you don't think that can happen, well guess what?
It already is.
I believe we talked about this yesterday.
About Ma Yang, a Milwaukee area mother of five, came to this country as a baby with her Hmong refugee parents.
Last month she was detained and flown to Laos.
She's never been to Laos.
She doesn't speak the language.
She doesn't have the insulin to treat her diabetes.
Several years back.
She was arrested as part of a marijuana distribution thing where she wasn't selling the drugs She wasn't pushing the drugs.
She was counting some cash as part of some of the distributors and so she was caught she paid her price she was going on with her life she has permanent residency until Donald Trump said nope you don't because of this marijuana related offense We're shipping you off to a country that you've never been to and you can't speak the language
We talked about somebody who worked at Wisconsin Dell as a college student in Peru, who overstayed her visa because of COVID, was working toward becoming a citizen, has now been stuck in a detention center in Louisiana.
Bills like what was approved yesterday help increase the amount of episodes where that could possibly happen.
And we need to be better than this.
Todd Alba's next, 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.
If you missed it during today's history lesson, Ruth Pointer of The Pointer Sisters is 79 years old today.
We also started the day talking about technology snafus, and I think I've managed to create another one here.
But Julie Underwood is now with us, the retired Dean UW Madison School of Education and Todd Alba, who moderated our education panel as part of our Supreme Court event last week.
Mr. Alba, how are you?
I am well.
Thank you.
I'm good.
Yeah,
very
good.
Thank you.
Again, thank you for moderating that along with, you're going to have to remind me here, we had Julie Mead was
there.
Representative
Christian Phelps.
That's right.
Yes.
Yes.
And Julie Underwood was going to be there, but Julie had something come up.
So Julie is with us now to talk a bit about the Supreme Court race.
Julie, thank you for your patience.
Thank you for being here.
I'm just going to toss it right to you since, you know, our time is limited here in this segment.
Thank you for saying that was your technology snafu, but it certainly was probably mine.
No worries.
But you're here now and that's where, again, we appreciated your willingness to come talk about
What is it?
What do people need to know about?
Why should they vote in a state Supreme Court race, especially as it relates to education in Wisconsin?
Well, you know, the state Supreme Court race is incredibly important for all sorts of all sorts of reasons, because, you know, as we're seeing right now at the federal level, the courts are actually the guardrails for all the other branches of government.
You know, they kind of put the, they're the ultimate guardrails.
So they hold the other branches of government accountable.
And when, you know, you never know what's gonna come up in the next 10 years, but I certainly, you know, I've got a guess of some things that are gonna happen.
I think that we can assume, you know.
We can probably assume that cases about school funding would come up in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
And so the Wisconsin Supreme Court would have the opportunity and the responsibility to force the legislature to live up to its state constitutional responsibility to spend enough money to
to make sure that every child actually has an adequate education or an education that meets its needs regardless of where they live.
And that's
not
now.
And that was what the other advocates on the panel noted as well.
Julie Mead was a retired school of education professor of school law, Heather Dubois-Bornan from the Wisconsin Public Education Network, Peggy Ward-Solson from WEAC, Representative Christian 12th, St.
Moe Claire.
Todd, let me toss it to you.
And if you'd like to ask Julia a question as well, but it really did come back to this court could either help or harm the ongoing crisis of underfunding, you know, maybe not equal, but a uniform, a fair level of education for all.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think for me,
You were talking in your last segment about the legislature passing this bill infringing on local sheriffs.
And as a former Republican left the party in 2011, the Republicans used to stand for local control.
People in Madison, Washington, DC, they don't know anything.
Keep things at home.
And now you see the current iteration of modern Republicans doing just the opposite.
But Julie, as the dean emeritus at UW Madison School of Education,
I come from a family of educators.
We talked about this in the panel, but speak a little bit more.
We have such a hard time right now, a shortage of educators, a hard time recruiting those folks.
And what could the Supreme Court race mean to laws that would further impede people from wanting to go into education?
Well, right now, the legislature is passing all sorts of laws that actually make people not want to go into education and make it harder to educate.
like laws like demeaning educators, making it harder for local school districts to fund their districts, like hampering referenda, making it harder to spend, or all of the censorship kind of things.
letting communities pick and choose what's going to happen in their curriculum, kind of like overseeing the teacher and assuming that the teacher doesn't know anything and allowing communities to remove facts from a curriculum because they disagree with them or remove books from a library or a curriculum because they disagree with the political views of the author or the race or the gender.
or the sexual identity of the author.
These kind of laws demean teachers, and it doesn't help, but also not having enough people in the classroom.
makes it just harder and harder.
Act 10, think about all of that.
It's just hard to keep people in the classroom.
This has gotten to be a crisis these days.
It certainly has.
Yeah, go ahead,
Todd.
I know there's been polls where I kept law school poll.
I know Wisconsin Public Education Network has done a lot of this.
When you ask people, Julie, around the state, what do you think of your public school?
They say, my public school is great.
It's a thing of my community, right?
Exactly.
How do we convey this across the state that every public school is a center of a community and we have to stand up for each other so that everybody can have a great public school?
That's the common theme.
That's
the common theme.
And if you repeat a lie enough, people believe it.
Right, and that's and that's where again, if you're repeating the truth, you can't just say it once you got to repeat it over and over again, which is why we were so thrilled to have Julie Underwood on as a guest in the past.
Grateful, she's here again today.
Grateful to you, Todd, for moderating the education panel last week, and we will just continue sharing that message about what public schools need to be great in Wisconsin.
Julie, thank you again so very much.
Great to talk to you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Julie.
Todd, thank you.
We'll see you at noon today.
for another excellent show.
And thanks to all of you for tuning in to Up North News Radio for this Wednesday morning.
Tomorrow we'll have our usual weekly update from the state capitol with one or two of our state legislators.
Up North News is brought to you by Courier, a pro-democracy news network.
I'm Pat Critello.
Enjoy your Wednesday.
Drive carefully.
We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
