Wisconsin from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitler.
All right, good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio, unabashedly Wisconsin and brought to you by Courier Newsroom, carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
7 0 6 on this Monday morning, last day of March.
coming up in just a bit.
We're going to be talking to Dan Hagen from WJFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander about the ice storm over the weekend.
Brittany Merleau will have.
A little bit more about the ice storm and our forecast moving forward.
Selena Heller is here from Up North News to talk about one of the stories that she's covering for us.
Dr. Kristen Lyrely is here.
Greg Bach as well.
Jane Mattner is on the way to tell us what's coming up on her show this week.
And Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wickler joins us at the bottom of the hour to talk about the importance of tomorrow's election all across Wisconsin.
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Let's bring up a little bit of that dating game stuff right here.
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All right Let's get to the the pressing news of this morning and that deals with the ice storm that took place over the weekend Brittany Merlot is standing by to tell us all about what happened And what's gonna happen moving forward, but Dan Hagen joins us as well from News Watch 12 and Rhinelander where the Hodag dome
came a tumbling down and I'm sure there was plenty of other while there were tens of thousands of people without power out for a time right Dan?
Yeah 60,000 people are still without power in northern Wisconsin and just in Oneta County which right now is the county seat of 12,000 people are without power.
I live near the Hodegg Dome, probably a mile away.
And yeah, during the ice storm, they lost power and their backup generator just failed to fire.
So the Hodegg Dome is completely deflated right now.
And for the people who don't know much about it, you know, this is a massive economic driver for Ryan Lander.
We're having tournaments every single weekend.
We're bringing in people from all over the state, sometimes out of the state to come to softball tournaments and pickleball tournaments.
We had a pickleball tournament over the weekend.
So it's really unfortunate that the Hodeig Dome has deflated, especially with the election coming up on Tuesday.
Every single resident or voter in Rhinelander votes at the Hodeig Dome.
So they had an emergency meeting last night, they being the city council, and they've changed the voting location.
So if you're a Rhinelander resident, the voting location is now the middle school, Rhinelander middle school, which is across the parking lot from the Hodeig Dome.
So make sure you still go out and vote despite the crazy weather out here.
Yeah, I mean, and like you said, lots of power that was out and I'm sure plenty of people found out the hard way that the roads were a little slick.
So I'm sure you guys had plenty of coverage there over the weekend.
Yeah, very unfortunate.
There's a death in Iron County.
That's one we know of.
We see multiple rollovers.
The scanner, police scanner activity was absolutely wild this weekend.
So glad that there aren't more injuries and fatalities.
Yeah, well, and you clearly had a long, hard weekend working this.
Tony notes on YouTube.
I actually saw Dan on the local news wearing a suit and being professional.
It was very different from the show, which I'm going to take as a compliment.
My
boss isn't watching right now.
So I get aware.
the old Patagonia, but
I
mean,
okay, I'm just going to say it.
I wanted to say it, but I'm now going to say it.
You look like you're ready for a Fred Flintstone prequel series right now.
It looks like Fred Flintstone's origin story, like Frederick of the Flintstones.
Okay, Greg, how about this?
You look like a ZZ Top cover band artist.
Boy, I haven't heard that
today.
who's always perfectly dressed for these weather segments is here in long sleeves because those spring temperatures are nowhere to be found.
Brittany, good morning.
How are you?
And how was it out by you?
Oh gosh, we got a bunch of ice as well.
I did not venture out.
I didn't even want to risk it on those roads yesterday, actually all weekend long.
You know, we got the ice Saturday night.
It really started to accumulate again on Sunday and then the snow flipped over and it started to get windy too.
So even more power outages started to occur yesterday evening as that flip and transition started to happen.
And of course, like Dan had mentioned, we're looking at ice accumulations from a half an inch really
really, really hitting landglade, forest and Oneida counties really hard.
But I mean, power outages were seen from Appleton and Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids.
all the way north.
So just a ton of stuff going on.
I mean Upson and Iron County, they got 10 inches of snow.
So did Mellon in Ashland County, nine inches of snowfall.
So this wasn't only just ice, it was heavy snow, wet snow on top of it, very dangerous road conditions.
And now our temperatures are all below freezing.
It is 12 degrees right now into Hayward and 36 degrees into Kenosha.
That's the warmest temperature in the state.
Now what we're doing today for highs, we're only going to climb to the upper 30s into the Northwood.
and we'll see some low 40s down across the state line.
It's going to be breezy today with wind still pulling out of the Northwest, gusting around 20 miles per hour, but at least the sun is out.
So that is good news.
It should be working on some melting.
The temperatures aren't really getting too warm to really evaporate or really melt all that away.
So.
We've got a little break just today and a little bit tomorrow before the next storm system heads our way.
Temperatures are going to be sitting in those low 40s for most of the week.
We're going to see clouds increasing tomorrow, rain pushing in by the afternoon into the western parts of the state.
That's going to flip to snow tomorrow afternoon and evening, hitting the Northwoods once again with another two to four inches.
And of course, that flips to rain on Wednesday for the entire state.
So winter storm watches out right now for Douglas and Bayfield counties where you can see six plus inches.
of snow as we go through tomorrow night and into Wednesday.
So we don't even get a break after all of that.
Uh, no, I mean, spring's showing up at some point like to stay, but.
It's not happening right now.
Good morning from Tigerton writes Rob.
It's clear and 25 We had four tenths of an inch of ice along with three inches of snow overnight up at 1 a.m Started plowing at 130 got a major job done then took a breakfast break at the Main Street diner in Tigerton had some tree damage from yesterday And continuing to plow and clean the trees up.
He says I did listen to Greg and Kristen's advice I loaded my truck with water and Gatorade
And I'm taking plenty of breaks.
Especially at
a 130 start.
Well, yes, exactly.
Rob, for all that, take good care of yourself out there.
Brittany, thank you for the forecast.
Appreciate it.
And Dan, any other news or notes to report from Rhinelander after the ice storm and everything else?
Well, I lost a tree branch in my one tree.
So, you know.
It's hard to deal with, but we're moving
on.
I think you'll carry on.
Adversity makes me stronger.
But
that's the scene around here.
There's a lot of tree branches hanging low or in people's yards, but nothing too crazy besides the Hodeig dome.
And unfortunately, some out
there.
So it's not damaged or torn or anything.
It really was just that with both.
power supply is gone, it deflated, so it can be re-inflated?
Well, with the deflation came tears.
So
there is
damage to the hodag dome.
I don't know how long it will take to kind of be repaired.
However, the people that, you know, manage the dome, they're going to be here today on site checking it out.
So I'll have an update tomorrow, I guess, when they think it'll be
Back up and running.
All right.
We'll see you back here tomorrow for the history lesson and a little bit after the news to give us an update, Dan.
Thank you so much.
Sounds
good.
All right.
Brittany, thank you as well.
Have a wonderful day.
You too.
All right, Dan Hagen from News Watch 12 and meteorologist Brittany Merleau giving us the updates on the ice storm over the weekend.
If you missed it a few minutes ago, the break into spring text to win contest.
This hour's keyword is nest.
Use the Civic Media app to take care of that.
There is of course a big election tomorrow.
Elections, I guess, plural.
You'll, on your ballot, you'll find races for state Supreme Court justice.
state superintendent, a constitutional amendment which would help prevent some people from voting, more school referendums, dozens of them, local offices, school boards, and more to learn where your polling place is.
Except in Rhinelander, where it's now pushed to the middle school, head over to myvote.wi.gov to learn about your polling place, what's on your ballot, find out if you're registered or not, how to register, you can register at the polls on election day.
but go there to figure out, you know, what kind of information you're going to need.
That's for the election, but on this day before the election, Brad Schimmel, the Republican, Trump-endorsed candidate is making the rounds, and Dr. Lyrely and friends are going to be meeting up with him in Green Bay later today, just to, again, show that, you know, there are people here that would just as soon not have a state Supreme Court justice.
bought and paid for by a billionaire and backed by, you know, a president who's a convicted felon.
Seems like that's not the kind of record I'd run on, but Brad Schimmel seems good with
it.
Isn't it funny if you put the word F, the letter F before Elon, you get felon?
I saw a lot of creative finding like that yesterday in Green Bay.
Holy
cow.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Well.
I mean, when you hit your wagon to somebody like that, you're kind of stuck with that, you know, whether it's
well, again, for somebody Elon Musk or somebody like Donald Trump, who's been, you know, an adjudicated in sexual assault cases and endless, you know, harassment.
you know, accusations, you know,
selective, selective law and order.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's why when I see all these commercials about, you know, sexual assault and things like that, it's like, yeah, but you're backed by Donald Trump.
So, you know, kind of keep that, keep that in mind as you head to the polls.
Now, for some people, again, that's a motivating factor for them.
And that's why nobody should take any election for granted anymore.
When you saw that 49% of people
voted for Donald Trump and gave him the White House despite all of that.
And you look at all the people that stayed home in November, I hope.
Again, I thought we'd learn this in 2016, but every election matters.
You gotta get out.
You gotta get out.
That's exactly right.
When we come back, Selena Heller is going to talk to us more along with Dr. Lierly about the climate out there for the next generation of doctors, especially those who provide health care to women in rural Wisconsin and all across the state and how that's being impacted in part by the outcome of tomorrow's Supreme Court election.
This is Up North News Radio, live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
No, this is not the dating game.
It could
be.
It could be.
Yep.
This is for Herb Alpert turning 90 today.
The Milwaukee Brewers home opener is today.
Can't come a moment too soon.
They escaped from the Bronx, giving up only like 35 runs or something like that during the series.
Catch the Brewers vs Kansas City starting at 12.30 on several Civic Media stations, including the newest Brewers affiliate up north, WBZH and Hayward head to Civic Media's website, civicmedia.us to learn more.
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for that.
Oh, and the, the, the, the bucks lost yesterday as well.
Four in a row now they've lost after losing to Atlanta 145 to 124.
They will host Phoenix on Tuesday.
All right.
Well, Kristen here is, is talked from a standpoint of a physician about the, the challenging medical climate out there.
But Selena, they're
it faces an intersection with this state supreme court race as well and that was something we discovered during our Protecting Justice for All event a couple of weeks ago in Madison.
Yeah, so students are kind of reluctant to want to be in states where they their kind of hands are tied or they can't provide for patients as well as they could in states that that don't have any restrictions going on in terms of medical care for women.
So that's kind of where we're at.
And I talked with one one of those students.
Her name is Lori Lapp.
She is wrapping up med school at UW Madison.
It's someone that Dr.
knows well.
Lori has been at a lot of the rallies and things talking and giving her perspective, right?
Right, Dr. Lirely.
Lori is brilliant.
She is the future of a Wijiwa and Karen, Wisconsin.
And I'm so, so excited that she is engaged.
So thank you for talking with her.
So let's talk with
before the rally.
All right, let's hear Selena's report on that.
I've known since I was probably about five years old that I wanted to become a doctor.
that I grappled with for a while was whether or not I want to practice medicine in the state where medicine is criminalized and doctors are criminalized and not able to provide that care.
But I think places like that, like states like that, and Wisconsin
one
of those states for a little bit too after job decision.
I think those are the states that need people the
There is a Supreme Court election coming up in Wisconsin that is going to decide the ideological balance of the court, right?
And with that, so many decisions that affect not just our reproductive freedom, but our ability to practice evidence-based medicine in general.
And I think people need to hear that these elections affect your doctor's ability to take care of
So I lived through jobs.
I lived through our year and a half of.
you know, near ban on abortion in Wisconsin, it was really difficult.
Patients with very significant problems have to leave the state to get necessary health care.
I saw patients have to jump through so many hoops in order to be able to make the pregnancy decisions that made sense for them.
And I don't want to go back to that.
It was really, really difficult to practice medicine during that time.
It
That was Dr. Eliza Bennett, who was also part of the panel discussion there, Selena.
And I talked to her at that time.
And it just kind of opens up your eyes to another perspective of, I've done stories in the past where
People, my friend had a baby at the side of the road.
All these, the shortage of these OBGYNs that we already have, it could get worse.
It certainly could.
And what we've already seen is the number of people who want to train in Wisconsin is down now two years in a row.
So we're seeing a trend.
It was down 10% with the last residency match.
What this means is that people who train in a state tend to stay in that state.
They have a relationship.
that state.
So what we can expect downstream is that we will have fewer OBGYN doctors, fewer well-trained OBGYN doctors in Wisconsin at a time when we need more and we desperately need more in rural parts of our state.
Well, without a doubt, I mean, the reports have been out there of all the places that have either ended their labor and delivery or have cut services way back.
People are being sent to, you know, places like Eau Claire instead, even though Eau Claire, you know, had one of its hospitals close up recently and you know, the other hospitals have had to take up the slack.
But you know, people can't always get to Eau Claire or to Baldwin Selena where you did the report on Western Wisconsin Health.
And
even they too have noted.
Look, they're along the I-94 corridor, but there's plenty of areas rural and south that they serve, and if they weren't there, you know, they'd have to go to the Twin Cities Rural Clear.
Well men how many stopped doing deliveries
right
two years ago now bear and stop doing deliveries We've lost more than half of our rural obstetrical units in the last 20 years and there are more on the horizon So this is a problem now.
It's gonna be a huge problem in the future
Yeah, and Selena last week you you was it last Monday when we had Larry on The gentleman who had been hearing the bills in the legislative hearing the the bills that targeted the trans community because today is transgender day of visibility And so I just want to mention again
that Larry was this older gentleman who came in and he was gonna testify in favor of the anti-trans bills, heard hours of testimony from people in the trans community and their allies, and it changed his mind.
And Selena, he's just gone nationally viral since then.
he's got larry has gotten a lot of attention and he's like i don't know what the big deal is i just was gonna go there and just listen and and you know his his grandson said you should go there and and that was and then they turned out to say you're a hero and he was like what are you talking about because i think he was he's 84 he's i can't remember he's he he was just really inspiring to listen to
he's of he's of an era where you would actually listen to things and then
make your decision as opposed to now, we're like, once you have a position, you must never leave it.
You know, you can never be open to anything new that you've learned.
So, I like that he was able to hear from those folks.
They hear from you.
They hear from you, Dr. Lirely.
And, you know, that's where we get hope.
So, Kristen, stay warm out there today.
Greetings, Brad Schimmel.
We'll talk to you a little bit later.
Sounds great.
We'll do.
All right, Selena, thank you as well.
And when we come back, we'll be looking to talk to State Democratic Party Chair, Ben Wickler, about the importance of tomorrow's elections.
I'm Pat Kratlow.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio.
Brought to you today by Herb Elberts in 90th birthday party.
A reminder that the Brewer's Home Opener against Kansas City is today.
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You might have heard that there is an election tomorrow.
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Head to myvote.wi.gov to learn more about what is on the ballot.
And in our weekend newsletter, we put it out every Sunday morning at say Wisconsin Politics Edition.
We talk about Supreme Court elections.
There are actually five different ways that states settle their Supreme Court justices.
The governor appoints some of them.
In some states, it's just the legislature.
In states like Wisconsin, it's a nonpartisan election.
In a handful of states, it's a partisan election.
And then finally, there's one that's called a nominating commission, where an independent commission comes up with a list of qualified nominees, and then the governor picks one from that list.
a lot of great responses on that.
You can send us an email radio at upnorthnewswi.com.
Let us know your thoughts on state Supreme Court elections.
But what we got here is what we got here.
And that's an election tomorrow with former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimmel running against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and State Democratic Party Chair, Ben Wickler joins us now to talk more about the importance of the election.
Ben, good morning.
How are you?
I'm glad to be with you and I'm fired up because this election, the whole world is walking and Wisconsin voters have a chance to say that we don't want Brett Schimmel bought by Elon Musk to be on the state supreme court.
Wisconsin's not for sale.
This is a democracy and the people are going to rule.
And just yesterday when when Elon Musk came to Wisconsin, you know, Kristen Lidley was just telling us the the crowd outside rivaled the crowd inside, which again tells you something about the
public level of interest this was a campaign that started with I mean the market poll didn't even take a head-to-head rating on the candidates because so few people knew about the candidates and I said back then well that's gonna change and people have really come to learn about both these candidates and there's there's no reason not to know which one you want or don't want to see on the court at this point.
Susan Crawford is the kind of dedicated public servant and impartial judge that really any defendant, anyone who cares about the rule of law would want on the court.
She's someone who served as a prosecutor for years then in state government in multiple different agencies.
She oversaw enforcement of our environmental laws.
Then when Scott Walker, when she went into private practice, she was the lawyer for Planned Parenthood, in the case Planned Parenthood versus Brad Schimmel, which kind of sums it all up.
Brad Schimmel said it was an honor to have his name in that case.
I think it was an honor for Susan Crawford to fight for reproductive freedom in this state.
She represented workers' rights, voters' rights, and then as a judge, has been exemplary of the court.
Brad Schimmel, in every stage of his career, he's drawn a firestorm of criticism for
essentially corruption for giving plea deals when he was a prosecutor to a child priority free defendant whose lawyer gave him a campaign contribution.
As attorney general, he was the only Wisconsin politician to take money from the opioid manufacturers from Purdue Pharmaceutical and then refused to join the lawsuit suing the opioid companies during that wave of death and destruction across our state.
And now as a candidate for Supreme Court, he's essentially sold out to the world's richest man who wants to
be able to bypass state law, sell his Tesla's in Wisconsin, regardless of our car dealership laws, and seems to want to remove any check or balance on his and Trump's power.
So this is a pattern of corruption about Brad Schimmel that for a lot of voters is deeply, deeply, deeply concerning.
For folks who have said, well, you know, these, these spring elections, they're supposed to be nonpartisan, the state Supreme Court race is supposed to be nonpartisan.
I mean, Brad Schimmel got into this, what, 18 months ago, something like that.
And as somebody who's run multiple times as a Republican,
It's not like anybody who actually watches this was fooled into thinking that that Brad Shimmel was not going to be the clearly Republican candidate in this race.
Well, he dispelled any possible confusion about that when he posed in front of a 20 foot tall Trump statue, a inflatable Trump balloon, I should say, as part of his campaign.
He has said that Trump keeps losing in the course, which, you know, followers of the news knows because Trump keeps breaking the law.
But he said that
Trump keeps losing in the courts.
This can only stop in the courts.
He needs a support network.
That's what Brad Schimmel's running to be.
That's not the job of a judge.
If you watch Brad Schimmel's ads, they're just about Trump's endorsement of him.
He's trying to get people to vote who like Trump.
But the thing is that a judge is actually part of the judicial branch.
There's supposed to be a check on the power of the executive.
There's supposed to be the people who say, look, if you pin outside the lines, if you break our laws and violate our constitution, you'll be held to account.
And that standard should apply to Republicans and Democrats and everybody.
And Brad Schimmel seems to want to use a rubber stamp when it comes to whatever laws Trump and Musk might want to break.
That is bad for democracy, whether or not you're a Democrat.
And that to me is reason alone to support Susan Crawford in this race.
I think rubber stamp is really the term I want to hit on next year, because when you talk about, uh, you know, being impartial when it comes to somebody like Donald Trump, you have a conservative justice and Brian Haggadorn, who refused to go along with Trump's desire to, you know, overturn the will of the voters in 2020.
He stood with the rule of law, which I know surprised some of, you know, his voters similarly.
A lot of people are waking up surprised that the entire Wisconsin Supreme Court, including the progressive judges, turned back Attorney General Josh Call's effort to stop Elon Musk's $1,000,000 giveaway.
Now, we'll talk about the merits of that in a moment, but my larger point being there was clearly nothing rubber stamp about the progressive justices yesterday or last night, nothing rubber stamp about what Justice Hagridorn did back in November, December of 2020, and
that's really something that kind of impartiality is a good quality in a justice, isn't bad quality in a politician, it's a good quality in a justice.
That's exactly right.
What I want is a Supreme Court that is actually following the law and the Constitution.
And what you get with Brad Schimmel, instead of a gavel, is a rubber stamp or even worse, what he described.
He said, he went to Minards and bought a pair of knee pads so he could crawl around on his knees and beg, please, please, please, for help from the biggest Republican donors in the country.
And they've delivered Elon Musk has put in more than $25 million.
I want to gavel, not knee pads.
I don't want knee pad bread allowing whatever to pass.
So this really does go to the heart of what it is that the state supreme court is supposed to do.
And the effect on each of us in our own lives is going to be substantial on questions like whether the many laws that passed after it are all thrown aside in order to put back in an 1849 abortion ban that Brad Schimmel has supported.
Whether we have a state supreme court
that tries to overturn elections.
You talked about Brian Hagridorn refusing to overturn Trump's loss in 2020.
That was, I think, a real act of judicial courage.
Brad Chibble has said that the Supreme Court screwed over Donald Trump in 2020.
He's been asked whether that case that affirmed that voters choose who wins the presidential election, whether that case was correctly decided, he's refused to answer.
He's kind of winking broadly that he would put the Constitution and the will of the voters aside.
and refused to allow, you know, elections to be decided if they don't go Trump's way.
And this is not hypothetical.
If you look at North Carolina, they had a state Supreme Court election statewide, and the conservative majority on their state Supreme Court has refused to accept the outcome of the election and seat their new colleague.
That is about as bad as it gets.
That could happen here.
This is, Brad Jimmel has completely disqualified himself.
And the fact that he has such a big for sale sign,
The Elon Musk has flown in and started handing out million dollar checks.
Tells you everything you need to know.
Let's go back in time here, 16 years to a younger, thinner, Pat Critello, who was then in the state Senate and had that, had that, that signature bill that got passed and signed into law called the impartial justice bill.
And it was designed specifically to clean up
state supreme court elections, but of course with a conservative led state supreme court and a conservative led legislature from 2011 onward, that law that then state representative Gordon Hintz and I got passed was set aside.
And what a difference we've come from an impartial justice law for state supreme court races to where the world's richest man
flies into Green Bay and hands out two one million dollar checks and the fact that the both a Circuit Court and an appeals court and in the state Supreme Court wouldn't take it up now again I'm not a lawyer but when they say well in terms of standing and demonstrated harm and all that the point I'm making is our current laws Statutes they are not they were not prepared for this level of unbridled corruption
And I think there's only one group of people that would actually want to fix this versus a group of people that say, this is great, more of the same, please.
Nothing has made it clearer the necessity of a law like yours, a public financing for judicial elections of campaign finance reform, than the specter of the world's richest man openly, nakedly corrupting our judicial elections to elect a corrupt judge.
someone who is selling out to the biggest donors in order to get power so that he can advance a political agenda.
That should be out of bounds.
And that is a system that Republicans have fought tooth and claw to keep in place.
Republicans set the rules around recusal so that when someone floods millions of dollars into your campaign, you don't have to recuse if their case comes before you.
And here we have Brad Schimmel saying that he won't commit to recusing if Elon Musk's own lawsuit.
that will benefit Elon Musk financially comes before the Supreme Court after by my count, $26 million of support for Brad Timble from Elon Musk.
This is preposterous.
This is the only way to change this is to make it backfire in this election.
And then we've got to win to trifecta in the state and pass the
laws.
It really should give any right-leaning voter in Wisconsin reason to go, you know,
I don't know about that in terms of the you know the billionaires being able to buy elections that maybe maybe that's not a good idea.
Let's turn to another election where again there's a lot of money involved in this.
A lot of money is coming on the side of Brittany Kinzer running for state superintendent of public construction against the incumbent Jill Underly.
Again a nonpartisan election but again people in both parties have taken positions on this so talk to us about the importance of the state superintendent race tomorrow.
We have a fundamental question in the state, which is whether public taxpayer dollars should go to fund public schools or whether you should go to work, pay your taxes, you know, to fund the public schools like the ones that you went to and then have those dollars taken away and sent to private schools instead to, I guess, turn into vouchers to support education, often for families that are already paying out of their pocket with a lot of money for private school to give them vouchers to make them even less expensive for them.
If you think that that's a good system, Brittany Kinzer is your person.
She's funded by the pro-voucher movement by people who want to replace our public school system, our public education system, with a system of vouchers to fund private schools.
And I think most Wisconsinites, like myself, they support Jill Underly.
They want a public school system in our state.
They want a school system where every student is included and where we try to support teachers, students, the principals to give a great public education to Wisconsinites.
That's the basis of our democracy in a lot of ways.
And it's the reason why it's under constant attack from the far right.
And this election really is a binary choice between those two visions.
Brittany Kinzer, voucher schools, take public money away from public schools, and Jill Underly defending the right for a high quality public education in our state.
Now, normally this would be the part of the interview where I say, well, let's get a little bit more just in the civic engagement part of voting because you have local offices, you have school board elections, and those don't get to be nearly as divisive.
But Ben, the fact of the matter is even now school board elections, voters really do.
It's no longer.
Well, which one of them is the bigger advocate for schools?
There are sometimes people that run for these school board positions who are quite hostile to public education.
And again, I've noticed local county democratic parties, they they do the research to find out more about, you know, local candidates and essentially do the vetting.
And so voters would do well to really pay attention to who's on their local ballot as well.
It is worth spending a little quality time with Google to figure this out.
There are these far right groups like Moms for Liberty that go around trying to ban books and exclude certain kids and really tear down public schools writ large and they're getting deeply involved in school board races.
So that's led Democratic, you know, local Democratic parties to support pro public school school board candidates.
Most of the issues that school boards face are not political unless someone comes in like a wrecking ball to politicize everything.
And that's what is happening with these far right school board takeovers.
Fighting back is critical.
And I'm proud that our state Democratic Party is supporting county parties, supporting local school board candidates around the state.
We want to fight back not for anyone's political agenda, but for the basic idea that we should be a state with a public education system that serves everybody.
And I would hope that that would be a widely shared value.
I would love to get back to the days when it's just about figuring out whether to invest more in the arts program or the science program.
But that's not where we are right now.
It's whether public schools should exist at all.
I've got less than 30 seconds.
I forgot to ask you about the constitutional amendment that people are going to see tomorrow.
They've tried to make it hard to get a photo ID.
Susan Crawford sued to ensure people can get a free photo ID.
Republicans have a constitutional amendment to take our photo ID law and put it in the Constitution.
This is already law.
We're saying vote no.
Let's focus on making sure that eligible voters can vote.
But the biggest thing is the Supreme Court raised Susan Crawford versus Brad Schimmel.
Ben Wickler, state Democratic Party chair.
Thank you very much.
Great to talk to you.
We will wrap things up with Jane Mattenair right after this.
You're up north.
I am confident I told you to use the Herb Alpert version of Chainsaws.
I'm sure he did a version of this fireplace.
Which
sounds dramatically like a game show.
I started to freak out when you did that, by the way, Pat.
I was like, oh, no.
Did Herb Alpert really do a version of this?
Spoiler alert.
No, Jane Matinair is here to tell us what's on her program this week across the Civic Media Radio Network from 10 a.m.
to noon.
Ms.
Matinair, how are
you?
I am great.
Pat Craitlow, thanks for having me.
We have a busy show today.
Matt Randolph is going to be here.
He's joined us numerous times in the past.
He is known as Mr. Global, and he is an oil and gas industry expert.
He has been in its more than 30 years.
And as I like to say, he has the experience and the fact
to annoy people on all sides, which is a rare gift.
It's a nice gift.
But he's very, very knowledgeable about the oil and gas industry and how it works.
And a lot of things I think we in the general public make assumptions about tend to be incorrect.
So especially with the tariffs and all of that going on,
and some other changes that have been happening under the second Trump administration, I will be very curious to see what Matt Randolph has to say.
And by the way, if anybody ever wants to get sassy with him, and I encourage you to do that, go to his YouTube channel and question him and ask, yes, and ask questions and get sassy with Matt Randolph because he always responds.
Really?
Okay.
Oh, yes.
Do you know the website off the top of your head
there?
I just go to YouTube and look for Mr. Global.
Mr. Global.
Mr. Global.
Yep.
And he's got his own YouTube channel and he does respond to critics quite frequently.
Oh, yeah.
It's, it's, he's got a gift.
Yeah.
He's got a gift.
His, his, his actually his website on YouTube is Mr underscore global underscore oil expert.
Oh, okay.
So
it just rolls right off the tongue.
So like Jane
said, just go search.
You'll see his face, and he posts many times.
He's very prolific.
And then when you're done and you need a music break, you put in Mr. Worldwide and you listen to a little pit bull for the rest of the morning.
I want to mention one more time, the break into spring statewide text to win contest.
This hour's keyword is nest.
You got about four more minutes to text keyword nest NEST on the Civic Media app.
And Greg, there's one of those rules that I haven't emphasized much is there.
Yep, it can only enter once per hour.
Once you get your entry in, that's it.
Don't keep entering.
Yes.
So I would imagine now, again, we're just a humble little morning show, whereas Jane again is probably, what do you, tens of thousands of entries
at this point?
She's on the tower of mid-morning, Pat.
Show some
respect.
Isn't it fun to watch the entries come in though, Pat?
It
really is,
because I love to know where people are listening and what communities they're from, and it's just so much fun.
You know what?
I'm going to do that right now.
The most recent ones are from Jules and Mosini, Rita and Steven LaCrosse, Christian Eau Claire, Mary and Tosa, Ronnie and Horikin, Ann Marie and Brookfield, Jesse and Dane County, Sara and Green Bay.
I feel like a romper room.
Remember how the teacher used to look through the magic mirror and tell everybody, I see Tiffany and River Falls.
But you got
people listening all over the state.
That's fantastic.
Jessica in Coday.
I love it.
I know.
See, look at this.
So we're, you know, we're not Mr. Global, but we got a pretty good outreach, uh, ourself over here.
How was your weekend?
What did you do for relaxation?
I
went and stayed with a friend.
I took him out for his 89th birthday on Friday night.
Yes.
So we had
a very
nice time with that.
Um, just did a girlfriend and I went to the home and garden show on Saturday.
Okay.
And.
I'm so embarrassed but the only thing I was really excited about was one booth had something called ad spinner so it's a tripod and then at the top of it there's a hologram that you can change into anything and I went up to their booth and I said I don't know what you're selling but I'll buy that thing.
Okay, and they were selling like you know restoring basements or something and I'm like no no no I want to buy that thing Because and they're like what are you gonna do with it?
I have no idea, but I know I need one
Were they selling that thing or was it part of the advertising?
No,
it was part of their booth.
But just to get people over and I'm like, well, that worked.
But oh, you can put it on your back and walk around with.
I could have like a hologram butterfly on my back all the time.
I think.
Let's face it,
Jane.
I need one.
It'll be a hologram of all the things you want to say to the people walking behind you.
Yes,
it's a thought bubble.
Oh, you
have your own thought bubble.
See?
Oh, now
you know
you're going to want one too.
How dangerous would that be?
I actually thought about that when I was putting up the bookshelves here.
I thought I'd put like maybe a monitor back here and just put stuff on the monitor.
I can't say on the radio, but you could watch it on social media and say, here's what Pat's thinking now.
I think that's still
covered by the FCC, unfortunately.
Oh, I know.
OK, well, you know.
Man, that sucks.
You know the radio rules.
And then, of course, you're in a lovely radio park there.
So I'm assuming, well, you obviously won't be at the Brewer's Home opener if you're busy doing a show here.
But have you gone to Home Openers
before?
Oh, back in the day.
Back in the day, Pat.
Let me wait.
Let me get it back in the day, Pat.
Quite low before they had that fancy domed stadium.
Yes, we used to go to opening day and the the biggest point of pride was how bad the weather was.
Yes,
I know.
The opening days that I've
gone to.
I've just been dreadful when I lived down there while Sherry was in med school.
It was just like, every year was like, ugh.
This really 42 and
sleet.
I mean, come
on.
What was that?
Not great for baseball.
I will say I saw a little trivia nugget that last week was the first opening day in what was it, 60 years, whenever the Astrodome went up, that there are no, there were no fixed roof stadiums.
In other words, no like arenas.
Everything's got a retractable or it's open air, but at least it's retractable.
So you have a chance to have open air and nice weather, but not when it's, you know, garbage out there.
So you kids are so spoiled.
You kids are so spoiled.
Yes, yes, so much compared to 42 and sleet.
Exactly.
Thank you, Jane.
Appreciate it.
Have a great day.
1230 coverage for the Brews home opener.
Jane and Greg will be back at 10 a.m.
for Matt and Air on Air.
Tomorrow we will have Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez joining us to urge you to get out and vote on election day.
My pack right low.
Have a wonderful Monday.
We'll see you.
