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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 8.06.
Nice to have you here up north.
On this first day of May, 2025, Sam is on the board.
Greg will be back in an hour for Matt Nair on air.
Joseph Ecke is coming up later this hour to talk a little Wisconsin politics.
I'm sure he'll mention his
candidacy for state Democratic Party Chair as well, and we are efforting to have the other two candidates for state party chair on again real soon so that folks get a couple of different opportunities to hear from them prior to the state Democratic Convention in Wisconsin Dells in June.
So we've got that coming up.
Also going to tell you how you can get a free scoop of frozen custard at Culver's today and today only for a special occasion.
Maybe the special occasion is the weather.
Maybe you know that we need the rain.
Well then meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here with that scoop of good news for you, Brittany.
Ooh, I like that transition.
Thank you.
You probably do need some ice cream today to brighten the mood a little bit because the skies aren't going to be bright today.
We've got two low pressure systems moving through the state.
The first one is lifting from the south right now.
It's still spreading some heavy rain into southern parts of the state, all the way from far southwest through Madison.
And now it's starting to lift north of Milwaukee, moving into the Fox Valley here.
later this morning, and of course, spreading into places like La Crosse, Wausau, you're starting to see the rain, even Menominee, and also Menominee.
That river is flooding right now.
There's a flood warning.
It's lasting until Friday afternoon, and it's three feet above its banks.
And I was checking out other rivers as well across the state, and in action stages is the Wisconsin River, the Mississippi River, south of La Crosse, the Yellow River, and also the Wolf River.
So we're not expected to do some crazy flooding, but we're still looking at a lot of rain as we go through the day today.
I mean, we've already got about a half an inch to three quarters of an inch far southwest.
We're still looking at another half an inch through the day today and of course the next low pressure system.
So what's going to happen is this rain is going to be moving more to the north.
It'll start to dry out south later on this afternoon while ongoing rain continues north and then it'll stop for everybody later on this evening.
But that's when the next front moves in far Northwest will start to see some showers by the dark hours and then that system rolls through overnight.
So it's not going to dampen our day, but it is going to be adding to those rivers and streams.
So as we go through tomorrow and into Saturday, I feel like a lot of them are going to start to flood over their banks.
So prepare for that.
Otherwise today, I mean high temperatures up Northwest 60s by Lake Michigan 40s got a lake breeze.
And look, even if there's not flooding per se on the rivers and creeks and streams, they're gonna be rushing.
And with that, just be aware, stay away, because they don't have to be over the banks to be dangerous.
They're beautiful in some places, especially the parks that have waterfalls.
Oh, I've seen some pictures that people have been posting.
I mean, the waterfalls are gorgeous, but please.
Stay careful around there.
So Chad Holmes joins us as well from 98.9 WXCO.
Chad, good morning to you.
Are you, do you have any interest in a free scoop of custard over at Culver's today?
I heard you talking about it earlier and it did peak my interest.
I'll
say that much.
Well, then I will do them a little flavor and a favor and tell you that it is the 11th annual Scoops of Thanks Day at Culver's.
In exchange for a $1 donation, Culver's customers will get a scoop of frozen custard and all the proceeds benefit local chapters of the Future Farmers of America, a school-based youth organization
with ag career and leadership opportunities.
And I have a sense some folks will donate a little bit more than a dollar, you know, to FFA.
But if it gets you, you know, a free scoop of your favorite over at Culver's, all the better, which leads to this question.
Once you've received your scoop, what goes on it?
What is Brittany Merleau's perfect little
Sunday?
It's definitely going to have crushed Oreos.
It's definitely going to have some chocolate-y sauce.
I'm a huge chocolate fan, if you can't tell.
So it's a little chocolate.
I don't know.
Okay, we're going to go with crushed Oreos.
I like that, Chad.
My favorite would be with a chocolate chip cookie and chocolate syrup.
There's
a lot of chocolate going on here.
There used to be a place here in the Wausau area.
They closed down, unfortunately, back when I was younger.
they have what called a chocolate chipper sandwich
and it was
huge and I just loved it and it was like it was the
best.
I love those when you get the cookies that are soft and fresh but I feel like ever since a certain large conglomerate mass produced these things where the cookies are really hard.
You know, they're like a rock when you bite into them.
And there's, you can tell the difference, you
know.
Oh, you can.
Absolutely.
When it's done, just right.
If it's a Sunday for me, my go-to at Culver's is hot fudge and banana.
So love those banana slices and hot fudge over it.
I'll get other variations as well.
But for me, now that we've talked a lot about culvers, let me talk about Dairy Queen for a minute.
Because for me, anybody who wants to get on my good side, you go get me a Blizzard with Heath Bar.
Because then it's all, you know, the Heath Bar, it's all, you know, kind of chopped up already and everything because.
At my age, I can't just go biting into a heath bar, you know what I'm saying?
And so the fact that fact that's all pulverized for a nice older gentleman like me and put into a blizzard that that totally works.
If you add a little hot fudge to that too, I'm good.
I think we've discovered all the Chocoholics, the common theme in this.
Never
have enough.
Little bit more on top of it.
Yep.
I think another peanut buster barfay that they
have.
Yes.
Tony writes up on YouTube, cookie dough.
That is the best.
Alicia puts in, I'm all about the turtle sundae with extra pecans.
And Shiju says peanut butter sauce and strawberries.
That's new.
Peanut butter sauce and strawberries.
And here's another one.
You guys are all a bunch of liberals.
Oh, okay.
That's not a Culver's flavor.
That's what we
understand.
Give me that liberal, uh, that liberal.
Put the chocolate on liberally.
And I think we're all, we can all be liberals together on
that.
Ben and Jerry's there.
That's right.
Thank you, Brittany.
Very much.
Good talk to you.
Uh, Mr. Holmes, what you, uh, what you've been working on over there at 98 nine WC.
Oh, you have so many people to talk to.
So
I panicked here because, um, I, in the last hour for our local segments, I had, uh, Nancy Stencil.
uh-huh on county Democratic Party chairman on and we finished up and I was back You know near my office talking to her and you came back on the air And we're just you know, we're still finished up then all of a sudden I think holy cow I got to get on with patch so I come sprinting in here Look at up my little board because I have to a little bit of a different setup when I talk to you and it's like man It's like oh well.
Yeah, I get used to you know
my mind.
It is Thursday morning at 8.06.
I better get back in there and get right back out
of the pack.
Again, we're only one week into that.
And and that's just fine.
Tony puts up on YouTube.
I saw that Nancy Stensill just endorsed Joseph Pecky.
I'm I didn't double check that.
So I'm going to assume yes.
And Joe will be here in in less than 20 minutes to talk more about his race for a Democratic state party chair.
And you know, something I didn't ask Jody Emerson and Jeff Smith about but
Similarly, for them, they're in the third congressional district.
There are now three candidates in that race.
Laura Benjamin is the most recent, and we're going to talk to Laura Monday morning on the program.
But whether it's state party chair, where there's three candidates there, coincidentally, or Congress or anything else.
I mean, Democrats have to be giving themselves the, whatever you call it, the pep talk, the unity talk, whatever it is, is to say, you know, eyes on the prize, don't get bogged down in these primaries, don't let them get divisive.
And I'd like to say I'm glass half full and they can pull it off.
But we have also seen, you know, these multi candidate races where things don't go well.
And next thing you know, Derek Van Orden's your congressman
again.
I look at it a little differently than you do.
I think that and frankly here in the 7th and then talking to Nancy there's actually I think a lot more interest in folks thinking about running and there may be more candidates.
We had a we had a primary in the 7th last time
around.
They actually got a little bit out there, but I don't know how you how do you have a real engaged
discussion because these issues are really important.
And this idea of, well, let's all be nice to each other.
The voters deserve people to be able to talk about their differences.
And I understand where you're coming from, where you don't want to get personal and not have the capability of coming back together.
But I honestly don't think the race that Katrina Shanklin ran was the reason that the third
that Derek Van Orden still is a congressman.
I wouldn't buy that.
And I should, I shall clarify, it's really not so, it's less about what happens before the primary or the balloting as it is afterward.
And look, I have absolutely zero information on the voters who did not vote for Rebecca Cook in the primary last time.
And then they turned around and voted for Derek Van Orden.
I'm pretty sure that number is pretty low.
But I also don't know how many of those folks just stayed home.
Again, I don't think it was very many, but the point I'm making here is when a primary is done or when a device of race is done, I mean, you just look at Ben Wickler right away when Ken Martin beat him.
It was like, this is our guy.
This is our leader.
We're going forward with this guy enthusiastically.
And I just, that's what you want to see afterwards.
But Katrina Shanklin went right for old Claire.
right after the
oh absolutely
yes again i don't know what the the connection here is to be honest with you i think that we have to have vigorous discussion in the in primaries i i i do not believe that and i do and i know what you're saying that yes come together but
oh what i'm saying is is in two words
i get nervous i understand that but i i think that i think frankly i'm excited the idea of having more than two people running for a primary in the seventh next time around to try to
to give Tom Tiffany somebody really solid to go up against.
And also,
he might not be there.
He might be running for governor.
Yeah, we'll see about that.
But, uh, but also something I'm talking to Nancy about is that, I mean, she's part of the seventh congressional district leadership as well.
There is a lot of foundational building because I think there is a sense that the way things have gone the first hundred days of this new administration, that there will be opportunities.
And I think that's one reason that a lot of people are showing some interest early that, Hey,
there's reasons to think that maybe folks in areas that otherwise normally would not be open to maybe a different point of view or different argument may be a little bit more open because they're seeing that their lives are being affected in a very negative way very quickly during this administration and also that there's no pushback at all.
I think I saw this in the last day or so the idea that
people in the Congress.
I mean, there was a committee hearing that basically was going to try to slow down this police state,
getting all the
information about us and nobody is standing up on the Republican side.
They refuse to say, hey, we're going to show a little bit of spine here and say.
Elon and Donald, you cannot have all of our personal information, and there's nobody doing that.
And I think there's going to be some arguments based on that.
If Tom Tiffany doesn't come on and say, I believe in protecting your personal information, that would be a pretty darn good argument to start with for people that otherwise may not really think about voting for a Democrat.
And what that means is, and you see this when the pendulum swings as it does in US politics, the phrase that I use is,
too big for their britches.
And whether you're talking about, you know, the Democrats in 94 and in 2010 or the Republicans in 2006, you know, the voters have a sense of knowing when one party's gotten too big for their britches and they're willing to say, why don't you all sit on the bench for a little bit and give somebody else a chance?
And I think more people see Republicans that way.
Chad Holmes.
over at 989 WXCO if you want to listen to them there through the Civic Media app.
Chad, thank you as always for the visits.
We'll talk to you again soon.
Good morning.
Have a great day.
We still got to get in all the sports this guy does.
So much sports for the spring.
The aforementioned Joseph Pecky is along the way here live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Say 23 now.
Welcome back to the program.
Jake Bowers had a go ahead to run double in the eighth inning last night to help the Brewers beat the White Sox six to four last night.
Three wins in a row now for the Brewers.
William Contreras is on a nine game hitting streak and they will wrap up the series with the White Sox this afternoon.
It also brings to an end an 11 day 10 game road trip for the Brewers.
Coverage begins at 12.35 on Civic Media Stations in Richland Center.
Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls, and up in Hayward as well.
So again, head over to CivicMedia.us for more about hearing the brewers on the Civic Media radio network.
Meanwhile, over at the place where I spend my daytime hours, Up North News, you can sign up for our newsletter at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
That's also the website where you can see all the stories that we're working on.
And in the newsletter today,
includes a link to a story at the website that says stop and smell the roses at these five Wisconsin flower festivals.
It really is, you know, we're getting to be that time of year again.
And there are these places where you can go and look, there's nothing against your local garden center.
We've got a couple of really good ones up around here, but these flower festivals might be a nice addition to your road trip calendar as well.
Maybe the festival of spring over in pain, or let's see, there's one in Swamiko around Mother's Day.
There's Bayfield and Bloom way up north in Bayfield.
There's one in Beaver Dam that comes up in June and more.
So again, head over to the website upnorthnewswi.com to learn much more about it.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has a new Chief Justice as of today.
Today being the 1st of May, there was a changing of the guard.
and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is officially beginning her short stint as Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
She was elected to the position by fellow members of the court.
She's part of the progressive majority.
She succeeds Justice Annette Ziegler, who had served in that role since 2021.
That was at the point when Republicans pushed through a constitutional change.
that said the Chief Justice was no longer going to be the justice with the most experience.
And it enabled the conservative majority at the time to basically kick Shirley Abramson out of the Chief Justice chair.
Annette Ziegler is serving in the chair now.
But now with a progressive majority on the court, the decision was made to switch gears.
And so it will be Ann Walsh Bradley for a short time.
But as you know, she is retiring.
And so once she retires coming up here and Susan Crawford takes her place on the court, the role of Chief Justice will pass on to current Justice Jill Karofsky, who will serve out the remainder of that stint as Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
So a little change there with congratulations to new Chief Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, heading up the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
We're going to have Joseph Becky coming up in just a minute.
We're going to be talking about the members of Congress and the responsibility that they share here in what you can call the Trump slump for now until it's a full blown recession.
But it is a recession that appears to be in the making because of the
the way that this trade war is being conducted, a trade war that Congress could have oversight for, but chooses not to exercise that oversight.
And as a result, they now share some of the responsibility for what's happening with the economy right now.
We will talk to Joe a bit about that coming up.
I was running some errands yesterday and I want to apologize for anybody in the Eau Claire area that I might have frightened.
I don't get out of the house very much here.
I don't get to talk to people live.
And I had to return a modem to my local internet service provider who has a store and in the store and you've all been to stores like these where now you have to sign in at a little kiosk or something, put your name in, have a seat and they eventually call your name.
And so I sat there, you know, you'd think you just go in and you
put the modem on the counter and go, hey, I'm turning this in.
You know, they'd scan it and be all done.
But there were other people and you have to wait around for it.
So there, I see my name up there on the screen, just waiting and waiting.
And of course, there's all these things that you're supposed to look at first.
You know, here are the new phones you could be buying here, the new tablets you could be buying here, the new packages here, the new accessories.
So, you know, it's, it's meant to kind of get you to think about spending money.
I just kind of sat there and twiddled my thumbs on my modem.
and waited for my name to be called, and I don't know what came over me, but when they called my name, I just jumped right up and hollered and said, that's me, and I kind of did this little jog up to the very front of the store and ran around one of the displays, and a couple of folks were snickering, and I said, you have to understand, I don't have any human interaction.
I don't, if I'm making anybody laugh out there, I'm not hearing it, except maybe through the comment section, and I gotta get that where I can, and did, and it made a few.
I hope it made somebody's day while they're out there just doing a little something different.
It's just a little bit more uplifting than you otherwise would have because a lot of us have jobs that are they're mundane enough as it is, or they have their own little hazards, which I noticed as I continued running errands and saw a UPS truck and.
Next to the door, the passenger door, you know, where they come out with the packages and everything.
Next to the passenger door there wasn't just a box of milk bone dog biscuits.
It was a great big box of milk bone dog biscuits.
It made me wonder how many times.
Do UPS drivers and FedEx and everybody else, how often do they have to use that to play Kate a pup who might be getting a little aggressive otherwise?
Or they're just being nice to Fido as they're delivering those packages.
And I thought, this is a part of the job that is not in my role.
I've knocked on a lot of doors as a candidate.
And there are a couple of times I
I wish I'd brought a few milk bone biscuits along with me and didn't.
And this UPS driver was clearly on top of things and ready to handle their job and any little fur balls that they might accompany along the way.
Now let's pause here and let some folks around the Civic Media Radio Network rejoin us and we'll talk to Joseph Peckie coming up next live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
It is the first day of May, and along with being International Workers Day, there would have been protests or demonstrations anyway, but these will just be the latest examples of protests and demonstrations against the Trump administration that are going on.
The latest numbers on the first quarter economy, not very good, showed shrinkage in the economy.
You get two quarters in a row like that,
And that's the textbook definition of a recession.
Folks are catching on to that, and it's being seen in the polling that surrounds Donald Trump.
You have a Congress controlled by Republicans that could choose to do something about it, but yesterday chose not to.
So that's one of the topics we're gonna get into here with Joe Zipecki, who is also a candidate for state chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
Joe, how are you?
I'm good.
I was up in your neck of the woods since I...
was on this program last.
Yes, you were.
You made the run up to Hayward for the 7th District Democratic Convention up there, spoke to folks.
Did you make the run down to the crisis?
Yeah, I did the Kessel run down
to the 3rd
District.
And then over to the 2nd CD on Sunday.
So it was a full weekend.
Met
a lot
of folks.
Well, and a lot of folks are taking part because they're, again, feeling fired up for
all manner of reasons and whether you're talking about polling or special elections, the signs are there that people are not buying this notion that Trump tried to spin yesterday that it's Joe Biden's economy.
Or that he's made none mistakes.
Yes.
And that was my favorite one because you had
a panel of journalists asking Trump, okay, what would you do over?
What is your take backs?
He's like, you know, what mistakes have you made?
And when Trump does the Trump thing because he's so small and insecure, he goes, gosh, that's a tough question.
I really don't think I've made any mistakes.
The audience laughs at him.
Republicans, Democrats and independents.
And that's the problem politically for Trump.
is it is an incredible shrinking presidency.
The shrinkage is not just in the economy in Q1 and likely in Q2 heading for a recession.
He came in claiming a mandate that he did not have.
He has been exercising powers like the authoritarian he wants to...
to be and he has a group of sycophants like Stephen Miller around him who are actually smart about the the levers of power in government who made him believe that he could be King Kong but with every passing day he looks smaller and smaller and his poll numbers get smaller and smaller and the takeaway there is that laws of political gravity still apply so that everyone out there protesting today
protesting this weekend, telling their friends, posting on social media, you name it, keep it up.
Because this is how we stop an authoritarian in his tracks.
Thank you for the show title.
Trump suffers shrinkage.
If it gets past management, that's going to be a good show title.
And we're going to see special elections that reflect this for congressional seats or even for legislative seats.
You already see in some red districts, you see Democrats that are winning there.
So it just tells me that folks are indeed engaged and that they understand that this is not necessarily what 49% of the public voted for back in November.
Correct.
And it's red districts, blue districts, swing districts.
We were very focused on justice.
elect Susan Crawford on April 1st.
But one of the things we should note is that on that same day, April 1st, there were two special elections in Florida.
Maybe the plural is specials election, like
a terms general.
Maybe.
At any rate.
Democrats overperformed in both of those.
We didn't win either of them, but it was a big overperformance.
Last night in Iowa, there was another special election.
This one a pretty safe blue seat.
In 2024, so last November, Kamala Harris won Iowa's 78th district, 63-33.
That's really good.
That's not a seat we're probably gonna lose.
But in the special election to fill the house seat in that district last night, 79 to 21 Democrats.
Every part of the country, every type of district, whether heavy Republican or heavy Democrat or jump ball, Democrats are overperforming.
And what I've said for years is polling is noise.
Election results are signal.
And the signal that we keep getting every time there's a special election in this country is Democrats are fired up, they're voting like it, independents are breaking Democrats way, and Republicans are either unenthusied and staying home, or even they are voting like, wait a minute, this is not what I voted for.
And that's a really, really good sign heading into next year.
I mean, look, the lesson to take away from this is Donald Trump has only won two times when he's run for president against a woman.
He lost running against Joe Biden.
He lost the House in his first term.
He lost the Senate in his first term.
And he loses special elections in Congress all the way through now both of his 10 years in office at this point.
So he knows how to win one kind of election.
But beyond that, his public appeal is not nearly what the folks in the red hats would want you to believe.
Correct.
And I want to be really clear.
Just because he is a loser and is seeing political shrinkage does not mean that this is not really frightening and really scary for folks.
And it is okay to feel that way.
because the powers of the presidency are extraordinary and awesome and we have never had someone so comfortable with using them for ill as Donald Trump.
Whether that is denying due process to deport US citizens who are children who have cancer without due process.
Whether it is to his own corrupt ends and to make a buck
abusing the powers of the office.
I'm not suggesting this isn't scary.
What I'm suggesting is the fight back is working.
And even though he wants to be an authoritarian, we have the power to stop him and we are stopping him.
That can be true at the same time it is true that this is really scary for a lot of people, especially folks who don't look like you and iPad.
Well, the fact of the matter is that the voters can do something about it, but so could Congress if they wanted to.
These tariff things are being done under, you know, a so-called emergency that Trump declared, but Congress has the power to rescind that emergency and take back some of its oversight over tariffs.
There was a vote in the Senate yesterday.
Three Republicans did vote with all of the Democrats, but it wasn't enough for the measure to pass.
Ron Johnson was not one of those profiles encouraged, voting yes, despite telling us repeatedly he's concerned about the tariffs.
Joe, he's concerned.
He's concerned about the tariffs, but not enough to actually have Congress do its job.
I'm concerned that Ron Johnson doesn't understand the job of being a United States Senator.
Is the job of the United States Senator to go to the floor
of the US Senate in like the chamber in Congress and vote on matters of public importance and vote as a co-equal branch of government or is the job of a United States Senator to go on Newsmax or Fox News or Fox Business and say I am hearing from Wisconsin businesses that if these tariffs continue they will be put out of business.
Which is it?
Because Ron Johnson
did and is doing the second thing.
Ron Johnson is looking into cameras and saying, I am being told by Wisconsin manufacturers that if this continues, they'll be put out of business.
And he does that with a straight face, but then he goes to the well of the Senate and he votes as if he never heard that.
And he just says, sure, President Trump, whatever you want to do.
And so clearly,
Ron Johnson is not the only Republican and elected office who needs a civics lesson But maybe that's where we should start is just with some remedial government 101 Senator your job is not to be a talking head on TV It is to vote for the interests of your constituents which include the Wisconsin manufacturers who are telling you these tariffs are killing them
It seems, though, that even if that measure had passed the Senate yesterday, it would go to Speaker Mike Johnson's house and probably die with support from Derek Van Orden, Tony Weed, Brian Stile, Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grossman, Tom Tiffany.
Again, at best we're hearing we're concerned, but what I'm not hearing is it's time for us to exercise the oversight that our founders wanted us to have.
Keep.
pushing.
That is how we get them there.
There is strengthened numbers on our side and there is strengthened numbers because once the dominoes start falling, political courage is vanishingly rare.
And when you list that roster,
of Wisconsin congressmen who, with an R after their name, I don't see a political hero among them.
That's just facts, right?
They might be fine everyday ordinary Republicans, but there's no giant of the House or the Congress.
And so if Ron Johnson had done the right thing and done what he's suggesting he knows is the right thing to do, that would have made it easier for Derek Van Orden to go, you know what, I'm in the fight of my life here.
You know, I'm probably going to lose next year because the political environment is going to be terrible.
If if Ron Johnson can give me cover, maybe I can vote no too.
And it only takes a couple Republicans in the house on any of these issues.
So keep calling, keep protesting, keep going and trying to stage a sit in as some folks in the Eau Claire area did yesterday.
And forgive me, it may have been the lacrosse.
I know it was up in the third congressional district.
Keep the pressure on.
This is how we win and how we fight authoritarianism.
We fight it everywhere, all the time, all at once.
And it's why you're going to see demonstrations again today in the Chippewa Valley.
You're going to see them up in Hayward, especially in support of Judge Monica Isham, who's being criticized by Tom Tiffany and others for wanting better courthouse security in lieu of all these ICE arrests.
So throughout the state, you're going to see signs of opposition, but also signs of unity.
And speaking of those areas, we'll wrap up this segment talking about your race for state Democratic Party chair,
and Alicia writes in, I very much like what Joe was saying about reaching out to rural areas.
And we talked about this when you launched your race, Joe, is that that's somebody from Milwaukee or Madison or anything like that.
If they know, if the folks up north know that their concerns are being heard, then that goes a long way in a race for state chair.
Well, I appreciate you sharing that.
Alicia, saying that, I had a nice time talking with her last night.
And listen, it takes everybody.
And this notion that Madison has some monopoly on good ideas and that people who work for the party in Madison can sit around the table and say, hey, here's our rural outreach strategy and never talk to somebody who lives in a rural community about.
how that plan should work and what it should look like and what those organizers need is just nonsense.
And it's not how we're going to do things.
And what I am saying across the state in every corner is the same, which is there are no sacred cows.
We cannot allow people to get away with saying the reason for anything we do.
is that this is the way it's always been done.
That is not an acceptable answer when it comes to how important this work is and how vital it is that we get it right.
And so we're gonna keep working hard.
We're down in Kenosha today and Racine on Saturday and Oshkosh on Sunday and next week, who knows?
But we're hitting the road and we're having a lot of fun and it's just, it's been a great experience so far.
Joe Speck, he's running for state party chair.
I got to put you in touch with a mutual friend of ours who's like, I knocked so many doors before Susan Crawford won and now I don't want to wait till next year.
I want to keep knocking on those doors, keep those conversations going.
So that's good advice for whoever's going to be helping call the shots in the state democratic party.
I'm Pat Critello, founding editor of Up North News, part of Courier, a pro-democracy news network building a more informed, engaged, and representative America.
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.
Coming up Monday on the program, we will have Laura Benjamin, who is a candidate for Congress in the Third Congressional District.
Also, Nick Ramos from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
On Tuesday, we'll have Hans Brighton Moser, a dairy farmer from up in the Merrill area, and Dan Schafer, civic media political editor and a creator of the Recombobulation area.
Continuing our conversation now with Joseph Peckie, who along with running for state party chair also works with the group Protect Our Care.
And their latest piece of communication is a statement that says Medicaid
is not a piggy bank for Republicans to use for billionaire tax breaks and Joe I sense that if if if I were gonna try to say what is the real battle in Washington DC right now I'd frame it this way the Republicans who rightly understand that even threatening to cut Medicaid is a big mistake but there's also a group that says nope
It's time to rip the bandit off.
Let's stop tiptoeing around it.
And so you note in your press release that a Nebraska congressman has suggested cutting a half a trillion dollars from Medicaid.
The trick is to make sure that guys like him are still the minority view of the majority party.
But here's the problem.
Republicans had a chance to vote on this and they voted
unanimously, every Wisconsin Republican voted to authorize $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid.
That is a program that 1.1 million Wisconsinites rely on.
And they said, we're going to take a wrecking ball to it.
What they say on Newsmax or
Fox, not news, talk is cheap.
When the rubber met the road and they had an opportunity to vote, they said, fine, devastate rural health care, devastate long-term care for seniors, devastate the ability for people with disabilities to live independently and work in their communities because those are the kinds of things that Medicaid supports.
Medicaid.
Also, impacts 30,000 Wisconsin businesses.
That's how many small businesses in Wisconsin bill Medicaid for services they provide.
And when Republicans had a chance to say, no way, this is not how we should pay for tax cuts for Elon Musk, every single Wisconsin Republican did the wrong thing and said, no, that's fine.
We're good with that.
And now that they're feeling the heat on it, they're going, well, we'll just make it a little smaller number.
Half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid, they think their districts aren't going to hear that.
That's going to be almost a billion dollars out of the local economies in each of the congressional districts across Wisconsin.
Guess what, folks?
You can't do that and not feel it whether you're on Medicaid or not.
But Joe, $500 million cut, well that's less than $880 million cut.
Why, they've basically cut their cut by almost 50%.
By the
way,
that's, you said million.
It's billion.
Billion.
Billion.
With a bee.
Yes.
They want, they feel like they should get a cookie.
There's always been this attempt to marginalize those on Medicaid as if to make it sound like it's a sliver of the population not deserving of this kind of charity or welfare as Robin Voss likes to call it.
But we've done the numbers in Wisconsin.
If you look at it from a national standpoint, nearly half.
of all children in America rely on Medicaid for healthcare coverage, six in 10 nursing home residents, four in 10 births are covered by Medicaid, 20% of adults in rural areas, one in three people with disabilities, all this to say, Joe, that
Again, it's this constant communication among people in the general public that helped them realize, hey, wait, I'm not alone in this.
I'm not in some marginalized group.
There's a whole lot of other people that are looking at having their Medicaid cut or looking at having their job cut or looking at having their contract broken for land conservation along with other farmers.
I think that's, again, people are...
understanding government does provide good services with our tax dollars, that it's not all welfare and that they don't want to cut for billionaire tax cuts.
Pat, it's only welfare when it's for somebody else.
Exactly.
It's not welfare when it's the tens of thousands of rural Wisconsinites who think that they're entitled to it.
And you know what?
If they meet the qualifications of the program, they are.
They do deserve it.
It's that it can't only be welfare when it's for the black single mom in Milwaukee folks.
That's not how this works There are a lot of Trump supporters on Medicaid and I don't care.
I'm fighting to protect Medicaid for them, too But when you when you actually Look at the numbers one of the things we were able to do is see That half of like half of people on Medicaid voted for Donald Trump he got 49% of the vote
among people on Medicaid.
Guess what?
Those were largely rural folks, those were in smaller communities, and that's okay.
We're gonna try to have a conversation with them and win their vote next time, but I don't think people understand the degree to which Trump and Republicans are prepared to screw their own folks so that they can get a tax cut.
More money in their pocket, less money in yours.
On issue after issue, whether it's the tariffs,
whether it's cutting Medicaid, the fat cats are getting fatter and they're doing it at your expense.
And I understand that people are angry.
Sometimes they're so angry they don't even know who to be angry at.
I am here to ask folks to understand that they are hoodwinking you.
They want you to be angry at immigrants so that you don't realize they're robbing you blind.
by making life harder for you and easier for them.
And that's the job of Democrats for the next 18 months, is to make that case and have that conversation with open arms.
It's okay if you voted for Trump last time.
Every single day, new people are realizing that it was all a ruse and they're gonna pay the
price.
Thank you.
And thanks to all of you for being a part of our mornings here with Pat Critello on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I remind you, it's about every one of the words in our national promise, liberty and justice for all.
Have a great
day.
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