Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Crichtlow powered by Upnorth News.
Now, from our Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Upnorth News, Pat Crichtlow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Wednesday morning, May 7th.
It is another beautiful morning to have you here up north.
Live from Lake WSOTA, for wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media Radio Network,
catching us on the app or social media or podcast.
Appreciate you starting your day right here.
I got a question for you.
What you been grilling?
Because, and if you haven't been, I mean, why?
It's been just perfect weather lately.
We had we had brought tonight before last, which also made for a nice lunch yesterday.
And, you know, the weather continues to be very good looking.
by and large for grilling.
Be careful, of course, there's a fire danger out there, so be sure you're doing this in a safe place, but this is just the perfect time of year for it.
And I may have been reminded of that watching the brewery game yesterday and all the people grilling in the parking lot as well.
There's just no better place than Wisconsin to do this, whether it's in a big old asphalt parking lot or in your own backyard.
Coming up on the program today,
Republicans running the Wisconsin legislature have now released the first list of actions they plan to take on the next state budget, starting with killing more than 600 items requested by Governor Tony Evers, also requested by a parade of Wisconsinites testifying at Joint Finance Committee hearings, help for childcare, gone, help for children being poisoned by lead paint or water lines, gone.
fighting PFAs and drinking water gone, expanding Medicaid to cover more families gone, repealing taxes on tips and utility bills gone, incentives to freeze local property taxes gone, and on it goes.
We'll chat more about that throughout the course of the morning.
We have a special guest in our weekly homeroom segment, Dr. Jill Underly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
We will talk about the state budget debate in Madison.
We'll talk about the harm being caused by President Trump's efforts to gut essential educational support.
And by the way, it's Teacher Appreciation Week.
So we'll talk to Jill Underly about all of that.
Uh, Joseph Becky is along as well later on and we'll ask him this.
Has Senator Ron Johnson actually done everyone a favor in his most recent comments where he basically roots for killing Medicaid coverage for families who otherwise cannot afford health insurance?
By saying the quiet part out loud, has he made it that much harder for other politicians to claim, without credibility, that they are willing to cut almost anything, but they promise not to harm Medicaid?
We'll talk to Joe about that as well.
Melissa Kay is coming up in our history lesson.
James Kelly has some civic media news from across western Wisconsin.
Todd Alba will join us.
Maybe.
Depends on whether he wants me to yell at him again.
I'll tell you more about that in just a bit.
You can join us along the way as well.
Call or text the show at 855-75.
Civic 855-752-4842.
Again, you can use the Civic Media app or you can put comments in Facebook or YouTube.
We're on the Up North News Facebook page and YouTube page and now the Civic Media Facebook page and YouTube page as well.
Mary says on YouTube, grilling all year round.
Love that.
Love the dedication.
She's you grilling students about their upcoming finals.
I like that very much.
And Mary reminds us again, it's not just teachers week, it's also nurses week.
And we appreciate all of those folks who are engaged in all of that wonderful work.
Let's take a look at Brittany Merleau's statewide forecast and she will be here in just under an hour now.
She's going to tell us how a cold front will put the brakes on our warm up, but just for a little bit before we get to a weekend that'll be warm.
but maybe a little wet too.
So for today, cooler but still sunny.
70s in southwest Wisconsin, mid 50s by the Great Lakes and a northeast wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour tonight.
Clear and chilly, maybe a little frost up north.
with lows in the low 30s in northeast Wisconsin to low 40s in southern Wisconsin.
Again, a northeast wind at five to 10 miles an hour.
It is 50 degrees here in beautiful Chippewa Falls and meanwhile down at Radio Park in the greater Milwaukee area we find ourselves saying hello to one Greg Bach who I remember last year got himself a brand new grill and I do wonder if
If he's been able to break it in much yet, this spring, Mr. Bach, good morning.
Not at all.
Yeah, Pat, not one bit, but it will be happening.
I got to, I think, sorry, I'm stretching everybody.
That's really unprofessional.
But point is, is I'm going to take off the cover.
I'm going to clean it up.
I want to make sure everything works.
And then I feel like making some, like, just really tasty salmon.
I have a really good recipe for salmon that I haven't used in a long time.
That would be good.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm liking
that.
So I mentioned Mr. Todd Alba and what he tried to pull yesterday.
And I'm starting, for folks that missed it, I was just working around the house, mining my own business, taking care of some things because I'll be off next week.
Like
a good American.
Like a
good American does take a little time off now and then.
And being the responsible one, I went through on the on the calendar, the show calendar and
for the shows next week for the appropriate folks, I canceled those.
And then it sends an email saying this item's been removed from your calendar for this day.
Well, I'm just minding my own business, my phone rings, it's a number I don't recognize.
And so I let it roll the voicemail and then I see the message on my screen.
And it says, it's Todd Alba.
We're live on the air.
And I wanted to find out why you canceled me for tomorrow morning's regular appearance on your show.
And did I say something wrong?
Can you call me and let me know why I've been canceled?
Oh my God.
I did not call Todd back.
I have the link to join his show.
Why ring the phone when you can come in right through the front door?
So he's minding his own business about 10 minutes later when I show up on screen.
demanding to know why he hasn't read the full note, which would have explained you're not canceled tomorrow, meaning today now.
It's for next week when I'm gone and, well...
hilarity ensued and I was gonna just leave it at that but now Tony just put this up on YouTube.
Are you gonna call him live on air right now?
Tell him he was scheduled for 620 and he missed it because that's initially what I thought when he first called and said we're live on the air I thought oh no did I miss my time to I'm on my on his show every week did I miss no this isn't our day but he scared the you know what out of me.
The cookies out of you the absolute cookies out of you.
Do you do you have Todd's number handy?
I'm thinking Tony might be on onto something.
Oh, I have it.
Oh, I have it.
I have his phone number.
We can explore that option.
OK,
all
right.
Let's see.
Tony, Tony says it was the spiciest I'd ever heard Pat.
I and Roger says, amen, Tony.
I was a little sorry.
I was a little bothered at Todd yesterday for that.
But should we see if he's
awake?
I, I, you know, Pat, I don't feel like being yelled at at six 15 in the morning.
Here's, that is the one thing that might stop me from that is, is the, the notion that if you still have to sleep, he may forget the FCC has rules
against,
you know, reacting in just a certain way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Todd, thanks to Greg, you're off the hook.
Sweet dreams sunshine.
We'll see you at about 750.
In the Up North News daily newsletter today, a little overview of Wisconsin Dells water parks at a glance, some of the biggies and a link on how to get some of the best deals as you plan any of your maybe upcoming summer water park trips.
Also in the newsletter, easy to grow Wisconsin native plants to add to your garden and protect our little pollinator friends.
And again, in our weekend newsletter, I asked, is it time to trade Yanis?
A lot of people saying, no, no, do not do that.
But there are folks as well who say it's time to rebuild.
So if you'd like to know more about all of that, get in on that debate.
Be part of our newsletter.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Click Subscribe up in the top banner and be on board there.
I might have...
I might have created a tempest in a teapot here.
I'm getting people who are just really hoping that we make some trouble here.
Cassandra, hey, I grew up in the Dells.
I can give you all the insights.
I like that.
Cassandra, go ahead and dish the dirt.
Just, and Tony, keep your eye on the dump button.
Yes.
Mark, morning news journalism.
You can't get on regular television.
No, sir.
Nope, you don't you don't you don't get to co-anchors like calling each other in the morning on on those live TV shows.
So.
I'm just thinking about all the anchors I had when I was a kid.
Like you're like, I'm calling John drilling.
It's 5 30 in the morning.
I can just imagine my, my calling up one of the morning.
No, that just wouldn't work out.
Uh, Mr. Mathers is confused.
He's on the, the text line going, I have to go back and listen.
Did all this happen on air?
Yes.
Yes,
it did.
It did.
And you know, what Tony says, was it, was it a secret show special?
No.
we, this wasn't during the commercial breaks.
This was right there on Todd's little program.
So, uh, well, do you think he'll show now at 750?
I'll bet he does.
He's got to, right?
Well, yeah, I hope so.
If he doesn't,
if he doesn't show, we're calling him.
I don't care.
Like we're calling.
Or do we do it?
Dude, now do I send him a note saying, you know, we've had to cancel the segment or something?
In, in light of previous events, I decided to discontinue your event until, for your appearances until further notice.
Oh no,
we can, we can do better than that because we, we know who else is listening.
Let's blame Mathers.
Yeah, we just got a memo from Luke Mathers.
We've had to stop the cross talk between hosts here.
Oh God, he'd so freak out.
He thought would just go nuts.
I want to do it.
Okay.
Let's turn to sports before this gets way out of hand.
Jake Bowers hit a two run home run as the Brewers got all their runs in the first inning of a 4-3 victory over the Astros on Tuesday, starting pitcher Chad Patrick worked a career high six and two thirds innings and carried a one hit shutout into the seventh.
Trevor McGill retired the side in order in the ninth for his fourth save in five opportunities.
The Brewers go for the sweep this afternoon.
We're the day game.
Then they'll be hitting the road again for Tampa and Cleveland for the weekend and early next week.
So we've got that day game today and the pregame begins at 1135 on several civic media stations around the area.
So 1135 head over to civicmedia.us to learn more about coverage of the Brewers.
I've not been paying much attention to the hockey and basketball playoffs.
I do see the Timberwolves lost to Golden State.
in the first game of their conference semi-final series.
I'm still just a little amazed that they eliminated the Lakers like they did.
So I'm not going to get too attached to the Timberwolves.
That is perhaps the most snake bit franchise in NBA history, but at least once again, much like Vikings fans.
You know, the Minnesota fans, God love them.
They've had nothing to cheer for since the Twins in 1991.
And, you know, they get to the postseason and they, they bring their fans to such, such a point.
And then like Wiley Coyote, they just go right off the cliff
after that.
Instead of, instead of like, you know, I was just Icarus jumping off the cliff to fly to the sun.
Someone just tripped Icarus on the way out.
And you're like, what?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And honestly, I think Wisconsin, even though Wisconsin has, you know, we've got.
With the exception of our brewers,
you know, we
have recent championships.
It's still, we can still identify with that because we're not, we're not, we're not dynasty teams.
None of us are.
No,
no, it's a, you know, be in the smaller market.
It is a nice surprise.
Uh, when they, when they have great seasons, Cassandra says, seeing Josh Hader last night just reminded me of my anger at trading.
Oh, I
was so
angry back then.
It really was.
We don't have enough time.
We don't have enough time to talk about my anger.
Nope, nope, we'll just let it go.
Take a break, look at some of the news coming up next.
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings with or without extra heapings of sarcasm.
I'm Pat Gritlow and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
you know media is so different now the headlines used to be very dry like you know dog bites man or whatever here's a journal Sentinel headline this morning Prince fielder's son had his first at bat in the Brewers organization and guess what he did
Definitely not the headlines I grew up writing.
You know, it's more of the, yeah, yeah, we know
something you don't know.
That really brings up something that sticks in my craw, grind
my ears.
Oh, it's time, it's time for what's sticking in Greg's craw with Greg Mock?
I, on my phone, like, I rarely fall into clickbait where they do the thing of like, this band is going on tour after 42 years or this moot, this, it's actually the worst ones are.
CBS has canceled this popular TV show and you click it and not only is it not in the first paragraph, it's not in the second, third,
fourth or
fifth.
It's like at the bottom.
Oh, by the way, it's this show.
It
was Gilligan's Island.
They canceled it in 1972.
That just goes to show for me personally that in this world, it's not about that story anymore.
It's about just getting that click through and being able to report that to advertisers so they can buy stuff and make the money.
And guess what?
I clicked on it so that you don't have to.
And the story by J.R.
Reckliffe says, well, that swing looks familiar.
Jaden Fielder, the son of Prince Fielder, hit a home run in his first professional at bat at the Arizona Complex on May 5.
Fielder, age 20, was signed as an undrafted free agent last year.
That's some talent in that family.
Absolutely.
Third generation now.
And let's see here real quick.
I just want to make sure.
JR Radcliffe, though, will be on the show next Thursday.
He's on every other Thursday on Matt Naranair.
So you can catch him at 1030 to give us all the sports breakdown.
This week we have Paul Noonan.
Next week is JR Radcliffe.
All right.
Good to know.
Yeah.
Also in the Journal Sentinel this morning and certainly everywhere else in Wisconsin news, the announcement by Republicans that they are removing 612 items from Governor Evers' proposed budget, which is not
Of course, the world's biggest surprise in the past, they have made it a goal to expressly cut out a large swath of what the governor is proposing.
I mean, in the past, it has been everything from, you know, 200 items and then it was like 300 items and there was 500 items and this one is more than 600 items.
But it does mean that they will actually maybe
not scrap Evers entire document and go from there.
Maybe.
I mean, but that's really inside baseball at this point.
The bigger problem is what all the Republicans have have cut.
A lot of them are very popular policy proposals that would help with, for example, let's look at that tax brackets.
The governor has always wanted to have a middle class tax cut.
And so
the governor was looking for a new income tax bracket for filers who earn a million or more, or a half a million if you're a single filer.
Evers would have raised the income tax rate for people earning a million dollars or more.
Currently, the state's top tax rate is at the 420,000 level.
Now $420,000, that's still a pretty decent salary.
But what Republicans are saying is,
somebody who makes $420,000 is going to pay the same tax rate as somebody that makes a million dollars in income for that year.
And maybe the next year, maybe the next year, maybe five million, maybe $10 million.
And they still have to do the same tax rate as folks who are, you know, making far, far less comparatively.
For the governor, he dubbed 2025 the year of the kid.
He had proposals for K-12 education that totaled some $3 billion, but Republicans removed a number of those requests, including $300 million for mental health initiatives, like reimbursing school professionals, social workers, peer-to-peer suicide prevention, free school breakfast and lunches for all kids.
These are the same folks remember how they say it's not the guns.
It's not the guns.
It's the mental health We have a mental health issue with our young people so the governor proposed doing something about it and They're gonna cut it out
The Republicans also took out an evers proposal to add more filtration systems to water fountains To deal with lead hazards from like lead paint in old schools Also at in-home childcare providers Republicans want to remove 128 million dollars in student financial aid to encourage more low-income students to further their education
What else do we have in here?
They're removing proposals by evers that would have modified rules for voter ID, absentee voting, automatic voter registration to help encourage people to vote.
They also are going to remove a provision, again, that would allow clerks to begin processing absentee ballots the day before election day.
because again, it feels like they would much rather fuel the conspiracy theory that there's something untoward in Milwaukee because there's so many ballots, they're not done counting till the middle of the night.
The governor had proposed that health insurance companies with a demonstrated record of consistently rejecting consumers for their health care coverage, those companies would be audited by the state to see if they're on the up and up.
Republicans want to take that out and remove that level of accountability and transparency.
This would also hurt consumers looking for a break on prescription drug costs, extra money for PFAS monitoring.
It takes out marijuana legalization that's in there.
It takes out a 48 hour waiting period to purchase handguns.
The governor recommended an additional $2 million for the Wisconsin Black Historical Society.
Republicans said that they're going to remove that as well.
Again, we've only scratched the surface of some 600 ideas investing in education, protecting consumers, and every one of those things is going to be taken out this week by the Joint Finance Committee when Republicans meet to start to form their own budget.
They've held four public hearings, but we still don't really know what they want to put in the budget.
And when they do, by the way, there won't be more public hearings.
Basically, you're going to get what you get by the time the Joint Finance Committee is all said and done.
Hey, thanks for spending some time here as part of your mornings powered by UpNorth News.
We will have more live from Chippewa Falls, including Dan Schaefer after the Midwest Farm Report.
In case you missed it, and now with a three hour show there's a chance you might, we will occasionally bring you one of the previous day's 830 segments the next day here at 630.
Dan Schaefer is someone you'll probably hear many Wednesdays at this time.
The civic media political editor and founder of the Reconpopulation Area joined me to review this week's state capital calendar, specifically several bills that are giving us a sense of deja vu when talking about the Wisconsin legislature.
And it's a familiar pattern where the Republican leadership
passes bills that they like, they sound good, makes them feel good, they know Governor Evers is gonna veto them, he vetoes them, they attempt an override, they of course can't override, and they would learn their lesson, right?
And never try to pass bad bills like that again, because they're not gonna get signed into law.
No, and that seems to be a theme with some of the bills in committee this week.
And Dan, I don't expect you to know the answer, but we'll ask it anyway.
Why?
Why passing the same bills over and over again knowing that Governor Evers is going to veto them?
We're in this era of divided government than we have been since Tony Evers took office in 2019.
We're in the third year of Tony Evers' second term as governor and the Republicans in those legislatures still haven't seemed to figure out that they are working.
in a space of divided government.
And so there's a package of bills that's making its way through the state legislature on reforming kind of the unemployment insurance program.
And as so many Republican initiatives on these types of things do, it is...
creating more barriers to access benefits, making it more difficult for people to, you know, to get benefits.
I heard some, you know, democratic legislators called it, you know, basically a penalty for an added penalty for getting fired from your job.
And in this moment where, you know, Doge is, you know, eliminating all sorts of jobs, we just saw last week that the hundreds of jobs with AmeriCorps are being eliminated, you know, doesn't now doesn't seem like the time to, you know,
make extra make it even more difficult for people to access benefits.
They even are proposing to change Wisconsin's unemployment insurance program to rename it the Reemployment Assistance instead of unemployment.
Oh lordy.
That's that's that's downright Soviet out of them is to say well if we just you know relabel this as some kind of Reemployment Assistance that that's gonna fix everything when it does sound exactly like you know
kick a man while he's down, kick a woman while she's down and jobless and looking for something.
We're not going to do anything about the childcare crisis that we talked about in the last hour with Karine Hendrickson.
And instead, yeah, we're talking about these extra hoops like according to the proposal.
As I'm reading off of a Wisconsin Public Radio story here, for example, a person would need to have direct contact with potential employers and expand the current requirements that a person search for work every week while they're collecting unemployment insurance.
And that's, again, on its face.
People go, oh, I don't see a problem with that.
If you haven't been unemployed and you haven't faced that barrier of trying to make direct contact, if you've got a small business,
On your long to-do list is one of them making time to greet everybody that comes to your front door and says, hey, you got a job?
Or do you find some other way to get around it, making it tough to have direct contact, making it tough to justify getting your benefits?
It's just, it's one hoop after another that Republicans want poor people to jump through.
Yeah, I'm quoting again from that that same Wisconsin public radio story from a few weeks ago a modern Rivera Wagner said this body wants to add hoops and red tape Complications at a time when people are yearning for help not punishment and instead of extending a hand We're adding to add more government to track down fraud that barely exists So there's a number of different bills here that are part of this package They have all now passed the assembly and today they have a public hearing in the state Senate.
So, you know
As these continue to move through, you know, the tighter majorities now that we have in the Wisconsin state legislature, you know, I can expect these bills.
to pass but I would you know take note of some of those take some of those swing votes as they make their way through the Senate there's going to be some people who are going to be defending their record and if you are creating more barriers to I don't know let's say Medicaid at a time when our senior senator is saying we should cut Medicaid from the federal budget or in the federal budget
You know, that's going to create some problems for people downstream from these decisions.
It's going to create a lot of problems for people downstream from these decisions and
Again, I always feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but because some people love jumping in conclusions in the comment sections, people go, oh, you guys are defending fraud and waste and abuse, and we're just getting back to Ronald Reagan's welfare queen mythology here.
Of course, there are people who abuse a system.
Any system has people that come in and try to get around the rules.
But to...
take something and do something so radical with it with so very little fraud it doesn't matter if you're talking about election fraud or unemployment compensation again you're picking on kind of the the smallest thing to justify getting rid of the program when you know what just just
Be who you are and say, I don't think unemployed people should get help.
I don't think, you know, whatever.
At your extreme position here, Dan, and stop trying to, you know, just weasel around it saying, oh, this is all about waste, fraud, and abuse.
We've long since shown where that is just not substantial enough to justify throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
You're absolutely right and it's it's this constant tension that you have when it comes to these types of bills too because it's just like I think you you know Democrats want to say hey, well, let's you know at bolster the safety net Let's extend more options for for health care to people fund education all these different kinds of things and and be there for people when they when they need help and I think you know We're as we're looking at right now with some of these federal job cuts I think I think people need these types of these types of safety net
policies in place to be able to be there when people need them.
And this is what Republicans do over and over again.
They just chip away and find any way to weaken these programs so that they're ineffective and then people don't like them and then they can cut them.
And it's the same, you were kind of talking about it before with immigration.
It's just like, yes, we want to have reforms to...
the immigration system, it is broken, but what Republicans do to legal immigration, too, is just continue to chip away at all those pathways for people who want to go about the process legally.
And it's the same thing with these access to public benefits and this unemployment insurance.
And like you said, the Kremlin-esque way of calling it, re-employment assistance to go about this
as
well.
It's silly and sad, all at the same time.
Let us switch gears talking with Dan Schaefer, political editor for Civic Media about Josh Schoeman, the Washington County executive.
And I talked a little bit about him yesterday just based on what little I've seen of him from the pandemic onward.
So as somebody who's down there in the Milwaukee area, talk to us a bit more about how he is perceived.
I certainly sense a stereotypical hostility toward Milwaukee.
I certainly heard him
playing up his support of Donald Trump's tariffs.
So I mean, is there anything that indicates he would be independent or should we be expecting again, like Tony Weed up in Northeast Wisconsin, try to get that early Trump endorsement and be be one with with all things Trump?
Yeah, I think he is, you know, very much a typical typical Republican in so many ways.
And, you know, one of the things that has
You know he has been part of he's been a regular on conservative talk radio in the Milwaukee market You know that's a really big thing and he gets his name out there And he makes certain headlines and and but he you know he talked in his launch video about You know about loving your neighbor and one of the things that he's done to raise his profile in a really significant way
has just been to bash Milwaukee and it's your typical wow counties versus Milwaukee type of thing.
when the Milwaukee raised its sales tax about a year and a half ago now, he posted something out there saying that, hey, come spend your money in Washington County instead of spending it in Milwaukee where you have a greater sales tax.
And it's just like, I get that if you're a small business and you're advertising buying furniture or something like that.
But it's another thing when you're a politician and you recognize that those shared revenue negotiations that happened went to say,
gave a bunch of jobs in city services, in law enforcement, in public safety, in all of these different areas.
And I think that was a really cynical ploy.
It kind of led to this back and forth between him and the mayor of Milwaukee, Cavalier Johnson, saying there was a comment involving Cracker Barrel, if people remember that at all.
But I also think I want to point this out from Showman's record as well.
So in 2022, he was making a lot of no
And this is about a referendum that he was advancing in Washington County called the Anti-Crime Plan Referendum to add 30 and a half positions to the Washington County Sheriff's Department.
And he was really playing this up throughout the whole election cycle during the midterms as, hey, we're in this red county, we're gonna fund our police.
This was right in the height of the anti defund the police backlash that was happening in conservative politics in particular.
particular in the time.
And he made a lot of noise over the course of that fall saying that, you know, hey, we're going to do this.
Milwaukee cuts its police department.
We're going to we're going to fund ours, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, people voted against that referendum pretty resoundingly in one of the reddest counties in the state.
He was he failed at his effort to in this quote unquote anti crime plan to
add positions to the sheriff's department.
And it failed pretty resoundingly.
Like it was a 56% of the voters rejected that.
So to me, that is it's just quite the record of non accomplishment to run on when this was one of your key policy initiatives on kind of a home run issue in a county that votes like 70 to 75% for Republicans most of the time.
And he was unable to get that passed.
So, you know, he's he's a divisive politician.
He bashes Milwaukee at the same time.
He talks about you know loving your neighbor and getting back to that type of Wisconsin He is he is a typical politician and he is part of the problem
There was Dan Schaefer talking to him Yesterday in our 830 segment on the early jockeying in the 2026 race for Wisconsin governor But getting back to the legislature.
There are bills that could be helpful
for the many challenges and opportunities ahead of us in Wisconsin.
And tomorrow morning, we're going to talk to a state senator about one of those bills.
Housing prices are higher than they need to be.
And there are more, there are many reasons for that.
But we should talk about one of them.
Hedge funds.
Wall Street hedge funds buying up houses and either holding and then selling them later for profit or turning them into rentals.
which reduces the supply of single-family homes for ownership, which drives up the price for the housing stock that is still available.
State Senator Sarah Kieske of Lodi is sponsoring a bill to ban ownership of single-family homes by Wall Street landlords.
These are bipartisan proposals that are being put up at the state level and at the congressional level as well.
They haven't received the traction to pass yet.
But are we getting closer to that point with the crisis of affordable housing in Wisconsin and around the country?
We will talk to State Senator Sarah Kieske as part of our peak under the dome in our state capital report at 8 30 tomorrow morning.
But Greg, getting back to what Dan Schaeffer had to say about Josh Schoeman and the the governor's race again.
I said before look, he's Josh Schoeman's not like a rich businessman like
Eric Havdier,
Tim Michaels.
Yeah.
But except for that part, what's coming out of their mouths is almost, you know, there's
no separation.
No, not at all.
No, it's that constant.
We're good.
Everyone else bad and everyone else is Madison and Milwaukee because they're all thieves and liars and all it's just it's just the same.
I'll just give me a give me someone who actually just cares about Wisconsin.
I don't care what party.
Somebody who
cares about Wisconsin and all of Wisconsin not
not just, you know, up north or whatever.
Today's history lesson is next.
Not gonna find a lot a lot of prettier intros to music than that from George Harrison Who released the song gave me love on this day in?
1973 so 52 years ago today as part of today's history lesson, and we are joined once again by Melissa K
Good morning.
She's award-winning director radio host storyteller from 97.5 WFHR and 105 5W II whose big
play premiered last weekend, right?
Hmm.
Yes, it did.
How was it?
Oh, it was fabulous.
Everybody, the audiences, there was like this low rumble of laughter through almost the entire
show.
That's a good feeling.
It is.
That's awesome.
I'm so happy
for you.
You just seemed like you
were walking on sunshine thinking about this and
doing it and
pulling it off.
Yeah.
And you got one more weekend.
One more weekend Thursday, Friday and the matinee on Saturday.
Okay.
All right.
Reminds me.
I got to go.
My niece right now.
If you live in the Kenosha receipt area, my niece is starring in hairspray right now at the road in theater.
So I
would love to see hairspray as a play.
I've only ever seen it as the movie.
Come on down.
And I think that would be fun.
I would have back in the day, I would have loved to do the James Marsden character on there.
That would have been fun.
Back to today's history lesson.
Hey, 25 years ago today in the year 2000, Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as president of Russia.
Imagine being leader of a country for 25 years.
What could go wrong?
What
I love about that is that he was there was there was a rule in Russia.
You could only be the president for two terms and then he
became
pro.
minister,
and then he became
president and changed and abolished that law.
Yeah.
Amazing how that happened.
You don't suppose that could happen anywhere else.
No.
No.
Constitution are made of paper.
That's easy to rip up.
Nightmare feel, guys.
Come
on.
All right.
Let's get back to the calendar, the history calendar on this day in 1824.
Marked the world premiere of Ludwig von Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria.
There are parts of it you are certainly familiar with.
You probably know the ninth as this part of the choral symphony, Ode to Joy.
They say it's about joy, but they are screaming at you at the same time.
We're all awake now.
Yep.
Are you joyful?
Are you happy?
I'm so
joyful.
I want
coffee.
Maybe you're more familiar with the very beginning of Beethoven's ninth because that was the NBC News theme song to the Huntley Brinkley report back in the day.
Network news that jingles have come a long ways.
I get goose.
I
still get goosebumps when I hear this part of the symphony.
Oh, yes So that was part of the Huntley Brinkley report in the 60s at NBC news Sad day at NBC news as they mark the anniversary of the birth of Tim Russert who would have been 75 years old today Passed away in 2008 way too young.
I was looking yesterday.
He was 58
when he had a hard shack and
died.
I need to know what the world looks like today with Tim Russert in it.
Well, Tom Brokaw in signing off the obituary of the special report said, I can speak confidently that NBC News will never be the same.
And he was right, had not been the same.
Number one song, this day in 1977, you might have heard of it, it's from the Eagles.
Another song with the intro, Goosebumps.
It's
the Eagles,
I know, but still.
Yeah, yep.
And by the way, Melissa, a 52-second ramp.
So we got time
to tell a story here,
you
know?
I know very well.
Sorry, it's my checkered past.
Oh boy.
Oh, forget the story I was going to tell for 52 seconds.
Go on.
Come
on.
Sure.
The name of the rock band I was in.
What
what?
Well,
okay, all right.
I'm sorry.
You don't just be
like I was in a rock band then walk away What
was
what was the name of it the K delights?
The checkered past it says what?
Checkered past.
Yeah.
Were you guys a ska band or a punk band?
No, they were a hair band Classic rock band
Cassandra on YouTube, hot take.
I really
don't like Hotel California
overrated.
You
know, I've
tried, I've
tried for years to dislike the Eagles.
I can't.
They're
so good.
It's
so overplayed.
Well, this song, yes,
but then you got to listen.
Maybe a good song with you only heard it six times.
Listen to it.
47,000 times.
Oh
boy.
Wow.
I know the guitar solo by Hart.
Well, everyone does.
I mean, that's not really... No, I mean, but you can play it.
Could you still play it now?
I
can't play
it.
I don't play
guitar.
Oh, okay.
I will challenge people too.
That's fine.
That's fine.
Listen to a song called Journey of the Sorcerer.
It's an Eagle song as well.
You'll recognize where the theme song comes from.
So, just Journey
of the Sorcerer
men.
All right.
All right.
Today is a barrier awareness day.
It's also packaging design day, which when you think about it, the two have some similarities because sometimes packaging design can be a real barrier.
Make it easier, kids.
This is National Skilled Trades Day.
This is National Home Brew Day.
For those of you who like to make your beer at home, I haven't, well, I'll let that go.
I'm not a home brew person.
Yeah.
I
went to a homebrew party once.
Did
you like it?
Do
you remember it?
It was pretty interesting.
Okay.
Yeah, we didn't drink.
We made beer.
Oh, okay.
And meanwhile, the other end of the spectrum from homebrew is the Cosmopolitan, and this is National Cosmopolitan Day.
So we've gone from the very hoppy and bitter to the very syrupy sweet.
There's a drink there for everybody.
Well, what's your next challenge, Melissa, after the play comes to an end this weekend?
I want to...
I'm gonna transform my flowerbeds into a flexible garden.
Every time someone talks about yard work I get jealous.
I'm sorry, Greg.
Come help me.
I need
to work
on my own yard.
That's the thing I'm talking
about.
Thank you, Melissa.
Oh, I thought you meant you didn't have
one.
We appreciate it as always.
We've got Dr. Jill Underly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction coming up as part of our homeroom segment here as part of mornings with Pat Crite-Low here across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Again, remember, you can find what we do over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
We'll be back.
Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by UpMorth News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat
Craiglow.
Good morning.
It is 7 0 6 on this Wednesday morning, May 7th, 2025.
Nice to have you here up north.
Coming up this hour, our regular Wednesday homeroom segment.
Often we talk to folks from the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
We went a little higher up the food chain.
We're talking to basically the the head of Wisconsin public education
And that would be state superintendent Jill Underly will join us.
We'll talk about the crafting of the state budget bill, the chaos in Washington DC and its potential impact on Wisconsin education.
And of course, we'll talk about teacher appreciation week coming up as well.
Joseph Peckie in our next hour, Melissa Kay is hanging around to chat with us some more and Brittany Merlot joins us civic media meteorologist and award winning report.
How do
we we have two award winners?
Yes, look at all the
I mean, I'm technically a third.
But it was second place.
You're
there.
You're still award-winning.
Yes.
I don't have a hardware.
Oh, you still have the paper.
This
is awesome.
I got this old pencil.
This pencil shop, would you take that
as a trophy?
Hey, look, a blind guy from the 19th century to stroll in.
A literal tin cup that I somehow inherited.
That's kind of cool.
I was
just going to say, I would
take that.
That's pretty cool.
You know, you could more
useful than a thing that's going to hang on the wall.
Yeah, or copper.
Probably be a great Moscow mule thing if it didn't have like 30 years of ink at the bottom of it as a pen and pencil cup.
This just makes you tougher.
Coca-Cola.
It just makes the drink that much stronger.
Well, we better get to the weather here, Brittany, where we have enjoyed just a lovely warm-up.
which I'd love to see continue, but maybe with a bit of a dip on the way toward those warmer days.
Yes.
So it was wild, warm yesterday.
Ashland hit 87 degrees.
I went outside in pants.
Okay.
Yes.
I'm emitting the meteorologist did not listen to her own forecast.
I went out for a walk in pants that I was sweating in the afternoon.
So.
I'm welcoming the cool down because that was a little much really quickly.
But either way, Ashland hit 87 degrees and you know we are going to see cooler temperatures still hanging out by Lake Michigan and even by Lake Superior now.
We're going to start to get that cool down as this cold front has moved through the state.
So it's going to keep us a little bit more comfortable today, not as warm.
Still plenty of sunshine, dry conditions and a very high fire danger.
That's through most of the state, especially north of Wisconsin Dells, all throughout the north woods.
Of course, we've got a little bit of green grass out there, but it's not enough.
Still, that vegetation is still trying to come back to life.
So even just a few days of dryness in these conditions, it can spark a wildfire rapidly.
So please be careful.
I think there's 30 counties with burn permits now suspended.
We've had 658 wildfires burning over 2,000 acres so far just this year.
in our state.
So please be careful out there.
Otherwise, high temperatures today will hit the seventies south and west in the state.
But if you're by the big lakes, you know, Lake Superior Lake, Michigan, you're going to be in the mid fifties for highs today.
A ton of sunshine up north, a few more clouds down south because there is some rain hanging out into Illinois and Iowa.
That cold front should keep a lot of it away from us.
So I don't suspect any rain for today.
We do have chances moving back for some showers and storms Friday nights and into our Saturday morning as another cold front drops through.
But behind that front, we warm things up rapidly.
We're going to be right back into those mid 70s for the weekend.
So a slight cool down now and it's holding all the warmth for the weekend.
All right, very good.
Melissa, I was asking at the top about using this nice weather to grill out.
And I wonder if in all of your busyness, are you guys, are you grillers over there?
And have you been a chance to do some outdoor cooking?
I'll have to cook over my campfire, because I don't have a grill anymore.
But yeah, I love cooking outdoors.
It's fun.
I'm fudgy pie makers.
There's so many things you can do with those.
I love a savory pudgy pie.
Yes, crab rangoon.
We're a meatball and a croissant.
Croissant!
Croissant!
Hey, Brittany, did you know that Melissa was in a band?
Sorry, I just had to bring that up again.
No.
Oh, we're coming back
to that.
Oh, my
God.
Come on, guys.
Yeah.
Robin Tigerton says, good morning, partly sunny, 51 degrees yesterday, soaking up the sunshine, mowing lawns in the Wittenberg area.
And today I've got four yards to mow in Tigerton.
He said yesterday he had a 3 p.m.
lunch at Rachel's Roadside in Wittenberg.
They had a fundraiser for a gentleman in Wittenberg who has throat cancer.
See, I signed a $10 sign-in for a guitar.
I'm thinking that maybe was a prize for that.
You're the
fundraiser.
Oh, no.
Oh, I got you.
And Melissa, I hope I can buy you a drink sometime after I bought her, Brittany and Dr. Kristen and Appleton on election night.
Yes,
thank you, Rob.
That was very thoughtful.
Thank
you.
Yes, as Brittany and Melissa, a winning Wisconsin team, and that it was 82 degrees in Tigerton, dust flying in the farm fields as farmers work up their fields.
And yes, they are.
The field work is like fast and
furious
and dusty
and dusty.
Yes.
And very dusty.
That's all right.
Brittany, appreciate the forecast.
Thank you so much for that.
But now let's get to the thing we just learned about about Melissa here that she was in a rock band.
Before we get to that, Brittany, were you ever in a rock band?
Do we have any
Um, no, no, never rock bands.
Okay.
Then we'll just keep the focus on Melissa here.
So for folks who might have tuned in after the top of the hour here, she's kind of let it drop that.
She was in a band called what was the name of the band again?
I'm not saying
it checkered
past the checkered which I I thought it was a scab and just because the reference to checkered because that's a but uh Listen don't get all blushy washy over this you brought it up.
Okay.
We
did only because I hate hotel, California
Don't see that that's what that hatred does though that that hatred leads you to say things you will regret Yes, I
was one of
the singers in the band.
And I changed outfits every set.
So I had, you know, a plethora of cute things to wear that were red, black and white.
And Oh,
so you go for like a white stripes thing?
I see.
Okay.
All right.
It was
a party band.
I mean, these guys were all born in the 60s.
So they were all very I think the band broke up in the early 90s, maybe late 80s.
And then they got back together and
When did this all happen for you?
I need to know.
Early 2000s?
Mid 2000s, probably.
Mid 2000s.
Yeah.
Any chance you'd be interested in like a one night reunion, you know, one night only?
No.
Like
I say, the WBA Awards 2026.
No.
Oh,
no, no.
No,
great.
Look at this.
Troy
was not pretty.
Troy from Madison listening to WA UK says Checkered Pass was a good band.
Wow, you got a
fan.
There's more than one Checkered Pass and it's probably not the one I was in.
I'm very intrigued by this.
I need to see pictures.
I need to see photographic evidence of this band.
I want to hear a verse because she said she was the singer.
Come on, move on.
Don't you have
better things to talk about on your morning
show?
Not at all.
No, no, no.
No, the budget will be there for a while.
We can be sad about that
later.
I was actually, if you hear clicking in the background here, we've got Dr. Jill Underly at 7.30.
And we've also, we're looking at scheduling up Congressman Mark Pocan.
And they were just sending a note saying, you know, could he, could you pop on today?
I'm like, well, yeah, we could do 7.45 after Dr. Underly, but we may push both of these interviews.
We
can talk about school and Congress any time.
We
need to rock
out right now.
We're going to hand Brittany a tambourine, and we're just going to... It's the greatest day on earth.
No,
it's
not.
When you had the talk show, and are you bringing back the talk show?
Is that in limbo?
What's the state of...
We'll see
what happens.
It is award-winning.
It is award-winning.
Yes.
I'm thinking either you interview yourself
as
a rock star
or
somebody.
I interview myself.
Or somebody interviews you.
Melissa,
how did you think about being in this band?
Well, you know, it was an
interesting time in my life.
I remember most of it.
All
right.
Well, then you weren't that good of a band if you remember most of it from what I know of musicians.
Exactly.
Oh gosh, if you were going to do this though, what would you like to do?
Would you do rock again?
Would you do oldies, polka?
Honestly, I would like to get back into, because I am learning guitar.
I've just taken a very long break from it.
So I would just like to continue to learn and play and sing my own music or covers that I like.
Melissa.
Those two bands I don't enjoy singing.
You know who else took a break?
You know who took a 14 year break?
You?
The Eagles.
14 year break came back and made all kinds of money after
that.
I can see it now.
It's your own.
Seize the K.
Yes.
Oh, look
at
this.
We're just, we're whiteboarding an entire marketing plan for this.
Meanwhile, over at WFHR and WIRI, we're like, I thought this was supposed to be about our station.
She's going to tell us what was coming up on the stations.
It's just all about the rock band.
So.
molasses or anything at the those fabulous wisconsin rapid stations you want to tell
us about
We have a lot of fun with our new time slots.
Our morning show on WFHR has moved from two nine to 11.
And then our our midday magazine has been rebroad or re what's
the word?
Thank you as The Rapids Report.
Oh,
I
like that.
The Rapids Report.
James did a good job with that name and that will be available on podcast only.
That's where
our audience is.
So that's where we're, it's available.
Are you, are you doing the Stephen Colbert thing and like the Rapids rapport?
Like that?
I'm not sure.
I'm
not in charge of that.
Okay.
Okay.
To, to be determined.
All right.
And then on WIRI, we have our morning show from seven to nine.
Okay, that's fabulous.
So
there
you
go, folks, Civic Media app.
If you need any other way to reach Melissa and all that she does and whatever play you're going to direct next and whatever band you're going to be in next and whatever podcast you're going to do next, you're like a Renaissance woman here.
I'm going to go work in my yard.
Okay, flower beds and everything.
All right.
Yes.
It was great to catch up with you.
We're just we're so happy about the play and we didn't get to talk to you last week.
So thanks for letting us get a double dose of you this time
around.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
And Brittany will talk to you in our next hour as well.
Get an update on the forecast.
Okay.
Robin Tigerton has this figured out I sang karaoke back in the 1990s.
Good thing no social media at the time.
Amen, Rob.
There's no phone video of anything that I did back in the day.
And that's how God meant it.
We weren't supposed to have permanent records online of these kinds of things.
I agree.
Continuing on then with some of the headlines, if you missed it in our first hour, the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.
We'll be meeting tomorrow and the Republicans who lead it will take action on Governor Tony Evers initial proposal That's how this thing starts the governor proposes a budget the legislature then you know ads or subtracts negotiates in the past they've just simply taken his bill and put it in the you know the metaphorical wastebasket and that's essentially what they're doing tomorrow when they put out a list of the 612 items that they're going to be
stripping from the budget bill.
That would include help for childcare, help for children exposed by lead paint or lead water lines, extra help fighting PFAS and drinking water, expanding Medicaid to cover more families, repealing taxes and tips and utility bills.
There were incentives to freeze local property taxes.
All of that is gone.
along with the extra help for education, for mental health services, all these things that were far and away the most talked about items when the Joint Finance Committee was holding its hearings around the state.
The governors proposed the things that people want and the Republicans on Joint Finance have said we don't want them and they're coming out.
so they'll make that official tomorrow.
Dr. Jill Underly on the way and perhaps Congressman Mark Pocan as well from the heart of America's Up North live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Critello and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Trying to clear up the confusion about somebody's checkered past.
Welcome back to the program, Melissa K's band, Checkered Past.
Is it the same one that Troy and Madison saw once upon a time, inquiring minds want to know?
But in the meantime, we've got to do a little live on-air business here.
If you were listening earlier, you know that Todd Alba had a little fun with me yesterday about, you know, time slots and where I was supposed to be and when.
But as you just heard in the last segment, we've now got the opportunity for a couple of different guests that could come on yet this morning.
but it would involve needing some flexibility on the part of Mr. Alba.
And I am kind of tap dancing here because he either is or is not going to be on the phone.
Oh, he is not.
He is not going to be there.
Well, I guess we know who's screening his calls now.
So Todd, if you're if you're listening and instead of at 750, we'd love to talk to you at 806 if you're around.
So
We'll send you a note to that effect.
I can't believe that.
Greg, did he just roll your right to voicemail over there?
No, this is not a Todd thing.
I'd love to play it.
I'll be like, yeah, Todd, but it's not.
Oh, okay, gotcha.
We had we understand.
So anyway, what we've got then is a state superintendent and Jill Underly who's going to be joining us in just about 10 minutes here.
And then Congressman Mark Pocan will be joining us around 745.
And so we'll get a chance to find out more about what's happening in Washington DC, both from Congressman Pocan, but also from state superintendent Underly because as you know, the
Trump administration is trying to cut just an insane amount of money that has already been approved by Congress and is meant to go to education in Wisconsin and other states.
And so we'll ask the state superintendent about that.
We'll ask the congressman about it as well.
And Jill Underly will talk about the state budget process and talk about teacher appreciation week, which is going on this week.
And well, I mean, obviously should be a
and everyday thing of appreciating the people who are educating our children.
But, you know, at this point, well, if we need a special week to remind people that these are things worth paying for, then we will definitely take it.
The daily newsletter from Up North News, you can find it at upnorthnewswi.com.
And in there today, Christina Laurie has a review of Wisconsin Dells Water Parks.
I shouldn't say a review, I should say an overview.
We're not rating them here for you, but...
She also gives you information on where you can look for the best deals when you stay at a water park, which you might do for something upcoming Memorial Day weekend or soon as school gets out for the year.
So head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com, click subscribe in the top banner and be part of that.
I have noticed this
weird and I'm not the only one who's noticed this weird little fixation lately from Donald Trump and the men in his administration and dolls and young girls dolls and the comments about how you know these girls don't need 20 dolls maybe not 30 dolls and the Trump went on in another interview to say well the dolls might cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.
This from the guy that said he was going to be fighting inflation and prices were going to be coming down on day one Well, Mattel the maker of Barbie dolls has now announced it will increase the price of some US toys because of the Trump levies on Chinese imports But it's also just weird to see that Trump in multiple interviews and now other administration officials have
fixated on well girls can do you know less with dolls that was one way that that it was put and then Trump said as well about kids they don't need to have 250 pencils they can have five that's an actual quote that kids don't need 250 pencils they can have five they don't need 30 dolls he says I think they can have three or four dolls I just want to know why
why the girls and the dolls, why are you making them look materialistic?
Where's the comment of, well, maybe the guy in the big red MAGA hat doesn't need an 85 inch plasma screen.
Maybe you can get by with a 55, maybe you can get by with a 55 inch TV.
Maybe you don't need a pickup truck, you know, that is the largest thing on the road and a hazard.
Maybe you can get by with the little Ford Rangers.
you know, that used to drive when people were using pickups, you know, to actually haul things on an everyday basis, not just, you know, for show.
Well, I mean, we don't, we don't hear that when you're talking, if you're going to talk about shared sacrifice, then for goodness sakes, let's go all the way.
Is there, is there a caller on the line here, Greg?
There is a caller on the line from the weighty
issue
from the
Bassan area.
Sir, welcome to Martin's pack.
Hello, Kratlow.
Who is this?
Where are you calling from?
Yeah, well you know where we're calling from the correct little plan this because I'm gonna snap who am I show yesterday Well
guess what
pal?
Guess what?
We've got the snafu on this show now.
I'm double booked.
I've got Jill Underly.
I've got Mark Pokan, both in the next half hour, which you remember when Johnny Carson would always bump, you know, the comedian who was coming on at the very end?
Yeah.
How do you feel about being bumped to the top of the hour at the eight o'clock hour?
Well, I can do that because this is the first for radio for me.
I'm calling into your show, Naked Pat.
I'm in the shower.
All right.
How do you, how do you do this every time you managed to take something where I think it's just working nicely and every time I'm hearing a little voice in the back and it's Luke Mathers having a heart attack.
Pat, I have to ask you a question.
How do you fall for it
every time?
Yeah, that's, that's a fair, that's a fair
question.
All right, pal.
We'll look next time around.
Honestly, I want to hear running water next time.
I mean, these things are waterproof now.
I'm about to have the state superintendent and a member of Congress on Todd.
We have to save this for the eight o'clock hour.
I will talk.
Wow.
I'll see you in a half hour, buddy.
From the heart of America's Up North and live from Lake Wasota, thanks for making this a place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
From the text line from Lori in Hayward, maybe Donnie to dolls doesn't need a $45 million birthday military parade.
Yeah, we haven't we haven't even really gotten into that yet in part because there's so many times that President Trump says something and then nothing comes of it.
or he says, I want to do this and sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.
And there are many real things that affect you right now.
And if we get to the point where this guy's actually serious about a multimillion dollar parade, as he's telling kids, they don't really need toys for Christmas, we'll get into it then.
But let's deal with what we've got in the here and now.
And that includes reminding you
that Dan Schaefer, who was on in the last hour, you can catch his work at the Recombobulation Area, and I didn't share that address earlier when he was with us.
It's at therecombobulationarea.news.
the recombobulationarea.news and of course all across the Civic Media website where he is the Civic Media Political Editor.
Let's visit now with State Superintendent of Public Construction Dr. Jill Underly as we head through Teacher Appreciation Week and start to bring this school year in for a landing.
Dr. Underly, good morning.
How are you?
Yeah, good morning.
I'm doing great.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah, well, we appreciated the chance to get to check in with you before the school year wrapped up entirely.
And while the state budget was going on, and while whatever this is was happening in Washington DC, let's start with the good news first.
It being Teacher Appreciation Week, you've already provided some official recognition to one educator.
There are more to come.
So can you tell us about the importance of having a week like this?
Yeah, I mean, it's really just that teachers leave such a lasting impact on their students and we can't thank them enough.
for everything they do every day.
And I think everybody has that teacher in their life that they've thought about here and there who's made such a deep impact on them as adults.
And as you said, there's more to come.
We named our first one earlier this week on Monday.
And that was Joel Coyne at Sun Prairie East and Sun Prairie East High School.
He's a business and marketing teacher.
Second career.
teacher so teaching was not his first first thing out of college but no there's there are more to come and we we try to do one in every level so elementary middle high school as well as pupil services and and then electives.
You know, and it's great that the Department of Public Construction does that, but I also noticed that, say, local media will do that.
They'll have, you know, Golden Apple Awards or Sunshine Awards or Jefferson Awards or all kinds of things where they too will salute these local educators.
It seems like an awfully nice and well-deserved counterbalance to what we so often heard in political circles about public education in our state and in our country.
Yeah, there is such an imbalance.
I think, you know, when you look at the day-to-day of schools, incredible stuff happens in schools every day.
It's positive.
When you go into schools and you visit schools, I mean, they're celebrating students.
They're celebrating the work of their teachers.
so positive, but the positive stuff very, very rarely, I feel, makes it into the regular news cycle.
And the news cycle focuses on what sells, it focuses on the negative, it focuses on, you know, controversy, and unfortunately for our schools, they lose out on that.
And that would be something I'd love to change.
Oh, without without it out, we're talking to Jill Underly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
And part of that, of course, stems from, I mean, we're going to weigh back now to the Act 10 days and the years that this legislature has had the current management scheme, shall we say.
And as we have talked about in the show, the Republicans running the Joint Finance Committee have already announced the 612 things that Governor Evers has proposed, that they're going to strip out of the state budget.
Many of these things deal with education, some you agreed with, some you probably would have liked to have seen, you know,
done more or differently.
But just from an overall standpoint, looking at the state budget and where we are in the process right now, what's your own evaluation of what the finished product could end up looking like?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're on the same page.
I feel like
that the Republicans in the legislature also understand that we must invest in our public schools and the future of our kids.
And I mean, that's exactly what mine and Governor Evers' budget proposal does.
And it's a great opportunity.
It's a tremendous opportunity to shape Wisconsin's future.
I mean, they could leave their mark.
on Wisconsin's future by making critical investments in education.
I mean, the cards are out there, the number of referendums that have been on the ballot, the number of referendums that pass, also the ones that just barely fail.
I think...
you know, the public, you know, at the hearings, you know, has made it very clear that they value investing in public education.
And we have been, when you think about the generations of kids since act 10, I mean, we're at 15 years that these kids, we've graduated an entire cohort of kids.
that have lived under austerity measures, teachers getting paid less than they would in other states, less than what they were earning really in real dollars in 2010.
You look at the cuts to programs that we've had to experience and in school districts trying to make that up by passing referendums.
I mean, these are opportunities that our kids and our future have really just missed out on.
the Republicans and Joint Finance Committee can, they can leave an indelible mark on the future of Wisconsin, and it's an incredible opportunity to do so.
And we should note that sometimes things are pulled out of what the governor proposes, but then some things come back in it at either a lower level or some kind of a modified level.
So if we look at it from that approach, what kinds of things would
Would you say if people could contact their legislator, especially if it's a Republican one, to say, look, there is still time to make this better by doing X. And I mean, for me, X is always that wide disparity in special education reimbursement, but there's also mental health services.
What do you think can be done that is actually feasible that Republicans could put back in or modify?
Well, I think, you know, just giving our school districts the flexibility again, you know, to make their own decisions about revenue, making sure that they have enough revenue, whether it's in special education reimbursement, which would give them spendable revenue, whether it's in raising, you know, the low revenue ceiling to make it to the state average, giving school districts the flexibility by increasing the pupil amount.
I mean, the reasons our school districts are going to referendum is because they've been locked in to
these revenue limits that were put into place in like 1993.
And it's just really they are just handcuffed.
Like they can't make local decisions because they don't have the ability to even raise their own revenue.
But then there's the other things like you mentioned, you know, like there's all these cuts coming from the federal government that we're going to have to figure out if those are
priorities or not.
And our school districts have found that they have been, you know, mental health, mental health support has been a lifesaver literally for, you know, kids in our schools since COVID.
You look at the investment in mental health has helped with our graduation rates and has reduced truancy.
You look at the investment in school nutrition and how that has actually improved.
um, academic, um, outcomes.
So there's a lot of things and literacy.
I mean, there's a lot of things and it's really just that we don't have the flexibility to implement these without, without the funding.
And we've got Congressman Mark Polkans standing by and we're going to talk to him about this as well.
But let's, let's conclude on that note of the uncertainty of what Trump says he wants to cut.
Um, what you, you're confident will be cut the, the, the uncertainty about
What is out there?
I mean, come on.
I can't even form a basic question about it because we're getting so nothing but curveballs thrown at us from the very highest levels of government.
Yeah, it reminds me of those choose your own adventure books when we were younger.
But yeah, I mean,
We're all for being efficient in government, but not when it comes at the expense of our kids.
I mean, it's just really that's what it's coming down to.
I mean, we were informed every week, it seems, on some program that's being eliminated.
And the most recent one was the mental health professionals in our schools.
I mean, it's just ridiculous, you know, just how cruel, you know, this can be.
But I mean, we're seeing results from the, you know, the federal funding before and
for them to cut it, that's really unfortunate.
You look at there's pilot programs that we've had for recruitment of teachers.
We've had pilot programs for math, instruction, literacy, AmeriCorps.
I mean, there's so many things that we know are working and yet are just being just randomly cut.
Well, again, under that that guise of, you know, we're returning education to the states, which is, again, a fallacy that the state already has had that it needed the assistance from the federal government.
And that is certainly in jeopardy at this point.
Dr. John, the state superintendent of public construction, thank you so much for telling us about teacher appreciation week and giving us an update on all the governmental matters in Madison and DC.
You've got a lot of place to keep spinning and we appreciate you spending some time with us.
I appreciate it too.
Thanks so much,
Kat.
You bet.
Have a great day.
And let's turn to, again, the chaos in DC where nobody's keeping the plates spinning.
I mean, the plates are just falling and crashing everywhere.
Congressman Mark Pocan joins us.
Congressman, how are you?
I'm good.
Sorry, I'm a little
late.
Oh, no, you're fine.
We had we had Dr. Underly available.
So we've been able to have a very happy two for today to get both of you on the show this morning.
And so let's just start with that.
Let's pick up where we left off with Dr. Underly just on the education funding because yes, you've been in Congress for a while, but you were in the legislature for quite a while prior to that.
And so you can speak as well as anybody to this notion of
what the MAGA folks are saying is, well, cutting the U.S.
Department of Education doesn't mean anything.
We're just returning education control to the states.
It's so much more than that.
That's cow manure, okay?
Because I know I'm on the radio.
That's all I'm saying.
Here's the bottom line.
They're cutting 45% of federal funding.
What that means, because they have not identified how they're going to do those cuts yet.
could mean cuts to things like Pell Grants, which I received when I went to college.
It could be cuts to IDA or Title I funding.
These are some of the bigger pools of funding.
Title I is for lower income districts, many in rural parts of Wisconsin.
IDA is for special ed funding.
At the end of the day, if you cut one of those two funds locally, you're likely going to have to raise local taxes to pick up for some of the slack because you're going to have to fire a lot of teachers and you're going to have really big class sizes.
So that means we get a pay
even more for reduced services so that Elon Musk and Donald Trump get a giant tax cut because that's now five and a half trillion estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation.
So yeah, I mean, Dr. Underly has got her hands very full with what's going to be coming up in the legislature as well.
And unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in the Republican majority of Congress to get it
right.
whatever they say because I'm looking at a USA Today article about how it says the Trump administration has reversed course on a proposal to cut all funding for Head Start and says that, you know, there will not be changes to the Head Start funding.
I don't know that I can trust that.
No, this happened a number of years ago when they were going to cut, when Trump won, was going to cut Special Olympics funding.
And I and others called out the secretary when they came before my committee and they backpedaled and they didn't.
And the good news is we actually were able to add money at the end for it because of how stupid their moves were.
And certainly Head Start is one of those programs that'd be incredibly dumb to try to cut.
But they're going to have these cuts supposedly between now and Memorial Day.
I think it's going to stretch into between now and July 4th because they already had to cancel three hearing three markups this week because even their members are saying, oh, you mean when I said I was going to cut 880 billion, I was going to cut Medicaid?
Oops.
No, they knew it.
But they're getting enough pressure from people back home.
and that's
exactly
what we need to do right now.
That's right.
We'll continue the conversation with Congressman Mark Pocan, but first from the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
Joe Specki in our next hour.
I'm Pat Critello and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Tomorrow on the program, we will have Melissa Baldoff and our state capital report will include State Senator Sarah Kieske about a bill that would ban Wall Street hedge funds from owning single-family homes in Wisconsin, which drives up prices as they get converted to rentals.
Let's continue the conversation now with Congressman Mark Prokhan and let's start with Medicaid this time around and a tale of two of your colleagues.
You have, on the one hand, Congressman Derek Van Orden
again saying all the usual things like he has told his leadership and he has signed a pledge not to make any cuts to Medicaid and well we're going to cut all kinds of ways for an abuse but not Medicaid.
And then Ron Johnson goes and rips off the Band-Aid and says I don't know why everybody is so squeamish about this if we got it we got to get rid of Medicaid we got to get rid of Medicaid is what he's saying in so many words and I'm kind of thinking he did us all a favor by saying the quiet part out loud and making it clear that
for every Derek Van Orden out there, promising not to cut Medicaid.
There's Iran Johnson kind of giving up the game.
Well, the thing is, when you make a promise, you also have to keep it.
And I've heard those promises made by that member on SNAP, and he voted to cut SNAP as well.
So what the Republicans in the House did, and then the Senate concurred in a vote, even though they had 2% of the cuts.
of what the house had was an $880 billion cut to the Department of the Energy and Commerce Committee's jurisdiction.
Their jurisdiction is Medicaid, Medicare, and everything else, the totaling $581 billion.
So even if you cut.
everything else, which no one has ever said they were going to do, you would still have to cut either Medicaid or Medicare by $299 billion by their own votes.
So anyone who says that they're not going to cut it, already voted to cut it, that's just not true.
And, you know, Ron Johnson, you know, often says things out loud that, you know, most people would not say out loud, but it's true that that's what they want to go after.
I think what they want to make it
So that able-bodied men have to work in order to get Medicaid, which saves so, so little money that's nothing close, nothing close to what they're proposing.
They're going to propose maybe a per capita limit on folks and all sorts of things.
And luckily, they're having a fight within their caucus right now.
But I noticed, you know, Derek did not sign the letter that some members sent publicly saying they wouldn't vote for Medicaid cuts.
So I guess we'll see what happens at the end of the day.
But Medicaid
for your listeners is health care and long-term care for 1.3 million people in Wisconsin.
103 kids gets their health care from Medicaid to 55 percent of seniors in nursing homes, gets their support from Medicaid, 45 percent of adults living independently with disabilities get support from Medicaid.
So it's a big thing and that's why it's important not to cut.
It's a big thing for it's a lifeline for so many families and Senator Ron Johnson just speaks so cavalierly of just you know cutting it It's it's got to be cut and I guess magically the the private insurance folks come in and
It's all affordable somehow or another.
I'm not quite sure or they just go without cover.
I don't know what the Ron Johnson alternative is.
I'm not asking you to speak for him.
He can
take his private jet to any doctor in the country.
Yeah, I think that percent of people in Wisconsin is very, very small.
So you did allude to the other thing I wanted to ask about with with Congressman Van Orden and others who have said, oh, we're not going to cut snap, you know, traditionally known as food stamps, nutrition assistance.
And
came up with this other scheme where instead of passing like 25% of the cost on to the states, you would only pass on the cost based on the SNAP overpayment rate or the error rate in your state, which makes me wonder, was that the Republican plan all along?
But you start with an extreme position and then, you know, Derek Van Orden looks like a hero by saying, no, no, no, let's go to this lower number instead.
Or do you end up that they actually do try to, you know,
push 20% of SNAP costs on the state government.
And folks like Derek Van Orden have to say, well, what could I do?
I was outvoted.
That's a cut.
And they vote for the package at the end.
They voted for a cut.
It's so simple.
You know, yesterday, I had a little conversation with the Treasury Secretary and the committee, and I asked a real simple question.
Who pays for tariffs?
And boy, the answer was the most
esoteric Zen Buddhist theory of life answer rather than who pays for tariffs.
And in this case, if you vote to cut the funding, that's a cut.
Vote to cut a program.
And we can't let them get away with any kind of tap dancing about what the words mean.
And we need to hold people accountable.
So this is really why when Republican members of the House or Senate don't have town halls and
aren't accountable to being heard by their constituents that you know they'll listen to the DC special interests and their leadership rather than the people back home and and that's why that's such a big problem.
I've got a note here from somebody at Civic Media who says that they put that clip of of you talking about tariffs and trying to get a straight answer.
They put it up on the Civic Media Instagram and that site alone that video got 300,000 views because people are just they
in disbelief that they won't answer a basic question from you?
Well, I guess it was like Jimmy Kimmel last night.
Last night I was on Learn to Donald, and what he said, and it really made the most sense, was it's such a simple question.
And the fact that they can't answer, usually members of Congress have to bloviate, and I'm as bad at that as probably anyone.
But it was a really simple question.
It wasn't a gotcha.
I was trying to get to talking about businesses in Wisconsin that are being hurt by the tariffs.
But when he couldn't even answer the most basic
question it just shows you it doesn't pass the smell test that you know we live by back home and you know at the end of the day Trump's tariffs are taxes on all of us and but man I lost my five minutes just trying to get a simple answer to who pays for tariffs and you know I think at the end the secretary looked pretty bad for trying to tap dance that desperately.
Look, if you want to do something, just say you're going to do it.
And I mean, give Trump credit at some point, he finally did say, yes, those Barbie dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.
And just follow along with that if you can.
But the tap dancing, I sense, will continue as we move through this process.
And we appreciate the update.
Congressman Mark Pocan from the Second Congressional District.
Always great to catch up with you.
Thank you so much for your time.
Yeah, same thing.
Thank
you, Pat.
Take
care.
Yep.
Take care now.
And again, tomorrow, we'll have State Senator Sarah Kieske on Melissa Baldoff as well.
Coming up in our next hour, we will be talking to Joseph Pecky.
I will ask the Medicaid question there as well.
We will get an updated forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merleau and Todd Alba.
Allegedly, Greg.
Oh, we think.
He said he'll be here with clothes.
Oh, okay in that case Greg back is back in one hour for Matt
Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.
And good morning, it's 8.06.
It's nice to have you here up north on this Wednesday, May 7th, 2025.
Coming up later this hour, we'll talk to Joseph Pecky about some of the political headlines of the week.
He's also a candidate for state Democratic Party chair.
So we will talk a bit about how things are going in in that race that will happen at the state Democratic Convention in mid-June.
Civic media meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here and Brittany, I would like to apologize to you in advance.
Uh-oh.
We uh, we had to bump Todd Alba and we couldn't could never have Mana's normal 750 time.
We said, can you come on right after Brittany's weather at eight o'clock?
And he eventually said yes, but the problem was we reached him at an inopportune time.
And he had the audacity to tell us he was in the shower at the time.
And now from what I can see in the camera, Brittany, he's got a toll turbine on right now.
I'm fresh out of the shower, Brittany.
I'm smelling great.
I mean, here's the deal.
I quite low or Greg say, try to call me.
Our phones aren't working and never rang.
I get an urgent message.
It says, if you want to be on this show, you have to come on now.
Now means now.
And you mean it's live radio.
You got to go on when you're called.
The show must go on.
So I dialed in, standing there bare as the day I was born.
I didn't put on a towel by the end of a two minute segment.
We're getting, oh, no from folks.
We're getting, oh, Todd.
We're getting TMI, Todd.
It's just.
Well, look, folks, just be thankful I didn't use the camera.
Oh,
we're thankful.
Don't get me wrong.
I
don't know Brad Pitt or whatever you
want
to.
I know
I have the body for that.
Sorry.
Sheshu putting up.
I'm waiting for a big batch of curly hair to pop out from that towel.
You're going to be waiting a while.
Oh, no.
You want to see?
You want to see?
Look, there's hardly any hair left.
It's amazing what a career in politics and then radio will do to some folks, you know?
Are you listening on another?
Well said.
Are you listening on two screens again, Todd?
Because I'm hearing myself there.
All right.
No, no.
You want to know what it is?
I just I'm turning down the computer.
No, it's my ear buds.
died they weren't charged so I had to use the speaker.
So for folks that missed it earlier we have to rewind quite a bit because
Todd misread a memo and somehow got the impression that I was canceling him from appearing on our morning show, Brittany.
And he mentions this live on air, decides to call me live on air yesterday.
I don't answer the phone because I don't recognize the number because a radio station's never called me from the studio to be on before.
And I get this message saying, why have I been canceled?
You live on the air.
And I thought maybe I'd missed my time to appear on his show.
So I go running for my phone and trying to call him back only to find out that he he made a little mistake.
He was not being canceled from our show.
He's being canceled next week while I'm away.
But that's fine.
But
Anyway,
hilarity
ensued, as they like to say.
It was the
best-received segment of the entire show.
People thought it was fantastic that Pat would do that and take time, and people loved it.
It was a whole new afternoon version of Pat Krightlow,
gin-ed up,
ready to go.
When Pat's not sitting in the anchor chair and trying to deliver a stoic daily newscaster radio show, Pat can be a little carefree and sarcastic with his comments.
I don't know if you know that.
But it was great.
Todd found out the hard way yesterday that when when Pat doesn't have to have control of the circus, he can be one of the monkeys.
And that's exactly where we went.
Fling and poo and everything.
But here, but here now the program has taken a completely different turn and it's been made much, much better because I was down there on Saturday night in Madison at the four hour fantastic.
extravaganza of the people the Wisconsin
Broadcasters Association awards dinner.
Yeah.
Four hours.
We
have an award winner.
Uh, you know, I didn't hear my name called certainly all you've been longing for four hours.
Uh, and, but Brittany Merleau Brittany Merleau got a lover should not leave.
That's exactly why I hear my name called because my microphone is Balanced on Books.
But Brittany Merleau, her name was called not once, not twice, but three times
as an
award winner.
Number one for both her news reporting and her meteorology.
And let me tell you, if you're going to pick a day to be butt naked, I think Brittany today is the day to do it because it doesn't
connect.
The two don't connect the two.
Let's keep keep the focus on the awards.
Again, I'm suddenly seeing why there were no ALBA or quite low names in the program.
I put nothing in there because like I said, there are middle schools where the principal delivers announcements over the PA system more worthy of WBA awards than this program.
So I'm glad that Brittany could actually set the bar high for civic media
and
make sure that we are recognized for the good work that some of us do under the roof.
present company me and Todd excluded, of course.
So
you guys are amazing.
I don't know why you don't.
You didn't walk away with the words.
Yeah, by the way,
don't thank you, Tony for putting up on YouTube that yet.
Todd also accused me of day drinking when I didn't answer the phone right away from yesterday because I didn't know come when he snapped his fingers, you know,
I may have been self projecting on that one.
Maybe, maybe.
And you know what, Brittany, I was out in the backyard at the time because how's this for transition to
because you know the weather was so gorgeous out there and we would like for that to continue maybe with a little hiccup from a passing cold front.
I know this cold front we've got those winds just blasting out of the north right now at about 25 miles per hour cooling us down keeping us
Well, you know, not as hot as yesterday.
87 degrees in Ashland, way up north, off of Lake Superior.
They had 87 degrees.
So that was a wild warm day yesterday after they had a wildfire on Monday that burned 23 acres.
And now with these winds and the dry conditions and no rain in sight, we're in a very high fire danger today.
And that's probably going to last until we get significant rain, which I don't see another chance of rain really hitting the state until Saturday.
That's when another cold front moves through and it could spark up some scattered showers and thunderstorms.
That actually starts Friday night way up north, works its way through the state through the overnight and kind of winds up down south through Saturday morning.
But otherwise, temperatures do take a little hit tomorrow.
We'll be into the 60s across the state, still sunny.
And then we warm things back up as we go into Friday and especially into the weekend, back into those mid to upper 70s, even some 80s are going to be felt again.
And I just love that it's going to be bright and beautiful and warm for Mother's Day because moms, you deserve it.
That's a hard job.
Oh, I didn't even think about that,
to which
my mom would say, yeah, that figures Patrick.
So yes, Mother's Day.
is coming up.
It is.
Yep.
I got I got a card for her this year for Joan and it says here's a card for you on Mother's Day on time and you open it up and it says sent and signed and sent by your daughter-in-law and I'm sure he signs it and I just kind of put my name way down at the bottom there.
The people at Hallmark they know me so well.
I don't know.
Can I ask a weather related question Pat?
The chair recognizes the delegate with the towel.
Yes, Mr. Alma.
Thank you very much.
Now, Brittany, I've heard, I've heard, I want you to explain this to our listeners because I hear we're in the middle of an Omega front, an Omega front, which we have the lots of Christian nationalists in Madison.
because there's so many, are running around very scared because it thinks it's biblical, we've already had
the Alpha.
Not the Alpha and Omega, it must be the end of the world.
What is an Omega front and why is this important?
Okay, so it's like the Greek letter Omega, right?
So it's shaped like that.
That is what's happening across the country.
We've got two low pressure systems that are cut off, they're big, they're not moving, and they're bringing some flooding and crazy stuff going on there, but it's also locking a high pressure system in right over us.
which means abundant sunshine, dry conditions, no rain in the forecast, nothing is able to move.
So our jet streams that usually send in multiple low pressures every few days, they've been stalled and they're on hold wherever they are.
So that's kind of what this means and what's going on for us and why we have such a long dry stretch, tons of sunny weather.
It kind of makes my job a little easy.
For folks who don't know the Greek letter omega didn't go to fancy schools like.
Todd Alba's Richland Center
Academy
or wherever you went.
Yes, exactly.
Omega is like an O, but you set it on the stovetop and the bottom kind of melts and extends off to the left and right there.
And that's what you see on the map right now, essentially.
The only reason I know that because there's a big fraternity community in Platteville, which I was never a part of.
But Sam Davison, our producer this hour, Sam Davison shared with us because he was filling for Zomers on our program.
He went to his first Toga party.
Speaking of Omega and frat parties, so it is the season right for during this Omega front great time to have a frat part or have a toga party.
A toga party is a good time.
Gotta
say.
How did I lose control of my own show that we went from Omega blocks to toga parties?
This is madness, I tell you.
I don't even know where to go from here, Brittany.
I'm just gonna say goodbye, okay?
Okay, thank you.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Enjoy
the beautiful evening.
Brittany, isn't this, this is award-winning.
This is award-winning material, right?
I agree.
You
should know.
We're gonna agree to disagree on that one.
So, there you go.
Thank you, Brittany.
Thank you.
Bye, Todd.
See you later.
So, Todd.
Yes.
Seriously, what do you do with your microphone over there?
I keep hearing it rumble.
First
off, hold it up.
Let me see what this
is.
Let me see the microphone.
Can you hold that up please
for the folks
watching the social media?
Okay, that's a perfectly lovely, but it's on a mic stand that is two inches tall.
And there is not
like our main studio at the World Headquarters.
It's on the media right now.
I just want to feel like I'm doing my normal show with my mic
on books.
Again, I'm thinking a different mic stand would probably solve this for you, buddy.
89 cents at Radio Shack, I think.
You want to know the actual
truth?
Here's what happened.
I had a mic stand that fit this when I was at Hayward for the Birkenbiter last year.
I was using my own stuff.
But then I was, you want to know, I was doing up north, what used to be up north news radio.
I was doing that.
I was doing, it wore itself out and that mic stand broke.
And so now you don't have
the mic stand.
Okay.
All right.
Well, now we know what I
sacrifice for you pack.
When's your
birthday?
I sacrifice my body, but by God, I sacrifice a microphone.
When's your birthday now that I know what to get you?
You know, some half decent broadcast equipment.
Well, you know,
October.
Tony on YouTube.
Just one segment ago, you had a congressman.
What a turn.
Indeed.
What did you have yesterday when, when we, when we so rudely interrupted each other, you were doing a what's worse thing.
Is this a, this is a thing you do?
Sweaty or, or a chills.
These are the weighty issues that get considered between two and four in the afternoon.
The
afternoon.
Yeah.
Uh, it's just a segment we have some fun with.
Uh, what's worse, we, we picked something.
And so yesterday was sweaty or chills.
Pat Kratlow was
worse.
Uh,
Chills are worse because clearly you're sick if you if you got that.
Well, I guess I was shivering.
That's what it was.
Oh,
sweaty or
shivering.
Oh, shivering.
Yeah, shivering still is cold is way worse than hot.
See, I disagree with sweaty because I usually always get sweaty when I'm at an event or I got a moving stuff around for the show and then like by I'm just I can't eat it.
see this again much like uh you know Jane and Greg uh have their palette cleanser or what is it the uh audio sorbet all
and they have a little harp music for
the little harp music that plays it clearly we don't have here on demand and you're you're doing you know sweaty versus shivering over here these are the kinds of things if i need something to cleanse the palette and not focus on all the serious stuff i just know to call in Todd Alba
And this is what we get.
This again, why our show is not up for any sort of awards, but we do have a lot of fun.
Yes,
that works
perfectly.
It can't all be the powerhouse of Tom Hartman.
You understand?
They just can't all be that.
Wow.
Well, that that took a turn toward the network.
Still ahead this hour.
Joe is a pecky, but first from the heart of America's Up North and live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Critello, and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We've got Matinee Baseball on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Coverage begins at 11.35 this morning.
Brewers versus Astros.
Brewers looking for the sweep.
Catched that game on several Civic Media radio stations.
Head over to the website to learn where and how you can listen in as the Brewers go for that sweep.
Jake Bowers hit a two-run homer last night to help the Brewers to a 4-3 victory over Houston.
Chad Patrick worked a career high six and two-third innings.
carrying a one-hit shutout into the seventh inning.
After this afternoon's game, the Brewers hit the road again for Tampa this weekend, followed by Cleveland.
Todd Alba is still with us now, having ditched the towel turbine for a more stylish Brewers cap.
The man knows to stay on theme, if nothing else.
He hears about the Brewer's.
The Brewer's hat comes out.
That's great.
It's good work out of you.
And the new Fabulous Friday extravaganza, right?
Yes, but I take a giveaway.
See, I'm gone for the next two Fridays, and so I'm not really up to speed on it.
Do you want to, do you know enough to say, talk about it off the cuff?
I can make something up.
Sure.
No, it's starting.
I believe this Friday on, uh, maybe not patch show because it's on vacation.
I thought patch show.
I think it's going to be a morning to pack quite low.
Matt near on air from a 10 until or nine until 11.
And then somehow I'm told, uh,
Tom Hartman's giving away tickets and then me and then Maggie Dawn.
And every Friday, every Friday you text to win and someone each Friday for the rest of the season is going to win four tickets in our beautiful club level section at Ampham Field.
Except for the week that we have our text to win sizzle Ramah Verlo mattress giveaway or whatever that those things are.
But otherwise every Friday, Friday brewers giveaway.
Oh, that's,
that's
cool.
Yeah.
No, uh, Chad Holmes will be filling in for me the next two Fridays.
Uh, Kristen Lyrely will be around on the Mondays.
Matt Rothschild takes next week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but I'm sure there will be ample opportunity for those brewer's tickets.
Let's talk a bit about some news.
You knew we had to get around to news eventually, folks.
And
the, the joint finance committee tomorrow, I believe, is going to be cutting more than 600 items that Governor Tony Evers had proposed for the next state budget.
we don't have to review the whole schmere because we know these are all things that have majority support among Wisconsinites, but Republican legislators for whatever reason, either because they don't agree with them or just for the sake of a power play, are gonna strip them out.
I guess it's nothing new, Todd, but it still, it strikes me every two years as something, so disingenuous as to strike these things.
without the benefit of a vote, by the way.
They don't put the Republicans on record for stripping out the mental health aid money.
They don't put them on notice for stripping out the food assistance or whatever.
They just put it in one big motion and take it out.
I mean, I was around the Capitol for enough years and I know Pat, you covered it and then we're a part of it.
I mean, I still remember guys for conservatives out there, people still call themselves Republicans in my former party that I left in 2011.
I still remember guys like Joe Leon, Joe Leon, Republican who was the longtime powerful co-chair of the joint finance committee.
And guess what?
They actually had real hearings that lasted for hours and days, and they're excruciating.
But guys like Joe Leon would give people their time to actually have a voice before the committee.
And there were real debates back in those days.
And as you said, Pat, now...
He got Howard Marklein on the Senate side from my deck of the woods out in Southwest, Wisconsin, who is a guy, as our friend Trigby Olson says, there are some people that want to do in politics.
There are some people that want to be.
And Howard Marklein is a guy that just wants to be.
And they don't, they're not really interested in having tough.
Because these things are tough, you know, Pat, you are there and they're very difficult decisions because not everything can get funded, even with a $4 billion surplus.
And there are tough decisions, but the key is to give people a voice to listen and then to figure out how do you get people 75% of the loaf?
And we just don't have, we have zero sum people.
I would argue on both parties at least, but I can't speak for every person in the joint finance committee.
I think guys like representative
Tip Maguire Pat
Thanks.
They were very thoughtful on the Democratic side.
But we had a, I know you guys have been talking about it here as well, but we had a guest on from Kareem's childcare in Mount Horrib here in Dane County yesterday and a small business owner from New Glaris in Green County.
And they're a part of Wisconsin Main Street Alliance, a great group by the way, talking about childcare and the fact that there was the COVID, the pandemic money have been supplementing childcare in Wisconsin.
Some of these funds and now they're gone and joint fund.
announced yesterday that they're not interested in using part part of that four billion with the B surplus to help that out and I don't know whether you're at Lake Rosota or Madison or Milwaukee or Richland Center child care as we all know is a huge thing and guess what if you want to use Republican language it's a job creator because people can't go to work and work jobs if they don't have child care.
And I'm just amazed that the Republicans as a block that there's there's not that you know Maverick wannabe that says and by the way this path is wide open Republicans for one to step up and go You know I'm actually in favor of child care and protecting it and the jobs that be created and we haven't seen one of those yet Or as Tony puts up on YouTube
protecting citizens from health insurance companies.
How unpopular?
Because, yeah, they're stripping out the governor's proposal to audit health insurance companies with a proven record of rejecting claims from their Wisconsin customers.
That and you know, it's nothing to say of our state university system and also K-12.
We're talking with folks last hour, National Child Care Teacher Week.
My favorite educators, here's something about, let's have a little positivity.
If you see one of your teachers, your kids' teachers at the grocery store, just say thanks.
It doesn't cost you a dime.
Just say thanks for what you do or we recognize you.
If you have a PTO in your community, give to that.
They buy gift cards or whatever.
I mean, those are positive things and the old phrase, just be kind.
I think that our communities need this and recognition doesn't cost a dime, but to know that the sacrifices our educators are making in this state.
despite what might be happening in the legislature or isn't that they still matter.
So so there's a little positivity.
And if you're a Democrat, it's a great day to do the Pat Crite low vote for Joseph Pecky, for God's sake, for chairman.
There's something positive you can do, Joe.
He's going to hate that because that comes from a former
repeal.
Thank you, Todd, Alba.
Have a wonderful day, Joe.
After
this.
Hey, remember to sign up for those newsletters up north news wi.com.
Click subscribe up in the top banner and you can get our daily newsletter that Christina Laurie puts together with many fine features about life in Wisconsin, including today all about planning a water park trip to one of the many fine water parks in the Wisconsin Dells area.
There's another story there about native plants to Wisconsin pollinator friendly that you could be planting in your garden.
I didn't really
understand or appreciate till a couple days back when somebody said, yeah a lot of the, not I shouldn't say a lot, but there are flower and garden shops around that sell plants that people like, but they're not necessarily native to Wisconsin.
They're almost more invasive to other species that are here.
So I'm going to have to learn more about that.
But again, you can learn about that in our newsletter as well.
Joe's Pecky is here.
Normally you hear Melissa Baldoff on Wednesdays, Joe's Pecky on Thursdays.
The husband and wife are flipping days this week because Joe is going to be on the road as part of his campaign for State Democratic Party Chair and talking about all kinds of issues, health care and things like that, including something on Thursday morning and downtown Eau Claire, right?
That's right.
Well, first of all, we call the Melissa to Joe swap.
The old husband, wife, Dipsy, do you trade a room?
I'm pretty sure that's a
Dipsy, do you trade a room?
Pacific
trademark that.
Yes,
election of swapping radio slots.
Yes.
Tomorrow will be in the Eau Claire area.
As your listeners know, Medicaid is on the chopping block.
Republicans in Washington any day now.
are going to go ahead and mark up the ways they plan to decimate health care coverage for seniors and babies and support for people with disabilities.
And so we are having another conversation focused on Medicaid with people who
are able to live independently and work with parents of kiddos who were born with, born with pre-existing conditions.
One of my favorite tricks of the English language, how absurd that is.
And so we'll be having a conversation with state Senator Jeff Smith, potentially some other area lawmakers about what's at stake when it comes to Medicaid.
And then I'm gonna pop over and talk to some, some Democrats in the area who are trying to figure out who they're gonna
Vote for for state party chair.
So it's going to be a fun morning and probably early afternoon.
No doubt as part of the the travels all around.
Let's keep the focus on Medicaid for a moment with this simple question about Senator Ron Johnson's remarks the other day.
Did he do you a favor?
Did he do a lot of people trying to save Medicaid a favor?
with his comments where he basically roots for killing Medicaid coverage and says, you know, the other members of my party need to stop being so squeamish and saying, we can't cut this or we can't cut that.
We have to cut everything to, you know, to hear Ron Johnson tell it.
And it really kind of, you know, gives up the ghost when it comes to other Republicans, say Derek Van Orden, who are all like, oh, no, we're going to protect Medicaid.
We're going to cut nothing but waste fraud and abuse everywhere else.
Ron Johnson saying the quiet part out loud.
Is that almost helpful?
Almost.
In a way.
I'm struggling with this one and I think the struggle is more about Senator Ron Johnson than it is the words coming out of his mouth.
Listen, there are political maxims and truisms and for most folks, if most Republicans came out and just said, nope, this is it, folks.
We're cutting it.
We want to get this thing down to the studs.
that would be helpful.
I understand why you're asking that.
Ron Johnson is so divorced from reality, so detached from anything resembling common sense that I don't think anything he says is helpful and that's where I'm struggling because this is the same Senator Ron Johnson who in the last week went on TV goes on the shows and says
Boy, these Trump tariffs are killing Wisconsin manufacturers.
I'm talking to them and they're telling me that if we keep this up, they're going to go out of business.
And then he is given an opportunity on the floor of the United States Senate to vote to override Trump's tariffs and he doesn't do it.
So he says one thing and he votes another way on
Trump tariffs that are hitting Wisconsin manufacturers, that that same newsletter you were talking about, which walks through the water parks, also details the analysis that shows Wisconsin will be hit worst of all by the tariffs, and Ron Johnson can't get that right.
And then he starts flapping his gums on Medicaid.
He is someone who you cannot trust what he says, and it seems like every passing week or year, the things that he says
are more and more ridiculous.
And so I don't know what to do about that.
I'm not here to lay odds on the politics of it.
What I'm here to tell your listeners is we have to keep the pressure up.
Ron Johnson may be gone, but Josh Hawley and the new senator from Ohio and Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, there are other Republicans who are movable and who are gettable and we don't need that many of them.
to stop the wrecking ball that destroying Medicaid would mean for Wisconsin.
And I don't just mean for the people who receive Medicaid support so they can live independently and continue to work and not be in a facility or a home.
I also mean our Wisconsin economy.
30,000 Wisconsin businesses get money for Medicaid every year.
That is money that is moving through our economy, it is employing workers,
And the notion that we can cut 500 billion, 880 billion more like Johnson is suggesting from Medicaid and not have it be a cascading economic tsunami is ridiculous.
Each congressional district would in Wisconsin alone would see more than a billion dollars come out of its economy if what Ron Johnson and his colleagues are talking about happens.
So
He can spout off and talk his talk.
We're gonna keep up the fight.
We're gonna keep up the pressure and try to protect people who are trying to live lives of dignity and purpose with a little bit of help, just a little bit of help.
And to put the lie to the nonsense you're gonna hear, 73.5% of Wisconsinites on Medicaid are already working adults.
So miss me with the, we just want people to work stuff.
No.
People already are working.
Joseph Eke is our guest here.
Look, I'm going to be off Friday.
Normally, I would ask this of Key of the Keel from Courier Newsroom.
But let's take this to the next level in the Congress.
and ask it this way.
So we have, as you said, there are Republicans who are what you would call gettable.
They are in purple districts.
They, there are plenty of people who have kind of tut-tutted that, oh, we don't need cuts that big.
You've got Ron Johnson on the other hand saying, come on, everybody, bear down and let's really do it this time.
And we already know that any deadlines that House Speaker Mike Johnson has set are gonna come and go for any action.
Is, is it yet possible that even with Trump and the White House and them controlling the House and the Senate, that the House and Senate Republicans or the MAGA and what used to be called moderate Republicans are going to be so far apart, could we actually get to, what would it be, October 1st to the end of the fiscal year?
And even with total Republican control, they're still going to have to pass continuing resolutions because they can't agree on a final product?
Yes, but only if we keep up the pressure.
And that's the hard part, right?
Is we have to keep it up.
But I'm old enough to remember a month ago when Republican leaders in Congress said, we're going to get this reconciliation package done by the end of May.
And now they have already moved the goalposts to late summer.
They are not good at this.
We we can win and we can stop this and so keep up the pressure keep up the calls Yeah, and and as for Ron Johnson, I just had the flash in my mind Remember the scene from old school with Will Ferrell in the locker room and he's all sweaty and like screw we can do this That that feels like Ron Johnson's enthusiasm for slashing Medicaid and if that doesn't tell you all you need to know about the senior senator from Wisconsin
I don't know what will.
Well, uh, while we're talking about the enthusiasm for cuts, let's move it to the state capital here where Republicans on the joint finance committee have outlined, uh, something like 612 different items from governor Tony Evers proposals that they're going to cut tomorrow and they're going to do it in one fell swoop.
They're not going to ask for individual votes on each one of these worthy ideas.
I know it's nothing new.
This is now the fourth state budget cycle we've been through with governor Evers, but
I've noticed that it ramps up each time.
There was like 200 some the first time, 300 some the second time, 502 years ago, and more than 600 this time around for a legislature that is no longer as gerrymandered and has more districts in play.
This still seems like a somewhat of a gutsy move on their part to pretend like they still have, you know, almost veto-proof majorities.
But Pat, you didn't tell the listeners how this represents progress.
Okay on the fourth budget cycle
there.
There is a little progress about this
in the first three budget cycles What Republicans do they just chucked the whole thing and started from base This time they're merely stripping out 621.
I think that number's right Policy items, but at least they didn't throw the whole thing out
And I know that's like a weird subtle difference and it's rare the morning that Pat has me being the optimist but this actually is a little bit different and Perhaps you know despite the fact that with ten pickups in the assembly and three in the Senate It's crazy to me that the JFC breakdown is still 12-4 and Republicans didn't you know give anything on that and
Perhaps there are enough Republicans in Mr. Voss' caucus in particular, and there certainly should be in Mr. Lennie's, that are looking over their shoulder and going, we could actually lose this thing.
And let's find some ways to at least signal towards responsible governing and working with the other side.
And so I'm not gonna give them more credit than they deserve, the 621 policy items that they stripped out.
are popular.
They are common sense.
This is not radical policy.
And this is not a Republican caucus or two between the two chambers that has proven their ability to work real hard or show up and do anything for the people of Wisconsin.
In the pandemic, they went home for nine months.
And so it's one thing to say, well, policy doesn't belong in the budget.
We'll come back and do this later.
But there's no reason to believe them when they say
we'll come back and do this later.
And so we can certainly chop up some of your favorite of those 621.
But I just think overall, it's an interesting dynamic where they haven't done it this way before.
And in that respect, it is a little progress.
But at the same time, boy, are they cutting out a lot of stuff that would be really good for Wisconsin and that Democrats will never stop fighting for.
And perhaps once again, heading into that next cycle, Democrats will do more to
Resurrect those things in terms of their campaigning and in their messaging and say look these ideas were actually put forward and they were they were cut out But you know You have to tell that to whoever the next state party chair is
and that's and listen the communication starts now Yeah, right when this stuff gets gets stripped out every
Targeted GOP member in a battleground district needs to hear about it and that's one of the things we're talking about You know how to work more closely with the caucuses and be a good partner to make sure that accountability work starts during this budget cycle.
Mm-hmm Joe's pecky is chair for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and you can learn more over at Joe's a pecky.com Don't do it.
I did spell it correctly the first time ze pecky
What I do the first time Z I didn't I know it's Z E P a isn't often misspell.
Oh, yeah, there's an A in there.
Yeah, Crete low Crete low like I'm one to throw stones over here So hey reminder, we have brewers baseball this afternoon coverage starts at 1135 on several civic media stations head over civic media dot us to learn more I'm packed quite low reminding you to follow us from what we do
at UpNorthNewsWI.com and sign up for the news, letters, there.
Hey, remember all the words from your Pledge of Allegiance.
Liberty and justice for all.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
James Kelly will be along in just a minute with a bit of an update on happenings around Western Wisconsin in the news, but first let's wrap things up with Joseph Peckie before some of our stations had to cut away for a local update.
I wanted to squeeze in one more question and it dealt with the governor announcing yet another lawsuit that the state is joining to try to stop some of the cuts and the firings by the Trump administration.
I believe it's 14 different lawsuits so far.
And I just wanted to ask you if that is, I don't want to say the best that we can do, but I mean, is that our only avenue is that you find some courts that stop this or does it at least slow things down?
What's your take on fighting this on 14 different fronts?
Good.
Thank you, Governor Evers, for standing up for the rule of law.
This is how you stop an authoritarian in its tracks.
You use the courts.
You use the media.
You use public opinion.
You get people out in the streets.
Tony Evers is doing exactly what he should be doing.
And it's not just the court stuff.
It is when the borders are threatened to arrest our governor.
Tony coming out immediately in sand.
I'm not backing down.
This is a scare tactic.
I'm operating under the law.
I always have.
And so good on Tony Evers.
Good on Josh Call.
14 is a lot.
And this is the type of environment and the challenge that we elect these leaders to meet.
And they are meeting it.
And so I applaud them.
My head is off to them.
And go down the list.
The things that they are in court for are
In in before times pretty straightforward clear-cut things like when Congress appropriates money it has to be spent because the president signed it into law and You know so kudos to them.
We all got to have their back The other way you stop a regime like this is you continue to use your voice Everyone use your voice.
We that is the only way through this
Words of Wisdom from Joseph Ecke that we get every week, usually Thursdays, but a happy visit on a Wednesday before you and Melissa pulled the old, how did you put it, the old spousal switcheroo?
The husband-wife switcheroo trick-a-doo?
I don't know.
Traderoo.
Traderoo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll be
talking to you, Melissa, tomorrow.
Thank you, Joe.
Safe travels.
We'll talk to you a little later.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Let's bring James Kelly in now, a Civic Media reporter up in here.
Beautiful Chippewa Falls, covering stories all around Western Wisconsin.
How is James today?
Oh, I'm doing great.
Just listening to all the drama with Todd Alba on unfold.
You know, I'm just sitting here thinking, who would misread an event cancellation email and their Gmail account?
Certainly not me.
Uh-uh.
James did the same thing yesterday, but did not try to publicly embarrass me the way that Todd Alba did for it.
So thank you, James.
I appreciate that.
Let's pick up where we left off with Joe, and that was with Governor Evers.
He has been all around Western and Northwest Wisconsin for several different topics that you've been tracking for folks.
Yeah, he was in Chippewa Falls on Thursday talking about youth mental health investments in the biennial budget, Saturday up in Rice Lake for the fishing opener, and then earlier this week visited the Wisconsin Logging Museum over in Eau Claire to promote the tourism industry and how much money has been brought in through that in 2023, even 2022, setting a record and then breaking it the following year.
I'd say walking around the Wisconsin Logging Museum is really not much to do with these tours, except kind of take the
tour with whatever politician is there to do it.
I'm glad that I live in the era of air
conditioning.
Time brings its different economic priorities.
We were once, you know, the world capital for logging.
And so the museum is there to talk about a very proud part, but those things don't last forever.
And the same with any other, you know, industry.
So for, again, my personal editorial for Donald Trump to say we're going to build iPhones and Barbie dolls in factories here in the US is just not in step with the times, whereas Governor Evers has been trying to bring in the actual jobs.
of today.
Let's turn to Dunn County where, again, we talk about affordability across rural Wisconsin.
There's always been a problem with, you know, transportation issues there, public transportation as well.
What is it that Dunn County Transit's going to try to do about that?
Yeah, so they're going to be offering rides for residents that live in more rural areas.
It's a big county.
There's a lot of space that isn't quite in Menominee, so public transit could be an issue for accessing health care, just getting to areas where you can do some shopping.
That can be very difficult, especially for older residents who may not want to be driving around the roads themselves anymore.
So for the month of June, they've split the county into four quadrants.
They'll be offering rides through a pilot program in one quadrant each week for the month of June.
successful.
It'll go on beyond that.
For the month of June it'll be free.
All you have to do is call 24 hours ahead to schedule your ride.
You know, it just occurs to me that if I were a bit more entrepreneurial and I lived in one of these places that you could do it, I'd start a shuttle service.
And what I would do is I'd have two routes.
I'd have a daytime route, which takes you to the, all the, you know, past all the clinics and maybe some of the shops.
And then a PM route that takes you past some of the, shall we say the watering holes in the community.
And look, a lot of bars have those already.
They have nighttime shuttles that people ride sober, start running those things by day.
to people getting to their appointments and everything and double your funds.
I'm so glad I could give this get rich quick scheme to the bar owners who have shuttles all across Wisconsin.
Finally, unfortunately on a down note, there was a failed referendum in the Shell Lake School District and the other shoe is dropping as we would expect.
Yeah, it's actually a reproposal of a previously proposed referendum, which failed for a second time.
So now the district's facing a $500,000 budget shortfall for next year.
They're eliminating three teachers positions, one administrative assistant position, reducing custodial hours.
And I think one of the big ones that's going to affect everybody in the district is their increasing employee paid health insurance deductibles.
They're just saying the same thing that every other school district is saying.
They're not getting enough money from the state and costs are going up.
And that is the reality after something like this happens, especially in this case, the Shell X School District.
James Kelly follows all this and more from Chippewa Falls for Civic Media.
James, thanks.
Good talk to you.
Remember, next week, not so much.
Not so much next
week.
We'll see you the week afterwards.
I really got to write my memos better.
All right, thanks, James.
We will talk to you later again.
Reminder, tomorrow Melissa Baldoff and also State Senator Sarah Kieske talking about a bill that would prevent hedge funds from owning private single-family homes in
in Wisconsin.
My thanks to Joseph Peckie, Mark Pocan, Jill Underly, Melissa Kay, and all of you for being here this morning.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy newsroom, and we appreciate you being here for us this morning.
I'll see you back here up north tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.
Have a great day.
