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Live across the Civic Media Radio Network, live from Wisconsin, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Critello.
Sitting in for Pat Critello today is Matt Rothschild.
Good morning, Wisconsin.
Another beautiful day in Wisconsin.
Welcome to Mornings with Pat Critello.
And as Greg said, Pat's not here.
I'm Matt Rothschild, co-hosting this morning as I did yesterday and as I'll do Wednesday and Thursday with Angela Lang.
My favorite co-host, she's the executive director of Block.
She's also a prize-winning, two-time prize-winning op-ed writer for the Reconbobulation Area and Dan Schaefer, who's now the political editor over here at Civic Media.
So it's exciting to have you with me as always.
Angela, how are you this morning?
I guzzled in my first cup down right before I left.
You know, it's odd coming on at six.
I'm 20 minutes away.
So I got to leave at 5.30 if I'm not going to give Greg a heart attack.
And I barely have time to slug down some coffee and also get the bird feed out because especially this time of year, I want to get the oranges out and I
put a little grape jelly in the orange halves.
The orils are addicted to grape jelly.
So it's kind of weird feeding them a product that's not a fruit like just orange.
Because when I was growing up, that's all we knew.
Just put oranges out, the orils would come.
And then people figured out, I don't know who discovered it.
Grape jelly is great for the orils too.
At least they like it a lot.
And so I start doing that.
I threw some seeds out for the rosebreasted gross beaks.
I want to encourage anyone to give us a call.
Tell us what birds you got at your feeder.
How are you liking the spring migration?
It's 855-752-4842.
That's 855-75 Civic.
It's been a great bird migration this spring.
But yeah, I'm barely able to do my little chores at first light at 5.15 in the morning.
And the hummingbird feeder I got to fix too.
The weird thing there is if I'm smart in the evening at 8.30, I'll take the hummingbird feeder down because
the raccoons come and get them and they spill it they can't knock it out entirely though they've done it once before usually they just tip it over so that the nectar spills onto the railing and then they lick the railing it's pretty gross so but I didn't take it in last night so I had to go out and fill it this morning then make sure I washed my hands before I touched anything else because
I don't want any of those raccoon germs.
They can carry rapes too.
Yeah, you don't want to get that nastiness all over the place.
So that was my morning.
And then I, of course, I was up earlier in that just trying to make sure I can read the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Journal Sentinel, and the State Journal.
What is your morning reading routine of the news, Angela?
I'm just not always functional, I guess.
But I am naturally an early riser, up by 7 AM.
And honestly, I reach for my phone, and I'm one of those people that's just like, let's look at the news of the day.
Is there any breaking news, any push notifications?
Twitter sometimes, there's, I always say Dan Schaefer is always a really good follow on Twitter or ex, because that's where you see a lot of breaking.
news.
But then oddly enough, being able to kind of just even scroll TikTok, and I am, I'm a millennial, I'm 35.
I am not the TikTok generation, but it's so interesting to kind of see some things that aren't always talked about in the media.
And kind of having that first hand account of people's perspectives and, you know, any overnight breaking news.
So it's like, it's very strange lately.
There are times I've gotten my breaking news from TikTok and also like ABC and things like that are on there.
So it's just casually scrolling in bed until I realize, oh, I should hurry up and jump in the shower and get out.
of the house.
So it's interesting.
We have two different, I'm very old school.
I do the old traditional news sites and you get them in different
That's just, you know, I'm 66.
And that's the difference, I think there.
So you mentioned Dan Schaefer.
He'll be joining us at 830.
We got Jane McNair coming on at 845.
We've got Karine Henriksen, a child care activist.
This is Child Care Week coming on at 630.
And Bill Fletcher, an activist we talked to.
right after
the
election, Angela, who's one of the smartest left-wing activists in this country.
I'll talk to us at 7.05.
And then at the eight o'clock hour, we've got one of the University of Wisconsin professors who was instrumental in getting the faculty of the University to come around to say, we've got to join the compact of the Big Ten and resist Trump's incursions.
Her name is Professor.
Professor Leah Horowitz.
I'm looking forward to the show today.
As
always, you mentioned breaking news, Angela.
There's breaking news this morning at the Journal Sentinel that there's a grand jury sitting today on the Judge Dugan case.
I'm very curious about what's going to happen there.
I wonder even if they'll come through with an indictment.
The case against her is so paper thin and she's got great lawyers and, you know,
grand jury of her peers, are they going to really say this judge should be hauled in on felony charges by the Trump administration?
Be very curious about that.
What's your take on it?
Yeah, you know, somebody asked me, because any time I'm talking to folks that don't live in Wisconsin, that's like one of the first things they ask is like, so that judge, I know you're in Milwaukee.
And I was telling someone they were like, well, that case is going to like, it's going to get thrown out, right?
Like she didn't do anything wrong.
And I'm like, yeah, that's my understanding.
I think, again, as a non-lawyer, I like to argue, but I'm not a lawyer.
I'm like, I feel like, yes, it does feel paper thin.
It feels like it's more for theatrics and show than anything else and to really try to have a chilling effect.
But I think if somebody were to have confidence in the criminal system or the justice system,
then maybe people would say, all right, you know, she didn't do anything wrong.
This is clearly a thing, you know, top or formative.
But we're living in a time where like rules and laws aren't really exist.
Like they don't matter to some people.
Hey, the Constitution doesn't even matter to
Yeah, like the Constitution doesn't matter.
We're just, you know, going off of vibes, I guess.
And so I think under normal.
landscapes, which this wouldn't even happen under normal circumstances.
But if we were living in normal times, I think I would feel a lot more confident.
But we're not living in normal times.
Like the Constitution is being shredded day by day that I don't know how this is going to play out under this kind of fascist regime that we've been talking about.
Yeah, that's the real question and and the follow-up to you know whether they're gonna indict Judge Dugan is whether you know they're gonna come after Governor Evers or where they're gonna come after AOC or they're gonna come after some of the other legislators at that New Jersey ice facility after they you know hauled off Mayor Baraka It's just an amazing time and so you know we just have to see what happens today in Milwaukee
at that grand jury.
Now, I'm not sure how long that grand jury sits or when the decision comes out as to whether they're going to come up with an indictment.
Of course, the old cliche and as an editor, I ate cliches, but I will repeat it, although it pains me that usually prosecutors are able to indict a ham sandwich is the old cliche on
In desire, she will get indicted if that's any indication.
my bet, and I'll take the long bet, is that she doesn't get indicted.
But we'll see.
In any event, she shouldn't have been hauled off in handcuffs and ankle cuffs.
And that was just a disgraceful act of bullying and
intimidation, you know, I'm I'm of the view that it's kind of sadism that what we're seeing from the Trump administration is exhibits of an exhibitions of sadism.
We saw it with Kristi Noem down in El Salvador.
That probably was the most grotesque.
incarnation of
It is really it is just so disgusting and people were focusing on her.
I'm some of the media were focusing on her fancy purse or her attire.
But what got me was all those prisoners half naked crammed in like sardines and a tin can.
That's what was so disgraceful about it.
And that's what they seem to live on thrive on.
And Trump has always been a bully.
He's always been a pathological narcissist.
And he seems to admire that in people he has around him.
One of the people he has around him is Roger Stone.
Now, I saw this thing over the weekend.
It was on Twitter, and I'm not on Twitter.
I used to be on Twitter when I was at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign because I thought it was important to self-perloat and all that.
Anyway, for whatever reason, laziness maybe.
I got off it in any way.
It's probably a good life
I mean, I've always thought that, you know, Facebook and Twitter were just cold words for procrastination, but in any event, here was Roger Stone talking about Senator Mark Kelly, you know, the astronaut who almost was vice presidential candidate with Kamala Harris.
Kelly had the audacity to post on Twitter on May 7th about Trump's
You know terrible ethics when it comes to cashing in on the presidency He said Trump is cashing in and making millions from his own crypto coins.
It's corruption and broad daylight I'm co-sponsoring a bill to make it illegal for the president the vice president administration officials and members of Congress to issue sponsor or endorse crypto assets for profits time to put a stop to this well shortly after that Roger Stone who is one of Trump's longtime advisors
kind of
is
His uncle, his dark uncle or something, his evil uncle, said that Senator Mark Kelly's cashing in on his US Senate seat as a partner in a Chinese communist company that makes surveillance balloons.
And here's the kicker.
He should be charged with treason and if convicted, executed, consistent with federal law.
And this is, you know, Roger Stone just throwing a brushback pitch, as we'd say in baseball, but it's a nasty one.
threatening him with death.
And that's what these guys do.
Anyone who criticizes the president, whether it's Governor Evers or whether it's Senator Mark Kelly or whether it's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they're threatened.
This guy with Senator Kelly with death and Evers and AOC with getting charged, Judge Dugan now in shackles, it's quite a way to run a government.
Yeah, and can we just like back up and talk about like how just weird not even Disney villain Marvel villain that like Roger Stone is like Years ago.
I watched there was like a documentary about this man on Netflix and I think it still might be up very strange and odd man And it's so fascinating to see how he's been able to kind of like weasel his way into
this like political climate and almost still have some sort of reputation.
I don't like the man is strange and unhinged.
And I think that is that's part of their brand is like they don't
have to be polished.
They don't have to know how to run campaigns.
They don't have to say the right things.
They can get away with having these gaffes and what used to be breaking news and something that would be seen as like, you know, not okay in campaign terms.
He kind of tends to normalize.
And I think that's like an indicator of the rest of like Trump's enablers too.
Like that's part of the criteria.
Nothing is disqualifying for these folks.
That's the amazing thing.
Nothing Trump does.
Nothing Roger Stone says and of course Roger Stone was instrumental in the January 6th insurrection his fingerprints were all over that baby You know he's an old-time Richard Nixon dirty trickster my son watched that Netflix documentary and said the guy's got a I think he's got a Nixon tattoo on
like
Yeah, it's just not a guy you really want to have in your circle or a guy next to the most powerful person
in the world, Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, these are the people who are, you know, whispering in Donald Trump's ear.
And it's just a government of intimidation, bullying, and scary kind of fascist actions.
And we're just seeing it unfold before our eyes.
And it's just almost breathtaking, actually.
So.
We'll be back in just a second.
You're listening to Matt Rothschild and Angela Lang here on Mornings with Pat Freitlow on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll talk about Ron Johnson coming up next.
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That's 855-752-4842.
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It's always fun to be on Civic Media.
It does a great job here of giving us local commentary, local news, local conversation, nice entertainment with Pete Schwabba at Nightlight.
which I was listening to on my way in because it's replayed, I think, from four to six in the morning.
So it's a great offering that civic media has.
We wanted to start talking about Ron Johnson and this Medicaid bill.
For background, I just want to quote a paragraph from the Washington Post today on what the Medicaid bill that Republicans are trying to push through Congress right now would do.
To meet budget goals, Republican plans
to cut Medicaid spending, could strip coverage from 8.7 million people and lead to 7.6 million more uninsured Americans over 10 years.
The legislation calls for new requirements for beneficiaries, including co-pays for those above 100% of the federal poverty level, which is super low, by the way, and work requirements for many able-bodied, childless adults.
It would also tighten eligibility verification rules.
and limit taxes, states, charge medical providers as a roundabout way of collecting more federal Medicaid dollars.
That last bit, hard to grab, but I've read deeper into that article, and the result of those changes for nursing homes would mean the closing of many nursing homes and the impossibility of many people who are poor, elderly, and disabled people from finding a bed in a nursing home.
It's a pretty severe proposal on Medicaid, but for Ron Johnson, not severe enough.
Ron Johnson says it should be cut even more.
I mean, it's just amazing to me, Angela, that this senator from Wisconsin, so unresponsive to the needs of his own constituents here in Wisconsin.
He's not available.
He's not hosting town halls.
So it's not a surprise that he's out of touch.
When I first saw that article of the headline specifically, I was like, I'm not reading this right.
I just assumed it was, oh, he's on board with this terrible bill.
And I'm like, wait, no, it doesn't.
go far enough.
Yeah, that wasn't terrible enough.
I'm like this one of the first things I thought of was like this man must not be running for reelection when his time is up because I don't I don't understand this need to constantly try to like punish the poor in the working class.
And
to know that we have this like backdrop and this like juxtaposition with someone like Elon Musk and these, you know, crypto, bitcoins, whatever people are doing and how people are making profits.
But yet we're stripping, you know, health care coverage, we're stripping basic necessities, you know, even thinking of our conversation yesterday with state rep Christian Phelps, we're denying kids food at schools.
But yet people like Elon Musk are able to continue to have
or, you know, get whatever kickbacks that they need.
And I think we need to have both of those conversations.
Yes, this is terrible.
But let's also talk about how people are also profiting at the same time.
I mean, it's so true that dichotomy is just so glaring, you know, the folks who are super rich and able to speculate on the stock market over the last, you know, couple of weeks, including yesterday and the day before, or the people were making like bandits on Bitcoins.
you know, they're not going to worry that, you know, their mom or their grandma might not have a bed in a nursing home because they've got plenty of money to put them in the fanciest settings possible.
Most people listening to the show don't have that luxury.
And the other consequence is just cruelty to poor adults who don't have health insurance, make them through jump through many more hoops.
make them pay taxes on the benefits that they're getting.
And the consequences of that, if they're thrown off of Medicaid, of course, is they'll be jamming the emergency rooms like they used to even more so than they do today.
And that is a crisis of our crazy messed up healthcare system already and would only compound it further.
And Ron Johnson, you're right.
I mean, who does he show up and talk to?
He shows up on Fox.
He doesn't show up for town halls.
He's not representing the people of Wisconsin.
You know, a majority of people who have to put their folks or grandparents in nursing homes, they need this Medicaid coverage.
And to make it harder for them to, you know, get to a nursing home and a lot of these nursing homes aren't great places anyway.
They're pretty depressing.
And to make it even harder and harder for disabled and elderly people to get the coverage they need.
to get even in the door at the nursing home where they need to be, you can't really get much more chaos than that.
That and taking money out of the mouths of children, like they're doing here in Wisconsin in the
state
legislature, as you mentioned Angela by now, providing free meals to everybody, like the governor so wisely and prudently proposed and like they have in Minnesota.
And yet here in Wisconsin, we don't get it because we have this...
these right-wingers in control of our legislature.
And we have this right-winger in the U.S.
Senate who isn't representing the needs of his people here in Wisconsin.
We really got to get Ron Johnson out of there.
And I don't
know, maybe Mandela Barnes will run against him again.
Maybe we'll get another candidate who can run against him.
But somehow we can't have Ron Johnson there anymore.
He's not supposed to be there anyway.
He said he was only going to serve two terms.
What happened to that
Yeah.
And cruelty is the order of the day.
According to Ron Johnson and Donald Trump and that whole gang, you're listening to mornings with Pat Tritlow.
We're not cruel here.
Angela Lang and Matt Rothschild here, subbing in for Pat and we'll be right back in the civic media radio network to talk about the child care crisis.
Hey, welcome back to Mornings with Pat Traylo.
Pat's on vacation this week, so I've been sitting in with Angela Lang, the Executive Director of Block.
I'm Matt Rothschild.
You're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.
You can join our conversation by calling or texting 855-752-4842.
That's 855-75CIVIC.
We're all across the Civic Media Radio Network and pleased to be with you this morning and joining our
conversation this morning is Karine Henriksen.
She's a child care provider in Nouglaris.
It's called Karine's Little Explorers and she's a great activist.
I admire your activism Karine.
She's been very active this week as this is a week where and yesterday was a day without child care all across Wisconsin.
Tell us how that went.
Wisconsin again took the crown for the most actions happening across the country.
And very exciting.
Lots and lots of representatives came.
Unfortunately, Senator Marklein did not show up at the Nouglarist one to tell his constituents what the plan was.
So that was a little disappointing, but unsurprising.
Lots of great energy.
And then meanwhile, I was also working on today's continuation.
So the childcare change makers community.
community change is the one sponsoring and helps support all of the national information and actions.
Sorry, it's still early.
And so they are continuing with the state without childcare here in Wisconsin.
So they are fully supporting us in that endeavor as well.
And we are heading up to the Capitol today at 10 o'clock.
And what do you want to see happen in the Capitol today?
This is open to every single person who cares about children.
And even if you don't care about children, do you really want them everywhere with their parents when they could be in care instead?
So you should come and join us as well.
We are looking for $480 million to be put back into the budget as an amendment to go directly to the child care program so that we can help support the wages.
Because without this funding, our wages will go down to $10.66 an hour.
we will lose 25% or more of our programs across the state, and it's going to be chaos.
Yeah, I saw that.
One quarter of childcare providers might have to close their doors if this $480 million isn't put back into Evers' budget.
You mentioned Howard Markline, state senator.
He's on the Joint Finance Committee, and he has the power to convince others on that committee to reinstate that money.
He could also do a.
And he is my state senator.
He inherited me under the new fair maps.
So excited about that.
So we've been having a lot of conversations with him.
Our child care network actually met with him for about an hour, a month and a half ago.
And we offered to let him talk with us about any legislation that he wants to propose so that we could sit and have a conversation about what is your intention?
What do you think's going to happen if you do this?
And we could talk about what we know and the data we know and the other information we have.
And yesterday he put out a bill with Representative Hurd to do refundable tax credits for businesses who want to open up their own child cares.
And that is not something that we support.
It's not something that has ever worked in any state.
And it's interesting that they made it refundable for them.
But the Child Independent Tax Credit last year, they voted down the amendment to make it refundable for the hardworking parents.
No.
This would be a crisis not only for the childcare providers and the childcare centers, but for the parents, of course, who want to send their kids to childcare.
I read something like 87,000 slots for kids would not be available anymore.
right?
Yes, and it would be far more in the rural areas because in the rural areas, we already cannot charge enough because we don't have enough wealthy families or well-connected families or
employers who have, you know, the capacity to do that as well for their employees.
And so really, it's very intriguing to me that the Republicans who vastly represent the rural areas are literally hurting their constituents far more than Madison and Dane County because they have, yes, it's still going to hurt the families no matter what, but they have more people who are financially viable to be able to keep some more programs open.
And that will also help.
keep more kids in care.
We're in the rural areas that child care accounts revenue has been a far larger percentage of our revenue because we can't charge as much.
But across the state, they fairly allocated the dollars.
And so that's why it's going to hurt us even more in the rural areas.
I mean, Angela Lang was talking about this in the last half hour.
Just how are elected officials, some of our elected officials who are Republicans aren't
caring about their constituents.
I mean it's amazing whether it's Ron Johnson with his Medicaid cuts or whether it's Howard Markline with the cuts to child care.
I don't understand Howard Markline must know people in his district like you and a bunch of other parents out there who know the importance of child care also know how excruciating
It is to pay for childcare and how hard it is to find a slot for their kids.
And this is an everyday concern of most parents in Wisconsin who have to send their kids to childcare.
And why someone like Howard Markline, a super powerful person on the joint finance, doesn't get it or doesn't care enough to respond to his own constituents like you, it's just kind of baffling.
It really is and he's actually admitted twice now on camera that his wife watches the grandkids because they can't find care.
which, hello, it's affecting your own family.
You clearly know that that's the problem.
And then it's just, like I said, it's mind-boggling, it's baffling, and I don't know if it's because they don't understand, because they don't care, or they're just plain evil.
And I don't care to know which of the three it is, because at the end of the day, those people are harmed.
The wealthy and well-connected will continue to find and access care, but everyone else will be continuing to fight for the scraps.
And that is not okay, and that's why we will not sell for anything less than the $480 million.
If they want to add other things to
the package light and that dabble around the edges to try and see if they work and we will make it clear like you better have data in there so that you can decide in two years if this is.
worth continuing, then fine, so be it.
But we know over 6,000 programs closed between 2010 and 2019.
The only thing that stopped the hemorrhaging was COVID money, because
we
We're up to 13, but we lost ground.
We're now bottom 2% of all wage earners, because everybody else went up that much more.
And so we have people applying for jobs, and then they see we're paying 10, 11, 12 bucks an hour, and they go to Quicktrip McDonald's anywhere else, but they can make
1920 and get benefits.
It's just not right.
And I just doesn't make sense.
I mean, this is kind of a weird situation where people who are working in childcare aren't making a living wage.
And yet the cost of childcare for the parents is so high.
I mean, that's a paradox.
How do you explain that?
Buildings are expensive, utilities, food, all the things that go into it.
But then whatever is left is what we have to pay ourselves as family child care, which is around 740 an hour.
And reminder, we work 50 hours a week with kids because parents need care for 10 hours a day or group centers who have the same thing where they have to staff for that many more hours than most businesses do to accommodate those parents hours.
They pay 1366 and it's because four child's brains to develop 90% of it happens in those first five years.
You have to have.
solid relationships between the parent and the child and the caregiver and the child.
And we also support the parent.
So yesterday during our day without childcare, DPI and DWD both referenced that as a parent, they really, really, really leaned on their childcare provider to help them understand what to do this tiny human that they got without any directions to come home.
And so they said, not only are they caring for and educating our kids, but they're caring and for educating their parents.
So to me, we should be asking for double because we should be getting paid for the parent.
you know, support and the child support because we're doing that outside of our hours.
And I just, if we want healthy communities, if we want our rural communities to stop hollowing out, we have to support them.
We need absolutely need to have affordable housing, affordable childcare, and that would help stop the exodus from the schools that would stop the exodus from our volunteer fire departments who can't keep people because people aren't moving in and young people aren't able to like volunteer because they're working three different jobs.
just all connected and we keep coming back to that.
And they refused to, the Republicans refused to sit down and talk with us.
So we also sent out a memo to all 132 this morning, letting them know about the press conference starting at 10 a.m.
at State Street, inviting them to come and speak.
And then we also have rooms reserved and we let them know.
Let us know.
We'll come and meet with you.
We'll talk through all of these bills.
We'll talk through why it matters.
We'll give you the resources and data, even though you have your own legislative staffers that have had five years to figure this out and read the information that we're giving them and talking to them about.
And I just don't understand why they don't believe us.
We are the owners.
We are the professionals.
I highly doubt you decide to throw a bill out there for the WMC or the AG and don't bother to ask them what they think.
They're probably writing the bills for you.
I'm sure they are.
You're inviting the public to come to this protest or event at 10 o'clock at the State Street entrance of the Capitol.
We actually those of us who are closing have had extremely supportive parents They're asking they're thanking us because we're doing this with them because our Republicans are doing it to them and they cannot afford the 40 50 $60 a week interest, you know increase in weekly tuition and yes Somebody else has I just actually found out Representative Armstrong's in his district the business he kept referring to in the last session of that he was helping because you know, we don't understand
understand how to run a business, just sent notice yesterday to the families that they're closing as of June.
And there were public hearings held about the budget proposal all across the state of Wisconsin.
I'm sure you and other childcare providers and parents gave the joint finance folks an earful.
Did they listen?
Doesn't appear that they did.
And I was one of them.
I went and I actually stood in front of Senator Mark Lime when I made my statements and I said it.
Childcare was one of the top three issues that was brought up by the people that came.
Also, to go along with Ron Johnson and Medicaid, over half of us rely on Medicaid to stay in the field.
We will not have health care.
We will leave because of that on top of the loss of
pay.
because you're getting Medicaid for your healthcare, and then if it's taken away, or
to pay extra because they're going to start taxing you, if you're over the poverty line, then it's going to be unworkable for you.
Oh, so that's a double whammy.
I think one of the things I noticed is that this is such a ripple effect that if you could talk more about how it continues to impact other industries, because I'm looking at this email where you
Thank goodness, like broke down.
Each district will lose this amount or that amount.
What does that mean for each of those districts?
What that means is those employers will not have employees.
What that means is those parents will not have money to spend at the restaurants and the local businesses.
And they will also then not have a double whammy.
Not only will they not have employees, they won't have customers.
And so by putting this money into the economy, what you're doing is you're increasing the amount of money parents have.
You're increasing the amount of stability and money the employers have because they're not constantly churning and burning employees.
And your overall lifts up the entire economy.
Remember during COVID, they begged us to stay open because the hospitals needed us.
The grocery stores needed us.
That hasn't changed.
They still need us.
The need is extreme and the cuts are savage.
And this was $480 million.
This is one of the 600 provisions in Governor Evers' budget that on Thursday, the Republicans who dominate the Joint Finance Committee.
It's not really joint because it's so tilted toward the Republicans that they just slashed out these 600 items, including $480 million to support the childcare industry here in Wisconsin.
And that was among one of many things, including other important things like legalizing marijuana work.
medical marijuana and we're the last state in the world on that too.
But it's just amazing that they can't understand the child care crisis that the providers like you, Karine Hendrickson, face and that parents, every parent in Wisconsin who's sending their kids to child care has as well.
And so we need to keep the pressure on joint finance, go to the protest at 10 o'clock today at State Street, join Karine Hendrickson and her
Tremendous activists in the child care industry here in Wisconsin try to get this money restored.
I'm Matt Rothschild.
I'm co-hosting today on Mornings with Pat Tritlow along with Angela Lang.
Karine, thanks so much for being a guest today on the show.
And again, I so admire your activism.
We need a thousand more people like you out there.
I know there are others.
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Welcome back to Mornings with Pat Crichtlow, Pat's on vacation today and Angela Lang and I are co-hosting.
We're going to be co-hosting tomorrow and Thursday as well.
And it's a pleasure to be on the Civic Media Radio Network with you.
You can join our conversation 855-752-4842.
That's 855-75 Civic.
You can text or call Tony Zimmerman called and said texted said green always has lots of good information to share.
She was a wonderful guest.
Don't you think Angela?
Yeah, she's great and I really appreciate her like lifting up, you know, childcare because I think that there's a lot of times as we said it touches everyone.
It also has a ripple effect in other communities and being able to see her level of organizing and bringing attention to all this.
I think it's just.
amazing and more, we need more, more of this.
And just really applaud what she's doing.
Yeah.
And so if you're listening and you can make the protest today at the Capitol here in Madison at 10 o'clock on the stage for your side, please, please do so.
Pat usually does this day in history in this segment.
And I've added a little bit of historical context, not just music.
So this day in history Winston Churchill in 1940.
gave an incredible famous speech, defiant speech against fascists.
Of course, they were fighting the Nazis at that point.
And I just wanted Greg to play a little of that for us if you
could.
where before it's many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.
You ask what is our policy?
I will say it is to wage war by sea, land and air with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us.
To wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalog of human crime.
That is our policy.
You are.
What is our aim?
Our aim is victory.
That's Winston Churchill taking on the fascists in 1940.
An amazing leader for his time, an amazing writer too.
I mean, you could tell that wasn't written by a ghost writer.
I'm sure that was Winston Churchill himself.
He was an author of many histories and you know, it's eerie though for me.
since we're fighting fascism here in the United States, such an echo 85 years ago.
My father fought in World War II in Europe, always warned about fascists.
And we need to recognize the risk that we face here in this country.
And the weird thing is that there are hundreds of millions of families here in the United States who had
parents, grandparents, or great grandparents who fought against the fascist last century and why half the voting population decided to go with a crypto neo-fascist this time around so baffling to me, Angela.
I think, I don't know, I guess, and I think what's, I think maybe some people's like analysis is like
Oh, it can't be that bad.
Like, yeah, you know, it's he's not going to do all of those things.
And I think about how people were really skeptical to believe that Project 2025 was a thing.
There are people like, that's ridiculous.
Half of that is unconstitutional.
That would never happen.
That's just a fear mongering tactic to get you to vote for the Democratic Party.
I think there was just some
real denial, I think, of what this administration was actually capable of.
So I think that there was an acknowledgement of like, yeah, it's ridiculous, but people didn't think that we would actually be here.
And I think people are regretting that now.
But that's part of my, I think, theory is that people thought these things were so ridiculous.
And while a good chunk of us took them seriously,
other people thought that it was just so outlandish we would never see anything like this in our
lifetime.
And they're still warning us that they may not follow a constitution, they may surrender avius corpus.
So, you know, we've been warned in the Winston Churchill speech is a great reminder too.
This day in music history, Richie Valens' birthday.
Richie Valens on February 3rd, 1959, the day the music died, died in a plane crash in Iowa.
that also claimed the lives of Buddy Holly and the big bopper, here he is.
Also, the birthday of the great Stevie Wonder 75 today.
You've seen Stevie Wonder in concerts, right?
Yeah, it was in October actually just a few months ago I snuck away on a Thursday night a friend of mine and we went to the Pfizer and it was such a good show very like nostalgic as you know some of that like grew up with Stevie Wonder and It was also socially acceptable to sit down the majority of the concert as well.
It was one of the most diverse
concerts, like age, gender, just ethnicity.
There were so many folks.
And I think it goes to show like his music and how he's able to bring folks together too.
Yeah,
I've never seen Stevie Wonder in concert.
My wife saw him in concert in Milwaukee.
45 years ago or something.
She's still talking about it.
So, Stevie Wonder's birthday, happy birthday.
And of course, he has the great happy birthday song for Martin Luther King, too, among other things.
Also, birthdays today in popular music, Mary Wells was born in 1943.
She died in 1992 at the young age, wow, 49.
There she is, Mary Wells with my guy.
Angela Lange and I will be right back after this break.
We're going to be talking with Bill Fletcher, a political activist and union guy who's got a lot to say about how we resist Trump and all the reactionary politics of the Trump administration that we're facing.
We'll be right back with Mornings with Pat Fritlow on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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