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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
How was your Memorial Day weekend?
Hope it was a lot of fun.
Hope you enjoyed the beautiful weather.
It's 8.06.
It's nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning.
May 27th, feels like a Monday, actually a Tuesday.
Parker is on the board.
Greg will be back in one hour and meteorologist Brittany Merlois here.
Chad Holmes not far away to tell us what he's covering at 98.9 WXCO and then at the bottom of the hour.
Melissa Baldoff will be here.
Normally she's on Wednesdays, Dan Schaefer on Tuesdays.
They are switching spots for this week.
So we'll talk to Melissa Baldoff about climate, environment, and politics all coming up in just a little bit.
But as mentioned, Brittany's here with an update on forecast where the radar makes it look like there's widespread isolated showers throughout Wisconsin.
But I was wondering if how much of that is actually hitting the ground and how much of it, you know, you know how that is sometimes it just hits the radar and we we've gone entire days sometimes where we're under a big green blob and it's like not a drop has fallen and I sense that might be the case in some places today.
Yeah, that is the case right now.
A lot of it's not making it to the ground across the state, but into areas like La Crosse and just south of La Crosse, you are seeing that light rain ongoing this morning.
And of course, this is going to start to slowly spread throughout the rest of the state.
So a little bit of sprinkles, some light drizzle, light rain is expected in those clouds.
We're going to be stuck with them all day.
slightly breezy this afternoon, but temperatures are pretty mild in the mid forties towards superior in Ashland to about 60 degrees into the Fox Valley and towards Milwaukee area right now.
There is some sunshine out there, but that will become all overcast and cloudy throughout the afternoon.
Some spotty showers and maybe a brief rumble of thunder is possible far northwest later this afternoon and evening, but we're not looking at anything strong or severe.
It would just be a nice little rumble of thunder there.
Highs today will scrape the upper
60s to low 70s.
That'll be a repeat tomorrow.
So do the rain chances still spotty sprinkles.
Some scattered showers expected tomorrow.
Probably total rainfall from this event would be around a quarter of an inch in some places.
So nothing too wild.
And then by Thursday, sunshine returns.
And so does the warmth.
We close it out this entire week.
Bright and beautiful
80s.
Yeah, that was 80s, 80s by Friday.
Yeah, and into next week too.
So summer weather is right around the corner after these two drearier type of days.
Okay.
We were talking earlier about some of the zoos around Wisconsin and places to see critters and Tony mentioned just across the border in Duluth.
There's bears at the zoo there.
And do you have a favorite place where you like to go in the zoo category?
Um, I used to go to, was it the Wildwood Zoo over in the Green Bay area all the time, where they have the wolves out?
And if the tornado sirens are going off and the wolves, they'll start howling with it.
It's pretty cool stuff.
Only you could come up with, hey, go watch the wolves while the tornado sirens are going off.
That's cool.
It really does, doesn't it?
Yep.
But no, it'd be pretty good.
Look at the power of the sirens and the storm and the wolves.
Yeah, exactly.
Thank you, Brittany.
Have a
great day.
We'll
see you later.
Let's see.
In the comment section from Ardith, I vote to have Laura and Bird have her own show on Civic Media.
I hope Luke Mathers is watching.
So there you go, Luke.
You are on notice that Laura would be a great addition.
Well, let's put the training wheels on first.
Let's have our guest host a time or two, and who knows?
We could get all kinds of folks.
We mentioned Dr. Lyrely earlier.
Well, I think we mentioned her.
Here it is in Robin Tigerton saying, wishing she would run for governor, because we were talking earlier about potential.
governor candidates in the future here.
And now she's got her own show on Saturdays on stations in Green Bay and Oshkosh.
And of course, you can get it through the Civic Media app or out on the Civic Media website as well.
All right, while we wait to hopefully visit with chat homes today at 810.
I wanted to pass along an article about Medicaid and we've been talking a lot about Medicaid cuts.
And then there's people like Derek Van Orden and others on the Republican side who say
There are not going to be any benefit cuts.
We're just going to get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse.
And we're going to have these work requirements because we always hear how, you know, able-bodied adults should be working.
And the fact of the matter is a vast number of people on Medicaid are already working, but they're working for very low wages or they're working for employers who do not offer health insurance.
And Medicaid is how they keep from, you know, going bankrupt because of health issues.
That's part of the good that it does.
But
Under the guise of cutting so-called waste fraud and abuse and you know making sure only able bodied workers are there Come these requirements these work requirements and these reporting requirements In other words red tape, you know the party that always tells you they want to deregulate and that they're against red tape and they're against government bureaucracy Definitely finds a way to use government bureaucracy and red tape when it's their advantage whether it's
preventing people from registering to vote or preventing people from getting the Medicaid benefits they've earned because of, you know, the work that they're doing.
So, here was a story that came across the wire from the current magazine.
Last summer, as political debates swirled over the future of Georgia's experiment with Medicaid work requirements, the governor there, Brian Kemp, held a press conference to unveil a three-minute testimonial video featuring a mechanic who works on classic cars.
The story here is about Luke Seaborn, he's a 54-year-old who became the de facto face
of Governor Kemp's insurance program for impoverished Georgians called Georgia Pathway to Coverage.
And in his soft southern drawl, Seaborn explained how having insurance has improved his life in the year that he has been enrolled.
He said in the video, pathways is a great program that offers health insurance to low income professionals like myself.
And Kemp, you know, said pathways is how they're gonna decrease the state's high rate of uninsured adults while at the same time, reining in government spending because of, you know, adding those Republican led Medicaid work requirements.
But you go talk to Luke Seaborne now and he'll tell you how in the nine months since that video was put out, his opinion of pathways has plummeted because not once, but twice.
His benefits, his health insurance has been canceled due to bureaucratic red tape.
Seaborn recently told the current, I used to think of pathways as a blessing, now I'm done with it.
There have been no shortage of reports of how Seaborn is emblematic of the hundreds of thousands of people who would struggle to
get enrolled or maintain their coverage because, again, you can put in these work requirements, which involve reporting requirements, which involve forms or online check-ins.
And for Luke Seaborne, the car mechanic, he said that he was used to the routine at first.
He would go onto this online system once a month.
He would log in his work hours as required.
But according to this report, his benefits were canceled the first time after he failed to complete a new form that he said the state had added without adequate warning.
Seaborn said the form asked for the same information he'd been submitting every month just in a different format.
Now at the time, because Seaborn had been in a video promoting this program, he knew of an insurance executive that was connected to him being in the video, somebody he could reach out to for help because he wasn't getting his questions answered from the state's Medicaid agency.
Well, sure enough, thanks to those connections, within 24 hours, the benefits had been restored.
And he thought, well, maybe that would be it.
Because again, he was playing by the rules.
He was proving that he had met the requirements for every month, having 80 hours of work or studying or volunteering.
But even so, in March, he logged into the digital platform to make sure everything was good, even though the reporting requirements didn't require him to be there.
He'd already been meeting the hour threshold.
And yet, there online was a notice that his benefits were going to be terminated on April 1st because he had missed filing an annual income statement, which was news to him because his coverage was not up for renewal.
And so that's where we bring Chad Holmes into the conversation from 98.9 WXCO in talking about, I'll leave it with a Luke Seaborn scene, my head exploded.
I didn't get a text or an email.
I did what I was supposed to, but that wasn't good enough.
And
Chad I mean it is it is the Republican waste fraud and abuse version of the shell game.
We're going to put in these work requirements and then we're going to change the rules around so you can't meet the requirements and then we can cut off your Medicaid and it's cruel and it has no purpose other than to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy and it's just honestly it's it's just sick.
Yeah.
You hit it all on the head.
Number one, I apologize.
It's Tuesday.
It's Tuesday.
I know.
I was like, that's
day after Memorial Day.
We all go through it.
So did you
have a good weekend?
Yeah, I'm sitting at my desk and I got a ballgame this afternoon.
So I'm printing out some stuff.
And then all of a sudden I just check my email and I see a message from you and it's like paging me and I say, oh, come sprinting in here.
And it's like, what?
Oh, man.
And I would have normally noticed it.
But this morning I get in and we're on 98.9 WXCO and we're on 1230 WXCO.
But for some reason, 1230 is not on and I have two monitors.
And the monitor by my desk is on 1230.
So there's nothing coming through it right now.
And normally I'm listening to you and I'm, you know, the segments, you know, between, you know, in the morning.
So it's like everything.
It's a Tuesday that feels like a Monday and I don't have my monitor.
So all of a sudden I look at the clock and it's like 13, 14 after it.
I say, Oh boy, I just, I left Pat hanging.
perfect storm but I teed it up for you quite nicely because I know this is right in your wheelhouse too of hearing all about waste fraud and abuse when again the people who are against bureaucratic red tape sure know how to put it in place if it's keeping folks from their benefits or keeping folks from registering to vote and things like that.
No that's exactly right.
I mean it's just I don't know shell game is the proper way of putting it but there certainly is not
there's a lack of principle.
You know, I can almost understand when you have disagreements based on principle.
I think that, again, part of the whole idea of what we're trying to accomplish within our system, it is not a pretty system, I have to say the least, but at least if you have some sort of intellectual honesty.
when it comes to what you're trying to get through.
But boy, when you just change the rules every time that it depends on, you know, what we're talking about here, you switch it off.
Oh, in this case, you need to have, you know, all your eyes dotted and your teeth crossed.
But here, you don't have to do it because it's the principle, the matter that gets through.
That's the frustrating aspect.
And I feel like we're going through so much where it's, it's whack-a-mole in terms of, instead of just having, hey, if they truly believe that none of these earned benefits,
should be part of our system, then say it.
Doggone it, just come out and say it.
We don't believe in social security.
We don't believe in Medicare.
We don't believe in Medicaid.
Because if you look at history, going back to the New Deal and even going back to the progressive era of the early 20th century, it's always been the conservatives that said, oh, we can't do this.
We can't afford this.
It's the wrong thing to do.
But nowadays, they're trying to pretend, oh, we're not cunning anything.
We're just taking away the fraud and the abuse of it.
It's intellectually dishonest.
It is.
And that's, that's the whole point.
So when Derek Van Orden again says, nobody's getting their benefits cut, he's kind of got his fingers crossed behind his back because this, this is how they make those cuts.
Chad Holmes.
It's all lies.
Follows
it
all at 989 WXCO.
Thanks, Chad.
I promise I'll be on time Thursday.
No worries.
All right.
I will talk to you later.
Still ahead on the program today, we'll
We'll be talking to Melissa Baldoff from the Heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Welcome back on this Tuesday morning, May 27th, just about 8 23.
And I'm going to use a point of personal privilege here to solicit responses to a personal question because it'll be fun.
I've got four grandkids.
The youngest is three, then there's six, then there's 11.
And then there's the 18 year old who is graduating high school at the end of this week.
So
I believe Todd Alba will be filling in here on Friday so that I can attend the young man's graduation.
And we raised two daughters, so we haven't had this issue before with, you know, a grandson turning 18 and graduating.
And, you know, the future plans are still kind of, you know, TBD.
So there's no like, he's going to this college or this school or this thing so you can get him something related to it.
So it's a much more general
What do you get for high school graduation gifts nowadays?
Now, again, we're grandparents.
There will be a little cash involved.
That's the easy thing to do, right color, right size, et cetera.
But you always want something a little bit different.
And with the younger grandkids, I mean, of course, that's easy.
What's their favorite toy?
The six-year-old before Christmas, we asked, well, what do you want for Christmas?
And he said, Play-Doh pizza scooter.
And we were like, what?
And sure enough, Play-Doh has a little scooter, you know, a little trike thing with a little box on the back where you can make pizzas out of Play-Doh and then pretend to deliver the pizzas.
You can't get the kids ready soon enough for jobs in the service industry.
But I mean, that's an easy thing.
You know, toys for a six-year-old.
And yeah, Tony, like I said, cash money always works, but a little something else.
So I went looking.
on the on the World Wide Web there to see what people were suggesting.
And I did see some ideas in the New York Times in their wire cutter section, which is kind of their technology, you know, tech nerds and things like that.
And it included things like, you know, luggage was a good example, because I remember when I was young and moving to college and then moving from the dorms into my first place.
Garbage bags, you know 60 gallon garbage bags could would take care of things just fine But you can't really check that in if you're flying home to see mom and dad or grandma and grandpa or anything like that So luggage was you know one good idea that was out there.
I remember my dad's advice was you start with a couple of tools Back when it was you know Sears craftsmann things like that and so maybe you've got the wrench set and then you ask somebody for the socket set
and pretty soon you're getting a cordless drill and you're building things up that way.
Mr. Olson, you are much closer to your high school and college graduations than I am.
I got a Victrola back then and a Calliope.
What about you?
What kind of gifts are they giving young men these days?
I think it was just
sure.
Yeah, I'm not the full set.
Just, you know, one little roller bag or something.
So you've got something halfway decent here.
We've also done the gas cards.
Alicia mentions that on YouTube, video games, a gift card for the council he plays on.
We have done that as well in past years.
So yeah, I feel like we're by and large, but we thought, well, for high school, maybe it's a little something else, you know?
So you're saying it was mostly cash money.
Uh, no, no, that's still kind of a, like I said, TBD.
And so we're looking for things that are more, uh, utilitarian.
Um, so I'm kind of scrolling through the, the wire cutter one, uh, wireless headphones comes on there.
That's, that's an interesting one.
You could get something kind of in the jewelry category, like a ring or a bracelet or something that's engaged.
Um, uh, you could do something that would go in a dorm room or an apartment, maybe, maybe a cool lamp.
You know, or something like that.
Oh, here's one for just a portable coffee maker, either a little coffee maker or a bean grinder.
You know, the kinds of things that you don't think you're going to need, then somebody gives it to you and you go, oh, hey, this is pretty cool.
Yes.
You can't just have the beer posters, you know, that you had back back in my day.
Well, that's where a hand held cordless vacuum.
is on the list here.
I cannot believe this one's on the wire cutter list.
The air popper, the air popped popcorn.
I didn't know that was even a thing anymore.
That was, that was the newest thing.
That was cutting edge technology in 1982 was here's this air popper and everybody thought it was cool at first till we finally, you know, we're all truthful with each other and said that air popped popcorn tastes exactly like packing peanuts.
made out of styrofoam.
You know, you, you want it in the old fashioned
popper,
get a little bit better, you know, butter, a little oil on there.
But hey, maybe, maybe they're better these days than they were 43 years ago.
You know, maybe, maybe things are better off.
remember
Okay, well maybe yeah, maybe things have come along Tony says cordless drill is a fantastic gift You don't realize how much you need it until you have it.
He quickly adds.
Yes with multiple bits as well There's that one.
Oh, Tony's got one more for us.
I'll bet he'd love a mornings with Pat quite low poster for his wall
That would be so in keeping like where'd you who's that?
That's my narcissistic grandpa.
He gave me a poster from his radio show
That's hilarious.
I might have to work on that.
And I love doing photo gifts.
What are they?
Shutter, fly, and there's a couple of others.
I love doing that with coffee mugs with photos on there and things like that.
So I would, I really appreciate the suggestions that are coming in from Mary and Tosa.
One gift to your grandson with your love of the environment and birds.
How about a subscription to a nature organization to plant the seed?
I did that as well as cash for the grandkids.
Another very nice idea.
So thank you all for that.
I hope I got the wheels turning for either your own gift giving or if you want to send us a note later on.
Hey, I got a couple more days before I've got to come up with something here, and I think that I will.
Coming up next, Melissa Baldoff, but first a reminder, sign up for our newsletters, plural, head over to our homepage, upnorthnewswi.com, live from Lake Wissota.
What a great place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jackson Churio swung at the first pitch that he saw from the Boston Red Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet and knocked it out of the park and that was the difference maker in the Brewers beating the Red Sox three to two yesterday.
Starter Chad Patrick pitched four and two-thirds scoreless innings giving up three hits striking out six.
Dio Hall is back off the 60-day injured list and did a little relief pitching upon his return to the roster.
Game two is coming up this evening in the series with the Red Sox of the American Family Field.
Coverage begins at 6.05 on Civic Media Stations in Hayward Park Falls.
We're seeing Kenosha, Oshkosh, and Richland Center.
And it's a day game tomorrow.
I believe coverage starts around 11.35 for a midday game there with the Sox.
No, I'm sorry.
Let me double check.
Yes, 1135 is the start tomorrow for that game with the Red Sox.
However, if you'd also like to maybe win Brewer's tickets to go see a game in the future, well, this is the place to be on Fridays throughout the Brewer's season.
Just be listening to one of your favorite civic media shows on Fridays and we'll be giving out a keyword that you can text in through the Civic Media app for a chance to win a four pack of great
Brewer's Tickets.
Complete contest rules can be found at Civic Media's website, civicmedia.us to learn much more.
All right, let's check in with Melissa Baldoff.
She's in today, Dan Schafer will join us tomorrow at this point.
Melissa, how was your Memorial Day weekend?
It was full of AAU basketball for the most part, but it was a wonderful weekend.
Got to enjoy some time.
outside and enjoy some lovely weather with our family yesterday.
So we had a great weekend.
Who's all playing AAU basketball?
Our 16 year old
boy is.
Oh, okay.
Oh, that keeps you busy.
It sure does, but it's a lot of fun.
Do you do a bunch of the driving for it or like going to practices and things like that?
Or is he doing that?
Well, yeah.
Well, or maybe not, I guess depends on how we look at it.
It varies day to day.
He got his license a month ago and is doing some of the driving to practice himself, which is nice, but it's always nerve wracking having a new.
driver on the road.
Yes, yes, it is.
And you know, but eventually you look back and go, Oh, my gosh, it was like liberation day.
And not the Donald Trump kind, a true liberation from being, you know, the bus driver for everything all the time.
Hey, before we get into
climate stuff, we were talking in our last half hour about the
the phony war on waste, fraud and abuse in things like Medicaid and nutritional programs and things like that.
And we were talking about the work requirements that are imposed, which are nothing more than red tape and bureaucracy to deny people benefits.
And you'd think that there would be better ways for our lawmakers to spend their time.
But no, not only in Washington, DC, but here in Madison I am looking at a new report from Baylor Spears over at the Wisconsin Examiner go to WisconsinExaminer.com and the headline is joining national efforts Wisconsin Republicans support junk food bans a pair of bills that would prevent low-income Wisconsinites from buying junk food and ban certain ingredients in school meals taking inspiration from Robert Kennedy Jr.'
's
agenda.
Representative Clint Moses, Republican of Menominee is the lead author on both bills.
And he says it's all about ensuring that the food that children and others are eating is healthy.
The one bill would bar participants and snap also known as food share from purchasing soda and candy with their benefits.
Now I'm not going to sit here and talk about the nutritional value of soda and candy.
But can we talk about the party that loves to say they're against big government until they're in a position to dictate what you do?
Oh, absolutely.
And I mean, the hypocrisy here is just astonishing as always.
I mean, I am like many folks probably remember when Republicans just absolutely had a complete meltdown when First Lady Michelle Obama talked about
making school lunches healthier and helping schools maybe have a community garden to get kids to eat some more vegetables.
So the idea that any of these Republicans actually care about what kind of healthy foods kids are eating is ridiculous because that's not the point here.
If the point was keeping kids healthy, what they would do would be to expand Medicaid.
and have kids get vaccines and expand SNAP and WIC because we know that so many kids are not getting the nutrition they need.
Republicans in the state would support Governor Evers' proposal to make school lunch and breakfast free for all kids because we know that that was something that was a really
great pandemic era program that unfortunately ended during COVID.
All kids were eligible to get free breakfast and lunch in school and more kids were able to have a nutritious diet then because we know unfortunately a lot of kids, the meals that they get at school are the only ones that they can rely on.
And if they actually cared about
what kids were getting in school and the health of kids and well-being of kids.
Those are the kinds of things they would be focusing on.
This is just another way to police what poor people are doing, to shame people and to divide people really.
This is to distract from other things and to say, hey, you people that are working class, middle class, instead of being mad at the billionaires that we want to give tax breaks to,
you should be mad that people who are poor and have a little bit less than you might be able to give their kid a birthday cake and some sprite.
And I mean, that's really what this is.
I mean, everybody, no matter whether they're working, whether they're poor, no matter how much money they make, you know, I'm certainly not saying everybody should eat junk food all the time, but everybody deserves to be able to have a soda or a birthday cake or a candy bar every once in a while, like if they want one.
whether you're poor or not, shouldn't matter.
This is not about actually anybody's health.
This is about dividing people and it's really pretty sick.
And again, the hypocrisy over reporting requirements like this, whereas they work so hard to not have reporting requirements for things like the manufacturing and agriculture tax credit, which is just such a big corporate giveaway.
in the state budget without needing to prove that you've created even a single job before you get this essentially corporate welfare from the taxpayers of the state of Wisconsin.
They can do these things.
If they wanted to, they just choose only to do it to the poor to poor people instead.
Exactly.
And anybody else that, you know, they feel like controlling that particular day.
All right, let's let's move over to climate matters for a bit here, where
President Donald Trump signed an executive order back on Friday.
The intent is to quadruple domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years, a goal that experts say the country is unlikely to reach.
But to speed up the development of nuclear power, the orders grant the US Energy Secretary the authority to approve some advanced reactor designs and projects.
Taking the authority away from, wait for it, the independent safety agency
that has regulated the US nuclear industry for five decades.
So again, Melissa, this is not a debate about nuclear energy and whether it, which is a very valid debate, you know, the zero carbon aspect versus, you know, the nuclear meltdown thing.
It's the way that they're going about doing it saying, let's bypass the safety panel.
How, how many more times do I have to feel like we're living a Hollywood blockbuster, you know, the disaster movie?
Everything that happens right before the disaster happens
Right, I mean it's both the disaster movie and everything that happens before the disaster movie and it's also the show V on HBO because it is full of just the most bumbling inept Losers you could pack into a room.
I mean we've already seen
what the track record is for the Trump administration on regulations, on safety, and, you know, if the way they have operated our airline travel is any indication.
people should be incredibly concerned about this.
We know that they are always looking to take shortcuts that when it comes to Donald Trump and how he makes decisions, we've seen it in his business.
We've seen it with how he operates.
I don't want to say with how he governs because I don't want to shame the word, but how he operates.
As president, it is always about rewarding people that he thinks will benefit him and how he will be personally enriched.
We know that safety is not going to be a concern.
We know that integrity and doing right by workers is not going to be a concern.
So yeah, this is something that people should be aware of.
They should be paying attention to, and they should
have a lot of questions and have a lot of concerns about the risk here because, like you said, the debate on whether we expand nuclear and how much is the right mix of that power generation, that's definitely a valid debate.
But as I think in this story you mentioned, I thought this was really
nailed it.
I couldn't say this any better.
The man, Gregory Jacko, Jacko, I don't know how you say his last name.
So excuse me, sir, for mispronouncing your last name.
But the man who led the NRC under President Obama said that Donald Trump's executive orders look like someone asked an AI chatbot, how do we make the nuclear industry worse in this country?
And I think that pretty much sums it up.
Yes.
Yeah, it does.
And again, there's something else that we haven't talked about.
We haven't talked about this for a long time.
It's been something that was a hot topic for a while and then it kind of went to the national back burner.
But the fact of the matter is if we ramp up nuclear energy production again, we're going to have to again have that discussion of what to do with nuclear waste because we still haven't resolved how to store
tens of thousands of tons of already existing hazardous nuclear waste.
I couldn't even tell you Melissa, the last time that came up in any kind of big public discussion, but
that's
still sitting out there as well.
Absolutely.
I got a feeling we're not going to hear any solution about that either, anytime.
Oh, actually, no, I take that back and I say this tongue planted firmly in cheek, but you just know that if
Donald Trump gets the chance.
He's gonna say something like well We're gonna store the nuclear waste in all of these blue cities, you know in Chicago and New York and rather than you know a mountain in Nevada because that might be a red state and so there He's gonna look for some way to again.
I love I love the analogy of a disaster movie and veep.
I mean
It's the perfect mix of what we're dealing with right here.
What we won't have as much time for here, and maybe it's for the best today, is that there's a Texas oil executive from Elon Musk's government quote unquote efficiency team that has been given sweeping powers without Senate confirmation to overhaul the federal department that manages vast tracts of resource rich public lands.
But because he isn't up for Senate confirmation, he has now to divest his energy investments, which include ties to Russia or fill out an ethics commitment to break any ties with companies that pose a conflict of interest.
Might we get into this next week?
I doubt it.
I think it's enough just to hear that that's exactly what's going on here and talk about it with Melissa Baldoff as we always do.
I'm Pat Krightlow from the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.
It's Tuesday morning here across the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
We're on the program.
Earl Ingram will join us, as will Dan Schaefer.
Melissa Baldoff is with us right now.
Parker Olsen down in Madison.
So before we, I do want to get back to this guy who is going to be doing this stuff for the Interior Department.
But you mentioned the basketball tournament for Memorial Day, which I'm guessing is not an annual thing.
But the next one will be like 4th of July weekend.
Do you guys have a 4th of July tradition that you're already looking forward to?
Or do you play it on the fly every year?
We have some friends in town.
who have a party every year that we look forward to every year, which is always a great time.
And they are right across the street from the park on Lake Michigan where Shorewood has our fireworks.
So that's always a wonderful time that we look forward to every year.
And of course, the parade here in Shorewood we always have a good time with.
So yeah, we like to stay in town and then maybe every other year we end up
go into some other parties during the day, visiting family and friends, and then the next year we say, well, that was too much.
Let's just one party.
And Parker, you said yours is much less about 4th of July, but more like Father's Day is an annual event?
of
Okay, it wasn't like a father's day like golf outing every year or something like that.
Well,
Oh, okay.
Well, there you go.
The Alton family is on notice.
Well, listen, let me let me get back to the other article that we were talking about here and it deals with again, Trump's Interior Department and the headline is
Here's what a Texas oil executive from Doge is doing inside the Interior Department.
And it talks all about this guy, Tyler Hassan, or Hassan, I think it's Tyler Hassan, who has no public administration experience, but he's been tasked
to reorganize the Interior Department, which oversees 70,000 employees in 11 agencies, including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the US Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
For the past couple of decades, Hassan has been at a company involved in the manufacture and sale of oil rigs worldwide.
He makes millions annually from these companies owned by somebody who is well connected with Russia.
As if all of this weren't enough.
He is going to be reviewing quote every single contract every single grant According to the Trump administration and the Interior Department's strategic plan Calls for increasing coal oil and gas production through faster permitting and to generate more revenue from lands and resources to the US Treasury
The fact that all of this does not require, it's in a position that does not require Senate confirmation, you know, it should be enough of a red flag on its own.
And I just feel like, again, there's very little that can be done to stop it, but I feel like you have to bring these things up from time to time so that I think the worst thing that can happen out there these days is complacency when people go, eh, what are you gonna do?
You know, you should know about these things.
Yeah, absolutely people need to know about things and need to know how Outside of the norm they are.
This is not business as usual.
This is not just how both sides have always done it This is not just how business operates and government operates.
This really is extraordinary You know, we're also is also talking in this article about how Hassan has twice filed a notice and the federal register extending Trump's freeze on regulations
which keeps agencies from proposing or issuing any new rules, and he has removed the opportunity for public comment, which is really, I think, telling that they don't want the public engaged in what they're doing.
They want to push all this through as quietly as they can.
They want people to not pay attention, but it's really extraordinary, and they're making extraordinary claims.
throughout the whole doge operation, you know, alleging that they have identified massive amounts of waste, fraud and abuse, including apparently, you know, Hassan is saying this, yet we're not seeing any evidence.
And, you know, I think that most people agree that.
these extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
And we are not seeing any evidence of massive waste, fraud, and abuse being rooted out by Elon Musk and the Doge boys.
So for them to continue to make these claims and then not lay their cards on the table and not show their work is even more disturbing that they continue to operate.
and make these claims that they are uncovering these vast amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse, but they don't actually identify what that is.
From the text line, Steve in Milwaukee says, what is the Senate going to do with the big, beautiful bill that passed the House?
And I've said before, but I want to know if you have a guess.
I genuinely don't know.
I don't know if they will scale it back.
or if they will be the ones that go, you know what, yeah, let's go big or go home.
I also wouldn't be surprised if, come October, when the fiscal year ends and there's supposed to be a new budget, that they still haven't worked out anything and they punt it and they kick the can again.
It could be any of those things.
I guess I'd lean toward the third option, but I don't know, Melissa, any guess on how this all comes out with the Senate?
Yeah, I think that it's anybody's guess.
And I think this is the consequence of what happens when you have a bunch of unserious people in charge.
They don't know what to do.
They are motivated not by doing what's right by the American people, not by fulfilling any promises that have been made to help reduce costs and make the economy better.
Right, they are motivated by, you know, their politically ambitions and their loyalty to Donald Trump.
And that's what it is about above all else.
Melissa Baldough, thank you again.
Thanks for coming in a day early.
We'll see you next week.
All right, sounds good.
All right, now tomorrow on the program, we're going to have Matt Brusky, part of a coalition of groups that would like Governor Evers to veto the state budget bill in its entirety if it doesn't reach a certain threshold of support for vital public services.
Also, Dan Schaefer, Errol Ingram.
Thanks for being part of our Tuesday morning here.
That's part of Up North News.
We are part of Courier, a pro-democracy news network.
I'm Pat Crite.
We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north.
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