Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Basota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6 0 6 on this Thursday morning, June 5th.
It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north.
Live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media radio network or watching us on social media.
Maybe you're listening on the app or catching us later by podcast.
We appreciate your starting your day right here.
I got a question for you.
Doesn't it feel better in some parts anyway, where the Canadian wildfire smoke has dissipated?
It's not totally gone, but it's not nearly as bad as it was.
We've actually opened up a couple of windows here on Lake Wissota, so we don't have to have the air conditioner running all the time, but it doesn't smell so smoky out there and nice.
And if it's not like that out in your direction in Wisconsin yet, we hope that it is really soon.
It is a good morning, as Alicia says on YouTube.
And I appreciate you listening.
Appreciate all the comments that people make as well.
all throughout the six to nine AM hours that were here across the Civic Media radio network.
You can call or text the show 85575 Civic.
You can use the Civic Media app to text us as well.
And of course you can put comments on Facebook or YouTube and we might pop them up on screen here.
Alicia adds, the smoke is still bad in Northeast Wisconsin.
I am sorry to hear that, but I'm telling you here is a century that some better air is coming.
gonna be coming eventually.
Anyway, coming up on the program today, Republican lawmakers in Madison and in Washington DC proved something again on Wednesday.
These Republican lawmakers proved in both places they have no intention of doing what most Americans think politicians should do, which is to compromise and work together.
In both cases, they are trying to ram through whatever they want, whatever the price.
And that kind of attitude has literal life or death applications as we're learning.
And as we were reminded by Earl Ingram, when you see the ongoing death and damage happening because of fires in old apartment buildings that are spreading more than they should because of legislators who put their own pocketbook, pocketbooks ahead of the renters rights, safety.
Common sense you name it We did talk to Earl late yesterday on our show and we'll play some of that back here for you this morning at 6 30 At 7 30 we're gonna visit with Congressman Mark Pocan live and talk about the predictable backlash to Donald Trump's big bloated boondoggle Coming from some of the same House Republicans who voted for it The backlash is coming from some Republicans who voted for it and now saying they didn't understand what was in the bill
We will also discuss Pokan's recent town hall in Eau Claire and yeah, I know Eau Claire is not in Mark Pokan's district.
That's Derek Van Orden's district, but you see Derek Van Orden isn't taking meetings right now with his constituents.
Certainly not of the town hall type.
He's really not one for taking questions unless he's hurling insults behind a keyboard.
We will talk to Sean O'Malley at the eight o'clock hour about your money and the markets.
including President Trump's newest tariff, one that's going to jack up prices for almost anything in a can.
His tariffs on aluminum and on imported beer are not likely to help aluminum and steel jobs in this country nearly as much as it'll hurt consumers and all the many, many workers in the beverage and food industries.
We'll talk to Joseph Peckie.
We'll talk to Chad Holmes as well.
We will not be talking to Brittany Merlot.
She's under the weather continues to be this week and we hope to have her back here again real soon.
I can tell you it's 48 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley on our way to a high of 80.
And while the skies have been nice here, the clouds are gonna be on the increase and there's going to be a chance of showers starting off our weekend.
might be kind of nice in the middle of the weekend and then we might see a chance of showers again on Sunday.
So keep an eye on the sky, on the local forecast that plays throughout the day on your local civic media station and we'll see if we can't get the ability to squeeze in some plans throughout the weekend in between areas of showers.
It is my distinct honor right now to tell you that we have a real celebrity joining us right now.
We have
here on the Civic Media Radio Network, a national champion, Parker Olson, joining us.
Hi, thank you.
You're saying, wait, wait, wait.
Parker Olson national champion?
Well, you know, by extension.
Who are the actual national champions again?
My Warhawks, baseball.
They just won a national championship yesterday.
That would be UW Whitewater, your new D3 national champions.
Yes, sir.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
I'm very excited about it.
I worked very hard on this.
I know.
Well, I mean, covering the games, maybe.
Yeah.
Broadcasting the games and things like that.
Tony puts up on YouTube, Chad, Joe, Earl, Congressman Pocan.
When will Parker have time to talk about the Whitewater national champions right now?
Tony is my guy.
I like
this.
He knows what I need to talk about.
He knows I got to talk about Adam Kootway.
Matt Skolen, Aaron Holland, all those guys that were doing awesome in the World Series.
Now we're just name dropping future major leaguers.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Yes,
sir.
Let's go
Ely Frank.
Okay.
Tell me more.
I mean, who did they beat?
Where was this at home?
Do they do these things that is it like a home series or a neutral site?
So it's a neutral site.
The way it works is the NCAA tournament.
I believe it's 64 teams and then they do a couple of rounds.
Eight teams go.
to the World Series, which is kind of weird to me.
They do two pools of four and then the winners of those pools go into the championship series, which is what I was in yesterday.
And they beat, I believe it's Messiah University out of Pennsylvania, I believe.
Kind of the two spectrums of division three of like UW State School versus.
I'm going to assume that Messiah is a school of like 500 kids.
You're assuming that about Messiah.
Yeah.
But look, if they if they got to the, you know, the finals, you know, they must they clearly have got some talent.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
It is a very like to get that far as and baseball is a weird sport to be fair.
But like, you've got to be pretty good.
And they were, I think they just honestly, they ran out of gas because that game of.
21 to five was the final yesterday.
Is not exactly, I think, representative of what Messiah did to end the season.
Perhaps.
Messiah here is out of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is what they've got here.
But now the student body, I feel like I have to defend their honor now.
Yeah, I can't find an enrollment here.
What are we working on here?
That's a very good question.
Uh, here we go.
It is 3000.
Okay.
3000.
Yeah.
It's pretty good.
So Parker Olson apologizes on behalf of civic media to all the folks in Pennsylvania there, but it's still going to claim that national championship from Warhawks.
Oh
yeah.
I've been Pat.
I've been going to whitewater football games since I was a little kid with my dad.
Um, and when I was a little kid, they were winning national titles left and right.
It was kind of a given that they were going to go to the national championship game in football.
And then I spent four years at Whitewater as a student, and we got really close to national championships and a lot of sports, but didn't win any.
So this feels very good to me.
I was going to say, I always think of Whitewater as being the most athletically tuned program of the D3 ones that are out there, that there's a real focus on sports.
And you're saying that while you were there, that wasn't so much the case, that your class was a bit of a disappointment, is
what I'm
hearing?
As far as team sports go, we did have a number of individual champions.
Christian Patska is a cross country and track and field runner.
And I, oh, I'm not going to, I'm going to ballpark and say that he won five or six national championships in four years.
Um, and he, and he should have won another this year, but he broke.
What else was he running?
I mean, you can only win four in four years.
Oh
no.
Cause track and field plus cross country.
Oh, he was doing track and field.
Yeah.
And I think he might have had national championships in two, um, track and field events.
If I remember right, I'm not positive though.
Um, so he was incredible, but unfortunately his career came to an end after qualifying for nationals.
And then I think he had an accident in practice and like broke a toe.
So he didn't
get to
go.
So that sucked, but he is going to keep training.
I think that he's going to try to get into the Olympics in what would that be 28.
So
he's
very, very good.
Got it.
I'm going to get ahead of myself on the National Day calendar here.
Our history lesson is coming up at about 6.52 here, like it is most mornings.
But as I turn to the Up North News Daily newsletter, Christina Laurie also notes as I was going to that it's National Hot Air Balloon Day.
Have you ever been on one?
I've not.
I've seen them.
Do you have it?
Well, I would hope so.
Any interest in doing one?
Yeah,
I could do that.
I think you
could.
I
think so.
As a kid, definitely not.
I was terrified of heights.
But now.
Oh, yeah.
Now
I think I'd be OK.
Same here.
The question I was going to ask is it's National Hot Air Balloon Day and it's National Veggie Burger Day.
And the question is, which would you rather?
And that's my feeling on hot air balloons is I would rather actually try to eat a veggie burger than to get into a hot air balloon.
Really?
I'm not even sure if anybody has actually survived a hot air balloon.
I'm pretty sure they all crash and burn or people fall out of them or the basket comes attached or something.
That can't be true.
I don't know.
I mean, I've never seen one land safely, to be honest.
And I watch a lot of news and it seems like all the time on the news, if they talk about hot air balloons, it's some kind of a tragic conclusion.
But look at me raining on National Hot Air Balloon Day.
You know why?
Because you can't take a hot air balloon if it's raining, either.
But in our newsletter today, Christina talks about several companies throughout Wisconsin that operate hot air balloon rides.
And there are even entire festivals celebrating these massive balloons.
And so read more in the newsletter.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
See, Tony's with me, says on YouTube, I've only seen them in the movies and I'm pretty sure they safely land with CGI.
That might be the only way.
I don't know.
But learn more about that in our newsletter.
Also in the newsletter today, again, Christina is going through Food Network's 25 iconic eats and drinks from America's Dairyland.
And today's pick is the brandy old-fashioned.
And everybody here already knows my love almost nightly of the brandy old-fashioned.
Is that a regular beverage for...
for the Olson family.
I almost said the Olson twins.
It just falls off sometimes.
So I
haven't met them.
I don't my parents are barely drinkers.
So pretty much anything they're not drinking for the most part.
I think I've had an old fashioned once and I was not a fan.
It probably was made by somebody from Minnesota.
That's all I can figure because you can't leave the state.
You can go to places, other places and say, I would like a brandy old fashioned.
And what they'll make you is a Manhattan.
Because they don't really know they kind of conflate the recipes.
And in Wisconsin, it is very much a brandy old fashioned, not a whiskey one.
And there are stories about that.
But again, it's just a Wisconsin thing.
People love their brandy here.
And so Christina story.
is is all about how brandy old fashions came to be a thing.
Adam writes on YouTube, being a food scientist and having developed veggie burgers, I can say they're safer
than
hot air balloons.
All right.
All right, fair.
Good.
That's that is fair.
I like that.
I would I would now give the veggie burger a try.
Thanks to Adam's reassurance.
The hot air balloon, uh, not so much.
So all right, we've got a lot of ground to cover today.
So let's pause here and we'll talk a bit about the breakdown in budget negotiations between legislative Republicans and Governor Tony Evers.
From the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Crightlow and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Tomorrow on the program, we will have our Week in Review panel with former US Attorney Jim Santel, Chicago journalist Jennifer Schulze and Chicago broadcaster Joan Esposito will be filling in for Mark Jacob.
Dr. Kristen Lyrely will join us.
We'll have a look at weekend sports coming up with the first of our regular Friday visits from Mike Clemens from Civic Media.
So let's get over and talk about sports for just a sec here because the Brewers took two out of three from the Cincinnati Reds.
It was a day for
the back-ups by and large, Isaac Collins, who belted a three-run homerun, Daz Cameron, who had a two-run homerun, so did Jackson Churio as the Brewers won their 12th consecutive series against the Cincinnati Reds, nine to one yesterday, D.L.
Hall, who's back from the injured list, opened for the Brewers and he allowed one hit.
in three innings of work.
The Brewers are off today coming home for a weekend series, a long homestand starting this weekend against San Diego and the first pitch tomorrow will be at 7.05 I believe.
Coverage begins at 6.35.
I know that on several civic media stations and so you'll want to tune in all throughout the weekend for the Brewers Padres series coming up from American Family Field.
The NHL Playoffs
The Stanley Cup Finals are underway and when I went to bed because that's what I got to do at this age and getting up at this hour Florida looked to be handily ahead.
I believe they were up four to no three two something like that I Woke up this morning to find out Edmonton at one and overtime four to three and Have a one game to none lead in the Stanley Cup Finals game two will be tomorrow night in Edmonton
the NBA Finals get underway tonight with the Indiana Pacers in Oklahoma City.
Hey, a reminder, you can also catch us as a podcast.
And if you do subscribe to podcasts and you use Spotify, just find us that way.
And look, you don't even have to know how to spell quite low.
If you put in, if you do a search for Wisconsin politics or Wisconsin political news, you will find us, you will find Up North News, you will find our morning show here, Mornings with Pat Cridlow from the Civic Media Radio Network, and subscribe to us that way.
So look for us on Spotify.
We'd love to have you as a subscriber there.
Back over to the comment section here, and I mentioned that...
It is really hard outside of Wisconsin to get a decent old-fashioned, and Cassandra writes, they really have no idea anywhere else.
My husband had to explain it to a bartender once.
Oh, we've had to explain it to a bartender many times.
I will say though, the record is no longer, it's no longer zero.
There are occasionally places that, because I'm always game, like, oh, they've got a little fashion listed, I will give it a try, what do you got?
And every so often, you'll get a good one, and you'll go.
What do you know?
How did you do?
And invariably, they'll go, oh, I was a student in Madison back in the day, or I went to UWGB back in the day, and now I live here in South Carolina, whatever the case may be, there's always a Wisconsin tie.
So if you want a good one, that's how you do it.
You find somebody who learned from the pros right here.
Let's talk for a sec about the negotiations over the state budget.
because that's how it's supposed to work, right?
If you have a governor of one party and a legislature run by the other party, the trick is to get along and look for ways that you can both go back to the voters and say, look how we work together to get some things done.
I didn't get everything I wanted, but they didn't get everything they wanted.
We both got something that we liked.
This is how it works.
It has never worked that way so long as Robin Voss has been running the Wisconsin State Assembly and Republicans running the Wisconsin State Senate currently with Devon Lemahue, hell-bent on doing anything to be an obstruction to Governor Tony Evers elected by the people of this state statewide two times.
That's just been how they work is we will throw whatever tantrums we have to we will throw whatever barriers are in the way to get our way or the highway or no way at all and folks are frankly quite sick of it but again Republican politicians don't mind if people are sick of politics because if if fewer people vote because they're sick of politics Republicans tend to take advantage of that Anyway, this time around there had been negotiations going on
I was a little surprised to hear that given Republicans track record, but they had been going on apparently for months at staff levels and eventually at higher levels.
Only to find out late yesterday that after months of negotiations, they fell apart.
Republicans walked away.
And it's pretty easy from the reactions and both sides put out reactions within minutes.
And it's clear reading, you know, all of the reactions, what has happened here.
because Governor Evers made it clear he had agreed to support what Republicans wanted most, which were tax cuts.
Now they weren't the same exact tax cuts that Governor Tony Evers would have wanted, but there were still some tax cuts in there that he could support and he agreed to go along with that to find a compromise on tax cuts.
I always thought that would happen.
But I would have told you it was gonna be a tough hill to climb for Republicans to come even close to agreeing to support what our state needs in terms of education, childcare, healthcare, and other things like that.
And sure enough, Republicans could not come out of the corner that they've painted themselves into.
Going all the way back to, you know, read my lips, no new taxes.
They cannot find ways to fund the things that they know need to be funded That's why in Washington they're trying to ram a bill through again without any Democratic negotiation or cooperation and they'll put it all on the credit card They'll run up three trillion more in debt Just to get things the way that they want rather than to you know actually cooperate
According to Senator Devin Lemahue, he says, both sides work to find compromise.
However, we have reached a point where Governor Evers' spending priorities have extended beyond what taxpayers can afford.
No, what you're saying there is the people's priorities, as expressed over and over and over again in public hearings and in the Capitol and in talking to any of your constituents, you have decided you don't want to do.
You don't want to represent the people of your district or of your state.
And so you've decided to walk away from negotiating table.
So we'll do it that way.
And there will be probably partial vetoes or maybe a full veto again.
We'll see.
Earl Ingram is joining us next to talk about another way legislators are being hazardous to your health.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Late in the show on Wednesday, we visited with Earl Ingram, a civic media legend, covering the people and the big stories of Southeast Wisconsin.
Recall, I said that Republicans don't want to work together with others.
They want not so much to govern,
so much as they want to rule, looking out only for their own narrow interests.
And that kind of attitude has life or death applications, as were reminded by Earl, when you see the ongoing death and damage happening because of legislators who literally put their own pocketbooks ahead of safety and renters' rights and common sense.
Here's our discussion.
wanted to ask you about some stories that you're following and one of them is especially troubling quite frankly and it is the the ongoing rash of fires in apartment buildings in your area you know multi-family housing and it it brings back memories of my time in the legislature again going back but that just tells you how long we've been talking about this.
this whole notion of these older buildings not being required to retrofit with sprinkler systems, something that you would need now, but I know from being inside that building in Madison that there's all kinds of pressure all the time not to make these old buildings as safe as they could be.
You know, I get frustrated because we're supposedly in a representative government.
Which means we can't petition the government individually, but we have to elect people who will carry our burdens and do the things necessary to protect the people But I you know at 70 years of age I know that that's not the case and it didn't just get to be that way And so when you have people who you elect
who are supposed to look out to the well-being of you and your loved ones.
And they're more concerned about the lobbyists and the people who have the money.
And this all came to a head on Mother's Day here in Milwaukee when 125 family unit caught fire.
Some say it was somebody set it a fire.
But five people died in that unit, 125 family unit with no sprinklers, and they were waved because the building was old.
Well, there have since been several other fires in 25 family units and above, no sprinklers.
So the chief of police, Aaron Lipsky, is really beside himself, and he's demanding change.
That change can only come in Madison.
And this is not a Milwaukee problem.
This is a problem across the state and probably across the nation where older buildings don't have to meet those codes.
And I would say if you own those buildings, you should figure out a way to pay for having those sprinklers put into your buildings.
You're not a pauper if you own buildings that have 125 families in them.
No, absolutely not.
In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article from Gina Lee Castro, the headline says we need not just affordable housing, we need survivable housing as Milwaukee reconsiders sprinkler requirements after a fatal fire.
Her story says
presently buildings built before 1974, no matter how many units they have, aren't required to have a sprinkler system.
And so folks might be saying, well, wait a minute, isn't there some degree of local control?
Can't a local government take care of this?
No, because the story goes on to say that a state law signed by Governor Scott Walker 12 years ago, Act 270, it's called.
prevents Milwaukee from requiring sprinklers in older buildings.
The law stripped Milwaukee and all local governments of their ability to adopt municipal ordinances that are more restrictive than state law, according to city attorney Evan Goyke, who also served in the legislature.
And Earl, if there's one thing we know about the Wisconsin legislature, not just the Republican control over these past 14 years, but there are a lot of landlords.
Amongst those legislators who did things like this law that Scott Walker signed that removed local control
You know the the hypocrisy in it as we talk about democracy We talk about what it is and and the importance of it But the longer I live the more I look into it the more I really shake my head Because when you look you know when you look underneath the garment you're gonna find something that
is really not appealing and appetizing.
And I think that part of this is that if the American people, especially, you know, living in Milwaukee is all my life and being from Wisconsin and knowing these things and these arrows that have been shot at my community, it's more than frustrating.
And to be honest with you, Pat, I don't see an end to it.
But again, this is not an issue that's a Milwaukee issue.
It's an issue across the state and probably across the nation where elected officials have chosen to support those with money Oh, and and the lives of those who basically are the average citizens come second
I was looking at just
clicking through some links in the story here and it takes us to a 2019 story about the number of legislators who double as landlords and pass bills that undermine renters' rights.
It notes, and again this is from 2019, it noted that assembly speaker Robin Voss is a college town landlord with 23 properties
back then worth nearly four million dollars and has done things like speed up the eviction process, eliminate some tenant legal defenses, limit the power of cities to police landlords, and cap fees that are tied to building code violations.
None of these things will ever come up
during legislative campaigns, because they're always on the bigger issues, you know, healthcare, crime, whatever.
You don't see ads about, you know, a legislature of landlords.
And as a result, you see these terrible tragedies about buildings that aren't retrofitted with sprinklers.
But it seems to me, after all these years, this might actually be an issue that's gonna resonate with more people, again, not just in Milwaukee, but in any town that has old apartment buildings going, wait a minute, I don't think these guys are looking out for me.
Well, for the most
part, I would say that people who live in in apartment buildings that are old and that don't have sprinkler systems aren't exactly well off economically and financially.
And so who speaks for them?
My argument has always been a vote is a vote is a vote.
And whether or not you're a person who struggles economically or whether or not you're a wealthy person, you should the representation should be the same.
But you just pointed out a prime example why it's not the same.
And we've got to do everything within our power to educate people to understand what the real issues are in these campaigns.
We really should.
And I want to go back to the original article and note that there is an alderman there.
Peter is at Burgilis, who is suggesting a way to circumvent the current state law.
And that would be requiring landlords to disclose to tenants
ahead of signing a lease that an apartment doesn't have a sprinkler system.
And Goeke said that he supports the idea and is going to do some research to see if Act 270 could restrict that.
So again, it's not the same as requiring a retrofit.
But I mean, it's a positive step at least to notify somebody that, hey, you're about to sign a lease of a place that's old and does not have sprinklers.
I guess I would say
If you talk to the families of the five people who lost their lives on Mother's Day and all of those in the past who also lost their lives, they would look at this in a much more urgent manner than those of us who have not suffered that consequence.
That's Earl Ingram from the show yesterday.
We visit with him on Wednesday mornings in our eight o'clock hour and after that conversation I went back and looked at some more of the coverage over the years of the battle between renters rights and The landlords in the legislature who try to undermine those rights and going back to See this one is from late 2023
There was a package of bills introduced by Democrats that, again, helped bolster tenants' rights, helped to make sure that they have legal representation in eviction proceedings.
According to an article from the Wisconsin Examiner, one bill would enshrine that right statewide and require a notice of the right in rental agreements, eviction notices, and other publications related to small claims court.
There also would have been a state grant program to lawyers providing legal services in eviction cases for tenants.
Again, because these are people who are often struggling, struggling to make rent, want to be good tenants, but run into problems, a lot of times not of their own making, which takes me to the package of bills that
Some Republicans put forward over the past couple of years that would have gutted tenant rights.
A lot of them put forward by legislators who were themselves landlords, rental property owners.
For example, one of the bills would have given landlords an edge by remaking the legal process for evictions by expediting the process and shortening the timeframe for each step and allowing landlords to ask sheriffs to remove tenants faster.
One bill would have even allowed landlords to evict tenants if a crime was committed on the premises even if the tenant could not have prevented the crime.
In testimony against the bill, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence argued that under that bill, landlords technically would be allowed to evict victims of domestic abuse under that kind of logic.
I am not going to sit here and try to tell you that tenants are always in the right and that tenants are perfect.
I would not want to be a landlord.
But if I chose to be a landlord, I know that there would be certain rules and standards that would have to be followed and that people would have to have their rights one way or the other.
And we can debate what those rights should be.
We can debate what the standards for landlords should be.
But won't you agree with me that it's a little tougher to do that?
When your legislature is full of landlords themselves, doesn't that seem just a little bit like somebody's thumb is on the scale and making it far too easy for folks to find themselves homeless on the whims of a landlord who just happens to have a whole lot of power as a state legislator?
One quick note from the inbox here, a press release from Peter Rickman talking all about how workers at Anadine Coffee in the Milwaukee area voted overwhelmingly for being represented by a union.
He says, despite a vigorous union busting campaign conducted by Fairwave Holdings, the private equity backed company that has owned Anadine for the past couple of years,
Andadine workers unanimously voted for the union 37 to none.
They voted to join MASH, the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union.
It's something that we have seen in a growing number of places like coffee shops in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
We think of you know union activities happening in these these big factories But frankly it's in a lot of these small places that again much like tenants workers are finding that They can be doing more to have their voices heard and to fight for their rights.
We don't always have to be under the thumb of every equity fund every billionaire that happens to buy a presidency We can vote
We can demonstrate, we can make change in elections, but we have to stay focused and we have to take part in little things, even little things like these union elections as they come up.
Today's history lesson is next, as we always do, mornings up north and live here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Clip
us from the Milton Berle show this day June 5th 1956 introducing his new single Hound Dog and scandalizing the audience there with his suggestive hip movements.
It's just the phrase suggestive hip movements.
Did you happen to see the Elvis movie from a couple of years back where Tom Hanks played Colonel Tom Parker?
No, I didn't.
I do want to see it, but I haven't got around to
it.
It's really good.
It is not a documentary by any stretch.
It's kind of imaginative.
I'm sure it takes liberties.
But the story itself is solid.
And it includes the reaction that he gets to the fact that everybody else was so scandalized by the way that he likes the music and likes to groove to it.
And I recall after this, he went on Steve Allen's show and Steve Allen said, oh, don't worry, we'll put this controversy to rest.
They put him in, I think, like a tuxedo, and he was singing Hound Dog to a Basset Hound, and he was just, he was so humiliated at that.
But it all started with this appearance on Milton Berle this day in 1956.
By contrast, on this day in 2007, an unknown 19-year-old named Rihanna.
released the album Good Girl Gone Bad.
The first single was Umbrella.
The rest is history.
Her Def Jam label boss, Jay-Z, was part of the intro to that tune.
And Rihanna really went places after that album came out this day in 2007.
On this day in 1971, Cat Stevens was playing Carnegie Hall in New York City and opening for Cat Stevens was Carly Simon, where she debuted this song.
She
wrote Anticipation a few days earlier waiting for Cat Stevens to come over for a date.
There's a bit of trivia you might not have known about that song.
On this day in 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly,
Started a 10 month run in the abolitionist newspaper national era It is now my sad duty to tell you that I must play this next song because Born on this day in 1956 was a musician who today Celebrates being 69 years old.
Happy birthday to Kenny G Here
When I was looking at the YouTube video of this one, I had closed captions on it said jaunty saxophone music Jaunty saxophone
music.
Yeah There's nothing jaunty about I'm not Noah Webster, but I'm pretty sure this this ain't jaunty Anyway on this day in 1981
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report talked about five people in Los Angeles, again, this is 1981, having a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems in what turned out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS, which again, became a national scare, but again, through research, much progress has been made since that time.
On this day in 1993, the late Toby Keith, God, I can't believe I'm still saying that, the late Toby Keith in 1993 scored the very first of what would be 20 number one country hits with this
single.
20
country number one hits.
I almost swear there would have been more.
He was so ubiquitous to the top spot of the charts.
Today's just a serious day in the news.
It was on this day in 1968 that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after giving a speech in Los Angeles, having just won the California primary.
And one more song that we'll go with, it was on this day in 2001 that another unknown young woman, 20 year old Alicia Keys,
released her debut album Songs in a Minor a lot of people paid attention to her after this breakthrough hit All
right,
I've mentioned a couple of things here on the national day calendar one I didn't mention was moonshine
So this is National Moonshine Day, which Sherry tells me that that her grandpa for a time was a moonshine runner.
Really?
During Prohibition.
Yeah.
Prohibition was a very colorful time, shall we say, in Wisconsin.
But also, as noted earlier in the program, this is National Hot Air Balloon Day and National Veggie Burger Day, which leads to the question, which would you
or more appropriately, which one would you never, you know?
Yeah, I'm still leaning that I would do the hot air balloon.
Instead of the veggie burger?
I think so.
I want to have a little adventure, Pat.
Well, see, I used to think there would be adventure in trying to eat a veggie burger, but then, you know, we have a food scientist listening who said he helped develop the veggie burger, and he says they are safer than hot air balloons.
So
let's combine them.
Let's throw veggie burgers from hot air balloons.
I was thinking like we go like six feet off the ground and eat a veggie
burger.
Okay, all right.
No, honestly, I would not.
You won't?
Let me tell you something.
and Selena Heller will be here.
She may be here on Monday, I forget now if she is, she'll vouch for this.
She helps out consistently with the air show in Eau Claire, when the blue angels come to town and things like that.
And she gave me the opportunity to ride along on one of these planes, or at least said she'd put in a good word for me, I should put it that way.
And she was very surprised when I said, oh, not just no, hell no.
I mean, it's, it's something, you know, you see reporters do it all the time.
And that's great, great for them.
But I said, no, I am, I am just, I'm, I'm a 60 year old chicken who will not do that.
But thank you for the opportunity for your hot air balloon ride or your supersonic jet.
Dude, a balloon.
Your chance to win in the Scotty summer text to win contest is coming up.
Also Congressman Mark Pokan, Chad Holmes, Joseph Pecky and Sean O'Malley, all here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Live across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now for my Lake Rosota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Welcome back, it is 7 0 6 now.
Welcome back up north on this.
Thursday morning, June 5th.
Nice to have you along here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We will be talking to Congressman Mark Pocan a little bit later on this hour, talking about the big bloated boondoggle of Donald Trump and House Republicans, some of whom are now expressing remorse, saying they didn't know exactly what was in the bill that they were voting for, which is what happens when you
Don't actually want to follow the usual process of passing a bill the way we all learned on Schoolhouse Rock, which includes talking to one another, reading the bill, things like that.
So we'll talk to the good Congressman about that coming up in just a bit.
And then later on, we will talk to Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO to see what he's covering up in the Warsaw area.
Sean O'Malley will be here to talk about money and markets, especially the new, the newest Trump tariff out there, Tariff Son Aluminum.
and on imported beer.
And of course, the aluminum goes into cans.
And so even if you're a domestic beer drinker, if you're a beer drinker, Donald Trump just jacked up your prices.
And it's going to do so much more damage to people who work in industries that rely on, you know, food and beverages than anything it might do for, you know, US Steel and aluminum production.
But that's what we're living in right now.
Let's see, we've got Brittany Merleau off today.
We hope to have her back tomorrow because she would be the first one to wish Rob from Tigerton a happy birthday.
So Parker Olson and I will have to do it instead.
Rob, happy birthday.
Happy birthday, Rob.
He says that in Tigerton.
It is sunny and 50 degrees.
He says today is my birthday and I've got lawns to mow today.
Yesterday I did four yards.
I mowed 12 lawns total and he said he also wanted to mention
that last night was the 49th anniversary of the greatest game in NBA finals history when the Boston Celtics defeated the Phoenix Suns 128 to 126 in triple overtime to take a 3-2 lead in the NBA finals.
And let's see, a few days later I always remember Guard heard from Phoenix hitting a buzzer beater at the end of the second overtime and he says thank you very much.
for the birthday wishes.
And look at that, Tony wishing a happy birthday to Rob on YouTube as well.
So we're just turning this into a one big Rob birthday party.
Yeah, he's a celebrity.
We gotta celebrate.
I know, as it should be.
I suppose we could give people a chance to win some stuff.
What do you think?
That's a good idea.
I like winning stuff.
Okay, well, I'm all in favor of stuff as well.
So that takes us to the Scone Summer text to win contest done statewide across the network four times a day each day or each one of these hourly contests four times during the day.
You can win either $100 cash or a pair of brewers tickets, nice club level tickets.
And he said, and let's see, we got each entry.
put you in the drawing for one of the grand prizes, which includes a Wisconsin Dells getaway or a Door County getaway with some gas money to get you there.
Each time we do this, there's a different keyword that you need to text us through the Civic Media app before the end of the hour.
So if you don't have the app downloaded in the usual places, Apple, Google, go to one of the stations on the app.
Okay.
And then we give you the keyword and you text that puppy in and you are in the running.
four prize.
He said scrolling down to see what is today's prize.
Today's prize is a pair of brewer's tickets this hour.
If you text this keyword before the end of the hour.
Road.
R-O-A-D.
Text road.
through the Civic Media app to one of the stations on that app by the end of the hour.
You're in the running for a pair of Brewer's tickets.
And again, you will also be entered into the drawing for one of the grand prizes, a Wisconsin Dells area getaway or a Dora County getaway.
If you want to see the complete contest rules, head over to the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
And again, you will have new chances to play with new keywords at 11 a.m.
2 p.m.
and 4 p.m.
so there you go the Psconi summer text-to-win contest the keyword is road ROAD text that to us by the end of an hour and we could make you the winner of brewers tickets and maybe a big grand prize drawing as well so we will be talking to the congressman in just a sec here about
what's happening in DC with the big bloated boondoggle that President Trump is trying to pass.
And if you missed it last hour, we talked a bit about the developments closer to home where, again, Republicans are just trying to ram through whatever they want without having to actually negotiate.
But before I give you the update on what's happening in Madison, I want to say with great
happiness that the story I'm reading from here in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is from Jesse Oh point and it is
Just wonderful to see her name there again.
She'd been out with a health concern for quite some time and put up a post yesterday about being back and thanking people for expressing their concern.
And I have definitely missed her writing there and it's great to see her back writing for the journal Sentinel.
And it's where I again make that pitch to you that it's great to have free stuff.
All right, TV, local radio, up north news.
We we've never had a paywall.
We never will have a paywall.
Other places that do have a paywall and are worth subscribing to.
you should subscribe to and you should do that for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel if only for Jesse O'Poyne and Molly Beck and the rest of the politics team that writes articles.
So having said that and welcomed Jesse back, she's the one that wrote the article for them about how months of budget negotiations have fallen apart.
Republicans walked away from the negotiating table and it was pretty easy to see this coming.
because, again, we've got Republicans both in DC and in Madison who are looking to get everything that they want and will do everything possible not to allow their enemy, as they see Democrats, to get any kind of a win.
If you'll recall in the last budget, Republicans wanted a great big tax cut for the highest brackets, and Governor Evers, of course, vetoed it.
And eventually he signed a budget with some partial vetoes that did include some tax cuts and he took some of the credit for it because that's what a governor gets to do.
You signed the bill or you send it back to the legislature.
Whether Republicans liked it or not, he's part of the process.
If he weren't part of the process, they would have written it in an entirely different way.
But that's so incensed Republicans.
Oh my.
goodness, they, I mean, for two years now, they have just been tangled up in knots of anger that Governor Evers would take any credit for, for a tax cut that's in there, even though he's actually been pushing for years for a better tax cut than anything they proposed, not bigger than what they proposed, but that's because, again, theirs would have gone to the very rich.
The governors would have gone to the middle class.
So this time around, with a $4 billion surplus, I can say for emphasis,
A four billion dollar surplus.
Why does he always say that for emphasis?
Because as a legislator at the start of the Great Recession, we had to deal with a six billion dollar shortfall.
So I look at these guys with their four billion dollar surplus and they can't figure out a way to pass a budget in record time that makes everybody happy.
It is either hubris or laziness or arrogance to the hilt.
with these Senate and Assembly Republicans, and now they're walking away after months of negotiations, even after Governor Evers agreed too much of their tax cut plan.
Because you see, because of their anger about the governor taking credit last time around, they were demanding that they take care of the tax cut part first, before they take care of the spending side.
They wanted to make sure that their fingerprints were all over any kind of a tax cut.
Okay, the governor said, let's talk.
And they did.
And they, according to the governor, you know, did reach consensus.
He was willing to compromise on their tax cut plans.
Evers statement says the concept of compromise is simple.
Everyone gets something they want and no one gets everything they want.
He said he had agreed to support the Republicans half of the deal and their top tax priorities.
while Republicans could not reach consensus within their caucus to back Evers proposals.
In other words, there was no negotiation.
There was no compromise.
There was, well, okay, thanks for inviting us to talk.
We got what we wanted.
Now give us what we want.
We're not gonna take anything that you want, or at least come to any kind of a level that is remotely responsible, because keep in mind, let's just talk about schools for a second.
Public schools in Wisconsin have been underfunded compared to the rate of inflation for 16 consecutive years.
And so then you see reaction, like for example, the assembly majority leader, Tyler August, had put up a tweet, something like, oh, he was mocking the fact that schools and universities were needing at least a billion dollars in new money.
And again, he was mocking it with the hashtag, not gonna happen, hashtag tone deaf.
No, Representative Augs, tone deaf is underfunding public schools for 16 consecutive years to the rate of inflation.
So yeah, no wonder the need for proper state investment is so high.
And yet, you didn't have to give the governor everything that he wants.
You didn't have to give schools everything that they want.
You didn't have to give parents who are desperate for affordable childcare everything they want.
You didn't have to give away everything on your position.
But the fact that with a four billion dollar surplus, you couldn't even come close to a win-win on investing in schools, on investing in childcare, on investing in healthcare, and continuing to make sure that
broadband internet connections expand throughout parts of Wisconsin, that you couldn't take care of getting PFAS out of our water, that you couldn't take care of our farmers who are looking for new markets at a time when their president is trying to put them out of business with this trade war.
There's no victory lap for you to take walking away from the negotiating table.
If you talked honestly to your constituents, honestly, they would say, compromise, reach agreement, find a win-win, stop wasting time.
But they don't do it that way.
And one of our listeners had a good way of putting this.
I've seen it all the time.
Here's Cassandra writing on YouTube.
I got a survey from Representative Dave Murphy, and the way he asked the questions was so partisan, so of course people are going to answer the way he expects or wants, and then he'll take it back and say, see, this is what the people actually think.
Yeah, there's something to be said for the surveys that lawmakers put out.
They're not surveys, all right?
They're PR pieces.
If you have a point of view of what you want your legislator to do, whether it's specific or general,
then reach out to them, go to their town hall if they have the guts to do a town hall, and tell them about the investments that they should make while keeping taxes affordable.
Again, how about cutting taxes for the middle class?
That would be a help.
But in walking away from the table, it only extends the process, and it extends the division, and it extends the negativity, and that's been the Republican legislator's playbook all along.
Thank you.
Little Sports at 719, the Brewers took two out of three from the Cincinnati Reds.
Isaac Collins belted the three-run homer for the Brewers.
Jackson Churio and Daz Cameron each hit two-run shots.
The Brewers have won now their 12th consecutive series against the Reds with a 9-1 victory.
They are now off today as they head home for a long homestand.
They will open up a weekend homestand against San Diego coverage beginning at 6.35 tomorrow on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
you
Coming up next, Congressman Mark Boakhan and later Chad Holmes, Joseph Ecke and the latest Trump Sheriff news about beer and aluminum.
Coming up from Sean O'Malley talking about your money and the markets.
From the text line, John and Oshkosh a little bit earlier, hearing Earl Ingerman.
Earl, spelled with a lot of letters, a lot of A's, R's and L's.
Earl, so good to hear you on the radio again, sir.
Yes, we have Earl on now every Wednesday morning at 8 0 6 and we played a little snippet back this morning at 6 30 as well So yes Earl Ingram part of the civic media family.
You can hear him every week here That was Parker by the way bringing in a cast of children to
You have to forgive Parker.
He's very excited right now.
He's a national champion.
If you missed it last hour, his UW Whitewater baseball team is the new D3 national champions of the world, perhaps the solar system.
I mean, they're that good.
With how well they hit home runs, they had 111 home runs in like 55 games.
They might as well be.
Is there a parade schedule?
I mean, Whitewater's had national champions before.
Do they do a parade?
Yeah, I think they're having a like coming home party at like seven o'clock tonight and
Whitewater at their stadium.
Yeah.
So will we not see you?
Will you still be partying about that when we come on the air tomorrow morning?
I noticed you're not saying no right away.
No, I'm not.
I have thrown the idea out there that I should go.
Whether or not that
happens.
All
right.
Well, stick around, folks, tomorrow morning at 6 0 6 and see if if a if a surly looking Luke matters is sitting in this chair instead.
We'll see how that works out for you.
All right.
Well, congratulations again.
I know how very exciting it is when anybody's favorite college team gets a national championship.
That is that is a big deal.
Yes, thank you sir.
So all right.
I want to tell you about a new package of bills and we'll be talking more about this on Monday morning with Senator Chris Larson from Milwaukee and then on Thursday with Senate Democratic leader Diane Hesselebein because a few different packages of bills have been introduced by lawmakers in both houses who are looking at the
current state of things and saying we can do a little bit better.
One is about gun safety.
We'll talk about that next week.
But there's a new package of bills as well that is meant to address all of the things that President Donald Trump is trying to do in this country and the ways that it would negatively impact Wisconsin have lawmakers saying there should be another way to do this.
And this too is a Jesse O'Poyne article that I'm looking at in the Journal Sentinel today.
And before I, before I read off what the bills would do, let me tell you a bit about what, what I would do, what fantasy Pat would do if I were, say if I were governor to Donald Trump and the things that he wants to do here.
If he wanted to land, say in Eau Claire and do a rally, because he's done rallies in the past, all right, and not paid the bill, didn't pay the law enforcement bill.
I would make sure that there are National Guard trucks or bulldozers on the runway in Eau Claire.
And I'd get on the radio and I'd say, sorry, sir, you have some overdue bills.
I'm standing by for you to wire them, wire the money.
And when you do, you can land the plane, but otherwise move on.
We don't want deadbeats here.
Similarly, there may have been maybe an arrest warrant issued as well for trying to overturn.
Wisconsin's election in 2020, again a criminal activity, but he's managed to squeak out of these things.
So at least now we have Democratic legislators offering some bills that would undo some of these measures.
Senator Chris Larson said they're about protecting our neighbors from extreme overreach and broken promises from the federal government.
The first bill would allow the state to hold back payments to the federal government.
if the administration fails to provide funds that have been approved by Congress.
This gets to the crux of what Trump and Elon Musk are trying to do with cuts.
They're trying to cut money that has already been approved by Congress.
They're not allowed to do that.
And I don't know how else to put this.
They're not allowed to do that.
It is the law.
Congress allocates money in the previous budget or the current budget and has to be spent.
A president cannot claw it back.
And so this bill would again allow the state to hold back those payments that a president is trying to claw back.
A second bill would allow the state to place a lien on federal property within Wisconsin if the administration blocks congressionally approved funds from coming to the state.
And then the lien would be lifted when those federal funds are given to Wisconsin as they were supposed to be in the first place under the law.
The third bill would expand Wisconsin resident's ability to sue for violation of rights guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution.
And the final bill would bar the state government from sharing personally identifiable information with the federal government unless necessary to comply with the law or carry out the administration of a government program.
In other words, not executive orders.
Executive orders are ways that a president directs a federal agency to do things, but Donald Trump is using these executive orders as if they are orders issued from his majesty.
And has gone so far as to alter the hiring process for federal employees to include a reference to carrying things out, you know, based on the wishes of the executive branch.
And that's not the way that this works.
And so these bills are essentially the bulldozers on the runway and saying, no, you're not going to claw back this money that has already been allocated to Wisconsin.
And you're not going to get personal information about Wisconsin residents unless it's something that complies with the law.
Not one of these executive orders that you're using to round up people, including innocent people and locking them up.
we're not going along with it.
Now, I will, of course, acknowledge it's not really likely that Republicans are gonna take up these bills and pass them on to Governor Evers and get them signed, but we tell you about the bills anyway because you should know who's actually fighting for you, who's actually abiding by the Constitution.
Where is the real law and order here as opposed to, you know, the tyranny of despots who would be very happy using executive orders from the king?
to do whatever the hell they want, whatever the consequences might be to innocent Americans everywhere.
Congressman Mark Polkhan is on the way, still to come as well.
Chad Holmes, Joseph Pekki, Sean O'Malley, all here on one of these mornings on a Thursday powered by Up North News.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Here's a reminder of this hour's keyword in the Eskani Summer Text to Win contest.
The word is road, R-O-A-D.
Text the word road through the Civic Media app and you're in the running for Brewer's Tickets.
Club level seats, they are great seats.
I've used these, you're gonna want these tickets.
But you're also in the drawing as well for the grand prizes, a lovely stay in Wisconsin Dells or in Door County.
details at Civic Media's website, civicmedia.us.
That again, you have till the end of the hour to text road, and then you'll have more chances to win at 11am, 2pm, and 4pm.
All right, we got a lot of ground to cover here with Congressman Mark Pocant.
So let's just get right into that, Congressman.
How are you?
Hey, I'm doing
well, Pat.
Thanks
for having me.
You bet.
We're going to have a lot to say about the Donald Trump's
big bloated boondoggle in just a sec here, but you did recently visit the Dodge County Jail and I wanted to start by asking about that because President Trump has once again chosen to impose some kind of a travel ban, which seemed very serious in the first term.
in the second term, it almost seems more like a diversion from all the, you know, the heist that's going on in Washington DC.
But a lot of people are getting caught up in this anti-immigrant fervor, including undocumented immigrants who, you know, may or may not have committed any crimes.
But we don't know because they're not getting due process.
One of them was actually framed by somebody else who committed a crime.
And yet he, the victim, is still in the Dodge County Jail.
And what was that visit?
for what is also an ice detention facility?
Sure.
Well, and you're right.
The best way to be a pickpocket is to divert someone's attention.
So Donald Trump, while they're picking our pockets to pay for a tax cut, tax break for Elon Musk and himself and anyone who could afford to go to Mar-a-Lago, you know, we're floating things like, you know, travel bans, et cetera.
You know, the reason we went and it's the only ice facility in Wisconsin that's at the Dodge County Jail to check it out is because one, it's
part of what we need to do for our oversight responsibilities as a member of Congress, but also in New Jersey, they actually are charging a member of Congress who went and did that with some criminal laws.
So, you know, I think in solidarity, many of us were like saying, all right, you know, ICE is just a rogue.
extra governmental organization right now because they don't talk to us and you know we try to reach out to them we took the number off the website for the Milwaukee office it's disconnected so you know we can't even get a hold of someone there and we did do a tour the county sheriff a republican a partisan republican but was very
fair.
I mean, he gave us a good tour.
You know, I think he did love that we were there, but at the same time, he was exactly what he should do.
You know, he gave us a very polite, respectful tour.
We saw conditions, I think, are
you know, what we've seen in all the reports, they're really good conditions and I think they run a good facility.
The real problem was no one from ISIS there, about every three weeks they show up other than to drop people off.
And there's really no way to ask the questions we needed to ask about who's there, why they're there, what the due process rights, et cetera are.
And one of the people is a constituent of Gwen Moores who, you know, that he was framed, but at the time they didn't know, supposedly he did a threat, a letter threatening the President Trump.
But, you know, very quickly that story went south because the person is illiterate, both in English and Spanish, and this was a very well-written, very beautiful handwriting letter.
Well, it turns out someone was trying to frame them to try to kick them out of the country, and they're still holding the person despite that.
In fact, they supposed to have a hearing yesterday, and Gwen told me they postponed it, so she's going back Friday to talk to her constituent, but...
You know, it's not so much the facility that as you might expect in Wisconsin, we do things a little better probably than other places.
But it's certainly ice.
You know, the fact that then the sheriff gave me his contact number price afterwards and I called and I've yet to get a call back and that was Monday.
Today's Thursday just shows you how they think they are above the laws and agency.
Well, yeah, I mean, we're really veering into secret police territory, police state territory where people can be held behind bars without charges and that nobody nobody is accountable for this.
And again, all of it to distract from the big bloated boondoggle that House Republicans passed recently and it's over in the Senate right now.
And now we're hearing from some of your Republican colleagues, Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia being one of them saying they didn't know what was
in the bill before they voted for it.
The title of this hour's episode, by the way, is Why Can't Marjorie Read.
These are folks who loved playing this game when things like the Affordable Care Act was passing or any other big bills, but it turns out they're no different when they want to ram something through.
They'll apologize later for things that they didn't know were in it, but they voted for anyway.
Yeah,
and every MAGA
Twitter troll that has sent a message telling me I did the exact same thing with the Affordable Care Act, I wasn't in Congress then.
So, you know, just...
there's that you can keep it coming but I know reading is difficult so we won't go there uh no this is the problem you know they all the the committees did this overnight votes the rules committee met overnight we voted some people are up for a day and a half non-stop doing the bill and literally at the crack of dawn is when we voted on the bill after an all night session if you saw members we looked even worse than we do normally um you know to see how tired people were and and now they're saying oh we didn't know what's in the bill well
No, you know, of course, you didn't know what's in the bill.
And another member from Nebraska said he didn't know about this court's provision was in the bill.
And, you know, now we're finding out a lot of people are trying to step away from aspects of the bill.
Well, I don't blame them.
I mean, there's a lot of bad stuff in that bill.
If I was Derek Van Orden or Brian Stile or others in Wisconsin, and I voted for a half a trillion dollar cut to Medicare, I voted to kick off 14 million people in the country from their health care, 11 million kids and others from food assistance.
not be as ashamed as you can imagine as well.
And then they won't do a town hall to talk about it.
Look, the Wisconsin smell test, the most simple thing in the world.
If you're proud of something, you brag about it.
You don't hide in your basement.
Hope no one calls.
And that's exactly what every Republican in Wisconsin is doing right now.
Well, without a doubt, and as people read it, even the world's richest man looks at this and calls it an abomination and looks at the amount that's being cut.
Now, I grant you, Elon Musk and Ron Johnson and others,
they're unhappy with it only because it would be better balanced if they would cut even more.
But at least they're making the point that way too much of this is going on the national credit card.
Again, for people who lived to talk about how much is going on the national credit card, it seems like they feel the taxpayer can afford anything as long as it's something they want on the national credit card.
In this case, tax cuts for the rich.
And now
they're trying to present a big lie to people that no one's going to lose benefits, and that this won't add to the debt.
We had Russ vote, the director of the OMB, the architect of Project 2025 in my subcommittee yesterday.
And he tried to say that again, like he did on the Sunday news shows.
And I said, well, the Cato Institute, a Republican-leaning group, disagrees with you.
Elon Musk disagrees with you.
Senator Holley disagrees with you.
Senator Collins disagrees with you.
Senator Rand Apollo, I'm sorry, disagrees with you.
There are a whole bunch of the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency, the directors appointed by Republicans disagree with you.
I go, are you the only one that's right?
And he's like, yep.
So, you know, they're just trying to put this lie out.
A few people like Derek Van Orden probably fundamentally believe it.
But, you know, it takes...
reading a little bit and you can very quickly see if you cut funds, that kind of drastic cut, $700 billion from Medicaid, $300 billion from the Affordable Care Act, half a trillion from Medicare, people are going to lose care.
And it's just common sense.
And, you know, unfortunately, the Republicans are just trying to ignore that they took this vote.
And this is going to hang on them well into next year.
And by the way, all the focus has been, much of the focus has been on Medicaid and to a lesser degree, SNAP and other things.
But Medicare is involved in this as well, indirectly, but still, folks who are seniors going, well, I'm on Medicare, I haven't heard them talk about that, so I guess I'm okay.
You might not be.
No, because of the pay-go rules, and I won't go deep into the weeds, there's a trigger sequestration, which is taking back the funds, and it will require a half a trillion dollar cut to Medicare.
They could have took care of it in their overnight sessions, but they just didn't want to pause for anything.
They just wanted to get this done so that Donald Trump had it by Memorial Day.
The problem is every Republican in Wisconsin in the House voted to cut a half a trillion dollars from Medicare, and they didn't try to fix it along the way.
would love to know who they think in Wisconsin doesn't deserve the money they've paid in all their life through their paychecks and their employers have paid in for Medicare and now it's going to be cut.
That is an unconscionable vote.
When we hear the talk about the deficits and the national debt and things like this and I'm not looking
that this will all be solved by, you know, you and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and things like that.
But when you look at the graph of how much of that debt is there because of tax giveaways to the rich, it does make people like me feel like, well, what if we just took one of those basic wealth tax ideas that we often hear from, from, from, you know, the progressive side of the aisle and
How much of these debt and deficit problems could we address if we actually right-sized our tax code once again?
When you look at the skew these bills offer for the wealthiest, I think one analysis I saw about 40%, the bottom 40% of people are going to pay more under this bill.
People on the top one-tenth of 1% do really, really well.
Top 1% really well.
Top 10% do well.
But you know, pretty soon real people don't get it.
And then they said, well, we did a tax on, I got rid of the tax on tips and on overtime and
on auto loan interest and a tax cut for seniors well those four that are for I call real people you know add up to five percent of the bills so 95 percent of the bills pork going to Elon Musk and Donald Trump and you know the rest of us get a little bit and even then scratch the surface and that gold is fake that Donald Trump is putting on everything in the White House because for example the tax on tips a third people who are tip dirt wage earners don't even make enough to pay federal
Income taxes and up low and moderate-wage workers tip workers are only 5% of them.
So you're ignoring the vast vast majority of working folks and then when it comes to overtime There's a bunch of categories where you can't qualify.
You're still gonna have to pay your FICA It's only on the overtime amount not your regular pay amount.
You still got to pay tax There's a whole bunch of asterisks is that you know, like going and fit on a sheet of paper So a lot of these oh, and they're also temporary unlike the corporate tax cuts for the tax cuts for the wealthy are permanent tax cuts
That's for us.
are only gonna last for a few years.
So, you know, this bill is the worst bill I have seen in over 30 years of being in Congress and I can't wait to talk about it everywhere I can.
You've been in the Congress, you've been in the legislature.
We talked in the last segment about the Republicans in the legislature walking away from the negotiating table with Governor Evers and Republicans in Congress trying to ram this through in one bill because otherwise they have to follow a regular order which could subject it to the filibuster
and everything else, and yet Elon Musk and some others are now saying, you know, kill the bill.
But that would mean probably going through regular order, and I know I hesitate to ask anybody to make predictions, but your thoughts anyway on whether this bill does find some way to get modified, sent through the Senate, and approved again by the House, or are we actually facing the prospect of, like the previous couple of years, we get to October 1st and there's still no federal
budget?
That's a separate, somewhat of a separate issue from this.
But yes, to that question, I'm on our probes and we don't even have all the numbers and they're asking us to start marking things up, which is ridiculous.
But.
I think the Senate originally only had 2% of the cuts of the House.
So there's that big difference between the two bills.
Look, I wake up to bad choices and worse choices every single day.
I'm all for bad choices.
To me, a bad choice is stop the cuts to healthcare and food assistance and education funding from people.
I think they're gonna get their tax cut bill no matter what, there's unity on that.
How they pay for it, it might just go on the national debt like the last time, which is not a good answer.
But I don't wanna hurt people right now.
out of three kids in Wisconsin who gets their health insurance from Medicaid, 55% of our seniors in nursing homes.
I mean, those aren't the people that should have to pay for Elon Musk to be able to put more rockets in the air.
Well, like I've said, if it ends up just all going on the national credit card, they're just going to try to once again divert people in next year's election campaigns with all kinds of other mud slinging and try to get people to forget all about their pockets being picked.
Congressman Mark Polkana is always we appreciate the update.
Thanks for what you're doing.
We'll talk again real soon.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
You bet.
Take care.
Safe travels to you.
Pause here and then we'll have more coming up all across the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Krightlow live from Lake Wissoda.
Thanks for being part of our mornings powered by Up North News here on Civic Media.
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On the website, you can read my story that was posted just yesterday that says everything Wisconsin needs to know about Trump's cuts to Medicaid and BadgerCare.
Essentially, it's a Medicaid 101 story.
If you've been hearing all about Medicaid and you just heard Congressman Pokan talking about Medicare, and if you're still not clear on the differences between them,
and really want to know, well, how does BadgerCare fit into this and what is it that would be cut and who all is on Medicaid in Wisconsin and so forth and so on.
Go to the website, upnorthnewswi.com and just have it right there at your fingertips in one page.
I will tell you that the story ends with talking about how Medicaid next month is going to mark its 60th anniversary.
60 years of improving the lives of tens of millions of American children, giving workers the stability to stay in the workforce because they have healthcare coverage, saving taxpayers from the cost of uncompensated healthcare, and more sick days, and lives lost to preventable illnesses, Medicaid has offset all of those things.
And yet, not every member of Congress appreciates that.
For example, there's Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who when confronted with the knowledge that cutting Medicaid would lead to some premature deaths, Joni Ernst said bluntly, well, we're all gonna die.
To which Parker is looking online and noticing that Reagan, the t-shirt company out of Iowa,
Which always comes up with hilarious t-shirts has a new one out.
I didn't have time to put it up on screen here But it's it's got the Sun over like a kind of a cornfield and it just says Iowa We are all going to die.
Hey.
Yeah, it's so hey taxes and death, right?
Yeah, so I mean why why take care of people, you know, yeah, I do that So so there you go.
So read read all about that over on our website up north news wi.com
Back to the discussion of Republicans walking away from the negotiating table with Governor Tony Evers on the state budget by the way It leads to our Sunday morning newsletter and our question of the week which now takes on greater relevance given yesterday's events Because Republicans are now going to write a budget bill on their own They're not going to make a deal with Governor Evers.
They're gonna send him something and dare him to veto it
And there are more groups than ever that are now saying, you know what?
Yeah, veto it.
Don't try to fix it with partial vetoes, with line item vetoes.
Just veto the whole darn thing and send it back and make them start over.
Now that carries risks, as we've discussed previously, because Republicans could say, fine, we won't pass a budget at all.
And then everything just continues along at the levels of the current budget.
State governments don't shut down.
And so nothing would get worse, but nothing would get better either.
Now, Republicans could take that into the 2026 campaign and say, look, the governor wouldn't work with us.
I think it's far more likely, since the one thing a legislature has to pass every time is a state budget, I think it's far more likely that people would look at them and say, you couldn't get the job done.
You had one job.
pass a state budget and you decided to take your marbles and go home.
And I don't know that voters will necessarily take kindly to that.
But what do you think?
Do you think that Governor Evers should get the veto pen out when he gets the bill from Republicans and either try to line item veto it and fix it where he can?
Or should he just veto the whole thing and say, look, you wouldn't work with me?
I don't like this at all.
Why don't you guys try again?
Or why don't you guys come back to the negotiating table?
So what do you think?
Fix it with partial vetoes or veto the whole thing?
And again, I understand it hasn't been passed yet, but where are you right now based on what you think Republicans will send to the governor?
Now you can either jump on the text line here, or you can send us an email, radio, at upnorthnewswi.com, or you can do a voice note.
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There's a lot still to come here.
We obviously had a lot to talk about with Congressman Pocan.
One of the things we didn't get to talk about, however, was the latest chapter in
President Trump's trade war with our own allies and trading partners and the latest one is gonna hit everybody who drinks beer or consumes other beverages or eats food because that aluminum tariff is really gonna do something to canned goods and There's also an import a new tariff on imported beer.
So beer drinkers giddy up
This is what your president is doing.
We'll talk about all that with Sean O'Malley in our next hour, along with Chad Holmes and Joseph Pecky and the updated forecast as well.
This is all here on our mornings powered by Up and With News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 806.
Nice to have you here up north on this Thursday morning, June 5th, 2025.
You're just moments away from visiting with Chad Holmes about stories that he's following in the Wausau area.
We'll talk to Sean O'Malley in a bit about your money and the markets and the latest Trump tariffs that are on the way.
We'll talk to Joseph Pecky as well this hour, Parker Olson standing by in Studio A2, still kind of walking on air.
after UW Whitewater won the national title yesterday in baseball.
I'm a happy camper, Pat.
You should be.
You should be.
Absolutely.
Although there are some people that think you your job may be suffering as a result as as you as you know from our earlier discussions, Parker, not much of a coffee drinker.
And so Tony, putting up on YouTube, I will blame all of Parker's mistakes.
None yet on his lack of coffee.
Well, none
yet is generous, but.
Parker's very much into hydration and the need for water.
And to make the record clear, he's in the right.
We should all be drinking more water.
I'm just choosing not to follow it right now.
You should always drink more water, Pat.
and then because you know what, in a water cup, you can't have witty sayings like my coffee mug here that says I am silently correcting your grammar.
Chad Holmes joins us from Warsaw, coffee, water, something else in the morning, something you shouldn't admit to on air.
I usually have water.
For some unknown reason I'm rotting my insides this morning because I've got a
big I
was over at my at my refrigerator here in our little back area and I brought this because I have a game later today and I usually bring it
bring this stupid as well.
I don't know.
You asked the wrong question here this morning and all my dirty, dark secrets are coming off.
Oh, yeah.
Mountain Dew, that's the real hazard here.
Just rotting from the inside out here.
Yeah, something like that.
So, all right.
Well, Parker, you're right.
We should all be drinking more water.
Yes, he's right.
I hope you
guys can be more like me next week.
We will endeavor.
as best we can.
We need good influences.
That's definitely the case here.
That's it.
Parker Olson, good influence.
All right.
Chad, there's an editorial in the Wasaw pilot and review that one of the subheads is why Wasaw needs a professional city manager.
And it talks about, you know, ethics standoffs.
blurred authority, a broader breakdown in City Hall, undervalued land, murky deals, missed opportunities, excuse me.
We don't even get into, you know, stolen ballot drop boxes and things like that.
But this seems to be, I don't know how prevalent this voice is in Wausau that maybe the current way things are operating in City Hall could use a change.
Basically, it's very, it's timely because I've been
digesting a lot of things recently myself here and we didn't get to it on Tuesday and you sent me a link to a story about complaints against council members concerning this whole warped issue with the Dropbox and with the relationship at City Hall between folks in staff and in council and the mayor.
In the in the story about a 17 year old buying property that almost Snuck through and then all of a sudden someone said hey the person that's gonna buy that property 17 years old There is a lot going wrong right now and the idea of what sharing seaworthy editor publisher the pilot put out yesterday concerning a manager style instead of a
mayoral style is something that I have not been for for as long as I can remember.
But the way things are going is definitely a conversation that should be had because right now things are not working the way they should be working in this community when it comes to the mayor and the relationship with staff and council and everything else.
But at the same time, I was thinking about this maybe even in a bigger way.
If you're going to say this about
the Wausau government, couldn't you just as easily say it about the United States government or the state government?
And what does this road ultimately lead to?
I mean, are we gonna start to basically take out some of the polls that are the base of what our system is right now?
And I'm not ready maybe to go as far as Shareen went in terms of her editorial, but at the same time, I certainly see a lot of the reasons behind it as well.
Yeah, and I'm not, I don't have a firm opinion one way or the other because I've seen them all.
I've seen, you know, strong and weak mayors.
I've seen good and bad city managers.
I've seen strong and weak, you know, city councils around Wisconsin over the years that I've been covering these things.
And I understand the desire for like a city manager or a county administrator is no different than, you know, the chief executive officer
sometimes has the right vision, but can't get it done without a good chief operating officer.
And so I understand the sentiment, but I'm definitely in your camp of thinking, we really should allow the people to pick who their leaders are, who's running things.
And if they don't do a great job, then we
replace them.
For example, if I were a resident of Wausau right now, I'd be asking some of my friends, how much buyer's remorse you having right now, you know, letting Katie Rosenberg go and you ended up with Doug Ditty.
And I have a feeling if the election were held again today, maybe we'd see a different result, but at least the people would make that choice rather than having a manager thrust upon them.
So I sighed that way a little bit, but I
It's also not a hill I would necessarily die on.
I think you're kind of saying the
where I am as well and and basically this is a question that goes all the way back I mean in one year and one month we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the formation of this country and this goes back to to many of the questions that were brought up in those early discussions when it came to what form of government that the United States of America would have and and and basically it comes down to
do we trust the people to make the right decisions?
And I think there are a number of examples, whether it's here in Wausau, when you talk about maybe buyers remorse from what happened just over a year ago in that election, and maybe you talk about what happened in November of last year within the United States of America.
Because if you ultimately go down this road, you're saying that
the people can't make the right decisions.
And I understand it's more than that when what Shireen is talking about here in terms of folks that are able to do the job or the complexity of running city government at this time.
But I do kind of take a step back and I'm thinking, well, again, this would be a step.
And again, it's not like it's not as though this has not been done elsewhere.
I mean, obviously she says that as well, but.
Man, I think it's a rather fundamental question that folks here in Warsaw are going to have to be speaking about.
And basically, I think this is a question that many folks around the country are going to have to speak about as we move into the next era of this country.
You know what I think you've done here is you've actually given me the fodder for next weekend's Sunday Morning Newsletter and our question of the week.
and the whole mayor versus city manager, you know, county administrator, do you want to elect people?
Should they be more management types?
I think we got to put it out there and see what, see what people think.
Because we, we can talk this one all day long, but I'd really love for people to either text in or, you know, drop us an email, put something in the comment section and find out where people are on this.
Are they so sick of politicians that, you know, they do want more professional managers or do they
sense that there might be a harm in that in outsourcing what we're supposed to be doing as voters is picking the best person for the job.
Not necessarily the guy or the gatherer runs the best campaign ads.
Well unfortunately a lot of that is the case and and also again there are examples I know that even in this part of the state.
whether you have the manager system.
And boy, sometimes you see a lot of turnover there as well.
I mean, finding the right people there.
This is not a panacea.
It's much the same way that you have to pick the right person within an election.
You have to be...
very confident you're picking the right person through the application process.
And
unfortunately, you know, sometimes you have the good manager, but they're getting interfered with and micromanaged by a council that wants to be, you know, more partisan than anything else.
And you know what I'm hearing right now?
I'm hearing every school board member out there going, Yeah, amen, because that's what they do.
They have to pick the superintendent.
You know,
superintendents are elected and how many, how many battles have we seen back and forth between school boards and superintendents in some of these districts?
Before I
Let you go.
I know you are so busy with spring sports postseason You're in the last what week or two of everything here.
So
yeah, that's the whole poor down to one team here and Baseball regionals and then next Tuesday is sectionals and then knock on wood if you're lucky enough then the state tournament after that So basically I was talking to somebody yesterday at the game.
I said, well, you know, this could be the last day But I'm said I'm hoping for two more weeks.
So we're in that in that
portion of the schedule.
But yeah, basically, we're to the end of the line for another school year than a school athletic year as well.
Do you pay attention either to the Stanley Cup finals or the NBA finals?
Actually, last night, I wasn't watching the game, the Stanley Cup.
Final but then I saw that hey the game's an overtime.
So I was like in bed now I got out of bed I went and I watched the the end of the Game in overtime.
So yeah, I do like following the hockey But I haven't done it as much because it's just you know, I'm running around all the time But it was it was cool as a you know when you have an overtime game when you get to this level There is a great intensity and I see it whether it's I had an extra inning game a couple of days ago Man, it's it's there's an excitement at this point of the season and and as you
Well, no, these regular seasons of professional sports are so long.
It basically is a build up to here.
And it's almost as so long, sometimes it takes away a little bit of the edge.
Oh, it totally does, yes.
Because you get numb to so many games, but watching the overtime last night was a lot of fun and go Canada.
Absolutely.
And I love playoff hockey, but I really love playoff hockey that goes into overtime.
And
I
I'm so sad that I had to go to bed early last night I mean if I I almost kind of wish now I'd like recorded the game and still
tell me
don't tell me
but You know a
morning a morning show host actually should know who won before
so The great part about it last night was they were right to the end of the first overtime There was like a minute to go to thinking oh come on end it right now.
I need to go to bed Yes, and they scored a power play going the last minute of OT they're like yes when they
say they're going we're going to a third overtime you're like no
Oh, please.
No.
So once usually neither ends pretty quickly or else it goes a long time.
There's a lot to be said for yes, for one overtime.
And yeah, back to the long seasons, obviously, for money reasons, they're not going to change it.
But I've always said if if I
had my way, you'd have your March Madness, okay, fine.
And then like the very next week would be the Stanley Cup Finals, the very next week would be the NBA Finals, and then the very next week would be the opening of baseball season.
Just have a whole festival of, you'd have such ratings and everything, and you can throw golf and NASCAR and that and everything, but all of it doesn't, doesn't it all pale in comparison to Parker Olson being a national champion now because his Whitewater Warhawks won the D1 baseball title yesterday?
That is very cool.
Uh,
yeah, I mean, we're, we're really putting all the praise on Parker here.
It's his fandom that pushed whitewater to that national title yesterday.
Obvious.
Do you understand?
He's, he's done nothing this morning so far in two hours and 19 minutes to dissuade us from that notion.
There's not a shred of humility in this
guy.
Not to
the head, right?
Why would I tell you?
I
did
it.
I did
it.
Of
course I
did it.
Congratulations to you, Parker.
Once again.
You did it.
Thank you.
Chad Holmes.
Appreciate
it.
Ninety eight nine WXCO.
Catch him in the Wasaw area or on the Civic Media app.
Listen to what he's doing in Wasaw that way as well.
Still ahead this hour.
Sean O'Malley on Money and Markets ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street and Joe Specky from the heart of America's Up North Live from Lake Wissoda.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
Powered by Up North News, I'm Pat Kratlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
you
you
After taking two out of three in Cincinnati, the Milwaukee Brewers are heading home.
They're off today.
They begin a long homestand tomorrow.
With a series against the San Diego Padres, coverage will begin tomorrow at 635 on Civic Media Stations and Racine Kenosha, Park Falls, Hayward, Oshkosh, and Richland Center.
Head over to the website, civicmedia.us to learn more.
Let's talk about your money and the markets and bring in Sean O'Malley to talk a bit about...
President Trump's ongoing trade wars, the impact of them on consumers and on jobs.
I seem to recall before we get to the tariffs, we were promised 90 trade deals in 90 days that everybody was gonna flock to Trump and beg him to negotiate new trade deals.
If you're keeping score at home,
there's a principle of an agreement or concepts of an agreement with the UK and with China.
And that's it.
That's the list.
Sean, I mean, the uncertainty just continues in Wall Street and that can't necessarily be good for things like, you know, the dollar and bonds and things like that.
That's correct, Pat.
What we're seeing is that economically, any sort of deals within the trade environment are essentially getting kicked down the road, just like any sort of finalization with tariffs.
It's going to be coming in July and that sort of thing.
The one thing we have seen with tariffs, of course, is the 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, neither of which are going to be particularly good for the economy.
But what we are seeing is also that a lot of foreign governments are now really avoiding getting involved with the US assets.
Less on the stock market side, we're seeing it manifest itself more in the bond market, so for US troteries and in the currency market, so the demand for US dollars.
So normally, we see interest rates
and the demand for the dollar to sort of move in tandem, more or less.
What we're seeing now, and this has been noted by Paul Krugman, who's a Nobel Prize winning economist, that we're seeing in divergence and a fairly significant divergence there where interest rates are continuing to go up, particularly in the
longest maturity, Treasury bond that's issued, the 30 year Treasury bond is going up substantially and you're seeing the demand for the dollar sink substantially.
So what this basically tells us is that the demand to buy US issued government debt has gone down and the demand for dollars in general has gone down.
So this seems to be a way of that sort of sell America.
Trade that has been mentioned many times in the marketplace starting to really manifest itself in a particularly unfortunate negative way What's happening is that people are saying and this is the analysis of many others.
It's not about the just the tariffs at this point It's about the actual policies of the United States one of which is buried in the the big bad budget bill Which has a revenge clause in it
So if the US government unilaterally decides at some point in time that they feel that the government of XYZ country is unfavorable to the United States, they can penalize them especially on any debt that they may have bought.
So that's making buyers even more reluctant because you've got this sort of unilateral authority.
given to the US government that may or may not be exercised and you don't know what's going to happen.
So uncertainty and chaos are sort of, you know, the watch words up there.
Oh, without a doubt.
And so now you've got these new tariffs on on aluminum, also new ones on on imported beer.
So that's kind of like a double kick.
Because, you know, again, even on empty cans before they're filled with anything, basically, if you if you drink beer, if you drink anything, if you eat anything in terms of canned goods, you know, there's there's going to be that
inflationary aspect to it, but it also seems to me, Sean, but correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of tariffs is ostensibly supposed to raise manufacturing in the US instead of having to rely on getting it elsewhere.
But
any help for steel and aluminum jobs in the US,
It sure seems to me it would be offset if a whole lot of people who work with aluminum, food, anything downstream that's affected by these tariffs are hurt to a greater degree than steel and aluminum are helped.
Yeah, that's that's a great point, Pat.
There are two things that you want to mention when you talk about those tariffs in particular.
One is that
there's actually a multiplier effect in terms of especially steel production, excuse me.
Basically for every one job in steel actual production, there are approximately 80 jobs downstream that are impacted, that are basically created or not created or basically that go away.
So the minute that you have an increase in the price of steel, that means people are going to be buying less steel, the number of steel,
jobs are going to be going down, but that's going to have a multiplier effect on those downstream positions that rely on steel production.
And that's about an 80 to one multiplier.
So, you know, for every one steel job, that's a big impact.
The other thing is that the inflationary impact that you were mentioning.
So right now we're looking at, according to most experts, about one half of 1% increase
in inflation and CPI in consumer price index.
That is the expectation of these tariffs.
So it's not going to be runaway inflation, but it's going to have an impact.
You are going to see prices going up, and it is going to hit the consumers.
Which is funny for a guy that said prices were going to come down on day one, that he was going to tame inflation on day one.
And instead, now we're being told that these are the adjustments in order to save
save quote-unquote jobs in one area.
But again, Sean's pointing out, you know, the multiplier downstream of all of these things.
Sean O'Malley is here with us and during the break, there will be the opening bell on Wall Street and we'll talk just for a few minutes more, especially about the trade deficit.
Apparently it came down in the latest report, but as we just kind of hinted,
That's not the full story.
And then he will be followed by Joseph Peckie.
First day reminder, sign up for our newsletters.
Head over to our homepage, upnorthnewswi.com.
Live from Lake Wissota, what a great place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is powered by Up North News, and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Tomorrow on the program, former US Attorney Jim Santel, Chicago journalist Jennifer Schultz and Jonas Pizito.
I was just on Jonas Pizito show yesterday in Chicago, WCPT if you want to look that up.
Dr. Kristen Lierly will join us and tell us all about what Assembly Speaker Robin Voss had to say to a room full of doctors this week, including telling these doctors, you need to do your research.
Hmm.
I will bet Kristen has some thoughts on that.
And we'll also begin a weekly Friday segment with Mike Clemens talking about the weekend coming up in sports.
That's all tomorrow here across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Mornings from six to nine a.m.
I'm Pat Krightlo.
Nice to have you here.
Sean O'Malley back with us, a compliance financial expert with a long career on Wall Street.
This Wisconsin native is now back.
Well, you're mostly sailing.
boats out of Washburn or Bayfield or Ashland or something like that, right?
Bayfield.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bayfield.
Yes.
Yes.
But still obviously following things and we appreciate the time that you spend on this and it's time for a part of the segment.
I'm going to call hold on cowboy.
And it goes like this the the headline US trade deficit plummets in April US trade fell sharply as President Trump's global tariffs begin to weigh on imports and so people going President Trump said he was gonna shrink the trade deficit and by gum He has done it the trade deficit has shrunk to which I would respond Hold on cowboy
That's not the full story.
The full story would be if, oh, well, U.S.
manufacturing has made up the difference.
And that's why it ain't that, Sean.
It's just that there's less on the store shelf right now.
Correct.
Inventories are down.
I mean, we're, you know, a lot of the shipping as we talked about, you know, in earlier shows had
essentially stopped, slowed down so substantially that you're seeing, you know, job cuts in shipping related industries, in trucking related industries, anything that takes a product from one place and moves it to another place because there's less product moving.
So yeah, there was the big sort of, yeah, everybody bought in advance of these tariffs, you know, sort of really taking a bite.
And now everybody's just sort of holding still, kind of waiting to see what's going to happen.
As we know, the tariff can has been kicked to July for the most part.
So everybody's sort of waiting to see what the final result is going to be.
There's one more I want to get to here, and then we'll get to Joseph Pecky.
But again, a New York Times headline, US trimming back its collection of consumer price data.
The cutbacks would have minimal impact, the government said, but economists warned of reduced confidence in inflation data produced by a struggling statistical system.
This seems rather similar to what's happening with the cuts at the National Weather Service and not being able to collect data there.
There's the sharp reduction in data on health statistics that are being released about the nation's health.
seems again very odd that for an administration that says they want to prove what they're doing with consumer prices, that they're now cutting back its data collection in this area.
Correct.
Yeah, what you're seeing is basically a government that doesn't want you to actually have information.
They want you to believe what they're telling you.
You know, don't trust your lion eyes, believe what I'm telling you.
So I think that's what they're trying to do.
They're trying to make sure that they can control the narrative.
The one issue that they've got with that is that on the budget bill, which is what is really impacting all of the spending, that narrative is starting to get out of their hands, particularly since Elon Musk has recently come out criticizing the government bill and now has been joined.
There were a few senators before, but now there's a...
a larger group, Newsweek just yesterday published a list of 10 senators, including Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, who are now saying, look, we don't think this bill as it stands is a good idea because it's gonna increase the national debt significantly.
And that's exactly the same reason the deal on Musk is using.
So now with a 53, 47 split for Republicans versus Democrats in the US Senate, the question is, do they have the votes to get the bill through unamended?
or don't
they?
And that and that's what we were talking about last hour with Congressman Mark Polkhan and it is it's not the kind of mystery we want to deal with in Washington DC.
I'd rather be watching the residents you know a fictitious murder mystery out of the White House but this is the real life mystery that we're dealing with and everybody's lives and prices and everything are hanging in the balance.
Sean O'Malley as always thank you.
We'll talk to you next week.
Thank you bet.
All right.
Hey, let's bring in Joseph Becky now as we do on Thursday mornings who's also a candidate for state Democratic Party chair and we've got plenty of ground to cover on all of these things but Joe as part of your run you were recently in in Washburn, right?
Yes, but before we get to that, were you just announcing to everyone that you've been watching The Residence on Netflix?
I watched the first episode and I loved it.
I haven't come to episode two yet.
Melissa and I are about
three or four episodes in.
So once we're done, perhaps we can do competing reviews next week.
I love this idea.
Stay tuned next week at 8.50 when we start that segment.
But you were in Washburn to which Tony on YouTube jumped in and said, you went to Washburn and didn't tell me.
We tried to get the word out, man, with
the check dens up there.
We had a nice little conversation on.
You and I was near Lake Wissoda.
We covered a lot of ground last week.
We were in Chippewa Falls and Superior and Washburn and Marinette and Green Bay and Lake Mills and Merrill.
We got around and to me that's the job is go and meet people where they are and listen and what I continue to hear is that we're a party that needs to make some changes.
We have real opportunity ahead of us going into next year but we got to get it right.
Yeah, by the way, oh by the way inside baseball check Dems stands for Shawamagan Dems, which is the Ashland Bayfield the the two county parties merged and so That's the Shawamagan Dems that we we all lovingly refer to as the check Dems that you saw while you were up there.
So we are What about ten days ahead of the election for state party chair?
Sure.
It's a week from Sunday.
A week from Sunday.
Okay.
So that that's coming up before you know it here.
And so that that's what's led to all of the the travels and the conversations and the discussion about where the party goes from here.
Have you noticed any shifting in the conversations since you got into the race that people feel either better or worse about how how the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is going to be navigating, you know, this upcoming cycle?
No, I think lots of people want us to be better and do better.
They want to do more and are already doing a lot.
And as I've said throughout this race, two things are true at the same time.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is as strong as it's ever been, thanks to Ben Wickler and his team.
And Democrats have a lot of work to do.
We just do when it comes to how we communicate and how we organize, we can be better.
We have to.
Standing still is falling behind.
That's the way the world works.
We talk to our football players not about meeting the standard, but setting the standard.
every single day, every single week.
And that's what the state party needs to do.
We've set a standard under Ben that 49 other state parties around the country are jealous of when it comes to how we fundraise.
Now I think we need to set the standard for 49 other state parties when it comes to how we communicate.
And I believe we can do that.
People are leaning in and engaged and they want to do more.
especially local groups like the Czech Dems to which Tony jumped on YouTube and says, it's the best democratic group in the state.
You know, many people are saying.
A lot of people
are saying.
A lot of people are saying, especially up north and rightly so.
So, weigh the toot your own horn there.
Let's shift over to some of the state political headlines and of course, the big one is that Republicans broke off negotiations with Governor Tony Evers.
I wouldn't necessarily, I would put negotiations in quotes.
The governor did meet them on, you know, their tax cut demands, but they would not, you know, come halfway on what needs to be done for education and healthcare and things like that.
So, I mean, I would have loved for this to succeed, but if it was going to break down, it broke down pretty much the way almost anybody could have predicted.
Yeah, Republicans are the take your ball and go home party.
Yeah.
They are never happier than when they have some grievance.
So, oh no, they won't do this, they won't do that.
They've been in power in Wisconsin for way too long.
This is what happens when one party controls the legislature for as long as they have, which I think we're going on 16 years now.
It is time for a change.
It is time for Democrats to have the wheel when it comes to the state budget.
I believe next year, 2026, we will win the assembly and Senate seats required for Democrats to be in charge of the budget process.
And if that happens,
we can finally deliver as a state on priorities that we know people want.
That's what's at stake next year and it's why what happens with the party is so important.
Now, I know you're going to say I shouldn't even be talking about these things, but if Democrats do take the Assembly and the Senate next year, which is quite possible now that we have fair maps, but if for whatever reason, a Republican were to win the governor's race and Democrats were to control the Assembly and Senate,
Can I make a virtual guarantee that with that level of split control the process would still operate smoother than it's operating right now?
It would because Democrats are interested in policies that move people's lives forward not, you know, tired political, you know, rhetoric, which is what we see out of Republicans.
You know, we've talked about this before, but like the notion that we can't raise one dime of new revenue
from the wealthiest Americans because that would be a tax increase.
It's nonsense.
George H.W.
Bush and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all raised taxes a little bit on the wealthiest.
And you know what it led to?
Economic growth and more economic security for working families in this country.
That wasn't that long ago.
This is all within my lifetime.
I'm not as young as I used to be, but I still consider myself a young man some days.
Look, I mentioned earlier in the program, it was George H. W. Bush who essentially painted the modern Republican party into a corner with the read my lips, no new taxes line.
And then he ended up having to raise taxes a bit on the wealthy because again, that's what responsible leaders do when faced with a crisis and you want to balance the budget and you don't want to cut off everybody's health care or education.
You give a little, you get a little.
George H. W. Bush did that and
paid a price for it and the the Republicans have been rather extreme ever since in saying we're not even like you said gonna raise things a dime because of that that extremist corner that they've painted themselves into.
Yeah, George H. W. Bush did the right thing.
There are you know Republicans in Waukesha County who want to do the right thing and institute a sales tax to help their municipal government afford the things that their community needs but
Republican lawmakers in Madison.
Oh, no, can't do that.
Even when local Republican leaders want to do it.
That's the Gordian knot that Republicans have tied themselves into.
And it's why you see this monstrosity of a reconciliation bill.
I was thinking about it after we talked last week.
They call it the big, beautiful bill.
A three-word title.
Only one of those words is not a lie.
Big?
It's not big.
It's massive.
It blows a hole in the deficit and the debt, right?
It is not beautiful.
Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder and anybody who thinks it is beautiful to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires and make poor kids pay for it because they can't get food assistance or they can't get health care.
If that's beautiful, you need to get your eyes checked.
The only true word in the title is that it is a bill.
But it is a bill that is going nowhere.
Well, exactly.
And for differing reasons among Senate Republicans, but still there.
So I will again say both from a legislature standpoint and a Congress standpoint, there are Republicans out there.
regular Republicans, not currently politicians, the opportunity is there.
Well, hell, even with some of the incumbents as well.
The opportunity is there to be that maverick, to be that guy or that woman who says, yeah, this is too much.
You know, and you can still be a fiscal conservative and yet understand that this is a big bloated boondoggle and insist on some other way to go about doing this if it doesn't hurt so many Americans and also, you know,
isn't such a giveaway to the fabulously wealthy.
Joseph Peckie is here.
We will eventually, I think next week, be talking all about the residents and more TV viewing, because we need some good political TV viewing now and then, and the residents just might be that.
I'm Pat Kratlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Hey after the show you can continue to follow what we're working on at up North news head over to Facebook Instagram The dumpster fire that used to be known as Twitter and look up up north news wi on tiktok.
Just look up up north news and you'll see what charita Booker is posting on all those platforms and more The work that that I do Christina Laurie and plenty of other folks our national team as well for courier newsroom follow us all day long across the
web on all those favorite platforms.
Do you have a preferred platform, Joseph Pecky, as you're doing your campaign and as you're doing your, you're speaking?
I mean, some, some folks left Twitter X all together.
Others said, well, we need to stay here and have a presence on it.
Others are much more Facebook.
Our family uses, you know, Snapchat more than anything.
Are you, uh, do you have a personally preferred platform?
Facebook and Instagram.
Okay.
Joseph Pecky.
Just like, just like is on the screen.
Joe's a Becky Z E P E C K I and get more there.
How how is your
What's the word there?
Algorithm?
You know, Sherry loves to talk about how her algorithm is nothing but cute animal videos.
Whereas mine is so much politics that invariably, I feel like I'm watching the West Wing all over again because the algorithm keeps feeding me clips that people post up of there.
So I would imagine yours is still probably pretty heavy on politics as well.
Not as much as you might think.
swim in the news and information of the day and other places, actual news outlets and podcasts.
My social media tends to be more.
football, basketball, golf, you know, things like that.
Yeah.
Nope, that makes total sense.
And then, you know, Sherry and I, we're always sending videos to our daughters.
They're sending videos to us.
They, of course, are raising children, which leads to all kinds of funny parent videos, which I know you guys are going through.
You recently had somebody get their driver's license.
So
yes, we did.
You have that whole phase to go through there.
We got a sophomore year of high school coming to a close next week.
Exam week.
Yeah, yeah, very much so.
So as we were talking about the big bloated boondoggle by Donald Trump here, for Elon Musk to be as public as as he's been, look, somebody's got to say, I will say it, I'm surprised he could have just as easily just sulked away.
But for him to be this public about it.
Of course, at the moment, a pleasant surprise, but frankly, it then makes me wonder, well, is there some ulterior motive here or something?
I don't know.
What was your thought when Elon Musk so publicly turned on his BFF?
That the Frankenstein monster has escaped the lab.
The Republican Party did this to themselves.
They thought that Elon Musk could help them.
And they puffed him up and built him up and put him in charge of a non-legal government entity to take a blowtorch to the Constitution and the separation of powers.
And it puffed up his ego even more.
And then when he proved to be politically inconvenient, they kicked him over the edge.
And the guys got a massive following.
He is so vain that he spent 45 billion dollars to purchase what used to be Twitter so he can reach, you know, the hundreds of millions of people around the world.
And now he has more credibility when it comes to government.
And of course, because they kicked him overboard and they're taking away the exact type of government welfare that allowed him to become the richest man on the planet.
and are now making policy choices that will hurt his business, now he's got an axe to grind.
And they have nobody to blame but themselves.
This is an erratic drug addled, according to, you know, reporting in the New York Times, loose cannon who they can't control.
And they have nobody to blame but themselves.
From the text line John and Oshkosh says it's all smoke and mirrors Musk is wanting more cuts to government for more tax cuts to billionaires I don't trust any of these billionaires
And that gets us to the current split in the Republican caucus as you probably have a few Republicans.
Maybe it's lip service.
Maybe it's not saying, yeah, we're cutting too much here in terms of Medicaid and things that hurt people.
But then you also have your Ron Johnson's who are saying, no, actually, there should be even more cuts to pay for all of this.
And it brings it back to a question I asked Congressman Pocan and others is to
where this goes in the Senate.
Do they eventually get something passed through at the House?
Also passes to say they did something or is there still a chance that this whole thing falls apart again because of Republican infighting?
Not anything Democrats are saying or doing.
So they have to pass
something.
They will pass something.
I do not believe they will pass what an enact what is close to what the House Republican
Conference passed.
Which means we still need to make every Republican in Wisconsin own what they did.
Forget about where this goes from here.
Derek Van Orden, Brian Stile, Tom Tiffany, Tony Weed, Glenn Groothman, Scott Fitzgerald, they all voted to kick 10 million Americans at least off of healthcare so that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg could get another tax cut.
That's the message we need to send.
Now, what's gonna happen in the Senate?
That's the second chapter of at least a four-chapter book.
The Senate version will be different than what the House did, which means it'll have to go to a conference committee, which means it'll have to pass both chambers once again.
We have a very long way to go.
What everyone needs to do is keep the pressure up.
There is a chance that what ends up passing, because they will pass something, and they have to, particularly as a
pertains to the debt limit.
But what will end up passing and becoming law could be much less worse than what House Republicans passed.
That should be the game plan.
That's why people need to keep up the pressure and intensity.
That's again, that's the mystery we're stuck with instead of the mystery we want, which is the residents, which I'm going to watch more of.
And we're going to talk about that with Joseph Pecky next week.
Joe, thank you so much.
Safe travels.
Have
a great
weekend.
All right.
Coming up next, Matt Nair on Air will be along here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jim Santel, former U.S.
Attorney, will be on, as will Assembly Democratic leader Greta Neubauer and also Paul Noonan, writer for the Acme Packing Company.
That's all part of Matt Nair on Air.
Coming up next, I am Pat Kratlow, founding editor of Up North News, the Wisconsin outlet for Courier Newsroom, building a more informed, engaged and representative of America.
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Have a great day.
We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north.
