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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by UpMorth News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It's 7 0 6.
Nice to be back in the central time zone here to say it's 7 0 6.
and nice to have you here up north.
Not as far north as Saskatchewan, but nice to be back home on this Tuesday morning, June 17th, 2025.
Along the way, we've got Luanne Bird standing by to talk about holding members of Congress accountable for their support of cutting people's stable and affordable Medicaid health care coverage.
That's coming up in just a bit.
We'll talk to Dan Hagen from WJFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander.
We'll be talking to Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Brayton Moser about the latest round of uncertainty caused by President Trump when it comes to mass deportations and workers on farms and frankly throughout America's food supply.
Then in our next hour, we'll be talking to Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO in Warsaw.
And finally, Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation Area and political editor for Civic Media will join us to talk about the state.
Democratic Convention and a reaction to his column last week about whether Governor Evers should run for a third term.
So a lot to cover here this morning, but first, let's get to that forecast where it was, it was a stormy one for a lot of folks.
Not everybody saw storms yesterday, but the ones that did, got some really heavy rains.
Let's see what the rest of the week holds before a big, a big hot change for the weekend
from
meteorologist Brittney Merleau.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing pretty good.
Um, you know, a little rough last night up northwest, you know, we had a tornado warning just south of Hayward, um, Trigo.
There was a funnel cloud spotted there.
And of course that tornado warning went out into Stone Lake into the reservation area and stuff and heavy, heavy rain, like you mentioned.
And now finally.
We're in the clear.
There's some spots of sun, especially south, even far north mixed in with those clouds right now.
Temperatures are at about 60 degrees north, 70 degrees far south, and highs today are climbing.
We're talking 80, about near 80 degrees up into the north woods and near 90 far southeast today.
So it won't be as sticky as yesterday, but still a little bit far south.
And that's where more storm chances are going to be popping up today.
So, Northwest Wisconsin, you're in the clear.
You've got a few dry days ahead of you.
Now the storms are going to be focusing on the southern part of the state.
We've got a front that stalled out there.
It's going to hang out there today.
It's going to continue to pump more rain, showers and storms through the area tomorrow, which will become more widespread.
But South, you are looking at the flooding potential as we go into tomorrow.
So heads up for that.
But tonight, after about six o'clock, we are looking at those storms starting.
They shouldn't last long.
They should be done by about eight or nine.
We could see some high winds or hail with those.
Otherwise, widespread rain, showers, storms, moving in tomorrow, probably midday for the entire evening, winding down overnight.
We could see some flooding, like I said, a good one to two inches in places.
Yikes.
Okay.
And what's with the shirt today says Bigfoot stole my curds.
What's that
about?
It's one of my favorites.
You know, Simon's cheese and Appleton, they sell this shirt and I just fell in love with that.
I had to get it.
He's got his little bag of curds and he's walking away through the woods.
So
never underestimate.
S never underestimate the marketing power of a good t-shirt.
Exactly.
It's
very true.
Let's see from Robin Tigerton.
Good morning.
It's cloudy 69 last night in the Tigerton area.
We had 17 100s of an inch of rain.
I was busy mowing four yards in the Wittenberg area.
He says yesterday in Juneau, Alaska, they had their first ever severe thunderstorm warning with 60 mile an hour winds.
Alaska also had its first ever heat advisory.
Can you confirm either one of these things, Brittany?
I cannot confirm just yet, but you know, it is interesting.
The high pressure sets
up there.
They can get those heat domes.
So I wouldn't doubt it.
It's possible.
I know.
I have not checked in with Dr. Kristen Lyrely yet because I know she's up in the hibbing area and they had some real rough weather and tornado warnings up there yesterday and Rob goes
on to
note with more rain and then the warm weather this weekend.
The corn crop will grow big time and he'll be even busier mowing lawns.
I don't know
when he's
going to find time to do yours and mine or Parker's.
I know, right?
But he's right.
Rain is a good thing.
All that growing.
God, I love it.
That's right.
I
suppose he wants one of those pain gigs.
So all right.
Sounds good.
Thank you, Brittany.
Talk to you
more in an hour.
We'll probably get into whether you eat all your vegetables too, because, you know, today is Eat Your Vegetables Day.
now, now we're getting into definitions of what a vegetable is off air.
So.
stick around for that.
Very interested in that conversation.
I'm very interested in what Luke Mather sent us during the commercial break
but we'll look at channeling that one in an hour or so because we got to get to Lou Ann Bird, our friend, who's helping continue to make people aware of what is in President Trump's big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill, the cuts to Medicaid that are in there, and much more.
and the members of Congress from Wisconsin who all supported it and need to hear more about how that would impact people.
Luanne Byrd, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
I'm good.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me on.
Hey, you bet.
Nice to see you again where again, you have.
You have not lost a step in your public advocacy out here for causes like this, like letting people know, you know, that there's a lot of affordable health care out there that is at risk in this Trump budget.
And is it today that you're doing some activities in the first congressional district to let folks know about Congressman Brian Stile and his support for the bill?
We are, we're holding a town hall in Oak Creek at the Oak Creek Community Center, which is on Howell Avenue in Oak Creek.
That's from 6 to 730.
And we're hoping to hold him accountable to talk about what our demands are.
And that's what we're doing tonight.
So this is again, a case where a sitting member of Congress has been invited to a town hall.
And again, if this is something you feel strongly about, that this is a budget you support, you kind of figure as a member of Congress, you should be willing to go anywhere, anytime and talk to people about it.
But I have to admit, Luanne, I'm not really going to hold my breath that Brian Stiles is going to show up tonight for your event.
That's right.
That's right.
We aren't expecting them.
They never respond to my requests.
So what we do is we have people come up to the microphone.
We have a replica of Brian Stiles standing there.
uh kind of kind of cute and it's whites because he ghosts us and um then we're going to record everybody's comments and today we're moving from just comments to accountability we want their questions and we're going to list those questions and then take those to Brian's style and we did that last time there was a group of us that marched right to his office uh you know a couple days later and we go to the office in um
down south here in Milwaukee County and it's in St.
Francis and deliver and gave them comments.
We gave them signatures.
We gave them no cards because all of that matters.
We have the power.
We have the power to change things.
We own it and we're changing it.
That's our model.
That's our, you know, in this area.
And the thing, Luan, is that it's not just these events that you're organizing, but I mean, you show up at several places.
The last place I saw you was having a very earnest conversation with Speaker Robin Voss, for example, about him still being the single obstruction
to expanding Medicaid coverage for new moms from 60 days postpartum to 12 months, a very vulnerable time in a woman's life.
And why not expand Medicaid overall for that matter?
And he at least engaged you in a conversation, which wouldn't happen if you weren't out there willing to say, hey, can I talk to you for a second?
That's right.
I showed up at his town halls.
No, they were called listening sessions.
So that's what you got to do if you want to have access to people.
And within a couple of weeks, I was in front of Ron Johnson as well, because I went to his local event here.
And when they walk in the room, I don't sit there.
I get up and I go talk to him.
And I brought my videographer with that time.
So we've got lots of footage of what
Robin Boss said about a lot of issues, including guns violence and how they're manipulating the state budget.
There's all kinds of things you can do.
You just can't sit back.
So we have access, we have power, and I'm using it every time I can.
We had 1,000 people show up on the corner of Layton and 76 for the No Kings protest in Greenfield.
More than 1,000 people, we lined the streets for blocks.
up and down there.
And it just happened to be a day when they closed the highway off.
So there was a ton of traffic coming down laden.
And that's what we do.
We're taking our power back.
And so many people came out for the first time and held those signs up and said, we don't want a king.
We want democracy.
We're standing up to this regime.
And yet, because of the tragic events in Minnesota last weekend, I feel it's really important to make the distinction that, you know, in the case of the No Kings rally and all the things that you've been doing, that it is possible and it is frankly mandatory to state your point of view and protest with a big crowd, whatever the case may be, but you can do so peacefully.
And that is a cornerstone of democracy.
That's right, and I was at the Democratic Convention Saturday, so after the No Kings protests, I went.
to the Dells, and there was a big police presence there, and I did not realize why.
I didn't realize that some of my colleagues, my friends, I should say, in the Wisconsin State Legislature, including our friend Tammy Baldwin, and I was with Marpo Can Saturday night.
I didn't know they were targeted.
That shouldn't happen in America, and we should denounce anything like that.
You're right.
We should be safe, but we also cannot let it stop us.
We
can't let it stop us.
And I'm going to say,
that the majority we the responses we got when we were standing on that street corner were positive.
People are tired of this and now we just have to find ways to organize and take our make our views known.
And the other thing I did is I went last week a couple of us went down into a low income section eight housing unit in Kenosha and we listened to their concerns and by the way
Most of the people in there were actually Trump people.
And by the time we were done, we had built a high level of trust.
And we found out that we agree on everything.
And I learned what SNAP is.
These are the things that are being cut in the budget.
These folks get SNAP.
You know what that means?
$2 a day for food.
And we have to cut that.
And then they say, well, you can just go to a food pantry.
You know what, Pat?
They don't have cars.
They can't drive.
They're poor people.
So I learned a lot.
questions to Brian Stile and he actually responded.
And I'm glad about that because I say that as somebody who grew up in section eight housing with
a
mom who did not have a car.
And so, you know, racing off to the food pantry wasn't an option, but we were on snap
benefits.
And
again, like like so many other and you know, she was waitressing the overnight shift, you know, at the time at a truck stop.
They're all kind of hardworking families doing this.
And I just I bring this up because I don't want somebody like a Brian style or a Derek van Ordner was
whatever to say, well, I'm not holding listening sessions because of all the political violence out there.
That's a cop out.
That there are plenty of places where you can meet people like Luan Bird and others who can make their point and you can make their point to them and do so in a civil fashion and maybe change some hearts and minds along the way.
You know what else I did, Pat?
In order to give you folks that are listening an opportunity to take action, I made a phone booth so that I could make my point.
It was a big red phone booth, took it to the park, a humble park, so that people could use their, what I'm calling, superpowers and make phone calls.
So it was like a Superman, a play on Superman.
I had my red cape and my little red mask.
And I'm like, come on you guys, all you gotta do is call this number, 202-224.
five, two, three, two, and call Ron Johnson and say behind me, like, vote no on the budget.
Vote no because we don't, and here's what Ron Johnson always says, we don't want to mortgage our children's future away.
This budget's going to increase the debt.
It's not cutting spending.
It's rearranging the dollars.
That's all you got to say.
Don't go to that.
Oh, it's bad.
It's cutting, cutting, you know, benefits and everything.
No, it's just vote no.
Lou Ann Bird remains a force.
Lou Ann Bird, L-U-A-N-N, bird, L-U-A-N-N, bird.com to learn more.
Lou Ann, thank you so much.
Always so great
to see
you.
You too.
Thank you.
Have a great
day.
A local update is next for some of you.
Others will be back as we visit with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch12 and Rhinelander.
And in 15 minutes, we'll talk to Hans Breitenmoser from the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota, here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
The Milwaukee Brewers are on the road this week.
They've got three games at Wrigley Field starting this evening.
Let's see, pregame coverage is at 630 on stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine, Park Falls, and Hayward, where you can catch the Brewers and Cubs this evening, tomorrow evening, then again on Wednesday afternoon, before they head to Target Field in downtown Minneapolis for a weekend series with the Minnesota Twins.
Oklahoma City beat Indiana last night to take a three games to two lead in the NBA Finals, and Florida is up
two, three games to two over Edmonton in the Stanley Cup finals and could clinch with a win tonight in Miami.
If Edmonton wins, there will be a game seven Friday night up in Edmonton.
And one more interesting sports trivia point, and I missed this yesterday.
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary.
of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar trade to the Lakers.
It was on June 16th, 1975 that the Bucks traded the soon-to-be three-time MVP for Junior Bridgeman Dave Myers, Elmore Smith, and Brian Winters, a trade that really enhanced the makeup of both teams.
down the line, a lot of what ifs if that trade had never happened.
But there you were.
It was 50 years ago yesterday that that happened.
724 the time right now.
Let's bring in Dan Hagen from WJFWTV and Rhinelander News Watch 12.
How are you, Mr. Hagen?
I'm doing well.
I believe I'm gonna do my actually Pat.
It was Lou Elcindor, right?
That was traded and then later his name got changed.
I know it's
We're splitting hairs.
No, no, no, I I had forgotten to update the the copy on here.
So thank you for clarifying that.
How are things in your neck of the Northwoods?
Life is good.
Although we've had a dismal stretch of days.
I don't know what it's like for you down in the Chippewa Falls area, but
cloudy, rainy, and we got rain in the forecast pretty much every day until Thursday, unfortunately.
Yeah, we've said for some time here, it's one of those where if you if you have to mow the lawn, and it's growing like crazy with the rain, but you got to find just the right time where the grass is dry enough to mow.
But before the next round of rain comes in.
And if you don't, I mean, I live next door to a farm so I can borrow their hay baler if need be.
Okay,
because
otherwise it is it is clump central this time of year if you don't get it.
just right.
So what kind of stories you're working on up there for the nice folks at NewsWatch 12?
Yeah, of course.
It's interesting having Hans Brighton Moser on following me because he relates to a story about a nursing home.
There are about 36 county owned nursing homes in Wisconsin still.
So these are nursing homes that are operated by the county and funded by taxpayers in the county.
And there's a
A nursing home in Lincoln County, which is Tomahawk, Merrill, if you're unfamiliar.
A nursing home called Pinecrest Nursing Home.
And it's been funded by taxpayers by for about 70 years.
And a lot of people who are poor stay at this place.
It accepts Medicaid and Medicare.
And the county has been trying to sell Pinecrest for a couple of years now.
A previous sale fell through because a county board member sued the county and the buyer pulled out.
But there's a new buyer now.
This buyer, Ensign Group, has nursing homes all over the country.
The latest chapter will be this evening when the county board meets and the county board will vote on whether to approve the sale or not.
A lot of people are upset about this potential sale given that they're worried that the quality may suffer and it may be more expensive.
And then on the flip side of that, it's been operating at a loss generally.
nursing home pine crest, maybe like a million dollars a year, more than a million dollars a year, it costs the county.
People would argue that it's a good investment, but just that's both sides of it for
you.
Yeah, well, here's where you really get into it.
And again, I'm surprised to hear that there's still 36 county-owned nursing homes.
I mean, it used to be a staple of all the counties as a new reporter 40 years ago.
Some of my first stories were whether Eau Claire County should still be in the nursing home business, should Chippewa County still be in the nursing home business.
but again that's one way to frame it is should the county be in the nursing home business the other way is should nursing homes be a business because as you know you know once you bring in that for-profit corporate business model you have to ask yourself
did we just privatize an essential service?
You know, we don't, we don't privatize the phones.
There's a lot of things we don't, or the roads rather, we don't privatize a lot of things.
And should this be one of them that, you know, these are folks who have been your taxpayer.
for decades and now you know they're they're they don't have a lot of means but they want to stay in the county should a nursing home be one of those you know essential services that a county provides so yeah I've I've been covering both sides of this it seems you know for decades and obviously it will be something that happens for some time to come and uh I'm I'm not a bit surprised to hear Dan that it it continues to generate a lot of debate both both ways around there
Yeah, I mean just going off of your argument there and these are literally the most vulnerable people they're old They don't have a lot of money and like you said, they've been paying a long time
taxes to support this nursing home.
And you know, this new group, Ensign Group has, you know, they're in the New York Stock Exchange, right?
So what's going to be their first priority?
But like I said, it's costing the county money, so I don't quite know how all the figures work into that, but it's an interesting
debate.
It's like when people say, well, you know, trains, you know, we have an expanded rail because they should pay for themselves.
Again, coming back to the road analogy, we don't do that.
We don't say, well, the roads have to pay for themselves.
It just does.
We don't say, you know, the military has to pay for itself.
You just you just do and you have to make that decision.
And all these things are these the things you do or do you say, well, it's no longer an essential service.
Let's turn it over.
Cassandra puts on YouTube, you know, it will suffer if a private company buys it.
Private companies are horrendous.
I could tell stories.
I'm sure there are benevolent companies out there as well.
I'm sure there are some that start benevolent, but they start, they get so big, you know, and then they start looking for cost cuttings and things like that.
You can completely see why this is such a hot topic for folks in Lincoln County.
And yes, Hans Brighton Moser, a former Lincoln County board member will be joining us right after the break.
But we got caught up on the news aspect of it with Dan Hagan from NewsWatch 12 in Rhineland.
Thank you so much.
Good, good to visit with you here.
Anytime Pat.
Thanks so much.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
And yes, Hans Brighton Moser is standing by.
We'll talk to him about that and President Trump's latest flip-flop on ag mass deportations right after the Midwest Farm report across the civic media radio network.
Hey, Up North News now has newsletters seven days a week, our regular Monday through Friday, which is a mix of Wisconsin features and news.
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He does a newsletter now called Sunday Mornings with Pat Critello, all about Wisconsin politics.
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It always includes a question of the week.
which this week is whether Governor Tony Evers should run for a third term.
We'll talk to Dan Schaefer about that one hour from now here on the program.
But Hans Breitenmoser was at the State Democratic Convention and I'm guessing it may have been a conversation there.
We'll get into that and we'll get into the conversation we were just having with Dan Hagen about the Pinecrest Nursing Home and whether counties should continue to operate their nursing homes or sell them off to the private sector.
And then there's that
whole thing with Hans being a farmer, like, you know, trying to get into the field where it keeps raining and things like that.
So we got a lot to cover in the next few minutes.
Hans, how are you?
Good morning,
fine.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thanks.
We were saying before about, you know, you have to time out your lawn mowing just right with with
these waves of rain.
Are you getting much in for field work?
Well, we got our first crop done before all the rains came and that was done in good order and yields were not spectacular on some of the grassier stands because we had such strangely cold weather.
But we got it all done before it rained, so we're happy about that.
And the corn is growing, the beans are growing, the second crop is growing.
So we could use a few sunny days, but I guess that's better than drought, so we'll take
it.
I guess so, yep.
The latest USDA crop progress report for Wisconsin says, first cutting of alfalfa hay was 79% complete two days ahead of last year.
The all hay condition was rated 78% good to excellent.
That's down three points from the week before.
corn planting is nearly complete and let's see other soybeans planting is again is nearing completion as well so that's a quick update on what's happening on the farms all around Wisconsin but some of those farmers yourself included do some work off the farm which might include public service and for quite a time you were on the Lincoln County Board and so
as we continue that conversation about counties and and being you know operators of nursing homes you know about the pinecrest issue up there that's something pretty near and dear to your time of service on the county board
yeah yeah so um so yeah i was on the county board for 10 years and i've been off the county board for a couple of years now but um
But it is the case that during my time on the county board, we managed to keep the doors open of our county-owned nursing home.
And ever since this current crop of board members came on, they've just been hell bent on selling our nursing home.
And it's really unfortunate because it is a five-star facility.
It's been doing well.
It's in the black.
There's no financial reasons to get rid of it.
There's just really absolutely no reason to sell this nursing home.
But I really feel like it was this sort of ideological bent of the current majority, the current county board supervisors who came in and said that government just shouldn't be involved in anything.
And we're going to whittle it down.
This is the same county board who got rid of UW Extension in our county.
And we had a fight like hell to keep 4-H.
They got rid of just basically anything that's not mandated by the state is what they want to get rid of.
And it just doesn't make any sense.
Because while this proposed owner of this nursing home, they own 340 other properties.
And perhaps they're quite good at it.
But the reality is if your grandma's in a nursing home and they own 340 facilities like that, I'm here to tell you she's going to be a number on a spreadsheet.
She's not going to get the same level of care that she would in a county owned facility.
And that's proven by facts.
There's plenty of evidence out there that suggests that the publicly owned nursing homes provide a higher level of care than the private ones.
And it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out why.
It's because the private ones are there to make a profit and there's no shame in that.
But bottom line is there's 4% that's gotta go out the door to make sure that the operation is profitable.
We don't have that motive here at the county level.
Yeah, it comes back to that whole notion of look, these are folks who have been taxpayers in the county.
They've been citizens in the county for all of this time.
And should some of those taxes go toward this kind of care, we don't weigh the benefits on other essential services like, you know, the roads and things like that.
And just because the private sector does something,
does not necessarily mean it's the only option that needs to be available.
You're really making a sound, and I'm not surprised, that this is so much more about political ideology than it is about community service.
It's totally about that, and it's unfortunate because I think a lot of that political ideology has come from a big business who
you know, set their eyes on things like nursing homes and prisons and schools and said, there's money to be made here.
And so we need to convince people out in the hinterlands that, you know, the government is incapable of doing anything right and the private sector does everything splendidly.
And then, you know, and then that ideology seeps in and here we are.
But it's not, there's no basis in fact.
And I think it's a county board's job or any local government's job to look at the
facts that they have on the ground see how their situation is is going and also listen to their constituents by God because you know I know here in Lincoln County there's just been a huge outcry.
about this.
There's very, very few people that are in favor of this change to a privatized nursing home and the county board flat out refused to do a referendum question or have any public input taken seriously.
So many closed door meetings and so forth and it's just really unfortunate how this whole thing has gone down and so I'll be at the county board meeting tonight.
you know, giving my two cents from a different podium than I used to have.
We're talking to Hans Brighton, most reformer member of the Lincoln County board here and a dairy farmer as well.
And so let's get into that other farm related topic, which was.
somewhat surprising on Thursday when President Donald Trump put up on his tiny social media site something about you know how his mass deportations maybe it hasn't been great to be doing mass deportations in the hotel and hospitality businesses and so he has been instructing ICE and others to
kind of let off the gas for hotels and hospitality and basically come down even harder in, you know, in those those big bad blue cities because apparently, you know, work there is is different than work out in the country.
It really, I don't know, what do you think motivated it?
Does he really mean it?
Is it going to change anything?
I'm sure I don't know, Pat, because I think if we know anything about this administration, they have the capacity to flip and flop quite frequently and regularly for no real good reasons or anything that can be explained with any sort of any kind of common sense whatsoever.
It's clear that this administration is perfectly capable of doing things that are absolutely politically motivated.
And so if all sorts of blue areas, urban areas are in the crosshairs, that doesn't surprise me.
So is this going to be, are we going to feel less pressure here out in the countryside and agriculture with regard to undocumented folks who work for us?
It's difficult to say.
Because things do change quickly but I think I think some of the going after blue areas more than red areas
I think that is by design.
I also think that some organizations like the American Business Immigration Coalition has done a really good job in lobbying the administration and lobbying our lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, on how important foreign-born employees are to agriculture, and hopefully that's starting to sink in because they are.
Hopefully we can get over this notion that everybody who's come from another place is somehow some raging criminal and they're up here just so busy committing crimes that they're not going to work.
Well, you'd certainly think so based on Trump's post, where after talking about change would be coming, he said in a post on Sunday, we need to focus on our crime-ridden and deadly inner cities, and those places where sanctuary cities play such a big role, you don't hear about sanctuary cities in our heartland.
Well, actually, last week or so.
there were at least a couple of rural sheriffs that were passing emails back and forth about not necessarily cooperating any further with ice, you know, seeing how things were being handled and really Hans, I mean, it's about going after brown people first and foremost.
It's just that now instead of going after brown people in red areas, it's going after brown people in blue areas, which again,
Our politics is overly simplistic based on colors, team red, team blue.
But in
Trump's case, he's like, well, as long as we're going after the brown people in the blue areas, the white people in the red areas who need the brown people to make money are going to be okay.
that sums up donald trump in a nutshell maybe
well i i think you're right unfortunately i think that's kind of where we're at and obviously all these things are more complicated and and then then then we'd like them to be but that's that's reality that's that's what it means to be a grown-up things are things are complicated sometimes and what i can say is that
The dairy industry falls completely apart in the state of Wisconsin without foreign-born employees.
We need a mechanism by which we can have people from other countries coming in and doing jobs in this country.
Otherwise, the economy just doesn't work.
Any economists worth their salt will tell you that.
This isn't, you know, this isn't, you know, economics needing a PhD.
This is simple math.
And so anybody that can't see past the idea that we're simply demonizing a group of people and scapegoating them for any problems that we might have, they're simply kidding themselves.
And I'm willing to forgive people for that, but I have a hard time forgiving policymakers for that because by God, they should know better.
Yeah.
And I mean, honestly, when my response to that is when it comes to racial politics and Donald Trump and the mega wing, sometimes things really are as simple as they might seem.
But that's that's my whole two cents on it.
I got just over a minute left and wanted to ask you just just in general about
June Dairy Month, there have been activities that are going on.
We've spoken at length about it, and I always worry that as the years go by and as more of these factory farms come in and then people start taking things for granted, do you still feel like all these June Dairy Month activities, they make a dent, they help folks around Wisconsin appreciate what's going on, or are you more concerned that maybe it's not what it used to be?
you know it's hard not to be nostalgic for the days when there were 13 dairy farms on my road and now there's only three of us left that that the dairy industry has changed a great deal but I do feel like the the june dairy events are are well received and well attended and they go to some very nice farms some large and some small and it does it does help the public appreciate
what the dairy industry contributes to the state economy and helps educate non-farmers on what happens on real farms.
And getting back to the earlier conversation, I hope that as we go forward, part of that conversation is the fact that there's brown people that work on those farms as well.
Exactly.
Hans Brighton Moser
from Lincoln County.
Thank you very much.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you a little later.
right, you bet.
A local update is next for some of you.
For the rest of you hanging around here, we'll talk about Western Wisconsin happenings and more.
And in our eight o'clock hour, Dan Schaefer and Chad Holmes, powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Do we have a little Dick Dale going on now?
Is that what that says?
I just it sounds very much like the surf music of that era and I'm like, yeah, I wonder if this guy's got any Any copyright problems over here, but hey you found it in the library if
it's in the
library.
Yeah, it's fair game.
We're clear Let her roll.
All right.
Welcome back everybody 753 right now catching up with some of the
Other headlines I was looking around in western Wisconsin, for example, Governor Evers was recently in La Crosse talking about the topic of affordable housing.
This from the WEAU TV site where he was looking at an affordable housing project in the area called Collective on Fourth.
And he told folks there, every time we talk about what we need to do better in our state, housing is something everyone has to have.
It's critical.
It becomes kind of a linchpin to the good life here in Wisconsin.
Nicole Solheim said, the city of La Crosse has been proactive and vocal about the need to prioritize housing and says that talking to leaders like Governor Evers is important to emphasize how affordable housing is to be key for a thriving community.
And it is something that I've heard discussed by legislators.
Frankly, on both sides of the aisle, they may disagree on the best way to get there.
One side is basically addicted to the idea of tax credits as opposed to direct investments.
But at least the conversation is on the table there someplace.
And we're going to need that because otherwise,
We're just going to continue to see in some of these communities an inability to keep jobs if you don't have enough affordable housing, meaning that first wave of housing, your starter homes and things like that.
People love to build McMansions.
You get high profit margins on those, but you have to incentivize a good stock of affordable first time homes if you're going to have a thriving local community.
Well, Congressman Derek Van Orden was rightly given the publicity that he deserved in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel yesterday for taunting Minnesota's governor, Tim Walls, as a clown and as stupid.
That's how Derek Van Orden reacted to the assassination of a Minnesota legislator, the murder of her husband, the shooting of another legislator and his wife.
And the story by Lawrence Andrea from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that shortly afterwards on Derek Van Orden's official Twitter account, he says, political violence has no place in America.
I fully condemn this attack, along with all forms of political violence and intimidation.
Yeah, but not too long after that on Derek Van Orden's personal account.
is where things go sideways.
Where he wrote, yesterday a whole pack of election deniers got together and spewed hate talking about the Saturday protests.
One of them decided to murder and attempt to murder some politicians that were not far enough left for them.
In other words, spreading the misinformation that the shooter was somehow part of left-wing politics when, of course, as it was learned, not too shortly after that, he was most decidedly a far right extremist.
But he went on to refer to Van Orden, went on to refer to Governor Tim Walls as stupid and a clown in posts that came after that.
It drew attention from people like Congressman Mark Pokan pointing out the vile nature of this.
Mark Pokan responded by saying, downplaying the killings of elected officials in Minnesota so you can try to own a liberal is pathetic.
Did Van Orden seem humbled?
Did he seem apologetic?
No.
He responded to Polkan saying this, it is statistically impossible that you could be dumb enough to believe what you are writing.
That is Derrick Van Orden.
Later when Governor Walz posted a photo of himself with the murdered legislator, Melissa Hortman, Van Orden replied,
to the governor's post saying, you appointed the crazy zealot that murdered her to one of your boards, you clown.
Because that's wrong on every level, I will again ask publicly, is there anybody on Derrick Van Orden's staff that can pry his password away to his personal account?
Because it's no longer, he's been embarrassing long enough.
He is embarrassing the third congressional district.
He is embarrassing the state of Wisconsin.
He's an embarrassment to the state of Wisconsin.
There's nothing else about it.
So asked about the social media posts Van Orden put out a statement to the journal Sentinel that said the reason politically violent rhetoric and political violence has gone on for so long even going back to people burning cars when President Trump was first elected is because nobody is holding the perpetrators accountable
Republicans do not push back when we are insulted and political violence continues because of it.
The individuals who spew this hatred need to be called out, Van Orden said.
Well, okay then, Derek Van Orden, I'm calling you out.
Knock it off.
If you don't know the facts behind the story, don't post it.
And if your idea of political discourse is to refer to a governor in mourning of a state,
As a clown, delete your account.
Better yet, delete yourself from office, resign, step away.
By the way, when I said delete yourself, he right away says, oh, that's a threat.
I'm going to report you.
No, Derek Van Orden, you simply need to be removed from office by the voters.
More on our eight o'clock hour on Up North News Radio.
Coming up we're going to be talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area and Civic Media Political Editor.
We're going to be talking about the State Democratic Convention.
I have a feeling there was some things said about the Third Congressional District where there are three candidates right now each hoping to remove Derek Van Orden from office next year.
And also, he wrote a little column about whether Governor Evers should seek a third term.
There's also a new chair of the State Democratic Party that was voted on at the convention that Dan Schaefer was attending.
And we will talk to Chad Holmes as well from our Civic Media Station in Wausau, 98.9 WXCO, about the stories that he's following, especially given that spring sports is finally starting to wrap up.
The man is finally starting to get a rest.
But we'll also have an updated forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merleau all coming up after the eight o'clock news on these mornings powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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