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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Crichtlow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Crichtlow.
Hey, good morning.
It's 8.06.
Nice to have you back here up north on this Thursday morning, June 19th, 2025.
Appreciate your company as we head into our third hour here on this Thursday.
making our way ever closer to the weekend.
We'll talk to Chad Holmes coming up in just a little bit, as well as meteorologist Brittany Merleau, not just about the forecast, but she's also got a story up on the Civic Media site about smallmouth bass season.
So we'll get into that as well.
Park Olson is standing by in Madison Studio A2, where I'm reminded that there was a question that came in the comment sections on Facebook earlier that I did not address with you from Greg and Walker Shop.
How much water does Parker drink?
drinking a day?
It really varies.
don't know.
Is that a 16 ounce bottle there?
never really
don't know.
Okay, and you're still claiming it's mostly water.
I'm claiming that it is entirely water while I'm on the clock.
That's a good story, and you just stick to that.
Thank you, sir.
Folks who missed it earlier, Roger and Steven's point got up on Facebook and said that WIAA state baseball wraps up today with four championships, and he says best of luck to the Pichelli Cardinals.
Chad, do you happen to have in front of you who all is in the championships today?
I do not.
See what happens when they spring stuff on you when you're live on air?
I apologize for that.
If anybody did, it was going to be you, so.
Well,
unfortunately, none of my teams are involved
in this.
That's true.
You see what?
Yep.
You're like, I'm off the clock.
This ain't water in this water bottle.
I would go right off the
back of my hand otherwise.
It reminds me.
I'm using today's coffee mug is from Drinker, Wisconsin Blee.
And of course, on the mug, it says, shh, this isn't coffee.
Real
fast, I will tell you division one Badger takes on Muskego, division two Seymour against New Berlin Eisenhower, Kiwani against Kenosha St.
Joe's in division three, and then as mentioned Peccelli against Johnson Creek in division four.
There you go.
See, the man knows how to get the info.
If it's sports, he's going to get it for you for Wisconsin High School Sports.
If it's weather, you're going to get it from meteorologist Brittany Merleau.
Uh, as we, we're not, we're not just heading toward the weekend.
We're heading toward the oven.
Yes, we are.
You know, it's just
another way to
put it.
It is going to be a sauna like as you put it.
Yes, it is steamy.
We're going to be cooking out there, okay?
Temperatures today, not too bad.
55 to about 68 degrees this morning.
We've got a little bit of light rain rolling by Rice Lake.
Otherwise, a lot of sunshine out there and a few clouds mixed in too.
Go figure, of course.
We've still got this front sitting over the state, so we do have chances for scattered showers and storms still, especially north on occasion.
Very stray, very light, very brief.
But otherwise, tonight, they spark up again.
After highs today, reach the upper 70s to low 80s.
Dew points are actually on the comfortable side.
A little sticky still, but they're in the 50s.
So as we go through the weekend, they're going to go from the 50s to the 70s, and not just low 70s.
mid to upper 70 degree dew points.
And if you don't know what that means, when you hit a 70 degree dew point, that means it's pretty oppressive.
It is hard to evaporate the sweat off of your skin.
You feel just kind of claustrophobic, right?
The air is heavy around you.
That's because it's saturated with moisture.
So it's harder to evaporate the sweat off your skin and keep you cool.
So you can get hot so, so fast and easy.
So it's a good time to hydrate now.
I've got my
Flash IV.
That's what I'm doing right now.
Anything you can do to hydrate.
I should put this up on
YouTube.
I try to drink at least one 40 ounce bottle of water a day.
That's great.
Yeah.
That's
great.
The more you can, the better.
And don't do it all at once, too.
Slowly drink throughout the day, right?
It helps saturate into your system a little bit easier.
But the dew points in the mid-70s, temperatures in the 90s.
It is going to be feeling like with the heat index triple digits, about 100 to 105 degrees.
So pay attention to yourself.
Okay.
If you start to sweat a lot and then all of a sudden you stop, or if you start to get confused or dizzy or lightheaded or start to see stars, you need to get in the AC.
You need to get inside, stay cool, rest, hydrate all of those things.
All right, Brittany, thank you so much for the update.
And I know you'll find ways to keep cool.
Chad, we were talking about fairs and festivals starting up this weekend, like Summer Fest and others.
Anything on your near radar for your neck of the woods?
Well, the big one here is the Wisconsin Valley Fair, which is not till the end of July, early August.
So that's always the big one.
Usually some activities going on around the 4th of July as well.
But we're not quite to that spot of the summer here, at least in the Wausau area.
No, that's all right.
And Brittany had mentioned earlier that you've got an article at the Civic Media site over in the news section about smallmouth bass season starting up.
That would be, is it Sunday?
June 21st?
Saturday.
Oh, that's right.
Today's
Thursday.
Okay.
So yes, all up north, you finally can.
So pretty much Douglas Sawyer Price.
Lincoln, Langley, Door Counties, and North.
You can go ahead and go fishing.
So the, what is that?
The Wisconsin, Minnesota, Boundary Waters, tributaries to Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, all of those awesome places you can catch and release.
Smallmouth Bass starting Saturday through March.
All right.
Got more details on the Civic Media site.
Thank you, Brittany.
Have a great day.
You too.
All right.
So Chad is, you can find him over at 98.9 WXCO out of Wausau following stories up there.
What are you working on this week?
What do you imagine?
One that I'm going to be speaking of in our next segment right after this involves Mayor Doug Denney.
We had recently saw an editorial from the editor of the wasp pilot and review endorsing a city manager form of government.
And yesterday there was a letter to the editor.
in the pilot from Mayor Doug Denney.
You don't say.
Enforcing that as well and a few of the interesting aspects of this letter to the editor.
Again, I think an argument could be made.
I think we touched on it previously that in the sense that Lisa, I believe that the default should always be where the voters in our form of government decide who's going to be the leaders.
I think there can be an argument made that having somebody of a professional nature could work, but it's not a panacea for those who think it is.
But a few of the notes in terms of what Denny said in this note, and one of the ones that this, again, if this is truly about just
specifically in terms of making a better government.
Number one, he ran on the idea that he was gonna come in and just be the guy that was at the till.
We had too much of Katie Rosenberg being out there and trying to be a moral voice in our community.
We can't have that.
We just need somebody who's gonna punch in every day and do the job.
Well, it hasn't exactly been that way.
But even in this note, he talks about,
I believe that with enough effort, we could overcome dysfunction and personality-driven politics.
Another shot right there at the former Maryland.
And my first thought is, if there's nothing else you can say about Donald Trump, isn't it about personality-based politics, driven politics?
I mean, the idea that...
that the mayor of a community or the governor of a state or the president of the United States is not in some way a moral force or a Person that whose personality does
drive a lot of the conversation and it should be in a good way.
I find it to be a bit silly.
But also the whole idea of Doug Denny comes in and he thought that he was going to be able to come in here and fix all the things that he saw that were wrong and he's finding that he can't do it.
So Doug, if I can't do it, let's bring in a city manager.
I kind of just shake my head at that and I get the final point before I allow you to maybe give a thought because I'd be very interested in that as well.
This is the continuation of what we've seen since 1980.
And Donald Trump, I mean, excuse me, Ronald Reagan and the whole idea from the right in this country that government doesn't work.
They come in, they're inept and then they raise their hand and say, well, government doesn't work.
Well, I just think that
the mayor needs to look in the mirror a little bit here on why it hasn't worked in Warsaw for the past year.
I guess I couldn't agree more because I can't envision a professional hired city manager taking it upon himself to commandeer an absentee ballot drop box.
and say I don't think this should be here so I'm going to move it but when you are elected mayor you know it gives you a pretty high opinion of yourself for some people and they feel like much like a Donald Trump I'm the boss I can do whatever I want and what really bothered Trump in his first term was being told no as president you can't do whatever you want but he was being told that by other Republicans with respect for the rule of law.
and norms and the Constitution and Trump this time around just didn't surround himself with those folks and throw through sheer force of will is getting things done until courts tell him that he can't and then he's got to decide whether to ignore the the courts or not.
You've got Robin Voss who's been able to do this thanks to gerrymandered maps and and I think the
maybe the mayor there is wishing he had some of these accessories or accomplices or whatever, but when it's just you on your own telling you, no, you can't do those things that you thought you could do, I suppose it's easier to just blame the system.
And the whole thing about it is exactly, that's exactly right.
Because again, he's also mentioned in this letter to the editor, I have come to realize that it's not just a matter of effort or goodwill.
Well, I've seen a lot of effort and goodwill from the mayor's office the last year, right?
It's about structure.
So the whole idea is if I can't make this work, then nobody can make this work.
I mean, come on.
I mean, he's made, I think the first step.
for the mayor if he wants to become a successful chief executive of this community is to realize his own errors.
It's not all structured.
There have been self-inflicted wounds from him, and it feels like this.
almost has come up as a godsend for him.
Oh, it's not my fault that things are dysfunctional here in this community.
It's the structure.
Well, again, what do you what do you never hear from from Robin Voss or Donald Trump?
You never hear contrition.
You never hear accountability where they go, I was wrong about this.
I was mistaken about this.
It's I'm right, no matter what, even if I know I'm wrong, I'm going to keep repeating it over and over and blame anybody else.
And unfortunately, we've turned compromise into a dirty word.
in this country.
And we've turned contrition into a dirty word in this country.
And, you know, we, we are going to need leaders who can do those things without being painted as weak.
And that's a very tall order.
But I think that's what we're going to have to have here.
So I agree with that 100%.
But I mean, obviously, this, this conversation is now really going to I think ramp up a little bit.
We have the initial.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, media.
By the way, let me ask you the real fact, I don't really have a minute and a half.
What do you think of this media driven dialogue that we see here?
And I'm going to say it right out front.
We've been, I've been hearing a lot on this airwaves since Dan Schaefer put out his article on Tony Evers.
Is this a good thing in your mind?
What, talking about it?
No, the whole
idea that, well, all of a sudden it's become a huge story because one journalist has put out an opinion piece.
And now everybody's talking about it.
I just feel like sometimes this train, it's a lot of momentum in ways that maybe is not exactly the right way
to go.
I actually give Dan Schaefer credit for this in that the conversation was going to be had at some point.
It might have started with an Evers announcement, but at some point it was going to happen anyway.
And Dan thought, well, let's kick this off.
None of the
Rank and file Democrats want to kick this off because they don't want to look disloyal by simply bringing up this as a topic of conversation.
Dan Schaeffer saw what was happening with the National Democrats and said, well, I'll get it started.
And he's certainly gotten some blowback, but he's gotten other people saying, well, at least we're talking about it.
And we will continue to and Chad Holmes will follow it at 98.9 WXCO as well.
So more to come on that.
He's got a local update coming up next for folks in the Wausau market.
Have a great day and a good weekend there, Chad.
Thank you, Pat.
All right.
We'll talk to you again next week.
We talk to him on Tuesdays and Thursdays here in the eight o'clock hour on these mornings powered by Up North News.
A local updates next for some of you.
You'll be hanging here.
I'll be talking to Sean O'Malley about Trump and the crypto bros right after this.
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Let's talk about your money and the markets.
We'll talk to Sean O'Malley here now, the Hudson native and finance and economics expert, and we'll talk about crypto, but first we'll talk about tariffs and dollars before that.
How is Mr. O'Malley this morning?
We're looking at certainly at what's happening with the tariffs.
The latest word from Goldman Sachs economist is that he is expecting on July 9th a big nothing to happen, which means I guess that the taco trade from always chickens out is still on.
So, you know, look for that to come up and we'll see if he's right.
Seems like there could be a logical basis for it.
So it'll be very interesting to see what happens there.
But that uncertainty, what was that due to interest rates
Well...
The Fed basically hasn't, they had an opportunity yesterday with their Fed Open Market Committee meeting to make a move to either increase or decrease interest rates.
They decided to hold them steady, but their cautionary notes were around potential inflation.
Related to the tariffs particularly.
Well, but I was told tariffs don't cause inflation.
I was told I was told I didn't say I believed it
Yeah,
just using things with politics rather than facts and economics and things like that.
And it's running counterintuitive.
Now, here's the one thing that we have seen, Pat.
We've seen a massive devaluation in the dollar in the last six months.
So it's at a three year low.
And when I looked at how much it's down year to date, it is down 10%.
And I thought, myself, where have I heard that 10% number?
I realized, you know, wasn't that the base percentage of the tariffs globally that was being
imposed?
Why, yes, it was.
Indeed.
So a 10% tariff rate at a minimum and the dollar index is down 10% year to date.
It's almost like people, I can hear the I told you so from
Well, yeah, it's what's happening in
Actuality is something that we've talked about several times, you know, on these segments of ours where we're looking at the demand for dollar based assets going down.
And that is in fact, exactly what has happened over the last six months and it is down substantially.
There was a standard basket of currencies that has been used to measure this dollar index for decades.
And if it is down 6%, excuse me, it's down 10% in the last six months.
Wow.
That's okay.
And finally, in talking about cryptocurrency, and we can look at it through several different ways.
First, crypto itself and to what degree it's tangible, legitimate or a danger.
Then you've got Congress, which is now crypto friendly because Trump is now crypto friendly, a bill that might lend some legitimacy to it.
But again, why is Trump behind it?
Because he used to be against it.
It seems to me,
It's maybe the fact that there's bribery happening all around us when it comes to crypto right now.
Okay.
air.
Nothing.
Nothing.
So what's happening.
And one of the big money makers for the Trump family so far, you know this year has been these meme coins that they have issued the S Trump dollar Trump and dollar Melania or the strump and smell on you as I prefer to think of them Just to add insult to insult But they're basically saying okay, you can take a lot of cash here and you can give it to me and I'm gonna give you a bunch of meme coins that are
have no real value.
But I've got the money.
So it's a great way to bribe someone in broad daylight and say, there you go, and you go out there and say, here are your meme coins.
Thank you so much for the money.
They've made over $2 billion that Trump family has through their cryptocurrency.
The vast amount of the wealth that they have made this year is from the issuance of those meme coins.
And yes, as you point out, Congress is now getting friendly, which means the regulation is also getting reduced.
It's getting sort of overlooked.
And if that happens, if you don't have proper guardrails, you can say we're passing this bill and it lends it legitimacy, but
only the degree to which there are guardrails on this, as with anything else in capitalism, you know, rather than the Wild West, you, you, you can debate where the guardrail should be.
But what's your sense of whether a bill running through this Congress would provide safeguards, or if it would leave a whole lot of people having regrets further down the line?
It's the Wild Wild West.
It's laissez-faire.
It's bi-arbeware.
It's watch out.
And the fact that Trump has already put in place this Bitcoin reserve is kind of it.
That was sort of the warning shot between that and the meme coins that we're going very crypto friendly.
And this is sort of an interesting thing.
It's largely Barron's impact on his father.
I know that.
Barron got
who's ever got his ear last?
And I am no student of history, but I'm going to go back and read up about the the way that tulip bulbs caused an economic collapse in 1634, because I got to think there's parallels there, but I'm going to go read up on it.
Sean O'Malley, thanks as always.
We will talk to you next week.
All right, thanks.
All right.
We're going to visit with Joseph Pecky.
He's going to talk all about his run for state party chair and 2026 for Democrats all ahead.
You're up north.
Here he is now.
He's fresh off the campaign trail just back from a state convention full of news to talk to us about, but we don't want to forget the lead story.
We don't want to bury the lead in all of this.
Please welcome to the program Uncle Joe, Uncle of a Little Miss Polish Fest Princess, Princess Everett.
Congratulations, Uncle Joe.
That was an amazing showing, and I'll get to it in a second, but I want to stick with the festivals just long enough to reiterate what Melissa and I talked about yesterday, that your family, much like in my case, there's as much German as there is Polish in this thing, and Polish or German Fest, rather, is not that far away where, again, you can see Joe in all of his cultural best.
right, I
You can come get a brat or a Hungarian that was grilled by yours truly, so we hope to see everybody at German Fest after missing my first Polish Fest.
Probably since I moved back home to Wisconsin in 2011.
So I think every year, 2012 through 2024, I made it.
I got to start a new streak.
I think you had good reason.
And that's where I just want to allow you to take whatever time you need to talk about the race for state chair and all of the hundreds of really awesome people who voted for you.
I have said more than once over the last couple of days that I would do this all over again in a heartbeat, even knowing how it ended.
That is how much it is meant to me to build relationships around the state to make an impact within the Democratic Party.
And we know that we have.
People have been extraordinarily kind in the aftermath of Sunday afternoon's vote.
talking about the ways in which our message moved them and inspired them to maybe reengage or if they had been engaged to really step up what they were doing for our movement.
And so I have no regrets whatsoever.
I have nothing but the best wishes to Devon Remaker and the Wisdoms team going forward.
I really appreciated William Garcia stepping up and running as well.
uh this was a slog and it wasn't that it was a months and months and months and months along campaign as these have sometimes been closer to like six months on the road but the fact that it was such a truncated timetable meant that the three of us had to work our tails off and get around the state and you know that
That was just a different kind of sprint than I've ever been a part of, but it was a terrific experience.
I do think that the weekend in the Dells revealed some things that I hope will change in the future, and that certainly both Devin and I, and I just didn't see William as much in the last week before the convention, but both Devin and I were talking about ahead of the convention.
barriers to entry and how we were probably asking too much of folks to be able to give up a full weekend, deal with the financial hit of attending convention, having to be there, having to plan to be there so that
they could participate.
We are the pro-democracy, pro-participation party, and I think it is fair to say that there are some ways in which we haven't lived up to that.
We'll see what that looks like, but I would certainly be supportive of and lend my name and support to any moves to
Ensure more people could participate at a much lower price point.
We are the party of working women and men and we have to make sure that we can accommodate those folks being a part of our process.
Full stop period.
I know Devon heard that.
Devon talked about that in the last week and I do do have hope that those kinds of changes will be coming in the future.
What other observations did you have going into this after talking to people coming out of, you know, Trump winning, but also winning the the state's state Supreme Court race?
So where do you where do you think things go based on the conversations that you had?
Are people nervous about, you know, where the governor's race might go?
Are they angry about things that are happening with the state budget?
What was your whole barometer on the delegates?
Well, let's take the sort of future elections question, you know, the governor and put that on the table for just one moment.
I think it is fair to say that there is an appetite for change even within the Democratic Party.
And the line that we were trying to walk was we recognize that Democrats nationally have real brand issues.
We have work to do.
And the reality that
The Wisdem's operation is the envy of 49 other Democratic parties around the country.
And so it's not a straight change message.
It's not a straight stay the course right track message.
It was somewhere in between.
And I think when you look at how the votes shook out, certainly the conversations that I had across the weekend and across the last two months tell me that even the most plugged in and engaged Democrats or I guess the pejorative of that would be the establishment.
People recognize that there are some things we have to do differently.
I think that message.
came through loud and clear.
I have every expectation that Devin and the Wisdoms team know that and heard that because along the campaign trail, he was talking about changes we need to make as well to make sure that we are using all of the tools in the toolbox to reach people, that we are not one size fits all, that we are listening to the experts on the ground and their parts of the state.
And so that that rang clear to me that as
everything in the world is so chaotic and there's so much turmoil and so much of it is a choice by Donald Trump or due to the failure of congressional Republicans to stand up and check this president that Democrats know we have work to do, we have to get better, we have to improve, and I think that came through loud and clear.
To the second part of your question, you know, are folks worried about next year?
Quite the contrary.
I think people are really fired up at what we can accomplish next year.
The fact that both chambers of the legislature are flippable.
The fact that we have a terrific governor and Tony Evers who has done a great job in really, really difficult circumstances throughout his two terms.
I think people are fired up and ready to get to work.
They just want to make sure that the work that they're doing is informed and strategic and smart.
And that's where some of those changes around the edges come in.
But I got the sense that people are fired up and ready to go.
You certainly had.
people who have been, excuse me, people who have never been to conventions before, stepping up to be a part of the process.
And you had people who maybe had been a part and then had grown weary and frustrated, who have reengaged at this moment.
That all bodes extraordinarily well for Democrats next year.
Let's turn our attention then to what's happening in the here and now inside the Capitol and
the the news that Republicans led by Speaker Vossa at first Republicans were kind of downplaying this but now Robin Voss is just right out there saying not only would they not go with Governor Evers proposal to increase UW funding they wouldn't go with a lesser amount they would actually cut
some of the funding for the UW and Robin Voss is being right out there again saying the UW is too woke and too intolerant and so this is simply for punitive purposes which is about as petty as it gets but if that goes through Joe I mean you can comment on on why you would even put that out there
But if you do, I mean, why are we even having a budget debate after this point?
Governor Evers, you can't you can't partial veto that.
And it is one of the costs that we have to reckon with of Donald Trump being in our lives for the last 10 years.
I believe it was yesterday, maybe Tuesday, that mark 10, 10 years since Donald Trump came down the elevator and announced he was running for president.
And
One of the costs of his presence within the Republican Party, frankly, is takeover and destruction of what stood for conservatism is that you now have copycats like Robin Voss, who see Big Bad Donald Trump taking the fight to Harvard and Yale and institutions of higher learning, and now they went one in on the action.
and they see that it excites a radicalized base, a very small portion of what constitutes the Republican coalition, who get their jollies off of sticking it to the woke libs, when in reality, what the University of Wisconsin system is, and what our flagship university is, is the crown jewel.
of this state.
Doesn't mean that college is for everybody.
It isn't.
Doesn't mean that institutions of higher learning shouldn't be held to high standards.
They should.
But the economic impact of every dollar you spend in the UW system is one of the best bangs for the buck that Wisconsin taxpayer gets.
And the notion that you would just turn that progress we've made around in the name of politics
and clicks and retweets and truths, it's indefensible.
And my hope is that this is a bargaining position from Speaker Voss because he knows better.
Robin Voss is not a stupid man.
He knows that this is an important economic driver for our entire state.
Let's wrap up then with the unanimous ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that struck down some of the 2018 lame duck laws that tried to Micromanage the state Attorney General's office You know never mind that it took six and a half years It's still a ruling that you know is always going to be welcomed to when it comes in but What does it say that there was this unanimous ruling now six and a half years later telling Republican legislators you gone too far?
Well, I want to start by congratulating Attorney General Josh Call, who never wavered in this fight despite losing on a technicality early on.
One of the things we know is that checks and balances are important.
Another thing we know is that change and progress never happens fast enough.
There are way too many people in our...
state and nation's history, who have been left behind, who have had to do without for years and years and years, six and a half years is a long time.
But Josh stayed the course.
He got this when he preserved an important check and balance within Wisconsin government.
He should be applauded for that.
And we should all take a lesson from that.
that sometimes things happen that we don't agree with, that we know are wrong, and that we have to work really, really hard to change, and that change doesn't come easily.
It comes very, very hard.
I am certainly thinking about that a lot this week as I reflect on my last two months.
But just because change is hard doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for.
So whoever you are, wherever you are, stay engaged, stay in the fight.
This stuff matters.
Josh Call showed us all that this week and we all have to try to live up to that and that so many other examples of people persisting and making change in their lives.
We can do the same.
Let me close with a point of personal privilege to say that one of the best things about the past couple of months is that more people, many more people got to meet the Joseph Peckie that I know.
And that is always going to be a net positive for people in Wisconsin.
So thank you for taking that on for, you know, running the good race.
But even more importantly for the, for the bigger picture, the inspiration that you provided to a whole lot of people that's going to carry over into the future.
A local update is coming up next for some of you, followed by Matt and Aaron air.
For those of you hanging here, we will wrap up with more of this weekend's fairs and festivals around Wisconsin and tomorrow, a new report on how the Trump tax giveaway could cost Wisconsin hospitals up to $4 billion over the next decade.
Back with more on the Civic Media Radio Network, I'm Pat Crightlough.
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.
Once more, a reminder that the Brewers are playing day baseball this afternoon at Wrigley Field against the Cubs.
Pregame starts at 1245 on Civic Media stations across the state.
Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls, Hayward.
If you're somewhere around there, tune in to your Civic Media station or learn more about how you can hear the Brewers.
Head over to CivicMedia.us to learn where the Civic Media Brewers affiliates are in your neck of the woods.
We talked about Summer Fest at length already this morning because of course it is the...
the big gig that's coming up this weekend in Milwaukee.
It is far from the only thing.
And so we want to make sure that we do a good job of mentioning where some of the other fairs and festivals are going on throughout the course of a weekend.
And I have always wanted to just get in the Jeep more on the weekends and say, let's let's just go see something else, you know, for the first time.
So this weekend, for example, the Elroy Fair is going on through Sunday.
You'll never guess where.
Elroy.
Oh, yeah.
I thought I had to try though.
Yep.
There's the Shawnaw rhubarb fest, which is happening on Saturday.
Conveniently in Shawnaw.
Then there's the Northwoods Pride Festival.
That's happening Saturday in Rhine, now Rhinelander.
And then there's the Reedsburg Butterfest.
That's
on
Sunday.
I should I should have called that up.
I mean, is there like, is there like a
Are there butter activities instead of like a sandbox?
Is there like a pit of butter the kids can play in turn in the butter turn the butter like that Yeah, there's Clayton cheese days happening tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday I love all the cheese festivals that go on and of course there's also a Wittenberg community days and
Uh, that will happen again starting tomorrow, running through Saturday and Sunday.
So we're not quite at county fair season yet, but, but, but next week we get the first couple of them.
The Marquette County Fair begins next Tuesday in Westfield and runs through the following Sunday.
And the out of gamey county fair begins in Seymour next Wednesday and rolls through Sunday.
And then also next week.
There's something called the Door County North Pollinator Week Celebration.
So we're celebrating pollinators.
it could could very well be so that you know look be uh be able to look up for that and of course I'm looking a little bit uh not too much farther down the calendar for the Northern Wisconsin State Fair up here in Chippewa Falls that'll get started on July 9th which means I need to get scheming for how we can do a live show from there or get Todd Alba to come up uh and do something either from the fairgrounds or you know from here on Lake Wissota if need be I'm I'm willing to once again
put people on my pontoon or in the backyard if need be.
It's for the good of the shows.
during the show?
Oh, there's a big chance.
I mean, look, I've got the captain's hat.
You had that ready.
Well, it's always here because you never know when Yacht Rock is going to break out.
So I have to have my captain's hat ready to go.
We'll put that on Todd and...
He would he would he has been yesterday I think on the show as well as yesterday the day before he was agitating You know to get the show.
I he's the one that actually has taken his show on the road.
Yeah, I mean I've broadcast internationally that's true.
I do have that going for me, but he is actually Put stuff on a bus
and gone to other cities, uh, you know, around Wisconsin and we need to get him to do that for the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Uh, and or, and or, yes, that's quite low, you know, whatever, whatever works.
So that, uh, that's what we'll be looking to have.
So there, there were some of the fairs and festivals that are coming up this weekend that I wanted you to know about.
Uh, the legislature was in session yesterday.
And I noticed on social media, and you notice some of the legislators are doing more than ever before on social media because it's, you know, a free pathway toward direct communication with their constituents, which would be fine if they were being a bit more fact-based with their constituents.
I'm thinking specifically of a video that I saw from State Senator Romain Quinn of the Rice Lake area who made a floor speech.
uh, in the Senate yesterday and then set it to dramatic music.
So there's a music bed in the background so that you can wave the flag and everything else.
And he was responding to state Senator Jeff Smith from Eau Claire who asked again, where's the $15 million that the legislature approved again approved for the healthcare crisis in the Chippewa Valley after two hospitals abruptly closed and that money has not been allocated.
Similarly, the Joint Finance Committee is sitting on money that was meant to go toward removing PFAS from water supplies around Wisconsin.
There's another pot of money that hasn't been released that's supposed to go to literacy programs around Wisconsin.
Otherwise, it's just another unfunded mandate that Republican legislators created.
Well, Senator Romain Quinn got up and spoke about protecting the integrity of the legislature that the governor line item vetoed
all of those measures, and so as a result, they have to stand up to the governor, which is such a gross misinterpretation of how basic government works, because they pass the legislation, he signs it, he has the ability to veto, to use his line-up in veto, the legislature has the ability to override the veto.
And if you don't have the votes to override the veto,
That's how it goes.
Those are the rules when you play the right way.
But Republicans have figured out a way to rig the rules and not release those funds out of the Joint Finance Committee, even though the full legislature approved them.
It's a very interesting way of holding money hostage to try to micromanage these issues and to try to have control over a governor's veto pen.
that they wouldn't dare do if it was a Republican governor.
So you can talk about maintaining the integrity of your legislative body, but how about you first follow the rules?
If you want to override a veto, hold the vote.
If you can't, you're wasting our time.
Say that right, Pat.
Matt Nair on air is next across the Civic Media radio network.
And of course, we'll have plenty more tomorrow starting at 6am.
I'm Pat Crite, low founding editor of Up North News, part of Courier, a pro democracy news network building a more informed, engaged and representative America.
Have a great day.
We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north.
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