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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Good morning.
It is 8.06 on this Tuesday morning, June 24th, 2025.
Nice to hear.
Have you here up north?
Parker Olson is in Madison Studio A2, Brittany Merlot standing by with the forecast.
Chad Holmes standing by in Wausau.
Did we ever, did we ever figure out?
what the Wausau studio is.
Remember, we were saying that A is Madison and N is Racine.
God, I remember bugging Luke about this, Chad.
And you still, for you, it's like, I don't care.
The computers work when I get in here, right?
As long as we're on the air.
As long as we're on the air.
No fancy title for me.
I'm not royalty around here.
I just want to get
all the jargon right.
Yes, Brittany?
Yeah,
I think it should just be Studio W for Wausau right in the middle.
Wack Wausau, who knows, right?
Something W.
Wack Studio.
I don't think it was that, but I'll find out.
Of course, you know, Luke is off today.
So now I'll never know.
But anyway, Chad will join us from whatever mysterious location he's in, probably the one with the big WXCO sign behind him coming up in just a little bit.
And then Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area will join us at 830 to talk about things like
Governor Evers drawing a red line around child care accounts and saying it's got to be in the next state budget.
So we'll talk to Dan about that.
We'll talk chat about more about the news coming up.
But first, Brittany Merleau's forecast where again, up here on Lake Wissota, gorgeous.
Just that that front has come through.
It's a nice light breeze.
So it's not chilly for being, you know, in the in the mid sixties.
It's just that relief you feel when the heat dome is gone for a little while.
Yeah.
You want the heat to come back eventually, but you got to have it in all things in moderation.
And this morning,
I
hope more people get to experience this as that front eventually makes its way through the state.
I agree with you.
I think everything in moderation is the best bet right now because we need relief in the rainfall down south.
We want the cooler air to start to move on in just for a little bit.
We still want summer here, of course, like you said, temperatures right now in the 50s, far, far, far northwest and near 80 degrees far southeast.
We are looking at more sunshine north throughout the day today.
You're actually going to stay dry.
Well, a lot of showers and storms do want to spark up once again, especially by midday.
again down south.
Now right now this front is draped from about La Crosse to Green Bay.
A few light scattered showers out there this morning.
Of course, more clouds down south temperatures today will make it to the mid seventies.
to the low eighties.
So quite comfortable out there.
But again, that chance for rain.
We saw some crazy storms last night.
High winds gusting around 50 to 70 miles per hour, knocking down plenty of trees to on top of roads on top of cars.
We saw flash flooding in Madison, a good two and a half inches of rain making it one of their wettest days in history on that day.
And of course, it did collapse a roof of woodmines.
You could see water just rushing in.
It was some scary stuff last night.
So
Rain we wanted to ease.
Unfortunately though, this front is going to be sitting over the state for the entire week.
So we're looking at excessive rainfall risks all week long.
Again, today it is for a good chunk of the south where you could pick up another quarter of an inch to a half an inch.
But if you get under one of those big storms, you could see another inch or so creating some flash flooding.
That becomes more widespread tomorrow, but we'll track that again tomorrow morning.
Okay, we'll keep an eye on all of that here.
Brittany, we were talking last time around about
the college tuition and child care and all the things that have changed in expenses over the years.
Do you remember what the tuition bill was like when you were going to school?
Way back
when?
Oh,
goodness.
It was a lot because, you know, I went by bachelors and then the masters.
So I'm kind of thinking more of the masters, which is expensive.
Oh, yeah.
Yep.
One that I can find here quickly online is, oh, what prompted this was Alicia saying, my oldest kid's tuition for Michigan Tech as an out of state student, $54,000 a year.
Wow.
Let's see, Wisconsin resident tuition.
Let's see, back in 2010 was $9,000.
Let's see, in 2000, it was $3,800.
Back when I was going, it was under $1,000, $976.
Wow, was Madison tuition at the time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm
telling
you, a summer job could take care of that.
I
don't know.
Chad, do you want to sit on the rocking chair with me and talk about how much more expensive things are today?
I remember when I started after graduating high school, I went two years here at UW Marathon County and it was under $1,000.
So, I mean, it was really a wonderful way to start and the education was great.
I mean, when I, the change from UW-Marathon County to UW Eau Claire was not a case of feeling like anything was, you know, shortchanged here in Wausau.
It was a wonderful way to start to be able to still stay at home and limit the cost.
And even then, I mean, I still was paying back student loans for a long time after that.
And I had cut it down in half because I had started here.
So, no, it was...
I mean, frankly, and real fast and something I wanted to mention is, you know,
talk about the individuals when it comes to education.
In my last local segment, I talked about this release we got here in Wausau, listing all the retirees from the Wausau School District.
And it was a total of, how many, I gotta pull this up really fast, a total of 1,032 years of district service.
I mean, when you hear again the discussions about the money and everything else, we gotta remember number one, the students at number two.
the folks that are so important in our lives.
And I just shake my head and I give a big salute to Todd Alba for putting a light on the university funding issue that the Republicans are trying to slide right on through.
But it's the same thing with the school districts throughout the state and that people have to worry about getting a good education in the state of Wisconsin.
It's amazing.
It was something we took for granted for the longest time.
And now you do worry about the quality of some of those institutions.
Brittany, where was your your
education from again?
I did it kind of different than a lot of people.
So right out of high school, I started working like crazy.
I was making the money, all of that, working multiple jobs.
And then I was like, OK, now I know what I want to do.
So I started to go to a community college.
This was a College of DuPage, which actually they have an amazing storm chasing program.
If anyone wants to be a meteorologist, I highly recommend it because it's, you know, a smaller college, right?
So the tuition is much cheaper.
It's affordable.
You can live at home.
So I did that for the first two years.
Then I transferred to the big Northern Illinois University, which was not too far away, but, you know, I got to move out, do that college experience.
experience and then I started working right away into my career and then I was doing a master's degree through a distance program at Mississippi State University.
So I was actually living in Duluth, Minnesota, Superior, Wisconsin and getting that master's degree while working and forecasting.
Guys, how does it feel to know that
she's smarter than the three of us put together in terms
of trying to, you know, put together
an education plan?
Yeah,
I suppose.
It's on rises
in the east, you know, big old duh there.
Brittany, thank you for everything.
We really appreciate
it.
Thanks
for the updates.
We'll talk to you tomorrow morning.
You can
catch a chat homes, of course, over at 98 nine W X co.
What else are you working on here?
I can't keep you talking about tuition costs forever over here.
No, I mean, but it's vitally important.
I mean, you know, you look, I mean, obviously here in in wasa, you know, that's a wasa narrowly
Missed passing a referendum last time or so they are going through trying to you know some of these folks that are retiring They're not going to be replaced because they're trying to cut back because they don't they would not get the additional funding because it was a bit I mean like 51 49 maybe even less than that in terms of a of a referendum, so it's a vital
issue here in Boston, I think throughout the state of Wisconsin, but also talked yesterday on the program in my segments with, I'm sure you know Yi Leng Zhang,
he had
run for the assembly.
Now he's the executive director of New Beginnings for Refugees and he's starting a new role and obviously it's a very challenging role in this era.
They had an open house last night and
Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez was here in town as well talking.
And again, there's so many, I would call them basic issues for humanity that are being battled for.
And I do think, and I heard you talking in the first hour of the program about, you know, the governor setting some, I think some red lines when it comes to, you know, you were talking about childcare, but I think there's got to be a, I think we are at the point where trying to
Massage some of these issues is not working.
I think we have to have I talk all the time about the battle of ideas It's time and I when you hear people like Ron Johnson saying that his will to cut Medicaid is even stronger today than it was last week I mean, I want to I want to ask these folks.
Let's go down the list of all these Policies these programs have been put in over the past century
Let's start with social security and and and the eight-hour workday and a minimum wage and Do they want any of these?
Because we have to get to the core right now of of what the beliefs are of the people that are serving us in a Legislature in the Congress in the State House wherever it may be because right now We are I think are getting picked picked picked at we're going in the wrong direction.
It's time to stand up
And even over the weekend, I got frustrated because Chuck Schumer, again, is just pussy-footing around on a lot of this stuff.
We need strength right now.
And that's my two cents where we stand right now.
And this is why Tony puts up on YouTube in the comment section.
Spicy chat.
Spicy
chat.
I'm curious, Pat.
I mean, what about you?
I mean, do you feel like right now...
that I understand the idea of, you know, trying to, you know, the idea of working together, but it feels as though working together is pushing the ball closer to the goal line for the right than it is right now for the rest of us.
I guess the only thing I'd say, and it will sound like I'm making excuses, but I'm not, it's that when people go, well, where are the Democrats?
Where's, where's the Kim Jeffries?
Where's Chuck Schumer?
You know, the voters made their decision and so folks who are expecting that Chuck Schumer can somehow ride to the rescue and do what exactly?
I mean, the
best you can do is.
Provide a leadership.
That's all.
I know the situation here.
I know that he does not have the ability to single-handedly stop.
a lot of the Trump agenda.
But man, he is showing absolutely no leadership at all.
And that is getting me very frustrated and a lot of other people as well.
I can hear that.
I just
I tend to look at is I've I've never relied on, you know, a
Senate Democratic leader or somebody to take the place of what we all are our best advocates.
You
know, we are the advocates.
I agree 100% with that.
I'm not one of those people that says, well, these people, we didn't vote for that.
No, the voters did vote for what they're getting.
I put responsibility on the voters and that I was having a conversation just yesterday with somebody and I mentioned Stephen Miller and she had said, I don't know who Stephen Miller is.
I
can't make people pay attention
to the news.
I can only try to
make it attractive for them to come in.
and learn a bit more about it because we can't get you know a Barack Obama in every one of these positions to be you know and it's not put let's just pick on Pete Buttigieg it's not his job to be on TV every single day bringing the stone tablets of talking points down from the mountain we have to be the ones talking about these things educate folks on the issues
Get people like Chad Holmes all worked up because then people listen and they go, yes, this is a problem and I do want to do something about it.
See, Chad, I don't, Chuck Schumer could never do that for me.
You do that for me.
And I appreciate that.
You'll hear Chad on 98.9 WXCO in Wausau in that area or outside of Wausau, get yourself on the Civic Media app and listen to Chad.
Thank you, sir.
Talk to you on Thursday.
When we come back, we will talk to Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area in about 15 minutes.
A local update is coming up for much of the rest of you live from Lake Wissota.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is 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.
Bob is that Hanson?
Is that who that was?
No, it's more from the production library It's Tuesday morning, it's June 24th Brewers lost to the Pirates 5-4 yesterday Snapping the Brewers 4-game winning streak another home run for Christian Yelich However, who's been on fire lately Freddy Peralta is pitching tonight for the Brewers 6-0-5 is the pregame Brewers Pirates and then tomorrow afternoon.
There's a day game
You might find one Parker Olson wandering around there with his box of popcorn trying to catch a foul ball Or he'll never leave the seat because I mean it's gonna be a great pitching matchup.
That may also happen
Oh Anytime because you you know, it's a safety measure, you know, you're never there's never a bad age to bring a glove.
Okay.
I'm glad we agree
Yes, absolutely.
Let's see, from Jim and Brookfield, back in the late 70s, I paid both for my bachelor's and master's degree at UWM while working part-time at UPS sorting packages.
I remember paying a full-time tuition bill under $400.
Sorry, Parker, he's probably kill you every time I read one of these things.
And Parker dies a little inside.
But that is a conscious decision that was made.
by our political leaders to give less and less state support and that the tuition is going to come up instead.
And it was, again, was not always that way.
There was much more of a premium put on people being able to get an affordable higher education.
And we're just not appreciating it the way that, say, our elders did.
Looking at today's Up North News Daily newsletter, Parker, I did want to ask you this.
Los Angeles
has the Hollywood sign out there in the Hollywood Hills.
Sure.
So, you know, those letters are pretty big.
Yeah.
But did you know that Wisconsin has the world's largest M?
I did.
As the letter M. In Platteville.
You did know this?
In Platteville, right.
In Platteville.
Very good.
Yes.
In today's Up North News daily newsletter, there is a story about the Platte Mound M, a letter M written using whitewashed stones on Platte Mound four miles east of Platteville.
The M stands for mining.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was created in 1937 by students of the former Wisconsin Mining School
which is now UW-Plattville.
It's visible from 30 miles away.
The M measures 241 feet tall, 214 feet wide.
By comparison, the letters in the Hollywood sign are only 45 feet tall compared to 241.
bigger.
Yes, it is.
And, uh, and just scrolling down now, there is a photo from travel Wisconsin in there.
And yes, that is a big old letter M. So I believe
I think it Christina goes on to say that students take care of it every spring.
The school's Society of Engineers adds a fresh coat of paint every fall.
They weed whack it and every homecoming it says they set up clean up and light up.
display so it doesn't say torches here but somehow they light it up so torches wouldn't surprise me anyway all that is in today's newsletter you can get a newsletter seven days a week from up north news head over to up north news wi.com to learn much more also from the text line not wisconsin related but it it makes a lot of sense to address this text from john in west alice
Who says how come we do not hear anything about Ukraine anymore?
Where can I go for unbiased news about this country in the world?
Well second question first here we are But as for why don't we hear about Ukraine anymore?
And trust me as somebody who's been in the news business for a very long time It is as frustrating for me as it is for other people that certain things just kind of fall out of the news cycle Even when they're still going on
But the national attention span kind of goes elsewhere.
But the war on Ukraine is still very much going on.
And when I saw John's text there, I went and looked at some of the headlines.
And they include that Zelensky, Vladimir Zelensky plans to meet with Trump at the upcoming NATO summit.
NATO chief says Ukraine remains vital despite Zelensky's absence from a meeting of leaders.
Russia is betting on some new unjamable drones to gain ground in Ukraine.
Both Russia and Ukraine swap drone attacks as ceasefire efforts remain stalled.
From yesterday, Russian attacks on Ukraine killed 14 civilians as Zelensky travels to the UK.
So there are all these things that are still going on.
And of course, coming up at the NATO summit,
will be President Trump, once again, taking the side of Vladimir Putin, once again, trying to make Zelensky and the Ukrainian people out to be the bad people who somehow invited an invasion as a sovereign nation.
And it is very hard living in a country where, look, the number of people who were alive during World War II, I get it, it's very small.
But there's still enough people, baby boomers, early Gen Xers who were around not that long after the war and cannot really believe we live in a country now where we have a president who has, as Hillary Clinton said, become essentially a puppet to Putin and for a guy that wants to rebuild the Soviet Union.
And had he not been stopped in Ukraine, would have gone so much farther by now.
into Poland and into the Baltics and other places.
And that is still very much a possibility if things like this NATO summit coming up don't go well.
So, John, no, these things are not in the news every day.
I understand the news fatigue, but, you know, the war goes on and people are still fighting to maintain their sovereignty, to try to reclaim the peace and to try to prevent something that could, you know, sweep up.
American soldiers before much longer if, of course, they're not already distracted in Iran by other events from this president.
Dan Schaefer is coming up next.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
You're up north here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You know, if you can't listen to us live, you can take us along and listen on demand wherever you go, whatever you're doing.
You can just subscribe to us over at Spotify and Apple and any place else you get your podcast.
You can listen to past episodes at the Civic Media website as well, civicmedia.us.
But yeah, if you're a regular Spotify user, we'd love to have you subscribe to the podcast as well.
Not that you would be listening every day, but it would mean a lot to us if you were a subscriber and could catch us when you can't listen to us live.
But if you are listening to us live, then you're about to hear the live dulcet tones of one Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area and political editor at Civic Media, Dan Schaefer.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Mr. Kratlow.
Always wonderful to join you here on Mornings with Pat Kratlow.
And yes, I would recommend getting that podcast subscribed to the show.
as a podcast as well as I do.
Sometimes I listen to it on on two times speed.
So I hear really fast Pat Crite low in the morning to to listen to all of the great things from the show.
I'm glad you said that because I think maybe there's still plenty of folks who don't know that about podcasts.
And there are a couple that I listen to as well.
And I don't listen at double speed, but I do listen depending on the host.
It might be at one one point five speed or you know, even one and a quarter speed.
And that way you're still getting done with it a little bit faster.
You're still getting it all in.
And I really wish my DVR had that for TV as well.
Because there's times I'm looking back at shows and like, oh, if I could listen to this at one and a half speed, that would be so much better.
You watch the Brewer game at
two
X speeds.
So,
you
know, move through pitch to pitch a little quicker.
Well, yeah, if you if you join late, then you can get through the commercials and everything else.
So no, but we appreciate everybody who's subscribing to us in one way or another.
Let me ask you from a political standpoint, if.
any chance you were as surprised as I was.
In my case, it was a pleasant surprise.
But a surprise nonetheless, that Governor Tony Evers just came right out and said, if there's not money in this next state budget bill for childcare accounts, I'm not signing this budget.
And I think I get why, because you can partially veto a lot of things, but you can't partially veto a zero.
But what were your thoughts when you heard that he had actually put that line in the sand?
Yeah, I was I was encouraged by it I think that's a that's the type of moves that the governor should be making right now You know, we are now less than a week away from the budget deadline And it does not seem like we are particularly close to getting that budget completed in really any way But I think you know, there's the difficult part of what evers is putting forth here saying that he won't sign a state budget That does not extend childcare accounts payments.
Well, there's two things one is what?
Level of payment is he going to see as an acceptable level to sign the budget because we know Republicans are not going to go all the way to the what is it 400 some million
450
million that the governor has proposed for childcare accounts again a program that has been successful in keeping costs manageable for families keeping centers open and keeping providers paid and
has, again, has proven to be effective.
So, you know, it's something that the Republicans are really arguing with results by denying funding to this program.
But I do think it's interesting, but I don't know if there is that much incentive for Republicans to really do anything here, because if Governor Evers were to veto a budget, it would just go back to
the base levels of funding that we've seen from the last two years, which would include nothing allocated for childcare because that has all been funded through what Evers has been redirecting through federal funds.
Well, that gets me to the question of whether all of this is just posturing.
Is this one big head fake when you've got a couple of senators, state senators saying, well, they're not going to support what comes out of the Joint Finance Committee.
And, you know, is that division within the Republican ranks?
Or is that simply the means to an end to not pass a budget?
And I talked about that on Monday with state representative Francesca Hong.
And I said, am I overthinking this?
And her answer was, yeah, Pat, you're overthinking it.
But but I I still think that that may be very much in the, you know, Robin Voss, Devin Lemahue playbook of we're going to say all kinds of things.
But really, when all is said and done,
we have no interest in passing a budget and we think we can run with that.
I think there's a couple different things with this.
I do think that they will pass a budget and kind of dare Evers to veto it because we've talked about and you know Todd Alba was all over this last week on civic media with the potential cuts to the UW system.
I think that would be more of a situation that could set up you know a potential scenario where Evers would veto the entire budget because if they're going to cut
90 million dollars from the UW system at a time when we have a four billion dollar surplus Going back to those base levels of funding would mean not having a 90 million on nearly 90 million dollar cut to the system and and I think this is you know This is there's going to be some mounting pressure on this too because there are a number of groups citizen action of Wisconsin being one there are a few that are part of this coalition that has
been encouraging Evers to veto the entire budget if it doesn't include adequate levels of funding for things like K-12 education or childcare or Medicaid expansion.
So I do think those calls from the left, from Democrats, are going to ramp up.
And I think, you know, Evers has a challenging political moment ahead of him, that's for sure.
Well, because again, you can only do so much with your veto pen, you can only do so much bluffing.
Gosh, the best thing in all this would be to simply
negotiate something together and we're still I mean for all the talking back and forth I just I just don't know that I'd even refer to it as as negotiating I mean I'm not in the room obviously but I it really seems to me like it's a whole lot of talking past each other because you've got in the Republicans you know folks who will go so far out of their way not to give
Tony Evers even the appearance of a win on something you know and a win would a win-win would give Tony Evers a win and and they don't want that and I know I'm putting a lot of that blame on Republicans
Um, because I am because I've
watched this long enough because it's warranted.
Yes.
That's exactly the way that it seems from here.
So, you know, I, and I don't think the date matters to them that it's, that it's due, you know, in six days because they know the current budget simply carries over.
So I would not, I would not accuse Republicans of having any sense of urgency on this whole thing.
No, and I think there is also, there seems to be a little bit of a difference between what's happening in the state Senate versus the state assembly here as well.
Because I think, you know, Voss, for all of his myriad of flaws and shortcomings, he knows how to get his caucus in line.
And so he knows how to count the votes and he knows how to understand when they have something to pass.
And I think that is the challenge is that the Senate
can't seem to figure out how to count to 17 right now, because right now they, with Chris Cappenga and Steve Nas, both saying that they would not support the Republican budget as it's currently being crafted, they don't have enough votes to pass the budget with only Republican votes in the state Senate.
So either they're gonna need somebody from the Democratic side to support them, or they're gonna need to make changes.
to win over one of those two Republican members.
That seems challenging as well.
So I think that's why you've seen some of the different messaging come out of Robin Voss's camp versus Devon Lemahue's camp as this continues to unfold.
We're talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area and Civic Media's political editor, and he highlighted for us yesterday an article from the Washington Post that said how voters in rural Wisconsin could decide the house majority.
And the article by and large is about the congressional district map in Wisconsin, which were smack dab in the middle of the decade, which is not when you would expect there to be a change.
But there is that potential, which is what the Washington Post was focused on, right?
Yeah, they're focused on that.
But I also think that, you know, you zoom out even beyond the potential changes to the lines, which I think would, you know, perhaps have a real impact on the third congressional district.
But I think even under the current maps, the third congressional district is going to have one of the most sought after competitive.
races that we're going to see anywhere in the country between Derek Van Orden and, you know, Rebecca Cook or whoever ends up getting that Democratic nomination in the primary there.
You know, I saw, again, Cook this morning got the endorsement of State Senator Brad Paff, a former challenger in that seat as well.
But I think just by and large, I think it's going to be, you know,
The race for the house, I think, is going to be, really, from a national standpoint, a real highlight item.
And of course, Wisconsin, of course, Wisconsin has to be somewhere or another at the center of this, because that's just how things go in our politics right now.
Wisconsin has to be, has to just have all the attention right at the center of everything, right?
Oh, of course.
I mean, it's just the way of our people.
We lead the country in being evenly divided, because that's just how we turned out here, somehow or another.
And for folks on the redistricting thing who think that, well, again, it's the middle of the decade, how could this happen?
Redistricting could actually happen almost at any...
given time, you have to do it after each census.
But there's nothing that stops the state and conditions sometimes change.
Wisconsin has had that happen where redistricting has happened more than once within a 10-year period.
So, you know, right now it's six Republicans, two Democrats in a 50-50 state, which
seems a little
odd.
And look, not just the state Supreme Court, but frankly, if Democrats were to take, you know, the assembly and the Senate in 2026,
There's nothing that says they wouldn't redistrict in 2027.
They wouldn't have to wait till 2031.
That that's just raw politics right there.
Well, yeah, I mean, we obviously saw the Senate and the the assembly get the maps redrawn for the last cycle.
It would be interesting to see if they it happens for the Congress in this cycle.
I do wonder about this challenge, though, because this comes from from Mark Elias, right, the and his legal team.
You know, they brought a very similar challenge to the state Supreme Court.
I think it was two years ago about the congressional maps and the court rejected it I don't know what is different about this one other than the fact that they have made a certain ruling on the on the state legislative maps and there might be some sort of level
you know, a precedent there that might apply.
But I do wonder if that is the way to really go about things.
And I think there are, you know, yes, it is six to two, which is does seem a little bit imbalanced.
And if you kind of zoom out and take a look at the state, you know, there are, I think, some real problems with how the congressional maps are drawn.
You know, I'm, I'm, I have ties to the Fox Valley.
So I always take a look at what's going on in the Fox Valley, the facts that Oshkosh and Appleton are in different districts.
It's always has seemed
to be a problem.
But I also think like, you know, the third congressional district, that's going to be a toss up seat under the current maps.
And then I think the first congressional district represented now by Brian style, he keeps overperforming the top of the ticket.
So they need a bet, they need better candidates and better campaigns against him in that district as well.
So it's not just the maps that is making this a six to two, I think they could very well be five to three under the current maps after the
next cycle and if first district Democrats can figure out a better candidate to run against Brian Stile, that could be a different scenario too.
On the budget matter, Alicia raises an interesting point saying on YouTube, I would mosey over to Representative Shaysortwell's page and see the very public argument between him and Senators Andre Jacques and Mary Felskowski, the Senate President.
And I'm looking at some some screenshots of these.
And sure enough, there in the comment section, Andre Jacques, Shaysortwell, Mary Felskowski are all mixing it up in the sandbox.
That is the Facebook comment section about whether it's the assembly
Republicans who are the impediment or the Senate Republicans who are the impediment.
Could I make the case that that's just not healthy?
at all to do this so very publicly, but this is what we have for, you know, current leadership between the caucuses, between the Republican caucuses in the assembly and in the Senate.
We're talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area.
A local update is next for some of you.
For the rest of you, more of us are talking with Dan Schaefer, then some final news and notes from here on Lake Wissota.
Remember, you can follow me and my team all day long at Up North News.
Just head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And of course, right here, mornings on the Civic...
Media Radio
Network.
We've got baseball tonight.
Brewers versus Pittsburgh coverage begins at 6 0 5 on several stations throughout the civic media radio network.
Let's continue the conversation now with Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area when actually there's recombobulation areas plural.
If I'm not mistaken, there was a photo of you at Summerfest.
with a recombobulation area.
Was that at Summerfest?
That was at
Summerfest.
Yeah.
At
the, you know, like the sky glider that the ride you can take.
So I went with my daughter on the sky glider and that and now at the end of the sky glider when you're exiting, there is a sign that says the recombobulation area.
So of course I had to take a picture along
with it.
Perfect.
Perfect.
The
brand is strong.
The brand is spreading.
The brand is so strong.
The other day, well, no, it's only Tuesday.
What a week I'm having already.
But yesterday, we were talking about a weekend article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that said state Republican Party chair Brian Shimming has been told that there are enough votes on the Republican Party's executive committee to oust him.
And so he should hit the bricks.
And he said, I'm not doing that.
And that's where I think things stand right now.
I don't know if you have any other updated information, but it's
quite the contrast that Democrats have successfully handed leadership over from Ben Wickler over to Devon Remaker, whereas Republicans have a chair who just began his second two year term, and now it's not clear if he'll survive it.
Interesting story to say the least you know I also noted that this this story was published on a Saturday which you know if if this happened you know if the inverse of this happened some of the talkers on a different part of the dial here would be saying oh this is media bias burying the story on a Saturday to try and save face for same face for the Republicans or for the Democrats or whatever it might be but it is very interesting that like shimming is it does seem to be
facing a whole lot of controversy.
I guess they can go back to the fact that Trump won Wisconsin last fall, so a big part of his job was getting that.
Working to achieve that very result.
So I think that is probably a sign that he's going to remain in leadership and whether there is an actual ability for this executive team to oust him Who knows but I think it just goes to show that there are you know
There does seem to be some under the surface in fighting at large for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
Maybe they can agree to get on board for Trump in the general election against Kamala Harris.
But beyond that, not so sure if they have a really a clear direction, if their fundraising is at the level that they want it to be.
I know you had a conversation about this with a guest yesterday on the show as well.
You know, I don't know if he seems to be pulling together the various coalitions that make up the Republican Party in ways that some of his membership might want to see.
Well, you know, the running joke is the phrase Democrats in disarray.
And I'm not saying it's not true, but I'm saying that right now the disarray is decidedly on the Republican side.
And you can see it, you know, issue by issue, like the conversation we had earlier today on childcare accounts, that you have pro-business Republicans that see the wisdom in having a healthy, affordable childcare sector, but you have social conservatives who are not at all shy about saying, why do we even have childcare, you know?
a parent usually the mom should stay home and you've got those two factions just on that issue alone then you throw in you know a host of others and now you throw in potential war with Iran and you've got conservatives who are unhappy that the president is once again working the the same path that other past republican presidents have done
potentially dragging us into a protracted war in the Middle East.
Ron Johnson was asked about that and said, you know, does this change anything?
And his answer to Maria Bartiromo was, yeah, it means we really gotta get going and cut Medicaid and cut those 10 million Americans off of Medicaid.
War gets him excited for Medicaid cuts.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is your senior senator, as you pointed out yesterday, Dan.
Our senior senator Ron Johnson.
Yep asked on Fox news on I believe it was one of the Sunday morning shows if If what's happening in world affairs with happening with the the strikes on Iran the military action there if that changes anything for How we look at the big beautiful bill And I think Ron Johnson is and I'll quote him directly.
It says no if anything it just strengthens my resolve
How do we expect to defend this nation if we're mortgaging its future if we're bankrupting it?
Once again, Ron Johnson's concerns about bankrupting the nation for the future seem to overlook the fact that he was played a central role in the Trump tax cuts, which
exploded the deficit.
But not only that, just like, doesn't it get back to like the, you know, every caricature that you might have of the Republican Party of kicking people off of healthcare in order to start unnecessary, expensive foreign wars?
Is it
2003 all over again?
And
for Ron Johnson, it's just so on brand like, how have we not closed all the orphanages yet?
When can we bring back debtor's prison?
I mean, the guy is just a dickens.
character and you you talk about the prospect of war in the Middle East and he's coming right back to now we got to rip health care away from people that's the way that we get this done.
For more from Dan you've got to subscribe to the newsletter head over to therecombobulationarea.news and Dan's on the radio throughout the course of the week on Civic Media you will be on with Maggie Dawn tomorrow afternoon in the four o'clock hour.
I believe that's a regular gig I don't think I'm surprising you with that news.
That's right, I'll be on with Maggie, I'll be on with Jane and Greg on Matt and Air on Air on Friday, and I always post a roundup of all of my radio appearances from across the Civic Media Network at the end of the week at the Recombobulation Area, so subscribe to get that delivered straight to your inbox too.
You know, everybody at Civic Media and at UpNorth News and Courier Newsroom, we're always encouraged, strongly, strongly encouraged to stay up to date on our social media posts and marketing.
Dan's the good one.
Dan does, puts on a class in how to do this properly.
And we appreciate, we just try to follow your game, buddy.
Thank you so much for the time as always.
Hope you have a great start to the day.
Thanks so much, Papi.
Well,
All right, take care now.
And again, my thanks to not only to Dan, but to Karine Hendrickson for being a guest today, along, of course, with Brittany Merlot, Parker Olson, and all of you for being here this morning.
Tomorrow, we'll have Heather Dubois-Bornan and Denise Gomer Hutchinson talking about the Wisconsin Public Education Network Summer Summit.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday.
We'll see you tomorrow morning here up north.
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