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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Rosota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Well, good morning.
It is 706.
It's nice to have you back up here up north on this Thursday morning, June 26th.
Parker Olson is in Madison Studio A2.
Brittany Merleau is standing by with the forecast as well.
First tell you that coming up this hour, we're going to talk a bit about another state Supreme Court decision from yesterday.
We just got done explaining one about a governor's partial veto powers and how I think that that actually could lead to the creation of a big slush fund in the legislature.
Next time around in a few minutes we'll talk about the congressional maps and how the boundaries are not going to change for the next election and how that is not necessarily a good thing.
Then in our eight o'clock hour, we'll have Chad Holmes here.
We'll have Melissa Baldoff with our climate check report.
We'll talk to Sean O'Malley about your money in the markets.
And if you missed it earlier, Sharita Booker will tell us about some of the big events happening around Wisconsin this week.
A little programming note, if you're watching us on social media, we'll be ending today's feed at eight AM today.
So to hear the eight to nine AM hour, you'll have to look at a separate post over on the Civic Media Facebook and YouTube.
pages and we apologize for the inconvenience but we've got a little hiccup with our social media feeds for today just for today only.
Now let's see from a weather standpoint on the text line Jim in Brookfield says no significant rain overnight in the Milwaukee area the last steady shower we had was Tuesday around noon.
I live right on the Waukesha Milwaukee County border so Jim we appreciate that.
And let's see, let's go ahead and just start with Rob out in Tigerton who says good morning from Tigerton.
Cloudy in 57, Tigerton picked up an inch and a quarter of rain since yesterday afternoon.
At 8.15 p.m.
we had a wind burst that produced 60 mile an hour winds that knocked some trees down.
He said yesterday I got my mowing jobs done in Wittenberg, then a doctor's appointment in Shawno.
Coming home, it rained pretty heavy.
A lot of people driving on Highway 29 without their headlights on.
He said he loves the Patty Smythe songs from Warrior and Goodbye to You.
He says they made 1980s music great.
And he reminds us that Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.
from the Fifth Dimension had a variety show in 1977.
David Letterman was one of the writers of the show back in 1977.
I know this because I loved that show.
I thought we were just talking a moment ago, Brittany, along with Parker here, about how there's not really that I can think of really good.
comedy ensemble shows right now newer ones like Saturday Night Live but you know with you know kind of newer younger edgy or whatever you want to call it and frankly the same goes for variety shows you know you don't really have that anymore either people don't even necessarily try
And I wish they would.
I like those shows.
I want to see different things, but we're so pigeonholed now into this is what you like.
You're just going to get this over and over again, which is why I'm telling people, broaden your media diet, kids.
Listen and watch to a whole bunch of different things.
I was also talking a bit about whether to write a book someday or not, and I was getting teased by Tony.
who made note that uh how did he say it um oh he asked if i if i journal or if i write anything he said you wanted to write a book and i was like i i don't know if i really want to write a book and he reminds me if you buy a book about how to write a book you've started and he remembers that i bought this big thick thing here called the making of the story
And so apparently someday I really do have to do that.
I could write about my time in the legislature.
Cassandra writes on YouTube, sometimes I wish I could go back to being ignorant about the state legislature because they just make me so angry.
Yeah, same girl, same.
But again, those are perhaps writings for another day.
What would your book be about, Brittany?
Would it be about weather stuff or just other life experiences?
It would be about my life.
I have been through some crazy stuff.
Of course, a lot of it would be weather, storm chasing,
the
TV industry, how crazy that is, you know.
There's a lot to tell.
Parker would write a book just about yesterday.
Yesterday was such a perfect day for him going to the Brewer's game, winning the scoreboard games, his favorite sausage.
won the sausage race, you know?
There you
go.
I love it.
It was
perfect.
And he didn't get a sunburn.
I mean, look at that pasty complexion.
The roof was even open.
We have to fix the camera.
I'm still this way.
Still, it's still how he's looking.
So we've got about two inches of rain here in the Chippewa Valley.
How are things looking elsewhere?
Oh, pretty soggy out there, and we've got more rounds to go today.
So we've got spots of fog far southeast, also into parts of central Wisconsin this morning.
It's muggy, sticky out there, mostly cloudy across the state.
55 degrees up north, about 73 degrees right now down south.
As we go through the day, light rain is going to start to roll into parts of northwest Wisconsin later this morning.
We are looking at a big push of heat still hitting southern parts of the state where near La Crosse, you're going to hit about 85 degrees today and.
by Milwaukee and Madison nearing 90.
It's gonna be muggy, so you've got all that heat sitting down to the south, cooler temperatures up north, and we're gonna start to see some storms spark up right along that boundary.
So from about La Crosse to Milwaukee, probably around two o'clock this afternoon.
Now some of those could be strong, some of those could be severe, and we do have a risk for high winds and tornadoes today.
One or two could happen.
We had one yesterday just east of La Crosse in St.
Joseph.
So that risk is still here today again, and at the slight risk, pretty much areas south of the cross, through Richland Center, Reedsburg area is in that area, and then to just west of Madison.
So when I think it's gonna get strong to severe into that little area is probably around 10 o'clock tonight, because first, yes, we have those storms sparking up in the afternoon along the front.
but then the cold front actually moves through and swings in another line through later tonight.
So that probably hitting central areas around 10 o'clock, maybe Milwaukee Green Bay, probably around midnight or so, and then we finally dry things out.
We have a dry day in store for tomorrow, but after we pick up a good half an inch to another inch and a half,
potentially widespread today with some places possibly getting more underneath some of those strong storms.
So flash flooding is still a risk as we go through the day.
And again, keep an eye out for tornadoes and damaging winds later tonight.
It just feels like we're walking around in a pair of soggy socks.
You
know, just cut that.
The
whole, everything has that feeling like you just can't get rid of the sogginess.
Rob from Tigerton says he has sent pictures to the WXCO text line of the tree damage in the Tigerton area.
So, Brittany,
be on the
lookout for that.
He says, my book would be about my involvement with the Highway 29 expansion project as a citizen back in the 1990s.
I totally see that.
That's what makes you part hero over there, buddy.
And we were talking about air conditioning before, and Parker, you said something interesting about air conditioning and the UK and Europe.
This is a very hot take on a cool subject from Parker about that air conditioning is not a thing in Europe.
This isn't a hot take.
Okay.
This is true.
Okay.
it.
Okay.
I
was like the Northwoods by Lake Superior.
I feel like only like 20% of those houses have.
Well, yeah.
See if you don't, if you don't need it as much.
Exactly.
Alicia says, I heard someone from the UK say the US can't have humidity except on the coast because we are a huge land mass.
No.
And we were, we were on a courier newsroom called, you know, nationwide with all the editorial team yesterday.
And somebody talked about corn sweat.
And
I
wish you could have heard the people on the coasts going, what?
And somebody from, from our sister publication, Iowa starting line was explaining corn sweat.
You know that all the humidity that corn fields give off and you can, they, watching them on, on the zoom, their minds were blown.
They could not, could not believe the corn sweat was that they're like, we have to have news stories on this video explainers.
And Brittany.
Honestly, Brittany, I think you ought to do the same.
I think a video explainer of Corn Sweat would be ideal for you.
That is
a good idea.
I'm going to do it.
Thank you, Pat.
Once the corn gets a little culled.
And then from CT on YouTube, Conrad is right about the AC in Europe.
And then he follows up with, sorry, Parker.
He's got Pacific Media producers mixed up.
It says my name.
Close, but no.
Yeah.
And he goes on to say domestic residences don't have it.
So there you go.
And Tony says, when we were buying houses, I can vouch for very few houses having AC.
We did find one, he said.
And Corn Sweat is coming in July and August, according to Robin Tigerton.
So here we go.
We're doing six things at once, and everybody's commenting on all of them.
I love this.
I love it too.
Let's change the call letters of your local station to WADD at this
point.
Well, can I try them in?
Then let's go.
Back in the day before AC was like a huge thing and stuff like that, they would take ice from the Great Lakes to get all the way down south and then put it under the floor.
Oh, cool.
Oh, cool.
Indeed.
Quite literally.
And the thing is they, they knew that with, you know, sawdust or other, you know, ways to insulate it, you can get that ice to last a good long time and still, still do its thing.
So I
love it.
That's why you got the Great Lakes sweatshirt on you.
You know your, your Great Lakes and your ice.
I do.
All right.
Thank you, Brittany.
You're welcome.
Talk to you in the next hour here.
It is 716 right now and I mentioned Parker being at the Brewers game and it was a good one.
Milwaukee's Jacob Mizorowski threw five shutout innings in only his third major league start and the Brewers got to Pittsburgh ace Paul Skeens and beating the Pirates four to two on Wednesday afternoon.
Now Skeens is the 2024 NL rookie of the year.
But in the second inning, all nine brewers came up to the plate.
Skeens had never done anything like that, with nine hitters, four runs, four hits, 37 pitches in the inning, and he only lasted four innings total, Skeens did, though to be fair, Pittsburgh's defense didn't do him any favors either.
Mizorowski now has three wins in his three outings.
He's only given up three hits in his first three career starts.
That hasn't been done since at least 1901.
The Brewers are off today, then Colorado comes to town for three games this weekend.
For the Brewers, Colorado games.
You can listen starting tomorrow on stations in Richland Center in Oshkosh Racine Kenosha Park Falls and Hayward for that series and then let me Let me just look ahead here since we're getting excited about the Brewers again So we got the Colorado series this weekend at home and then they hit the road for the first week of July next week They play next week at New York to play the Mets Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and then on the 4th of July they start a series in Miami
against the Marlins there on the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then their next home series starts Monday, July 7th.
Oh, against the LA Dodgers.
That could be fun show.
Oh, my goodness.
What if it was Shohei Otani versus Jacob Mizorowski?
Oh, Parker, you got to go back.
I mean, you were good luck for this one.
You got to go again.
I
like he
How great would that be?
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
All right, in a little bit, we're going to talk about a state Supreme Court decision on keeping the congressional maps in place, at least for one more cycle.
And I'd also like a little bit more of your opinion on the governor's demand that childcare counts be funded for childcare.
There was something that was made in a Facebook comment to
Republican State Senator Romain Quinn, Senator Quinn was crowing about the state Supreme Court knocking down the way that Governor Evers had attempted to veto funding for the literacy programs, but then somebody brought up childcare and Romain Quinn wrote this.
The state is constitutionally required to pay for the education of children, but not for their childcare.
There are people who believe that childcare expenses should be the responsibility of the parents and not the taxpayers, especially taxpayers who don't have kids or those who make the sacrifice to stay home and not work.
That being said, there is an existing program that helps families of limited income pay for the cost of childcare.
My hope is we can bolster this existing program to help more families qualify to pay a higher rate to provide
providers, those negotiations are still ongoing in the upcoming budget.
I'd like your comments on, you know, how we take care of our children and what we do that is constitutionally required versus the things we want to do for a healthier, better society and economy.
Live from the heart of up the up north here on Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Rightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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I just wanted to continue this discussion a little bit on childcare and you know get the
Get your impression on how we best fund this.
We have a crisis of affordable childcare in this country.
And I, as I explained a day or two ago, I think we should think of it as an extension of the way the public currently supports a free public education for every child kindergarten through 12th grade.
There's also then some state support for our university system for our technical colleges to make education affordable.
doesn't mean, I mean, we say free, but we put it in quotation marks because, I mean, not everything is covered, but we find that it's in our best interest to cover enough of these things that we have a workforce that is trained, that we have a society that is educated, and that with both parents wanting to work.
And by the way, that's the important point.
Who are we to say, no, you moms have to stay at home?
With moms and dads who want to work,
what can we do to make sure that the pre-K childcare sector of our economy is healthy?
So when Senator Romain Quinn talked about how, you know, there are people who believe childcare expenses should be the responsibility of the parents and not the taxpayers.
I mean, again, he's not saying that he's saying it, but he certainly is echoing the Senator Ron Johnson thing of, I don't think it's our job to help other people's children.
which again is code for let's get rid of the public schools as well.
And if you have the money to pay for education for your kids, that's great.
If you don't, you know, they can, they can dig ditches or whatever the case may be.
And I really appreciated the comments that came back to Senator Quinn on his Facebook page, one saying, it's interesting that in today's employer centric economy, both parents have to work to support a family and yet you managed to make them sound like deadbeats.
when you're actually thinking about the wealthy families who are getting taxpayer-funded vouchers for their unaccountable private schools.
Amen, amen, and amen.
Another comment I wanted Quinn to speak more to the statement about taxpayers who don't feel tax dollars should go to support daycare as it's a parent choice to have children and make them go to daycare.
This person writes, I can also bet these are the same taxpayers that also make statements about how the government is supporting families who don't work or make statements about how parents who choose to stay home are lazy.
And that's the thing, you can't win either as well.
You should stay home if childcare is too expensive.
But if they stay home, they're referred to as lazy.
This person writes, I would love to be able to stay home with my children, but realistically, it's not possible.
My student loans need to get paid.
We need to have food to eat, electricity and heat, a roof over our heads, a way to get to appointments or even just to get out of the house with gas money to do so.
A phone in case of an emergency, the list goes on and on.
But there's the stigma that working parents are bad parents and should stay home with their children.
or what if everyone chose not to have children?
Would there even be a need for an educational system?
And yet, taxpayers don't bat an eye when they pass taxes on schools.
People can choose to homeschool, so why do that?
I strongly think having an education is important, so please do not misunderstand what I'm saying here.
I believe there are many benefits to having a child in daycare as well.
Okay, so that comment kind of gets at all the various arguments back and forth about having kids, not having kids.
Paying for education who pays for the education does a parent work does a parent stay home and whether government should be necessarily, you know Dictating those choices or trying to be as supportive to as many people as possible.
However, they choose to live their lives Tony puts up on YouTube Romain Quinn has always seemed like a whiny kid to me.
What a career politician He's been running for office since he was 19.
I'm fairly certain
Well, he has been in the legislature for a long time.
He took a break.
He was in the assembly for many years and then was out for a bit working in real estate.
Now he's back in the state Senate from the area.
And long before Derek Van Orden came along, Senator Quinn was the kind of guy that would always jump in the comment sections and mix it up with people.
And again, you can look at that one of a couple of different ways.
One is
You're supposed to be a busy legislator.
Why are you getting into the comment sections?
But sometimes, you know, when you mix it up with people, you can actually find agreement.
You can try to find common ground.
You can at least try to understand each other a little bit better.
And I know there are other legislators who do this as well.
I just happened to notice him more often in some of my Facebook feeds.
And it was because he mentioned this whole line of argument about, you know, where the Republican thinking is on childcare, that I wanted to know your thoughts as well, which again, you can put in the comment sections on Facebook and YouTube, or you can send us an email radio at upnorthnewswi.com.
I'm a little late on this, but I wanted to send congratulations out to Willow Newell from Racine, who last Saturday night became the new Miss Wisconsin.
She is the first black woman to be crowned Miss Wisconsin, according to a press release that the pageant sent out as reported by Maya Bell in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Again, her name is Willow Newell.
She competed with 29 other competitors in a number of different categories.
She was the top scoring vocalist in the talent section.
She has created a community initiative titled Expression Without Exclusion aimed at making the arts more inclusive for the community.
and she will now compete for the title of Miss America in the first week of September in Orlando, according to that press release.
So again, congratulations to Willow Newell, the new Miss Wisconsin of Racine, first black woman crowned Miss Wisconsin and who works in a program to make the arts more inclusive for the community.
So I guess we can expect certain politicians to demand that she be deported real soon.
Just a very slight overreaction to that.
Also, the latest, one of the things I'm going to get to in a futures segment, but I want to tease it now because it deals with, again, how we pay for schools.
One of our sister publications, The Gander in Michigan, has an article that talks about and reminds me, I'd forgotten about this, Michigan did what Wisconsin Republicans have wanted to do for the longest time and let's go to a flat tax.
In Michigan, it's a flat income tax, 4.25%.
It doesn't matter if you're on minimum wage or a billionaire, you pay the same rate.
There's a new ballot initiative to change that so that the very wealthy have to finally pay a little bit more and it would all go toward the education of our children.
Again, we're pitting kids against billionaires and maybe it's about time the billionaires stopped winning.
We'll be back after this.
You're up north.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy newsroom, and it includes not just Up North News, not just all these other state outlets, but some national newsletters and podcasts and video programs as well that I wanted to tell you about.
For example, there's a video series from Courier Newsroom with Akilah Hughes called How Is This Better?
And this week, erasing Jackie Robinson.
The baseball legend broke barriers on the field, but his legacy off the field is under attack.
And in the latest episode of Keelah Hughes explores how the Trump administration is trying to rewrite history and its crusade against diversity and equity and inclusion.
Guests Roy Wood Jr.
Jeremy Taki and the nation's Cali Holloway unpack why it's important to defend history and what DEI efforts are actually designed to achieve and what they prevent.
Like a bunch of mediocre white guys running our government.
You can watch How Is This Better on YouTube.
You can watch or listen on Spotify.
You can listen on Apple or you can watch right from the courier website couriernewsroom.com.
Again, how is this better?
A courier production with Akilah Hughes.
speaking of Spotify.
This is my chance to remind you that if you ever miss an episode, you can certainly go back to the Civic Media website.
We, under the shows, every show is listed hour by hour.
You can listen back, but it would be more convenient if you just simply potted this program, went to Spotify, subscribed to us as a podcast, and that way you don't have to listen every day, but you've got the episodes right there and can go back and listen on Spotify or Apple or again at the Civic Media website.
And I think that would be especially important given that in the last hour in this particular segment.
It took me a good 10 minutes to explain the state Supreme Court decision yesterday that undid one of Governor Evers' partial vetoes dealing with funding for literacy programs in the state.
It took a good 10 minutes to explain how the legislature kind of played the shell game.
And instead of like at American Family Field, the scoreboard game where the ball is under three baseball caps and they shuffle them all around, here was three bills and they shuffle those around and where's the money?
And the governor partially vetoed one of the bills and the state supreme court said, no, that that isn't actually the one where the money is allocated so your veto doesn't stand.
And I
think that that's not a great president to set because now you have a joint finance committee that has been given the green light to create a great big slush fund for itself.
But I'm not going to repeat all that back.
So head over to Spotify, listen to Last Hours podcast for the full explanation.
And by the way, thank you.
A couple of folks sent very nice notes thanking me for the explanation of the Supreme Court decision.
That took way too much time from yesterday.
I did not go to law school.
I am no Maggie Dawn, let me tell you.
But I just thought it was important enough.
I thought if it's a unanimous decision, which means that those four progressive justices went along with it too.
to dive into that 19-page opinion, the relevant statutes, the relevant language in the Wisconsin Constitution, what the lower court had to say about it, and that's what formed my opinion last hour on how I disagree with it.
But at Up North News, you know, I've got three hours here on the radio, so I can take 10 minutes to tell you about how I got to my thinking on the state Supreme Court decision.
But at Up North News, we're trying to put all this into bite-sized pieces for people who don't normally follow politics.
And I gotta tell you, I got by the end of the afternoon yesterday, I knew how I was gonna put it on the radio.
I knew it was gonna take 10 minutes.
I still don't know how I'm getting this down to 60 seconds for up north news, but somehow or another, when I'd really like Parker, do you know any animators?
There's just sometimes you see something and you go, man, if I had an animator to just kind of draw a cartoon of this bill and that bill and moving the money this way and that, you could probably do that.
but and again in the news business I mean you you have to do these things like right away So editorial cartoonists especially are like rock stars
that they can take
something that's
a lot of
distillate Yeah, so I don't know maybe this is a role for AI You know you give all the parameters and say now you know animate this process I don't
creating
I don't like the idea.
I'm just I
Scott and shorewood doesn't agree with you are right on the text line is as I was mentioned this he's like it's called AI like okay Scott says Let the robots do it
CT says, CT on YouTube says, no, boo AI.
There we go.
So there you go.
So we're not going completely robot yet.
All right, so having spoken in the last hour about the state Supreme Court decision on the veto powers of appropriations bills, let me now instead jump into the other decision in which the state Supreme Court, without issuing any kind of explanation,
just simply declined to hear a challenge to the state's congressional maps.
Now, obviously, Democrats were hoping that the state Supreme Court, now under progressive control, would revisit the congressional lines since it had earlier helped make sure that the state legislative boundaries had been redrawn.
Because after all, the current congressional maps are horribly gerrymandered, six Republican to Democrat.
And I know this, I know how horrible it is because I'm part of the reason why the maps look as they do.
If you haven't heard this before, and I've only been telling people for over a decade, they had to move those lines all over the place last time around to save Sean Duffy when I was running against him in 2012.
And it's why the third district now looks as ridiculous as it does.
They had to take part of Central Wisconsin, which is a bit of a democratic stronghold and take it out of the seventh district and kind of append it to the third district.
So you've got this funny little hook coming out of La Crosse to go up and get Wisconsin Rapids and Stevens Point.
That's the reason the seventh and the third look like they do.
And those lines are still out of whack all these years later.
So here's the puzzling part.
the current congressional map.
Again, they were tweaked after the 2020 census, okay?
They were really knocked out of whack after the 2010 census.
But they were done that way again after the 2020.
And yes, the current lines were technically written by Governor Tony Evers and then accepted by a Supreme Court that was then in conservative hands.
But let's not forget how Evers had his hands tied in submitting the current map.
That conservative Supreme Court, after the 2020 census, said that the next round of maps had to be done with the least amount of change to the original gerrymandered maps, which were drawn by Republicans after the 2010 census.
Keep that in mind, because again, the maps drawn in 2011 were radically different than the ones that had been done a decade earlier.
And the right wing justices knew this.
They knew that the maps were radical and rigged, and yet they put their thumb on the scales and said, the next round of maps have to have the least change as possible to account for population shifts, but to do nothing about the maps not being representative of Wisconsin's closely divided electorate.
Republican legislators, of course, made changes or suggested changes that tried to exacerbate their gerrymander.
So Evers, by comparison, made fewer changes.
So the conservative justices said, well, there you go, the Evers map it is.
Sure, it's still rigged because we want it that way.
We wanted the least change approach, and this is what we've got.
So fast forward to now.
with a progressive majority on the court, a court that has already recognized the gerrymander of the legislative maps, and that was fixed about a year and a half ago, and you can see how those justices might have been of a mind to end 12 years of political mischief with the congressional maps.
So a new challenge was filed to the congressional maps, saying that the least change standard was clearly wrong.
and that there's never a bad time to do the right thing, so let's fix the congressional maps now too.
But the justices decided yesterday not to hear any new challenge, and they declined to issue any comment about it.
No comment at all from the justices.
Just a rejection.
Now they know the lease change standard from the prior court is bogus.
And believe me, if the tables were turned,
If Democrats had done this and the court was now back under conservative control, do you think that those right-wing justices would say, well, it's all settled, no need to hear any challenge to it?
Oh, heck no.
And so Wisconsin, a 50-50 state, sits here with 75% of its seats with embarrassing Republican representation from the likes of Tom Tiffany, Tony Weed, and Derek Van Orden.
25% of Wisconsin seats go to Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore.
In a 50-50 state, all those progressives who live outside of Madison and Milwaukee and there are a lot of them have zero voice in Congress.
I've been watching Republicans get away with cheating now for 14 years and it looks like we have to put up with it for at least two more.
Yes, two more.
I know some would say, well, now we have to wait till after the 2030 census before we can draw new maps, right?
Not necessarily.
I don't believe there's anything that says states can't redraw the lines mid decade.
It's not traditional, but it can happen.
Cause like I said, there's never a bad time to do the right thing.
So if it's an if, but if Trump and the mega extremists take this country as far down the toilet as I expect,
by November of 2026 and if Democrats win control of the Assembly and the Senate and hold the Governor's office, I promise you, I will be hounding them starting January 3rd, 2027 to have new maps drawn by January 4th, 2027.
Not gerrymandered maps, not gerrymandered to favor Democrats.
That is not what progressives do.
Right?
fair maps.
That's how it used to be in this state.
Once upon a time, Democrat Dave Obie and Republican Tom Petri would sit down and they would figure out how to draw fair maps because they respected Wisconsin voters.
They respected every Wisconsin voter, whether they supported Republicans or Democrats.
They knew voters deserve a chance to have a say one way or the other in fairly drawn districts.
We've got to get back to that here in Wisconsin Derek Van Orden is not gonna give all Wisconsin voters that level of respect or Scott Fitzgerald Glenn growthman Brian style Tony weed Tom Tiffany Robin Voss Devin Lemahue Is there a snowball chance in hell that they could show that kind of respect to all Wisconsin voters with fairly drawn maps?
No Their record is clear
This court decided not to fix those rigged maps yesterday, so it's up to Wisconsin voters next year to determine if they should get to choose their representatives, or if the politicians get to keep choosing who they want as the voters.
I mentioned a bit ago that our sister publication, The Gander in Michigan, has a story about the hopes of changing the flat tax system.
It is something that Wisconsin Republicans have been pushing for a long time, especially Senate Republican leader, Devin Lemahue.
Michigan has a flat tax of 4.25% for all residents, whether you're a schoolteacher or a billionaire.
But there's now a ballot measure underway that would change that so that people earning over a million dollars would pay 5% of an income tax rate.
which doesn't exactly fix a broken system, the Gander reports, but addresses an issue that has led to underfunded public schools over the years and would generate $1.7 billion in funding for K-12 schools throughout the state.
Just coming off that flat tax as a way to raise money that would help our kids get an education.
And it just shows that they have to have this ballot initiative there.
That's the danger of us ever having a flat tax here in Wisconsin.
More after
this, you're up north.
You may have noticed that Todd Alba normally heard on Wednesdays at 7.50 has moved over to Thursdays at 7.50 and you know for those first couple of weeks you don't you want to get it right sometimes you forget and you know Todd would like remember come on over I reminded him again yesterday we'll see you Thursday at 7.50
Parker, anywhere in my show notes, does it reflect that Alba was going to be here at 7.50 on Thursday to there?
Did I forget?
I show notes at all.
So Todd is here.
Todd Alba, civic media host two to four in the afternoons is here.
Todd is in some kind of a robe.
Todd is in
the
is
at
the
Lotus
position.
What is this?
Is that incense
burning behind you?
What is going on?
what
Patrick Parker I am I am meditating this morning oh my I am I am in a Zen state because yesterday on our show Pat is usual appearance which always appreciate and he came loaded for bear and he said tomorrow tomorrow morning on my show I'm going to do the same thing to you I'm going to gin you up and so today I am resolved through meditation through reflection
through self-conscious and metaphysical thinking, I will not be riled up.
Well, good, because I totally forgot what we were fighting about yesterday.
We were
fighting.
You were ginned up about the Supreme Court.
Well, I
was first off about
the Supreme Court cases, but then it led you into...
I think it was it dealt with the the New York mayoral election and whether you know this means that if Governor Evers doesn't run for a third term if Democrats are going to go all AOC and put some lefty left in there who's going to get you know blown out in 70 out of 72 counties and my contention was that Wisconsin is not New York City and that you know the Democratic Party if the governor doesn't run is not going to put up somebody so far to the left that they are
recognizable to the rest of Wisconsin.
But you, I don't believe you were as confident in that assessment.
No, I mean, I think I've had a night to sleep on it.
I just thought meditate meditate, right?
A little bit went down to the lake last night that you know, lakes could do to a person.
Yeah.
And beverages thereof.
And so, uh, you know, felt felt a lot better about about everything.
No, I just, I just sit all serious to this.
I, the point I was making yesterday was I thought it was interesting.
I think New York city, the mayor's race is not an accurate example because Mario Cuomo was such a terrible
quote
unquote.
Thank you.
But that'd be something Mario was still running.
Mario was a saint, but the
country.
the country missed its chance with Mario Cuomo.
But anyway, Andrew Cuomo, that's another matter, you
know?
He's just a terrible candidate.
And so, you had a guy named Mondami, who was a selfless socialist democrat.
Someone called Barrett Schwab, Devinair, well-spoken, articulate, intelligent, likable, self-deprecating.
But some of his
political views.
Some people, I'm not necessarily necessarily say myself, but some people would say they're extreme to the left.
And I just said yesterday our show that that type of a candidate I don't think would play well statewide in Wisconsin because in a Democratic primary, Democrats really only have to, if you turn out the world in Dane County, Madison in particular and Milwaukee County, it's game over.
I want to share just the subject line of an email from somebody who used to be a boss of mine and has since gone so Crazy right wing that it's it's just actually it's a it's a tragedy and he sends out emails occasionally and the subject line on this one is New York's next mayor will be a projihad Shiite Muslim communist
That's an example of extremism to the right
Yeah, yes.
I guess that's just that's just ridiculous.
Well, let me make this part part about the people that describe themselves as democratic socialists.
And we have to either your show, my show or both.
We have to go back and examine the record of the so called sewer socialists who were served as mayor of Milwaukee.
And granted that now I grant you this is over 100 years ago now.
I'm just gonna say that I know but the point was they ran on a practical platform of how about if we don't have open sewers in in Milwaukee anymore and the voters said hey I think that's a good idea and then you know what these guys did they did what they said they were gonna do and so Milwaukee is still the only major American city that has had like three different socialist mayors because they did what they said they were gonna do if this guy in New York does you know half the things that he says he's gonna do
Will those be bad things?
And I'm going to answer my own question.
I don't know because I haven't really paid attention to the New York
mayoral race.
I think like a fair housing.
I think that's a great thing.
I don't think that's radical at all.
So I just think.
Well, I mean, time will tell, as they say.
Time will tell.
I think it gave people a moment at least for me to say, you know, my friend and colleague Dan Schaefer, I'm not sure.
I'm not really on board with his take that Governor Evers should not run for a third term because I just think if you open it up in this environment, there are people, you know this, Pat, in the Wisconsin Democratic Party that are much more to the left than I think that the
the Evers Johnson voter in Wisconsin is going to be willing to vote for.
I have not talked at all about the the new Marquette poll.
The headline is 55% of people say Evers should not run for a third term, but even more people than that said Scott Walker shouldn't run for a third term.
So you've got that going for it.
And if you break it down by partisan leaning here, you've got Democrats much more united behind Evers than Republicans were behind Scott Walker.
Which, again, is all to say, who knows?
Who knows where this all, and if Evers wants to run, let me put it very directly.
If Tony Evers wants to run, Tony Evers is going to win.
Period.
End of sentence.
There's nobody I can think of that could run against Tony Evers and win.
Not that he's all that, but I know the kind of folks the Republican Party is likely to put up.
So, you know,
We can talk about the difficulties all day long, but if I got to put a marker someplace, if I got to come out hot to the zen that is Todd Alba, it's that Tony Evers, if he wants to run, is going to win.
So
meditate on that.
Also, kudos to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
They looked at the Democratic Party and said, we're not your witch.
And so I think they made the right decision yesterday.
Because don't forget, Patrick, back in 2002, when they redid the maps, and they made the third district overtake to Stevens Point, that wasn't done for a Republican.
That was done for Democrat Ron Kind, because it was an incumbent map.
Democrats are equally as guilty on congressional gerrymandering as Republicans.
I think the Supreme Court made the right decision.
Todd Alba, two to four afternoons.
Thank you, buddy.
Go back and relax.
Chad Holmes and Sean O'Malley and Melissa Baldoff all coming up in our next hour here up
north.
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