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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Critello powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Critello.
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Although oftentimes not so silently, I'm Pat Critello.
Welcome back.
It's 8.06.
Hope you had a nice weekend.
Parker Olson is in Madison studio.
A2.
John and Gordy are going to join us from A1 in just a moment.
First a reminder that coming up at the bottom of this hour we'll talk to Jeff Mandel from Law Forward about the legal group's lawsuit against Elon Musk hoping to prevent a future episodes of billionaire bribery in connection with Wisconsin elections.
And tomorrow on the program we'll talk to Hans Brighton Moser
Dan Schaefer and more than on Wednesday, State Representative Angela Stroud from up north talking about removing lead water lines.
It's not just a Milwaukee thing.
In her district, Superior has a real problem with that.
And the legislature was not really that helpful last week on the topic.
So I've got all that and more coming up.
But first at 807 now time to bring in our friends, John and Gordy from our civic media station in Madison.
Guys, how are you?
or
would appear
it.
Things would appear.
Yeah,
almost family friendly for radio, but the 1970s were so fun.
Oh, see, I was thinking about something differently, but I'm.
of an era where when you discover your dad's secret stash of playboys, I mean that is finding gold in them Darhills.
Oh yes, definitely.
Those were the days.
Yes, I was just before I came to you.
I've got a hayfield right across the street and the tractor came by to do first cutting.
It's so different now as the farms get bigger, you know, it used to be you needed
six kids on the back of a flat bed, you know, and the little square bales would come up and it had, everything had to be dry because otherwise, you know, you were going to get into problems.
Nowadays, I mean, this thing comes by, it's a huge machine now and it cuts it faster than you can cut your lawn is the way it gets done with this whole field here and then a blower truck is going to come by and get it all done.
We'll talk to Hans Brighton Moser about this tomorrow, but
The changes in farming
are
just crazy to see when you get to see them.
I saw something last week that I haven't seen in farming for a while.
I saw cows outside.
That's like a rare thing now.
You used to see a lot of cows out in the fields when
you drive
around and you hardly see it anymore because they're all in the barns 24-7, you know?
And I think some of them have finally figured out, hey, hey, he said, no pun intended, if you let them
out
in the field.
He might get some better milk that way.
We got a story about grazing out there in the fields.
Minnesota is experimenting with a mobile solar panel, and these are two wings, giant wing solar panels, and they're attached to a battery operated tractor that moves across the fields very slowly, providing shade for the cows out in the pasture.
This
is epic
hearing.
We keep hearing and you know, they're not.
totally incorrect but the same all these solar farms they're taking up all this farmland well no i mean one thing that i've known is that they have been looking at ways to have your cake and eat it too have the solar panels but either raise them up or have them you know rotate during the day so that the crops below can still grow or in
case continue to provide shade for the cows as it's kind of mobile that way that is amazing
you?
A little further north closer to Lake Superior.
No, no, we've had our warm...
norm spells here.
But I think that that would just be amazing.
You
start a new saying, you know, the the grass is greener under the robotic tractor.
Something
yeah.
We had a very low key weekend here at the house.
We didn't set up the list of you know, 20 things to do.
We just kind of did things as they came up.
I spent ample time in the hammock, I'm happy to say.
But one of you were busy doing the doing the basement, which is
those things I always say I'm gonna do on a really cold winter day or something and then it just never gets done but
Well yeah I have two Gen Z's at home and we have apartments in our home and they just moved into these apartments.
by themselves now separately and they left all the junk in the basement in the middle of a walking area.
You know, it's hard to walk down there now and do the laundry.
So yeah, I had to kind of clean that up and take care of some of the mess down there.
So I feel much better
now.
How much did you put at the end of the driveway with a free sign before they got the idea that maybe they should do something with this?
But you know, that is a there's there's this right of passage that I didn't appreciate right away as a young man.
I've come since to appreciate now, not just for my wife, but for my daughters, the right of passage when you're of an age where your your parents, usually your mom will say to the daughter,
Okay, I've been holding onto this big old box with your wedding dress
Yeah, it's time for you to store it away because you finally bought your first home or whatever the case may be.
And it's not just the wedding dress.
That's just one example.
But there is something about when
when my daughter, one of my daughters finally got a place of her own is we loaded up the vehicle.
And I mean, they
place, but it's still their place.
So here's your stuff to go in your place.
we don't have to babysit it anymore.
That's
Yes, I do know though.
You just cashed those in, right?
You made some big bucks.
You know what you do?
You take the old comics and you put them in auctions.
There are auctions that sell comic books exclusively.
And you get some really good money there.
And boy, I may not like a bandit, but it's sad to see them go.
I didn't buy them to collect them.
I loved reading and looking at the pictures in the comic books.
I was a big comic book fan.
So getting rid of them.
And I used to draw comics too.
at one point.
So yeah, it was my inspiration when I was a kid.
And then I'm selling them and it's just it was heartbreaking.
But yeah, I made some money.
I suppose yeah, I'd like to think that when when my mom got really frustrated with me not cleaning my room.
and one day threw away all of my baseball cards.
And I
was probably like 11 years old or something at the time, and I totally deserved it.
I would like to think that somewhere in there, I can hold this over my mom's head, that you threw away a million dollar card.
pretty confident that, you know, you, you couldn't get, you know, $5 for the whole lot based on what I had.
But we'll, we'll never know now.
knows, you don't get to keep those in yet every so
I know there was a story a week or two ago, somebody finding like a, you know, a Rembrandt or something.
that somebody else had painted over and somehow they figured out to look underneath it and find, it's like, that always happens to somebody else, you know?
Yeah, it does.
It does.
yours.
I thought that that was, did you have a favorite genre of comics?
I
it's
See that my my I was more not so much the superheroes, I was more Archie's,
know, Veronica, Betty, Reggie, which
is
why I guess we're going back maybe 10 years now.
When that when that TV series Riverdale
came out and you know it said it was going to be a young adult series based on the comic books and sure enough the characters were there Archie, Betty, Veronica, but as they're all like taking each other's clothes off and having these sexy scenes in the shower I'm like this is not the comic book I read.
I thought the comic book I wish I read.
Right.
Yes.
And you can always prove, you can always show off your age by asking people, you know, when, when you're comparing to women's like, you know, is it Betty or Veronica?
And
for
others, it would now be what Rachel or Monica?
And of course the quintessential one was ginger versus Marianne.
Yes.
You ever noticed women never do that.
They never take any two guys and go, you want this one or that one is like,
no, you'd have to find two.
all the candidates to put up, in order to do that.
We're talking to
always wonder if that's, is that real or is that just wishful thinking on the guy's part when they write these things, but.
Okay.
July plans for you
big plans.
And it's a three day weekend too.
So
we got
going anywhere doing anything last night?
We we just we said
you know, if we do something on Friday the fourth, we'd still have the fifth and the sixth Saturday Sunday to hang out here on the lake.
So we just made, we looked at the Summerfest lineup and the, I don't have it in front of me, but the lineup on the fourth of July looked pretty good.
So I think we
wander down to Milwaukee.
We haven't, we haven't been to the big gig there in quite a few years.
Yeah,
Well, and half the fun too is at that Walker's Point neighborhood.
There's a couple of nice like boutique hotels there now.
So I mean, you
stay over you can stay over and you don't have as much of, you know, the parking hassle or taking the shuttles, you know, the shuttle ride is a lot shorter from Walker's Point than it would be, you know, from from other parts of the city.
So I'm looking forward to it.
But you know, when
when we're comparing notes next week,
I'll
be curious to see if it's, oh, it was as good as I remember, or if I'm gonna give you the old man thing of, oh, there were too many people, oh, the crowds, I'm never going again, and the music was so loud, and I'm thinking I'll be okay with that.
Here's here's the here's some of the some of the stages on the 4th of July.
Carrie Lewis and the Playboys.
Really?
Am I showing my age?
John Wait.
John Oates of Hall and Oates.
No kidding.
Richard Marks and Chicago.
Little band called Chicago will
well.
Fountains of Wayne and more.
So right up my demographic alley.
So
You know, you
good local band.
We've got one up here, Uncommon Denominator.
It's just so good.
You love having a good local band like that.
We're talking with John and Gordy.
A local update is next for some of you.
Others will be back here for more with John and Gordy and when we are all back together.
and the 830 half hour we will be talking to Jeff Mandel of Law Forward about their lawsuit against Elon Musk.
This is all followed at 9 a.m.
by Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair will be along before too much longer to tell us what's coming up on her show as well.
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Basota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
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.
Back now with John and Gordy from our civic media station in Madison where Parker keep this keep this music up because I Swear he says he got it from our generic production library.
I swear that's like an actual song by like Dick Dale or one of those other surfer music guys
Yeah, walk
walk
such legal hot water right
hilarious that.
It took three of us older guys to figure it out to let Parker know that, yes.
The one thing he said, hey, this sounds really good.
Well, it's because it was an actual hit.
I think these guys got real potential here.
Yes, they did 60 years ago.
Tom and Hartford
on the
text line asking about Brittany, Brittany's off today.
And hopefully we'll get to talk to her here before the.
Summer, July 4th weekend gets going.
Tammy and Eau Claire writes, we went to summer fest this past weekend to hear cake, awesome show and the food was fantastic.
So
I'm sure they sang along to short skirt, long jacket and all the other hits that they've got there as well.
And you were telling me in the break about if there, if there's one other act, I have to go find some place.
It's somebody named Tuba Dan.
Tuba
This is
know, of all the things that show off our age, my age is that now Sherry and I were about to this week have our 39th anniversary.
So when we got married in 1986, that is still our reception is still the last reception that we went to with a polka band, not a band that played polka music.
It was a it was all polkas all night
when we grew up.
That was that was not out of the ordinary.
Is that a wedding reception, you know, especially in the Manitowoc area or, you know, out in Minnesota, where I'm from.
But
that time, polka bands at a wedding reception, I've never, never been to one after ours.
Yep.
You mentioned over the weekend, you know, you cleaned your, your basement.
my basement
Gordy went to a wine bar.
Gordy went to a wine bar or a winery?
a winery, a winery, a
It's a stable rock winery and distillery in Jefferson, a little town east of Madison, about half an hour, beautiful place, beautiful setting.
And I, you know, I normally don't go to wineries.
And when I do, I order, you know, and it just always makes me mad.
I'll have a beer, please.
And then I take, I order all of a spotted cow and then I pour it into a wine glass.
Cause you're classy that way.
It just
But the thing was I had lunch there and they had a turkey wrap bacon thing.
But the site and they asked on the side, what do you want?
Chips or potato salad?
I'm not really a fan of chips.
So I'll try the potato salad.
Not a big fan of potato salad.
This was the best potato salad I've ever had in my life.
It
was just
It
yeah.
was
Trolling for wife number three, no doubt.
Set up
until until I met Sherry, I had never had, you know, hot potato salad.
You know, she makes a German potato salad.
that is just killer.
It's everything that you just described, but in, you know, you've got it in a crock pot instead.
And oh, I mean, she, the neighborhood gathering that we have every year, that's always they always ask her to make it.
They always eat it all up.
So, you know, there, yeah, there is no one size fits all on potato salad.
So when you find a good one,
You know, man, well,
Okay.
And also their wines.
And then finally, and we won't have enough time to talk at length about it, but I wanted to let people know that on your show and you can go back and listen to past episodes at civicmedia.us.
You guys had a good little discussion on birthright citizenship in light of the US Supreme Court ruling on Friday.
Yes.
And it's nice to know at least it's still legal.
It's still something here in Wisconsin because we're one of 21 other states plaintiffs in a suit against the government saying that we should keep birthright citizenship.
It's part of the Constitution.
And because of that challenge, the recent Supreme Court challenge or at least decision said that we are protected.
So we are they have blocked any anti
citizenship while we deal with the Trump administration asking if a constitutional amendment is constitutional.
I'm going to go bang my head against this wall over
everybody in Madison, tune in to John and Gordy, catch them on the app and on the website as well.
Guys, thank you so much.
Have a great
Appreciate it.
Coming up next, we'll talk to Jeff Mandel.
First, a reminder, sign up for our newsletters.
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Live from Lake Wissoda, what a great place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Did you know that that Civic Media app has a brand new feature on it?
You can use it to text us, of course.
We've talked about that at length.
But you can send us a voice note as well.
You just use that voice note feature and you can record a little audio message.
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and use the voice note feature to stay in touch.
Tomorrow on the program, Hans Brighton Moser will be here, Dairy Farmer from up in the Merrill area, Chad Holmes from Wausau, Dan Hagen from Newswatch 12 in Rhinelander, and Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation area, and then on Wednesday, State Representative Angela Stroud from up north.
But right now, we're going to have a little conversation with Jeff Mandel from Law Forward and talk about what I would, I don't know, you can either call it
billionaire bribery or you can call it bribery adjacent campaigning or whatever it is.
Jeff Mandel and Law Forward want to make sure that these kinds of practices stay on the up and up or don't happen at all.
Jeff, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to be here.
No, it's nice to have you here.
Thank you so much.
Let's put it in your words instead of mine.
Tell us about the lawsuit and the genesis of it and the outcome you hope to get.
The lawsuit is about making sure we continue to have free and fair elections here in Wisconsin and about perpetuating a series of actions that law forward has taken to hold accountable those bad actors who try to undermine free and fair elections in Wisconsin.
So let's step back to March.
to the home stretch of the Supreme Court election that we had here in Wisconsin this past spring to remind your listeners what happened.
In the last 12 days of that election, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, showed up in Wisconsin and started to
offer cash incentives for people to vote here in Wisconsin.
And first, it was a petition that offered $100 to any registered voter who would sign the petition that very, very closely echoed the campaign themes and messaging of one of the candidates.
And then all of a sudden, it was the chance of million-dollar checks to people who had signed the petition and said they'd already voted.
in the election.
And then there was a series of payouts as well in the weekend before the election for people who were knocking on doors and getting photos of voters with the holding campaign material for Musk's preferred candidate and giving a thumbs up or a smile.
All of these.
are efforts to induce people to vote, and in Wisconsin, you cannot give anything that is valued more than $1 to try to induce people to vote.
It's against the law.
It sure seemed pretty clear that way.
I mean, you can't induce anyone to go to the polls to vote for or to vote at all or to vote for a particular person.
You refer to it as a brazen scheme to induce Wisconsinites to vote and I
I think that's a generous way to put it.
I mean, Brazen truly fits what he was trying to get away with.
And it's even more outrageous when you put it in the context of some of the things we've seen in Wisconsin over the last few years, including complaints filed by individual candidates or political parties when, say, on campus there was a get out the vote activity that offered ice cream.
for people who came out to early vote.
And they said, well, ice cream is worth more than a dollar.
Maybe it is.
I mean, I don't know exactly what the details of that program were, but a million dollar check is certainly worth more than a dollar.
And even the chance to get a million dollar check, right?
We don't sell lottery tickets in this country for less than a dollar usually.
So this is, it really is a brazen scheme.
It's brazen in how open and outrageous it is, how contemptuous of the law it is.
And we can't let this continue.
So the day after the election, there was a really distressing article to me in the Washington Post because a U.S.
Senator from North Carolina, Tom Tillis, who I guess made his own news this past weekend, but Senator Tillis was asked about this.
And his reaction was really just astonishing to me.
But what he said in essence was that Elon Musk is a disruptor.
And he comes in with new ideas and thinks about things differently than we have before, and we all have to adapt.
And so what he said is, for the 2026 midterm elections, we should expect to see millionaires of all different political stripes standing up on stages and giving away huge checks.
And that's just a horrifying dystopian vision to me.
That's not the way we understand or want elections to work in this country.
And that was really one of the moments when we decided we had to
even after the election come in and try to make sure this can't happen again.
Right.
I mean, because I mean, you either have that outlook or or or hear me out here, you don't allow voters to be bribed in one form or another.
But now we have to ask the the legal thicket question that there was
an effort just prior to the election to try to get this practice smacked down and courts did not go along with it.
What is different this time now that the elections in the past?
What is different about the lawsuit, the arguments that you're making, that you hope make it more likely a court will formally and finally end
It's a great question.
I think
Really, the biggest difference is the context and the timing.
Courts have a tremendous amount of power, but they also, as institutions, are not really built to work quickly.
Excuse me, the goal of courts...
is to arrive at the truth and then to enforce the law based on what it finds about those facts.
What you were referencing, Pat, was that in the run-up to the election, there was an effort by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Call to put a stop to an event the Sunday evening before the election where Musk handed out two $1 million checks.
We had been pushing...
uh attorney general call to take action and to try to stop this and we're grateful that he made the effort but he filed his papers on a friday afternoon um asking the court to stop something that was happening 48 hours later and that's really just not
in sort of the DNA of our court system to do things quickly over the weekend in exceptional circumstances.
The wheels of justice generally grind slowly, and the courts no court that weekend.
Within those 48 hours, Attorney General Call was in the trial court in Wisconsin, in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, and in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
But none of those courts said that he was wrong.
None of those courts said that what Musk was doing was okay.
What each of those courts said is, we're not willing or able to do this on the schedule you're asking us for.
And so what our lawsuit is doing is saying, okay, we'll take you at your word courts, but now the election is over.
Things are calm and settled.
We're not in an urgent situation, but we do need to know what the law is and get this clear.
before the next Wisconsin Supreme Court election because we can't allow this to happen again.
And if you remember, at the beginning when I recapped what happened, I said that Musk didn't start these efforts until 12 days before the election.
I don't think that's accidental.
I think part of what they're trying to do is jam the courts.
They're trying to show up and do things right on the edge.
And do them at such a time that nobody can really stop it.
And so we're coming in at this moment and saying, let's put a stop to this.
It's a downright diabolical.
We're talking to Jeff Mandel from Law Forward.
It's a legal group that already has a pretty good history of holding some bad actors to account.
There was the exposing of the fraudulent electors scheme that was cooked up here in the state.
And then there was the complaint against the Office of Lawyer Regulation that held that former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gabelman had
made some ethical abuses during his sham investigation into the 2020 election.
So, you know, this is a group that does not take things lightly when you're doing these things.
So you have filed the lawsuit here against Elon Musk.
What's next?
What should we, how should we expect to see things play out?
Well, as I said, courts move slowly, and so there's going to be a period of time where the defendants here, which is Elon Musk, a political action committee that he founded and runs called America Pack, and then another organization that he created with the unbelievable name of the United States of America, Inc.
They're the ones who sent people these actual checks.
So you would sign the petition from America PAC and it said that America PAC would send you a check, but the check actually came from the United States of America Inc.
People got emails that said the United States of America has money for you.
So those are the defendants here, those three entities.
They're going to have an opportunity to answer this complaint and then the lawsuit will get rolling.
So I would expect around Labor Day, we'll have a schedule from the court and we'll be able to move forward.
Can somebody also then do the lawsuit that says what state allowed you to incorporate the name United States of America incorporated?
I mean, I don't know who runs these anymore.
I always thought it was every Secretary of State's office in the state, but somebody dropped the ball on that one
I mean, I think we all share an intuition that it
It just doesn't seem like it can possibly be acceptable to incorporate and claim that you're doing business in the name of the United States of America.
You'll be unsurprised to know that the answer to your question of where was that ball dropped is in the Texas Secretary of State's office.
And, you know, we could either go to court in Texas and try to deal with it there or.
What we didn't want to do was make an issue of that and allow the whole case to get sucked into the federal courts.
This is really an issue of Wisconsin law, and we want this resolved here in our Wisconsin courts.
Okay.
There's just so many issues.
I mean, I could even go off on a different tangent.
I remember when Ron Johnson first ran for office.
And this was what 2010 and instead of paid for by Ron Johnson for Senate was paid for by Johnson for Senate LLC.
And I'm like, what kind of path are we wandering on here that corporations are literally running for office now?
But that that's a side issue.
And then
One other side issue, forgive me for going off on a tangent here, but when we talk about signing these quote unquote petitions and I want to put finger quotes around petition because I remember when I was running for Congress in 2012 and they said, oh, we got to do these petition things.
And I still have a very old school definition of what a petition is.
You know, you it's it's, you know, to list your grievances against the government, for example.
But that's not what these are.
These these are campaign things.
They just collect your name and say, hey, we collected 110,000 signatures on this petition.
It's
it's not an actual petition but it just it shows the the slippery slope of first a petition is not a petition and now a petition is something that maybe we could send you a dollar or a million dollars if you sign and it is so hard as a voter to know what's a gimmick and what's not a gimmick
that the worst thing that could happen, Jeff, is that you and Law Forward aren't there to at least try to get a court to provide a little bit of clarity of what some bad actors can't do.
Well, it is very frustrating because, as you say, we think of petitions as a means of aggregating public opinion and giving it to decision makers to help guide them and help them understand what their constituents want.
But these days, so often, especially online, petitions are not that.
They are simply means to collect people's email addresses and text numbers.
And it's just a whole shift in campaigning, as you mentioned.
And some of it is constitutionally protected.
actually paying people in an effort to induce them to vote or to induce them to vote for a specific candidate.
That is illegal and we cannot allow ourselves to go down that road here in Wisconsin.
No, cannot.
Jeff Mandel from LawFord.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate the information and wish you all the best in the suit.
Thank you so much.
All right, local update is next for some of you.
For others, you'll come back here for some final news and notes from Lake WSOTA.
I'm Pat Crightlow on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Rourers are on their way to Queens to play the New York Mets Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday all night games
Pregame starts at 535 tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday on several civic media stations.
Head over to the app for details and then they're off to Miami for the 4th of July weekend to play the Marlins.
They are back home a week from tonight for a series against the LA Dodgers and then the Washington Nationals come to town and then it's the All-Star break.
It's hard to believe we're getting to that point already, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
We've got the 4th of July weekend coming up as well after a short work week for this program and for Matt and Air on Air with Jane Matt and Air and Greg Bach.
Jane, how are you?
I am well, Mr. Creightlow and yourself.
Good.
Good.
Had a nice relaxing weekend at home.
We got a lot of rain up there, didn't
we?
We
got a lot of rain.
We got nearly three inches.
The river is really
high
right now.
Uh, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's green.
It, things are very lush, lush and green around here.
So
how about you?
I did.
Well, it's Saturday.
I don't know what it was like, but in southeastern Wisconsin, Saturday was like the penultimate perfect summer day.
It wasn't humid.
It was so nice.
So I did a real lazy I said on the patio and I read and.
you know, just dinked around.
And so yesterday I thought I'm going to be ambitious today.
Today it's going to be 92 degrees with 79% humidity.
So I went out yesterday morning.
I thought early enough to get some weeding done.
I went out about 10 o'clock.
That was not early enough.
But my question is, am I the only one who swears when you weed?
Oh, no.
No, no, no, not at all.
I think about my neighbors who are right on the other side of the fence when I was weeding yesterday.
And I get, I'm the Thistles in particular.
Oh, yeah.
I have the worst.
I have particular favorite curse words for those.
And yeah, they must say who is she?
She's fighting with she's fighting with some invisible person in her backyard.
And she's talking about stabbing it.
I don't know what's going on.
Maybe we should move.
God.
No,
I totally get it.
And I think as well, it's a function of our occupation, where we are very aware of when microphones are live and when we have to watch, mind our P's and Q's.
And so, you know, there are some broadcasters, especially in radio, that, you know, they have the worst pottymouths in the world because
you
have to be so nice on air.
Yes, exactly.
And I tell you, broadcasting is where I learned how to swear.
Oh, same here.
Oh, I learned it
from a director.
I was operating the camera and I heard.
I mean, every invective possible over the headsets, and thank goodness the headset chatter never went out live over
here,
because you didn't do it right.
You heard about
it, man.
Oh yeah.
The most creative, the most creative cursing I have ever heard is like, I never even thought about putting those two things together.
I did the same thing
from somebody
else at a different TV station, taught me a curse that I did not know existed to that point.
But didn't even know that was possible.
Yep.
But there, there they are.
Enlightening didn't strike or anything.
Right.
What is coming up on your program this
week?
Well, Civic Media's news director now, Charlie Pittman, is joining us on Mondays after the 9 30 news.
Not like because the news ever never breaks over the weekend.
Nothing ever happens.
No, on weekends.
News never drops on Friday afternoons.
So Charlie joins us now on Mondays to give us a recap of where we are, what's going on, what happened over the weekend.
And then a little bit later on in the show, I do want to start off with, obviously, we're going to talk about the budget.
And who knew there was a spine?
There's at least one spine among Tom Tillis.
Wow.
Well, a spine long enough to go.
No.
And then I'm not running for reelection.
Exactly.
But but I guess I will at least give him because he looks like he's going to vote no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But now it better be a solid no all the way through or otherwise that little bit of spine he had, even that's not going to count for very much.
But there's no, you know, a John McCain who I'm going to tell you no, and I'm not quitting or anything.
Right.
You know, I'm just saying I don't agree with you.
And there is no thorn in Trump's side right now in his own party.
I mean, just jellyfish all the way through.
Well, look at our very own Ron Johnson.
Oh, my goodness.
We all knew he was going to capitulate.
It was just... Spelunking.
Yeah, it was... Spelunking with Ron Johnson.
He's caving.
I heard you say that this morning when I was coming in.
That was great.
Yeah, we all knew he was going to cave.
It was just on what is he going to give in because...
is strong.
I can't do this.
This is wrong.
Oh, well, it's yeah, whatever.
I don't
think I don't think he's done yet because the one eight years ago that got him to cave was, you know, a sweetheart tax deal that benefited him.
Right.
the reason he's caving this time around, he says, is because he hates the Affordable Care Act so much he hates that people, you know, have stable and affordable health care coverage.
And so he got this promise to go even harder at the Affordable Care Act and rip health care where from more people
but that doesn't personally benefit him.
So I'm still looking for something else here.
You're right.
That's interesting.
There should be some little kiss in there for Rojo's vote.
Right.
Because like you said, that's what he got last time.
But
we didn't recognize at the time how much he was going to personally benefit.
That came out in a report like a year later.
So the story will eventually come out of how Ron Johnson went from profile and courage to Spelunker.
That's it.
That's that's
all we got.
That's all we got.
We could all chip in together and buy one of those minor hats packed with a little light on the front, you know.
Oh, we don't have to do that.
That's that's the beauty of Photoshop.
AI.
Hey Parker, there's your job for later on this afternoon.
Time
to learn
Photoshop.
I didn't know that
was on the docket for
today.
That and a little AI illustration will do you a lot of good.
Matt and Aaron Eric coming up right after the 9 o'clock news here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jane, thank you so much.
Say hi to Greg Forrest and we'll see you in a little bit.
I will go swear at those thistles.
That's right.
I'm next, yes.
For me, it was Buckthorn.
And I'm always happy to swear at those.
And yes, I was doing that over the weekend.
My thanks to today's guest, Jeff Mandel from Law Forward, Michael McElroy from the North Carolina Cardinal and Pine, part of Courier Newsroom, Dr. Kristen Lierly, Selena Heller, Jimmy Cusca, John and Gordy, Jane Mattenair, and of course, Parker Olson.
And thanks to all of you for being a part of things here this morning.
I'm Pat Crite, low founding editor for Up North News.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, a
Our O-Democracy News Network, building a more informed, engaged, and Representative America, follow us on social media, and sign up for our newsletters upnorthnewswi.com.
Have a great Monday.
We'll see you tomorrow morning here up North.
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