You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime,
anywhere.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Good morning.
It is 7 0 6.
Nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning.
We made it to July.
July 1st, 2025.
Parker Olson standing by in Madison Studio A2.
Brittany Merlot is off today.
Coming up this hour, we will talk to Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Breitenmoser.
And it was it was not a great week last week for farmers, only what two and a half, three and a half days of field work because of all the rain.
But in other news related to food and farming, you know, there is still this trade war.
that President Trump has, you know, waged on other nations.
These are far from done deals.
We just haven't heard much about them lately.
But apparently the Trump administration has just figured out that maybe these across-the-board tariffs aren't working because the whole point was to bring things back to America, you know, bring certain crops back, bring manufacturing back, things like that.
There are certain things you can't grow in this country that we get elsewhere and so we'll talk about that that brilliant revelation on the on the half of Trump's
egg secretary coming up.
Let's see, no Brittany here, but I'm sure we've got notes from Rob and Tigerton.
Sure enough, they're on YouTube.
Good morning from Tigerton.
Lots of sun and 63 degrees, another busy day, mowing lawns in the Tigerton area, getting plenty of sun too.
I've got to go see the eye doctor July 16th in Wittenberg.
Mowing.
He mows lawn and plows snow at the Tigerton Post Office and in the winter he always thinks of the postal workers because we mentioned today is National Postal Workers Day.
He said yesterday I heard Debbie Harry's song The Tide is High from 1980 on the radio and you have to have Kristen Lyrely singing that song sometime.
All right we will do that.
Debbie Harry turns 80 years old today.
We were talking in the last hour about the
Newly announced budget deal for the state budget that Governor Evers and legislative Republicans reached yesterday We went through some of the details that Cassandra writes on YouTube.
This is better than I was expecting I never thought they'd give money to child care and that's true there will be some some
significant funding to child care, not exactly what the governor wants, but we've reached out to Karine Hendrickson from Nouglaris who's been a leading advocate for child care support in the state budget and she is going to join us in just over 10 minutes to give us her reaction to the child care portion of the budget and also tells what questions remain to be answered.
I mean, there are still other details that have to be announced on this state budget plan.
and we'll review those again in our next hour with Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation Area, who will join us at about 8.30 to talk about what's going on there.
We'll talk a little bit more about the state budget deal in just a moment, but first I wanted to remind you that you can sign up for our daily newsletter over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And of course, you can follow us on our website as well.
One of the website feature articles this week is about
swimming in the summertime and some common Wisconsin lake hazards.
After all, with attempts that were pushing 90 recently and will be again this week, a trip to the lake might sound like the perfect time to cool off, but you'll find in our article some advice on protecting kids from drowning hazards, avoiding E. Coli contaminated waters, lower the chance of parasites causing swimmer's itch,
And how to spot that blue green algae, which can be harmful to humans and especially to pets.
Search for lake hazards on our website to find the article and make sure to check out the link at the bottom of the article to one of our top weekend road trip stories, seven great places to see waterfalls around Wisconsin.
Parker, you ever in all your swimming and beach time ever get swimmers itch?
I am not much of a swimmer at all bad actually.
So no,
can't say I had the itch.
I haven't, I had it like two times as a, as a kid, maybe at ages, you know, nine and 10 or something like that.
And I don't even know what they do it for these days, but back, back then it was something called, was it Calamine Lotion?
Something like that.
And you had to pour some of that into a bath and you had to just lay in there for the longest time.
And even then it still didn't work.
You were just itching and scratching like crazy.
And I'm surprised, you know,
You keep yelling at you, don't itch, don't itch.
They should put like the cone of shame, you know, on your hands to stop you from doing that.
Anyway, so to avoid swimmers itch, read that article and some tips about making sure that you are swimming safely.
Also on our website, 10 Wisconsin homes that have been featured on HGTV.
So take a look at that.
So we went through some of the details of the state budget in our last hour and I realized
Hold on, back to the comment section here, Alicia.
I got Swimmer's Itch from a hotel pool.
I got one reaction to that, Alicia.
Ew.
To get Swimmer's Itch from a hotel pool tells me they didn't do a good job of cleaning that pool and I'm just gonna leave it at that.
All right, back to the state budget deal.
Again, the governor announced not just the increase in funding for the UW system and for childcare, but I neglected to give details on
what the governor says is a nearly $1.4 billion increase in spendable revenue for K-12 schools across the state.
And that word spendable is very important because in the last budget and prior to that, Republicans had this great little budget trick that they would play.
They would say, we are giving, I'll just grab a number here, a billion dollars.
Knocked my microphone.
We're giving a billion dollars to schools.
Well, they weren't really.
They were giving a billion dollars that was supposed to go to schools, but schools have the state imposed revenue limits.
They can't exceed the limits.
So the money comes into schools on paper and goes right back out the schools to property tax relief.
And that's fine.
Just call it property tax relief.
But, you know,
Don't say, oh yeah, we gave all this money to schools when it was not spendable money for the schools.
This does have a $1.4 billion increase in spendable revenue.
It's an increase in what's called categorical aid.
Oh Pat, what's categorical aid?
Okay, there's base state aid that everybody gets, and then there's categories of additional aid for things like special education, transportation, libraries, things like that.
All vary from school district to school district, but those categorical aids are just another form of state support for our local schools.
And the net increase in all those categorical aids, according to the governor,
is five times larger than the increase in the last budget.
And it is a 60% increase above what Republicans on the Budget Committee had previously approved.
There is also this big increase.
in special education reimbursement.
Local school districts will receive 42% reimbursement in the first year, 45% reimbursement in the second year of the budget for their special education costs.
It is the highest reimbursement rate in 30 years and a larger increase for special education than the last three state budgets combined.
There's also
$2 million in operations for the Department of Public Instruction after Republican lawmakers had previously voted to cut 10% of the agency's operating costs through the state budget process.
So there's a lot there for K-12.
There's a lot more for the UW system.
And again, bear in mind, Republicans wanted to cut funding for the UW system, even with a $4 billion surplus, because they wanted to
Punish universities for being woke.
And remember, what's our definition of woke on this morning program?
Woke means, you know, don't be a bigot.
Don't be a racist.
Don't be a misogynist.
Don't be a jerk.
That's the definition of woke.
I don't know why people seem to be against that, but that's all it is folks, bottom line.
Anyway, there will be an increase to the UW system, an increase of $256 million over the next two years.
That includes over $100 million to help stabilize the system after recent campus closures and layoffs and program cuts and consolidations in order to ensure that UW campuses remain hubs for the workforce and for the local economies all across the state.
There will be $54 million to retain and recruit faculty and staff in high demand fields to make sure that the UW stays competitive and a world-class institution.
There will be $94 million to increase wages for UW system workers, including faculty and staff.
Recall how in the last budget cycle, Republicans held pay raises hostage until diversity, equity, and inclusion positions.
could be eliminated or repurposed, I guess you'd say.
There's 7 million there to provide 24-7 virtual telehealth mental health services to nearly all students across UW System campuses.
So that's 7 million for mental health care for UW and I believe it was 30 million for mental health initiatives at K-12 is again a recognition that mental health care
for our kids overall, you know, including as they're going to college is in dire need.
For whatever reason you want to lay out there, our students and our children are in need of services that they're currently not getting in the classroom or getting at home.
And so it's nice to see that that is being recognized and supported.
And then there's all kinds of capital projects in here for the UW system.
A lot of this is normally handled by the State Building Commission.
But I think Republicans and the governor said well as long as we're at the negotiating table Let's let's bang some of these things out and that would include Replacing in addition at Polk Learning Commons at UW Oshkosh Finish construction of the Prairie Springs Science Center at UW La Crosse and demolish Crawley Hall, which lacks fire suppression
There will be money to renovate the Health Sciences and Northwest Quadrant Complex at UW-Milwaukee to transform former hospital buildings into a Health Sciences Hub.
They will renovate and put a new addition on DeJope Residence Hall at UW-Madison.
There will be a renovation and building in addition to Century Hall at UW-Stevens Point, renovations at UW-Milwaukee's Sandberg Hall East Tower, a new addition at the UW-Stout Recreation Complex, a dining hall renovation at UW-Madison, a demolition and relocation of a humanities building at UW-Madison, and also money for UW-Madison's Science Hall.
which was originally built in 1887 and will undergo a renovation to restore the building's historic character, it says, while improving accessibility, addressing maintenance issues and adding an atrium.
These are investments in our education.
These are the things that are going to keep people here, keep our best and brightest here.
Far too many people decide to go to college somewhere else and then they settle down somewhere else and we lose them.
If we don't make investments like that, we continue to lose them.
The amount of people in flow coming in, people like me, who came from Minnesota, went to UW Eau Claire, married a cute farmer's daughter from Manitowoc and settled here, that number's a lot lower.
We need to be improving that number, but you're not going to do it if you're punishing education and higher education in the state.
So again, you have to tip your cap.
to Governor Tony Evers for dragging some Republicans kicking and screaming toward the realization that we're paying these tax dollars.
Let's make the investments that are going to grow the economy.
And you do that by attracting our young people, attracting our best and brightest, attracting people from other states and not continually trying to drive them away.
All right, we've got two guests to squeeze in in our next segment.
Some of you will get a local update.
Others are going to visit quickly with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch12 and Rhinelander and Karine Hendrickson to talk about childcare counts and support for it in the next state budget.
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.
The Milwaukee Brewers were off yesterday.
They are in New York to take on the Mets three night games tonight, tomorrow and Thursday evening.
Pre game starts at 535 on several stations across the Civic Media radio network.
So tune in there as the Brewers are two games back at the Cubs and hoping to make some moves this week.
All right, we will visit with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12, WJFW and Rhinelander in just a bit, and then we'll hold him over the break to visit with Hans Brayton Moser as well, coming up after 730's Midwest Farm Report.
But first, let's check in with Karine Hendrickson from Nuglaris, a child care provider, a leading voice on making sure that state and federal funds don't run dry to support child care providers.
The pandemic relief funding is running out and folks were looking for state support.
Republicans didn't want to give it, but Karine, it's in there.
$110 million broken up in a few different ways.
And I know that you've only just seen parts of this budget deal.
But thanks for joining us.
And what are your very first impressions until you learn more?
That is huge.
However, the fact that it's only for the first year is decimating.
And it's going to be a huge problem next year.
And the reason for that is it continues the status quo.
So we still are not going to be able to hire teachers.
We're not going to be able to raise wages.
We are not going to be able to make the improvements that we needed.
And that's why we asked for more.
And secondly, this money will run out then in June of 2026.
The way our legislative calendar runs is that next March, they gavel out to go campaign, which means there is a zero chance of us getting any dollars until they come back in January.
it will be facing the exact same thing we are right now, only we'll be more tired.
So the few chats I've had this morning with some people is many of them were thinking about retiring for family childcare and we're gonna hold on for like two, three more years if we got the funding.
However, now that it's only one year, they will be done next year.
I talked to people who have young children of their own in family childcare and they were gonna try and stick it out.
It would have stayed once their youngest went to school, they will now be done next summer.
So all we're doing is pushing it down the road.
a year.
I wonder if, and I have no information that tells me one or the other, but I wonder if in doing this...
like you like you noted, they will gavel out probably in March of 2026 and go campaign.
But they're going to have to campaign on the issue of childcare funding that just ran out.
And I wonder if that actually doesn't increase the pressure that somewhere between next January and next March, they throw another supplemental amount in there.
Again, it's not nearly the stability of putting the budget in.
But it does seem like an interesting opportunity to pressure some of these lawmakers early next year as well.
However, it's been five years of this and we're all really, really tired.
I don't know how many of us are just going to decide between now and then we're done because we can't keep going at this rate.
Especially if, you know, we work really hard to get people into office that said that they would do these things for us and that they would fight for this and then to have it be so it's short-sighted that it ends.
like with no choice chance.
So the next ask now is to have that saddle legislation passed to get the rest of the money in.
And some of the other things that I saw in the press release, some good things, they're increasing the subsidy so that it's up to the legal requirement right now based off of this year's rates.
However, when our rates go up, we'll be back in compliance.
So they didn't add enough to actually make it go forward to get into compliance and remain in compliance.
They did it in order to backfill to then say we're in compliance right now.
Another really good thing I saw was that they're going to be adding, in addition to the Young Star bonus for children on subsidy, if you are higher rated, there will also be a separate bonus for children that are
infants and toddlers so that we would get a little bit more for them and that's a good thing because we can't charge enough for those infants and toddlers and that might help with some of that infant toddler squeaks that we're feeling.
So those are some good things I saw.
I have a couple questions about the 4k school readiness piece.
If it's at the 0.6 full-time equivalent that the schools have, we can't compete with that.
If free all-day school, 0.6 for us.
Parents aren't going to be able to pay us the difference, especially since we're not getting the stabilization funding that we need in order to reduce our tuition.
So that's really not probably going to do what's intended to do.
I have some major concerns about the ratios changing, pilot programs, and the devils and the details.
I have asked, I got a little bit of clarification from the Department of Children and Families, but they know about what we do.
They haven't seen the language, so they don't actually know.
Same thing, 16 year olds counting as a teacher.
in a classroom is also very, very, very concerning.
Kareen Hendrickson, with a first look at reaction to the budget deal that was reached yesterday, obviously more to learn and then more to react to.
But Kareen, thanks for a first pass at it.
We really appreciate your time.
All right.
Have a great day.
Hey, let's bring in Dan Hagen now from WJFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander.
And we'll visit a little bit more when Hans Bright and Moser is here after the break as well.
How's Mr. Hagen today?
Mr. Hagen is doing well.
Life is good here in Rhinelander.
I just wanted to share a little bit from Nicolay College.
Nicolay College is the community college, the technical college here in Rhinelander.
And we did a story with them about how they could be affected by this one big beautiful bill.
So in the house version of the bill, they have changed the language for Pell Grants and that Pell Grants would only be applicable to people who are attending college full time.
And many
probably most.
Nearly all of the students in Nicollet College are attending part-time because they have jobs and families and that sort of thing.
So that is just one thing that we're looking out for right now because that would be pretty much most of their students.
Yeah, and I recall seeing that there was a lot of controversy about the Pell Grant language and I was just looking quick to see if I've seen any update on it and I have not yet.
What I have seen is that they've actually stopped voting in the Senate.
They're just doing a pointless roll call.
Still trying to get the vote of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski because their first, you know, little sweetheart deal fell through so they're trying something else.
must be a nice gig to have, you know, if you can get it, trying to get your arm twisted, you know, for a budget deal.
But, you know, you got to watch out for the Pell Grant recipients there, and I don't know if they're going to do that.
Dan, hang around, thanks for your patience.
I know you're dying to get out there and go, is it snowshoeing?
You had snowshoes softball before.
So roller skiing, the bookabiner is
only 200 days away, so I got to stay trained.
Of course you do.
All right, so he's going to be back after the break, along with Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Brighton Moser.
That's all coming up next year on these mornings, powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Crite Law.
Tomorrow on the program, we'll have State Representative Angela Stroud on Republicans supporting lead water line removal in Superior, if, if they can stick taxpayers with the bill instead of a private utility.
We'll also have our climate check with Melissa Baldoff.
You're gonna love this one.
I think Han should come back for this one.
Solar panels in farm fields.
Well, you heard us talk about this with John and Gordy yesterday.
Solar panels in farm fields.
on electric powered tractors so that the cows can stay under the shade of the panel as it slowly rotates through the field where they're grazing.
That's in climate check tomorrow with Melissa Baldoff.
We will also have our weekly visits with our civic media friends Earl Ingram in Southeast Wisconsin, James Kelly in Northwest Wisconsin, Jimmy Cusca in Southwest Wisconsin, and of course Parker and I will have Melissa Kaye
in Wisconsin Rapids with the latest on her Pigeon Quest.
I just want to see if Parker was standing by with the Pigeon Quest button, and he was.
I've always got Pigeon Quest ready.
That's it.
That's so good.
Dan Hagen joins us from NewsWatch 12 in Rhinelander, Hans Bright and Moser, Lincoln County dairy farmer from the Merrill area.
Gentlemen, how are
you?
All right.
All right.
Good morning, Dan.
Good morning, Dan.
Hans, how about you?
I know the official crop report said there was three and a half days of field work available last week because of the rain, obviously, a lot less in some parts.
How are things up by you?
Well, pretty wet.
Now we've had a couple of dry days here and we're actually going to start chopping our second crop this morning here in the next few hours.
So
yeah, the second crop got chopped here in the field across the street from yesterday.
And I've already marveled previously at, you know, just how big and how fast, you know, this
this equipment is getting.
I swear that thing was moving at least 30 maybe 35
miles an hour
down the field.
And I you know, you think of bailing hay and you think of just very slowly working your way down shopping and not
not this stuff.
Boy, we got we got we got like something out of transformers working the fields out here.
And Dan, you're following stories up in Rhinelander, not the least of which are some in in in Hansa's Lincoln County.
And, you know, there's a nursing home there we've talked about that may or may not be for sale.
But then in Taylor County, not too far away, there's also some kind of drilling project going on over there.
What's the latest out of Taylor County?
Yeah, that's right.
So Greenlight Metals is this Canadian company and they are on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
They have a subsidiary based in Wisconsin and they have started drilling in Taylor County at what's called the Bend deposit that's near Medford and there is a lot of gold and copper at that deposit.
The issue that is, however, it's using like non-ferrous metallic mining and more or less this releases a ton of sulfuric
acid.
So there's a reason why there is a moratorium on this kind of mining for a long time that moratorium has been lifted.
So this kind of exploratory drilling is the first step toward opening a mine.
Potentially so.
And it was a mining moratorium that Tom Tiffany was very instrumental in lifting and exposing this area to all of those harms from, you know, that exact kind of drilling and not just creating a mine.
But I mean, just the experimental drilling itself has potential to cause harm to the groundwater.
So it's why people are concerned even about the test drilling that's going on right there.
And Dan, of course, is following that out of Rhinelander.
Hans, I know you're following things with the Pinecrest Nursing Home sale.
We were talking about the county board maybe putting it up for sale.
This is not yet a done deal.
Well, I don't know.
I mean it ain't over till it's over.
The county board here in Lincoln County sold the nursing home once before and then that deal fell through after the fact the county board voted again in favor to sell
here to a different company more recently.
And that vote went through as a simple majority vote.
Now, some people are saying that there should have been a two-thirds vote to make that happen since it happened outside the regular budget process.
But the people in Lincoln County are just concerned about losing our nursing home and losing control of our nursing home when we ran it ourselves or when we partnered with North Central Healthcare to run the operation.
there, we at least had some control over it.
And my argument against selling it, and one of them, is that once it's sold, we simply lose all control.
And the company that has purchased it now, they've got about 340 of these facilities all over the United States.
And my argument was look.
Even if the people who own this company now are super and they're going to treat residents well and treat employees well and so forth and so on, I said, this is big business.
And there's no guarantees.
I mean, we could see a different ownership.
have the thing bought out by a different company in a couple years from now and have the wheels really fall off.
So it's confusing to me as to why the county board is choosing to try and sell a nursing home that's a five-star facility that's been doing great financially the last couple years.
It's taking care of our residents and keeping the promise that we've had, the deal that we've had for 70 years in Lincoln County.
If you work hard and you do the right thing, we'll have a place for you when you get old.
So I can see why Dan and everybody at News Watch 12 is following a story like this, Dan.
It's got real human impact.
And again, that whole notion of the benevolent corporation that will always be benevolent, or will it be, I'm
I'm sure Dan, you get reaction every time you do a story about this, about this issue.
Yeah, no,
certainly.
And I just want to ask you one thing, Hans.
You know, you said it's doing well financially, but, you know, we keep hearing that it's losing the county million plus dollars every year.
So what do you mean by it's doing good financially?
Well, it's been self-sustaining for the last, oh, I don't know, like year, year and a half, two years.
Um, when I was on the county board years ago, it, it was, uh, you know, there was tax levy dollars that needed to keep it afloat.
Um, there's no doubt about that.
And we partnered with North Central to help improve efficiencies and so forth.
North Central Health Care is a consortium that Lincoln County works with already.
And so it seemed like a good fit.
And things turned around.
It took a little while, but things turned around.
But what I find interesting too, Dan, is that when...
through a survey that was done in Lincoln County when people were asked, would you be willing to help support the nursing home if need be?
The resounding answer was yes.
So people in Lincoln County are looking at their nursing home and saying, yeah, even if it costs us a couple bucks, we're willing to keep this thing afloat because we see it as important and we understand that
If we no longer have control over it, we might not have a nursing home at all.
And what does that mean for us in terms of when you're elderly parents or what have you have to go to a nursing home, do you want to place them two hours from your house?
What does that look like?
We've got an ideal situation here.
But what we also have, I think, is a majority of county board supervisors who came into their role as county board supervisors with sort of this
hell bent philosophical notion that if, you know, government shouldn't be involved in anything.
And they've been unwilling to look past that and look at the facts here on the ground with our particular situation and see, see that we've got something special here that we should be hanging on to and, and in doing so, you know, we, we create the, the, the economy that goes along with it.
You know, we can, you know, there's 200 people roughly that work at Pinecrest nursing home.
If, if mega corporate
Incorporation Incorporated decides that these dots on their little balance sheets and spreadsheets aren't working out very well from their perch on Wall Street and they say, yep, it's time to pull the pin in Merrill.
200 people lose their jobs and we don't have anything to say about it.
To me, that's just, it's just poor management.
And Pat, you can cut me off if you'd like, but I think the argument from the other side, I heard from Ken Wickham, a county board chair is, you know, this has been an issue for a long time.
A lot of these county board members were up for reelection.
They got reelected even though their stance on Pinecrest was clear.
So what would you make of that argument that they were elected?
They can make decisions for the people.
Well, I mean, I agree with that to a point.
Um, and, and I'm not, you know, having, again, having been on the county board for 10 years, I don't think that, um, you know, the, the board should rush to referendum for every 98 said detail.
Yes, you have to put your big boy pants on and make some decisions for your constituents.
But one of the things with pinecrest is it's such a big deal.
It's such a big deal in our community.
And so many people, uh, asked so often just
put it to a referendum, so we can get the input from the people that are impacted from it.
And the board refused to take it to a referendum.
I think if they would have gone to a referendum, they would have found out that people want this thing, and they're willing to support it, and they want to keep it alive.
So I agree with what Ken said.
Yes, there was an election.
But there's also plenty of evidence to suggest that this is something that people wanted more input on.
You often hear that when it appears that the elected officials are acting more on their own ideological behalf than on the will of the majority of their constituents.
But again, they're the ones that have to make the decision whether to have that referendum or not.
So obviously, Dan's got a lot to follow.
And I'm glad you were here to ask some questions of Hans about that.
Dan, here's a question or comment for you on the text line from Jim in Brookfield.
Hey, Dan.
sounds like a true case of Berkey fever to be roller skiing in July.
Good luck reaching the magic number of 20 Berkeys for the purple bib again from Jim in Northfield because Dan mentioned he's going to go roller skiing after this segment.
Well I appreciate that Jim.
I will tell you my father is a birch leger as it's called that means 20 Berkeys he's done about 27.
I will be on my 11th and 11th or 12th and you know you gotta gotta keep
staying active.
I just was notified I got dropped away.
If I've been in wave two for a year, but my time was too slow.
So I got bumped down to wave three.
The goal is to get back up.
So putting in the work now.
That's why you lift those weights now, you know, gotta be ready for it.
Dan Hagen, you can follow what he's doing over at NewsWatch 12 and Rhinelander.
The man's got to get his roller skis on.
Thanks for sticking around a little bit longer, Dan.
We appreciate it.
Of course.
Good to see you, Pat.
Good to see you, Hans.
All right.
Take care now.
Hans, I wanted to take a moment with you to talk about the president's trade war, which is still ongoing, even though we don't talk about it quite so much, but specifically this.
From the US Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, has told the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration may consider granting tariff exemptions for goods that are difficult to produce domestically in the United States, like cocoa beans or coffee.
Currently, these products are subject to comprehensive tariffs
which have led Democrats to criticize Republicans for driving up consumer costs.
In an interview, Rollin says, everything is still under discussion at this stage.
I believe that for certain products we cannot produce domestically.
It's important to fully understand the situation and develop a comprehensive strategy that supports all of these goals.
Do you feel congratulations are in place and in order for the Trump White House for discovering.
the 1920s era song.
Yes, we have no bananas.
We cannot grow bananas or cocoa beans or coffee here in the US.
So why put on a tariff designed to bring products back here when they were never here in the first place?
I think it's great that it only took them five and a half months to figure this out.
Yeah, yeah, so I mean that just gives me an abundance of hope that because if that's if it's five and a half months is all that took then I can hardly wait to see what the next five and a half months will bring
Again, it was supposed to be 90 deals in 90 days with 90 nations out there I
think I think what we've seen is is 90 changes of minds and and 90 flips and flops and and you know
five months of chaos, leaving our trade partners confused, leaving our farmers confused, leaving the farm service agency confused, you know, leaving the markets confused.
And again, like we had one one farmer from Chippewa County saying, you know, is it America first or America alone?
And it's tough to tell sometimes.
Hans Brighton, Moser, thank you for your time as well.
Get out in that field.
Good luck to you.
Thank you very much, Pat.
All right.
We'll continue things on here with a local update for some of you.
Others will be back here and then in our next hour Dan Schaefer and Chad Holmes all across the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat
Crichtlow.
Coming up one hour from now we will talk to State Senator Jeff Smith from Eau Claire County about the budget deal that was reached late yesterday between Governor Tony Evers and legislative Republicans and whether it's a good deal for the Chippewa Valley and whether it's something that he feels like he can support.
Again Senator Jeff Smith one hour from now on our mornings powered by Up North News and a reminder you can sign up for our newsletters upnorthnewswi.com and
There's of course our Sunday morning politics newsletter where I gave a little budget update on Sunday as to the status of things.
I'm sure that next Sunday will be all about reaction to this budget deal, assuming that it all passes and goes through by the end of this week.
We also have a question of the week, and this week it is, who do you think will be the Republican nominee for governor next year?
Now the primary is still well over a year away.
It's in August of next year, but we have one announced candidate, Josh Shulman, the Washington County executive.
You have two people you remember, you know them, you love them.
They're interested in running for governor again, maybe.
Tim Michaels and Eric Hovde.
Will it be one of those three?
Will it be some other person who's currently in elected office like Congressman Tom Tiffany or our fifth choice?
Will it be just some other rich guy that assumes he can come in with this checkbook and run for governor?
So that's our question of the week.
You can get that fresh on Sunday mornings by signing up for our Sunday mornings newsletter at upnorthnewswi.com.
And remember, if you can't listen to us live, take us along with you on demand through Spotify or Apple.
We would love to have you as a subscriber.
It doesn't mean you have to listen to it every day, but it's just nice to have you think of us amongst all the other podcasts that you're subscribing to that you might want to catch one of ours.
So again, head over to Spotify and subscribe.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has put out a notice that tomorrow it is going to release a decision on the 1849 law that some folks believe constitutes a statewide abortion ban.
You'll recall that three years ago when the U.S.
Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade and when a radical set of right-wing justices threw the issue back to the states, all 50 states had to look at what was on the books 50 years earlier right before Roe v. Wade codified a woman's right to control her reproductive health.
Well, in Wisconsin, part of that was a law from 1849.
in some very arcane language, legalese for 1849, which is even more arcane than legalese from the present day.
And I recall reading through it at first and thinking, this isn't an abortion ban.
This is, you know, this is about a feticide.
And I hate to say it, and I know it's a delicate subject, but there have been, you know,
places where a pregnant woman was beaten by somebody hoping to induce an abortion.
And that this law is about that.
But some people construed as an abortion man.
Abortion was not on anybody's radar in 1849, not in the way it is right now with so much political zealotry.
And sure enough, once it got into a court challenge, a Dane County judge looked at it and said, that's exactly right.
This is not an abortion ban.
This is a feticide law.
But it's been appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and tomorrow they're going to release their determination of the status of that 1849 law.
They heard oral arguments back in November.
So the state budget deal is the big news of today.
The 1849 law decision by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is going to be the big news tomorrow.
Coming up on our website today, upnorthnewswi.com will be an article about
What happens when the state budget is late?
Now, again, there was a deal reached late yesterday, but the new budget was supposed to start today.
Today is the start of the new fiscal year.
What happens?
Well, in Wisconsin, it's a little bit different than in other states.
There are some states that go into partial shutdowns.
There are some states where government operations are stripped down to the very basics and non-essential state workers are furloughed.
That's not necessarily the case here.
And the article will include comments from State Senator Kelder Royce.
I interviewed her yesterday afternoon when I was filling in for Todd Alba on his conveniently named Todd Alba show.
And she talked to us about the things that needed to be in a budget deal, which of course included childcare, UW funding, and making up for years of underfunding public schools.
She feared that there would be a budget deal.
Otherwise, where she said, quote, it would continue this horrible cycle where our schools get shortchanged and then property taxpayers have to raise their own taxes to make up the difference to keep our school doors open.
And it's even to the point where there is a Wisconsin Homeowners Alliance that's been running TV ads.
to say, you know, put pressure on your legislators to support a state funding increase because otherwise local property taxes have to go up.
And it seems like more folks are starting to realize that.
And that's probably what has led to the budget deal that was announced yesterday.
And we're going to talk to Dan Schaefer much more about that coming up.
One other budget detail that I'm going to be looking at deals with
crime victims and the funding that goes to support them because the Joint Finance Committee last week approved $20 million in grants for organizations that serve crime victims, $20 million.
The State Department of Justice was asking for about $67 million to make up for continued cuts in federal funding that help out with crime victims.
There's a lot that's done there to help pay for a broad range of services for crime victims.
There's domestic violence shelters.
There are crisis hotlines.
There are programs that help crime victims figure out how things are going to work in the court system.
And sometimes the money comes from fines and fees when people are convicted of federal charges, but that federal funding has been unstable.
And so Attorney General Josh Call was hoping for 67 million, joint finance said 20 million.
He was blasting them at that decision on Monday.
I have not seen whether...
The funding for crime victims is improved in this budget deal that came out yesterday.
I'll take a look during the eight o'clock news and we'll see if we can't shine a little light on that portion of a very big budget deal that was reached yesterday.
All right, Dan Schaffer is coming up in our next hour along with Chad Holmes.
First, a reminder, sign up for those newsletters.
Plurl, head to our homepage up NorthNewsWI.com.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
