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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Good morning.
Welcome back.
8.06.
Nice to have you along on this Tuesday, July 15th, 2025.
Producer Parker Olson standing by in Madison, A2.
Brittany Merlot, Chad Holmes all coming up.
Dan Schaefer, Civic Media Political Editor and Founder of the Reconpopulation Area.
We'll join us at the bottom of the hour and we have a
a long list of items to talk about, including a candidate for governor, making a six-figure ad by already for the governor's race next year.
Meanwhile, a sitting state Supreme Court justice has raised $0 in the last reporting period for her potential reelection next year.
That and so much more to discuss with Dan Schaefer along the way.
But first, let's talk about Chad Holmes.
and the problem with Chad Holmes.
Chad was off last week.
I had a poker tournament in Vegas.
One of these, when he gets off mute, he's going to tell us all about after Britney's forecast, but here's the thing.
He hasn't posted anything from Vegas for days and days, and then
He didn't show up here until six seconds before the opening theme began.
So up until six seconds before the theme, I didn't know if this guy had already lost his shirt, lost his mortgage, lost an arm.
I don't know what, but he's here and allegedly has some stories to tell us that he did not want to share prior to now.
Mr. Holmes, I see two arms.
I see without any bruises.
I hope you have good stories to tell us after Brittany's forecast, maybe.
Maybe I The point was not that I I was hiding anything, but I had actually thought I wanted to be
off of social media for a little bit.
That's good.
That's a good thing.
I think, I think everybody thinks the thing that everybody needs to know everything and it's like, eh, who needs and,
uh,
and there's nothing, and there's nothing exciting.
So, but there was, you know, I still enjoyed myself, but, uh, yeah, I can, I can, I can fill in the gaps.
That's fine.
But it's like, it's like in, in the movie Christmas vacation.
I mean, when you get used to an end of the year bonus and then finally you don't get it, there's something wrong.
So when you're posting like every hand and then you just
stop, it's good to get off the grid.
But without any warning that you're jumping off the grid, I'm over here going, oh my God, what just happened to Chad?
So.
Welcome
back, buddy.
I'm glad you care, because it never occurred to me that anybody would think that, boy, I sure do need a posting from Chad.
I did.
I was missing.
I told you last week, I really like those things before
you
left.
So, all right, so Chad is here, and we'll have details on his Vegas poker trip right after we get an updated forecast from Brittany Merleau, whose forecast is as hot as Chad was hoping his hands would be in Vegas last week,
or
maybe hotter.
Yeah, you'll have to see which one's hotter.
It's going to get warm and muggy today.
I mean, we're already feeling it.
The humidity is high.
Temperatures are in the mid 60s to mid 70s across the state.
We're also looking at a moderate air quality out there.
So a little bit of wildfire smoke still lingering, but it is going to be a bright, beautiful, summery day.
I'm talking upper 80s to low 90s and that humidity is going to be making it feel more like the low to mid 90s all across the state.
So my hair is already frizzed out.
Ladies, it's going to be that kind of day, obviously.
But of course, stay hydrated.
keep cool.
Um, as we go into tomorrow, the heat will leave the northern part of the state, but it is going to stay stuck for a majority of central and southern areas as we have a stalled front right now into way northwestern areas.
Actually near Rice Lake, Spooner and Hayward, you're already seeing some thunderstorms this morning.
They just sparked up a little surprise ones out there.
I didn't think they would start so early, but we are looking at that risk along that front today.
really ramping up at about four.
And then that could move into the Eau Claire Wausau area late tonight, maybe around nine or 10 or so.
But the storm prediction center has put out a slight risk for severe weather, which is about a two out of five on the severe scale.
We're looking at damaging wind gusts are possible, of course, far, far northern Wisconsin today and a tornado too.
So stay weather savvy.
We've got a lot of instability and moisture in the atmosphere and we are looking at heavy rainfall too.
where another one to two inches could fall.
So some flash flooding risks.
And again, this area is pretty much from Rice Lake to Phillips to Eagle River and north in the state.
And then by tomorrow, that front works its way south.
And then the risk turns into central Wisconsin and towards Madison and Milwaukee area.
But again, that's tomorrow afternoon for you.
Everybody else in the state, you're just hot and humid today.
So again, if you're in an area that, you know, is heavy with it has more campers and campgrounds.
than it has ties to broadcast stations, you're going to want to keep that Civic Media station or app handy for the latest developments and not have something sneak up on you when you're on the lake or out in the woods.
Absolutely.
Very
important.
Brittany, thank you so much.
Have a great
day.
You too.
All
right.
Let's turn now toward Mr. Holmes' Las Vegas adventure and find out.
Well, let's see.
Let's.
Let's start from the beginning, Chad, shall we?
The World Series of Poker and the unfortunate attempt to get going on it.
And we took note of your post about, you know, dealing with banks from afar.
No,
that was fun.
Not fun.
And that you were...
having trouble getting the funds that you did have, get them transferred properly for the entry fee.
And if it wasn't going to work out, you're going to have to work on some other poker tournaments instead.
So what was the general overview of Chad, the poker playing Vegas tourist last week?
Well, the first aspect was, again, it is what it is.
I've never taken out that much money from my bank account.
So I guess they thought there was something wrong.
And the first time was on the fourth.
And there was nobody there to pick up the phone
on the
fourth.
So I was sort of stuck there.
So then I tried again on the fifth, I called them up, everything was all set.
I went and tried to sign up, had an issue again.
And then it was like the bank said it must be on their end.
And then the casino said, no, it must be on the bank's end.
And then there was a third party operator, which apparently the bank works with to kind of help as well.
And I could not get to talk to a human being.
That was kind of a frustrating aspect.
It's like you call up their number and there was no way to talk to a human being.
So it's like, well, basically they say too bad.
And I guess I found out something that many people go through in this era of wonderful technology is when you don't have an opportunity to talk to a human being, so problems can continue.
And that was actually the most frustrating aspect of it was that
I had I had gone through the first two and I actually taught the human being they said everything is fine But this third party operator who apparently does not have any live people answering customer phone calls it And then I was not able to be in the tournament.
I wanted to be in which was the main event So it was it was it was a little frustrating.
Oh Understandably so.
So how did how did you how did you switch things up?
What did you
end up doing?
I then just played in a couple of smaller tournaments, which is great within the WSOP.
But I just had no good luck.
And it's not about complaining, because sometimes you have good luck, sometimes you have bad luck.
But in my first tournament, early on, I get pocket aces.
And actually, that scares me, because I don't want to get knocked out early in the tournament.
But when you have pocket aces, it's the best hand you can possibly have.
So you'll raise.
But then the guy next to me raised again.
And then I raised.
And then he raised.
And then I raised.
And then we're all in.
I'm all in.
And he's got Kings.
I got Aces.
I'm in great shape.
But there's always that opportunity that he could luck out and knock me out.
And that's what happened.
I mean, it was such a disappointing aspect.
So then I played in another tournament the next day.
And this time I I lasted a while.
It was sort of a struggle, but I was doing well I thought they'll stay in alive and then finally got this hand of Kings and I Raise and then guy goes all in I go all in and he has a ace king So I'm in great shape again, but then boom he gets an ace and I'm out again It was one of those, you know trips where I Had bad luck and and the thing is I way I look at it.
I I I would love to have good luck
but
I
really just don't want bad luck and back to back days I had bad luck and then I did make a little money playing some blackjack so then I played and then I played some cash poker which I gave my blackjack money away so in the end it was it was what it was it was it was fun it was not as exciting as last year when I made the run but
It was nice to get away.
And it's also nice to be back.
And one of the nice things that you realize when you're away for a little while, it's really nice to get back as well.
So yeah,
yeah.
Did you I mean, especially when you didn't have to pony up that big entry fee, I know some of us on social media encouraged you to do something really nice with the savings.
Maybe Wayne Newton was having a meet and greet or something.
Did you did you get to do anything fun away from the casino?
No, I go out there to play.
I go out there to gamble.
And if you always say that, well, and also, I don't rent a car.
So I'm kind of limited on where I
go.
Oh, yeah.
I
mean,
I've made that mistake where every casino along the strip, every hotel looks like it's right next door.
It is not right next door.
And it's the desert.
I mean, yeah, you're in a busy city, but those are long, hot walks.
If you're going, oh, I'll just go from, you know, the Bellagio to the Luxor or whatever.
It's like, you, you quickly learn like, no, that what they need in Vegas are like those habit trails for gerbils.
You know, they, they need more, uh, just underground trails going to all these places.
Well, they have a monorail, which I, they do.
I had, you know, I used the monorail to get up and down the strip, but the one show I would love to have gone to was Penn and Teller, because I saw them like 20 years ago, love Penn and Teller, but they're off the strip.
grab a uber i've never been on an uber so i maybe i should do that sometime i don't know you
should it's it's it's easy enough you know
but uh that was the one i was thinking about doing and i think at some point i would love to do that again because i was just blown away by them but uh it was hot it was hot i tell you that it is hot out there you go in the summertime people say why would you go to vegas in the summer well because that's when the wsop is because
but it is hot
and i think that's one reason they do it is that it gets tourism in during the hottest time of the year and uh but it
is just dog on hot.
But yeah,
I'm glad you I'm glad you had a good time.
So you so you will you will try again next year.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I hope to play the main next
time you're bringing a briefcase with you.
Well, I'm gonna go figure things.
I'm actually curious.
I should try to get back on the phone to that third party operator.
But that's just, you know, that's the thing that destroys me nuts.
It's like, Oh, of course.
Yes.
I'm, you know, they always have the computer voice and they say, Well, try to explain what you want.
what's what problem is.
And then I would try to and then they would try to figure it out.
If I say, I want to talk to somebody, we don't understand that.
They literally said, I said, I want to talk to an operator.
Yeah, well, I don't understand that you're gonna have to
representative.
You're gonna have to try again later.
It's like,
oh, no, we didn't leave much.
Yes, we didn't leave much time to talk about the stories that you're following there at 98.9 WXCO in Warsaw, which is fine because it just lets me share the one thing and take issue with the way that it's framed.
This from the Warsaw pilot and review, the village of Cronin-Wetter will again take up the issue of removing fluoride from its drinking water during a public meeting this week as sharp debate continues among residents and public health experts nationwide.
No, no, no, no.
No, it's not as sharp debate continues.
Debate makes it sound like there can be, you know, you know, an honest disagreement between the two.
Or, or hear me out, Chad, you could go with science and not the people wearing tinfoil.
Well, just me, just me, you know.
And people to check out the story because basically it's framed that way.
You got one part of the debate is science and the other.
Quackery.
Well, we heard this and so we don't want this fluoride protecting us in our water.
Fluoride, one of the best public health measures of our time in terms of oral health.
But anyway, you go ahead and debate, quote-unquote that, Coronan Wetter.
Chad Holmes from 98.9, WXCO.
Thank you.
As always, glad you're back safe.
Enjoy.
Thank you, Pat.
When we are all back together in our next half hour, we'll be talking to Dan Schaefer.
A local update is next for some of you here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Music .
Let's look at some national headlines here as we come up on 823 just ahead of Dan Schaefer joining us here.
One of them coming from the Associated Press talks about the way that nursing homes are struggling with Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Nursing homes are already having a tough problem recruiting staff and now Trump is attacking one of their few reliable sources of workers and that would be immigration.
I mean, I saw a great editorial cartoon yesterday.
On the left was the cartoon showed President Obama going, we got bin Laden.
And on the other side, it's Trump at the same podium going, we got Maria from housekeeping at the Holiday Inn Express.
Not the same.
Not the same at all in terms of who an administration should be targeting versus supporting.
And again, there is one right answer to all of this.
And it's immigration reform.
It's immigration reform.
If you're calling for mass deportations, you're wasting my money.
You're putting a lot of other people in danger.
You're not using those resources for things it could be used for.
It's totally a either racist and or political power play.
Nothing but that.
when you could be using that time instead to work on immigration reform because we have never needed immigration reform and legal immigration in our lifetimes more than we do right now as the baby boomers continue to move off stage shall we say and
So nursing homes are one example of it.
And I can hear people say, now, well, we're going to get all those lazy bums off of welfare and Medicaid, and they're going to take these jobs in housekeeping and other things.
Seriously, do you think your mom is going to be doing as well in a nursing home when the staff is made up of people resentful that they have lost their own Medicaid coverage?
Which leads to this story about immigration.
And I've wondered this for a long time.
And it's not just the Trump administration, but they're the ones in power right now.
The headline says from Sophie Carson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, why is the Trump administration focused on undocumented immigrants, not their employers?
The last time that there was significant immigration reform in this country was 1986.
President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, a Democrat came together to pass immigration reform because Reagan did understand the value of immigration.
As still do most Americans understand that that is what this country is.
That is our DNA.
That immigration reform back in 1986 called for some stiffer penalties on employers.
That was something that, you know,
Ronald Reagan had to compromise on.
But maybe Reagan knew this, maybe it was just other people that knew it.
You can agree towards different penalties on employers, but if you don't go after the employers, they're not going to pay the stiffer penalties.
And by and large ever since, we have seen federal governments and law enforcement crackdowns on the migrants themselves.
The people who walked through jungles
risk their lives to get here to get away from political violence to give their children a better opportunity.
These are the people I would rather have living next door to me than some of the people waving signs that say mass deportation now because I know which one is actually going to be true to American values of hard work and safety and opportunity.
But we don't go after the employers
even though it's right there in the law that hiring undocumented migrants is something where you can be, you know, prosecuted.
Now, the key word here in this is knowingly, as Sophie notes in her article, saying that, well, it's the people, the employees who submit fraudulent identity
documents and that the employer must examine the papers.
And it's a lot easier for the employer to say, well, we didn't knowingly hire this person that they were undocumented.
These are the papers that they gave us.
Sure.
In much the same way that there are people with fake IDs who still get into bars.
More people will get in if you'd never really bother to look at the ID in the first place.
If you never really bother to see if the bouncer at the bar is indeed even trying to crack down on keeping underage people from coming into your bar.
Instead, it's easier to, instead of coming down on the, you know, the bar owner, it's easier to crack skulls of the people who are there and disappear them to other places even if they haven't broken any laws.
And again, please stop with the response of, oh, they broke the law as soon as it came in here.
That's what makes them illegals.
They're not illegals.
They're human beings who violated a misdemeanor coming into this country, a speeding ticket.
Why is it like that?
Because again, we are a land of immigrants and of opportunity.
And the sooner
We can put people back in office who do not use immigration for racist or partisan purposes.
The sooner then that we can fix our worker shortage and improve our economy and make sure that the people who are our loved ones who end up in nursing homes, the way I started this segment, are going to have staff that are there because they want to work, because they want to care and will take care of them.
One other quick note, and this one gets to another one of something that sticks in my craw about folks who are anti-government, and they're especially anti-government regulation.
They see all regulation as red tape.
And it was this headline from Camp Mystic down in Texas, where the flash flooding killed so many girls and so many others.
Federal regulators over the years granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic's buildings from their 100-year flood map.
They removed the buildings from the floodplain map, which loosens the oversight on the way the camp is operated.
And I got that occasionally as a legislator, people saying, hey, can you get this part out of the floodplain map?
Because otherwise we can't rebuild, we have to tear it down, whatever.
My answer was pretty simple.
No, you're in a floodplain.
It was one of my first earmarks as a legislator was to clear some buildings out of a floodplain so we don't have to keep paying to fix them and rebuild them.
And yet that was allowed to happen at Camp Mystic over and over again to tragic results.
Dan Schaefer is up next.
You're up north.
Dan Schaefer is moments away first a little bit of housekeeping I hate when I do this when I I say I'm gonna talk about something and then I forget to get to it in the next segment and I realize that in talking about our question of the week and it was about the Democratic Party and the options from our Sunday newsletter were a
It's good that the party appears to be drifting to the left.
It's more honest.
B was, nope, the Democrats are a big tent party.
They can have people with progressive values from throughout the spectrum.
Option C was, nope, the far left is going to drag down the Democratic Party, and we need to stop this.
And I said that there was an option D.
As I'm looking back at the answers, there were a couple of people.
Option D was, I'm Republican.
I'm just here with a box of popcorn to watch the fighting amongst Democrats about whether Zaron Mondani is, you know, something that's good or bad for the party along with AOC and Bernie Sanders and others.
So again, if you want to answer that question of the week, sign up for our Sunday newsletter or send us a note, radio at upnorthnewswi.com.
Dan Schaefer, how are you?
I'm doing well, Mr. Krightlow.
Thanks so much for having me.
Always a treat to join you here on Mornings with Pat Krightlow.
It is always great to have you here.
Thank you for that.
Let's start with one story I haven't mentioned yet, and I'm going to explain why, and I want to know if you have any input on it.
And it's because it's a rather an alarming headline.
Laura Schulte put it out on the Journal Sentinel website.
Lack of funding in the state budget will shutter two facilities for homeless veterans, including one here in Chippewa Falls.
And the story says, because Republicans in the legislature didn't include funding for them in the budget signed earlier this month.
Governor Evers, I know, put out a press release yesterday blasting Republicans for not funding the Veterans Housing and Recovery Program.
And as a result, these facilities are looking to be closed, I believe sometime in September, was what the article said.
I know it notes that the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee, Mark Born of Beaver Dam and Howard Markline of Spring Green, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
I just haven't popped off on it because it just sounds, I don't want to say it sounds one-sided, but I was waiting to see any kind of Republican reaction that says, oh, no, no, no, we're going to fund these things because, I mean, if you take the story at face value, Dan,
and homeless veterans are going to be kicked out because Republicans wouldn't fund what Governor Evers wanted in the budget.
That is amazingly damning to Republicans if that is the full story.
Well, and the thing is that it doesn't seem like a huge line item to be able to fund with a huge with the state budget like this the the story you referenced from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Says Evers included 1.9 million for the veterans housing and recovery program in this proposed budget, which was cut by a Republican so You'd think somehow we'd be able to find that funding, but also why are we cutting this to begin with
and
what a very bizarre
I think it's one of those cases where, again, they brought Evers' money request down to zero just because.
Just because it wasn't anything Evers was proposing, I guess.
Right.
And then they went back to some of them.
And we've talked about this a little bit earlier with childcare and other things.
And they did put some money back in after they took it to zero.
And I almost, again, I'm speculating, almost think that some Republicans are looking at this story and going, oh, crap, we forgot to put money back into that one.
And Tony puts up on YouTube.
Don't you remember what Kristen Lyley said yesterday?
Farmers and veterans only get lip service, not real action.
That's reserved for rich donors.
And again, if that's the case, that's terrible.
I do have one solution, however, and allow me to pontificate for a moment here.
This veteran's home in Chippewa Falls got done.
in large part 95% because of former state Senator Dave Zien and about 5% from former Senator Pat Crichtlow who was in office when the project got over the finish line.
Dave Zien's gotten the lion's share of the credit.
He deserves it.
He's still out there being very active and one of his pet causes was homeless veterans.
So if anybody can give his fellow Republicans a wake-up call
And say, what are you doing here?
You got to fund this thing.
It would be former State Senator Dave Zien.
So Dave, if you're listening or anybody that knows Dave, look, if this is a real story, you guys got to jump on this right now.
And I'm sure Governor Evers would sign that bill in a heartbeat if you pass it.
Again, Dan, assuming it's just some kind of an oversight, which in a big complex budget can happen, I guess.
I guess
so.
And perhaps this is something that, you know, it was such a rushed process at the end of the budget, right?
Maybe all parties involved somehow missed this piece of it as well, because this seems like the type of thing that, you know, if Ivers was saying, hey, we need to fund this.
This project these need to stay open, you know Evers has been going around kind of celebrating his budget for the last couple weeks and doing some events statewide and touting it and you know to come back and also say like oh, yeah, here's this thing that the legislature didn't do He also didn't sign it in the budget either so it maybe maybe there's you know Maybe there's some mistakes on all fronts and this could get remedied quickly because well really sure seems like it should be
especially when it comes to something this rushed.
We'll get to Governor Evers and the Governor's race in a sec, but there's one other new story that we haven't talked about, and it's about Justice Rebecca Bradley, the far-right justice whose term is up next year, and people expect that she would announce for re-election, and it would be a big race against, theoretically, right now, Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former Democratic legislator.
The story is that
Rebecca Bradley reported raising no campaign cash in the last reporting period, which immediately people started saying, oh, does this mean she's not going to run for reelection?
No, it doesn't mean that at all in my estimation, because this is not the first time that she has reported raising next to nothing.
And it's a 10-year term, Dan.
So, you know, it's not the world's biggest surprise, but it is a surprise.
Yeah, it is a surprise I think you know I was talking to some people in various political circles over the last couple weeks and and people were looking ahead to this to this announcement to this filing deadline for Rebecca Bradley to see kind of what her plans were you know there were it was the announcement last week that Chris Taylor had raised more than five hundred and eighty thousand dollars in this same
uh, reporting period, breaking Susan Crawford's record from the equivalent time period a year ago.
Uh, and so I think some people are wondering, well, is Rebecca Bradley, like it seems like if she's running again, she would at least have the lights on, on her website or whatever it might be for, to be able to take donations, you know, with how many people, I mean, this, the.
Last Supreme Court race in Wisconsin got more than $100 million.
You think she'd be able to raise something if she was going, even if she wasn't actively campaigning.
I saw some reporting out there that she wanted to make a decision after Labor Day or whatever it might be, even if she's not actively campaigning, if she's at all thinking about running again, you'd think she'd be able to receive some.
donations in any capacity.
And I know there was a report from right wing radio talker Mark Belling who who put something out a few weeks ago saying he did not think that Rebecca Bradley was going to be running for reelection.
You know, perhaps he's right on this because it sure doesn't based on the filing.
And I took a look at that yesterday after I saw some of the reports that the filing based on that it does not seem like she's running again.
It certainly wouldn't on on its on its surface now I would caution people that from Donald Trump to Ron Johnson and others there is this this new Republican outlook that again the campaign rules don't mean anything anymore and that again Entities political action committees not associated with the campaign directly are essentially the cavalry
and they ride to the rescue.
And perhaps that's what Rebecca Bradley is thinking as well is that, hey, when it's time, when it's game on, there will be plenty of money from the Diane Hendricks and the U-Lines and all those others to come in.
Maybe that's what she's thinking.
But I would also note this as well.
Part of the reason you should be raising campaign donations anyway.
is that even if you don't run for reelection, you now have amassed something that you can then transfer to either a political action committee and be a donor yourself of causes you believe in, or you can donate it to charity or anything like that.
And I'm not saying campaign donations are supposed to be an act of benevolence, but there's reasons why, Dan, you wouldn't want to raise $0.
That's still money that you can put to work in some way, shape, or form.
Yeah, and again, it's just you know If she were in the mix at all for this right if you would think that she would have something like it wouldn't be the number wouldn't be zero The fact that the number is zero does seem to suggest she might not be running for reelection and and certainly she is at a quite a disadvantage if she were running for reelection be she'd be a quite a disadvantage against Taylor who has quite a bit of money in the bank right now for
for her election campaign.
So I think there is a big picture.
There's a real chance, even if Bradley does run, I wouldn't exactly put her as the favorite in this race.
She's been the most far-right member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The remarks that she makes in some of these rulings are out of this world.
And so I do think she would not necessarily be a favorite to win again if she were to seek another 10-year term.
I think part of the reason she won
in the first place was that she ran during the 2016 primary which at the time Wisconsin was really very much in the spotlight for the 2016 presidential primary when Donald Trump was running and Donald Trump did not win in Wisconsin in that election but it brought a lot of people to the polls and that's the time that she won.
We're talking to Dan Schaefer, political editor for Civic Media and founder of the Reconpopulation Area.
Let's turn to the governor's race for a sec.
We're still on Evers Watch in terms of, you know, a third term or not.
So let's go with the things that we do know.
Earlier in the show, we played our interview from last Friday with Washington County executive Josh Schoeman, who is one of the two announced Republican candidates for governor.
I know you were listening into that interview.
It was short, but for what you could hear from Josh Schoeman, what were your impressions?
Yeah, I thought, you know, I thought it was an interesting interesting conversation.
It was great.
I thought it was great that you guys found him there at at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair that seemed like a fun small Wisconsin type of type of meetup there.
But,
you know, one one comment he made did stick out to me that I thought was interesting.
You know, he noted that about the budget negotiations you guys brought up the budget.
He noted that, you know, in those negotiations, Democratic minority leader in the Assembly Greta Neubauer had mentioned she was not part of
of the budget negotiations.
And I thought it was interesting that Showman said, hey, she wasn't part of these negotiations.
If I were governor, I'd want all parties involved to be part of these budget negotiations.
I thought that was an interesting kind of in the weeds-ish type of remark where it's not just a campaign platitude.
I grew up here.
This is my job, all of those different things.
And actually remarking on something in recent state government that I thought was
you know, certainly something that we've talked about and about the negotiations that went into the final phase of the budget there.
But I thought that was a pretty interesting remark.
And look, that remark itself may be a platitude.
It could be that he becomes governor, invites her to the table, and then does absolutely nothing with it.
But as a candidate, that is absolutely a little thing to take advantage of.
And then we have the other announced Republican candidate, Bill Barion, who's announced a big six-figure buy of TV commercials for the governor's race next year.
For commercials that are in the air now, that is...
Crazy to me, but I guess that's if you've never held political office.
I guess that's how you build name ID Dan
You got to get yourself out there if you're the quote-unquote political outsider in the race, right?
So he has you know build himself as such and his initial introductory video and press release and all of that and I think the big thing here in this race and I think in Republican politics more broadly, but certainly in this race
I think the big thing is the Trump endorsement.
So if he's Trump, you know, if he's going to get himself on TV and make himself out there and over and over again in that introductory video, you know, we'll have to see what the TV spots look like.
But in the introductory video, he's saying tight, certainly trying to tie himself as closely as he can to Donald Trump.
Absolutely taking the the what he hopes is the Tony weed path to a Trump endorsement.
A local update is next for some of you.
Others will come back here for some final news and notes from Lake Wasota along with Dan Schaefer.
Again, you can
and follow my team all day at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And of course right here, mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat
Krightlo.
Well, again, we're in the all-star break.
So that game is tonight.
So the Milwaukee Brewers are off.
They will be back come Friday in Los Angeles for a series against the Dodgers.
You can hear the Brewers on several stations across the Brewers radio network.
And also wanted to remind you that if you can't catch us live, you can podcast us, head over to Spotify and become a follower there so that you can get our show on demand or listen back to something like this.
You know, you're hearing the wit and wisdom of Dan Schaefer and you want to go back and go, what did he say again?
And you can do that by listening to us in podcast form.
Dan, let's get back to the governor's race.
We've talked about the two Republican candidates.
Let's talk about the one Democratic candidate potentially that would be Governor Tony Evers.
And now, of course, everybody watching the tea leaves for any kind of activity.
Can I assume that, you know, again, it's only a couple of days removed from the budget.
that there's been no inklings yet, one way or the other?
I haven't heard any inklings one way or another, and I don't think I'd be the one to know at this point after I've had my say.
Wait, I
was sure that the
governor
would say, you know what, buddy?
You're right.
I'm going to give you the
scoop on
this one.
Yeah,
no, don't see that one coming right now.
But you know, we're all on pins and needles waiting for the for the governor's decision.
I think, you know, it's certainly been the hot topic at post budget right now to see what's next for the governor.
But, you know, he's going to he's going to make his decision on his own time and he's earned that.
So, you know,
yeah.
And let me say that this is writ large of Democrats.
I'm not going to name names.
But as we've reached out to Democrats to either appear on the show or talk to them.
about news stories or anything, you can just feel them flinching.
You can just feel them go, don't ask me about this.
I can't talk about this right now until the governor makes a decision one way or the other.
But of course, we're all dying to know.
We had, well, we'll pick on State Senator Kelle Roy.
She was on a few days back.
She's on frequently.
And you just know she's like, OK, we're going to talk about this again.
And you have to give the safe answer until you know what it is.
So
forgive any skittishness that you might see out there.
to get back to the state budget, and we talked about the homeless veteran facilities, but what an interesting microcosm we've had just on this show alone.
In our first two days on the air in Green Bay, where we've had an assembly rep, Ahmaud Rivera-Wagner, and a senator, Jamie Wall, both Democrats
one voting against the budget, one voting for the budget, and both very clearly stating the earnest reasons why you would do one or the other.
And I mean, that's a trend we're just going to see for a while where not everybody's going to be happy, Dan, but the reaction is still coming in from all folks, and it really depends on whether they want to see the glass as half empty or half full.
Yeah, you're right and I think you know those conversations that you've been having I thought our friend Mark Becker at the rational revolution had a great conversation with State Senator Kristen Dassler Alfheim on her vote on the budget She was also one of the state senators who voted in favor of it And so it you know, it's the nature of compromise, right?
But I do think there is certainly a little bit of a difference between the state Senate Democrats being at the table and assembly Democrats not being at the table in these negotiations and you know that perhaps coloring some percent
from people that most Democrats voted against this budget.
I think we're still seeing some of the fallout from that.
There was a rally at the Capitol in Madison with some childcare providers, expressing some frustration, to say the least, with some of the components of the childcare.
the compromise that went into the childcare budget, raising of those ratios from one to four to one to seven, and some of the other details there that went into that, that I think the way that the childcare providers characterized it was compromising.
provider safety.
So I think that's something not to be taken lightly as well.
And so I think there's still a lot of questions with this budget, especially after it came together in such a discombobulating way, Pat.
Yes, it did.
Way to stay on brand.
Look, when I keep talking about the bipartisan nature of the vote, that is in no way meant to undersell the
And I mean this word anger felt by education advocates about the zero increase in general aids and by childcare providers about funding that only runs for one year and provides no stability whatsoever.
So I just wanted to say again that when I talk about Democrats and Republicans voting for or against and some people not liking it, people want to go, Oh, well, some people don't like it.
It must have been a good bipartisan budget.
Oh, no, no, no.
The things that some people don't like.
They are rightly incensed that they're not in there.
And you're going to keep hearing about this from childcare providers, from education advocates, now from veterans advocates.
These folks, they're not just unhappy with the budget.
They are furious.
There is some real.
real anger out there with with the budget.
That's for sure.
And, you know, add into that the decision that UW system had to make last week with raising tuition because they didn't
get
the long term increases in funding.
Most of the funding that went to the UW and there was a lot of really important funds that that made it into the budget, but a lot of them were capital projects.
So there are one time expenditures on buildings on various improvements in infrastructure within the UW system.
I know the Polk Library, my alma mater at UW.
Ashkosh is getting redeveloped and so I think there are a lot of those increases are there but it didn't really fund the system.
increases in the long term too.
So you also had, yeah, I think some of it, like the three main components of the budget that the Evers administration was really dug in on was K-12 education, childcare, and UW system funding.
And I think we're seeing even, you know, the difficulties of compromise.
Yes, they got a budget passed over the finish line.
Yes, it includes a lot of wins that wouldn't have been otherwise had Senate Democrats not come to the table, but it still doesn't go far enough.
And I think I liked the way that Senator Dessler Alfheim characterizes
on rational revolution is saying, this is hopefully the last crappy budget that we'll have to pass.
We can all hope for that.
Dan Schaefer, you can read what he puts out on civic media as their political editor and of course, subscribe over at the Recon Population Area as well.
Dan, thank you very much, appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Be well.
You bet.
Can't wait to talk to you after the all-star break about what happens with the Brewers there.
Right now, I'm still lighting candles for South Freelick and his hamstring.
Tomorrow on the program, State Representative Christian Phelps will be here to talk about the lifting of an enrollment cap on voucher schools and what that could do in terms of blowing a hole in the budget, paying for tuition for all these private schools.
I'm Pat Crightlow, founding editor of Up North News.
Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy
News Network.
Have a great Tuesday.
We will see you back here bright and early Wednesday morning, 6 a.m.
here up north.
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