Big Bucks and No Bucks (Hour 3)

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by UpMorth News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglo.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6 0 6 on this Tuesday morning, July 15th, 2025.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media Radio Network or by podcast or on social media.

We appreciate you being right here to get that Tuesday going.

I've got a question for you and this is a question almost as old as time.

What time is the right time to start school?

Is 7.30 too early?

I mean, there are places that even start earlier than that.

Is that right?

Should it be adjusted one way or the other?

I asked that because I know in Green Bay, for example, they are talking about adjusting the school class schedule for the 2026-27 school year.

And right now some secondary schools start around 7.30 in the morning.

There's a plan that would start high schools at 8.10.

and end at 340.

Another would start at 830 and end at 4 p.m.

according to a story in the Prescazette.

Of course, you get into all the push and pull, the tug of war about parents having to get rousted too early, trying to get kids dropped off in time to get to work, kids who have too much time on their hands after school versus kids who need time for activities.

So maybe there isn't one right answer.

But it certainly feels sometimes that there are some wrong answers about how schedules can be written up.

One of the topics that you can certainly chime in on throughout the course of the day today.

And on this Tuesday, what else do we have coming up?

Well, we're going to listen back shortly to an interview.

by Washington County executive and candidate for governor, Josh Schoeman.

He stopped by the Civic Media booth at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls last Friday during Todd Alba's show, and Todd and I got a chance to ask him some questions.

It was a pretty quick interview, so we'll play it back this hour.

and try to get a sense for what his answers tell us about what kind of governor he'd be, especially the part where he talks about throwing money at schools.

We'll talk later to Dan Schaefer of the Reconpopulation Area about Wisconsin's political headlines.

There is another Republican candidate for governor, Bill Barion, who is already placing a six-figure ad by in TV commercials.

Now.

more than a year before the primary.

Yeah, I know.

We'll talk later to Jeff Renneke from the Friends of the Apostle Islands about those signs that the Trump administration is putting up in national parks and other places, asking people to basically snitch on their national park site or others if they're presenting history in a way that they think is too politically correct.

We'll also talk to State Senator Jamie Wall from Green Bay about the reasons he voted in favor of the new state budget.

Chad Holmes is back from Vegas playing poker and Dan Hagen's along from Newswatch 12 and Rhinelander.

Here's Brittany Merleau's forecast.

Summer heat and humidity stick around ahead of some thunderstorms and more heavy rain that will once again bring a risk for flash flooding in some areas.

Brittany's forecast for the state says today sunny, hot and humid.

Low 80s up north.

north upper 80s in the south, southwest winds picking up at 10 to 20 miles an hour.

For tonight, increasing clouds and a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms mostly up north with lows tonight in the mid to upper 60s and a south wind at five to 10 miles an hour.

Parker Olson is the producer of this fine program and joins us from Madison Studio A2 to talk about the heat and the humidity and

getting away from it all up on a lake or wherever.

How's Mr. Olson this morning?

Doing pretty good.

I had the weird part of my morning for some reason where I had no idea what day it was, and I almost went back to bed.

Same.

Cool.

I didn't get back to bed, but Sherry at one point said,

like happy Tuesday and I said no it's Wednesday and she said no it's not I said oh no you're right oh I wanted to have

pigeon quest

yes it was was yesterday that long no it wasn't I just was completely messed up on what day of the week it was yeah and especially you know I mean we've got this work week and so we we have some pretty regimented scheduling

But then there are the people who are timeless.

And I thought about this yesterday when I took a break, and I mean a brief break outside because it was hot up here yesterday.

You know, 85 degrees, sun beaten down on you.

But to step outside and one of the nice parts of living on a lake, especially a larger lake, is the sounds of summer that come from it.

Sometimes it's nature.

But sometimes it's just the laughs.

I heard all kinds of laughter yesterday again from people on jet skis or their water skiing or they're pulling inner tubes or they're just partying on their on their boat as they go along.

Maybe have the radio up just a little too loud but sharing their music with everybody around the lake.

And you know that in some cases it's it's some of the youths from around here who are on their summer vacation and you know summer vacation timeless.

But I always like the thought that some of the folks that I'm hearing are up here on vacation.

You know, Lake Wissota isn't like all cabins, like maybe it was once upon a time or mostly cabins.

It's a lot of homes now.

But there's still plenty of people that come here to vacation at the State Park or elsewhere.

And I guess that's one of the things I enjoy now.

It used to be when I was younger and I'd see people

on vacation, maybe you'd see people, you know, having fun at a Mallards game or whatever.

And you almost resent it.

It's like, oh, I got to work and these people have fun.

Man.

I know now it's like, no, I'm glad somebody's having fun.

It's good, good for them.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of nice sounds.

If you let yourself tune out the, the noise of the news and, and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that goes on out there.

Do you prefer to have the like vacationer

I'm not going to call them rowdy, but like that bunch over on the lake and prefer to over having like just the people who are normally up there.

I prefer that when, uh, when our, our vacationing friends are up here, that it's when they've taken like a week off and they can be going crazy on a weekday while I got to work anyway on the weekends, uh, and especially on holiday weekends, it gets crazy out there on the water and.

It becomes amateur hour.

They're people that take their boats way too fast, way too close to the shore and, you know, disrupt others or they take out those big honking engines, you know, to, you know, make a big wake or just to show off basically.

Compensating or something.

Yes, maybe, maybe so.

So you can always tell when it is, you know, extra, there's extra recreation going on.

up there.

So yeah, I wouldn't mind if during the weekends people, well, if they just you just use your head.

That's really all I'm saying.

You know, I'm not saying I'm not trying to be a buzzkill.

I'm not trying just to be captain safety here.

But you know, be be be mindful because there's no unlike the roads.

There's no lane markers here.

You know, so people got to be a little bit a little bit nicer to one another.

I

suppose it's easier to get stupid accidents on a lake.

And it does.

And it does happen.

And the results there can be deadly too.

You know, there are tragedies that happen on this lake and other lakes where people aren't being careful.

There might be, you know, alcohol or speed, maybe factors in there.

And so again, we love, we love the happy sounds that come from the lake and from all the recreational areas.

And it's fun to see that even on a, well, it was a Monday afternoon.

See, I almost forgot again

what day of the

week it was.

Alicia pops up on YouTube and says,

I almost didn't get out of bed because I thought it was Wednesday as well.

So yeah, we're just, it's summer.

In summer, it's easier to lose track of the days.

Did you watch any of the home run Derby last night?

No,

I fell asleep on the couch.

I don't even know when before it started and then woke up and thought it's probably over by now.

I went to my bed and I was scrolling Twitter and I went, oh, wow, it's not done yet.

No, the home run Derby is now a very lengthiest error with many more commercial breaks that are built in and once upon a time for me, it was, it was appointment viewing,

you know, as a

baseball fan and I would recognize more of the names than I do now.

Now, you know, the big names, if you will, almost never compete in the Derby because they want to use the all star break to rest up.

Not to say that this isn't still you know a fun little event But it's no longer without the marquee names and by extending it to be some kind of a you know two to three hour affair You know, it's it's just not as it's not as big a deal But I did put it on and I had it on kind of in the background and Saw that Cal Raleigh from the Seattle Mariners became the first catcher

to win the home run derby.

Big dumper.

Yeah.

He has a big dumper for a nickname about his backside.

Yeah.

But again, they now they use a clock, you know, pitch clock, which is great for the game.

I don't know how great it is for the home run derby.

But once again, set aside the production value of it.

And again, concentrate on the people in the crowd.

These are folks that

You know, they were able to get into the home run Derby.

Lord only knows the difference in ticket prices, how much more expensive the All-Star game must be.

I didn't want to think about it.

And when you, when you zoom in on the, on the kids who are catching these home runs, because I mean, these guys are, are spraying 10 to 20 home runs around, you know, that's a lot of souvenirs going on out there.

Which reminds me, did I ask you, did you ever catch a home run ball or a foul ball?

No, I haven't.

Never.

I do catch them now and then at Mallards games while I'm working.

But

yeah, you have to if it hits those cameras, it's kind of expensive.

Yes.

Precisely what happens.

You are when you work in this business, you know, you need to sacrifice your body if need be for the equipment.

Your body costs less than some of the equipment.

That is exactly what I've been told.

I've been told that you are less expensive than the camera.

Yeah,

they do make that clear to you.

So you have to take care of the equipment.

The brewers, of course, are off for the all star break.

They will be back in action Friday in LA against the Dodgers.

And you catch that on several of the civic.

stations across the network.

Emmy nominations are coming out later today and I guess one of the big games now is whether there will not not how few network shows get nominated for Emmys but whether there are any left that get nominated for Emmys.

I mean they've they've become

almost a non-entity in the Emmy category.

And I noticed in the article teasing this morning's nominations, it says CBS will air the Emmy Awards September 14th.

Nate Bargazzi is slated to host.

But at some point, you almost wonder if the networks will go, well, why are we even showing this if we're not making stuff that's good enough?

I just, yeah.

at least put like reruns of the stuff that's on your streaming platform onto the air.

Well, that's just it.

I mean, yeah, take something like Yellowstone.

Of course, you have to maybe do a little editing, shall we say, before

it

can air on CBS.

But at least let people know, you know, what's out there and what they could get if they subscribe to your platform.

Because look, the numbers are still on the broadcast side.

Take Noah Wiley.

When he was on ER.

ER would get 30 million viewers back in the day.

Now he's probably going to get an Emmy nomination for his work on the pit on HBO Max, which gets 10 million viewers.

So three times fewer, but those are the shows on the streaming services now that get the awards.

For example, it notes here that Oscar winner Kathy Bates is a front runner to win the best actress in a comedy for CBS's Matlock.

She would be the first person nominated in that category from a network show since 2019 and the first to win it since 2015.

So maybe the networks could step it up just a little bit.

That's

tough.

Put some of the good shows on their channel and not just on the streaming services.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.

Allow me to thank you for making us the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Crite, while you're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back on this Tuesday morning.

Let's take a look at some of the stories that you've been passing around, liking, sharing, complaining about, otherwise engaging with on Up North News.

Amazingly, sometimes it's the stories that have only been up for a day or two that right away connect and become some of the most read stories of the past week.

So I'm looking at what Sharita Booker has shared with us.

And it was Friday or Saturday that we put up the story about how the Premier of Manitoba responded to Republican members of Congress, including two from Wisconsin, Tiffany and Grossman, complaining about wildfire smoke.

And it quickly zoomed to the top of our engagement chart on TikTok.

which isn't really a surprise at all because, I mean, TikTok is a wonderful place to engage in mockery of clueless politicians.

Over on Instagram, the most widely engaged post was about Trump administration cuts to mental health programs for kids in our schools.

That's the target of a new lawsuit against the Trump administration from State Attorney General Josh Call.

Doing well on Facebook and other platforms was a clip of actor Jason Momoa arriving in Milwaukee for last weekend's Harley Davidson reunion.

And some of the comments were very positive, admiring, complimentary.

Others were from people who really feel that

they feel bad that kicking puppies is not publicly acceptable behavior.

And so they feel a need to take out their frustrations in the comment sections.

And look, you're never gonna look like Jason Momoa.

You're not gonna be that handsome, that talented, and you may not agree with his politics either, but you sure do like to take out your frustrations in the comment sections, but you know what?

In our book, it's still engagement.

You're watching, you're reading, you're sharing, you're commenting.

And that was definitely one of the more engaging posts that you could find on the Up North News social media sites.

Again, just search for Up North News, WI on Facebook, YouTube, wherever.

Roger from Stevens Point puts on Facebook, some school districts have a high school schedule and an elementary school schedule.

Yep.

He said, I remember when my kids were in high school, they started at 730 and they finished at three, while the elementary school started at 845 and ends at 335 with some bus routes having both A and B routes.

Yes.

And that's another factor is the school bus company.

and what you do with it.

For example, let's see, Jim in Brookfield says on the text line here, due to a single bus contract with one company, the Elmbrook School District in Waukesha County, picks up middle schoolers as early as 6 20.

I feel that's a little early for 12 to 14 year olds, especially in winter and while the kids are still growing, both my daughters made it through.

However, a later start would have made things much easier.

Yes.

That's actually a very good way to put it is yeah, our kids did it and yeah, we did it But is that necessarily the best way to go about doing it when it is you know still that dark or that cold outside and Look, let's face it at the school the school year the calendar and the school day the hours

Those maybe have to shift with the times when you no longer have as many stay-at-home parents when you have more parents in the workforce than ever before and at administration that again is trying to pump everybody else out there into the workforce and find reason to Penalize you if you actually want to be a stay-at-home parent And yet at the same time saying we want you to be a stay-at-home parent so

This is to say again that I'd rather have your thoughts on it rather than having me pontificate as to whether there's a right time or a wrong time.

But yeah, 620, 620 to get on the school bus, that may be a bit much here.

Let's see, fairs and festivals are coming up this weekend.

Now that we're off the Northern Wisconsin State Fair, we can really get back into county fair season.

So starting tomorrow,

our fairs in Barron County, Fond du Lac County, Green County, St.

Croix County, Trampolo County, and the La Crosse Interstate Fair are all getting started tomorrow.

Then on Thursday, they'll be joined by the Dane County Fair in Madison at the Alliant Energy Center.

And Parker, it...

becomes apparent to me that you may not have been here for Selena Heller's past coverage of the Trempelow County Fair, which doesn't just include a demolition derby as some of these other county

fairs

have, but also a combine demolition derby, where big old farm combines are wrecked and crashed into one another.

And I

We'll have to see if Selena's out there covering her local fair this weekend or not, but she's done the stories in the past.

She's worked at her county fair just about every year.

And that is the thing.

where, and not just farmers, just anybody will go out and find some of those old combines that aren't being used anymore.

You're sure not gonna do this with a combine that you're paying six figures for, but grab some of these old combines and fix them up just enough to run one more time and then crash them into each other and the ticket sales alone for that combined demolition derby basically pay for the Trampolo County Fair in Galesville.

to get things done.

So I'm gonna have to find out if she's doing that.

Other things that stick out, there's a, in St.

Croix County, Collinwood City, there's a demolition derby on Saturday, but on Sunday there's something listed here called Mud Volleyball.

Oh boy.

That's a first for me.

I have never seen Mud Volleyball advertised any place.

No.

Yeah,

that sounds horrible.

I'm picturing John Candy in the movie Stripes.

I mean, it wasn't Mud Volleyball, but it was close.

The La Crosse Interstate Fair on Saturday has the 4-H Pancake Breakfast.

The Green County Fair in Monroe has a rodeo on Wednesday, a lawn tractor and a TV pole on Saturday.

Can you imagine?

People saying to their spouses, well, I'm off to the fair with my lawn tractor.

Gonna see if I can pull it.

and blow out the engine.

I want a lawnmower, rider lawnmower race.

That's what I need.

See, a race could be kind of cool.

That'd be fun.

I could bet on that.

I'm not a betting man, but I would bet on that.

Or it could go.

horribly wrong.

So we'll tell you more about county fairs and festivals coming up this week.

Hey, thank you for spending some time with us as part of your Tuesday morning powered by UpNorth News.

We will have more live from Chippewa Falls right after the Midwest Farm Report here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Rightlow.

635 right now, still ahead.

Green Bay Area State Senator Jamie Wall at the top of our next hour later on.

Dan Schaeffer from the Recombobulation Area and tomorrow in our homeroom segment at 730, State Representative Christian Phelps from the Eau Claire area on the upcoming lifting of enrollment caps on voucher schools.

Right now the voucher school program, which is already gobbling up more and more of your tax dollars, has a cap on enrollment to limit the amount of damage being done to the state budget.

What happens when those caps on enrollment come off?

Representative Christian Phelps will talk about that tomorrow morning.

Well, the election for governor

is still almost a year and a half away.

The primary will be, well, about 13 months away, still more than a year to go until the primary.

And yet there are two announced Republican candidates for governor.

One of them is already announcing a six-figure ad buy now over a year before the primary.

And one of the other candidates was recently in the Chippewa Valley, and we had a chance to talk to Washington County Executive Josh Schoeman.

So Todd Alba was doing his afternoon radio show from the Northern Wisconsin State Fair here in Chippewa, and he was kind enough to invite me to join in, so we were there for a couple of hours on Thursday and then again on Friday.

The civic media booth just happened to be across the way from the local Republican Party booth.

And then the Democratic Party booth was just a little ways beyond that.

And at the Republican Party booth, we learned that candidate for governor and Washington County executive, Josh Schoeman, was going to be there shaking hands saying hi to folks.

And so Todd invited him over for a quick interview.

Which I sat in on and so we didn't get to get into a lot of detail, but I do want to play it back.

It's about six minutes and Then we'll talk a bit about his answers and again, there's still a lot of detail to be flushed out but What can we glean from this in terms of the kind of governor and the kind of candidate Josh Schoeman would be so here from last Friday's Todd Alba show is the interview that he and I did with Josh Schoeman

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Good to be up here.

Well, I appreciate you coming on.

Why don't we just start off with for those that might not know you from Southeast Wisconsin, but tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you did and why you're running for governor.

Yeah, so I'm the Washington County executive.

I was born in Hartford, so Washington County originally, the son of a Lutheran minister and a registered nurse.

And my folks moved around a lot when I was a youngster and mostly the eastern part of the state, middle school and high school years in Kiwani.

So I'm graduating.

Manitowoc Lutheran High School.

And my wife and I have been married 24 years this year.

And thank you very much.

I'm a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

I was with the Madison Unit, the 147th Black Hawk Unit in Iraq in 2003.

And when I came back, I dedicated the rest of my life to the service and sacrifice of the guys and gals who didn't make it back, either in whole or in part.

and reflecting the love of my Lord Jesus, my love in my neighbor.

So that's what put me into public service and I've been in municipal administration for 15, almost 20 years and county executive for the last six in Washington County.

So when you're looking at the Republican primary right now, and first of all, thank you for your service.

I had the opportunity

to

work for a former congressman Scott Kluge, the handle military affairs.

I never served, but I have a great appreciation for our veterans.

So thank you for that.

But when you look at this Republican primary, there's another person who announced a couple days ago here.

I think one of the big things that people are looking at is in this environment, I'm a former Republican for 30 years, as you look at the current iteration, it seems like a lot of people are saying, well, you

or someone, whoever wins this Republican primary is going to have to have President Trump's endorsement.

Do you feel that?

Do you need President Trump's endorsement to win this

race?

President Trump certainly important.

It is his party.

I mean, he's he's been around for a decade now and changed everything in dynamics and politics in all of America.

But I think this primary in particular is going to come down to one thing and one thing only.

In my lifetime, Republicans have only ever elected two governors, Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker.

Both were young, energetic guys in under 45.

One was the county executive son of a minister.

And so we've got a template that we know works on our side.

And that's what I expect to work this time.

But at the bottom line is we haven't had a cannon a long time on our side that really burns a shoe leather, runs into media at county fairs, state fairs.

And I think that's what we need.

Meet people where they're at, have conversations with one another again, stop talking past each other.

There's been way too much of that.

And so that's what I like to see change in this campaign.

Whatever Governor Tony Evers decides, whether to run for a third term or whether to step back, then there will be a very crowded Democratic primary.

that's plain to see.

You will have things to say about the Evers administration and or the democratic field as it comes up.

But since we only have limited time here, I want to do, and I heard this a lot running all the time as well, they're like, just tell us what you're going to do for me.

So I want to give you that opportunity.

If you are elected, what is it that you want to do?

Yeah, the big thing that I'm focused on is making Wisconsin a place that people are proud to be, not just be from.

And what I mean by that is we've talked about brain drain in the state for feels like a quarter century, most of my life, young people leaving the state for other opportunities, never coming back.

And now you're starting to see retirees leaving.

My mom and dad are residents of Wisconsin, but they have a place down in the Fort Myers area.

And I went down and visited this spring.

And like always, all the people from Wisconsin gather and they have the brat fry and all nine yards.

and they're all residents of Florida for six months and one day or more.

They love the sunshine and the zero income tax and I think those both of those things we have to work change We you know if you look at the demography of the state in the next 25 years, it's kind of scary So we've got to retain retain retain and I think that's that's gonna be my number one Can

I go to the other end of the age spectrum though retaining our best and brightest our young people so that they don't leave

that's right Can you tell them so my big thing with that is I think the big hurdle for them coming back is where they gonna live

housing in Washington County, the average price of a home is about 400,000.

It's demonstrably worse in Dane County, for example, but that is that is a similar average across the state.

I don't know how young people even can think about a 40 and a half right now, so I think that's a big issue we've got to tackle.

We have a track record in Washington County and I think we can take it to Madison

State budget passed last week.

Cover Evers signed it into law.

There are people on the right who are saying that Tony Evers are whipped to the Republicans or people on the left saying they got a raw deal out of it.

Where do you stand?

Was this a good?

budget and it's something you could support or do you think it should have been better?

Yeah, it's not a good budget.

I don't think anybody's happy.

You know, I heard Greta Neubauer criticizing it saying she wouldn't even have a seat at the table.

I think that's wildly inappropriate.

The fact that legislative leadership and the governor weren't even talking to each other until what was it three, four weeks before the budget needed to be adopted with essentially a fiscal gun to your head with the federal money going away.

So, you know, that's something when I'm governor, you know, I wanted to reach out to Greta and say, listen.

We might not agree on much, but you're going to have a seat at the table.

We have to be talking to each other.

I think it's one of the big things that's wrong in America is we just talk past one another.

We don't even have conversations anymore.

So it's good to have conversations, and I think that something's got to change.

We need leadership.

anything we have a minute left or so anything we haven't asked you I would love to have you come back on thanks for doing this what

have we

not asked you that you think people in this state need to hear of why you want to be governor

I think the big thing that people I've been hearing is the education governor governor Evers

pride pride themselves on being education governor and they are very I mean the declining enrollments really statewide on average that's a problem the way that we the funding formula works and has not worked for over 30 years is a problem and we just keep throwing money there's then we're not looking at outcomes we're not looking at what's best for kids we're just looking at how do we how do we fund how do we fund how do we fund I think

around the table, even if we disagree and work together to solve.

That's what I'm going to do when I'm governor.

It's what I've done as county executive in Washington County.

Washington County executive and now Republican gubernatorial candidate Josh Shulman.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by.

Look forward to future conversations with Pat and I and moving forward.

Sounds good.

Thanks for having me.

So there you go.

Josh Shulman at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.

He's the Washington County executive and one of two now announced.

candidates for governor, including businessman Bill Barion.

And I don't know if you caught that, but Tony certainly did on YouTube saying it took a nice little dig at Bill Barion there talking about how Wisconsin has a template for governor, people who are younger, have some experience in government, work hard, as opposed to what has not worked for the Republican Party time after time.

And that's throwing rich business dudes out there.

uh, your, you know, Eric Havdes and Tim Michaels and people like that.

So in, in Josh Schoeman's estimation, that's not what the Republican party needs.

But let's look at a couple of the other answers.

I know some of you that listen with any regularity know the one that I'm going to jump on in a second here.

And that's the, the whole notion of quote unquote, throwing money at education.

Uh, but it was interesting that when he was asked, do you need Donald Trump's endorsement to win this race?

Does any Republican.

In other words, it's the Tony Weed question from up in northeast Wisconsin.

Tony Weed was by far the least qualified candidate in the Republican primary.

The other two Republican candidates were experienced members of the legislature.

Granted, I say that with a little bias being a former legislator myself, but that counts for something.

For the ability to problem solve and to govern and to not merely engage in politics, but Tony Weed.

had Donald Trump's endorsement, and that's all you needed at the time that he was running.

So Josh Schoeman tries to kind of get around that to say, look, I'm part of that template of somebody younger who works hard and does not come from a lot of wealth.

I don't know if that necessarily will get Trump's endorsement, but he certainly is making sure not to tie himself so tightly to Trump that he can't get away in case that strategy doesn't work in 2026, the way that it did for Tony Weed in 2024.

So then he's also asked by Todd about the state budget bill that just passed.

Is it a good budget or not?

And of course he, like many people,

It's easy to, when it's that bipartisan a budget, it's easy to say the safe answer.

No, it's, it wasn't good enough.

He talked about inviting Assembly Democratic leader Greta Neubauer to budget negotiations if he's governor.

That's fine.

I mean, it's one thing to invite somebody to be in the room.

I mean, in the Joint Finance Committee currently, Democrats are in the room.

There are only four of them compared to 12 Republicans.

which is not at all indicative of the breakdown of voters in the state.

But again, people like to hear a candidate say things like, Hey, we've got to stop talking past each other.

We've got to talk to each other.

It's the kind of thing Scott Walker engaged in in 2010 talked about that rhetoric of people coming together and we've just got to attack these problems.

And then of course, the moment that he takes his hand off the Bible and takes that oath of office, it's time to divide and conquer.

So

I'm sure Mr. Schoeman will not mind if some of us hear the rhetoric, but really believe the proof is in the pudding.

He did try to take shots at Tony Evers, the so-called education governor, and that the funding formula is bad, but let us ask ourselves, what is it that has been stopping Tony Evers from doing the things that an education supporting governor would do?

that would of course involve the legislature, which has been Republican majority for 14 years with its ongoing war on public education.

And that of course gets to the whole topic of him saying, if there's anything else you want to talk about, anything else at all, what do you want to say?

And what he chose to say is we just keep throwing money at education rather than looking at outcomes or quote unquote, what's best for our kids, whatever that may be.

That's a monstrous red flag when you consider that Wisconsin public schools have been underfunded in terms of the inflation rate for 16 years now.

The only reason that anybody would say there's money being thrown at them is because the state has underfunded its share so much that school districts have to keep going back to the public through referendum saying, would you please increase your own local property taxes to make up for the state?

not fulfilling its commitment to our public schools.

So if you're going to be talking about throwing money at schools, it sounds more to me like you're throwing shade at public schools.

And I'd rather hear some concrete answers on how you're going to fix the funding formula and bring Republican legislators along to stop these inequities and stop this ongoing parade of referendums which are

going to continue for at least the next couple of years.

Today's history lesson is coming up next as we always do.

Mornings powered by Up North News here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Happy

birthday to Linda Ronstadt, 79 years old today, born in Tucson.

Her career started as a lead singer of a folk group, the Stone Ponies, that there was their one big hit, but then later became a solo act with a pretty good backup band.

You ever hear about Linda Ronstadt's first backup band, Parker?

No.

The backup band was led by a couple of guys named Don Henley and Glenn Fry.

Who would later go on to start their own group known as the Eagles?

Ah, okay.

Now.

All right.

I love watching your face going Don Henley and Glenn Fry.

Anything?

Anything?

Nope.

No,

nothing.

The Eagles?

You got that?

Hell,

yeah.

I got that one.

Okay.

Okay.

There you go.

So yeah, that's that was a lot of talent there in the room at at the Troubadour or the other places where they play and Linda Ronstadt.

I mean

My gosh that voice how I miss that voice in its peak.

I mean just looking at the at the singles You're no good.

When will I be loved heat wave?

That'll be the day blue by you poor poor pitiful me I mean a lot of remakes who baby babies in there And the kind of remakes you want to hear you sure that make you feel good listening to them.

So again

Happy birthday to Linda Ronstadt, 79 today.

Let's keep it with some big singers from the 70s and say happy birthday to David Pak.

You don't know who David Pak is, but again, if you know your 70s music, you know the group.

It's Ambrosia.

And while we wait for David to sing, I'll tell you that Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota, professional wrestler, 74 today.

Now, former buck Damien Lillard is 35 years old today.

Let's see, and Twitter was launched this day in 2006.

Let's forget that.

Listen to

Ambrosia.

Let's keep it in the 70s here.

Elton John on this week in 1972 landed his first number one album in the States.

as Honky Chateau blasts to the top thanks to Rocket Man and Honky Cat.

Happy birthday to Alicia Bridges, one of the most prototypical disco songs out there.

She's 72 today.

On this week in 1978, the Rolling Stones had another album hit number one, Some Girls, which included Beast of Burden, Shattered and Miss You.

Let's move all the way up to 1997 now, where Sarah McLaughlin released her fourth album, Surfacing, which included a hit single.

It's an album that would eventually sell more than 8 million copies.

Once again, we're going to demonstrate the age gap here.

I got so excited when I saw the song.

One of the... Oh, no, not that.

That's a whole different thing.

I was talking about Netscape.

Netscape means absolutely nothing to you.

Nothing whatsoever.

Netscape was one of the first internet browsers.

I do know Lionel Elbow.

And it was, yeah, AOL, which is another one of those early companies before it was gobbled up by Time Warner.

The company then known as AOL Time Warner disbanded Netscape on this day in 2003.

So yeah, some of the early days of the internet started disappearing 22 years ago today.

Oh boy.

All right, here's the one Parker's very excited about.

A video was posted to YouTube on this day in 2012.

It seemed to catch on pretty well by a singer who went by the name of Psy.

So

you were a little too excited by this, which tells me you've done that dance a few times that's in the video.

This morning as I recorded this, I sat here.

And just making the little gesture.

Yeah, get us the risks over one another.

Oh, it made me I brought back memories of like, oh, God, I think that would have been elementary school.

Well, yeah.

But it made you happy.

So that that's the whole point.

It made me giggle.

Is it it makes you happy for something you haven't heard for a while.

On this day in 1986, the Run DMC's Raising Hell became the first rap album to be certified platinum.

And one more that just hits you right in the chest when you look at how many birthday candles are on your cake.

It was on this day in 1996, Nickelodeon premiered the Teen sitcom Keenan and Kel with Keenan Thompson.

The theme song was All Here It Goes by the late Coolio.

And Keenan Thompson just went right from Keenan and Kel into Saturday Night Live and has been part of our public consciousness ever since.

For better or for worse.

He's

hung around.

I think for better.

Probably.

Today is National Developmental Disabilities Professionals Day.

And I say in all seriousness that I cannot thank you folks enough if you work with the developmentally disabled and assist in their quality of life and happiness.

Thank you.

This day is definitely for you to know that you are appreciated.

This is National Horse Lovers Day.

And this is National Gummy Worms Day.

Oh, yeah.

That's a good day.

I'm a bit trolley.

If you're listening right now, I will gladly be a sponsor for your sour gummy worms.

Okay, I have to say, you know, if it's if it's gummy worms versus gummy bears or some other kind of gummy, though, the worms are just a little too, I don't know, worm like, shall we say?

It is the point Pat I know and I'd rather just enjoy my candy and not be grossed out by it Tony puts on YouTube Keenan and Kel an absolute classic and I mean here's the thing my daughter's watched it because they were of that age and Yes, it was it was a funny show back then so when when Keenan moved on to Saturday Night Live I was not the least bit surprised I'm surprised he's lasted that long not because of him, but because Saturday Night Live Nobody sticks around that long

I can't believe Saturday Night Live has stuck around as long as it has.

Oh, I mean, that's an institution now.

That's just how this whole thing works.

What else would they do without Saturday Night Live?

Really?

Seriously?

What else are you going to put in there?

Two more hours to go as we get rolling with another one of those Tuesday mornings powered by UpNorth News.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Good morning.

It is 706.

It is nice to have you here on this Tuesday morning, July 15th, 2025.

Parker Olson produces this fine show, and he is standing by in Madison Studio A2.

Meteorologist Brittany Merleau will be along in just a sec, followed by State Senator Jamie Wall from the Green Bay area.

We talked to State Representative Mod Rivera Wagner yesterday from the Green Bay area, and we talked about the state budget.

It was, of course, a very

bipartisan affair with Republicans and Democrats voting yes and no for various reasons.

Representative Rivera-Wagner was a no and explained why.

Senator Wall was a yes and tells us about the positive things that were in the budget.

That's coming up in just a bit.

But first, let's check in with meteorologist Brittany Merleau for what appears to be one very hot, sticky day.

This is like a Nashville

chicken hot honey kind of day.

It's that much heat and stickiness that we're bringing to the day, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like the way you put it.

It's a little glaze to the situation.

Yeah.

Everybody's going to have a little glaze when they come in from outdoors.

Yeah.

Tasty.

Hopefully without the pickles.

I'm not a pickle.

I don't order the Nashville stuff because they throw pickles on it.

So just give me the, give me the hot honey chicken.

I don't, I don't need the pickles, but.

The pickles do throw it off just a little bit in my opinion

as

well.

I agree.

And frankly, if there were pickles in the weather, you know, that would be another thing too, but instead.

Oh, be terrifying.

It's, it, it would be terrifying instead.

Raining pickles.

It's raining pickles.

Hallelujah.

No, it's not like that at all.

It's just going to be steamy and sticky, Brittany.

It sure is.

Yes, a very, very hot one.

We're looking at temperatures pretty much near 90 across the state mid 80s.

Absolutely.

That's what you're hitting today.

Plus the humidity on top of that heat index is really going to be feeling more like those mid 90s for a lot of us.

low 90s for some of us.

I mean, this morning it's already 75 degrees in siren.

And then of course you go by Lake Superior.

It's about 63 degrees.

So we're already starting off with a mild morning.

We've got a ton of sunshine out there.

There's only a few clouds far, far northwest up towards Lake Superior area.

Those are going to start to build and spread a little bit more in towards the state, but staying into the northwestern ports of the corner because we've got up front that is just lining up there and stalling there.

But then by tomorrow, this low pressure system starts to push down south and it kind of swings some storms and some heavy rainfall as we go into our Wednesday for the rest of the state.

So we've got a wet section of the week ahead, but today is definitely going to be a hot and dry one.

Or as Rob puts it from Tigerton, Louisiana swamp weather in Wisconsin today.

Oh, yes.

Oh, sounds great

mosquitoes everywhere.

Yep.

Good morning from Tigerton, Rob says.

It's sunny, hazy, 68 yesterday.

I mowed four yards in the Wittenberg area.

Took an hour lunch at Brianna's in Wittenberg to enjoy the air conditioning.

Yeah.

Today I've got a mowing Tigerton.

I had to stock up on lots of Gatorade just to stay hydrated.

It's like Rob knows exactly what Brittany's going to say.

And Greg Bach would burst through that wall like the Kool-Aid man right now if he could.

Tell Rob to stay hydrated.

And Rob goes on to say, I really appreciate the people that work in the field to teach people with developmental disabilities because I was on the receiving end of their services and appreciated their help on this Developmentally Disabled Professionals Appreciation Day.

So again, thanks to all those folks for all that you do.

Absolutely.

Not as smoky, thankfully, from the Canadian wildfires.

The discomfort is just all ours.

It's just the natural discomfort that we feel instead in there.

Let's go from one

to the other, though.

But I was mentioning how yesterday it was hot and a lot of folks were on the lake.

Either they were vacationing or just some of the local kids on summer vacation.

But there are a lot of people that said, let's just get on the jet ski or any boat and anything that

gets the water churning and puts a little moisture up there.

Not the kind that you sweat in, but the kind that makes you feel better.

The

refreshing kind, yes.

The refreshing kind, yes.

A sprinkler.

I expect it's going to be another noisy one on the lake today.

Thank you, Brittany.

We'll check back with you in an hour.

Sounds good.

As always, a reminder that you can sign up for our daily newsletters at Up North News, a separate entity from Civic Media, but so happy to have this morning partnership every weekday from six to nine a.m.

You can sign up for our newsletter over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

Again, Up North NewsWI.

Don't forget the WI.com and we'd love to have you as a subscriber.

Among the things that we also have are a Sunday newsletter that I put together, Sunday mornings with Pat Krightlow, all about Wisconsin.

and politics, and I have to say that our question of the week has really tapped into something lately, and it isn't all about Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee who is the next mayor apparent in New York City, but AOC from New York City, Bernie Sanders, certainly other folks that are people in our legislature now who describe themselves as Democratic socialists, and

For some people, that is really off-putting, feeling like they are going to turn off all the moderates and it's going to cost Democrats elections.

And there are plenty of others who go, no, no, no, this is what we needed.

This is a breath of fresh air.

No squeamish Democrats.

These are folks that are saying, look, these are our values.

This is what we absolutely want to do.

And then there are those in the middle that say, hey, there's room for both.

There's room for centrists.

There's room for people who describe themselves as democratic socialists or far left, whatever you want to call it.

And so we asked, what's your opinion on this?

Now, I haven't tallied up the results fully yet, but I bring this up because it really did bring in a lot of responses right away.

all over the place.

I mean, if you just go by the A, B, C, or D, and I'll tell you the D answer in a minute here, they are all over the place.

There is, here's Don here, who votes for the big 10th, there's room for all, where he says we need to have room for an open discussion of issues.

Let's see, there's one here that also says big 10th, but Liz says

Dems must have a coherent, simple, values-based message, not just anti-Trump.

After all, Mamdani won on the topic of affordable housing.

And then there's C, who says, nope, the option C is nope.

Don't go too far to the left.

Dawn says, let us not forget past losses due to far left idealism, aka Bernie Sanders.

And so on and go.

So we'd love to know your opinion.

You can be a subscriber to our Sunday newsletter, simply by heading to UpNorthNewsWI.com and click Subscribe in the top banner.

Or if you just want to weigh in on this question, send us a note.

Radio at UpNorthNewsWI.com is our email address.

Again, radio at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

or, of course, if you're watching us on Facebook or YouTube, just put a little something in the comment section right there.

All right, State Senator Jamie Wall joins us now from the Green Bay Area.

We'll talk about the state budget and more.

Senator, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

Thanks for having me, Ben.

Hey, nice to have you here.

Let's just get right into the way that I started off the segment here, saying that for the state budget bill that passed last week, there were both Democratic and Republican votes, both for and against, for various reasons.

You came down on the side of voting yes,

although

you were quick to add in your statement that hardly makes this a perfect document.

Tell us why in the end you came down on the side of voting for it.

Sure well look this was not the budget I would have written but you don't get everything you want in life all the time and you know fundamentally if you want a budget that's going to reflect the priorities of the democratic party you need to have democrats and the majority in the legislature and we don't have that but uh

We found ourselves, or I found myself as a Democrat in the Senate with some unexpected leverage because it turns out that the Republicans in the Senate are internally divided and we're not able to come together around a plan of their own, okay?

So that left us with a couple options.

We could have thrown up our hands and walked away and said, this is not the budget we would have written or we could do what we did, which was come to the table and make it better.

One thing that really influenced my thinking was that the state would have lost more than a billion dollars in federal Medicaid funding if we hadn't been able to beat the Trump budget to the punch.

That's why you saw Governor Evers signing the budget in the middle of the night.

And I've gotten an education in my brief time of the legislature for people with time in the Medicaid program.

I mean, it's not just folks that don't have a lot of means.

It's seniors in nursing homes who can hospital their other income.

It's kids with disabilities and their parents.

I mean, it's rare that I run into a family like that where one of them doesn't pull me aside and say, look, my

My kid is in Katie Beckett or some other Medicaid program.

And I really would appreciate it if you'd go to bat for us.

And I took that seriously.

So in my mind, the alternatives were worse.

It was either that we were going to walk away and have no budget at all, which is basically what we have minus the good things that we were able to get in there, or that they were going to the Republicans were going to get organized and pass some hard right.

document that catered to the most extreme numbers and neither of those were wins.

So I took the wins in front of us and I think that was the right thing to do.

Do you feel like without getting everything that you wanted because again that's

part of what politics is and the governor certainly knows that as well.

Those things that didn't happen, do they basically just become the platform that you run on and that Democrats run on in 2026 is to say, look, these things weren't in, you vote for us, this is what's going to come next time around?

Or do you look at other factors and you don't worry about what didn't make it into the budget?

Well, look, there were a lot of good things in the budget that we were able to improve.

I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we saved the state's child care industry from the crisis.

Governor Evers had used some federal money to help prop up our daycare centers

through the

pandemic.

Those funds were exploring.

We had surveys that told us that maybe a quarter of all the daycare centers in the state were going to go out of business and think of the impact that has on kids and their families, really in the Wisconsin workforce.

This is the best budget for the system in a generation.

And we were, you know, in

the

middle of conversations about whether we would need to.

closed four-year colleges.

Now we are emphatically not in that territory and that's a win for the students and again the future workforce of our state.

The one area in which I wish we could have done more was K-12 education.

We actually put record increases in special education funding in the budget because that's what every school district administrator in the state had told us to do.

But half a billion dollars doesn't go as far as you think across the states.

And some school boards are going to be facing tough choices as a result of this.

So that's at the top of my list for something we need to do better at next time.

By our kids and, you know, by our property taxpayers as well, because if districts go to referendum, what they're doing is transferring school funding down into the local property tax levy instead of on to the state, the state tax base, which is bigger and more diverse.

All right.

And then finally, now that the budget has passed, what else would you like to get accomplished in upcoming sessions, either this fall or early next year before the next round of elections?

Look, what I heard from my voters last year in the campaign and the last six months in office is that they're concerned about the cost of living.

So I'm focused, myself, on a number of bills that are going to help with that.

We'll be rolling out one in a couple of weeks now that is going to help school districts and their health insurance costs.

I've got several others that pertain to different ways to make housing more affordable.

My gosh, Green Bay is not Manhattan or even Madison in terms of housing costs, but we were, I think, seventh in the country last year and how much our costs increased here and people are sure noticed.

So there are different levers there with the building code, with zoning, with given local governments a few more tools that they can use to promote housing development.

So that's one area I'm focused on.

It's interesting that Josh Shulman, the Washington County Executive Candidate for Governor, we played back an interview from him last hour and he too cited the cost of housing, so it's clearly something that everybody's aware of.

The solutions are another matter, and I'm sure there'll be differences when we talk about that next time around.

State Senator Jamie Wall from Green Bay.

Thank you so much for the visit and the update on the budget bill.

We appreciate it so much.

Hey, thanks for having me,

Pat.

All right, Jamie.

Thank you again.

A local update is next for some of you.

Others will join me along with Dan Hagen from News Watch 12 in Rhinelander and later Hans Brighton Moser.

From the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Crichtlin.

Yeah, this was an interesting comment on the Josh Schoeman interview from Tony up in the Ashland area, who said that, as I just said before the break, Josh Schoeman acknowledged housing costs, but didn't really say what he wanted to do about it.

And now we, to be fair, also didn't ask him because again, it was just a quick interview.

But much like he said about wanting to be bipartisan,

It's one thing to say these things and say, well, I acknowledge that these are problems, but then what is it that you want to do about it?

And I'm sure we'll talk more about that with Dan Schaefer just over one hour from now from the Reconpopulation area.

But first, it is time to talk to Dan Hagen from NewsWatch12, WGFWTV and Rhinelander.

Fresh off the Hodag Country Music Festival.

Mr. Hagen, how are you?

Good morning.

I'm still recovering, but life is good.

Life is good.

How so?

I mean, was it

late

nights?

Too much dancing?

Too much ha-ha leads to boo-hoo?

What exactly are you recovering

from?

I haven't heard that one before.

No, it was just a couple nights of debauchery.

Oh,

debauchery?

Okay, that's fair enough.

You know, 30,000 people around you is really fun in the moment, but it's, you know, tiring as well.

I only had one night of late night drinking, and then the rest I was just

Downing waters like it was my job.

So I thought that was a good balance for me.

That's a good man.

And what what music acts stuck out for you?

Yeah.

So, um, I saw three dog nights.

So you're probably, I'm sorry.

What?

They're not country at all.

No, they're not.

And

they're, and they're still alive, which I know is the same thing I said a week ago

when

I saw, I saw Chicago and Milwaukee, but three dog night.

Yeah.

They should be called one dog night because they got one of the three founding singers.

Okay.

And he was moving pretty slow.

He was moving kind of like Joe Biden was toward the end of his presidency, just kind of shuffling along.

But he can still sing it.

He can still sing it.

And it was funny.

We saw one of the lead singers, I could just

see mouthing towards the end of the show, like, we'll play it.

We'll play it because someone had the nerve to ask, hey, are you going to play Joy to the World?

Like, of course, they're going to play Joy to the World.

Of

course.

Of course.

What else could they

do, right?

Yeah.

And of course, they're going to end with it as well.

So yeah, they.

So

Danny

Hutton is the only original member.

He is 82 years old.

He's 82 years old.

Yeah, that's right.

How did he not take a nap in the middle of this?

I know Well, there was a musical interlude where he stepped off stage So maybe that was it but he was he could still sing it.

So good for him Yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't like hard to listen to like I saw Gordon lightfoot play maybe Jeez a decade and a half ago and it was

It was hard at points, you know, because he made it quite a thing.

Yeah.

Well, and I noted that I was at Summerfest when Fleetwood Mac was kind of winding down their very first, you know, incarnation, and then they broke up for a while and eventually came back.

But at that wind down, again, they didn't sound anything like what we'd been used to hearing, but clearly they picked it up.

Other folks again, if you if you lose it, you know if you don't use it you lose it And so if you can sing keep singing if you can play run if your knees are still working keep running That's all I'm gonna say about that Trust me you miss your knees once they're gone, but it was a good time for you.

You enjoyed

everything

else about it?

No, it was a great time.

Um, a lot of people, I mean, everyone was in a good mood.

So it's, it's hard not to be in a good mood as well with that, but a lot of people.

It's a definitely a summertime thing.

And yet the one story I wanted to ask you about, uh, that you're covering up there at NewsWatch 12 and Rhinelander deals with ice damage.

Yeah.

And obviously there's, there's the, there's the damage, there's the cleanup, and then there's pain for the cleanup and getting help where you can.

And that's something that city leaders have been working on recently.

Yeah that's right, so in March you may remember in northern Wisconsin had a really bad ice storm and it was you know pretty much once in a generation people that I talked to said they've never experienced anything like it before.

So right now you're at a big brunt of that.

You can remember the whole egg dome was punctured during that storm, but a lot of trees were lost.

So we just got a $44,000 grant from the DNR to replant a lot of trees as well as compensating all the work that went into all of cleanup.

So that's, uh, that's progress for the city.

Yeah.

because again these things can get to be real mother nature can be very expensive sometimes a very expensive I was gonna say roommate but she's basically the landlord

You know, we're the ones paying the rent here.

What was the story I saw about somebody going to especially speedy on their motorcycle?

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, I wonder how extensive that ticket is going 121 miles per hour.

So he's taking his motorcycle north.

This is a 19 year old from Mosini, Wisconsin, head north on Highway 51.

And he's going in between cars and.

They pull him over and they say, do you know, like how fast you're going?

And he says, you know, my speedometer is broken.

Well, you're going 121 miles per hour.

And he said, well, I thought I was only going 95 miles per hour.

I

thought he was only going 95.

Oh,

OK.

So, you know, just casually twice the speed limit of 65.

So I'm wondering how much he'll be paying for that.

I know this is a little dark, but there's a reason why the Flight for Life helicopter is nicknamed by a lot of people as Flight for Parts, because they're just going out there and they're scraping people up who make poor decisions, shall we say, and then become the organ donors that more responsible people sometimes need.

So I hope this is a life lesson.

I mean, he only got a ticket.

He didn't get a ride to the medical examiner.

this time.

How about you?

Are you a motorcycle rider at all?

Never.

I wouldn't touch the thing.

Too dangerous for me.

You're a

wise man.

I like my four walls of my in my vehicle.

My my father, he had a motorcycle and he sold it to pay for my mother's engagement ring.

Isn't that isn't that nice?

Oh, that's romantical.

That's

that.

Did you ever get on a motorcycle?

Uh, yes, and was involved in a very minor crash, but you know, the bike fell on top of me.

I was a passenger and I was just like, yeah, I don't think I need to do this much anymore.

You know, uh, it just, it's, it's a no bueno for some of us.

Uh, Dan Hagen from news watch 12.

Thank you so much for the visit.

As always have a great day.

Thank you, man.

Good one.

All right.

Coming up in less than 30 minutes, Jeff Renneke from the Friends of the Apostle Islands on responses from the new signs the Trump administration is putting up about reporting anti-American history in our national parks.

But Hans Brighton Moser is next.

You're up north.

Who is ready to do some road trip in with Matt and air on air and the Todd all the show They will be hitting the road starting tomorrow with stops in Oshkosh butternut and Hayward So join them join Jane Todd Greg all about sharing stories about what makes Wisconsin great So catch the special road trip additions of Matt and air on air and the Todd all the show Coming up starting tomorrow across the civic media radio network coming up

On Todd's show today, he's actually broadcasting from the studios in Racine, and he will have, let's see, he'll be talking to, well, I guess Aaron Zombers will be there as well, making a special appearance in Racine.

You're gonna wanna gather around, folks.

And then on Maggie Dawn, Jim Santel, former U.S.

Attorney, will be a guest co-host.

That's coming up at four o'clock this afternoon.

Let's see, the latest crop report, or ag report, I guess you could call it, is in from the USDA for Wisconsin.

Clearly, there's no drought anywhere.

Nobody is reporting that they're very short on topsoil moisture.

In fact, 20% report surplus moisture.

Corn silking is at 13%.

Let's see, the soybeans are 44% blooming.

Oh, but why stats when we can just go right to the source?

We can go right to the farm up in Lincoln County.

Hans Bright and Moser are standing by.

He's got his corn, he's got his oats, he's got his soybeans, and he's got his cows.

Hans, good morning.

How are they all doing?

and I'm full of anecdotal evidence, so I don't have any actual facts and figures, but I can tell you what's going on up here and on my little farm.

And going well so far?

Yeah, yep.

So we are, we are in fact, we're just going to start chopping our new seedings this morning.

So the and so in other words, the the hay ground that we seeded down this spring with with a nurse crop of four joats, mixed with alfalfa clover and some grasses that we we planted this spring, we are going to take a first cutting of that here today.

So that forges that I mean that that's a that's quite the combination there that sounds like, you know, like the ultimate trail mix if you're a cow.

That

is

the ultimate trail mixer if you're a cow.

And if you can get it early enough and so forth, it's very digestible and has lots of protein and should make some milk for

it.

You ever mix peas in with your oats?

Yep, years ago, we did that.

We haven't done that for several years.

But yeah, that's a forage crop that guys do, peas and oats.

The reason I ask is that my wife, Sherry, grew up on a farm, and occasionally there'd be oats and peas, and she'd talk about being able to go out into the field and get the peas right there out of the field.

And a couple years back now, now again, we're up to four grandkids now, but when we had our two grandsons, she showed them one time how to go out into the field amongst the

and the peas and where to get the peas.

And I tell you, every summer after that, when they'd go back to her parents farm in Manitowoc County, they'd be like little piggies out there in the field, could not get enough of the fresh peas that were grown right there on the farm.

And again, I mean, these are kids that have never lived on a farm, but when they get there, it is just so fun to watch them go, wow, these peas taste different than what comes in a can.

Isn't that great?

They are a little different, but the cows tend to like them as well.

Oh, yeah, without a doubt.

Yeah, the rare times that the field across the street here has some peas and oats.

You might see Sherry sneaking over just to grab a little something here.

Let's talk about the state budget again for a second because, and again, the real theme here is that there's something for everybody to like and something that anybody cannot like.

And there is an article in the Wisconsin State Farmer from the, you know, Gannett USA Today Network.

Colleen Kotke wrote it and talked about the things that were in the state budget that agriculture advocates do like that are in there.

Clearly, there are things missing as well.

But Hans, as you were looking at that and thinking about what the legislature ended up doing, can we start by pointing to a couple of things that were

positive developments in the state budget bill?

Sure.

Yeah, I think the, I think the $30 million to county conservation staff was a plus.

You know, I was on the county board here in Lincoln County for 10 years and, and I was on the land services committee and

And I know that, you know, that staff does good work.

It's important work.

It's the kind of work that keeps our surface water and groundwater clean keeps erosion from happening as much and so forth.

So I think that that will be for rural counties, that's going to be a real plus and a welcome addition.

I think also the, you know, the three new staff for DabCap is a good thing as well, because again, there's, you know, you can have programs, but without staff, how do you implement them?

So those are things that I think were really important and I'm glad they did get done.

So there were things that were in there, but you know, there was there was You know, there was a food security grant.

There was a CDL driver training grant program and things like that But I know Wisconsin Farmers Union also said that there were some missed opportunities like excluding a Wisconsin local food purchase assistance program from consideration in the budget Did you see as well things like that that?

Really could have should have been in the budget and didn't make the final cut.

Well, I think LFPA is the thing, right?

I mean that that was you know, that just makes sense it makes sense on all fronts it makes sense for you know dollar spent for Food security for people and money going straight to farmers.

So I'm really confused as to why that

didn't make it in there because it did seem to have some bipartisan support and so that was definitely a disappointment.

One thing that I don't know enough about that I probably should is that food security grant and what that's about because ten million dollars is not a small amount of money and so one wonders if that has the potential to make up some of the

you know, some of what we're losing with LFBA.

But, you know, it's also unfortunate too, when you have a program that works and you have staff there, you know, doing it and so forth, to get rid of it and start something different, that's just perplexing to me.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Yeah.

And, you know, what I would say to that, first, I'm going to

begin by saying this is speculative on my part.

But let's start with childcare.

We heard about how Republicans did not want to give Governor Evers a win in terms of childcare.

Why?

I have no idea.

But they created a different way to fund childcare, which again, had some funding, but it wasn't the same.

And like you said, you have to learn certain things.

And similar, I'm seeing a parallel here in the LFPA, the local food purchase assistance program, you know, that again,

is an opportunity to help strengthen local food sourcing.

And instead, this food security grant program is $10 million to provide grants to non-profit food banks in Wisconsin to buy locally grown and processed food for those in need.

So like you said, it may be similar, but the LFPA was a known thing.

It was working.

And if the only reason they didn't fund it is because Governor Evers wanted it, that would

that would not be a good thing if that's

true.

Well, yeah, but that also wouldn't surprise me.

I mean, politics is not your, but you know, at the risk of, you know, trotting out cliches, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This was the thing that was not broke.

And so with this with this new program, I would say the devil's in the details.

And it'll be interesting to understand better, you know, like how

where that money is going to go because I mean, I feel like LFPA did a good job in getting

getting the dollars directly to farmers and getting the food directly from farmers to people, right?

So we, I mean, it was, it was straightforward.

It was efficient and it checked all the boxes.

And so I'm cautiously optimistic.

And I don't, again, I don't know enough about this food grant security deal to poo poo it one way or the other.

But if it is a situation where a lot of dollars are going to go to some distributor who happens to be located in Wisconsin, but is getting food from

all over and whatever else, well, then it definitely misses the mark.

And we had a system that hit the mark real well.

So that's what's that's what's a little frustrating for me.

So it certainly makes me want to find out who put that language in, you know, who who was behind it?

What was their motivation?

And again, I'm going to try to keep an open mind.

But like you said, something was working already.

Yeah, there was another story coincidentally also done by a Colleen Kotke want to give her credit for this, which was about the

increasing number of farmers and farm workers who are suing Bayer, the maker of Monsanto, a widely used herbicide.

Obviously, there are a lot of cases of cancer and things happening with workers, with farmers, but Bayer, which makes Roundup, now facing more than 180,000 lawsuits around the country, has been pushing legislation at the state level that would shield the company from liability.

And they're claiming that it's not like blanket immunity, that it provides some clarity in what these lawsuits are suing for.

It certainly doesn't pass the smell test.

In other words, I don't want to smell this because I might get cancer.

Yeah.

No, that's dirty pool.

I mean, if you're producing a product and there's hazards with it, then you have to be able to step up and defend it.

But to try and change the rules on how the referee operates so that you don't have to defend it is total BS.

And we should be calling BS on that.

Roundup has been used for years and years and years.

It's used a lot now.

I think it's overused in my estimation.

It has become this tool that farmers use.

And you know, farmers are going to use the tools at their disposal because we're especially corn and beans.

They're very thin margin crops and so forth.

So, you know, it's a herbicide that works.

But I do feel like it's

totally overused at this point.

And but beyond that, you know, this issue has in my estimation, as much to do with, you know, big companies being able to write the rules to keep themselves protected, as it does with the, you know, this particular herbicide.

Yeah.

And so, right now, according to the article, the label on Roundup does not include warnings about potential cancer causing effects.

or requirements to use personal protective equipment beyond regular clothing.

And Bayer is saying, well, without this immunity, they may stop producing it and that would impact crops.

But the article goes on to say, well, if Bayer stops making Roundup, what'll happen is we'll get this from China instead, where you know worker safety is not a thing.

And we're basically just transferring our cancer.

We're outsourcing our cancer, essentially, is the way it sounds when it would just be easier to properly label your stuff.

Yes, yeah, no, I think there's the truth in labeling is is a good thing regardless if you're talking about you know cigarettes or glyphosate or any other product that that's that

That, to me, has, again, less to do with ag and more to do with just living in a free society where you can trust your government to do the right thing.

But at the risk of going down a rabbit trail, Pat, I think, again, this has to do with how our politics is driven.

And as long as it's driven by money, to the extent that it is, then that's when

lousy legislation is going to come about because it's coming from a bad place.

Yeah.

Again, just can be serve the people who voted for you, not the people who are giving to you.

I

know how we can make it any easier.

And it's it's it's difficult to say what we need are more Maverick Republicans who will stand up and say we should put the safety labels on when that shouldn't be Maverick behavior.

That should be as bipartisan as it gets.

Sadly,

It is not.

Hans, Brighton, Moser, as always, thank you so much for these stories.

And for all you do, you got a busy day ahead of you.

Thanks so much for starting it with us.

I shouldn't say start it with us.

You're like three hours into your day already, aren't you?

Yeah, it takes me a really long time to drink that first cup of coffee.

That's

it.

Yeah, silly city boy.

All right, Hans.

Thank you very much.

A local update is coming up next for some of you.

For others, we're going to have our new Way Up North segment Tuesday mornings at 7.50 and the folks who are living up along Lake Superior and we will be visiting with Jeff Renneke, executive director of the Friends of the Apostle Islands and talk about

Donald Trump's executive order attempting to whitewash the history of our national parks.

And when we're all back together in our eight o'clock hour, we'll be joined by Dan Schaefer and by Chad Holmes.

Remember, you can follow us at UpGorthNewsWI.com and of course right here mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.