If Mass Shooters Could Endorse a Candidate (Hour 3)

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

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

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6 0 6 on this Thursday morning.

We've made it to Thursday, August 14th, 2025.

It is 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.

And if you're not, if you're watching us on social media, if you're getting us by a podcast, if you're getting us over the app.

It still counts.

We're still very happy to have you along starting your day right here.

I got a question for you and producer Parker Olson can be part of the answering group Ladies and gentlemen

Who wants a free hamburger?

Me.

Me.

Me.

It's here.

Parker's ready.

Parker would like his free George Webb hamburger, which again, for our listeners in the southeastern part of the state, southern eastern parts, they're all like, this is awesome.

George Webb gonna give us free burgers.

And then the other two thirds of the state is like

What is that?

Why do they keep talking about that?

You know what?

Don't worry about it.

Just the whole reason people get to be happy about this is 12 in a row.

12 wins in a row by your Milwaukee Brewers.

Tony asking on YouTube, do they deliver to Ashland?

No.

No, I don't think so.

I think the burger might be a little chilled by the time it gets there.

That's

a really long

Uber Eats

drive.

I don't know.

You can still be happy for the fact that the burgers once again.

I mean, at first,

Brewers went up something like, I don't know, six nothing, was it?

And then Pittsburgh came pecking back, pecking back, and I think it was like six to five or something at one point.

And of course, our friend Dan Schumacher, who's a Cubs fan, and he's watching the game and he's texting, can't wait for the losing streak to end.

Yeah, it didn't end at all.

William Contreras, four RBIs, Kristen Yelich drove in three runs, and Milwaukee scored double-digit runs for the second straight game and the fourth time this month in beating the Pirates 12-5 yesterday.

So 12 in a row for the Brewers who already had an 11 game win streak and an eight game win streak now have one that's at 12 games and counting.

This is fun.

This is very

fun.

We offense is ridiculous right now.

The last five games they've scored at least seven runs.

So I

don't know if you keep up

with baseball, but if you're scoring a touchdown every game, that's pretty good.

Or in this case, you know, four field goals, whatever gets the work done.

And Pat Murphy, you know, refers to his team as the Woodpeckers and think of it this way, the Brewers belted out 12 hits yesterday, but only two of them were for extra bases.

You know, two doubles.

It's otherwise just single after single after single and they just peck, peck, peck away.

They put the ball in play.

They run real fast and, you know, they, they score the runs.

That's, that's the cool thing.

And I think we've said this a couple of times now about the brewers is they play such good fundamental baseball, like the base running is spectacular.

Every play defensively is just a clinic right now.

And the pitching is so nice.

Everything is awesome.

They're doing it the way I want to.

They're putting balls in play.

That's how you win games, Pat.

You sound like the Lego movie.

Everything is awesome.

And it is.

I mean, but here's the thing.

When you mentioned, you know, just putting the ball in play and small ball and things like that, I think like every time a small market team does well, it's because of small ball.

They can't afford the big giant home run hitters.

And so that's, that's the way that it works here.

Is this, look at the text line.

I just came

in here.

Jim and Brookfield.

Here's his text.

Jim and Brookfield is ready for a free George Webb burger.

The franchise will be announcing today when the giveaway will take place.

And there's a gentleman who I assume is Jim and Brookfield standing outside of George Webb with a big George Webb restaurant sign right there.

That's.

That is outstanding.

That's great.

And yes, as Tony says, everything is awesome.

Everything is cool when you're part of a team.

Power of friendship, baby.

The power of friendship.

That's exactly what this is.

So for folks tuning in early, no, this is not a sports talk station, but this is a happy talk station.

And this is happy stuff.

This works for us.

Yeah.

Because again, you don't know how long the ride's going to last.

And on top of that, your attention is going to be divided before you know it.

You know, pack your season, we'll get going and, you know, we'll have all the fall sports to look forward to.

But today's question, who wants a free burger?

That's a fun one to answer because it's all of Wisconsin.

You get a burger and you get a burger and you get a burger.

Coming up today on the program, indecidably less happy news.

But when we get back to what's happening in the headlines, you know, we're in this mega era now.

And we have a Republican party that cannot stop drifting further to the far right extreme.

And now, officially, Wisconsin has a candidate for governor with a position on public safety that puts a sickening spin on that old Oprah Winfrey line.

Go something like this, you get a gun, and you get a gun, and you get a gun.

And we're going to talk later to Joseph Pecky about candidate Bill Barion's idea to eliminate permits and encourage flooding the streets with concealed weapons.

What could possibly go wrong?

The president's extremism means that frankly no Republican candidate, not even any Republican incumbent, should take their election for granted in 2026.

even in a suburban Milwaukee district that went for Donald Trump by 34 points last year.

We're going to talk to Mike VanSommeren of Della Field who announced yesterday that he's challenging state Senator Chris Kappenga in that suburban Milwaukee district because after all suburban Milwaukee district is not synonymous with solidly Republican anymore.

From a national standpoint, talking about an extreme president, I mean, leave it to a master narcissist, to fire board members from the Kennedy Center, appoint new members who would vote to make him their chairman, and then name himself as the host of this year's Kennedy Center Honors.

All I need is that Austin Powers Club.

Allow myself to introduce.

myself.

It's it's Donald Trump all over and they want to name the opera house there after Melania Trump.

We will have details on oh just the latest blow to American culture in the arts all coming up.

Sharita Booker in less than 10 minutes will review some of the many events going on around the state this weekend and we will get a look at your money and the markets with Sean O'Malley as well.

Mike Clemens is in Indianapolis, so are the Packers.

They have a practice session going on today with the Indianapolis Colts.

The two teams will then play a pre-season game Saturday afternoon, noon I believe at Lucas Oil Stadium.

We will talk to Mike Clemens live from Indy tomorrow morning at 8.30 as some folks, yes, are already getting that much closer to football season.

Which leads to this question.

Have you done fantasy football?

Not yet.

Do you like fantasy football?

OK, so you haven't done it yet.

Not this season, no.

Our draft is on, I think, the 29th.

So.

Oh, so you're doing it.

You're going to be doing it for the first time

here.

Oh, no.

Sorry.

I thought you meant to have I done it yet this year for

this

year.

Yeah.

No, I've been doing fantasy for most of college with a couple of buddies.

OK.

Yeah.

And so you still do

it.

not particularly well, but I do it.

So, like many things in life, actually.

I do

it, but

not particularly well.

Well, it's just that I looked, I tried it for a bit and I wanted to see if I had, if Misery loved company.

And a simple Google search will lead to articles like this.

Why I finally gave up playing fantasy football.

Why I stopped playing fantasy football.

What caused you to stop playing fantasy football?

I quit fantasy football.

Fantasy football is dumb and I quit and I'm never playing again.

I'm sensing a theme.

I've been commissioner for 15 years and I might be quitting my league.

I quit fantasy football and so can you.

Anybody else on the verge of quitting?

Fantasy football.

Hey, if any of you guys realized you can't enjoy watching football as much as you did before fantasy football, that's just page one of all the Google results that come from.

putting in why I gave up fantasy football.

Yeah, it does add like a wrinkle of work to football, which

is a wrinkle,

a wrinkle of a

wrinkle.

Yeah, a wrinkle of work only gets you as far as when you realize that it's the bye week for your quarterback and you completely forgot that you don't have a second quarterback on the bench.

Yeah, something like that.

It's one of those things that yes, it's fun, like, you know, for the first little bit.

And

Like one of those headlines said something about 15 years.

I can't even, I can't imagine 15 years of doing that.

I did it for maybe, I don't know, three to five, something like that.

And then said, you know, I'd actually like to enjoy the game, you know?

Although I will say this much, when you first start doing it, you realize, oh, wow, I don't actually care about all these games.

I care about who, you know, the quarterback is for the chargers or whatever.

And then after about three years or so, you're like,

Why do I have to worry about who's the quarterback for the chargers?

I have a team already Yeah,

my my Point of approach is I really only care about it as I'm setting my lineup and that

is

all I will try not to look at it for the rest of the week Yes, don't monitor it.

Just get ready.

That's all that that is my approach that has kept me fairly happy

By the way, I say all this

as the defending reigning champion of the Courier Newsroom, Fancy Football.

Because last year, I basically, I did the set it and forget it.

I mean, I think there clearly were one or two weeks where I really outkicked the coverage, shall we say, where I went, oh wow, my team was on fire.

I wish I had to put some thought into this.

I simply simply drafted well.

And in fact, I wasn't going to join last year.

It was just the last minute thing.

Sure.

And so here I am telling people, if you want to quit fantasy football, it's OK.

Yeah.

Then again, I might get I might get sucked back into it this year.

You know, I think I'm out.

Then they real me back in.

So yeah, that's all right.

You know, have you ever done fantasy baseball?

Yes.

That's one you forget about.

That is.

I mean, that's a full-time job, fantasy baseball.

And again, the first, I think I only did it the one year.

I think I did it the third of the year.

It feels so cool.

I was doing it through Yahoo.

And they've got, you know, quite the dashboard there where you just click the buttons for, I want this player today and I want that player and I want this player.

But man, by, you know, you're not even a third of the way into the season going, oh my God, I got to do this again.

You know, because teams have off days all the time and.

Yeah, you got to be real.

And

lineups, too, even, because it, like... Yeah.

Bryce Terrang isn't playing every

day.

No.

And that is another excellent point, is not to do an old man thing, but yeah, it used to be that there were very few off days.

Lineups were much more predictable.

There's nothing like that now.

So, look, if you've got your draft coming up, I want you to enjoy it, but I just also want you to know it is not life.

You know, and if

you are doing it, please let us know.

What is the punishment for the person who gets last in your league?

I'm very curious.

I

did not.

I did not know leagues

had that.

Oh, yes.

Oh, see, I've always been in leagues that were so bad that you didn't want to single out the person who came in last because, you know, there was first place and then everybody else was tied for last.

Basically, my league has like some of my friends, like little siblings in it, so we don't do punishments.

However,

I

have seen some good ones.

I have seen guys in a clown suit ever games with science.

Oh, not that kind of stuff.

Public humiliation.

Yeah.

Oh,

Pat, this is a

horrible rabbit hole that you do not want to go down if that is what you think is bad.

Oh no, no, no people, come on, we're not, we're friends.

Friends don't do that to other friends.

For me, I'll wrap up as I did with Dan Schumacher here talking about the Brewers game and he's a Cubs fan.

The humiliation is simply the outcome of the game itself when your friend is forced to send you middle finger emojis.

That's all the farther it needs to get.

We don't need any further public humiliation.

Coming up just moments away, Sharita Booker talks about weekend events and then Melissa Baldoff will have our climate check as well.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Oh boy.

Uh this is a busy calendar that we've got for weekend events in Wisconsin.

You would think that it's the middle of summer and it is and Sharita Booker is going to be along in just a second.

We'll talk about some of the local festivals but

There are all kinds of county fairs.

So if you are in or near one of these counties, go check out your county fair this weekend.

The Ashland County Fair is going on.

This is alphabetical, by the way.

The Brown County Fair, the Dodge County Fair, the Door County Fair, if you're up in that part of the state, the Grant County Fair, if you're over at the other part of the state, the Juno County Fair, the Kenosha County Fair, the Sawyer County Fair, and the Washera County Fair, all of those going on.

this weekend along with lots of community festivals and Sharita Booker, our social media manager, is going to tell us about some of them now.

Sharita, welcome.

How are you?

Hey Pat, I'm doing good.

How are you?

I'm doing great thanks and wondering where where we even start on these things.

I guess we'll start with corn.

And I give my annual disclaimer here that Sun Prairie is much bigger than Loyal, Wisconsin, up in Clark County.

But when I think of Corn Fest, I think of Loyal gets a lot of folks coming into Clark County for that.

But down closer to the Madison area, Sun Prairie has a great big sweet corn festival that is getting is underway for this weekend.

yep and it's actually their 72nd annual corn festival and that'll run through sunday and there will be 80 tons of wisconsin grown corn served the festival will also include food other foods beer a parade a block party a carnival for the kids and also a kids corner with crafts games face painting and live music will also be there by the dirty birds madison county mad city funk and super tuesday for more information on that event visit some prairie cornfest.com

And again, that's sun prairie corn fest dot com.

I love this time of year for that.

I know I've mentioned a couple of times already stopping at one of the farms near here that just sells tons of sweet corn.

Have you gotten any sweet corn yet for this season?

No, and it's usually when I go to the state fair, I'll get some and I didn't get any this year.

Oh,

let now

have to get it somewhere else, I guess.

Let's let's see.

Let's turn our attention to Lake Geneva, where the JCs have their Venetian festival going on this weekend.

Yep, and that kicked off yesterday and will run through Sunday There will be tons of family fun from carnival rides and craft vendors to lumberjack shows water ski displays and tournaments like baggo and for the foodies expect all the carnival favorites like broads burgers hot dogs Fire roasted corn shaved ice and funnel cakes.

There will also be live music Every evening and tonight's performance will be by 80s tribute band rock brigade

and Sunday the lakefront will be lit by a glowing boat parade and the region's biggest fireworks show.

And it's more than just for fun, it's for a cause.

This 63-year tradition helps fund dozens of local charities and youth programs.

So for more information about this event, visit venetianfest.com.

Again, VenetianFest.com.

Kelly Daniels is the entertainer tomorrow night.

Rebecca and the Grey Notes Saturday afternoon, the two-hype crew Saturday night.

Sunday includes Rock Central, the Big Al Wetzel Band, and the Venetian All-Stars, so a lot going on there as well.

And I've mentioned this once or twice before, Irish Fest going on in Milwaukee that's at the Henry Meyer Festival Park, where you find Summer Fest, which thankfully was not as hard hit as other parts

of Milwaukee were so Irish Fest is very much on for this weekend.

Yep and there will be nearly 250 performances across 18 stages spanning from traditional Irish to indie Celtic music.

and visitors can enjoy art, genealogy, Gaelic lessons, and family funds, known from Leprechaun Village to a playground and a passport game.

There will also be over 35 food vendors, many Irish-themed, but there will also be a variety of food options.

You can also do some shopping at one of the three Celtic marketplaces and pick up artisan goods, artist merch, and keepsakes.

Tickets are

only $10 today, Thursday, and then Friday through Sunday, they'll be $27 and kids 12 and under are free.

For more information on to get your tickets ahead of time, go to ivishfest.com.

irishfest.com is the website for that one.

And then like I said, there's there's all kinds of local fairs and festivals that are going on this weekend.

They include along with all the county fairs that I mentioned, the Athens Fair is going on today through Sunday in Marathon County.

How about this one, Sherida?

The Beloit Taco Take Down on

Saturday.

I love Taco.

Taco Fest.

Yeah, in Adams County, they're in Grand Marsh.

They're having the Corn and Tater Festival.

It's not just corn, it's taters too.

Hayward has the Northwoods Music and Art Festival on Saturday.

Holman has Corn Fest Friday and Saturday.

The Kenosha Harbor Park Jazz Rhythm and Blues Festival is Saturday.

Let's see the Manitowoc Lakeshore Balloon Grow is on Friday.

The North Hudson Pepper Festival is this weekend.

of course, everything that Sharita just mentioned, just get out of the house and enjoy as best you can.

Hey, Sharita, thanks for the calendar update.

Hope you have a great weekend.

You too, Pat.

I should have asked her as well.

She was at a brewers game recently, sent a photo of being out in the stands, said she hadn't been out to one for a long time and had a really great time at the game.

Although speaking of the brewers, we are warned on the text line by Roger in Stevens Point.

He says caution.

Only one team has won the World Series after multiple 10-game winning streaks during the season, and that would be the Miracle Mets of 1969.

Although, you could argue, this is the Milwaukee Miracle of 2025.

It's just a little Euker magic.

From Roger, he also notes this, summer is slipping away.

In Warsaw, today is the last sunrise before 6 a.m., and Sunday is the last sunset after 8 p.m.

and we are now slipping under 14 hours of total daylight and that is in no way depressing.

If you missed it yesterday, the president of the United States who named himself, well he stacked the board and then named himself as the new chair of the Kennedy Center,

Also announced yesterday.

He's going to be the host of the Kennedy Center on set.

He was asked to he didn't seek it out But the board the one that he appointed now asked him to host it and he announced that this year's inductees are George straight Sylvester Stallone Gloria Gaynor and the rock band kiss For the first time ever there are no honorees from the fields of jazz classical music or dance, but you know we got Rambo

So we got that going for us.

Melissa Baldoff has our climate check and more after the Midwest Farm Report.

That's coming up.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

here with our weekly climate check.

Melissa, how are you?

I'm doing all right.

Thanks.

How about you?

I'm doing good.

Now we we do have something substantive to talk about the anniversary of an important rebate program that came about through the Inflation Reduction Act.

but I just caught this, and so we're literally just here to react to this, the headline of the New York Times.

Trump cracks down on bird deaths, but only from wind turbines.

Critics accuse the administration of a double standard trying to stop wind projects because of potential bald eagle deaths while easing the rules for gas companies and oil companies.

The story says bald eagles must be protected to the fullest extent of the law.

from dangerous wind turbines.

President Trump's Interior Secretary declared this week, but four months ago, Trump called for gutting the very law that applies, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, calling it a burden on oil and gas producers.

So you can kill the bald eagle for your oil and gas projects, but not for those wind projects.

Again, not the onion.

This is why climate segments are both frustrating and kind of...

of entertaining in their tragic goofiness, Melissa.

Right.

So yeah.

No, can I can I pause just here to say to say that this pause right there, this is the worst thing I do all week.

The worst thing and somebody's going to call me out on it that you bring poor Melissa on and you read some goofy headline about what Donald Trump does is double speak on the environment.

And then I go, All right, Melissa, go.

And what are you supposed to do with something like that?

Really?

I mean, I feel like you should just say Donald Trump, everybody, drop the mic and walk away, you know?

You know, it's a it's a target rich environment when we're talking about Donald Trump.

There's always something to say.

And I would I would say in this one, I mean, for one, you've got a good response there.

Just right

Donald

Trump.

But yeah, I mean,

I don't want anything to happen to bald eagles or any other birds.

But the irony there, I don't even know that irony is the right word.

Oh no, irony died so long ago.

Right, but the real depths that in real health implications that millions of Americans, humans, will

we'll face because of his actions on rolling back our climate protections.

It's just stunning to think.

that anyone could could make decisions the way he does.

And yet here we are.

And you

can say that about anything he does

here.

Here we are indeed.

So let's get to more substantive news that last week, for example, there was a celebration that went on about the Holmes rebate program.

This is through the Inflation Reduction Act.

There was an event a week ago in Washington Park that involved Congresswoman Gwen Moore and others to note that thanks to the inflation

Reduction Act, there is this rebate program that helps put cash back in people's pockets for, you know, doing energy efficiency projects on their home.

And if I if I saw the news released right from Governor Evers, it's put out at least what 2 million in rebates so far and hopefully a lot more to come.

Yes, it's incredibly exciting that this program has been

Such a success in Wisconsin and you know.

This is I would say thanks in in large part to a number of folks and organizations who worked really hard on the front end to make sure that Wisconsin was going to be ready to go a year ago and Wisconsin was the first state to be able to launch our home energy rebate program.

And that's because so much work went in to get ready for that.

So that starts with the leadership of Governor Evers and the folks that focus on energy and the PSC and the advocacy of organizations like Forward Together Wisconsin and like Green Homeowners United, which is really.

a fantastic success story here.

Green Homeowners United, we've had Kevin Kane from GHU join us previously to talk about some of these programs.

They, for anyone who's not familiar, they are a woman owned union contractor in southeast Wisconsin.

And they have done more, just their organization has done the most home energy rebates.

of any contractor in the country.

Wisconsin has done, if not the most, one of the most of these projects in the country.

So it's not only that we have this program, it's that it is incredibly successful here.

And the good news for folks, you know, we've had a lot of bad climate news, especially bad news about funding and programs that are available.

The good news about this program is

The money is already allocated.

The money is in the state.

It is with focus on energy.

And people can still participate in this program.

And they absolutely should, because if this money doesn't get spent, it just doesn't get spent.

And it's not going to be used for anything else.

So people should absolutely take advantage of this program, which is going to enable them to do things like.

make their home more energy efficient.

So this is something that they should get an energy assessment.

For some people, if your income is low enough, you can get one for free.

Otherwise, it's a few hundred bucks to get the energy assessment.

The energy assessment is required to be eligible for any of the rebates to get this work done.

But there is a lot of good news available still for folks who...

are interested in checking out what they're eligible for, how this can help their home, help them save money on their energy bills.

And it was really, like I said, a really exciting event.

Like you said, Congresswoman Gwen Moore was there, Governor Evers was there, we had Mayor Johnson there, Manuela Barnes, a number of other great partners from labor and the advocacy community.

really helped make this successful.

All right, Melissa Boldoff, more at FocusOnEnergy.com.

Melissa, have a great day.

Thank you.

Thanks, you too.

All right, quick note on social media.

We now have grown.

Whoops, let me put this right tape up here.

There we go.

There we go.

We've got we've got a new social media address.

It's on Blue Sky.

If you have looked at Twitter.

X, whatever, and you've said, ah, this is a dumpster fire.

I'm ready for something else.

Plenty of people have been turning to Blue Sky.

And you can do that as well.

Just head over to Blue Sky and search for UpNorthNewsWI.

That's basically the case with any of our social media spots is, you know, search UpNorthNewsWI.

TikTok is the weird one out.

We're just UpNorthNews there.

But every place else, UpNorthNewsWI.

And yes, we're still on Twitter if you can handle all the other garbage that's in there.

But yeah, look for us on Blue Sky as well.

What are you?

Parker, what are you surfing when you're not when you're doom scrolling?

I guess is probably the the better way to put it when it's just just use it I'm sure you're under the age of 60.

So it's probably not Facebook.

Correct.

Good.

Okay.

Good guess.

You're not a Nazi.

So it's probably not Twitter.

So I guess that leaves us with Instagram.

I am on Twitter actually quite a bit.

You are on Twitter.

I am

on Twitter quite a bit.

I will say though, I use Twitter purely

I only use the following page.

I don't look at the for you stuff

So I

only get like the stuff that I follow and want to see I

have finally figured that out.

Yeah.

Well that

said I live in the world of division 3 football for the most part Which is usually a pretty good community.

However, there is an actor or two within our realm

which are making the community a little less fun for me to be watching.

And the

cesspool of Twitter has kind of spread to my little division three world, but it makes me sad.

Well, you know, they've they've they all want to be the necks of Derek, Derek Van Orden.

So, you know, not that step up, step up their game.

So for folks watching on social media, it also popped up as a little video that gave all of the social media icons and the up north news handle for each of those.

Instead of Twitter, I used a little gift of a dumpster fire, which Alicia really appreciated.

So I thank you very much for that.

Tony asks, Hey, look.

great did you make that in adobe express no i made it in canva and now i'm gonna get a nasty gram because uh tony hates canva uh he does graphic design and he also says he's under 40 and uses facebook so boy i haven't

used facebook since i needed it for like updates if i was having tennis practice

or

not

wow yeah i

I guess, I mean, that's the thing that I know when I'm used to.

But I will say there's one missing from all of these and that's Snapchat.

And the entire extended family on my side is on Snapchat because my mom, who's about to turn 80 years old, embraced it.

she recognized it was the only way she was going to get updates on her grandkids and now her great grandkids.

And so she's on there and so every so often we get, you know, a photo of whatever flowers she's growing.

Usually she's so proud of her of her plants, you know, that they're and that way she knows in return, she's going to get, you know, some toddlers, some baby taking their first steps or, you know, our grandkids or, you know, her great grandkids.

at high school graduation or anything, everything.

So she's gotta be the oldest Snapchat user that's out there.

But she's embraced it to stay in touch with the family.

That's awesome.

I like it.

Yeah, yeah.

Alicia says she's 41 and uses TikTok for Doom scrolling.

The algorithm on Instagram and TikTok thankfully has not turned on me yet.

Now Twitter, it's all doom and gloom.

It absolutely is.

But on the others,

I've still got them set where they're they're feeding me stuff that I like it's it's either newsy content or like there are show clips I mean yesterday there must have been a half a dozen clips from the West Wing that popped up you know just scrolling through it's frankly the the only way that I know that there's a show called Yellowstone I've never watched an episode of it

but I feel like I know everything that's happened because of all the clips.

You never saw those ads during Sunday night football.

Come on.

Oh, sure I did.

But I watched, Sherry and I watched the very first episode of Yellowstone.

Okay.

And we checked out after that, we're like, Oh, this is Dallas.

We watched Dallas back in the late 1970s.

This is Dallas with more violence.

Okay.

That's fine.

I've done that.

It clearly caught on and it clearly has its moments.

But now I just see it in

in, you know, TikTok form, which is probably the worst thing to do.

I think every one of us now has an attention span of, you know, eight seconds.

And if it's not compelling, we just scroll,

you know.

So a habit that I picked up is while watching videos on YouTube on my phone, you know how you can like leave the app and the video player will go up top and you can still be watching the video.

Yeah.

I do that and then I'll also scroll Twitter while doing that, which is.

your dual screening.

I'm do I'm doubling down on my social media intake.

Wow,

you are like cutting your you may as well smoke cigarettes.

They always say how smoking a cigarette cuts like 60 seconds off your lifespan.

You're doing that with every one of these double clips.

The thing that bothers me is Instagram reels.

You can't swipe out of the app and it'll go into a little video player so I can't also scroll Twitter at the same time.

This anchors me.

as someone

who

needs more

things.

That would be a first world problem right there.

Tony says he scrolls YouTube a lot.

I would if they'd stop with the ads and know I'm not paying for YouTube premium.

And Alicia says, my TikTok algorithm has moved to AvaGeek stuff finally.

Good, see?

And for Sherry, it's always, it's cute, funny animal videos.

get those all the time.

So if you want social media for your doom scrolling, just get yourself a spouse who also likes to laugh.

And you'll and everybody will be happy.

Today's history lesson is coming up next as we do mornings powered by up north news here on the civic media radio network.

I'll play for you.

I'll play for you.

I'll play for you.

A lot of folks just think of, you know, Simon and Garfunkel as a 70s duo and kind of forget about seals and Crofts dash.

Crofts of Seals and Crofts is 85 years old today.

There was also Loggins and Messina.

I don't know that you see a lot of two-man duos anymore.

The only one I think of is Oasis, and that would be the brothers that thankfully didn't break up on stage in London when Dan Schaefer was watching the concert there the other day.

But I could be wrong.

Tell me if I'm missing...

What are the great duos of this day and age?

I can't.

Travis and Jason Kelsey.

That's

all I got.

Maybe they'll make an

appearance on Taylor's album.

Oh, that would be funny.

Hey, never say never.

Welcome to today's history lesson.

Again, Dash Crofts is 85 years old today.

Frank Oppenheimer, the physicist was born this day in 1912.

Music legend David Crosby was born this day in 1941.

I

know you're like, well, wait a minute.

David Crosby.

Your late Crosby still is a Nash.

No, David Crosby was also part of the birds back in the day.

Comedian Steve Martin is 80 years old today.

Basketball player Magic Johnson is 66 years old.

Actress Halle Berry turns 59 today and Mila Kunis is 42 years old today.

The number one song this week 60 years ago today was by Sonny and Cher.

I Got You Babe.

I Got You

Babe.

I Got You Babe would be the number one song for three weeks in a row during this August of 1965.

Let's see in 1985 Everybody thought Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson were best buds which makes sense because they did you know a duet or two of themselves

However

three years after this duet in the girl is mine this week in 1985

Long after Paul McCartney advised Michael Jackson to invest in music publishing, Michael Jackson made the winning bid of $47 million and bought the rights to more than 250 Lenin McCartney Beatles songs, which turned out to be a great investment for Michael Jackson, but absolutely killed their friendship.

Together along with Paul McCartney.

That's crazy.

I remember I remember that happening and everybody just kind of doing this double take like he what?

He bought his friend's music.

He outbid his friend and it's like, well, you know, it's all business.

This is what you do.

Wow.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Man, that sucks.

I know.

Alicia on YouTube saying, Steve Martin looks good for 80.

Yes, he does.

I got to say it.

He's not that far off of when he was like the, you know, world's biggest comedian in the mid and late 1970s.

I'm not

familiar.

Oh, wow.

He does look good for it.

Yeah.

See, did you just say you're not familiar with Steve Martin?

Not incredibly.

I know the name.

I know the name.

OK.

Pat Pat Pat.

I know.

Yeah, the guy from the bank commercials.

Right.

All right.

Moving on this this week in 2001, a band named Cake released this song.

This, of course, would be short skirt long jacket released this this this day in 2001.

And yeah, Adam notes as well.

Steve Martin is also an amazing banjo player.

Oh, this was the classic case of the kid who had to take violin lessons and then became very funny along the way, like Jack Benny or in Steve Martin's case, the banjo.

Yes.

This is National Creamsicle Day.

I have never been a big fan of the Creamsicle kind of that orange flavor.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if I've ever had one actually.

The only

The sense that I'm familiar with Creamsicles is using that as the name for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers old uniforms.

Okay, well, I did have somebody made recently a Creamsicle cake.

That was amazing.

I would highly recommend that.

Today is National Navajo Code Talkers Day.

This is National Financial Awareness Day.

And let's see.

That's all

I got for

celebrity birthdays here.

And Alicia noting, Parker, I'm judging you heavily right now.

You know what?

As you should.

That's fair.

I'm OK with that.

Look, I'm just happy we had a segment today, because as I'm having my bowl of Cheerios, I hear a little bing from the computer, so I walk over here to the home office and I take a look, and it's a note from Parker saying, where's today's history lesson?

Which kind of you know caught me off guard because that's usually the very first thing I do when I'm prepping the next day show is I'll grab the history lesson because it's out of a big document over the past you know three years it's 365 pages one for every day as I throw in birthdays and I throw in music anniversaries and I update it and then I paste it in and Clearly forgot that very basic step, and I'm waiting for the day that

I'm sitting here, the commercial break-ins are about to start the history lesson.

Nothing comes up.

I look over on the other side of the screen and there's Parker with his arms crossed going, huh, did you forget something?

Because he can't pull up the songs.

That is an excellent idea.

I mean, that is in that nightmare scheme of going to school and you didn't do the homework or whatever.

It's one of these days, this segment's going to open up and I'm just going to scroll up and I'm just going to see.

blank right there.

That's

that's all announced that I don't want to do the show anymore.

I won't do the history lesson at all.

I

will protest.

I won't even tell you about it, Pat.

We're just gonna have... All right, funny guy.

Tap dance for the next seven minutes.

Okay, fine.

I will.

I will at least tap dance for another 20 seconds here or so to tell you about Free Ticket Friday because that is coming up tomorrow.

Listen for keywords throughout the day starting here.

Text that keyword via the Civic Media app and you will be in a statewide drawing for Brewer's Tickets to a game next week.

We'll tell you which game and we'll tell you the keyword coming up.

in the six a.m.

hour tomorrow.

Those tickets are going fast.

You're going to want these tickets.

They're great.

So much more head on these mornings powered by Up North News.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

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

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

And good morning.

It is 706.

Nice to have you here up north on this Thursday morning, August 14th, 2025.

Parker Olson is our producer down in Madison Studio A2.

Brittany Merlot is off today.

Stick around though.

Keep it on your local Civic Media station for your local forecast because it's nice now, but the weekend is looking a little dicey here.

Rob says from Tigerton, looks like Central Wisconsin could be in the bullseye for heavy rains this weekend.

Yeah, one of the forecast models I saw basically had a front parking itself somewhere over Wisconsin with all day rains Saturday and Sunday.

So consider yourself on notice to keep a look, keep an eye on that local forecast from Tigerton.

Rob says good morning fog and mist and 60 degrees yesterday.

I had four yards to mow in Tigerton and then some work around the home.

He too like Roger is noting the sunrise and sunset 6 a.m.. This is the last sunrise before 6 a.m.. And we're coming up or no almost the last sunrise before 6 a.m.. We are now at the last sunsets after 8 p.m.. As those days start getting a little bit shorter and shorter so keep an eye on the weather and enjoy the days because they are Not nearly as long as they used to be already coming up later this hour.

We will be talking to Mike van summer

a candidate for state senate in the milwaukee suburbs it's a district that is heavily republican heavily went for donald trump last year and yet that just doesn't mean what it used to mean

As you'll probably hear me say a few different times when I was elected to the legislature back in 2006 that was a midterm for George W. Bush's second term and There were a lot of angry folks about the way the Bush administration was handling things and it was a Democratic sweep.

I mean winning winning some assembly seats that hadn't flipped in

decades in nearly a hundred years in one or two instances and next year is kind of shaping up that way at the rate the Trump folks are doing things right now as more people realize this guy's not doing anything that he said he was going to do and in fact is hurting them.

So Mike Van Someren is getting in the race for this particular state senate district and we will visit with him in just a little while.

In our eight o'clock hour, we'll talk to Chad Holmes from our Civic Media Station in Wasaw.

We'll talk to Sean O'Malley about your money and the markets, and we'll talk to Joe's Peckie, including a very interesting idea from one of the Republican candidates for governor, Bill Barian.

Basically, you know, everybody should be packing a gun.

Heck of a position to take in an era where we're concerned more than ever about mass shootings and school shootings and things like that, but we'll get into that.

There is also of course the Up North News newsletters that you can get on the weekdays and of course we've got a special Sunday morning edition as well.

That's all about Wisconsin politics.

It also contains our question of the week.

And this week, I asked, should politicians delete their social media accounts, their personal social media accounts while they are in office?

Either yes, they should delete them, or no, they should not because it is essentially a window into who they are as a person.

And even if they're, you know, not a good person, at least you learn it from their personal social media.

Patricia here who goes by the email handle golf granny says I could not decide between the two answers.

It is good to see the true person who's tweeting but that person also needs to be doing the job that they were elected to do.

Here's one from an email handle Graham Cracker who says

Option B, delete the account.

How can a grown man with relative importance be such a sleaze?

That, of course, was the discussion of Derek Van Orden and the disgusting things that he keeps tweeting.

Brent, with the email handle skate a bit, says, I would let him keep tweeting.

It's how we know what kind of a person he really is.

A small percentage of our population may agree with his values, but the majority of us do not.

We need to make more people aware of

who he really is.

And that, of course, matches up nicely with my view that he has been skating on the publicity, the free publicity that he gets from local media.

In fact, in last Sunday morning's newsletter, I make special note of how local media in the Third Congressional District loves to cover him when he goes on farm trips like this one and this one and this one and this one.

and this one.

And each one of those in the newsletter is a separate link to a different story, a warm and fuzzy Derek Van Orden story.

He's there with the calves.

Aren't the calves cute?

Aren't the cows adorable?

And he talks about standing up for the American farmer and blah, blah, blah.

Because he's got nothing to actually show for it, but he never gets asked about it.

He does not get asked about

you know, his embarrassing social media accounts riddled with insults.

And the one or two times that he has been asked, I mean, then you see the real him.

He just unloads on the reporter and says, oh, the reporter must be biased and the reporter is just a terrible person.

To which I would say to the reporters, do not be intimidated by that.

Keep asking those questions.

Keep asking about the guy who said he was not going to cut Medicaid.

That nobody who has earned the benefits will have their benefits cut.

Which is a lie.

Which is demonstrably false.

Bring that up to him.

Make him answer for that.

Ask him why millionaires and billionaires should get their taxes cut disproportionately more than the middle class people in his own district.

Stop just doing the farm tours.

And at least pay more attention to the tweets.

especially the one's office personal account.

So again, that's part of our question of the week.

You can get that by signing up for our newsletter up north news wi.com.

The burgers were winners yesterday.

And if if we don't see Todd all the later on Parker, I believe he is already in line at a George Webb someplace waiting on that burger.

The details haven't been announced yet.

But I know Todd loves himself some free hamburgers.

I mean, who doesn't love a free hamburger?

Come on.

So he will he like many others today will be waiting to hear the details because I mean in case you've been living under a sports rock the Brewers won their 12th game in a row yesterday beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 12 to 5.

That's double digits in the score for the second straight game.

The fourth time this month I again remind you the Brewers are undefeated in the month of August.

We are almost halfway through the month.

They had 12 hits yesterday.

10 of them were singles.

They just, they play that small ball game as well as anybody these days and even when you know it's coming.

they still execute it to perfection.

So the George Webb hamburger chain in Southeast Wisconsin is going to put out details later today on how they're going to go about giving thousands upon thousands upon thousands of burgers out there.

Oh, I read earlier today.

I don't remember where it is, but they or they literally ordered thousands of pounds.

hamburgers yeah

if you're if you're one of those beef suppliers somewhere out there you're just like oh go brewers because you just got a big order Adam putting a comment in YouTube which is nothing but hamburger emojis just all the way across the street which is great brewers are off today they're on their way to Cincinnati to play the Reds

that will get going tomorrow.

Pre game begins at 5 0 5 tomorrow evening on several civic media stations.

And as we mentioned, this is going to be quite the road trip three in Cincinnati and then five games at Wrigley Field next week against the Cubs.

And again, today is the last off day for the Brewers before they have a stretch of 18 days where they're going to play 19 games.

So this is all good.

Enjoy the moment.

And I'm not trying to be a buzzkill.

I'm just saying this, this next phase, this is going to be a character builder, shall we

say?

As long as they make it through this stretch without picking up a couple of injuries, then I am, I don't particularly care how they play during the stretch.

It's kind of where I'm at.

And also they're going to go ahead.

I was going to say, they're looking pretty good for making the postseason

at this

point.

I mean, they, they and the Cubs are still jockeying back and forth right now.

The Brewers are up what seven or seven and a half in the National League central

seven,

but you know, but there's.

The Cubs aren't stinking up the joint was what I'm trying to say

here.

No, the Cubs had a little bit of misfortune and I do want to say last night really, really sad scene up in Toronto with the Cubs.

They had a player who adjusts.

It was his first game back from the 60 day I L and he I think he hyper extended his knee running out to first base.

So really a little bit of misfortune there for the Cubs feel bad about that.

Tony says, you mean the lowly cubs?

Perhaps.

But again, let's not let's not tempt the baseball gods, shall we?

But of course, the brewers are hot.

It's the hottest ticket in town, which is why tomorrow you should really try to get free tickets for free tickets that we'll be giving out as part of Free Ticket Friday.

You get the Civic Media app.

Listen for the keywords throughout the day.

Text them in through the app and be in a statewide drawing for Brewer's tickets to a game next week.

We will tell you which game and we will tell you the keyword tomorrow.

So be paying attention there.

And Mike Clemens who is joining us tomorrow.

He always joins us Friday mornings at eight thirty.

He wants you to know that he's Indian Indianapolis right now covering the Packers.

The Packers have a joint practice with the Indianapolis Colts this afternoon and then a preseason game Saturday at noon at Lucas Oil Field.

So that's where Mike Clemens has been reporting from which again I know I heard one of the sound bites earlier that the thing they like about the preseason games is that it's not

you know, just soft contact drills.

There's actually like a little bit more unpredictability so

that

you get a feel for real game conditions.

But to what you said about that Cubs player earlier, you know, the the potential for injuries increases as well.

And I'm sure that terrifies or depresses every NFL coach that's out there.

Oh,

God.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, yeah, Jordan love even how lucky are we that he only had a little like

tiny surgery is in the grand scheme of things.

things.

Just

a little tiny surgery.

That's all.

The little stitches is

all.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's see, from the Cap Times newspaper in Madison, the Cap Times idea fest lineup has been announced and it includes Governor Tony Evers will be part of it, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, there's Stacey Abrams from Georgia, journalist Jennifer Rubin, columnist Maureen Dowd from the New York Times, Washington Post columnist

Eugene Robinson and more.

It's kind of their big, the Cap Times calls it their big September thought festival and it will now run, they've announced from Monday, September 8th through Saturday, September 13th.

And so you can head over to CapTimes.com to learn more.

I just, I like the idea of an idea fest of, you know, really

talking about best practices, what works, what doesn't work, which takes us to Bill Barion.

And we'll talk more about this in our next hour with Joseph Pecky.

But from Molly Beck in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Whitefish Bay Manufacturing and CEO and candidate for Governor Bill Barion says he supports eliminating state permit requirements for firearm owners who want to carry guns in concealed fashion.

Barion says, I believe that every American has granted a carry permit and that it's in the form of the Second Amendment.

We need to get back to personal responsibility and freedom.

And again, he gives us the the the bunk that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Bill Barion, we recently had another shooting on a military base.

loaded with guns.

And it didn't stop somebody there.

You think more guns in school are going to be the answer.

Go ahead and put that out there, buddy.

We'll talk more about that with Joseph Pecky.

We'll have more headlines coming up.

And then Mike VanSommeren, a candidate for state Senate.

A local update is next for some of you, live from the heart of America's Up North from Lake Wissota.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Hey, guess what?

Up North News is now on social media on Blue Sky.

Look over to Blue Sky and search for Up North News WI.

You can say that with pretty much all of the social media accounts out there.

Just search for Up North News WI and you're likely to find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and yeah, still Twitter, Dumpster Fire, though it may be.

We are there, so if you are still doing your doom scrolling there, we totally understand.

uh let's see from uh alicia when talking about a shooting on a military base please understand that military bases are not loaded with guns very few people on base are authorized to carry a firearm on base all personal firearms are required to be in the armory i i completely understand that alicia my point still remains those are also the closest places to go get a gun

And if mass shootings can happen there, they can happen anywhere.

This whole bunk about, well, we just need more guards.

We need more police officers in school.

Look at that shooting in Manhattan, was it last week or the week before?

Who was the first one killed?

The security guard, the off-duty cop who was there.

That's not something you can stop.

I don't know if folks understand this.

Bullets, they're really fast.

And if the shooter is coming up on a situation and nobody is expecting a shooter to come up on a situation, they're gonna get the first shots fired off.

So if they've got a magazine that is monstrously big or they're carrying multiple weapons because in this country, God knows you can get multiple weapons faster than you can drop a hat, well then we're gonna continue to have a problem until we do something about, catch me carefully here, the guns.

It's still

the guns.

Don't tell me it's mental health and then don't do anything about you know mental health programs for example.

Don't tell me it's about having more police while you're then running these austerity budgets that force local governments to make terrible decisions about hiring more officers and getting them more weapons of war versus providing the basic services that would keep people from say snapping and becoming mass shooters.

It's still

the guns.

And I don't know that we're going to handle this in my lifetime.

But that doesn't make it any less true that that is exactly what we should still be working toward end of rant.

Because we've got to make a pivot a hard pivot here Parker.

This is the Taylor Swift portion of the program.

My God, that was Wow, okay, that's a pivot.

It is because I can't

Time for tea swizzle, huh?

What's that?

Time for tea swizzle.

Time for tea swizzle.

She showed up on her boyfriend's podcast, which is called The New Heights.

It's Travis and Jason Kelsey.

And so she appeared on there with Travis and with Jason to talk about her new album.

And she knows, we talked about this yesterday, how to build up hype for the album.

So the Associated Press.

which is of course a very, you know, very stoic, a very long, proud institution of journalism.

They're the standard.

Yeah, they're the standard.

And one of their big stories is, here's every major update from Taylor Swift's first appearance on the Kelsey's New Heights podcast.

So here's everything they say you need to know.

So who am I not to pass it along to you?

So Swift announced the new album is called Life of a Showgirl.

And so she showed off the album cover in there.

She, if you're wondering, how does she get this done?

She talked about it.

She said basically when she was on the European leg of the Ares tour, she would between dates fly back to a place in Sweden with producers Max Martin and Shellback, and they would work on the album.

The entire album was completed in between dates of her European tour.

Is it going to be a bunch of, you know, slow tortured music?

No.

because she's got this boyfriend, Travis Kelsey, who appears to be pretty cool guy.

Near as I can tell, wouldn't you say?

I think so.

He's okay at his job.

Yeah.

So what will this album be?

She says bangers.

He says they're not going to be like the tortured poets department.

And she also says there's not going to be a surprise double album.

She says this is going to be a lot more upbeat because she says life is more upbeat.

In other words, she's got somebody that makes her happy.

Good for her.

That's great.

She says the album's goal is infectious melodies and vivid lyrics.

The album cover has her in the bathtub because she says that's how I end every day.

She also shared a little bit of personal information about her parents.

Her dad recently had quintuple bypass surgery.

Her mom got a new knee.

So she describes this as, this is the summer of my parental upgrade, which is pretty good.

I mean, who couldn't use bionic parents, you know?

And she also, I like this line.

She said she has spent a lot of time in Florida with Travis Kelsey and says, our jobs are actually very similar.

Our jobs are to entertain people for three hours in NFL stadiums.

I think that's I think that's fair, you know.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah.

And then finally, she talked about her hobbies, which include baking and her current obsession is making sourdough bread, especially variations like blueberry lemon, cinnamon swirl and fun fatty.

Oh, fun fatty.

Yeah.

Um, Tony on YouTube, apparently a few minutes ago, but, uh, you left out the entire conversation about sourdough bread and they just put cuts, puts up.

I spoke too soon.

Nope.

The sourdough.

I mean, it's everything that you want to know, uh, about it because of her appearance, which by the way, uh, both Travis Kelsey and, um, brother Jason and then, uh, what is Jason's wife's name?

Casey, right?

I believe so.

Yeah, that sounds right.

is she funny.

I love her.

Now, again, I have never seen the New Heights podcast by the brothers.

I have never seen Not Gonna Lie, the podcast by, um, Kelsey, uh, Ms.

Kelsey.

But again, thanks to my doom scrolling on YouTube, I feel like I've seen all the good parts and they're all good.

So, yeah, that's what social media is for.

Remember how you said we couldn't meet yet, have a meeting yesterday because of the Brewer's Game?

Yeah.

We had another teammate who couldn't because she was waiting for the podcast to download.

So she could watch all these folks.

That's what kind of a productive day we had around here yesterday, folks, in case you're wondering.

I think we're putting out a bad message about our productivity here.

We will be much more productive with Senate candidate Mike Van Summeren coming up next.

You're up north.

Yes, I only thank you, Tony.

So as I've mentioned before, we're on social media now, including Blue Sky, Up North News, WI.

And Up North News, WI is where you find us in most places on social media.

Somebody didn't get the instruction sheet for TikTok.

So on TikTok, it's simply Up North News.

But every place else is Up North News, WI.

I say that because I believe people should be rewarded when they have consistency in their handles, which

takes us to Mike Van Sumer and our next guest who's a candidate for Wisconsin's 33rd State Senate District whose website is mikevansummerin.com and I'll spell that for you in a bit but at Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Twitter and Blue Sky you can find them at MVS for Mike Van Sumer and MVSFOR for WI.

M-V-S-4-W-I.

The man knows the social media.

He's an excellent writer and hoping to be an excellent candidate in the 33rd State Senate District, Mike Van Sumeran.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

It's good to have you here and again for folks that were, there is going to be a quiz.

Mike Van Sumeran, it's a V-A-N and of course Sumeran is S-O-M-E-R-E-N.

S-O-M-E-R-E-N, Mike's Van Sumeran.com.

Mike, are you in Delafield?

I am in

Dellafield today.

I'm actually working in my office downtown Milwaukee though.

Okay, and you are challenging Republican Senator Chris Kappenga in the 33rd Senate District.

Let's talk about what that district is, where it is, and then we'll get into your candidacy.

So where are people looking to maybe vote for you?

So it's all of Heartland.

the western edge of Waukesha, it goes all the way up to Hartford in Washington County, and then Jetson to Jefferson County, just a little bit, all of the western, basically the western half of Waukesha County, and then into Washington County, and just a little bit into Jefferson County.

Okay, so let's get the Mike Van Summeren story.

Tell us how you came to be.

I'll start just by saying, how did a boy from Somerset, way out in western Wisconsin, end up where you are today?

Uh, football,

honestly.

My, my background is my, my dad's a truck driver.

My mom was an office manager slash secretary and blue collar working class roots.

I was huge as a child, six feet tall and fourth grade.

And so coaches found me and said, you need to play sports.

I said, okay.

did well in football and had the opportunity to go play for Wisconsin.

Coach Barry Alvarez, one of the great coaches and just a great all-around guy, played for Brett Bielma as well, backed up some amazing people and never quite cracked the starting lineup at Wisconsin, but I was traveling as a walk-on.

And from there, I went to Marquette University Law School and graduated, did very well in law school and came out and started practicing law and around the time COVID hit,

I decided that things just weren't going right.

And so I decided to throw my hand in the ring in 2022 in

a

run for Congress, which wasn't successful, but I learned a lot.

And, you know, one thing you learn in sports is you're not going to win every game.

And so now I'm running again after going to a listening session or two of Chris Capanga and not being overly impressed with the way that he approaches things and basically tells people, this is what I believe.

And so I'm not going to hear you.

I'm not going to help you.

And that to me just isn't the job of a representative.

It's very similar to the job of a lawyer.

My job is not to tell somebody you can't do something.

It's to tell them how we could possibly do something that might look different than they envisioned, but it's actually what it will still accomplish the same things.

Well, let's talk about those things you want to accomplish then and lay out what your top priorities are if you should be elected to the state Senate.

Sure.

My top priorities are raising wages.

we can implement to raise wages because I'm a firm believer that it's not just altruistic or moral backing to say we want to raise people's wages.

We want people to be more comfortable.

It's also economic.

Businesses do well when there are more people with more money because then they can buy the stuff.

I mean, that's what built the middle class was a secure working class of people that had enough money to spend.

And I would like us to try and get back to that.

I also want to try and cut down some of our expenses, particularly on the property tax front.

Homeowners should be secure that when they buy a home, they'll be able to afford the taxes that pay for all the services.

And every town shouldn't be an island.

It should be part of a larger team, which is the state.

And the state is part of a larger team, which is our country.

That's, you know, as a team sport athlete for many years of my life, I've always known that being a part of a team

doesn't mean I have to score the touchdown, but it means I'm part of every touchdown that's scored using a football metaphor, right?

So we can do things to help alleviate those property tax concerns, things like reworking the shared revenue model or taking care of the dark store loophole and things like that, that will actually help alleviate some of the pressure on commercial, but also mostly residential people that own homes and are just trying to get by.

I also want to fund our public education system, fully funded.

And I'm not against private schools.

So if private schools are going to get public money, well, then they're going to have all the same strings that the public schools have because we need to have an apples to apples comparison.

And then finally, I want transparency.

I'm so tired of things being passed in the dead of night.

I'm so tired of people not knowing what's going on.

feeling like their elected representatives are almost vampires, right?

Because they don't do anything except in the dead of night.

And then they go and hide in their offices during the day.

We can't have that.

And so I want to bring a level of transparency and accountability.

You know, if I get into office, that would be great.

I plan to implement all these things myself and hopefully we can spark some sort of change.

We're talking to Mike VanSummer and a candidate for Wisconsin State Senate in the 33rd Senate District in Milwaukee suburbs and you put that all in an extremely

positive way for folks that that need the translation from the way that I put it.

I like that you mentioned that there should be teamwork because when it comes to property taxes this is the we're living the classic example of not teamwork where a legislature passes the buck which is the opposite of teamwork passes the buck to the local school districts and says well we're not going to fully fund you you need to raise property taxes because you know we want you to look like the bad guys

guys and it absolutely, you see that near revolt in homeowners about the way that their property tax bills are growing because you've got a lazy legislature that won't hold up their end of the teamwork deal.

Yeah, I mean, we've been sitting on billions of dollars in excess funds and we have a legislature that wants to do a tax cut, but those funds are one time.

They were COVID funds.

They are not funds that we're expecting to collect over and over and over again.

And they want to put us in a structural deficit, something that we heard about a lot under Scott Walker and how by putting us in a structural deficit, that gives them an excuse to cut more services.

And again, a lot of people think that Democrats want to just give, give, give.

And that's just simply not the case.

There is a balance to be found.

and there is some give and take.

It's just like a team.

You know, I was an offensive lineman.

I would have loved to score a touchdown, but that was never going to happen.

But I was part of every touchdown run and then part of every touchdown pass, whether I ever crossed the end zone or not.

Mike Vansomer is our guest.

He's a candidate for Wisconsin State Senate in a district that is in in traditional times overwhelmingly Republican according to Dan Schaefer here President Trump took that district by 34 points But I know as I reminded folks earlier in the broadcast that there are these years

where pendulum swing the year that i got elected to the state senate 2006 uh... was a year unlike any other for democrats there was a lot of dissatisfaction out there with uh... you know the the bush administration with the war in iraq with the way the economy was going and to me it seems twenty years later

those same indications are out there that frankly no Republican candidate, no Republican incumbent should feel any sense of complacency out there.