Phoning It In (Hour 3)

Well, hey there,

Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is a Tuesday morning, 6.06 the time.

It's August 26th.

2025 it is another beautiful morning to have year up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the civic media radio network or listening or watching us on all of our different platforms here.

We appreciate having you along.

And we're following right off the top here a little bit of breaking news.

And that's all about a visit coming up.

later from Vice President J.D.

Vance, and at first we thought it was going to be on Tuesday, but it turns out it's not going to be on Thursday, is going to be the visit to a steel fabricating plant in La Crosse.

They did not say specifically which one yet, but it was first reported by Axios

and then by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as well, that he would be coming out initially, like I said, it's said on Tuesday.

So we're still waiting on some of the details of this, but we'll get into a little bit later, you know, what's really behind this.

And it's about propping up a big bloated boondoggle that Trump got passed, a mega bill, whatever you want to call it, anything other than beautiful because it's not.

And this is an effort not just to prop up the bill, but an unpopular congressman.

And it just seems a bit of a stretch to prop up a grouchy congressman by sending a grouchy vice president.

But hey, grouchy white guys unite.

That's what they're going to do at some point when the vice president comes to Western Wisconsin.

Also coming up on the program today, we're going to be talking about

the rural economy and things that the Wisconsin legislature could be doing to help.

And for that, we'll talk to Sheila Everhart of the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.

We'll talk to our friend Hans Breitenmoser, a dairy farmer from the Merrill area.

And also we'll talk to Gene Bonn of the Farm View Event Barn.

about some of the things that the legislature could do to be more helpful.

State Representative Angela Stroud from Ashland is part of our way up north segment later on.

We'll be talking to Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO in Warsaw about the new stories that he's following there.

Not far away from there is a Rhinelander.

and News Watch 12, WJFW.

Dan Hagen anchors the news there and he'll join us to talk about more stories up north that they're covering.

And we'll wrap things up with Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area talking about some of the things and making political headlines.

And also, for the start of the school year, we'll talk about the increasingly popular topic of banning cell phones in the classroom.

Now, since that wasn't a thing,

not just for me or for my kids.

My daughters are now in their mid-30s.

And I have to admit, I kind of thought that was the deal already.

So I don't know.

I need a young person to talk to about this.

Hi.

Parker.

Hi, Parker.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

Good.

Did you have cell phones like with you on your person while you were supposed to be listening to the teacher?

Yeah.

That's yeah, that's just kind of just how it was something it varied classroom to classroom There were some teachers I think that would have you put that had a lockbox that you would put them in But I don't know if anyone had mandatory you cannot have your phone It was it was more of it if I see it I'm taking it kind of thing But you usually got a couple of warnings because it was kind of a little politics thing within the school as you may have guessed

I, I, I am, I am surprised to hear this.

I legitimately am.

I thought all this time, because I mean, that'd be like, let's go way back.

That'd be like my generation taking a transistor radio and trying to listen to the, to the, to the day game for the brewers, but I've got the volume on really, really low at my desk.

Well, I will say that we weren't, we couldn't have.

earbuds, I don't think.

So like we weren't doing any volume or anything.

We weren't watching videos.

At least we weren't supposed to.

But yeah, I don't know.

There were some teachers that were just like, you know what?

If something happens, you might as well have your phone on you so that you can.

And that's the other thing if something happens and we know the undertone of that remark Alicia says on YouTube in my kids schools, they used phones for school, which I mean, yeah, I mean, we had to buy, we had to buy a calculator.

We don't have to nobody buys a calculator anymore.

Well, some teachers like my, um, my Spanish teacher, Ms.

Ferguson, she would have us like play Kahoot games like on our phones, I think sometimes if I remember right.

So yeah, I think I'm

right on that.

I just, I really always thought that all this time there was a, like it's got to be in your locker or put them on the shelf here by the door or put them in a basket or whatever.

I never realized they were this widespread in use.

And I kind of want to go back in time and go, go, why are you doing this?

Because if, if I could say, if, if I were a teacher, if I had the power to do this,

I would have done that from the get go because I know kids, especially elementary, middle school, high school, they got the attention span of a nat.

Yeah,

if you give them anything that's going to distract them, you know, or just the temptation to look.

I mean, I'm not in middle school.

And I still get a look when I'm looking at my phone at at the dinner table or breakfast or whatever, because it's there.

You can't just you can't help but peek over at it, you know, yeah.

Alicia says the middle school had QR codes everywhere for their syllabus.

I can, again, I can totally see the usefulness of it now.

But back then when it was just, you know, phones and, and, you know, YouTube and God only knows what you find on YouTube.

And by the way, I hate sounding like an old man right now.

But this is just, I'm,

no, I get it.

It's a weird kind of thing.

There was definitely some application for it, but I'm pretty sure if you ask 75 80% of teachers in the world right now They will say that phones are like the number one issue in their classroom

Well Then don't allow them Well, we've pretty much given away the Dan Shaffer segment later on but we'll see what Dan says about more districts that are going after the cell phones and saying no these can't be there and and me saying

Yeah, how is this a thing?

But it is.

So all right, well, let's let's get over to the forecast for meteorologist Brittany Merleau right now, her state forecast for today says gradually getting more mild before another cold front drags in some rain midweek and then back to feeling like fall, all ahead of a hopefully warmer and dry Labor Day weekend.

Well, I hope so.

Here's that phrase again, written fingers crossed, you know, mostly sunny, slightly warmer today, she says upper 60s up north low 70s south, a northwest wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour, a few clouds and cool tonight are low tonight in the mid to upper 40s with a west wind at five to 10 miles an hour.

I mentioned the daughters are visiting this week with their kids.

One has arrived from Texas where she is very relieved that it is not 97 because apparently it's 97, 24, 7 in Texas this time of year.

But she's like, this is winter for her in her world now.

This is what winter feels like.

And I'm like, it kind of feels like winter for me too.

I mean, we left the windows open overnight and really

you know, got up and like, okay, I'm glad we had them open overnight.

But the first thing I did is I closed it all up.

So it didn't get much colder.

You know, so we got kind of got things sealed in.

It's comfortable here.

And then pretty soon, I'll open it up again.

But 40s is for it's 47 right now in Chippewa.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, anything

under 50 is wrong in

August.

I yeah, exactly.

Let's see what else we have here from Scott and Madison.

Did you really think under pit goal teachers were enforcers of all things?

I just thought, yes, teachers were enforcers back in my day.

Well, it was it was a different time back then back then.

Boy, oh boy, this old man stuff is really new to me back then.

If a teacher said, you know, your kid did this, your kid's in trouble for that, you turned on the kid and said, what is going on here?

What are you doing wrong?

And it just seems there's a whole lot of, if now it's, they're turning on the teacher and going, what are you doing wrong?

My precious baby would not possibly be doing anything wrong.

You know, and

I

hate that, but...

On the other hand, I can't give teachers all the benefit of the doubt if they were letting phones in the classroom all this time.

It's a weird world that we live in, especially in the school

world.

I guess so.

Let's turn our attention to the sports here.

I was listening to Mike Clemens give the update there about how the Packers have to trim their roster today from 90 down to 53.

Now again, I'm much more of a baseball fan and so I'm used to hearing about a few cut downs here and there.

But the prospect of 37 of your players, you know, getting cut today.

That's that's a miserable day.

Yeah.

At least as misery loves company.

You're there with three dozen other people who are packing their bags and leaving.

Yeah, there's that.

It's a tough day for the team, too.

I don't know if you're familiar with Andrew Brandt.

No, he used to work with the Packers doing like contracts for players and stuff.

And he like some of his stuff is like, yeah, no.

This is the absolute worst time of the year and it just sucks.

It is not fun for anybody at all.

It's a lot of hard decisions and a lot of hard news to get.

Yeah.

So obviously, Michael, follow that and have details later today and tomorrow, of course, to the Brewers.

There were two five run rallies in yesterday's game.

The first one fun.

The second one, not so much.

The Brewers broke a scoreless tie with a five run third inning.

and Arizona was behind then six-nothing before they got a five-run rally in the sixth inning and made things interesting, but then Caleb Durbin homered for the second straight game.

Andrew Monasterio also went deep to help the Brewers beat the Diamondbacks seven to five last night.

Monasterio had two hits, Kristen Yellich had two hits.

They each had two runs batted in.

Of course, the Brewers still on top of the National League Central Division.

Oh, William Contreras also had two hits.

And coming up tonight would be Game 2 of the series from American Family Field.

The pregame can be heard starting at 6.05 on several civic media stations.

We're seeing Kenosha, Hayward, Park Falls, Oshkosh, Richland Center.

Head over to the website to learn more, civicmedia.us.

Park, the other thing about cell phones, I just realized as a learning tool.

I actually had, I had to use my cell phone as a learning tool to answer this question the other day over my breakfast.

How do they make corn flakes?

Like, what is the actual process of making a corn flake?

And of course, now on YouTube, you can find anything.

And I realized my phone and YouTube have become, now again, you didn't have Mr. Rogers growing up.

Now, Mr. Rogers had this thing called picture picture.

And it was it was just a picture frame on the wall.

But you know, there was it was actually TV.

But then you'd look into that.

And you'd see these behind the scenes, you know, things like in factories and how things are made.

And I realized that that the phone and YouTube is now is now just my picture picture.

It's my Mr. Rogers.

So I and Luke Mathers is texting in not that long ago, phones weren't allowed for him, he said.

But with he and his friends went back to visit, the phones were allowed.

and said it was a very weird feeling.

So, Luke Mathers, welcome.

It's good to have you here in the Metamucal Crowd.

Enjoy your time here.

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

Thanks for making this the place to spend a part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Now get off my lawn.

Now, coming up on Thursday in this time slot, we'll be hearing from Sharita Booker, who tells us about some of the many fairs and festivals you can attend, some deeper specifics on a few of them, but allow me to just go through a quick review, a quick list of all the things that are happening around Wisconsin, not all of them, but a big chunk.

I love to talk about the county fairs that are coming up.

I love a good county fair.

And opening up tomorrow,

are the county fairs in Shawno and Walworth counties.

Then on Thursday, the Iowa County Fair and the Sheboygan County Fair get going.

And then on Friday, Calumet County and Portage County have their fairs going on.

Tomorrow in Appleton will be the third annual Food Truck Fest.

And then let's see, there's the Prairie Duchenne Cow Chip Arts and Crafts Festival.

Cow Chip Arts and Crafts.

in Prairie Duchenne, coming up Saturday.

Excellent.

They have the trout festival Friday and Saturday.

The taste of Madison is this weekend, Friday, Saturday.

Balsam Lake has their corn on the curb days, Saturday, Sunday.

Cedarburg has Maxwell Street days this Sunday.

Eagle River has their sausage fest on Sunday.

I guess the women aren't allowed.

Anyway, moving on.

Prentice Progress days, Friday through Monday.

which would be Labor Day and of course Shell Lake Town and Country Days Saturday through Labor Day as well because it's Labor Day weekend coming up.

Have you made any big plans for the long weekend?

Not that I know of yet.

Might be heading down to Whitewater with a couple of my buddies that are still going to be in school there.

They're going to be starting up on Tuesday, I think is when classes start.

So I

might do a little

back to school thing with them back to their school, not back to my school.

I'm done.

Yeah, please.

Alicia has the text of the day already.

Cornflakes are made with cardboard and sadness.

I guess the comment section is closed for the rest of the day because Alicia's nailed that.

Good luck topping

that.

Yep.

All right, so we also asked in our Sunday morning newsletter a question of the week that says, should Wisconsin keep or get rid of mail-in voting?

given the recent attacks by President Trump on it and claiming he's gonna get rid of it, which is something he does not have the power to do.

But hey, there's a lot of things he says he has the power to do, even though he doesn't have it, but as long as Congress or a Supreme Court let him get away with it, look at what he's doing with our trade wars right now.

And our tariffs and our international relations, the tariffs are supposed to

basically have congressional oversight.

Well, but that's taking place.

It's not popular.

And as a result, Vice President JD Vance is coming to lacrosse at some point this week to prop up fellow grouchy white guy, Derek Van Orden, as well as the big bloated moondoggle from the Trump and Republican Congress mega bill.

Apparently, this is also designed to boost

Derek van Orden.

I mean, you pick lacrosse for a reason.

You don't go to reliably Republican Waukesha County for this.

If you're trying to talk up the bill, well, then you're going to come to a place where you've got an incumbent that's in trouble.

And there's no doubt that Derek van Orden is in trouble in large part because he can't shut his mouth or turn off his keyboard.

His caustic comments are getting in the way.

of addressing any concerns about what these tariffs are doing to manufacturing and farming in the Third Congressional District.

But again, that's par for the course from Wisconsin's current congressional delegation.

You've got, for example, Tom Tiffany, who yesterday put up one of these, I mean, it's almost boilerplate now.

It's like a requirement you have to occasionally put up a tweet like this, just out of the blue.

from Tom Tiffany.

The left opposes secure borders, affordable energy, lower crime, cutting government waste, revitalizing manufacturing and tax cuts for workers, seniors and families.

Did I miss anything?

Well, gosh, Tom, you missed the obligatory the left wants dead babies and no more jobs for white guys and socialism.

But I suppose you couldn't fit all that into a tweet as well.

But at least by him putting it out yesterday like he did I can I have something to hold up To again when people say what's wrong with our politics today?

I would just point to that tweet from Tom Tiffany the left Meaning your friends and neighbors who don't have to agree with you on everything the left opposes secure borders No, not true never been true wanted immigration reform your guy blew it up

The left opposes affordable energy.

By that he of course means burning as much coal and oil as possible.

Now affordable energy is actually the next generation of cleaner energy sources.

The left opposes lower crime.

Now we oppose school shootings and other forms of mass murder.

The left opposes cutting government waste.

No, nobody opposes cutting waste.

It's just that your definition of waste

is the things your constituents want and need and pay taxes for.

The left opposes revitalizing manufacturing.

Again, where would you get an idea like that?

Now you're just making up stuff.

Tax cuts for workers, seniors, and families.

No, I think of like all the times Governor Evers actually fought for tax cuts for workers, seniors, and families, and yet Republicans kept wanting to put the tax cuts all toward the very wealthy.

So, yeah, you missed the other stuff like socialism, but I can understand why you wouldn't want to talk about socialism right now, Tom Tiffany, because imagine what you'd be saying if a Democratic president like Joe Biden suddenly announced that the government had taken over 10% of Intel, the computer chipmaker, in exchange for favorable treatment.

I mean, that's exactly what just happened.

You've got a Bloomberg headline saying Trump seems pretty socialist these days.

because he is it's being criticized by common conservative commentators like Eric Erickson, senators like Rand Paul, you know, conservatives who look at what Trump is doing and saying, there's nothing conservative about some of this stuff.

This is just stuff you're doing because you want to be an authoritarian, a dictator, which is way past socialism and way past anything that would

clearly be defined as conservative behavior.

In other words, the man wants to be the dictator beyond day one.

Today's history lesson is next.

You're up north.

I know

what you're thinking.

It's like, wait, is this Friday?

Is it Yacht Rock Day already?

No, no, not quite there.

That song is actually part of today's history lesson.

Before we launch into it, let me tease it by saying

In today's history lesson, what's the common bond between Chris Pine, a well-known actor today, and Macaulay Culkin, a well-known child actor from decades ago?

Think about that as I take you into today's history lesson for this August 26th, 2025.

It was on this day in 1972, so now 53 years ago today, that Looking Glass had their one hit wonder.

Brandy, you're a fine girl.

Hit number one this week in 1972.

This is 19th Amendment Day.

The 19th Amendment took effect this day in 1920, giving women the right to vote.

This is the anniversary of the birth of former Vice Presidential nominee and Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro from New York who passed away in 2011.

She was Walter Mondale's running mate back in 1984.

Happy 79th birthday to Valerie Simpson of the songwriting team of Ashford and Simpson.

Ashford and Simpson maybe not the most well-known songwriting husband and wife team.

I mean there's certainly

Carol King and Jerry Goffin and others that are out there as well.

But Ashford and Simpson, they did all right.

They had the one big hit there, solid, had a couple of other hits, but it was songwriting that was their claim to fame.

They were put in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002.

You don't know the songs?

How about this?

Ain't no mountain high enough?

I know that one.

You're all I need to get by.

Another great Marvin Gaye, Tammy Terrell hit.

Ain't nothing like the real thing.

Also Marvin Gaye.

Reach out and touch someone's hand.

And one from Chaka Khan called I'm Every Woman.

Pretty good tunes right there.

Those are from Valerie Simpson and the late Nicholas Hashford.

Valerie Simpson is 79 years old today.

On this day in 1967, the number one song was from a movie soundtrack and it was sung by Bobby Gentry.

I was always

surprised Bobby Gentry did not have many more pop hits.

Had some country tunes as well.

But Ode to Billy Joe was the number one song this week in 1967.

Wow.

So I read this and I thought I said Ode to Billy Joe.

Um, that'd be a fun song.

That would be, but Billy Joel did not jump off the Tallahatchie bridge.

No, as it turned out, I don't even know if Billy Joel's been to Tallahatchie, but no, Billy Joe.

Billy Joe jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge.

Frankie Valley's Grease, the title track to the blockbuster film was the number one song this day in 1978.

Let's go over to 1972 where there was a novelty song on the charts by Nielsen.

It peaked on this day at number eight when something like this.

This

gives me back to my point of we just we just don't hear novelties.

You just don't hear people singing about coconuts anymore.

There's not a lot of songs

about

coconut or just or just any other goofy stuff that comes up, right?

Brent, Brentford Masalis is 65 years old today musician and actually the first band leader for Jay Leno when he first took over the tonight show from Johnny Carson and then he was replaced by Kevin Eubanks eventually.

But Branford Marsalis plenty of hits on his own in the jazz world 65 day actress Melissa McCarthy is 55.

And that is just one funny lady.

I mean her her playing Sean Spicer during early in Trump's first term was just so good.

I forgot about that.

Oh,

yeah.

I don't I'm not a huge fan of SNL.

However, I will say the impersonations are a joy.

I love when they do

those.

And the thing is, it didn't, it didn't start that way.

You know, when SNL got to start 50 years ago and Chevy Chase would play the role of President Gerald Ford, he looks nothing like President Ford, but the whole bit was, you know, you're a guy playing him.

So you bought into it, but now it's like you have to make everybody look exactly like the character.

And it, it works.

It just, it wasn't always that way.

Happy birthday to Shirley Manson.

She is 58 years old today.

It's, it's been a while since we've heard from the band Garbage.

See, John Mulaney is 43 years old today.

Kiki Palmer is 32.

The late Leon Redbone was born this day in 1949.

He passed away in 2019, but we still get to hear him every Christmas with baby.

It's cold outside from the Elf soundtrack.

Mother Teresa, the nun, the missionary, later Catholic Saint was born this day in 1910, passed away in 1997.

Let's see.

Let's get back to some music here.

The number one song this week, 30 years ago today was a movie soundtrack by Seal.

That was Batman Forever, which was, I want to say the Val Kilmer one, not the George Clooney one.

I should have pulled that up.

There's only been 700 Batman movies, so you can't blame me for remembering them.

That's the other thing.

Superhero movies, whether it's Marvel or DC or whatever, there's so many.

It's just

too

much to keep up with.

I have no idea how any of that works.

Yeah.

No, it was Val Kilmer because it was also Nicole Kidman.

And yeah, I remember the video and Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones.

Drew Barrymore was in there.

It was it was a big big hit.

Did you just say that Jim Carrey was in a Batman movie?

Yeah, he was the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones was Harvey Lee Jones was Harvey Dent before he became what the Joker?

If you haven't seen Batman Forever the 1995 film, I highly recommend that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was it was before the films turned really dark with like Christian Bale.

and everybody who's done it from that time, you feel like you want to bring a spotlight with you because the movies are all so dark.

I can't see anything in there.

You know, these are like movies that you could just go see and you could see all the characters doing everything and they still were very, you know, dramatic.

But yeah, Chris O'Donnell was in there playing Robin as well from that movie again 1995 is when that was the number one song in the country.

Alright, let's see.

Catherine Johnson.

Now, I've never seen the full movie.

Is it Hidden Figures?

Yeah, Hidden Figures.

Catherine Johnson was born this day in 1918.

Physicist, mathematician, profiled in Hidden Figures in the book, which inspired the Oscar nominated film.

But Catherine Johnson later went on to receive the National Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015.

She passed away in February 2020 at the age of 101.

And is it Taraji P. Henson who plays her, I believe, in the movie?

And again, I've never actually sat and watched the movie, but I've seen lots of clips of it that come through on TikTok and Reels and all that, because clearly it's a film people like Kevin Costner's in there.

And I really do want to sit and watch that thing front to back.

It is a

good movie.

Yeah, I think we watched it in one of my...

classes or something during middle school, I think, because I want to say

that's when that was first coming out.

On your phones?

Did you have to look at your phones?

Yeah, we watched our

phones.

We all had our own headphones on.

It was a group session.

We all just hit play at the same time.

It's a core memory, Pat.

It was very important.

It was very meaningful.

On this day in 2009, kidnapping victim J.C.

Duggart is discovered alive in California after being missing for over 18 years.

And on this day in 1978 at a papal conclave, Albino Luciani was elected to succeed Pope Paul, and he chose the name Pope John Paul I. And he served for about a month before passing away.

and sparking conspiracy theories that last to this day.

I don't

think I knew about that one.

You know about the Pope who was only Pope for about a month?

I did not know

about that.

Oh, yeah.

And then of course, because he passed so suddenly, it's at the remember the Da Vinci code.

Well, no, of course, you don't know.

It was a big time movie.

I've

watched and read the Da Vinci code.

I love

it.

Okay.

Okay.

I believe Dan Brown among many has done some kind of a twist of, you know, a pope being murdered, you know, and so that that gets tied in all the time.

Because this marks the passage of the 19th Amendment today is Women's Equality Day.

today is also this one says national dog day.

But I'm going to be honest with you, folks.

I feel like if not once a week, once every couple of weeks is some variation on a national dog day, or national be nice to your dog day or national feed your dog day or national labradoodle day or whatever.

So you know why that is why because they're man's best friend.

You have to

celebrate them.

I know.

And this one just says national dog day.

So

There you go.

Like you weren't going to be nice to your dog anyway today.

Today is cherry popsicle day.

I haven't had cherry popsicle in forever.

No, I haven't had a popsicle.

There's so many other treats out there now.

I

have like the fudge ones fairly often, but

yeah, love those.

And this is National Toilet Paper Day, which I bring up every year.

even though it's an early morning radio show, because there are just things that we do take for granted and that we did not always have.

Wisconsin became a leading supplier of toilet paper when the technology, when the manufacturing got to the point that you could do that.

It was a Wisconsin plant that advertised the first get this splinter free toilet paper.

tell us you something about the the advances that we have here.

So appreciate appreciate your shaman boys and girls.

Oh, Oh, Alicia, thank you for correcting the record Harvey Dent was two face in the Batman movies.

Yep.

And and then a couple more birthdays I asked what do Chris Pine and Macaulay Culkin have in common.

They were born the same day.

They're both 45 years old today.

It's just that Macaulay Culkin was in home alone when he was, I don't know what, 10 years old, something like that.

Yeah, I just said 12 max.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, Chris Pine, we didn't really see him till much later, but they were both born this day in 1980, making them both 45 years old today.

So there you go.

Oh, Michael and Tulsa, Michael and Tosa, you you were

You were just a bit behind Alicia.

Alicia got hers in on Facebook.

You got yours in on the text line Harvey Dent being two face.

Thank you very much for that.

See, I like this.

I got the best listeners here.

This is great crowd sourcing.

they do.

They keep us on the straight and narrow here.

So still ahead, we're going to be talking in our seven o'clock hour to Hans Brighton Moser, our friend from up in Merrill area of Lincoln County.

And we'll be talking to Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.

along with another guest talking about so-called wedding barns, event barns, the kinds of things that were really dealt a setback in the last legislative session.

And so now they're hoping that lawmakers will, you know, see their mistake and rectify things so that the rural economy can continue to have farms diversifying their income with things like this.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

If you'd like to follow up north news on social media, but you're tired of the dumpster fire, formerly known as Twitter, you can now follow us on Blue Sky.

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Let's see, right now it's 47 degrees here in Chippewa Falls.

It is 49 in Oshkosh.

La Crosse is coming in at 50 right now.

And in Medford in front of the new Ziggy's Coffee, it is 44 degrees there.

As I'm poking around looking for other headlines around northern Wisconsin, places like that.

And I saw this note about this new Ziggy's coffee shop going up in Medford, supposed to open today.

Hopefully they got off the ground.

But it's definitely this family business situation where they had the groundbreaking months ago, and you just see the little kids and then as the place is being built, the kids are running around and they're pretending to serve coffee out the drive through window, you know,

except

they're

And they're handing over like dandelion.

Here's your dandelion latte.

You know,

it was

it was adorable.

So so I hope things went well for them out there today.

They got that Ziggy's coffee going there.

There's another chain called scooters.

I want to say they recently opened up one in at least one in Eau Claire and

I believe I saw them going up somewhere else not too long ago as well.

So I don't know if that's is that a relatively new chain or is it just new to Wisconsin?

I don't.

I'm not sure.

I

feel like I've heard of that, which is rare for me.

One of those where, you know, it's just it's basically it's just a drive through, you know, and that that can make you a little crazy.

because we built, not we built, but in Chippewa, there was recently a caribou coffee that went up over by me and went up with the, there's a festival and a quick trip and it covers making it the most Wisconsin interchange ever.

Right

off Highway 29 at Seymour Cray.

And there's this little caribou in a Taco Bell.

And shortly after it was built,

was reaching out to somebody about, you know, getting a cup of coffee.

And we said, Well, let's just meet at the at the caribou there, that brand new one.

And we'll we'll sit inside for a while and we'll get some coffee and we'll catch up.

Got there and realized no, it's a it's a drive through only situation.

I knew it was small.

It was a small building.

But like, no, no inside service whatsoever.

And it wasn't a great day either.

So we both just kind of got our thing we sat in in our cars and kind of talked to each other out

the window

windows.

Yes.

Cause it was looking like it wanted to rain or something like that.

Like, and there was no place else closer.

The Culver's wasn't done getting built yet.

So

that is the most like 2020 COVID story I've ever heard.

Isn't it

though?

It's, uh, it was that or go inside the, the festival and just like walk up and down the, the canned goods aisles as we're, as we're talking politics or whatever the case may be.

That's

awesome.

I know.

I mean, these coffee places that, you know, they are just, they're, they're springing up like, like crazy.

Alicia's telling us on YouTube, we've got a scooters in Darboy.

Hey, if you're in Darboy, I mean, your place is not Darboy is, is just outside of Appleton.

I've never heard that.

Darboy was known out in that area for having basically a wedding hall dance hall, the name of which escapes me and I'm sure Alicia's going to put it on YouTube there, but it was right at the main intersection in little Darboy.

And of course, my wife is from that part of the state.

And so everybody had been out to Darboy for a wedding at some point or another is one of those where there was a reception hall on one level, and then a on a lower level as well, because it was on kind of a

a slope.

So there was parking down below as well.

And I just could not believe when I saw it being torn down one day, I thought is have weddings and traditional wedding receptions and things.

Have they fallen that far out of style that, you know, a wedding hall can't make it anymore?

Luke notes that most festivals in their area have a bar where you can grab a table and eat now.

I've seen festivals where they have tables where you can go up and eat, you know, you get something from the deli.

Yeah.

But now, now a bar.

What's it called?

I know high V has has bars in there as well.

And once again, here we are doing alcohol talk at six 57 in the morning.

But I can't believe I feel like alcohol talk at six 57 in the morning is as fitting as a bar in a grocery store.

There, that's fair enough.

Yes.

We've

We've talked about friends of ours who have retired, but then it just didn't hold.

They just couldn't, they wanted to do something else.

And I know one particular doctor, when he retired, he finally took a job as a bartender in a high V, just to have a little something else to do, which was a heck of a way to meet your former patients, you know, to see the double take.

Because you know how it's like if you see somebody not in the setting you're used to seeing them in?

Yeah.

And yeah, you're not expecting, well, first off, you're not expecting to be ordering a whiskey sour in a high V. And yet there you are.

So why wouldn't it be coming from your doctor, right?

Why not?

Yeah.

I mean, this is all a little weird enough experience.

Let's just make it a little weirder.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's see.

Charles from Eau Claire texting in the wedding hall, I believe, was literally called the Darboy Club.

If I remember, I haven't been there for for quite some time.

That that could very well be.

But yeah, been been to a lot of weddings there.

And we've I've done I've done the chicken dance more times than I want to tell you, except the very first one,

the very first

wedding where the chicken dance was played on that very first but one of the first was a relatively new song, our wedding, our wedding 1986.

The chicken dance was like this new popular thing.

And it

was,

we danced every song at our wedding reception, every song except that one.

That's when we took a break to cut the cake.

Okay, good.

And then it was right back out there because we had a polka band and we had extended families that they just wanted to dance and we just wanted to dance.

And it was a great day.

And our feet, they hurt so bad the next day.

But you know what?

Our faces hurt too.

Our faces hurt from smiling all day.

There you

go.

That's that's a nice problem to have.

All right, coming up in our seven o'clock hour, we will talk to meteorologist Brittany Merleau and get the full forecast.

We'll talk more about the brewers beating Arizona yesterday.

And we will talk about ways to help out the farm economy diversify the many ways that you can do business on the farm.

That's all ahead.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

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

Hey, good morning.

It is 706.

Nice to have you back here up north on this Tuesday morning, August 26.

Parker Olson is our producer down in Madison at Studio A2 of the World Headquarters of Civic Media at the top of State Street, just a block away from the state capitol and meteorologist Brittney Merleau joins us as well.

Still, is that a hoodie

you got going there?

Um, I don't know.

It's like a t-shirt hoodie.

So just mon sleeves.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's all

right.

Well, I was mentioning that I've got a daughter and grandkids who came up from Texas yesterday.

And it had been so long, you know, they moved there from Idaho.

And in Idaho, you just wore hoodies year round, basically,

you know.

And the older grandson, who yesterday was his 19th birthday, and he makes his comment like he didn't pack any hoodies because in Texas, they haven't had to wear one for the longest time, gets up here and it's in the 40s.

And we had to lend them a hoodie.

how funny he's like, wait, it's been a minute since I've had this many hoodies, right?

Right?

But I was all fine.

And again, you know, when they're used to temperatures in the 90s, every stinking day, you know, this, this was,

I was

gonna say it was part refreshing.

They are actually cold.

They were cold for a while when they were first here.

Oh, absolutely.

They'll go from that to this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They'll acclimate though.

I think

I

think they'll do fine.

How are we doing on it for today?

How are we looking?

Ooh, pretty chilly up north.

Kings hit 34 degrees just a couple of minutes ago.

It's about 36 right now in Eagle River and Manitwish Waters.

37 degrees all the way into Hayward, Solon Springs, Merrill, Tomahawk, Antigo.

Yeah, a lot more places got cooler this evening or overnight than yesterday.

So what we're doing right now, mid-40s to mid-50s for most of the state is what it is outside.

We've got Patchy Fog far northeast.

but mostly sunny skies and it's going to stay bright and beautiful all day.

Calm or winds are expected and highs today slightly warmer, mid to upper sixties with a few seventies out there.

Overnight tonight, we'll start to see more clouds moving in.

We've got another system pushing through tomorrow.

A cold front arrives.

I know we're already chilly, so we don't need another cold front.

It's just going to reinforce the fact that we're going to stay a little below average as we go into the weekend, unfortunately.

So the cold front will spark a few scattered showers, maybe some rumbles of thunder tomorrow afternoon far northeast.

Then it'll start working its way through the rest of the state at night and overnight.

We're all going to see a little bit of that.

None are going to be severe.

probably just a quarter inch of rain with those mid 70s tomorrow.

So it is going to bring a little bit warmer temperatures.

But behind it, Thursday, we fall to the mid 60s to about 70 degrees again, and then into the weekend, we're looking at upper 60s, mid 70s, and that holds steady all weekend long.

Monday, we get a little bit warmer and even warmer as we go into next week.

But staying on the cooler side below average for Labor Day weekend, it looks like dry, though.

Oh, okay, we'll take try.

That's that's a big

part of it.

I

mean, again, we can we can wear we can wear hoodies, you know, for Labor Day weekend, but better than ponchos, you know,

I would much rather be dry

or parkas, you know, so this is all okay.

Okay, I got to tell you in Wisconsin Rapids, I heard there was a man walking yesterday morning in a full parka, but shorts.

a full parka, but shorts.

That's that's very Midwestern.

You know, we're doing

it.

You know, any college campus, you'll see somebody with a shirt out, but still in shorts.

It just seems to

be seems to be our thing.

The 11 year old was going through TSA security in the Dallas airport yesterday, and it was had to go back through again, because he did have a hoodie on, but it's oversized.

And the TSA person was like, Do you have hands?

Yeah.

Walk back through again to make sure we can see your hands and not anything you might literally have up your sleeve.

Those

kids in their fashions, I tell you.

They have the sleeves and they just whack them around.

Oh,

they get.

Yes, they do.

Of course.

You know, he he he's also been being an 11 year old boy.

First thing he

did

was he started chasing rat.

We have rabbit, you know, bunny rabbits running out, out of the woods out in the backyard and he's chasing them down.

I'm like, if he catches one, I'm not firing up the grill.

He's got to let it go.

You know, just kind of a wild child.

Thank you,

Brittany.

We'll talk to

you next hour.

All right.

Remember, you can sign up for our daily newsletter.

Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.

Rob says, good morning from Tigerton Sunny and 47 degrees.

Yesterday, I had my doctor's appointment with Dr. Elizabeth.

It went well.

Yesterday afternoon, had a mowing job.

I have mowing jobs today in Wittenberg.

He said, yesterday I mowed lawn.

I had my sweatshirt and it truly felt like autumn.

I had to get my jacket and coat in the truck and get them washed for fall.

And he says, remember two years ago,

It was very hot on Labor Day weekend near 100 degrees, whereas Tigerton was down to 46 for an overnight low last night, which, yes, is definitely chilly, but not the 30s that Brittany was just telling us about in certain communities here.

Also from the mailbag, let's see, from Jonathan talking about the Trump bill.

The Trump mega bill is actually pretty popular.

So many Wisconsinites are proud and excited for this bill.

I am one of them.

Woke is dead.

The Democrat Party is dead.

The money flow from laundering is done.

The globalists are finished.

America is being restored.

And I am proud to be part of it.

So there's that from the mailbag today.

Let's go to sports.

The Milwaukee Brewers have a series going on right now against the Arizona Diamondbacks at American Family Field.

The game featured two different five-run rallies.

The first one was by the Brewers in the third inning, scoring five runs.

And then they added one more.

And Arizona was down 6-0 before they had their own five-run rally in the sixth inning.

But then Caleb Durbin homered for the second straight game.

There was also a home run by Andrew Monasterio to help the Brewers beat the Diamondbacks 7-5 last night.

Monasterio and Christian Yelich and William Contreras each had two hits as Milwaukee continues to lead the National League Central Division.

Jacob Mizorowski is on the mound tonight for game two and the pregame for that begins at 6.05 this evening on several stations across the Civic Media radio network.

And then Parker, what was I saying before in terms of roster cut downs for the Packers today from 90 to 53?

Yeah.

I believe is what I said last hour.

Yep.

So

we should be looking for those notes today.

And again, I don't know well enough.

I mean, I know there's a practice squad.

I assume some of them become part of this practice squad.

I don't know how big that is.

I believe I think it's seven.

And then what?

I mean, for all of the others, do they just go back to, you know, driving truck or whatever they were doing?

Yeah, that is kind of the

Because

I always think

about Kurt Kurt Warner.

I guess there's

a

movie coming about him how he went from like begging groceries one year and to Super Bowl MVP the next year when he came

on both

the Rams to help them win the Super Bowl.

Yeah,

I don't know if it

is, but it should be.

It was it was a very unique Cinderella story.

Yes.

Without a doubt.

So again, we'll look for the Packer roster moves and

Let's see, Mike Lemons is covering training camp in Green Bay, and we'll tell us more.

If not later today, then tomorrow, what to look for for cut downs from the Packers.

We've been following a story that came up earlier this morning about Vice President JD Vance is apparently coming to La Crosse.

The early reports said Tuesday, but I've also seen a report that said Thursday, so I'm still waiting to see any final details here.

but we will be eventually seeing the vice president somewhere in the La Crosse area at a steel fabricating facility that was not yet named in the early reports.

Here to talk up the big bloated boondoggle, the thing that one of our commenters said was actually pretty popular when there's actually no polling that says that it's popular and is going to try to prop up the idea of giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy and you pay for it.

And so do our grandkids by jacking up the deficit to record amounts.

So along with having to prop that up, he's having to prop up the Congressman for this area, Derek Van Orden from the Third Congressional District.

And again, we've got a Congressman who is saying things like there are no cuts to Medicaid in this bill.

Nobody who deserves their Medicaid benefits will have their Medicaid benefits cut and other

fantasies.

And so whenever J.D.

Vance and Derek Van Orden do this, and I assume Derek Van Orden will be there, it'd be news if the congressman is not there when the vice president comes to your district.

But regardless, just come back here the next day and expect some, you know, aggressive fact checking on it.

Because again, the tax relief that was promised in there

is very temporary to the middle class.

I mean, what gets me is that we've been to this rodeo before, where it sold as tax breaks for the middle class, but they expire after a couple of years.

But the corporate breaks and the breaks for the highest brackets, they don't expire.

Or if they do, it's at a period where, again, they don't get dinged for blowing up the deficit.

because they call for those things to expire, you know, 10 years down the road when some other Congress has to deal with it.

Well, here we are all those years later, eight years later from the original Trump tax bill.

Again, those tax breaks were going to expire.

But because Trump got back in office, we get to continue them again.

And this time, we're going to jack up the deficit another $4 trillion and see

just massive cuts all around to Medicaid, which is also going to impact Medicare, Social Security.

That's on top of the trade war, which has got farmers and manufacturers concerned.

So yes, so well, when the vice president comes to town, we're going to be very careful in taking down exactly what he says, and then telling you exactly how it's going to be turning out instead.

There is, you know, rightfully a lot of concern out there right now with some of what, you know, Trump is putting out, for example, taking over, you know, 10% of Intel.

That's not going over well with some conservatives who can't seem to figure out why Trump is embracing socialism.

That's the headline in Futurism magazine.

Trump embraces socialism is nationalizing a failing chip maker in talking about taking a $9 billion share of Intel's stock in exchange for, you know, escaping tariff or trade war concerns.

And it is Intel's basically getting

it's lunch money taken from Nvidia.

Intel is basically, you know, yesterday's news.

But the government taking over part of an American company is not sitting well with some people whose conservative credentials are

a little longer lasting than Donald Trump's.

There's conservative radio host Eric Erickson who says so many of you were opposed to Mamdani, the New York City mayoral candidate, wanting to seize the means of production in New York City, but you're totally fine with the U.S.

government becoming the largest shareholder of Intel.

This is socialism with an R next to its name.

And Republican Senator Rand Paul expressed similar concerns when he said, today it's Intel, tomorrow it could be any industry, a future Commerce Secretary decides to control.

If conservatives endorse this now, they hand Democrats a blueprint to expand government ownership over the private sector later.

Socialism is literally government control of the means of production.

So if these...

Longstanding Republicans get it.

Will we hear more from, I don't know, the Ron Johnson's, the Derrick Van Ordens, and the Tom Tiffany's out there?

Or is this just not your grandfather's brand of conservatism, but conservative socialism?

I'm Pat Crightlow.

You're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.

Back now with Dan Hagen from News Watch 12, WJFWTV in Rhinelander on this Tuesday morning where it is 48 degrees here on Lake Wissota.

It is 51 in New Richmond in front of Busy Bean Coffee and closer to Dan at the Briar House Coffee Shop in Rhinelander on Keenan Street there.

It's a cool 42 degrees in Rhinelander right now.

Mr. Hagen, how are you?

It's great.

It feels like fall.

I should get some apple cider.

Maybe go apple pick picking get some pumpkin pie.

Oh, you got you got all the bases covered here.

We were talking coffee during the break here.

And you said something that I had not heard from anybody before.

But then last hour, I didn't know much about cell phones and classrooms.

So we're just I'm learning all kinds of things today.

I'm learning that Dan Hagen puts a little touch of maple syrup in his coffee.

That's right.

So I got some coffee right here.

That

doesn't look like coffee.

It looks like chocolate milk.

Well, I put some whole milk in there.

Okay.

And I put some maple syrup and I do that with my coffee every morning and it's great.

And I just, I can't stand the coffees at, there's a lot of fine local establishments here that

A lot of people enjoy, but they're just it's usually too sweet for me.

So I just

put in maple syrup.

It's just like it's like a it's like a teaspoon.

OK, OK, just enough for flavor and not to make it

if you get a mocha like at a normal place, like

it's

going to be like a freaking sugar bomb.

I can't I can't handle

it.

And when I so when I do get a mocha at a place, that's exactly what I'm looking for is something like that.

But again, it I'm not going to do that.

every day because I mean, I don't even know what they go for now six, seven, eight bucks, you know, for, for, you know, a beverage that is what's the old saying the business model for coffee shop beans, water, profit.

Right.

It seems it's I'm so frugal as a person.

So yeah, I just I get by with the coffee that I make and I like it.

And, you know,

probably saving some money down the line.

I

suppose, I suppose.

As we look at stories that you're following up there in the Northwoods, I noticed, and I did get a note from Kirk Bangsted yesterday, that the criminal defamation charge against him has been dropped for this long running feud that he has with Greg Walker, the publisher of the Lakeland Times.

There's still a lot to be said about Kirk Bangstead and either his legal woes or his legal harassment, depending on, you know, how you want to look at this.

But the criminal defamation thing, that's something that was really rare in Wisconsin.

So I guess I'm not entirely surprised to see that it was dropped.

Yeah, it's a very seldom used, you know, charge.

Civil defamation is something that

things that has been found liable in after he

Said that he publisher of the newspaper and by the way if you've been to the Monaco burn company in Monaco Across the street is the Lakeland Times the newspaper that he's had a feud with and He's been found liable of civil defamation for saying that the general manager or rather the publisher Excuse me of the Lakeland Times basically let his brother die Just a completely made-up story.

So he was basically found liable and had to pay the largest defamation

payout in wisconsin history although insurance covered a lot of that but anyway back to the task at hand this week so these criminal defamation charges have just been dropped basically um i read the court document and it comes down to just free speech you know he's allowed to say what he wants and he marked that it was parody in um he depicted the general manager and publisher in a lewd uh cartoon

yes he did which again

That's something that you can do under the First Amendment.

The other thing that you mentioned, Bankstead Essence apologized for, again, has made this payment for the defamation thing, did indeed cross a line there.

But I always think that folks hear that, and they think that that undoes a lot of the other harassment, I think is safe to call it, by authorities there who are enforcing what I'd call the broken tail light.

thing where, you know, they'll pull you over for a broken taillight and then they'll charge you with first degree murder, you know, or something along those lines because, you know, they just don't like having somebody that liberal and that brash calling them out for some of the things that they do.

And Kirk sometimes does not help his own case.

But a lot of the times he's not wrong either.

Or regardless, it gives plenty of fodder for

News organizations like yours to cover I would not read the Lakeland Times for coverage of that I've said before I could make a cottage industry out of Simply responding to everything the Lakeland Times gets wrong on their editorial pages every week I've been saying that for over a decade, but they are what they are everybody knows what the the Lakeland Times is and if you if you

If you like it, you like it despite whatever the information is on there.

But I would strongly recommend that people have a broad sense of where they get their news from, including, you know, what you're doing up there in NewsWatch 12.

So what other stories are you looking at or having fun with on what is otherwise I suppose a slow summer week?

Yeah, you know, it's it's slow up here.

There's a community church that insane or that they're trying to get restored and rehabilitated.

So they've been raising money for that.

You know, I actually took the day off yesterday.

I went backpacking this weekend on the North Country Trail.

I don't know if you know about this, Pat, but it's the longest national scenic trail in the country.

And I did a small section with some friends in Iron County.

So that was a good time.

And I'm planning a trip to the Boundary Waters right now as well.

So, you know, my mind is a little more focused on me right now during the dark days of summer.

And why shouldn't it be?

I mean, we're shut-ins for the winter by and large.

You know, a few people will do their winter sports for me.

What do I always say?

My winter recreation is walking out to the hot tub.

And that's it.

So you got to get out and enjoy the summer while you can.

So, Dan, you've earned it.

Thanks for getting up early with us and enjoy your coffee and maple syrup.

Of course.

And I wore this, you know, fleece for you, Pat.

The Fred Flintstone fleece is alive and well.

We love it.

Thanks, Pat.

Thank you, Dan.

Talk to you later.

In a moment, we're going to talk to Hans Breitenmoser.

We're going to talk to Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.

Gene Bond will be joining us as well to talk about event barns and the ways that the Wisconsin legislature could be doing better things for farmers who want to diversify what they do as part of the rural economy.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Milwaukee Brewers are back in action tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks after winning yesterday 7-5.

Coverage begins this evening with the pregame at 6-0-5 on several civic media stations around the network.

A reminder as well here at Up North News you can sign up for our Sunday morning newsletter about Wisconsin politics, other political stories and this week we ask whether Wisconsin should keep or get rid of mail-in voting after President Trump made comments about

wanting to get rid of mail-in voting because Vladimir Putin told them that, you know, they didn't make for fair elections.

A lot of our respondents so far disagree with that.

Surprise, surprise.

what do you think as well?

To see our question of the week first, sign up for that newsletter at outportnewswi.com, click subscribe up in the top banner.

We're going to be talking in just a sec to Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association, and Gene Bond, who has one of the event barns that are impacted by legislation that could affect certain farm businesses around the state.

But as always, we start with our friend Hans Brighton Moser, a dairy farmer from up in Lincoln County near Merrill.

And Hans, good morning.

I was just here

Pam Yankee on the Midwest Farm Report talked about, you know, harvesting already taking place that corn for silage was 2% harvested already, but I also just heard Brittany Merlose say temperatures are in the 30s up in your neck of the woods.

So how are things overall?

They're cold up here.

You guys were talking about hoodies earlier and my daughter walked in and was underdressed as usual and so I loaned her my hoodie because she had to go outside and deal with her horse and so forth.

So

yeah, it's

cool.

It's like 39 degrees up here this morning.

Yeah.

And we're both without our hoodies because we had we had the youths who needed those instead.

So yeah, that's fine.

Oh, Parker.

I came prepared.

I've got my hoodie.

That's true.

Parker does have a hoodie on there.

But things are things are good up otherwise by you in terms of field work.

Yes.

Yeah.

As a matter of

fact, we're going to start mowing fourth crop of our regular hay stands today in the second crop of the new seeding today as well.

So we've got this.

This will be likely the last hay crop that we make.

And then, yeah, corn silage harvest for us will probably begin in maybe two weeks, depending on what the weather does.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Third cutting for hay is 89% complete around the state, according to the new ag figures.

And fourth cutting is 31% complete so far.

And not everybody, depending on the season necessarily gets four cuttings throughout the season, do they?

Yeah, no, though, for sure.

And again, it depends on the weather.

But if we can get started early enough in spring with first crop, which is to say getting that first cutting done in the last week of May or the first week of June, that sort of sets us up for success.

And there are some hey meadows that are questionable whether they really pay to cut or not.

But most of them look

halfway decent.

We should get a halfway decent crop and it should be decent quality as well.

Sounds good.

And and we've talked about before about, you know, farmers being able to diverse diversify their businesses for things like tourism and events.

And that's where we bring in Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.

Jean Bond is here as well.

She has Farm View Event Barn in Berlin.

Sheila Jean, good morning to both of you as well.

Morning.

Good morning.

Sheila let's let's pick up where we've we've spoken before about the overhaul in Wisconsin's liquor laws act 73 from a year or two ago and it had a dreadful impact on basically event barns In the way that it restricted the number of events they could do without having to go through all the hoops for a liquor license And there's been this talk of having so-called trailer bills follow-up bills that would address this inequity

But Sheila, is there any progress to report on that so far?

I'd like to report that the citizens.

and voters are really reaching out to their elected officials.

The constituents have sent 698 letters forward to Madison saying, hey, elected official, we want you to correct this injustice of Act 73.

We're moving into Labor Day and we want to talk about economic liberty and the opportunity to earn a living.

to talk about diversification for family farms.

And this X73 really just strangles a working farm.

that is seasonally temporary permitted, that is not interested in having a liquor license.

They are interested in renting space.

So we want to talk about this with our elected officials, not only the impact on the farmer, but the impact on the consumer and what X73, how the impact is on the tax paper.

I

think a lot of people don't understand that X73 created a whole nother division in office.

at the Department of Revenue that is going to be specifically for alcohol enforcement, and it's going to cost the taxpayer additional money.

Well, let's get Gene's perspective on this.

Gene Bonn, you've got Farm View Event Barn, and so you can talk a bit personally about what the change in the law through Act 73 has done to you and others, right?

Yeah.

Especially now this year, consumers are becoming more aware of this.

So typically by this time of year, I am just about fully booked for the following year.

Weddings, venues are usually the first thing a couple of books because they go quickly.

So right now I just struggled to get my sixth allowed with alcohol consumption.

So I'm booked.

But that's again, six a year, which is only 30% of what I typically would book.

So that's my revenue gone.

I'm also finding a lot of consumers who even at that are unwilling to be restricted to what they can serve their guests at their own private party because this law prohibits them from serving any spirits.

They can only have beer and wine.

don't like being controlled like that.

And they're finding too that it's going to cost them a lot more money when they have to go to a place for their private party, but go to a public place that sells alcohol and the additional costs that cost them for that part of their celebration.

It's very much more expensive than if you go legally purchase it yourself at.

a Costco or something and serve it to your guests.

So it's hurting.

My vendors are just now realizing it's going to hurt them, the DJs, the caterers, the florists, the bakers, all of them are now realizing if I don't have weddings and the other two venues in my county aren't having one every week, that's going to cut into my bottom line.

Yeah.

As you mentioned, you're limited to six events a year and you have a column that you wrote online that says, a simple change from six to 36 events would benefit Wisconsinites.

This would basically what

Cost of the state, nothing other than bringing in more tax revenue, help farms stay viable, consumers would regain some of these options that they've lost.

And so Sheila, that's where we're looking right now is a bill that would go from taking that limit from six to 36.

Is that what we're hoping to get past here?

Yes, we want reprieve actually we were looking at it would be amazing because that x73 exempted a lot of properties and we're kind of really perplexed as to why a working farm Can't be exempt if there is a hotel Motel bed and breakfast are exempt a campground is exempt a vacation rental is exempt property private yards

parking lots, anywhere around a professional stadium is exempt.

So, you know, quite easily, let's just exempt a working farm that offers seasonal temporary permitted private events that helps the farm diversify.

So simple, one sentence, easily done.

No taxpayer cost.

Hans, again, you've talked about allowing farms to diversify in different ways, and I would imagine that this has been a hot topic up in your part of the state as well.

Yeah, and it's because a lot of farms up in my neck of the woods have, you know,

Switch gears and aren't milking cows anymore and so forth And I think the other thing that that is important to remember in this is the historical aspect of it Which is to say a lot of these event barns are old bank barns.

They're old barns that have You know that were built in the late 1800s early 1900s.

There's a lot of history there and

maintaining a barn like that costs money.

And so it has to sort of be reinvented to make sure that there's enough income to keep a roof on that barn so it doesn't fall down and we have more urban blight than we already have.

So I just feel like there's anything that keeps these old barns standing and in good condition is something that would be good for the rural landscape for sure.

Gene, do you want to piggyback on that as far as the cost to upkeep?

Yeah, our barn had set empty after we got rid of our dairy herd for about 10 years and Empty barn just does not hold up.

So absolutely How am I going to maintain that facility?

I have so many other fixed costs that my insurance isn't changing because I'm only having six a year and many other things So it's going to be difficult to come up with the extra cash The volatility of our crops here on our farm

We have a great corn crop too.

I heard you talking earlier, but quite a bit is down flat after the big storm last Saturday.

So are the Saturday before.

So yeah, the money is gone and it's really difficult to think of ways to replace that.

Sheila, what's the the easiest way that folks can show their support for this issue?

Well, really hook on to Pat's website here and.

Click on the link for the quorum to send your voice directly to your representative and senator.

Like I said, there were 698 letters sent so far.

Join us.

Let your voice be heard.

uh reach out to your elected official whether it's your republican senator or your republican uh representative and our democratic senators and representatives um really just reach out and talk to your neighbor um let your consumers know that hey your brides and grooms this is going to cost you

a lot of extra money for future weddings and not only that is it is going to impact the farm on farm.

wedding industry overall.

And you know, Wisconsin has been a leader in agricultural tourism.

We have been having on-farm weddings since before we were a state in 1848.

This business model of private events on working farms has been operational for 41 years with no absolutely none.

documented issues or problems.