You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime,
anywhere.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 8.06.
Nice to have you back here up north on this Tuesday morning, September 2nd, short work week.
Hopefully you got a nice, long and relaxing Labor Day weekend.
Parker Olson is producing things down in Madison at Studio A2 at the top of State Street, one block off of the Capitol Square.
Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is on the way.
And then we will be talking to Cam Stevenson from the Below the Beltway newsletter that you can get through Courier Newsroom, parent company of Up North News.
Set to couriernewsroom.com to learn more about all the many fine newsletters that come your way.
First, we'll get you caught up on a quick look at sports.
The Brewers are off today.
They lost yesterday, a heartbreaker to the Philadelphia Phillies.
The series continues tomorrow evening.
Pre-game coverage begins at 6.05.
The Badgers won their opener of the football season.
They will be playing Middle Tennessee this coming Saturday.
Pre-game at one o'clock on several stations across the network.
and one more reminder you can sign up for our newsletters at upnorthnewswi.com including our Sunday morning newsletter with a question of the week asking about dreamers, the children of undocumented immigrants, the United States is the only country they've ever known.
Are they fair game for deportation or should they get a path to citizenship?
Let us know your thoughts by being a subscriber again over at up North news wi.com All right, we could not have had a more picture perfect Labor Day weekend weather wise Brittany and no wildfire smoke and No, but but now snowflakes might be I was mad enough at Canada
Not mad, but you know, with the wildfire, now they're not sending us their best.
They're sending us their wildfire smoke.
They're sending us cold air.
Now they're going to send snowflakes up to the north shore there, apparently.
So what's up with this?
I know.
We've got this cold front sitting in the batter's box right now, and it's already shoving showers and a few rumbles of thunder in towards Superior right now, so far northwest in the state.
Hey, word, over the next hour, you're going to see some rainfall and solar springs as well.
All of us are going to see it by tomorrow.
Mostly the northern half will see showers and storms working their way through the state today, going south overnight, continuing through tomorrow, winding down north tomorrow, but still going strong throughout the day tomorrow.
We're looking at a widespread quarter of an inch to a half an inch of rain.
And that's going to drag in breezy conditions, cooler temperatures, or we could be breaking record cold highs as we go into tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, highs tomorrow, upper forties north to about 60 south.
That's it.
We're going to hang on to the fifties for Thursday and Friday.
So all
right.
Okay.
We've flipped the calendar.
It's September.
It's it's hoodie season.
It's still summer, but it's September.
So we'll take it.
And yes, that is an interesting blob of rain through central Minnesota, making its way
across the border right now, so.
It
sure is.
Yeah, I was going to say, I had to write this way.
Could I get the top down on the Jeep one more time?
Not today, but we'll.
Next week, maybe.
Next week, maybe.
Thank you, Brittany.
Appreciate
it
very much.
Good to see you.
Have a wonderful day.
Let's bring in Cam Stevenson now from Courier Newsrooms below the Beltway Newsletter.
And you're saying, no, wait.
Cam Stevenson, he's part of the Copper Courier in Arizona.
uh uh because he just loaded that family up into a u-haul or wherever you got your truck from and uh he's now a resident of the nation's capital to become courier newsroom's new capital hill correspondent and will join us at this time on tuesday morning's cam how are
you i'm doing great you know i was listening to that weather report and we were just talking the other day we went out for a walk uh yesterday morning
And we're talking about how this beginning of fall here is our coldest part of Arizona winter.
So we got a lot to look forward to.
Oh my goodness, you're making the adjustment from Arizona to Washington DC.
Yeah, these segments are going to be fun come December, January,
you know.
A lot of new experiences and not just at work.
There's a lot going on here that we're excited to
experience.
Did the move go okay?
Any national lampoon vacation worthy stories that you're going to be telling about it?
Well, it was one of those things where there were great intentions and then reality hit pretty quickly.
I had planned to turn the, because we drove the, what, about 3,000 miles from Phoenix to DC.
And I had planned for it to be a nice road trip.
You know, maybe we could stop at the Petrified Forest, take a breather in Missouri and check out some of the sites there.
You know, see some stuff in Pennsylvania on the way out.
I want to take maybe a week to get out here, but as soon as we hit the road, all of my road trip companions, my wife and my two younger kids, they just want to get there as fast as they could.
12 hour drive for three nights, four days until we finally collapsed on the porch of where we're staying at right now.
And there you are.
And the pups, Willow and Bandito, they made it all right.
They did.
They had a rough time in some of the pet friendly hotels.
They didn't like.
the close quarters of all the other dogs bark in
the
night.
But yeah, no, they've taken a like into it out here.
They like the tall grass.
There's much larger bugs for them to nip at.
And, you know, as soon as they start seeing a rat
crawl around on the street, I'm sure it'll, it'll be like Christmas for
him.
Well, there's a transition to get us back to the US Capitol and your duties there.
Congress coming back from its recess today, you're going to be covering all of this in below the Beltway, a newsletter that he puts out through Courier Newsroom, you can get it at couriernewsroom.com, or get it directly at Beltway.News.
And there's a lot that has happened during the August recess.
There's a lot that's on their plate.
But
The whole reason they started recess early a day or two early was because of people in Congress who still want to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein files and Hold people accountable bring justice to the victims but speaker Mike Johnson was like screw that it might get some of my people in trouble sent them off You know to come back and say you know what everybody will have forgotten about it when they come back So I just wanted to reestablish
We haven't forgot about it.
And the ongoing need to seek justice for the victims of this predator, including anybody who may have helped in any way facilitate this.
Yes.
And not only that, but there seems to be the political willpower for something to actually happen.
You know, I mean, Epstein was arrested in 2019, last time Trump was president, and died in his cell about a month later.
And that was kind of that.
There was an ongoing investigation that went through the entire Biden administration.
And then Trump closed it when he came back into office.
And up until he closed it, it seemed very up in the air.
And there wasn't a lot of public pressure for anything to happen.
But the way it was closed, the lack of transparency in the process, and just the general consensus that if someone
has created a victims fund that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars silencing victims, then that means that there were also perpetrators and predators and people who can be tied back to that money.
And so even though Mike Johnson tried to shut it all down, hoping things would just slowly quiet away during their four week recess, that didn't happen.
The Senate is continuing a finance investigation into Epstein's bank accounts.
and the House very recently decided to follow suit.
They have subpoenaed several members of both Trump and Biden and and Obama and the Clinton administration to get information.
They are having Representative Macy, a Republican from Kentucky and Rokata, a Democrat from California.
They're having a joint press conference with some of the victims tomorrow that I'll be attending and covering.
And they have also requested that the Treasury send them
financial information from Epstein and his suspicious activity.
Because whatever is in the known Epstein files that the Department of Justice has, it's at this point been through so many hands and then redacted and they've gone through and looked at names and taken names out and put things in that it's hard to get anything out of those.
Even when they are released, I think eventually they will be, I think that's going to be disappointing.
But what you can't really hide is money, is ledgers.
Black and white, it's what took down the mob, it's what's taken down, you know, all sorts of large, powerful people.
And the Treasury has all of this information.
And now the Senate wants it, the House wants it, and it looks like they're actually going to get it.
It does, you know, when people go, why did Trump was so against, you know, you know, cryptocurrency?
Now he's suddenly for it.
Yeah, it's so much tougher to trace compared to back when, like you said, the mob or, you know, FIFA, the world governing soccer body and all these other big cases were always follow the money.
You know, that trail is there in some way, shape, or form.
And again, it's become extremely bipartisan.
People going
Why is this dragging on?
It doesn't matter.
And I'm not just going to drop names, but there's the, you know, people thought, oh, there's all these Democrats that are caught up in this.
Let's go get them.
Now, suddenly they hear Trump might be in this and they want to suddenly be quiet about things, but not every Republican.
There's plenty of Republicans going, I don't care whose name is on there.
We should not be, we should get to the bottom of this.
And that's really the sentiment that I think is only going to continue to grow there, right?
It's just that simple.
Let's get to the bottom of this.
Yeah.
100%.
And I think a lot of it is because it has, at this point, so much has become part of the public consciousness that it has transcended partisan politics in a way among the public.
Anyway, I don't know.
I can't speak to what members of Congress are planning, but it's more of a class issue at this point where it's not that it's Democrats or Republicans who are tied to this.
It's that these are rich, wealthy, powerful people who have the connections.
to get away with heinous crimes.
And people want to believe that our justice system doesn't allow that.
And whether it's Democrats or Republicans or independents or foreign nationals, which all are probably implicated in some way, people just want to see that there is some form of justice.
Rather than, here's this one guy, here's his assistant, Jelaine Maxwell, they did it, case closed, there's no one else that we could possibly implicate.
Um, when that's clearly not the case.
Yeah.
So as you get back into the swing of things, there's not only that, but if you will forgive the buckshot approach for our final two minutes here, but there's, there's the turmoil at the centers for disease control and prevention, uh, with one, a big firing and then a whole lot of resignations.
There's a judge striking down, uh, a big part of Trump's trade war tariffs.
There's Missouri that is going to be the next Texas in terms of rigging their maps to try to build the Republican majorities.
There's
There's the rumors about Donald Trump's health, you know, what's going on with his hand and his lack of, you know, public visibility lately.
I mean, that's just for starters.
Your head's got to be just spinning thinking, okay, it's day one.
Congress is back.
Where do we start?
Yeah.
Wow.
Talk about a buckshot.
I mean, I think to start the one of the most media things is Trump's health.
I think if he had been if he was being his health was scrutinized half as much as Joe Biden was when he stepped out of the race,
it
would be a very different story.
The the president very late last night, not the president, but the White House said around 9 30 o'clock 9 30 last night, they said they were going to have a press conference today at two o'clock.
No information as to what it is.
It's closed except for very specific members of the press pool.
Um, but I think that's an immediate thing where we're going to get information.
Uh, we're going to get a little information and a lot of conspiracy father.
I was going to
say it's where we're going to find out that he is, you know, six foot four and 150 pounds.
And in, in prime condition, he could be part of an NFL team or, or some kind of ridiculous statement like the, that Dr. Ronnie, what's his face?
Um, Oh, you mean,
you
mean, uh, congressional
representative now, Ronnie?
Yes.
Yeah.
That guy.
So needless to say, I'm.
I'm extremely glad to have you in Washington DC.
I'm glad the move went safely, and we're going to really enjoy these Tuesday morning discussions.
Cam Stevenson, thank you so much for your time.
Good luck.
We'll keep in touch.
Thanks, Pat.
Thanks for having me.
I'll talk to you later.
All right.
And again, you can sign up for Below the Beltway.
That's the next thing you need to be subscribing to.
Go to beltway.news or couriernewsroom.com to get signed up for Cam Stevenson's Below the Beltway.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
We would love to hear what you're thinking about the show questions comments feedback suggestions so many ways to do it Certainly the comment sections of YouTube and Facebook that would be the up-north news Facebook or YouTube pages or the civic media Facebook or YouTube pages But you can also send us a text message through the civic media app But you can also send us a voice note through the civic media app You just go to one of the stations where you're hearing the program use the voice note feature record a short audio clip
that, uh, you know, maybe it's, it's too much to type out and we might even play it on air.
So keep in mind all the many ways that we would love to hear from you.
Dan Schaefer from the recombobulation area is coming up in, uh, just over 10 minutes from now at 835.
So over the weekend, Parker, I, you know, being here in the Western part of the state and, you know, being from both St.
Paul and Eau Claire, one parent in St.
Paul, one, one in Eau Claire.
The Minnesota State Fair has been a part of my life for, you know, as far back as I can remember.
And so when both of my daughters were coming out, they, of course, wanted to go to the fair.
And my one daughter could not wait to get a corn dog, corn dog or Pronto Pup, whatever you want to call it.
And I liked how one person put it, the Pronto Pup
or the corn dog is to the Minnesota State Fair, what the cream puff is to the Wisconsin State Fair.
And my response to both of those was, yes, both overhyped.
But yes, both are like the signature thing, you know, of their respective fairs.
I'm not going to put up with any cream puff slander.
However, I do need to ask him, I'm not familiar with the Minnesota State Fair as a corn dog, you said.
Yeah.
Is there anything particularly special about these?
Or they just
Corn dog you never had a corn dog.
I've had a corn dog.
I haven't well Minnesota State fairs or something like
I've had I've had a cream puff.
I mean, it's just it's a it's a food that's to be popular at the fair.
There's nothing
special.
Okay, I
was
it did start the whole thing about food on a stick.
And I know other other state fairs do this as well.
The Minnesota one has taken it to extremes, the ridiculousness of all the different things that they serve on a stick, you know, and it all started with the corn dog.
However, the one daughter has the six year old and the three year old.
And at one point, I went to take the six year old on on the big ferris wheel.
And which was wonderful and all that I come back to
My daughter had the three year old really wanted to take a bite.
Now I want to hold it.
I want to hold it.
And next thing you know, there's a photo remembrance of the Minnesota State Fair of a corn dog just covered in grass and dirt
on the ground
because she dropped it.
That's like, that's a very universal experience.
One of the few traumas that I think all of America can really share together.
When a kid wants to hold something and oops, there it goes.
But we did get, we did get to do some of our usual things, rigid creatures of habit.
When we walk into the safe fairgrounds, we make a B line for one of the foot long hot dog booths, not just any booth, it's always the same booth every year.
Right kitty corner from the giant slide.
And we're not the only ones, you know, seven, eight o'clock in the morning, there's a line, uh, for, for those foot long hot dogs with fried onions, breakfast to champions at a state fair, followed immediately by going up one block next to the old mill, which is kind of their tunnel of love ride, if you will.
And there's your mini, that's the one, there's, again, there's, there's 10,000 mini donuts stands around that place, but we had to go to that one.
Then we could start doing all the other stuff, but you have to you have to play the bingo card You have to you know run the checklist and fair
everybody's got their things, you know, you just gotta stick to it That's how it works,
right?
And then there's there's one other thing on on many of the corners is a booth and Somebody selling toys like inflatable toys.
It's all kinds of inflatable this that and the other thing balloons and and I mean you name it
And I remember being a kid, you know, going, I want to toy and being told, no, we can't take you, we can't fit it on the bus or whatever the case may be.
Next thing I know, the six year olds got a big old inflatable SpongeBob SquarePants and the three year old, she's got this little inflatable unicorn, which impeded our progress for the rest of the fair because she kept trying to like ride it, you know,
like, oh
God, you know, like
you
ride a toy horse.
Yeah.
So she'd be
doing a little galloping thing.
And we had to wait for, you know, because kids got to have their toys.
So we do all of the, all of the traditions.
And I'm sure people have that about the Wisconsin Fair, the Northern Wisconsin State Fair, your own local county fair.
Aren't you glad that you get to live through this experience as both a kid as a parent and how as a grandparent and seeing your kids do this to their kids?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And trust me, I've said before, there ain't no karma like grandparent karma.
When you're watching your kids have to suffer through the things from their kids that they put you through back in the day.
And now as a grandparent, you're just like, Oh, it's okay.
They're just so cute.
By the way, county fair season, still not done.
There are two left to one.
Yep, there's one county fair this week, Richland County.
Their fair starts Wednesday and runs through the weekend.
And then next weekend, Vernon County.
I mean, just putting it off as long as you manly possible.
It's like they said, fine, we'll have a county fair.
We'll do it.
Okay, we'll do it in the middle of September.
No, I'm sure it's going to be with if you get just the right weather.
I mean, oh yeah, a fall weekend in Wisconsin for the Vernon County Fair next week that
That could seal the deal that were tying a bow on summer,
you know for sure We were seeing signs because I picked up my buddies from whitewater to go to the brewery in yesterday And we were seeing signs for the Walworth County fair and I was thinking that's gotta be the last Possible time to do it, right?
Nope
I guess
that was not Richland County this week and Vernon County next week.
So yeah, still some opportunities to get that corn dog or whatever the specialty is at these two final county fairs.
When we come back, we'll get more into Justice Rebecca Bradley deciding to head for the exits rather than defending her seat on the state Supreme Court and continuing to try to get back a conservative majority because that may not happen.
for a while.
A Dan Shaffer, Civic Media's political editor and founder of the Reconpopulation Area is coming up in just a bit.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
You're up north.
Coming up, after our fine program here is a finer program, Matt Nair on air with Jane Matt Nair and Greg Bach.
And coming up today, that will include Todd Alba, host of the conveniently named Todd Alba show.
We'll visit with Jane and Greg at 935.
After the 10 o'clock news will be John Shelton, UWGB professor, who we visited with here on this program a little over a week ago here.
And then at 1035, Terry Barr will reveal a new slice of Wisconsin with information, audio, even a quiz about the state's surprising role with Sputnik, the Soviet satellite.
What does Wisconsin's connection to Sputnik?
If you know, you know, but if you don't, well tune in at 1035 to learn more.
Let's visit with Dan Schaefer now from the Recombobulation Area, sign up for his newsletter at therecombobulationarea.news.
He's also the political editor for Civic Media.
Mr. Schaefer, happy fall-ish day after Labor Day, first day of school, weird hyphenated thing to you.
Happy all of those things to you as well, Mr. Kratlow.
And thanks so much for having me on.
Always a treat to join you here on Mornings with Pat Kratlow.
It is a first day of school, and that includes at your place at the Schaefer household as well, yes.
That's right.
First day of school, taking those pictures on the front porch, all of that.
It's been a busy morning.
Well, I bet it has.
We
appreciate you spending a little time here to talk about it.
As the school year is getting started, I know that some of the news coverage, you know, you're always looking for some kind of a first day of school angle, you know, when you're working on the news.
And, you know, one of the stories I've seen out there is, yeah, there is a new state budget, but you should still expect probably a record number of referendums anyway.
Just a reminder that the state budget while it did.
have bipartisan yes votes and bipartisan no votes can't really say made tremendous progress when it comes to school funding.
Yeah, I think one of the weak points from the budget was the lack of general school aid increases And so there's been a couple stories about this floating around the state over the past couple weeks here and in kind of back to school news cycle I guess that you could say that we're in but there was a piece from Wisconsin Public Radio that I took note of last week that featured some quotes from the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards who said the latest
state budget failed to fund schools as the same rate of inflation.
And that means that many, many school districts around the state, as they have been doing in record numbers for the past several years, will be turning to referendum to ask their citizens to raise their property taxes for to fund the schools in their community.
Obviously, this has been a huge thing over the past few years.
In Wisconsin, we've seen this huge increase in referendums.
And, you know, schools
need money to pay for things and I think we we're going to continue to see this more and more especially after the you know kind of compromise budget the past a couple months ago didn't really address the the issue of school funding the way I think some public school advocates in particular wanted it to be addressed.
Yeah, exactly.
So we'll be looking for more on that.
Undoubtedly, the biggest political story that happened late in the week was the decision by a conservative justice, Rebecca Bradley, not to run for a new tenure term.
She was first appointed by Governor Scott Walker, won a tenure term in her own right, was going to be up for re-election,
was being challenged by Progressive Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor and Rebecca Bradley has decided to head for the exits, but in Rebecca Bradley style, not without dropping a few verbal grenades along the way.
Yeah, she put her statement out right before the holiday weekend as as sometimes will make sense for for folks to do to post some news that maybe they don't want sticking around for the next week.
But we're here to talk about it on the week after here.
So yeah, she, you know, and like you said, in typical Rebecca Bradley form, she had a few things to say about the nature of the court and how things have been going.
And she said to start her statement, I'll just
directly from it here.
For years I have warned that under the control of judicial activists, the court will make itself more powerful than the legislature, more powerful than the governor.
That warning went unheeded, and Wisconsin has been sitting in the beginning of what is an alarming shift from thoughtful, principled judicial service toward bitter partisanship, personal attacks, and political gamesmanship that have no place in court.
quite the statement to say from Rebecca Bradley if you have followed her career in any capacity
at all.
Because the better partisanship, personal attacks and political gamesmanship sure could describe the way Rebecca Bradley has approached her time on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Everybody say those three words with me.
Pot, kettle, black.
That boys and girls is Rebecca Bradley right there.
And now the sentence that followed that in my mind gave away the game when
she
said.
The conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem and fix it.
So, her saying basically that she wants to be part of the fix for the conservative movement.
Tells you a little bit about her mindset as a justice and why people like me have been saying for the better part of 10 years That you know, she is a politician injustices robes or a basic cable talk show host I don't know which avenue she's going to go to next but she's not just Looking to you know start cashing state pension checks.
We're going to hear more from Rebecca Bradley
That's for sure.
And then, you know, just to just to note the hypocrisy here, she's talking about bemoaning judicial activists and in the same paragraph advocating for the conservative movement.
Yes, I mean, sure, sure.
Sure, has done when the conservatives had the majority, did all they could to, you know, thwart governor Evers, remove some powers, defend some of the power grabs that the Republican legislature did.
I mean, again, basically, there's a lot of projection going on here.
And so Rebecca Bradley will be doing something else.
But obviously that clears a path for a conservative candidate.
We have Chris Taylor, she was a former legislator, now an appeals court judge is running.
Is there a likely candidate from the right who would be running for this spot next April?
Yeah, you mentioned Chris Taylor.
She's been off and running.
She also had a statement last week following the news about Rebecca Bradley talking about her campaign.
Also just kind of snuck in there that they had raised more than a million dollars.
So they're in a pretty good position right now for the Chris Taylor campaign.
But it looks like the potential opening here with Rebecca Bradley not running again means we could get a host of candidates to step up.
You never know what this is going to bring.
Maybe Dan
Kelly tries it again, you never know.
But I think the most likely option right now is that Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge from Waukesha County, Maria Lazar, is looking like she is going to be the one to step up.
She released a lengthy statement on social media last week that ended with the sentence, I am seriously considering a run for the state Supreme Court and I'm grateful to those who have already reached out to me.
So as so many of the candidates running for governor, whatever,
other races, they're going to be hinting at this run and then, I guess, formally announcing a run in due time here.
But I would not be at all surprised to see Judge Maria Lazar be the candidate that would be backed by Republicans, conservatives in the spring election coming up in April.
So I do expect that, you know, again, we could get some other candidates.
But the fact that, you know, she was ready with this statement and had been kind of in discussions, she was elected to this position in 2022.
So it makes sense that she would be, you know, similar to Taylor in line to to run for higher office as well.
Did I hear you right?
Saying Waukesha County?
That's right.
Okay.
I just I want I want to give the snakes.
Why does those snakes?
Yeah, Waukesha County.
Why does it always have to be Waukesha
County?
Always Waukesha County.
My home county.
But it is.
But OK, so Court of Appeals in the second district is based in Waukesha County.
And before that, she was on the Waukesha County Circuit Court just to clarify the
details there.
We're talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation area here.
And you took note, again, as people look for various angles on things that are happening in the news, that there was a headline, something along the lines of
might this be the last Labor Day under Act 10?
And I guess they're making the point now with a progressive majority on the court, what that Act 10 is in more danger than I would assume.
Yes, the headline from the Wisconsin State Journal today saying this could be Wisconsin's last Labor Day under Act 10.
Junior, I just went through the history of the law and all of that, but I think hinted at the fact that there are these challenges that are working their way through the court.
Dane County Circuit Court judged last year ruled that provisions of Act 10 were unconstitutional.
This is expected to be headed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which right now has that four to three liberal majority.
just to, you know, circle back to what we were talking about with the stakes surrounding Rebecca Bradley's decision.
There's an opportunity for liberals to push that majority to five to two if Chris Taylor were to win in the spring.
But, you know, as this case goes forward, you know, there's a real chance that provisions of Act 10 or some in some capacity, not the full Act 10 might be here by Labor Day next year, which is pretty would be a really big.
Obviously, a huge shift after almost 15 years now since the controversial law was passed.
I mean, it would be a political earthquake if that were to happen.
And I'm not saying it's, you know, I guess I'm saying I'd be surprised only because I've become so chated over the years that, you know, but hey.
We thought Roe View Aid was going to last forever too.
Nothing is forever in this business.
That's for sure.
We are talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation area.
And also, let's take a couple of minutes here and talk about fear and loathing, which of course takes us to JD Vance.
the vice president was in La Crosse and provided very little else.
I read excerpts out loud a couple hours back and I mean, every paragraph comes back to, you know, the migrants, the immigrants are coming for jobs, immigrants, they're coming for benefits, the immigrants are doing the crimeing, the immigrants, the immigrants.
And, you know, apart from some flag waving about, you know, great American manufacturing,
I didn't hear a lot of substance in that at all, except again, be afraid.
Yeah, well, for one, he's not going to be talking about the administration's policies that would relate to manufacturing, i.e.
tariffs, which have been
pretty devastating for a lot of Wisconsin manufacturers.
You can see that the prices for these materials and all of that are going way, way up in the United States, the way they are not in many other countries.
So I think he's not going to come and talk about an issue that they're losing on.
He's going to come and try and talk about immigration, which over and over again, he and Trump will return to because they think it is a winning issue for them.
And I think it was in many ways in the 2024 election.
Now that we're seeing some of these policies in practice,
so sure it is the same kind of winning issue that they think it might be.
But, you know, obviously no coincidence that he's coming to La Crosse, coming to, you know, the third congressional district, which I think is going to be one of the key races in the House next year with Derek Van Orden, going up against, you know, whoever eventually wins the primary for Democrats there.
And it's, yeah, it's, you know, we're going to hear a lot of this types of fear mongering on immigration on crime and whatnot over the next year and a half.
And I guess the main reason for that, well, there's many reasons, but one of them that, you know, he says, and Derek Van Orden talked about all the time is, you know, that nobody who deserves their benefits is going to lose it.
They're really trying to convince folks that all the cost cutting, all the budget cutting is going to hit, you know, undocumented immigrants and not regular folks.
And there's just nothing empirical that says that, that backs that up, right, Dan?
You're absolutely right.
And then I think we're, as we see, you know, kind of the open enrollment periods for healthcare in particular, start kicking off later this year, I think we're going to see like this pretty significant rises in just healthcare costs for anybody who's on the exchanges, anybody who's on Medicaid, you know, and so I think we're going to see this in real time in reality play out and it's going to be.
contradictory to what the administration, what Republicans have been saying about this one big, beautiful bill for the past several months.
You can't talk to Dan Schaefer without talking about the Milwaukee Bucks.
That's coming up in just a bit.
And more some final news and notes from Lake WSOTA right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Got ourselves a busy show tomorrow.
We'll talk to Melissa Kay from WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids.
Get an update on Leluy the Pigeon as well.
Let's see, we've got our homeroom segment where we'll have a guest from the Wisconsin Education Association Council, WEAC.
Jimmy Costco will be along, as will Earl Ingram from Civic Media.
Melissa Baldoff will be joining us.
James Kelly from our Chippewa Falls newsroom for Civic Media.
Lots of reasons to tune in, and of course, if you can't listen to the full program tomorrow.
We had a podcast just subscribe to the show that way and you can go back and listen to whatever you want when you want again had to Spotify or Apple and follow us as a podcast Dan Schaefer joins us here, and we we often talk a lot about Different state news stories, but there is one national item that I wanted to pass along here And it does have a bit of a Wisconsin tie a judge in Washington State is ruled
that President Trump's use of the National Guard during the Los Angeles immigration protests is illegal.
Judge Charles Breyer ruled today that the Trump administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on immigration laws.
The judge in Washington did not require the troops to be immediately withdrawn, however.
And so...
The reason it's got a Wisconsin tie is that when Vice President JD Vance was here He was asked a couple of questions about whether you know should should people in Milwaukee be concerned that there is going to be American soldiers in the streets for No real good reason Dan.
I mean apart from picking up litter in Washington DC There really hasn't been much to say about it attracting anything other than protests in DC and LA so far
Yeah, and I saw a headline last week about the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles.
Let's say the military deployments to LA will cost $134 million.
Did you see this one?
It was from
about a month
ago.
But yeah, it's $134 million to do something unconstitutional and ineffective.
There's the Trump administration for you.
There it is.
Right.
And so again, as is the case with everything related to Madison or Washington DC, when they say, we can't afford this, we can't afford this.
No, no, no, we can, they can afford the things they choose to afford.
And so it could be health care, or it could be putting troops on the streets for no real good reason whatsoever.
So, and the vice president, you know, he, he wasn't
quite sure how to answer something like that.
It was a lot of kind of very general speak of, well, I'm sure the president is following this very closely.
And obviously we'd like to be invited so and so, but it really is just a reason to, again, it's a fear factor thing.
It's about fear of crime, even though the numbers show that, you know, crime is not nearly at the level that it was previously.
So it's just all politics.
It's all performative.
It's fear mongering and it is as we see here in the city of Milwaukee all the time when it comes to state Republicans and the way they talk about our wonderful city It is a lot of fear mongering.
It is a lot of false narratives and it's a lot of nonsense and it is It's it's very frustrating.
That's for sure.
Well, you know when the vice president was in lacrosse to talk about the mega bill You got this dispatch from the governor's office to remind you that Tony Evers is not going away quietly he he just
gave it a slap upside the head, this mega bill, with the rundown of the price tag in Wisconsin, numbering into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the health care cuts and the new state red tape requirements that are going to be out there.
It's really the kind of thing that only a governor's office could do is to crunch the numbers and say, hey, while they're busy talking to generalities about the bill, here's what it really does here.
Yeah that local impact right that we always want to be looking for the headline from the Tony Evers press release last week The day that Vance was in town read Evers administration estimates Republicans big beautiful bill to increase costs for Wisconsin taxpayers taxpayers by over 284 million dollars in future budgets also adds that the bill will force
over 270,000 Wisconsinites to lose their health insurance and tens of thousands to lose access to basic food assistance.
Yeah, you know, it's not great.
We've talked about it on this show and many others many times, but getting some numbers attached to this, $284 million in future budgets, $142 million per
per year, it's really, I think once we see when the rubber really hits the road, when this bill starts to get implemented, we're gonna see the effects of it downstream.
And downstream means states and local communities like yours.
Yeah, it really is about follow
the money.
All right, well, you can't have a conversation with Dan Schaefer if you're not looking at, you know, the bucks and six of any given series.
And it leads to this question, to the casual fan.
who is familiar with Yanis Anatacupo, but often sees the name of Thanasis Anatacupo, who is now re-signed.
And I don't know that I hear about him on an everyday basis, so just give me the quick 101 on, is he a security blanket just to keep Yanis here, or is he a true asset to the team?
Well, the NBA roster is 15 people, and that's not a big roster.
But he is, I think, the best 15th man of all time in the history of the NBA.
Because for one, he and Giannis almost communicate like they have some sort of...
You know, they can kind of understand each other without even speaking a lot of the times.
And so I think that, you know, helping the best player on the team, the franchise player, that helps a lot.
He brings a ton of energy to the games.
He's yelling and shouting and jumping up and down at every call in every game.
And I also think there's this that comes with having the NASA's on the team.
He always gives 150% effort on every play all of the time.
So I almost feel.
like it is an incentive for the coaching staff to say, Hey, look, if you guys are dogging it, we've got the masses here, given 100% on every play and every practice all the time, he's going to be pushing you guys to make sure that you're bringing that same type of effort and intensity that is needed in in these high level basketball games too.
So I think he not only is there for Yanis for he's just a good vibes guy generally.
And I think he helps the coaches.
with the with the energy that he brings to the team.
You are not going to get a better answer to that question than the one you just got from Dan Schaefer.
Sign up for his newsletter, the ReconpopulationArea.News.
Thank you, Dan.
We've got a sale going on too, so you can subscribe now for 35% off.
How's that?
There you go.
Go look it up.
Be a subscriber and thank you for joining us on this lovely Tuesday.
Enjoy the start to your week.
We'll see you tomorrow morning, Brighton, early here up north.
The national news cycle never stops.
but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
