Merging Small Problems Solves Nothing (Hour 2)

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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.

Thank you, Don Rue.

Told you he was still in the rotation here.

Hey, good morning, 7-0-6.

Nice to have you back up north here on a Wednesday morning, November 12th.

Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.

Ellie Bordeaux standing by.

our newsletter editor at Up North News, sign up at upnorthnewswi.com.

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opens up this weekend and the Deer Hunters Roundup has been a staple of programming up at that radio station for more than 50 years now of hunters calling in throughout the season and sharing stories and making each other laugh and talking and giving each other tips and so that's all coming up in our next hour.

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Parker, I was getting creamer out for the coffee and taking a look at lunch because my breakfast a little earlier than most people, so it was lunch.

And last night's creation was chicken pot pie soup.

So it's not quite chicken

pot pie because

that's kind of more like a gravy filling.

But this is more of a kind of a creamy soup with all the chicken pot pie ingredients.

And everybody knows I'm in a cult, the cult of Instapot.

But you can make it in a, you know, a crock pot as well.

But I love that pressure cooker.

And then you take, you can either get puff pastries.

Or you can get, I get the, I go the easy way, get the Pillsbury biscuits that kind of come off in like layers

and you put those

layers along the top to kind of emulate a chicken pot pie.

Yeah.

That's good eating right there.

That's right.

I

know.

We always do this to folks who are busy having breakfast and I'm already talking about lunch over here, but that is, that is the life of an early riser.

Yeah.

I, what time do you eat

lunch, Pat?

If I could, nine oh one, but you know, most of the time a little, little after 10.

Okay, I'm usually around like 1030, 1045.

Yeah.

I mean, it checks out.

That's just the way things roll here.

So, all right, let's check in now with the Pride of Economalock, Ellie Bordeaux newsletter editor at Up North News.

Ellie, any kitchen creations you've made lately that you want to share?

I made some nachos on Monday for the Packer game.

Yes.

Oh, you can eat nachos, Pat.

Yes,

right.

But I

I can't say I've ever had chicken pot pie soup.

I'd never heard of

it.

I want to try.

No

offense to you, Pat.

No, no, no.

I'd never heard of it until last weekend when we were at a family function and somebody brought that along and we tried it and we're like, that's really good.

I'm going to try to make this.

And yeah, it was, it was kind of surprising.

So there's, there's our new thing there.

We're always talking about food here and Ellie jumps in on the act as well as anybody.

We're going to.

cover two different foods here.

And we're, what do we call it, our locals love on

Fridays?

Our locals love section of the newsletter on Fridays.

So

this

week, or this past week, we looked at cheese curds,

which

we know can be quite the discussion in Wisconsin.

And this isn't going to be the only time we talk about cheese curds in my newsletter for sure.

There will be more.

But for

now, we had some people write in

One of the most interesting to me was the quick trip in Turtle Lake.

Someone was very...

Yes.

Felt very strongly about those cheese curds.

They said, strangely enough, the quick trip in Turtle Lake has exceptional cheese curds.

The seasoning and the breading is perfectly balanced, as is the ratio of curd to coating, which I think is very important.

I like the breakdown.

I like the breakdown of that.

I don't know all the options in Turtle Lake for cheese curds.

And so there might be some other places going, hey, what about us?

Who knows what they're making at the casino there.

But at least if you go by the quick trip, you got an option, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Quick trip is a great option.

Who knows?

Did all the answers change your thinking at all as far as whether you prefer to get yours fresh and squeaky or deep-fried?

I would say I can't make a decision on that right now.

You don't have to.

You can let them both.

As the kids say, you know, six, seven.

Did I do that right?

I have no idea.

Actually, nobody knows if you did that right.

Although, I think I made Parker throw up a little bit over there.

Oh, I did not need that from you.

He loves when I skew so young and hip.

That's

it.

Yeah.

All right.

Maybe we should move on from cheese curds.

What are you looking ahead to?

What are we all going to fight about this Friday?

this Friday, we are looking at ice cream shops.

So even though the weather is cooling down and it's getting cold, I personally don't think there's ever a bad time for ice cream.

I ice

cream almost every night after dinner.

It's like my favorite sweet treat.

Go to Culver's, do all that.

So I want to hear about all the best ice cream shops.

I think it's very important, especially in the dairy state.

Ice cream is still important too.

Cheese curds is our thing, but ice cream is still important.

So that's what we're looking at.

I've already gotten so many responses.

People are also very passionate about this for sure.

So keep sending them in.

I would love to feature them.

Send photos, all that.

We did give a little tease of it.

Was it yesterday, Parker?

You're talking about your love for the Turtle Sunday?

Yeah, it was National Sunday Day

yesterday.

Oh, that's right.

It was National Sunday Day

on

Tuesday.

And yep, people, big fans of the turtle.

I said mine was hot fudge and bananas.

I don't get a lot of...

Sundays, to be honest, because I mean, and I blame Dairy Queen for this ever since they invented the Blizzard and you can throw like three pounds of candy into an ice cream tree, you know, it kind of takes away the magic of the Sunday.

But again, your favorite ice cream shop might be, you know, your local Dairy Queen or Culver's or something like that.

But if you've got something local like in Chippewa Falls here, we have Olson's ice cream that a lot of folks swear by.

And we had people yesterday cast votes for the chocolate shop in Madison.

And

so

yes, I'm sure you're seeing a good amount of nominations already and you want more people to, you know, give a shout out to what's in their hometown.

Yes, absolutely.

I've already, when that came out on Friday when I announced what we're going to be looking at next week, I already got so many responses like all the way down.

So I'm excited to feature them.

Again, this is a little bit selfish for me because whenever I go around, I can be like, oh, where do I want to get ice cream today?

You know what I

mean?

No, there's nothing wrong with that.

And by the way, are we limiting it to ice cream shops or do people who have their favorite frozen custard place, they can lump this in?

Yes?

No?

I would say you can lump it in.

I think.

Well,

I think you can lump it in under the umbrella of ice cream shops, but then you also have to break it out.

And we have done that here in the past where it's like, where do you go for frozen custard?

Which on the western side of the state, people go, what?

But on the eastern side of the state, they're like, oh, I love this place.

They don't cops or this or that.

They all

have

their favorite.

Actually, talk to, Sharita Booker has a favorite frozen custard place in Milwaukee.

I'll have to ask her about that again tomorrow.

figure out what that is.

So we'll get we'll get to that as well.

So ice cream shops.

All right, that works.

And let's see, also in the newsletter, I noticed today, the latest in our civic check in, tell folks about that series.

Yeah, so our civic check in is every Wednesday, we take a look at different topics or terms or things to define about civics.

And we want to keep people civically, civically engaged, let people know what's going on.

in our political climate, those kinds of things, and just inform people on different terms that they might not have heard since high school.

So today we took a look at understanding the early shifts of, or the early signs of an authoritarian shifts, the things that you can look for.

So politicizing independent institutions and spreading false or misleading information while discrediting reputable news sources, things like that.

So we kind of take a look at the...

different things to look out for for an authoritarian shift.

Well, and by the way, when you talk about putting out, you know, misinformation, part of it is about, you know, the accusations that an authoritarian government would make about others.

I can't tell you how many times that people who have progressive positions have been labeled as socialists or communists or both without any respect for the distinction between the two.

And so that way when

they are more correctly called authoritarian or fascist or whatever they can say, oh, you're just, you're just name calling.

Well, just name calling is when you're doing it without any regard for the label.

Uh, if you actually know what the label stands for and you're applying it, then it tends to work.

But to do that, you got to know the definitions and that's why I'm glad you're putting this series together.

Yeah, right.

I think it's super important that people understand because these terms, these terms, like you said, can kind of just get thrown around and people don't really know the real.

definition of them.

And so I think it's really important to have this section to let people know what do these things mean, where can you place them and how can you kind of see them fit into today's life.

We're talking to Ellie Bordeaux newsletter editor here at Up North News.

And as you note in the newsletter, the consistent aim of any authoritarian shift is to make people feel disconnected from the process, convincing them their voices no longer matter.

Because then things go in one of two different directions, either they just stop voting, which allows others who support the authoritarian to show up and win elections, or they become, you know, so discouraged by the system that they embrace people

who they think will be, you know, radically different and new.

We've got to blow up the whole system.

And, you know, a lot of people think they see that in Donald Trump and then come to realize, you know, he's not here to blow up the system.

He's here to enrich himself from the system.

But it really is, it comes back to that whole notion of civic engagement is we don't want people to feel like their voice doesn't matter.

We don't want people to feel like, oh, why should I even vote?

You know, nobody in government cares about me.

They actually do.

We just have to talk about that more than just the cynicism that's out there about politics.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's another reason why we want this section in our newsletter is because our whole mission is to make sure that people are civically engaged, those kinds of things, like you said.

And so I think just having this section in the newsletter just kind of supports that a little bit of letting people know what these things mean, going out and understanding those things, informing others, having discussions with others and that kind of stuff.

So.

Yeah, I think it's really important to include this

stuff.

We're talking to Ellie Bordeaux newsletter editor here at Up North News and one more story to talk about and that is Native American Heritage Month and you have a story about it and how people can market.

There's a story on our website about it as well.

Tell us more.

Yeah, so November is National Native American Heritage Month.

It was designated by President George W. Bush in 1990.

And the month celebrates and honors the history, culture, and contributions of Indigenous peoples around the nation.

And in Wisconsin, there are 11 federally recognized Native tribes.

And according to the World Population Review, 2.14% of America's population identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native.

And in Wisconsin, 1.7%

8% of the state's population identify as such.

So in this article, we have different ways that you can support indigenous peoples in Wisconsin or help celebrate Native American Heritage Month.

So we have stuff all over the state.

We've got some in

Milwaukee, we've got some in Madison, we've got some in Chippewa Falls, we've got all sorts of stuff, all sorts of activities.

So it's really great and definitely check it out.

Yeah, there's everything from, again, performances and powwows to art shows and markets, learning about language and culture.

There's even the astronomy of Native America.

These are all spelled out in Ellie's story that you can find at upnorthnewswi.com.

You can find a link for that in today's newsletter as well for all that she does.

today and every day.

Again, get yourself signed up at upnorthnewswi.com.

Ellie Bordeaux, thank you so much as always.

Have a great day.

Yeah, thank you.

You too.

All right.

When we, well, let's take a look at the sports here quick before we pause and then I'll tell you what's coming up later on this hour.

Pat Murphy, named manager of the year for the second year in a row.

So again, nice to have him recognized for what he's done with the Milwaukee Brewers, essentially having the managerial role thrust on him when Craig Council turned tail and ran to the Chicago Cubs and he certainly made the most of it.

Steven Voet, the former Brewers catcher, who is now manager of the Cleveland Guardians, he too has now won back-to-back manager of the year awards over in the American League.

And let's see, we also

have in sports.

The Milwaukee Bucks are playing tonight at Charlotte and then they're back home Friday night to play Charlotte in the NBA Cup.

Cup, cup, cup, cup.

Parker, where's your cheer?

There we go.

We're really, really selling that NBA Cup.

The Bucks are going to play Charlotte.

That's all you need to know.

Brent Horton from the Wisconsin Public Education Network is coming up in 15 minutes.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

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're getting a good morning here from Robin Tigerton, sunny and 36 degrees.

Says he has a doctor's appointment in Chano today.

Also going to the library to pick up more information on Highway 29 for his scrapbook on the history of that road that stretches all across northern Wisconsin there.

So Rob, thank you again for the check-in as always.

Let's see, in state news here,

We have a new proposal on how to handle elections from Republican candidate for governor, Josh Shomen.

Josh Shomen is the Washington County executive and he was one of the first Republicans to get into the governor's race.

Since that time, Tom Tiffany has gotten into the race as well.

Donald Trump hasn't made an endorsement yet, so technically there is still a Republican primary to be had.

If Trump doesn't make an endorsement, voters will get to make that choice in August of next year.

But if Donald Trump endorses either Josh Shulman or Tom Tiffany, well, then what's the sense of even voting?

Because that seems to be the thing that determines who gets on the Republican ballot.

But anyway, Josh Shulman is trying to, again, stay out there ahead of Tom Tiffany.

And in this case is proposing ways that you could overhaul the elections.

one idea would be helpful.

A lot of the others not so much.

And I'm getting a lot of this out of a story by Molly Beck in this morning's Journal Sentinel, which you should subscribe to and check out.

Molly Beck's lead says that Showman is proposing to address how ballots are collected and counted by eliminating absentee ballot drop boxes.

Here we go again.

and barring municipalities from using one place to count absentee ballots at all voting locations, something known as a central count facility, which again is something that's not necessary, but it allows him as the Washington County executive to reinforce that whole Milwaukee is a big bad city narrative that Republicans love to do.

Now, the one good idea that he's proposing is to give local clerks the ability to start processing ballots the day before Election Day.

Now again, not counting the ballots.

It means taking the absentee ballots that have come in and checking the envelope that they came in to make sure that there's a signature, that it's a qualified elector, that they've got the address and all of that.

And that way you can open up the ballot, you can put it in, you know, the place where it's going to be counted later.

And then on election day, you can start running them through the counting machines.

But right now,

Wisconsin's one of the few states that doesn't allow that.

And so you've got to do all that work first as everybody else's voting.

And that's part of the reason that you get so many votes late at night in cities like Milwaukee and elsewhere.

And then he also wants to take away central count because again, the whole notion of moving the ballots to one place and counting the ballots more efficiently rather than having to buy more machines to push all over the cities.

Well, that enables you to again,

create and perpetuate this false narrative that says there must be something sinister if they're using a central account facility when no, that actually makes elections more efficient and therefore more accurate.

But, you know, it is what we've gotten used to hearing from Republicans and Josh Schoeman certainly no different here.

He talks about eliminating the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Again, another one, something you hear about from Republicans all the time.

He says he would shift the duties to an elected official and that elected official would essentially get all of the power.

Who wants a politician essentially being in charge of our elections?

It's really no different than how Republicans right now have taken all the power away from the Secretary of State's office.

But believe me if Republicans hold the majority in the legislature and then win back the Secretary of State seat, you can bet your bottom dollar they're right away going to abolish the State Elections Commission and give all the power to that Republican Secretary of State to determine if ballots count or not.

Remember we live in a state where somebody like Tom Tiffany, a former legislator and a member of Congress, proposed throwing out

all of your ballots that you cast in 2000 because Donald Trump wanted him to.

And that, you know, Ron Johnson also said that the legislature could essentially just make up their own rules and determine who wins elections.

Who believes that that should be a good idea?

When there's a better idea out there already, we have the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

It's made up of three Democrats and three Republicans.

In other words, it was created by Republicans to fail, to lock up.

There are times when it does lock up through partisan differences, but there's other times where it actually works quite well.

But there was a better way.

And that was the old government accountability board, which fair disclosure I helped support during my first year in the legislature to oversee elections.

It was made up of retired judges.

I ask you, could you find any other group that is more interested in nonpartisan oversight of elections than retired judges?

And they were doing a great job.

They were getting national recognition for how well Wisconsin's elections were being administered.

But then they started looking into somebody who was not following the rules of elections.

Scott Walker, who was governor at the time.

Next thing you know, the government accountability board has

been dissolved and replaced with this elections commission with three Democrats and three Republicans.

Schoeman says, I believe it was designed to fail.

Anything that's even remotely controversial is always going to end in a tie of three and three.

Well, it hasn't always, but it has some time.

So what I'd like to hear from Josh Schoeman is a full-throated endorsement of going back to the government accountability board.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that.

especially somebody who is, again, coming down on the side of getting rid of absentee ballot drop boxes, which, again, we can say till we're blue in the face and it'll remain true, hasn't been anything, anything, found untoward about absentee ballot drop boxes, and Republicans loved them.

They were a convenience to rural voters.

until Donald Trump told them to be opposed to it because it helped him perpetuate the narrative in which he was hoping to stage a coup in 2020 and overthrow the results of a presidential election.

So Josh Schoeman had a chance to show some independence and stand up for free and fair elections in Wisconsin.

Instead, he's just towing the usual Republican talking points and that's awfully unfortunate.

We'll have today's homeroom segment with Bryn Horton from the Wisconsin Public Education Network.

Right after this, you're up north.

Welcome back, it is 735.

On a Wednesday morning, November 12th, 2025, I'm Pat Crichtlow here in Chippewa Falls.

Nice to have you along.

Bryn Horton will join us for our homeroom segment where we talk all about education in Wisconsin.

I'll bring her in in just a bit to talk about some of the bills that the legislature is considering and maybe some of the bills that they're not considering.

But I'm going to do a little editorializing first before she gets some Q&A from me because there was a social media post

that stood out yesterday for me, saw it first on Twitter and you can follow the show on Twitter at PK Radio Show, same on Blue Sky, if you'd rather not be on Twitter.

But on there was a post by a state legislator who was talking about recent events surrounding the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, which supports education all over the state and taking issue with some recent controversies and calling for the elimination of the Department of Public Instruction.

which is right up there with those people who talk about abolishing the United States Department of Education.

And it always comes down to, well, let's just help the local districts and keep things at the local level and we don't need all these bureaucrats running these things anyway.

Okay, here's my proposal then.

Instead of abolishing the Department of Public Instruction, which has all this support staff that helps all of our schools, how about we take care of the support staff that helps the legislature?

At least for this one legislator, for his office alone, I propose abolishing the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Not abolishing it, but just he can't access it anymore because that way he gets nobody with legal training that will help him write bills.

And therefore, every bill he writes is going to get tossed out because it wasn't drafted properly.

And then we're going to abolish for him the Legislative Fiscal Bureau because then we can watch him basically just

pull dollars numbers out of his butt to try to write a budget because he will not have the experts at the Legislative Fiscal Bureau to give him all the latest stats about the state budget.

Let's get rid of the Legislative Audit Bureau so that there is no oversight or he can't get any oversight of state agencies.

We're going to get rid of, for him, the Legislative Counsel's Office.

That would be the attorneys who give legal advice to the legislature.

We're going to get rid of the Legislative Human Resources Office.

Good luck trying to hire a staff and manage it and not get into trouble.

And we're going to get rid of the Legislative Technology Services Bureau and watch his computers go bad real fast.

As a legislator, myself once upon a time, I understand, appreciate, respect, and cherish all that is done behind the scenes.

to make our government work, to make government functional.

What other people like to derisively sneer at as bureaucrats are people that government can't function without.

This is not some kind of a blanket statement that there's no thinning that could be done, that there's no budget that could use some trimming or oversight now and then.

But anytime I just hear abolish this department, whether it's Department of Education, Department of Public Instruction or anything else, I just want to remind people of all the other ways that we all have support staff that help us get through life a little bit easier.

And it sure is easy to talk big at the bar about abolishing an entire agency.

until you realize that, you know, that's not a serious approach toward the way that we educate our kids.

Other people, thankfully, are much more serious about this.

Brynn Hortons, one of them.

She is with the Wisconsin Public Education Network.

She's a school board member yourself, right Brynn?

Good morning.

Good morning.

Yeah.

Schoolboarding in Sun Prairie.

In Sun Prairie, that's right.

And so we're going to talk about the legislation that you follow for the public education network.

But let me toss that to you.

And I just wanted to get my editorializing out of the way first.

Again, not saying the Department of Public Instruction is perfect.

But you and every school board member understands that there is a role to be played by some kind of an agency like the Department of Public Instruction at the state level, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, especially all of the state level mandates that come down from the legislature are all managed by DPI.

Oh, there you go.

So I guess if he doesn't want that, then I guess he doesn't want state mandates anymore, which, trust me, I see my fair share of micromanaging and we see it in some of these bills that are out there as well.

So let's just, again, take it easy on abolishing entire departments here.

I'd rather have serious lawmakers working on oversight of our schools.

But as far as the bills that are being taken up so far in the fall session, and maybe we'll get to some of them that aren't being taken up as well.

But the one that's getting some attention today is about school district consolidation.

Can you talk a little bit about what these bills might be proposing for struggling school districts that are looking to consolidate services?

Yeah, so my understanding is a lot of these bills came from the speaker's test course.

I think it's been now a couple of years ago on consolidation and looking for ways to incentivize for school districts.

Consolidation or whole grade sharing was another one of the bills, whether or not school districts want to be able to share grades.

And so that it's mainly looking for financial abilities for them to be able to add their

their grades together consolidate school districts.

And then there was also a bill, they think most of the testimony was focused on yesterday around having a DPI hire an entity to conduct a survey analysis on school board or school district boundaries, whether or not there's places that they would recommend for school districts to consolidate and look for sharing of monies and being able to get rid of staff.

that I think is the big bill that came out of yesterday's hearings.

Yeah, here's what I see is the good and the bad side of that.

Now, on the good side.

there has been consolidation in school districts before.

In fact, I have a distant relative who back in the early 1960s, you know, helped Wisconsin consolidate from well over 1000 school districts.

A lot of them were one room schoolhouse districts into the, you know, 400 some districts that we have now.

So I mean, that's, that's always something that you have to be on the lookout for.

But you can't turn it into like a shortcut instead of just

you know, adequately funding the schools that we have is saying, well, maybe if you two combined forces, that'll be better.

All I really see there, Brent, if you don't take care of the root causes of funding and all that is you're creating longer school bus rides, but I'm not seeing a lot of other efficiencies.

Yeah, I think that that's going to be

I mean, especially in rural school districts, right, that are struggling to pass referendums, are having a hard time getting operating costs.

And I know that I've heard Senator Quinn talk about the fact that the state legislature needs to think about the fact that in rural school districts that are spread out wide, that consolidation isn't an option for them.

And how do we make sure that they stay whole and can operate?

their schools effectively for those rural communities.

Yeah, I mean, look, if there's ways to share services, you know, professional services and things like that, that's fine.

And again, boundary adjustments, you know, happen, they're understandable.

But I'm just seeing in the coverage of this that there's basically a financial incentive to consider consolidation.

But they're really not getting at the root cause, which is chronic underfunding of our public schools that's been going on for the past 15 years.

And obviously, we saw that in this last eight budget with, you know, no increase in general school aids whatsoever.

So consolidation is one one aspect that they're looking at.

There's another that is especially troubling to me.

And this one deals with the voucher schools program where we're using

your tax dollars to help families send their kids to private school, even if, you know, maybe their income changes and goes up.

This puts a little bit of heredity into the system by allowing siblings to attend voucher schools just because their big brother, big sister went, right?

Yep.

Yeah.

I think that coupled.

So any siblings?

Once you're in the voucher, once you're in the voucher program as a family, you can stay in the voucher program and all additional siblings can get added in there as they, as they grow into the system.

There's also, I believe one that would, doesn't require people to have to submit their income levels.

And so there's really no check then on whether people go out of the income level of being able to be in the voucher school that they would,

once you're in, you stay in.

I mean they're not they're not even pretending anymore that this is something that's necessary for lower income families to have a quote unquote fair shot at a good education through a private school when of course the answer would be to take care of our public schools you know statewide but I mean

there, there, there's not even the appearance if a bill like this were to go through that, you know, once your family is in, it's almost like a country club.

It doesn't matter if your parents get a big raise or a better job, you still get those state tax dollars to go to these private schools, right?

Yep.

Yeah, and

Um, as I know, we talk about a lot, right?

Once the, the caps come off for people enrollment and how many people they can have, um, in that school that are on vouchers in the next year or so.

And then when income level caps come off as well, like those are going to be some huge, huge things.

If once you get in use, you stay in.

Yeah.

And it is, as other states are finding out, becoming, you know, a billion dollar, uh, boondoggle that is, you know, is just not.

not necessary, Wisconsin has these enrollment caps right now to prevent unchecked growth from bankrupting the state budget.

But again, there is no large scale efforts underway to prevent those caps from being lifted sometime in the in the next year or so here.

What are some of the other bills that you've been following that the legislature is taking up in the fall session here or may take up?

Well,

I had hopes that there were a few good ones.

There's bipartisan support for a bill around rehiring, being able to allow to rehire retirees who are already getting money from the retirement system.

And so that one has been through committee and has bipartisan support in both houses, the Senate and the Assembly.

And that has not gone down onto the floor for anybody to actually vote on.

And then there, things are happening rapidly, I guess I think is the other thing is these bills on the consolidation got introduced on Monday morning and had a hearing on Tuesday morning.

So it feels like sometimes things come out of the blue, even though there's all these great bills that are still awaiting hearings.

they get introduced, they get a hearing and they move on and everything else stays.

It really is as if you know we all learned how a bill becomes a law and what they've done is they've set up basically a velvet rope a VIP line and all of the you know the bills that that Democrats or even have some bipartisan bills they have to wait in that line but boy when there's something you know that is is wanted that might be not quite in line with you know

mainstream thought in Wisconsin.

They fast-tracked that puppy.

Like you said, they announced it in committee 24 hours notice and it's gone and it is really, uh, uh, it really is an insult to, you know, the legislators and their constituents who expect the system to work fairly for all.

It's not, it's not that every bill is going to get considered.

That's certainly not the case here, but they're being handled in a way that, I mean, I've been watching this legislature for 30 years and I've, I've never seen it handled quite like this, Bryn.

Yeah, and it's pretty much it feels like anything that's written written on the Republican side is gonna get a hearing and it doesn't matter what

what kinds of stuff gets introduced if it has a Democrat's name on it.

It's not it's not getting very far, which is a shame.

Yeah.

And like I said, there's plenty of other bills out there that could be considered, for example, one that would provide more information about the state aid reduction to school districts that go, you know, that that are in the voucher program.

And plenty of other things that rather than micromanaging school districts, or taking more taxpayer funds would actually

be a resource for our public schools to improve.

Thankfully, Bryn Hortons following all that for us through the Wisconsin Public Education Network and checks in with us every so often to give us an update from the state capitol.

Bryn, we appreciate all that you're doing and thanks so much for spending a little time with us today.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much.

All right, have a great day.

Still ahead, we're going to be talking to Earl Ingram.

He'll tell us what's going on as part of the What's Going On podcast with Earl Ingram.

Melissa Baldoff has our weekly climate check as well.

And then we're going to talk about deer hunting.

And we'll be talking to a member of the Civic Media family from up in the Park Falls area about a 50 year program that gives deer hunters a place to share their stories each season.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is 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.

Coming up later, Matt Nair on air is next 9 to 11 weekdays on the Civic Media Radio Network, Jane Matt Nair and Greg Bach.

And coming up at 9.30 this morning, Andra Watkins, a New York Times bestselling author discussing the rise of Christian nationalism.

And then just after 10 a.m., Dr. Kristen Lierly will be joining Jane and Greg.

Coming up later this afternoon on the Maggie Dawn Show at 435 Rebecca Bennett, a congressional candidate out of New Jersey, a veteran running for office, part of a group of female veterans running for Congress calling themselves the Hellcats.

That's part of the Maggie Dawn Show for until six this afternoon.

And of course, in between those two, you've got Tom Hartman and then Todd Alba from two to four.

Civic Media Sports Director Jimmy Koska joins us now to talk a bit about, well, let's start with Pat Murphy.

So Jimmy, good morning.

How's it feel seeing Pat Murphy getting manager of the year for the second year in a row?

I think all doubt and eliminated was eliminated on that front.

Once he pulled that pancake out of his pocket during that interview.

Once that happened, I'm like, that's your manager of the year right there.

There's no question.

Yes,

no

doubt.

And I know, look, Steven Devote wasn't a catcher here for a very long time, but he made an impression on me.

And I think a lot of people just as it seems like a good guy and to have him get manager of the year for the second year in a row in the American League with the Cleveland Guardians.

I think that's a credit to the Brewers organization as much as anything else.

Yeah, and I think it's also a credit to the fact that there are teams that are doing more with less and it's not just an automatic.

All right.

Well, let's let's just take the the team with the most resources and I know put together the most wins or whatever.

The Brewers got the most wins and they had among I think they were the bottom third of resources in the whole and all baseball and here they're turning out not only wins the major league level, but you look up and down the minor league system and

They've set themselves up for the long haul because there are prospects all over the system, and they are doing it the right way.

They are developing at a great rate, and they are the envy right now, I think, of baseball.

Of all these teams that have these multibillions of dollars that they can throw around, you know, the brewers are just being good at baseball.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Terry Fran Crote.

Terry Francona got plenty of votes, second place votes, and to be fair, Craig Council got a fair share of votes, second place votes, third place votes, and is still, despite all of my derision, he is still a very widely respected, very smart manager and did not have a bad season for the Chicago Cubs.

He had just the kind of season we wanted him to have, a little less than how the Brewers did.

That's all.

Exactly, and I think that if you look at

You look at any of the teams that made the playoffs.

I mean, we were sitting.

three, four months ahead of it.

We got halfway through the baseball season.

The standings looked a lot different.

So they got it right.

They got it right with the people that they picked, not only for MVP.

They also got it right with the rookie of the year in the national league in selecting former Madison West standout, Drake Baldwin.

So I thought that that was a really cool thing, that there was a former Wisconsin high school baseball player that got that recognition as well.

It just shows you that baseball is great here.

We've seen a lot of time.

that guys come out of Wisconsin in recent years.

So that was really cool to see too.

Yeah.

I don't think I've asked you where you stand on this and so I'm not putting you on the spot but Parker's got to get his vuvuzela ready.

I want to know your thoughts on the NBA Cup.

Oh, you went and got the sound effect.

You were doing such a better job at it yourself.

Just got to class it up a little.

Okay, so it's clasped up a little.

The Bucks play at Charlotte tonight and then at Friday, on Friday, they're home at the Pfizer Forum once again against Charlotte, but this one is part of the NBA Cup.

Cup.

Cup.

There we go.

Jimmy, a good way to make the regular season games count or useless distraction prone to mockery.

All right, so Saturday mornings at seven Parker myself a couple other knuckleheads in the company get together and we talk about this This is one of the questions this week and how I literally phrased it was like do you guys care about the NBA Cup?

I don't even know what the NBA Cup is I couldn't even tell you who won it last year and they told they informed me that the box I

had

no idea what did that

get on you know, it's a little extra bonus money and a free

I'm like, all right, cool.

They're making some money, but like

It's not affecting anything else.

You know, it's not it's not going to help them with an actual championship.

All right, cool.

They're making some money.

I guess that's cool.

But I don't know.

It's not that interesting to me.

And I understand why the NBA is doing it.

But I don't know, man.

I

look at it.

It is it is easy.

It's just an easy thing to mock.

I

already a regular season games.

You don't need more.

I don't know.

Right.

Just what it is.

But

what I will say, because I know Luke Mathers will say it.

If you are a

a true NBA fan like you watch regular season games the way that I watch regular season baseball games.

Okay.

And if if this motivates that some of these games that apparently last Friday's game between the bucks and the bowls got to be rather spirited because who knew there's a point differential involved in this as well.

So if you are a day to day NBA fan

I can totally see why this is a net plus.

I'm just saying that from an observational standpoint, especially with the goofy looking courts and uniforms that they get for it.

The Minnesota court with the lime green.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it's city connect on steroids is what

it is.

Yeah, I just, I don't know, man.

There's 82 regular season games.

We have five months left in the season.

I can see why they're doing it to kind of, you know, juice some interest in November and, you know, ahead of the Christmas games and people sort of start tuning in and then they don't really start getting involved until we get, you know, to the all star break, but.

I, there's so much basketball already.

And this time of year too, you're very distracted with everything else happening.

You're still, you know, the meat of the NFL season.

There's college football wrapping up.

There's, you know, you just got done with baseball.

There's so much to contend with this time of year.

It is, it is so hard to, I guess break into the consciousness of the average fan, average sports fan this time of year.

Uh, so for me, it's, it exists, but I honestly didn't know much about it.

And then I, I say that as somebody who follows a lot of sports, like I, of course, I know.

with the NBA Cup is like, define it, but like, I didn't follow it closely enough to you.

It's like the NFL preseason to me.

I couldn't tell you what three and all this year, you know?

Here's what I want.

I want the email from somebody at the end of this tournament to say, Hey, Pat, you dummy.

Thanks for talking about it so much.

It got me interested.

I watched it and I loved it.

So thanks for turning me on to it.

You jerk to which I will say you're welcome.

I'm glad I performed that service for the NBA.

I

really hope I

did.

And Jimmy Koska helped me along with it.

Civic Media Sports Director.

Jimmy, thank you so much.

Have a great day.

Thank you, Ticker.

All right.

Earl Ingram is on the way coming up right after the news, and then we will talk deer hunting as well, coming up at 8.35.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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