Good evening folks, this is the Turning Mark Thompson. This is your Paul Revere Show. We are here every Monday night at 7 at WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
The theme of this show is keep Wisconsin moving forward. It is our state motto and before I jump in with some exciting guests, today is historic day in Wisconsin.
Today, the first Latino judge was his investor to the Wisconsin quarter of appeals. Can you believe that it is 2023 and it is only now that we have our first Latino on the quarter of appeals.
Anyway, congratulations judge Pedro Cologne and folks, he's a gutsy, gutsy judge and we'll do a lot for the state and all of you.
But folks, tonight I am delighted to have back Sarah Harrison. Hello, Sarah. How are you?
Hi, Mark. I'm great. Thanks for having me. And Sarah is a very active in politics and walk a show. And you know, tonight we're in the studio live right here in the heart of purple land. That's what I call it.
It's slowly moving blue, a blue purple. But it's a very, very different place. So Sarah, tell me what's the latest on your end.
Sure. So while I'm very excited to say that I recently announced I will be running for Assembly District 13 here in Waukesha County, which is Brookfield Elm Grove and then a weird little scoop of Wauwatosa because our maps are so unique.
And so I'm running again in 2024. That's very exciting. It's big time stuff. Tomorrow, there's going to be arguments before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, our new court. Yes, they're taking up the constitutionality of the maps that I have said on the radio many times.
I believe we're gerrymandered and don't take my word for it folks. It was a federal sit, you know, court three judges sitting two of them Republican appointees that said it was so rigged. It was unconstitutional.
So what are your issues going into 2024, Sarah?
Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm very excited to see the process starting tomorrow in Madison. I am going to be there. I'll be there for the rally legal women voters having a rally before the hearing. And then I'm going to be there listening to the oral arguments as well.
Tell me more a little bit more about the rally. What time is that the rally starts at nine. I should have had that at my fingertips. But it's around the capital area. Let me just see this is the beauty of smartphones. I can tell you right now.
The rally is at nine o'clock. And it is in the capital building. So I have a little sign that I've created that has things giving turkey on it. And it says carve the turkey, not the maps.
And then I have a pie chart with actual pie that shows you the percentage of Democratic votes versus Democratic representatives, because even though we're in an essentially 50 50 state.
Our legislature is nearly at a super majority for the GOP because of the way the maps are dropped.
Yeah, it's the new GOP. I call it King Boss's GOP. But you know, I say the jokingly, but he has really decided he's like a one man show.
I mean, I think it's stifled discussion even within the Republican party.
I would agree. And I think it makes it really challenging for folks who have, I mean, I'm on doors a lot. I'm a volunteer first and a candidate second.
I mean, not that I don't put being a candidate first, but I have been a volunteer. I've been on doors since I was 19 years old. Like that's just in my blood.
And I'm talking to people and they're saying, I don't know what to do. I have always been a Republican, but what is this? I cannot stand behind the Trumps, the boss, these people that are doing these things that they're just not even listening.
So it really puts those folks in a bind and and part of what I think we can do as folks who are not in the party is to, you know, make an even bigger tent and let's see where we can find common ground and try to help them to actually be heard and to be represented appropriately.
So the 13th, yes, we don't know what it's maps.
Founders are going to be, but regardless, you're going to jump in. I'm in.
Unless in some weird way I get drawn out in which case, I don't know what have is that, but we'll see it's unlikely.
What do you see the key issues are going into 2020?
Absolutely. The number one thing I still hear about from folks is that we in Wisconsin do not have a legally enshrined right to have access to reproductive rights such as abortion rights.
That is something that is terrifying to people. And a lot of times it's it's a really sad and scary conversation they're having.
I want to start a family, but what if something goes wrong? I don't want to be in a position where I have to, you know, leave the state in order to take care of a medical issue because I live in a state where it's not legally protected.
I'm glad to see that we're starting that Planned Parenthood has started back up with some services, but there's not.
We need that legal right enshrined. So that's number one.
And I would say our number two is to make sure that we can support our municipalities through shared revenue without terms and conditions that are so binding that they can't do what they need to do with the money.
Without things like our, the most recent shared revenue bill that was passed kept is asking for municipalities not to be able to have referendums on things such as cannabis use or abortion or any of those things.
We already don't have statewide reference. So it's just one more way that the people are not being heard. We need to do that for the first of all for the economy in terms of shared revenue, but also in terms of representing the people appropriate.
And the number three, honestly, I think is going to be that we need some common sense gun violence prevention acts.
There are some really great things I was at. I was up in Madison last month with mom's demand action.
And there are things such as there's a bill that proposes removing state tax from locks and things that we keep guns in safe storage conditions.
Having some training for folks who are in positions that they are working at shooting ranges, that kind of thing.
We're not talking about we're going to come take everyone's guns away. That's what everyone likes to say. That's not it. It's just let's be smart about it. Let's be safe about it and put some common sense gun violence prevention in place.
Just had that last issue, you know, I just got back yesterday from opening day.
Many of my family we hunt up in Washburn County. I did not see one AR 15 used out on the deer hunt.
You know, courts around the country have said AR 15s as assault weapons can be regulated.
Do you see that as an issue that Wisconsin is going to touch or are we staying away from AR 15s?
I sure hope so. I did see something online and I cannot corroborate if this is true or not because I don't know.
There was someone who was saying, oh, Derek Van Orden is going to go out with an AR 15 and go hunting with it.
I don't know that that's actually true. Maybe he's an interesting dude. He might do it.
The point is there are many, many ways one can go hunting without assault weapons.
I think if you ask most police officers, they would appreciate if AR 15s weren't in the robber's hand.
I mean, especially, you know, touching on guns. How do you see it impacting school issues and safety at schools?
Right. Well, you know, I have two kids age 16 and 19 and they grew up with active shooter drills from age five.
That was just part of normal school for them. I remember being in school and we had tornado drills and we had fire drills.
We didn't have to have active shooter drills. That's such a psychological thing for a five-year-old to have to go through.
And if we could just have some common sense things in place to keep guns safely stored to keep the guns that are, like you're saying, the AR 15s, I'm not sure what the actual purpose of those is for your average citizen.
It's certainly not hunting. Let's make some common sense things happen that keep all of our people a little safer.
So going back to your item number one, a woman's right to choose their physicians, their reproductive health.
How do you see that playing out on the street in your district?
Sure. When I'm out talking on doors, there are folks who really absolutely want to see us have a legal standard that says that we have a right to abortion.
Now in Wisconsin, we can't have a statewide referendum, but we just saw in Ohio they did and they had voted for overwhelmingly for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights.
We also saw that when in Virginia, their GOP governor Glenn Youngkin was fully pushing for the 15-week ban and then the Democrats won both sides of the House.
And we've seen here in Wisconsin that when we have two candidates for Supreme Court, the person who is supporting the woman's right to choose one overwhelmingly, it was not a close race.
We don't have landslides in Wisconsin and that was a landslide when Janet won. So the people are out there and they are telling us they support a woman's right to choose.
They support reproductive rights. They want to see abortion rights codified.
I think it remains as hot of an issue as it did or is there sort of this what I sort of describe as a natural sort of let down. I mean are people still buzzing about it?
It's still out there. It's definitely in the last year and a half become a little cooler, not as hot of an issue.
People have short memories and there's an awful lot going on in their world, but they do still care.
Folks will be back with Sarah Harrison for more talking about the Walker Show School Board issues. This is Attorney Mark Thompson. This is your part of your show.
Welcome back folks. This is Attorney Mark Thompson. This is your Paul Revere Show. This is W-A-U-K-540-A-M-101.1-F-M.
We are here every Monday night from 7 to 8 on Civic Media.
And folks, I just want to remind you if you're traveling this holiday weekend and you want to take the entire Civic Media network with you,
go download the Civic Media app. It's there. You don't have to miss anything. And you will stay abreast of everything that is progressive and moving forward in this state where we want to keep moving forward.
So folks, I'm delighted that we're back with Sarah Harrison. She is a candidate for the 13th district.
You are formally launching, right? November 28th.
Indeed, yes.
23 after Thanksgiving after Turkey. So tell us about the launch.
You bet. So have your Turkey. Take your nap. Have your cyber Monday. And then on Tuesday, which is the 28th, will be at North Star American Vistro in Brookfield starting at 530.
And all the details are out on my website as well, which is Sarah S-A-R-A-H-F-O-R-W-I dot com.
And we're going to we're going to have some great conversation. We're going to have some some lovely appetizers a little bit of wine and we'll just have lots of nice chats about what we think representing the people should really look like in Wisconsin.
So you were talking about was the I guess I should put it this way. The need for women to be able to access reproductive services now.
How do you see that being expressed? You know, this is not something that folks can wait on right now. There is very limited opportunities.
How do you see that as part of your launch?
To me, that is the top issue that we face as a state is that we need to show the people of Wisconsin that we support them.
And that we trust them to work with their doctors to make the best decisions for their own health care, regardless of what situation they're in.
If someone is later in their pregnancy and having to make those decisions, it is nearly always going to be because of some sort of catastrophic thing that was unforeseen.
And they are already going through incredible amounts of stress without having to worry about the legality and going to another state to try to take care of their health care needs.
And we need to support our people.
So tell me about I think last time you were here, we talked some about school board issues.
Yeah.
And what's happening in the Walker show school board.
Yeah. So last time, I think Diane Boyd successfully ran.
She did.
Sort of a lone voice on that board.
So where is it at now or in the middle of the semester? What's going on?
Yeah. So Diane is fantastic. We're so glad that she was elected and that she's out there fighting the good fight.
And now we're trying to find additional and we have a few, a few folks who've shown interest, but we're looking for people who are interested in being involved in really turning that board around.
It's something that we saw starting about four years ago.
So we saw, I would categorize it as a hostile takeover of our school board where all of a sudden, with red, which is obviously a partisan, you know, Republican entity started pouring money into our school board races, which had historically really lived up to the name of being nonpartisan.
And they got folks on the board that started doing things such as we have a signage ban where you can't have a safe space sign in the school district of Washington now.
We have a lot of books being challenged.
In fact, one of our one of our wisdom school board members who is up for reelection this year or this coming spring put forth a list of 100 books that he was challenging in our school libraries.
And 18 of them almost 20% were not even in the libraries. So obviously this is not a ground swell of grassroots people who are really concerned.
This is someone who went to the mom's for Liberty website and said, oh, well, okay, I'm going to follow their talking points.
What we want to see is a return to, you know, I like to call it make school board boring again.
Let's let's talk about the things that actually impact education and let's talk about trying to get these kids through this really important time in their life in a way that they're supported.
And that they're not in the crossfire of some really weird political battle that the adults decided to have around their education.
So folks Sarah Harrison's here, she's wearing a read band book sign.
Have they banned books and Walker Shaw?
Yeah, there've been some things that have been moved either to higher, you know, levels like they had some things that were in middle schools that were pushed to be high school level.
Or, you know, elementary to middle school.
A lot of it though ended up being a whole lot of work for our wonderful dedicated librarians that ended up not going anywhere, which is great.
I'm glad it didn't go anywhere, but why are we doing this? This is it's futile.
You know, we don't need to go chasing after these, you know, things that are not actually objectionable.
So folks who are interested, though, should get in touch with the Alliance for Education.
And there's an email address. It's Alliance for Education, Walker Shaw at gmail.com.
And if all else fails, you can just email my campaign info at Sarah as a R-A-H-F-O-R-W-I.com.
And I'll get you in touch with them because that Alliance email is kind of long.
So one way or another, we'll get you in touch with the right people.
And we'll support you and help you get your run for school board going.
So as you look forward into 2024.
Yeah.
How do you see your campaign playing out?
And sort of what can you share? I know it's very early.
Yeah.
But what can you share with listeners and hopefully voters?
Well, one thing I'll say is that, so I ran in 2022.
However, I had also just run for school board in 2022.
There were 11 days between election day and when I started gathering signatures to run for assembly.
So I did not have very much of a ramp up time last time.
And this time, I'm declaring a year out, I'm running.
Let's go.
And I've already got community events on the calendar.
I've already got some things coming up that, so we've got my campaign launched next Tuesday.
I'll also be going to an on Brook Education Foundation event next week that is at the corners on Wednesday.
And then we've got some things coming up that I know Matt's going to talk about a little later.
So I don't want to steal his thunder.
But we've got a lot more time to get out there, talk to the people, get people energized.
And we beat the odds last time.
And we're only going to continue to, if we have, even if we have the same map,
I still have full faith that it is possible.
It is a challenging fight, but it is possible.
We just need all hands on deck.
Folks, I am delighted to have Sarah Harrison.
She has been out here in purple land working hard to, you know, keep the spirit of democracy alive.
Keep the idea that we can educate our children without banning good books.
Up, that we can have, you know, legitimate, reasonable gun regulations.
Thank you, Sarah Harrison.
Coming up, Matt Moreno, to give us some fresh news from the Democratic Party in Walker Shaw.
This is Attorney Mark Thompson.
Welcome back folks.
This is Attorney Mark Thompson.
This is your Paul Revere show.
We are here every Monday night, seven to eight in WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
I'm honored and privileged to have Matt Moreno back.
Matt is the chair of the Democratic Party of Walker Shaw County.
The party is setting an example statewide in terms of how to organize.
Welcome, Matt.
Thanks a lot of being here.
Appreciate it.
Great, and I noticed just before the break, Nicky was out there.
Sorry, we missed you, Nicky.
If you want to pick up and call back again, we'll be glad to grab you.
Matt, so what's the latest in Walker Shaw and where's the Democratic Party going between now and next November?
Oh, man, there's so much going on.
First, I want to thank my membership.
Scott reelected to a two-year term last week.
So I'm very thankful for that.
It's an honor.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Was it a close vote?
No, it was a unanimous vote.
So there was no competition.
No, no.
That's how to raise.
Hey, we take nothing for granted here.
But look, there's a ton going on.
We just wrapped up our one year to win organizing effort.
We had over 150 camisters out knocked on a couple of thousand doors, talked with hundreds of voters,
and just got a sense for where they're feeling, what they're thinking, and kind of laying our groundwork for our organizing game in 2024.
You know, over the next couple of weeks, there'd be in parades all around the county.
So our monopoly falls.
We're going to be in O'Connor walk or be here in Walker Shaw, out showing our community support,
making sure people know their Democrats all around the county.
And then we're wrapping up the middle of December with our first-ever drag show fundraiser,
just to show our support for the community, have a fun time, launch into the holidays, raise a little money,
and go off into 2024, and I really high note so that we can be ready to challenge the Wisred Extremists.
Here on the local level for school boards that you guys talked about earlier with Sarah Harrison,
some of the municipal boards, and then be ready to go to reelect Tammy Baldwin and Joe Biden in November.
So I'm really interested in your one year to win campaign and doing the doors.
What are the high issues that people are talking about?
Look, I think Sarah had a couple of the big ones.
Guns and abortion are going to be huge for us.
And for us, it's a lot of just hear more people are at and making them know where the two parties are.
You know, people who are moderate in their position on guns or abortion need to know that they are considered extremist by the Republican party.
One of my favorites is just talking to people on the doors and they're like,
look, if a poor girl is molested by her father and has to carry that carry a child,
do you think she has the right to terminate their pregnancy to live a hopefully normal life?
And most people are going to say, absolutely, that's a horrible situation.
And at that point, you're like, well, most Republicans are now going to label you a pro-choice extremist.
You are no longer a Republican if you believe in a 13 year old girl's right to get an abortion.
Or if you think a domestic abuser should have a little bit more hoops jump through to get a gun,
you are now considered a fascist gun control regulator by the NRA.
So it's just letting people know that where their positions are at, where their common sense positions are,
are no longer in line with the Republican party.
But I think the biggest thing I learned on the doors a couple of weekends ago is just people are not fully tuned in yet.
And I think that plays a lot into the national narrative around the poll numbers around Joe Biden and the state of the country and the state of the race.
I think for the average person, they're just trying to get by day to day and they are not plugged into it.
But when we got the chance to have the conversation, we got to talk about the actual achievements of Joe Biden.
And then talking about what 2024 is going to look like, it's not going to be a referendum on Joe Biden.
This is going to be a choice between Donald Trump's policies and Joe Biden's policies.
And when you look at what we could do, we could go back to the Trump era where we were handing over control of Medicare to the drug companies
and the insurance companies want to put Social Security back to Wall Street.
Or you could have Joe Biden who was making choices every day to try to lower cost for Americans, producing record amounts of oil for the country,
and moving into a clean economy in the 2050s while bringing manufacturing and blue collar jobs back.
That's the choice we have to have and that's what voters are going to hear about from now till next November.
You know, I think you're really spot on, you know, it's a few days before Thanksgiving.
People are thinking December holidays.
It's a hard time to do doors.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a tough time.
It's cold out. People want to focus on some good packer wins and family time and presents and all the holiday cheer.
They don't want to think about the nastiness of the politics.
But when we had Congress based the handicap for almost a month because they couldn't choose a speaker.
When we have a government shutdown seemingly every three months, it's not a way to run a country.
And people are going to be paying attention come November and it's going to be a very different race than the polls say today.
So what do you see is going to be different in 2024 compared to the 2020?
I think it's going to be a little bit different than that.
There's going to be clear choices now.
You know, Donald Trump has a record and Joe Biden has a record.
This is no longer a, you know, here's what I want to do.
It's here's what we did do.
And here's what we're going to do again if you give us four more years.
But I think the, the, the intensity is going to be turned up a little bit.
The stakes are going to be higher.
We have seen Donald Trump and the Republican Party very clear that if Donald Trump gets elected,
they are going to do everything they can to make sure democracy in a fundamental way is changed.
They're going to make it, they're going to take away civil servants and replace them with Trump loyalists.
They're going to go harder than ever at tax breaks for the wealthy, deregulating our drug, the drug companies and making sure that the safety nets that Americans rely on are no longer available.
They want to fundamentally change what it means to be America.
We see it in Ohio.
The voters in Ohio spoke loud and clear, 14 point win for a constitutional amendment to protect abortion.
And the response from the Trump republic into run that state said, we don't care what the voters say.
We're going to take this to the courts and we're just going to ignore the fact that there is now a constitutional amendment.
That is a preview for what the Trump administration would look like in 2024 if he's allowed to be elected.
You know, when you're out there doing the doors, even at the time when many, many people are not quite ready to get it to the 2024 elections.
Is there an issue that is on people's minds that they immediately raise?
Yeah, I mean, especially this time of years, people are looking at Biden presidents for loved ones.
The economy is a leading issue.
Cost of goods, huge issue.
And I love the fact the republicans want to talk inflation because I love talking inflation.
And the fact is is Joe Biden's policies, the Reinflation Reduction Act and all of the things that their government, that his administration has done, has made the United States the quickest in the world to lower our inflation and cool it down to normal levels without any significant job losses.
We have the for the first time in 40 years and economy that's outpacing China while cooling our inflation faster.
So I love getting out there talking to voters because the pain is real.
There's important that we never discredit what people are feeling.
You know, the economy's tough. People are struggling to get by.
But only one party is putting forward solutions and passing solutions to make their lives better.
And that's what we're selling at the doors.
In terms of selling it at the doors are people buying it.
Absolutely. One of my favorite things to talk about right now is insulin and drug prices.
You know, it hasn't kicked in yet.
But in the next year or so when we are negotiating prices of prescription drugs for the top 10 Medicare costing drugs, families all across this country are going to see massive reductions in their cost of medications.
The fact we kept insulin at $35 is life changing for folks who rely on it.
Those things people are going to be feeling today and feeling in the very near future.
And those are the things that we're going to keep reminding voters that Democrats passed alone.
One issue that Sarah and I touched on is that tomorrow our new Wisconsin Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the maps.
When you were doing the doors where people talking about maps, the gerrymandor was that a concern.
It didn't come up directly as often as you would think from the median areas, but a lot of what came up is what the government is doing.
And it's very clear that people can tell that when the Republicans have control, rather it's Congress and that chaos or the GOP legislature read about led by Robin Voss, they're not getting stuff done for Wisconsin nights.
They would rather play political games like make sure that their jobs are very safe.
Then they would be to solve real problems.
And we see that when they gavel in and gavel out of session after session on like child care, the economy,
or they keep passing phony tax bills that give 88% of the benefit to 1% of the of income earners.
Right. It's not the bottom one person.
No, not at all. It's the top 1%. The only 1% the Republicans care about.
So the overall feeling is that the government is struggling and it tends to only struggle when the Republicans are in charge of it.
And that's an issue we can raise a lot and people are very aware of it.
That's a reason Robin Voss has is one of the worst rated politicians in Wisconsin according to the market university law poll.
The issue of education.
And we touched on with Sarah a little bit about the Walker Shaw school board.
How is that issue playing out?
Look, it is it is playing out in that it is continuing to show the Republicans as out of touch extremists who'd rather play politics than actually support people's lives.
Rather it's in the Congress or the legislature or your local school boards all across the county.
We are seeing Republicans who are choosing political games based on mega beliefs.
Then we are about common sense legislating or governing of the local bodies.
One of my favorite ways to talk about this is local government funding because of the American rescue plan.
We had seen no significant tax raises or significant service cuts at any municipality around the county because president Biden and Democrats gave funding to those local governments.
And those are the type of common sense solutions that keep the government functioning and don't create the chaos and drama we're seeing.
But we see it now many falls, you know, common walk and Walker Shaw Sarah talked about.
When Republicans are given some power, they abuse it and create chaos instead of serving the constituents who put them there.
The earlier when we had talked about the school boards.
We described with red and their activity in terms of trying to pack the school boards.
You see them as visible this time around.
You know, it's been a lot quieter so far, but obviously they're raising money.
It's definitely gotten quiet since some spotlights have been put on them.
You know, sunlight sometimes the best disinfectant for shadiness.
And we saw the way they raised money has been called in the question the way they spend their money has been called in the question.
The candidates who they recruit who don't live in the district and are charged with felonies is causing questions.
So all of these things have kind of made them a little quieter.
I expect them to be fully active come April.
So we are preparing ourselves like they are going to be spending 100,000 plus yet again to continue to pack the school boards pack the city councils and try to push an extremist agenda on all of the voters in the county.
Coming into 2024 in Walker Shaw County, you see the primaries as a focus of any races.
You know, I think that people have not fully tuned in yet.
I think come, you know, get past the holidays, get into the January's, the February's.
I think we're seeing a lot more people start tuning in paying attention.
Their voices being heard.
I think that the GOP coming to Milwaukee is going to grave a great spotlight to get people engaged.
The Republicans have pitched that this is their way of, you know, showing how committed there to Wisconsin.
I think it's going to do the opposite when you have the craziness that Donald Trump is going to bring highlighted to the people of this state.
I expect that to be the real start of our movement to make sure that president Biden is reelected in November.
As you look forward, you mentioned the economy is going to be.
Yeah, I think economy abortion made me one and two very close.
And I think Democrats have a great record, especially here in Wisconsin to run on.
You know, we haven't even touched on Microsoft's recent announcement.
Whether they're going to be buying 1500 acres of land at the failed Foxconn land, creating thousands of high paying technology jobs.
And a lot of that came from the president Biden's bills.
He's passing and efforts of governor.
Absolutely.
Yes, go that.
Yep.
Boston company had left.
Matt.
We're going to be back with Matt Moreno.
We're going to have Lou Ann Bird.
We'll be back on the other side to talk more about keeping Wisconsin moving forward.
This is the Paul Revere show.
This is Attorney Mark Thompson.
And folks, you're traveling this weekend.
Remember, you can download the Civic Media app.
And you can hear all the shows all the time.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back, folks.
This is your Paul Revere show.
This is Attorney Mark Thompson.
This is the Shaw WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
We are here every Monday night from 7 to 8.
And I am proud to have Matt Moreno with us tonight.
The current and recently re-elected chair of the Democratic Party.
Waukesha, who has really been focused like a laser on keeping the state moving forward.
And you know, Waukesha in many, many ways is going to lead.
You know, and where we go.
We're talking about education.
We're talking about issues of sort of right wing domination in school boards in Waukesha.
I'm also honored to have Luanne Bird back.
And what's up with education at Whitnell?
Well, we know we heard about, well, the last school board election didn't go the way we wanted it to go.
And we were concerned about that.
So we were kind of watching.
And a couple of weird board meetings have been happening.
But then I want to say late September beginning of October, one board member,
who is a mom's for Liberty person, introduced a gender-affirming policy directly from Will,
who was the Johnson Institute of Law and Liberty.
And I started getting all these messages from these people I met when I ran.
Like they were alarmed that this was on the, you know, on our little,
the Whitnell school district agenda, I live in Hills Corner.
So, you know, we also.
So that's why I thought it'd be great to have bad here, Matt.
Yeah.
Matt's lived through this in Waukesha.
Right.
You know, this is the thing we should be talking amongst each other and sharing.
Right.
Because what's happening at Whitnell?
We waited too long to organize.
So there was a lot of, a lot of attention between the superintendent and the new board.
And you could just see as you watch school board meetings,
the relationship was pretty much going downhill.
Not only that good governance was going downhill.
We're board members.
We're putting on anything they wanted to.
It wasn't coming through the superintendent anymore.
Talking about things like let's just change the grading policy.
Let's, you know, that's just some pretty scary stuff to do right before the start of the school year.
Let's talk about open enrollment.
We maybe don't want those kids.
And, you know, those are the kinds of discussions that were happening in the last couple of months.
So we, after the meeting with the affirmative or with the gender affirming policy, we organized.
I said, OK, come on over to the birdhouse, right?
And group of people of all ages came over and formed rent, the Whitnell resident engagement network.
And if you go online to, you can go, you got to go to Facebook.
That's our main presence.
It's Whitnell.
You know, you can either do the whole name, Whitnell resident engagement network,
or you can do rent WREN.
I mean, no pun intended here.
It just happens to be a bird bird.
Again, for me, that's pretty low and bird bird is the word, right?
But, you know, it's the power of organizing.
We were able to go to those board meetings.
People are showing up.
We're posting all this stuff because in a tiny little area like ours, there isn't a media presence.
Not like Walker Shaw.
Maybe you have, I don't know if you have a newspaper here or whatever, but Milwaukee County is big.
And the journal Sentinel doesn't cover it all.
And so there's no real way to find out information going on in our schools.
So we are informing people and word is spreading quickly.
This wonderful group of people that came together at my house, maybe six weeks ago,
have we've defined our values and our vision of equity and transparency and inclusion.
And we are working hard to make sure that we flip our school board next time.
Because we cannot let what's going on.
So we go to this meeting, then the gender affirming thing went away for now.
They said for now.
And then the soup, then they post something on the agenda about the superintendent.
And then they then they change that to be broader.
I mean, funny things have been going on.
And so we got, we all show up at that meeting.
And we all speak up for the superintendent.
And they try to cut us off Dr. Lisa Olsen.
And I was on the board where we hired her.
She was, in my opinion, doing a great job.
No superintendent walks on water.
So you have to, you know, always look at what areas could she do better in.
And certainly none of our schools are perfect.
We do need to work together to make them better for all kids.
But to bring that policy forward just sent fear in the end.
And anyway, we don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but she resigned.
Immediate like as of January.
That's just traumatic to a district.
And we were just up in arms about that.
So we are showing up.
We're speaking up.
We're following very closely what's going on there.
And it's local organizing at its best.
It's like you said, when people find out what's really going on.
They care.
And they get involved.
And I keep getting calls from some of the people I met or my neighbors even like what's going on here.
And now you can go to wit and all.
Wait, it's wit and all.
Ren dot com.
And that's our little website.
We have t shirts already and everything because these folks and it isn't me.
It's a bunch of parents grandparents.
Just residents in wit.
In the hails Corners Greenfield and a little bit of Franklin area that are saying enough is enough.
We want a professional school board.
We want to save schools for everybody.
And it's been really exciting to be a part of a local grassroots effort right there.
That that want to change things.
We're not going to sit back.
So Matt, what do you got to say to your neighbors on your eastern border?
Welcome to the crazy club.
You bet.
No, really, I think.
Unfortunately for a lot of folks.
The they need to see the crazy first hand to fully understand the damage that can be done from a lot of these extremists.
Because the one thing I'll give with red card of is they campaign well.
They campaign like they're preaching common sense like they just want to they're just they're concerned parents who want to give control back to parents.
When in reality, they are parents who want to take control for themselves for all the other parents.
Um, you know, they do what they what they miss is the point that parents run our schools already.
And that we already have parent involvement.
So they paint this picture like it's not there.
But parents are on school boards.
That's the highest level of running our schools.
So that is all false narrative to try to get people to mistrust our public schools and to vote for crazies.
Who think they're going to do it better?
Yep. I mean, and they're doing the right work out there.
You know, the one thing the Republicans will always have with us is money.
And the one thing we will always have over them is hustle.
So get out there, talk to your neighbors, do the work day in and day out.
There's no amount of money that they can spend to any point to outdo the legwork and the shoe wear that we're going to put through year after year day after day.
Takes grassroots effort because as Matt pointed out, 30 seconds.
Lohan.
Most people agree with common sense stuff.
Most people want all kids to be educated.
Most people don't want to discriminate.
Most people want common sense gun reforms.
Most people definitely want a woman to have privacy over her health care.
There's no point in that pregnancy at which the government should come in and be a part of it.
And most people want that.
Folks, this is Attorney Mark Thompson.
This is your Paul Revere Show.
Thank you, Lewan Bird. Thank you, Matt Moreno.
Folks, keep the state moving forward.
2024 is around the corner.
Thank you all.
I have a great Thanksgiving.
Thank you.