Good evening, Wisconsin.
Welcome to your Paul Revere Show, folks.
This is Attorney Mark Thompson.
We are here every Monday night from 7 to 8 NWA UK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
folks that have been listening know that we're always focused in on democracy.
And I thought it would be really, really crucial if we're going to be true to our calling that we spend the next hour talking about a day that happened three years and two days ago.
And I say January 6th, 2021, the day that
Confederate flag with the first flu in our capital folks never before until Trump called folks out and they stormed the capital.
Now a lot has been going on about this and and before I get to my esteemed guests
Senator Chris Larson, who has been an advocate of democracy for a long, long time here in Wisconsin.
I thought it was really important to just touch on something that happened that was very significant in December of 2023.
As some of you might know, I serve on the elections commission as a Wisconsin election commissioner.
It's one of the duties I've
have in terms of my public service.
But I serve on that commission with a person called Robert F. Spindel, Jr.
And Mr. Spindel, Jr.
was a fake elector.
He participated in conduct prior to the insurrection day prior to January 6, 2021.
And
He recently along with the other fake electors signed an agreement And I don't know if a lot of people know about it, but this is what Mr. Spindel has said in quotes on December 14th 2020 in compliance with requests received from the Trump campaign and the Republican Party of Wisconsin
We met at the Wisconsin State Capitol and executed a document titled certificate of the votes of the 2020 electors from Wisconsin.
That document stated in part that we were the duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States of America from the state of Wisconsin.
The electoral respondents took the foregoing action because they were told that it was necessary to preserve their electoral votes
in the event a court challenge may later change the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.
That document was then used as part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
So this is an admission by the fake electors in Wisconsin, all Republicans that said they were duped.
That's what they say.
But at the base is
They said it was improperly used to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
And that was then used to storm the Capitol.
So I thought it would be very, very useful to have Senator Chris Larson here to help really explore what was Wisconsin's role in this day, January 3rd.
2020, I mean, January 6th, 2021.
Go ahead, Senator.
Yeah, thank you, Mark.
And thanks for bringing attention to this important issue.
And of course, serving on the Wisconsin Election Commission, which in a normal time is a heavy lift.
But yeah, being on there with somebody who
was a key part and advocate of the insurrection and somebody who has continued to try and discount people's votes is no small thing, so thank you for that.
We had a press conference just late last week, going into the weekend with some groups who, for the most part, are on the nonpartisan side, and that includes the Wisconsin Election Commission.
sorry, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, pardon me, the League of Women Voters was there.
And we also had Rear Admiral Michael Smith, who is somebody who had served in the Navy, had been nonpartisan in that role until what happened on January 6.
And he realized he could no longer stay silent.
And especially with this cycle now,
coming up.
He is making sure that people recognize the danger of electing or even flirting with the idea of electing Donald Trump into office again.
And it was really moving, talking to him and hearing him speak, because you could tell that this was not something that came naturally to him.
As he said, politics is something that he had avoided his entire life.
He was detached from it, serving whoever he needed to.
But as he put it, it was one of the darkest days in our nation's history.
And I think it's important to make sure that we recognize that because there is every time, every year that this date is passed, an effort to try and paper over it and pretend that something different happened.
That is unacceptable and it's a key way where we will
We'll relive that, unfortunately.
And I mean, I feel like we might be on that track if Republicans nominate a candidate who is going to not accept the next election results and will gin up his supporters once again.
I think it tells a very clear message that, you know, one, I think that he is disqualified from running at all.
And for that very reason, that he is somebody who does not accept any results.
doesn't accept the results of elections.
So the focusing in on in terms of your analysis sitting in the Senate here in Wisconsin, how do you see folks in Wisconsin playing a part of this insurrection day?
Which who do you identify some of the players that we've learned about and
What are the lessons to be learned if we're gonna use this hour to talk about this?
Let's try to sum up some of the key lessons.
Yeah Well, we had the fake electors in the state of Wisconsin It was actually through an open records request that we discovered, you know Which room they were planning on being a which which you know as as fate would have it was the same room that we had the press conference in
bringing attention to this, the Senate parlor.
It turns out once pictures finally came out, which we didn't get to about six months ago in a court ruling from Georgia, which just shows how widespread this is, that we actually saw the room in the Capitol where they had met.
The fake electors, they came together and they did this on a day where the Supreme Court had already ruled.
that our state Supreme Court had already ruled that the legal options were exhausted by Donald Trump and his campaign.
The people in the room, the fake electors knew that.
As they passed around this document and signed it, they knew the Trump had laws.
They knew that the legal options were exhausted.
And by the way, that vote by the state Supreme Court was 4-3.
Which again shows that we have three members of the state supreme court and I think if anybody's paying attention They know exactly which three those are Who wanted to continue to allow?
Donald Trump to to just push legal theories until he could Put put question the election results when there was no question when every other state 65 other cases all said all 65 cases said that he had no
that he had exhausted all legal remedies and had lost the election.
So anyways, remembering that as the Supreme Court moves forward, that's a huge reflection on what's happening in the state.
And we have Supreme Court justices who are election denialists and Trump sympathizers.
But those 10 electors in our state
They're still involved in politics.
They have not been prosecuted.
Wisconsinite is one of only two states right now where there has not been any criminal proceedings against the fake electors.
Other states, Michigan, is moving forward with a lawsuit by the state attorney general against him.
And that one is, I think, the most powerful.
Otherwise, other states are looking at this, too.
But in Wisconsin, right now, it is just a civil.
matter that they're pursuing it.
And the only thing that has been decided, frankly, I think, which is I think is a slap on the wrist, is saying that they cannot serve as electors for Donald Trump again.
That's it.
They're still allowed to participate in the political process.
They're still allowed to be electors for a future presidential candidate that's not Donald Trump.
And you just think about that, Mark, and just to think about, like,
There's a great deal attention to something called voter ID Which is you have to have an ID?
Because if you if you don't have that you're not allowed to vote because they say ah, there's widespread election fraud when fraud is found out in most cases it is People are prosecuted those people go to prison right most people cannot vote again They lose their vote and so the idea that we are holding people who tried to wipe out
The voters of Wisconsin and replace it with their own will to a different standard I think is acceptable precedent and it almost guarantees that this will happen again
So let me just touch on that because I voted to dismiss the complaint and the Wisconsin Election Commission based on the the agreement by the fake electors and so The issue is
in terms of criminal culpability.
The DOJ looked at it and said, from the criminal culpability, there wasn't the evidence to establish that Spindel and the Wisconsin fake electors knew about Trump's plan.
Now, they had evidence from other states that the fake electors in other states knew.
So in this case, the lawyers that handled it
did not find that similar evidence.
Now, and I, you know, I can completely understand why people are skeptical.
But I think what was, at one level, it's a slap on the hand to say you can't be an elector or another thing.
But to me, what's really, really significant about the agreement is they were the election deniers.
They were the leading people that went around this state and said that the election was rigged.
And this is what they said.
We hereby reaffirm that Joseph R. Biden Jr.
won the 2020 presidential election.
Okay.
The fake electors, the election deniers have said publicly loud and clear that Joe Biden won and that
Trump was the biggest loser ever.
Folks will be on the other side with Senator Larson to talk about what are we going to do with these non-believers.
Hello, this is attorney Mark Thompson.
This is your Paul Revere show.
We are here every Monday night, 7 to 8 and WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
I am honored and privileged to have Senator Chris Larson here.
Tonight, we're talking about what happened three years and two days ago, the insurrection at our Capitol January 6.
2021 and Wisconsin's role in that sad, sad day.
We were sort of talked about the fake electors in Wisconsin, the first section, Senator.
And we talked about the fact that these fake electors who were the main election deniers in this state came out and said unequivocally that President Biden
One, and let me read one other thing that they said, we oppose any attempt to undermine the public's faith in the ultimate results of the 2020 presidential election and Biden's victory.
So the question is, how do we use that admission by the key Republicans to go around the state and say, look, folks,
You've been believing in Spindel's lies for three years and Trump's lies.
And now you know firsthand from those people in the know, right, in that room with the fake electors and they all said it was all a scam on you.
What do we do with that?
Right.
I mean, look, I think that that's important that that message gets out there.
This is, unfortunately, Mark, I mean, this is example one million and one of Republicans being hypocrites, right?
Of saying one thing publicly and another thing privately of acknowledging reality, right?
You could add a long list of things to that from climate change denial to, you know, the effects of.
cancer causing and cigarette use up to you know where they are right now on this to the point of saying very clearly yes Joe Biden won and frankly I've heard this from my colleagues too I have Republican a lot of Republican colleagues 22 of them to be exact through gerrymandering another another huge form of voter suppression but but I what's a fun pastime of mine is just
listening to them.
And a lot of things happen when somebody thinks that they're right all the time, which they do because they take a vote and they win 22 to 11.
So they think they're right whenever the vote is taken, whether they're right or wrong.
In most cases, they're wrong because they're out of touch with the majority of the people.
Let me just remind my listeners, right?
When Senator Larson says they win 22 to 11 is because they bring the Senate
They have 22 votes and there's 11 opposition votes.
And so, regardless of the merits, they win.
So, anyway,
we'll come back to that,
you know, we'll
see.
Two thirds.
And so anyways, they'll speak pretty candidly and almost to a person, you know, and of course they'll deny this out publicly, but to a person, they don't like Donald Trump.
And they recognize him for the fraud, for the scam that he is.
But they can't go out there and say that publicly because they'll get taken out politically.
Their political future lies on it.
And incidentally, as Mark mentioned, those gerrymandered districts that they have that prop them up and keep them in power will
They're also cages, right?
Because they can only be taken out in those gerrymandered districts by Republican primaries.
So even those that know better, they can't come out and say it.
So they recognize all this.
And it is really an act of cowardice that they continue to refuse to push back.
in the state of Wisconsin as across the country.
And if you need a clear example of somebody who did this, you need to look no further than Mike Gallagher, who is the congressman for the Eighth Congressional District, who on January 6th famously went out on his webcam and said, Donald Trump has to call an end to this, right?
And now you go, and he is part of this cabal of people who denies that Donald Trump had anything to do with the insurrections.
Oh, these were just people.
It wasn't directly involved.
But he specifically, when his life was in danger, that was it.
The charade was over.
And he was recognizing, OK, if I'm going to be killed and we need to pull the plug on this, Donald Trump stopped us.
But then once he was out of harm's way, back into the tank for Donald Trump.
So I think it demonstrates, one, that they're not really adhering to their principles, which I think they live by that and make all people serving in public office look bad.
But making sure that the public recognizes that, that frankly, they're not holding to their standard.
You should hold individual politicians accountable when they don't do that.
And we've got a whole slew of them, right?
Fake electors are key, but a lot of those Republican office holders who refuse to accept the election results, they need to be called out and they need to be taken out.
And those is gerrymandered maps that we talked about, they're on their way out, right?
This Friday, we're gonna be getting new maps coming down from the court.
A set of them will come out publicly and that changes the dynamic through our state.
where some of these folks will be held accountable for the first time in 12 years since Jeremy Mandarin kicked in.
So political gravity is finally going to set in in the state of Wisconsin again.
I want to come back to that topic and go at it.
But I wanted to, the fake electors admissions,
And when they say that their certificate of votes, their certificate was false and it was part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results is a powerful, powerful message that I think people need to know.
I don't think the press is actually
Talk about the fact that the main election deniers the main people in Wisconsin that were orchestrating this this piece Again, and we're gonna touch on senator Johnson's role of that piece to you know as a messenger to vice president Pence but that They are saying now they know that it was part of that scheme
to overturn the elections.
And to me, I think we have to use that to rally independence and everybody that's other than these deniers, right?
Because, you know, you're right.
I don't know if we can convince somebody that still believes that Trump won.
I mean, look, the people inside know Robert Spindel is Senator LeMayhew's
person on the commission.
He says Biden won.
He says Biden won and he said he can't oppose, he's going to oppose any attempt to undermine it.
Right.
Couldn't say it any better than that.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Right.
I mean, don't we go there and say, look, folks, your people in the room say,
Biden won, Trump is the biggest loser in the world.
Can't we really use that?
Hey, folks, we'll be back on the other side with Senator Chris Larson talking about why Trump is the biggest loser in the world.
And we'll be right back, folks.
This is your Paul Revere show, Attorney Mark Thompson.
Well, welcome back to your Paul Revere show.
We are here Monday night every Monday night, seven to eight PMWA UK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
Anya is a great producer.
So hey, if you want to jump in, call 844-967-2789 and get in on the conversation.
I'm honored to have Senator Chris Larson here.
We've been talking about Wisconsin's fake electors and their concession admission that they created a document that was used as a part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
And equally important, they affirmed that President Biden won the 2020 presidential election.
And so for everybody out there that still talks about, there's evidence that the Biden loss is just not true, folks.
Trump lost the popular vote in the United States by over seven, about seven million votes.
Okay, this was not close.
Trump is the biggest loser America's ever seen.
And, but I want to touch, talk a little bit more with you, Senator Larson.
We have a U.S.
Senator, Senator Ron Johnson, that played a part in this act to try to overturn the election.
So how do you see his role in this?
You're muted.
You're muted.
This is radio.
It's very
important to talk on
radio.
Your folks can't live breathing.
That's good.
Thanks for the reminder.
Yeah, I mean, I think Ron, you know, people forget about Ron Johnson because he's he's a lot of people, you know, you get frustrated all the time if you think too much about Ron Johnson and what he what he is and what he represents.
But I but one of the things that that I posted about over the weekend was the stark realization that Ron Johnson has yet to be held accountable
for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
In that, it came out during the January 6th hearings in the House of Representatives that Ron Johnson had texted with the vice president's assistant trying to turn over fake electors.
Those certificates that we referenced earlier today on the radio show here.
those same that same certificate, which you know, we now did everyone on there has admitted that Joe Biden won.
And we know that it was part of that scheme to try and overturn the election.
He was the one, you know, in the literally the 11th hour trying to walk around the Capitol and hand it to Mike Pence along with along with another state.
I think it was Michigan or Arizona.
Do you remember, Mark?
I'd have to double check.
So I don't want to get misquoted here,
but yeah, that's all right.
Same welcome.
Yeah, exactly.
So the thing to realize is not just Wisconsin, but another state he was trying to knock out and Luckily, but the vice president Mike Pence had like
the one moment of clarity in his entire four years serving under Donald Trump as his VP and I think it was him realizing and accepting that they lost the election and realizing he needed to think about life afterwards after post Donald Trump Republican Party which a lot of other Republicans started to think about but they all retreated away but luckily for that rare moment in time Mike Pence and his staff stood strong and and responded
to our senator, to a U.S.
senator, do not give him that.
Do not give, quote, do not give him that.
Give him the envelope with these fake electors trying to overturn the election, because they knew that he had a limited role in that this attempt to try and put the election into question was gonna cause more chaos, would have caused a huge problem in the country, and frankly, was not a path any American should have ever considered taking.
Ron Johnson's part of accountability on that.
Folks who famously remember once that came out that he pretended to be on his cell phone while being chased and asked about his role in that.
And then finally, once it turned out the reporters had more endurance than him as he tried to walk away, they finally got him to say his excuse.
And his excuse was pretty light.
It was, oh, there was only a few seconds.
There's only a few seconds my involvement in trying to overturn the election in the state of Wisconsin and one other state And thereby trying to overturn the presidential election in our state and that was he said he's a well He basically admitted his role.
He said oh, it was only a few if you only a few seconds he has yet to even apologize acknowledge his his that that Landmine revelation and frankly it it should be disqualifying for him
to serve as a US senator given given what his role was in this but unfortunately our criminal justice system nationally Has been very slow walking in trying to recognize the threat that persists within our borders.
Yeah, you know I To me it's just not a it's not only the criminal justice system.
I think part of it is
as citizens, all of us have to have a more vigorous debate and discussion of these issues.
I mean, we talk about the context of what was happening.
And that's why I wanted to thank you for being here on this third anniversary in two days after Insurrection Day.
There were gallows
outside, erected, where they were going to hang Mike Pence.
I mean, you think about that, that they actually had gallows out in public and they were screaming, hang Mike Pence.
Now, the people screaming hang Mike Pence, they obviously weren't in the Capitol tearing it up, right?
They were outside still.
And this notion that most folks there were just nice folks protesting.
I mean, you think about that.
You're out there with people that are threatening to hang the vice president of the United States if he doesn't violate the Constitution and do what he's supposed to do.
That I think we have to talk to people because I you know, I think a lot of people don't really know that and I think they forgot look there were 140 police officers
injured
injured
Yeah,
president attended funerals of dead police officers.
Yeah,
right That this group of people that say that they're for law enforcement That's you talk about hypocrisy
They're out there cheering for the people killing, I mean, hurting cops and killing police officers and threatening to hang our vice president.
We have to start talking about this.
Let me just steal a quote from President Biden.
He gave a speech on January 5th and he said,
Today, we're here to answer the most important of questions.
Is democracy still America's sacred cause?
I mean it.
This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical.
Whether democracy is still America's sacred cause, and we can put in there, is it Wisconsin's sacred cause?
It's the most urgent question of our time, and it's what the 2024 election is all about.
What what do we do as citizens?
To help convince our fellow citizens that's it because I think you agree
Yeah,
the democracy's on the ballot.
Yes.
Yeah, very strongly very strongly I think frankly mark the way that people are gonna understand this and I get that the polls are worrying but let them be motivating to
And recognizing the divide the difference and frankly speaking there are things that Joe Biden and his administration have done that I'm not super excited about right But it doesn't it's not Fertuit is to list those things out when I agree with them on 95% of issues Oh, and by the way, he's the only candidate in the race who's going to accept the election results, right?
And he's the only one who believes in the ongoing
experiment of democracy in our country.
He is the only one who is not gonna try and displace, you know, the way that our country works with one man rule, which is built on an empire of fraud, of betrayal, and just the most horrible things that, you know, you can imagine in an American, probably the worst American,
who has taken advantage of the systems that are meant to benefit everybody while trying to pull the ladder up behind them, including the ability to have one person, one vote.
That's a very clear story that I think people need to know.
And I think people need to recognize that as much as there might be frustrations with where things are,
that nothing will improve under Donald Trump, that we ended up having, we had higher unemployment then, that there was a huge, his only signature accomplishment was a huge tax cut for the richest in the country.
And beyond that, they just kind of flailed around and just made an embarrassment rotating through people in his administration and never getting around to doing things to actually help the public.
any issue that a person is dealing with in America right now, frankly, is because that they could have been solved four years earlier had Donald Trump not been elected.
There's a lot that needs to be done, making childcare more affordable, making sure that home ownership is within reach for a generation, making sure that college debt does not prevent a person from making major life choices in this generation as it did
for other generations where they were allowed to succeed in life.
All of those things, right?
Climate change.
All of these things, there's only one avenue, right?
And frankly, it's continuing to have a democracy.
Anything else that you care about is lost if Donald Trump becomes the president again.
The, you know, going back to the fake elector, Robert Stendell, who is
now Committed to telling Wisconsin that Trump is a loser and Biden won the election What do we do, you know Senator LaMejo appointed Robert Spindel What what discussions have there been in the Senate?
about the fact of, you know, about Spindel's role and his now admission that, you know, he knows that Biden won.
I mean, has there been any discussion?
You give us too much credit, Mark.
There's not that much discussion on the floor of the Senate, and most of it is by the Democrats.
Republicans can sit back and don't really speak all that much, unfortunately.
But on this, there was a proposal that moved forward, which was, you know, and I can't remember the exact details of it, but it was one that was re-endorsing a version of the election denial, right?
In the assembly, they had their Michael Gabelman, a million dollar, you know, Scooby-Doo investigation where these guys were running around trying to sniff out clues all over the place.
I guess the only way that comparison falls short is at the end of a Scooby-Doo episode, they found somebody.
But in this case, the crook at the end of it was Robin Voss and Michael Gabelman, who tried to pull one over on the state of Wisconsin.
Senate didn't do that.
Senate didn't didn't go that route But they did they do continue to try and push fake election stuff and try to prevent by what they do is I think more dangerous because the stuff that Michael Gableman Robin Foss it's easily to easy to point out and it's it's there's lots of memes out there where they take their you know, Mike Lindell Talking points and they just look foolish in the Senate.
It's more dangerous what they're trying to do there is prevent people
from voting.
There's a forward-looking one, which is preventing people from voting as easily as possible, and trying to pass those things.
Mike Spindel's name was used on the floor, rightfully so, to call out Devin Lemihue, the Senate Republican leader, to say, look, you are continuing to push it out.
When you say we need to find clarity in our election, the reason there is not clarity is because of Bob Spindel, and he does not deserve to be on the Wisconsin Election Commission.
that that line of it, that line of point that point was unanswered by love and love of you.
Folks, this is attorney Mark Thompson.
This is your Paul Revere show.
We are here with Senator Chris Larson will be back on the other side.
This is your Paul Revere show.
This is attorney Mark Thompson.
This is WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
I'm honored to have Senator Chris Larson here.
We're talking about Wisconsin's role in insurrection day, January 26, 2021, when the election deniers,
And the insurrectionists stormed the capital and flew the Confederate flag for the first time in our capital.
We spent a lot of time talking about how the fake electors, Wisconsin fake electors in December of 2023 came out and confessed that they created a document that was used as part of this scheme.
They confessed that
Joseph Biden is in fact the president and everything To the contrary has been nothing but lies So here we are you're in the Senate we have And you brought it up and that's why I wanted to end with it, right?
we have a lawsuit about new maps and an attempt to Turn around the
partisan gerrymander that the Republicans have been able to put in place for the last 12, 13 years, actually.
How do you see it going forward?
What's the role of the Senate and what should we be looking at if you can help us from the inside?
A lot of us have just heard, we know that there's going to be maps showing up on the 12s.
So
what does that mean for all of us folks
just watching your votes?
That means for every person in the state, your vote is going to count a whole lot more than it did in 2022 and 2020 and in every election before that where it was cast in a gerrymandered district.
So that means that the legislature hopefully.
And again, we don't know the final outcome.
The maps are going to be delivered to the court on Friday.
That, from there, they're going to choose from those that fit the criteria.
They've outlined.
They've hired nonpartisan consultants to do that, et cetera, et cetera.
So we don't know what the maps are.
I can say they're going to be fairer with certainty because we have the most gerrymandered state in the country.
right where your vote 50 50 elections result in the state of state senate being 66 republican 33 democrat results in the assembly being 63 republican and 36 republican democrat right with a 50 50 election a 50 50 state so your vote is going to count a whole lot more what that means is so much not just elections but that means your call is going to get picked up a lot more
often at the state capitol when you're calling about an issue.
That means your voice is going to be heard a lot more than it was before.
We've basically allowed Republicans, we haven't allowed, but they've put themselves through gerrymandering in a soundproof chamber where they can block out the public, where they can block out protest, where they can ignore emails, where they can ignore the demands of a public, which is why we have such lopsided polls.
calling for specific things to be done and for them not being done.
I think of marijuana legalization in the state of Wisconsin, 59% support it.
You think of common sense gun reforms that poll in the high 70% that they refuse to act on.
Things to make sure our public schools are funded more adequately that we're not behind 14 years after inflation on where a child is worth in a public school in the state.
All these things.
But Republicans have just been able to ignore the people.
So when fair maps come down, what that is going to mean is one, your voice is going to be heard a lot more.
But it also means that there's going to be a rush of bad legislation coming through.
We're already seeing it to try and usurp small, the democratic control of the state.
One of those things is trying to change the standard for passing a constitutional amendment to being a two-thirds vote.
instead of just being a majority and the standard that it is right now.
That means that they're also going to continue to try and use their power to limit people from voting.
Luckily we have the state supreme court to prevent that, those kind of shenanigans this time around, but it doesn't mean they're not going to push all kinds of misinformation.
I think every election before this set a new
Lower bar for the efforts to try and dissuade people from voting We are gonna see that and and frankly what that looks like is in the last election there was a 16-point gap in voter turnout in the city of Milwaukee versus the rest of the state And that just that that just shows that their tactics to try and suppress votes in urban areas has been working and we have to work double times the
to make sure we beat it back.
You know touching on a couple of these issues and I just you started out with the marijuana question and the the consensus around the state is to legalize it and you know I common sense says if Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota are selling it it's legal and people are
making money and becoming wealthy on it.
It's insane that we sit here and lose out.
I mean, just from a fiscal financial point of view, why would we ignore the market and why would we ignore taxing it when it's a source of revenue?
I mean, what kind of Wisconsin dollars are going to our neighbors that are taxed elsewhere?
I mean, it seems mind-blowing.
Yeah, you're trying to put a price tag to it.
168 million annually that Wisconsin is leaving on the table in tax revenue.
But even beyond that, just the sheer manpower that we are wasting, 57% of arrests two years ago in the state of Wisconsin were for marijuana possession.
which just thinking of other issues of what we could be tackling in the state, that is not one of them, where it's legal in some form or another in 38 other states, so we're way behind on it.
This is something where we could end up having all, you know, frankly, people could live their lives instead of having a red mark on their record for the rest of their life.
That is something that I feel very strongly about.
And there's a proposal to put forward today that's just, I don't think it's worth the paper that it's written on.
It would be the most restrictive in the country.
So yes, all of these issues, it just shows the public 59% want to see
full legalization in the state and the proposal they came out with today, it wouldn't have been considered bold even 10 years ago.
Folks, this is your Paul Revere show.
You've been listening to a conversation between Attorney Mark Thompson and Senator Chris Larson and for full disclosure, he's also the senator I get to vote for.
Thank you, Senator.
Thank
you.
Folks, this is a very, very important time.
Democracy is on the ballot.
Please get engaged, share this podcast, talk to your neighbors.
We got a lot of work to do, folks.
See you next week.