Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.
and streaming worldwide on the Civic TV app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm Todd Albault, along with our producer engineer for the day, Mr. Sam Davidson on the board.
It is six past the hour of 12 noon on this Monday, February 16th, 2025.
It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.
It is sunny, but chilly.
Welcome, everyone, from downtown Madison.
Sam Davidson, two days in a row, lucky for me.
I'm not sure what you did to deserve this, but we're happy to have you here.
I'm happy to be here still.
Mr. Omer's feeling a little under the weather today.
So you're
kind enough to come in today on.
And I did not, I mean, I knew it was president's day, but I came in earlier and I said to Lukester, Luke Mathers, I said, what the heck?
Everybody's gone today.
Yeah, I was a little surprised.
And he says, well, Todd, it's president's day.
It's a company holiday.
I said, really?
Really?
I did not know that we got president's day off.
I mean, I'm happy, but I'm sorry to make you come in.
I mean, you were here earlier for
the Johnny Gordy show.
I left like.
a little before 10 o'clock.
Then I came right back.
Oh, crap.
Now, you work early in the morning, so do you traditionally, after you get off, do you have breakfast then, or what is your routine normally during this time of the day?
I don't really have a routine.
I don't know.
It just kind of varies.
Yeah, day to day.
I eat breakfast when I wake up at five o'clock in the morning or
whatever.
Well, I appreciate it coming in.
Glad to have you here and a shout out to Mr. Zahmers.
Hopefully he'll be feeling soon and back with us very soon, but always in the very capable hands of Mr. Davidson.
So glad to have you along here on a Monday and all of you as well.
Big show today.
Lots of it's gotten to the point now over the weekend as I keep track of the news.
I feel like we're not a course.
But I feel like if they wanted another hour or two, we could just go for two or like three or four hours because there's so much going on.
So we'll, we'll, we'll go through some of the headlines of the weekend.
And then at the bottom of this hour, we're going to be talking a little bit about the spring election.
Yes.
That's right.
Go to the polls tomorrow.
If you have not voted early already, polls open at 7 a.m.
tomorrow until 8 p.m.
Biggest race on the ballot statewide is that of the state school superintendent.
The incumbent Dr. Jill Underly is being challenged by a fellow Democrat in Jeff Wright who is
been on this program before.
And also Republican backed candidate, Brittany Kinzer, under Lee, of course, incumbent in the DPI secretary position, Jeff Wright, the current superintendent of public instruction at the sock prairie school district for those that might not be from the area.
It's just south of Wisconsin Dell.
So Southwest, south central, depending upon what you call that part of the state.
But you know, rights been on the program before.
has talked about that while he is a Democrat, he has had to work with both Republicans, Democrats and independents at Salk Prairie.
It's a very purple county, Salk County is.
So he has that experience.
And so that's why he is coming and wanting this position to work with everybody in the DPI role.
And then on the Republican side, Brittany Kinzer, who is a education consultant being backed by Robert Voss and a lot of the private school folks.
And.
So it has to come down to two.
Now, technically, yes, this is a nonpartisan position, but last 20 plus years or so, these put this position as well as those on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, while technically they don't run as Republicans or Democrats, basically, you know, they become partisanized and both sides end up putting money into the race.
So anyway, it'll be underly right and Kinzer on the ballot for tomorrow.
two of the three move on to the April 1st general election.
So we're going to preview that race after the bottom of the hour here in hour one.
Also there's a big mayor's primary race up on the crossroad and Jimmy Cusco will be following that.
And come on back tomorrow night as well.
as I'll be anchoring along with our Dan Schaefer political editor editor here at Civic Media at a cast of thousands.
I understand that our own Earl Ingram will be on the broadcast as well and others and will be doing a couple of things kind of lost in the in the shuffle.
Governor Tony Evers giving his annual budget address tomorrow night.
Now this is different than the state of the state.
The budget address is more of a technical speech that talks about finances.
The governor offers his version of the budget.
Remember Wisconsin only has
every other year is a biennial budget.
So they pass it for a two-year period.
This year is that year.
So the governor starts off with his budget address and has first possession, has the ball first in the field, so to speak.
And then the legislature will have their joint finance committee hearings and they will formulate a budget.
And then the legislature passes their version, governor has his version, and then they have to come to a consensus.
If they cannot,
In Wisconsin, what happens if they can't pass a budget by the end of the summer, the previous budget just goes back into effect.
So the government doesn't shut down like it does out in DC, but there are no increases.
On the other hand, no decreases.
It just it just continues on the way it is.
So anyway, that all kicks off tomorrow night at seven o'clock.
We'll kick off our coverage around 10 till the hour seven.
So I hope you join us for that and then stick around as Luke's going to bring in a keg.
Not really, but he'll have non-alcoholic beverages and will be here throughout the evening to bring you the results of the election night.
The Wisconsin decides twenty twenty five all tomorrow night beginning at 10 till.
on the Civic Media Ready Network.
However, if you're saying, well, Todd, I'm looking forward to the big Badger basketball game tomorrow night.
Illinois at the Cole Center have no fear because those stations that normally carry Badger basketball will do that.
So we're only on the network stations tomorrow night that don't carry Badger basketball.
And of course, you can find all the broadcasts on the Civic Media app or at the website at Civic Media.
So we got that to talk about as well.
Speaking of the Badger basketball team, Sam, you're a Badger alum.
You're Wisconsin Badgers, huge win this weekend at Purdue.
That's good to hear.
I am not very in tune with sports, especially basketball, but glad to hear the Badgers are doing
well.
It was a big, big game.
Because Purdue was number seven in the country and ahead of the Badgers in the net rankings.
And the NCAA now.
They come out starting now until selection Sunday, which I think is like March 12th or so.
They have a weekly now update of the top 16 teams.
And Wisconsin was kind of predicted to be a four seed and the results came out yesterday.
There are three seed and Purdue was a two.
So the thinking is now that maybe Wisconsin might be in line for maybe a two seed if they could keep this going on.
But a big game tonight against Illinois.
Um, we'll, we'll get into this later, but Illinois retired a jersey of one of their former players last night around this weekend
Champaign.
I think it's funny, but it's not.
They, they, they were, the whole place is packed and they raised the banner, but unlike, like, when they, I was there the night they did it for Kaminsky, for Wisconsin in Wisconsin, they have the banner like.
I don't know how to get a box almost on the floor of the coal center.
And then it's attached to wires or whatever and the bar.
And then they raise it.
They literally raise it from the box into the rafters.
And so you can, you see it right away.
Well, the, what Illinois decided to do.
And again, Illinois is always a little backward in my opinion.
But what Illinois decided to do is they decided to raise the thing, but kind of like all rolled up and then.
push
push a button and drop it.
Exactly.
And so they've got the thing raised, but not, not open.
And they announced it and the lights are off, the spotlight and this poor kid or man who was being, have his jersey retired.
They announced it and they drop it.
And the thing is upside down
upside down.
Yes.
Somebody got fired.
I mean, that's literally, I mean, that is the quintessential.
You had one job.
Right.
I couldn't believe it.
It was so bad that the athletic director came out after the game before the coach spoke and did like a three-minute apology.
And to
your point, he came just shy of saying the words, somebody will be fired for this.
As well they should, quite frankly.
Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, I'd be pretty upset if that was me and my number was getting retired.
I know, I know.
So we'll talk more about, there was a big call.
by the officiating crew in this Wisconsin game, Kamari McGee, a great player, got a flagrant two and got ejected.
And we'll talk about that and why it was an absolute leave.
And I'm not just saying this because of Wisconsin fan.
There were a lot of Purdue fans on social.
During the game that said, look, we're Purdue fans, you guys got hosed.
But Badgers came back and got a big win.
They play at the Cole Center against Illinois tomorrow night.
We'll have that on select civic media stations as well.
But where we're going to begin before we get into actual newsy news, we have time for the adab, Sandler clip.
Now you want to do what we come back.
Maybe we'll come back.
I want
to come back.
Are you a big SNL Saturday Night Live fan, Sam?
I like it.
I don't watch it a ton, but.
I like watching clips of it.
Yeah.
I mean, I really grew up on it.
And I guess I'm 55 and the show is turned 50 years old last night.
And so they had a special Sunday night edition of Saturday Night Live.
I think it was live in New York.
It was three hours or just a little over that.
And I found it to be largely fantastic.
A lot of the old cast members, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Will Ferrell, all kinds of people who either were on the show as cast members or longtime regular guest hosts.
Tom Hanks was there in person.
Meryl Streep, who had never been on the show before, made her first appearance in a sketch.
So that was really, really funny.
So that was great.
And then Jack Nicholson.
Great actor who, of course, is essentially retired from acting.
It hasn't been in anything in years and has kind of just decided to, which is his right, just to not be in public very much.
There was Jack last night at the appearance in a kind of a beret in his trademark sunglasses.
Come out, see the show.
He came out to see it and he introduced Adam Sandler, who, of course, was a longtime cast member, has come back as a guest host.
And, you know, he's also a musician.
And, you know, he wrote the kind of the classic song, Put On Your Yarmulke, Have a Happy Hanukkah, and other great Saturday Night Live comedic sketches, songs like that.
We put together a medley.
for SNL's 50th anniversary and of course the great Lauren Michaels who has been the executive producer at the helm of the show for 45 plus years.
Yeah, since the beginning.
Yeah, he's been around since the beginning and I believe executive producer for 45 plus in the 50 years.
He really is SNL and so Adam Sandler put together a medley.
We're gonna play a little bit of that when we come back.
Also here's some political news as well.
Former Republican, National Republican Chairman Michael Steele
giving Democrats something to chew on.
He's basically ticked off.
The Democrats aren't as ticked off as him.
We'll bring you that cut from Michael Steele, giving Democrats a little advice.
Also former Republican David Brooks on Trump's purge of federal workers, your phone calls and more.
It's the title bull show from Monday along with Sam on the civic media.
wherever if they lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the time of all show on the Civic Media Ready Network, along with Sam Davidson on the board, filling in for Mr. Zomers, who is off today.
Be back soon.
And 21 now, past the hour 12 noon on this Monday, February 17th, 2025.
Talk a little bit about before we get into the serious news of the day, Saturday Night Live.
NBC staple turned 50 years old over the weekend a great star studded 50th anniversary performance Wanted to play you a little bit and this is kind of halfway into this medley that was written by Adam Sandler of course a longtime cast member a frequent guest host, you know had Happy Gilmore and all kinds of other
very successful movies over the years, still doing a great job, came back last night.
Here now is a little bit of Adam Stahler, who was introduced by Jack Nicholson last night at this event for SNL.
And we'll pick it up just as he's about to start naming off some of those original cast members in this medley form for Saturday Night
Live.
The years of cast members saying, I think our cast is the greatest of all time.
But we all know that the first cast was the best.
And because of them, we got four years of Eddie Murphy.
Eight years of Will Forte.
Five years of Jen Hooks and Gilda.
Six of Victoria, 11 of Chae.
Three years of Melanie Hussle, Michael McKee and Crushed in two.
One of Billy Crystal, six of Dennis Miller, eight of Harman the Glove.
Seven
years of Tratton Wick, five years of Octarian Quinn, four of Kazarevsky and Klegol.
Six years of our boy Farley.
Five of our buddy Norm.
50 years of one of us getting to say, life from New York is Saturday night.
50 years of standing on home.
Adam
Sandler last night at Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary.
You see it while he was saying that part of it Sam all the on the video right behind him on the screen and he was in front of the the Saturday Night Live band which Paul Schaefer
who was David Letterman's band leader for a long time.
Paul Schaefer, one of his first gigs, was the band leader on Saturday Night Live.
That's how Letterman, because Letterman started on NBC.
And
so Letterman kind of stole him from Saturday Night Live to come on late night.
And so Schaefer came back last night to basically conduct the band
in the
orchestra.
But you saw all those people from Eddie Murphy to Chris Rock to...
You know our Chris Farley Madison, Wisconsin native and it's just wow the amount of talent that's gone through that show in 50 years is
it's a machine for for the up-and-coming new actors and actresses
It really is and of course I just love Adam Sandler.
So, you know, he makes me smile Yeah, so anyway, maybe you all enjoyed it as well I can call him with your memories of a Saturday at live if you want 855-752-4842 855-752
4842 also going on today
Of course, it today is President's Day.
Lots of people have the day off, say I haven't planned on it until we asked him to come in and fill in poor guy, but happy to have him here.
So this is an event.
So there is a national day of action, national day of protest today happening here in Madison and around lots of places, capitals, city halls around the country today being organized by lots of different people.
And this is a moment that people are being encouraged to show up to peacefully assemble.
and protest, let their voices be heard to rise up against what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing out in Washington, DC, as thousands and more people are being laid off or have been laid off over the weekend, many in institutions that Wisconsinites have come to rely on, such as the United States Department of Agriculture, among other things, Department of Labor.
This goes on and on.
And I think that from people like me, there might not be a lot of argument on, hey, should we review government agencies and find ways to trim fat, to trim inefficiencies?
I'm fine with that.
But there is a proper way to do that to make sure you're not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
And I think one of the most telling things, I mean, it's one of those things that's funny, but it's not.
I think it was Thursday or Friday, Elon Musk decided to fire.
a bunch of the people that were in charge of the nuclear codes and didn't realize that they were in charge of the nuclear codes until he fired them.
And then when they tried to rehire them back, they couldn't because they didn't have the people's personal emails that they had deleted already.
And so it had to be a scramble.
My understanding is at least some of those people now have been brought back.
But I mean, you can't horse around with that.
I mean, that's not, that's not cutting government efficiency.
That is irresponsible and putting every American in harm's way.
And this is the type of beyond goofiness, irresponsible behavior from Trump and Musk.
And so a lot of people are gathering today.
We've talked to Trig Wilson about this, the, you know, it's healthy, I think.
I've said this before, I'm very privileged.
I get to come every day five days a week for two hours with a microphone in front of me and tell people what I think to complain or to be positive.
Everyone of you out there, listeners, viewers on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, X, I feel like I've got a family.
I've got a group of people I'm talking with about this, but not very few people as a matter of fact have the privilege that I do.
So I think it's healthy for people to come together today to realize we're not alone.
That there are a lot of us out there that feel the same way and to do it peacefully without violence without vandalism But to let our voices be heard that we're not going to allow our country our democracy to be taken over By people who don't do things the right way the democratic small D way There are ways to to reform government Without having a king simply say this the way it's gonna be
That was another Trump quote over the weekend.
He tweets out basically, you know, when you're helping your country, uh, it's not illegal.
Above the rule of law.
Anyway, we'll come on back, talk more about this, the weekends happenings, and also about the state race for superintendent here in Madison and Wisconsin.
As a matter of fact, it's the title ball show for Monday on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Wherever it may lead.
and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to Tell All Ball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.
34 minutes now past the hour of 12 noon on this Monday, February 17th, 2025.
Glad to have you along.
Zomers has the day off, the great late, not the great late good lord, the great wonderful late.
We don't want it late.
The great Sam Davidson in we're borrowing him from the John and Gordy program, which could be heard every morning from six until eight right here on WMDX and soon to be.
a teacher of history to our great kids in Wisconsin.
That's right.
I'm very proud of you for that.
That's super cool.
We talked about that was say a little bit last week.
Right now we're talking about, well, a little bit about the day of protest here happening in Madison and around the country, protesting just the lack of respect for democracy by Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Encourage people, if you want to participate, to do so safely.
without vandalism, without harm, but certainly exercise your right to peaceably assemble and have your voice heard.
Also go to get into previewing tomorrow's race.
Yes.
I know it's cold.
I know it's got through elections and races.
There's another, another very important primary race tomorrow.
for every Wisconsinite, the race for Department of Public Instruction Superintendent, Dr. Jill Underly, the incumbent Democrat, being challenged by a fellow Democrat, Jeff Wright, and a conservative Republican, Brittany Kinzer, two of the three will move on to the April 1st ballot.
First of all, let's go to the phone lines, 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
Mark from the SAC.
Mark, thanks for calling in.
Happy Monday.
We'll see you.
Happy Monday.
As far as this corruption in government, as somebody who worked for the state of Wisconsin and spent a good chunk of my career auditing pre-auditing payments and then auditing, I didn't see a whole lot of grief.
I didn't see a whole lot of fraud.
I guess one of the big ones I noticed is that some of the communities weren't quite as screwed to us.
They should have been as obeying state bidding law because that's old fashioned.
corruption, you know, hoarding contracts to your friends and relatives.
I can't say if we're relatives or not, but I did notice, I couldn't pay out when they didn't fall state bidding law.
And I know Scott Walker kind of, and Republicans kind of weakened state bidding law when he came into power.
And then for the Republican school board, a school superintendent, I wonder if she's going to be a scrupulous in making sure that
the private schools and the charter schools actually have to conform to the same standards as public schools because that's the big beef I have with that unless you're you can just say oh there's so much better well unless you're testing them you're not doing the taxpayers any good because from life the outcomes are not any better in the private schools or in the charter schools are there in the public
schools.
Now, I appreciate the call mark.
You bring up a couple of great points.
First of all, as someone who served in both the federal and state governments, I think you're absolutely right in my personal opinion.
I saw a lot more waste and opportunities for reform at the federal level than I saw at the state level.
I think partly because it's just closer to home.
And I think that Wisconsinites tend to be more sensible than...
people at the federal level.
So so I think you're absolutely right.
I think that's important distinction.
I appreciate you bringing that up that there is much less, much less waste and and lack of efficiency in state government than there is at the federal government.
Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but just it is certainly to a lesser degree.
Most federal employees that I've and state employees, most federal and state workers, employees that I worked with over the years.
Most of them were just there because they wanted to help people whether it was Helping people with an income tax return or be returned and didn't get given to them.
Maybe it was Department of Transportation helping a farmer who said, you know, I I have to have an access road here and To get my machinery in to get my crops out and because I had you know, a lot of agricultural people now you're seeing farm families combine so it's a lot less the
man and woman and their five or six kids.
And as much more, the brother and sister and cousin coming together to combine an LLC and farm together.
That means they're actually buying more land and it's more efficient for them to be by larger equipment.
And so some of these little driveways, you see, go down into a field along a state road where you can't fit the larger machinery on that access road anymore.
And so they want to build an access road.
And depending upon where they're at, the state says, well, you know, that's off of a state road and we're not going to allow that by the book.
So they call their local legislator and as a former legislative staffer, I would then call the executive assistant in department of transportation.
They would work through this and we'd find a way that we could make a waiver, an exception.
Maybe the road had to be a quarter mile down the road, make it safer.
Maybe DOT had to put some money to make a passage way around that.
But you would find a way to do that.
That doesn't happen by waving a magic wand.
You have to have people there that A, know the law, and the B will be advocates for the constituents, the people of Wisconsin, to finally get results.
I mean, you could call it a bureaucracy if you want, but that's not inefficient.
And I think that that's gonna be the big surprise for a lot of folks when things that they rely upon, be it payments or services, simply don't happen anymore.
And they say, well, I didn't want that.
Well, no, of course you didn't.
But that's what we're getting under Trump now and Musk with these purging of people, thousands of people let go over the weekend again, seeming to be,
indiscriminately.
And on this race for DPI Secretary Mark, you're also absolutely right on Jane McNair and Greg Bach of the great program, McNair on air, which we're always so very honored that they are our lead in.
You can hear them every morning from 10 until noon.
They were talking about this race this morning as well.
And to what your point, I come from a family educators, you're absolutely right.
Jane and Greg were right.
That our private schools
don't have to follow the same rules as our public school systems.
A private school doesn't have to take every kid.
And many of these kids have physical and emotional challenges, which costs more to hire additional aides to keep them safe and to educate them.
Public school can't say, look, that's gonna cost us too much.
We can't take your kid.
Private schools can.
So...
There's lots of that's the biggest probably your right mark.
That's what one of the big things in this DPI race is that Jill Underly and Jeff Wright Both support public education Brittany Kinzer being backed by Robin Foster Republicans and conservative groups are all about private schools and privatization a 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 let's hear from great program upfront
It's syndicated across Wisconsin.
It comes out of WISN television out of Milwaukee.
And so up front sat down with all three of these candidates.
I want to give you a couple of clips so you can hear them all in their own words.
The primary election is tomorrow.
Be a voter.
As Luke Mathers likes to say, find out where your polling place is.
Go to myvotewi.gov.
If you're not sure.
You can register same day at the polls, if necessary, be a voter.
We're going to start with Dr. Jill Underly, the current incumbent of Superintendent of Public Instructions in Wisconsin.
Why do you think you have two challengers
in the race?
The governor hasn't endorsed in this race.
He hasn't endorsed you.
Should anyone read in into that?
Not at
I'm curious, what is your lane in this primary to win?
Is it trying to siphon votes from supporters of Jill Underly?
Are you coming from the same batch of supporters, essentially?
I
connected to school.
Sorry about that.
I, sorry, saying I messed up there.
So this is, Todd was too poor to pay attention as my former teacher, Ken Lewis, is fond of saying.
He always used to say, remember, never be so poor that you can't pay attention.
So that was Dr. Jill.
one of the two Democrats.
And now this is the interviewer is Matt Smith from WISN's Upfront Television Program in Milwaukee.
And now here is Jeff Wright, the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Sock Prairie in Southwest, South Central Wisconsin with Matt Smith on Upfront.
What is your lane in this primary to win?
Is it trying to siphon votes from supporters of Jill Underly?
Are you coming from the same batch of supporters,
I think my lane is a lot of people that are directly connected to schools.
And so I hope it's a non-partisan lane.
You're talking about working with Republicans?
Of course.
Republicans have the majority in both the Assembly and the Senate.
Like, we need to work with them and that's the...
I'm a superintendent in Sock County, which is the most purple county in the entire state.
And so I can't get anything done in that community without working with Republicans and Democrats, with faith leaders and business leaders.
I get to bring them to the table all the time together.
I've heard people say.
And now this is that was Jeff Wright, the superintendent of Sock Prairie.
And so now this is the education advisor being backed by Republicans, Brittany Kinzer with Matt Smith on Upfront.
I've heard people say you're the conservative candidate in this race.
Is that a fair label to put on you?
I
Because some people are like, no, she's this, she's that.
I'm like, I'm for the kids, right?
And so when I was a principal or a special ed teacher, when I was interviewed, no one ever asked me, well, are you?
Are you a Democrat or Republican?
No, it was, you know, they interviewed me based off of, like, my skills.
If you want to put me in a box, I guess I'm a moderate, but my issue is improving education.
And so I will work with anyone, and we have to work with anyone that wants to put kids first.
That was on WISN's Up Front this weekend with Matt Smith.
All three candidates there, again, Dr. Underly, Jill Underly, the incumbent Democrat, Jeff Wright, one of the other two, one of the...
one of the two Democrats as well, Jeff Wright, the superintendent of public schools in Sock Prairie, and then finally, Brittany Kinzer, the conservative candidate there as well.
I just, for my money, look, I'm not making any outright endorsements here, but Jeff Wright has been on this program.
He took time to come on, really appreciate that.
I just like his message.
I like his message of working together for our communities because one of the things having grown up in Southwest Wisconsin
and spending a lot of time over the last couple of years taking this show on the road.
If you go and talk to people in there, listen to people, that's a better way to put it.
If you listen to people in their communities, very few, if any, people I encountered all over the state.
And we were in South Milwaukee and we were in Amory.
We were at Hayward and Richland Center.
We were in Nouglaris and we were in Green Bay.
We were in Wausau and of course here in Madison.
I didn't hear anybody tell me during all those travels.
You know, I think my public school really sucks.
I think we should get rid of it.
I wish we could consolidate.
I don't, I don't want to go to any school concerts.
I don't want to watch our kids play football.
I don't want to go to any friends, ex tournaments.
Nobody said that to me.
What I heard people say was, I think there's too much spending to Madison.
I think we should be more frugal.
I see, that's what people say.
It's always somebody else's school district.
It's not mine.
I want my school district to keep funded.
And you know what?
People put their vote where their mouths were because while Donald Trump won, all of his numbers went up in every state except Door County or every county except Door County.
But what also happened in many of those same counties, local folks voted to raise their own taxes to support their local public school.
So as Tip O'Neill said late great speaker of the house Democrat all politics is local if you make it local You'll win and that's what Jeff right is doing is saying look as a local superintendent.
I Can't yes, I'm a Democrat.
I'm already you know He ran for assembly as a Democrat technically this is nonpartisan, but he supported by the way Jeff right endorsed by the teachers He's saying look, I'm a Democrat, but I've learned through action
I have to work with everyone.
Doesn't matter whether they voted for Harris or Trump, I have to work to make sure our public schools and sock prairie work.
And I think that Wisconsinites are just hungry for that right now.
Look, I don't care to give a crap who you voted for at the top of the ticket, but take care of our kids, take care of our public schools.
And so that's why I just like Jeff Wright's message.
Now, Dr. Underly has certainly done a lot for our schools, for our kids.
I think the way I've talked about this before, I think the political mistakes she made was saying she wanted the whole $4 billion surplus for education.
That's just an overreach.
And she called out again, Governor Evers over the weekend, saying that he misunderstood testing, which I find weird because Governor Evers held the same position as she does and was reelected three times to that.
Back after this or the title ball show on the civic media.
wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the title of the show, the Civic Media Radio Network.
It is now nine before the hour of two o'clock, coming up on hour two.
What's worse?
A post Valentine edition.
Now, if you are with us on Friday, Zomers is off and Sam, who has a significant other, he was, he had a big trip up north.
And so you had a romantic evening with your girlfriend the week before.
That's right.
Yeah.
What a
guy.
What a guy.
Now, are you a, I think I probably know the answer to this, but I'm gonna ask it anyway, if you don't mind.
Are you, are you up, are you and your, are you guys into public displays of
affection?
I mean, I guess, I don't know if we do a ton, but...
Like holding hands and a kiss, that's one thing.
Yeah, sure.
But are you gonna, are you gonna sit in the park bench and just, you know, make out?
No, probably
not.
So that's part of the subject of what's worse.
It has to do with public displays of affection.
Okay, okay.
We'll we'll talk about that because you see a lot of this on Valentine's weekend I didn't I stayed inside had leftovers by myself That was my romantic Valentine's weekend But anyway what's worse coming up in our number two and we'll talk a little bit about the Badgers big win over Purdue basketball wise and the terrible call
officials made against Wisconsin Wisconsin at home tomorrow night against Illinois you can hear that game on many of the civic media radio networks right now we're talking about the race for department of public instruction coming up yes there's an election tomorrow on Tuesday February 18th the primary for department of public instruction also talked a little bit earlier about being I've worked for both the federal and the state government
And I say, I'd seen some waste and government that it is there.
And Tom listening on WMDX and Jackson says, Hey, Todd, what waste did you see?
Probably one of the, I'll give you the short version.
I worked for former congressman, Scott Clug, who they created a bipartisan, they called it a gang of seven.
Republicans, Democrats and they looked at government waste.
It used to be there used to be a house of representatives post office.
In other words, a post office that only served the house for representatives.
It was located in the capital.
And so what Congress people would do of both parties is they would take their office expenditures.
money, taxpayer money to run their office.
And they would have their staff go down and buy, say, $500 worth of stamps or $1,000 worth of stamps to send quote, unquote, constituent letters back home.
Fine.
Then they would take those stamps up.
Then the Congress people, not everybody, but some would say, you know what?
We don't need those stamps anymore.
Just take them back down and get cash for it.
And then they would get cash and these and these congressmen were taking taxpayer money and getting thousands of dollars off of it You know pretty good gig so my former boss Scott Clug and get this John Boehner was a freshman at the time went on to be speaker of the house and and a couple of Democrats They introduced a bill they got it through Bill Clinton signed it and they closed the house bank and guys like a Democrat Ross Tinkowski
I think it was Democrat of Illinois got sent to prison over it.
And so that's the type.
I mean, there, there were and are problems in government.
Don't get me wrong.
But to throw the baby out the bathwater, I just don't think it's right.
855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.
Tom in LA out in Los Angeles.
Tom always a pleasure.
What's the.
LA Tom,
are you there to say me?
I'm sorry.
Oh, yeah, it's fine.
It's fine.
You're on my phone.
I'm so sorry about that.
No worries.
Okay.
So, um, I am all for everything being audited.
Um, whether it's a private corporation or it's we the people government.
Um, what I'm not for is falling into this trap that the Republicans set, which is called waste fraud and abuse.
when all they're doing is trying to get rid of we, the people essential services.
So therefore they can give Elon, you know, another tax break or give Will Hendricks another tax break.
This is ridiculous.
Um, you know, if you have, if you have some problems, like I said, I don't want us to fall into that trap of saying, Oh yeah, there's ways for odd and abuse.
Well, you know what?
There isn't every private corporation.
There isn't every
everything that's out there, there is.
And the thing is like with this, this, uh, stamp thing you were talking about, it doesn't sound like the program was a problem.
It sounds like the people that were abusing the program was the problem.
And I think that that's part of it.
You know, I'm a small business owner and I don't like it when things, you know, when there's different types of regulations and things like that, that make things a little bit slower.
But as I'm getting older, as I'm understanding the government more,
there is a purpose for it to be a little bit slower and I'm starting to come around to that where I'm like going all right maybe it frustrates me but maybe there's a reason behind it going slow and just like government goes slow because we have three branches of government I mean right now we only have one but you know we we have three branches of government the whole idea is balance of power and to go make things go slowly so I would just really really encourage people
Do not fall into the trap of just saying waste, fraud and abuse because yes, there is everywhere.
But this is a totally different animal because this is all about the billionaires getting a tax cut so they can offset the cost somehow and justify it to the American people that, hey, yeah, we're saving money here.
But no, you're not.
You're basically doing a bank heist and you're doing it right in front of us.
To your point.
Katie Sandlin, and she posted this on Twitter X over the weekend herself.
She was formerly now formerly with the Education Outreach Specialist with the National Institute of Health.
Her job included, I believe I'm saying this right, genomics or genomics, bioinformatics, insulin signaling, and web design.
And she, along with 2,000 other National Institute of Health employees over the weekend, were told to clear out.
their offices.
My sister has type one diabetes.
You know, more research on insulin, helping people understand how to use insulin, kind of life-saving stuff.
But Trump threw them out.
Great call, Tom.
Appreciate it.
Come on back hour number two.
What's worse?
Are you into PDA?
We'll explain on the other
side.
