Saving Hearts and Killing Rats by Doug Moe (Hour 2)

Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Across Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app,

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albault, along with Mr. Aaron Zommers, our producer and engineer.

It is six past the hour of 12 noon on TGIF Friday, April 18, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.

Glad to have you along here at the end of the week.

cloudy skies right now, the world headquarters in downtown Madison, Wisconsin of civic median, median, median.

Yes, I'm going across a median.

No, the media, that's our company, Zomers.

Happy Friday to you.

Were you aroused?

Not aroused.

What's the right word?

Awoken by the, maybe you were aroused too, by the thunderstorms this morning.

I would

say I was roused,

I would not say I was aroused.

Got

it, all right, very good.

Uh-oh, same with me, and in all seriousness, some pretty severe storms rolled through South Central Wisconsin and over into Southeast Wisconsin and reports all across the, not maybe just South of Madison, Stoughton, Evansville area, over towards Whitewater a little bit, golf ball-sized hail, and in some cases, almost like a baseball-sized hail.

saw some video this morning on channel 3000 or channel three actually the local CBS affiliate of windshields people driving to work pulling over and their windshields were cracked as they were driving to work because of the the size of this hail along with some heavy rains and some wind.

I know also our listeners over the walkie-shot area were experiencing some very heavy kind of flash floods as well.

So just be careful.

If you're out there on the roadways in South Central or Southeast Wisconsin, you may encounter some areas where some of that storm damage is still in effect.

Looks like we could have another round of severe weather rolling through this afternoon into tonight for some parts of the state.

Again, kind of roughly Madison over to the Milwaukee area, greater area.

So that kind of south central to southwest Wisconsin as a front moves through.

So be aware, whether aware, keep it tuned to your favorite weather source for information on the weather because these things can change quickly.

But hopefully everybody is okay.

But yeah, it was some pretty loud claps of thunderstorms this morning.

Oh, a little bit.

Yeah.

Wakes you up.

That's for sure.

Along with the morning coffee.

Lots to get to today.

Big show for a Friday in hour number two I cannot wait for this because there are some people we've had in the program That you just say wow I mean these people are just you can sit listen to them all day long and Doug Moe for my money is one of those people he is a great author and columnists wrote for The Capital Times for a long time written for the Madison magazine amongst others well well published author great guy of Madisonian

knows Wisconsin, and he has written a new book called Saving Hearts and Killing Rats.

You think, well, that's you got my attention, right?

It's a fact.

I'm not all the way through it, but there are some kindness to send me some of it.

And it's a fascinating read.

And what I love about it is that it is all Wisconsin because it's attached.

There's a story of this of this biochemist here from UW Madison, who basically discovered Warfarin.

And if you're, well, what, what war, that's rap poison.

So obviously made a big difference in keeping places clean and rodent free, but in small doses, like my maternal grandmother, may she rest in peace.

She was kept alive for a long time by Warfarin because they use it to thin your blood in people that have heart conditions.

It is a, and it saves so many lives as a pharmacy tech.

When I used to do that they're trying to phase out warfarin because you know, it's used as rat poison It might be more dangerous than some other but but it is still so life-saving and it is so cheap because It was discovered and made easily available.

Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating fascinating read called saving hearts and killing rats by Doug Moe and Doug's gonna be here in hour number two in the studio at 130 to tell us about this discovery and writing it and a little bit more about the story at large also an hour number two

or what's the worst for the day, stale chips or warm beer.

Neither one is pleasant.

So we'll ask you that in hour number two as well.

A little fun along the way.

Easter's coming up.

Good Friday is today for all of those.

Some people may be going to church right now for those that celebrate.

I remember growing up in Richland Center and it was a huge deal.

And many of our, and I think some places still do this, but in Richland Center,

town of 5,000 people back in the 70s and 80s, downtown basically would close from noon until three because the community all went to, either the Catholics went to their service, their Good Friday service, and then the Protestants would usually do a kind of a community ecumenical service that would rotate churches year to year.

So I know a lot of people still do

noon or afternoon church.

And if you're on your way to that, we wish you blessings and a good celebration this weekend.

I'll be going home to Richland Center for Easter this year.

So by the way, probably the most like, well, I mean, these two hours are the best part of my day.

Wink, wink.

No, they are, they are.

But this afternoon, I get to play chauffeur for the one, the only Cheryl Baxter, the daughter.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Yes.

Daughter of Betty Hayes Baxter, the longest.

running dance teacher in the world.

World record holder, Guinness Book of World Record Holders.

She, of course, Betty and Cheryl were on the show last year, wasn't I think?

I believe so, yeah.

When she set the record.

So Cheryl's flying in because we're doing a thing this weekend for Betty.

She's going to turn, I think it's okay to say this, 95.

95, and yes, she is still teaching.

And her mind is sharp as a tack.

So Cheryl's flying in from LA and so I'm gonna play chauffeur and pick her up this afternoon and Go out to beautiful evoka and Richland Center out there.

Are you traveling back to Manitowoc?

I'm not going back to Manitowoc, but I am going to Campbell Sport where my paternal grandmother lives celebrating Easter this day.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes

I don't I don't mind paid a couple bucks extra for deviled eggs.

Oh me either All right, we'll talk more about we've dialed up some Easter fun for you as well

later on in the show.

But right now it's 13 minutes past the hour 12 noon.

Let's take a look at this headline and we have some introduction music for today's headline, Zomers.

Here we go.

Sorry, I'm sorry.

I wanted to 25, 20.

I apologize.

I apologize.

That's not

me.

This is

a great tune, by the

way.

I love this song.

25, 25,

I'm not sure if it'll still be around then, but the Supreme Court of Wisconsin making news.

I know Jane McNair, Greg Baca, Matt Nair, and Air were talking to our political editor Dan Schaefer about this last, on the last show there, but I wanted to kind of pick up on that.

This is pretty big news.

This is from the Associated Press.

Wisconsin governor's creative use.

By the way, this is by the great reporter writer Scott Bauer at the Associated Press.

Wisconsin governor's creative use of his uniquely powerful veto will lock in a school funding increase for 400 years.

This is real.

And it may be an attention grabbing, but it was constitutional.

according to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

In a 4-3 ruling this morning from the Liberal-controlled Court, they affirm the partial veto power of Wisconsin governors, which is the broadest of any state.

Both Republicans and Democrats have used the partial veto to reshape spending bills passed by the legislature.

Wisconsin is the only state where governors can partially veto spending bills by striking words, numbers,

and punctuation to create meaning or spending amounts.

In most cases, governors can only eliminate or reduce spending amounts.

They did the legislature, but step it away from the story for a minute.

They did the legislature, curtail the governor's veto power a few years ago when Tommy was still governor, and they called it the Vanna White Veto.

because it used to be when Tommy was governor, he could take words and just choose whatever letters out of words he wanted to make up new words.

It was called the Vanna White Vita because, you know, wheel of fortune, you turn around letter by letter.

And so they said, no, no, no, you can't do the Vanna White.

You have to either take the whole word or nothing, but you can select striking numbers, punctuation, and things like that.

So back to the story now, they associated a press.

Democratic governor told lawmakers at the time that changing the 2025 budget to 24-25 in the budget was meant to increase school districts funding into perpetuity.

So you see what he did?

It basically said it took different numbers and instead of saying through the 2025 budget, he made it the 24-25 budget.

Extended it 400 years not not bad if you can do it and and he did Cos on to say Evers in a 2023 issued a partial veto the increase how much the revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year Evers took language that originally applied the increase for the follow me now on this originally it said 2023 dash

2024 and 2024-2025 school year.

And instead that he vetoed the 20 and the hyphen to make the end date 24-25, more than four centuries from now.

I mean, I give him props.

It was damn creative.

And as Glenn growthman once said to me, well, you know, we do it if we had the chance as well.

The legislature, along with the state's largest business lobbying group, Wisconsin Manufacturers in Commerce, argued that Evers Vito was barred.

And here we go.

Under a 1990 constitutional amendment adopted by voters, the amendment removed the ability to strike individual letters to make new words, known as the Vanna White Vito, named after the co-host of the game show, Wheel of Fortune, who flips letters to reveal word phrases.

Finding otherwise would give governors unlimited power to alter numbers in a budget, they argued.

But Evers countered that the Vanna White veto ban applies only to striking individual letters to create new words, not vetoing digits to create new numbers.

So he helped education.

Under the law, it goes to the Supreme Court and they said, yeah, you can do that.

Was it really the smartest choice?

We'll come back and discuss it.

Your phone calls as well.

855-755-248-42.

The governor going on into 2025, back after this.

Wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.

Welcome back to the title ball show for a Friday, April 18th, 2025.

Glad to have you along.

21 past 12 summers on the board talking about this breaking news today.

Wisconsin Supreme Court on a four to three decision liberals voting yes, conservatives voting no.

They confirmed or affirmed.

the partial veto power of Wisconsin governors.

I think it's important to note this is not just for Governor Evers.

This now pertains to all governors moving forward in the future.

And again, to set this up in the last budget in 2023, pardon me, ish, try that again.

What's going on?

It's the sign to see.

I'm glad it rained this morning because the sign, the, uh, the pollen's back and I've got, I got to sign this stuff.

Anyway, I apologize.

Evers in 2023 issued a partial veto that increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by 325 bucks a year.

So I think the impetus of this is really important.

Evers took this action.

because Republicans who control the legislature were sticking it to public schools of Wisconsin.

And forcing, and think about this, how many communities do we know?

Probably one of yours.

They had to go to referendum, just not to build a building, not to do anything, just to keep the lights on.

because Republicans in the legislature are not keeping the promise that Tommy Thompson made, Republican governor, and the legislature at the time to fund two thirds of public education.

They have backed off on that for years, and now they're trying to get their clothes back to where it was, but it's not taking in the additional dollars that special needs kids have.

And the added cost for local school districts.

So the Republicans slashed funding, even though they technically kind of raised it, it wasn't where it should be so that you don't have all these referendums locally.

And so Evers said, all right, well, I'll help out the local folks a little bit.

I'll put in the budget that we're gonna increase the per pupil rate by $325 a year, the state cost.

And the legislature said, okay, we'll do that for a year.

And they passed it.

and then it got to Evers desk and the way the legislature wrote it, Evers and his team figured out that if they vetoed individual numbers and dashes, they could make it not just a one year increase, but a 400 year increase and that every year for 400 years, you'd have to raise the per pupil cost by 325 bucks.

Again, which in the scope of things, isn't really very much.

But it's a little bit to help out local education and to be clear.

I don't have a problem with that parties It's not I absolutely believe that we should be putting more of our state.

We have a four hundred or four billion plus state surplus right now We can afford to put more money into K-12 schools so we don't have all these local referendums but

And the Supreme Court today found that this was a constitutional action.

It was legal what Governor Evers did.

I don't disagree with that.

And again, would the Republicans do it?

That kind of, I'll call it a shenanigan if they were able to, sure.

But do I think he should have done it, Evers?

Do I think the Supreme Court, and again, I mean, I'm no lawyer here, maybe by the law, and if that's the way the law is written,

Then the Supreme Court did the right thing.

But I just don't think it's a good look.

And it goes back to my friend Jonathan who coined the phrase, I care but not enough to do anything about it, which we talked about yesterday.

One of his other phrases in the Trump era is nothing matters.

Every time something spectacularly crazy happens in politics, we'll text each other.

I'll say, what about this?

And Jonathan's wife Alice, I'll be like, yeah, what about this?

He sits there called, cool, collected and just says, nothing matters.

And I think this is an indication and obviously I'm exaggerating a little bit for dramatic effect.

But it's another example in Wisconsin politics where not a whole lot matters.

It's who's ever in control and has the power and they're gonna use that power to their benefit as best they can And in the case of what's happening in DC right now, I wish Democrats and at least some Republicans would use their power more To head off what I think is a constitutional crisis in DC and we'll get to more of that in a minute But I'm not sure sure this I mean this is just kind of

To me, it's just hokey.

It's like, oh, we can denigrate.

We got you.

We got you good.

Well, wait until there's a Republican governor.

And they're going to do the same type of thing on the other side, in my opinion.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Mark, in prayer to sack.

Mark, happy TGIF.

What's

that?

Yeah, well, every time I hear that line, nothing really matters.

I think it's the night of the opera.

because that's a line from that.

Nothing really matters to me.

But for the Republicans to be claiming what little games are being played, let's remember the little game that Scott Walker played back in 2011.

As soon as he came into office, he blew a hole in a budget that was projected to have a surplus.

as of June 30th of 2011, to know we have to have Act 10 now and we can get rid of, you know, to order ahead of the budget crisis that he caused, but his, I think it was a tax break, we can get rid of the union.

So that's the impetus for Act 10.

If I remember correctly that, and it is a little, in the little games they played, you know, the old, Scott Walker on his way out the door, the big old middle finger to Jim Doyle and Josh Call with the whole lame duck legislation that the Republicans

happily along with and uh... the producer for scott walker to disempower the governor's office so that uh... and they and attorney general's office that uh... politics is you know sometimes it's a it's a it's a game and you know perhaps you shouldn't have done it but uh...

i told by the way mark i told you i'm not i'm not here to abdicate or to not abdicate to defend the republicans all you're a hundred percent right with everything you said i think those actions were not right either

But I just, you know, you hear from Democrats a lot when all those things happen.

Well, we have to have ethics and morality and character and government.

And here, you know, again, I think it was for a good cause to help public education.

I just didn't like the way that he did it.

Does that make sense?

Is Mark still there?

All right, Mark.

Oh, we got it.

We had a break.

All right.

Sorry, Mark.

We'll come back if you're still around and get you on the other side.

Talk more about this, 855-752-4842.

It's the Todd Allball Show, and you're listening to Cross Wisconsin on the Civic Media, radio network.

Having fun doing it is 34 minutes now, past hour of 12 noon of the Tonal Ball Show on the Civic Media Writing Network.

It's Friday, April 18th, 2025, Zomber is on the board.

Glad to be with you coming up at hour two, an hour from right now.

Doug Moe, great author and columnist will be in studio to talk about his new book called Saving Hearts and Killing Rats.

It's, I love the title.

Because it's the story of a UW chemist who discovered created warfarin, which that was one of the main ways to kill rodents, rats, and mice, particularly on farms for a long, long time.

It also, as Amherst points out, cheap and easy way to keep people alive, people with heart conditions, little tiny doses of warfarin.

Since it's

a generic medication.

It's

it stayed cheap.

It's fantastic.

Going to talk to Doug more about that in our two also coming up a chips and beer edition of what's worse and our number two and going to get a little bit to Bob Spindel is back in the news.

Now, here's a guy, a fake collector who.

Causing trouble yesterday, but first I want to finish up with this story in the Associated Press by Scott Bauer this morning the Wisconsin State Supreme Court upheld Governor Tony Evers actions in the last budget on a four to three ruling Which said he was constitutionally in the right that what he did was legal on the 2023 budget

Where he increased K-12 public schools the how much they can raise their per student rate each year to three hundred twenty five percent three hundred twenty five dollars three hundred twenty five dollars For four hundred he made it four it was put the legislature passed it as a one-year thing But the way it was written and it came to Evers he used his legal ability to veto numbers and punctuation and made it

400 years to 20, 24, 25.

Legislature and manufacturers and commerce said, not so fast.

As Lee Corso says, we're going to talk about Lee in a minute.

So they went to court.

Supreme court said, yes, what Governor Evers did was legal.

I don't have a problem with, with the intent here to get more money to K-12 public schools.

So we don't have to have all these almost annual referendums now.

the state, the Republican legislature is coming up short in properly funding K-12 schools, in my opinion.

But I just, the way that he did it with this kind of wink and a nod, oh, look what I could do.

I kind of got fancy.

Again, it's legal and...

In my opinion, the Republicans are going to pull the same kind of trips, tricks moving forward.

But Mark and Prada Sack was making the point earlier.

All the things that Republicans did trickery in the legislature and politics to kind of screw over Wisconsin taxpayers during act 10 and the Walker administration.

And I agree with that.

They did.

But Mark, if you're still on the line, I just want to give you a chance because we were up against the break.

Do you agree or disagree?

I just don't think it's a great look moving forward because I think it takes one of the cards away from Democrats where they would say, look, we don't do those type of things.

We do it straight down the middle.

We have a higher character than that.

And now I think that just takes that card away.

Yeah, perhaps.

But I mean, if it's the only card you got because

We have, you know, many members of the legislature, um, Devon Lemahue, in particular, I mean, the man went to private school, has never been, never went to a public school, I believe, and yet he is somebody who makes decisions about public schools because I went to public school.

I mean,

I've been to

the Douglas County, Wisconsin, and that it's, um, you know, that, that, and they're been chronically underfunded now, our schools.

So that if it's the only tool you have, I guess, um,

You know do you have to use it because the legislature was intransigent as far as providing adequate funding for our schools and It's it's it's unfortunate that but hypocrisy knows no bounds.

I mean now with

It's not really related, but I heard today that the Keystone Pipeline is going through, and they say, well, it's for oil production for the United States.

Well, it's got nothing to do with the United States.

I understand that's Canadian oil that's coming through the United States and going to a Canadian refinery.

So with the ongoing assault on Canada by Donald Trump, it seems ironic to me that they had to rush through the approval of that pipeline for oil that's not going to really benefit the United States.

Gotta move on, Mark.

I appreciate you hanging around.

Thanks for that.

We'll continue to follow it.

I'm sure more of our shows will be talking about it.

But yeah, there you go.

Supreme Court saying, yes, Governor Evers can get very creative with the veto pen.

We'll see what happens moving forward.

I want to get to this other story.

This is courtesy of WISN Channel 12 ABC affiliate in Milwaukee.

Wisconsin election meeting erupts as chair silences commissioner

Over ballot shortage the video on this is stunning by the way Absolutely stunning According to the ISN channel 12 a mundane Wisconsin Election Commission meeting yesterday Suddenly took a turn when Republican appointee Bob Spindel Brought up the walkies issues with running out of ballots on election day in April now Let me set this up step away from the story this meeting

was set up to discuss Madison because her bed, whatever, 200 and some odd ballots that didn't get counted.

It was a clerical mistake.

The clerk here in Madison resigned.

So it was to deal with that.

My understanding is Milwaukee was not even on the agenda.

Therefore it was non-Germain.

You can't discuss that.

But Bob Spindel, an important to remember here, one of the fake electors from the 2020 election.

All right.

Bob Spindel decides to get spicy.

He says, quote, there's even a more serious problem in the city of Milwaukee, where Channel 12 has been doing an expo with several long segments of the election commission running out of ballots.

Spindel began before he was interrupted by the commission chair and Jacobs.

She hit the gavel and said, Bob, I am ruling your comment out of order, Bob.

and she slammed the gavel repeatedly.

Spindel persisted reading from prepared remarks, probably written at RPW, that were not audible over Jacob's protests.

And she said, I'm reading, I love the fact that this is the verbatim.

Quote, Bob, you need to stop or I'll ask you to leave this meeting.

Bob.

Bob, stop, stop.

I'm not gonna let you keep going.

Bob, Bob, Jacob said.

I love the transcription.

L.A.

Tom says, Bob Spindel, Brian Schimming, Brian Stile, all these BS candidates.

Oh, there's

that.

Inefficient.

Coming from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Jacobs and Spindel have sparred before, including the 2020 incident over Zoom during the pandemic, where Spindel accused Jacobs of trying to quote, quote, muscle him.

A little S and M. He brought that comment back during their head to head Thursday.

Quote, I'm going to talk over you until you stop.

You must stop.

You are out of order.

I will eject you from this meeting.

Jacob shouted.

Spindel replied, you're not going to try to muzzle me.

Is that right?

Muzzle me?

If you understand the words I'm saying, you're out of order.

This went back.

I mean, it was like grade school kids.

There you go.

Earlier this week, the City of Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Kateriz addressed the election day issue when a number of polling sites ran out of ballots.

She said Monday that instead of estimating the number of voters when ordering ballots in the future, their new procedure will be to print ballots for every registered voter so they won't risk running out again.

It was an honest mistake.

And again,

There is no reports that anybody didn't get to vote who was in line by eight o'clock All the ballots were counted There is no election fraud.

There's no no campaign or election fraud in Milwaukee or or any notable fraud anywhere, Wisconsin Every court every judge from a Republican appointee to a Democratic appointee.

There is no fraud Wisconsin elections are free

Fair, safe, and accurate.

Period.

Period.

But this Bob Spindel guy, he's just there making trouble.

And this is what my former party loves to do, stir the pot, get in there.

And how this guy is still on the Wisconsin Election Commission when he was part of the fake electors, which tried to undermine and actually commit election fraud.

What we're talking about, of course, is 2020, where during the pandemic, the Republican, Andrew Hitt, former chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and Bob Spindel and others met in a room in the Capitol, which they weren't supposed to be in, Scott Fitzgerald, where he was state Senate Majority Leader, set that up.

And they voted for Trump.

Even though Biden and won the state they vote and they had an alternate slate of electors.

They gave it to the voter mule who is with US Senator Ron Johnson Ron Johnson was the mule who took these illegal fake Elector votes to Washington and tried to hand it to Mike Pence to overthrow an election And this bopsping Dale guy

He is the one that helped do all this.

And not only is he not in jail, he's sitting on the Wisconsin election commission.

I had dinner with my old friend, Kevin O'Connor, my old broadcast partner this week.

He's from Chicago originally.

And back in college, we used to have this show called sports rap.

And we brought a lot of Chicago talk radio sports talk radio to the mix and we had we had this segment because in in Chicago in the 90s or whatever it was 80s you could do this you could do this uh people this is my dick it era by the way so people would the most outrageous sports thing of the week in Chicago and and they would call in and they'd rant at the end of it they'd say who are you blanking and they'd they'd bleep it out and so we adapted it to who you crapping

This would be a candidate for the segment, Who You Crappin'.

Bob Spindel, who tried to steal an election, gave it to Ron Johnson to steal it in Congress, and only because a modicum of character left in Mike Pence did it not happen.

But Bob Spindel is not in jail, and he's still in the Wisconsin Election Commission, causing trouble.

Come on, Bob Spindel!

Who you crappin'?

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Let's go to Joe at Madison.

Joe at WMDX.

Thanks for calling, Joe.

What's a you?

Boyd, I think paired with the situation you were talking about with Governor Evers in the Supreme Court and your concerns that that may not have been kind of sportsman and nice of him to do what he did.

It's been my experience, Todd, that in today's climate with the Republicans acting the way they do, that nice gets you nowhere.

Knife gets you absolutely nowhere.

I think that woman who was running the meeting should have said to Mr. Spindale, you're out of order.

I told you twice, third time, because apparently he's a kid and he doesn't understand anything more than one, two, three times that you get, you're out and you should have been ejected from the meeting.

A man who says, I'm going to talk over you.

How many times as a woman have I heard those words and seen that behavior and I am

stick of it.

And I realized being a nice lady and being nice gets you absolutely nowhere.

She should have thrown him out.

His behavior was absolutely unacceptable.

She was in charge of that meeting.

It was her call as to what happened there.

And she should have ejected him.

She shouldn't have made any attempt to try to reason with him at all.

And my concern, Todd, is at one point, and I'm sure you were just

This is how it struck you.

You said, you know, they're like grade school kids going back and forth.

What does this woman do besides eject him when this guy acts like such a stinking jerk?

They aren't all alike.

He was told as a member of that commission, not leader of that commission.

This was out of order.

This was not in the agenda.

It was not supposed to be talked about.

And it's ridiculous.

How do you get to just big hog your way in a meeting because you want to and say, I'm going to talk over you?

That remark right there should have been enough to get him ejected.

That is...

That is not nice.

And that is not the way the government should work.

And I guess I'm at the point where, you know, I don't know whether what Tony did was okay or not, but I think good for you.

You're making a statement about education, which is into the future, whether Wisconsin is a thousand years old, we will still value education.

And I loved it.

And I wish that woman had ejected Bob Spindel from the meeting.

As

a

woman, I have put up with men like this way

too much.

I always appreciate your comments, Joe.

I don't think we were that far apart.

My criticism is at Chair Jacobs.

I mean, I think it was just from a public perspective, I think it's just kind of entertaining if nothing else.

But no, I think she should just adjourn the meeting right then and there and stop him because he was clearly out of order.

But don't, well, stay, Joe, don't go anywhere.

I want to get your thoughts on your side.

Stay with us.

And having fun doing it, welcome back to the All-Ball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

It is nine before the hour of two o'clock on Friday, April 18th.

Summer is on the board.

Glad to have you along.

Talking about the Wisconsin Election Commission meeting yesterday in which member Bob Spindel brought up an issue that he thinks is an issue of Milwaukee voting.

It really isn't.

But it wasn't on the agenda.

The meeting was to deal with the situation of Madison.

And Spindale started going down this path and election tonight.

And remember, this is the guy who is a fake elector who tried to overthrow Wisconsin elections in 2020.

And so he tried to go off course and commissioned chair and Jacobs was gambling him down.

They basically got into a shouting match.

And I just thought that, I mean, the spectacle, if anything, was just kind of entertaining to me.

as a person who sat in a lot of meetings at a lot of different levels.

I don't fault the chair, Jacobs for gaveled him down.

Spindel in my opinion is the guy in the wrong, but I just thought it was entertaining.

Joe in Madison still on the line to be MDX, always great comments.

I always appreciate your perspective, Joe.

And you were just saying that you thought that

the chair Jacobs was in the right and that Bob Spadell said, I'm just gonna keep talking over you was rude at best and misogynistic at worst.

I don't disagree with that.

But I would ask you too, because I'm always very interested in your perspective.

A, I've sat in a lot of meetings in the legislature and city councils, and in my opinion, good chairs, you just kind of, you give the person say, hey, you want your 90 seconds, you just let them hang themselves.

I've seen it.

I've got Margaret Farrow, former lieutenant governor, former state senator from the Milwaukee area.

I saw her do this one time in a meeting.

And she just looked at the bozo who was carrying on.

She goes, are you done?

And then gaffled the meeting out.

That was it.

And the guy looked like an idiot.

But that's kind of, for me, that's beside the point.

I just think that A. Bob Spadell's an idiot.

And he's dangerous because he tried to overthrow an election.

But to the larger point, Joe, because you're a historian, you know this stuff.

I mean, on the evers stuff or whatever, I mean, can't we, that's fine if we're going to do it this way.

But can we just say that nothing matters?

We don't care if the new way to do things now.

You got Pete Buttigieg out there dropping F-bombs on social media now to get people's attention.

Should we just say nothing matters?

We don't care if kids start dropping F-bombs in school.

There is no decorum.

There is because everybody just has to yell at each other because that's the only way everything gets done.

In my opinion, that's where it all breaks down, but Joe, tell me why I'm

wrong.

You're wrong.

I think we just have some points.

We have a different point of view on this.

And so you were talking about decorum.

It was Bob Spindel that was ruining the decorum of that particular meeting.

I'm going to talk over you.

So he was the one who was at fault and not behaving in a respectful manner to the other people in that meeting, not just and Jacob.

But the other people, he was wasting their time, the people who were sitting in the meeting, the other people who were part of that commission, so he could big hog, get his face out there.

It was shameful.

We don't have time for this stuff anymore.

And the education and our elections are so important.

So I think there are two different points, but I hear you trying to put them in the same place.

Whether you can agree with how Evers did this or not, he drew attention to the fact that Republicans were not following up on what they said they were going to do in terms of educating the children of Wisconsin, which is one of our most important, absolutely important things that we do in the state.

And in terms of Ann Jacobs.

I don't see why a woman has to anybody or whether a man or woman has to sit there and let somebody else blow their mouth out and waste everybody's time just because he's having his little hissy fit.

If there were a woman doing that, honest to God, Todd, it would have been, you know, what time of the month is it?

Or you overreactional woman, you're not part of the agenda, throw her out.

But he gets to get his little time and say, I'm going to talk over you.

What a statement.

I'm going to talk over you, even though she is the chair.

There's got to be somebody in charge.

She gave him a chance to talk, and he started talking about Milwaukee, which is not on the agenda.

You can't get any clearer than that.

He had no other way.

And if I were her, I would have embraced the notion which I am fond of these days, which is nice gets you nowhere.

You know, you had the example of Margaret Farrell and, you know, that's great, fine in that particular place.

But we don't have time to waste anymore and stuff like this because it's an assault after assault after assault by Republicans on the rule of law, on the respect for other people and in getting things done.

And it's all one part of the piece.

The same guy who says, I'm going to talk over you is the same guy that said, I'm going to get my results in

this election and to heck with you.

I'm going to do things that are underhanded.

It's the same mentality and it needs to be clipped.

Now we don't have time for this.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate you.

And I'm fascinated by this because the lines are lightened up and I chose this story because I chose this story because I think it's important Wisconsin elections because my point is here to show what an idiot Bob Spindel is.

That's why I chose the story.

And what's ginning people up is one comment about saying that the commission looked like kids yelling back and forth.

And people seem to be more concerned about my one comment on the perception of the meeting than my whole point about bringing the story up that, hey, Wisconsin elections are under assault by an election denier.

Does that make sense?

Well, I think that it'll be interesting to hear the comments from other people.

And I

admit the fact that the lines are writing up says that there's something going on with this issue.

No, absolutely.

It's worth

exploring.

And I really appreciate it, Todd, that you open up the lines

and

let people have their say, and let us all talk about this.

It's so important and valuable.

So thanks for the time.

I really

appreciate it.

Always appreciate you, Joe.

Always welcome 855-752-4842.

Gotta go fast up against the clock.

Susan McFarlane, if you can make it brief, Susan, what's to

you?

Oh, well, I was calling, first of all,

In a way, I do agree with Joe about women's voices because I've been in meetings where my voice was not being heard because I don't speak as loudly as some of the men there.

But the other thing, Tony Ebers, is actually we are in a situation now in the state where the federal government is working.

The state is going to have to fund more of the education.

And I don't think it's a matter of a special ed or regular ed

because I

don't make a differentiation.

I think all students get the...

should get an education that fits them.

Agreed.

Thanks to us up against the clock.

Sidney, Peggy, Brian, don't go anywhere.

Take your calls after this.

As Matt Flynn says, we see you on the lines.

This is the Town Hall Ball Show on the Pacific Media Ready Network.

Live from the Civic Media World headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

Pursuing truth wherever it may lead across Wisconsin.

on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome into hour number two of the big program.

It is six minutes now past the hour of 1 o'clock on TGIF Friday, April 18th, 2025.

It is a great day to be in Wisconsinite.

Great to have you along here at the end of the week.

Coming up at the bottom of the hour, Doug Moe, great columnist, author.

His new work called Saving Hearts.

and killing rats.

It is a fascinating read and I'm only a few pages in.

It's about the career, the professor at UW Madison who created Warfarin.

Really, really fascinating.

Doug's going to be here and talk about that in just a little bit.

We're going to try to get to what's worse on chips and beer.

But first, Mr. Summers, I have we have we have seen and this is fed.

This is why I love doing this show.

This is why I'm fortunate at the best job around.

And why you love

doing it

live.

Why I love doing it live.

Because I saw this article this morning, last night, whatever it was.

And it's on WISN channel 12 in Milwaukee, headline Wisconsin election meeting erupts as chair silences commissioner over ballot shortage.

So to set this up again, we got people on the line, we'll get to the phone calls in a second.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin Election Commission meets and the reason I chose this was to single out Bob Spindel and to bring attention that this guy is a stooge, a boob, a whack job, a liar.

And he's still on the commission that oversees Wisconsin elections.

That's what I thought was the newsy part.

That's what I thought was interesting.

So that the commission meets.

And the purpose of the meeting was to deal with the city of Madison, where there were 200 and some odd ballots that did not get counted right away in the spring election.

And so that the election commission was meeting to figure out the election before the primary.

Anyway.

There was no, it wouldn't have mattered in the elections.

It was a, it was an oversight.

The Madison clerk is now resigned because of this.

And so the election commission was following up as they should.

That was the agenda.

Bob Spindel starts going on about Milwaukee ballots, which was not on the agenda.

It was not germane.

The commission could not take it up.

And the important part for me is Bob Spindel is one of these fake electors from 2020 that tried to overturn the legitimate free and fair election of 2020 in which Joe Biden won the election in Wisconsin and America and Donald Trump lost in Wisconsin and America.

And Republicans created this fake slate of electors.

They gave it to US Senator Ron Johnson, who mulled it to the US Congress.

and try to get pens to use those votes instead of the legitimate ones.

Bob Spindel is trying, has attempted to steal election in this state.

But yet he's still on the election commission.

So yesterday they bring this up and so the chair and Jacobs gets into a shouting match with them.

And I just commented that they're shouting back and forth like kids.

And...

People seem to be more interested in my comment on that than what I thought the news was which is fine.

I Just find it fascinating 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 let's play the cut cuz instead of me talking about it You can decide here is the cut Bob Spindel and and Jacobs going back and forth yesterday at Wisconsin excuse me at the Wisconsin election Commission

Bob.

Bob.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

I am not going to let you keep going Bob.

I'm

going to talk.

Well

you hear it there.

Fireworks at his state elections.

And it kept going.

That was part of Channel 12's coverage.

And it kept going.

Which as someone who worked in government a long time, I just found entertaining.

Because I've been in a lot of committee meetings and

rarely does it go back and forth quite like that.

Again, I'm not saying that the chair didn't have the right to try to gavel him down.

I just found it entertaining.

That was it.

I thought the point of the story was a guy who tried to steal elections in 2020 is still making trouble today in Wisconsin elections.

But what do you think?

855-752-4842.

Let's go to the phone lines.

Brian in Milwaukee, listening to WAUK.

Brian, what's

yours?

Yeah, no.

I agree with you.

I mean, it's, it's complete, you know, joke that, you know, the guy tried to, you know, over talk everything.

But, you know, the other thing is I've been on a lot of committees and boards before with nonprofits and such.

And, uh, one of the things I was always introduced to was a handbook called the Robert's Rules of Order.

Thank you.

You know, and how everything should be done.

It was one of the things that first time being on a church board, uh, one of the members who was on the previous board said, Hey, here's a handbook they have.

You can get on Amazon, read it.

It's everything you need to know about a board.

And when I finally did work with another LGBT organization, national organization and founded a chapter in the Milwaukee area, that was the first thing I told everyone, I want to be on the board.

This is the book you get.

This is what we're going to read.

These are the way we're going to do things, you know.

And if you're out of order, you're out of the board.

We're not going to stand up for this.

You know, you're going to have to follow the rules that we put into place,

you

know.

So no,

I

righted the wrong way you're doing things.

I taught it and and Spindel was clearly out of order.

You can't, you know, better than anybody else.

No one operates rules of order.

You cannot bring up things on an agenda or the things that are not on the agenda.

Unless there's like time at the end where every member gets to have a personal privilege of two minutes or whatever.

Right.

Right.

Right.

But you can't bring up business that's not on the agenda.

Or you put it on a future agenda, but so don't Right.

Yeah on the same page.

Thanks, Brian.

I really appreciate the call Thanks for hanging around eight five five seven five two four eight four two out to Los Angeles we go LA Tom.

Thanks for calling LA.

What's a you?

Well, I guess everyone's just learning from our president by you know acting like him There's no consequences for acting badly anymore.

In fact, you get repressed out of it

It becomes a story.

It becomes clicks.

It becomes where people go and see things.

You know, if I agree with Joe, you know, if you're not coming to the table on good faith, then you know what?

Enough with just being Mr. Nice guy or nice person.

And it gets you nothing.

It gets

you nothing.

It doesn't get you oppressed.

I mean, you get oppressed.

Like you were saying, Pete Buttigieg is

is throwing some f-bombs around.

You know what?

Probably doing it partially so you get some media.

Because

otherwise,

they don't, the media does not cover anything if it's, you know, people just protesting out in the streets, but boy oh boy, if there's a fire of some sort, they're covering it.

I'm not in favor of people setting fires and things like that, but I'll tell you what, it's the only way sometimes you get the media.

But here's here's my and I'm very interested your take on this LA because you you follow this stuff And I'm a huge Pete Buttigieg fan.

I I supported him in the primary last time he ran when Biden got the nomination I would love to see him run again But one of the things that one of the many things that draws me to Pete Buttigieg is he's so darn smart

But he doesn't do it from an intellectual's talking down point of view.

It's very casual in real words, putting the facts out there and making his point without dropping the F-bombs, without seeming to be hyper, whatever, whatever.

And the fact now that he's out of office and thinking about running for whatever, he says he's not gonna run for what.

U.S.

Senate, maybe governor, I don't know, maybe president again.

Now in the social media, he's trying, and it seems very forced in my opinion.

It doesn't seem like the guy I thought he was, or maybe this is the real Pete Buttigieg.

I don't know.

All's I'm saying is I'm big on authenticity.

I am far from perfect, but Zombers will tell you the way that you hear me on the air is not dramatically different than

when I'm not on the air.

Some may say not different at all.

And for some people, they say that's a bad thing, quite frankly.

But I'm someone who still believes in respect and discourse.

And I think that when the Democrats see that, that's giving away one of the high grounds, the Democratic Party, where you're going against some of these hyper-maga people who have no sense of discourse.

Am I wrong?

Tell me if I am.

Well, I agree with you 100% my thing is honestly and you know, maybe people will shame me for saying this But I honestly don't think the way the world is right now That will have a gay man as president openly gay man as

president

or a woman whether woman of color or a woman period As president because of the fact that you have 52% of the people white women

that how how do we get past that and it just seems to me like one of the stereotypes of being the gay man might need to be just mr nice guy and just mr nice guy there's just so many different ways that you can go about hitting stereotypes with gay people with women

But LA, I just, please, it's not personal to you.

I just think that's such a cop-out.

I mean, you and I have both been very open about our sexual identity on this show.

And a gay man to gay man, I think that's a complete cop-out to say, well, people don't take me seriously as a gay man, so I have to act more masculine and swear more.

My grandmother, as I've said on this show, was the first woman to be a dean in Wisconsin.

And I'll tell you, she didn't get that way.

She didn't achieve, she didn't break that glass ceiling because she was a witch.

And I'll clean it up for radio.

She did it because she worked her butt off and was relentless and was stubborn and she got people with more honey than vinegar and she was successful.

And that's the way she-

I agree with you and I think women, I agree with you and I think women actually can move up the ladder that way and be like the head of people that also respect them.

But for some reason, the hardest and highest class human or the president of the United States is a different thing.

because people can shape public opinion and shape people in a certain way.

And it just seems to me that whether it's women, whether whoever it is, there's a really, really easy way to be able to shape them as suspicious, as only be used to work cat-like, that is interwoven into a fabric of our society.

Whereas a white, straight man can kind of

Go and drink some beers and crack some heads and he's basically, you know Still cool.

Yeah a woman does anything even near that.

She's done.

Yeah, I think you know that already.

Yeah, I appreciate the calls always Tom Thanks so much 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 will come back.

We have gene on the other side

Holly in Madison says, Missing the point, you are normalizing Spindel's behavior by saying it was entertaining or humorous, is disrespectful and humiliating, and the speaker should have thrown him out.

I'm not saying that... I'll say it on the other side.

Stay tuned.

Thank God it's Friday on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Here comes Peter Cottontail Hopping down the bunny trail Hippity hopping Easter's on its way You see we had a whole segment on

peeps and Easter We were gonna do it.

It was gonna be the fun half hour.

You understand a nice Friday good Friday show Peter Cottontail No people I don't know

I find this very fascinating.

Welcome back to the show 21 past the hour, one o'clock, the Paddleville show with Aaron Zommer's 18th and April 18th.

Great to have you along.

I just, I, this is educational for Todd.

I did a story.

I thought this would be eight minutes.

It's been, what, 40?

Uh, WISN channel 12 in Milwaukee.

was there covering the Wisconsin Election Commission yesterday.

And the point of the story was that Bob Spindel is the bad guy.

He tried to steal election in Wisconsin and America in 2020.

He's part of the fake electors, the Republican fake electors.

Somehow he's still on the Wisconsin Election Commission.

And he was causing trouble yesterday by bringing up an item, Milwaukee ballots, with lies, by the way.

on that, and it was not on the agenda.

It was non-Germain.

That was the point of the story.

And he gets into a shouting match with Commission Chair Ann Jacobs, who's gaveling them down and going back and forth.

I just thought he found it entertaining.

They were acting like kids.

And now people are saying, Todd is about the bad guy because Democrats are pissed and we're not going to take it anymore.

Okay, fine.

I just, again, my point is they're combined with the Evers story earlier of kind of doing these, the Supreme Court today of Wisconsin upheld Evers actions.

It's legal.

I don't deny that.

It's getting more money in public education.

I think that's a great thing.

My only point is that it's disingenuous then for Democrats to come back and say somehow that they have more character or higher moral ground.

It can't have it both ways.

That's my only point.

So let's just all be honest with each other and say we're just gonna get down to the mud and fight.

You know what my opinion on all this is?

What?

I think that you and the callers and textures disagreeing with you are having parallel conversations and you're all agreeing.

What my old boss Dale Schultz would say, I think we're in the heat of agreement.

Yes, absolutely.

That's what I think it

is.

Maybe it is.

I think that what might be happening is people might be combining your two points.

saying that Evers, what he did might not be the right way to do things because he abused a role of power and that Bob Spindel is, in your words, a boob.

And they're saying, they might be thinking that you're criticizing the chair for maybe, no, she was doing the right thing.

And again, I'm not

even saying that Evers abused his power.

Not at all.

It's

found

constitutional.

I'm just saying that politically, I'm not sure that's the best.

I get why he did it.

I'm just not sure there's politically expeditious.

That's my only point of that.

Right.

And I don't

think that and Jacob's the chair of the collection commission is wrong to say that Spindela's out of order clearly was.

All I might say she did it the wrong way.

All I said was I found it entertaining.

Right.

So I think it's the heat of agreement.

Let's go to Jean.

Jean and Eau Claire.

WCFW the tap Jean you were a teacher you were an education do I need to be put in a corner with a dunce hat?

Anyway, you're a warm-loving song but in our climate today things are very hazardous When we sit there and we watch the garbage dumps by the mega malls

It's very infuriating, and I'm very careful.

I'm not usually a cusser, but you should see me going after my TV every day, whipping the finger to the big guy.

So, you know, things are, times are tough, and we have to get rid of our stress the best way that we can.

So do keep up, keep up the great work.

Well, thank you.

And happy Easter,

Gene.

Have a nice weekend.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate you.

I just find it all very, very, very interesting.

And that's, I don't know.

I just, we should dial up some Kenny Chesney, get along.

Can't we all just get along?

That's my whole point.

Here's one of my good friends from politics once said, you know, if people can't take a joke, it's just having a little, look, I get it.

We're all a little on edge, right?

We're all a little on edge But I think we would all do well myself included if we didn't take every single thing out there so personal and Breathe as the kids say touch grass go for a walk Calm down a little bit.

I'm not saying get rid of the passion or don't take your focus off the all the crises we have in America today But the point of this story here in my opinion

is that Bob Spindel is not a good person.

And he has no business, as we say back home, no business being on the Wisconsin Election Commission.

That's all I'm saying.

Whistler W. R. C. E. in Richland Center.

Whistler calling in.

Whistler, what do you think?

Well, I'll tell you what, Todd.

I have to agree with you on the fact of Spindel still being on the commission.

And, you know,

One one of your bylines is and having fun doing it.

That's what you're doing, man.

Thank you.

You're getting the word out there and you're enjoying it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And so you get it.

I love it.

It's awesome.

We appreciate

it.

Thanks, whistler.

See, he gets it.

He gets it.

Have fun doing it.

Have a little fun.

Rob, listening in on the text line says, I think a bigger issue these days is we're supposed to pick a side in all issues.

But the only opinion that matters is that of the far left or the far right.

No one is allowed to lean towards the middle.

It is frustrating because I want a party that represents me from the middle, the moderate opinions and policies.

I want compromise, seems like an impossible ask.

I do not think you are alone.

Best take of the day, in my opinion on this issue.

Best take of the day.

And I understand

to a large degree, people's anger and being ticked off and feeling like, well, we have to be so animated because no one's listening.

We're tired of being the quote unquote good guys.

I get that.

But I think what Rob is saying here is that both sides are trying to push their voters, their base more towards the extremes.

And if you even mean we've seen it here in the capital, that if you even have dinner,

With a legislator from the other party, you're taking off of committees.

Not healthy for democracy.

What is Doug Moe?

He's gonna be in great author and columnist next to his new book called, Saving Hearts and Killing Rats.

Back up for this, The All Bulls Show in

Pacific Media.

and having fun doing it.

Welcome back to Tahleball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

34 now past the hour of one o'clock on this Friday, TGIF, April 18th, 2025.

More fun doing it.

That's what we need, Summer.

This Easter week, go to an egg hunt.

Well, tomorrow, because weather on Sunday not supposed to be so great, but just...

I appreciate all the discussion in the last hour, hour and a half here on that.

That's why I do this show.

That's why I get excited about doing the show in large part because we can have discussions about that.

So thanks everybody.

I appreciate that.

Another reason I love doing this show is because my sister said this to me about two weeks ago.

She goes, I think half the reason you do this show is just to talk to people that you want to talk to.

I said, yes.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

And one of my favorite people to talk to when you put on the show before, we're so happy to have him back.

He is a great columnist, a great author, a great Madisonian, and he's a part of what makes Wisconsin great, in my opinion.

He is Doug Moe, and he has a brand new workout called Saving Hearts and Killing Rats, a fascinating title.

Doug Moe, welcome back.

Thanks, Todd.

Good to be here.

It's fantastic to have you here.

First of all, just how you bell us, how we talk to you.

You are here with...

Professor Mike LeCrone from UC Madison.

On his great book that I've got like one chapter left, I'm savoring it.

A Moments of Happiness.

I know you've been touring a little bit with him and how's that going?

It went, it's gone really well.

I'm happy for Mike.

The book just went into its second printing, actually, which is a big deal.

And Mike's actually making noise now about doing another book, so.

Love

it, love it.

More moments of happiness.

Anytime you want to come back on that, we're happy too.

Let's talk a little bit about your latest work here.

Again, Saving Hearts and Killing Rats, as the song says, you have me at hello.

Great title.

Explain where this comes from,

please.

Well, the subtitle is Carl Paul Link and the Discovery of Warfarin.

And Warfarin is a drug that a lot of people know about, but it's twofold.

It is both a rat poison, rodenticide, and a heart medicine, a blood thinner for humans.

So I got first onto this when Carl Paul Link's lab at UW Madison discovered it.

in the 1930s.

I first got on to it.

His son Tom Link lives here in Madison.

Asked me if I'd be interested.

At the time I was writing five newspaper columns a week.

But I was, you know, a decade ago invited not to return.

to the newspaper business.

I remember it well, unfortunately.

I have the honor of being Doug Moe's last interview that did not run of what a huge mistake in my opinion was made, but that's another bottle

holder.

I appreciate that, but I got back to Tom, Link, and obviously I proceeded.

It's a wonderful story.

I'm a little biased by this point, but it

all

starts in 1933.

Um, link is a roughly 30 year old, uh, young professor at UW and on a cold February morning, uh, a farmer shows up at his, at the bio chem building was then the egg building and he's got a dead cow, a bucket of cows blood and some sweet clover.

Hey, um, his, his name was Ed Carlson.

He was just 21 years old.

His cows had been dying.

Um,

If they rubbed up against barbed wire, for instance, and started to bleed, their blood wouldn't stop.

And they had some internal bleeding deaths as well.

He was terribly frustrated and worried.

And he tried to find the egg experiment station and couldn't.

Or it was Saturday, I guess.

And so maybe they were closed.

He found his way to Link's lab.

Link, luckily, was there.

And, you know, Daynu Mantis, it launched Link and his grad students on a seven-year journey to find what it was that was causing these cows to bleed to death.

And as it turns out, it was something in their feed.

It was when the sweet clover got spoiled, got wet, they ate it.

That's the thing that was the hemorrhagic agent

that

caused them.

And Link and his assistants were able to isolate

what it was in the sweet clover and recreate it synthetically and turn it into what was the first version which was called daikumarol and circa 1940 or so it was patented by Worf here in Madison and used as a as a human anicoagulant.

I'm only a dog whistle kind of semi advanced copy and I'm ashamed to say only a few pages in so far but what are the

And you explained it very well, but maybe to some people say, well, I'm not so sure that a book on all this chemical, all this chemist stuff could be.

But the way that, any way that you write everything, but the way you've written this, it's very user-friendly and it draws you into the narrative of this story.

Well, it helped that I was an English major and I'm not a scientist

by any

means.

So, yeah, I had to kind of learn the language a little bit, but I tried to write it in a way that is accessible for everybody.

Also really helped, and this is the key, by the fact that Carl Paul Lind...

Frank was a fascinating guy.

A

brilliant scientist, but also a total iconoclast from everything from his dress.

You know, he'd wear capes, a little Frank Lloyd

Wright in them almost

like.

And very much an anti-authoritarian.

He sparred with the UW administration.

He was actually censured by the Board of Regents.

And actually, and he loved to point out that in that same meeting that they centered him, they gave him a raise.

That is fantastic.

You know, so the book is, it's a biography of Link, but the, you know, the center of it, I guess, the through line, I guess, would be the discovery of Warfarin.

And of course, Warfarin,

As I say it started out as a as a blood thinner for humans called dicumeral Maybe six or seven years in Link had tuberculosis and he spent a few years a few different times in a sanitarium here in Madison and and the one in roughly the mid 40s he started reading up about rodenticides and It dawned on him that perhaps a stronger version of dicumeral might be used as a rat poison and

Indeed, he had his lab graduates start working on that.

They came up with a stronger compound, stronger than the dicumeral human anticoagulant, and ended up patenting that as well.

And that was called warfarin, which is a combination of warf, the

Wisconsin Alumni

Research Foundation, and cumarin, which is part of...

the scientific thing of what makes the anticoagulant actually work.

So it's warfarin.

And that was patented in the early, patenting the late 40s and became available, I think as a rat poison circa 1951 or two.

Really wildly successful time.

I found newspaper headlines worldwide about it.

It was a big deal.

And then,

It also dawned on Link that maybe a version of this warfarin, stronger than Daikumaral, but maybe not as strong as the rat poison, could be used for humans, a human anticoagulant.

Now they faced a large worry was, are people going to want to take something that's also a rat poison?

It's tweaked a little bit, and they called it Warfarin Sodium.

The trade name is now Coomidin.

But it took a little while, and it was, I think, 1955.

Dwight Eisenhower famously had a heart attack while he was still president in Colorado.

And Lincoln, his lab, had trademarked Warfarin as a human anticoagulant, but it hadn't gotten any real legs yet.

And former UW lab assistant of Lynx wrote from Denver to Lynx, President Eisenhower is taking one of your anti-coagulants and it's not dicumeral.

So all of a sudden that really put.

Warfarin on the map as something for humans.

What a connection.

What a connection.

We're talking with Doug Moe, a journalist, author, and columnist, his latest book called Saving Hearts and Killing Rats, Carl Paul Link, and the Discovery of Warfarin.

Doug, a couple of thoughts from both sides of this story.

paternal grandparents were dairy farmers.

And so I used a lot of warfare on the farm to get rid of rats and rodents and that kind of thing.

My maternal grandmother, who I talked about earlier in the show, of course, Marj Wallace, who was the first dean of a UW system college at UW Richland, she had long time heart problems and she was a long time taker of Kuwait.

And she used to joke around about it and say, well, if anybody's got any rats, I can put a couple of these out and she goes, she'd tell people I'm on rat poison.

That's what keeps me alive, joke around about it.

I just think how many people had their loved ones with them for how many more years because of this discovery?

Yeah, very true.

And Link won what's called the Lasker Award, which is there's a Lasker foundation.

He won it twice.

He's one of only a half a dozen people to ever win that twice and widely viewed as a precursor for the Nobel Prize.

Now, Link never did win that.

There's some thought that it was his

flair for controversy that may have prevented him from getting that highest of honors.

One of his students, Stanford Moore, went on and won a Nobel.

In fact, Carl had studied with Fritz Pregel in Europe as a student, and Pregel was a Nobel winner, so he was all around it.

But in the 1950s, Carl, he was faculty advisor for two different student organizations on campus here in Madison that both were very left-leaning.

radical to a degree.

And the UW, again, the Board of Regents kind of came after him for that.

But he stood his ground.

He famously feuded too, Todd, with one with Harry Steenbach, who was famous for figuring out that vitamin D could cure rickets.

He was a scientist of link stature.

Another unfortunate feud that Carl had was with one of his grad students, Mark Stamman.

And it had to do with credit for discovering Warfarin.

And it's

one of the more interesting chapters in the book.

And in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Review, I think it was in that review that...

the reviewers, and one of the reviewers said that how scientific credit is accredited, how it's given, the given take.

It's not always really clear, you know, is one of the more intriguing parts of this story.

I encourage people not only to check out the book, but also this article that Doug mentioned, Milwaukee Journal sent an old entitled Wisconsin Book of the Month, Saving Hearts and Killing Rats on Scientists Behind Warfarin.

It's by Jim Higgins.

It's really a great read, very complimentary.

Well deserved, it might say, from what I've seen so far.

I don't mean we have a couple minutes left here before, three minutes before the first break.

I don't mean to draw politics too much into this and comment as much or little as you want.

I just think this, as Mike Lucas likes to say, timely, timely indeed, with all this discussion of our universities right now in this country and the value this book illustrates the life-saving value that our universities provide.

Of university research.

Absolutely.

You know, it more than crossed my mind now that this controversy, which, you know, I'll be honest.

I'm definitely on the side of funding university research.

I don't even see how that's political.

I know.

I mean, Todd, you know I did a book with a Republican governor, Tommy Thompson.

Tommy was a huge supporter of the university.

Secretary

of Health and Human Services.

It just made sense.

But yeah, thanks for mentioning that.

I hope that in a way, stories like this from days past might shed some light on current

reasons why we should think really hard about discouraging funding for research.

And yes, it's a great read.

entertaining if I can use the word, the way it's written and informative, but I just think so often in our political discourse.

And last hour is probably a good example.

We start kind of maybe talking past each other a little bit.

People say, you know, what do we really get from universities?

You know, and there's a lot of stereotypes.

But here in this book, Saving Hearts and Killing Rats, Carl Paul Link and the Discovery of Warfarin, we find out exactly what our university system and why I believe the University of Wisconsin, the land-grade university is one of the finest in the world.

Yeah, couldn't agree more.

It's really, really a great read.

We're coming up here about a minute or so before the break, and then we'll come back to talk a little bit more about this, but I also want to touch on another book you're working on with a guy that I was honored to get to know, former state senator Fred Risser.

What a guy.

Yeah, and

Todd, that book is actually done.

We just finished, we just got the last blurb, you know, you

asked people to,

Tammy Baldwin gave a wonderful salute to the

book,

so it'll be out in August.

We'll come back, talk more about this.

Right now we're talking about saving hearts and killing rats with Doug Moe right here on a Friday edition of the Todd All Ball Show.

You're listening to Cross the State of Wisconsin to the Civic Media Radio Network.

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